A/N Welcome back! I have to say a massive thank you to Belle, aka lovelyandproblematic on tumblr, for the beautiful art she made for this story! I am so grateful and just absolutely in love with the graphics. I cannot thank you enough! Now that we know Rebekah got away, it's time for Caroline to face the fallout of her decisions. Let me know what you think! (No concrit please)

Chapter Seven – Penance

"If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences."

― Criss Jami

Six Months Later

"For a guy who's spent more than a decade locked down 23 hours a day, Klaus Mikaelson is one arrogant son of a bitch!" In all the years they'd worked together, Caroline didn't think she'd ever heard Logan as pissed off as he was when he stormed into the FBI building in Terre Haute, Indiana. "After fifteen fucking years, he finally recants, confesses that he's known all along who did do it, and then refuses to tell me. And then!" His voice was nearing a screech as he stomped his way up the cement stairs. "Then, he tells me he has no idea what happened to Rebekah but wishes us luck finding her. Not only did that mother fucker look me in the eye and lie, he fucking laughed right in my face when I told him I'd charge him with obstruction. He knows damn well where his sister is. I know it, you know it and he fucking knows it."

She flicked her gaze up and down her boss's meticulously pressed suit pityingly. "Did you seriously think threatening him with that was going to get him to talk? He's been in prison for fifteen years. Obstruction is a five year max." Having spent a fair amount of time with Klaus over the last several months conducting various interviews, if there was anything she knew about him, it was that he was no fool. The thought of him being afraid of an obstruction charge after facing death without regret was laughable.

Slamming the glass door to the office they'd been using for the past few days, Logan rounded on her. "You never should have let Rebekah fucking Mikaelson out of your sight before you got that warrant."

Caroline rolled her sapphire eyes as she prepared to tell her boss the same lie she'd been telling him for six months. While repetition did nothing to assuage her guilt, she'd gotten very good at playing the role of the idiot agent who made a mistake. "She was never a suspect. I knocked on her door, she declined to comment just like she had every other time in the last fifteen years, and I left. How was I supposed to know a social worker with no criminal record whatsoever was going to hotfoot it out of the country?"

"Because she was a fucking murderer!" Logan spat, hands curling into fists as spittle spewed from his tightened lips.

"Who was sixteen at the time and had never gotten so much as a school detention." She crossed her arms defensively over her chest, holding her chin high even as her heart clenched with guilt she could never let go but was learning to live with. "And the probable cause for an arrest warrant for obstruction was thin at best without confirmation it was her in the photograph. I wasn't even sure I was going to get one."

"But you did!"

"And I went back to pick her up!"

"Yeah, but she wasn't there, was she?!"

"Which I had no way of knowing!" She'd told the lie so many times that her anger almost felt justified. Almost. They stood in the small office staring each other down, each waiting for the other to make a move. Finally, Caroline sighed and wiped her hands down her face tiredly. "Look, I fucked up, okay?" She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender, hoping to placate the man seething before her. "I should have stayed with her, but none of us suspected Rebekah until the lab enhanced the photograph enough to determine it wasn't her in the front seat. I was just going there to check out Klaus' alibi. We'd tried to talk to her and she'd turned us down before without running. Nothing in her record indicated she wouldn't still be there the next day." Except the part where I told her to run, she thought to herself bitterly. While she firmly believed she'd done the right thing, she was still struggling with the underlying truth that she had broken the very laws she'd sworn to uphold. And having her boss glare at her didn't make it any easier.

A low grumble emitted from the back of Logan's throat as he ground his teeth together. Finally looking away, he walked behind the simple grey desk and flopped back heavily in the gray cloth utilitarian office chair. He kicked his feet up on the blocky desk and leaned back, dragging his hands through his already disheveled hair. "Listen, I know you were acting in good faith, but the bottom line is that she got away."

Sitting down in the cheap rolling chair across from him, Caroline groaned and shook her head. "I know. I fucked up."

"I'm under an immense amount of pressure here, Care." She looked over at him and she could see the exhaustion on his face, hair streaked with gray that hadn't been there six months ago. "Whether we find her or not, the writing is on the wall. Judge Lockwood is going to have no choice but to set aside Klaus' murder conviction. We can't keep stalling with bullshit continuances forever. If it's not Elijah Mikaelson on TV demanding his brother's release, it's Damon Salvatore chomping at the bit for one of our heads on a platter for screwing up the investigation in the first place. The guy doesn't even care about justice anymore; he straight up wants a pound of flesh. We need to find Rebekah and we need to find her now. Klaus is our best lead, but if we can't get him to talk…" His voice trailed off as he looked over at her, his expression full of remorse.

"It's gonna be my head going on that platter," she finished for him, groaning. Resting her elbows on the edge of the desk, she leaned forward with her palms on her forehead, fingers winding anxiously in her golden curls. "What about trying him on the obstruction charge? Will that buy us some more time?" she asked, knowing it wouldn't but wanting to put on a good show.

The truth was that Caroline wasn't entirely sure she wanted to get away with what she'd done. Every time she talked to Logan, the temptation to confess her role in everything grew stronger. For someone who'd always embraced the blacks and whites, it was a struggle to suddenly find herself living in a world with grays. Deep down, she knew the only reason she hadn't come forward was because she was waiting for Klaus' inevitable release. Their dynamic had irrevocably shifted. He'd dropped all the pretense and they'd begun to treat each other as two people instead of enemies on opposite sides of the courtroom.

Since word had gotten out that Klaus was covering for his sister, his prison life had vastly improved. The guards who once looked at him like a monster now saw him as a decent person and had begun treating him accordingly. He told her that they were allowing him more than his allotted hour a day in the yard and his food trays often had extra snacks. His favorite part was that they were allowing him constant access to pencils and paper instead of making him use his yard time to use a pencil under close supervision. After that started happening, Caroline learned that he had a passion for art and one day even snuck some of the sketches from his cell to show her, although she'd suspected the guards knew. He was quite talented and she hadn't said no when he hesitantly offered her one, almost as if he was afraid she wouldn't take it.

It was hard not to sympathize with Klaus after learning the truth. Every time she saw him, it further affirmed her belief that his life had been worth saving. She didn't regret the end result, but she struggled with knowing she'd broken the law. Since he was the only person she could possibly talk to about it, she had. He didn't agree that she had anything to feel guilty about, but he listened quietly for the most part. Their time together had become anything but professional. She started every interview with a camera and they both put on a good show as she questioned him for half an hour or so, but then she turned it off and spent the next few hours just enjoying his company. Death row inmates were allowed very limited visitation, and it wasn't like his siblings were flying across the country all the time. She tried to come at least every 3-4 weeks and always made sure she had a valid reason; but really, she just wanted to see him. The thought of him facing more charges didn't sit well with her, but she knew it wasn't likely her boss would take her suggestions with the politics surrounding his case.

"Unless we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knows where she is, there is no obstruction charge," Logan growled. "And that fucker knew that. Smug bastard."

"Well, what about everything he did do?" she asked as she once again reminded herself that he wasn't a saint. The more she began to see him as a man, the harder it was to remember all the horrible things he'd done. "He did chop up the body and carry it across state lines, falsify a confession, purger himself on the stand when he repeated the same, plus he was trying to improperly dispose of human remains by dumping them in the Hudson river."

"That's a max of fifteen years and he's already served longer than that."

"Okay…" Caroline dragged her fingers through her hair as she tried to rack her brain. "What about charging him with accessory after the fact?"

Logan flicked his gaze across the desk. "That's been discussed. It'd mean a new trial. Assuming the jurors look past the time he's already served, vote to convict and recommend the max, that's still only fifteen years."

"So, run the sentences consecutively and he'll stay in there another fourteen," she replied, ignoring the part where he might be found guilty. Throughout their interviews, she'd really begun to like the charismatic prisoner with the charming dimples whose loyalty nearly led to his death. Still, he was a murderer. She knew he'd killed his stepfather, and while she knew his children were better off for it, that didn't make it right. She believed him when he said he wouldn't do it again, but she really wasn't sure she wanted to take that chance in the first place. Perhaps the world was better off if he stayed behind bars even if he wasn't. The world had become so confusing.

The Assistant Director scoffed. "Please. No judge is going to run them completely consecutively with the standing charges. Best case scenario, they add them up to equal time served. It's all over the news that he was covering for his sister. Given that he's the son of a Deveraux and, before his arrest, had never been formally charged with a damn thing, he comes across looking like a fucking saint, willing to take her secret to the grave."

"But Rebekah hasn't even been tried," Caroline pointed out. "She's innocent until proven guilty."

"Doesn't matter. She's guilty in the court of public opinion and that's enough." Reaching into the top drawer, he pulled out a giant bottle of Tums. Dumping a handful into his palm, he offered it to his coworker with a raised brow, but she shook her head. Shrugging, he set it aside and slowly chewed the calcium carbonate in the hopes of soothing his never ending but recently acquired heartburn. He stared up at the ceiling again, folding his hands across his abdomen. "The U.S. Attorney's office wants us to offer him a deal."

"What?" Caroline gasped, sitting up straight in her seat as a moment of hopefulness on Klaus' behalf was followed immediately by guilt. "Why? We've got him cold on half a dozen charges."

"God, you really never did understand the politics of criminal justice," he snorted, shaking his head.

"Well, then why don't you explain it to me?" she bit out behind clenched teeth, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him spitefully.

Finally pulling his feet off the desk, Logan set them on the floor and turned to face her, forearms resting on the desk. "The FBI looks bad right now, Care. Really fucking bad. Senator Bennett is screaming for the law allowing the death penalty to be repealed ever since it came out that we almost executed an innocent man, and she'll probably get her wish within the year."

"He's hardly innocent," she humphed, blowing a stray tendril away from her forehead. "And it's not our responsibility to provide his alibi anyway. That's his job."

"Yes, that's true, but we both know we rushed that investigation-"

"Because he confessed!" she growled with the appropriate amount of ire to sell her indignation.

"Doesn't matter," he replied darkly, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a growing migraine. "The general opinion is that we should have looked harder at Rebekah since her DNA was all over that apartment."

"She and Stefan were dating." Feeling bile in the back of her throat at the term, she reached over and took three Tums. "She admitted she'd been there the night before the murder."

"And we took her at her word," he grumbled. "There is not one single photograph of them together. All Damon Salvatore knew was that his brother was dating a blonde, but he didn't know who."

"There are no photos of them because Rebekah didn't want her brothers to know," Caroline responded, chewing her tablets thoughtfully as a frown creased her forehead. "But I guess we took her word on that, too."

"Yes, because it made sense at the time, but nobody cares about that." He shook his head in frustration. "Every wannabe lawyer in the country is posting online about all the things we didn't do. Polygraphs, tested her for gunshot residue, kept her in interrogation for as long as we could hold her. You name it, they think we should have done it. And in retrospect, we should have. Everyone just wants someone to blame."

"Blame Rebekah!" the blond agent shrieked even as guilt made her wish she'd gone for that fourth Tums. "She's the one who whacked the guy." But for very good reason…

"Well, that's why we need to find her, isn't it?" he snapped. "But Klaus Mikaelson isn't talking."

"Is that the deal?" she asked, a dull pounding building pressure behind her left eye as she rubbed her temple. "Give up the location and they'll drop the accessory after the fact charge and let him go with time served on the others?" If that was it, they were screwed. Even if he did know where she was, and she had her suspicions about that, there was no way in hell he'd give it up despite how far, far she'd gone beyond the reach of extradition.

"No." Logan looked over at her with a grimace. "The last thing the U. S. Attorney wants is Klaus Mikaelson back on the stand. With the optics being what they are, there's a solid chance a jury would vote to acquit on accessory. If he walks on that, we'd be left with a defendant who has served longer than sentencing guidelines allow for the rest of the charges even if they were run consecutively. They want him to plead guilty to accessory after the fact and take ten years. In exchange, the judge will set aside the murder conviction and they'll add up the remaining number of days he's already served and use it for the sentences on the lesser inclusives. He'd get out with time served."

"And Rebekah?" she asked warily, suspecting the answer even before he began to shake his head.

"They want the deal to go through with or without her."

Caroline's jaw dropped as she stared at her boss incredulously. She knew she didn't feel at home in her badge anymore, but if she left the FBI, she wanted it to be on her own terms. The idea of Damon Salvatore forcing her out made her nauseous. "So it's basically my ass on the line for letting her get away. He walks whether he gives it up or not." While her first statement gave her a migraine, the second brought about a bit of relief that only intensified the growing ache behind her eyes if she thought about it too closely.

"Which is why you'd better pray he gives up the location before you offer him the deal."

The agent inhaled a deep breath as she forced back a tiny smile at the thought of seeing him again. They'd been in Terre Haute for a few days and while she'd gone hours after they arrived, reporting back that he had nothing to say, she was hoping to see him again before they left. "What makes you think he'll give it up now when he's been refusing for six months?"

"Because he likes you," Logan grumbled low under his breath, scowling. He looked over at her like he hated what he was about to say. "Just wear a low cut top and humor him for fuck's sake."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" She felt genuine anger rising up inside of her, jaw dropping. "Want me to offer him a lap dance, too?"

"If that's what it takes," he snapped back, regretting it as soon as he said it at the fury behind her sapphire eyes. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he shook his head before looking over at her with desperation covering every inch of his face. "Look, I know he's repulsive and that you hate playing this game, but I need you to take one for the team, here. The pressure the Congressman is putting on us is starting to get to everyone. I hate to say it because I've tried to protect all of us as much as I can, but if we can't find Rebekah, this might be it."

Caroline's anger was immediately replaced by dread, her mouth suddenly dry. "What do you mean 'this might be it?'" she asked warily, eyebrows furrowed together.

Logan looked over at her and she could see how miserable his thoughts made him. "It's not going to go well for you if this goes to Internal Affairs. If it comes to that, I'll push for a lengthy suspension without pay, but there's no guarantee they'll accept my recommendation. If you can't get him to give up the location, or if it's beyond the reach of extradition, it could mean the end of your career. I'm sorry, but that's the reality. So, I don't care what you have to do to get him to talk. Just get it done. Got it?"

Caroline was absolutely shocked. A suspension was the worst she'd expected, but it had never once occurred to her that she could actually be fired from the FBI after sixteen years of dedicated service. While she didn't disagree that what she'd done warranted such an action, the thought of the choice being taken away from her was repugnant. What was worse was that she knew it was not the hypothetical situation her boss believed it to be. Even if Klaus did tell her where his sister went, there was no world in which she'd turn her in. Sighing, she knew the only choice she did have in the moment was tell him what he wanted to hear. Looking over at Logan, she nodded her head and lied. "I'll get it done."