TW for this chapter: Eating disorder. Mention of suicidal thoughts.
/
WEDDING BELLS ARE RINGING
by Augustus Filch
In an exclusive interview with Theodore Mikaelson on Forbes, the mysterious entrepreneur left something for us to read between the lines, as was discovered by yours truly. On the subject of his notoriously large family, Mikaelson began with describing the already fully documented engagement of his oldest daughter, Freya, to the Columbia graduate and professor, Aiden Carver. Sally Gallagher from Forbes continued on in asking about his four unattached sons, to which Mikaelson responded: "Well, they're all young still. There's certainly enough time left for them to worry about all that." With a shrug, he provided us with, "Though, what's time got against love?"
And as prophecy itself, yesterday morning photographers caught the, as we all know, extraordinarily hard-to-please Esther Mikaelson sitting down to tea with author Hayley Marshall. If you've been following this humble reporter's articles for some time, you may very well know what this means for a certain reckless heir. If not, let me spell it out to you: Mother approves.
But seeing as this reporter likes to get the truth and nothing but the truth, I invite you all to confirm or deny the allegations being made at this time. Have I zeroed in on the right Mikaelson? And if not, have you seen a certain someone wearing a suspiciously large diamond ring recently?
See photos on page 14.
/
Caroline knew Bonnie would try to hide every newspaper from her sight, but unfortunately for her best friend, she'd already read it. It was also inconvenient that Bonnie wasn't fully aware of a very important aspect in Caroline's life, that is, her pending engagement to a certain...what had Filch called him? Idiotic boy with a god-complex? Vindictive man with a silver spoon too far up his ass? No, that wasn't it, but still, her point stood. And as fate would have it, all Bonnie was presently aware of was the fact that Caroline had had a crush on said pompous ass for as long as she could recall, and that she needed to be shielded from the articles that kept popping out about the Mikaelsons' lives.
However, this time, Caroline was very much in the know about what the article and Filch speculated to be a mother-in-law's tender advances in getting to know her son's future wife. This time, Augustus Filch was so full of shit that it made her question every single word that she read in the paper that morning, whether it was written by him or not.
It had started with Theodore's interview, yes, which had posed to be harmless, mainly focused on the family's company. But of course, Sally Gallagher, the bitch, had a background working with Filch himself in the gossip columns of the world. No matter, Caroline couldn't really fault her; she'd seen an opportunity and ceased it. Nothing much wrong with that, except that it had had the indirect effect of waking her up in the middle of the night. Twice.
First, it was her mother, calling from Greece. Presumably, bathing in the sunlight and downing the bottomless cocktails Caroline's father gladly paid for.
"What?" Caroline had answered, twisting the phone's cord away from where it had tangled with her wrist. Callie, one of her maids, had woken her up in a surge of panic; it made her think that most of the staff in the house associated her mother with some sort of three-headed chimera- which, yeah, she could see.
Liz had taken a deep breath, surely reassessing if she truly needed to yell at her daughter in front of strangers, or even, her father. "You have to come up with a contingency plan, Caroline. Think along the same lines Niklaus is."
"You mean whore around town?" Caroline smirked, knowing Liz would be biting her tongue to keep from exploding on the other end of line.
But instead, her mother had told her, "If need be, then yes."
That response had actually shocked Caroline so beyond out of measure that she couldn't think of a smartass reply until after her mother had finished explaining to her why it was so important that this remained secret until the official announcement for the hundredth time. Something about business deals and the like, along with society frowning upon arranged marriages. Mundane things like those.
"Yes, mother," she'd said, the knot in her throat twisting so tight she had to pause to keep her voice from cracking. "I'll make sure to be labeled Filch's new favorite town slag."
Then second, a full day after Theodore's interview had come out, and before Augustus' creative interpretation of events, came another call at about two in the morning, on a school night.
That time, Callie had seemed to be more annoyed than frightened at having to wake her up. When Caroline had asked who it was, June just told her, "I think it's the handsome one." Which, as far as responses went, wasn't very helpful.
"Just wanted to warn you," Klaus said over the phone, his voice hoarse and sleepy. "Mother's going to fix this. I think. She knows how to work Filch."
"Okay," she nodded. Relieved, at least for a second, that there was no pressing need to go around making a fool of herself in clubs, still Caroline didn't fully let go of the possibility.
"Were you worried?" he asked, and then, as an afterthought. "Was your mother angry?"
Caroline sighed. Well, no, she hadn't been worried when the interview first came out. She had a rational mind, one that she mostly used to her advantage when it wasn't busy with self-sabotage and the like. So, at reading what Theodore had to say about his sons' love lives and the little comment he'd made at the end of that segment, Caroline had thought that any other rational human being would take it as nothing more than a joke, or if not, just wishful thinking from a parent who very badly wanted to have grandchildren who would carry on with the family name.
Then she'd belatedly realized that she did not, by any means, live in a rational society. That every single thing Theodore had said about his children would be open to interpretation. That the people who were so invested in the Mikalesons' lives, be it because it was their job or because they were irreversibly depressed with their own, would spend every available moment trying to figure out who out of the four male offspring of the Mikaelsons would marry next. And more importantly: who they'd be marrying.
And considering Caroline visited the Mikaelsons regularly, per her mother's request, and had a known attachment to Klaus, (mostly pictures of him walking her out of events, helping her inside the car, being in her general proximity, which had always been disregarded by reporters due to their age gap), it wouldn't have been much of a leap if the press had decided to go in that direction. The most accurate one; the truthful one.
"No," she'd replied, honestly. "I thought they would think your father was talking about Finn...or Elijah."
"I was thinking Kol, actually," he'd said.
"How's Julia?"
"Who?"
"Julia," she deadpanned, rolling her eyes. "Kol's prospect."
"Ah, her. She didn't make the cut."
After that, all Caroline had to do was wait. And not for very long either. Esther worked fast and efficiently. The morning she was spotted having breakfast with Hayley Marshall, Caroline had wondered about the actual connection they all had with Hayley to begin with. Was she Elijah's secret girlfriend? Was she Klaus'...something? Was she friends with Esther as well? And if so, how did one manage such a thing?
Then she remembered that Elijah had called her a friend of the family the other day. Though even then, to Caroline, Hayley Marshall had effectively become an enigma to solve. Not only because of her relationship with the Mikaelsons, but also because, apparently, she'd willingly put herself in the line of fire because of them. Caroline was sure that paparazzi just didn't suddenly appear in the right place at the right time; Esther had called them and Hayley had shown up.
As it was, right now, Caroline clearly wasn't as interested in the article as the rest of her schoolmates. Not nearly as heartbroken by it as Bonnie assumed she would be. After all, who inside Chilton High, aside from Kol, would ever imagine that the reason Caroline was so sure Klaus Mikaelson wasn't engaged to anyone was because he'd been promised to her ever since she turned fifteen?
/
The year was 1996. Liz had taken Caroline to shop for a dress for her birthday party. It was a beautiful shade of deep blue, kind of like the color the sky took in the early hours of the night. She'd also gotten to wear a tiara, one that had emeralds encrusted in it. Her grandmother had bought her diamond earrings, and had told her that it was about time she started wearing more mature-looking heels.
Customarily, fifteen was the age to throw a party for a girl's debut into society. And Caroline, born and raised within the intricate settings of their high society's rules, had always looked forward to being a debutante. She remembered that her grandmother had been slightly displeased that her gown wasn't white, as was tradition, but that had been the one time that Liz had stood up for her daughter.
Caroline distinctly remembered too how her mother had leaned in to whisper something in her grandmother's ear. The way Ella's expression had shifted from a frown to a smile in five seconds. How much more pleasant the occasion had been because of her grandmother's improved mood.
Looking back, Caroline thought she could take a guess as to what her mother had told Ella.
The Mikaelsons had arrived earlier than everyone else that time, everyone except for Klaus and Kol. Esther and Liz were very good friends, they'd met at the UES Committee for Beautification, which was, very much exactly what it sounded like: a bunch of bored wifes with way too much time on their hands that were, above all, extremely elitist. Esther had joined a little after her family's arrival to the States from London when Caroline was twelve. And since then, the Mikaelson family had been a regular part of her life.
At first, Caroline's mother had taken a liking to the idea of Caroline spending time with Kol, who was the one closest to her age, being just one year younger than she was. But then, as time went on and Caroline got to know the other Mikaelsons, (and developed a rather inconvenient schoolgirl crush for the wrong brother), she got to watch her mother's calculating gaze shift from the unthreatening Kol to the nightmare-inducing Klaus, who was also five years older than she was.
And it was due to this that Caroline hadn't had suspicions of any kind when Klaus and Kol had arrived at her party completely drowned in alcohol. The both of them had stumbled into the drawing room, attempting to fix their suits and ridding themselves of the debauchery they'd dipped into for the entirety of that afternoon. She had watched as Esther tried not to scream at them, patting at the lapels of their jackets with more strength than was absolutely necessary, and then after, how Theodore had ordered two scotches from the bar and handed one to Klaus, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Are they alright?" Caroline had asked Rebekah, who'd shown up to the event wearing a pretty pink knee-high dress, probably chosen by Esther too.
Caroline's friends hadn't been invited to come until after seven-thirty in the evening, and so she'd clung to Rebekah's company because of Kol being inexplicably late. Rebekah, who'd been thirteen at the time, had been very unlike how she'd been when she left for Scotland, that is, sweet and proper. So instead of gossiping with Caroline about what had been going on with her family, she'd only shrugged, and then said:
"My parents informed Klaus of something yesterday. I don't know what it is."
Her family waited until after all the guests arrived, until after Caroline had had sufficient time to mingle with her friends and was done with her hostess duties. She'd even been left with enough time to rejoice in the relative normality that her life had had up until that day.
Bonnie had arrived with Matt, as she always did. Then came Tyler, who supposedly had only entered the party with Vicky Donovan as a coincidence. And the Salvatore brothers, who'd been invited as adjacent courtesy due to their parents' being old school friends with Caroline's. Everyone had been there, even people she had never once met in her life, but it was all a part of coming out into society, her mother had told her.
"You need to have connections in life, Caroline. This is how you make them," was what Liz had ultimately advised her when Caroline had complained about the unknown names on the guest list.
Before Liz had come to collect Caroline for a family meeting inside her father's studio, she had been talking to Bonnie and Matt. The topic of Tyler had easily made it into their conversation, as Caroline casually attempted to get out of Matt if his sister had been seeing Tyler, if they were exclusive or not. And just then, she'd seen Klaus step out onto the veranda with them, Kol trailing after him. Klaus had been so noticeably still drunk, while his brother was just feigning being so.
It had been a time in which Kol had looked up to Klaus the most out of all his siblings, which, clearly, had been the possibly worst thing he could've ever done at the age of fourteen.
Klaus had smirked at her, his eyes slightly unfocused, "Want one, love?" he'd asked, as he offered the pack of cigarettes in his hand to her. When she merely shook her head no, Klaus shrugged and lighted one himself.
Kol had looked ridiculous as he'd attempted not to cough the smoke out of his lungs.
Bonnie, who'd historically disliked Klaus with fervor, had walked inside with Matt's hand in hers, muttering something about how the air had grown distasteful all of a sudden. Caroline had seen Klaus' grin, a fire growing inside him, like it usually did with the disapproval of others. He found it funny, always had.
"You were late," she'd told both Kol and Klaus, with her hands on her hips. "You promised me you wouldn't be."
Kol shrugged, side-eyeing Klaus and implying their tardiness had had everything to do with his older brother and not him. Kol had also often been terrified of Caroline's temper.
Klaus sighed, smoke shooting out of his mouth. His blue eyes turned to her, considering her. Looking up to her tiara and then back to her eyes.
"I was given some...rather grim news," he said, his voice dragging slightly.
"Oh," suddenly it occurred to her that it could've only been very serious what had managed to make him defy his parents that day. She was familiar enough with Esther's demeanor to be aware of just how much braveness was required to stray from her rules. "Is everything alright?"
Kol had eyed them both thoughtfully, and strangely enough, had also not spoken a word to tease his brother, or her. He'd just stood there silently. Maybe he'd known before she did.
Klaus blinked, then nodded, clearing his throat. "Not at this moment, no. But I'm sure it will be," he didn't sound convinced though.
He'd thrown his arm around her, kissing her temple. Sweet, and caring, like he'd always been to her before that night. "It'll be alright," he repeated, squeezing her arm as if aiming to comfort her.
Thirty minutes later, Caroline had understood why.
/
When Caroline left school the day the article about Esther and Hayley had been printed, she was first startled to find Klaus waiting outside the school, then confused. He'd hated this school so much, still struggling to adapt from their transatlantic move, that he'd vowed never to come back after he'd graduated. Her first assumption was that he was there because of Kol, but when their eyes met across the courtyard, she knew she was who he'd been waiting for.
As she said goodbye to Matt and Bonnie, promising to call them later, she tried to avoid his stare, tried to suppress the nervousness she felt. But when she started walking towards him, the yelling and arguing that had taken place the night of her fifteenth birthday party inevitably echoed through her mind.
She's a child! You're all insane!
I'm not a child, Klaus.
You want this, Caroline? You're fine with this?
Why aren't you fighting this?
Why hadn't she fought this harder? Easy. Because it would've been useless. Caroline had been able to put the pieces together faster than Klaus had; their parents virtually owned them. They had the power to provide them with the life they'd been guaranteed to have ever since birth, or they could take it away from them with the simple swift of a pen on paper. Their parents could make them do anything they wanted, so long as they reciprocated equally by not withholding their inheritance, and for the fifteen-year-old that Caroline had been, living without her parents' support had been the scariest thing she could think of, a fact that Klaus had conveniently ignored for years. Though still, she guessed he'd eventually arrived at the same conclusion she had, if he hadn't yet accepted being cut off completely in exchange for the ultimate freedom he said he lacked, which he recented her for.
"What's this?" she asked, stopping in front of him. "Resorted to becoming a driver instead of whatever useless thing you usually do?"
He glared, pushing off from the car he'd been leaning against. "Hilarious, Caroline. You're truly a joy," he deadpanned, and Caroline raised a brow. "Rebekah wants to see you. I was sent to collect you."
"I can get places on my own, thank you," she threw back, for a moment wondering, why couldn't she resent him the way he did her? Why had she continued to nourish her ill-advised crush over the years instead of squashing it dull?
Maybe it was because as all teenage girls, she'd always craved the attention she was denied. Wanted what she couldn't have. Maybe it was because she remembered clearly the version of Klaus that had cared for her, and had refused to acknowledge the person he'd become since earth became hell for them. Maybe she just couldn't help thinking that the inevitable part of this arrangement would arrive one day and that she'd rather be on good terms with him than hate him so much she couldn't bear being in the same room with him.
Klaus huffed a small laugh. "Is that so? Then I assume you know where she is too?"
She rolled her eyes, "You could've just called and given me the address. I don't need your sparkly presence in my life any more days a week, you know."
He seemed to be entertained, which exasperated her. How come when she acted bitchy towards him he seemed to be so amused. How come when she tried to be pleasant he looked like he couldn't stand being near her for another second.
"My thoughts exactly," he replied, smirking. "Yet you know mother gets what mother wants, and she wanted me to come get you so, get in the car."
Caroline pursed her lips, then folded her arms over her chest, her bag was dangling from her elbow. "If Esther wants me to be there so badly, she can come get me herself." Then she began walking away.
"Bloody hell," she heard Klaus mutter under his breath. Then louder, "Caroline, doll, get in the fucking car, will you? Make my life easier, for once."
Before turning around, she smirked to herself.
When she noticed that several people had been staring at them, probably eavesdropping, whispering and attempting to be subtle with their staring, Caroline realized it hadn't been such a good idea to be standing and talking in public with Klaus, today of all days.
By the anxious look on Klaus' face, she could guess he was thinking the same thing.
"Fine," she blurted out, walking back to him. Klaus opened the car door for her with a feigned smile; she looked over her shoulder one more time at the hoard of students that always formed at the end of the day at the entrance of the school.
She caught Kol's eyes, who was smoking with his friends, the smoke expertly flowing through him; he waved, amused by the show. "Kol's not coming?"
Klaus put his hand on the small of her back, once again urging her to move. Once she was inside and he was sitting by her side, he said, "They hate each other, remember?" He let out a breath once the driver started the car and drove away from the school. "Really, the last thing Rebekah needs right now is Kol's special sense of humor."
"Is she okay?"
Caroline hadn't wondered much about Rebekah's well-being since the article about her arrival came out. For the two years she'd been away, Caroline and the rest of the world had only been fed information about her from Esther. And she always said something along the lines of: she's thriving over there, she loves it there, boarding school was really the best decision for her. And while Caroline had known not to trust these words entirely, she'd just assumed it had been Rebekah's choice to go away.
But then again, she pondered, when had any of their decisions truly been theirs?
Klaus said nothing for a moment, clearly trying to decide on whether he should say something or not. In the end, he didn't. "You can ask her when we get there."
He turned to look out the window, effectively halting their conversation. Caroline turned away from him as well. The driver cleared his throat several times, perhaps sensing the kind of dense tension that Caroline had grown accustomed to by now.
She thought about the last time she'd seen Rebekah, it had been at Elena Gilbert's party in her Hamptons home the summer after Caroline had turned sixteen. She remembered seeing Bekah show up with her brothers and setting her eyes on Stefan Salvatore, who'd been an uncontested conquest due to his infamous reputation of being exclusively into older women, namely teachers. She also remembered the way Klaus had spent the entirety of that party talking to Elena's aunt, Jenna. There'd been rumours about Rebekah succeeding in her task; the rumours were also that someone had caught them in the act.
The first day of school after that summer, Rebekah had been nowhere to be seen. Eventually though, the news of her departure spread around. Caroline had been under the impression that the boarding school had been Rebekah's way of leaving the society she'd come to recent in every way.
Filch had been right in what he'd written, Rebekah hadn't had the chance to make her debut, but Caroline doubted that she cared enough about that to come back home. But Esther did though.
All in all, Caroline and Rebekah hadn't ever been too close to begin with, not even friends if she were being honest. But she supposed that Caroline had been the closest thing to a fathomable female role-model that Bekah had had, given that Freya had been twelve when Rebekah was born and never really tried to have a good relationship with her sister. All this to say, Caroline had no clue as to why Rebekah had requested to see her.
So she asked Klaus.
He glanced away from the car's window, frowning a bit. "She trusts you."
/
Rebekah looked sick.
Dangerously skinny and frail. Her cheekbones were protruding on her face, her eyes seemed bigger. Her clavicle stuck out from her body sharply. Her skin had a greenish tint to it. She had dark circles underneath her eyes. Her hair had been cut short and her lips were so dry Caroline was afraid they would start bleeding at any second.
The photos Filch had printed of her at the airport had to have been doctored in some way, she thought. Though, when she tried to conjure the image of the black and white pictures of Rebekah, she wondered if it was possible that all of them had only shown the back of her, only her hair and an oversized coat, given the opposition Rebekah had against camera flashes.
"I know," Rebekah said once she'd given Caroline enough time to take her in. "I look shit."
When Caroline finally overcame the speechless state she'd been left in, unable to think of anything else, she asked, "What happened?"
"Oh, you know," Rebekah smiled dryly. "Life. My family."
"Rebekah," Esther warned her on the other side of the apartment. Caroline turned to Esther, still too shocked to emote any kind of emotion, who was visibly mad.
"You said I could tell her the truth, didn't you?" Rebekah snapped back at her mother.
Esther bit back whatever retort she'd wanted to say, and reined herself in enough to nod curtly at her daughter.
"Bekah?" Caroline tried, taking a tentative step closer to her. The sound of the front door clicking open stopped her advances.
Klaus came inside, eyes averting from his sister instinctively; he'd told Caroline he would wait outside for something. Behind him, a girl with wavy brown hair and big green eyes walked in. Caroline recognized the face of Hayley Marshall from the papers and the few social functions she'd spotted her at over the years. She was carrying a plastic bag.
"Hi, sorry," Hayley said, going around the island on the open floor plan of the modern apartment. "They didn't have one of the pills in the first drug store I went to and then-" she stopped when she noticed Caroline standing there.
An awkward silence fell over them for a couple of moments; one that made Caroline certain that Hayley knew exactly who she was, and what her role with the Mikaelsons had been for some time.
"Right," Klaus pinched the bridge of his nose, sitting down on one of the chairs in the, for him, obviously familiar apartment. "Hayley, this is Caroline. Caroline, Hayley. She's a friend of-"
"The family," Caroline finished for him. "Yeah, I know." And with a big breath of air, she said, "It's very nice to meet you, finally."
She saw understanding pass by Hayley's eyes, then with a smile she told her, "You too, Caroline."
Once she was able to take her eyes away from the beautiful face of Hayley Marshall and suppress from her brain the various and contradicting thoughts that had popped up in her head, Caroline returned her attention to Rebekah. Rebekah, who in spite of looking like she was bound to break any second now, still had the energy to give her that same expression Caroline remembered the most from her. Like she knew what someone was thinking, like she'd gotten access to the faultiest places of one's mind; that smirk that made Caroline think Rebekah had her entire reputation on the palm of her hand.
"You can go into my bedroom to talk, if you want, Bekah," Hayley offered, taking the several boxes of medication out of the bag and onto the island.
Caroline blinked back and forth between the two, catching Rebekah's grateful nod. She started walking down the hallway on the right, Caroline followed wordlessly.
Rebekah stopped suddenly, and Caroline almost ran into her. She looked back, staring down at both her brother and mother. "When I get back, you two better be gone. I don't want you here." She turned back to the front, continuing on to the open door at the end of the hallway.
Caroline looked over her shoulder for Klaus, he'd slouched, his elbows were on top of his knees and his face was hiding on his palms. Esther, on the other hand, only looked away and out the balcony of the apartment. When Caroline started walking away in the direction Rebekah had gone, she heard Hayley say, "Don't worry, I'll make sure she takes her pills."
Once Caroline closed the door to, presumably, Hayley's bedroom behind her, she swallowed the last of her insensitive distress at seeing Rebekah's state. This, in order to be able to be the person Klaus had said she was to Bekah: one that she trusted.
Rebekah was already sitting down on the bed, she'd put on a sweatshirt, which helped her look slightly less small than she was. She patted the spot on the mattress next to her, and Caroline walked the few steps to sit down.
She looked at her hands for a bit, unsure of what to say, what to ask, or if she even should. No matter, Rebekah seemed to have enough experience with this to know how to start these types of interactions.
"His name is Julian," she began, and Caroline looked up, giving her her undivided attention. "My parents told me about him a little before I left for Scotland. They said it was best if I spent some time there, and got to know him and his family better. They also told me that they wouldn't send me away until I turned fifteen…" she licked her ashy lips, it didn't help the cracks on them.
Caroline's throat had tightened, terrified of hearing Rebekah say what she'd already figured out. The younger girl's eyes locked with hers, watering but refusing to let go of tears. Without thinking much of it, Caroline put her hand on Rebekah's.
"There was no boarding school?" She asked, already aware of the answer.
Rebekah shook her head no. "You remember that summer, don't you? Before I went away, I tried to rebel in some way against my parents because of what they'd told me, thinking it would make a difference but- all I did was convince them of sending me away earlier. I stayed with my aunt Dahlia for a year, but eventually, when I turned fifteen I moved in with Julian's family." She gulped, looking away. "They were nice," she shrugged, "Julian seemed as uninterested in me as I was in him. But, we both knew- in the end, that doesn't really matter to them, does it?"
Caroline squeezed Rebekah's hand with hers. "No," she told her, watching as tears inevitably pooled in Bekah's eyes and fell to her cheeks.
"I didn't really-" she tried to continue, but her voice cracked. She took a deep breath, then cleared her throat.
Caroline could see the training she'd received herself on getting emotional reflected on Rebekah. You don't ever show weakness, Caroline. Not if you can help it. Liz' voice, again.
On the second attempt, Rebekah was able to keep going, "I didn't really realize what was happening to me until Julian, who never even glanced at me by accident, asked me what was wrong with me," she tried to laugh it off; Caroline kept her face impassive. "I couldn't get it out of my head, Caroline. I swear I could even hear the ticking of the clock in my dreams, so I stopped sleeping. And then, with each day that passed I realized I was getting closer to turning sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-" she gasped around the word. "They took me to the hospital after I fainted at one of their family's events, it was then I realized I hadn't eaten in days. Julian's mother tried to help me, she'd never truly been on board with the idea anyway. But, the thought of eating, of- of living, meant my parents would win and I...I just couldn't do it."
"Bekah…" Caroline heard her own voice crack; she realized she had tears on her eyes too.
Rebekah braved on, "Erin, his mother, eventually got the brilliant idea of getting us out of that house, away from his father. Turns out she was independently wealthy the whole time. She was kind enough to pay for my plane ticket back here." She smiled a broken smile. "You know, when I first heard about you and my brother, I thought, they're so lucky," she scoffed at herself. "Lucky. Can you believe that? I thought, they have each other now, they're going to live happily ever after. Just because my mother had said so."
A rather miserable laugh left Caroline's lips. Would Rebekah believe her if she told her that she'd thought the same for a second or two?
Instead, flashes of Ella's conniving smile, Liz' satisfied smirk and her father's unwillingness to do anything but stand there, roamed Caroline's mind. She thought of Klaus' desperation when he'd yelled at her Why aren't you fighting this?
"You fought this, Bekah. You fought a battle you shouldn't have been thrown into in the first place, and you survived," she said, feeling her heartbeat raise. She held Rebekah's hand tighter between the both of hers. "You were braver than I could ever hope to be, than any of your siblings have been...you won."
Rebekah gulped, wiping her face clean with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "Look at me, Caroline. Does it seem like I've won anything?"
No, she thought, no, you look broken. You look terrified.
"How did you manage to go through this?" Rebekah asked when Caroline had gone silent. "How do you keep going?"
She locked her eyes on the blue of Rebekah's. She wondered whether it was best to tell her secret or not. In the end though, she knew the younger girl had bared her heart out to her, and the least she could do was expose herself in an equal measure.
"Your brother," Caroline began, looking down at their intertwined hands. "Your brother once told me everything was going to be alright. And I still believe him."
Caroline looked up to watch as Rebekah processed her answer. She was silent for a few moments longer. Then she nodded, seemingly understanding.
"Feels like a prison, still, doesn't it?"
"Yes," Caroline answered easily. "But Bekah, we're going to help you get better, and I promise, we're going to find a way to get you out of this. Out of your parents' claws."
/
Caroline said goodbye to Hayley with a short wave, grabbing her bag from where she'd left it. The afternoon had turned out to be so eventful that not even the possibility of being able to clarify things with Hayley Marshall was able to stray her from her path downstairs. She'd just come up with a more important question to ask someone else.
The sun was starting to set; the sky painted itself with orange. When she was exiting the building, she stood dead on her feet at the entrance. The doorman eyed her strangely when she didn't move. She spotted Klaus waiting by the car he'd brought her in.
She took four steps closer, still safely far away from him but close enough so that he could hear her clearly. "Did you know?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
"Not at first," he said, his body going stiff. "We thought she was only going to stay with Dahlia for a year. But then when she didn't come back, Elijah called our aunt, we had to transfer funds into her account to get her to tell us the truth."
A disbelieving sound left her throat. She couldn't even look him in the eye. "And you did nothing," Caroline concluded. "You knew what Rebekah was going through and you did nothing, Klaus-"
"We tried!" he yelled at her. Behind them, the doorman looked away. "We fucking tried, Caroline. But apparently, a minor can't travel across oceans without the notarized permission from her legal guardian. And guess who that was."
She shook her head, "You could've convinced your parents, if all of you-"
"Really, Caroline? You've met my parents," he silenced her; she knew he was right. "Anyway, they'd signed over temporary guardianship to Gregory Linnick, Julian's father," his surge of anger deflated. "I can show you the receipts we have from the legal council we hired to help us, I can show you the plane tickets Elijah and I got to Scotland last December, and I can call the lady that greeted us in Gregory's house to tell you what she told us: that the family had gone away for the entire month to god knows where...I swear to you, I tried to get her out."
Caroline stood still for what felt like hours. She watched him crumble to pieces in front of her. Watched the residual desperation that being unable to do anything for his sister had left pouring out of him in the shape of tears.
She walked the remaining steps that separated them, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Did you tell her that?" He looked up, and nodded. "Why is she angry at you then?"
Klaus instantly recoiled from her touch, his back hitting the car. Like he'd forgotten himself and had only just regained consciousness. She frowned. It took him a few seconds to gather himself enough to respond.
"Because," he sighed, "because she thinks I didn't try to get you out of this."
It'll be alright. It'll be alright.
Caroline felt her mouth suddenly go dry. The goal had always been not to break, yet still, when she spoke her voice was scratchy and thin. "I told you this once before Klaus, and I'm only going to say it this one last time: this is not your fault… Listen now, I don't need anyone to save me. But Rebekah does, and we're going to help her be free, got it?" She refused to let his gaze stray from hers. "Whatever it takes."
She watched as some long-lost determination resurfaced in his eyes.
"Whatever it takes," he repeated.
With this, sealing the rest of their lives and definitely erasing the exit roads they'd had until that moment.
/
What? Another update so soon? Yes, that's right, I've slept very little the past two days.
This chapter's way longer to make up for the last one. And also deals with a lot of subjects I wasn't even completely sure I wanted to include in this story, but here we are. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and some of the history behind this story.
Thank you so much for your comments, always love to read your thoughts
Just to clarify: Klaus and Caroline weren't together in any way while she was still a minor.