Chapter Seven- You Never Know What You Have Until You Lose It.
AN: Sorry a short note today because I've been so crammed with school. I want to apologize if this chapter is a day late, but there were hard parts for my Klaroline heart to write... You'll see. I'll answer reviews next time, so sorry about that, but just a shut out to that guest who pointed out that the phone call scene last chapter got messed up... A million star points to you! I'll fix it in a min, but thank you so much for pointing it out! I wrote the scene twice and meshed the two together for the final product, so thanks for picking up on that!
If Elijah didn't know better, he would say that his brother was nervous. Klaus had been in overdrive mode since that call the night before, having his vampires clean out various rooms in the mansion and rearranging furniture left and right. He had even forced Rebekah to go out and find flowers for every room in the large house, and the mansion positively shone with good cheer. The windows and curtains were thrown open, alcohol bottles were thrown away, and most of all, Hayley was nowhere to be seen. After her outburst with Elijah, Klaus had her quickly moved to their other house on the bayou with some compelled wolves for her protection. It was all according her wishes, his brother reassured him, but Elijah knew the real reason that Klaus was being so accommodating. He was worried about Elijah's reaction in coming face to face with Hayley again after her words, and he was right to fret. There was no telling what grief could do, even to an even tempered man like Elijah. Throw in his long standing love for Katherine and his feelings of betrayal, and you got a volatile mix of ingredients, ready to blow at the slightest misstep.
"Niklaus, if you do not sit, I will find some particularly sharp piece of wood to stick into your ribcage." Elijah threatened from his seat at the breakfast table. He was attempting to read the morning newspaper with a freshly brewed cup of tea, but Niklaus's frantic hopping to and fro was stressing him out.
Klaus scowled at him, and yet sat down anyways, buttering a piece of toast with vengeance. "Careful Elijah, you know how I take to threats." He growled as the bread split in half, crumbs flying everywhere.
"Yes, and I also know how you react to even the mention of Miss Forbes." He said with a raised eyebrow, not looking up from his newspaper. It was weird for the two brothers to talk of matters such as these so openly, and as if they both realized it, they quickly shut up.
"Well, I'm going to go up. I have a business call from London, but do let me know when our guests arrive, brother." Elijah said. He expected no response, and receiving none, he quickly left.
Klaus was anxious as he too got up from the breakfast table, peeking at the front windows every so often. Caroline was the one thing that he wanted most, and the fact that he was unsure whether he could ever really have her left him in an unusual predicament. Combined with the fact that the blonde had never actually agreed to making the trip down to NOLA, and he was worried. This might be his last chance for a while to win the vampire's heart, as fatherhood and pursuing a woman did not necessarily go hand in hand. He would have forever to go after the blonde, but he did not wish to wait. Klaus wanted their forever to start now.
Fortunately, Klaus was saved from more needless pacing and wondering by the arrival of Marcel and Diego. The two vampires had urgent matters to do with city business to discuss, and Klaus let himself by swept up by talks of the Quarter, vampires, and night clubs as they made their way upstairs up to his study.
The three current inhabitants of Caroline's little blue car had decided that their best bet was probably to find the Originals first. They did not want to check in to a hotel only to find themselves in the middle of a turf war between vampires, werewolves, and witches.
"Excuse me?" Caroline said, rolling down her window soon after they had rolled into the city limits and the Quarter itself.
"Yes?" The woman, a brunette with long hair and a face that spoke of Asian heritage, replied.
"Could you tell me where the biggest, most ostentatious houses in the Quarter are located?" She asked, flashing the woman her best smile.
The woman looked perplexed at the weird question, and yet replied anyways. "Governour Street is where all the old time plantations are. Why do you want to know?"
"Just trying to find a-an acquaintance. Thank you so much for your help!" Caroline said, as she drove off. Stefan quickly pulled up a map of the city on his phone, and they found themselves in a long street filled with plantations from the 18th century not two minutes later. Most of the houses had long driveways leading up to antebellum style plantations that immediately reminded Caroline of one of her favorite movies, Gone with the Wind, and she was quiet as she admired what looked like her dream homes on each side of the street. Stefan was quiet as well as he was reminded of his own childhood in a house not too different from the ones they were passing by. The car moved at a slow pace, as its occupants analyzed each house and compared to the one Klaus had built in Mystic Falls, trying to determine which one could be the Original family's.
"There." Caroline said, pointing out the last house on the corner. It was set on a small hill, slightly apart from the rest, with a winding driveway. A solid, white square house with columns and wraparound porch, it looked ancient and yet airy and welcoming, something that was only possible this far South. The style, the flair, was unmistakable.
Stefan nodded in agreement. "Only the Originals would own ten acres of land in the middle of one of the most populated cities in America." He said, pointing out the fields leading into the famous Louisiana bayou that were barely visible on the back side of the house.
"Well, I guess the only way is forwards." Bonnie said, sounding less excited than all of them.
They drove up the driveway, seeming unchallenged, which seemed weird for someone as paranoid as Klaus. The gravel crouched underneath Caroline's tires as she slowly put the car in park besides a silver Mercedes and a bright red convertible. They all got out slowly, stretching out the kinks from the long drive.
Looking around, it was obvious that none of them wanted to be the one to knock. They slowly made their way onto the porch as a group.
Caroline finally was the one to raise her arm and knock on the door, using the embellished wolf knocker, something that would have made her give a short chuckle at an another time in another place. The house seemed quiet, and she was almost ready to knock again, or even better, go home, when the door flew open, startling her.
Rebekah stood in front of them, her blond hair in an unruly ponytail on top of her head, still mussed up from sleep. Her tank top and shorts also suggested that they had caught the youngest Original before her morning coffee, which spelt doom for them.
"Oh, it's you." She said with a small scoff, turning around to go back to her coffee mug, but leaving the door open as an invitation for them to follow inside.
"Nik will be thrilled." Rebekah said dryly, going back to sipping her coffee with an eye roll.
"Is he expecting us?" Caroline said, peeking around the opulent drawing room. She was trying to conceal her excitement over seeing the hybrid now that she was actually here, standing in his house, but was failing miserably.
"Maybe, he doesn't tell me much these days. He left a couple hours ago for a meeting, so he should be back any time really." The blonde said with a shrug of disdain. It seemed as if their old animosity from Mystic Falls was still present, despite their distance from that little town and its silly traditions like decade dances and cheerleading squads.
"Great. So what are we supposed to do, wait for Klaus to deign us with his presence?" Caroline asked with a huff.
"Wait or don't, I do not care." Rebekah replied.
Caroline stormed out of the room, slamming the front door, unable to take the Original's snippy replies any longer. She left Stefan and Bonnie standing there awkwardly, staring at Rebekah drinking her coffee and checking her phone.
"Umm, so Rebekah, how have you been?" Stefan asked after a couple of very awkward minutes. Bonnie had wandered off to look at some of the antiques and books in the bookcases in the next room, still visible due to the open layout of the house but not within earshot.
She looked up from her phone with a lifted eyebrow. "Why do you care?"
"You're not a bad person like Klaus, as much as you try to put on this tough, don't care what the world says persona or try to hide behind silly human traditions. One time, I even considered you a friend, and most recently, an ally. So, excuse me, for trying to be polite." Stefan said curtly.
"Stefan, you and I have never been friends. We've been either enemies, or" and now Rebekah's lips curved into a salacious smile that brought back so many memories, "much more than friends."
Stefan was visibly uncomfortable with the reference to his Ripper days, but he did not let that stop him from replying, "And now we're barely strangers with a shared past."
Rebekah acknowledged it with a small nod. "Can we start again, then?" She asked with a small smile as she took another sip of her coffee. The blonde had snapped at Stefan almost without thinking, in part due to her current nervousness about her family and in part due to general morning crankiness. Unwilling to admit her own fault aloud, she conceded the point with a smile, a secret signal that Stefan still seemed to remember after all this time.
"How have you been, Rebekah?" Stefan asked with a grin of his own, taking a seat in front of her at the breakfast table.
"I've been…good, surprisingly. I spent the summer around the world with Matt, basking in the pure freedom of being completely, blissfully normal, and except for these last few weeks, even my brothers have been alright." She replied. "And you? Still hanging around the doppelganger?"
"No, honestly. Damon and Caroline are the only people keeping me in Mystic Falls anymore." Stefan said, with almost a shocked look of realization. He had known for a while that the Elena chapter of his life was over, but it wasn't until now, chatting with Rebekah like old friends, that he realized that he was okay with it.
"What changed?" Rebekah asked, surprised at his reply. The last thing she remembered was Stefan fighting to have Elena human once again, snatching the cure that should have been hers in order to give it to the doppelganger.
"I spent my summer locked in a safe at the bottom of the Falls, and then had my brain fried and my memories stolen by an ancient witch, and the got drained of blood by another group of witches… Tends to put things and people in perspective, doesn't it?" Stefan said dryly.
Rebekah had covered her mouth with her hands in horror. "How? What happened?"
Stefan too seemed surprised at her question. "Right, I forgot that you left before the whole Silas/Amara/Quetsiyah/Bonnie debacle. Long story short, Bonnie died in putting up the veil, so Silas was freed, and ended up dumping me instead of him into the quarry and taking over my life for the summer."
"Why were you dumping his body into the quarry alone?" Rebekah asked, a reproachful note in her voice. Everybody knew it was a dumb move, even for the Salvatore, to assign such a monumental task to one person alone, even someone as trustworthy as Stefan. It was almost as if they wanted for something to go wrong with their plans, yet again.
Stefan replied with a wistful smile as he took a sip from his own cup of coffee. "I wasn't alone. My friend Lexi was with me right up until the veil fell. And then I was supposed to keep going. Drive out of town until I found a place I liked to start over." He gave her a wry grin, and then added, almost to himself, "I was supposed to go to Portland, check out the hipster scene, go to a few concerts, maybe even college again…"
"That's why nobody was surprised by my lack of contact, and when Silas came back to town, he played the part so perfectly that only Caroline suspected something." He continued, shaking himself out of his reverie.
"That I do not doubt. I well remember Silas's tricks." Rebekah nodded.
"That's the funny thing, it wasn't a trick at all." Stefan said with a wry grin. "Turns out Silas is- I mean, I'm Silas's doppelganger."
"What? You're a doppelganger? But you're not a Petrova!" Rebekah said, surprised. "Or a girl..." She added, under her breath.
"No," Stefan said with a chuckle at her whispered comment, "it turns out that the doppelgangers are the universe's way of atoning for the separation of the first immortals, Silas and his true love Amara."
"Figures." Rebekah replied with a snort. She was interrupted, however, by the sound of a car crunching up the gravel drive. Their conversation forgotten for the moment, she stood up.
"Nik and Elijah are home." She said with a wicked smile, flashing upstairs. Stefan moved to one of the draped windows, from where he could see both the black car making its way up the driveway and Caroline, hitting something on her phone screen furiously in the front seat of her car.
Stefan only had to wonder for a few seconds what the blonde was doing before his phone buzzed. GET OUT OF THERE, WE R LEAVING! NOW! Her text said.
Stefan just shook his head, knowing that the blonde could see him from the car. Bonnie had wandered back into the room as Rebekah flashed back down, dressed in heels and a green sundress, her hair down and falling in beautiful natural waves around her face. There was no use in leaving now that they had come so far, and that Klaus himself was just pulling up. Might as well as stick it through after having driven all this way, and frankly, this was their last chance to save their loved ones, Stefan reasoned.
No, Care. U r going to have to face him at some point. Better think fast! He texted back.
Rebekah had joined him at the window, and Bonnie was peering over their shoulders as well. "Should we wait for her to sort things out? I'm sure she would appreciate not having an audience." Bonnie said.
"There's no way in hell I'm missing this." Rebekah replied, grabbing a better spot to view the upcoming fireworks.
Bonnie looked uneasy, but even she was too interested in seeing Klaus's and Caroline's reaction to leave, despite her own loyalty to her friend. Kol, who had stayed by her side as she explored the downstairs of the house, explaining little tidbits from its family history, leaned in and whispered: "My brother, brought down by his love for a little vampire! It's a show no one here wants to miss."
The silence within the house was only interrupted by the small chime from Stefan's phone. The sleek black car came to a stop two spots over from Caroline's blue one and it smoothly parked. A door opened and out came the one person in the world Caroline would have rather never seen again.
I hate you passionately, Stefan Giuseppe Salvatore Caroline's text read as the blonde got out of the car with a stubborn look on her pretty face.
Caroline wasn't sure of what exactly had been the catalyst to her hissy fit in the breakfast room, but it certainly was a mix of Rebekah's usual condescending behavior, Klaus's absence, and at the same time, Caroline's very presence in New Orleans. She knew, in the rational, put together part of her head, that she was acting like a spoiled child who did not get a favorite toy, yet she did not care, not right now.
The blonde had come all this way; put her life on hold in order to satisfy the Original's request. That in itself was galling to her, since she believed that she was better than the simpering girl who always had to be rescued, no she was the hero of her own story, and even Klaus should not hold that much power over her. If one factored in his promise of never interfering in her life again, Caroline had double the reasons to be mad, pissed off at the Original. But what really stung the most was that even with all that, she had come; prepared to put the past aside in order to save her friends, to at least attempt to work together, and Klaus wasn't even there. He was off, running the city, with no second thoughts for little Caroline Forbes of Mystic Falls, VA.
In her weaker moments, she had always entertained the thought of a lovesick Klaus, just waiting for the moment she decided to give him a chance. In those secret fantasies, the hybrid would be reduced to a wreck, not sleeping, not eating, tortured by her loss until she finally put him out of his misery. Rome, Paris, London, Tokyo, the world he offered her was tempting, and when she finally accepted, he would be there, ready to drop everything to take her to see the world. But the cold hard truth was that Klaus had moved on, had lived his life without her, forgetting the forever love he had so ardently promised. The hybrid wasn't there when she said yes, finally made her way to New Orleans, and it felt all too much like a betrayal, even though it was she that had always turned him down. He wasn't a daydream bound to her silly fantasies; no, he was a man, a hybrid, flesh and blood, fire and flames, her opposite in every way. Yet, there was a part of her that in the face of all this mourned the future she had lost, the future they could have shared. What if she had said yes earlier? The question now taunted her, because Caroline knew that there was no way to go back. They must always push forward, because for them, it wasn't a matter of years or decades, no they had millenniums to regret the mistakes of the past.
The blonde vampire was able to pull herself together, barely, at the sound of the approaching car. As a last ditch effort to leave before all of her delusions came crashing down, she texted Stefan, but his visible head shake confirmed what she already knew. They had come too far, risked too much, to simply abandon their plan. Matt's solution would prolong Elena and Damon's lives for a good while, but it wasn't a matter of if, but when, it would start not being enough. The Originals were their only hopes for a cure.
Caroline dried a few stray tears out of the corner of her eye with the back of her hand. Checking in the review mirror for any telltale signs of crying, she reapplied her lipstick. If she was going to face down Klaus, by herself, she would at least have her oldest weapon in her arsenal.
The black car came to a slow stop, parking about fifty yards to her left. She opened the door of the car, and with her head held high, she walked towards the front door of the house, not looking at either side. Caroline tried to exude hostility when all she felt was anxiety at meeting him again, because out of all the people or vampires she had ever met, only Klaus had ever managed to make her feel so off-kilter, off-balance.
She heard a deep chuckle behind her as he got out of the car, seeing right through her attempt to ignore him. With a blur and whoosh, he was standing right in front of her, too close for polite company, his piercing blue eyes searching her face as he smiled at her with dimples that should be illegal. "Were you not even going to say hello, love?"
Caroline, refusing to back down, met his eyes with a challenging look, one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed across her chest. "Hello, Klaus. Goodbye, Klaus." She said, pushing him aside to make her way onto the pretty wraparound porch.
A giggle that could only be Rebekah's came from within the house, joined by Klaus's own deep chuckle. With another flash, he was standing right between her and the door, his rock hard chest a mere handbreadth's away, bringing back sinfully delicious memories of the other times that Caroline had seen that same chest without any other clothing.
"As spirited as ever, Caroline. But I thought we'd agreed to play nice at our last encounter?" Klaus asked, his own eyebrows raised with a smirk as he reminded her of their romp in the woods.
"Oh yes," Caroline said with a seductive smile as she took a step closer. "We agreed to that right after you promised I'd never have to see you again!"
As Caroline finished her words, her leg, faster than the distracted Klaus could see, shot out and tripped the Original, allowing the blonde enough time to leap over his prone form and enter the house. Klaus fell right onto his butt with a surprised yelp, his pride bruised as he lay sprawled in front of his door.
Elijah, who had been a silent observer, stepped over his stunned brother with a smile and a small chuckle. "I like this one, Niklaus. I think she will do just fine." He said, nodding his head as he went to join the others in the drawing room.
"CAROLINE!" Klaus bellowed as he found his footing and entered his house to find the blonde sitting on an armchair facing the younger Salvatore brother, the Anchor sitting on the floor between the two of them and Rebekah on the couch that angled in to face the two armchairs. Elijah was in the next room, hanging up his coat and setting down his papers with his usual neatness.
"Yes?" The blonde replied with an innocent look on her face.
"You-you" Klaus stammered, his face red from anger as the room's occupants stared at him with bemused looks on their faces.
"Just saw you trip for absolutely no reason at all out there on the porch? Yes, I did, and what an unfortunate fall." Caroline said with a little smirk of her own, to the stifled laughter of the other occupants of the room, who had witnessed the girl tripping the hybrid on the porch. Klaus shot them a glare, and they quickly piped down.
Klaus was about to reply with his own snippy retort, his rage abated as her usual spunk drove in that she really was here, sitting in his house, a mere dozen feet away, when Elijah stepped in. "Niklaus, stop yelling at our guests." Elijah said with a stern tone.
Klaus rolled his eyes at his brother's old timey manners, but took a seat on the couch next to Rebekah anyways in order to keep the peace, at least in front of his former enemies. He looked warily at the Bennett witch, unsure of her motives in agreeing to his request so promptly, especially given her hatred for him and his family.
Elijah did not care for his sibling's misgivings. Turning a small smile towards his guests, he greeted each of them in turn. "Ms. Bennett, it is lovely to see you again, especially after I heard the news of your untimely demise." He said, receiving a small nod from Bonnie and a wide smile.
The Original turned slightly to address Stefan, and a small smile broke out on his face as he greeted the younger Salvatore. There had always been a certain affinity between the two, due in part to their similar circumstances in loving the doppelgangers and in part due to their own alike temperaments. The two didn't need many words, just a simple nod and an unspoken promise to talk more at length after their council of war.
Last, Elijah turned towards Caroline. She was the only member of the Mystic Falls group that he had never spent any time around, never gotten a chance to assess and understand her. At first, he had simply written her off as Elena's naïve and slightly frivolous best friend who had had the misfortune of being turned into a vampire by his Katherine and then chosen for his brother's ritual. When he had seen her on his last trip to Mystic Falls with the cure, however, the few glimpses he had gotten of her had challenged that opinion, and his brother's words the other day had shattered it. Now she stood in front of him, a mystery, an unknown variable, and Elijah detested those. Knowing one's enemies or friends, what drove them and what repulsed, made their actions easy to predict and counterbalance if need be. It was not knowing that led to mistakes, and costly ones.
Caroline felt uncomfortable as the eldest Original scrutinized her. She knew it could not have been more than a few seconds, mere instants more than it was polite, and yet Elijah's warm brown eyes were clearly calculating. Everything about her was being noted, taken down to construct an accurate picture of her weaknesses later, and she wanted to sit up straighter to show that she would not be intimidated, but something held her back. Moving, showing that he unsettled her, would be the worst move that she could make now, so instead she kept the pleasant smile plastered on her face as her mind churned.
"Ms. Forbes, I look forward to getting to know you better during your stay." Elijah simply said as he moved away to stand behind the couch his siblings were occupying. A few moments passed in which no one seemed to find the words to begin, and so the silence stretched on awkwardly.
"So? Is that all?" Caroline asked, finally fed up. She knew that this was the Original's modus operandi, to have their opponents and allies off balance mentally and physically, but she was tired and sore, severely sleep deprived and hungry as well. Either one of them, and at this point she didn't care who, told them the reason why she had driven twelve hours to get here, or she was leaving.
Her stare turned icy as she stared down Klaus. "You call me, ask me to come down here in all hurry because of an urgent situation, and now you can't even tell us what it is?"
"Ah, Caroline. I seem to remember you being rather desperate for our help as well." Klaus shot back.
"Help that you do not seem all that willing to give." Caroline replied, getting up to find the kitchen. She was getting tense, and coupled with an empty stomach after the long drive, her neurotic tendencies were starting to show. Nothing a good blood bag wouldn't fix.
"Where are you going, love?" Klaus asked with an almost concerned tone, getting up as well.
"To find the kitchen. If I have to wait for all of you to gather your thoughts, I'm not going to do it on an empty stomach." She replied. Klaus quickly followed her out, closing the drawing room's door behind her as he ran at human speed to catch up with her. He trusted Elijah and Rebekah to watch over Bonnie and Stefan until his return.
Grabbing her arm, he turned her around to face him. "Caroline, would you please tell me what I've done to wrong you? Because I remember parting on a happy note, and now you act as if you abhor the mere mention of my return to Mystic Falls." Klaus said in a soft tone, searching her face for the answer to the question that had bugged him ever since her standoffish arrival. Maybe she regretted giving in to him that day, had regretted since the moment they parted, and had just been a good actress. Or maybe she had found out about Hayley and the baby, and she was mad because he hadn't told her.
Caroline had been holding in her outburst for close to two days now, and she just couldn't hold it in any longer, especially with the subject of her frustrations right here, in front of her. "You called! After you promised, you swore to me, you would leave me alone to live my life! I trusted you, and you broke your promise." She said, recrimination in her tone as she wiped away a few stray tears. Caroline hated crying, deplored it as a cheap trick to get attention, and yet she was so mad and confused and emotional right now that a few tears had escaped her. "How am I supposed to move on, to let you go, when you keep yourself a peripheral shadow, always in my life but never there?"
Klaus wouldn't admit how much her tears moved him. He had known, when he had dialed her number, that she wouldn't be happy with him breaking his promise, and yet he'd had no other choice to save his family. The hybrid hadn't even imagined how betrayed his lovely Caroline would feel, the utter mistrust and anger in her voice. They say you never know what you have until you lose it, and never had that rung more true for Klaus. Never would he have imagined that despite all he'd done, he had gained Caroline's trust, not until he broke it with an idiotic phone call. Rebekah or even Elijah could have spoken with her, but instead the foolish temptation of her voice had beckoned him like a siren's call until he had given in.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat, and made a move to gather her in his arms. Never had he wanted anything as he wanted to reach out and take her into his embrace, explain his actions and beg her forgiveness, and yet she shied away from his hand. "Caroline, have you ever thought maybe I do not want to let you go?"
She turned away from him, trying to hide the last few tears, evidence of her weakness for him before turning to face him with a blank mask. "You're going to have to let me go, Klaus, for I need you to. I am no one's to keep, and it is time that I truly live that way."
Klaus watched her walk away from him, into the kitchen; her lovely hair swinging side to side as she slowly made her way inside and shut the door. She certainly looks good walking away from you he heard Kol's voice repeating his words from the Mystic Grill, so long ago now, vividly in his head.
Maybe a little too vividly. "KOL?" He asked, to the empty hallway. No reply came, and as none was expected, he turned to head back to the drawing room.
"If I find out you're haunting me, brother, I'll make sure to keep you really dead for a few decades rather than a few months!" He threatened one more time to the empty air.
Kol watched his brother leave from his place alongside the wall, next to the framed picture of New Orleans in 1900. "Well, at least he's got himself a couple of new threats in our time apart. The whole dagger and liver thing was starting to get annoying." He muttered for his own amusement, before following his brother back to the drawing room. The dead Original wouldn't miss a good scheming session, even when he couldn't participate.
On the other side of the kitchen door, Caroline was leaning on the cool granite countertop with her elbows, trying to pull herself together. A bag of type A blood, slightly stale and a bit warm, sat in one hand, while the other was nervously clutching her bracelet as she tried to calm her raging thoughts.
A part of her, a substantial one, wanted to continue being mad at Klaus for his part in bringing her down to New Orleans, but on the other hand, she knew that the hybrid had little choice in the matter, what with the supernatural freak show they always found themselves in. Although she refused to admit it out loud, there was another, persistent part of her that was glad that he had called, to hear that she had been missed, but all of that had been thrown out of the window as she sat outside in the car.
Now, she was here, hiding out in his kitchen like a broken hearted teenage girl, because he had once again thrown her for a loop. Klaus had seemed so sincere, his words so heartfelt as he told her that he hadn't wanted to let her go, that she didn't know who to listen to. Her head, which said that Klaus was always going to be the same, untrustworthy and manipulative, or her heart, that told her to take a chance, that she had already seen he could change. It was an ongoing fight ever since the ball, and his drawing, when part of her had accepted that there might be another side to the evil hybrid.
By this point, Caroline was past the point of tears, and had sat down with her back against the counter, sipping the last dregs of her blood bag. Her neurotic, type-A side wanted to make a pro/con list for staying in New Orleans, but since she lacked paper and pen, she started listing out the pros and cons aloud to herself, trying to reach a decision.
"Pro: I help Elena and Damon. Con: Klaus and his family live in New Orleans. Pro: If I stay, it looks like Klaus does nothing to affect me. Con: He does affect me." Caroline said, her head clearing as the thoughts finally settled.
Maybe now wasn't the right time to debate about Klaus, with Elena and Damon's lives hanging in balance. However, after this was settled, and she returned to her normal life, she would have to consider the hybrid. Had she ever given him a fair chance while in Mystic Falls? No, because she had still been the small town, 17 year old girl who saw the world in black and white. Now, as she moved away from that and started to grow up at college, she realized that what had seemed like a folly now looked not so impossible.
"After Elena and Damon are safe," Caroline promised herself, "I will talk to Klaus about us, just us, not my friends or his family. But now, I need to focus- focus Caroline, your friends need you."
A loud bang startled her as the door to the kitchen slammed open and a dark haired, lanky man walked in with a goofy grin. He headed for the freezer drawer in which the Mikealson stored their blood supply, so Caroline automatically assumed he was a vampire. She slowly stood up, picking up her empty blood bag, and realized just how much time must have passed. They had all probably already started talking about their plans for Bonnie, and she had missed it while wallowing in self-pity!
"Oh sorry! I didn't realize anyone was in here!" The man said, as he saw her, with her red tinged face from her earlier tears.
Caroline gave him a tremulous smile. "I look that bad, eh?"
The man looked embarrassed, and quickly jumped in. "No, you're fine. Just, here-" He said, handing her a tissue from the box atop the pantry and pointing underneath his eye, signifying a mascara streak on her cheekbone. The blonde gave him a grateful look and quickly took care of it, and then threw away the tissue.
"I'm Caroline." She said, extending her head.
"And I'm Josh. Nice to meet you, Caroline." Josh replied with a smile, taking her hand easily.
"Hey Josh, are you ready to go in and talk to the Anchor?" A brown haired girl with a childlike face and innocence said as she walked into the kitchen. She stopped abruptly as she saw that her friend wasn't alone, and stammered a couple words of apology.
"Caroline, this Davina, my best friend and witch extraordinaire. Davina, this Caroline, er- well we didn't actually quite get to that part, so who exactly are you? And I mean that in the nicest way possible." Josh asked.
Caroline gave a short bark of laughter. "Nice to meet you as well, Davina. I'm here with my friend Bonnie, the Anchor?" She asked, waiting for recognition to flash across their faces. "Other than that, I am nothing special, just a girl who happened to be in the wrong place, wrong time, and became vampire."
Davina nodded, her serious expression melting a bit as she smiled at Caroline. Josh, on the other hand, smiled widely, and said, "I think we'll be great friends, Caroline. See, I'm an expert at wrong time, wrong place."
Both girls laughed alongside Josh, although Davina threw in a little eye roll at her best friend. "Yeah, and if I wasn't there to save his ass, he'd been dead-er three times already."
"All true, I'm afraid." Josh admitted with a smile. Then, getting a little bit more serious, he said, "I think we better join the others, before Klaus rips my head off for being late." Turning to Caroline, he said to almost caution her, "He's got a devilish temper."
"Trust me, I know." She muttered as she followed them out of the kitchen.
AN: Pheww okay so here it is! As always, I love hearing your comments! I'm really excited about the next few chapters because we really get into the meat of the story, so stick around... Oh and thank you so much for reading and sticking with the story this far! REVIEW/COMMENT!
P.S: TVD Season Finale or TO thoughts? Would love to hear what you guys have to say about it!
