"What do you mean you're ditching my clean up committee?" Caroline asked, her voice rising. It felt like she had just got Tyler back and yet he was distant again. Even after everything the night before, even after she had said the words she thought he had wanted to hear, he hadn't stayed over, and hadn't called her when he'd got home like he said he would, and hadn't come by for breakfast. She'd had enough of distance. Distance changed things. She wanted warm, familiar Tyler.
"Klaus called." Tylers voice came through crackly on the phone. "He's leaving town and wants me to pack up his house."
It really hadn't been an empty threat. Klaus was truly leaving Mystic Falls.
"Well when does sire bond equal mover slave?"
"Since he realized you're not going to dump me for him." Tylers voice was smug, but it reminded Caroline of her choice. She had chosen Tyler –
"Urgh, he's being petty." She realized aloud, amazed that Klaus would really run when he said that he wouldn't, when he told her that he wouldn't. And that mattered more to her than she had understood before.
"And he still thinks I'm sired to him. Its fine, I'll keep up the act and it will be all over soon."
She breathed a sigh of relief and uncertainty.
"I'm late, I gotta go. I love you."
"I love you too." She echoed like the nymph from greek mythology, but she wasn't certain if Tyler heard her before the dial tone blared.
Another sound caught her attention and she whirled.
"Hello?"
No sound greeted her other than her breathing. She shook her head at her own jitters. She was going crazy.
Caroline walked back to find Rebekah with a bin and no one else.
"Where's Matt?"
"He bailed. Got called into work at the last minute."
"Are you kidding me?" Caroline walked in and realized the full extent of the situation. "So its just us?"
"Yes, and you're late." Rebekah snapped. "Clean up committee started at eight o'clock."
Caroline checked her phone with a frown. "It's, like, 8:02."
"Exactly. I managed to turn up on time and I didn't even get to attend the dance that I organised." Rebekah got straight down to the problem, which made it easier on Caroline. It was something she didn't mind about the blonde. She supposed not going to a high school for decades would have made her blunt, which was for the best considering her brothers and their tempers. Not to mention her parents. Caroline could certainly relate a little there.
"I'm sorry about your mom." She said sincerely, and fended off the glare that Rebekah sent her for her sympathy. "I mean, I know you, like, hated her and everything, but still. I'm sorry."
She couldn't tell if she had struck a chord with Rebekah till she set down the bin and looked her in the eye.
"I'm sorry about your teacher. He seemed like a nice guy."
"Yeah. He was."
They shared an almost smile, but Rebekah became uncomfortable.
"I'm gonna get started on the gym." She said, to avoid the comradeship she was developing with Caroline. They had to maintain the bitch-factor, or else they might actually start to nor mind each other.
Caroline let her go, but startled when she heard a gravelly male voice echo through the halls. She raced out to see what was going on.
Alaric. Alaric was going to kill Rebekah. Alaric was going to hurt the Blonde Original.
No way.
With force that even she was surprised at, Caroline smashed into her former friend and teacher, pinning him to a locker. Rebekah worked in sync with her, stabbing Alaric with the stake before she had time to comprehend it.
But something was wrong.
Alaric groaned as he wrapped his hand around the stake, pulling it out slowly. He wasn't dying again, he was dead and yet he still moved, and yet he wasn't dying as he should have been. He was very much alive. Deadly alive.
Caroline shared a moment of panic with Rebekah before they sprinted. They raced out the doors, separating to make it harder for them to get out alive and avoid being caught by the new vampire hunter.
Run? Or car? Caroline debated for a second too long before choosing and puling out her keys. At least she'd have a layer of metal between her and the threat.
She glanced up, and dropped her keys in fear. Alaric's burning face, reflected in the car door, menacing and fierce. She felt a flash of pain as her neck snapped, and then nothing.
Nothing.
At least for a moment.
When she woke, it was to absolute pain as pencils were pushed violently through her hands. She screamed before she had a chance to control herself and bite it back. A large hand slapped across her face in retaliation, making her gasp back any spare noise that could have escaped her.
"Quiet. No need to scream yet." Alaric's voice had changed completely into a cold-blooded killer's.
Caroline blinked, waiting to wake up from the nightmare, waiting for Alaric to laugh or Damon to pop out and say it was a very cruel joke and she could yell at him for a few hours for scaring the hell out of her. But nothing happened.
"Why?" She choked out, and Alaric's icy, dark eyes zeroed in on her.
"Because you deserve this." He hissed, before carefully placing a gag around her mouth that burned like fire, like the sun itself on her skin. It was worse than the burning on her birthday, it was worse because there wasn't even a moment with Klaus, there was just raw pain. She let tears slip down her face, but clenched her jaw to ensure that no sound would escape her. She would hold it together. She was stronger than this. She had endured worse. She was strong. She was full of light.
As more time passed, and the vervain infiltrated her system, slowly burning her from the inside out, her eyes glazed over and she lost control over her cries of pain. She felt Elena's presence there, but she couldn't be certain it was real. It all became very real when her best friend stood before her with a stake in hand. Elena looked at her with wide eyes, and Caroline closed her eyes, not knowing a way they could get out of this mess this time.
Suddenly, Elena swung the stake at Alaric, but he caught her arm easily.
"I thought I taught you better than that." He sneered.
"You did." Elena muttered, her hand curling around the glass of vervain and slaming it into his face. He cried out, and Caroline watched as Elena gritted her teeth and pulled the pencils from her friend's hands. She pulled Caroline up from the chair and half pushed her towards the door.
"Get help." Elena ordered, running behind her.
Caroline sprinted, driven with fear. But then Elena wasn't there. She stopped, looking around, and then she was trapped again.
Caroline gasped against the strong hand at her mouth, tugging at the one gripped tightly around her waist.
"Its okay, its okay," A hushed voice, softer than his actions, murmured in her ear.
Klaus.
She looked back to see his face an inch from hers, and it calmed her.
"Its me, its okay, you're safe."
The words should have sounded absurd coming from the Big Bad, and they would when she reflected on them later, but in that moment, she believed in them so strongly.
She glanced up at his eyes, and they locked for a second before he glanced down the hall, her eyes following his.
"We'll save Elena. You go straight home. You stay inside. Do you understand?" His voice had turned harsh in that order, and she was stunned that he was being the good guy, saving them. 'Save' wasn't a word in his vocabulary.
Her silence forced a reaction from him, and he spun her abruptly to face him.
"Do you understand me?" He asked horsely.
She looked up at him, so uncertain of what was happening, what she was comprehending, what she was feeling.
"Thank you." She managed to say, trying to express everything in those two words.
His face softened out of its warrior mask for a moment as he watched her, and she felt he knew more than she did what she was trying to say. Then he was gone, and she could do nothing but stare after him.
She started to run in the opposite direction and stopped. No. No, everyone always ran. She wasn't done yet, though.
She sprinted after Klaus, crashing into him this time.
He turned, eyes flashing, but realized it was Caroline and steadied her with his hands. He glanced down the corridor and moved them out of the open hallway to the shelter of a doorway.
"What are you doing?" He said in hushed, fierce tones, brow furrowing.
"I'm going to help."
"No. You are getting home safely. Right now."
"No chance! I'm not leaving her." Caroline hissed.
They stared each other down, inches apart. Caroline narrowed her eyes slightly and placed her hands on either side of his face, leaning in to catch her lips with his. But Klaus pulled back slightly before she could do more than barely brush his mouth. It infuriated her, since she felt like she should thank him, and she had felt that urge before, and she should get to choose the way, so why not the way that was practically begging to be taken? It felt right. But it felt wrong.
Klaus studied her face, coming to his own conclusion of what her plans were. "If you thought that was going to distract me, you're wrong." He growled, before clasping her hands and looking her dead in the eye, hating what he was about to do.
"You will go home and make sure you remain safe till this is over."
Caroline recognised compulsion when she saw it, but knew that the vervain still burning through her veins should overcome it. And yet there was this sheer will to do as he said that stemmed from somewhere behind his eyes, compelling her in the most human way to do as he said because of his determination to keep her from danger. She nodded, and he took the opportunity to brush a kiss across her smooth cheek, right next to those burns, before he sped away to stop Alaric. Who knew when he'd have the chance to be that close to Caroline again.
Caroline had made it home, but she was restless. She had been through way too much for her to handle today. Saving Rebekah out of protection for the Original rather than the idea of her being the creator of her bloodline. Being tortured by Alaric, the man who had been her friend and teacher. Being saved by Klaus, the Original bad guy. That moment with Klaus. What if she had kissed him? She knew she would have liked it.
But she was with Tyler.
Guilt churned in her stomach, and she paced in the hall. Maybe she shouldn't ignore it this time. But did that make it something to worry about?
Her phone disrupted her self-reproach, and she whipped it up to her ear, eager to hear if they had stopped Alaric, if Elena was safe, if the Salvatore's were safe…if their odd new partner in crime was safe.
"Hello?"
"Care! Thank god you're all right. How's Elena?" Bonnie's voice rushed through the receiver in an anxious breath.
Caroline sighed. "I don't know. Alaric had her the last I knew."
"What? Where are you?"
"At home. Klaus kinda forced me to stay here."
"Klaus?"
"Yeah. He's actually the one that saved me." Caroline bit her lip. "Look, I know you guys are all on the 'lets kill Klaus warpath' and I totally understand that, but – "
"We did it."
Caroline's heart stopped. "What?"
"We killed Klaus. Well, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"That dessication spell my mothe – Abbey – used on Mikael, we tried to use it on Alaric today but he was too strong. But then Elena found out that Alaric's life is linked to hers, so if she dies, so does he. So Klaus took Elena and started draining her blood. Stefan linked me to Klaus to dessicate him instead so he'd stop killing her. His heart stopped, but he's still alive. Barely." Bonnie sounded hopeful, and Caroline had to remind herself that this was what her friends had been wishing for.
"Sorry, Care. What were you saying?" Bonnie asked, misunderstanding her friends silence.
Caroline swallowed what she was going to say: that she had a plan to 'distract' Klaus by leaving with him as she had started to want to, so Klaus wouldn't be alone and Elena would be safe and they all would be free in some sense. All that didn't matter now, though. She was free. So why did she feel so caged?
"Nothing. That's perfect! We should celebrate." Her words sounded false to her, but Bonnie couldn't tell over the phone.
"You sure? Alaric's still out there…I feel like maybe we didn't get the right danger. We're going to have to do this all over again with Alaric."
"But we got what we wanted, right? Klaus is dead. Its what we wanted. We need a bit of a celebration."
"You're right. Lets head over to Elena's. I thought she might have been with you, but she must be getting home then."
"Kay. See you soon." She said with cheer, before hanging up and racing to the bathroom. She waited for it to happen, for her to throw up all the guilt and misery mixing in her gut, but it didn't. It wouldn't anyway. She was a vampire now. That couldn't happen. She wished it could, though.
Instead, she just sobbed dryly, which turned into tears streaming down her face. The two emotions got mixed up till she couldn't remember what had started the tears in the first place. Was it because she had felt confused about Klaus and Tyler? Or because the man who had saved her life twice was gone and she hadn't paid him back? Or because she had felt something for Klaus and now he was gone? She knew it was the latter, and that made the tears flow even faster.
Caroline found the strength to compose herself and repair her make up before sprinting over to Elena's.
Tyler and Matt were already there – Bonnie must have texted them.
"Care!" Matt greeted, and Tyler came over to kiss her. She shifted her head so he got her cheek. She didn't think she could handle him pressing his lips to hers right now. Not after the very fresh memory of that almost kiss only hours before.
Caroline shot a look to Tyler to insinuate her not being comfortable with PDA's while Matt was there, and he nodded in acceptance.
"What happened?" She asked, and Tyler told her about him defying Klaus, going into detail about Klaus' heart slowing down. The lead ball in her gut continued to grow, but she kept her smiles close at hand, hugging him and saying how happy she was.
"Tequila, I think." Matt announced, and they set up the glasses.
Bonnie and Jeremy arrived with food, and pretty soon they were all chattering about past parties and wild times. The mood rose, and Caroline tried to be pulled along with it, but her heart felt heavy. Elena arrived with the Salvatore's, and Caroline overheard the conversation about her 'selfishness'. While she thought that Elena was the least selfish person in regards to everything except for boys who took an interest to her, she understood why her friend couldn't choose. Losing one of them would be hard for her too. But she'd had that choice made for her.
Or had she? She could play along with the charade, and then start off after Damon and Stefan. They said they were headed towards the Atlantic, she could find them…find Klaus…She just needed to pay him back for saving her twice. Then maybe her guilt would fade slightly. Feeling lighter after this idea, she greeted Elena with cheer.
Apologies for the very long wait! I went overseas and expected to have more time to write these than I did in the end. But the wait is over, and I am very close to finishing this story and uploading the spin off for 'my season 4'. :)
Hope you enjoyed! Review if inclined,
xx