"She is .. WHERE?" Klaus growled. He had bitten Caroline twelve hours ago, expecting her to change her mind within the approximately six hours she would have left to live if he didn´t give her his blood, he had expected to come back and find her miserably lying on her lonely bed, crying about her misery. He had expected anything but what Thomas had just told him.

Caroline was not lying on her death bed miserably, she was not even in her room. She was at the last place he would have presumed her to be, in the dining hall, along with all the other inmates.

"Explain." he snarled, holding Thomas up by his throat. "Before I kill you."

The handsome red-head struggled for air, he hadn´t been needing in centuries. "The other inmates, sir, they... asked for her. " he barely managed to spit out. Klaus scrunched and eye brow before carelessly dropping his long-time friend to the ground, nodding at him to elaborate.

"She´s been hanging out with them every day for the past couple of decades. With her... current condition... we did try to keep her away, but when she didn´t come to the hall after her regular session with us... the others suspected foul play. We were close to a mutiny before we had to give her to them. ... And when the others saw her injury, they decided to stay with her until ... whatever end there´ll be."

"You mean to tell me that you cannot even control the inmates in your own prison?"

"Usually, I can. Me and my staff, we can usually break them apart and everything, ... it´s just different with her."

"Different how?" he barked.

"There aren´t any other female inmates, and those that had been previously... didn´t last long. When she first interacted with them, they tried to break her... so she ... broke them back. Just like she did with most of my men. But... when she was done with the breaking she ... picked them back up again. Within a few months, she was... theirs." Thomas said, struggling to find the right words for the odd relationship entertained with his 43 other inmates.

"What do you mean, theirs?"

"They´d tell her stories, they´d teach her languages... they take care of her ... after her ... after her "sessions.". I tried stopping it, it nearly cost me the entire prison. Separating them insulted in her publicly trying to kill herself and them openly revolting. She´s become something similar to their deity, only less religious. She´s their essence. They hold on to her, they care for her... each of them in his own sick way... they refuse to give up on her until she´s drawn her last breath."

"Which she´ll breath, once she´s told me everything." Klaus commented, abandoning Thomas to pour himself some Bourbon.

"Which she won´t do until you have agreed to her conditions." Thomas mumbled ominously. Over the past 86 years, he had learned plenty of Caroline Forbes' stubbornness.

"We´ll see, old friend, won´t we?" Klaus chuckled darkly.

Thirty minutes later he was walking into the dining hall. It wasn´t much of a cafeteria, more like a huge room, filled with abandoned cups that used to hold daily blood ratios. There were a couple of books on shelves that had been cemented into the wall. All the chairs and tables and anything resembling furniture was made of magically enhanced metal, ensuring that the inmates would not stake each other. Over the years, there were even a few pillows and blankets and beanie bags added as recreational spaces for the few vampires that were on top of the current food chain.

Also, in order to take off some of the tension in this place, there were a few enforced punching bags and a crayon and paint drawing area for the feeble-minded. For the sexually frustrated there were secluded areas, for desperation breeds strange friendships. Some of the inmates had been in here since Klaus and his siblings had set up the place. Homosexuality had long ceased to be a prerequisite for loneliness in here. Of course, that place was also camera-supervised, just like everything else.

When Klaus entered, he found a scene he had not quite anticipated, the inmates were gathered around a long-haired blonde man, seated on a super-sized pillow, cradling something he obviously held dear in his arms. The man holding Caroline looked eerily like her long-lost twin. His eyes were blue-green, like hers, his hair had her shade of gold. Even his skin held a porcelain tone.

Caroline was no longer in her straightjacket, instead she wore a loose pair of light-brown shorts and a white tank-top. Her forehead was sweaty, her breathing hollow. She was closer to death than he had calculated.

The blonde man cradling her, slowly bit into his own wrist, offering her his blood.

"Noah, we both know that won´t save me."

"But it´ll make you better, Care." he responded softly.

"You know, it´ll be okay, right? I don't mind the dying part." she gently said, a soft smile gracing her lips, reminding Klaus of the girl he had once placed into this hell.

"But we all do. You´re part of a bigger plan. Your job is to leave this abyss and do as you promised you would do, if you ever went free." he smiled, worry creazing his forehead.

"Maybe I´ll be able to keep my promise from the other side." she answered. "You know how well I get along with ghosts."

"That´s a chance we all won´t take, you need to still see the world and take us with you." he hummed.

"Okay," she answered tiredly, drifting off slightly into her own head. "Then we´ll all travel the world." She sounded like a six-year old, not like a 87 year-old vampire.

Klaus didn´t understand most of the conversation, but chalked it up to her diminishing lucidity, the hallucinations had probably already started.

"Now, doesn´t that look cozy?" he spat, glaring at Caroline and this Noah-guy.

"Who are you?" Caroline's protector barked darkly.

"That depends" Caroline coughed weakly. "Do you also see a blond-haired smirk-ridden dude with a British accent?"

"Yes, Care. That would be him." Noah answered softly.

"Great, for a second I was wondering whether he was a hallucination. Noah... that is misery man. Misery man, that is Noah. But I suppose, Noah, he won´t mind you calling him Klaus." she explained gently but with a hint of darkness.

The other inmates started to whisper, at the mention of Klaus. He was used to shushed voices uttering his name in awe once his identity was revealed, however, this time, there was no awe, no respect. The stares and voices held only contempt. Several moved to put themselves between him and Caroline. Klaus immediately knew that these rejects did not care for his superior strength or his dark reputation, they only cared for the girl.

"You look tired, Caroline." he smiled, ignoring the stares and the scoffs surrounding him, focusing solely onto her apparent exhaustion.

"Wow... you came to gloat... how impressive." she yawned, cuddling deeper into Noah's arms. Her secret twin eyed Klaus with hatred.

"You know, all you need to do is tell me what I want to know, love. It´s that simple."

"Yes, so you can simply leave me to die after I finish talking. Amazing, really. Now, since you plan on letting me die whether I talk or not... how about you just leave." Caroline continued to yawn, boredom coloring her voice.

"Caroline, of course I´ll feed you my blood. I always keep my promises."

"Yes, but after she´s done healing you´ll have her killed anyway." Noah interrupted, cleaning sweat of the dying vampire's forehead.

"Stay out of this, boy... before I dispose of you." Klaus answered not even looking at him.

"Kill him, or rather kill any of my friends, and you can choke on your precious blood." Caroline roared, using all of her strength to shoot up and glare at the hybrid.

"Sweetheart..." Klaus spat, dangerously.

"Shut up, Niklaus. Just shut up. I know you somehow can't wrap your mind around the fact that even though your blood is the only thing that could save me, I am not prepared to play your game. So let me tell you the rules of this game. There are two - and by two I mean EXACTLY two ways this story can end: Version one, you refuse to give in to my demands and I refuse your blood and die, slash I refuse your blood, you force it down my throat and I just find another way to kill myself. Version two: You agree to my terms, heal me and the story continues. There are no other versions, there will be no negotiations and if you´re too daft to comprehend this, get me some of those crayons and I´ll doodle you a picture. And if you think that threatening my friends will help you at all... you´re really not prepared to deal with me. Didn´t Thomas tell you about me or are you just purposefully stupid?" When she was done with her rant, she started coughing up blood, causing Noah to cradle her again, holding her until the coughing stopped.

"Great... this time I am also coughing." she uttered.

"You need blood, Care." Noah said, showing his wrist into her mouth. Klaus noticed her feeble struggles before she finally gave in to her friend's help.

Klaus watched the two, mesmerized by the sensual way she seemed to drink of her lover. The memory of how her teeth once used to bite into his wrist like that snuck up on him, a surge of jealousy leafed through him along with anger. Anger about her managing to gain a lover and admirers when she was supposed to be lonely and miserable and alone. But also arousal at the sensuality in her lips and in the veins covering her vampire features. It was a sight of beauty.

"Thank you." she whispered, a smile gracing her lips.

"My siblings won´t agree to your terms, Caroline" Klaus explained nonchalantly.

"Not my problem, Klaus." she answered, her eyes never leaving Noah's.

With that, her sole focus became Noah. Klaus studied his face, trying to remember if he or his siblings had put him there, but came up empty in his mental search. The way she looked at him was so tender and lovingly.

"You´re in pain, Care." he grunted, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

"Well... what do you want to do about it?" she asked tiredly.

He smiled softly, before letting his hand trail towards her shorts. She gave him a playful and it started to wander beneath the fabric. Klaus couldn´t believe his eyes. The sweet girl that had once captivated him was allowing this guy, her almost-twin, to touch her like that. With him watching. On hear deathbed. The familiarity between them sickened him. He quickly gazed around and absorbed the unperturbed worry in the other inmates' faces. Like her getting a hand job from them was normality, like it was not enough out of the ordinary for them to stop caring about her rather than the act she was about to commit.

"We weren't done talking, love." he said, as he roughly pushed Noah away from her, catching her in his arms. His inner wolf apparent in his yellow eyes.

"Then talk" she softly hummed.

"I want all the answers, everything about what you did and not just that tiny piece of information. In exchange, I will ... let you go free." he spat.

"What about the blood oath?" she asked, the eerie smile never leaving her face.

"Fine". His voice was dark and dooming.

For a second they had a post knock-out stand-off, the dying winner and the all-powerful defeated trying to talk to each other without so much as a word.

Her eyes softened, matching her smile. "That must have been difficult for you." she said, not a hint of gloating in her tone.

Klaus only held out his wrist. "Just have at it and let´s get out of here." he said flatly.

"We need to talk about condition number two first, otherwise we´ll be right back here again in less than two minutes." she said, gently caressing his face. Her hand felt cold and distant though, but her eyes were intimate. He could hear Noah and some of the others growl as they looked on.

"And what condition would that be, love?" he asked, his anger demanding release, but his tone hiding it nonetheless.

" I don´t trust you. Not even with a blood oath sworn onto your siblings' life. I just don´t. I think the second you know what you need to know, you´ll start searching for a way around the oath. So I am going to divide the information. I´ll give you the truth about that night, all of it, except for the crucial information two weeks after the oath has taken place. I would tell you right away, but I´ll need props for this type of story-telling. As for the information you need, I´ll deliver it to you 25 years after that. So just in case you have already know how to cheat that oath, I`ll at least have had some more time for myself. I´ll get to life 25 years of my choosing, you, I am afraid, will have to wait a little longer." Her explanation had knocked the force out of her as she started coughing. Oddly enough, Klaus found himself stroking her back, telling himself it was to demand her attention back onto their negotiation.

"I told you my time frame is limited."

Another wave of blood came out of her mouth, her end was near. "You managed to wait 86 years, you can wait 25 for more. And don´t even think about negotiating that one down, or you´ll find yourself waiting 50 more years instead." she spat, giving in to the excruciating pain that filled her blood.

He couldn't win this battle. The thought was imminent as it was calming. He was known to never cave and to always have the upper hand, but that was more based upon the fact that he had until this very moment always had exactly that. She wouldn´t budge. Caroline Forbes would rather die on him and take her secrets to the grave then giving in. It dawned on him that she could be making this so much more humiliating, so much more humbling on him, but she didn´t. She merely refused to budge.

"As you wish." he said, after a heavy, collected, calm sigh.

She studied him, appraised his sincerity. For almost longer than she had left to live, she wavered, wondering if it was finally over, before she timidly took his hands, pulling his wrist closer to her mouth.

The sensation over her mouth on his skin and her teeth in his veins was nothing like it had been the previous two times. She was not just taking his blood, she was biting into him like a devious hyena, and nearly taking the entire limb of. Every suction, every scraping of her teeth a deliberate attempt to make this as unpleasant and painful to him as possible. Her previous softness gone. He hesitation evaporated with the first drop of blood. She was savage and raw, punitive and enraged, and she made sure he knew that.

Niklaus Mikaelson did not cry out or scream, but he did feel pain and if it weren´t for the fact that he had to be sure she was healing properly, he would have taken her head off. She had caught him of guard, with her timid and shy touch and her soft smile, she had not just been keeping her stubbornness, she had gained malice, a malice mirroring his own punitive ways.

When she was done, she used her last ounce of strength before the inevitable loss of consciousness would hit her, to scramble back up and walk towards her lover. Her almost-twin. The blonde picked her tiny frame up carefully and carried her up to the nearest window sill, letting her drift off with her favourite view in front of her tired eyes: Freedom.

Klaus just stood there, amongst her admirers and friends, mesmerized by the apparent softness that had returned to her, shocked by the vicious animal that second ago had torn at his flesh, humbled by her new gained freedom.

In this moment he hated her more than he had ever hated anyone, for bringing him down, for winning and mostly for making him hate her in the first place.

So... finally... the third chapter. That one took so damn long simply because it was such a bore to write, I have so many things planned and him saving her ... now that one was obvious. So my apologies if this chapter is a let-down...but it´s a filler chapter that was just a pain in the butt to write. I am glad I got this one over with.