"I'm going out." Caroline said from the lobby before leaving the mansion, she waited for someone to react to it but everyone seemed busy and happily elsewhere.
"Wait!" Rebekah yelled closing the door behind her and running to catch up to Caroline by the car.
Caroline squinted at the other blonde wearing a side-braid today.
"I'm going with you." Rebekah walked around the car.
Caroline sighed inwardly before she got inside of Klaus' shiny black car. "I'm going to Stefan's, why are you going with me?" she looked at Rebekah for an answer.
Rebekah rolled her eyes. "I'm crawling up the walls, it seems like we haven't actually stepped outside of this house for weeks."
"I know Bekah, but it's not entirely safe to be out alone right now." Caroline slowly drove away.
"And yet here you are, escaping the golden prison and no one seems to be stopping you, not even Nik."
Caroline chuckled. "Like he could keep me inside against my will."
Rebekah tilted her head. "Why are you meeting Stefan anyway?"
"He wanted to talk to me in person and well... I offered to go because I couldn't stand to be inside yet another day, this entire house arrest is driving me up the walls as well." she confessed.
Rebekah smiled victoriously while Caroline started to speed down the road that lead to the Salvatore manor.
They parked behind Damon's blue Camaro and headed straight to the house, once inside Caroline called for the younger Salvatore brother who met them by the door.
"Hey Caroline, thanks for coming." he said with a smile.
"It's ok, I could use the change of scenery." she smiled with a look at Rebekah. "She tagged along for the same reasons..."
Stefan nodded with a small glance at Rebekah as well. "I'm sorry about Matt."
Rebekah decided not to react verbally, she just left the lobby and walked into the living room annoyed.
"Wow, blonde and blonder." Damon joked as they all started to show up. "And blondie." He winked at Rebekah.
Rebekah settled her eyes on Katherine who was sitting at the sofa.
"So what's this all about?" Caroline asked Stefan.
He stood in the middle of the living room with his arms crossed and a heavy expression. "Damon is going over to Denver to see Jeremy."
Caroline felt a strange knot in her stomach, she had forgotten all about Elena's brother. "He doesn't know about Matt yet..." she added sad.
"No he doesn't and although someone should tell him it shouldn't be over the phone." Stefan replied.
"But wait, why did you have to talk to me about this? And where is Elena?" Caroline asked with a look around.
Stefan pressed his lips.
"Elena is at home and she doesn't know that I'm going to Denver." Damon answered for him.
"Why not?" Caroline squinted at Damon.
He fought with the drink in his hand and uneasily gulped down what he already sipped.
"Damon believes that Elena isn't well." Stefan said.
"Define well." Caroline lingered on the word.
Damon eased his jaw and drank the rest of his bourbon straight up. "She's either possessed or she's not herself right now, as if someone else is in there."
Caroline half-laughed at first but then actually let out an amused laughter. "Oh God... you lost it Damon."
He opened his arms with a telling look at Stefan. "I knew that telling her was a bad idea."
"She's Elena's friend and if there's something wrong with her, she has the right to know." Stefan answered back sternly.
"Whatever." Damon heavily dropped the glass on the table before he left the room fast.
"I'm going to ask Damon to leave me at The Grill." Rebekah quickly left after him.
"Bekah!" Caroline called apprehensively.
"Don't worry C, I'll be home before you know it." she closed the door in a hurry.
Caroline focused on Stefan. "Ok, what's with the crazy talk?"
Although he pretended not to listen to her Rebekah kept calling him, she cursed loudly but swiftly reached the car and leaped inside before Damon drove away.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked her annoyed.
"I'm accompanying you on your road trip." she smiled smugly at him.
"The hell you are. Get out of my car." he demanded.
Rebekah crossed her arms still smiling. "You can use the company and I can use the getaway."
"Music car is company, you are an extra weight that I don't want."
"I believe you." she simply said.
Damon frowned in response.
"At least I believe that you believe something is wrong with Elena, I can tell that you are not lying about that." she told him serious.
Damon shook his head while starting the car. "This is such a bad idea that it might actually be what we both need."
"Why do you say that she's different?" Caroline asked with a hand circling the air.
"Damon says that she's been acting cold and indifferent and that she didn't even react to Matt's death." Stefan explained.
"She's probably in shock, they were a couple before her parents died and it's normal that she acts strange, I mean, Rebekah loved him and she's acting out."
"Damon is convinced that she's not Elena."
"This is insane. I know that we have a lot of supernatural stuff going on and that even you were abducted but this is a little too much."
Katherine sighed loudly calling attention to herself. "Elena suddenly turned into the Ice-Queen in the bedroom and like Damon I think that she's off the normality wagon."
Stefan reproached her before he looked at Caroline who was giving the other vampire a disgusted look as well.
"I love you Stefan and you're really hot and all but Damon is Damon now she's giving him the cold shoulder." she added coolly.
Caroline had enough of this. "Look, I'm going over to Elena's. She probably just needs a good friend and I know that we haven't been on the same page lately but it's my turn to make the first move."
Stefan nodded. "You're right. I would go myself but... things have been really hard between us. She's not comfortable trusting me the way that she used to."
Caroline smiled kindly at her friend. "Well, I'm going over to see her and you're going with me because I won't have this silly thing between the two of you anymore and that wasn't a suggestion so I'm waiting in the car." she determinedly left the house.
She reached for her phone on the way to the car and dialed Rebekah's number, it wasn't a huge shock that she was left with a voice mail message. "B? Call me as soon as you hear this, if I get home and you aren't there… I swear to God that I will kick your blonde ass back to the Viking Age." she ended the call while bitting her bottom lip, that was if Klaus didn't kick hers for momentarily misplacing his sister.
Klaus handed Elijah a drink with a warm look on his face and waited patiently for his move.
Elijah took a sip from the drink before opening up. "She has made her choice, I will respect that above all." he somberly said.
Klaus held his drink and his chin with the same hand, a finger soberly above his lip and the other on his cheek bone as he spoke. "It is ultimately up to the lady."
Elijah nodded and leaned back on the sofa, he adjusted the pillows in there before carrying on. "At least until Kol ruins everything on his end."
Klaus smiled at Elijah's petty jealous fit. "I seriously didn't foreshadowed the teenager angst Elijah."
He returned the smile. "Not all of us are lucky enough to find a soul mate who accepts us unconditionally. Some of us actually have to endure heartache and rejection."
Klaus pursed his lips, fair enough. "But I did try to warn you that Kol had feelings for her as well. And it's not like all is rainbows and unicorns between Caroline and I. She is strongly opinionated, an unmoving force when she wants something done her way and I never win a fight with her."
"When are you planning on making Caroline an honest woman Niklaus?" Elijah asked suddenly.
"We were talking about you." Klaus returned to his drink.
Elijah gave Klaus a look, he needed more than that.
With a bit of an awkward smile he came clean. "I can't ask her now, not when we have yet another war at hands and her friends dropping like flies. I could come across as a tad insensitive."
Elijah laughed richly. "Still there are plans for it?"
"Most definitely!" Klaus exclaimed appalled. "Italy was meant to have ended on a very different note." he added gloomily.
"I see..." Elijah ran a hand through his hair. "And as we are speaking about notes, I need to apologize to Bonnie, I was rude to her about her choice."
Klaus leaned forward. "I'm not taking any sides here, you and Kol are both my brothers and with us, it will always be family first and foremost. This is something that needs to be resolved between the three of you."
Elijah nodded agreeing, in the end it all came down to that.
Rebekah checked her phone, there were three missed calls from Caroline and a voice message, she listened to the stress in her friend's voice and smiled, she would be in trouble but she couldn't bring herself to care about it now.
She was done with her phone and turned the volume of the radio up, some old rock and roll song made her think of everything that really didn't matter, anything was better than thinking about Matt's deep blue eyes or the little scar that he had on his upper lip, she wrapped her hands around herself, the images were surfacing again even when she tried to keep them away.
Damon moved his hand towards the back seat and grabbed his black leather jacket to hand it to Rebekah, when she looked at him surprised he explained. "You look cold." he returned his eyes to the road. "And weirder than my offering is the fact that it's a bit mind juggling that you are human now Bex."
Choosing not to tackle that now Rebekah focused on the song playing on the radio. "I never really got this song." she quietly said. "What's some random hotel in California have to do with stabbing monsters and checking out but never being able to leave?" she asked with a glance at the landscape view.
Damon grimaced. "It's probably a song reference to vampires... do you miss it, being a vampire?" he asked her curious.
Rebekah shrugged. "I don't have the ability to miss anything else but Matt right now."
Damon tapped his finger against the leather on the wheel. "I should have gotten there sooner, if I had left The Grill sooner maybe I could have done something..."
Rebekah smiled taken by his honesty and took advantage of it to get some candid answers from him. "Why are we really on the road to see Jeremy?"
Damon chuckled, Rebekah was ever the smart one. "I want to find out which of your brothers had a saying in the Salvatore line."
Rebekah smirked. "What makes you so sure it wasn't me?"
"There's no chance in hell that I came from you, I'm not dead and you are human now." He pointed out with a lift of his eyebrows.
"Bonnie saved my lineage before she made the spell to bring Caroline back." she explained. "You could very well descend directly from me Damon."
"I intend to ask Rose that, she had a thing for me and she won't lie about it." he replied cocky.
Rebekah rolled her eyes. "Why not just ask us, eye to eye and all?"
Damon laughed with a look at her. "Hell will freeze over before I ask any of you for something and you would probably just string me along anyway."
"And people say that I have trust issues..." Rebekah closed the leather jacket to feel warmer inside of it.
"How is this Katherine thing working out for you? I mean, she seems really comfortable living in your house." Caroline asked Stefan as they reached Elena's house.
Stefan rubbed his forehead. "She's literally driving me up the walls, that's what I do when she tries to aggressively seduce me."
"After all this time, do you still feel anything for her?"
The question was rather simple but Stefan really didn't have a simple answer for Caroline. "She still feels something for me."
Caroline chuckled. "That's not what I asked Stefan but we are vampires so it's understandable to stay in love for so long."
"I'm not Damon, he's the one who never really got over her."
Caroline knocked on Elena's front door. "I think that you and Damon never really fell out of love for Katherine or Elena and I'm not sure you ever will."
"No one is able to love two women at the same time and in the same way."
"It's not the same thing, they both were important in different ways and in different periods of your life."
"You really are rather wise, aren't you? What happens is just that you hide behind all that natural glow of life and joy to fool us all."
"Well, occasionally I do let someone see right through me." she frowned a bit because Elena wasn't coming to the door.
Stefan shared her concern and opened the door.
"Elena?" Caroline called once inside of the house.
There was no answer and Stefan focused on what he found in the lobby. "Her keys are on the table along with her bag."
Caroline neared the staircase. "Elena, are you in your room?"
"I'll check it." Stefan rushed up the staircase.
Caroline walked slowly to the kitchen, it was empty and unusually clean like it hadn't been used in days, she picked up her phone to press the first number on her speed dial.
"Where are you sweetheart and where have you taken my car?" Klaus asked trying to come off very annoyed.
Caroline smiled. "I'm with Stefan, we came to check on Elena but she isn't home."
"Is there something wrong Caroline?" he asked hinting at the tension already forming inside of him.
"There's no need to go into worried mood just yet Nik." she said sweetly but felt the need to agree with him at least on something. "It's just weird to find Elena's house so untouched, it's like she's not even living here at the moment."
"I'm coming to get you."
"You don't have to, I'm sure that it's just my mind working overtime because of the crazy stuff happening in Mystic Falls lately."
"That's precisely why you shouldn't be out alone."
She moved her head to the sides trying not to roll her eyes while at it. "I'm not alone, I'm with Stefan." The dry laughter from the other side made her smile.
"Should I be less worried because you are driving around with the slightest less crazier brother? I trusted him when he was collecting heads but I don't trust your safety with anyone, much less with the now bunny-eating Salvatore."
"That's just…" she narrowed her eyes when she heard a strange noise coming from the stairs.
"Caroline?"
"There's someone else inside of the house..." she whispered.
Inside of the Gilbert's kitchen Klaus rested one knee on the floor and picked up Caroline's phone, he wrapped his hand around it with anger, she had been taken and he was right on the other side of the line listening as she dropped her phone during the fight, he very rarely felt the bitter taste of being powerless and he hated that he lately had to experience it so much, moreover because it always seemed to be connected to his sweet Caroline.
"They took Stefan as well and I'm guessing that Elena was taken before that." Kol joined Klaus in the kitchen.
Klaus poked a stain of blood, his brave Caroline had put up a fight and they had maybe stabbed her or even used some other weapon.
Oh the heads that would roll.
"What the hell could they want with Stefan? I get that they are after this family but Stefan?" Bonnie asked as she stormed inside of the kitchen.
"Whoever it is, is dead." Klaus stated. "I need you to find out where Caroline is."
Bonnie nodded and waved the map that she was holding. "I'm already ahead of you." she cleared the kitchen table and opened the Mystic Falls' map that Elena kept from her father.
Klaus picked up a knife and sliced his palm without a single flinch, he dropped the blood on the map and as soon as Bonnie started with her mantra the blood moved towards a small spot.
"That's the old prison, it was abandoned years ago but it's still standing." Bonnie looked at Klaus troubled. "It's also the perfect place to torture someone because there's nothing around it."
"Should I go with you?" Kol asked him carefully.
"No, I'm going alone." Klaus answered in a low pitch.
"This is probably an ambush." Kol ventured once again.
"I will be home soon with Caroline." Klaus turned his back on them without delay.
"Okay…" Bonnie folded the map quietly.
"How are you after that spell?" Kol asked her.
"I'm fine, it will take a lot more to hurt me now." Bonnie kept her eyes on the table.
"If I get hurt physically, would you feel it as well?"
Bonnie looked at him with a pause in her speech. "I don't know, I never did this before but I'm pretty sure that you would have to be on the verge of dying to actually affect me. Still, the scribbling from the spell that I used was a tiny bit vague on that so I can't really tell."
"I'll certainly try to keep that in mind the next time that one of you uses me, yet again, as a spell utensil." Kol snapped but with a smile.
"Well I know that I will try to stay alive so that nothing happens to you because if I do get hurt massively, you will feel it." she walked away with a smirk.
"That would be nice of you darling, thank you." he countered back snappy.
"You didn't have to be here Elijah." Klaus closed the door of his car slightly upset that he had a sidekick.
Elijah calmly pulled his sleeves up and neatly started folding them as he spoke. "What kind of a brother would I be if I allowed you to come into battle alone?"
Klaus smiled coldly at him. "The kind that would let me deal with my assassinations alone."
He lowered his head the tiniest inch. "I won't kill whoever dared to do this, I'm leaving all the honors to you."
"I'm beginning to unravel the criminal mind behind this atrocity, I'm just not sure who is holding the reigns on him."
"You mean Tyler?" Elijah asked while he started on his other sleeve.
"He's not that smart to put together all of this, they have always been a step ahead of us as if they had eyes inside of our house…" He shook his head. "But then again going after Rebekah was random and taking Caroline now has no real practical effect on their ambitions. No… this particular move was just done out of spite, this was Tyler."
"We won't find him in here." Elijah said.
"Are you done folding your clothes? I'd like to go get my girl back, today if possible." Klaus asked impatiently.
Elijah opened his arms. "I didn't want to smear my white shirt with blood."
Klaus rolled his eyes deciding to move on, the abandoned prison was just located in the outskirts of town and it was surrounded by a thick dense vegetation, he quickly found the entrance but he also found company.
Two vampires showed up with their fangs as a silly threat and Elijah took charge. "I have this, you go to Caroline."
With a nod Klaus kicked the iron door that led to a dark staircase, it wasn't hard for him to recognize Caroline's soft unsteady breathing from the location downstairs and he was in fury when he stepped inside of the dark cave to find Stefan chained to the ceiling bleeding from tiny wounds, it was probably done with bullets.
He eyed the four vampires that would die easily at his hands and then he spotted the fifth one that he would take pleasure in killing slowly, the one who stepped away from an execution chair where Caroline was gagged and chained, he could smell the Vervain in which her gag was soaked in and he spotted the same bleeding wounds that Stefan showed.
Klaus was affected by the image but he was going to fuel on it to inflict as much pain as he possibly could on the other doomed vampires, by now Elijah was arriving to his side and handed him a piece of iron that he tore from the door.
Klaus accepted it with rage and without a word flew over to the first vampire, instantly there was blood gushing out of him as Klaus stabbed him in the neck, then as he pulled the piece out he pointed at the next vampire.
Your turn, his dark sinister hint of a smile seemed to say.
There was a faint hesitation but the vampire still marched in toward Klaus, within the blink of an eye his head landed across the room and Klaus focused on vampire number 3.
This one yelled loudly, as if trying to gain some final courage and flashed to Klaus, he managed to make Klaus' stagger but his smile of victory lasted only for the amount of time that it took Klaus to dive his hand into his chest and pull his heart out, when he was done Klaus cleaned his bloodied hand on the lifeless corpse and dropped him to the ground raising his eyes only.
For the two remaining men his chin was pushed down and his lips opened up to a smile, it was time to really make blood flow, his intensity was enough to scare them and they whooshed to the door where Elijah cut them off.
"He's not done yet." Elijah tossed one right back to Klaus.
Klaus snapped his neck so hard that he detached the head from the shoulders, then with a calm step over the body he neared the last one who was cornered against the wall by Elijah's commanding presence. "I take it that you have a message for me?" he asked.
"Maybe…" the man whispered.
"Why so shaky, mate?"
"We didn't know that she was with you... Tyler only told us to bring the girl and her friend here."
Klaus' eyes flicked to yellow and his fangs came out, after bitting the man in the neck he stepped back with blood in his mouth that he didn't bother cleaning, he grabbed the man's jaw firmly and spoke still in his hybrid form. "You stay right here and you tell Tyler to meet me tomorrow night at Fells Church. Also try not to die before he gets the message." He shoved him against the wall and turned around with his features softening up once he realized that Caroline was fighting to regain consciousness.
Easily he broke the iron around her delicate wrists but she barely reacted due to the amount of Vervain in her body, carefully he removed the soaked gag gritting his teeth as she softly whimpered with pain.
Watching Caroline like this was unbearable and he wanted to harvest at least 200 heads just to tame his wrath, he stroked her face and moved her drenched hair away from her ivory features.
Caroline moved slowly, her arms felt really heavy but she managed to lace them around his neck. "You found me..." she managed to whisper as he effortlessly took her into his arms.
"As long as I have one drop of blood left in me, I will always find you Caroline." he promised her as he carried her away from this forsaken place.
"I'm only away for one day and you already managed to get yourself caught and tortured?" Damon was stunned.
"Things got a little out of hand in here..." Stefan replied tired.
Damon rubbed the back of his neck. "You shouldn't be hanging out with Barbie vampire in the first place."
"Elena is missing and they are attacking everyone, it's not just Klaus' family anymore Damon. I heard them talking and they are planning to take everyone out."
"Who the hell is taking the power trip?" Damon asked mad and pacing closer to his car.
"I didn't hear names but when Klaus and Elijah showed up, one of them mentioned Tyler."
"Sired boy? That's brilliant." Damon raged.
"You should come back, we need to come up with a plan or we are all going to be extinct."
"I'll be back soon, I just found Jeremy and I'll head home after I talk to him. Are you sure that you are ok Stefan?" he asked worried.
"Yes... but they have Elena. I'm sure of it Damon."
Damon clasped his lips. "Just be careful Stefan, don't do anything really stupid like you usually do when I'm away. Oh... and tell Klaus that I have Barbie Klaus with me." He ended the call before being bombarded with a million questions.
Rebekah glared at him. "Traitor."
Damon only rolled his eyes.
Caroline gave Klaus a look when he handed her another blood bag. "Seriously Klaus? I'm on my second one since we got home."
Klaus smiled at her. "If you had taken a fresh vein like I proposed, you would have healed a lot faster but since you insist on being the ever stubborn one and refuse to drink from a human..." he waved the bag at her.
She huffed and yanked the blood bag from his hand mad, she started drinking but looked at him pouting with every fiber in her body.
Klaus kept his smile while he traced his finger along her forehead, her cheek and her chin, he was making sure that she was healing properly and checked her wrists but before he kept going she jerked her hand away from his reach and pulled her collar down to show her skin, when she lifted her shirt to reveal her stomach Klaus gave her an upset look.
"Do you want to do a more detailed inspection? I'm sure that there is some tiny little spot that I forgot to show you." she teased him.
"You were hurt therefore I'm just making sure that you are healed." He snapped.
Caroline smiled a little more warmly at him and leaned over a few inches. "I'm fine."
Klaus licked his lips. "I'm just making sure." he said feeling strange because Caroline smelled like blood and it was something in her that he wasn't used to.
She pulled away and brushed her wet hair, she was tired and the aftermath of it all was starting to kick in, she brought her knees closer to her chest and circled her arms around them. "So do you want to talk about it?" she asked him.
"Talk about what?" he asked in return, trying to dodge the inescapable.
"How we are losing this fight to them… to Tyler of all people."
Klaus tried to shrug it off like he always did.
Still she was faster and grabbed his hand as he tried to smile and pull away from her proximity enough to lift his guard and keep her in the dark. "Don't!"
Klaus gave up on his movement, instead he adjusted his position and folded his leg in front of them placing one hand on each side of Caroline, he looked straight into her eyes searching for that reassurance that he needed, when she didn't break eye-contact with him, it instigated him to go on. "I'm over playing this game by their rules, it's time that we start doing this my way."
"I know..." she calmly let out a sigh. "And I'm going to support you in everything."
The slightest sparkle of a doubt crossed his blue eyes.
Caroline cradled his face, she stroked his stubble with her thumbs lovingly. "We'll do whatever it takes to keep everyone safe."
Klaus lingered his tongue on his lips nervously, he wasn't sure how to deal with her blunt approach. "I don't play fair Caroline." he stressed out just in case she had forgotten that all of a sudden.
After a very deep breath she spoke with determination. "We have to fight them back, they are the ones who should be afraid of us."
The words triggered something inside of Klaus that he hadn't felt before, not with any woman before her or even fully with Caroline until this precise moment, the empowerment in her voice made him feel like he was home.
She understood and embraced him for what he was and pushed him further, but Caroline was also something different all together, she could be as deadly and ruthless if she chose to, the wisdom to choose when to be so was what made her so powerful, even more than he was.
Where he found rage and anger, she found balance and compassion but when she did feel the need to go over to his side, she was a thousand times greater than he ever would be because she did it knowing there was no way back, that she was being justified in her reasons and doing whatever it took to keep her loved ones safe, she did it with a conscience and that notion set Klaus on fire.
She pulled him into a hard kiss as if she could read all the emotions twirling inside of him and when she stripped him off his shirt, she also ignited that endless desire that he felt for her, for his one and only queen.
Soundtrack:
Knights of Cydonia - Muse