Chapter 26.

Caroline took a step through the threshold. "You're an ass." She scolded him angrily.

Klaus gave a little push to the door which closed behind her but stayed where he was so she had to do the same too.

"Excuse me?" He asked cocking his head slightly to one side.

She crossed her arms tight in front of her. "Why do you insist on acting in this hateful way?!"

"Tyler was the aggressive one. What did you expect from me? To turn the proverbial other cheek?!" He grunted at her.

"I expect you to...to try...to compromise."

"Compromise? Are you serious?"

"It's not easy but I'm doing it! I go out of my way to try to make things better so that we..."

Klaus started shaking his head. Is this what she told herself she had come here for?

Her words died down as she noticed what he was doing.

"Why, Caroline?" He asked her, his eyes in hers. "Why are you trying so hard?"

"You know why! I told you why!" She replied with a confused look. "Cause I want us to try to be friends but that's never gonna happen if..." She stopped again at seeing that he had started shaking his head again. "Why do you keep shaking your head at me?!" She fairly yelled.

"Because we're not friends, love. We'll never be...there's so much more between us and you know it." He replied, fighting to keep his voice calm as he felt the anger that had started at the bar start burning in his stomach again.

"You said you wanted this too." She said pursing her lips.

"No, I never said that." Klaus disagreed. "I said I'll take whatever I can with you so I'm even trying to play by your rules here but that doesn't mean that I like them...you know what I really want."

Slow down, slow down. He repeated in his head, as he saw her eyes widen at his words but it was so damn hard when she was the one seeking him out.

"Then...then coming here was a mistake." She said in a whisper as she took a step back, her back going against the door.

There it was again. She was always taking that step away from him, trying to push herself back into her world. But he wasn't going to let her do it this time. Tonight, she had come looking for him, willingly into his world.

"No. It wasn't." He said quietly taking a step forward so that they were back to the same distance. "Maybe the mistake was mine, in giving you time, space, too much of it...waiting for you to realize ...when...maybe what you need is to be made...into taking a look inside yourself and see what you really want."

He would still give her all the time she needed, but maybe there was nothing wrong in opening her eyes, maybe she needed to see, he could show her, open up to her and show her how true and deep his feelings ran…

"I already know that...and I told you..." She said breathlessly.

"Why are you here, Caroline?" Klaus asked her bluntly. "Really?" Look inside yourself.

"To talk about what happened tonight, because you can't..."

"No." He stopped her, as his hand went up to caress his knuckles against the creamy skin of her cheek. "You're here because you can't stay away from me, any more than I can stay away from you."

She was the one to shake her head now. "No...You're...you're wrong."

"No. I'm not." Klaus took another step closer to her; a mere two inches separated them now. His hands went slowly up to rest his palms against the door at both sides of her head. He gave his feelings free rein to burn in his eyes as she turned her head to look at him.

Slowly, so slowly he tilted his head towards hers until his unshaven cheek touched against her soft one and inhaled her sweet familiar scent.

"You're just scared...scared of what it would mean to finally let yourself go...but aren't you ever tired of it all? Tired of behaving the way your friends expect you to..." He whispered to her.

Her breath quickened and she closed her eyes. "That's not...not what I do."

"I've been so...so very patient with you, always...always waiting...but now I'm almost to my limit..." Klaus said in her ear, brushing his nose against it. "What will it take to make you see?"

"And what will it take for you to understand that-"

"Enough!" Klaus hissed at her. "Enough lies, Caroline. Just let yourself do what you really want to...let yourself admit why you came here tonight." Take that small step towards me and everything will be as it should be.

One of his hands left the door and with one small movement unclipped her hair from its pony tail and he let its soft tresses fall around her face and through his fingers. The minty scent invaded his nostrils and he nuzzled his nose even closer.

"Shh..." He silenced her as she gave another small shake to her head. His fingers released themselves from around her hair and with just one finger he caressed her lips. "No more words."

Whatever she read in his eyes made her own open wide. "I know you would never hurt me." She told him softly.

"Hurt? Oh, love, there will be nothing but pleasure, believe me." He moved his nose softly against her cheek and then slowly down to her neck. His hand went back in her hair and his fingers spread deep in it.

He closed his eyes and grazed his lips against her neck in the softest of kisses, not knowing that the moment he did she closed her eyes as well.

"Stop." Caroline said almost inaudibly even as he could feel her body responding violently to that small kiss. One small step my love…come to me, you want to!

Klaus lips went slowly up her neck, then her jaw and then kissed the corner of her lips and he felt her breath against his cheek as she gasped loudly.

His lips went over hers and finally he kissed her like in his ever constant dreams.

His mouth was urgent but still soft against hers. His lips tried to tell her without words just what she meant to him. She was back in his world and he wanted her to see that she belonged there, with him. He sighed in her mouth when her body pressed against his, her arms finally moved up and her hands went up his chest to entwine around his neck and he opened his mouth even fuller over hers.

He felt like he had been starving and hadn't even realised it until his mouth joined with hers. Her tongue touched his lower lip and a beautiful shiver of pure pleasure went down his spine.

"Caroline..." My Caroline. He murmured her name in her mouth.

The kiss became suddenly frantic as they both seemed to have been deprived for too long of the feel and touch of the other and wanted to make up for it using their lips, fingers, hands, bodies. Klaus crushed his body against hers, as he pressed her harder against the door. His body was aching for her with a fierce need and he knew she could tell exactly how desperately he wanted her. Still he made his hands caress her slowly, gently like the treasure she was. His fingers splayed in her hair while his other hand went down the side of her body until he reached her buttock and pressed her against him. Her leg went up to fit his body better against her and he moaned in her mouth with pleasure.

Then he started raining small kisses from her cheek to her neck again. Moving his mouth near her ear he breathed one word. "Stay." My love, you're finally home.

The thought of how true that felt almost brought him to his knees. His hands stopped caressing her and he just enveloped her in his strong arms, holding her close to him as much as he could, hiding his face against her neck. Her arms held him just as tight around his back. He let out a deep sigh at how perfect that felt. Klaus Michaelson, who was always making fun of her and her friends always hugging, would give everything he owned to just stay in this embrace with her forever. He moved his head to touch his cheek against hers again and found it wet. She was crying?!

"Why the tears?" He asked, wanting nothing more than to kiss them all away.

Her green blue eyes glistened beautifully as she looked deeply into his. "I'm...afraid..."

"Of me...?"

"Yes."

"No..." Klaus sweetly brushed his nose against hers. "But you just said it...you know I'd never hurt you, so what you're really afraid of is your own feelings." Admit it!

"Tyler."

"No! No, no!" Frustration hit him hard at just hearing that name. His palms went back flat on the door with a terrible thud. He heard the wood surrender under his strength and Caroline's shoulders curled upward at the sound. "You don't love him, you don't! Not anymore! Not when you kiss me the way you just did right now! Not when I feel your body come alive the moment we touch!" How could she keep denying the truth?!

With her cheeks still wet as tears kept dripping down her face, she shook her head. "That doesn't mean..."

"How can you keep lying to yourself like that?" Calm down. Calm down and make her see. He ordered himself again in his head as he stopped to inhale a deep breath. He gently cupped her face in his hands. "Sweetheart, it's all right..."

Once again he let his feelings show in his eyes, as she searched them intently through her tears. He saw a little crease appear between her brows. Confusion, uncertainty shadowed her eyes and he knew she was finally questioning herself and her motives.

"Caroline." A smile lit his face. "This is the...Damn it!" He swore as his cell phone started vibrating in his jacket pocket. He took his hand away from her face and fished his cell phone out.

"What?" Klaus yelled in his phone, his body one tensed muscle of frustration and need.

"I have her, brother."

"Elijah..." He gave her cheek one last soft caress before moving away.

"We finally have her…we caught her as soon as she got out of the plane, here in the states, she even saved me the trouble of bringing her myself." Elijah satisfied but with his usual calm tone informed him. "I will now have a fulfilling conversation with her and I'll see you at home."

"I knew it! So, it's as we thought...good, good." Everything was going according to his plan. "Finally ...we have her. See you soon." He smiled as he hung up and turned to look at Caroline again. "Elijah got the witch..."

Caroline nodded twice. "That's great! Where...how did he finally find her?"

"He didn't have to...he just followed her here."

"She was coming to Mystic Falls..." Her forehead creased, "that's strange considering to how much trouble Tony went through to keep her hidden and she just comes here on her own like this..."

"Tony convinced her to come." Klaus told her as he went back closer to her. Just as I knew he would. "But we should be..."

"I don't understand."

His body was definitely not thinking about talking but he gave a little sigh. "Tony wants her to try and save the wolf, the one I compelled, his mind...memories, whatever..."

"How do you know that?" She asked, her frown becoming more pronounced. "Wait...to your brother you said, it's as we thought, so you knew this would happen?"

"It was a plausible good guess." He went into her personal space, his body craving to have her in his arms again. "What does any of this matter…we have her, that's all that counts."

"No, you said you knew...how did you know?" She asked again.

Klaus let out a long sigh. Why were they talking about this when they could… "When I compelled the wolf, he told me this story of how Tony found them one by one and cared for them and bla bla bla...I knew I could use that...his love for his pack..."

"Wait!" Her voice hitched brusquely. "Does this mean...are you telling me you knew this from the start that you..."Klaus eye brows went up, his eyes giving her a knowing look.

"You lied to me…" She said softly, her voice breaking.

"What?"

"You lied to me. You told me you saved Elena..."

Bloody Elena. "I did."

"No. No, you...you used her!" She contradicted him, her lips sputtering with surprise. "You...you needed a way to give them back the wolf...of course, it's why you compelled him so bad, you wanted them to need the witch in order to save him...but you had to do it without them suspecting..." Her voice broke again and her hand went up to cover her mouth. "You were at the camp ...it's why you kept going there, you were looking for a way..."

She was making all the pieces fit. It didn't matter anymore. The witch was in his grasp.

"You used Elena's kidnapping as a way to do that...oh my God how could I have been so stupid? I really thought ...you let me think...that's why you didn't even care about the stake...you already had what you really wanted..." Caroline kept talking in hard gasps.

Her eyes glared furiously at him through her unshed tears but he just frowned deeply in response.

"I could help Elena and I did! What does it matter if there was more than one gain to it?" Why was she making such a fuss?

"It matters to me! It matters...TO ME!" She yelled out as she pointed at herself. "You looked in my eyes and told me you saved her, I thanked you for it, I really thought...and you knew how much that would mean to me...you knew...and you pretended...of course, you saw...my weakness and you used it right? Cause that's what you do!"

"You're blowing this out of proportion!" He hissed at her between his teeth.

"Really?...then why not tell me the truth from the start?" She hissed back.

"You know why!" His voice raised high too. "I couldn't risk you telling Tyler. It's the same as with your phone call..."

"No it's not!" She shook her head fiercely, wisps of hair clinging to her wet cheeks. "I was worried from my best friend's life...you? You didn't want to risk ruining your plan and of course you also saw it as a way to...you deceived me on purpose...Oh my God!"

"Caroline!" He grumbled her name low in his throat as he felt his anger growing stronger, but she completely ignored him.

"Did you stop to think for a moment what would have happened if you had been wrong? If Tony had seen through your ...trick...they would have killed her...did you think for a second of the danger you put her in...of course not! What do you care!" She croaked a humourless laugh as her fingers wiped the tears from her cheeks. "And you even had the audacity to play the hero card with me."

"That was all your doing...and I told you they are not just his pack for Tony, they are his family!"

"Is that your justification?" She asked him as she pushed her hair away from her face. "Have you any idea of how much...I actually defended you with my friends...but I'm so stupid! My God, so stupid! I let myself believe..."

"Stop it!" She took his side against her friends. How could she still not understand what it meant? But he would make her! His fingers curled around her upper arms in a painful grip. "You and I both know that this is not about Elena...she's safe with her beloved Salvatores. This is about you holding on to this...this thing, using yet another excuse so as not to have to admit to yourself that you have feelings for me..."

"Feelings?" She spat the word as if it disgusted her as she pushed his hands away. "What feelings? NO!"

"Yes!" Klaus shouted in her face, then stopped and inhaled deeply a few times. He felt like he was fighting against her to understand and against his own anger as he tried not to let it overrun him. So he lowered his voice and tried again. "Just a moment ago, before my brother called, I could see it in your eyes, you were finally admitting to yourself what I've been telling you all along...and it scared you...again...like it did the night of the picnic, you could feel it then too."

Caroline just shook her head violently from side to side, hair flying.

Klaus felt like a giant fist was squeezing his heart as he saw her so adamant in her refusal. It felt like her mind refused even to consider this possibility.

"First it was the spell now this..." He didn't want his voice to break but he couldn't help it. "My God, is it...is it really so very...horrible for you, so impossible to...to admit even to yourself that you could actually...feel something for me?"

He stopped breathing as he waited for her answer. He let his ever present mask fall. Her eyes looked directly in his, still filled with unshed tears and burning anger.

"How could I ever feel anything for someone like you? Who would?!" Caroline hissed through clenched teeth. "I tried to reach out to you and this is how you repay me? I refuse to let myself care. I'm done with you!" Her chin went a little higher, her eyes cold and haughty. "And you just reminded me why, so thank you. Thank you for reminding me exactly of who you are, before I made the biggest mistake of my life and hated myself forever for it!"

Just where does she think she is going?! Klaus thought as he savagely slammed the door back shut after she had opened it to try to leave. His hands went back to her upper arms, his fingers digging in her soft flesh as he turned her to look back at him.

Her words had cut him wide open, not just right through his mask but to his deepest core. That part of him he kept so hidden even he barely knew existed but now he could feel it bleed inside him but he'd die before he'd let her see it. What a fool he'd been.

He stared right into her eyes as he let his anger finally take over. But not the destroying rage he was famous for. No, even that would show her that she had hurt him. He made himself go cold. Unemotional. His fingers released his hold on her arms and he took two steps away from her. Could she tell what that meant?

"Finally. Finally you let me see what the problem was from the start." He talked quietly keeping his voice flat. "Of course...how could you have feelings for the original hybrid?...to actually care for the monster who killed so many and hurt even more? What would that make you? What would your friends say? How would they react?" Her eyes widened and he knew that he had hit a nerve. "So I was wrong. The idea doesn't scare you. You kept fighting against it cause the idea disgusts you...I'm unworthy of your feelings...or even unworthy of any feelings at all, right? RIGHT?!" He growled loudly now and a ripple went through his body like when he was about to change. The cut inside him seemed to tear even further as he said those words. Words, he never made himself think but were somehow there lurking in the darkness of his soul, questioning him if he was worthy of being loved by anyone. Her eyes seemed to be studying what his own were showing but he didn't want her to see this doubt in him. His anger helped him once more. He ignored the painful tear and pulled his mask back on. She may have cracked it but he'd had it for far too long not to know exactly how to hide behind it. She would never see him without it again.

"So what is it you want to hear me say? That destroying whoever threatens me or my family is what matters most to me and that I will do whatever it takes to see this witch dead? Yes." He replied to his own question with a snarl. "That I saw a way to turn Elena's kidnapping to my advantage and I used it? Yes, I did. That I knew that doing so, and letting you keep the stake would also help me...look good in your eyes? Yes, again." He continued as he spread his arms wide open. "Yes, this is me, Caroline. This is who I am and you have always known it...from the start. Even before you came to live here with me and more so then, you have come to know me, I never lied about who I was." I was honest about how I felt for you…you played me for a fool all along.

"Well then the mistake was mine." She replied, her voice carrying the same cold tone he was using. "I actually believed you could do something selfless, even when Bonnie, when everyone kept telling me you would never change, I still...but...where is he? Where is that man I spent hours with, here in this house?"

"He's right here." Klaus replied looking deeply in her eyes. Why am I still trying to make her see?

"I don't see him..." She said as she stared right back at him. "I wonder if he ever truly existed."

How dare she?!

"You don't see him because you only see what you want to see...what suits you, the same with what you feel...it's all, what suits you, what keeps you in your safe, little world." He hissed through his teeth. "You are nothing but a weak, frightened, little girl!"

Caroline gave a small shake to her head as tears formed in her eyes once more. "I really thought that the humanity I saw in you was enough to save you."

"Save me?" Klaus spat the words with an incredulous look. "Save me from what? I don't need nor want to be saved! And I'm sure I never said or did anything to make you believe that. This is who I am. Just like this. Take it or leave it."

"I leave it." She shouted before hastily opening the door and then slamming it behind her without looking at him again.

Klaus fingers spread once more on the door as he stayed there, forcefully breathing through his nose. He wanted to growl, shout and break everything in his sight but not before he heard her leave. Her tyres screeched on the tarmac a few seconds later and then he sped towards the sofa upturning it with one strong flick of his arm, making it hit against the glass table in front of it which broke in a million shreds. He did growl then, like a hurt wolf. And this hurt wolf would take revenge, he thought suddenly.

His head spun back towards the door and his eyes took on a calculated look as he thought on how to procure her the most pain. He wasn't worth having feelings for, well he would show her what an unfeeling being was capable of. He walked with long strides towards the door when a shadow sped right by him. Rebekah was all of a sudden standing between him and the door.

"You're not going anywhere." She told him with a determined voice as she fisted her hands at her side.

Klaus eyes narrowed. "You really do not want to mess with me tonight, sister."

"I know." She winced. "You'll probably break my neck or even dagger me again but you'll have to listen to me first."

"I don't have to do anything."

"Klaus, going out on a killing spree of anyone she loves will not make you feel better…and you'll lose her forever for sure then." His sister told him looking directly in his eyes.

"Have you been eavesdropping?" He accused her with narrowed eyes.

"Only the last part…I heard shouts." Rebekah replied raising her chin. "Nik…I know right now you only-"

"If this is you trying again to offer me a shoulder to cry on, I swear I'll rip it right out of your body." He growled at her.

"Stop it!" The original girl shouted at him. "Stop acting like a child with a tantrum and listen to me."

"How dare you?!" He took one menacing step towards her. "You don't know what she said to me."

"She was hurting!" His sister yelled at him. "She felt betrayed! She thought you had done this unselfish, heroic thing just for her and then she finds out, callously I might add, that you only did it for your own interest."

"I thought you said you only heard the last part." Klaus raised his eye brows at her.

"I lied." Rebekah rebuked with a shrug. "She was angry, sad…hurt and she lashed to hurt you back …remind you of someone?" She finished crossing her arms across her chest with a knowing look.

Klaus heaved a long breath out. "It was more than that." He said in a quieter voice before turning back into the living room. His shoes crunched noisily as he walked over the broken glass. He went to the bar and grabbing a bottle drank straight from it.

His sister slowly followed him, shaking her head at the mess. "Yes, you're right." She agreed from behind him. "You were also right when you told her that she was frightened…because she is, very scared." She gave a small sigh. "Think about it. It's you we're talking about, you…with what you've done since you came to Mystic Falls, the stories she must have heard from the centuries before…it's how her friends feel about you, what they must say to her…Tyler…for her to realise she feels something for you must be..."

Her voice died down as he turned to glare at her. "She doesn't feel anything for me. You obviously heard everything else and not that?" Hadn't his sister heard the disgust in Caroline's tone or saw the way her eyes widened in horror? He tried to keep his voice sharp and cold but failed.

"That's not true." Rebekah contradicted him. "You know it. I know it…and there's a part of her that knows it too."

"No." Klaus shook his head between swigs from the bottle. "I refuse to keep on being manipulated by this-"

"Oh come on!" His sister interrupted him once more. "Less than a week ago you were sitting on that couch and told me you were willing to wait forever for her…what did you think that waiting was going to be about Nik…huh?"

Klaus was about to swallow from the bottle again but suddenly stopped drinking and just stared down in the glass bar surface.

"I know it hurts to-"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore." He stopped her without looking up at her. The pain was too raw and he didn't want anyone to see it and he certainly didn't want to talk about how much it hurt.

Rebekah opened her mouth to obviously say something more, then after a long hesitation closed her lips again.

"All right." She agreed with a soft sigh, and then took a deep breath in. "Do you still want to go out to kill her friends?"

"Yes!" He barked through clenched teeth, then hearing her heavy sigh again, added, "…But I won't."

Klaus felt his sister's gaze on his face and not wanting to see whatever what was in her eyes, he walked away without looking at her, the bottle still in his hand and went upstairs.