** A/N ** Sorry for the cheesy title, but I simply could not help myself. This is the defining Klaroline chapter, hence the length :P , but it is only the top of another exciting iceberg which I will leave to a story of its own to do it proper justice. Hope you enjoy and thanks to those who have reviewed – very helpful x

CHAPTER 04 - Sweet Caroline

I sat in my room still in the Mikaelson mansion. Stefan had left a few minutes ago and I found that oddly, I missed him. I had never really talked to him about anything so personal, but now that we were on the same page as each other, I was coming round to the opinion that I had grossly misunderstood this Salvatore. He was not like his brother, hot-headed and only concerned with what mattered to him. I could get used to his company over time; at a push I could even consider him as one of my friends. The numbers of which were dwindling. If I was asked today about friends, I would say that Caroline was my closest friend, followed by Klaus, which if you had told me last year that I would call Klaus one of my best mates, I would have taken you to hospital. I missed the days when all I used to do was hang out with my drug buddies and pass my time in a trance.

Thinking about drugs...my bloodlust was beginning to return. It flared a minute after Stefan went home, but I did as he told me and tried to focus my need for blood on my hate for my sister. It was hard to do by myself though and the lovebirds weren't home yet.

I felt my eyes blacken over as my animal desire for blood overcame the human within me. My fangs emerged from my gums instantaneously and contorted my mouth even though there was no one for me to sink them into. As my body arched into a hunting position, I let out another growl loud enough to wake the dead as I tried – it seemed fruitlessly – to overcome my urge to hunt and to maim and to kill.

Unexpectedly I felt a muscular and burly arm hook round my neck and strongly pull me towards a lean body.

Klaus' dulcet, yet serious voice spoke, "It's all right Jeremy, just keep fighting it and soon it'll be over. I'm not going anywhere, so just keep willing it to go away,"

It took me a while to re-establish control, and Klaus was true to his word. Caroline was still on a blood run and would be back in a while.

"That was impressive, Jer, really, very impressive." He smiled, "If my siblings and I had been able to do what you just did, you'd probably still be human,"

I laughed, "Thanks, man, but if you hadn't have arrived when you did, I'd have been in town on the rampage without another thought,"

Klaus shook his head, "In instances such as these, it is the show of willpower that defines how well you deal with your bloodlust. It is the desire to control it and not to be a maniac with fangs and the ability to do so much harm to others that makes the world of difference. And you are not on your own, you've got me, Caroline and Stefan to help you and none of us want to see you be a ripper."

I smiled as I heard the familiar tone of his voice as he said the last word and just as he spoke about how different things were because I wanted them to be, he was just the same, the proof of that. Because he wanted and loved Caroline so much, he changed his entire personality and his whole outlook on life just so he'd be what she needed. The Klaus of a year ago would never have been seen to show sympathy or compassion at another person's plight and especially not to offer to help someone to whom he had no personal tie or emotional connection.

I noticed a change in Klaus' countenance, "What's wrong?"

He pulled an uncomfortable face, "It's just...while we were out, we were, how to put this, accosted."

"Accosted by what?"

"I think what you mean is by whom. We saw Damon...and Elena," he looked up, judging my reaction to this news, but continued, "She was asking after you, wondering how you are and why you are not returning her messages. I don't think she understands why you're angry at her or why you are ignoring her. I get what you're feeling, but you ought to tell her what you're feeling and why you do feel the way that you do,"

"She can damn well work it out for herself,"

Klaus nodded, "If that's the way you feel, I am not going to force you into meeting her,"

Our vampire hearing told us that Caroline had just arrived home, whistling no less, so with a final smile to me at his girlfriend's chirpiness, Klaus nodded in farewell and went to see her.

I decided to pass the time when I was not basically crippled by my vampire urges reading the many books that Klaus had collected over time. Many were signed and priceless first editions centuries old. For this evening's leisure, I had chosen leather bound copy of "Doctor Faustus" by Marlowe. As I perused the play, it began to dawn on me that we all sell our souls to the devil to achieve what we yearn for. Damon sold his for Katherine when he chose to become a vampire for her, Esther sold her entire family's souls to the devil when she made them into the first vampires and then centuries later tried to undo her mistake by going against her maternal nature itself.

I was vaguely aware of what was going on in the rest of the house while I indulged in a more wholesome activity. The pair were not quiet by any means, as they thought that because of my heightened vampire hearing, I would have heard them at only the slightest of sounds, they might as well be as loud as they wished.

I heard them begin in the kitchen, with the loud clatters of the dinnerware as they shoved it out of their path, but they flashed all over the house. The first night I had spent here had been awkward, as they usually made a lover's journey through every room in the house and in their passion, forgot that I was occupying one of them...

I was surprised when a few minutes later, the sounds of their love making suddenly were not to be heard. I did not want to explore the house in case I found them, but it was odd.

Caroline appeared in a tank top and shorts at my door, only slightly unkempt.

"Hi, Jer, what you up to this evening?"

"Reading." I said, carelessly throwing the book onto the bed, "What happened to Klaus?"

Caroline came in and sat down gracefully on the bed, "He had to go and help Rebekah get out of a bit of a fix, as I understand it. It didn't sound too serious though. She's probably just found a high school kid who doesn't find her the most attractive girl ever to exist and her world has come tumbling down," Caroline said disdainfully. She was still unable to get over her first impressions of Rebekah, as a boyfriend stealing, evil vampire whore...

I laughed heartily, "I can't believe it doesn't bother Klaus more that you can't abide his favourite sibling!"

She laughed along with me, "Jer, ever heard the expression, don't bite the hand that feeds you?" I nodded, "Well, there is a variation that exists for Klaus and I. Don't-"

I quickly interrupted her, "Caroline, I'm not sure I want to know, thanks,"

With a quick, teasing wink she confirmed my suspicions.

The next thing I knew, I was on top of her, fangs bared and pinning her arms above her head, which had left a red imprint on the wall. I couldn't see, but by the terrified expression on her face, which I took in in less than a second, it was plain my eyes had become black; her own vampire instincts had not taken over, presumably from the jolt of my impulsive attack. Before I could muster the resolve to halt my ripper style actions, I had sunk my fangs into her throat, burying my face in the side of her neck as I tore through her soft flesh and gnashed over and over at her white body.

Her screams filled the room and must have been heard outside the house, but no interruption ceased my assault on her body, once I had torn through the greater part of her neck, she could no longer scream... She tried to keep me at bay, but somehow I was stronger and I gave her no opportunity to put up a fight once I had gnawed her arms until they had all but perished. Not even the absence of human blood made me, in my frenzy, stop. It didn't matter to the animal within me that she could not even heal from the wounds I was inflicting upon her, as once the tears in her began to heal, my mouth set at them again and reopened them.

I easily ripped her sleepwear from her body and persisted in my quest to rip her body to shreds. A true ripper... A still uncaring and bestial glance at her face, now painted in her own blood, revealed the agony and panic behind her eyes instead of the light and 'genuine beauty' as Klaus put it, which used to reside there.

All I had the ability, as a ripper vampire with no humanity, to do was disregard the pain I was inflicting upon the one person who had not abandoned me to my fate nor forgotten about me in my own suffering, for the only thing that mattered during the relentless attack on Caroline's innocent was the thrill of the power and the sadistic pleasure of making her body bleed...the sensation too strong and powerful for me to merely will it to disappear.

With a fierce and furious growl, Klaus returned and flashed into the room to see the gory and twisted scene that was laid out before him. He first observed my lack of control and my bloodlust conquering my humanity with no contest, as my face was also covered in Caroline's dark red blood, along with my shirt, my hands and most of my person and the red stain on the wall where Caroline's head had broken upon impact. He only glanced at the broken body of the girl sprawled across the bed briefly, taking in the sheer amount of blood coating her alabaster white skin and presuming her a dead, ill-fated human girl I must have found somewhere. The disbelief that I had done so much damage to Caroline that a man who spent every night with her and if he could, every minute of every day, was not able to recognise the woman he loved with every inch of his being pulled me from the depths of the shadows which I had entered.

He returned his deep blue eyes to look me over, "Jeremy, Jeremy, what ha-"

His expression changed instantly as he noticed the still clean clump of blonde hair that had ended up in my tight grasp...and recognised it as the familiar shade of blonde hair that he stroked when Caroline sat on his lap.

He flashed over to the girl still immobile on my bed and shook her, shouting her name with such a heartbroken voice that I retreated to the other side of the large room, fearing the result of such heartbreak.

"Caroline!" Klaus carefully, yet firmly, gripped her face with both of his strong hands, "Caroline, please, love, speak to me!"

The only sound that she could utter was a soft moan, as her throat was still trying to heal itself along with the rest of her body. At least it meant she would be all right in the end...

Having heard this evidence of life and eventual recovery, Klaus gently pressed his lips to hers, letting out a sigh of relief, "Oh, my love, it's going to be all right. I'll get you some blood and then the pain will go away."

It had not even occurred to me since I had been passively slumped against the wall watching Klaus minister to Caroline, that because I had very nearly emptied her body of all of its blood, she would be powerless to heal herself. So, the reality that I might have actually been able to kill her hit me hard, but I had to make sure she was all right now, even if she never talked to me again, which I would understand. I had to make sure she would recover as quickly as possible.

Klaus' voice brought me out of my own mind. He had pulled the covers over Caroline's still limp body, and was perched on the bed beside her, unwilling to move her at all and he certainly wouldn't leave her after this. "Jeremy," he said, not angrily, but he definitely was repressing the urge to kill me straight off now, "If you're feeling up to it, and I mean you don't think you're going to go on a binge or drink it all yourself, you have to go down to the basement and get ten bags of AB positive because she will start desiccating in about ten minutes."

I blankly looked in his eyes, entranced by that presence of danger, which had been so long absent from his eyes that I had forgotten how paralysing it used to be.

He continued to watch me, waiting for me to respond, "If you think you are going to be Jeremy the Ripper, then please call Stefan and ask him to come over and bring some blood from downstairs because if she experiences even a second of the pain that desiccating causes, then you will experience pain in places you didn't even know could hurt."

"Normally, I like you Jeremy, but you are dangerous and look, look at what you've just done to the person who probably cared most about you in the world!" Klaus gestured to Caroline with wild, manic hands. "I can't let things like this happen to her, Jeremy, I just can't bear to see it, so until you sort yourself out, which I think Stefan is most qualified to help you with, please just stay away from here."

Again, it was Klaus' eyes that gave away his true feelings. He felt Caroline's pain almost as keenly as if it was him lying on the bed just as mutilated; he felt pity for me in my current catatonia, regret that he'd been called away, because if he'd just stayed with Caroline instead of going to help Rebekah with her trivial matters, the pair of them would be curled up in bed together, blissfully happy.

"I'm..." I thought about what I had just been able to do and what I ought to do now, which would be best for Caroline, and I decided, "Klaus, I'm going to call Stefan to come and help you here and I won't be coming back. You're right. I am too much a liability in a town that is hanging so precariously by a thread. I'll leave town."

He looked up, perplexed by my last remark, "No, don't leave town, go to the boarding house. And don't worry, Elena is not there tonight, it's just Stefan."

With that, I left the room that would never leave my memory as long as I lived, calling Stefan as I exited the Mikaelson mansion and heading away, towards the Salvatore boarding house.