Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries - the original books were written by L J Smith and the TV show was developed by Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson. This story is the product of their characters and world and my imagination.
Caroline wandered around with very little sense of the route she was taking.
She was using the fresh air and quiet to think about recent events and ponder on her conversation with Stefan earlier.
There was guilt bubbling in her stomach when she thought about Klaus. Sometimes she wondered about what her life had become – ever since she was turned it seemed that all she did was act as bait, turn a blind eye to plots and wonder whether the most recent enemy would finally be the one to destroy her.
They all liked to think they had the moral high-ground against Klaus and his family, but maybe they just hadn't lived long enough. All she had to do was think of the devastation that Damon could cause over a thousand years, or Stefan in ripper mode.
And Caroline was guilty of a fair number of sins herself, not even a year into her vampire life.
Klaus was the supernatural nightmare, the great destroyer. He revelled in what he was and made no apologies.
But she was beginning to feel like maybe she didn't hate him the way she probably should.
The more she got to know him, the more she saw the man that was mixed with the monster.
She was starting to learn that the supernatural world had different rules. Her human morality wouldn't help her as a vampire, and while she still craved acceptance from her mother and her friends, she also knew that she wanted to live and thrive in this new life she had.
Caroline's reverie was broken when she heard a noise, the splashing of water. She turned towards the fountain, expecting to see a few drunk teenagers messing around.
Instead, she found herself witness to a far more sinister scene, and she couldn't help the small scream that escaped her when she realised what she was seeing.
Klaus was holding Carol Lockwood's head under the water, a sadistic grin on his face while the woman struggled for air.
"Klaus, stop!"
He turned to face her, his grip on Mrs Lockwood's neck loosening as he pulled her roughly out of the water. Tyler's mother slumped to the side, but Caroline could hear a faint heartbeat and she breathed a sigh of relief.
That relief was short-lived, however, when Klaus left Mrs Lockwood sprawled on the grass and flashed over to her, grabbing her arms in a bruising grip.
"Let go of me, Klaus," she spat out, trying in vain to pull away.
He looked furious, splattered with blood and appearing to be on the edge of extreme violence.
"Caroline," he drew out her name in a way that might have seemed sensual if it wasn't for the angry darkness in his eyes, "I think we need to have a chat, love."
He steered her towards a nearby bench, ignoring the unconscious body by the fountain, and tugged her down to sit next to him, holding one of her wrists in a vice-like grip.
"What have you done, Klaus?" she asked, a little shakily, the scent of blood on his clothes more potent than before now he was so close.
He ignored her question and instead posed one of his own, "did you know Tyler was helping my hybrids to break the sire bond?"
While his voice was outwardly calm, she could hear the undercurrent of fury beneath it. She nodded slowly, unwilling to make the mistake of trying to lie to him when he was in such a dangerous mood. Then, she braced herself for his fury, ready to defend herself and her actions, but he did nothing aside from twist a few strands of her hair around his blood-stained fingers.
He continued his questioning, "and your presence at the event earlier was meant to be a distraction?"
"I'm pretty sure you knew that already," she retorted sharply, thrown a little off-kilter by the lack of outward displeasure (something that probably boded ill for her).
He hummed noncommittedly, "and what of my hybrids and their plans, Caroline – what part did you play in that?"
She huffed, her annoyance with Hayley making her forget her fear for a few moments, "they should be allowed to break the sire bond and get away from you, shouldn't have to be slaves. I won't apologise for supporting that. Whatever other stupid ideas about killing you that Hayley has been spouting to them have nothing to do with me."
She'd technically supported the body-swapping idea, to allow the hybrids to get away, but she knew very well that such a thing would have only put Klaus out of commission for a while. And she had heard enough idiotic plots from Damon to know that none of them would succeed in trying to put down the Original Hybrid permanently.
Klaus smirked at her, "you try to hide it, sweetheart, but I think you care."
"I do not!" she insisted, in rather more shrill tones than she had intended.
She knew the words were false, just like she knew Klaus would pick up on that immediately. It was no easy feat, fooling a monster who had lived for a thousand years, and Caroline was not deluded enough to think she could manage it so easily.
She didn't want to feel anything but revulsion for Klaus, but every day that passed she found her resolve wavered a little more as things she once thought black and white morphed into a hundred shades of grey. She wanted to keep her human life, but she was starting to accept that becoming a vampire had changed her more for the better than for the worse.
And Klaus might be the sort of monsters that made other monsters afraid, but she was starting to realise that there was much more to him than that.
He gave her a small smile, almost condescending but not quite, "remember, Caroline, it's far harder for you to lie to me than it is for you to lie to yourself."
And wasn't that the truth. Whether or not he said anything, she had the feeling that Klaus always knew what was going on in Mystic Falls – her friends weren't nearly as sneaky as they liked to think they were.
And often Caroline wondered if even her own thoughts were safe from Klaus' far-reaching gaze. The way he looked at her sometimes scared her, like he truly saw her in a way no one else had ever managed, not even those few who had truly tried.
"You like to use it as a shield," Klaus continued, "the idea that you are simply playing the pretty blonde distraction. I imagine it makes everything feel more like a game."
"It's never been a game," Caroline insisted fiercely.
It was one thing she'd known from the beginning. Her friends thought it was just a case of her batting her eyelashes at Klaus and flirting a bit. But Caroline had always been terribly aware of the line she walked. She knew Klaus wasn't blind to the reason she sought him out, and sometimes she thought it was an even more worrying thing that he allowed it.
His smile was sharp, "hmm, I think you are the only one of your friends who might truly understand that. I do love your clever mind, Caroline."
She flashed him her best Miss Mystic Falls smile in return – wide and bright and trying to hide all her fears, "it's always nice to hear a compliment. I'm so glad we had this talk, but I really think I need to go."
He caught her around the waist before she could even try to get to her feet, "nice try, love, but we're not done yet."
Caroline was not as nervous as she perhaps should have been. Coming across Klaus in the process of drowning Carol Lockwood had been extremely disturbing but not exactly surprising considering who he was. And though the anger emanating from the Original Hybrid had made her careful, experience suggested that Klaus felt something for her (whether or not that was a good thing was a matter of opinion) and would probably hesitate before doing anything irreversible like pulling her heart out of her chest.
Still, she wasn't an idiot. She knew that a talkative Klaus could be just as dangerous as a silent one, perhaps even more so.
"What do you want, Klaus?" she asked, some of her tiredness bleeding into her voice, "I told you, I won't feel bad for wanting your hybrids to be free, or for wishing to keep my friends safe."
Klaus gave her a sharp smile, "that stubborn loyalty of yours is admirable, sweetheart, but it is wasted on those who do nothing to deserve it."
"I won't betray my friends," she insisted.
He hummed non-committedly, "not now, perhaps, but give it a few years, maybe a decade or two, and I imagine you will come to see how unworthy they are of your friendship."
Caroline glared to cover her frown. There was a ring of truth in his words that she didn't currently want to acknowledge, especially not to him.
He saw it anyway, like he seemed to see nearly all of the slight shifts in her expression, and he smiled.
Sometimes Caroline wondered what an average human, entirely unaware of the supernatural, thought when they saw Klaus Mikaelson smile. Were they dazzled at first by his looks (he was the most handsome man Caroline had ever seen, and she could admit that to herself, despite all he had done)? Did they edge closer and closer, until they could see the sharpness of his teeth, the blade in his smile, the predator lurking beneath the surface, until their mind began to scream at them to run far, far away?
She shivered slightly. Klaus' smile widened.
"Shall we talk now, love, about all the poor choices you have been making recently."
It seemed an almost mild way to describe the plotting that had been going on, but Caroline had no doubt that Klaus' reaction could be explosive if it was not somehow contained.
"You act," she told him, trying to maintain her bravado, "like you haven't been playing countless bloody games with us. Why can't we respond?"
Klaus laughed, "oh, you're welcome to try, love, but I've been playing these sorts of games for centuries – whatever made you think your friends stood a chance?"
He had a point, of course. Although it sometimes seemed as if they had the upper hand, she didn't doubt that Klaus had back-up plan after back-up plan in place. And, judging from the disturbing stories she had managed to find on the Original Family, it seemed as if they were being oddly gentle (relatively speaking) at the moment, for reasons she had not yet figured out.
"I can forgive you this transgression, Caroline," Klaus told her, "because you were misguided rather than malicious. But Tyler …"
"It isn't wrong for Tyler to want to be free," she insisted, "why should he be a slave to your whims?"
Klaus' expression turned cold, "I gave Tyler a gift and he has chosen to repay my generosity with betrayal. I do not take that lightly. Actions have consequences, sweetheart, and now it's time for everyone to face them."
"What do you want?" she repeated her earlier question, almost whispering.
"I want everything from you, Caroline. But for now, I'll settle simply for a chance."
She almost swore. Damn Klaus and his genuinely sincere declarations. With almost anyone else she would dismiss a mention of 'everything' as teenage sentiment, or an attempt to get into her pants. With Klaus, though, she actually found that she believed his words.
Still, her eyes narrowed suspiciously, "what sort of chance?"
He gave her a wicked little smile, "how about a bargain, sweetheart?"
"You'll let Tyler go free?" she asked.
He snorted, "I'll give Tyler a head-start, and I won't pursue him for as long as I remain in Mystic Falls. But the boy has a reckoning coming, Caroline, and one day I will extract my price from him."
She wanted to protest, she honestly did, but she'd always known there was only so far she could push Klaus.
"Will you stay away from my friends?"
"If they plot against me, you won't be able to save them, sweetheart. But otherwise, I'll attempt to restrain myself."
His promise was a fairly vague one, but probably the best she would be able to pry out of him. She'd try to make her friends understand, though she didn't think it would be easy. Damon, at least, would probably find himself in the firing line soon enough – but Damon had never bothered to care about her, and had used her terribly when she was still human, so she wouldn't shed a tear if he got himself killed, no matter how distraught Elena would be.
"My mom is off limits," she told him firmly.
"Of course," he agreed easily to that term, "I would never dream of harming the sheriff."
"And what do you get in return?" she asked.
"Exactly what I mentioned before. I want a chance, Caroline."
"What, like a date?"
"I think this bargain requires a bit more than that, love."
She crossed her arms across her chest, feeling defensive, "then what?"
"I simply want us to get to know each other properly, sweetheart. Our acquaintance so far has been rather hampered by a few unfortunate incidents, but I'd like to move past that."
'A few unfortunate incidents' was not how Caroline would refer to events since Klaus' arrival in Mystic Falls, but she wasn't about to start an argument, not over that.
"Just getting to know each other," she clarified, "no … expectations."
She stuttered over the last word, but he seemed to understand what she meant, judging by the way his eyes darkened.
"I'd very much like to know who it was that gave you particular cause to fear such things," he murmured, his voice quiet and yet somehow still promising all manner of tortures, "I have a fair idea, but I'm sure some way to confirm my theory will arise soon enough."
One of his hands settled on her arm then, but the touch was soft, more comforting than she expected, "I can find plenty of willing partners, Caroline, and I'm not interested in unwilling ones. Every single delightful thing we do together will be with your full and enthusiastic consent."
His words reassured her, despite his clear confidence that she would, in time, be entirely willing. Not that his certainty was necessarily unwarranted, considering he had managed in a few seconds to show more concern for her terrible experiences with Damon than all her friends put together had in months.
"Alright then," she said, trying to sound breezy and casual and not like she had just agreed to something that would probably have her friends questioning both her sanity and her loyalty.
The smile that stretched across Klaus' face at her words was nothing like his earlier terrifying smiles. No, this one showed true delight, and it made him look almost boyish.
"Well then, sweetheart, I suppose I should leave you to assist Mrs Lockwood home, and inform Tyler that he should start packing. If he's still in town by noon then I'm afraid I will have to do something about that."
It really put Caroline rather on edge, how quickly Klaus could switch from pleased to threatening, but it wasn't like she hadn't known what she was getting herself into when she agreed to his bargain.
She stood up and headed towards Mrs Lockwood, who was still out cold on the grass, and tried very hard not to think about how mad Tyler would be when she explained that he had to leave town with barely any notice at all. She mentally organised the arguments she would use in her mind, starting with the important one – by leaving, Tyler would be avoiding an immediate and likely messy death at the hands of someone with a thousand years of experience in causing pain.
"I'll see you soon, Caroline," Klaus called out to her.
She sighed. Knowing Klaus, he'd find her in the most public place possible and the news would be all over Mystic Falls in a matter of hours. Her friends were going to kill her, without even considering that perhaps she was doing what was best for all of them.
Klaus flashed towards her, "don't look so worried, sweetheart. If your friends cause a fuss, I'll happily tear them to pieces for you."
He brushed his lips against her cheek and then vanished from sight before she could shout at him for threatening her friends.
It was for the best, she was sure, and she would inevitably end up enjoying Klaus' company, even though she probably shouldn't.
Still, the whole situation was not ideal, especially when she imagined the reactions of her friends.
God, she thought to herself, I am so screwed.
I know it might seem like Klaus is being lenient with the bargain, but he's definitely left himself a lot of wiggle room. When he catches up to Tyler, it certainly won't be fun. As for the Mystic Falls Gang, I imagine Damon, at least, will do something monumentally stupid fairly soon and Klaus will indulge in a drawn out torture session before killing him.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.