Chapter 4 – California Rolls

A/N: Intense chapter! Remember to review please!

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"Caroline come on, I haven't seen you in days." Stefan complained over the phone from his office as Caroline rolled her eyes walking down the busy streets of New York.

"Stefan Salvatore, are you openly admitting to missing me?" She teased.

"Yes, Caroline Forbes, that's exactly what I'm doing." He shot right back, spinning around in his chair in his very lavish corner office courtesy of Mikaelson Arts. "We haven't not seen each other for more than a few days since we were in sixth grade, so I refuse to let you bail on lunch yet again just because you're twitchy over Klaus."

"I am not twitchy!" She shouted into her phone, coming to a stop at a crosswalk along with several other people. "I just don't like your boss's stupid arrogant face. Or his stupid arrogant attitude." She scowled, hoisting her messenger bag higher up on her shoulder, heavy with books from her morning classes at NYU.

She heard Stefan sigh. "How many times do I have to tell everyone that he's not my boss?" He mumbled.

Caroline laughed, knowing Stefan hated it when people said that. He was very defensive over his job title since the whole group had given him such hell for leaving Damon's law firm a year ago, before they became friends with Elijah (through Katherine's very scandalous relationship with him of course).

She started to walk again, her straightened hair whipping around her face from the harsh January winds.

"Look Care, we've been having lunch at my office twice a week for the past year and you never even saw Klaus that whole time. What makes you think now will be different?"

"Um because he's obsessed with me since that Christmas party a couple weeks ago?" Caroline fired off, her facial expression showing her discontent despite the fact that Stefan couldn't see her. "

"Oh would you look at that." Stefan said sarcastically. "Self-obsessed, neurotic Caroline from high school is back!"

Caroline rolled her eyes, grinning. She was the first to admit that her first three years of high school were rough on her, she had pretty been a narcissistic bitch.

"Oh shutup! I'm not being conceited for once okay, he really won't leave me alone. It's been two weeks and it's like he's everywhere I go now! I have lunch with Katherine, Elijah surprises her, and Klaus just happened to come along. Elena and I go to The Grill to drop off some stuff for Matt, and he and Rebekah are there."

"Oh no." Stefan said in mock astonishment. "It's like he's stalking you."

"Right!"

"I mean really, what kind of man goes to lunch with his brother, or checks up on his sister and her boyfriend that he doesn't know anything about? He sounds like a maniac."

"Stefan!" Caroline whined, making him laugh.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop. But seriously, Klaus isn't even in the building right now, I'm on my lunch break, and I miss my best friend. Hey if you come now, I'll even order us sushi. On me."

Caroline slowed her walk a little bit, the rest of New York buzzing past her. She bit her lip, thinking.

"Will you get me a California roll?"

"I'll get you two."

She grinned, laughing and pulling her dark blue pea coat tighter around her as she sped up towards Stefan's office.

"Alright fine, you convinced me. I'm two blocks away, see you in a few."

"Love you!"

She chuckled. "Love you too, you goofball." She said before hanging up and pocketing her phone.

Shivering, Caroline hurried down the sidewalk, sidestepping around tourists and smiling at people who made eye contact with her just to confuse them. Moving to the city after living in little old Mystic Falls for the majority of her life had been a major culture shock to Caroline, but she thrived here. NYU was a perfect school for her, her apartment was just the right size for her and Katherine now that Elena had moved out and was living with Damon, and her paid internship at Vera Wang was a godsend financially.

The past two and a half years here had been a dream. Up until stupid Klaus Mikaelson and his stupid charmingly British self had decided he was intrigued in her.

Stepping up to the thirty story building that housed Stefan's office, she said hello to the doorman Jeff and walked inside, her high heeled boots clacking against the linoleum floor. The building's lobby was fairly empty so she was the only person to step into the elevator, pressing the button for Stefan's floor.

The steel doors closed and Caroline let out a breath, excited to see Stefan now that she knew Klaus wasn't in the building. That would've been awkward.

As the elevator approached the third floor, still ten floors away from Stefan's office, it stopped and the doors opened to let someone else on. And lo and behold –

"Alright Maddox, I'll get those numbers to Finn and let you know what he thinks. Until then, just make sure the client stays happy, send him a fruit basket or something."

"You have got to be kidding me." Caroline whispered in complete and total disbelief.

Klaus turned away from Maddox and towards the elevator, eyes lighting up when he saw the blonde haired beauty behind the doors.

"Caroline." He said brightly, that smirk that seemed to always be on his face making her grit her teeth. "I'm starting to get the feeling that you're following me, love."

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"So. Enzo. How did you end up here at our humble abode?" Damon started off with a snarky tone, fake smile in place as they sat around in a circle in the warehouse.

Katherine was lying on her back seemingly asleep with her head in Elena's lap, who was leaned back against her rucksack trying and failing to do the same. Kol and Jeremy were looking around the warehouse for more things to barricade the doors with just in case what they had already used didn't hold for some reason. Alaric and Damon were both sitting across from Enzo on overturned buckets with their elbows on their knees interrogating him, and Bonnie and Caroline were on the ground sharing a blanket and listening from their spot beside Alaric.

"I've been scouting for about a month with three blokes who were ganked by a group of Infected last night. I got out, they didn't." Enzo said simply, not bothered at all by everyone's mistrust of him.

"Scouting?" Alaric asked. "What does that mean?"

"It means that we were sent to find people to bring back with us where we came from." Enzo replied, propping his leg up on the bucket next to him.

Damon immediately kicked the bucket out from under his leg, making Enzo glare.

"Uh-uh, no. You don't get to be comfortable until we get full answers." He sneered. "What the hell does all that mean? Where did you come from?"

Enzo sighed, rolling his eyes and leaning forward.

"Have you ever heard of Whitmore?" He asked in a serious tone.

Bonnie sat up straighter. "Whitmore? Wasn't that what that Infected was going on about the other week?"

"Oh yeah." Caroline said, looking at Enzo skeptically. "This traveler came up to us a few days ago ranting about how he had to get to Whitmore and needed someone to get him there alive, he was screaming and yelling until – "

"Until she cut his head off because his nose started to bleed." Damon finished bluntly. Caroline just shrugged her shoulders.

Enzo's eyebrows shot up. "Well then, how unfortunate for him. But what the poor bastard was going on about is very much real. About fifty to seventy-five miles east of here is a place called Whitmore. My group and I were from there, tasked in telling people about it."

"What's so special about this town?" Bonnie asked.

"It's not so much of a town as it is a…community." Enzo said, cocking his head to the side and smirking. "A community that is safe from Infected."

All four of them sat up straight at his words, and Caroline even saw Katherine and Elena look up from where they were a few feet away.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Kol shouted from across the warehouse, making everyone turn to look at him and Jeremy. "Could you repeat it, I couldn't quite hear you from all the bloody zombies outside. It sounded like you said you know somewhere safe from said zombies."

"That's exactly what I said mate." Enzo called back to him before lowering his voice and turning to look at Caroline specifically. "Whitmore was built along the Indiana-Ohio border, and has sixty feet high cement walls surrounding the mile wide enclosure. The town is self-sustaining – agriculture, schools, housing. It even has a reasonably democratic government set up."

"No way." Caroline whispered, awed at the idea of being safe somewhere in these times.

"Oh yes way, gorgeous." Enzo said immediately. "There's only about two hundred or so survivors there now, give or take a few. But one of the men in charge, Richard Lockwood, he sent nine of us out to tell any other survivors we could find. It was my group of four, a group of three, and a group of two. My group went west, the three went north, and the two went east. Any survivors they meet get told about Whitmore and where it is. It's up to them if they go or not."

As soon as Caroline heard the word "east" she whipped around to make eye contact with Katherine, who had stood up and was wandering over to them now, eyes wide. When they looked at each other, both were thinking the same thing.

"East." Katherine whispered. "If they survived, they would be heading this way, trying to find us." She said quickly. "They would be travelling quicker with a smaller group, they could be at Whitmore right now."

"Stefan." Damon whispered to himself, looking down at the ground and thinking about the prospect of seeing his brother again.

"Look we don't even know if this guy is telling the truth." Jeremy said loudly, pointing at Enzo.

"I'm right here, mate."

"He could be leading us to a death trap for all we know." Jeremy paid him no mind. "We've all agreed that we can't trust anybody but each other. I say we put him out on his ass and keep doing what we're doing."

"Gee thanks, it's a pleasure to meet you too." Enzo said sarcastically.

"Jeremy, we're not going to leave him to die." Elena said to her brother. "Not to mention that what we've been doing for the past eight months isn't working. Do you really think we could make it another eight months without someone getting killed or Infected? Their number are growing every day and pretty soon ours are going to decline."

"Elena's right, Jeremy." Bonnie said calmly, ever the voice of reason. "If there's even the slightest chance that this Whitmore place could be somewhere safe, maybe even a home at some point, we have to try."

"They're both right." Alaric weighed in. "Those things are getting smarter every day, we can't keep doing what we're doing and expect it to always work. We have to have a goal, and Whitmore could be that."

Jeremy didn't say anything for a moment, scowling before walking away to stand post by the door again.

Elena sighed. "I'll go talk to him."

"So just how exactly did you end up at Whitmore and then get sent away?" Kol asked rudely, coming over to stand behind Bonnie. "I know I wouldn't exactly be willing to leave and go back out into Zombieland."

Enzo glared at Kol only to be met with a similarly venomous gaze. Kol could be ruthless when he wanted to be, which was often. The only time he wasn't so evil acting was when he was with Bonnie.

"Her name was Maggie." Enzo finally said somberly. "She was my girlfriend. We survived together for about three months after The Outbreak, helping the people of Whitmore build the wall. But then an Infected scratched her one night when it managed to break through our defenses." He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. The atmosphere in the warehouse was thick with tension. "Just before I shot her in the head she asked me to make sure Whitmore succeeded. So I dedicated myself to it. And now here I am." He smiled through his pain.

Caroline saw Alaric's head drop down, no doubt remembering when he had to do the very same thing to Jenna after she was bitten by an Infected at the beginning of The Outbreak.

It was quiet for a few seconds, nobody knowing what to say. But then Caroline spoke up, doing what she did best and dispelling the awkward tension.

"Okay so hypothetically, say we believe you." She said, looking Enzo in the eye. "Do you just point us in the right direction and say good luck?"

Enzo grinned. "Well gorgeous," She rolled her eyes as he called her that for the millionth time, "I am currently lacking traveling partners so I would be more than glad to escort you lot personally back to Whitmore. That is, if you would allow me the honor." He smiled at her charmingly.

Caroline rolled her eyes. She had plenty of practice resisting the charms of attractive British men.

"How soon can you get us there?" Alaric asked.

"Three days max if we leave tomorrow morning at soon as the sun rises." Enzo said immediately. "That is, if you're up for the journey."

"We're up for it." Katherine said fiercely, jutting out her hip and giving her typical pouty lipped expression that gave her a vicious vibe. Caroline knew that she was hoping Elijah would be at Whitmore. "But if this is some game you're playing," She hissed, stalking towards Enzo and actually making some fear show up in his eyes, "I will personally put a bullet between your eyes. Got it?"

Enzo stared up at her with a mixture of terror and adoration. "Of course."

"We're in too." Elena spoke suddenly, walking back into view with Jeremy at her side who looked slightly disgruntled.

Damon looked around and met eyes with everyone.

"So is that it? Are we all serious about this?"

Everyone looked at each other and nodded. Damon raised his eyebrows and turned back to Enzo.

"Alright then, it seems that we're all on the same page. Welcome to the group, Enzo."

Enzo grinned mischievously, glancing at Caroline out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh the pleasure is all mine."

#######

"Seriously?" Caroline asked incredulously as Klaus stepped onto the elevator with her, the doors closing slowly.

"What?" He asked with mock innocence, pouting his naturally dark red lips at her. "You seem upset, love. Did you have a bad day?"

"Okay first of all, don't call me love." She all but growled, narrowing her eyes at him to which he just chuckled, pissing her off further. "And second of all, you're the one following me!"

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean that you keep –"

She cut herself off as the elevator stopped at the next floor and an older man got on, nodding at them. It was awkwardly silent for a few seconds as the doors closed shut again and the elevator started to move. They still had nine floors to go.

"I mean," Caroline whispered harshly, "That you keep showing up everywhere I am and it's really annoying me!"

Klaus chuckled, ignoring the older man as he looked over his shoulder at the two curiously.

"Caroline I've hardly been showing up everywhere you are. The other day when I saw you at Donovan's it was mere happenstance."

"And what about at Rousseau's when I was having lunch with Katherine huh?" She spat, the elevator doors opening yet again and letting the older man off, but three more people got on. Against her will, she was pushed towards the back corner and closer to Klaus.

"Elijah invited me and so I went." He shrugged. "He and your friend Katherine are still fairly early in their relationship and he wanted me to get a read on her."

Caroline scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Oh please. And you had no idea that I would be there?"

"Oh I knew precisely that you were going to be there." Klaus said immediately, grinning at Caroline's expression. "That was why I didn't object to Elijah's offer."

Caroline sputtered for something to say as the doors opened once more at the floor just below Stefan's – thank goodness – and one of the other men in the elevator dropped his phone as he was walking out. When he bent down to pick it up, his suitcase swung around, almost hitting Caroline in the face. Almost, being the key word.

Klaus grabbed her by her upper arms, pulling her away from the swinging object and incidentally into his own arms. She yelped at the sudden movement, the business man not even noticing that he came very close to bloodying poor Caroline's nose.

The elevator doors closed yet again, everyone having gotten off except Klaus and Caroline. They were standing in the middle, Klaus holding onto her arms still, her hands resting gently on his chest. She very slowly looked up and met his eyes, which were full of emotion, none that she could quite pinpoint. He almost looked…afraid, perhaps? No that didn't make any sense.

Despite his white button down shirt, Caroline could feel the lean muscle underneath, his heartbeat strong yet erratic. His hands slid down her arms slowly, making her shiver despite the fact that she was wearing a coat. Some of her hair was falling in front of her face and Klaus reached up to push it back when...

"Um, am I interrupting something?"

Caroline jumped up and out of Klaus' arms at the sound of Stefan's voice, immediately missing his warmth. His hands dropped in disappointment, turning to glare at his friend.

Caroline paled as she realized Stefan wasn't the only audience she and Klaus had had while in the middle of their awkward yet intense moment just now, not even realizing that the elevator doors had opened.

Stefan was standing right in front of them, but behind him Caroline could see Elijah in his office, watching them through the glass with a curious, yet amused expression. But even worse than that was that Katherine was perched on Elijah's desk with her legs crossed and eyebrows raised. When she made eye contact with Caroline she burst out laughing, the sound muffled through the glass but still audible.

Oh gosh, she would never hear the end of this.

Caroline knew that her face was probably bright red and she couldn't even bear the thought of seeing how Klaus was handling the situation.

Looking back at Stefan, she saw that he was biting his bottom lip trying not to laugh himself – and failing miserably. She scowled at him and marched out of the elevator, right past Stefan and towards his office.

"You owe me a hundred California rolls, Salvatore."

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"Run!" Klaus screamed as he turned around and rammed his sword through yet another Infected.

"Niklaus!" Elijah yelled, turning and seeing the distress his brother was in.

"Go, 'Lijah, get to the cabin!"

Klaus pulled his sword out of the dead Infected and immediately side-stepped another, spinning around on his heel and cutting its head off in one fluid motion. As the now headless body dropped he looked behind him and saw about five more coming after him, twenty or so yards away.

"Klaus, come on!" He heard Matt yell from the front of the cabin where he and Elijah had finally gotten to.

Klaus growled, wanting to kill every last one of those five Infected but knowing he had to get inside the cabin and barricade it or they were all goners. He turned quickly and sprinted up to the small one-room cabin they had been bunking in, Elijah and Matt behind him, running through the door and immediately grabbing everything they had been barricading the doors with the past few nights: chairs, stones, bags, all of it.

Just as they got all the items against the door an Infected slammed into it, forcing it open a few inches. Klaus heard Rebekah scream in shock behind him but he couldn't afford to turn around and look.

"Push!" Klaus groaned as he, Matt, Elijah, and Stefan all pushed against the door trying to get it shut all the way so they could lock it fully.

The Infected were growling and snapping through the crack in the door and Klaus' feet slid against the wood floor as he pushed with all his might against it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was actually just seconds, the door shut and he reached forward and chained all of the locks as fast as he could.

The Infected continued to bang on the door and make inhuman noises, but they were locked out for the time being, there was no way they could get in. The tiny cabin also didn't have any windows so they were safe.

Klaus side stepped the pile of stuff and slid down against the wall, his feet giving out underneath him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, thankful to be alive.

"Are you okay?" He heard Rebekah ask hurriedly, checking over Elijah's well-being then moving on and doing the same to Matt.

"We're fine babe, we're fine." Matt assured her breathlessly, putting his hands over hers as she turned his face side to side.

Klaus just barely opened his eyes to see Stefan walking over and kneeling down in front of him.

"You okay?" He asked seriously, eyebrow furrowed. "Any of you get bit, scratched, anything?"

Klaus chuckled tiredly. "Miraculously, no." He reached into his jacket pocket then and slowly pulled out two syringes, holding them out to Stefan. "Here. That should be enough penicillin."

Stefan took the syringes slowly, almost disbelievingly. He turned them over and read the labels, relief dawning on his face. He looked back up at Klaus and put one hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you." He said, voice wavering with emotion.

Klaus just nodded, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall yet again. He heard Rebekah murmuring to Matt, Elijah sitting down next to Lexi, who was mumbling incoherently. Stefan pulled the protective coverings off of one of the syringes and placed it against Lexi's arm.

"You're gonna be okay Lex." He whispered as he injected her with the penicillin. "You're gonna be just fine."

Elijah inquired about how long it would take for her to be up and moving and Stefan guessed about two or three days until she could walk, which made Klaus smile. He'd waited eight months to see his Caroline, a few extra days of holding on to the hope that he would see her again was something he could handle if he must.

A few minutes passed in silence, excluding the noises the Infected were making outside the cabin. But they were all so used to that by then it didn't even phase them. The zombies would be gone when the sun rose anyways.

"Oh no." Stefan suddenly said, making Klaus open his eyes. Was the penicillin not working?

But Stefan wasn't looking at Lexi for once, he was looking at Matt.

"What is it?" Matt asked. "What's wrong?"

Stefan stood up slowly, clearly upset. "Your jacket."

Klaus looked at Matt, who was turning around to see what Stefan was referring to. Klaus' eyes widened and he jumped up immediately when he saw it for himself.

A bite mark was on the back of Matt's jacket, on the left shoulder. A bite mark that could have only come from one thing.

Matt saw it as soon as everyone else did, and he looked up at them terrified. Rebekah's jaw dropped, her lip quivering as she searched for something to say but couldn't find any words.

Finally, realizing what he had to do, Klaus picked his sword up off of the ground and began stalking towards his sister's fiancée with a terrifying expression on his face.

"Woah, woah man, just hold on!" Matt scrambled away, tripping and falling in the process, scooting all the way back to the opposite wall with his hand held up.

"Nik no!" Rebekah screamed, grabbing her brother's arm and trying to pull him away to which he just shoved her backwards roughly.

"We all know what has to be done!"

"Klaus come on, we need to make sure before we go stabbing him!" Stefan shouted, stepping in front of Matt with his hands out.

"We know how this has to end Stefan! I will not let my chances of seeing Caroline again be jeopardized just because –"

"Niklaus!"

Klaus froze at the feel of a blade against the side of his neck, turning slowly to see Rebekah holding the tip of her own sword against his throat. She was shaking and sniffling, tears running down her face. Elijah was the one who had shouted, seeing that his sister was threatening their brother.

Several tense seconds passed, no one hardly daring to breathe.

"You will not," Rebekah began, voice shaking, "kill my fiancée Nik. I won't let you."

Klaus stared at his sister for a few seconds before chuckling darkly.

"Are you going to kill me, Bekah?" He asked in a low voice. "Are you really going to choose him over your family? Him, who will be a raging murderous monster within a few hours?"

He inhaled sharply as the sword started to draw a few drops of blood from his neck, knowing good and well that he was provoking her.

"Rebekah stop this." Elijah demanded, stepping over to his siblings in just a single stride. "No one is killing anyone right now, do you understand? Now lower both your weapons while we figure out what exactly has happened."

"We know what has happened 'Lijah!" Klaus shouted, gritting his teeth at the pain in his neck. "He was bitten, he has to die or we all do!"

"We don't know that!" Elijah shouted right back, voice raised in a terrifying tone. "And until we are sure what has happened or what will happen, we are all putting our weapons down."

Neither Rebekah nor Klaus moved for about five seconds.

"Now!"

Rebekah was the first to drop the sword, and Klaus let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding when she did so. Tears were streaming down her dirty, tanned face and she was looking at Klaus like she hated him more than anyone else in the world. Finally, he dropped his own sword as well.

As soon as he did, Stefan stepped to the side and Rebekah ran over to Matt, taking his face in her hands and asking him a million questions at once. Klaus just turned and glared at Elijah, who looked disappointed in him.

Was Klaus the only one who realized what a threat Matt posed? If he were bitten and they didn't kill him, they would all be dead. And Klaus had no plans to die anytime soon.

Turning back to look at his sister, Klaus saw that she was pulling Matt's jacket off, lifting his shirt up to see the bite mark.

The bite mark that wasn't there.

"It didn't go through." She whispered in shock, turning back to her brothers, trails in the dirt on her face from her dried tears. "The bite didn't break the skin, his jacket was too thick, look!"

Elijah shoved his way past Klaus and examined the area for himself.

"It's true." He said to Klaus, whose eyes were wide. "He is not bitten. Which means he's not Infected."

Matt visibly relaxed, letting out a huge breath and pulling his shirt back down, hugging the life out of Rebekah, who was crying happy tears now. Elijah stepped away from them and made his way back to Klaus, who was shaking.

Elijah put his hand on his younger brother's shoulder, turning his head to say to him, "Congratulations Niklaus. You almost killed our sister's fiancée for no reason. Imagine what Caroline would have said."

He patted Klaus' shoulder one more time before going back over to Lexi where Stefan was already sitting. Klaus looked back to his sister, who had her forehead pressed to Matt's and had her hands against the side of his neck, shaking as Matt assured her over and over again that he was fine.

Klaus' own eyes glassed over as he thought about Elijah's words. What would Caroline have said had he killed Matt? If she was alive and at Whitmore and found out what he did, she would probably hate him for killing her childhood friend. She would never want to speak to him again.

No, no, that's not true, he thought to himself. He had told Caroline everything about his past, each and every awful thing he had done before he moved to America. He had told her about the revelation of his birth father when he was ten years old and had to have a blood transfusion and Mikael wasn't a match. He told her how he thought about killing Mikael every time the man beat him for reasons beyond his control. He told her about leaving home at eighteen and doing underhanded business deals, getting involved with the wrong people, even going so far as killing the wrong people in order to get a better paycheck.

He told her about how Elijah had tracked him down when he was twenty, dragged him back to America and practically forced him to get his life together. He told her how he had gotten back into the art world through their family owned business, which Elijah had taken over when Mikael had died of a heart attack a year prior. He started painting again, stopped taking so many pain pills, started looking out for Rebekah and Kol like he was supposed to. He got it all together.

Yet he had still felt empty through all of that. Until he met her.

Oh yes, he had told Caroline about each and every one of his misgivings. And he had fully expected her to run away screaming from him like everyone else who knew about his past did – except his family, of course. But she didn't run away. In fact, she stayed right by his side and loved him anyways.

So what would Caroline say about his irrational actions that night? He knew exactly what she would say. She would say that he acted like an idiot, and she wouldn't be wrong about it either.

But the beautiful thing about his Caroline was that she would forgive him all the same. She would always forgive him, which was why he had been trying to be a better man for her since the moment they met, so that she wouldn't have to give him her forgiveness.

Damn he loved that woman. And he was going to find her again if it was the last thing he ever did. As soon as Lexi was recovered, they were going to Whitmore. And if she wasn't there, he would keep searching. Until he saw her body for himself and listened to her heart not beating, he would tell himself that she was alive and waiting on him.

He wouldn't let her down ever again.

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A/N: Review please! xoxo