"He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude."
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude


The chatter around them was buzzing. Jazz melody was humming in the background and while logically she knew St. James Infirmary provided a safe environment of no magic she somehow could not feel at ease even inside the club. She had taken precautions and made sure they were out of earshot right now but that didn't change the fact that she was being followed and she hated the feeling.

"I did some research," Marcel told her and Caroline tensed as she watched the shadows dancing on his face. Their table was somehow secluded in the back and they had opted to stay hidden in the shadows, "I told you the name sounded familiar."

Caroline crossed her hands over the chipped wood of the table and stared at Marcel impatiently.

"So?"

"Forbin was a prominent member of New Orleans' elite. Old money. His family goes really back and they were all pacifists for centuries," Gerard told her what she already knew, "all into research and humanitarian work."

"Well he took his humanitarian ideology a little bit far," she muttered annoyed unable to keep the bitterness or the hate she felt at bay.

"It wouldn't be surprising given his heritage only," Marcel pointedly paused, "he wasn't supposed to know it."

Caroline frowned at that.

"I don't understand."

"Centuries ago the Forbins were indeed into hunting. Back then they were going by the name Forberin," Marcel started, "the rule of the Originals however was far harsher than mine."

Caroline remained impassive but noticed the tinge of pride mixed with envy that flickered in Marcel's words. Something about the cruelty of the Originals earned respected from men like Marcel and made them intrigued.

She hated to admit there was a dark place inside her that was also caving into such instincts too.

She was not envious of their cruelty but she had to admit that along with it came power and influence and the Originals knew how to manipulate terror to their advantage. It was not just their brute force and abuse that did the trick. It was the way they knew how to use cruelty as a weapon and invent new ways of expanding their control.

"Mikael was on the hunt for them," Marcel continued, "and they allowed no hunters to live in New Orleans or enter the city so to avoid news about them reaching their father's ears. You see hunters had been creating a web of communication even when communications had been a challenge," Marcel explained, "they would send news with their own and sooner or later Mikael would be on his children's trail."

Kol had told her as much in Purgatory. Despite casting their reign of terror throughout the centuries Mikael was their own source of misery and what made them terrified.

"So the Originals would not allow this," Marcel finished with a knowing look.

"Of course not," Caroline sighed.

"I was a child back then," Marcel revealed and that gained more of Caroline's attention. If he was alive then maybe the answers she was looking for were indeed hidden in Marcel's memory. It was a long shot but it was a start. "When you said that name it seemed like something from a dream only it was not. It was a memory."

Caroline swallowed harshly her attention honed on Marcel. She knew she was easy bait for him now. He had her hooked and he knew it. She didn't care. She only needed answers.

"I was not allowed to roam down at the crypts of the Abattoir but I was curious," Marcel carried on with his tale and Caroline leaned forward on the table, "the screams were getting louder the lower I descended," Marcel reiterated his story, his gaze lost in memory, "Rebekah…" he stopped for a moment, his voice low and raspy before he shook his head and cleared his throat shaking away whatever thoughts diverted his mind from the story he was sharing with her, "she found me in time and got me back in my room before Klaus and Elijah could catch me. Klaus may have been killing people downstairs but upstairs was very strict with my sleeping schedule," Marcel snickered, "he would have punished me for not being in bed sleeping. Not so much for witnessing a massacre though. He would probably compel that away like he had done once or twice before and would do more times in the future but that night it was Rebekah who caught me," Gerard remembered fondly and then caught her gaze with his, "but not before I heard that name."

"Forbin?" Caroline asked him trying to keep her voice steady.

"Close. Forberin," Marcel corrected and Caroline let out a long breath. It could not be a coincidence for these names to be so similar. Similar to hers too.

"A few nights later Elijah Mikaelson himself slaughtered the Forberins," Marcel told her, "I remember Klaus ordering him to do so after torturing and killing the head of their family."

Caroline's brow furrowed. This had happened centuries ago, how was this all connected now?

"Later on when the Originals left New Orleans I found some of the diaries Elijah had left behind," Marcel said, "there I read that name for the first time. Forbin."

Caroline's breath hitched.

"Along with the names of countless hunters the Originals had uprooted or slaughtered. The list seemed endless this is why the name sounded familiar but I couldn't exactly place it. It was not just lost in memory. It was lost in a very and by very I mean a very long list."

Caroline said nothing but she couldn't stop that unpleasant feeling from spreading inside her. She was on the verge of finding something important. And she felt that she was not going to like where that knowledge would lead her.

"The way they had handled the Forberins was not that original," Marcel commented purposely making a pun," given how they had done it to more others."

"What did they do?" Caroline asked while a set of alarms had started ringing in her head.

"Are you sure you want to know?" the older vampire challenged her.

"I am not having any delusions when it comes to the Originals Marcel," she harshly bit out, "I know the monsters they are."

"I hardly believe you do," Marcel mocked with a rakish grin.

Caroline's eyes narrowed fiercely.

"What did they do?"

Marcel beamed at her.

"Elijah and Klaus eradicated every hunter their family had. Then they killed everyone that family ever knew, everyone they had ever met. They erased the name from living memory. Literally. They eventually killed all the family and any close or long lost…relatives."

Caroline remained impassive. This was not news for her. It was Klaus modus operandi after all. Kol's too and from the looks of it, honorable Elijah was not that different from his brothers.

Marcel pressed his elbows against the table that creaked under their weight and then rested his chin on his connected palms.

"They left only but an infant alive."

A chill ran through Caroline's spine.

"Elijah ensured the kid would grow up with no knowledge of his origins. Forberin became Forbin," Marcel revealed and his eyes remained trained on her face, "and he was sent to an orphanage with compelled staff to make sure the child would grow without any connections or attachments to any hunters. He grew up illiterate and was barely given any scraps to go by. They could have given him to a family or have him shipped away but chose another solution."

Caroline pushed her nails into her palm. She knew the Originals were terrible people but this seemed particularly cruel even for them. Why go to that extend? Why keep the child alive and treat him like this?

"Why not just kill him?" Caroline wondered, "and don't tell me just because he was a kid. What about when he grew older?"

Marcel shrugged but she could see in his eyes that this story affected him too. He was lucky to become the Originals' charity case but obviously, not everyone was that lucky. Child or not.

"I do not know if they originally intended to use the kid as leverage in case any more hunters connected to that family would come along," Marcel guessed but they both knew something didn't add up to that, "the kid grew up in poverty and so did the family he created. Every time he tried to rise into something better some bad stroke of luck would happen and he would return to square one."

Of course, Caroline thought bitterly. All of them in one way or another had been puppets for the Originals that still tugged at their strings.

"Some generations later, once Elijah was convinced their past was laid to rest he made sure the family's descendants would regain some of their fortunes but without any ties to their old legacy," Marcel said, "I assume it was Elijah's sense of honor or some latent guilt."

Caroline snorted at that and Marcel gave her a knowing look.

"It was all for nothing in the end. Mikael found them and they fled New Orleans," Marcel's eyes took a shine that reflected both relief and pain. He had lived through all of that. He had stayed behind while the Originals left New Orleans and left him behind. He rose through the ashes but Caroline could see there was resentment there. They had abandoned him. Because in the end, he wasn't their family. "The Forbins became powerful again without any knowledge of their hunting history. Or so it should be," Marcel added giving her an intense gaze.

Her stomach bottomed out and tendrils of anger were starting to build up. Threatening to turn to fury but she contained the feeling because the feeling of betrayal was bubbling up in ways that would cloud her judgment if she let it and she couldn't let it. She would not.

She didn't know where the story would end but now that she had more pieces of the story some things were starting to unravel.

"Klaus was surprised to see he was a hunter," Caroline remembered as she was starting to connect more pieces. Yes. This was what had surprised Klaus the most. To see that hunter's mark on Forbin's neck.

Forbin.

Forberin, Forbin, uncle Jared. The names were so close to Forbes. It could not be a coincidence.

"They knew," she whispered and a torrent of emotion cracked into her voice. She felt as if she was starting to see. And she could not unsee the darkness now. Her shoulders fell. Suspicion was one thing. Absolute certainty was another. "They knew who Forbin was," she said more to herself than Marcel. To hear the truth. To feel it. To let it sink in.

And if they knew who he was and if there was a connection with her own family they knew that too. They knew and they chose to leave her in the dark. Because they still held on to her strings and they kept pulling them.

Klaus kept pulling them. Kol kept pulling them. They hadn't only pulled her heartstrings. She had loved them. Trusted them. And they have been using her. They must have because there was no other reason for her to treat her like this. This was the man who had killed her, they knew who he was and they lied to her about it.

Their names being so similar could not be a coincidence other and if the Originals knew who Forbin was they must have known his connection to her family. And they said nothing. It was not just for protection. This story started centuries before she was born. There must be something in the past of her family that attracted the Originals.

Which meant-

The force of the pain she felt knocked her breath away.

Klaus' interest in her was never what he pretended it was. He knew things about her she didn't know. She had always wondered how it was possible for Klaus Mikaelson to have looked at her. Elena was his doppelganger, Bonnie was a Bennett witch but somehow it was her that had intrigued him and he had made her believe that it was because of who she was. Because he saw something in her others never saw. He saw potential, a part of her everyone failed to see. While she was coming second to everyone else Klaus had been there to highlight all the things that made her strong, beautiful, full of light. So he had said. So he had played with her insecurities. To what endgame she didn't know yet but she had to find out. She had to. But the sting of betrayal was now digging in deep. He had claimed to care. He had made her believe he had fallen in love with her.

The burn inside her was turning cold.

Kol had pretended to care too but he had warned her hadn't he?

"This is why it is called betrayal Caroline," Kol warned her, "it always comes from the people closest to you and when you enter a circle of hurt and abuse it's not really that surprising to get such an outcome, is it?"

God. She had been such a fool.

"Give a few centuries and everything becomes twisted," Kol told her, "Betrayal becomes as natural as trust used to be."

"Would you do that?" she asked him, "Betray someone you love?"

"Yes."

She had been an idiot when she had told him back then she couldn't relate to that. And Kol was playing with her all along. Even there. In Purgatory.

He had tried to snatch Forbin's pendant that was so similar to her father's. He knew too.

He played her for a fool.

All of them did.

Klaus.

That hurt the most.

"Klaus is brilliant when it comes to war because he knows how to play the long game," Kol told her, "He can plan several steps ahead; he makes no mistakes, he can be manipulative and driven."

Caroline let everything wash over her. She let Kol's words wash over her. He had told her truth and she had been blind to not recognize his words for what they had truly been. She had been pray to all of them. They ate their prey and spat it out but they played with their food first. That's what they did with her. That's what Kol did to her. And he must have been having quite the fun doing it while making her believe in now and forever.

Kol the chaotic trickster. Elijah the noble strategist. Klaus the worst of them all.

They showed no mercy. They never did.

Desolation was starting to creep inside her. To spread. Along with it also came realization.

This was why Klaus had first approached her mother and had tried to blackmail her into giving him her alliance in exchange for saving her that night. Tyler's bite was orchestrated but the plan behind it was more layered than just trying to strongarm Elena. He wanted access to her family. To her mother. To her father. To her.

He had never planned to let her die that night, had he? His big words about a thousand birthdays and him pretending to give her a choice between life and death was just another hook. The fascination he showed towards her after that was just as orchestrated. It had to be.

For some reason, for centuries, they had controlled the lives and the deaths of the Forberins. Later on of the Forbins too which would lead them to the Forbes. To her. Long before she was even born.

Whatever it was that the Originals knew was the reason they approached her in the first place. It could not be a coincidence. She had to rewind every memory she had from them. To see it through new glasses.

It was all a lie.

She swallowed the burn she felt in her throat and behind her eyes.

"Never forget that darling. The more you trust the easier it is to be betrayed. The more you love someone the more able you are to hurt them. There is no stronger poison than love."

She swallowed the scream that was threatening to escape her lips.

She had to focus. She had to compartmentalize. Getting lost inside this pain was not a luxury she had. She had to think. She had to remain calm.

She could do this. She could be in control. If she wanted to break the strings the Originals had tied her with she had to get to the bottom of this and for that, she had to contain the darkness that was rising.

Light. She needed to cast light. To think.

She was still in the dark. The Originals knew things she didn't know. Each step was bringing her closer to the truth but the question was what more did they know. Surely Marcel had his reasons for sharing this with her and he most likely wanted to use her against the Originals but for that, his story had to be true. She could very easily do her own search after all and confirm what he had just told her. She couldn't alert the Originals, however. She had to be very careful and get the knowledge she needed from them.

What did they know about her? Because they knew. The problem was that it was her that didn't know who she was.

Her past, her father's past, their family's past was buried. But if she approached her mom maybe-

NO.

Dread filled her like an electric current burning skin and soul, drenching her in cold sweat and terror.

Not that. She couldn't do that.

Flashes of memory erupted in her mind. Her mom and Purgatory. Intertwined. She couldn't do that.

She couldn't breathe.

Everything started turning and black dots appeared in her eyes.

She could not hyperventilate in here. The heartbeats around her became louder and she could taste blood in her tongue.

She couldn't do it.

She tried to breathe and rationalize this. She was safe. Her mom was not there. Her mom didn't know. She was safe.

And she would remain safe Caroline thought and exhaled.

Besides she was trapped in this city and couldn't get out and even if she could she didn't want to reach out to her mom or anyone from Mystic Falls. Even the idea tempted her to turn off her emotions. She couldn't do it.

Anxiety was starting to build up fast. The person she used to be before Purgatory was not the person they'd get back if they ever found out she was alive.

And her mom tried so much to see anything but the monster inside her, she had struggled so much to see past the vampire, and now? Now she was all that her mom had once feared and hated and she couldn't stand in front of her like this.

And her mom coming to New Orleans? In this danger?

No. She'd never allow it. It was dangerous to even send compelled people to investigate. With Stefan and Damon in Mystic Falls, it was not a good option.

No.

There was only one way to find out what she wanted to know.

And at that moment she realized she had made a mistake. A grave one she had to correct. Fast.

She had to find her way back to Klaus. To Kol. To the Originals.

She had to swallow her anger, her pride, her hurt and find a way to get back to Klaus' good side. To distract him. To find a way into his trust, into his secrets because she may have won her freedom but she was losing a chance at getting to the bottom of this and Klaus had all the answers and she feared so did Kol.

Elijah had tried to manipulate her to crawl back to Klaus so to save Kol. She had believed that he wanted to use her as leverage against his brothers. To use her for their redemption. As if monsters like them could ever be redeemed. She had thought he wanted to use her so to control Klaus and Kol and bring out their humanity but now she realized that Elijah's game was far more sinister. With one stone he wanted to kill two birds. He wanted to keep an eye on her too. To keep her close. To make sure he could ensure she would still be under their control and whatever it was in the past of her family that the Originals wanted to control, to keep buried, to use she was the way for them to do it. She was leverage. A trophy Klaus wanted to keep as he once had with his moonstone and even with Elena. Leverage. This was what she was.

She could be leverage alright. Two could play this game.

"My point, however," Kol continued, "is that Nik knew when to lay low and when to spread terror. He knew when to wage war and when to become a recluse. He waited a thousand years to break his curse, to kill Mikael, to gain everything he ever wanted. Despite the odds, despite how everything was set against him, he never accepted defeat. He only waited for his chance…"

"…Because Klaus has issues with control and those issues allowed him to do things others could not. He could discipline his impatience when needed, he could reign over his instincts. He could mask his rage and let his anger fuel him until he would unleash it in the opportune moment. His tantrums made him notorious but his unnatural ability to withstand time and never give up made him victorious."

She could do this too.

"My brother never loses Caroline…Klaus never gives up."

"The lengths Klaus was always willing to go to get what he wanted were impressive," Kol continued, "because he walked the distance even when it went against every fiber of who he truly is."

"He fails, throws a tantrum, and makes others feel sorry for getting in his way, and then he tries again." Kol pointedly said, "His defeats were only another path to victory. He is an unstoppable force when he sets his mind on something and when someone beats him they only make him better. Stronger. More determined."

Determination filled her. Everything inside her ignited.

If the Originals wanted her close she would get close. Close enough to turn the tables on them at the opportune moment. To find the truth she could do it. She had to be careful of course. Klaus would suspect her. He would be prepared and he had probably had people tailing her so he could see her intentions. He could see right through her but she could use that to her advantage too. If she played her cards right.

He wanted her after all. She used to believe he had wanted her for her but now she knew there were more reasons as to why he wanted her. She just didn't know them yet. If she was important in any way or a pawn it didn't matter. That desire she could use. She could bargain herself for the truth and she could play the waiting game.

However long it would take. Yes.

Kol burst out laughing.

"And just as Nik would say you are about to do whatever it takes right?"

Caroline smiled and arched her eyebrow in a 'duh' expression.

"However long it takes," she softly spoke Klaus' promise.

Her lips curled. That declaration from Klaus was a lesson on its own but she had been too blind to see it then. She had believed it to be real.

"I warned you, darling. Love is one thing. Eternity another and my brother chose you for eternity. Klaus will give chase, he will wait, he won't give up, and eventually, he will gain you as a trophy to keep, cherish and twist for all time to come."

She hadn't believed Kol's words to have been this literal. She hadn't believed the people she had cared for so much and believed that deep down could have cared for her too could victimize her like this.

She was a plaything for them. A toy. And maybe they had grown to like that particular toy. Even care for it.

But Caroline now knew better.

For creatures like them, such emotions were just as dark as any other thing eternity promised. Like retribution. Like darkness.

Like love.

"There will come a time where the temptation to love someone to death will become very literal and pragmatic. Love wakes up everything inside and we feel everything far more intensely. Love casts light even to the darkness waking it up. You think that is a good thing?"

Caroline's gaze luminous in the shadows found Marcel's and she looked past the pity that settled on his face. A pity she recognized and felt familiar. He had lived this too. No wonder centuries later and here he was plotting against the Originals. Wanting their downfall. It was never about the city. It was never just about power.

It was out of love. Out of betrayal. Out of the scars the Originals had inflicted on him and those that still bled.

She wouldn't let this happen to her and even if she wasn't bound to the city she wouldn't run like Katherine either. She would bide her time but she wouldn't wait half a millennia.

She had already lost decades of her life in Purgatory. She would not lose more because of the Originals.

She pushed back the unpleasant ache, the hurricane that tore her apart, and her gaze cleared. It became cold. Sharp.

They showed her no mercy. She would return the favor.

"There is something I may need Davina's help for."

Marcel narrowed his eyes.

"What would that be?" he asked her with a tight voice but no matter the protective instincts he had for the young witch Caroline knew his desire to get even with the Originals burned hotter.

"To dissect a corpse," she bluntly said and this time it was Marcel Gerard that looked at her with arched brows not knowing where the story would end.

She knew where it would end.

To someone's demise.

She just had to make sure that someone would not be her.


Hayley Marshall looked at the cream-colored walls, the marbled floors with the beige carpets, and the cherry wood bookcases filled with books. The marble pillars rose to the high ceilings and the seating area with the antique lamps was elegantly decorated with Victorian-styled furniture.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows with the stained glass and the intricate designs was a beautiful terrace with wrought iron railings that formed beautiful 'La Fleur De Lys' symbols.

Hayley turned around and watched Elijah that stood at the entrance of the living room and watched her with a kind expression.

"What is this place?" she asked him gesturing at the elegance of their surroundings. When she had told Elijah she wanted them to meet she hadn't expected him to bring her in Garden District to a beautiful two-story classical house surrounded by a stunning tree garden.

"As much as Abattoir is our home there are times that I need some solitude. A private space of sorts."

Hayley gave Elijah a look of understanding.

"It's beautiful," she complimented his house and Elijah gave her one of his polite smiles in response.

"It can be yours," he told her, his gaze becoming softer, "Hope's when she returns."

"Elijah-"

"This was meant to be a gift to her for when she was born," Elijah revealed and Hayley seized before she watched the interior of the house with eyes filled with longing and sadness, "but given the circumstances, this plan got sidelined."

Hayley's demeanor changed. It became harsher.

"So, what changed?" she questioned him, "Why bring me here today?"

"To show you that nothing is lost. This can still be a home for you and your daughter. We will bring her back Hayley and maybe things will be different but difference doesn't necessarily mean something worse even if it seems like that at the beginning of one's new journey."

Hayley pursed her lips.

"Is this about what happened at the ball?"

"The ball was one more incident piling up on many," Elijah's sigh was one of worry but not one of judgment, "given your transition I understand how everything is heightened but if you just stop for a moment you will realize nothing is truly lost."

Hayley gave him a tight smile. Bitter disbelief shone in her eyes.

"Is it not?"

Elijah shook his head.

"Despite our losses we saved what matters. Now we have time to fix everything."

His promise made Hayley wrung her hands uncomfortably and she went closer to the balcony doors that led to the terrace and watched beyond the stained glass. Into the gardens where she could imagine Hope running around playing happily. Carefree, in her loving arms.

She could still have it. Elijah was right. They had time. If anything immortality gave them time even though her little girl was not immortal like them.

The idea that Hope could grow up and die while she would remain ageless broke her heart anew but she refused to dwell on that thought. It didn't have to happen that way.

She could still get her dream of having her baby girl in her arms.

Just maybe not in this house.

"About that," Hayley started hesitantly, "this is why I wanted to see you today."

Elijah nodded and pointed to the sofa for them to sit down but Hayley shook her head. She needed the distance.

"I hope you will understand what I have to tell you," Hayley began and glanced at Elijah with a concerned expression. She was faltering but she had to remain confident in what she had to say and do.

"What is it?" Elijah asked while watching her with rapt attention.

"My wolves," Hayley mumbled, "there has been unrest in our ranks."

"Because of what Miss Forbes said at the ball about you," Elijah acknowledged, as always his insight on point.

"It was heard," she clipped.

"And not forgotten," he assumed and Hayley's nostrils flared.

"I have done mistakes, Elijah," she admitted in a bitingly cold tone, "things I am not proud of but when it comes to my pack I am trying to make it right," she swore and her eyes flashed with frustration, "but it is not easy."

Elijah prompted her to keep talking with his silence.

"Klaus had told me that I could be there for them. To offer them timeless stability."

Elijah inclined his head.

"He is not wrong. Should you want it you could," he remarked, "You can. Hopefully by having more noble and less nefarious motives than my brother's."

"I've been looking for them my entire life. They are my family Elijah," she whispered and then added more softly, "Hope's family."

Elijah smiled. Hayley was starting to find herself again after her transition. She had a long way to go but he was relieved to see that she was willing to try. Indeed she was looking better because the last time she had seen her in the ball she was ready to attack Davina and the words of Renéestill alarmed him and he needed to make sure the path Hayley would follow from now and on would not lead to her demise. He could not allow this to happen.

He made a step towards her but her eyes stopped him. Her forbidding gaze forewarned of nothing good.

"I think I found a way for my wolves to accept me and embrace me. To make things right and have them trust me."

Elijah's eyes lit up at the prospect but Hayley's expression was not one of hope.

"There's a catch," she told him, "In the old days when the packs wanted to come together and leave the past behind they committed to it. When they wanted to form an alliance between the families they-" she stopped and gave him a pained look and Elijah understood. He had studied the traditions of the wolves many centuries ago given Niklaus' heritage so his next words were those Hayley would not speak.

"Solidified their unity with marriage between the Alphas."

Hayley nodded.

"Jackson is respected and the wolves trust and follow his lead. More so he is willing to do what is necessary to bring peace to our people and our parents planned to marry us when we were young. If I respect that union, that was forged by our elders it will show to my wolves how I am still part of them and I honor their, our," she corrected, "traditions. Maybe they don't trust me now as Hayley Marshal but I have been born a Labonair."

Elijah kept his calm and remained expressionless despite the heartbreak that was now calling him closer.

"I have to marry Jackson," she finally said and tried to gauge Elijah's expression but she could not. He was stoically looking down.

"I know there's been a distance between us recently," Hayley acknowledged with some regret painting her words, "and I know I am to blame for most of it but…this isn't about this. This is about Hope," she emphasized, "I have to make this place safe for her. So she can return to us."

She walked towards Elijah that kept his silence and she carefully reached for his arm. Her touch was gentle and she could feel how tense he was.

"But I…I don't love him, Jackson," she muttered and her hand fell, "but if I am to marry him," she paused and took in a deep breath, "I can't do that and still be involved with you and most of all your family."

Hayley swallowed down when Elijah didn't respond. Her hand rose again as if she wanted to touch him but she couldn't and it dropped down again. She felt her eyes burn and she just wished he would give one last look. She wished he would say something, anything. She wished he would even get mad or try to change her mind. She didn't know what she truly wished but this silent detachment that reminded rejection wasn't it.

"I should just," she mumbled but couldn't finish her sentence. She turned around to leave but before she could Elijah had wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and pulled her back.

She stumbled onto him and placed her hands on his chest to stop the fall.

"Marry him."

Elijah's deep voice hit her like a sledgehammer.

"What?"

She hated the way her voice trembled. She couldn't look away from his eyes that now were not empty or shocked like before. So much raw emotion sang in them and like a siren's song it called her closer.

Every emotion was intensified ever since she turned and so was everything she had felt for Elijah.

Elijah rested his forehead against hers and she inhaled him. She closed her eyes and let his warmth and strength envelop her. When she re-opened them she saw his affection and his hurt.

"Listen to me," he told her in a steady voice that didn't betray the emotions that raged inside him, "The only way for this city to be safe for Hope's return is if you have unified your people and I have unified my own. I promise you we will find a way to balance the power of the witches either through Davina or even my brother Kol. Whatever they both may be they are not enemies to your child."

Elijah's gaze held hers.

"Do what you need to bring your daughter home," he emboldened her in her quest and gave her a curt nod before he stepped back.

Hayley couldn't move. Her chest was falling up and down as she tried to swallow tears that she knew if she let them fall they would drown her. Pain had turned to agony. Loss into devastation and if she walked out of this house now she would lose Elijah forever.

Maybe she never had him. Maybe this had been doomed from the start but this house was just one more dream. One more lost dream.

They could have been together here and she and her daughter would have been happy.

And now she would have to marry Jackson and leave this dream behind to gain another.

"This has always been my hope for you," Elijah whispered, "for your daughter to find her way to us. For you to find your way."

Hayley closed the distance and reached out for him.

Her hand cupped his face and she knew this would be their farewell.

Elijah's gaze grew hungry just as she felt her blood starting to burn inside her veins.

They stood facing each other and after so long the undercurrent that always pulled them together pushed them over the edge.

Their lips met in a frantic kiss and they started removing each other's clothes without taking their eyes off each other. Passion, pain, and desire mixed, and when Elijah lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist time started to move fast and slow.

There would be no tomorrow but tonight they could have that one last dream. Together.


The music from the bar was echoing in the back alley as Caroline threw the trash bags into the dumpster and was ready to get back into Rousseau's when the stench of blood reached her nostrils. Almost as strong as that of alcohol. She tensed and halted when she realized that deeper in the dark alley a figure was shaped in the dark.

Immersed in shadows, dripping in blood, but she would have recognized those eyes that glinted in the darkness everywhere.

Kol Mikaelson stepped into the dim light the flickering lamp provided and Caroline took in his appearance. Every inch of him was covered in blood. Fresh blood.

The soles of his shoes were making squishy wet sounds as he was leaving bloody footprints with each uncoordinated step. Caroline looked around. They were alone but Kol didn't seem to care about being seen like this. Compulsion and murder would always solve any issues for him after all.

"What are you doing here Kol?"

"You should have taken the bracelet," he said in an aloof tone as he took out his bracelet and threw it in the dumpster before he leaned against it, "someone should look after you."

His body was still bathed in shadows but the blood had painted him from head to toe. A grotesque sight, even for vampires.

"What did you do?" she asked him coldly.

Kol gave her a devil may care look and staggered forward.

"Killed a few covens here and there," he casually admitted, "treaty is safe though," he hushed making a shushing sound with his finger over his lips, "I buried their pieces nice and easy. No fuss really," he paused and then stared at his fingers and grimaced, "just the dirt sticking under my nails, that's always a bother," he muttered, "bloody stains I don't mind but dirt? Sucks."

Caroline narrowed her eyes. He looked drunk. Wasted really. But there was something else. There was something off about him. More than usual anyway because Kol was either way unstable.

"What's wrong with you?" she questioned him suspiciously and Kol gave her a sinister smile that reminded her of Jeremy Gilbert's old comics with the Joker.

"Did you know that if you sniff some objects they work like magical roofies?" Kol confessed in a playful tone and imitated a sniffing motion only to grimace at the stench that was coming from the trash.

Caroline clenched her eyes shut in annoyance.

"That and drinking from an idiot that just had cocaine," he admitted and wobbled closer to her, "I did both," he whispered close to her ear like sharing a secret.

Caroline said nothing and Kol fell down. She stared at him from above and crossed her hands in front of her chest. She really didn't have the time for this.

"I messed up Carebear darling," Kol said, his back sliding against the dumpster, leaving trails of blood on the rusty metal.

"I can see that," she said flatly and her lips twitched angrily, "and don't call me that."

"Fine," he sighed and kicked a broken bottle with his foot away. "No darling Carebear."

"Kol," Caroline huffed exasperatedly.

"You are mad," Kol recognized in his high, "Bekah is mad too," he pouted sadly and Caroline blinked at that.

"Rebekah? You talked to her?"

"No! She won't talk to me," Kol complained in a childish manner that contradicted his serial killer vibe and his bloody appearance, "she won't even let me find her and I have searched!"

"That's peculiar," Caroline mumbled and her nose scrunched in deep thought. She hated having the conversation here when she felt she was being watched but something told her she wouldn't get another chance to get the truth out of Kol.

"She is hiding because she hates me," Kol mumbled and Caroline crouched down in front of him.

"She doesn't hate you Kol."

He raised his gaze and his eyes cut into her.

"You do."

He could see right through her and she hated it. She hated how she was still rippling with rage and how much she hated him at this very moment. In her ignorance, she had believed in the ties that brought them and kept them together. And now she hated how those ties were nothing but a lie.

He wasn't wrong. Now she did hate him. So she told him just that.

"A little bit yeah," she admitted and Kol's lopsided smile was bitter.

"See!" he exclaimed victoriously. He always hated being proved wrong and so now he had won.

Caroline smiled at that.

"Nik is mad too," Kol told her and she stiffened as he kept talking, "he is so silent…he doesn't speak…he always gets that before he daggers me," Kol chuckled and Caroline froze.

"He won't dagger you."

"I don't mind," Kol shrugged and Caroline pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Kol when I told you to get your shit straight this was not what I meant," she breathed out tiredly trying to contain her agitation. She hated the conflicting emotions she felt. She hated that she still cared for Kol.

"He got us coffins with pillows you know," Kol spoke with fascination as if he was recalling a fond memory, "really comfy."

"Stop!" she grated before her shoulders slumped, "just stop."

Kol threw his head back and closed his eyes.

"Oblivion… it's almost like a high too you know," he revealed, his voice now devoid of emotion, "you miss it once you get addicted to it," his brow furrowed, "I think I missed that," he divulged sincerely, "and that burn when the dagger gets in…don't tell Nik but I kinda like it," he laughed and Caroline's throat worked at that hollow sound of his laughter. Her hate was slipping away like sand through her fingers. She couldn't hold on to it. "Bekah hates it though," Kol's voice trailed off in a melancholic tone and Caroline's features softened.

"Why don't you go find your sister?" she proposed and her fingers wrapped around his knee and squeezed to draw his attention back to her, "if there is anyone that can find her that's you. There is nothing stopping you."

Kol's eyelids lifted and the shine of his gaze had her body brimming with tension.

"I can't go," he whispered and Caroline swallowed down hard.

"You have to Kol," she urged him, "Klaus will dagger you if you don't."

Sooner or later Klaus would do exactly that and Caroline realized the thought brought her no comfort. She couldn't bear it. Her resolve was wasting away. How could she hate someone so much and still be loyal to them? Had Klaus been right? Had Kol conditioned her to a degree where she was brainwashed when it came to him?

It would be comforting to think so but she couldn't lie to herself. Maybe Kol had tricked her, maybe he had betrayed her. But when she promised him her friendship, when she hugged him and given him her devotion she hadn't been lying. For her, it had been the truth. What she had felt was real and it still was. That was what hurt the most.

She wanted to hurt Kol. She knew she probably would because she couldn't find another way to stop the hurt inside her but there were things she couldn't allow anyone else to do to him despite how he may deserve them.

When it came down to it she couldn't let Klaus dagger him.

"Let him," Kol gave up, his shoulder lifting nonchalantly and Caroline could see he meant it. He didn't care. He had given up, given in.

Her expression became hard and her grip on his knee shuttered bone.

"Get a grip Kol!" she hissed at him, "Go find your sister…just go," she sighed and almost felt her heart break. Maybe this would be the end. Maybe she should just let him go. Maybe she should break the last threads that kept them together and turn her back at him. It hurt to even think about it but maybe it would be the only way.

If only there were not answers she still needed.

She stifled her nerves and her agony and her gaze became pleading. A part of her really wanted him to go because then she wouldn't have to hurt him herself.

Caroline could feel Kol's sanity barely holding on. One more shove and there would be nothing left. Nothing good or bad. It would tumble like a rock.

She shook him. He had to leave.

"Go Kol, just-"

"I can't go!" he interrupted her, his refusal sharp and almost as urgent as her tone had been. If not more.

"Why not," she desperately asked him and cupped his face. Blood dripped down on her fingers, "you've missed her haven't you?"

"A little bit yeah," he repeated her earlier words from when he had asked her if she hated him. A little bit sometimes carried such weight.

"I still can't go," Kol said with a barely audible tone.

Caroline hunched back and watched him curiously. There was something about his refusal that set her on edge.

"Why?"

"You are here," Kol earnestly said and Caroline's hand fell from his knee.

"So?"

"I need to look after you."

Her hands turned to fists.

"I can look after myself," she told him in a tight voice.

"I know," Kol accepted and then momentarily his gaze cleared, "but that's my job."

Caroline appraised him and she hated the piercing sting that knifed her heart. Why was this his job? Why was she important to him? Was it because he cared or because he knew things about her she didn't. Things that forced him to keep her close?

These thoughts were breaking her apart. Was what she had been to him? A job? A joke?

"No, it's not."

The ice of her tone didn't seem to penetrate his haze.

"It is," he insisted and her nails cut her skin as she balled her hands tighter.

"Kol-"

"Since that place, we shall not call its name-"

Caroline dragged in a breath and everything came to a still. She hated when Purgatory was coming up and even more so when Kol did it.

"You came," he continued his mumbling, "and I could breathe again."

Caroline searched his face and allowed him to take this out of his chest. She didn't know what to believe anymore.

"I never had a friend before. A thousand years and zilch," he casually lifted his shoulders, "no wonder since I suck at having friends," he pouted, "you can tell that can't you?"

He looked at her like an innocent boy would and expected an earnest answer from her. She deflated and moved and sat by his side resting her back against the dumpster too.

"Sometimes," she admitted with a sigh and Kol nodded seriously like a child.

"You should have left me there Carebear."

Caroline's breath lodged in her throat. Vivid images of their past flooded her mind along with hatred and anguish and she felt as if she was suffocating.

"I knew you could," Kol acknowledged, "but you stayed…for me…and I let you," he groaned and his whisper turned into a barely audible sound, "I was afraid to stay there alone," he blurted out the truth breaking her heart, "but I wouldn't have hated you if you left without me," he told her and Caroline felt tears prickling her eyes, "well I would," drawled and then he turned his head up, staring at the stars, "but I wouldn't…you know…not you" his words trailed off and Caroline's body became heavy and weightless at once. Soft and hard, dead and alive. Stuck between love and hate.

She looked up at the stars herself too. She couldn't hate him. Just like him, she could and she did but…she didn't. Not him.

Love won.

Somehow it always won even when hate persisted.

Her eyes searched for Andromeda but the stars had gone dim in the night sky.

She reached for Kol's hand and covered it with her own.

"I would never leave you behind Kol," she whispered and squeezed his hand, the blood on his skin was a slippery glue that kept them tied together. She wouldn't leave him back in that hell. Not even now. Not ever. She hated how this was still true. Even after everything she had learned and everything she suspected she still would not have done anything differently if she had the chance to do it all over again. She would not have left him behind. Not in that place.

Kol's head fell on her shoulder.

"I can't go find Bekah," he slurred, "I can't leave you behind…"

Caroline swiveled her head to look at him. Everything flared inside her.

"Fuck everything is turning," Kol grunted and his breath came out labored. The magic that kept him in its thrall was vengeful as was addictive. She felt his fever and his trembling. The high he was searching for would make the fall harder.

"I wish I could say I am sorry…but I can't," he laughed bitterly finding in his strained breaths the chance to speak more coherently in his incoherent speech, "I am a Mikaelson and Mikaelsons… we don't apologize," he drawled, "but between you and me if I could," he sighed and his face came closer to hers. He rested his forehead against her cheek just as his body was starting to go slack, "I would," he breathed out, "for everything…"

Every muscle in Caroline's body went taut and she whirled and caught Kol's face just as his body was slipping down on hers.

"Everything?" she demanded shaking him, trying to force him to stay awake, "like what?" she asked him firmly, desperately.

Kol's eyes rolled back just as his eyelids dropped slowly.

"Kol!"

Caroline gripped him harder and shook him as she hissed his name just as angrily as she did imploringly.

"Kol!"

Her fingers pressed against his temples but even with the magic and the cocaine flowing in his system and no matter how wasted he was, she couldn't penetrate the walls he had erected in his mind. She couldn't get in. Kol protected his mind with walls of adamant, madness, and fury even in that state and she couldn't get the answers she wanted to like that.

"Damn it," she cursed just as Kol fell over her, drooling against her neck.

She hooked her hands around his waist and pulled him closer. She looked around and moved them both deeper into the alley far away from the light. Straight into the shadows, deep into the darkness.

She stared at his unconscious form and searched his face. Every line, every detail. She closed her eyes and dragged in a long breath.

The temptation to turn off her humanity was there, beckoning her closer.

The temptation was a siren's song and she silenced it. Her wounds were bleeding and that would serve as a reminder of what she would have to do. She would contain the bleeding and she would keep the scars to help her remember. To keep her determined.

After all, Kol had been her mentor. She could do this. He had taught her how.

When she reopened her eyes she stitched her wounds shut the best way she could. She couldn't waste any more time being battle-weary and having doubts. Her emotions were betraying her worse than the Originals ever could.

She took out her phone and messaged Kol's witch Brianne. First, the witch would need to come over and take care of Kol. Then she would have to go face Kol's bane of existence that as it happened was hers too.

A.k.a. Klaus Mikaelson.

This was the opening she needed. It would seem so anyway.

She sat down more comfortably next to Kol and carefully pulled him to her until she cradled him, his head over her lap as he relaxed more in her arms looking young and innocent while he was neither.

Caroline rested her back against the stone wall and sighed. She used to do this for Elena and Bonnie too. They loved sleeping all over her when they ended up on the couch watching movies late at night.

Only Kol wasn't Bonnie or Elena.

If anyone saw her now. Cuddling an Original. More so the Unhinged menace of New Orleans.

She pushed some of Kol's wet hair out of his face. Red stained her fingers.

She'd have to make sure Klaus would not dagger him and for that, she had to grovel. Which was what she was searching for. A way to get back to Klaus' good graces and he would not believe anything else if she was to get back to him for any other reason. That's how Elijah had tried to manipulate her too. It would all add up and even so, Klaus would still suspect her and he would be correct in doing so. Chances were that he still would be suspicious but she could use this to help Kol and herself and by using both Kol and Klaus. This was the way of getting back at them for all their lies and secrets. Two could play this game. To care and lie at the same time. To help and condemn.

She could do both. To them both.

Yes, she had just found the opening she was looking for. A way to kill two birds with one stone but why did she feel so bad about it?


Screams ricocheted between the walls of the old attic and Josh couldn't stop himself from flinching.

Davina was increasing the power of her spell and she was focused as she chanted but the vampire was writhing on the floor roaring in pain and Josh remembered the time when he was in his place. It had been the most terrible agony he had ever felt in his entire life.

Davina stopped for a moment shaking her head at the vampire at her feet that was trying to breathe while sobbing.

"When Caroline said you could help this wasn't what I had on mind," Aaron complained and Davina gave him a stern look.

"Your mind is programmed differently now," she told the vampire, "Klaus' compulsion runs deep, and if I don't break through-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Aaron heaved, "either I stay Klaus' bitch or I get a lobotomy," he mumbled and Josh chuckled.

"Ha! That's what I had said too," he told Aaron that gave him a curious glance.

"Been where you are. I know it sucks but trust me when I say the pain is worth it," Josh went and sat down at his haunches in front of Aaron, "a little pain is nothing in comparison to having to deal with Klaus Mikaelson's crap."

"A little?" Aaron croaked.

Josh winced and exchanged a look with Davina. Aaron blanched when he realized this would become worse.

"Try to think of something else," Davina advised.

"Like what?"

"Something or someone you love," Josh told him and Aaron smiled faintly.

"My brother," he mumbled and Josh and Davina smiled in understanding.

Josh gave Aaron his hand.

"If it helps hold on," he suggested and Aaron gripped his hand and took in a deep breath before he gave Davina a sharp nod.

Davina extended her arm and Aaron's grip on Josh became bone-crushing as his screams once more filled the room and magic battled an Originals' compulsion.


She looked around at all the lit candles.

"Seriously, who the hell lights them?" she mumbled under her breath not caring for making her entrance known.

She almost felt the echo of her voice in the flicker of the candlelight.

The silence in the Abattoir was chilling but Caroline could hone on the heartbeat that beckoned her closer. She knew that beat all too well. She had felt it in his blood when it flooded her mouth, she had heard it beating wildly every night in her dreams against her chest and… she hadn't heard the sound of it since the day she told Klaus Mikaelson he was nothing better than Mikael and he told her to get out.

Each steady beat matched her steps. She followed the tempo almost transfixed despite her rising anxiety and anticipation. She didn't know what she would face. She knew that after their last confrontation she had gained her freedom but had lost Klaus' trust and with its loss, she knew he was now just as unpredictable as he would ever be. He could lash out. She knew he was angry and hurt and that made him unpredictable and dangerous but as it happened she was also angry and hurt and that made her just as equally unpredictable and dangerous. So much so that she would not turn around and leave. She would march straight on into the wolf's den, venom, claws, and fangs be damned. If he wanted a slice of her he could have it.

She walked up the stairs and she knew his heartbeat was leading her into her old room.

Klaus was waiting in the bedroom he had made for her.

She wondered if he dueled in there now or if he knew she was coming. She was feeling eyes and ears following her every step. She couldn't see them, she couldn't find them because they were really good at hiding in the light of day and blending in the shadows in the night but she could tell when she was being followed and this only happened a few days after her fight with Klaus. He stayed away and kept radio silence but she knew these were not his methods. Not when he was on protective mode and certainly not when he was in pissed-off mode. She knew she had hurt him but she also knew him and he wouldn't stay away knowing Esther was lurking around. After all, this also concerned Klaus' family in the end. More so he didn't trust her now and she was fast becoming one more adversary for him. He wanted her to fall in line of course.

Caroline knew the eyes she felt following her could belong to Esther sure but something told her this was not the case. She could recognize the feeling from when Esther's or Kol's witches were close. The thousand eyes she felt lately had another feeling to them.

Those belonged to Klaus. Her gut was telling her this and it made her furious but given what she had to do that was a fight for another day.

More so if she wanted to become Klaus' distraction once more she'd need to make him believe she was honest and harmless and what best way to do so by controlling the information his spies would get. She'd feed Klaus whatever it was she wanted and she'd make him believe he was in control. It would be a challenge but it was doable.

She closed her eyes when she stood behind the closed door and she realized she was coming to the end of the line.

Things would change now. This would be the first time she'd meet Klaus knowing that whatever that had existed between them had been built on a lie and deceit. He had approached her knowing things about her that he never revealed to her. Things about her family. Her past. Things she still didn't know. Things that probably led to her murder. Her death could have been on his hands too.

She swallowed hard.

She forced herself to wear a mask to cover every conflicting emotion and doubt she had. She couldn't let that show. She couldn't let him know.

So she opened the door slowly ready to meet anything he would throw at her head-on.

What she met was a smile.


The jazz club was crowded and the saxophone music drew in more people.

Marcel took another sip from his whiskey slowly when a shadow came closer and perched at the stool next to him.

Marcel stiffened when Raphael Bonnett took the seat next to him but he shoved his annoyance down.

He knew Bonnett was in the city but he had hoped that just like every other time his visitation would be a passing occurrence. Nyx's underground branch in New Orleans was more of a nonentity if you looked on the other way. Looking away from all that bullshit was one of the hardest things he had to do ever since he rose in power but it could not be helped or avoided. Not when Kol had founded that fucking dump that turned into an empire. Not when the Originals still sanctioned that cesspool and not when Raphel's influence grew over the centuries along with his army of assassins and witches.

Bonnett was now more powerful than when he had been a powerful witch. Far more powerful than his old lineage for sure and that said something given his witch bloodline. It still irked Marcel to know that Rebekah had turned this asshole with her blood and they had been lovers. He wanted nothing more than to tear out Raphael's heart and feed it to him. He wanted to tear apart Nyx until there would be nothing left from that depravity and Raphael's vices but as much as he wanted to burn that whole shithole to the ground his hands were tied.

The last thing he needed right now was for Bonnett to start giving him more trouble than what he could chew right now.

Raphael graced him with a charming smile.

"How long has it been King of New Orleans?"

"Two hundred years," Marcel tonelessly said and watched as Raphael raised his hand and pointed at the barkeeper to get him the same drink he was having.

"Quite some time old friend," Raphael drawled and Marcel Gerard had to stop himself from cracking the glass he had in his hand.

"What are you doing here Raphael?"

Raphael swirled his drink in his glass and gave Marcel a stare of fake surprise.

"You forget I have an open invitation extended by you."

Marcel gulped his drink. He could hardly forget. Raphael's contracts always came back to bite him in the ass.

However, Raphael Bonnett knew he was not welcome here. He always knew. He never cared.

"I have missed your city," Raphael said, "lovely Rebekah loved nights in New Orleans and for good reasons," his innuendo was spoken with a drawl as he took in the crowd and the musicians on stage.

Marcel's blood started to boil. He hated when Raphael took Rebekah's name on his lips and when he reminded him of the way Rebekah loved to dangle her old lovers in front of him.

Raphael's smirk was reptile-like when he turned his attention back to him.

"It's been a while since I visited the city the Originals founded," he purposely always reminded him how this would always be a creation of the Originals, "and this new decade has brought wonders I'd like to explore."

Marcel narrowed his eyes at that.

Danger loomed closer.

Raphael finished his drink slowly and Marcel noticed Nyx's men and women blending with the crowd.

A message. Raphael was bringing his army in.

Shit.

"We will be seeing each other Marcellus," Raphael said and gave him a grin before sliding down from his stool, bowing slightly, and walking away.

Blood started to drip down his hand but Marcel Gerard barely felt the sting from the shards of glass that torn his skin.


Legs crossed nonchalantly, hands resting on the armrests.

Klaus Mikaelson was sitting on the armchair, looking regal as a King. A wickedly satisfied smile was plastered on his face as he watched her with a high and mighty expression that made her grit her teeth.

Seriously, the only thing missing was the crown.

"We have been here before have we not?" Klaus purred, his voice almost hypnotic, and Caroline's breath almost hitched on her throat.

Those stupid dreams had worked her up good and the fact that Klaus was now sitting sprawled in the chair so close to a bed looking as sleek as the devil and just as insolent wasn't helping matters any. She wanted to throttle him and she really wanted to channel that aggression in many more explicit ways that she shouldn't want.

Just as she shouldn't want or feel the faint emotion of relief and hurt she felt now that she was once again seeing him.

She had missed him.

She hated to admit it but she had.

The thorn inside her heart twisted more bleeding the world fool in her head. She was still the same naïve fool little girl he had met in Mystic Falls. The one he had made think was important to him. The one she had believed was capable of seducing a man and a monster like Klaus Mikaelson. What an idiot had she been. She should have known better. She wasn't Elena. She wasn't important or anyone's first choice. Why should Klaus Mikaelson had been any different?

The venom spread in her heart. It had never been infatuation or love. It had been a lie. Manipulation. And she had fallen for it believing she had been his distraction while he had been hers.

He had broken down her walls and she had given him the hammer believing she had been the one in control. Only for Klaus to have pulled her strings.

She wondered if this had been a twisted game of his. If he had enjoyed it. If he believed he could keep smashing her walls until all her bricks would turn to dust and he would conquer whatever it was that he wanted to gain from her. From her and her family. He had the answers and she had to get them.

"Only back then you were begging for your lover's life," Klaus continued and Caroline kept giving him a terse look while trying to not allow the emotional hurricane brewing inside her show. It was hopeless insanity, that was what this was. Memories flooded her mind. From a time she had begged Klaus to let Tyler escape. To run away and not find his mother's fate in his hands. From a time she had believed Klaus had cared for her enough to show her mercy and he had the audacity to pretend that he had been kind. Because of her he had said. He had shown kindness, pity, mercy. Because of her. It had been all because of her.

Had it all been a lie?

"And so you have come to beg for Kol," Klaus clicked his tongue ironically, "how lovely. Have at it, sweetheart. Persuade me," he drawled and she had to take a long calming breath to stop herself from punching him straight in the face.

Even if there had been a part of hers that had missed him this assholery of his she had not missed at all by the way.

"Cut the crap Klaus," she tossed at him aggressively pushing her hands on her hips.

Klaus' smirk vanished and in its place, only the predator starving for pain and destruction was left.

And that predator was hurt and there was nothing worse for their kind. Because she was no longer pray. She too was a predator.

"I was under the impression we were done," Klaus threw at her coldly.

"You told me to get out," she reminded him mimicking his tone.

"And now here you are," he remarked softly, his lips curling in a provocative smirk again, "which makes you either brave or stupid. Or," he cockily said, "defeated as you are here sacrificing for my brother. Ah, young love," he mocked her and Caroline couldn't help the amused smile that appeared on her face at his antics.

This was still a game. She couldn't forget. But she could play it and nothing said that she couldn't enjoy playing it.

"Are you jealous of me and Kol?" she asked him incredulously, barely stopping herself from laughing at the absurdity of this, "seriously?" she shook her head, "A. ew! and B. are you nuts?" she exclaimed, "he is like the little annoying brother I never wanted!"

Klaus arched his brow at that and she could only shrug in honesty.

"Well he actually is the annoying brother I truly never wanted," Klaus muttered before his gaze became menacing, "but thankfully for me, this is not something a dagger can't fix."

Caroline's eyes flashed with fury.

"You can't dagger him!"

Klaus' smile was for lack of a better word, satanic.

"I see you are still able to play the distraction sweetheart," Klaus gave her a sardonic smile and his eyes turned luminous, "only this time you are here to sweet talk me under Elijah's directions. Aren't you tired of being a pawn others use to stay my hand?"

The pain she felt was ferocious and unrelenting. She stared into his piercing eyes and she had to use all her willpower to reign over the feeling of betrayal. His question cut her deep. Yes, she was tired. So very tired. So exhausted but most of all she was pissed as hell.

This was harder than she had anticipated. But she couldn't back down now.

"Aren't you tired of being such an ass?" she snapped at him feeling the blood rushing in her bloodstream tempting her rage and fury. It was red hot lava scorching everything in its path and jagged pieces of ice tearing her apart.

Klaus chuckled and sprawled back on the chair making himself more comfortable.

"So maybe I should show Kol my compassion," his tone was soft and smooth, almost hypnotic before the savvy and sly cover he wore fell apart and showed the poison that rested underneath. His eyes darkened and the next words were spoken flatly in a challenging manner, "the same compassion you would show me."

Caroline pressed her lips.

He dared to speak to her of compassion when he didn't know the meaning of it. When he showed her none. And yet he expected her to give him everything and accused her of betraying him when she didn't coddle him every time he abused her.

"Then again you have shown me all your compassion lately," Klaus mused, "or lack of it. We are the same after all sweetheart," he said with an approving smile, "you have the same cruelty running in your veins as it does in mine."

Yes. Yes, she did.

She took a step forward not missing the way Klaus' eyes followed her movement closely.

"And yet I have not yet snapped your neck and kidnapped you have I?" she shot back and Klaus watched her almost fascinated.

"You still walk free don't you?" he goaded her and she took another step closer making his eyes narrow a fraction.

"My freedom is not yours to give or take," she stated, her words dressed in steel.

Klaus watched her intently and ran his tongue over his lip slowly. She hated the way her heart skipped a bit at that.

Time seemed to bind them together. In the same way, it was pushing them away.

She wanted to rewind time. To thoroughly relive all their moments and reflect on their past objectively. To see the truth and the lies in every moment, in every kiss and promise.

The Adam's apple in Klaus' throat bobbed up and down as if he was lost in the same maze of emotions she was.

"And how I deal with my brothers is not your concern," he eventually concluded as he got up from the armchair and went towards the French glass doors that led to the balcony. He stared outside into the night and she watched his frame in the weak moonlight.

She wanted to scream to him he was being a coward. But she didn't know if he was. Maybe all his behavior was an intentional scheme. She didn't know. She couldn't know anymore and it was driving her crazy. Doubt had taken root and was distorting everything.

"Like it or not it is," she argued, "Kol is my friend," she told Klaus just as she felt the knot in her neck. She was furious with both Klaus and Kol but when it came to Kol she would pay him back in her own way. She couldn't stand by and see him fall this way though. No. Never. She didn't have any illusions of being selfless and forgiving. She knew she was capable of hurting Kol too and she would find the right way in due time but this was not an option. She couldn't bear it as much as she couldn't bear Klaus' and Kol's betrayal. The war inside her mind and heart was ravaging her soul and yet she couldn't step back and allow Klaus to hurt Kol that way. She couldn't. She wouldn't. "You can't just store him in a coffin because you are…inconvenienced!" she got out furiously and Klaus turned around to face her with an arching brow.

He pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants and gave her a sly smirk.

"Oh, I sure can love."

Caroline marched at him and Klaus' eyebrow lifted higher insolently.

"So this is how you deal with those you can't control?" she accused him and then pointed at the room, "the last time we were in here together you had a coin to keep me locked inside remember?" she pushed his limits and at the echo of her words, raw emotion flared in his eyes.

"I remember," he replied in a hypnotic voice. He would not forget that's what his eyes were telling her. He would not forget any moment between them. The good nor the bad. He remembered everything and so did she.

She titled her head back just as night and moonlight flickered between them capturing their shadows and casting slim shapes of figurines on the walls and the floors.

"For me a coin, for Kol a dagger," she breathed out letting her disappointment ring between them like a shot in the dark, "maybe I should start looking behind my back then. If there's a way you can find it right? So I might find myself inside a coffin too."

A muscle ticked in Klaus' jaw and he towered over her.

His frame was intimidating but the proximity left an achingly familiar sensation in her body that seemed to electrify from the within. The dreams she had of him were like sirens now. Calling him closer. She stilled just as her mind battled her heart brutally. She couldn't allow this attraction to blind her from who Klaus truly was. She couldn't keep falling for his charm like an idiot. It was a fatal error and she had to stop repeating it.

"Now there's an idea," Klaus smile turned secretive, pure seduction despite the evil gleam in his eyes, "although out of everything I have ever wanted from you locking you in a casket was never going to work," he sensually played with her and he reached to tuck a curly strand of hair behind her ear making a shiver travel up her spine, "I rather prefer you alive and-"

She jerked his hand away.

"Why can't you just pull your head out of your ass even for a second!" she burst out in frustration gesturing angrily with her hands, "every time I try to reach out to you, you do something to prove to me how terrible you are!"

Klaus chuckled at her outburst.

"This is because I am terrible love," he sneered, "I take after you know who after all," he threw her insult back at her. It would seem she had wounded him by comparing him to Mikael.

His gaze challenged her to correct him. To somehow take her words back and if not apologize to at least tell him she didn't mean it. To tell him he was nothing like Mikael.

She said nothing and Klaus snorted at her silence.

"But as terrible goes here you are love, taking the mantle with such pride."

His strange tone was brittle and the low vibrato of his voice felt almost dreary to her now.

"So as equally terrible maybe we could end in a mutually beneficial agreement," he proposed at her dryly, "after all this is why you are here aren't you? To negotiate for Kol. To restrain me from daggering your beloved friend?" he drooled the words with bitter disgust and Caroline let out an annoyed huff.

"What do you want Klaus?" she deflated with a wry tone.

"What if I told you that I would agree to keep the dagger with Kol's name sheathed with the condition of you returning to the compound where I can keep an eye on you?"

His audacity and his cavalier attitude rubbed her in the wrong way but it was a start. This was what she was after. To find her way back to Klaus. To re-establish a connection. He was offering that to her right now but she had to be smart about it. If she accepted it without any resistance he would know something was wrong and he would suspect her.

She turned around and flicked her hair back.

"Here we go again," she muttered and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers before she swiveled back and cast Klaus a scathing look.

"If you told me that then I would say that you are blackmailing me and maybe I am naïve but even after everything that happened between us I still believe," she hesitated and took a deep breath, "this would be something you would never do to me. I never believed you could and I need to still believe it," she willed him to understand. "Bland force and manipulation is one thing but this? Acting as if I am nothing but an object you can store away by using what I love and care for only to hurt me. Betraying my trust like this."

Klaus looked taken aback by her words as if he could sense what was implied between the lines. What she was telling him without actually telling him.

She appraised him as if it was the first time she was seeing him and the pain she felt was unimaginable. The need she felt for him to prove her suspicions false was overwhelming.

"You wouldn't do it. Not like this. Not to me," her voice softened just a fraction and this time the gaze she fixed him was deep and her veneer cracked letting something akin to hope find its way to the surface. A part of her still craved for Klaus to prove her wrong. To prove to her that their story hadn't been crafted by a lie. Having such hope, wanting to still see the good in him, to believe that what they had shared was honest was her own weakness and she couldn't root it out easily, if at all. "Am I wrong?"

Her eyes bore into his and she felt him tense.

It was almost as if a battle was raging inside him too but whatever side won was the one that would let her down. Again.

Her heart sank.

"Well I have exchanged the head of a Hybrid for going out on a date with you," he reminded her choosing to evade the chance of coming clean and ignoring the moment that passed between them, "of course back then you had no problem with sacrificing an innocent so to get what you wanted."

She forced her emotions to shut down. Completely. It was almost as if she was playing with her humanity switch. She locked the avalanche in her heart and threw away the key deciding to play Klaus' game.

"That was different," she mumbled peeved, following his example and pretending nothing else lingered between them and that this was not another game of chess.

"Was it?" he challenged her with a knowing look and Caroline scoffed.

"Do you actually think you can use this to force me into doing something I do not want?" she defied him.

"So you wanted to date me back in Mystic Falls?" Klaus asked her pretending to be surprised.

"Seriously?" Caroline threw her hands to the air at his taunting expression.

Klaus' mirth slowly dissipated and he let out a long breath.

"This is getting us nowhere Caroline," he sighed, "Kol is out of control. You must be seeing it too otherwise you wouldn't be here," he pointed out, "and I can't let this go on for much longer."

"So this is it?" she regarded him sternly letting her disappointment show, "you will just stuff him in a coffin and act as if this is going to solve everything?"

Klaus pretended to think about it.

"The best thing I can give you is some time to get acclimated to the idea. Is a week good enough?" he shot back spitefully.

"You are his brother!" Caroline exploded, "his big brother!" she yelled at him hating the way her voice shook, "you are meant to keep him safe not abuse him!"

Klaus' face twisted with rage and while her first instinct was to recoil from it she refused to step down. She summoned her own rage. She became fury and defiance and stood her ground.

"You don't know what you are talking about," Klaus snarled, a gold circle shining in his orbs.

"Don't I?" she snapped back not caring about the menace that was starting to build up between them. Klaus was on the verge of losing control because it would seem she had just pushed on more of his buttons. One of those that truly hurt.

She stepped forward keeping her vigilance against his cruelty.

"When we were in Purgatory he talked the most about you," she calmly said staring straight into the turmoil that was wreaking havoc in his gaze, "he hated that you forgot him so easily when he died," she revealed to Klaus and watched as his eyes widened and then something shuttered in them before his expression shut down again. She had to push him more. She had to crack him open for the light to enter the darkness, "It cut him really deep."

There was a crack. So small. It showed just a hint of a flicker of an emotion so hot, wild, and raw. She could only imagine how Klaus was holding it back.

"I didn't forget him."

His voice was soft, his tone was flat.

This time Caroline watched him with pity.

"He believes you did not even mourn him."

Klaus' lips curled into a cruel smile that made her mouth go dry and her skin stretch over her bones. Her whole body was screaming at her to run.

She almost flinched when Klaus' knuckles traced the line of her neck.

"You should know better Caroline," Klaus almost sang in a lover's voice as his fingers trailed the place his teeth once had brutally ravished her skin. It was he had punished for Kol's death after all, "you were there when your friends forced me to stay in the same room with his burned body."

A shudder passed through her but he had captured her eyes that stared back at him with the same intensity he looked at her.

"You remember what happened next don't you?"

Her throat clogged as memories came alive from a time when Klaus had almost let her die. From a time terror had been tangible and real. From a time death had lingered true. From a time she had believed he had loved her enough to spare her from his grief and madness. It had been a turning point for them.

She glared at him and this time she took a step back.

Klaus' hand hovered before it fell to his side.

"I do remember," she exhaled harshly, "But Kol does not. He lived something different. And now he is angry and messed up and wants to hurt you the most."

Klaus' lips twisted in a grimace of disgust.

"This is why he is using you against me?" he blamed her but Caroline focused past his demons and his condescension.

"Occasionally maybe," she admitted and Klaus was taken aback by her sincerity before his anger changed his expression into something harder and unforgiving.

"And you let it."

Caroline shook her head.

"No," she shut down his accusation with vehemence, "the fact that he baits you and you fall for his tricks does not mean that I take any part in what goes on between you two. This is not who I am."

At least this wasn't who she used to be. She couldn't say she wouldn't use this tension between Klaus and Kol to her advantage now.

"And yet here you are," Klaus scowled mockingly, "pleading for him."

Caroline rubbed her temples slowly. If she was a human she would be having one of the worst headaches of all time. Now she felt as if the rush of blood under her skin was a drumming beat calling her vampire to come out and play.

Instead, she let out her humanity and raised her eyes to Klaus with as much empathy she could conjure.

"And for you," she intoned with a soothing voice, "you will regret hurting him Klaus. This time if you dagger him you will break him beyond repair. Is this what you want?" she asked him earnestly and a low growl escaped his lips.

"Caroline-"

"Don't pretend that you do not care," she pointed an accusing finger at him, "I know you better than that."

This time his control actually snapped and he watched her with a heartbroken expression that tugged on her heartstrings.

"And still you accuse me of everything," he seethed letting the pain slip away from its tight leash.

"Yes," she hissed in the same intensity, "because I happen to know all sides of you. Both the good and the bad. And I will never stand back when you are on asshole mode."

And she meant it. She never would. Never.

Klaus smiled at that.

"Well," he rasped, "that is why I like you," he professed and closed his eyes as if he couldn't bear to look at her anymore. "Even though I wish I didn't. It would certainly make things easier."

Caroline didn't know why she hated hearing him saying he wished he could not feel what he felt for her. She didn't know why she hated it when she felt the same.

She didn't know why she hated it when all she wanted deep down was to somehow have him prove to her that what he felt was real. That it hadn't been a lie.

She looked down at her feet and she wished she could erase things from her mind and heart. But just like him she couldn't even though she knew that if she could it would certainly make things easier.

The next words that fell from her lips were not planned. They were not a strategy. They were not bait on a hook.

They were a whisper of a pained breath she wished she could take back.

"I can't just forget what you did Klaus."

His eyes snapped at her. At the pulsing emotion, she let loose. At the wish, no one was going to grant her because she wished she could forget and could forgive. She wished she could be the girl she once was before Purgatory. Maybe this girl would know what to do now. Maybe that girl would not be so jaded and so torn apart and just maybe this would hurt less.

Or maybe it would hurt more because that girl back then was more open to the good than to the bad and she judged people by seeing the good in them. It was that good that haunted her till this day. The good she had seen in Klaus. The good she could still see. The good she wished had not been a lie.

Klaus could see right through her and she had to course correct quickly.

"I can't forget how you tried to keep me here against my will. The things you said and the way you treated me," she dodged the questions she saw lingering in Klaus' eyes, "but no matter how screwed up this might sound and mind you it is not any freaky Stockholm syndrome you can use against me," she pointed her finger again at him, "I understand that in your own messed up way you are ready to cross every line so to protect those you care about. Even if that means you will only earn their hate," she shook her head showing him how he was letting her down, "maybe that makes it easier. To have everyone hate you so to be able to do whatever you want and pretend that you do not care," she continued despite seeing how Klaus was once more rising up his defenses, "then you act all offended and hurt when you achieve that goal but even like that you keep going. You keep pushing people to their limits and you keep hurting them and you don't stop from proving to everyone exactly why it is easier for others to hate you. You keep adding fuel to their hate thinking this is the only way to save yourself from the hurt you'd feel if you opened up," she glanced at him with bitter understanding, "better to lose those whom you love yourself than showing weakness and losing them anyway right? Because that would mean they would reject you. They would see the real you and it wouldn't be enough," that was her own fear too, her deepest most dark fear, "you wouldn't be enough."

"That's enough," Klaus hissed in a cold voice that could have given anyone a frostbite.

He hated being weak. She could see it. She could feel it under her skin and it was moments like these that she believed that just maybe there was humanity left in him.

"No it is not," she reached out to him not allowing him to hide behind his wrath, "because this hate is not the way to love," she tried to make him see, "abuse is not love Klaus. It is not protection, it is not a sign of caring," she firmly pressed on not giving him any room to pretend otherwise or to retreat to the comfort of his shadows where he could make himself believe that what he was doing to the people he cared about was justified, "abuse is just abuse. Hate is only hate. And the more you act on it the more you break those you love. Those that despite everything you've done and you keep on doing still…love you."

Her breath was caught on the last word because if there was something that she was not ready to admit even to herself was that she felt the echo of that word right down to the marrow of her bones.

Klaus gave her a pained vulnerable look.

She swallowed hard. The word love hung heavy between them. But so did every other word she had said.

She let out a charged breath and went to him. She got his hands in hers and Klaus watched their hands as if he couldn't believe he would ever feel her touch again. His fingers twitched as if he longed to lace them with hers. She squeezed his hands and his eyes found hers.

"But you can't do this with Kol," she pled with him and when he tried to pull his hands away she held on, "not this time," she insisted and her nails grazed his skin, "everything he went through in that place," her throat constricted and she didn't know if she was talking about Kol or her now. Images came alive in her mind again, her eyes watered and she could barely see Klaus through the wet haze that burned, "it has been so long since he saw any of you. He does not know how to reach out to you and he is hurting," she took in a deep breath, "he is like you. When he hurts he lashes out. He can't be in pain without causing pain."

Klaus came closer.

"How long has it been Caroline? How long have you been in that place?"

She froze and tried to withdraw her hands as if touching him burned.

Klaus didn't let her. She had slipped and Klaus would not let it go. So long she had said and he caught on it and she knew him enough to know he would never let it go. He gripped her hands and pulled her closer not allowing her to step back, to run away, to find anywhere to hide. To hide her pain, her agony, the open wound that was still bleeding.

For so many years it was bleeding and it would not stop. It would not even heal into an angry scar. It kept on bleeding.

She tried to pull her hands and felt scalding heat spread into her whole body. Cold sweat covered her.

"Kol has mentioned time passes by differently in Purgatory," Klaus pushed her more and the word Purgatory felt like a bullet straight into the brain. It made every memory explode. Her hands became slack into his hold, "exactly how much is the difference?"

He wouldn't let her go without an answer and somewhere in the back of her mind, there was a voice tell her to speak. To tell him the truth.

It would be the only way to get his trust back. To get him back. Flaying herself open was the only way to have Klaus forgive her for comparing to Mikael, for hurting him, for making ache.

Why did she have to hurt this much to get what she wanted?

Why couldn't Klaus let her be? Why did he always have to dig so deep into her wounds?

Why everything between them was always so raw and toxic?

And why deep down was there a part of her that wanted to confide to him without any reason. She just wanted to open up to him.

Her gaze became unfocused.

"One year here is a little bit longer there," she mumbled and it was as if she was not seeing anything from this world. Not this bedroom, or him, or New Orleans that stretched like a magnificent painting behind the glass doors. Her eyes were stuck in the past.

It had been such a long time.

Maybe not as long for Klaus but for her, it had been long. So long. It had felt like ages had passed.

Klaus let go of her hands and gripped her by the shoulders bringing her closer. His body emanated heat but she couldn't feel it.

"How long?" Klaus insisted, his voice ringing in her ears soft and hard at once.

Caroline's body became taut before it felt boneless on Klaus' arms.

"It was a hundred years for me," she said and she barely heard the gasp of terror that escaped Klaus' lips. She couldn't stand to watch the shock and the heartbreak in his eyes. Worse she wouldn't be able to survive the pity she would see there.

She had shown him glimpses of Purgatory and of her memories in that hell when they had bloodshared but it was the first time she was saying out loud how long it had been.

It made it real.

So real.

It had happened and it had happened to her.

She pushed Klaus back and he let her.

She went and sat at the edge of the mattress and stared at the plush carpet's beautiful designs. Everything was beautiful here but she couldn't appreciate it because nothing was beautiful in Purgatory and she still carried all that ugliness inside. Sometimes she believed she hadn't escaped. Sometimes she believed this was a dream and she would wake up and still be in that hell.

"For Kol, it was longer," she informed Klaus, "he has been dead longer than me and the other side had fallen before I died so."

Klaus watched her stunned and Caroline felt empty.

"A hundred and 6 years, three months, two days and eleven hours. That is how long it has been for me, but who's counting," she jested but her tone was completely detached.


One hundred years.

Klaus felt the world shift in its axis.

All the anger he had felt for Caroline these past weeks evaporated as if it had never existed in the first place. He wished he could hold on to it. It would be easier, safer, it'd hurt less. He wished he could blame her for everything she had told him and accused him of even though he knew all were true. But he couldn't anymore. What he had just heard destroyed all his expectations and all his thoughts. What he had heard hurt far more than the hurt she had inflicted on him and he almost wished he could get back to the former state of his rage rather than face this empty shell of the woman he had in front of him now.

Caroline had spent her most formative years as a vampire in that hell. In Purgatory.

She may have been dead but those years obviously registered in her mind.

He remembered how the first century of his vampirism was the time when he could still count time. It was the transition from being human to becoming ageless. Back then the years would not blend together and every day stretched long and was accounted for. The first hundred years were after all the life expectancy a human could reach and everything was new and still the scope was not that broadened.

The first hundred years of a vampire turned them into the vampire they'd be for the next thousand. Every emotion was new, every ability was a novelty. Those first hundred years were still a struggle and a tough challenge. They were the material that shaped vampirism and the willingness to exist as a vampire.

Those hundred years were meant to show Caroline what it meant to be a vampire. They were meant to teach her how much her reach extended. She should have seen the beauty of the world, the slow and rapid changes. She should have felt the pain of losing her human life and her human attachments and slowly see how the human bonds faded in time. She should have seen a hundred beautiful birthdays with candles and light, with art and music. She should have thrived and prospered and she should have kept her hope against the boredom of time before she started realizing the looming expanse of eternity.

She should have enjoyed the sun and the stars and food and culture. She should have studied and learned new languages and somewhere along the line their paths should have crossed again. She should have been safe until then and she should have grown to enjoy life as a vampire.

Instead, she got death and hell and spend her most important years as a vampire in a place of punishment and torture. He couldn't take that away. He couldn't change it. Even if he compelled the memories away the torture in her soul would remain. Her subconscious would always be there not allowing the weight to truly lift. Her instincts were forged in hellfire and her identity as a vampire honed into a sharp weapon that only brimstone and flame could craft.

He had believed that the first decades being hunted by Mikael had been the worst of his entire life. The decades where he was most scared and was still learning the ropes. The decades that made him the man he was today. But what Caroline had experienced was far worse.

How would she heal from that? How could he save her from that place, those memories? From herself?

This Caroline was a different creature and he had just started to scratch the surface of what lay underneath the skin. He had felt the subtle violent energy inside her that was like a wave licking the shore but he hadn't understood it was not just a wave. It was an ocean and she was drowning in it. When they had bloodshared she had manipulated her memories to feel ageless but the trigger was there. The time had been long and it must have felt forever for her in that place.

How could she forgive him if she ever learned what he knew about her past and how it had lead to her death?

There had been times when she spoke to him that he had felt she knew or suspected the truth. There was so much depth in the green of her eyes that swallowed him whole and terrified him. So much rage and fury and agony and he could now see from where all that stemmed. From Purgatory. From a prison.

The fifty years he had spent in Purgatory himself during his curse were the worst of his life and he was not even newly turned when that had happened to him. He still had nightmares about it centuries later even though it was a state of dream.

And while his spirit was cast away in that prison when he was cursed by the Five his body remained here. Caroline's body had rotted in a grave while her soul had been shredded in hell and upon her return, his mother had imprisoned her in another cage and he had tried to do the same.

What had he done?

How could his rage and jealousy and fear for her wellbeing blind him to that simple truth?

She would not survive another prison. She would never forgive him for that. She had tried to show him she couldn't survive it and he had turned a blind eye to her pleas.

Should she learn about Nyx she'd have one more reason to hate him.

And she was here pleading for his brother because in those hundred years Kol had been her only connection to something human. Kol had been her only anchor and she had been his.

Klaus was starting to see why their bond was not to break. Why it shouldn't break. He was starting to realize why he couldn't separate them. It would be impossible to do so and he feared that if he was to take Kol away from her Caroline would face one more loss she wouldn't be able to recover from. It was too soon. She was still transitioning back to normalcy after her resurrection and if he took Kol away from her he would take away a necessary tool for her recovery. Kol probably made her remember a place she desperately wanted to forget and this was why she had tried to run away from him and everyone when she first came back to life but at the same time, Kol was the only person that helped retain hope in that hell.

And his brother…his little brother had been in that hell for longer. If Caroline was there for a hundred years by rough calculations Kol must have stayed there for centuries.

Klaus could barely start to comprehend what that meant. Centuries alone in Purgatory with no hope of returning.

He felt the need to destroy the whole world. The emotion burned. It was agony. Pure anguish.

He wanted to run back to Mystic Falls and slice Jeremy and Elena Gilbert to shreds and he could hardly wait for his other plan of vengeance for Kol's death to come to fruition. He wanted to exact his revenge now and not in the way he had originally planned it.

She'd make them suffer.

"I had to fight for survival every moment of it," Caroline's voice was emotionless and brought him back from his vengeful thoughts.

He gave her a concerned look. She seemed too far gone. It was as if she was talking about someone else and not herself.

Damn it. He shouldn't have pushed her so much.

She looked lost and while she seemed calm her gaze was haunted.

He carefully approached her and sat by her side on the bed keeping some distance between them. He didn't want to crowd her but he wanted her to feel his presence. He remembered when he had been healing from the curse of the Five. He remembered that despite what he said and despite the need to be left alone when his siblings imposed their presence on him he had felt more grounded. Knowing they were there re-established in his mind the authenticity of his reality. It proved to him he was not in that place anymore.

Maybe Caroline needed that too. People around her. To make her realize she was back into the world of the living.

"Kol trained me and taught me how to fight but theory was different than actually having to do it. It was not easy for him either," she said.

Klaus made an effort to kept his face impassive.

"At least you had each other," he admitted with difficulty.

Caroline kept her eyes downcast.

"Not always," she muttered, "at first, once he taught me the basics, he had left me for years on my own. And some times, he was gone for decades, after that."

Klaus's anger was starting to spike. Caroline finally lifted her eyes in his direction and smiled sadly at that.

"No it is not that," she tried to reassure him, already understanding how he believed that Kol had treated her like a deadweight and a burden putting her in danger instead of looking after her, "it's just," she added quietly, "he trained me for years before he left and I am sure at first he was close by. Stalking and all. But his lessons would have been all for nothing if I couldn't look after for myself."

Klaus evaluated her expression and he realized that Caroline truly didn't blame Kol for that. If anything she seemed to remember her time with him fondly.

"Kol had the spell to turn his soul into energy and the spell to regenerate his original body and return his soul to it," Caroline surprised him by sharing this information with him.

A part of him was on alert because he knew that when she was opening to him like that she usually did it to distract him in order to gain something but right now she seemed so out of it. He hated that her control was slipping because Purgatory was her weakness and now she was too weak to realize that she was opening up to him more than she would in any other case. But maybe this would be the only way for him to understand her. To finally have a glimpse into the parts she kept locked away and hidden from him. Maybe then he could actually help her. "But for getting out of that hell we had to find some pieces of a certain relic that had been scattered in Purgatory and then puzzle them back together," Caroline told him.

Klaus frowned at that. His interest was piqued.

"Relic?" he curiously asked, "How?"

Caroline twisted her body towards him.

"Think about it," she prompted and Klaus's lips curled up to a hint of a smile at her enthusiasm. Caroline was smart and she loved a challenge. That hasn't changed. And he could bet that was one of the reasons she survived that place. "When vampires die they end up in Purgatory. Dark creatures and…all that is dark," she emphasized and Klaus' eyes lit up.

"When you destroy dark objects here," he began and Caroline nodded.

"They end up in Purgatory yes," she affirmed impressed by his quick thinking, "but not intact. The strongest break in pieces. They explode through the chaos crashing like falling stars and their pieces scatter in different parts of the horizon. Those that survive the fall anyway and don't turn to dust," she remembered and her mind brought forth the sound those objects made when they entered Purgatory. It was like the whole place was bombarded and you could hear thunder and explosions everywhere followed by the howling of the wind and the screeching of the monsters that dueled in Purgatory.

"The one you searched for was a powerful one then," Klaus assumed and Caroline hummed in agreement.

She thought about Thanatos Kerma.

She still remembered its power and had wondered how it would be to hold it here. The power alone must have been the kind that could corrupt and mesmerize. No wonder Kol had been so crazy about that coin.

"That artifact was the only way to open the portal between the two worlds and to give us actual power to cast the spells without a witch," she told Klaus keeping her description as vague as possible. "And that could only happen on a certain celestial event that aligned Purgatory's dimension with this one," she still recalled how stressful that had been. If she and Kol had missed that deadline they would have to wait for another hundred years for the next alignment, "Kol had been a witch before he died so he knew how to actually make this work," Caroline explained and that was as far as her revelations would go. There were things she wouldn't say to Klaus because of course there was the other insurance Kol had as a bridge between this world and his soul but she knew he hadn't shared this secret with his siblings and she wouldn't betray his trust.

She had felt it though. When she had carried his soul, when his soul was part of hers. She had felt the gaps and the hollow places where the darkest of magic fed on him and the sensation alone had been horrifying in ways she could never explain with words. Compared to that feeling Purgatory was heaven-made. And this was what Kol's soul was made of now. The dread she felt at that knowledge left her hollow herself.

"So Kol went to his quest to search the first pieces and at first I would only slow him down," she shrugged, "eventually he returned and we searched for the rest together."

Some she had searched on her own too. After a point, she was the one leaving Kol behind and she had made sure to keep a piece always on her as leverage in case Kol had decided to leave her back. Eventually, she had grown to trust him. Maybe she should have followed his advice and kept her trust in people who deserved it. Problem was that in that hell there were no people. It was just her and Kol.

"That is not an excuse," Klaus fumed and she could see how he was holding Kol accountable for leaving her back. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. At first, Klaus hated her relationship with Kol and their closeness and now he was taking offense at the fact that Kol and she weren't always joined to the hip in Purgatory.

"It made no difference Klaus. With or without him I still had to be alert 24/7. I was still scared," she simply said, "as Kol must have been while he was stranded there all alone."

Caroline looked at the beautiful flowers on the table at the center of the room. Their jasmine scene was so different from the sulfur and vervain one she had gotten so used to. Kol's words echoed in her mind again. How he told her he didn't want to be left all alone in Purgatory.

She sighed and realized she had finally voiced part of her thoughts and secrets about Purgatory to someone even if that someone was Klaus. It was meant to be therapeutic to speak of your trauma people said but she felt nothing as she did.

"The pain and the hunger and the terror would not go away and I still had to fight my way out."

A smile formed on her lips as she started having memories of her and Kol in Purgatory.

"We did not like each other. Not at first," she stated, "it was the unholy alliance kind of the thing," she smiled fondly as if she was remembering happy memories, "but things changed."

She saw how Klaus inclined his head, taking in everything she told him, this time without judgment.

"Kol slowly became my friend, my only friend," she whispered, and then she quietly added, "and I would like to think I became his also."

This is why she felt so betrayed by Kol's secrets and lies now she realized. Because they were meant to be friends. They were meant to be a unit. They were not meant to lie to each other. She had expected the same loyalty from him, the same devotion she gave him.

"But that place has a way of changing everything you feel," Caroline confided in Klaus, "it changes your perception, what and how you think."

She exhaled and she tried to ease the tension that felt like a ton on her shoulders.

"Kol helped me keep my mind in times of despair but he also challenged my sanity."

Klaus snorted at that.

"He has that effect."

Caroline almost laughed at that but instead, she bit her lip and became pensive. She stole a glance at Klaus.

"But in the end, I still felt-"

She couldn't let the word out. She heaved trying to do so but she couldn't and then Klaus reached for her hand and his soft touch startled her.

"Alone," he finished her sentence and her heart slowed down. It became a mournful song missing beats and losing tempo.

She lowered her eyes at their hands over the duvet.

She could not tell him of the endless times she had wished that it was not the younger brother stuck with her in Purgatory. How many times she had yearned for a familiar touch in that hell and how many times it was his touch she had longed for. It hadn't made sense to her then and it didn't make sense to her now.

Back then she had felt guilty thinking about it because it felt as if she was being selfish. Hoping Klaus was in Kol's place would have meant his death and she hadn't wanted that. And yet she had wanted him there with her. There had been times she had caught herself not wishing to get out from Purgatory but having those she wanted there with her. Those had been her most terrifying moments. To think, to wish, the people she loved to die only so she could see them again.

"I am sorry Caroline."

Klaus' words were laced with so much compassion that it made her sick. She angrily tried to jerk her hand away.

"I don't need your pity," she snapped fiercely but Klaus held on to her hand.

"I am sorry for what I did."

Caroline froze. Completely.

Her eyes widened and she looked at Klaus Mikaelson in awe and shock.

Klaus gulped down harshly and she could swear his eyes were lighting up the dark. Her heart started speeding up. The traitorous feeling was sneaking up on her.

And this felt as if he was apologizing for far more than what she knew.

"For everything," Klaus said with regret before he recollected himself momentarily, "I shouldn't have tried to-" he shook his head and she could see how hard it was for him to say this to her. His hold loosened on her hand and she felt the tremble that passed through him, "I am sorry," he underlined every word with remorse and she could see that he finally realized why the idea of being locked up was so unbearable to her.

"I'll understand if you will not find it in you to forgive me, Caroline."

Caroline stared at him as if she was seeing a ghost. She sucked in a breath at the fact that Klaus Mikaelson actually apologized.

He would never do that and she would have never expected him to do so especially after what she had told him about Mikael and how they had left things between them. Maybe this apology was coming from a place of pity or worse from a place of manipulation but Klaus' broken expression reminded her of a kindred spirit. One that was now vulnerable in front of her.

She wanted to believe he was being honest but she also knew that Mikaelsons didn't apologize.

And yet everything inside her felt that Klaus was being honest. Could her instincts be so wrong? Was she so blind and so damaged that she couldn't recognize truth from lie?

A long time ago she had been naïve and inexperienced but now?

Paranoia was building up and her trust in people was waning. She felt as if her heart was feeding her lies, as if she could not trust her instincts or even her mind and yet as she saw Klaus watching her with so much grief she felt something shift inside her.

She didn't know which way was up.

She had to buy time. She had to learn the truth. She had to find room to breathe.

She removed her fingers under his and Klaus watched her withdraw her hand with a pained look of rejection. She had wounded him. She swallowed down hard and closed her eyes.

She got up and this time it was her that went and stood by the glass floor-to-ceiling doors. She watched the nights of New Orleans that shone in the night just as she felt Klaus' eyes boring holes in her back.

"Maybe I should have told you this sooner," she mumbled, "but I- I couldn't, I still- it is hard," she stammered. She couldn't let him see the battle inside her but she couldn't lose the progress she made with him either.

If she wasn't planning on distracting him and getting back at his good side she would have never shared this with him either. She didn't know how to feel about the fact that she was now capable of using such a part of hers as a weapon.

What had happened to her? When had she turned into this?

She couldn't breathe.

She yanked the French doors open and breathed the cold air that blew against her face. She let the city's noise in. The curtains flew back and forth and she breathed and breathed but she still felt as if she was suffocating.

She stiffened when Klaus' hands squeezed her shoulders. She panted and leaned back against him. He was a solid pillar of strength and she hated her weakness.

Klaus massaged her shoulders slowly until she could find steady ground again.

Eventually, her breath evened out again and Klaus lowered his head until his chin rested on her left shoulder.

His hot breath wafted over her ear sending tingles all over her body.

"I know how it is to not be able to speak about things that hurt you," he told her in a husky voice that carried understanding and despair, "not wanting to share them with anyone else."

Caroline said nothing.

"I never speak of ...Hope."

Caroline's eyes flew open and she slowly turned around. Klaus' arms fell down as he straightened up. She rose her head to watch him.

The city's lights played games of shadows on his face, illuminating one side and leaving the rest in darkness.

"We named her Hope because we," his throat corded up violently and she could see the torment in his eyes, "…before we let her go."

"You never speak of her," Caroline gently said, and pieces of the ice around her heart started to melt. The way Klaus looked right now. It thawed all the cold places inside her and made her realize how wrong she had been to compare him to Mikael out of all people. She felt guilt for that especially as she took in the look of hurt in Klaus's face. He looked so resigned.

He took a step back and she acutely felt the loss of his closeness.

"There is nothing to speak of," he told her in a hard voice, "I should have been able to protect her. I failed."

She tried to reach for him but he shook his head and didn't let her. He wouldn't allow anyone to comfort him for his loss and she felt his hopelessness. No one deserved this. Not even Klaus. That kind of loss couldn't be compared to anything.

She never wanted children. She had realized this when she had turned into a vampire. While having kids had been an obscure dream that mostly suited the ideal dream of future perfection she had convinced herself she longed for as a human she had soon realized she had not mourned for the loss of that prospect when she had turned. Elena had been inconsolable by the idea and yet she had felt relieved somehow. She had felt free and liberated and a part of her had felt shame for feeling that way. But that was how she felt and while she couldn't see how Klaus could ever want to become a father she still understood his deep need to fight the loneliness he always felt. He was being selfish in wanting his family tied to him even if it meant carrying them in coffins and he was being selfish in wanting a child to be only his. A part of him that would never leave him.

That selfish need was so human and now the loss left something selfless and vacant inside him.

Klaus Mikaelson was not incapable of love. That much she knew. And even if she doubted what he felt for her she could not doubt what she saw in his face now. The anger and the despair for his failure. The altruistic love for someone other. For an innocent.

And yet for a monster that had destroyed so many innocents, this could be a fitting punishment from fate.

She sighed. This was what made him different from Mikael and even the Klaus she once knew in Mystic Falls. That love in his heart for his daughter. The daughter he lost. That was the side of him she always had wanted to see. The one she still believed in and the one she knew coexisted with all the terrifying darkness of his that lurked underneath every ray of light that inhibited inside him.

How could the darkness always win?

"You still have time Caroline," Klaus said stoically, "to save yourself from all the hurt. You cannot fail."

She heard the words he didn't utter. The words where he was screaming at her that he had failed. That he had run out of time and nothing could save him now.

Maybe this was the destiny for every one of their kind. Maybe that was why they were the same after all. Because they were beyond saving.

Maybe it was not salvation they should look for then. Maybe it was something else. Something she could not yet define herself either.

She sauntered close and she cupped his face tenderly. This time she didn't choose the side illuminated by the light. She chose the one emerged in the darkness. It called to her more.

Klaus leaned to her touch and the more he did the more his face was succumbing to darkness. He had once told her to never underestimate the allure of darkness. That even the purest hearts were drawn to it.

She didn't know about the purest hearts but creatures of the night like them were definitely born in darkness and it was where they belonged. Light only shone brighter in the darkest corners after all.

"I know I cannot force your hand, Klaus. I never could," she came to terms that with that truth, "not really," she stepped closer and brought her lips closer to his, "but you cannot fail either," she urged him and he opened his eyes and found hers in the dark, "for yourself and for those that need you, you can't fail and there is still time. There is always time," she promised him and she felt his sharp intake of breath just as she moved back. She needed to put distance between them. This close her heart was in jeopardy but she had turned even that organ into something of steel and she would not yield to that weakness. The old Caroline was gone. The new one would not fail.

"And Kol needs you," she reminded Klaus and then turned around to leave.

Just as she was about to reach for the door handle however she stopped.

She could not turn around to face him as she would say this but she did force the words out of her mouth.

"Your brother has once told me that being daggered feels like dying."

She felt heat building up against her spine. Scalding heat. Klaus' penetrating gaze was now lingering on her.

She swallowed and let the memories of their fight come back to life. She remembered the things he had said in order to hurt her. The things that cut her deep before she lashed out to him too.

Those questions still haunted her. Her answers would haunt him the same.

"You asked me if it hurt when I died," she reflected, her tone firm, "It did. Sometimes it still does."

She felt the way Klaus froze behind her. She felt the way everything became still between them.

Her palms turned to balls.

"You asked me if I was scared. I was. I still am," she simply said without feeling any shame for giving him her confession.

"You asked me what was my last thought."

She turned around and faced him her gaze became piercing, merciless and she let everything pour out. Salt for the wound and cure for the poison.

"You."

Klaus stilled completely. Nothing could move him now. Not even if the world ended under his feet and hell came to claim his soul.

"My last thought when I died was you," she told him without taking her eyes away from his. His that burned like coals in the dark, "I heard your voice promising to take me wherever I want," she smiled melancholically, "you had promised me the world once. Rome. Paris. Tokyo. A thousand birthdays. Genuine beauty," she breathed out, "I didn't get that," she shrugged in an accepting and resigned tone, "everything was snatched away but that memory lingered till the end and I don't believe that the man who promised me that would ever be able to hurt his brother like this."

She gave him a knowing look and a subtle nod and she turned around leaving a thunderstruck Klaus but not before she added-

"Not the brother he loves."