A/N: It has been a hot minute since I worked on this story. Lack of motivation, work, and an all-around feeling that I can't write good at all. Anyway, I had a random burst of motivation to work on the story, so I'm rolling with it and gonna try and edit as much as possible before the steam runs out.

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, leave a review to let me know what you guys thought!

CHAPTER SEVEN:

'I want to know, can you show me

I want to know about the strangers like me.'

Strangers like me by Phil Collins.

CAROLINE'S P.O.V.

In the days following Klaus and Katherine's visit to see the witch things had taken a worrying turn. At first Klaus had appeared to be worried about the fact that I was human again, and although I thought that that might be a part of it, there was a definitely something else there. Something that he was keeping from me.

In that time I had been watching everyone closely to see if I could pick up on what, or why, they were keeping from me. They had told me that everything was fine, yet every time I walked into a room where both Katherine and Klaus were alone, or where Katherine and Nadia were alone, the conversations would stop and their stares would press against me.

Laying down on my bed, trying to find some comfort in the soft Egyptian cotton blankets, I stared up at the ornate gold light fitting that hung from the ceiling directly above me. I wasn't really seeing the light, but moreso was scanning over my latest ridiculous theiries as to what the big secret could be. Would my vampiric bloodlust somehow return, making me need to drink blood to stay sane? Would I rapidly age and drop dead as if I was as a rotted corpse?

Sighing, I pushed myself up into a sitting position and cringed at the tight pull of the muscles up my back. Bright light coated everything in the room and I sat up taking in the way that it glinted off of every surface, counting down from twenty in my head and then pushing myself towards the edge of the bed, letting my legs fall over the side. They hit the cold floorboards and I counted down again, trying to build up to the action that would cause my muscles to spasm and shoot out pain, and then placed weight onto my feet as I came to stand, wincing.

I stumbled across the room, picking up my slippers from in the corner and slipping them on my feet. Maybe I could find some kind of exercise, or yoga that would help with my back issues.

Looking at myself in the vanity mirror, my hair was unruly and bits of hair stuck up in all directions. The bags underneath my eyes were prominent against my pale skin. I stepped forward and tried to make myself presentable for lunch, pulling my hair into a tight ponytail and then adding a light layer of foundation and concealer.

Walking down the long hallway to the main entryway stairs I thought over the way that Katherine and Nadia had been acting, and silently prayed that today at lunch they could at least act normal. Last night at dinner I had interrupted a whispered conversation and they shot apart and both made ridiculous excuses, Katherine muttering something about wolves under her breath.

And I knew that the reason for all the secrecy was because Klaus had asked them to. I wasn't stupid. He had probably made some sort of threat, which made it incredibly difficult to get them to give it up to me. I had one last resort, which was to ask Kida is she knew anything about it, but her loyalty to Nadia would probably prevent her revealing what she knew.

Stepping down from the last step and instead of heading towards the dining room, I went in the opposite direction, heading for what I hoped was the kitchen. I had seen Kida disappear behind these doors several times and I knew that it was either the kitchen or where her room was, so either way I would hopefully find her.

The doorhandle was cold against the palm of my hand as I turned it and pushed the heavy wooden door open to reveal the pleasant herbal scent that seemed to follow Kida wherever she went.

Kida was standing behind a large island bench and was in the middle of putting lunch together, spreading butter onto bread while something was cooking on the antique fire-powered stove. Her white hair was pulled back by another one of her colourful bandanas, and the sun that was coming through the window seemed to glow off of her skin.

She looked up at me as I walked into the room, smiling knowingly as she put the knife down next to the butter tray. The look she sent my way gave me the feeling that she had been expecting me.

"Hello, Caroline." She said, her words rolling off her tongue in a thick drawl.

Smiling in return, I walked further into the room, sitting on one of the stools that was next to the island. She turned to the frying pan, where some sort of meat was frying, and grabbed a spatula and began to flip the meat over.

"Hello, Kida. How are you?"

"I am well. What is it that you wanted to see me for?"

"Why the assumption that I want something?" I said, sitting up straight in the chair, trying to ease some of the tension in my back that was slowly spreading to my shoulders. I would need to go and find some painkillers after lunch.

Kida pursed her lips as she watched me, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a small masom jar that was filled with what looked like small dark green peas. She twisted the lid, grabbing two of them out and holding them out for me to take from her. Holding them in the palm of my hand I could see that they weren't peas, but some sort of plant or herb that had been crushed up and rolled into a small ball.

"Their herbal pain relievers. Homemade. They'll help with your back." She explained, opening up the oven door and pulling out an oven tray that held some halved tomatoes slightly roasted. I took a deep breath in through my nose, and delighted in the fresh calming aroma of the tomatoes. "And, I can tell when someone wants something from me. I'm a hard person to keep secrets from."

I placed the tablets in my mouth and struggled to swallow them down with my dry throat, feeling my muscles relax almost instantly. Of course Kida would know that I was here for something. From what I could gather, Nadia's resident caretaker was either a witch, or she grew up among them. Neither was very clear because Nadia was just as good as her mother at keeping secrets.

"It's about the night that Katherine and Klaus saw the witch. They told me that I'm fine. Perfectly human. But ever since that night, everyone has been acting really weird around me. Like there's this massive secret that they can't tell me. I was just wondering if there was anything that you could tell me about it."

Kida started to place the tomatoes on the plates, looking down at the food with full concentration. "I cannot tell you before you are destined to know. What I can say is that you need not worry about it being something bad. The stars have aligned and made everything so, and therefore it will be what it is."

I stared at her with an open mouth, trying to make some sense out of what she had just said. When nothing came out, I smiled and thanked her for her advice, even though I was more confused now than I had been before. Walking out of the kitchen, leaving the delicious smell behind, I headed straight for the dining room.

I halted mid-step outside the door as I heard Katherine speaking rapidly.

"She's not stupid Klaus. She knows that we're keeping it from her. The sooner that you tell her the better." She paused for a moment, listening to the reply that I didn't have the power to hear anymore. I stayed as still and as silent as possible, not wanting to tip her off that I was just outside the door. "I'm not going to tell her, I'm saying that you should tell her. Now. I know Caroline, and the longer this is kept from her, the angrier she's bound to get. And from the stories I've heard about the Luniamiti, it isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's supposed to be this rare, magnificent, natural occurrence."

I listened for a little bit longer, rolling the foreign word around in my head. I had never heard that word before, but the moment she said it tingles ran from my scalp down to my neck and back. Katherine didn't mention the word again, and as the argument continued I knew that I was going to have to interrupt sooner rather than later, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping by Kida.

I took several steps back and made sure that as I approached the door again that my footfalls were loud, pulling the door open and hiding that I had heard anything. Katherine quickly hung up her phone, not even bothering to say goodbye to Klaus.

"What have you been up to?" She asked, picking up a glass of blood and taking a long sip. A part of me gagged at the thick liquid that sloshed around in the glass.

"I've been in the kitchen with Kida. I was asking her if she could tell me what you're hiding, but the only think I got was some gibberish about me finding when the time right." I plopped down opposite from Katherine and waited patiently for Kida to bring in lunch. Instead of eating lunch, all I really wanted to do was to head straight up to my bedroom and google the word I had overheard Katherine say to Klaus.

Luniamiti. If I could just find out what that word meant, then I would know exactly what they had been hiding from me.

The door pushed open and in walked Nadia, followed by Kida who was pushing a tray of steaming plates. She placed the plates down in front of each of us, the corner of her plump lips edging up as her eyes met mine. She motioned to Katherine with her eyes and then her smile disappeared and she returned to the indifferent demeanour she usually wore. Had she known that I would overhear Katherine on the phone to Klaus? Did she know that I would hear that word? I smiled at her and thanked her for the food, digging into my lunch.

I didn't engage in conversation, twisting my conversation with Kida around in my mind. That and all of the possibilities of what exactly 'luniamiti' was. Katherine and Nadia, instead of trying to talk to me, discussed about what I assumed they thought was a dull topic…ancient politics.

I'm sure to them, the people who had lived through what they were discussing, it was dull. But to someone who had been alive less than 20 years, hearing two people discuss George Washington and Alexander Hamilton I was kind of riveted

"I'm telling you, Katherine, Angelica and Hamilton did not have an affair. I was friends with Angie at the time. Yes, it was popular belief that there was more going on, and there kind of was in an intellectual way, but they were never physical." Nadia argued, taking a bite from the deconstructed sandwich that Kida had put together. "Trust me, Angie was too loyal to Eliza to do anything with Hamilton."

"I'm telling you, I knew Hamilton. There was more there than met the eyes. They were together at some point. The way she mourned him. The way he spoke about her. They were more than in-laws. Not to mention Hamilton would have slept with any woman who complimented his political standpoint."

After lunch I was quick to excuse myself, hurrying through the house to my room, locking myself in. I grabbed my phone, a notebook and pen, and sat down on my bed. I sounded out the word that Katherine had used and wrote down several ways that it could spelled, entering each one into the google search and finding…nothing. It just kept coming up with completely unrelated word searches and topics. I highly doubted Klaus and Katherine were discussing moon phases or a European restaurant.

It was an hour later that I came to the conclusion that my search wasn't going to give me any reliable information. I stopped, exited the web browser, placed my phone on the bed, and placed my head in my hands, hunching my body forward as I tried to think of what to do next.

Rubbing my hands against my eyes until I saw little flecks of light behind my eyelids, I sighed counted the options in my head.

I could confront Katherine, Nadia, or Klaus with what I had heard, and make one of them tell me what she knew. I could continue my Google search and hope to find something that was actually related to something supernatural. Or I could try and find someone who knew a lot about supernatural lore. Someone who might be able to give me some insight.

My head shot up and I smiled to myself as the realisation hit me. Elena had told me that Bonnie resurrected both Jeremy and Alaric. Surely Alaric would know something. And even if he didn't, he would know someone who did.

Reaching for my phone, climbing off the bed and pacing across the rug as I tried to locate Alaric's number in my phone. I prayed that he still had the same phone, I didn't want to have to explain to Elena why I needed Alaric's number. It was going to bad enough explaining to Alaric why I needed the information from him in the first place.

I was relieved when I didn't get the automated voicemail message, but instead I heard the familiar click of the phone being answered followed by a gravelly voice. "Hello?"

"Hey, Alaric. It's Caroline." I said kicking at the rug.

"Caroline? It's…nice to hear from, I was told you were on holiday."

Forming an explanation in my head, I played with my sleeve. I needed something to explain how I came by the word. "Yeah, I am. I needed a break from Mystic Falls drama. Do some soul searching, you know?"

"I wish I could so that at the moment." He grumbled, his vice strained. "When I was brought back the fact that I was a vampire didn't change, so I'm trying to get a hand on controlling that before I stray too far from Mystic Falls."

"Wow. I didn't even think about it like that. I just assumed you'd be a human again…I actually called because I have a supernatural history question for you. On my trip I've been looking up some old texts and I came across this word that I can't figure out. I've Googled, as well as looked deeper into the text where I found it, but I can't find an explanation anywhere."

He appeared to perk up, his voice loosening up as I heard rustling in the background. "Sure, I'll try and help. What's the word?"

"Luniamiti."

Silence followed and all I could hear was some faint rustling as he moved around. "I've heard of that word before. Give me a moment and I'll find the book it was in."

I waited as he put the phone down. I walked back over to my bed, sitting on the edge, admiring the warmth of the sun on my skin. I looked down at my notebook and picked up my pen, doodling on the corner of the page as I waited for him to pick the phone back up.

"Where was it that you said you heard this word?"

I hesitated before answering, trying to come up with a believable lie. "I was reading an old text with this witch I met. She translated most of it, but we couldn't translate this section, it was in some old indecipherable language, but luniamiti was written down on the bottom of the page, so I assumed that it was important."

"You were right. The book that I have mentions an old legend and describes the word that you found. It says that the phrase comes from Europe, but it also says that the legends origin is as old as the Ancient Greeks. Luniamiti isn't the proper term for it, the original term roughly translates to 'soul mated'. It's related to the mating of werewolves. Werewolves usually mate with another werewolf. It's how they keep things within the pack. However, this story says that sometimes a rare occurrence will happen and a powerful alpha will mate with a human. It's how they cleanse the pack and bring outside blood into the line of wolves. It helps prevent imbreeding." He paused for a moment, his words followed by the shuffling of pages. Soul mated. Werewolves. Alpha…Klaus. "It doesn't go into much more detail than that, but it references a few side effects of the mating. You know what, I'd love to get my hands on that text you found. If I could translate it there might be some more detailed information."

My mind was still reeling over what he had just said. Mated to a human. That would definitely explain the way that Klaus had been acting around me, and how he didn't want me to know what had happened with the witch.

"I'll talk to this friend and see if they can get the text to you." I stopped, looking at the trees outside the window, knowing that I couldn't promise him the text because it didn't even exist. "But nothing is guaranteed. Thank you for giving me that information. I need to go."

I hung up the phone, heart beating wildly in my chest. My mind slowly wrapped itself around what he had said, then the anger set in.

Klaus had no right to keep this from me. No right at all.