Chapter 11 – Counterpart

A/N: Okay in this chapter we go from angst to fluff and then back to angst so just…prepare yourself. And remember to review! Love you guys, enjoy!

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"Stefan!" Caroline shouted in frustration as she burst into Stefan's lavish one-bedroom apartment using the key he had given her months ago. "Stefan Salvatore I swear I'm going to kill you!"

She barged into his home, straight into the living room where it looked like the only light was on. She grit her teeth as she saw the back of Stefan's head laying back on the couch. She took in a deep breath and stomped into the room and stood right in front of him.

"You know Stefan, we've known each other a long time." She started dramatically. "And I think you know that I am capable of many things, and being patient is one of those things. But seriously?" She stomped her foot in frustration. "You made me wait at the restaurant for an hour! Steroline hasn't hung out in forever and I just wanted one night where we could –"

She froze, cutting herself off as she looked at the man in front of her – as in, really looked at him.

Stefan was completely wrecked. His hair was a mess (which was a tell-tale sign that something was wrong), his eyes were glazed over, he was leaned back on the couch precariously, his face more somber than usual.

"Stefan?" She asked in a much softer tone of voice, making him finally look up at her. Her heart could have broken right then as she looked into his eyes, seeing a pain inside of him that she had never seen before.

"Sorry, Caroline." He said softly, chuckling sadly and looking back down into his drink. "I uh, forgot about dinner."

Caroline sighed and walked over, sitting down next to him and pursing her lips in concern.

"What happened?" She asked. "Did Damon do something?"

Stefan barked out a laugh, taking another swig of his drink and hissing at the burn.

"No, no. For once my big brother isn't the one to blame for my self-loathing misery."

"Then what happened? Let me help, Stefan."

"You can't." He said simply. "You can't help me, it's…it's stupid."

"If something is making you upset then it's not stupid." Caroline said firmly, grabbing Stefan's chin and making him face her. "Tell me what's wrong."

He looked down to avoid meeting her gaze, blinking a few times.

"It's Lexi." He said in a barely audible whisper. Caroline was patient as he took a few deep breaths. "She called me earlier tonight and she uh…she told me that she and Lee were getting pretty serious."

Caroline's mouth parted in understanding. Two weeks ago she had figured out that Stefan had feelings for Lexi and had been encouraging him to pursue it, but he'd been refusing because she was in a relationship with another guy named Lee.

"She said she loved him." Stefan finally spoke sadly. "She's in love with him and…I guess that's that." He pursed his lips and tried to give Caroline a smile, but it was fairly pathetic.

Caroline had seen Stefan in a lot of bad situations. She had been there for the whole Damon-dating-Elena scandal back in Mystic Falls. She was there when his Uncle Zach died the week before high school graduation. She was even the one that helped Stefan tell Damon that he was leaving their joint law firm to go work with Mikaelson Arts.

But never once had she seen her best friend this heartbroken. Not even over Elena.

Caroline took a deep breath then and clapped her hands together.

"Well." She said in a strong voice. "It's obvious that a few things are in order. First, we're going to need a lot more drinks. Second, we're going to order a bunch of greasy pizza, and don't worry I know you like pepperoni so I'll order extra. And third, we are going to watch one of those incredibly stupid comedy movies with tasteless jokes that you like so much."

"What?" Stefan asked in a confused tone. "What are you –"

"Because I've been through breakups." Caroline interrupted him matter-of-factly, standing up and smoothing out her shirt. "And trust me, booze and pizza and movies is the tell-tale cure."

"Caroline I'm not going through a breakup." He said sarcastically, slightly annoyed with her positivity that he usually found so endearing. "Lexi sees me as just a friend and that's all she'll ever see me as."

"And you know what, that might be true." Caroline smarted off right back to him, making his eyebrows shoot up. "And if so, then that just means that there is a girl that is a million times better for you out there somewhere! But until the day comes where you're not pining over a girl that has a boyfriend, you and I are going to drink and eat pizza and laugh at bad jokes. Got it?"

Stefan was taken aback at her authoritative tone and he floundered for what to say.

"Uh, okay. Yes ma'am." He finally settled on.

Caroline exhaled sharply and put her hands on her hips. "Good." She said quickly. "Because I am your best friend and I don't like seeing you sad. So tonight, we're going to be immature and unhealthy and not think about love at all. Because no matter what happens in our love lives, we'll always have each other. Right?"

Stefan smiled genuinely at her then, proud to call this amazing woman with almost superhuman powers of optimism his best friend.

"Yeah, Care." He said. "We'll always have each other."

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As Caroline exited Klaus' private cell room – she was adamant about him not being in the same room as Maggie and Aaron – the tears fell freely and she was startled when she felt someone's arms wrap around her comfortingly. When she looked and saw who it was though she immediately relaxed.

Stefan didn't say a word because he didn't have to. When Klaus first woke up, Enzo had gone back up to the outside and told Caroline's friends what was happening. Caroline hadn't made an appearance to anyone except Klaus' immediate family, refusing to leave his cell until he woke up. So when Enzo said she would be leaving soon, Stefan was the first to rush downstairs to where she would be.

"Stefan." Caroline choked out, burying her face into her best friend's chest and holding onto the front of his shirt for dear life. She was shaking, but it was as if her eyes were all dried out. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream really, but the emotional toll was so great she couldn't really do anything.

"Shh." Stefan soothed, smoothing a hand over her hair. "It's okay, just breathe Care. He's going to be fine."

Before she could respond they both heard a pained scream behind the steel door, obviously Klaus. Caroline and Stefan both flinched and Caroline choked on her tears yet again. His screaming continued, the sound awful and grating on both of their hearts.

"Stefan, I…"

"Hey, come on." Stefan said when he saw that Caroline was clearly in tremendous pain. He put his arm around her shoulders and started to lead her up and out of the lab.

As they stepped outside into the town, Caroline squinted at the light. She had been using the bathroom and washing up in the lab for the past two days, and Katherine had been bringing both she, Elijah, Kol, and Rebekah clothes and food so that they wouldn't be gone whenever Klaus woke up.

As Caroline looked about the community she felt sick to her stomach. These people were walking around so carefree – toting water buckets and trading vegetables, little kids were running around. It seemed so…picturesque. And yet nobody seemed to know or care that there were three people right under their feet suffering an unbearable agony within their own mind. Not to mention their loved ones were facing the battle of their lives as well.

Caroline took in a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair, feeling Stefan's eyes on her worriedly. She glanced up at him and almost fell apart right then and there. It was Stefan, her best friend since middle school. The guy whose first kiss she stole when she was thirteen because she wanted to see what it was like. The guy who threatened to beat up Damon if he so much as looked her wrong when they went to Homecoming together. Her escort to Miss Mystic Falls her first year running when she was so nervous she could have puked.

Caroline's best friend in the entire world was standing right in front of her, very much alive, and she hadn't even had a proper reunion with him since he got to Whitmore yet he was comforting her like they hadn't not seen each other in eight months.

Stefan had just opened his mouth to say something when Caroline cut him off by throwing her arms around him in complete and total abandon, hugging him like she'd never hugged anyone before. Stefan made an "oof" sound as she knocked him backwards a few feet, then chuckled as he hugged her back just as tightly.

"Hey, Caroline."

"Hey." She said simply, holding on to him just a few moments longer.

When they separated, he was smiling down at her and she couldn't help but smile back.

"So." She said, not knowing what to say to her best friend for the first time ever. "You're not dead."

Stefan laughed at that – as in, bent over and had to hold his stomach kind of laughed. Caroline started to laugh as well, her shoulders shaking.

"No," Stefan finally breathed out in between chuckles, "I'm not dead. And hey, neither are you! What are the odds that everyone in our little group survived?"

"Well, not everyone." Caroline said somberly. "Jenna died the night of The Outbreak. And Jeremy's girlfriend Anna about a month later."

"Oh right, Elena was telling me that." He said, all the laughter gone between them.

"So have you and Damon been catching up on brother bonding time?" Caroline asked, changing the subject as they started to walk towards the well, staring up at the patrols along the wall. "Trading zombie war stories and stuff like that?"

Stefan chuckled, shaking his head. "No, no, nothing like that. We don't really talk about anything since The Outbreak. Nobody around here does. It's like a nice little bubble of ignorant bliss."

"Yeah." Caroline said quietly, looking down at her feet and kicking the dusty ground. "Well I wouldn't know about that."

"Hey." Stefan stopped her, touching her elbow gently and turning her to face him. "Klaus is going to be fine. We both know him, we know he won't go down without a fight if it means that he being with you again is on the line."

"Stefan, you don't have to –"

"No I'm serious." He interrupted. "I've spent the last eight months with Klaus, and I can safely tell you that everything he did was to get back to you."

Caroline was silent, eyes wide as she absorbed the weight of Stefan's words and what they meant to her.

"Sure, he was also protecting me, and Elijah and Rebekah, and even Matt sometimes. But at the end of the day his sole focus that kept him going each day even when he wanted to give up was you."

Caroline felt like she could pass out. All this time that she had been fighting to survive, she had refused to dwell on Klaus for her own selfish reasons. And now Stefan was telling her that she was all Klaus ever thought about that whole time. She felt horrible, like she had done the worst possible thing to the love of her life.

But she didn't tell Stefan any of that. She simply gulped and looked up at him with a weak smile, nodding at him. Stefan saw through her façade but smiled back at her all the same, holding his arm out for her to take which she did, just like old times.

"So tell me." Caroline finally said with an obviously forced cheerful tone. "We obviously know how the apocalypse has been treating my love life lately, but what about you? Have you made a move on Lexi yet?"

"Oh shutup." Stefan groaned as he rolled his eyes, making Caroline laugh and pester him as if they weren't both facing some of their worst nightmares come to life.

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"Agh!" Klaus screamed as he threw his phone at the wall across from him in his office. He was absolutely fuming, his heart pounding in fury. His fists were clenched and his chest was rising up and down rapidly.

"Niklaus?" Elijah poked his head into his brother's office, eyebrows raising as he saw the state he was in. He stepped into the office fully, closing the door softly behind him. "And what did that phone ever do to you?" He asked calmly.

"Get out, 'Lijah." Klaus said venomously, glaring at his brother. "Now is not a wise time to be around me."

"And the fact that you think that means it is extremely wise for me to do just the opposite." Elijah replied, giving off a somewhat sarcastic smile as he leaned against the door casually with his hands in his pockets. "What happened?"

"Atticus Shane happened." Klaus hissed, putting his palms flat on the front of his desk and leaning on it. "Somehow that bastard got my phone number and decided to give me a ring. He wants me to get back in."

Elijah pursed his lips, looking down at the floor for a few tense moments.

"And what did you say to him?" The older brother finally asked.

Klaus snapped his head up in disbelief.

"What did I say? I said for him to bugger off, that's what I said!" He stood up to his full height and walked around his desk to better look Elijah in the eye. "Do you really think that I would jeopardize everything I've achieved in the past three years? Everything that you and Finn have helped me get through, to get away from my past?"

"I don't think you would intentionally." Elijah said evenly. "But I also know that the work you did with Atticus Shane as a teenager and in your early twenties was a very destructive – and addictive – spiral. And I simply do not wish for you to go down that path again."

"Well I won't." Klaus spat, turning on his heel and going to look out the window that spanned across the entire back wall of his office overlooking the city. "I have come too far to go backwards into that life again." He said bitterly, raising a fist up to lean against the window. "I spilt too much blood in my early years and I am finally redeeming myself for it. So no, Elijah. I will not be taking Atticus up on his offer."

"I'm glad." Elijah said sincerely, looking at the tense form of his younger brother that he cared so deeply for.

Klaus' late teenage years and early twenties had been marred by a man named Atticus Shane who ran shady underhanded art deals. But as Klaus kept working for Shane just to piss off his abusive not-blood-related father, he soon learned that Shane was also in the business of dealing weapons, which was a dangerous business to be a part of. In four years, Klaus had done more awful things than he liked to remember. And what's worse was that he had been good at it – so good in fact, that Shane wanted him back in badly.

"But I must ask," Elijah continued in a curious voice after a few minutes of silence, "Along with your devotion to the family, would a certain kind-hearted and optimistic blonde have anything to do with your refusal to Shane's offer?"

Klaus smirked even though his back was to Elijah. Of course Caroline played a part in his answer to Atticus' phone call. That was the main reason he had been so angry about it. Klaus was finally at a place in his life where he was truly happy. He had a career he loved, he got to see his siblings (other than Kol) on a daily basis, and most of all he had a beautiful woman who loved him with all of her heart and soul despite his misgivings. And for someone who had refused to love for so long, Klaus was learning more each day that love was actually the strongest defense he could ever have against anything life threw at him now or in the future.

Klaus chuckled, looking down at the busy streets below.

"Elijah." He said softly. "Caroline has everything to do with it."

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It took about ten minutes for the screaming and thrashing against the cell bars to become tiresome, and Klaus soon stepped back away with his chest heaving up and down in anger. His hands were red, his knuckles bleeding from punching the wall.

He was just so angry. There was no way to describe the rage he was feeling towards people that he knew he loved. He loved Rebekah, and Kol, and Elijah. His siblings were his foundation, they kept him going, kept him on solid ground. It had been like that since they were children. But now all he could think about them was how horrible they were for locking him up in here like a common animal.

And Caroline – oh, Caroline. She was the light in his life, she had kept him going for the entirety of The Outbreak thus far, and now it was like he couldn't figure out why. She said she loved him, but if she truly did love him, she would have let him out of the suffocating cell and not look at him like he was a monster.

But the most frustrating thing Klaus was facing was the small voice in the very back of his mind, just barely cutting through the fog of rage. The small voice that was constantly insisting that he wasn't thinking clearly, that it was just the Infection talking and not his rational self. It was as if his brain was being pulled two separate directions and he couldn't just make it stop.

As the two different tracks continued their collision course inside his mind, Klaus brought his hands up to the side of his head and knelt down on the ground.

"Stop it." He muttered angrily. "Stop it, just stop it!" He screamed, shaking his head from side to side.

The voice in the back of his mind kept pushing its way towards the front, making itself more known to the fog that brought out his wrath.

And then suddenly Klaus faced the worst agony he'd ever faced. No pain would ever compare to the feeling of his mind tearing apart at the very seams into two separate units, one capable of rational thinking and the other hating everything and everyone – even those closest to him.

As the separation finished Klaus collapsed, sweat pouring down his face and his body feeling drained. It felt as if someone had stabbed him in his very soul, it was indescribable. And now that it was done, Klaus felt…empty. Like something had been taken from him. But now he could see a bit clearer, he had more of the urgency to fight like Caroline had asked him to.

"Ah yes, the lovely Caroline. She is just…delectable, isn't she?"

A terrifyingly familiar voice suddenly spoke making Klaus jump and look up. What he saw made him scramble back in complete and utter terror, eyes blown wide and mouth parted in fear.

"Oh no need to be afraid." The figure said as they sat casually on the cot in his cell.

"Wh…What are you?" Klaus gulped, trembling despite himself.

They laughed, throwing their head back manically.

"Well isn't it obvious?" They asked sarcastically, leaning forward and making eye contact. "I'm you."

And sure enough, the figure was Klaus himself. A different version of him though, that much was obvious. "Other" Klaus was wearing the exact same clothes, had the same amount of stubble, same scars and wounds, same hair, same jawline. The only physical difference between them was their eyes. Other Klaus' eyes were the same shade of blue, but there were dark purple rings all around them. So much so that he looked sickly. He looked…

"Infected?" Other Klaus supplied, making his counterpart's eyes shoot up in surprise. "Right, guess I could have mentioned that. I can read your thoughts. Well, not really read your thoughts, but your thoughts are my thoughts, because I am you. Did that make sense? Well of course it did, it made sense in my head so it has to make sense it your head because we're the same person."

"You're a hallucination." Klaus said to Other Klaus in a shaky voice. "I'm hallucinating, this isn't real."

"Well of course I'm a hallucination." Other Klaus said matter-of-factly, standing up from the cot and walking over to the cell bars, putting his hands on them and looking around the room. "However, though I am a figment of your own screwed up mind, I can assure you that this is very real."

Other Klaus looked down at his duplicate that was still on the floor condescendingly.

"It's actually fairly interesting." Other Klaus spoke confidently. "You see, you are so adamant about following our lovely girlfriend's orders to 'fight the Infection' that you literally split your own mind in two of your own free will. There's you, rational and…weak." He said in disgust. "And then there's me! Obviously stronger, obviously filled with…power." His eyes widened and he smirked evilly.

"This isn't real, this isn't real." Klaus ignored Other Klaus, shaking his head and pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes.

"But here is my question." Other Klaus continued, tapping his index finger against his chin mockingly. "Well, our question I guess you could say. If you and I are the same person, just two different mindsets, then which one of us is in this actual moment?"

Klaus looked up at his vile counterpart in confusion.

"Okay let me clarify." Other Klaus said as if he were annoyed that he had to explain himself. "If someone were to walk in here right now, our beautiful girlfriend for example! Would she see you there on the ground in a pathetic, or me standing up walking around? Am I your hallucination, or are you mine?"

And as Klaus stared up at Other Klaus, he didn't even realize that the evil expression he was looking at took over his own features, and Other Klaus stared back at him in fear.

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A/N: Oh. Okay.

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