As they reached the entrance, Caroline halted in her steps. "They've got my daylight ring, goddammit!" she could feel herself panicking: she wanted to get out of this stupid prison now. "Calm yourself, love, the last hybrid I killed had this" he held her ring, the lapis lazuli stone glinting in the dim light. "Great, gimme" she said, her hands reaching for it.
"On one condition" Klaus replied, holding the ring out of her reach. "You tell no one what really happened here. Tell them a relative of your father kidnapped you. Can't have those Salvatore's finding out about my errant hybrids."
"You know, you don't have to blackmail me" she replied, her voice growing colder. "I wouldn't tell them about Tyler. They'd come after him and his gang and probably kill him. I know Damon's been anxious to tear his heart out after Tyler bit him."
"Fair enough" he said, throwing her the ring. "Now, let's get the hell out of here" Caroline strode to the exit of the prison, slamming the door open. The sunlight temporarily dazzled her. After god-knows-how long in captivity, the scents of the outdoors hit in a wave. The smell of flowers blooming on the ground, the gentle whisper of a breeze through the trees, the faint scent of a deer grazing – with every beat of its heart the scent grew stronger, awakening the predator instinct within her.
Trying to distract herself, she turned Klaus, trying to ignore way the sunlight reflected off his eyes, turning them from dark blue into a colour that reminded her of a lake in summer, with greens, blues and yellow. "Where are we?" she asked.
"About three days south of Mystic Falls" his head was raised, watching a bird fly through the treetops. "I didn't bring a car, would have made it far too easy for the hybrids to track me. We'll have to run" he turned to her. "If you can keep up" he grinned mischievously. Caroline smiled back. They set off, the steps of their feet the only sound in the forest.
After a few hours, Caroline knew that she had to stop. She had to feed. "Stop" she demanded, pausing behind a fallen log. Klaus had been keeping an eye on them through the trek, knew what she needed. "I'll wait over by that stream" he said, strolling to a stream that ended in a small pond, fringed with pale lilies. Caroline gave a silent nod, before running into the forest.
She tried to ignore her mind, the one that was screaming that she should run as far away from Klaus as possible. Another part reminded her that this was probably one of her delirious nightmare, that she was really back in that cell.
She could smell the blood of a stag. It was huge, its antlers reaching an arms width wide. It didn't even see her, not until it was too late. She ripped into its throat, groaning as the warm blood filled her mouth, burning a warm track down into her stomach. It tasted, well, it tasted gross. Like grass and damp fur. Ignoring the taste, she drained the stag's body, until its heart gave out and its eyes turned milky. Hard to imagine that I used to be a vegetarian before I was turned she thought, internally rolling her eyes at the irony of her life, making a soft noise in her throat.
"What's so funny?" Klaus said from behind her. "Gah!" Caroline yelped. How could he have snuck up on her like that? Perhaps her super vamp hearing had been dimmed from the lack of blood. The adrenaline started to pump through her veins, making her feel giddy. "Oh, you know, the fact that when I was human, I was a vegetarian, and now look at me, still a vegetarian, but eating deer so that I won't tear some random guy's throat out. It's just very ironic" Caroline babbled, her body starting to shake with shock. She could feel her heart beating faster as she recalled the events of the last few days, starting to feel hysterics bubbling up her throat, suddenly claustrophobic with Klaus so near. She wanted to run until her feet bled, and when they did, just keep on running, until the earth stopped and the sea began.
Klaus looked at her, as her body started shaking. What the hell do I do? He thought. "Come on love, we have far to go before sundown" he said, holding his hand out to her. Nervously, Caroline put her hand in his, their bodies blurring as they headed deep in the woods.
They didn't really need to stop when the sun went down, but with the full moon so close, and Klaus, paranoid after centuries of being hunted, demanded that they stop at a camp that he had set up on the way to rescue her.
"Here" he said, throwing her a bag. "Bonnie packed this for you". Inside was a pair of jeans, a shirt, a hairbrush and some other essentials. "Yes!" she exclaimed as she pulled something from her bag. A toothbrush. Klaus looked at her like she had gone insane, one eyebrow quirked slightly higher than the other. "Hey, Mr-Big-Bad-Hybrid, you may be a thousand years old, but I'd like to see you try going weeks without brushing your teeth". She wandered off to get changed, ignoring the strange look that Klaus was sending her.
Kneeling next to a stream, she glanced at herself. She almost didn't recognise the person looking back at her. A pale face, still marked with blood and dirt, hair that stuck in all angles with clumps of blood and other things she didn't want to think about. Caroline sighed, stripped and stepped into the stream, hoping that Klaus wasn't a massive perv and was currently watching her.
Feeling approximately a billion times better, she quickly dressed, noticing a slip of paper that fell out of her jacket. She smiled, she would recognise Bonnie's handwriting anywhere.
Hey Care, I hope that everything's okay. Klaus refuses to say anything apart from 'I'm going to find her'. We're all worried about you. Please, just come home safe. Love, Bonnie. P.S. Here's some Vervain just in case Klaus tries to compel you. Inside her pocket was a small vial of clear liquid.
Fighting back the tears and large lump that suddenly appeared in her throat, she crumpled the note and slid it back into her pocket. She took a small sip of Vervain, still not entirely trusting her rescuer to not erase her memories, a small hiss as it steamed her mouth and burnt down her throat.
Straightening herself, she wandered back to the camp. Klaus appeared to have stayed in the exact same position she had left him in, with his back against a tall maple. She noticed that he seemed tired, or perhaps weary was the right word. His hair was far more ruffled than she had ever seen it, she could swear she could see dark circles under his eyes. He still wore the same blood splattered clothes. He gazed at her silently, his eyes seemed to say a thousand words. For a few moments, they simply looked at each other, his eyes seemed to see through her, all the secrets she kept from him, all the lies she had told him. If she could have, Caroline would have blushed, instead she cleared her throat to break the awkward silence that seemed to have built between them.
"So, how long was I out for?" she asked, trying to ignore the butterflies that had suddenly built in her stomach. "Three weeks" he replied, his voice seemed abnormally quiet, not reflecting any emotion whatsoever. .
"Wow, three weeks" she muttered. She had missed high school graduation. Suddenly, her life back at Mystic Falls seemed absurdly trivial. Graduation, prom, dating the high school jock, what did it all matter?
An owl hooted nearby. With her heightened senses, she could feel the small breeze that rustled the leaves as it flew overhead. She could see the tiny insects that flew in the moonlit sky, hear the mice that scuttled across the ground, their tiny feet pattering against the dry leaves. Most of all, she could sense him. The strange scent that had haunted her dreams, the way his eyes that at time seemed to pierce her very soul, the tilt of his lips that could easily turn into a radiant smile or a deadly smirk. The fact that he had not changed in one thousand years seemed quite easy to accept as he sat there, the moonlight made his skin look like stone, a sculpture of a man whose thoughts ran far away from her, his eyes seemed to gaze into a time that had long since diminished.
Caroline didn't try to break the silence, just sat there, for the first time in weeks, at peace. After a while, as the forest grew silent, she fell into a deep slumber.