Author's Note: I'm so sorry this took so long to update! With no Klaroline interaction in this chapter it was harder to find a clear direction of where it wanted to go. But this is how it turned out. Do you love it? Hate it? Review and let me know!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the just awful emotional situations I put theses characters through.

"Jeremy Gilbert is dead," she looses the words as soon as the door swings open. Klaus doesn't speak, just turns and walks back into the house, knowing the blonde vampire will follow if she wants. He swallows the contents of his glass as he waits for her in the study. Caroline sighs as she closes the door, steeling her nerves before following the grieving hybrid—the grieving man, though they don't often think of him as such—through the house.

"Jeremy Gilbert is dead," she repeats, not knowing what to say without his reaction.

"I heard you, love. What does that have to do with me?" He keeps his voice bored, not wanting to appear insensitive to this girl. "He killed my brother, after all. I don't imagine you expect me to eulogize him…"

"Ugh! No. I know he killed Kol. And I'm sorry. But that's why I'm here. Isn't this enough? How much death do we need to experience? How many more lives need to be lost?"

"Enough? Enough?! They killed my brothers! Plural! Finn and Kol. And how many times have you all tried to kill me? I will say when it's enough!" The glass shatters in his hand but he doesn't even flinch. Caroline feels idly surprised that even as angry as he is, his glass shattered in his hand and not on the wall behind her head like the glass Tyler had thrown weeks before. She shakes her head to clear it and stomps a frustrated foot, but takes a deep breath before continuing.

"Are you serious, Klaus? You've tried to kill all of is. You did kill several of us. And how many were on a whim? W are just a bunch of kids trying to survive. Trying to make it to our freaking High School Graduation." The sigh she lets out, thinking how pathetic that sounds in the scheme of things, is world weary and far beyond her years. The anger and grief swirling in his mind clear enough for Klaus to realize how much he dislikes seeing her unhappy.

"I hardly think that you are all so innocent, sweetheart. You lot have spilled plenty of blood on your own."

"You came to town with the express intent of killing the majority of us, Klaus—"

"I came here to break the curse. It had nothing—"

"We have been on the defensive since we first heard your name—weeks before you even came into town. Then you got here and you had me and Tyler kidnapped to sacrifice. We escaped so you killed Jenna. You staked Stefan and you killed Elena. And then you took Stefan when you took off! You took the one person who constantly tried to take care of us," he hears the unsaid 'me' and it pulls at his heart as she continues, "and when you came back…you killed Tyler and threatened all of us again. What did you expect us to do? Fall at your feet?" She finishes on a scoff.

Caroline catches the tick of his jaw before he speaks, knows that he is censoring his words, forcing his opinion. "I'm over one thousand years old, Caroline. Of course I have killed. On does not succeed, or even survive, without sacrifice. I will not apologize for it."

"I didn't ask for an apology," she whispers dejectedly. "I just want it all to stop. Can't we say it's enough? No more revenge, no tit for tat. Just…enough."

The fury rises in the hybrid at this request. "Why should I be the one to stop—to let them get away with all they've taken from me? They—you," he spits the word and it hits her like a slap in the face, " killed my family! There's no forgiving that!"

"You daggered your brothers for hundreds of years! You can't believe that's better than us protecting ourselves, killing to survive or succeed," she hisses his words back at him angrily.

"There is a vast difference between a dagger and a stake, sweetheart. Don't play dumb, it doesn't suit you. Finn was killed in an attempt on my life."

"Because you were being a homicidal maniac! You want to drain my best friend because you are lonely, and selfish, and refuse to even try to form connections with anyone around you."

"I don't need connections, love. I will be draining the doppelganger because that is the cost of achieving my destiny. I didn't make the rules, I'm just attending the party."

"So who will be next then? Stefan? Bonnie? Me? Let's just cut to the chase, then, hmm?" She flashes across the room, picking up a small piece of wood from the pile by the fireplace. In the next moment she is in front of him, wrapping his long fingers around the makeshift stake and fitting it against her breastbone. "Do it! If this is what you need to even the score and move on, then do it. Stake me, call it a day and get the hell out of town." She leans against the point, a single drop of blood raising against it and falling between her heaving breasts.

Klaus is staring into her blazing blue eyes, not finding a hint of fear and clenching his jaw to stop himself pulling away. He wills his hands not to shake while they stand there, staring one another down.

Finally his hand loosens on the wood, still trapped in her grasp but not making any move to hurt her. "You will never be on the list, love." He turns away, moving to pour himself another drink. "Why are you here, Caroline? You didn't truly think you would create a truce after everything."

"I just want to be able to go to sleep at night without being afraid of who will be dead when I wake up…" The would-be stake falls to the floor as Caroline turns toward the door, ready to leave. She's about to step out of the study when she pauses and rethinks her retreat. "No, you know what? I do want a truce. Because we didn't start this. We didn't ask for this, not any of us. I didn't want this life. I never asked to be killed or tortured or kidnapped. But it's the life I have and I will be damned if I am going to let you or anyone else take it away from me. You need to get over yourself—"

Klaus had been enjoying watching the empowerment bloom through the girl in front of him, but quickly cuts off her word flow. "I don't need to do anything. I will do what I want and I will get whatever revenge I please."

"Revenge for what? If that's the way you want to look at it, aren't we all just trying to get revenge on one another? You killed Jenna and Elena in your sacrifice, you killed Tyler in the school gym. You had Tyler bite me, as 'collateral damage.' Kol tried to kill Matt at that damn ball your mother through. We killed Finn. And I'm sorry we did, but we were scared, Klaus. The entire Original family was here and you had plenty of reason to want us all dead. Your mom killed Alaric and your sister killed Elena and almost killed Matt. And you killed Carol Lockwood," her voice breaks a little bit, because she was truly innocent in all of this.

Truth be told, Klaus did feel poorly about that death. She was just a mother trying to care for her child in a scary world she didn't really understand. "And I know Elena and Jeremy killed Kol, I know they did. But Kol was going to kill Jeremy—or at the very least cripple him and leave him for dead. It was preservation. Don't you get that? We were just trying to live long enough for you to get bored of the 'small town life' and actually leave."

"What is it you want from me, Caroline? I can't change anything so why must you obsess about it?" Klaus sounds defeated and it almost scares her. She watches him swallow the amber liquid in his glass, sees the muscles in his throat flex and relax and she thinks on his question. What is she asking him for?

"I just want to stop planning the funerals of the people I love. I want to stop saying goodbye." And this time she does turn and walk out of the house. She doesn't wait for him to answer, she doesn't expect him to. Outside, the breeze on her face, Caroline heaves a sigh and slides into her car. A few silent tears slide down her cheeks as she turns the ignition and pulls out of the driveway, wondering who will be next and feeling so much older than just nineteen.

Klaus watches her leave, chest tight with that uncomfortable feeling he had felt while trapped in the Gilbert's living room. She's right, he knows. This has all gotten out of hand and if it doesn't end soon, they will all be dead. But he doesn't know how to stop it. Not even for the girl whose light seemed a bit dimmer when she walked away from him.