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Lessons of Love, Chapter 17: Klaus to Caroline, Part 8
"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are." Malcolm S. Forbes
Her phone vibrates on her desk softly. Distractedly she picks it up and reads the message. Her mouth drops and she dials his number.
"No you're not!" Caroline says in disbelief when he picks up halfway through the first ring.
"I am."
"Tell me you're lying, Nik," Caroline groaned into the phone. "You said you weren't coming…you promised me you wouldn't be there."
"And I wasn't going to, until Rebekah," he said, louder than necessary into the mouth piece of his cell phone and Caroline rolled her eyes at his childish antics. "decided to throw a hissy fit and call up Elijah, begging him to come home because her horrid older brother wouldn't attend her first high school graduation by playing on his moral personality," he says with a scoff.
"Well…can't you come late? If Elijah's here, at least she'll have one brother at the entire thing."
Klaus laughed. "Why are you so against me coming?" he asked.
Caroline slapped a hand to her forehead as she sat at her desk, staring at the speech she was required to give at her graduation tomorrow morning. Her friends loved it, thought it was brilliant with all of its inside, supernatural jokes and witty remarks about their futures, or potential lack thereof, outside of Mystic Falls. But she thought it sucked, that it was too dreary.
So, she was sitting at her desk, desperately trying to find punctuation errors, problems with the flow, content errors, any excuse to tweak her flawlessly written paper. It was nearly midnight, she was tired and knew she needed to sleep. But, seeing as she wasn't already stressed enough and things were spiraling out of her control, of course Klaus had decided to drop the bombshell on her that he was coming after he had sworn he wanted nothing to do with it. All because of his sister, how dare that evil Blood Slut.
And, to top it all off, Caroline hadn't even decided what dress she was going to where under the red graduation robe and her honor chords. Or how she was going to do her hair.
"Caroline?" he asked.
"Ugh, it's not that I don't want you there….I just….I, uh….I don't know, okay?"
"Does it have to do with your speech?"
"Maybe."
Now it was Klaus' turn to laugh at her childish antics. "You're an awful liar, love," he drawled. "Thank goodness we've got time to work on that."
"Well, sorry for not being exactly thrilled about it. It really sucks. You're going to wonder why you ever started 'fancying' me in the first place."
"Now, I highly doubt that, sweetheart."
"Seriously, Nik. I'm not even joking."
"I'm not either," he said, earning a growl from Caroline.
The line was quiet for a few moments as Caroline read through her commencement speech for what had to be the millionth time, still not sure about it. "Ugh, why me," she groaned.
"Pardon?"
"Why me? I feel like I'm going to explode," she said, her words coming a thousand miles a minute as she animatedly gestured her combustion with her arms, even though Klaus couldn't see her.
"I highly doubt that you're going to explode, Caroline. A thousand years of life experience says otherwise about spontaneous combustion," he says with a chuckle.
She rolls her eyes as he continues laughing, proud of his vampirey inside joke. She groans at his childish stupidity and figures the only reason he finds it so funny is because he's been drinking and she shakes her head. Vampire boys will by vampire boys, she presumes.
He misinterprets her groan. "Go to bed, love."
"I can't, its not perfect yet! I can't read this tomorrow. It sucks."
"You've had this entire quaint little town read it. How much better do you expect it to get?"
"You're not helpingggg," she whined.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Just, ugh! I wish I wasn't such a neurotic control freak! My life would be so much simpler! Sometimes, I seriously don't understand why you of all people decided to fall…" she stops herself before opening that can of worms, knowing his weird aversion to the 'L' word. "Court, be friends with benefits, whatever it is we're doing. Every other guy in this town steered clear of me. No one likes an insecure, neurotic control freak on crack."
"No one around here sees that, Caroline."
"Everyone does but you, for some weird reason," she said dejectedly. "Damon constantly reminds me, Stefan's at least nicer about it. Elena and Bonnie deal with it cause they're my best friends and they have to. I'm pretty sure its part of the reason Matt broke up with me but at least he can tolerate it now. All I'm saying is that it's only a matter of time before you can't handle my issues anymore," Caroline said.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm serious! Why doesn't anyone take me seriously?"
"Because when you act like this, everyone thinks you're an obnoxious brat. A thousand years of life experience also teaches you that no one has any tolerance for those."
"See, that's exactly what I mean!" Caroline exclaimed, tears burning her eyes.
Klaus sighed, realizing his mistake. "Caroline…"
She shook her head. "I knew it was only a matter of time until you wouldn't be able to handle my issues anymore. I don't even know why you like me anyways…I'm just plain school girl from rural Virginia, Klaus. I'm a cheerleader who knows nothing about anything and looks forward to high school football games on Friday nights…you don't need me. I'm tiny compared to you. I'm insignificant," Caroline said, a tear falling down her cheek as she finished in a broken whisper.
"I think you need to go to sleep, you have a big day tomorrow. Sweet dreams, Caroline," Klaus said before hanging up.
As soon as the line was dead, Caroline burst into tears. She had no idea what just happened, why she said those things. If she was still human, Caroline would unashamedly placed the blame her menstrual cycle, but she didn't have that luxury anymore to deflect her fears on.
She did as Klaus had told her and trudged over to her bed, falling onto the mass of blankets and curling up, wishing the hybrid was here so she could try and explain her jumbled up feelings. It wasn't often Caroline displayed her insecurities, she found ways to hide them but that didn't mean they did not bother her.
Caroline had always been a believer in the idea of "too good to be true" and as of now, that was Klaus in her life. He was still the bad boy, the evil plotting menace she had first met but Caroline thought he had had enough hurt in his lifetime and she didn't want her insecure tendencies to add to that lengthy list.
She woke up the next morning, methodically got ready for the day, but not before checking her phone for the good morning messages she had become accustomed to. There was none.
So, she put a smile on her face, trying not to let the disappointment get to her, just like she always did. It was just a normal day in Mystic Falls…maybe abnormal was the better description since there was still a stalemate in the immortal war going on around here. Caroline didn't know what to call it anymore, the lines had become so blurred.
But she didn't think about it as she smiled for pictures with Elena, Bonnie and the rest of her friends and her mom and other family that had come in town for the occasion. She read her speech, trying not to laugh as she looked at her little group's faces with all of her inconspicuous supernatural allusions, and was greeted by applause at the end of it. She tossed her cap up in the air when Principal Taylor announced them the Class of 2012, acting just like any normal, happy person would.
Caroline smiled flawlessly throughout the day but inside she couldn't help but scream as no one was there to see through her mask. Not even a certain hybrid with blue eyes and dimples.
The festivities continued and before she knew it, she was whisked away to a graduation party at the Boarding House, thrown by the 'ever-so-responsible' Damon Salvatore and attended by just about every member of their class. Caroline kept smiling, but she could feel her resolve slipping as she watched Elena and Damon, Bonnie and Jaime. She wandered upstairs to escape the wild drunk teenagers, clutching her Solo Cup, so she could stop smiling.
She snuck into her old room and sat on the bed, sipping her beer. She knew no one would follow her, Elena was drunk, Bonnie was having too much fun with Jaime, and Damon was, of course, the life of the party. She huffed when she heard squeals downstairs. Very girlish squeals that were too much for her heightened hearing.
"There she isss," Elena slurred, barging in and coming out to sit beside Caroline. "C'mon, girl! We're about to play your song!"
"What?" Caroline asked, grabbing Elena's tumbler as the other girl giggled uncontrollably. "You're done. I'm cutting you off."
Elena pouted. "Bb..but I need it! You and Damon and Stefan get to drink as much as you want! And I never do and its no fun! Besides, Damon said I could have as much as I want because I only graduate high school once."
"Okay, Elena. Firstly, you're human and humans can't hold their liquor as well as vampires so you're going to hate Damon in the morning. Secondly, you've always been a light weight," Caroline shook her head. "Damon is so getting a lecture tomorrow."
Elena's eyes grew wide. "No, no, no, you can't do that, Care! He's so happy and I'm happy and we're both just happy. But you're not happy and that makes me not happy." Elena pulled Caroline into a hug. "I just want everybody to be happy. Please come back downstairs with us and danceee!" The brown-eyed girl said in a singsong voice.
"Okay, okay, Elena," Caroline said, allowing her to be pulled off the bed and tugged into the hall.
"Oh! I forgot to tell you," Elena said, turning around to whisper in Caroline's ear, except she didn't really whisper and Caroline was positive her eardrum was going to burst as drunk Elena all but whispered in her ear, "You have a friend looking for you... He was the bad guy but now y'all are," she giggled again and dropped her voice to a real whisper this time, "Damon says you're fuck buddies."
Caroline felt her jaw drop, not knowing whether to be pissed at Damon or shocked.
"Don't tell anyone I told you! It's supposed to be a surprise and…oh no! I ruined it! He's going to be so mad at me," the girl said, pouting again, clapping her hands over her mouth.
Caroline sighed and gripped Elena's shoulders and forced a smile. "You know what, don't worry about it. I still have no idea what song you're talking about."
"Oh, good!" Elena squealed before running off back down the stairs.
"Elena!" Caroline called after the girl. She decided to follow her intoxicated friend with a resigned growl, Damon was going to get it in the morning after they all sobered up a bit.
She set foot on the landing and weaved her way through her classmates, following Elena's unmistakable alcohol entwined scent which, funnily enough, disappeared before the porch doors. Caroline walked outside as a new song began playing over the speakers.
"Where it began, I can't begin to knowing. But then I know it's going strong"
She stopped and sat in a iron-wrought chair, leaning her elbows on the brick wall that lined the porch, the white lights twinkling from where they were draped over the bushes. She was surprised that Damon hadn't ripped them down after Elena's eighteenth birthday.
It didn't surprise Caroline that she was alone, once again. She shook her head, standing up. If she was alone and miserable, she might as well go home.
"Reaching out. Touching me. Touching you,"
"Sweet Caroline," a voice sang softly. "Good times never seemed so good."
Caroline turned around, her blonde curls flying. She felt her mouth drop. "What are you doing here?"
Klaus just smirked and held out his hand. Caroline crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him. "Don't be ridiculous, love. You're wasting a perfectly good song," he said, walking towards her.
Caroline rolled her eyes before he pulled her into his strong arms and began to twirl her around the porch, singing along the entire time.
"Look at the night, and it don't seem so lonely. We fill it up with only two."
Caroline rolled her eyes again, laughing and laced her arms around his neck.
"How can I hurt when holding youuuu. One. Touching one, reaching out. Touching me, touching youuu! Sweet Carolinee, good times never seemed so goodddd!" Caroline couldn't contain her giggles anymore as he sang slightly louder, exaggerating and embellishing the song in his own, out of tune, way.
They began to slow as the song died down.
"Sweet Caroliiine, I believed they never could. Sweet Caroline, good times never seemed so gooddd," Klaus finished, drawing out the last note as his blue eyes sparkled and they stopped twirling. He smiled down at her with a slight shake of his head as Caroline buried her laughs in his chest. "Sweet Caroline," he murmured, pulling away from her only to take her face in his hands. "I don't care how many times I have to say it. You're beautiful, strong, brave, forgiving, caring, honest. My Caroline," he says with a mischievous glint in his eye that sends butterflies dancing around in her stomach, "is full of light. I'm not going anywhere, I'd be a fool to leave someone so pure and I hope you know that I'm not a fool, Caroline Forbes. Your good qualities outshine your bad ones, sweetheart. They always do and they always will and I'll tell you a million times if I have to."
"Thank you," she whispered, the smile still evident in her voice, pressing a kiss to his lips.
They wound their fingers together, Klaus agreeing to take her home, and walked through the still crazy Boarding House. Another slow song was playing and Caroline saw Damon and Elena dancing, Elena a dead-weight against Damon's body, and Caroline remembers the lecture she promised Elena that Damon would be getting at some point tomorrow as she noticed another Solo Cup in the girl's hand.
Klaus walks her to the door when they arrive at her house. She looks at him as they stand in silence on the porch. He cups her face and returns her chaste kiss from earlier. "Sleep well, sweet Caroline," Klaus whispers against her skin, placing another kiss on her forehead.
"Night," she says, squeezing his hand before walking inside. Caroline shakes her head when her sharp eyes find her mom snoozing on the couch. Liz always did that when Caroline went out, despite Caroline's protests that she didn't need to wait up. She wakes her mom and they go to bed.
Caroline was more than ready to climb under the covers when she saw a sketch book with a white ribbon tied neatly around it. She creases her eyebrows but her curiosity gets the best of her, just like it always did when it came to Klaus' surprise gifts.
She opens the sketch book and flips through the pages for at least an hour, her eyes wandering the pages where Klaus has engraved her in shades of grey. Caroline smiles, she had always liked the way he saw her. He had always been able to see the Caroline she had always dreamed of being, and for once, she could believe what she saw in the drawings. For once, someone saw her the way she wanted to be seen.
Finally, Caroline reluctantly shut the sketchbook and turned off the light, satisfied that she had finally had someone who could deal with her, all of her. The good and the bad.
A/N: Well that definitely took a lot longer than I originally intended! I'm sorry for the wait, guys! At least I was able to get it out before 3x21! Who thinks Klaus is going to be the one to save Caroline from Evil Alaric? I really hope so...we need another moment between them since they were MIA for five episodes. The scene between them was SO GOOD at the Decade Dance. God, I love Joseph Morgan and Candice Accola, lol.
Anyways, I didn't really realize what a long chapter it was either, not to mention I'm not entirely pleased with the way it turned out, it was just so hard to write for some reason! But I did think that after the slight look at Klaus' darker side, we should have a look at Caroline's problems. But anyways, I hope you guys are okay with a longer one. My finals start later this week so I don't know when I'll update again but I'm hoping to be able to squeeze something out over the weekend, I've already got an idea in my head... ;)
Well, I hope you enjoyed this one. Song inspiration is obviously Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond. Thanks for your patience and for reading. And, please review if you get a minute! Enjoy the episode later this week, everyone! :D