.

Notes: An outtake set between the last chapter and the epilogue. The Mikaelsons come to negotiate. Caroline's POV.

Extra, or The Chapter-Long Endnote

but mountains never

Let us never negotiate out of fear.
But let us never fear to negotiate.
—John F. Kennedy

"Remember, we have to be careful. Grams said Mikael was the original vampire. From what the Gilberts could find out, he was at least a thousand years old and absolutely crazy. And he said Klaus is the scourge of the earth." Bonnie reminded Caroline again, like she could have forgotten who they were dealing with in the twenty-minute drive from her house to the budget hotel one town over.

"True, but neither Stefan or Damon had ever even heard of Klaus before. He can't be that bad. If he was such a monster, you would think he'd be a bigger deal."

"They didn't even know werewolves were real. They haven't been the most plugged in to the supernatural world. Remember what my contacts said?"

"They can be pretty unobservant." Caroline agreed, ignoring the last question. Caroline didn't want to ask if Bonnie meant her weirdly talkative dead relatives or the sketchy supernatural people that Lucy and Katherine apparently ran with. Neither had anything good to say about the Mikaelsons anyway.

"And Katherine is terrified of him. She wouldn't even come to this meeting!" Bonnie added forcefully.

"That's because Katherine has nothing to offer him, and he wants to kill her. He doesn't want to kill us yet; that's an advantage."

Caroline thought Katherine's absence probably had more to do with Elijah's RSVP than the threat that Klaus posed. Bonnie claimed Katherine wasn't a coward, but Caroline didn't have the same confidence in her murderer. Plus, she couldn't blame Katherine for trying to duck out of an awkward meeting with yet another one of her ex-lovers. Damon and Stefan were bad enough, adding Elijah and Klaus to the mix would hardly be pleasant, especially if Katherine had real feelings for Elijah like Bonnie seemed to think.

"I guess you're right. And it's probably better that she isn't here anyway. Might enrage him." Caroline nodded. That sounded like Katherine. Bonnie let the silence linger for a moment before breaking it again. "Don't you think it's weird that we're the ones doing this? Shouldn't an adult be here? We're just kids."

Bonnie was right; they were only teenagers. But ever since her little trip, Bonnie had been different. She looked comfortable in her own skin, and used magic like it was a well-known tool, not a caged animal she unleashed when backed into a corner. Caroline trusted her more than any adult on this earth, even with the witch's newfound trust in certain unsavory characters.

Caroline would never stop being grateful that Bonnie had been the one to find her that day in the hospital. Bonnie showed up with all the answers and had been a soothing balm to Caroline's panicked hysteria. Acting as backup for negotiations with some homicidal vampires was just the start of Caroline's payback for her help. Besides, if Caroline were being honest with herself, it would have been Bonnie at this table no matter what, time travel or no. Bonnie had never been one to pass on responsibility. At least now Caroline could support her friend with some concrete plans.

"Come on, Bon. An adult? Like who? Alaric? My mom? Would you trust either of them to do this? They'd come in here stakes blazing without a thought. Both Salvatores are too trigger happy for this, and Elena way too willing to offer herself up without a thought. No, it's on us."

Bonnie didn't agree out loud, but she didn't deny anything Caroline said either. It wasn't exactly something that could be denied. The town was seriously short on level-headed people.

"Thanks for the pep talk," Bonnie said. "And sorry for throwing this all at you, Care. Damon keeps calling you a baby vampire, but you've always been so…you. The girl with the plan. I just started relying on you. Maybe you should go. Who knows what kind of target this will paint on your back?"

"Do not try to convince me to walk out that door. I don't care about any targets. I care about you, and Elena, and I'm staying. Besides, you can't do this alone."

"I could. If I needed to."

"Maybe, but you don't. Besides, remember the plan."

"You think it will work? What if he doesn't go for it?"

"My dad raised me to be mayor of this town by the time I was twenty-five, and expected me to be a congresswoman by thirty-five. Becoming a vampire might have killed his dreams for me, in pretty much every way, but it doesn't change the lessons I was taught. This Klaus guy? He's been around for a thousand years, sure, but he's not exactly a politician. He's lost his kingdom, his family, and, if he doesn't deal with us, his chance at breaking his curse."

"Right. He needs us, not the other way around…you really believe that?"

"Yes. But I don't even need to. We just need him to believe it."

"And you think you can convince him?"

"Please Bonnie, this guy was raised to be a hunter and a gatherer. Dangle a few berries in front of him and he'll be eating out of the palm of our hands."

Bonnie laughed, but doubt still lingered in her eyes. Caroline set her shoulders and put on a confident grin. A text chime stopped any further discussion. Caroline glanced at her phone. The compelled receptionist was letting them know that one of the brothers had arrived.

"It's Elijah."

Bonnie nodded, and the uncertainty drained from her face. She pursed her lips and sat back in her chair, letting surety bleed into her pose. Behind her the five pillar candles on the credenza flared to life. They'd brought them from Grams's and placed them carefully in the bland conference room. The candles didn't lend personality to the space any more than the abstract line art did, but they gave Bonnie a ready weapon if she needed one.

Caroline swallowed. Bonnie's newfound poise was a good thing, but sometimes it threw Caroline off balance. The two had been friends since first grade and had experienced everything together. The fact that Bonnie had now lived something Caroline could never know, gained knowledge of herself and magic, and somehow fallen in love with Damon Salvatore in the process, was hard to wrap her head around. Sometimes it felt like Caroline had woken up from her accident in a different world, and it wasn't only the new bloodlust that contributed to the feeling.

Another text tone. Klaus. At least they wouldn't be entertaining one vampire brother while waiting on the other's arrival.

"Hey, Care?"

Caroline looked over at Bonnie. Her friend practically glowed, haloed by the fire that burnt brilliantly behind her.

"Remember what you said. We hold all the cards. We've got this." Bonnie said with a wink. Caroline nodded back and plastered on her own game face. She thanked the world one more time that Bonnie was her friend, that their friendship was founded on building each other up, and that Bonnie had enough magic to blast their way through the side of this building if things went south.

Caroline heard the ding of the elevator at the end of the hall, and the bang of the stairwell door being thrust open. The two heavy sets of footsteps converged. Caroline could make out a tense greeting, but neither brother stopped to chat. She allowed herself one last deep breath.

She could do this. She was Miss Mystic Falls, and she had promised to aspire, inspire, and perspire for this town. She wasn't about to let some ancient asshole mess it up or kill Elena before she appeared on Caroline's homecoming court. Game time.

The two men who entered the conference room were a study of contrasts. One sported carefully slicked hair, a pressed suit, and shoes that shined brighter than the fluorescents overhead. This had to be Elijah. Caroline carefully filed away every aspect of his appearance that she could. She took a moment to acknowledge and set aside her surprise on one score; this was not who she would have pictured to be Katherine Pierce's One That Got Away.

The other brother, Klaus, wore distressed jeans and a Henley. Caroline spotted a bit of paint on the back of his wrist, as if he'd rushed to get here after a long night in the studio. His hair was artfully ruffled, and his cheekbones to die for. Fuck, this wasn't fair. He was hot.

The grainy photos forwarded by Katherine's shady contact in New Orleans hadn't done him justice, nor had any previous descriptions. Bonnie had mentioned he was handsome, but she'd focused more on the whole covered-in-blood-and-viscera aspect of his appearance. Which, while understandable, had not prepared Caroline for this.

Luckily, before Caroline's heartbeat could reflect any thought about the older vampire's attractiveness, he ruined his handsome face with a snarl. Now he was more like the descriptions.

"You!" He spat, and he would have lunged across the room if his brother hadn't caught his arm. Caroline flinched backwards, even though his hateful glare wasn't directed at her. She doubted he'd even registered her as present in the room; his entire body strained towards Bonnie.

"Peace, brother. We have all come here to talk." Elijah said in measured tones. But Klaus didn't listen. Instead of shrugging his arm out from his brother's grip, he threw him against the opposite wall. Elijah was up again in a flash, but there was a dent in the wall. Great.

Caroline stared. She knew the two brothers weren't on the best of terms, but she thought they'd present something of a united front. Maybe this would be easier than she'd feared.

"Hey! We're not paying for any damages, got that? That's article one of this contract – write it down Caroline!"

Caroline nearly gaped at her friend's indignant reprimand, but her words froze the two vampires. Were they surprised she would begin with something so trivial? Bonnie turned her hard glare on Caroline and she quickly added a line regarding damages to her working draft of their contract. At the first sound of her keystrokes, the violence eased from Klaus's face, and his entire body unclenched. The hair at the back of Caroline's neck remained upright. A calm predator was just as dangerous as an angry one, if not more so.

"A contract? How modern and civilized of you. Not going to extract a witch's promise from me? They're much more binding, and not so wasteful on the paper. Or are you no longer one of Nature's children?" Klaus taunted.

"A contract doesn't preclude an oath; it just makes sure all of us are aware of what promises we're making. Which I will seal. Myself." Bonnie said, with a flare of the candles behind her, so that no one could doubt her magic. "Besides, our friend's a notary." she finished with a shrug. That Lucy had just gotten her license online last week went unsaid.

Also left unspoken were the hours they'd spent in preparation. Bonnie had remained bent over law books and thick tomes of magical theory for much of the past few weeks.

Caroline had tried to help, but had quickly given up her attempts at understanding magic. Reading grimoires was like trying to follow a recipe from a food blogger that insisted on interspersing each step with their life story, with no handy 'Jump to Recipe' button in sight. Plus they were all full of contradictions Caroline couldn't understand.

It was better for her to rely on what she knew. Besides, magic still freaked her out. She'd gone to the witch house once with Bonnie, because for all the high-handed servants of the balance talk, plenty of witches were friends with vampires, on earth and beyond the grave, and were willing to help Bonnie out with what they knew. But she would not be going back if she could help it. Watching Bonnie commune with a bunch of dead witches for answers had been disturbing, even before Caroline was forcefully expelled from the house by an irate spirit just for being a vampire.

"How refreshing to meet people so rational. Thank you for the invitation to this meeting." Elijah said, as he carefully lowered himself into a chair. With his formal suit, he should have looked the most at home in the business setting, but his face retained a graceful look of disdain that clearly reflected his thoughts on the local Marriott's hospitality.

"Well I can hardly object if Elijah is so willing. And may I compliment you on how youthful you look, Miss McCullough? The last witch to live so long wrinkle-free was Countess Bathory."

Bonnie gave him a blank look, but Caroline, much more versed in history and Wikipedia rabbit holes, perked up with curiosity.

"But wasn't she a vampire?"

"Elisabet? A vampire? Don't be ridiculous. We drink blood, we don't bathe in it."

Caroline took a moment to write a note to herself in a separate word document. If they came out of this without a bloodbath, these vampires would be an amazing source for any future history papers. She also pulled up her working list of possible careers and added one more entry: historian (is this ethical and/or possible? focus on supernatural?).

Bonnie cleared her throat. "Your information is a bit out of date. McCullough was just a pseudonym. My name is Bonnie Bennett."

Bonnie hissed her last name, and Caroline saw the brothers exchange a look. Were the Bennetts important? The Kennedys of the witch world maybe?

Klaus's eyes narrowed even further, boring into Bonnie's face. Caroline wondered what he was searching for. He'd obviously recognized her, just as he had the first time in Bonnie's recounting. But what had Bonnie been like in that short meeting a century before? How early in her journey had Bonnie gained her confidence? Was it the modern makeup, newly combed hair, and freshly washed jeans that he was studying so intently? Or her countenance, when she wasn't reeling from a trip through time and the psychic aftershock of an entire coven's death?

Caroline pushed aside her thoughts on Bonnie's eventful trip and started.

"I'm Caroline Forbes. So glad you could both make it. You've really come at the perfect time of year, springtime in Virginia is the best. If you stick around this weekend, there is a wildflower festival in Mystic Falls on Sunday!"

The brothers blinked. Caroline didn't even look at Bonnie; she didn't want to see the disappointed face. Klaus's lips twitched, like he was about to burst out with a peal of laughter.

But Caroline wasn't about to let herself ruin this. She started again, this time without her perky customer service voice.

"So, Klaus, you don't mind if I call you Klaus, right?"

"Not at all, love." He said. She frowned at the familiarity.

"Please, call me Caroline. If you have trouble with that, Forbes is fine too."

"My apologies. Caroline it is."

"Great! Now, let's get down to business. What do you have to offer us?"

"Excuse me?"

Klaus's pleased face abruptly turned stormy, and Elijah's bemused. Bonnie sat back in her chair, more than willing to let Caroline take the lead on this. The blonde vampire persisted.

"I'm not sure what is causing your confusion, but I can rephrase. What are you bringing to the table for our partnership?"

"I think you're the one who's confused, love. I'm an original vampire. I agreed to come to your little meeting at this…fine establishment as an amusement, but the only thing I need to offer is my mercy. Give me the doppelganger and I won't kill every single one of you where you sit."

"One, I believe we established that nicknames are not appropriate at the deliberation table. Two, considering you provided a net zero number of ideas for meeting locations, you shouldn't knock the Marriott board room I booked. And three, I'm not sure how well that murder argument has worked out for you in the past, but I'm going to clue you in to something; it's not a very compelling one. Ultimatums rarely are."

"They tend to be a bit more compelling when the recipient can feel my fingers around their heart. How would you like to test that out?" Klaus said, but he didn't move to carry out his threat. Not yet.

"Elena's full of vampire blood, and Damon will kill her in a second if you even touch a hair on Bonnie's head." Caroline threatened.

"It's true. He's impulsive and easily motivated by revenge," Bonnie interjected. She flicked her eyes over Klaus and his snarl before continuing, "a bit like you, I would guess."

Caroline nodded in agreement and picked up the argument thread.

"If for some reason Damon is moved by sentiment for his friendship with Elena, which I'm going to tell you now, I doubt, I have two humans compelled to kill Elena themselves. So yes, you can kill us all, and even Elena too, after she's transitioned, but you'll be standing in a mass grave with the curse still unbroken, and knowing it was only your own poor negotiation tactics that are at fault. I don't think you really want to wait another 500 years to learn from your mistakes, do you?" She paused and gave Klaus a faux sympathetic look, as if this were prom committee and she'd just finished tearing Aimee Bradley apart for her suggestion of paisley tablecloths. "No, I didn't think so. Why don't we start again? You want Elena to be sacrificed in your ritual. We aren't particularly inclined to killing our friend. How will you change our minds?"

"You know. You must have suspected when we last met, but now you're sure." Elijah said flatly before Klaus could respond to her .

"What exactly do I know?" Bonnie said cagily.

"Yes, brother, please do enlighten us."

"Klaus, they know what the curse is. They know it is personal or they would not be bargaining in this manner."

"Come on? Is that a shock. How many people actually believe that Sun and the Moon curse legend? It doesn't even make sense. It sounds like something from a TV show with no historian to consult." Bonnie said facetiously.

Caroline surreptitiously added Hollywood consulting historian to her list of potential careers. Not supernatural related, but there was no requirement that her future had to be bound to her new undead life.

"You two don't have a degree between you, so I doubt it was your own cleverness that brought you to this conclusion. No, someone told you." Elijah's eyes darted around the room after that insult, like the wood paneled walls might hide a secret compartment. "Where is she? Where is Katerina?"

"Katherine," Bonnie stressed the vampire's preferred name, "is not here. She won't be attending any negotiation sessions until we at least work out a non-aggression pact. But you're wrong to suspect her. She knew how to break the curse, but not the details of what it was. No, our source was much closer…much more familiar with it."

"Mikael." Klaus hissed before he flipped the table. Caroline just managed to snatch her laptop from the surface, but Bonnie blasted the table across the room before it could hit them and Caroline's beloved planner sailed through the air with it. She hoped all her sticky notes stayed in their proper places.

"Overreact much. It's not like he's hiding in the next room" She muttered. She bolded the only line on the contract she'd managed to write: Payment to cover any accrued damages to the rented conference room will be provided by Klaus Mikaelson and Elijah Mikaelson.

Elijah straightened his cuffs and pushed back the lock of hair that had fallen over his eye. In the midst of the destruction he now looked even more out of place.

"We're not working for Mikael. Just the opposite really." Bonnie said calmly. Because apparently traveling through time gave you balls of steel as well as the reaction time of a cheetah.

"You're not working with our father, you're not willing to hand over your friend, you haven't served up Katerina to me, and yet you insist you aren't here asking for your deaths. So what exactly are you bargaining for?" Klaus asked derisively.

"Time." Bonnie said, clear and to the point. "We want to decide on the when and the where of your little ritual."

"But you would do the ritual?" Elijah asked.

"I would happily blast you into the next century, but Elena is…sympathetic to your plight, though God only knows why. But we'll do the ritual. On our terms."

"I want Katerina," Klaus said.

"Out of the question." The words didn't come from Bonnie, though she would have protested as well, but from Elijah. Caroline raised an eyebrow. Did he want to save Katherine from Klaus, or just strangle her himself?

"I won't be handing my friends over to either of you. Katherine goes free and Elena gets to live a long and happy life without you threatening her. Those are non-negotiable."

"And if we don't agree?"

"Then this conversation really has no place to go, and that means war."

"And I think you'll find that allies will be easier for us to come by than for you." Caroline added. There were plenty of vampires who wanted to knock Klaus off his throne.

"No doubt. Well then, let's get started," Klaus said with a smirk. He motioned towards Elijah, and Caroline tensed, ready to jump straight out the window. She was only a few months old in vampire world; there was no way she would live through a fight with these two. Her job was to warn the others. But apparently his wordless gesture was not a brotherly call to arms. Instead, the two ancient vampires lifted the table and set it back in the center of the room, as if it wasn't cracked down the middle and missing a large chunk from the left end leaf. Bonnie settled back into her chair as the two brothers pulled up their own. Caroline gingerly set her laptop back on the table in front of her.

Caroline bit her lip and nervously tapped her finger against the space bar of her laptop. Her cursor moved steadily across the empty screen and still no one spoke. Could they do really this? It certainly hadn't gone well so far.

Out of the corner of her eye, Caroline saw her planner slid across the table towards her. Klaus tapped the cover once before leaning back. A dozen sticky notes had been stuck to the front cover, recovered from the floor after they'd fallen from their set places.

"Sorry, love. But I doubt you want me guessing where those went." Caroline's eyes narrowed at the thought of this stranger messing with her carefully curated and color-coded system. He mistook her glare and lifted his arms, immediately protesting his innocence.

"My apologies, again. Caroline." The period after her name was audible and he nodded to himself, as if training the name into his memory. "Let's see what we can agree on then. Shall we?"

Bonnie nodded and Caroline flexed her fingers, ready to type. Maybe this would work.

And a little something extra:

Just when Bonnie was starting to get tetchy from hunger a knock sounded at the door and the smell of a pizza wafted into the room. Caroline rolled her eyes. She could smell the toppings and knew exactly who this pizza had come from. Damon acting like a mother hen from across town definitely undermined their credibility, but his spot-on timing was impressive.

Bonnie gasped when she opened the box, revealing what Caroline already knew.

"Olives and pineapple! He remembered my favorite," Bonnie said as the Mikaelsons looked on bemusedly. Caroline sent off a quick text in annoyance that there was no second pizza with edible toppings for her.

She didn't snark out loud though. Bonnie's eyes had gone soft, which happened much less frequently than it used to before her trip, and Caroline couldn't even be mad. Gross pizza toppings and the slight loss of face from Damon's meddling were both well worth Bonnie's happiness.

"Face it, Bonnie, you now have to confront the terrifying ordeal of being known. Grab me a slice, too. Maybe if I pick off the pineapple fast enough I won't be able to taste them."

"It's just my pizza order, Caroline, not exactly the depths of my soul" Bonnie replied, with a smile was pushing its way onto her lips. She doled out a slice for everyone, even though neither of the Mikaelsons had requested one. Elijah lifted the corner of his slice tentatively, as if unsure how to approach a meal without a fork and knife. Klaus, disturbingly, picked off the olives and left the pineapple, before taking a huge bite. At least he chewed with his mouth closed.

"Is anything ever just anything?" Caroline mused before taking her first bite. She winced, because she sounded like an idiot, but also because the pineapple juice had soaked into the cheese while baking. Picking off the chunks hadn't saved her from their overly sweet flavor.

Caroline knew that Damon was ruthlessly cataloguing everything he learned about Bonnie. Her friend claimed his study was just coping with his past anxiety, that he was scared he'd be left without her for a few decades or something, but Caroline got the feeling that his actions had little to do with their past. No, Damon wanted to know everything there was to know about Bonnie Bennett, and those efforts were entirely for his and Bonnie's future.