AUTHOR'S NOTE: Second update of the day is the oneshot I wrote for the Klaroline Autumn Exchange 2022. This was a gift for the lovely Nik. It's not as sharp or as refined as I wanted it to be, but I ran out of time which is the current commentary on my writing life lmao. Hope you like it! :D
SUMMARY: Snapshots of Klaus and Caroline's evolving relationship throughout time. (Canon AU + Canon Divergent After 4x23 + Pining + Unresolved Tension)
Caroline knew the number. She had it memorized for a reason she still couldn't explain, but only on her worst nights did she ever dial it.
"I need to get out of here," she said as soon as he picked up. "Like, as soon as possible."
"What's stopping you?" he asked.
"This place is a freaking hellmouth right now."
"So? That's nothing new at Whitmore, sweetheart. What's the real reason?" he pressed, sounding equal parts curious and unfazed.
(The bastard always could dive right into the middle of one of her college dilemmas like it was nothing. He also somehow always made it seem like he'd been expecting her to call even though she phoned him on a whim again, same as she'd done every other time these last eight months.)
"I don't know," she sighed.
"Yes, you do. Stop thinking so much and book it out of there. Be spontaneous."
Frowning, Caroline's weariness started to kick into high gear, the burdens she carried resting heavier on her shoulders now. "I mean...I could use a vacation. I'm fried."
"Then take one," he encouraged.
She laughed bitterly at that. "You make it sound so easy."
"It is easy, love. That's one of the perks of being a vampire: you have time. College isn't going anywhere. Neither are the supernatural complications in your life. If you need to get away, then all you have to do is pack a bag, pick a destination, rent a car or purchase a ticket—and go."
"Just leave it all behind?"
"Exactly," he said, his tone warm and husky with approval. "Travel for as long as you'd like."
Klaus sounded so sure of himself, so confident—which was typical, of course—maddening, really—but a part of Caroline appreciated how he never coddled her in situations like this, never treated her like some fragile, innocent thing he needed to protect. He was blunt and honest. He spoke with conviction like he understood her, like he knew when a slight push was required, and whose to say he didn't?
That was probably why she'd called him in the first place.
She wanted the verbal fireworks, the confirmation. She needed the reminder that hung in his voice and swung between them like a dark mirror refracting the shadows, catching the light. He might push her buttons - in fact, he often did; taxing her to the limit and making her eyes roll at most everything he said - but he also forced her to cross scary new boundaries she was hesitant to breach on her own.
He challenged her to evolve. To transform. And that quality was rarer to find in a person than she once believed.
"Stop holding yourself back," Klaus said, growing more earnest and insistent now without being patronizing. "The whole world is out there waiting for you to step into it, to test its limits, so what are you waiting for? Be fearless. Be bold. After all, it's all yours for the taking—so why not take it?"
"All mine, huh?" she laughed.
"Yes."
There was that insistence again, that confidence. Unable to help herself, Caroline felt a small smile tug at her lips. "Spoken like a true megalomaniac," she said.
"Is that so?" Falling silent for a moment, Klaus considered that. "You know…I think I could get used to that honorific, actually. I quite like the sound of it. Fits my particular brand of alpha male, don't you think?"
"Of course it does," she chuckled, rolling her eyes as she cradled the phone closer to her cheek. He truly was impossible.
"Be sure to include it when you send me a postcard, won't you? Personal dedications are just the thing. I'll be on the lookout for one from you soon," he said like everything had been decided. Like Caroline had booked a ticket on the next outbound plane and this was it, he was sending her off with a pat on the bum and an air kiss. "Thanks, love."
Then, with a click, leaving no room for argument or discussion, he was gone. (Which, for the record, was just like him.)
By the next morning, so was she. (Which, ironically, wasn't like her at all.)
Where did she go in the end? Well, like Klaus said, she could go anywhere she liked—so she did, making sure to send him an Instagram selfie and a postcard from every new destination she visited over spring break.
…You know, just to torture him a little.
Her smile was like artwork, Klaus could stare at it all day.
Up close, it was arresting. Enough to leave him breathless and stupid. Genuine beauty like that would never fade. From a distance - yes, even from far away - her smile could cast a spell, burn an impression on his brain. It could chew through all the sense he possessed and create a restlessness so deep that he had no peace, no escape, leading him to preserve it in the dungeons of his memory where he could pour over it any time he wanted as he waited, where he was always waiting, for the opportunity to see it in person again one day.
Luckily, tonight he had his chance.
Caroline was here, in San Francisco, at an outdoor bar with a table set for two. Almost seven years to the day since he'd vowed "however long it takes."
And her smile? The one he could paint with his eyes closed from a million miles away? The one that twisted him 'round her finger with scarcely an effort, keeping him up nights as he replaced his longing with blood and bourbon and revenge with minor stakes? The one he would picture in his last moments if eternity was ever stolen from him, ever sucked from his veins?
Well—much like the seat he slid into across from her, that had been reserved for him, too.
Klaus liked the novelty of that. He liked it a lot. Probably too much for his own good.
Still, if he were a betting man, he might say this could be the start of a winning streak where she stopped pushing him away; but if not, if that went a little too far, too fast, then it was one lucky bloody break and it was half-past time for him to thank all the gods he didn't believe in for this royal flush of good.
So he did. He would. Eventually.
In the meantime, he'd pocket this moment - the drinks, her smile, these precious few hours of chaste touching and laughter - and lock it up in a picture frame to keep with him until he saw her again. Wherever and whenever that might be…
Clandestine meetings were all Caroline could offer at first.
Coffee in Monaco. Lunch at a Dublin pub. A long weekend in Peru to explore Machu Picchu. Deep sea diving and hot air ballooning in South Africa. Salsa dancing in Havana, his hand hot against her hip as they swiveled and swerved to the beat of the music.
These reunions of their's were good for a while.
Golden, with the whole world lit up against their backs. Exhilarating, with time that never stopped, never emptied its pocketful of pennies into Death's pool beneath their feet, forever rushing her towards something she wasn't ready to define yet. Casual and breezy, with no strings attached anywhere. Sexy, with none the wiser about what she was doing or who she was doing it with. And uncomplicated, because no lines had been crossed that couldn't be uncrossed if she needed them to be.
Klaus never complained, never pushed for more than she could give, so these illicit rendezvous of their's trickled on for ten, maybe twenty, years without alteration.
However, that all shifted one evening in Seville when casual suddenly didn't feel so casual anymore.
It was early April. They'd arrived to celebrate her 30th year as a vampire, when, just as the sun was about to set, its pinks and purples shimmering against the surrounding buildings, he turned to her as they strolled past La Giralda and said, "What would you like to do tonight? I admit, spring or not, I have a hankering for helado. La Abuela's has the best in the city."
"Ice cream sounds good," she agreed. "Is the shop close?"
"Not far."
"Okay, we'll do that in a minute. There's something I want to show you first," Caroline smiled, and instead of elaborating, instead of thinking about what this might mean, she stopped to kiss him beneath an alcove of orange trees, which, of course, muddied everything. How couldn't it?
After all, it wasn't like she could stop at one kiss any more than she could stay with him for longer than a weekend or two. Right?
With a glass of scotch in hand, his jaw hard and his eyes bleary, Klaus leaned against the doorframe to study the crinkles left behind on his mattress. Again. Counting them like one would rings on a tree.
32…
33…
34…
Sometimes he wondered how many more would coalesce there when all was said and done. A hundred? A thousand? Millions?
35…
36…
37…
Klaus threw the liquor back in one gulp, the sting in his throat doing nothing to fill the empty space in him that hadn't been so empty yesterday. Pathetic, wasn't he?
Sure, his time with Caroline had evolved over the years, with meet-ups no longer relegated to secret text chains or hotel key cards slipped into pockets. The two of them co-mingled in each other's lives to the point where they were familiar with the other's family and friends now, known and always welcome, or at least tolerated, but that somehow made it harder. More confusing. Less straightforward in every way.
He reviled himself for missing her, for caring. For not knowing where she went or if she'd be back again.
He hated closing his eyes and seeing her before the fireplace in the den, all laughs, as Kol did his paltry karaoke rendition of "Pour Some Sugar On Me" to an audience of four. Or remembering how she ribbed Elijah for having a non-existent wrinkle in his designer slacks. Or watching Rebekah cry into her lap in Aspen because some idiot had left her high and dry again, with Caroline intent on introducing her to some man named Enzo whom they hadn't met yet, and whom, truth be told, he'd considered a viable threat for her affections until then.
It was all the bloody inconsistency! How much more could he endure of it? Truly.
What if…what if she was never ready?
"It took Katerina 500 years, you know," said a voice from behind him, startling him back to the present.
"500 years to what?" Klaus growled. "Cut off her other two Medusa heads?" Still stewing from his perch, he deigned not turn around in his molten state, which was safer for them both right now.
"No, Niklaus."
"What? Spit it out then. I don't have all day."
With a sigh, Elijah gave him a consolatory pat on the shoulder as he passed him down the hallway and said, "That's how long it took for her to stop running."
This was what happened.
Caroline and Enzo spent a decade helping vampires in New York City break a daylight ring curse. Brooklyn's witches were formidable, inflexible, cruel, and the vendetta they held against their bloodsucking enemies was rooted in fire that licked the earth. The magic they wielded was corrosive, menacing; it burned everything and everyone who was in its path to a crisp.
After a prolonged period of devastating losses - from innocents they couldn't protect to friends they couldn't bear to lose, but still did - Caroline snapped. She broke down. The truth was she hadn't been wrecked this hard since her mom died over a century ago.
As one of only a handful of survivors, she could not handle the feeling of failure any longer, with guilt and hopelessness the only things left when she looked at herself in the mirror.
By way of distraction, she disappeared. She vanished, letting the world's skyscrapers blacken her heart as Klaus offered to escort her on a months-long bender: reduced-humanity style.
No body, no crime was the tenet they lived by as the streets of Chicago, London, Sicily, and Mumbai ran red with her rage, and his pride. Together, the sweet but ravaged portrait of death they painted like graffiti everywhere they tread promised a messy deliverance to any underworld scum who refused to come out and play with them for a little while.
If he was the gun, then she was the trigger—and they tore up each city in tandem, hand in bloody hand, like Bonnie and Clyde.
It was a chaotic time for them both. One that was punctuated by bloodlust, manipulation, retaliation, and instinct that grew stickier and stickier with every night they spent huddled together on rooftops or pressed shoulder-to-knee against walls in the shadows.
The monster in Caroline let loose for once. It was uncaged, and it felt natural for her to lean into vindictiveness, into the acrimony that she'd had brewing inside of her for ages. It was cathartic. Refreshing. Intoxicating in a way that was like coming alive, her eyes black and vicious and wild.
Klaus was more than willing to help her taste the thrill of destruction, of course. He rose to the occasion like the devil himself by showing her how to sample it like one would an appetizer: one sniff, one lick, one careful puncture of an artery at a time.
It had surprised Caroline at first to learn how much she loved the rush of darkness. The way it coiled and hissed like some sort of feral animal from within, snarling from some place deep beneath her ribs. She was amazed by how addictive, erotic, and empowering it could be to be the one who was set to deliver that fatal bite or drop that curtain of retribution over some nameless villain's eyes, and she liked not being alone in that vice. To have a companion there beside her, encouraging her to do her worst.
Of anyone she'd ever met, Klaus knew what it meant to thrive in the dark. He was borne of it, sculpted from it, and seared by it, making him the perfect person to show her how to flourish in it for the first time.
…Which she did, slipping into it like a second skin.
In Klaus, she had a partner. She had a friend. She had a monster who would match her in every hour of rage spent, the blood dried and dripping from his chin, the entrails worn like a crown around his head, but more importantly than that, she had a man who would keep her in balance. Someone who wouldn't let her lose herself or wouldn't hesitate to hook an arm around her waist so he could move alongside her, step by step, jump after jump, to keep her from tipping over the edge.
Caroline might not have realized it then, but that's what she needed. Not a hero or a savior, but an equal. That one person on the planet who would never turn away, would never cower in fear or disgust when the carnage hung, like a noose, from her fangs.
She looked good in blood, Klaus thought.
Becoming, with all those reds and blacks smeared across her complexion, running down her shirt in rivers of sin. Fierce and unforgiving in a way he always knew she could be once she busted out of that limiting human cage she'd locked herself in.
She looked beautiful amid the wreckage. A vision. She was comfortably merciless in a way she'd never been before, and it was glorious to witness.
"You're stunning," he said on impulse one sweltering July night, and meant it.
"Stunning, huh?" Caroline cocked her head after subduing her latest victim, a drug lord who targeted children. "Is that the best you've got after all these years?"
"Brevity suits the occasion, I think."
With a loud rip, she turned toward him holding a bloody liver in her fist, the poor sod behind her now dead in a sewer grate. "Does it?" she asked.
"Sounds like you're implying my flattery has grown stale, sweetheart. Should I be offended?"
"Oh, I'm not implying," she replied, shooting Klaus a wicked grin as she took the organ she'd just extracted and slammed it against his chest like a present.
Why should he hide his admiration for her? Why conceal his pride? It was not a secret. It was not a surprise to him in any way that she would assume the throne of vengeance one day. He always suspected Caroline had a flame of darkness licking through her veins, and it was his pleasure to be there when it burned, to be by her side when the gasoline was poured and she started to incinerate everything in her way.
However, like anything, Klaus knew all reigns of terror must come to an end eventually. Her's would, too. It was inevitable.
Deep down, he knew her era of villainy couldn't last for long. That it shouldn't last long either, because Caroline deserved more from eternity than anger and destruction and grays so ugly they had no name, and he'd taken it upon himself to show her that, to give her the sort of existence he never had.
For better or for worse, he would restore the color to her life again without her having to ask…or kill himself trying.
"What is this between us?" Caroline asked once the light came back into her eyes.
"You tell me, love."
That was the problem. She couldn't. She couldn't and she didn't know why.
The answer she sought was there, on the tip of his tongue, but Klaus knew before he found the note stuck beneath the doorjamb that she wasn't ready for it yet. So he swallowed it back down where it would keep. For another time.
Some rainy day, perhaps, when the thunder was loud enough to drown his voice out.
"He isn't an easy man to want, you know."
"Of course he isn't. He's a goddamn pill, he's a maniac of the highest order. Everybody knows that," said Katherine with a snort, as unforgiving as ever. "But that isn't the issue here."
"Oh?" Caroline arched a brow. "And what is?"
Katherine made a face. "Please. Cluelessness doesn't suit you at all."
"I am sure I don't know what you're talking about," grumbled Caroline as she shoved a romance novel back into her tote.
"Sure you do."
It was midday. Katherine lay topless on a pillowed lounge chair after having compelled them two frozen margaritas from a cute French-speaking waiter, the two of them on one of their tropical Katholine Only getaways. It'd become an annual retreat for them after she'd buried the I-want-Stefan-Salvatore hatchet about 150 years ago and settled in with Elijah on a more permanent basis.
Their friendship had been forged out of convenience, familiarity, and temperament. Circumstance played a part, too, if one considered that they both had entanglements of their own with the Mikaelsons. Complex ones.
That alone had thrown them together often over the years, with the complementary meshing of their personalities a fringe benefit of being in each other's orbit. There wasn't a party on any continent they couldn't throw together with lavish extravagance, either. Their guest lists were so exclusive that sometimes the paparazzi tried to crash their events to nab photos of the newest It celebrity in attendance.
(Much to Klaus and Elijah's chagrin.)
"It's kind of cute how stubborn you're being about this," Katherine said.
"I'm not stubborn. I'm annoyed." Caroline crossed her arms. "There's a difference."
"Wow, Klaus gets under your skin that much? Talk about incurable. You're terminal."
Making a visor out of her hand to block out the sun, which was bright and sizzling in Saint Tropez today, Caroline leveled a look at her feisty companion, who had taken to curling her fingers around the bowl of her margarita glass. She scratched at it like a cat would, with quiet premeditation, with a smirk too pointed to be innocent, her designer sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose. Clearly she was toying with her about something, only Caroline didn't know what it was yet.
"Oh, just make your point already," she huffed, annoyed at having her feathers ruffled.
"Are you sure you're ready to hear it?"
"Kat."
"You're no fun." With a quick sleight of hand, Katherine removed her sunglasses and swung them between her fingers tauntingly. "The point is, regardless of what Klaus is or is not, you want him anyway. You always will. It's as simple as that," she shrugged.
"I'm sorry…what!?"
"Come on, don't look at me like that." Idling somewhere between vexed and bored, she rolled her eyes. "You know I'm right. Get over it already."
"Oh, do I now?" Caroline countered, not conceding anything but not liking where this was headed.
"Yeah, you do. Might as well learn to live with it because it's not going away. Doesn't matter how far or how long you try to run from it, honey, it'll catch up with you eventually," she added with a snicker, with another unapologetic twirl of her sunglasses. Her smile sharpened as she placed them back on her face and reached for her drink. "It always does, believe me."
"I'm not you, Kat," she pointed out.
"Not yet, perhaps, but you could be. Try to keep that in perspective, won't you?"
After raising her margarita in cheers, looking mighty pleased with herself after that ambiguous delivery, Katherine took a sip. Then she turned to look back out to at the ocean where the waves started rolling in like punches, and where Caroline, still reeling, started to feel them crash against the sands of her heart: one salty truth after another.
There was a word for this swoop of feeling, wasn't there? For this bash of certainty? There had to be. She was sure of it. If only she could remember what it was.
Epiphany (noun): a moment of sudden revelation or insight.
I left this one open ended on purpose, but the HEA is still heavily implied. :)
Comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading, friends! Until next time.
xx Ashlee Bree
