Notes: I only managed one drabble from klarolineauweek Day Five. The theme was AU: Crossovers and Fusions so I wrote a little sequel to one that has been nagging at me.

Take My Body Home (Part Two)

(A continuation of the Dead Like Me inspired drabble found in the first section of Chapter 11)

It takes several years, but the Mikaelsons, and their inability to die correctly, quickly become the bane of Caroline's existence.

And it only worsens, once others become like them. She wonders how she will ever meet her allotment of souls, at the stuttering pace she manages, so busy the siblings keep her.

She was taken aback when Kol Mikaelson's name appeared once more, as the next soul she was to reap. She had assumed it would take that time, that whatever affliction that the Mikaelsons had, the magic that kept their souls from leaving their dead bodies, had finally been corrected.

She had turned out to be very, very wrong.

Caroline had set out to find them, wearing a face vastly different from her own. She had found Kol in the middle of a town, picking critically at a merchant's wares, his eyes on the man's pretty daughter. Caroline had lifted her hood to hide her face, and moved in his direction. She had intended to slip by him, hoping that the faint brush she needed to make against his skin would not be noted in the thickness of the crowd.

But he had whirled, when her finger had only barely reached out to the bare bit of skin revealed on the back of his hand. He had snatched her arm up, his grip crushing. Peered down at her with cold eyes. Caroline took the opportunity given, stumbled forward. She caught herself on his chest, managed to mark the skin of his throat. It had glowed faintly and he had twitched, eyes widening in surprise.

Alarming, since he should not have been able to feel the mark.

Caroline had refused to allow herself to panic, and turned wide eyes up at him, her fear not entirely feigned. He could not kill her, but he did not know that. And Caroline was loath to be subject to his undoubtedly creative attempts. She had forced a stutter, "M-m-m-y apologies, s-s-ir. I trip-p-ped."

His eyes had narrowed, his disbelief plain, but the pressure of his hands eased. The merchant's daughter was watching them with interest, and Kol seemed aware of it. He had released Caroline and offered a facsimile of a charming smile, "That is quite all right."

Caroline nodded, and stepped back, intent on making her escape. She would be required to stay close, watch him to see how he died. She had been barely a step away when Kol's jovial inquiry stopped her cold, "Ever been to the New World, darling?" he had asked her. "There is something familiar about you."

Caroline's mouth had fallen open, her shock plain. A mistake. Kol's head tipped to the side, something predatory to the set of his shoulders as he awaited her answer. There was no possible way he could recognize her, Caroline had known. She had worn her true face, on that fateful trip to The Mikaelson's village. Thought it would not matter so far from home, thirty years after her 'death.' The chances that someone would have recognized her were nil.

In hindsight, she had been so very foolish.

She had cleared her throat, "Never, sir. I have never even left this town." A lie, and badly delivered, at that. Caroline had nodded hastily, her eyes flitting over to the father and daughter who had been watching closely. She had made the barest effort at politeness, hoping that they had not found her too remarkable. "Good day, sirs. Miss," she had murmured, before fleeing

Caroline had dodged the crowds, resisted the urge to look back. The last thing she had needed was to draw more of Kol's attention. She had looked upward to the cloudy skies and made a fervent wish.

Please let this death be a permanent one.

Her hopes were quickly dashed, because Kol's second death was every bit as impermanent as his first. As was the third, and the fourth. Eventually, Caroline ceased to count. Whatever magic that kept Kol tethered to this world he did not seem grateful for it. In fact, he seemed determined to test its limits. He jumped off high peaks, swam in swift currents. Played with fire, and wild animals.

His name popped up, again and again. For a time Caroline barely managed to successfully reap any souls, and send them on their way, too caught up in chasing The Mikaelsons across Europe. She was occasionally called to attempt to take the other sibling's souls. Finn the most, Rebekah's rarely and Elijah's only once or twice.

But never Klaus'.

She does not understand why but the single conversation she had engaged in with Klaus Mikaelson lingers in her thoughts. Caroline secretly finds it disappointing that she has never had the opportunity to attempt another.

Which is entirely silly, because it is not as if he would know who she was.

Or would he?

Kol did. And he had somehow become the closest thing Caroline has to a friend.

He had goaded her in the beginning, insisting that he knew her, could pick her scent out of a crowd, each time she was made to approach and attempt to mark him. No matter her face, or build, or hair color. She ever tried to appear to him as a man. Kol had wrinkled his nose in distaste, "Darling, is that supposed to fool me? And here I thought we at least respected one another."

She'd reached out and grabbed his arm, left her mark and stomped away in a huff, his booming laughter following her.

But he grew on her. Caroline was never entirely sure why, whether it was him, or just her own loneliness.

Over the years Kol had managed to badger her into giving him her name, and a vague description of what she did, why she always turned up when he died. Kol had accepted it, with little difficulty. But then, Caroline supposed that was only natural, given the circumstances. Who better than a boy who could not die to believe a story about a girl who collected the souls of those who did?

Caroline had given up, at some point, after she had told Kol what she was, on protecting her identity. Wore the face she'd died with, the blonde curls and freckles that her mother had despaired of. Kol greeted her appearance with varying reactions. Sometimes he was delighted, and Caroline had come to realize that it was because he was set on doing something stupid and risky. Sometimes it was with a scoff, and exasperation. Those were the times when death was not his choosing, when it was doled out as a punishment or in a fit of rage.

She had caught up to him in a tavern, earlier in the day. Consented to a drink, even if this particular establishment seemed to water their mead most heavily. Deflected his questions, as she usually did, only willing to answer the ones regarding her travels, what she had seen on the road. Kol finishes first, letting his mug rattle against the table. He had held out his hand, and Caroline had swiped her fingertip across it obligingly. It was their routine. "Lovely catching up, darling. I suppose I'll see you soon? Nik has been exceptionally moody lately, so I wager this particular neck snapping could very well be the first of many."

He sounded mostly resigned, but Caroline had been trailing Kol, had spent enough time with him, to detect the underlying resentment. She had felt a pang of pity, watching him go.

Until the tavern's owner informed her that the tab, and all the drinks Kol had consumed before she had arrived, still needed to be paid for.

Klaus hears the telltale sound of bones shifting, the creaking that indicates Kol's spine is on the mend. Just in time, because the carriage needed to be loaded, and Rebekah was ever so pouty when made to do manual labor.

Kol is sprawled on a table, out of the way. They had moved him from the floor, where he had crumpled after Klaus had snapped his neck earlier in the day. No need for he and Elijah and Bekah and their compelled servants to be stepping over Kol all day, in their haste to pack up the household. Not with Mikael spotted so near.

Kol groans, sitting up, rubbing the back of his neck. Klaus does not bother to wait for Kol to orient himself. His brother should be accustomed to waking up after a temporary death, at this point. He has done it more than the rest of them combined. "Elijah packed your things," Klaus informs him shortly. "Now, be a good boy and pitch in, would you? We need to be going, and quickly."

Kol seems to be in no hurry, and Klaus grinds his teeth together in irritation. "Now, Kol," he snaps. "Do not make me shove you in a trunk."

He heaves a long suffering sigh, "You know, Nik, just once I would like to wake up to my lovely blonde friend, instead of you barking orders. It would be far more pleasant a view, even if I suspect she would kill me herself if I asked her to soothe my aches and pains with her pretty mouth."

Klaus stills, turns to face his brother quizzically, "Blonde friend? Kol, we have only been in this town for a month. You have kept company with a number of blondes, yes. But as far as I recall they are mostly dead. Did this last death leave you a bit confused? Perhaps you should eat a maid."

"Not a bad idea. But no, I am perfectly lucid. I am surprised you do not remember her, that you have never noticed her following us around. It has been decades, and you stew in your paranoia often enough."

"What are you talking about?"

"Caroline. She's a pretty little soul stealer," Kol tells him blithely, and Klaus goes still as recognition sweeps through him. "Calls herself a Grim Reaper. A bit dramatic, to my mind, but I suppose she did not make it up. I feel a bit bad for the poor thing. She spends an awful lot of time trying to take my soul and never has any luck."

It seems like nonsense, but Kol seems entirely serious. And how would Kol know of such a woman, with such a task, one who seems so similar to the girl in green from Klaus' memories?

"And how does that work?" Klaus asks, returning his attention to the books he has been packing. Trying to mask his interest. He has thought about the pretty blonde Kol seems to be speaking of more than once, over the decades. Her placidity, the calm inquisitiveness she had displayed. How she had not flinched from what he had been made. "Grim Reaping, I mean. Because I do remember a similar girl. She was the first thing I saw when I woke up after Mikael stabbed me."

Kol shrugs, straightening his clothes, "Simple. She finds me, touches me. Chastely, unfortunately. And then I die. I wake up and eventually she finds me again. We converse, bond over our mutual hatred of dusty roads and subpar inns. That sort of thing."

Klaus processes that, tucks it away to think of once they have put some distance between their father and them. He has never died, not after that first time, despite the fact that Kol's experimentations have proven that any death is temporary for them.

But perhaps, once they are safe again, he might attempt it. Caroline had disappeared, flitted out while he had been distracted. Klaus' questions for her, and he had many, left unanswered.

He would very much like to finish their conversation, demand a proper introduction. And, if Kol is not lying or jesting, it seems as if she will come straight for him, saving Klaus the trouble of tracking her down now that he knows she still exists in the world.