Thank you all so much for your patience with me for not uploading, you are all amazing!
And also a huge thanks for your reviews/follows/favourites.
I wont be uploading this every Monday now, just as soon as the chapters are finished. We have three left! :( and I'm so sad to see this end. Without all your support I wouldn't have got this far! Your all diamonds xD
When Hope got off the phone to her Uncle Elijah, telling them to make room on the table for a guest, the trio made their way back to the Mikaelson residence. Caroline sent a quick text to Bonnie to let her know of her whereabouts and that she was safe.
Caroline felt a knot in her stomach tighten with each step she took in the direction of the Abattoir. Her nerves escalated at the thought of having dinner with the Mikaelsons, especially considering their past back in Mystic Falls. She knew Klaus and Kol forgave her and vice versa. She was a teenager back then, trying to keep her friends and self alive from ancient creatures while battling her own demons.
Elijah and the new sister Freya were wild cards. She never interacted with the noble brother when he was in town, Elijah always either trying to kill Klaus or saving his family at the time. With Freya, she only saw her for the first time earlier that day. Kol talked about her whenever they met up and from his stories, her personality seemed to share a few traces of her siblings' so she was a definite wild card.
Rebekah and Hayley, on the other hand, were predictable. They used to dislike her for whatever reasons that weren't clear to her at the time and they held onto that grudge. Caroline just wanted to call it water under the bridge and attempt to get along since she planned to stay for awhile. But, even if that didn't work out, she was sure she could evade them better in New Orleans than Mystic Falls.
Caroline walked behind Hope and Klaus, taking her time to admire him from behind, especially paying attention to the way his jeans looked way too good on him. They led her into their dining room, the smell of food and dessert wafering from the kitchen and the sound of the Mikaelson family conversing in the dining room already.
As she entered the lavish dining room, Hope announced that she was going to be their guest. Caroline tried to ignore Rebekah's snort and Hayley sneering at her presence as Klaus subtly guided her with gentle hand on the small of her back to her seat next to him.
"Oh, it's you," Rebekah muttered between her gritted teeth, unamused by her presence as Hayley giggled alongside her.
"Bekah," Klaus growled lowly, silencing his sister.
She was thankful that Kol sat on the other side of her and Hope across from her so she wouldn't have to directly hear the snide comments Rebekah and Hayley made under their breaths.
Dinner started off awkward to say the least. Elijah and Freya interrogated her throughout appetisers and halfway into the main course about who she was and how she met the family. Elijah was curious to know if she still had connections to Elena and the Salvatores. Klaus seemingly had enough of trying to change the conversation and distract her from their overwhelming personalities, because it looked as if he was about to implode on his siblings until Kol came to their rescue.
"So, how is Bonnie lass doing? Missing me yet?" He waggled his eyebrow suggestively "I know you did."
"Like a stake in the heart," Caroline tried to sound as serious as she could, but fell flat at her friend's outrageously fake hurt expression, clutching his chest for emphasis.
"Oh darling, if I had a heart you would have broken it," He bantered back gleefully, the rest of the family staring at their joke in confusion and in Klaus' case: jealousy.
The pair was so used to that type of greeting every time they met up, they forgot the other occupants in the room. "So I heard Antonio's wife disappeared a few months ago and was found dead the other day," He gasped theatrically, his siblings curious as to why he brought the subject up.
"Yeah well, she helped him hurt Bonnie," Caroline told him sternly, knowing he would have been impressed with the creativeness she used in capturing the elder vampire.
Bonnie being hurt was off limits and the pair shared the sentiment of making the offender's death as painful as possible. Antonio got lucky, Kol had torn his heart out in rage so it was only fair that his wife had paid the price for them both.
"Wait, you know the D'Avalos?" Rebekah interrupted the conversation, outraged.
"They were great friends and allies to our family for centuries while we stayed in Ravenna, how dare you kill them!" she shouted while slamming her hands down at the table, standing up ready to tear her head off by the look in her eyes.
Caroline was fed up with Rebekah's attitude towards her, and put down her fork, looking up to meet the other blonde's eyes.
"They were leading a group planning to kidnap Hope and kill her. They had to die," Caroline responded coldly, yet passionately.
"It was you killing the supernaturals," Klaus concluded, taken back by the vampire next to him.
There had been hundreds of witches, wolves, and vampire deaths in the past decade that left everyone confused and suspicious of the circumstances that came about their deaths. He took another long look at her when she turned around to answer him. She still retained the light he loved within her, it glowed more surprisingly, even with the knowledge of the deaths she orchestrated.
"They were all involved in a plan to harm your daughter, Klaus. You had enough trouble with that here than to deal with the rest of the world finding out about her" her voice softened as she spoke to Klaus. "Besides, I had Bonnie and Enzo helping me."
"Miss Forbes, if you could please elaborate?" Elijah asked, subtly demanding information on the deaths.
"It's not as if we went looking for the trouble. Enzo, Bonnie and I were relaxing one day shopping in London when we heard a few vampires mention a plot against the Mikaelsons. It was around Hope's 5th birthday. The news had travelled over to England and stupidly said where they were meeting with others to smooth a plan out. They were recruiting, so me and Enzo kind of agreed to help them," Caroline explained, thinking back to the first time they took out a group of vampires. "Then once we knew that everyone aware of the plan was present, a tragic awful warehouse fire took place. It was quite lucky that no one was harmed during the arson attack."
"Was everyone you killed going to harm my niece?"
"Like I said, we didn't go looking for for trouble. We were just travelling around having fun and if we heard anything, we made sure to switch it up a bit. Bonnie de-spelled daylight rings from afar. Then we came across Antonio. He just found out we were betraying them and their tiny, pathetic army and was going to kill Bonnie. It was a good job Kol came in and tore his heart out when he did or neither of us would be alive."
"Oh, fun times. I always thought he'd be trouble one day. Her and Bonnie-lass thought I was there to kill them myself after their involvement in my death."
"How many times have I got to tell you that we didn't know until afterwards and was on cleanup duty?"
"I still died," Kol shrugged nonchalantly. "Anyways, after they calmed down, we had a few drinks and told me what happened. There were a few people I didn't trust to stay alive with my niece roaming around the world and breathing, so I gave them a few leads to track down and helped when we met up."
"You swore you had nothing to do with the deaths," Klaus spat at Kol.
"And I didn't lie. You just never asked about the deaths afterwards."
"So, you've been protecting my daughter all this time and we didn't know about it?" Hayley cut in finally.
"Well I didn't do it for you," Caroline whispered. "But, yeah."
"Thank you," Hayley spoke sincerely, even if it left a bitter taste in her mouth at who it was directed to. "This doesn't make us friends."
"Oh hell no! But I do want to be civil with you all at least. I wanna stay here for a while and I want to make it clear that I don't want to step on anyone toes."
There was a moment of silence as everyone absorbed the events of the meal.
"Wait, you were up against wolves? What if you had been bitten or killed, Caroline?" Klaus questioned, trying to maintain his fear from being seen.
"I can handle myself fine, thank you very much," she tried to muster up a teasing scoff. "Plus, if I had been bitten, I would have been here much sooner than now."
She winked back at him trying to calm him down, luckily it worked in her favour and everyone settled back down to finish their meal.