SPOILERS for Episode 2.16.

Previous chapters UPDATES: Reader meruhime dutifully pointed out a (potential) BIG canon error. In TO, the writer's have never stated that the members of the Crescent Clan specifically become Hybrids. All we know for sure is that their curse is just broken, they have control over when they can turn, and they're stronger and faster, etc. TVD wiki tells me that they take on Hayley's hybrid powers but, until the show specifically says they have vamp speed and healing, I will err on the side of caution and not be referring to them as hybrids. I went back and rewrote that bit in the last two chapters to fix it. It in no way alters my plotline, so it's not necessary to go read the changed version but feel free if you're interested. I'll be moving forward with correction in mind in this chapter.

"There's too much demon blood in these self-appointed angels," Demon Kitty Rag, Katzenjammer

11

Her Name Meant Death

Back at the wolves den — or former den, anyway — Hayley was reeling from the chemical blast. Her ears were violently ringing and the real noises around her were muffled. She was desperately trying to get her bearings but, not only was her vision blurred and her head spinning violently, she was trying not to pass out from the pain of a dangerous chemical burn searing away at the flesh of her face and her forearms.

Logically, she knew that the burns would heal relatively quickly thanks to her hybrid powers; the pain wouldn't last too long in the scheme of things. Knowing this, she tried to use her heightened senses to tune into what was going on around her. Agonized screams filled the air and the scent of blood was overpoweringly thick.

And amidst all the chaos, one thought pushed forth through the haze, clearer than the rest: Would she still have done this if she hadn't been sure Hope was gone?

Jackson had mentioned Hope's absence the moment Klaus had stepped out of the car. And as much as Hayley truly hated Caroline, she had wanted to believe that she would never do anything to hurt Hope. She had convinced herself that Caroline was too invested in her own safety to risk angering Klaus that way. But she just couldn't be sure.

She couldn't seem to push herself up off the ground. In the distance, through the smoke, she could see her relatively unscathed husband rushing around trying to tend to members of their pack. She knew he would be with her if he'd thought she was terribly hurt but even she could tell, despite the pain, that she was one of the lucky ones. Some of the pack members were almost certainly dead. Someone's leg had ended up near her. No one could survive being blown apart into little bits.

Rolling over onto her side to get a glance on what was going around behind her — that damn ringing in her ears was still discombobulating her enough to prevent standing — and she saw two sets of feet approaching from behind Klaus's overturned car. She recognized the high pointy heels of Caroline's black leather knee-high boots. As the ringing died down in her ears, she could even hear the little bitch laughing about the whole thing.

A strong hand reached down, grabbing her by her upper arm, and wrenched her to her feet. It was Klaus and, he was checking her eyes for any sign of severe damage. She could already feel the burnt skin on her face knitting itself slowly back together.

"You'll be fine," he told her softly and the statement immediately confirmed for her that this had been Caroline's plot alone.

But Hayley was ignoring him, choosing instead to glare behind him at the still smirking blonde. Klaus released his hold on her once he was sure she was steady on her feet. Jackson was still running all over the place trying to decipher who was dead or who was knocked out… which body parts belonged whom.

"You see, Jackson," Klaus began, calling out loudly in a fashion that suggested he was grandstanding, "This is what happens when you cross me. What you think are your strengths, I can use against you. If you try to stockpile weapons against me, I will find them. If you try to train against me, I will kill you. If you attempt to usurp me, I will see to it that you suffer every day for the rest of your life."

Jackson wasn't even facing him, still tending to a wounded friend, but he certainly heard the speech. His shoulders stiffened in anger though he made no reply.

Hayley was maintaining steady, steely eye contact with Caroline. The blonde's smile was only growing as Hayley's glare intensified. She wished she had the power of telepathy at that point. I know it was you, she thought to herself. Klaus would never purposefully put me in danger like this. I'm the mother of his child. And he didn't even know about our weapons stockade; you found it, you goddamn bitch.

"Well, it would appear you all need some time to think over our productive little discussion today," Klaus said while flipping his car back onto its four wheels with a lazy push. "I'll leave you to it then. Hayley, you know where to find me if the pack has any further questions. Ready, Caroline?"

"Let's roll, I'm hungry as hell," she replied, sliding into the sleek car's passenger door. Klaus followed behind her and they were off.

Watching them speed away, Jackson finally approached her.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "After the first explosion I saw you clearing the area."

""I'm fine," she promised, pressing a gentle hand to her face to make sure everything was returning to normal. Jackson was much more hurt than she; he might even develop scars from his injury, she realized.

"Aiden is rounding up everyone who can still walk," Jackson told her. "We estimate only four dead. The whole thing was shoddily and quickly set up. Klaus must have gotten the girl to do it."

"Yes," was all Hayley said in response.

If Klaus wanted to pretend this had partially been his idea, she couldn't reveal the truth yet. He was apparently willing to let Caroline pull this little trick. So, if she angered him further by revealing he actually couldn't control Caroline, who knew what he'd do? He'd be angry, of course. It was one thing to have an emotionless Caroline ignoring his authority; it was another thing entirely to try to win back the respect of an entire pack after they discovered one pretty girl could trick him time and again.

It was a useful bit of information to have, for sure. Especially because Hayley wasn't sure she'd ever be able to entirely trust Klaus. If he turned on her or her pack again in the future, knowing one of Klaus's weaknesses was an incredible advantage. She wasn't willing to give that advantage up quite yet. Not when she thought she knew another way of getting Klaus to come round.

"There's only one thing that could possibly make Klaus come round on threatening the pack," Hayley said, following her husband to the crippled form of one of their pack members. The young woman was passed out, possibly dead. They began to move her into a clearer area of the wood, their small cabin now destroyed.

"Yeah?" he asked, skeptically. "What's that?"

"Caroline," Hayley answered simply.

Jackson would have laughed at her if the situation they found themselves in hadn't been so tragic.

"Hayley, Caroline isn't exactly in any mood to help us," he said. "She clearly helped Klaus set up this whole explosion."

"I know," Hayley said, lying by omission again when she didn't tell him her theory that the whole napalm disaster had been Caroline's fault alone. "That's why we need to make her turn her humanity back on."

Elijah could sense Klaus's anger as soon as he stormed through the door. Klaus had never been one to tone down his emotions. It was easy to tell when he was perturbed, much less outright agitated, like now.

"Klaus? What happened?" Elijah called after his brother as Klaus briskly walked up the stairs, taking two at a time. "Did you see Hayley's pack?" He already knew the answer.

"Did we see them?" Klaus asked from the stairs, not even turning around. "Elijah, we blew the whole pack up!"

"Huh, right," Caroline said behind him, standing next to Elijah in the foyer. "'We' blew them up." She made air quotes around the word "we."

Klaus whirled on her at her tone. "Caroline, you'd do well to curb your cheek for the next while," he spat out at her, his eyes flashing dangerously.

She put her hands up in silent acquiescence but, the moment Klaus had his back turned again, she leaned over to Elijah, whispering, "That's literally impossible."

Of course he heard her. He'd whirled around and vamp sped down the stairs, forcing her hard back into a wall in less than a second, pressing his body dominantly against hers. Caroline's response was to seductively trail her fingers up his chest, knowing that she was probably the only person to ever have annoyed Klaus Mikaelson to this intensely and get away with it.

"See? I knew you weren't too mad," she cooed.

He snatched her wrist, roughly, to stop her touching him, "Caroline, if you do not stop this instant I will snap your neck just to be rid of your insolence for an hour."

"Klaus?" Elijah queried, totally confused, "What on Earth did she do?"

"While I was speaking with the wolves Caroline found a weapons stockade," Klaus explained, finally stepping back from Caroline to face his brother. "She set up three napalm bombs and killed several members of the Crescent Pack. All without letting me in on any of her plans."

Elijah let out a heavy sigh, pressing a hand to his temple. "Well at least she found what we did not know about," he reasoned and, then, asked, "Did we lose anyone important? Is Hayley alright?"

"Hayley is fine," Klaus responded. "And no, the lead pack members escaped the worst of the blasts. The point is, Caroline just thought it a fine idea to pull out the whole production without informing me!"

"I mean, I am a drama major," Caroline inserted, helpfully. "Productions are kinda my thing."

Klaus growled and made a motion to turn towards her again but Elijah intervened, putting a hand up to stop his brother whose eyes were flashing like he almost might hit the girl. Elijah doubted very sincerely that he would but, either way, it would be best if he could keep Caroline from angering Klaus any further.

"Caroline, dear," Elijah began, placatingly, "I think it might be better if you left the compound for the next couple of hours. Do you think you can entertain yourself in The Quarter for awhile? Without stirring up any trouble?"

Caroline's inclination was to be incredibly offended by this patriarchal display but, after glancing at Klaus's still enraged face, she decided Elijah knew what he was talking about. She was well aware that Klaus had a penchant for daggering his siblings for decades at a time. There was no doubt in her mind that, if he were ever to become too upset with her, he could lock her up for centuries at a time.

"Sure," she said with a noncommittal shrug, "You have my number. Call me when… the drama has left the building." She looked at Klaus disdainfully with that last line but still slipped quickly from The Abattoir. Emotions off or not, Caroline knew when to start protecting herself. Considering the surprise she'd suddenly planned earlier that day had gone over so poorly, she wasn't tempted to keep pushing her luck for the time being.

After Caroline had shut the door behind her and Elijah had listened to her retreating footsteps to make sure she was truly gone, he finally faced Klaus again.

"Alright, brother," he said to Klaus, "Could you please outline this for me from the beginning? What happened today?"

Hayley did honestly believe that Caroline, as she had been in Mystic Falls with emotions and morals, would help Klaus to ease up on his pressure over the pack. Caroline had never been one to put up with Klaus's tyrant behavior in the past, anyway. Klaus was clearly head over heels for the girl and had been for some time. If Caroline both had her humanity on and stayed with Klaus, Hayley was almost certain she'd have a positive influence over his behavior. It was obvious that he'd do anything to make her happy and, as distasteful as Hayley found Caroline — humanity intact or not — she knew that the real Caroline would find Klaus's iron-fist ruling mentality unacceptable. If they could make the girl turn her humanity back on, perhaps she could teach Klaus how to rule fairly, instead of out of constant fear.

Besides, as distasteful as Hayley found Caroline, she certainly thought her easier to befriend than Klaus.

But that idea was a pipe dream for the time being. She hadn't a single idea how they could make Caroline turn her emotions back on so, they'd have to cross that bridge later. Right now she was simply dangerous. And it didn't appear to matter what she put Klaus through, he was hell bent on keeping her in the city. After all, the napalm explosions had clearly been Caroline's idea alone but Klaus had been completely content to play it off as if the whole idea had been his. If he was going to let Caroline play games like that, then Hayley was going to have to intervene on her own. And, right now, the only thing that would appeal to Caroline was cold, hard, logic.

Hayley had been milling around the street a few blocks from the compound for over an hour now. For all she knew, Caroline wouldn't even reappear that day and she'd have to try to catch her tomorrow. But then, the blonde appeared around the corner. She was heading from the compound back towards the more highly populated areas of The Quarter. She was still wearing the same clothes from earlier that day. A thin blouse over tight skinny jeans with skin-tight knee-high leather boots. It was an impressive get-up, given how hot it was today. She was finally starting to look more like a local.

Once Caroline had passed out of site, Hayley left her post to follow her. She was moving quickly and Hayley had to follow her scent to keep track of her. She could see why Marcel's Army had had such a hard time finding her the day she'd absconded to Atlanta for the afternoon. Caroline knew how to keep herself hidden, even obscuring her scent by bobbing in and out of particularly thick groups of tourists of the street.

For a moment, Hayley had thought she'd lost her. She turned another corner, hoping to catch the scent again, when she almost walked right into Caroline herself.

Caroline didn't move a muscle. She was staring at Hayley from beneath dark sunglasses, arms akimbo.

"Why are you following me?" she demanded, shortly.

"I was trying to find you," Hayley replied. "We need to talk."

"About what?" Caroline asked. "If you have an issue with what happened back in the woods today, take it up with Klaus."

I think we both know I can't do that, Hayley thought to herself, Since it wasn't his plan. But she didn't want to reveal that she knew this information quite yet.

"It's not about that," Hayley responded. It wouldn't have done any good to talk to Caroline about that stunt anyway.

"Then what?" Caroline spat, still highly suspicious.

"Can we just sit down somewhere to talk?" Hayley asked, frustrated. "Trust me, it's in both of our best interests."

Caroline rolled her eyes and sighed but nodded, turning around to lead Hayley into a bar a block up. They grabbed a table away from the main bar and Hayley accepted one of the beers that Caroline flagged down for the two of them.

After taking a hefty swig, Caroline finally gave Hayley her attention, "So? Talk."

"Caroline, we need to reach some sort of truce while you're here," she began.

"Oh? Do we?" Caroline asked. "I have to admit, I feel like you're only saying that because I've screwed you over — What is it? Three times — since I've arrived. You haven't leveled any damage to me, Wolf-Bitch. I see no reason for a truce."

Hayley prickled at being called Wolf-Bitch but she tried to shove aside the insult. Caroline was just trying to goad her into a fight.

"The only reason I haven't retaliated against you is because I'm the only one of the two of us, right now, with enough emotion to feel fear and, thus, common sense," she spat back. "My humanity isn't gone, which means I have the common sense to be realize it's a dangerous move to attempt to hurt Klaus's little harlot."

"Please Hayley," Caroline scoffed. "Tone down the fucking Mother Theresa act, why don't you? I'm not the one who had a baby out of wedlock with a guy you've frequently professed to dislike in the past."

"Professed to dislike in the past?" Hayley asked, enraged. "Check your hypocrisy at the door, Caroline."

"Responding to my insult with the same insult?" Caroline asked. "Sounds an awful lot like projection. But, my bad, that's a psychological term. I guess I can't expect someone who didn't even graduate high school to know what it means."

Hayley slammed a fist on the table after that particular jab, her lack of education always being a particularly sore spot for her. But she took a second to compose herself while Caroline snickered at her reaction.

"Look, Caroline," Hayley said with a heavy sigh, "I didn't find you because I wanted us to bitch at each other."

"Oh no…" Caroline replied with fake wide eyes, as if she was just now realizing something important.

"What?" Hayley asked, confused by her reaction.

"You're not here to tell me that you've secretly been in love with me this whole time, are you?" she asked. "Pulling a girl's pigtails when you like her sort-of-thing?"

Hayley rolled her eyes, "Would you please shut up and just hear me out!" she yelled more than asked. Caroline just continued to laugh so Hayley pressed ahead, "There are some basic facts we need to acknowledge. I am the mother of Klaus's daughter. He's not going to get rid of me or overlook it if you try to. But he's obviously not going to get rid of you either."

Caroline, finally settling down from her laughing fit, nodded while she considered Hayley's words, "Okay, that's all true. I'm with you so far."

"So if we're both her to stay," Hayley continued, "What good does it do us to keep needlessly hurting one another?"

"Well," Caroline responded, immediately, without even needing to think, "First of all, I'm not getting hurt. You're the only one that's been smarting since I decided to come here. Second of all, you have limits to your retaliation against me. Maybe it's because you still have your humanity and I don't. Maybe it's just because you're more scared of Klaus than I am. Either way, you apparently have a lot more to lose than I do."

Hayley ran her fingers through her hair, frustrated. She had known Caroline to be a worthy intellectual opponent in the past — her quick thinking was far more intimidating than her rather limited baby vampire strength — but, without her humanity, she was nothing but quick and calculated thinking.

"Say you're right," Hayley acquiesced, trying a new method. "Say Klaus would let you do whatever you wanted without killing you. There are definitely things you could still do to make him lash out… make him banish you?" She let the question hang.

"You mean from New Orleans?" Caroline asked, quirking an eyebrow suspiciously at the brunette.

"You like it here, don't you?" Hayley asked. "You want to stay here, right?"

Caroline didn't answer. She was still staring the wolf down hard, wondering what she was playing at.

"I think I can help you make that happen, Caroline," Hayley said, holding her stare, unblinking. And then, unknowingly, she voiced Caroline's greatest fear. "And don't underestimate Klaus just because he has a thing for you. Sometimes having Klaus care about you can be the biggest danger itself. If you ever really upset him, he could easily lock you up and throw away the key. Who's to say he hasn't thought about it already?"

Caroline's jaw clenched at the suggestion. It wouldn't have affected her so much if she hadn't literally thought the very same thing right before she'd left the compound. Hayley was right; she was a part of Klaus's life now and he may very well even consider the wolf part of his family. All of these thoughts were just furthering her resolve to ultimately leave the city, despite how much she loved it there. But she couldn't just do that again out of the blue; he'd caught her too easily in Atlanta. No, her next escape would take better planning and, until she was actually able to leave, she'd have to tone down her game. She most certainly didn't want to be locked up and left to desiccate until Klaus decided to forgive her.

"Alright," Caroline conceded. "You're not wrong. What kind of truce are you suggesting."

Hayley smiled, taking an easy sip of her beer. So, she had been right. Logic was the only way to reach Caroline these days. That and playing off her current selfish nature, of course.

It was easy to understand why Klaus was so angry. For once his reaction didn't even seem overblown. Elijah himself had to consciously keep a cool head during the story.

"My god," he said when Klaus had finished. "What if Hope had been there?"

Klaus's eyes flashed dangerously, indicating the topic was not up for further discussion, "Jackson mentioned she was with Rebekah well before Caroline began setting anything up." It was clear this was the finite conclusion to that point of the conversation. Klaus wasn't willing to consider that Caroline would have gone through with it had Hope been there.

"Does the pack know?" Elijah asked, "That the whole thing was her plan."

"No, I told them it was mine," Klaus said. "I played it off like I had known they had a weapons stockade the whole time."

"Are you sure?" Elijah pressed, "No one suspected anything?"

"I think Hayley knew," Klaus admitted. "But she didn't say anything."

The two brothers stood in silence for a moment; neither knew quite how to progress. Finally, Elijah broke their thoughts.

"What are you going to do with her?" he asked. Klaus didn't acknowledge the question right away so Elijah continued, "Caroline can't very well get away with planting napalm bombs out of the blue, Klaus. If you turn a blind eye to this, who knows what she'll attempt next?"

"I am aware of that, Elijah," Klaus spat out in a rage. Pacing furiously around the courtyard in the compound. The truth was, he didn't have a clue how to get the girl under control.

Just then, they heard the front door bang open in the foyer and then slam shut. Through the doors into the courtyard in front of them, they saw Caroline reenter the building. Elijah nodded toward her form with a pointed glance directed towards Klaus. Now's your chance.

Still not knowing quite what he planned to do, Klaus stormed out of the courtyard and after her. She was headed up the stairs towards her room.

"Caroline!" he shouted after her. "If you think you can pull a stunt like that and then waltz back in here as if you own the place-"

Caroline whirled around the face him, only halfway up the stairs, "Klaus, you're right, I'm sorry."

He stopped his tirade almost instantly, genuinely surprised by what she was saying.

"Well, as sorry as I can be, anyway," she continued. "Which, granted, isn't much. But I get that blowing up your wolfpack out of nowhere doesn't exactly fall under your 'decent guest' claus. If that's still the rule for my staying here, I won't do anything like that again."

Elijah had joined him at the foot of the stares. Klaus could feel him staring both of them down with unblinking and judgemental eyes.

"See that you don't," Klaus growled out at her in a threatening tone that would have had most people running for their lives, "Or there will be more for you to regret than losing your place in this house."

Caroline didn't respond. She just held his gaze long enough for him to know she'd taken in his meaning. Then she continued her journey up the stairs and into the bedroom, slamming her door and locking it behind her with a resounding click.

"Bravo, Klaus," Elijah said, both sarcastically and disappointedly. "We can certainly trust her now."

Klaus stormed off, heading to the kitchen to pull out some bourbon. He called back to Elijah as he did, "We just have to keep a closer eye on her. She is not to leave this house without our eyes on her."

Easier said than done, apparently, he found out the very next morning. This time, Klaus woke with a post-it on his forehead, a feat he couldn't even fathom how she'd managed to carry through without waking him. He peeled the paper off of him to read: Going for muffuletta, be back later.

Infuriated, he lept from the bed and wrenched his door open, screaming out into the hall as he did, "Elijah!" He continued down the hall, not bothering to knock on his brother's door when he got there.

"Elijah, Caroline has left again!" he raged, only becoming angrier once he saw his brother was awake, Gia laying in his arms while he read the paper. "You're awake?"

"Thank you for knocking, Klaus," Elijah said, drolly. "You have always had such a deep respect for personal boundaries, haven't you?"

"Now is not the time for your sarcasm, Elijah," he replied. "While you have had a woman distracting your thoughts, Caroline has managed to slip past us without notice yet again."

"Yeah and, maybe, if she'd been distracting your thoughts," Gia said, jumping in, "She'd still be here right now."

Klaus's eyes flashed at the young vampire's insolence. He had half a mind to leave her with a nasty bite right then and there but, luckily, Elijah redirected his attention.

"Distracted as I might have been, she managed to escape your notice too, Klaus," he said. "So let's get to work finding her before she can do anymore damage."

Not wanting to chance Klaus's wrath so soon after the napalm explosions, particularly after the previous day's discussion with Hayley, so Caroline really had left to go get a muffuletta. She'd headed just a few blocks away to the famous Central Grocery which, apparently, made the best version of the classic sandwich. She supposed she could have waited a few extra minutes to wait for Klaus to wake. She even could have gotten him up herself.

The truth was, no amount of fear mongering from Hayley could quell Caroline's restlessness. Ever since she'd switched her emotions off, she had felt the near constant urge to stay on the move or to be doing something new. Her life was nothing but a selfish pursuit for pleasure anymore and, as such, the only thing she ever felt was to be experiencing new things. She'd never had the opportunity to live that way in the past. She was always thinking about others instead.

The line outside of Central Grocery was already long, even before noon. Caroline compelled her way further up the line but ultimately stopped to wait it out. The day was warm and the people surrounding her were interesting. She couldn't think of anywhere she'd rather be.

But within twenty minutes of being in line, she felt the air stir restlessly around her. Vampires she recognized from Marcel's were surrounding the area, not even hiding the fact that they were watching her. Many of them were even filtering their way through the line, encroaching on her personal space. She resisted the very strong urge to speed out and snap some necks; it would just cause a scene and maybe get her in more trouble with Klaus.

And speak of the devil… suddenly he was beside her. He slid a possessive arm around her waist to grip her tightly, holding her into him with almost uncomfortable force.

"Morning, love," he whispered into her ear in a dark tone. "I thought I'd join you for breakfast."

So this is how it's gonna be now, she thought to herself.

This was no longer fun. She was going to need to work on a way out.

Important! Beta Request! - So the error that meruhime pointed out about last chapter is the second major canon error I've had in this fic. (The first was pointed out by elisalolo6120 about chapter 7). Honestly, trying to keep plots of both TVD and TO in mind, when both shows have a million major plots and subplots, I trip up pretty frequently even when I try to do my research to double check everything. So, I am in search of a beta! Anyone that's interested, please let me know in the comments and provide me some way to contact you if you're not logged into the site. I'd like to ask anyone potentially interested a few questions to make sure we'd be a good fit. If no one here is interested, I'll go through the site's beta pages but, your incentive is… getting to read chapters first and getting to virtually crack the whip on me like a workhorse!