A/N: Chapter 3! I just love both of these characters, they're so vastly different but they're also very similar. As always, enjoy and review if you have a minute:)
Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries.
Lessons of Love, Chapter 3: Caroline to Klaus, Part 2
"The bottom line is that (A) people are never perfect, but love can be, (B) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (C) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love." Tom Robbins
Life went about in its normally abnormal way in Mystic Falls. Stefan kept plotting in his constant struggle for dominance against Klaus. Damon was trying to protect Elena from Stefan's brutal and blunt plans. Elena, bless her heart, was caught in the middle of it all. Bonnie had stopped conspiring with them and she only talked to Caroline. As did Damon.
The elder Salvatore brother and the young witch felt betrayed by their friends but the difference was that Damon was still involved. No, he would not directly converse with Elena but he would veto Stefan's plans if he considered them too dangerous or risky. As sweet as it was, Caroline thought it was childish of him. He just needed to suck it up and talk to Elena because, truth be told, Elena had not been the same ever since the night of the Original's Ball. She desperately needed Damon, and Bonnie, back in her life.
"It's utterly ridiculous!" she exclaimed from where she sat on her open windowsill, the cool winter breeze blowing her hair. "I'm sick and tired of being the mediator. I honestly don't know how they would get along without me!"
"You know what I think?" Klaus said with a laugh from where he sat at her desk, furiously sketching away.
"I'm sure you are going to tell me anyways so spit it out," Caroline said.
"I think we should play a little game with our heroes."
"Klaus," Caroline warned from across the room.
"No, no, love, nothing violent or deadly. I think you should just leave them to their own devices. Let them solve their little spat, their lover's quarrel, as it were. Just simply disappear," he finished, motioning with his hand that did not grasp his sketching implement as his blue eyes flashed to her face quickly.
"Now, what would that solve? Bonnie won't go to Elena, or Damon, or even Stefan for that matter. Her mother will die and then the whole situation would be worse. As for Damon and Elena, they just need time, I think. I don't know."
"I think you should just leave."
"Where would I go?"
"Where ever the hell you want, sweetheart. Rome. Paris. Tokyo," he said looking up at her with a smirk. He then dropped his pencil. "My place."
Despite herself, Caroline laughed and rolled her eyes. "Going to your place would be the opposite of productive. They would think that you kidnapped me and it would launch them into some elaborate action against you and then you would be forced to retaliate and…"
"And you have a very, very active imagination. I never said you had to tell them where you are going," he said with a wink.
"But you know they would assume the worst. Besides, I like to think that I'm a good friend and a good friend doesn't turn their back on their friends when they need them," she said, standing up and stretching. It was fairly late. All of Klaus' visits started after dinner and ended in the early hours of the morning. Caroline pulled pajama pants out of her dresser and walked into her bathroom to change.
"Why is that?" Klaus asked quietly as she walked back into her room. He had moved all the furniture back to its normal position and was reclining on her bed.
Caroline thought. "Because no one is perfect and imperfection leaves holes in people," she said sitting cross-legged on her bed, facing the Original. "And they need other people in their lives to fill these holes. It makes them better, at least I think it does."
Klaus watched her face intently as she spoke. He was genuinely interested in what she was saying. Klaus Mikaelson, despite all of his years on the earth, had never truly had a friend, not since before he was a vampire. He found that relearning all of it was not easy, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make, especially, if it meant he could spend time with the one person he regarded as his only friend, Caroline Forbes.
"What about you?" he asked suddenly. "Do you have any holes?"
Caroline was taken aback. She looked down at her hands as she nervously began to wring them and pull at her fingers. "Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It just depends on my mood and whatever dangers you cook up for my friends and I."
Silence reigned the room for several minutes. Klaus studied Caroline some more, trying to figure out what was going on in her head. He was afraid he had stepped over a line.
"I'm trying to be better," he whispered, looking down at his shoes.
"What? No, that's not what I meant," Caroline said quickly. "Well I guess it was but, well I mean I was just surprised, that's all. No one has ever asked me that before. Not even before all of this, back when my life was normal."
"Me either. But then again, I never tried to be someone's friend. I think I created more holes than I fixed by trying to fix mine."
"Sometimes you have to fix another person's before you can fix your own," Caroline whispered before she yawned. Klaus chuckled.
"I guess I should be off. It's late and you have school tomorrow," he said, standing up.
Caroline smiled and rolled her eyes as he pulled back the covers for her. That didn't stop her from climbing in, though.
"Goodnight, sweetheart," Klaus said, turning off the lights.
" 'Night, Klaus," Caroline said quietly as she watched him climb out the window and head into the darkness. She laid there, wide-awake, long after he left, thinking.
Unbeknownst to her, Caroline had described both of them. Her and Niklaus Mikaelson. Both of them had large, gaping holes that no one had ever bothered to fix, let alone ask about. But now, they had each other and, as strained as their friendship was, Caroline could rest assured that if she did her best to fix Klaus then he would do an equally good job of fixing her.