He chooses Caroline because she's beautiful and strong and full of light. Because she challenges him and doesn't bow to him, doesn't cower in fear. Because she intrigues him and he's fascinated by her, by the light that radiates from her smile and by the stars that twinkle in her eyes. Because she's fair - fair skin, fair hair and fair eyes. Because her face is hers and hers alone.
Because he promises himself that Petrovas don't have any kind of influence over him, because he loved one of them once, a time so long ago that is lost in blood and tragedy. And even then, she didn't choose him, anyway.
So, he dances with Caroline and tells her that he fancies her and that he wants to be her last love, however long it takes and it's not a lie. He offers her the world and an eternity at his side fully aware she won't accept and, all along, he keeps an eye on the doppelgänger and her relationship with the brothers and doesn't think that he used to be a character of the story, that everything is already written and they are just following an already drawn path.
He secretly hopes for the winner to be Stefan, knowing he's already doomed from the start, because Petrovas and their secret smiles and precious hearts are always given to the elder brother. The one with eyes full of wonder, that sways them with pretty promises and attract them with the fire blazing in his eyes.
Tatia chose Elijah and so did Katerina, five centuries later.
Four hundreds years later Katherine didn't choose. She kept them both.
Petrovas are jealouses and possessives, always been and always will be, he thinks, looking at Elena and her two knights in shining-armors, how she keeps them both close, how she hurts them both with her indecision and her going back and forth from one to the other.
What makes this even more pathetic is that she sincerely doesn't know the answer to the silent question, she sincerely doesn't want to hurt them, she sincerily wanted to be better than her ancestors.
What Elena hasn't learn, yet, is that the women of her family always make the same mistakes and there is no way to correct them, because there is no story without a girl and two brothers and if there is no story there is no future, because future is already written and always follows the pattern of the past.
So, he chooses Caroline, beautiful, brave, amazing Caroline, and promises to wait, however long it takes.
She tries to ignore the lump in her troath every time she sees them together, laughing and talking and staring at each other.
She tries to ignore it and to convince herself it's fear. Fear for Caroline, for herself, for everyone. Fear of Klaus and of what he can do.
She knows it's false, that it's envy and jealous and that Klaus won't hurt Caroline, not now that she captured his interest, that he sees her as a challenge. It's seems a paradox, but maybe her friend is safer with Klaus than with any of them, than with the Salvatores, who already hurt her, because Elena didn't forget what Damon did when he first arrived, the angry signs marring the pale skin, the scaring tranquility in the light eyes.
But she ignores it because it's easier to believe she's scared and not envious to not be the center of attention. She's not like this. She doesn't want to be like this.
She wants to be good and better and...
"Hello, sweetheart"... and Klaus is behind her, a small smile and an almost imperceptible tenderness in his eyes.
Who is he seeing? Her or Tatia?
"Klaus" and she should be scared, she should pray for Stefan or Damon to come, but she isn't and she doesn't. He won't hurt her, at least because he needs her, at most because of her face.
She has never met Tatia but she knows how she acted, how she laughed, how she would dance with one brother while looking at the other. She wants to be better than that. She's just illusing herself.
"It's a beautiful night, isn't it?".
The stars are shining and there's peace, quite, everything is fine. He's so close she can see all the shades of the blue of his eyes and there's a pull, there's Tatia and Katerina crawling under her skin. There are memories she shouldn't possess flashing in her mind. Memories of them - of her and Klaus and Elijah. She remembers dancing in front of the fire and falling for him and for his brother and dying. She remebers a castle and a courtship and his face dirty with blood and dying.
Klaus traces her face, his fingers brushing slightly the outline of her lips and Elena knows her heart is beating faster and faster and oh, how she wants for it to be fear!
"I said: is a beautiful night, isn't it?"
"Yes" she whispers, trembling, heart beating so fast it should explode, skin on fire and she wants to run.
"Then enjoy the night, sweetheart" he whispers, backing away slowly, hands lingering on her cheek, without leaving her eyes. Elena is shaking and her eyes are full of tears, a thousand of sensations and emotions are battling each others beneath her skin: rage and attraction and longing and hates and fear - at everything, but not at him, and how she hates herself for this. She closes her eyes and summons the imagine of Jenna's body on the ground, of the void in her chest, the pain that suffocated her. She thinks about the sacrifice, about his fangs on her neck, the blood flooding in his mouth and leaving her body so weak and herself so pale. She remembers her death and finally here it is: fear, crawling trought her spine and clenching her heart in its cold fingers.
Klaus is looking at her, hands crossed against his chest and Elena, finding his presence unbearable, does what she should have done at the beginning: she runs.