"There. You can barely tell" Katherine pronounced as she stepped back to examine her work. Caroline looked up into the mirror in front of her and appraised her appearance. Her nose had swollen only slightly after the altercation of the night previous, and Katherine had taken the task of covering up any signs of damage in her stride.

"Still don't want to tell us what happened?" Elena asked from where she was seated on the grand canopy bed across the room. The bridal suite of the hotel where the Mikelson Forbes wedding was to take place seemed unnecessarily large for just Caroline and the Gilberts use that day. She supposed her entire bridal party was meant to be gathered in the hotel room, along with all their gowns and the subsequent hairstylist, makeup artists, and photographers hired to talk the perfect candid shots of the gaggle of girls getting ready for the event.

Caroline gave Elena a pointed look as Katherine began to brush powder on the delicate skin of her under eyes.

Caroline had flat refused to explain to either of the Gilbert sisters what had occurred between herself, Tyler, and Klaus the night before. Katherine had been highly suspicious when she saw Klaus and Caroline slipping back into the main room the previous night. While the roughed-up hair and wrinkled clothes may have fooled other party guests into thinking that the couple had snuck away for a lovers tryst, Katherine knew better.

Caroline hadn't wanted to disclose any information about Tyler's sudden and violent appearance at the rehearsal dinner. She wanted to put the whole ordeal behind her. She wanted to gather all the memories she had of Tyler and lock them in a steel box in the back of her mind, never to be visited again. She didn't even want to hang on to the old memories from years ago when he had actually made her happy.

Back when Tyler was her sweet 10th-grade boyfriend, her mother was still alive and her father treated her as a daughter that he loved, rather than a burden he resented.

Those memories only made her current reality hurt that much more. It was easier to lock it all away.

"It's nothing worth repeating" Caroline pronounced after a prolonged silence. Katherine and Elena both swallowed that lie, only for their friend's benefit. Both women wanted to know what was going on with their friend. They wanted to help, however, they both knew in reality that their hands were tied.

Elena glanced at the time on her phone.

"Have you decided what kind of bride you are? Running on time, or keep the people waiting?" She asked, trying her best to lighten the heavy mood in the room.

Caroline let out a small huff.

"I can't say that I feel like a bride at all" she grabbed the flute of champagne that had been resting on the vanity table in front of her and downed it in a matter of seconds.

"But there's no use stalling I suppose"

"Then I'd say it's time for the dress" Elena stated, taking Caroline by her hands and pulling her to her feet.

The fabric of the gown flowed over Caroline's curves like water. If nothing else, the dress felt right that day. Someway the few yards of silk and thread, made her feel like her mother was in the room. She tried not to think of how her mother would have reacted to this day. If Liz had been alive, none of this would ever have happened. Instead, she focused on the feeling of having her mother nearby. If Caroline stood in front of the full-length mirror and set her eyes out of focus, she could almost mistake herself for her mother over 20 years before. The similarities in their wedding dressed still took Caroline's breath away.

Katherine and Elena had both changed into the bridesmaid dresses that had been selected by whoever the Mikaelsons had hired to handle all the affairs of the wedding. The champagne shade of their floor-length dresses flattered the twin's olive complexion, but completely washed out the two Mikaelson women who would be serving as her other 'bridesmaids'. Carline tried not to feel too pleased with that fact. While she had nothing against Freya, who so far had been nothing but kind to her, Rebekah had continued to prove to be yet another painful thorn in Carolines already injured side.

"I'd ask if you're ready but I suppose that's a bit of a stupid question" Elena began, as she picked up the ridiculously extravagant bouquet of flowers from its resting spot on the obscenely sized hotel bed and handed it to Caroline.

Caroline gave her friend a sad smile as she accepted the bundle of flowers that had been tidily secured together with a pristine white ribbon and string of freshwater pearls. With the bouquet clutched in one hand, Caroline used her free limb to grab the neck of the champagne bottle that had been resting quietly in an ice bucket. She raised the bottle to her lips, letting the freezing drops of water run down the glass of the bottle and onto the exposed skin of her wrist. The fizz of the champagne and the shock of the freezing water startled her body into attention. As much as she wanted to let her brain fade into oblivion and get through this day on a boozy autopilot, she had a part to play.

This entire affair, as well as the rest of her life, would be a delicate dance. If she could play her role well enough to get through this sham of a wedding without raising suspicion, perhaps she would emerge from the day unscathed. She could still feel the sting of every time her father had ever struck her. Her ribs ached from every kick. Her wrists burned from every time Tyler had twisted her skin. She knew the littlest misstep would put her in danger. If there was one thing that Caroline knew well, it was the fury of men. If rumors were to be believed, and from what she had seen so far they were to be, there was nothing a person should try to avoid more, than the wrath of a Mikaelson man.

This wedding meant a great deal to both the patriarch of her own family, as well as that of the Mikaelsons, so as much as Caroline wanted to trade the bottle of champagne for Tequila and be forced kicking and screaming down the aisle, for the sake of her own safety, she'd walk down to the altar with her head held high. The picture of a woman in love.

Caroline placed the champagne back in its ice bucket and turned her body towards the door. It wasn't now or never. It was only now.

"I'm ready" she lied, her voice somehow staying remarkably steady. Elena stepped out into the living room of the suite to collect both her own and Katherine's bouquet of flowers and to do a quick sweep to ensure that they weren't missing anything.

Caroline had been about to follow Elena when she felt Katherine's fingers wrap around the crook of her elbow.

Caroline turns to see Katherine looking at her, eyes wide and serious.

"You don't have to do this" Katherine hissed, her eyes darting to the door to see if Elena was within earshot.

"Kath" Caroline began.

"No! I've thought about it. We can make this work"

"Kath," Caroline said again, firmer this time.

"I have the keys to Mason's truck" Katherine pushed on. Caroline recoiled at the sound of Tylers uncle's name. Mason had always been a wild card in Katherine's life, the guy she'd danced around but never quite committed to, off and on for years. Despite his connection to Tyler, Caroline saw Katherine's logic. Despite the Mayor's connection to the Forbes family business, the Lockwoods had no other tie to the underworld that Caroline and Katherine had grown up in. There was a fair chance that Mikael Mikaelson didn't even know of Mason's existence. He would never be the first suspect for Caroline to turn to for help. The idea of her turning to any Lockwood at all was almost unthinkable.

"If we leave now we'll have an ok head start. The bride is always late right? I'd say we could reasonably have a little more than an hour before anyone comes to look for you. If we go over the toll bridge in Jefferson it'll leave a mark and they'll think we're going north, to Philadelphia or New York or something. It'll throw them off! We can be in Detroit before midnight and they would never suspect it"

"and then what?"

"and then we figure it out!"

"With no money? and no help? It's not possible."

"It is possible! We could do it"

" We'd only make it worse. A head start won't matter when they have eyes in every city in the country"

"Then we go to fucking Canada!"

"and leave who to clean up the mess?" Caroline snapped. "Your sister? Because this won't go unpunished, and before they can find us, they'll take it out on her"

Katherine bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, drawing blood and letting the rusty taste fill her dry mouth.

"Kat, I love you. If I thought that we could get away with this, I would already be gone. But it'll only hurt more than it'll help, and I cannot let anyone get hurt for me. Especially not the two of you"

Katherine gritted her teeth, fury pumping through her veins.

"This is so fucking unfair" Katherine spat.

"But it isn't over" Caroline vowed. "This isn't the end. I won't let it be. This isn't a wedding, but it sure as hell isn't a funeral either"

Katherine rushed forward, wrapping her arms around Caroline and holding her close.

"Everything ok?" Elena asked, having reappeared in the doorway her and her sister's collection of flowers clutched in her hand.

"Definitely" Katherine proclaimed, letting go of Caroline and purposefully avoiding her sister's eyes. Caroline knew that if it was only Katherine who had anything to lose, she would throw Caroline into the trunk of a car and drive the two of them as far away as she could. But despite Katherine's tough exterior, she would never do anything to put her sister in danger.

"Alright. Let's get this over with" Caroline proclaimed with more confidence than she really felt.

...

Bill Forbes along with the two Mikaelson sisters were waiting outside the closed door of the ballroom in which the ceremony would take place. Bill looked up from the phone in his hand when he heard his daughter approaching.

His expression didn't change from the blasey face he'd had while typing away at an email.

"Ready?" Bill asked, sliding his phone into his pocket. The question made Caroline want to laugh. As if her father really cared. If Caroline being 'ready' had anything to do with this that day, a ring never would have been put on her finger. Still, she knew it wasn't worth challenging her father on this topic.

So she nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth the truth would come out.

"Good" Bill stated cooly, cracking open the door to the ballroom and signaling to the band to begin playing.

Before Caroline could take in everything that was happening, the doors before her were open and the two sets of sisters had floated into the ballroom and down the aisle. If it weren't for her father's arm linked through her own and his own feet moving forward, she would have stayed rooted to the spot.

The swell of the music from the band and the faces of a few hundred people that Caroline didn't recognize overwhelmed her senses. A sudden flash of one of the photographer's cameras snapped her back to reality.

75 feet ahead of her was a man she barely knew, with whom she'd had more arguments than conversations, a man she was about to pledge herself to in front of God, family, and friends. A man she was about to legally bind herself to with only a few strokes of a pen. In a matter of seconds, she would be standing in front of an officiant and be forced to repeat vows she did not and could never mean.

She didn't know where to look as she ascended down the aisle. She couldn't bear to look forward to her future husband. She didn't want to know if he was watching her. She didn't want to look over the crowd. She'd made that mistake when the doors to the ballroom had first opened. Her eyes had accidentally caught with that of Mikael Mikaelson, who looked so smug and triumphant that it almost made Caroline want to slip off her shoes, hike up the hem of her dress and run for her life.

The slow trip up the aisle felt like a funeral march. With every step, Caroline got closer and closer to the end of life as she knew it. She wondered if to Klaus she represented a slow-motion bullet, coming down the aisle to blow apart any plans he had had for his own life.

Caroline almost felt herself having sympathy for him. He hadn't asked for this either. However, his treatment of her and his insistence upon the idea that she was benefiting from this little plan, made it difficult to see him with anything else other than disgust.

Caroline had to stop herself from outwardly shuttering when the officiant asked

'and who gives this woman to this man' and her father had responded, placing Caroline's hand into that of a practical stranger.

Had any line of a ceremony ever been so literal? Although she supposed it was more accurate that her father was trading her life to the whim of Mikael Mikaelson in exchange for additional power in his business.

As the officiant began to speak Caroline begun to feel as though her ears were filling up with water. The words being spoken in front of her became muffled and distorted. She tried to ground herself in the moment, but the only thing she had to anchor herself was the feeling of Klaus's hand on her own.

If it hadn't been for the officiant saying her name as he directed her to speak her vows. Caroline would have missed her cue to speak.

She wished her dress had pockets that she could stick her free hand into so that she would be able to cross her fingers without anyone seeing. Instead, both her hands rested in that of her almost-husband as she spoke the words " I do" after every vow she was asked to make.

She forced herself to look into Klaus's eyes as she spoke, afraid that if she didn't she would appear weak to every person in the room who knew the true nature of their union. Klaus gazed back at her as he responded in kind with his own vows, his voice clear and steady as he spoke.

Without Caroline realizing it, the ceremony was coming to an end and she was moments away from herself and Klaus being named man and wife. She felt as if her mind were playing tricks on her when she heard the words ' you may now kiss the bride'.

It wasn't as though she hadn't known the kiss was coming. It was the most photographed moment of any wedding ceremony. It was completely and utterly unavoidable.

Caroline had never been so grateful for the nerves of steel she'd developed over the past several years of dealing with the traumas of her life. She knew if she hadn't hardened herself over half-decade, her whole body would be shaking.

Klaus leaned towards her and she knew she could just stand still and allow herself to be kissed, however, Caroline wouldn't let this be yet another thing that happened to her. She had to grab onto any little piece of control she could find. So she leaned forward to meet him.

It occurred to Caroline the moment before their lips touched, that Klaus would be the only other person she had ever kissed besides Tyler. She'd had her first kiss during a game of spin the bottle in the Donavons basement in the 9th grade. When Tyler had spun the empty wine bottle and it had landed in front of her Caroline had been in complete shock. Before that night she had never thought of him as anything more than an annoying classmate, but after their brief kiss in the center of the small group of their friends playing the childish game, her hopeless romantic self took over.

She'd suddenly found herself lying awake at night and thinking about him. She's started to blush when he passed her in the hallway. That kiss had been the foundation for them to begin dating the following year.

And that was it. For the past 6 years, Tyler had been the only person who had ever kissed her, and those kisses had stopped being sweet so long ago that Caroline could hardly remember what a proper kiss felt like.

So in that train of thought, she hadn't known what to expect from this kiss, and she hadn't had particularly high expectations. So when their lips finally did meet, Caroline hadn't expected to feel anything.

Yet when the man in front of her lips pressed against her own something felt...she didn't quite have words for it. It was odd. Different from anything she'd ever felt before. There was a current running between the two of them from the moment that Klaus's lips met her own. Caroline couldn't make sense of the feeling if it was for the worse or the better but the feeling caused her heart to stop, even if it was just for a second.

The spell was broken the moment that their lips no longer touched, but when Caroline opened her eyes, feeling slightly breathless, she could tell that she wasn't the only one who had experienced the strange feeling that had passed between them. Klaus's eyes stared back into her own and she could see from the slack of his usually tight jaw that he too had been taken by surprise.

Caroline didn't have enough time to process the moment even further as the crowd behind them burst into applause for the newlywed couple.