* * Chapter 11: the truth may vary* *

Caroline

It was a Saturday and Rebekah had decided that we should all have breakfast together. I had morbid pictures in my head, but she actually made pancakes. Tyler had gone late last night. Elena's two weeks were almost up, not that anyone but her, Stefan and I knew, and I'd told him to spent the full moon and the days before and after with Lucas, not explaining that it was just so Klaus wouldn't instantly force the Change on him. I wasn't sure what was happening to my Klaus, but the paranoid, bipolar man in this house wasn't entirely him. And I wouldn't trust him not to force anyone's hands and damage his own plan. As soon as someone was forced, the magic would fold. And none of us knew what that would result in.

But having spent weeks, months now, with the Originals, had me devoted to this plan. I needed their cursed existence to stop. I need them to find closure, and I absolutely needed Klaus to finally find a pack, a refuge and an anchor to his sanity.

The more time I had spent with the Bennett witches, the more information we exchanged. I was gradually learning to fight witch magic, or rather, the pain it caused, so at least an hour was spent talking about the magic Klaus' spell entailed instead of practicising. Mrs. Bennett had started to be warmer towards me. I think my wanting to be independent enough to fight my own fights had won her over. We both knew that nobody could really harm me as long as I had the protection of the Mikaelsons. There wasn't really a reason to learn how to defend myself any more than I could. But I needed to. I needed, so desperately, to have things that would connect me with people outside of that inner circle of Originals. Of people who would forever be more powerful, knowledgable, experienced than me. Because no matter how amazing Klaus and his family were, Klaus' behaviour had taught me that you needed anchors in your life. Anchors to people, anchors to things, and a core that let you live a thousand years without crumbling. I was in awe that he had the strength so far, but I was terrified, seeing how he was slowly breaking now.

When, before, I had joked about his constant ups and downs, now I was fighting myself to go and get Elena's blood myself. But I couldn't, and so I resigned myself to doing what I actually could, which was spent as much time with Klaus as possible. From what I had seen, he was calmer when there were people around him. I knew there was more to his behaviour than just him needing pack. He'd told me from the beginning that pack is stability and that his wolf had started to slowly turn insane right after Klaus had become a hybrid without it, but it got worse so much faster ever since we'd seen Elena, maybe had even started ever since our return from Ohio.. I knew it was related to the thing he didn't want to tell me about for now, and I knew that there were other things that I was, maybe willfully, missing. I had to stop. If it hurt him, I had to face my demons. But for now, I had to eat breakfast.

"What languages do you all speak?" I asked the Originals at the table. Klaus raised his eyebrows at me.

"What, I want to know! They say it's harder to learn languages when you're old, and you know, you guys aren't exactly young.." Kol gasped in mocked shock and denial and I grinned. "Most of them are dead now, or have evolved," Rebekah answered. "I think we all understand most languages that have Latin roots, and some Germanic ones, as well. Slavic languages in part, obviously. I never learnt Russian or Chinese Mandarin." She leaned back, drank her orange juice. By the way she'd arranged breakfast, I got the feeling that she might have been the person who directed those old cornflakes commercials. Pancakes, orange juice, vampires..

"So it isn't that hard to pick up new languages?" I accidentally kicked Klaus under the table. Maybe not so accidentally. Nobody would ever know.

"Depends on the person." He kicked back. Except it wasn't really a kick. His mistake. I kicked again.

"Who's the best with languages?"

"Finn, I think. Written languages. He understands them all. Speaking, we're all about the same." Elijah noticed our kicking. Kol had already tried to join us by throwing his shoes at our legs. They had hit Elijah. Who was now raising his eyebrows at us. I smiled innocently and continued asking Rebekah about languages and family members and her pancake recipe, filing away that quick mention of Finn, while Klaus and Elijah had a silent eyebrow discussion, most likely on appropriate table manners.

Klaus and I were in my room. I had talked him into watching some movies with me. There was a pretty gigantic TV in my room. Kol had bought himself one and when it arrived I happened to mention that I had never seen such a big television. Cue two days later when suddenly I was the proud owner of an identical one.

"I have googled movies that make men run, so you get to choose between those on the shelf, but the internet especially recommended Mean Girls, The Notebook, Twilight or the first season of Grey's Anatomy." I actually really loved some of those, especially Grey's Anatomy. The internet was so effing offensive some times.

"I know for a fact that you have the extended version of the Lord of the Rings, two Burtons, Clockwork Orange, and ten other movies that are less offensive, yet you intentionally found movies you thought I would dislike?"

"And a show," I said, because Grey's Anatomy was a lovely piece of television. He didn't respond, so I just gave a nod to his question. He sighed and lay back on my bed. Shifted. Shifted some more, then sat up again. "Pick the one you want to watch most."

I grinned, and put Mean Girls in, blatantly ignoring the fact that I made one of the strongest people in the world watch a movie about girl fights. Actually, no, I didn't ignore it. I bathed in the knowledge. Plus, with his mentality, he'd probably understand most of these characters better than he'd admit. Halfway through the movie, Rebekah and Kol joined us.

The next few days, I didn't go to school was regularely as I would have had those grades mattered. Rebekah and I both seemed to have a similar plan of how to keep Klaus busy and sane, but he gracefully pretended not to notice that he was never really alone anymore. We took him with us when we went shopping ("Nik, we need a male perspective." "Since when have you ever?") and to the hairdresser ("Do you think Caroline should get highlights?" "Her hair is fine." "Fine?" "Yes, fine.") and to the bookstore ("Klaus, you should definitely get the Twilight books." "No.") and by the end of the week, Elena and Bonnie weren't taking the Originals was seriously as they had before, result of my texting them the highlights of the bickering. In their defense, once you saw two adults fight a tug-of-war over a scarf, it was hard to. And I'd snapchatted them a picture.

Still, it all worked. Tyler was texting me every day, just short updates on how he was and questions if I was okay. No clue where Bill was or what he was doing, but the feeling I had about it being because I had distanced myself from him seemed to be true. Elijah spent most of his time calling witches, and I was almost certain it was about us masking our presence here. Rebekah and Kol were there, and I think it was just about that, too: About the siblings being together, even though one of them was still missing. And then there was me. Klaus and I were slowly letting the Compulsion drop. We'd talked about it one evening, and figured out a way to make it as easy as possible: The Compulsion wore itself off on its own now. A natural process, even if we had to use some magic to make it work. Bonnie hadn't had a problem with being the helping hand, although she'd been uncomfortable with having Klaus in her backyard. Klaus had dropped the Compulsion while Bonnie had worked leyline magic that wove itself around the feelings he'd Compulsed before they could hit me. Then she shaped the magic as if it was a net, so that slowly, the feelings would come back -"sip through the stiches"- to me in a way that was bearable. Magic was a fascinating thing that I wouldn't try to understand for now.

"The Bennett witches respect you," Klaus told me afterwards. It was only a few days until Elena's deadline. "Well, respect is kind of the foundation of any friendship." I was driving, something that he probably only allowed in his control-freak-nature, because he knew both of us would survive a crash. I was a good driver, of course, but do things like that matter to someone who needs to control everything? He'd almost pulled out of the Compulsion magic with Bonnie, just because he couldn't do it all on his own. Drove me crazy.

"You're young, a vampire, and a stranger. And still not only the young Bennett, but also her grandmother, trust you in their home. That is more than what your generation mocks respect. It is true respect." I chanced a glance at him. "Are you angry that they let me in and you had to walk around to the backyard?" He snorted. "No. It's the right choice. I wouldn't ask myself in, either." I heard what he wasn't saying, and it broke my heart.

"Bonnie and I used to be friends before, too." He was more himself than he'd been for too long. I was driving slower than I had to, just to prolong the moment.

"You were human then."

"I'm still human." He snorted.

"Yes, with the minor exceptions of drinking blood, longevity and eternal youth."

"Is it longevity, then? Not immortality?" That had been bothering me for some time, yet everytime I thought about it, I'd forget to ask one of the Mikaelsons. "It's a question of definition. Does immortality mean you can never die? Vampires can be killed. Does it mean you can't die of age or natural causes? Even then, there is no proof, and there will never be, because how does one prove that something doesn't end? It's like marriage. The fact that a specific couple is still together doesn't mean anything. Even if they die before they can split up, it might only mean they died before they had the chance to file for divorce. That I still live either means I can't die of age, or it means that my time hasn't come yet."

I let out a breath. That was.. a dark way to look at the world. It fit him, regardless.

"Is that how you think about everything?" I asked.

"Everything?"

"Your family, the world, everything. Do things only exist because they haven't had the chance to stop? Are people loyal because they haven't been tempted enough? Do people love just because, well, they haven't found a reason not to?"

"Most likely."

I nodded and fell silent.

* * Notes * *

Chapter title is from Little Talks (Of Monster And Men) because "I see you when I fall asleep."

I'm pretty sure I mentioned it before, but: I have no idea how the American education system works. Someone told me that the American education system also doesn't know how it works, which wasn't that much of a relief, but well, this is my attempt to explain why my representation is off. My apologies!

I also decided to abandon several plot bunnies and instead use another one, which is why this update's so late. (and much shorter than planned originally..) Hope you're all having an amazing time! Review if you have the time. :)