Author's note: Thank you for continuing to support my story! We're finally at some Klaroline scenes!
In other news, I expanded a one-shot from A Beautiful Symmetry, The Blonde Witch Project. The new stuff starts on chapter 2!
Caroline once watched Enzo glue his toenail back on with the yellow pus from a giraffe weevil when they were on a mission in Madagascar. And it still wasn't as gross as watching Klaus gleefully use the edge of his blood-splattered button-down to swipe at a gooey puddle of what appeared to be werewolf slobber. His gray eyes lit up with excitement as he murmured that he'd been too preoccupied with neurological tests to begin enzyme work. As she took in his blood-splattered button-down, she came to the uncomfortable realization that the gruesome stains couldn't detract from the way the deep blue softened the steel gray in his gaze. Not to mention the way his rolled-up sleeves revealed surprisingly powerful-looking forearms.
Shaking her head to clear it of those distracting thoughts, she pulled him into a small room nearby, keeping her voice low and calm to avoid unwanted attention from the prowling werewolves. "Have you ever fired a gun," she asked, her eyes flicking briefly to her service pistol awkwardly grasped in his hand.
"Well, I've never hunted werewolves, if that's what you're asking, love," Klaus snapped, adding, "but it doesn't seem as though you have, either."
They did not have time for his shit. "No, but I made a promise to your brother that I'd protect you, and that's what I'm trying to do. Now, if you're as smart as he says you are, you'll realize that the first rule of survival is to use whatever tools you have to stay alive." She grabbed her pistol from him and hissed, "This is a tool. And the tips I give you on how to use it just might keep you alive long enough to be someone else's pain in the ass."
His expression cleared at her words, and while his lips seemed to twitch at the corners, he nodded once and said quietly, "I understand."
"I keep my SIG cleaned and it's been broken in so there aren't any lock back issues, but make sure your thumb doesn't brush against the slide catch lever," Caroline instructed, pointing out the mechanism before carefully molding his hand around the grip. "A weak hold, also known as 'limp wristing' can result in recoil or jammed ammunition in some cases, so always keep your grip steady and strong."
He eyed the gun dubiously but nodded at her instructions. His lips curved into a smirk as he teased, "I can assure you, sweetheart, no one has ever complained about the steadiness of my grip."
Rolling her eyes, she dropped her hands from his and stepped away, flicking the tip of her long braid off of her shoulder as she retorted, "So they only complain about your strength, then?" She relished the way his jaw tightened at her mocking tone, but tried to school her features into something more benign as she busied herself testing the magazine release on her submachine gun.
"And how do you manage to avoid recoil on that canon, then," Klaus asked defensively, pointing at the submachine gun in her grip.
"Experience," Caroline answered bluntly, slinging the weapon's canvas strap over her shoulder once more. She thought back to that mission in Kazakhstan when her team had been sent in to remove the corrupt minister from power. "Although even after years of training and field hours clocked, I still managed to screw up a mission when my gun recoiled and I accidentally shot off a cathedral spire." She laughed softly, recalling the astonished look on her team's faces when they realized what she'd done. "Kol actually had to step in and save the mission. Without his quick thinking, we would've failed."
A look of surprise flashed across his handsome face. He seemed somewhat hesitant as he asked, "My brother...he doesn't talk about your work very much. Is there anything you can share?"
"For security clearance reasons, there's not much I can tell you." She heard the concern in his voice, and was charmed by his obvious love for his brother. She thought back to all of the missions bathed in blood — the danger, the intense exhilaration that occasionally worried her...and wasn't sure of what she should say. "There's no denying a certain darkness to what we do, but Kol always does what is necessary and somehow manages to keep the shadows at bay. He's been an officer on my team as well as my friend for years and you can be proud of who your brother is."
He favored her with a small smile, tinged with a hint of sadness. "I've always been proud of Kol. It's supposed to be my job to protect my siblings, not the other way around."
She squeezed his hand, telling him gently, "Kol told me how you saved your siblings from your father. You're a brave man, Klaus." Leveling him with a serious gaze, she revealed, "And when he found out you were in trouble, he told me that he refused to allow the last time you saw each other to be that weekend so long ago. Family is important to all of us."
"Stefan talks about you quite a bit — not your work, obviously, but he told me about how you took care of him and Damon after your father left you and your mother died. Taking on so much responsibility at such a young age is very admirable. You saved your family. It's obvious how proud he is of your accomplishments," Klaus offered, his praise making her uncomfortably warm.
Caroline bowed her head, her voice unexpectedly ragged as she whispered, "I couldn't save all of my family. Damon...was lost to us and I wish I could've done more for him." She closed her eyes, unwelcome memories of a dark time flooding her mind.
She was absolutely furious. She marched across the weed-choked yard full of old tires and rusted car frames, glaring at the scrawny, stringy-haired man at the torn screen door. "No drop ins allowed. We're booked up, girlie," he grunted. He gave her a quick once over, scratching his pock-marked cheek as he said, "Unless you're lookin' to make some easy cash, then you've come to the right place."
Caroline felt her gorge rise, unwillingly breathing in the fetid smells of unwashed bodies and cigarettes as she stepped closer to this 'madam' of a trashy brothel. She snapped her elbow out, catching him in the throat with a satisfying thump. "Damon Salvatore," she spat, hating the slight tremble in her voice. "He's here, isn't he?"
"That's a need-to-know basis, bitch," he wheezed, doubled over in pain.
She saw red as she slammed her boot on top of his bare foot, gripping his throat tightly as she seethed before his terrified eyes, "I'm his sister, you little shit. And while I 'need to know,' you don't need to be here at all. In fact, I can make it so you aren't anywhere ever again." She tossed him to the dirt littered with cigarette butts and stepped over his groaning form and into the dilapidated trailer.
Mötley Crüe was blasting through the cramped, smoke-filled space. She winced as she saw the naked bodies through an open doorway, writhing on a filthy mattress on the plywood floor. Realizing her brother wasn't among them, she moved quickly to the other side of the trailer to bang her fist on a closed bedroom door.
"Fuck off, man. Paid up through the afternoon," Damon's voice slurred through the door.
Caroline didn't bother responding. She kicked in the cheap wooden door and immediately felt a flare of anger surge through her body as she saw her pale, sweaty brother sprawled across a faded lawn chair with a ragged black shoelace still tied to his arm. She kicked aside the burned spoons, needles, and empty baggies smeared with white residue to stand over him in disgust. "Get up," she snarled, tipping over the lounge chair until it dumped him on the dirty floor.
A low moan in the corner drew her attention and she whirled around to find a skeletal woman with scabs along most of her torso struggling to get up. Caroline found a wrinkled dress wadded under the radiator and tossed it at her, commanding, "Get out. Now."
Once they were alone, she rooted around the filthy room until she finally found a pair of stained jeans and hurled them at her brother, breathing in the pungent smell of vinegar — a telltale sign of cheap smack. "So, what's your dealer cutting your heroin with these days, Damon? Detergent? Rat poison? How many hookers are you sharing dirty needles with? Tell me," she demanded, spying the draining abscess in the crook of his arm.
"I didn't ask you to come here, Caroline," he mumbled, struggling to pull on his jeans. "Don't need you to save me. I save me. Been doin' it all my life."
Caroline scoffed. "Seriously?! You can save yourself? You can't even find your shoes right now!" She watched him fall back into the sagging patio chair, his icy blue eyes glassy and unfocused.
"Don't have a choice...all by myself because I'm not perfect like stupid Stefan and his stupid brain," Damon slurred, seemingly fascinated by the flecks of blood and vomit on the splintered plywood floor.
Feeling a pang in her heart at his words, she knelt down beside him, her voice hitching as she swore, "Damon, you don't have to be perfect. Stefan's not perfect. You're both my baby brothers and I love you just the same. We're family." Sniffing back tears she confessed, "That's why it hurts us both so much when we know you're hurting yourself. You're my blood, Damon. And I'll always look after you. So, will you please just let me help?"
He rubbed his sweaty forehead, asking her tiredly, "'Member when we were kids and Stefan wanted to play checkers but we couldn't afford the game?"
Surprised, Caroline nodded, allowing herself to smile slightly at the memory of turning saltine crackers into checkers by smearing half with peanut butter and the other half with jelly and making a checkerboard using a marker on taped-together notebook paper. It had been fun teaching her brothers how to play, pretending to scold them when they kept eating the game pieces when her back was turned.
"Always fixing everything, big sister," Damon continued wistfully, "But you can't fix me. Too broken."
Shaking her head, she pulled him into a fierce hug, telling him forcefully, "No! Nothing's too broken. It's not too late, little brother." She felt his body shake against hers, and his painful sobs tore at her heart.
In that moment, she'd allowed herself to believe in Damon's desire to change and her ability to see him through his terrible addiction. She'd still been in the National Guard and her salary was already stretched too thin, so she'd taken a second mortgage out on their family home to pay for Damon's rehab. The medical staff had warned her that his withdrawals would be severe, but Damon hadn't even lasted through that weekend. He'd waited until the staff was changing shifts and then walked out the door in stolen nurse scrubs, not surfacing again for several months.
"I'm sure you did everything you could for Damon. You've sacrificed so much for your brothers," Klaus told her, breaking into her troubled thoughts.
She cleared her throat, trying to keep her voice from breaking as she revealed, "It's still so hard to accept that the kid I taught how to play checkers overdosed while I was thousands of miles away."
Brows knit in concern, he answered, "We have that in common, then, sweetheart. The endless guilt of a caretaker. The first school trip I allowed myself to go on, thinking our father would be too drunk to realize my younger siblings were staying at our neighbor's home while I was gone, was a disaster. Unfortunately, he sobered up at some point and realized where they were, and yanked them down the block until he fractured my little sister Rebekah's arm."
Horrified, Caroline squeezed his hand. "Klaus, that's awful. I'm so sorry."
He regarded her gravely, shrugging as though trying to cast off his own demons — a gesture she'd perfected over the years. "Life can be messy and cruel. I've learned over the years to focus on my work instead. Maybe not the best way to deal with it, but I suspect we have that in common as well."
Caroline felt herself smile at his words, despite everything she'd just relived in her mind. "You're more right than you know," she acknowledged, thinking of how her entire world revolved around the next mission. Maybe it would be nice to take some time for something else. Something new. She shook her head, not wanting to deal with those inconvenient thoughts at the moment. "So, we're about halfway to the control room where Katherine's group is holed up. According to the schematics, there's an air duct tunnel that we can take the rest of the way once we find the access panel."
"Okay, sounds simple enough, love. Lead the way," he said, gesturing toward the next corridor. They quietly moved down the hall, the rubber soles of her boots specially made to absorb noise. She was on high alert, constantly checking the perimeter while keeping Klaus in her peripheral view. She noticed that despite the tense lines of his body, he moved with a fluid, confident grace that kept trying to distract her from their mission.
The scraping noise began slowly, barely a whisper before it grew into a steady hum that set Caroline's teeth on edge. She realized with a start that the scraping was too varied to be pipes or ductwork. One of the creatures had found them.