Of course Alaric is awesome. I started this for two reasons: Dalaric! and f***, Ric needs to be the most awesome and badass character, damn it! This guy is just so unlucky in everything I feel he has to compensate by being awesome.


Up to 3x19


Each a monster, part 35: Our crimes are mine as well as his

Meredith took a deep breath, and then looked at the still form of Alaric Saltzman on the back seat.

He was only knocked out. Good. The teacher definitely didn't need to die once more, for each time he had died had most likely messed with his brain a bit more, and that badly enough to create an evil alter-ego hell bent on eradicating every kind of supernatural creatures that was a danger to humanity or had the potential to help / create others potential non-human threats. That is, vampires, werewolves, hybrids, but not only. Cursed people who, such as himself, were a danger to the normal human being. Witches, who had created those monsters, too. And maybe, if he had time, the people who covered up the supernatural side of the world.

Meredith looked at Damon Salvatore, who had just destroyed the door of her car to stop his lover from strangling her. She decided she wasn't going to hold it against him.

The vampire looked quite surprised at the situtation he had just prevented from going astray.

"Could I get an explanation now?"

The doctor got out of her car, wincing.

"The murders. It happened before. Samantha..."

"Samantha Gilbert, I know. But what does it have to do with Ric?"

"Gilbert ring. Died too often, went mad, started murdering people her alter-ego considered to have failed the town's people."

Damon raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"Alter-ego?"

"Later. Since you're here, give him some of your blood. And help me get him to the scan room. I want to see if there is anything scientific about the madness. If yes, maybe we can help him with the right medication."

Damon said nothing about her wish to drug Alaric, because she was right. They needed to do something about this alter-ego, and simply telling Ric about him would surely not suffice.

There was nothing visible on the scans, and in the end they called Bonnie to the rescue. The witch was busy with her mother's turning, and Caroline promised she'd take the herbs back to Mystic Falls. Alaric was under watch, and he felt particularly bad when it was the blonde's turn to watch him. Magdalena had decided she'd stay in Mystic Falls for the time being, and he had been lucky enough for her visits to coincide with most of Caroline's watchs. Though, lucky was an approximative adjective, since his cousin had started questioning him about the strangeness of Mystic Falls. If the teacher wasn't careful enough, there would soon be another Saltzman in the know in town, and he wasn't sure it was a good idea.

Nonetheless, each time he saw Caroline... He had killed her father, for God's sake!

They both were at the boarding house, Damon having decreed he wouldn't let his favorite hunter to brood in his loft when there was everything they needed at his home. Books, and much alcohol. And a comfy king-sized bed to do "things".

The vampire had been rather put out when he had been told they wouldn't be doing "things".

But he hadn't complained, when Alaric had pointed out the hunter could very well come out while they'd be doing "things", or that, actually, it could very well have already happened.

As kinky as it sounded, Damon had not fancied the idea of being at the mercy of the vampire hater / hunter if he decided to appear when he'd have his legs spread and Ric's cock deep in his ass.

But for now, Damon was busy making how-to-kill-an-Original-in-seven-simple-steps plans, and it was Caroline's turn to make sure Alaric wasn't going back to being an evil bastard whose dearest wish was to see them all dead.

And the vampire couldn't help but feel torn between anger and pity for her history teacher.

Pity, because he had no way of stopping his alter-ego.

From what she knew, he had always had a difficult life, being a Falkenbach and all, and then with Isobel and Mystic Falls and everything. He had often needed to battle against himself, his ease with killing, and coming to the small town hadn't helped. Here, he had to kill often, because it was kill or be killed. His victims were vampires, mostly, and that was alright, and at the same time it wasn't, because the man had learned they weren't all evil, and sometimes he had the temptation to end all his problems with humans as he did with vampires, to protect the ones he cared for, to make the men and women who knew and could talk shut up. But Alaric Saltzman had never had to fight a man that was himself and yet didn't care about the same things, a man who was here when he wasn't, and wasn't here when he was.

Anger, not because he had killed her father, that was the hunter's doing, but because he wouldn't see it wasn't his fault, in fact.

It wasn't as if he had asked to be killed so many times he'd turn crazy.

Caroline looked one last time at the man lying on the Salvatores' sofa with a grim expression on his face before deciding she had enough of his attitude.

"Don't look like that, Ric. It's not your fault."

The teacher looked at the young vampire, and there was self-hatred in his eyes.

"Of course it is. I did it."

"Your body did it. The hunter did it. You didn't."

And that was true. Alaric had been nowhere near conscious when the hunter had acted. When he had killed the medical examiner, when he had killed her father, when he had put himself on the edge of life and death to force Elena to finish him off, the teacher hadn't known.

Maybe that explained why he had told them of Klaus mentioning a conversation he didn't recall.

Caroline pushed the original hybrid out of her head. Well, she tried, at least.

No matter how many time she told him "no", he came back, and now he was doing the exact same thing even when he wasn't present. Caroline was sure it wasn't good news.

Even if Tyler and her were growing away since he had become a hybrid. Seriously, the guy was going back to the asshole he had been before triggering his lycanthropy.

Klaus, on the other hand, had always been the same bastard, and...

And it was definitely not the time to think about the bastard.

Caroline refocused on the conversation.

"Even if what you say was true, Caroline, the hunter is still part of me. He's something, someone I could have become if things had turned out differently. He's someone I became, or else he wouldn't be here. It's not because I'm here too, that he isn't me. We are two versions of the same person, and our crimes are mine as well as his. And the worst is that I'm no regular human. I have the skills, the strength and the instincts to murder someone as easily as to make tea. And so, he has said skills, strength and instincts. The only thing that made me human, and not only a monster, was that I didn't have the will to kill. But he does."

Yeah, right, that was problematic, but nothing they couldn't handle.

"We have Bonnie's herbs. You'll be alright, and we'll get rid of the hunter sooner or later."

"Just make sure it's before I kill someone else."

Alaric had only mumbled the last part, but he had no doubt Caroline had heard him. And not to his surprise, she didn't let him get away with it.

The young vampire knew she had to say something, so she talked. She talked, about things she'd rather forget. She talked about the first and only innocent she had killed, and how, then, she had understood that no matter what she pretended, she wasn't the same anymore, and would never be again. She talked about the time she had had to kill two deputies right before her mother, to save the Salvatore brothers, and that even if she knew they weren't angels either, and made no distinction between vampires – all monsters, all evil – she also knew they probably had a family, and people who needed them out there. She talked about the looks her mother had given her in the cell that was in the underground of the boarding house, the days that had followed. She talked about things she didn't even know she was disturbed about, and soon enough, as she talked about Tyler, she stopped talking all of a sudden. She had been about to talk about Klaus' gifts.

Alaric couldn't ignore it, and for a while he forgot his own problems.

After half a hour of merciless prodding, the teacher was surprised enough by his interrogation to have a big smirk on his face. Sure, the Original Bastard wasn't the guy he'd have advised his student to date, then again, it wasn't his business, and it was always better to know your true feelings. That way, maybe Caroline could get rid of them.

Or maybe not.

But if she had remained ignorant, they'd surely have stayed in the back of her mind, without being allowed to get out. You didn't open your door to someone you didn't even know to be here, be it for them to come in, or to get out.

Anyway, for now, Caroline was the one gasping with a glass of bourbon in her hand. She wasn't sure when she had started drinking in her tales, but she sure as hell knew why, now.

"Oh my God I'm falling for Klaus! Someone tell me I'm crazy, please!"

She sent the history teacher a pleading look, but he shrugged it off.

"Don't look at me. I'm dating a guy who killed me twice. I'm no example."

Unfortunately for her, they had a visitor, and the windows were open for some reason. The visitor had heard it all with his super-damned-vampire-way-too-cheated-hearing. He had been searching for Caroline Forbes, and still didn't know why she was confined with the Falkenbach, but he couldn't say he wasn't pleased by what he had heard so far.

So, being way too pleased with himself, Klaus rang the doorbell of the boarding house.

He wasn't going to try his luck and come in, but that didn't mean he couldn't be sassy and invite the younger vampire to dinner from the doorstep.

When the door opened on the Original's face, Caroline blinked, flushed, and thought of slamming the door right away.

She didn't have the time to do it.

"Look at him if that's all it takes for you to love me, Sweetheart."

Panic took over.

"You heard that! Oh my God he heard that!"

And she closed the door to his face.

Klaus shrugged. It wasn't as good as acceptance, but it was far from a refusal. He'd wait. He had time, after all, and so did Caroline. She wouldn't say no forever. He'd wait.

Even if that meant he'd have to behave about killing off her friends.

When Caroline got back to the library, the history teacher was back to brooding.

The next days proved to be rather hectic.

Then again, when were they not in Mystic Falls?

If Alaric had had to resume what happened during those days, he'd have said "shit happened, and then the end of the world". Not refined, true, but far from wrong. Between learning that killing an Original killed all the bloodline, and surprise! – they didn't know who was Stefan, Damon and Caroline's sire! – forcing Stefan to threaten the hunter into revealing where the hell he had hidden the white oak stake, between Klaus learning about his alter-ego issue and Damon dealing as badly as ever with angry Originals, these days had been hell.

It was even worst that he couldn't really do anything to help, unless maybe kill himself, but Damon had gotten him off vervain and compelled him not to do that, just in case.

Damn it.

Why had he fallen in love again?

If there is one thing I agree with you about, Alaric, that would be it. Why did you feel the need to fall in love with a monster, really? It's bad enough that you still are the strongest personality, but I also have to deal with my feelings for a vampire I am bound to obliterate. You swore to make our life hell, didn't you?

The thought startled him, but Alaric didn't have the time to ponder about the fact that the hunter and him had grown close enough for that to happen. If he had had the time, he'd have been terrified, for it meant the other one was about to take control permanently, for it meant the hunter would soon be Alaric Saltzman, and himself would only be a memory, somewhere in the madman's subconscious.

He didn't have the time, because Klaus was there and determined to get the hunter to talk.

It was quick, and painless.

But maybe it was because he was becoming accustomed to dying. Or because it was so quick he didn't have the time to register the pain. Alaric wasn't sure.

What he knew, on the other hand, was that he died a sixth time.