Beta: T. …who is not an interior decorator, for those moments when you're thinking… "Gee she has great writing, it must be the beta, and my I really need to redecorate." Sad to say, don't call her. Then again if it comes down to her decorating your place or me, pick her…..
Klaus sat in the booth for almost a full five minutes before realizing that a newly made vampire just stunned him so completely that he was both speechless and frozen on the spot.
"Well, this just won't do." He berated himself as he stood up and paid for his tab. He then promptly compelled the first person he saw into giving him the vampire in question, Miss Forbes, address and full name.
After a quick detour to a florist on the way (and the acquisition of one bear of the teddy variety) he arrived at the Forbes residence and rang the doorbell.
Less than a moment later he saw the curtains in front of the door move and a stunning pair of eyes graced his line of sight.
Smiling just a bit, he held up the bear so she could see it. His smile fell when the lady, not only refused to open the door, but, unless his ears deceived him, went back into the house pointedly ignoring his efforts at graciously winning her affections.
"I can't say this has ever happened to me before." Klaus stated puzzled and immensely glad that Caroline didn't have immediate neighbors to witness his downfall.
He made his way to the side of her house where her scent was more tantalizing and called to her. "Open up your window sweet Caroline, I have something to say to you." He crooned to her through the closed window.
"Well that's just too bad." She spits. "Since the last time I checked my mom doesn't let me speak to rude men who force themselves on other people."
"Still on that Love?" Klaus deflected "I was hoping you had forgotten about that one. "
Caroline snorts derisively. "Why, Love? Did you forget to compel me to FORGET that part too?"
"I'm sensing you are misjudging my character in your angry haste." Funny how, even after being around for 1000 years, Klaus still had no idea how to deal with women without using brute force or vampire tricks.
That was crystal clear to Caroline.
"Look, you want to know more about Elena than her boyfriend does. I get that, but there is no way that you are interested in romantically. And since she looks like a double of the queen bitch that turned me, I'm guessing that you want to hurt my friend. So go away!"
"Katherine turned you? I knew she had been back to Mystic Falls recently, but I hadn't been informed that anyone had been turned." He replied sounding taken aback and that caught Caroline's attention.
She came to the window and opened it, grabbing a chair and sitting in it to chat with him. "I was in a car when the driver crashed into a tree. I was bleeding into my brain when Damon gave me some blood because Elena asked him to. I woke up to Katherine smothering me with a pillow... I was confused because she looked like Elena. When I woke up, I was a vampire… Instinctively I grabbed the first blood bag I could find, it happened to be attached to my arm, I turned. That was a few months ago."
Klaus listened with rapt attention in stunned silence, able to see the pain, yet unable to help ease it for her. He wanted to; dearly.
This girl was different, he could tell. The situation was certainly not typical. If an onlooker came upon them they would see an emotionally fragile young woman on the cusp of womanhood and a charismatic man who appeared to be in his thirty's, yet had never learned to take disappointment well.
Klaus was used to getting things his way in most cases.
Surely they were not meant to be.
-SOME TIME LATER-
"I hate how you use people so easily, like they mean nothing to you." Caroline's voice broke at the end from pain. "Like they mean nothing to you."
"They don't mean a thing, you're absolutely right. They are tools to be used and discarded when no longer useful."
"See that's what I mean!" Caroline screams. "I choose not to treat anyone like that! I've been used by guys before. I LET them use me and I thought that it was okay. After being used as an object for long enough you start to feel like nothing. Like your worth is lessened because someone else thinks you are worth less and so you believe that too. No one that is mentally healthy likes to be used."
Klaus sits in silence letting her words wash over him. After so long, habits were notoriously hard to break, but the pain he saw in her eyes, the heartache in her voice, made him want to try. By all accounts, it shouldn't matter, but to Klaus, what and how Caroline felt mattered. She tugged at the heartstrings of his dead heart in a way he wanted to resent, but couldn't.
"That's why I won't let you in." Caroline stood firm. "Because I was once one of those people that were used carelessly and treated as a mere convenience. I won't allow myself to be that person again. When I woke up as a vampire, being wanted and being used, suddenly, wasn't all that important to me. Nothing mattered like it used to."
"That feeling that you are describing, I remember it still." Klaus reminisces.
"It was terrifying and freeing at the same time. I realized that you have to know yourself and have that truth in yourself, to have the respect for yourself. My morals weren't firm, and it took time to learn where I stood on many things between the old me and the new me. What I was willing to do and for what reasons…"
"I can see that you care about doing what you feel is the right thing because you were treated poorly as a human." Klaus murmured.
"Yes." She replied.
"Your choice matters to you because you once let your choice be taken away from you… Yet here I come into your life forcing you to betray Elena. Removing your possibility to choose, and then I try forcing myself into your home. This explains why you dislike me. If I were in your place I would hate me." His unwavering gaze stays on her as he makes his own form of apology. "Tell me this little one, if you had the opportunity for limitless power would you let someone interfere with your heart to the point where you don't realize that dream?"
"I can't answer that." Caroline starts. "I'm not you Klaus, I haven't lived for as long as you have. I haven't ever been truly alone like you. You want me to put myself where you are coming from but I can't do that. The person you want to hurt in order to gain this power is one of my best friends. She's the one I played with since we were still in diapers. She's not a faceless, nameless stranger to me, I love her…"
"She's one of my dearest friends, my Elena. This one time, in first grade, I was being teased because my dad had just left my mom since he couldn't deny being gay anymore. I was bawling my eyes out and Elena, who had always been this sweet and a little shy girl, went and stood between us, punched the dude in the face and threw him in the sand box." Caroline smiled at the memory "Another time, this boy named Timmy, made her laugh so hard she peed her pants. It took me 30 minutes to get her out of the stall in the girl's bathroom. I had to give up my cute tights for her so that no one would know that she wet herself, I was a fashion lover even then, I always had backup outfits…drove my Mom crazy. So she is one of my BEST friends and that loyalty isn't bought or sold Klaus. She earned it. My Dad left my Mom when I was seven because he was gay, to this day it is one of the biggest scandals that has happened to Mystic Falls since the 1864 vampire thing. Bonnie and Elena were my only real friends when it happened. It wasn't until Junior High until I became popular again! They were the only ones that didn't give in and ignore me when I needed them the most. I used to be weak, they stood by me and supported me until I was stronger. I wouldn't respect myself if I didn't stand up for Elena. I already slept with Stefan, and it's one of my more shameful moments because I didn't want to hurt my best friend… I love her."
"I can respect that about you, even as that annoys me." Klaus smiles. "I like you Caroline. I like you in a way that I haven't felt in ages. I admire your strength, courage and your principles. All the things I know about you draw me to you, but at the same time, I have wanted this power for longer than you can imagine and I am VERY close to getting what I have wanted for so long."
Caroline nods. "I get it, but what would you do with that power? Will it make you happy?"
"How could I NOT be happy once I realize by birthright?" Klaus asks stunned.
"Being a vampire gives me power, getting free drinks at the grill and not being carded at out of town dance clubs makes me happy. Feeding from scum who want to rape me thinking I'm a weak girl makes me feel good, but my friends and family, the one's I love, if they aren't happy then I'm not as happy. So I guess what I'm asking, is how will more power make you happy?"
"I can't say that I've ever thought of it in those terms. I would be truly invincible. Is that not reason enough to want it?"
"Your freaking powerful enough to compel a vampire. I'm gonna guess you're pretty invincible already. Does being practically unstoppable make you happy?"
"Well I suppose it comes in handy at times, but no, it won't necessarily guarantee happiness." Klaus reflects. "I don't remember the last time I was happy. Well that's not true, I was happy earlier when you started talking about yourself as I was requesting Miss Gilbert's life history."
"You compelled me Klaus, that's not true happiness. Plus, that's rape, it may not be my body, but it's an invasion all the same." Caroline spit out, her face tense and her words intending to cut.
Caroline begins. "So, you like me, a lot, possibly more than any you've liked anyone in a long time. But if I let you in, you'd still hurt Elena in the end and if you hurt Elena I would never forgive you or myself. Sure you could compel me, but it's not real when you have to compel someone. I think that would bother you eventually. So, if you want me, if you truly want a shot at being with me, then you can't hurt ever Elena. I could never be with someone who hurts someone I love."
"I know Love. You've given me some things to think about." Klaus sighs. "I now understand better how you feel. How about I come over tomorrow? Would that be acceptable?"
"I can meet you at the park. Say 1ish?" Caroline counters.
"You won't let me in your home, why?" Klaus asks.
"Because that would mean you're welcome, and you're not welcome in my home where I sleep, where my Mom sleeps so long as you want to hurt someone I consider family.
"Of all the acts I've done, the horrible deeds, murder included, you exclude me because I want to hurt the doppelganger?" He asks taken aback.
"I'm strange like that, I know. I don't judge people on who they were, or the things they've done in their life. I base my relationships on who they are now as a person, whether you're a hundred fifty or a thousand five hundred. No one hurts the people I love and gets away with it. Not even you Klaus. Really frick'n old vampire or not, no one hurts the one's I love."
"Original." Klaus adds.
"What?"
"I said I am the original vampire. Not just 'frick'n old'" He smiles as he says it.
"Well then, kicking your ass if you try hurting Elena might be a little more challenging." Caroline says bravely.
Klaus's eyes become dark with heat, her defiance arousing him.
"You surprise me. " Caroline says.
"Why?" Klaus asks.
"Because everything I know about you leads me to believe that you really like getting your way, and are used to it."
"That would be because I'm in the habit of getting everything I desire, when I want it and how I want it. To be honest, it is a centuries old habit. You'll find that, after a few decades, you tend to get into a dirge habit wise and it becomes bloody murder, pardon my phrasing, to break them."
"I can bet. I wake up every morning vampire perfect, and I still wear makeup and check the mirror no less than 6 times before leaving. Habits are a bitch to break. And vampires can have OCD, I'm proof." She begins to giggle at herself.
Klaus stares at her thoughtfully, never sharing his thoughts but the expressions passing on his face tell a story of desire, passion and raw want.
"So let me ask you this, sweet Caroline, why do you reject my advances? I know you find me handsome."
"Cocky much?" She quips "If looks were all, you would win hands down." She smiles.
"But looks are not all, I take?" He asks.
"No." She says. "The old me sure, but that's not me anymore, so it's not enough to be devilishly handsome. "
"When did you change? When you become a vampire, very few character parts change in you. One's true self remains the same."
"Most people I've met who turned into vampires seem to change for the worse. They turn more selfish and become reckless, is like their flaws as humans become accentuated. For me, it was almost like finding my true self. I know who I am, I always have. I just didn't have the courage to BE me. So I hid behind the blond stereotype and pretended I was clueless. I was a cheerleader, no one expected me to be smart, but I have an honor roll gpa. So clearly I'm not stupid. I know what you're after, I understand how tempting being invincible is to you. But I want to offer something you might like more than power in the end."
"What would that be love?" Klaus asks.
"ME."