Author's note: This was written for Klaroline Bingo. Prompt: Zombies. It was supposed to be a routine scouting mission for supplies, but the second wave of the virus changed the world and now nothing was routine.
Warning: Angst
"The fair face of nature was deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease"
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Colloquy of Monos and Una
She didn't dream anymore. No, that was a lie. Nightmares were still dreams. The infected changed the world, but perhaps Caroline should be grateful. Once the second wave of the virus spread, she was a new person. She became a survivor. Caroline impatiently pushed back the greasy strands that escaped her sloppy braid, snorting as she recalled a time when frizzy split ends like these would've led to instant banishment from her social circle. Right before the world died, she'd been posting tutorials on marble and tortoiseshell manicures and the best smudge-proof lipsticks to wear with face masks. And now she could field strip a Glock in under a minute. But there was no use mourning the remains of her old life.
She was crouched behind a stack of old tires when she spied Klaus' rally signal, indicating the all-clear to their group. The arrogant Brit in all of his alpha male glory easily had become the leader of their group of castoffs; some were intrigued by the brooding mystique he cultivated and others comforted by his confident, charismatic leadership. Caroline was still suspicious of his intentions, knowing better than to be swayed by those innocent dimples and playful smirk.
Caroline shook her head in irritation, refusing to get distracted. They were at a landfill about eight miles outside of camp, searching for salvageable materials. The mission was what mattered. Survivors had grown desperate, swallowing their distaste at sifting through the remains of the world. She wrinkled her nose as she passed by a river of brown sludge, the smells of rotten eggs, motor oil and bleach making her stomach turn.
"Nothing there for us; keep looking," Klaus barked at her sharply, making her scowl. She recalled how furious Klaus had been on that first scouting mission to a landfill; shouting until he was hoarse when he realized how quickly food waste decomposed even in the mild spring. After the first wave of the virus, the grocery stores were raided; the second wave saw the residential areas ransacked. The zombie hordes had been timid at first, as though viewing the immune as the predators. But humanity was fragile, and soon they became prey.
"I know," Caroline snarled, feeling the need to bare her teeth when he held up his hands in mock surrender. She jerked her head toward a heap of milk-white containers in one of the mounds in the distance, telling him, "Those might be plastic jugs we could repurpose. You should be over there investigating instead of wasting time waiting on me to screw up."
Anger registered on his handsome face before his expression went carefully blank. "Time spent with you is never a waste," he muttered, quietly stalking away to signal Enzo, Bonnie and Tyler to follow him to the area she'd indicated.
That was weird. Klaus always seemed irritated by her presence; he grumbled at her questions and mocked the efficiency protocols she'd established around camp. Plus, during his daily combat drills, Klaus always made her train harder than anyone else, running through every fight sequence over and over until her muscles shrieked. Between her explosive temper and his wild mood swings, they'd had some epic screaming matches, but ultimately a begrudging respect had formed and she was startled to realize she'd come to trust him implicitly with their group's safety. So, why was he messing with her now?
Irritated that their asshat leader's antics were so distracting, Caroline carefully stepped around broken glass, leaning forward to examine an overturned metal rowboat. Even with the streaks of rust, the hull was intact and they could take it out on the lake to fish.
"You've got that look on your face, little bird," Kol drawled, startling her with his close proximity. He grinned cheekily at her glare, adding, "The one where you're planning to boast how you've scored the most useful haul on our mission. Tsk, tsk — you know what a sore loser Nik can be."
"Klaus is a grumpy asshat regardless. Pretty sure he came out of the womb with that smirky-scowl of his."
His brother snorted, kicking aside a dented oil pump that scattered several crank seals across the trash heap. "You didn't know him from before, little bird. Trust me — Nik is almost downright cheerful these days." His brown eyes twinkled mischievously as he mused, "I wonder why that is?"
She ignored him, rooting around the edge of the rowboat to see if they could break it free from the black silt and thick sludge that she did her best not to identify. She impatiently pushed away some rusted-out tractor parts that likely belonged to the same pile Kol was kicking around. Actually, it was thanks to Klaus she even could identify tractor parts. He'd pulled her off of game hunting duty to help him work on the tractor they'd found in the woods behind the campgrounds. He taught her the different parts and tools used to free up the seized engine.
"Oil down the cylinders," he'd commanded, showing her how to neatly coat the spark plug holes in a manner that she absolutely refused to find erotic. Tractors weren't sexy. British asshats who knew how to tune up carburetors were not sexy, damn it!
She flicked her eyes up, skin prickling as she had the sensation of being watched. Klaus was watching her. Again. Was he seriously that concerned she'd screw up this scouting mission? Asshat. With a huff of annoyance, she turned her back, stooping a bit to inspect something shiny that had caught the sun's rays. She checked to make sure she couldn't identify any solvents or other chemicals before she touched it — a lesson they all learned last week when Enzo came back from a scouting mission with a nasty rash. He could've died. But they all could, at any time. They were stuck in this terrible world where everything kept trying to kill them.
Her heart gave an unfamiliar tweak as she uncovered an old charm bracelet with several silver butterflies and cheap glass beads linked together. It looked nothing like the platinum and diamond butterfly one her father had given her as a child, but it was the last thing he'd gifted her before he died. Once the infected had swarmed her property, she'd had no choice but to leave it behind. She hadn't cried when her childhood friend, Elena, succumbed to the virus and transformed, but she'd wept a river over losing that damn bracelet. She was fucked up long before the world ended.
She was focused on unwinding the bracelet from where it had caught on the hinge of a splintered cabinet door, and she didn't hear Klaus' piercing whistle until it was too late. Decayed arms grabbed at her long braid, yanking her back with surprising strength.
"Fucking zombies!" Kol bellowed, bashing a skull in with the butt of his rifle as two more clawed at him.
Caroline's body reacted of its own accord, muscle memory executing a fluid elbow strike as she reached for her gun. She hardly felt the recoil as the bullet messily severed the zombie's brittle neck.
Kol gestured wildly, shouting at her to run, but she stubbornly kept trying to free the bracelet, paying no mind to the splinters from the door shredding the back of her hands. She couldn't explain, but she needed it. A connection. Another creature reached for her, gnashing its rotted teeth, but she paid it no mind as she swung the cabinet door, gouging out strips of its festering cheeks.
The door broke just as Klaus reached her, his gray eyes feral as he jerked her arm, yelling, "Leave it! It's not worth your life!"
Caroline stubbornly shook her head, angry tears in her eyes as another group of infected raced toward them. Too many. Defeated, she left the bracelet where it had fallen and finally allowed Klaus to spirit her away with the rest of their team.
Klaus was a caged animal as he paced the short length of the small cabin Caroline shared with Bonnie, whirling around to face her with his blazing stare. "You could've died, Caroline!"
"Yes."
Caroline's simple answer seemed to spark something in him, and his voice grew dangerously quiet as he harshly said, "You jeopardized the safety of our people over trivial nonsense. My brother was nearly killed. How could you be so stupid? So utterly selfish?!"
Fuck. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard before, but somehow those words felt different coming from Klaus. "Because I needed it!" The raw emotion tore at her throat, and she'd never felt so small and weak. "You don't have tell me I'm stupid and selfish — I already know. I've heard it my whole useless life."
She wasn't sure when she started crying, but she didn't duck her head in shame. Instead, she straightened her spine and looked him in the eye. She wanted him to understand. "I was always stupid and shallow and no one ever loved me as much as I loved them, but my dad gave me a bracelet with butterflies on it and I needed that connection to him!"
Klaus opened his mouth to speak, a rare look of uncertainty in his gaze as he studied her. Shaking her head, she felt the fight leave her as she brokenly confessed, "It's all I have left. And even if no one cared about who I was before, it's all that remains of my humanity."
The silence between them was nothing but jagged edges that made Caroline want to curl away from him. Suddenly, Klaus was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, something unrecognizable flashing in her gaze. He kissed her roughly, clutching at her back as his lips moved over hers. Dominating. Possessing.
The fiery kiss was over far too quickly, leaving her reeling from the heat of his touch. As she raised trembling fingers to touch her lips, Klaus wordlessly stormed away, his jaw tight. What the fuck just happened?
Hours later, a heavy banging on the warped wooden door woke her. Bleary eyed, Caroline stumbled out of her bedroll, flicking the safety off of her Glock. Her heart sped up when she spied Klaus standing at her doorstep with his fists clenched.
"Um," she stuttered inelegantly, unsure of what to say.
"Here," Klaus said gruffly, thrusting something at her and storming off again before she could speak.
Caroline looked down at her hand, immediately tearing up when she saw it was the old charm bracelet from the landfill.
