Author's Note: Okay guys! This chapter isn't super great but the next one was the inspiration for this entire story so I am so excited to get to it! I'm sorry for the wait! I do hope that you guys continue to enjoy! Let me know what you think!
There is freedom waiting for you,
on the breezes in the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
-e.h
"My aunt ran away because... of me..?" Caroline whispers softly. She sits up a bit but doesn't pull away from Klaus. Even though she's starting to feel a little bit better now that her bones aren't breaking, she could pull away from Klaus, but she doesn't want to. She can ignore the skin-crawling tingles and the phantom ache without complaint. But the shame in her chest is far harder to ignore. So it's her fault that her aunt is on the run. Nothing really spooked her aside from a cult of ancient vampires created by an Original Vampire hunting her down for whatever reasons they are. It's all her fault.
"No, Caroline, she's probably just trying to keep you safe..." Elena says softly, reaching forward to place a hand on Caroline's knee. "Don't think of it like that. Loving someone else means you do what you have to do to keep them safe, even if we don't like it."
"My aunt is insanely paranoid about everything," Caroline says weakly, the sickening feeling still building up in her gut. She rubs at her eyes roughly, guilt weighing her down. "I'm the reason she ran away. It doesn't matter that she loved me. She's scared of the world and because of me a vampire cult is hunting for her thinking that she's something that she isn't."
"I suppose that does answer a few questions..." Klaus says softly, using his finger to rub her shoulder. She draws a lot of comforts from both the small action, as well as him just being there for her.
"What are the Strix?" Elena asks.
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Ms. Gilbert," Elijah says smoothly.
Elena's eyebrows pull together, looking like she wants to protest, but Rebekah cuts her off with her own question, "Alright, so what does this mean for Caroline? I understand that she's hemorrhaging magic, but what can we do?"
Athena bites her lip, standing up slowly and smoothing out her romper in thought. She walks around the room slowly, crossing her arms over her chest before shaking her head slowly. "I think it's too late."
"Choose your next words wisely, witch," Klaus growls, hugging Caroline close to his chest as he glares at the Goddess in human form. Caroline feels panic and helplessness start building up in her chest but tries to stomp it down.
"Settle, Niklaus," Elijah says amicably before standing up and facing Athena. "Why do you say that? You don't seem too sure."
Athena turns to him, eyebrows pulling together. "The process has already begun. She's in the transition to becoming the Blue Spirit, but the rest of the conditions haven't been met. I can try and look through some of the information I have on the awakening process and see if we can complete it, barring it's not something linked to say an event we can't mimic. Or... we let her pass peacefully." Athena frowns at her own suggestion, not a fan of it.
"Or, I could turn her into a Hybrid and this stops being a problem," Klaus growls.
"I wouldn't do that, Klaus," Athena says, not even bothering to look at him when he moves his free wrist to his mouth and Stefan moves to push Elena behind himself and Damon.
"Niklaus," Elijah warns when the Hybrid glares at the older of the two witches, then he looks back at Athena, "Why not?"
"I infused a small bit of magic into her and it set the transition in motion once more," Athena says simply, turning to look at Klaus with sad eyes. "What do you think the magic in your blood is going to do to her? I'm sorry, Klaus, she'll be dead long before your blood can fully fuse into her system."
"So I'm going to die," Caroline whispers, feeling hopelessness weighing down on her like a ton of bricks. If Klaus wasn't holding her up right now, she's sure she would have sunk into the floor by now.
"No," Klaus snarls, glaring down at her, eyes flashing golden in his anger. "No, you aren't going to die. We will awaken the Blue Spirit then."
"Uh, Satan, did you forget the part where the Spirit wants to kill vampires? I'm sure that means you too," Damon snaps, glaring at the blond.
The room falls silent. For a long moment, no one knows what to say.
Finally, Rebekah says, "We are Original Vampires, we can't be killed."
"Werewolves kill vampires, my dear," Athena says calmly, turning level brown eyes toward wide blue ones. "You don't die because you are on a higher plane of vampire, but the Blue Spirit is the higher plane to werewolves. Besides, the purpose of the Blue Spirit is to bring balance to nature. From what I understand, it's ability stems from breaking magic down. Whether that means to destroy it... or unravel it, I'm not sure."
"Unravel it..?" Matt asks slowly, standing back to keep out of the way. "What does that mean?"
Bonnie's eyes widen. "Are you saying there is a chance that the Blue Spirit might be able to undo magic? Like reverse something that has happened? As in... turn a vampire into a human again?"
Athena shakes her head. "I don't know. I'm not sure how the Blue Spirit's power works. It is the ultimate loophole, so I guess that's one way of doing it. But I'm not sure. The Blue Spirit has always taken the role of a beast of some sort and hasn't awakened in an intelligent being for as long as I know. Perhaps it can, perhaps it cannot. I'm not sure. And even if it could, it may be more mission-oriented and never consider sparing the life of the supernatural being it hunts. Or maybe it simply breaks down magic in such a way that those afflicted dies horribly and painfully. I simply do not know."
"But are we willing to take the risk of awakening the Blue Spirit and it hunting all vampires in the world down for the next hundred years?" Stefan asks. At the sharp look Rebekah sends him, he presses his lips together before looking at Caroline. "Look, Care, I don't want you to die, I'm just asking the hard questions. Who's to even say that awakening the Blue Spirit will keep you with us?"
"What do you mean, Stefan?" Elena asks, wrapping her arms around herself once more.
"He's asking if Caroline will be able to coexist with the Blue Spirit," Athena says smoothly, "and that is a very good question. Unfortunately - "
"You don't know, yes, we've established that," Klaus snaps bitterly. Athena gracefully accepts his chipped response by simply nodding and closing her mouth to stare at him. Klaus looks down at Caroline and this look hardens across his face as his eyes meet her own and she knew in that moment that he wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to just let her die.
Caroline is equal parts of thankful and terrified.
"Then we will take that risk," Klaus says, firmly, staring into Caroline's eyes. "You will live. We'll figure the rest out later. Find out how to awaken the Blue Spirit, Athena."
Athena nods. "Okay, I'll see what I can figure out."
"Wait, so we're going to just ignore the fact that every supernatural life is in danger?" Damon asks, appalled. His blue eyes are blown wide as he looks at Stefan next to him. "I mean, sure it's gonna hate vampires, but who's to say it's exclusively vampires? It could be hybrids too, and witches that work with vampires that it'll target." Damon looks between Bonnie and Tyler. Now both of them look even more concerned. "I mean, what are we supposed to do? Run for the next hundred years?"
"Katerina did so for five times that," Klaus growls, narrowing his eyes. The look Damon gives him is of rage and hatred.
"Is Caroline going to die?" Elena asks softly, her face stricken in pain and worry.
Athena nods slowly. "Yes, dear."
"How long does she have?"
Athena considers, looking down at the blond as she slumps into Klaus's arms, too weak to hold herself up anymore, before admitting, softly, "I will be surprised if she can survive another transformation."
"But those attacks are so random. How are we going to know when one will spring up?" Rebekah asks, rubbing at her forehead.
"No, Rebekah," Klaus growls, still staring into Caroline's eyes. "She means the next full moon. We only have until then to awaken the Blue Spirit."
Damon growls in frustration, turning and stomping from the room, not bothering to say anything to anyone as he goes. Stefan looks after him with furrowed brows but says nothing. And if this wasn't basically the end of her life, Caroline would have been asking Klaus to at least try and be civil, but she can't bring herself to care. It sounds like whether they awaken the Blue Spirit or not, Caroline is probably going to die anyway.
Caroline didn't get better. She stays in this perpetual state of exhaustion for the weeks that follow. As they near closer to the full moon, Caroline can feel herself preparing for the change once more, and while the werewolf part of her brain is excited about another full moon, the rational part of her brain knows that this might be her last one.
Rebekah and Klaus don't leave her alone for a minute. While Elijah and Athena are out searching for a way to awaken the Blue Spirit, the other two-thirds of the Mikaelson siblings stay by her side constantly. They help her to the bathroom, to shower, and change clothes, they lounge around on the couch with her, and at the dinner table when she can muster up the appetite. She falls asleep every night on Klaus's chest, listening to his strong heartbeat and breathing in his beautiful scent. And most nights it lulls her to sleep peacefully. Sometimes, though, she'll sit away, staring out the window while curled into his chest while he slips in and out of slumber.
And sometimes she would fall asleep for what feels like a moment and awaken with a jolt, terrified and bleary-eyed, unsure of where she was until Klaus settled her down once more. But she also loved those moments, because Klaus would reassure her that everything would be okay and she would associate that with all of her problems, praying that all of them would go away. That somehow they would be able to go back to the way things were before. Back to the way that things should have been.
Caroline let go of her anger for her mom. She decided that she didn't want to spend her time being mad, even if she was going to survive and be okay, she still wanted to just let go of as much of her anger as she could. She couldn't tell her the truth, though. She couldn't look into her mom's eyes and tell her that she was dying. Klaus wouldn't say it. He's not ready to give up and every time she thinks about it, this look crosses her face, and Klaus has since started to recognize it and would glare when he saw it.
He didn't want to give up, and he didn't want her to.
She wasn't ready to throw in the towel, but as the days went on and Elijah and Athena didn't call with anything positive to update on, Caroline felt more and more helpless. But still, she couldn't say anything to her mom. She couldn't look into the eyes of her mother and tell her that she was going to die. She honestly hated thinking about it herself, but as the day of the full moon grew closer and more threatening, Caroline feared her mortality even more.
Caroline was terrified to die. It's part of the reason that she didn't want to become a Hybrid, or at least, why she wanted to wait. The fear of falling into the blackness of death willingly... no, she couldn't do it. She has always been terrified of being alone despite spending her entire life living like that. Having met Klaus, and Elijah, and Rebekah... coming back to the town she was born in, reconnecting with her parents and meeting friends of her past...
It was an opportunity that she never thought that she would get. And now she was on the verge of losing it all.
Even if they found a way to awaken the Blue Spirit, there is no way to know if Caroline will remain herself. And that terrifies her even more. What if she becomes the Blue Spirit and simply forgets who and what she is? What if she can look into the faces of those that she's come to love and not recognize them? Hate them? Hunt them? Kill them?
Those thoughts keep her up at night. She cried one night - more than once, admittedly - in Klaus's arms, begging him not to let her hurt him. If she became the Blue Spirit and attacked them, she wanted him to stop her. She's never wanted to hurt anyone, but especially Klaus. As a werewolf, the wounds she inflicted on him, like the scratches during sex, would all go away, sometimes in just seconds. A werewolf bite won't even weaken him due to his nature as a Hybrid, but now will be different. Awakening the Blue Spirit might mean there was a way to kill an Original Vampire now.
Caroline would never forgive herself for killing someone she loves. She would fall into a blackened abyss in her mind and never come out again. If the Blue Spirit even disappears and has her realize what she's done. It might also be one of those situations where her body will be up and moving but she won't have any control over it. Like mind control or sleep paralysis, except her body hates the man he loves, his family, and his race - both Vampires and Hybrids, probably. Caroline can imagine being locked into her body, screaming in a never-ending loop of chaos and fear, helplessly watching as her world burns around her. As her body kills people without her consent.
Caroline doesn't want to die, she's terrified to die. But she doesn't want to live like that either. To live forever trapped in her own body like a coffin. Staring out at her life as her body moved about hunting and killing vampires, witches, and werewolves. She has spent a lot of time thinking about that.
Would it attack werewolves? She's not really sure. About anything. They just don't know, and that scares her even more. She would be able to prepare for the known, plan for it accordingly, but not this. Not this uncertainty and unclear path before her.
Not telling her mom was hard. It was hard to smile and lie, saying that she was just tired and was a bit under the weather whenever they went out for lunch or dinner. Or she came over to watch movies or they went shopping.
"It's just a cold," she said, forcing a smile that hurt more than the ache in her body and her heart. "One of those two-week bugs, I'm sure."
And she had to lie. She had to get over her anger because she missed her mom. She missed what could have been and she didn't want to regret not having it while she could. She could be mad, she could move slow and pretend to work her way back to forgiveness, but Caroline knows, in her heart, that in some ways, she may never forgive her mother for basically abandoning her. She may never forgive her for brushing her under the rug because of a curse that ran in her bloodline. It's not fair. It's not right. But at the end of the day, Caroline would rather make nice, and try to fill her days with happiness.
It was perhaps harder to not tell her father. Bill Forbes, who was so in the dark about everything. He didn't know about her being a werewolf. And that was why she was separated from him most of her life, but now he wasn't going to know that she was dying until after she's dead. It's cruel, really, to reconnect with her friends, with her parents, only for her curse to kill her - what? Two months later? If that?
It's a cruel, painful reality.
Caroline doesn't want to give up, she really doesn't but this hopelessness follows her around like a cloud over her head. She can't shake it. She can't escape it. Always there. Always.
Caroline's friends came to see her too. Elena and Bonnie. Matt and Tyler. Even Stefan came to see her. She invited him into the home. Not that it'll matter much once she dies. Or becomes a super supernatural. Or a super werewolf. Or whatever is going to happen to her. It was nice of them to stop by to see her. And it was nice not to have to pretend that she wasn't exhausted and slowly getting worse. Some days it's a struggle to even lift her head off her pillow in the morning. She's hardly eating, not getting any exercise, the only thing she's getting in abundance is attention and sleep.
It's like her body knows she's not strong enough to make it through this next full moon and it's trying to build up as much energy as it can until then.
It was the day of the full moon, early in the morning, when Elijah finally called, saying that he and Athena may have found something. That they just needed a bit more time to see if the lead pans out. Klaus was anxious, upset. He wouldn't stop pacing around Caroline's bedroom while she and Rebekah laid in her bed, nestled under the covers from talking all morning, just watching him pace back and forth. Caroline watched Klaus argue with Elijah over the phone in desperation, pleading with his brother to make haste as they were running out of time, with mild detachment.
She's not sure if it's because of how tired she is all the time, the ache from her body trying to prepare for the full moon tonight, or the fact that she may have given up, but she just listens in solemn silence, like it wasn't her life that he was fighting for.
She could hear the frustration and aggravation in Klaus's voice and even once he hung up the phone. The way he snaps at Rebekah for asking a simple question, and then storms from the room hurts Caroline in a way there aren't words. The two blondes sit in silence for a long time after Klaus slams the door to the house for a few minutes before Rebekah says softly, "He loves you, you know, and that makes him crazy."
Caroline looks over at the Original next to her, trying desperately to find the strength to keep herself awake. "I hate how frazzled he is. I know he's trying to help but he's going to give himself a heart attack from worrying so much."
Rebekah snorts, rolling her eyes. "That doesn't matter. It's not like it's going to shorten his life or anything. All it'll do is minorly inconvenience him and make him more of a pain for the rest of us. I wouldn't worry about him, love."
"But I do worry about him," Caroline says softly. "I love him, Rebekah... and it hurts to watch him trying so hard to save me when..."
"When you've given up?" Rebekah guesses. Her voice is soft and nonjudgmental, but there is something in her eyes, a sadness. A worry, perhaps.
"I haven't given up," Caroline says weakly. "I'm just... so tired. I don't want to hurt him anymore. I know this is slowly tearing him apart. I know my death will hurt him, but I just want him to be okay. I know I'm not the first person that he's lost, but I hate that it's me. That I'm not strong enough to get over this. That... we didn't have enough time. One year isn't enough, Rebekah."
Rebekah smiles then, and it holds more sadness than Caroline can put into words. "I have lived for a thousand years, Caroline, and I can tell you with certainty, not even that is enough."
Caroline wakes up to the sound of soft knocking at her door. She blinks a few times, bleary-eyed, looking around her dark bedroom. The black-out curtains that Rebekah carefully picked out for her to help her sleep during the day. She roughly rubs at her face, sitting up slowly. Her body feels like it is half caked in cement. And she feels so freaking weak. She hates feeling like this.
"Come in?"
The door creaks open a bit and Elena sticks her head into the room, looks around a moment before slipping in and closing the door behind herself. "Hey, Care. I'm sorry. I know you're not feeling well, but I wanted to see you before... well, before later it's too late."
Caroline turns on the light on her bedside table, forcing herself to sit up all the way while still propped up against the headboard. She sags in her bed a bit more than she cares to admit. She just feels so weak.
"It's okay," Caroline rasps, taking a quick sip of her water that Klaus left for her. "I'm happy that you're here. You can sit."
Elena does, lowering onto the side of the bed so that she can face Caroline. "Bonnie has been searching high and low for a way to help. To somehow fix you without awakening the Blue Spirit but..."
"There isn't a way to do it?" Caroline guesses.
Elena shakes her head slowly. "That's the thing, there is hardly anything known about the Blue Spirit. Bonnie could only find fleeting references about it. Something about minions of the Blue Spirit. Something about it dating back since the beginning of magic. But nothing about its hosts. Nothing about sparing their lives, or if their lives even continue after they are awakened."
"I figured," Caroline admits, bitterly. "I tried telling Klaus but... he doesn't want to listen."
Elena's brown eyes stare hard at her, looking conflicted. "So, he's going to awaken the Blue Spirit, then. Regardless of that means for everyone else? Like Damon. Like Stefan. Even Tyler."
Caroline rubs at her forehead. "You know Klaus well enough by now, Elena. He doesn't really care about anyone besides a select few. He just doesn't. In case it wasn't obvious, he's not a great guy to everyone. Honestly, he's a dick to everyone, but that's... just how he is."
Elena looks away for a moment, not really having anything to say about it, which Caroline appreciates. She's been able to reconnect with her childhood friend and despite all of the turbulence - that is almost always Klaus's fault - that they've had along the way for the very short time that they've had, the last thing that she wants is to spend what could be her last conversation with Elena in an argument. She made peace with her friends, she had fun. She told her parents that she loved them both and hugged them tightly the last time she saw them.
Caroline even called Cassie again. The same number that she's called at least a million times since her aunt disappeared to leave a message. Seeing as the inbox hasn't chimed in that it's full, either it was just automatically deleting the old messages, or Cassie was listening to them, even if she wasn't calling back. It kind of hurt, but at the same time Caroline understood. It can't be easy to live running from a cult of ancient vampires with connections beyond what Caroline can even imagine. To be more segregated than before. To finally be completely and utterly alone. How utterly horrible.
And to think that this was all Caroline's fault. Well, her and the Blue Spirit.
"I'm sorry we couldn't find a way to help you," Elena says, genuinely remorseful. "I'm still in touch with Bonnie. I know things seem bleak now, but hopefully, she'll come up with something. We still have time."
The hopefulness in Elena's dark eyes makes Caroline smile softly at her one-time childhood friend. "Thank you for that, Elena. You sound just like Klaus. Not willing to give up until the very end."
Elena nods slowly. "We're right here for you, Caroline. I guess... Klaus didn't take any of this well..."
"No," Caroline laughs weakly, slumping against the headboard a bit. "He's been hovering. So has Rebekah. But it sounds like Elijah may have found something."
Elena jerks, surprised, turning her dark eyes toward Caroline. "Really? Wh-what did he find?"
Caroline shakes her head, feeling her eyes drooping closed. She forces them open and straightens up. "I have no idea. But it sounds like they might have something that can awaken the Blue Spirit. The question is... will it work?"
Elena doesn't respond right away, staring down at the carpet with a look warring across her face as she bites at the end of her thumb. "So they really are going to awaken the Blue Spirit? Despite the fact that it hunts supernatural?"
Caroline lets out a little sigh. "I guess so."
Elena turns her troubled look back to Caroline. "Are you okay with that?"
Caroline rubs at her face roughly, hoping that it would help wake her up more but it only serves to make her more exhausted, this isn't what she wanted her last conversation with Elena to be about. She glances over at her clock before looking back at Elena. "I only have a few hours left until the full moon has reached its apex and I begin the shift. Athena seems really sure that I'm not strong enough to make it through another. And honestly, I think she might be right," Caroline swallows as a twinge of panic strikes at her heart but she forces it down. "I don't want to be a monster, Elena. But I'm scared to die. I don't know what else to do. I don't want to hurt anyone, I really don't. I'm just... I'm terrified."
"So you want to awaken the Blue Spirit?" Elena asks, her voice low as she peers through the dim light to the blonde laying in bed.
Caroline finally sinks into the bed, too exhausted to keep upright any longer. "I want to live, Elena. But I don't want to be trapped in a body that kills people. Especially my friends. I'm just not sure what to do."
Elena nods, scooting closer to help tuck Caroline back into her bed. She takes Caroline's hand and squeezes it tightly, staring down at her with large, dark eyes, asking softly, "What if you can't be you? What if the Blue Spirit takes over and it's like you're trapped in your own body like a prison for the next hundred years? Forced to watch as your body does terrible things without your consent?"
Caroline feels the fear overwhelm her once more as Elena's words echoed that little voice that's been keeping her up at night. She swallows thickly, hands suddenly cold and shaking. "If that's the case..." Caroline admits softly to her friend, "then I would rather fall asleep right now and never awaken, dying while peacefully in my dreams."
Something awakens her.
At first, Caroline couldn't figure out what it was. She looks around her room, feeling completely lost on where she was or how she got there. It takes her longer than she would have liked to recollect her thoughts before she looks over at the clock, blinking blurry eyes to see it's almost ten o'clock. Klaus should have come to get her a long time ago. The moon is almost at its apex!
Caroline jolts up, her body immediately screaming in protest but she throws the covers off of her legs and stands up, sways, falls to a knee before shaking her head and forcing herself back up onto her feet. Then there is a feeling that washes over her. Klaus. Her wolf wants Klaus. She can feel it stirring in her chest, panting and pacing and frothing. Something is wrong. This sickening feeling in her gut tells her that something horrible is happening.
Caroline stumbles to the door, fighting with her body the whole time before she manages to wrap her hand around the doorknob and yank it open into the quiet hall. It takes her a moment to orient herself. She looks down both halls, trying to get her frazzled mind to focus. Klaus, she needs to find Klaus.
She stumbles down the hall, her mind whirling as she clings to the wall, unable to stand without its support. Just as she's passing one of the bedrooms, an empty one in this large house, Caroline spots something on the floor. It takes only a moment to realize it's Rebekah, lying prone on the ground on her chest with what looks like a knife in her back.
"Oh my god," Caroline gasps, stumbling and falling into the room before crawling over to her friend. "Rebekah! Oh God, Rebekah!" She touches her friend's skin to feel it's like ice to the touch and her skin is desiccated and gray. Panic grips at Caroline's heart as she gropes at her friend's body trying to wake her up. She's an immortal! She can't die. She's an Original!
Caroline takes a moment, forcing herself to calm down. She turns her eyes to the knife in Rebekah's back and is immediately brought back in time to her second day back in Mystic Falls. To sweet Rebekah unconscious in her coffin with a silver dagger in her chest. That same silver dagger is now in her back. Caroline sucks in a deep breath. Rebekah isn't dead. She's alive, just daggered.
Before Caroline can react something that sounds akin to an explosion shakes the house, making her jump, then cower over her best friend's body to protect her. Then Caroline feels a little silly seeing as Rebekah was both immortal and unconscious. Caroline knows she can't just stay there and do nothing, so she grabs onto the thin handle of the dagger and pulls it from her best friend's back. It didn't take Rebekah a long time to awaken last time, so hopefully, she hasn't been daggered for too long.
Caroline tosses the dagger out of the way and stands up, wondering how this could have happened. Did Klaus do it? Dagger his sister again like he's always - jokingly - threatened to do? But why would he do that? It doesn't make any sense.
Either way, Caroline hopes for the best and flees from the room, heading for the stairs as something goes crashing through the front door, blowing it up in a spray of glass and wooden shards. Caroline ducks down at the top of the stairs for a moment while the dust settles, before looking around at the destruction of the foyer from the destroyed door, wall, table, and everything else that was in the path of the bomb.
On shaking legs, Caroline makes her way down the stairs, hearing the sound of fighting outside. She looks into the other side of the foyer first to see Elijah, speared with a huge piece of wood through the chest and desiccating laying on the ground, unmoving. Caroline chokes out a sob of fear, her knees shaking in terror. That can't kill him, right?
"Elijah..?" Caroline squeaks, about to run over to him - and what? Pull the huge chunk of wood out of his chest? Yeah, she's not sure about that one - when Klaus's scream of agony pulls her eyes in the opposite direction. Whipping her head around she sees down in the yard, Klaus on his back with a man straddling him, pushing something down on him.
Caroline's wolf screams in rage and in a burst of strength she didn't know she had, Caroline is racing out of the house, jumping over the stairs and onto the sidewalk. She makes it the ten or so feet to Klaus and the unknown pushing what appears to be a white stake into his chest. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it almost sounds like someone screaming out her name, but she doesn't have time to focus on it.
Caroline, moving faster than she has ever moved before, slides one hand under the arm of the man over Klaus to help push the stake away from the center of his chest while jumping onto the man's back. With Caroline's help to both push the stake away with her hand, while pushing it down with her added weight on the man's back, Klaus lets out a scream of pain as the stake digs into his shoulder.
Feeling the moonlight pouring down into her skin, Caroline can feel the change fast approaching. She doesn't give herself time to think. She lets the moon shift her eyes yellow and elongate her teeth for the first time in her life. She's never done a partial shift with her fangs before. But now isn't the time to think about it. She doesn't know what is going on or who this man is, but he's hurting Klaus, and she can't let that happen.
Rearing back, flashing her fangs, Caroline goes for the junction between the man's neck and shoulder, feeling her razor-sharp canines puncture the flesh with ease, blood filling her mouth. The man growls in pain as Caroline feels the coolness of her venom flowing out of her and into the man beneath her. If he's a vampire, he's done for, and if he's not... Caroline has no idea how he could have taken on both Klaus and Elijah in one go.
Given, Caroline hasn't seen either of them fight, but she knows enough about the age of vampires helping to depict how strong they are. And you don't get stronger than an Original. Except for maybe a Hybrid.
She's not sure how long she was wrapped around this unknown man like a viper, pushing venom into his neck. She opens her eyes to see Klaus's own eyes staring back at her in abject horror. She's never seen such innate fear in his eyes and it honestly terrifies her, chilling her to the bone.
"Caroline, no! Run! Get away from Mikael!"
Caroline doesn't have a chance to even process the words before her spine cracks. The gurgled scream that escapes her makes her release the man she was biting and fall to the ground, writhing in pain as she coughs up the blood in her throat, thankfully not having swallowed any. She spits a few times, shivering as her bones start breaking once more.
"Klaus!" Caroline cries, twisting to look over at the man she loves to see that white stake jammed further into his shoulder, making his roar in pain as he grasps at it to try and pull it out.
The man then looks at Caroline, an angry snarl on his face as he reaches toward Caroline, who was too weak to move. Her eyes widen in horror, a choked scream leaving her as his hand plunges into her chest, wrapping around her heart.
It felt like hours, the power of the moonlight keeping her alive, flowing into her powerful waves, trying to rapidly heal her body around the hand in her chest as well as continue with the transition into a wolf, and it's like agony. Like a fire burning in her chest so hot, it's eating through her. Each beat of her heart was like glass shards through her veins.
His angry eyes burn through her as he leans close, spitting out angrily, "So you are the filthy mongrel that bastard boy has claimed the heart of? Then fine, offer your heart to him."
"Father no, please!" Klaus sobs, from over the man's shoulder Caroline can see Klaus reaching out for her, tears in his eyes. "Don't hurt her! Please, she has nothing to do with this, I beg you, please!"
The man - "Father," Klaus called him, so Mikael. The infamous Mikael that had abused Klaus his entire life and hunted him for the last thousand years for the sake of killing him - sneered at her, disgusted, before ripping her heart from her chest.
And then it all stopped.