Disclaimer: I still don't own anything. If I did, a freaking awesome kiss would have been just the beginning...
A/N: Whoa! Such a great response! You guys rock! Thank you so much all of you, particularly those I couldn't PM...
I'm sorry I'm not able to update every 3-4 days like I did with the first fic; I neglected everything else back then, including my kids. I can't do this again, so I'll try to stick with once a week. I know, waiting sucks, still...oh well.
Kymberleii - you know what...:-)
For now, enjoy!
.
.
Chapter 4
.
.
.
After a short 30 minutes ride, just before they'd reached another town, Klaus pulls over and parks the car on the roadside in front of a small, nondescript house. He gets out of the car and hurries to the passenger's side to help her out, but Caroline is faster. For some reason she needs to show him that he didn't win her over completely. (She needs to convince herself.) She sees his eyes glinting briefly, and she knows, he sees right through her.
She sighs. If she fails in her attempt to maintain her distance anyway, she might as well take his offer to lay her hand in the crook of his bent arm. As she does so, she discerns another glint in his eyes, and this time it stays a little longer, and it's simply joy.
She knows that she made a mistake, but for now she lets it slide.
They step up to the house, and Klaus uses the knocker. When the door opens, a tiny old lady opens the door. At the sight of the man on her doorstep a broad smile appears on her face.
"Mr. Niklaus!" she greets him euphorically, "What a nice surprise! It's been years since you've been here. Come inside!" She steps aside to let him in, but he hesitates.
"May I first introduce you to my friend Caroline? Caroline," he turns to her now, "this is Mrs. Marie Brown, a very dear old friend of mine. She brews the best coffee in the world." He turns back to the lady and gives her a bright smile, and with a pang Caroline recognizes the sincereness of his smile; he genuinely likes this woman.
"I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Caroline. Come inside, please." They enter the house, and Mrs. Brown leads them into her kitchen. She invites them to sit down at the small table and offers to make some of her fabulous coffee, which they accept delightedly after their shopping tour. While their host busies herself with coffee beans and an old looking kettle with boiling water in it, sitting on an ancient coal range, Caroline lets her gaze wander through the kitchen. It's the homiest kitchen she has ever seen, with antique looking furniture stuffed with antique looking cooking utensils, and belatedly she notices that the house doesn't seem to have access to electricity.
Mrs. Brown catches her bewildered expression and giggles. "You small fry can't imagine that one can live like that, can you?" She pauses and turns serious then, looking slightly irritated. "You are still young, right?" she asks cautiously, and Caroline nods quickly.
"I'm 18, Ma'am." She casts Klaus a questioning glance, and he grins at her.
"Oh, Mrs. Brown knows about my little secret, right, Mrs. Brown?" He throws the old lady a seductive smile and she giggles again, and Caroline is sure to see her wrinkly cheeks lightly flushing. "We've known each other for more than 60 years now; at some point I needed to tell her why I wasn't growing any older."
Caroline nods again and puts a spoon full of sugar in her cup of coffee that has been served meanwhile, stirring the steaming liquid for a while, relishing the delicious smell. When she carefully tastes the hot coffee, she has to concede that it's really the best coffee she ever drunk.
After ten minutes of an airily flowing conversation mainly between Klaus and Marie, he rises to his feet and signals Caroline to come with him. "May I take the liberty of showing Caroline the room now?" he addresses his old friend, who tilts her head as a sign of acceptance.
"You know the way, Mr. Niklaus. I'll remain seated for a while and grant my old legs some rest. Feel free to show her everything you want to."
Klaus gently takes Caroline's elbow. Too late it registers that she should have shrugged him off; she has seen too much of his human side today to realize in time that it's still Klaus. Now she can as well let him lead her out of the kitchen across the hallway, entering another room. It's dark inside, and she notes surprised that the room doesn't have any windows. Klaus lets go of her and steps to the opposite wall, unwinding a cord from a double hook, leading to a chandelier equipped with a lot of candles. He lets it slowly sinking down, and then he grabs a lighter from a small table placed underneath the hooks and begins to light the candles.
She watches him silently until he lifts his gaze to meet hers and grins. "Yes, my lovely, I've done something like that thousands of times, only that I used to do it without being so lucky to possess a lighter." It's exactly the answer to the question she had in mind watching him, and she can't help but grin back. She forces herself to break the connection of their eyes then and looks around, and she gasps.
She has never seen a room like that. Apart from the small table there is no furniture at all, and yet it is the most impressive room she has ever been in. The walls are entirely plastered with drawings of every size and every color and every style. None is akin to any other, and she is so overwhelmed by her first impression that she barely notices that Klaus quietly comes beside her. She lets her eyes slowly wander over the walls, until her gaze is drawn to one picture, and she steps closer to have a better look at it. It's painted in oil, approximately 15 inches high and three times as broad, and it shows the view on a lake in dull weather. A small catwalk without a railing leads in from the beholder's point of view, and at its end sits the only living being, a lonely sea gull. It's a very simple and yet very impressing painting, and Caroline is surprised that it's not expressing sadness, but only calmness, and she feels astonishingly captured by it.
"You picked out one of my favorites," a velvet voice that is too close to her ear startles her out of her reverie, and she nearly jumps at that, but she catches the movement in time. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"It is," she concedes reluctantly, and looking around she adds, "What is this place?"
"Marie collected them her whole life all over the country, and some of them are from abroad. I brought her some from Europe over the years and one from Brazil. The artists are all unknown; at least they were when their paintings were bought. A few of them are very successful now." He tilts his head toward the painting Caroline still watches. "This one I found in France."
"You brought it?" Caroline stares at him baffled. "I assume the last owner doesn't miss it…" He just shrugs his shoulders, the hint of a wicked grin curling his lips lightly, his eyes holding a twinkle, and she rolls hers. "But if it's one of your favorites, why didn't you keep it yourself?"
Klaus briefly studies her face, and then he turns his gaze back to the sea. "It was hers from the moment I discovered it. I couldn't have kept it. I don't know, maybe it reminded me at her. She's not always so gigglish, you know? She has a completely different side, more of a melancholy sometimes…"
Caroline nods silently; it's not lost on her that his voice gets softer when he speaks of his friend, and suddenly she thinks she begins to see why he feels drawn to this woman; and not for the first time she wonders, how the hell the man he is right now, the arts loving man with a soft spot for an old lady, could be the same as the monster that she used to know him to be.
And the seed of doubt he planted begins to grow.
.
They stay in the room for a long time; Caroline loses track of how long it really is. Every now and then she has to remind herself about who she is with, but the later it gets, the more often she keeps forgetting. They randomly gaze at the pictures that draw their attention; Klaus has a story to tell to each one of them. Some of them he once heard from Mrs. Brown, but mostly he experienced them himself; Caroline unknowingly rarely chooses paintings that hadn't been brought by Klaus.
She is unusually quiet when they eventually leave the house; they say thanks and good bye to the old lady, and Klaus gives Marie a gentle peck on her cheek that has her giggling again.
During the short ride home through the already fallen darkness they don't speak, but it's not an uncomfortable silence.
When he drops her off at her house, she gets out of the car wordlessly. For a second she stands still, her back still turned to the car, her hand lying on the door, waiting for her to turn and close the door. Instead she turns back, glances at the hybrid and says softly, "I really don't know what to do with this, but today…it was…nice." The words 'thank you' are on the verge of falling from her lips, but she catches them the last second.
Before he can utter a word, she throws the door shut. She turns on her heels and almost blurs to her house, gets inside and closes the door behind her.
She leans her back against the next wall and slides down until she sits on the floor.
After a while she hears the car leaving.
She wonders if he knows that she is crying.
(She thinks somehow he does.)
.
.
Rebekah finds Damon at the Grill.
When Matt showed up early this morning at her doorstep asking for her help, she was touched despite herself. He put his faith in her, even though he feels a deeply rooted distrust against all the supernatural surrounding him, including her. Granted, apparently he couldn't reach anyone else he could've turned to with his worries, and he was simply too scared for his friends to just let it drop and wait. Still…
What is it with this guy that always tugs at her heart, stirring feelings she doesn't want to feel? He's nothing but a human. A toy, made for her to play with like a cat plays a mouse. Dinner, at best. So why is it that she found herself not wanting to kill him anymore, even though nothing would've made her happier than to anger this annoying doppelganger? Rebekah sighs. Is she really that predictable? A tiny gesture of caring for her and her vampire heart melts? She even apologized! To a human!
She determinedly shoves those disturbing thoughts aside; she has other things to worry about right now. What Matt told her made her own apprehension increase that nagged already at the back of her mind after Elena called her yesterday. She dismissed the girl's anxiety last night and talked herself into believing that Damon just needed some space. But now? As far as she knows, neither her mother nor Finn came home since the day before. Meanwhile, way too many people are missing, most alarmingly the little witch and the blood donating doppelganger. And Damon.
She isn't exactly looking for him; at least she tries to appease herself with the thought that she needed a drink anyway, but with certain bewilderment she realizes a feeling of relief at his sight. She finds that deep down she's concerned about him, an emotion she almost doesn't recognize; it's been so long since she felt it.
However, it can't hurt to have found him and fill him in on all those MIA's.
She saunters over to the bar where he's sitting and settles on the stool beside him. He doesn't look at her, but he grunts as a form of greeting and briefly closes his eyes; and she knows, he wants her to think she's not welcome company.
She doesn't care.
She doesn't know why, because he always had been an arrogant ass to her until the ball night two days ago, and it's not easy to admit, but she kinda likes him. She saw the pain in his eyes that night, and it's a pain she knows too. Rejected love. Recently they even shared the reason for being rejected; the same girl that is responsible for his pain is also the cause for hers. She just copes better with it than he's able to. On the outside, at least. And probably his love is…deeper. More consuming than hers is.
(It hurts anyway.)
The bartender gives her a questioning look, and she gestures toward Damon, meaning she only needs another glass; they'll share what small rest remains in the bottle he's holding between both hands, leaning his head heavily on its opening.
He throws her a side glance when the bartender brings her just an empty glass and grips the bottle a fraction tighter.
"I'm not sharing." He slurs his words, and Rebekah knows that the bottle must have been full when he started drinking. "I'm done with sharing," he adds quietly, and for a second she contemplates to object, but she decides otherwise.
"Fine," she nods. "Anyway, in about 20 seconds you won't need this anymore." With her chin she points to the bottle.
Eventually he lifts his head and turns it to face her, a trace of wariness appearing on his features. "And why is that?"
"Precious Elena is missing."
For a split second she sees fear flash in his eyes, but then his face shifts to an expression of indifference. "None of my business," he mutters gloomily, taking a sip straight from the bottle to fortify his statement.
Rebekah just laughs at that, but the laughter lacks any humor. "Who are you kidding?" Her face turns serious then. "Is that why you're pretty much sober again all of a sudden?" He squeezes his eyes shut, and she knows he tries to defend himself against the flood of feelings the alcohol washed away for the last 24 hours. She pushes aside the compassion rising up in her; this is not the right time for such things. Suddenly she feels an urgency to act, to do anything to prevent something bad from happening. She takes a deep breath and covers his hand with hers. "I know what you're doing, but feigning not to care anymore doesn't help; I know what I'm talking about. Besides, your damsel in distress might really need your help. She's been missing since yesterday."
Damon gives her an attentive side glance. "What do you care?"
"Trust me, I don't care about her at all; but you do. And she's not the only one missing."
She has his full attention now. "Who else?"
"The little witch can't be found either. And my mother and Finn haven't been seen since we left the boarding house."
Damon can't hide his worry anymore, and he doesn't even try to. "Bonnie? That's not good." He grabs his phone and cringes at the amount of missed calls flashing on the display. And suddenly he realizes that Elena hasn't just given up trying to reach him last night. It's not like her to just give up, he should've known that. Something else must have happened, and fear rolls over him like a tidal wave. Here he sits, drowning his sorrows, nursing his wounds, while hell only knows what happened to her…His fingers fly over the keys, but Elena's phone goes straight to voicemail. He tries Bonnie's number with the same result. "What about Caroline?"
"Matt said he couldn't reach her yesterday, but he didn't try yet this morning."
Damon dials Caroline's number and is relieved that she at least answers with a tired voice. "What?"
"Cover up your lacy underwear, we're going to be over in a minute," he announces, throwing some bills on the counter. He shoves his cell in his pocket, swallows the remains in the bottle down in one gulp, grabs Rebekah's arm, and turns to take off.
And despite the seriousness of the situation Rebekah grins.
Damon's back on track.
.
.
Elena wakes up with the feeling of nausea creeping through her body. She remembers that she hit her head hard when she fell on the floor, and she assumes that she is suffering from a mild concussion.
Admittedly, that's the least of her worries right now.
For the umpteenth time she tries to move a muscle. Any muscle. As expected she still can't; not even an eyelid. There are exactly two things left she can carry out willingly – breathe and think.
For a little while she focuses on the first, avoiding to face the turmoil that is her brain at the moment. However, after a few minutes her mind goes its own way. With a frustrated sigh she gives in and tries to arrange the thoughts running wild in her head.
She decides that for starters it would be helpful to know where the hell she is. The cold ground she's lying on feels rough, like somewhere outside, so she's not in a house. But she's quite sure that she's not in the open air either; when Esther spoke to her earlier and rummaged around her it didn't sound like outdoor. So where is she? In the tomb? It's unlikely that Esther even knows about it. A cave? Elena thinks of the caves underneath the Lockwood's property, and she shudders. It's more than just a possibility that there are more of those caverns around Mystic Falls. If so, nobody will ever find her.
She snorts quietly; to know where she is turns out to be not as helpful as she thought. She focuses on what she recalls happening during the time she was held captive.
She knows that Esther brought her somewhere by car, but Elena couldn't tell anything about the ride; it's a blur, because she was fighting to remain conscious all the time. She barely remembers being carried and then laid down on the ground. She heard the witch rumbling around, opening boxes and closing them again, grabbing something and placing it somewhere else.
Then there was the brief stinging pain of a dagger cutting her wrist, and Elena knows that Esther took her blood again.
And it's when it dawns on her; Elena breathes in sharply. Something with the blood you gave her last night went wrong… Of course! The spell! Esther must have already cast the spell to murder her children, and something must have gone wrong. And Elena knows exactly what went wrong; Elijah didn't drink the champagne, so the Originals didn't die as they were supposed to. Suddenly she's very grateful for her inability to lie convincingly. They would be all dead by now…she feels her stomach tying into a knot as this thought leads inevitably to Damon. He could be dead by now…
And now Esther has her blood again, Esther in Bonnie's body at that, and Elena lies here, locked away in her own body, unable to move a single muscle. She feels anger bubbling inside about her helplessness. Why, oh why didn't she realize it the moment Bonnie stepped into her house that it wasn't Bonnie? She knew something was off. Still, what could she have done anyway?
And what the hell is she supposed to do now? They are all out there without knowing about the newest developments. Cold fear makes her heart clench. She can't do anything. She briefly thinks of Bill Forbes and his success in overcoming compulsion, but this is not an option for her. It's not about compulsion, it's magic she has to deal with, and she knows there's no way to override the magic by controlling her mind.
She can't do anything. She can just lie here and wait for her rescue.
(Always the damsel in distress.)
And she hates it.
.
.
Caroline just managed to pull on a fresh pair of jeans and is still tugging down the hem of her shirt when she moves to open the door Damon is banging on. She steps aside to let him in as he already brushes past her; he doesn't say a word; no teasing comment, no stupid nick name…he's clearly nervous. Caroline's eyes go wide when she realizes who he brought with him, standing at her porch, waiting to be invited in.
"Rebekah," she mumbles irritated. "What the hell…?"
Damon turns to flash her an impatient glance. "You're gonna invite her in or what?" he snaps. Caroline crosses her arms in front of her chest. "No."
He steps closer, glaring at her, intending to intimidate her; but then he lets it drop. There's no need for inviting the Original in, they can talk on the porch as well. And now is not the time to fight a needless battle.
He grabs Caroline's upper arm and steers her through the door. On the porch she shrugs him off. Anger rises up at his behavior, but then she detects something in his eyes that is close to fear, and she knows it's about Elena. He feels this way only about Elena; her anger is replaced by worry within seconds.
"Damon, what's going on?" Her gaze flickers between him and Rebekah, and her anxiety grows to fear when she realizes that even the Original seems to be concerned.
Instead of an answer she gets a counter question. "Have you seen Elena lately?"
"Not since the ball…"
"Dammit!" The hope in Damon's eyes fades away. She looks between him and Rebekah, and she's getting more and more agitated. "What's wrong, Damon?"
"She's MIA. No one has heard from her for more than 18 hours, and no one can reach her on the phone. What about Bonnie?"
"What about Bonnie?" Caroline repeats baffled, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "Is she MIA, too?"
"Well, unless you've heard from her since the ball…" Rebekah cuts in.
Caroline pales slightly and shakes her head while dialing the numbers of her two best friends, but as expected both just go to voicemail.
Damon turns toward Rebekah. "It could be Klaus using her as blood bag again…"
To his utter surprise Caroline chimes in before Rebekah can object. "No, it's not him…" When she sees the bemused faces of both vampires turning to her, she feels heat flooding her cheeks.
"Now why would you know that it wasn't Klaus?" Damon interrogates her slowly with arched brows, noticing her now reddened cheeks with even more bewilderment.
Caroline closes her eyes briefly; suppressing her embarrassment, she admits, "Because he was with me yesterday, all day long. He brought me home at about 10 p.m."
"WHAT?" Damon's eyes are blazing with rage now as he closes the short distance between them. He grabs her by her shoulder, and his voice gets a menacing tone. "Bonding with the devil? What are you doing, Caroline?"
"Nothing! I'm doing nothing! I didn't ask him to come here, neither did I beg for his company. I couldn't quite get out of his car and leave him alone…" Even to Caroline's ears her words sound like a cheap excuse, and they do nothing to mollify Damon.
"That's exactly what you should have done. Have you forgotten what he has done to Elena, to Stefan, to Tyler, hell, to all of us? He is a monster," he hisses, invading her personal space, his grip on her shoulders tightening.
Caroline raises her chin at that. "You would know…" she can't help but challenging him, although she knows that he's right.
Damon flinches, only a little. "What did he do to seduce you into liking him? Buying you new shoes?" When he sees her skin almost getting crimson now he stares at her incredulously and disgust appears on his features. He lets go of her, so suddenly that the movement pushes her slightly away from him.
Caroline falters. He said out loud all the things she told herself, and she understands his feelings. "Look, I know what he'd done and that he's a monster, Damon, trust me. Still…"
All at once she gets support from an unexpected source. "He's not all bad, you know?" Rebekah steps beside them, placing her hand on Damon's back. "He's not only a monster. He's my brother, Damon. I know he'd done loads of things borderline to be monstrous, and many of them had even been over the line; but so did I, and as I suppose, so did you."
Damon goes completely still at these words. His eyes fall shut and he breathes in and out deeply. Caroline knows, he's thinking of all the bad things he did; she could remind him of a lot…but she keeps quiet. She knows he remembers anyway. And she knows some of them make him cringe today. Those he did to Elena.
(He also thinks of his brother, but she doesn't know that.)
When he's sure to be calm enough again, he reopens his eyes. He doesn't look at Caroline though, he can't. He focuses on Rebekah; but his question clearly includes Caroline.
"Did anyone think about contacting Mom Bennet?" When both blonde vampires shake their heads, he sighs. "Well, does anyone know where she's residing? I think we should pay her a visit."
.
.
Swirling the content in his tumbler around pensively, Elijah looks out of the window leading to the magnificent garden Klaus has created in this short amount of time, and he can't help but admire him for the right touch he has with such things. It's the artist in his brother, a part of him Elijah always loved; that made him blind against Klaus' flaws for centuries.
The eldest squares his shoulders. He's not blind now. Not anymore.
He tilts his head upwards, downing his drink in one last gulp, lets the liquid burn down his throat, his eyes latched onto the ceiling for a while. Then he draws in a deep breath and walks over to the stairway. He goes upstairs, single-mindedly once he made this decision, taking his way over to his youngest brother's bedroom. He knocks at the door, without hesitating.
"You're allowed to come in, brother. I'm not naked…"
A small smile plays around Elijah's lips at Kol's words as he enters the room and watches his brother still lying in his bed.
"I have to leave town for a few days to take care of something. I'd be delighted if you accompanied me, would you?"
Kol props himself on his elbows, eyeing Elijah curiously for a little while before rising from his bed, proving his words from earlier a lie when the sheets covering his body glide down and remain on the bed. Elijah just rolls his eyes.
"You and I traveling the world together …that sounds like fun…"
"I take it you are coming with me?" Elijah smiles. "Pack your things then. We're leaving in half an hour."
.
.
A/N: Some of you might wonder why Caroline blushes...
She does because her heart beats; I explained what I think once at the end of a chapter of The Longest Night. For those of you who didn't read it, I'll add it here:
'In the show, there are two different statements about it; Elena says in 1#15 "...that he has a heart, even if it doesn't beat", Katherine explains Stefan in the tomb 2#11 about desiccation: "Your heart still beats, struggling to pump whatever blood remains...". I decided to go with Katherine here, also because Damon says in 1#11 that his body functions pretty normal...
Also: Vampires can hear hearts beating. There'd be no point in Katherine pretending to be Elena in front of Vampires, because they would notice the missing heart beats...
Push the button, pretty please...:-)