A/N: Okay, so I'm so happy that so many of you like this story, and like where I'm going with this. I have a very clear idea of where I want the story to go, but I'm interested in your input so at a later point I'll be asking some clarifying questions just to see whether you're on board or not :)
For now, I hope you enjoy the next chapter will start to unravel a bit of Caroline's "hybrid" backstory, and yes, the scooby gang will get more and more involved as the story progresses. Starting with this chap. Enjoy!
Caroline had compelled her way through half of Europe, or at least it felt like that, and was at that very moment getting off a train in Berlin, Germany. It was Bonnie actually, who'd told her to head to Germany, when Caroline had stolen a phone off a random stranger and reached out to her witchy best friend about a week ago.
They hadn't talked for long, but the conversation had been long enough that Caroline had been able to fill her best friend in on her more recent "discoveries", though she left out the part where she slept with the guy who was apparently still using Elena as a human bloodbag to make an army of hybrids. She was interested in learning more about that, but she was in a bind and didn't really have time to get into right then, and that was probably a conversation better had face-to-face anyhow.
But at the end of their conversation, for some reason, Bonnie had told her to head to Germany with the vague "you'll find help in Berlin", and Caroline didn't really see that she had a whole lot of choices. Though she had no idea whoever this "help" was would find her. All she knew was that she was supposed to meet him or her at the top of the Berlin TV tower, so that was where she was heading after getting settled into the apartment she'd found that was available for rent. Not that she'd be paying for it, seeing as she didn't really have to, and anything she payed for could be traced and she knew very well she was being hunted by the most powerful family on the planet, and she had no plans on getting caught just yet.
She'd managed to avoid detection for three months the first time around. So far she'd been on the run for two weeks, and she was even more on edge without Katherine as her travel companion. And that was another thing, Caroline knew better than anyone the cunning bitch that Katherine really was, so it wasn't inconceivable that Katherine was somehow keeping track of her and would see an opportunity to sell her out again.
God, she couldn't even begin to imagine how it had been for Katherine, doing this running and hiding thing for half a millennia. No wonder she was a dissociative sociopath, she couldn't risk any personal attachments for five hundred years, and Caroline had no intention of ending up like that.
It was two hours after getting off the train that she found herself at the top of the Berlin TV tower, staring out over the city, buried in deep thought when she heard and achingly familiar voice from behind her.
"Hello Caroline,"
Spinning around, Caroline felt like crying when she caught sight of Stefan in all his glory, smiling at her like they'd just seen each other yesterday. Without hesitation, Caroline walked forward and into his arms. He folded her into a hug, his arms growing tight around her, hers doing the same around his middle, and she tried really hard, seriously she did, but she couldn't stop the tears no matter how hard she tried.
"What are you doing here?" she pushed out in a thick voice, and his arms gave her a squeeze.
"Bonnie said you need some help, and I'm your vampire mentor, remember? Who else would she send? Besides, I brought company."
Pulling back, Caroline released him and lifted her hands to wipe at her tears, sniffling as she studied her friend, and yes, original vampire mentor.
"Who did you bring?"
"We'll talk about that after we get you somewhere safe. Klaus and his family have spies everywhere, we need to get out of sight."
Caroline was all for that. She wasn't in any way interested in another run-in with the original hybrid. Sure, he was cute, and hot and charming, in a very "big bad" and unhealthy way, and he was seriously good in bed, but Caroline had already been through that mess with Damon and it was not a pleasent experience. Nope, from that point forward, it was only good guys for her. Totally.
"Okay, let's go."
It had been two weeks sine miss Forbes ran off, and it was becoming apparent that in the months the young vampire had spent with Katerina, she had become quite apt at hiding her whereabouts. With very few leads to her location, and nothing else for them in London, the Mikaelson's had decided to return to Mystic Falls for a short time as Niklaus had loose ends to tie up, and not to mention it was where Elena Gilbert resided.
Elijah had spent the past two weeks trying to keep his younger brother from causing too much mayhem. Niklaus had been in a terrible mood since miss Forbes performed her quite impressive disappearing act, and if previous experience was any indication, his brother was capable of practically anything in this kind of mood. Elijah was attempting to keep him from slaughtering the entire town as his frustrations grew, but it was evident that the longer time that passed without any new leads or new sightings, Niklaus was quickly approaching a dangerous state of mind that Elijah wasn't sure he could properly maintain.
Rebekah on her part, had effortlessly slid into life as a teenager at the Mystic Falls high school, keeping a close watch on Elena Gilbert and her group of friends. Unfortunately, it seemed his sister was falling in love with a human boy, a close friend of Elena, Matthew Donovan. This was not unusual for Rebekah, she fell in love easily and always had her heart broken in one way or another, but it would further complicate things and make Niklaus' mood even worse.
Kol, for his part, had remained in Europe. In their family, it had always been Kol who had taken more of an interest in the workings of witches, and he'd volunteered to do some research into Niklaus suggestion that miss Forbes was a hybrid, and whether it was even possible from a magical perspective.
So far, his youngest brother had only reported in once, to share that he was heading to Scandinavia to speak with a coven of powerful witches who may have interesting information to share. That was more than a week ago, and since then, they had heard nothing.
Elijah was sitting in front of the fire place, reading a book, when he heard the front door slam open and his sister's voice rang out.
"In the library," he informed her when she called out his name, and in seconds he was joined with a Rebekah that seemed to be nearly bursting with whatever news she had to share.
"Where's Nik?" she demanded to know, and Elijah looked up from his book, glanced at his sister, and looked back at what he'd been reading.
"Upstairs, painting." Whenever Niklaus emerged himself in his art was the only time any of his siblings knew to leave him alone. They all had their outlets, Niklaus was his art, or murderous sprees. Elijah much preferred the former.
"Well, I have news, and he'll want to hear it." Sighing, Elijah put down his book and rose from his seat.
"I'll notify him, but please do undagger me if he takes my interruption poorly." He said dryly and Rebekah grinned.
"Always, dear brother." Elijah often thought, that had it not been for his family, despite the disfunctional qualities it possessed, he would not have survived the past millennia. Most of the time he had urges to kill them all, but he could not imagine being without them. Not even for a second.
"No need for you to undagger Elijah, dear sister, I'm here." On those words, Niklaus sauntered past Rebekah and immediately moved to make himself a drink as he urged, "well, I'm here Rebekah, do share your news."
"Stefan is gone," she declared and both Elijah and Niklaus gave her their full attention. This was interesting news indeed. It was very unlike Stefan Salvatore to leave Mystic Falls and Elena behind, particularly as he knew they were back in town.
"Gone how?" Niklaus prompted and Rebekah sighed.
"As in, he's left town. I first noticed it yesterday, that he wasn't in school and I didn't think much of it, but then I overheard a conversation between your human bloodbag and her little witch friend today, and apparently he's taking care of something important out of the country. Sadly, they didn't specify where he was or what he's doing, but I'll be damned if it doesn't have anything to do with your little vampire, Nik."
"Well, then, I suggest you do what you need to do in order to find out the specifics, Bekah. I believe we've overstayed our welcome in Mystic Falls and I'd much rather be anywhere else. However, until I know anything specific, this is Caroline's home. This is where her mother is, her friends, her life, at one point she'll be tempted to come back."
"Or, using that same reasoning, Niklaus, it could be she never returns. She spent quite some time with Katerina, and before that you nearly used her as a sacrifice to break your curse, it is not without reason to assume she would seek to protect her friends and family by never returning."
Niklaus said nothing, just turned his gaze out the window, a contemplative look on his face.
"Either way, do what you have to, Rebekah. And Elijah, get hold of Kol, find out what's taking him so long and if he's dug up anything interesting."
Rebekah sighed, rolled her eyes and shot Elijah a look before she turned on her heels and strode out of the room. He knew there was nothing Rebekah wouldn't do for their brother, it was a fatal flaw that Elijah himself possessed, but one it seemed he was unable to rid himself of. However, while Niklaus had the bad habit of daggering his siblings whenever the urge possessed him, the same could be said of him. There was nothing more important to them, than family.
"Why is this girl so important to you, Niklaus? Months ago, you were ready to end her life. She was nothing to you. It must be something other than your suspicions of what she may be that is driving your need to locate her." This was something Elijah had given a great deal of thought, and with how his brother was, it simply did not make sense for his quick change of heart. It was as if he was driven by an obsession, and the only other obsession Niklaus had ever had was his need to break the curse their mother placed on him to lock part of him away.
"I have no reasonable answer to give you, Elijah. What I saw in her eyes that night, it stopped me from ending her life, but I need to find her Elijah. It's a driving force within me that I can't explain, I just know she's important."
And, Elijah thought, as it had always been, whatever was important to Niklaus was important to all of them. It would seem, not even a thousand years of evolution could change some things.
I've heard rumors of a werewolf clan in the north of Europe. While the clans here have mated and interbred across clans, it is said that these wolves only mate with witches of substantial power. The children born from these matings are said to have immense powers of magic and it is rumored that the wolves possess powers of immortality. It is said that their eyes are as blue as the ice and they are fair in hair and skin. If this is indeed true, than this werewolf bloodline would be the only pure bloodline that remains.
Bonnie felt her heart begin to pound as she read the caligraphy belonging to, according to her grams notes, a werewolf that would be Tyler's ancestor. The implications were mind-blowing, not just for Caroline, but for werewolves and witches alike. After finding out she was a witch, her grams had taught Bonnie that there was a strict no-fraternizing "policy" between supernatural creatures. Esther, Bonnie knew now, had broken this when she had an affair with Klaus' father, who was a werewolf. Still, at the time, there was no way Esther could have predicted what would come of her choice.
But if this was true, then Bonnie needed to know more about this supposed werewolf clan in the "north of Europe", and what that would mean for Caroline. Taking a deep breath, Bonnie flipped through her grams grimoire until she found the spell she was looking for. This wasn't exactly the type of conversation to be had over the phone, no this was a face-to-face situation and she couldn't exactly jump on a plane to Berlin. But, one of the perks of being a witch was that she could do stuff like astral projection, because that was a neat little trick for situations just like this.
"Seriously, Stefan?"
Unlike her, Stefan had not compelled himself a fancy apartment in some ritzy neighborhood. Nope, not the good Salvatore. He'd apparently set up shop in some abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city. It smelled like death, it looked like it was about to fall down on their heads any minute, and the muddy floor was ruining her freaking boots.
"I'm not here on vacation, Caroline. Besides, I think you got bigger worries than where I'm staying right now, don't you?"
She sighed, hating that he was right.
"Alright, now that we're here in this death factory, where's this company you brought?"
Grinning at her, Stefan put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
"Come on out guys," he called out, his voice echoing inside the huge structure and she looked to the right as she heard footsteps approaching.
Her mouth dropped open as she spotted Tyler moving her way, grinning at her, and by his side was a beautiful skinny brunette that Caroline had never seen before. It only took her a second to realize the unfamiliar brunette was a werewolf, it was like a spidey-sense in the back of her mind was whispering the word into her brain. Turning to Stefan, she ignored the new arrivals and narrowed her eyes at her friend.
"Not that I don't appreciate that you're here, but why did you bring not one, but two werewolves? You do realize that one bite from either of them, not that I think Tyler's going to bite me, but still, could kill either one of us."
Stefan studied her, his eyes moving between Caroline and the brunette at her back, before his eyes locked with hers.
"How do you know she's a werewolf?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" she demanded.
"It matters because most vampires doesn't know how to recognize a werewolf on sight, especially not one as young as you are." A female voice answered her question and Caroline spun around to face the brunette werewolf.
She had a nice style, good clothes, a little rocker, a lot edgy, but it worked on her. Caroline didn't know a lot about werewolves, but she'd read romance books and she knew there was always an Alpha in any pack, and Caroline would bet her life that this werewolf was the queen of hers.
"Caroline Forbes," she offered up her hand, deciding to put away any misgivings for the moment and trust that Stefan knew what he was doing.
"Andrea Labonair, but for these circumstances, Haley Marshall," Caroline shook Hayley's hand and glanced at Tyler as she let the other woman go.
"So, how do you two know each other?"
"Hayley's a friend, she's here to help, Care. Be nice, okay."
"I'm always nice." She protested, though that wasn't strictly true. Caroline was well aware she could be a raging bitch sometimes, but she was a teenage girl, that was the way of her kind.
"Just-" Stefan was cut off from whatever he was about to say when they felt another presence hit the space and they all tensed. Caroline almost screamed when Bonnie appeared like a freaking apparition just a few feet away, moments later.
"Oh my God, Bonnie!" she cried, so happy to see her friend it was insane.
"Hey Care, hey guys. Listen, I can't stay long, but I got news and a possible lead for you." Caroline listened as Bonnie explained what she'd discovered and she couldn't believe what her friend was suggesting.
"But Bonnie-" she started to object, but her best friend cut her off.
"It's probably nothing, I know, but it's worth looking into. You know Mystic Falls was originally a town of settlers from Northern Europe, Caroline, we learned about this in history class last year. It's not impossible that you could have ancestors from this werewolf bloodline. Just check it out, okay? I'll do some more research here on my end, but there's only so much I can do. If you want answers, you need to visit the source of the rumors."
"I can't stay away too long, Bonnie. I need to get back soon." Stefan shot in and Caroline didn't like that. He'd just gotten there, he wasn't leaving her again, was he?
"I know, and Tyler, you need to get back here too. As far as Klaus knows, you're still sired to him, if you stay away too long he'll get suspicious."
"So what, you're just going to leave me on my own?" Caroline demanded unhappily.
"Not alone," Hayley shot in, and Caroline looked to the brunette.
"I'll go with you, help you find answers. I know some people, I'll have your back."
Sceptical, but unwilling to give up so easily, Caroline nodded and said, "Thank you, that would be appreciated."
"Alright, I have to go, but let me know if you dig up anything. Love you, Care."
"Love you too, Bon! And tell Elena and my mom that I love them too!" Caroline called out right before Bonnie disappeared.
"Don't worry Care, you're in good hands with Haley, she'll have your back." Tyler promised and Caroline wanted to believe him, she really did, she just didn't trust easily these days. I mean, in her place, who would?