Chapter 3

To Klaus, the backwoods of Tennessee didn't seem so different then the woods surrounding the Mystic Falls of his youth. There were mountains here of course, but the trees were thick, the sky open to a spattering of bright and dimming stars, and the rustling of both wind and prey swept through the forest. He could understand why Caroline had chosen to live here; he was sure it was reminiscent her much the same of the life she had led so long ago.

The tense afternoon had transitioned quite unremarkably into a simple evening of stew and small anecdotes from Gracie. Klaus had even found himself entertained by her stories; a harsh reminder of the years he had missed out on with Hope in her own youth. The entirety of the day had taken a toll on him, and he felt that this was the most he had felt time in perhaps hundreds of years. He was desperate for answers, anxious to not overwhelm her, and still teetering on the edge of both a gripping anger and excruciating ache.

"She's down for the night." Caroline announced coming out of the kitchen, the now in tact and totally hinged door banging behind her. There was a moment of hesitation, but she finally sighed and sank into the steps of her back deck next to Klaus. Idly, he wondered if he too were human would he still be able to feel the small current of her body next to his. He could hear the small 'pop' of her mouth as it opened and closed a few times as she gathered whatever words failed her.

"You're much more articulate when you're angry." He snickered playfully. The sneer he anticipated, the slight punch to the shoulder he had not. Caroline was the one rarity that had both the courage and the gumption to assume she could touch him however she pleased, even now. "Perhaps, a dictionary would prove useful?"

"I know the words." She rolled her eyes, her hand running the length of her hair before tossing it over her shoulder. Taking the small wolf trinket out of his hands she ran her fingers over the intricate details he had whittled into the wood. "Do you ever turn?"

"Often." He admitted easily. "I find it quite liberating; the ability to turn to nothing but instinct and sense. My wolf is so innately me yet so far removed from what I feel I am to my core that it's a strange tandem to keep in balance."

"Being human again is like that for me." She mused ruefully. It was a topic she would have to tread lightly, but she couldn't leave the decision without an explanation. "I never really forgot how to be human…my humanity was such a large part of who I was, even as a vampire. Being a vampire felt so right though that I never could really reconcile the two."

"Your humanity was the most special part about you."

Scoffing, she laughed heartily despite herself. "You hated my humanity."

"Well yes, much to my chagrin most of the time. It was a yet another pesky obstacle in my way but Caroline-" he too was laughing as he paused and tucked an errant stand of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering too long, too familiar against her skin. She found her eyes fluttering at the touch, leaning into it as he cleared his throat and removed his hand. "You were a kind and compassionate human and you never lost that once you became a vampire. Annoying to me, yes, but still admirable all the same."

"I, uh," she scooped his palm into her own. "I'm going to go take a bath. It seems to calm the baby. Will you be here when I'm done? Please?"

She didn't even try to hide the desperation in her voice.

"Of course."

X-x-X

The house he wondered through now was so innately Caroline yet so remarkably foreign to him that he had to suppress every natural instinct in him to stay rooted. She had always loved to nest; the longest jaunt they had ever spent together, a summer in Maine she had done much the same. She had laid out pictures of the girls, her prom photos, and other small mementos from home. They had spent their days fishing and making love, and their evenings cooking together before retiring to watching her knit as he painted in the corner, the only sound of the cracking fire and the raging ocean below filling up the space.

Now, the house creaked with water running through old pipes and the vague waves of music coming from Gracie's bedroom. He noticed several trinkets from their travels; a vase from Greece, a rug from India and felt an odd swell fill up his chest as the prospect that even after all this time, even after humanity prevailed there was still a spot nestled in there for him. Photos lined the mantle above the fireplace, and one prominently front and center was Caroline; drenched with sweat, a smile of pure bliss holding an infant, a man's arm around her shoulders with a smile that mirrored hers.

He had to remind himself that as selfish had he had always been, he never begrudged her any happiness. Tyler came to mind first, and while he had dug his heels in for quite the stretch he had ultimately relented in the spirit of her happiness. Secretly for years he had told himself that the grin she gave him on the night of her gradation had been his declaration of last loves and not his permission for some high school love to be returned to her.

Stefan, he had respected as a brother for a time before her, and while he didn't quite regard him the same in his final years or his never-ending need to put Damon above all, he knew that was a deep seeded love within Caroline. It wasn't his favorite thought or his favorite thing to be in competition with a ghost, but he recognized the importance all the same.

This man, encompassed now in only the frame in his hands, however had given her life.

"Damn it."

His head turned towards the stairs as he heard Caroline's whispered curse. Setting down the frame gently, he made his way up towards the bathroom. Lingering much longer than he would have liked, he finally pushed against the door gingerly as another soft swear word dropped from her lips.

"Need a hand, love?"

Caroline glared at Klaus in her doorway but didn't refuse him, pointedly handing over the razor in her hand. Eight months pregnant had not agreed with her when she had twins the first time, was not her friend when she had Grace a few years prior, and was now being a predictable pain in her ass. Was it so much to ask that her expanding belly not get in the way of the removal of the hair on her legs?

Tugging the towel around her breasts more snuggly, she propped her foot on the stool next to the tub she sat on. He sank down on his knees in front of her, his eyes skimming over the length of her body with no shame. With precision, he started at her ankle, the strokes deft as he rested a calculating hand on the underside of her knee. She would be lying if she didn't feel the heat radiating off as their skin connected with one another so intimately for the first time in decades. Her fingers gripped the edge of the tub, and had she still been a vampire would had surely dusted under her grasp.

"Can I ask you something?"

"What's that?"

"Don't you miss being a vampire?" he murmured, wincing as he nicked her knee with one of his strokes.

"I miss the instant healing." Without a thought, he had thumbed the red liquid and popped it into his mouth the yellow in his eyes briefly flashing through as he savored. It was very much Caroline but flavored differently somehow as human blood. She took in a shuttered breath as he took another lick against her bare knee, suckling until the bleeding had stopped. Her fingers itched to sink into the curls on the top of his head, but instead she forced herself to focus. "Compulsion, on occasion."

"I'm certain waiting in long lines isn't as fun as it seems when you can't compel your way to the front." He smirked up at her as he ran a wash cloth over her leg and picked up the other one. "It is rather handy when you want to get your way, however."

"You get your way regardless." She countered with a playful snark. "Actually, what I miss most is vamp hearing. The twins, when they were inside me, I could hear them constantly. When they were little I would listen out for their steady thumps and it would comfort me. It's funny," she covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she suppressed a giggle. "with Grace, I went out and bought a stethoscope. I'm not crazy, I promise. I just liked knowing that she was alive; that she was something I made."

A small gasp escaped her lips as Klaus suddenly had his ear pressed against her chest. His arms wound around her waist, his palms against the small of her back. The stubble along his jaw tickled her skin and with a gulp she tried to suppress the host of memories that rushed through. Her hands came up without permission held in a frozen surrender she wasn't sure she didn't want to succumb to. After a moment, she couldn't stop them from finding his curls, and the base of his neck. A happy hum escaped his lips as her skin prickled with the contact and her heart sped up.

"Reminds me of my hummingbird." He murmured, his lips brushing across the top of her breasts. He pulled back to look up at her, the whiskers of his jaw still close to tickle her skin. The familiarity of it all, the urge to be near her, the desire to touch every inch of her was the single most overwhelming feeling he had ever encountered. A wave of understanding and a silent agreement passed through them, as she bit her bottom lip, her fingers tugging through his hair and bringing his forehead to her lips.

X-x-X

"Do you remember our last trip to Paris?"

Her query shook him, and he turned to face her much more quickly than he would have liked. They had made it out once more onto the back deck, she wrapped in a blanket in her pajamas at the foot of the stairs, him meandering into the vast expanse of the back yard. It was difficult for him to try and prove he was aloof and confident in her presence. Time had waged a war against him it seemed; he had expected centuries with her, awaiting an unspoken vow of forever only now it was reduced to decades, or perhaps even this one day.

"I recall everything." His voice once again betrayed him, a thickness that he cleared from his throat as he continued. "We never did make it to the Louvre."

She clasped her hands in front of her, the white of her knuckles showing in the light emitting from the kitchen. Those last few days with him had invaded her thoughts more than she would have liked. Some of the details had slipped away in the years inside a human mind, but she could remember their last night so vividly that sometimes she even wondered if she made the whole thing up.

"I need you to understand that this choice," she sucked in her breath, releasing the air deep through her nose. "This choice to take the cure, it wasn't made lightly or without regards to…"

"In regards to what?"

"To you." She whispered her face turning towards his abruptly. A wince graced her delicate features as she pushed herself and her swollen belly off of the steps. "There wasn't a breath I took that I didn't consider what I was giving up with you to take that cure."

"Then why take it at all?" the words cut sharply into the cool night, his focus on his rage instead of the pain from her confession. "At the very least I think I deserved a proper goodbye."

He couldn't bring himself to ask her what he really wanted to know; how she could walk away from him. Every deep seeded self-doubt and insecurity that had been rooted in him for over a thousand years threatened to implode inside his chest cavity if he succumbed to the thought. Kids and family and normalcy he could easily rationalize but he simply couldn't bear to believe that a life totally without him was what she had wanted.

Her hand swiped at her cheek as she paced in front of him, the other hand firmly roaming around the curve of her stomach. "Paris-"

"So, you keep saying." There was an undercurrent of a bite in his tone and even though she narrowed her eyes, she allowed it. "I assure you; I have thought of little else since my arrival."

Stopping dead in her tracks she turned to face him. "This wasn't your fault. You were a huge consideration; I promise but this wasn't anything you did wrong."

"Enlighten me." He challenged; his arms spread wide in front of him in mockery. He sighed after a beat, the utter defeat on her face once again shearing him at his seams. "You don't have to tell me, Caroline. I can bid you farewell and you never have to think of me again. I can even compel you..."

"Don't you dare." She gritted out, her hands forming into balls beside her hips. "Time will do it's job of taking that away from me just fine without your interference. I'm not upset that you're here, Klaus. I have missed you."

Logic had always dictated that what she felt for Klaus was never going to be anything short of impossible. Wars had been waged against him, she had been used countless times in a ploy to distract him, her own life had been in the balance through direct fault of his. Long before their first dalliance in the woods, and much more in the years and decades since she had always felt somehow less in those in between times. The thrum of the marching of time was ever present, and she had found herself on more than one occasion indulging in a life thought out with regards and revolving around a very defined 'us'.

"You took me walking along the river." She started, the memory wrapping itself around her in an embrace. She could almost still feel the chill of the Parisian air nipping at the skirt of her dress, the heals of her shoes clicking against the stone paths, the happiness in his laughter as they stumbled along the bank of the Seine. "You wrapped the cashmere scarf around me as if I needed the warmth, and kissed my forehead as if I needed anything but that. I clung to the ghost of your lips for years."

His lips parted in awe as she continued.

"When we rented that beach house in Maine, I think maybe the third time we met up you took me fishing." she giggled at the memory, the back of her hand covering her mouth. "And you hooked that hammerhead, fought him all the way into the boat. You slipped and fell, the shark chomping around beside you. Do you even realize how little you actually, genuinely smile? Or laugh for that matter?"

"I was going to be bested by a bloody shark." Klaus shook his head, an illicit grin forming. "Kol would have never let me live that down."

"I think I knew even then that there would come a point, and I didn't know when, but there would be an eventual next step. It would have been something final and conclusive but the beginning of something new. A life that didn't have grudges and doppelgangers, stupid spells or curses."

She studied her stomach then, a small nudge hitting near her bladder; the life inside her reminding her of a life she would never have. She trekked the small distance back to the deck and took her place beside him once more, her knee grazing his. It was a risk, but she took his hands into hers, placing the interlocking pieces on top her lap.

"In Paris, you got called away. An emergency in the Quarter." She nestled further into his side as he released on of her hands and snaked his arm across her shoulders. "It was the next day when I was shopping that I was approached by a woman in the alleyway. She was this beautiful mischievous red head and I knew she was a vampire. The arrogant part of me knew that because I was with you, in whatever way that was, that I wouldn't be harmed. You have made a lot of enemies and I have no doubt that they would use would me to their advantage, but the thought didn't even cross my mind."

"Before you left you took off my gloves and pulled my fists up to your lips, and I'll never forget the dimples of your smile as you blew warm breath into them. Or the fondness as you kissed me for the last time." She sniffled in the crook of his arm but continued on the same. "She taunted me with that memory; she had been following us for quite some time, I think. There was no vervain or wooden stakes, just a warning that if I cared for you, I shouldn't contact you anymore."

The grip on her hand tightened and she could feel his jaw clench at the crown of her head.

"Who was this vampire?" the quaver in his voice betrayed him. He would make an example of this vampire, leave her rotting away in his compound to be pecked away as the infection from one of his lethal bites ravished her away. He would cure her and repeat as many times as necessary until she went mad.

2058

"Your necklace is so lovely."

Caroline spun at the voice behind her, her hand automatically reaching for the pendant necklace Klaus had gifted her just the day before. It was a woman and a man who stood before her, only she didn't think they were a couple. The body language was all wrong and there was something menacing in the features of the man even when the woman was at complete ease; almost delighted.

"Thank you." Caroline nodded politely as she clocked their ring fingers from the short distance. There on each hand, not a set of wedding bands but daylight rings. She had run across a number of vampires in her time and they seemed to be more frequent in Europe. Even still, she had to be cautious and weary considering the company she kept.

"Niklaus always did have excellent taste." The woman smiled, her green eyes twinkling taking a bold step closer and winding her fingers around the pendant on Caroline's neck. She noticed the bob of Caroline's throat as she swallowed hard and ran her finger down the column. "Even though Niklaus did leave us in a bit of a spat, I mean you no harm, dove. Tell me, do you too see the good in him? That frail little human did." She cackled and spun away, dancing around the man who stood tall and stoic. "I can see now he has a type."

"Who are you?" Caroline asked, a fortress unmoved. Internally she was a network of terror coursing through her, but she had learned long ago that being the victim got her nowhere. "I haven't seen Klaus in ages."

"Lie." The woman hissed, a smile still gracing her features, her eyes dark. "You're quite enamored with him. I was privy to witness that adoring way he warmed your hands and kissed you so sweetly. Tell me, do you think he feels for you the same way? He once told me that there was a light in me so bright that it made him feel like the man he wished he were."

It was slight, but Caroline couldn't stop the wince at the woman's words.

"Oh, dear." The woman frowned dramatically inching her way back towards Caroline. "Have a stuck a chord? My darling, we are all but an endless array of playthings for him. Something new and shiny to come along every so often and capture his attention. You're but a baby vampire still; someone who clings to her humanity. He enjoys the thrill of how far he can push that boundary within you."

Her mind whirling with sudden self-doubt in all her thoughts and feelings regarding Klaus, she couldn't react fast enough when the woman blew a scattering of what felt like dust and sand in Caroline's face. The man behind her began chanting in a foreign tongue unfamiliar. Her senses dulled, she grew dizzy and disoriented as the woman caught her easily in her arms just as Caroline begun her descent to the ground.

"There, dove." The woman brushed the hair from Caroline's face as she rested her head against the wet rocks of the pavement. "This spell will most certainly do you no harm, I give you my word. It would bode you well love, to stay away from Niklaus. I can't guarantee the same certainty for him."

X-x-X

"Aurora."

Klaus gritted the name out, the familiar tremor of his wolf rising on its haunches within in.

"She's dead now." Caroline informed him pragmatically. "It took me years to sort out who she was and what spell she had cast on me. Even longer still to hunt her down and put an end to her."

He had been a foolish prat to not have checked in on her over the decades. There was a hitch in her breath, a thought lingering on her lips she didn't want to say.

"But not the spell." He deduced after a moment. The lump that lingered in his throat slid down painfully as he forced out the next words. "What spell did she have placed on you?"

"I'm still not sure, honestly." Her hand wrapped around the curve of her belly and for a fraction of a second, Klaus nearly reached out to trail behind it. "I especially didn't understand it then, but I felt somehow you wouldn't be safe."

"Sweetheart, I'm invincible." He snorted softly beside her with an undercurrent of indignation. "And regardless, you could have come to me with this. I could have fixed it."

Aurora was not someone he had given but a handful of thoughts over the years. She has skipped out of the Quarter and his life after he had sunk her brother deep in the Atlantic. He felt foolish now, leaving someone so deranged to their own devices. It was a major miscarriage of justice that she was no longer alive; he would have greatly enjoyed seeing her suffer.

"Not this." She murmured softly as the wrung her hands in her lap. Pulling away, leaving him aching she let out a small breath. "I didn't know then the extent of what she had in mind. I just remember thinking that it felt big. That's hard to explain, even now given everything I know. I don't even know if you're safe now."

"What happened? Wasn't there a Bennett witch somewhere convenient to reverse whatever nonsense Aurora was up to?"

She pulled away from him then, the space between them filling up an ocean of time.

"Paul came first." A small breath came tumbling out as her clouded human brain tried to recall the details. "He had a crooked nose from an old football injury and he was an accountant; but not in a boring or stuffy way. He made me laugh." She sighed wistfully. "I couldn't make his coffee the way he liked it but he still drank it every morning just the same. It was a car accident; it was over in an instant."

She continued on before Klaus could gather his thoughts.

"Luca was a few years later. I grieved for Paul, but someone once told me that my perception of time was going to have to change being a vampire." Pointedly she looked him, a ghost of a memory edging at the corners of her mind. "He made pancakes with blueberries and mumbled Beatles lyrics in his sleep. He planted a row of rose bushes in the front of our house. I had spaced and forget to get the wine and asked him to stop at the local store. They didn't have to shoot him, but he was gone the next day.

"It wasn't until Ryan died that I noticed the dove." She continued, the story spilling out of her with a force she didn't know she had. "It was there, on the front railing, the back fence, on the electrical pole every day leading up to it. We had a fantastic wrap around porch that I would sit out on every day and read. It was there on the porch swing we made together I sat when the police came up to give me the news; he had gone into a building on fire, and had never came out. It wasn't until Taylor that I figured out was what going on. The dove had returned and within days he was gone, too."

Her hand reached to the underside of her belly to rub the small area the baby was kicking. The download of information had left Klaus stunned, a barrage of emotions pounding against him. He was never foolish enough to think she had been alone this entire time, but knowing there had been many and that she had suffered such a loss that all feel at his feet to blame was overwhelming.

"I made it my mission to find Aurora, reverse whatever she had done. It had been so long at that point since I had seen you but I knew you were safe." She took to the step beside him once more preparing to tell him the most important part. The woods in front of them creaked and moaned with the wind, a haunting echo of coyote howled, and crickets chirped their chorus as she gathered his hands in her own.

"I met Danny, my husband, at a work conference. Yes, he was wolf and yes, I immediately sensed him and got on the defensive. I had actually thought he was sent by you. But as I got to know him, I realized he had no idea he was a wolf. He was kind, to his core. I resisted him until we found Aurora and properly handled her. I think I knew even then; I would never put you in harm's way."

She cleared her throat and continued, grateful for Klaus allowing no interruptions. "Danny and I, we stayed together for years. It reached a point where there was no dove and time was rooted in place for me. I…" she paused, the grief that was till fresh bowling her over in a way she wasn't expecting with Klaus in her reach. "…we wanted to build a life, make a life and I couldn't do that frozen in time. I took the cure and didn't look back.

Life moved on. We got married, I got pregnant with Gracie, and we started our lives. It felt important and big; like the world was finally opening up to me. I had just found out I was pregnant when the dove came back. I tried for days to kill it. Nothing worked. I had thought this was over. I begged Danny to stay with me, I had to protect him somehow, and it was worse now; I was a measly human. Four months ago, I woke up early for a doctor's appointment, and he- just didn't. A brain aneurism; totally unpredictable. No way to tell it was coming on."

"Caroline- "in his centuries of fighting witches and spells and enemies abound, the thought that something so profound would befall her, in all her goodness, left him with a putrid and vile self-loathing. It was something that had always festered at the edges in regards to her, but having the knowledge of her grief that was directly connected to him had him reeling. "I so very sorry."

Instinct overwhelmed him and he abruptly removed his hands from her and stood to retreat away from the stairs towards the open back yard. She gazed at him both unaffected or unsurprised, a deep seeded understanding and resignation dancing across her features in the hazy moonlight.

"It's okay." She nodded once as she whispered the next few words. "You can go."

Her empty backyard didn't hold a trace of him a moment later.