Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or its characters. If I did, The Originals would never have happened, Kol would be alive and happily causing mayhem somewhere, and Klaus and Caroline would be travelling the world and sexing it up.
Caroline rests her temple against the window and closes her eyes, trying to feign sleepiness, even if it was so Kol would leave her alone.
Elijah was in the driver's seat, steering the car patiently through the back roads. As Klaus had explained to her briefly when she'd asked why they weren't taking the highway, checkpoints had been set up by the SRA intermittently along the route, and they would rather not draw any unnecessary attention to themselves.
Klaus was in the passenger's seat, and she could hear his foot tapping impatiently against the carpeted floor of the SUV. Klaus was not a man who liked to be still for long periods of time, his body practically built for movement. Even with her eyes closed she can feel his eyes on her, had always been intuitive and overly observant when he was around her.
Kol was sharing the backseat with her, and she'd instantly regretted getting into the SUV after seeing him waiting for her. Kol leered at her, obviously not familiar with nor fond of the concept of personal space, arms and legs spread across the space and forcing her into a small corner.
Klaus had given him a filthy glare, but even that hadn't been enough to discourage Kol.
With a sigh she pulls out her phone, thumb hovering over Stefan's name. She didn't really give a shit about what Elena or Damon were up to, but she at least wanted to know that Stefan was safe now that the world had officially gone insane.
"Has anyone heard from Stefan?" She voices out loud as both Elijah and Klaus meet her eyes in the rear mirror.
"Not Stefan Salvabore." Kol looks delighted with his own joke, even as she rolls her eyes towards the possibly unstable Mikaelson brother.
"Kol?" Elijah asks patiently, even as Kol turns to stare at Elijah. "Shut up."
"God you people are absolutely no fun at all." Kol slumps down in his seat, crossing his arms like a petulant child. It's a strange sight, to see a 1000 year old vampire act in such a way.
"I've already given him a call sweetheart." Klaus reassures her. "He said that he's fine, and that he'll try and meet us in New Orleans."
She nods, fingers curling around her knees as Elijah turns onto yet another winding road.
"What's in New Orleans?" She asks suddenly, sees Klaus' lips tick upwards in amusement.
"Home." Kol supplies, chancing a glance towards her as Elijah makes a soft noise of agreement. "Or at least, the closest thing we've had to home in a couple of centuries."
"There are people there that can help us before we move on." Klaus fills in the gaps for her. "We won't be staying for long. Enough to gather some supplies and then move on. Elijah knows some people in the North that are gathering to strike back against the CIF."
"Do you really think war is the best answer to this?" She voices out loud. Kol scoffs, Elijah looks bemused at her question. Klaus says nothing.
"If you have a more peaceful alternative Caroline I would like to hear it." Elijah replies politely.
"But it's always going to be like this. Even if you do win and manage to wipe the CIF out, the humans are always going to resent us. And they're always going to regroup. Would it not be better to make peace with them?" She points out as Kol scoffs at the notion.
She may not have been a vampire for a thousand years like the three Mikaelson brothers, but surely they could see the logic of such a proposition?
"It is not in our nature to make peace with those who seek to kill us." Klaus remarks coldly. "It never has been and it never will be."
"I think that's sad. I think if Vampires were more organised the potential is there. For the two species to get along. We can only take blood from those who are willing and in return the humans leave us alone." She muses out loud as Elijah and Klaus exchange a glance in the front seat.
"That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard." Kol remarks lightly, inspecting his nails with a bored expression on his face.
Elijah is slightly more sympathetic.
"We have tried in the past centuries to unite vampires into something resembling an organised society. Unfortunately there are always those who are more ambitious than others." He remarks with a pointed glance towards Klaus. "The system collapsed in the early 1500's, and we've been unable to replicate it since."
"Yes because you were chasing Katerina across the Asian continent." Klaus points out as Elijah rolls his eyes.
"And who was the person who gave me that order Niklaus?"
"Well don't you think it's high time that you tried again?" Caroline points out to Elijah, even as Kol lets out a sigh from the seat beside her. "A lot can change in 500 or so years."
"Not enough when you're a vampire." Elijah smiles apologetically at her. "We hold long grudges and have even longer memories. I think you would be hard pressed to find many vampires who share a worldview as idealistic as yours."
She scowls out the window, unused to having people disagree with her. Elijah did have over a thousand years on her, and he was probably right. But it still infuriated her that a creature could live for so long and be so unchanging, even as the world changed around them.
She meets Klaus' eyes in the mirror once more, holding his gaze for a long moment before turning away.
It didn't mean anything, that she'd come with him. It didn't.
They stop a few hours later by a picturesque lake with a picnic table. Elijah parks the SUV and pockets the keys, glancing around the space warily. There are a few humans around, a small family some distance away, a couple dipping their feet into the water.
But for the most part it's abandoned, and it's with a relieved sigh that she finally plants her feet on the ground, tilting her face back towards the sunlight.
She might have the super speed and strength that comes with being a vampire, but even her body still betrays her on long car rides, her limbs still stiffen up as time slips away.
"Try not to wander off sweetheart. We're only going to be here for a couple of minutes." Klaus murmurs towards her, shoulder brushing against hers as Kol stalks off towards the lake, Elijah drifting after him, keeping an eye on his younger brother lest he do anything stupid to draw attention to their group.
She nods towards Klaus, settling down onto the grass, willing for him to leave her be and just give her space.
Of course, he doesn't, because Klaus is Klaus, and he seemingly doesn't know what personal space is. Just like his brother, she reflects as the Hybrid drops himself onto the ground next to her.
"I'm sorry that you got dragged into this." Klaus' voice is a deep rumble in his chest, and she can't help but glance at him in surprise. Klaus never apologises for anything if he can help it.
"I'd be dead if I wasn't here. Isn't that what Elijah said?" Caroline returns lightly, eyes landing on the eldest Mikaelson, who's staring out over the water, hands clasped behind his back. Kol is skipping stones across the water, and he's surprisingly good at it.
"He's right love. This isn't the first time humans have been made aware of vampires, but it's the first time they've had the technology to do something about it."
"What's the end game Klaus? We get to New Orleans and then what? We go north? We spend the rest of eternity running from the humans?"
"Not running." Klaus' voice is steely, hands digging into his knees. "Not for long. We fight back."
She throws her hands up in the air in frustration.
"You always say that! What's the threshold? What's the end game Klaus?" She repeats furiously, turning towards him. "You'll wipe out the human race if it means that they'll leave you and your family alone?"
"If that's what it takes." Klaus replies, his voice infuriatingly calm. He catches her wrist, fingers closing around her skin and bones. "You might have my favour Caroline, but I'm still a monster. And if I have to choose my family over the life of one insignificant human I will do so every single time. You would do well to remember that."
"You're despicable." She hisses towards him, getting to her feet and brushing the dirt off the seat of her jeans.
"We're vampires love. It's in our nature."
She turns on her heel and stalks away from him, determined to put some distance between her and Klaus, even if it only is for the next couple of minutes until Elijah gets jumpy and decides that they need to move on.
Or until Kol sinks his fangs into the family by the water, whatever comes first.
"Caroline!" Klaus calls after her, and she takes great pleasure in the fact that Klaus can't use his vamp speed to catch her, at least not without drawing suspicion from the humans still around.
"Caroline come on." Klaus catches her just before she reaches the car, and she turns to face him pushing out against his chest, trying not to remember just how firm it was and how it felt pressing her into the floor of the forest…
Klaus doesn't stumble backwards, seemingly unmoved by her attempt at showing her strength. There's something in his eyes that she can't decipher, an expression of concern or regret. She's still trying to decide.
That's when she realises a split second too late that the world around them has gone completely and utterly silent. The sounds of the humans are gone, the bird calls are gone. Everything is too quiet.
And then it explodes suddenly into sound, gunshots and bullets strafing through the air with an unerring accuracy.
Klaus reacts a little quicker than she does, tackling her to the ground even as a spray of bullets thunder towards them, lodging themselves into the side of the SUV.
Klaus' chest is pressing into hers, his entire body providing cover for her as he manages to roll them under the car, the shadow from the sun wreathing them in relative darkness, making it hard for anyone to see them unless they get down on their hands and knees to check.
Her cheek is pressing into the material of his Henley, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, legs tangled together. She can see his pulse jumping beneath the skin of his throat, and his lips brush over her forehead as he breathes out, breath fanning across her face.
It would be so easy to close that distance between them, to allow herself what she'd been denying for so long. Because despite all of the years that stretched between them, and despite the disapproval of her friends, she was still attracted to Klaus.
It used to rip her apart, that attraction and trying to hide it. What with Elena's disapproval and Damon's glee over the turn of events once they found out about it, she could barely function, so overwhelming it was for her.
Turning off her humanity had been an easy enough decision, if only so she could sweep it all under the rug, pretend that it never happened. Everything was so much easier when you didn't have to worry about a pesky thing like emotions.
"I need to-" Klaus is pulling away from her, clawing out from under the car and taking stock of the situation within split seconds.
He launches for the first member of the quad, taking him down as easy as breathing. She shouldn't be surprised really, that Klaus excelled where Kol hadn't that night in the restaurant. Elijah and Kol are dodging another wave of bullets, a murderous expression on Kol's features that's enough to make her feel sorry for the humans trying to take him down.
One of the bullets lodges into Kol's shoulder, and she winces on his behalf, hearing him snarl in pain.
And then a hand closes around her ankle, and yanks her from underneath the car in a startling show of strength. She shrieks as gravel scratches up her back, squirming away from the man pointing a gun at her.
Elijah steps past her with all of the grace of a ballerina, a strange juxtaposition as he reaches into the man's back and yanks his heart out, taking half of his spine as he goes. It's in that moment that she remembers why they all used to fear Elijah, all those years ago.
The gun lands at her feet as she stares up at Elijah in shock. It's strange seeing him like this, a feral gleam in his eye, hair askew and clothes covered in blood.
"Best help me finish them off Ms Forbes before Kol starts playing with his food." Elijah voices as politely as ever, like they're not in a life or death situation here. "Go straight for their hearts." Elijah advises as he tugs at his button up shirt, smearing blood along the hemline as he strides calmly towards the two men that are cornering Kol.
As it turns out, their one quad had very quickly turned into two. She counts three bodies as she follows in Elijah's wake, Klaus currently engaging with two more. Caroline can tell that he's enjoying it, the complacent smirk on his face as he toys with the two enhanced humans.
Elijah doesn't bother to stop and help Klaus, heading straight for where Kol's bent over, clutching his shoulder. Agony is writ clear across his features, and that's enough to give her pause, because a bullet from a human isn't enough to cause that much pain.
The two soldiers have him cornered, one pointing a gun straight at his forehead, the other circling around behind him. The one in front cocks his gun, even as Kol snarls at him, obviously too incapacitated to do anything more than try to intimidate.
The two remaining soldiers react around the same time that Elijah launches himself at them, a mere blur as he engages with one of the men. The other turns towards her, and she's reacting before she can think about it, knocking the gun out of his hands, grappling with him even as the soldier reaches for a wooden stake.
The smell of vervain blooms in her nostrils, and she has to wonder where the hell these humans are getting their information from, because the whole vervain thing isn't exactly a widely known fact to the general human population.
She loses concentration for only a moment, but it's enough for the soldier to drive the stake into her stomach. It's not enough to kill her, but it hurts like hell, and it's like acid eating away at her skin as she backhands the soldier in the face, pulling the stake from her body and letting it clatter to the ground.
He goes stumbling, and Elijah steps forward to finish him, but she steps around the Original, her hand driving into the chest of the soldier, clutching around his heart and ripping it from the cavity.
Elijah is staring at her with something akin to shock, like he wasn't sure if she had it in her to actually kill someone so brutally.
She ignores him, dropping the heart to the ground and blurring over to wash her hands in the water of the lake. She returns to Kol's side around the same time as Klaus does.
It doesn't take a genius to see that something's wrong with Kol, that this wasn't just a normal bullet. If it had been, Kol's ability to heal would have pushed it back out of his body fairly quickly.
Elijah's already kneeling beside Kol, hands ripping open Kol's t-shirt. She can feel Klaus' eyes on her, but ignores it in favour of sinking to her knees and inspecting the sickly green tinge to Kol's skin around the site of the wound, the blood oozing out of the bullet hole.
"Something's wrong." She murmurs to Elijah over the sound of Kol's soft groans.
Even Klaus is kneeling next to Kol now, and for the briefest of moments their eyes meet before she's looking pointedly away.
"Have you ever seen anything like it?" Klaus questions Elijah impatiently, who shakes his head minutely.
"Never. He should be healing, unless there's something in there that stops him from doing so."
"It's poisoning his body." Caroline points out, noting that the green area is widening, blue spidery veins.
"I'm still here you fuckers." Kol wheezes out, laughter just this side of hysterical. "Get me to someone that can help me, it's obviously beyond our expertise."
"He's right; we need to get to New Orleans. Niklaus, can you carry him?"
Despite the situation, Elijah is the very picture of calm as he stands. Klaus nods and hauls Kol over his shoulder, ignoring his younger brother's pained gasp at the sudden, sharp movement.
"If I die today Niklaus, I'll be haunting your footsteps for eternity." Kol manages to get out as Elijah rolls his eyes.
"I don't doubt it Kol." Klaus replies evenly, if anything to get his younger brother to shut up for a minute or two.
"I'm serious." Kol wheezes. "This is your fault for getting me tangled into this mess."
"Enough." Elijah cuts in sharply. "Whether you like it or not Kol, we're family, and we stick together until the end."
She holds open the car door for Klaus, who deposits Kol into the back seat.
"You take the front. It's fine." Klaus directs towards her, frown writ across his face as he climbs into the back with Kol.
"Do you have someone that can help him?" Caroline asks under her breath to Elijah, just quiet enough that Kol won't be able to pick up her question.
Elijah's nod is reassuring, until his next sentence.
"We know some people, yes. Whether or not they'll be inclined to help is another matter entirely."
As it turns out, being a Mikaelson in New Orleans means something. At the very least, it means that Rebekah Mikaelson can strong arm witches into doing her bidding, even if it means threatening to end their entire line if they step out of bounds.
Rebekah is waiting for them when the SUV pulls up outside a non descript bar, and her face turns ashen when she takes one look at Kol being carried over Klaus' shoulder.
The sun has set in New Orleans, and the streets are strangely empty for such a busy city. She doesn't get much of a chance to view her surroundings before Elijah is steering her towards the house with a gentle hand on her back.
"What the hell happened?" She hears Rebekah hiss towards Elijah as an older woman opens the door for them. "And what the bloody hell is she doing here?"
Caroline pretends not to hear the venom in the other girl's tone, resigning herself to the fact that she and Rebekah are probably never going to get along, whether she's in Klaus' life or out of it.
"Enough." Elijah warns his sister in low tones as the door closes behind them and they follow Klaus into the large lounge room.
The curtains are drawn, the room lit by candles as Klaus lays Kol out on the floor, the latter pretty much unconscious.
There are two women in room, and it's the younger that stares at all of them curiously.
"Davina, come and help me." The older woman orders, even as Elijah rolls up his sleeves and goes to offer his assistance.
Davina scurries to Kol's side, kneeling on the ground as the older woman turns her dark gaze on Klaus.
"Explain."
Klaus' expression darkens for a moment, not used to being ordered around by someone he considers subordinate to him.
She steps forward before Klaus decides to rip someone's throat out, a hand on his arm to hold him back.
The older woman, clearly a witch notes this with surprise but refrains from commenting, recognising that Klaus' temper is hanging by the thinnest of threads.
"We were ambushed by two quads when we stopped to rest just outside of New Orleans." She begins softly, watching as Davina uses a scalpel to cut into the skin of Kol's shoulder, reopening the wound that had closed over the bullet still lodged into his muscle.
Kol snarls at the Davina, who just presses him down again with a warning glare. Caroline has seen the type of damage that Bonnie can inflict on a vampire, and she didn't doubt that Davina would be exactly the same.
"One of them managed to hit Kol with a bullet, but he's not healing and we're not sure what it is."
"Elijah, hold down his legs please?" Davina asks of Elijah, who immediately complies, wrapping strong arms around Kol's ankles, even as Rebekah moves to Kol's head, smoothing down his hair with soft murmurs.
Davina makes a soft noise of victory, tweezers closed around the bullet as she holds it up to the light of one of the candles.
"Gloria, just like the others." Davina's voice is soft as she drops the bullet into a waiting tray.
"As fate would have it, you're not the first vampire to come to us in this predicament." Gloria's voice is deep and slow. "The quad's are using synthesized UV in their bullets now. It's a fast acting agent that can kill even the oldest of vampires."
Klaus looks troubled by this, exchanging a glance with Elijah. Davina continues to work over Kol, mixing something together in a liquid form before drawing it up with a syringe.
"Like liquid sunshine?" Caroline asks, feeling stupid for even voicing the thought out loud.
Gloria looks slightly amused by her answer, but confirms this with a nod.
Rebekah looks alarmed at the sight of the syringe, but Davina gives her something close to a reassuring smile, finding a vein on Kol's arm and injecting the contents into his body.
"This should counteract the effects of the UV." Davina explains to the room at large as Gloria stands and strides over to the window, twitching the curtains aside for a second.
Kol's whimpers turn to ones of relief as he lets out a long sigh, eyelids fluttering before his breathing evens out.
Gloria turns back to the rest of them, and she's surprised when the woman's eyes land on her.
"Why didn't you tell me that you walked with one who was marked by death Niklaus?" Gloria turns that dark gaze on Klaus, who glances between her and Gloria with barely concealed surprise.
Okay, that sounded a little ominous.
Klaus laughs, voice echoing around the space.
"She's a vampire Gloria. We're all creatures of death are we not?" Klaus replies, aiming for nonchalance and failing miserably.
"Don't play dumb Hybrid. You know of what I speak." Gloria replies sharply, even as Klaus shakes his head in denial.
"You're wrong. It can't be her." Klaus is practically growling now, his body bristling with anger.
"What are you talking about?" Caroline finally manages to get out even as Klaus and Gloria continue their odd little stand off. Gloria finally turns towards her, even as Klaus lets out another warning growl.
"You are young, but the power is undeniable. They call it Marchande du Mort little one, or dealer of death."
She can feel the whole room staring at her now, the expressions varied. Her whole throat has gone dry, her body reacting to the words, something strange blooming inside of her.
Gloria's gaze is dark as her lips curl into a smile.
"Oh yes little one. You're the one that we've been waiting for."
AN: And chapter 3 is done! This one has been bugging me for awhile, because I really needed to get Caroline to New Orleans before all of the shit started to go down.
We'll find out what sort of power Caroline holds and what it might mean for her character moving forward next chapter. She won't be a witch though!
So what did you all think? Are we sufficiently intrigued? There's gonna be a lot of world building in this one, so hope you're with me for the long haul!