Tyler and Klaus both stopped arguing and turned to look over at Caroline.
"Tyler, you're with Hayley now. Maybe we'd still be together if Klaus hadn't compelled you or maybe we wouldn't, but it doesn't really matter. You still cheated on me of your own free will afterwards and you're not my problem anymore." She said before she turned to look at her boyfriend. "But you, you still are my problem. Which is why it still matters that you would do that."
There was a brief pause before Klaus attempted to speak, only to have Caroline loudly talk over him.
"Never have I ever slept with brothers," She said, using the first thing that she could think of.
Katherine and Rebekah both drank as Klaus glanced guiltily over at Caroline.
It was Jeremy's turn next and as he was trying to think of something to say, Caroline spoke up once again.
"So was compelling Tyler instead of me your way of telling yourself that you didn't need to compel me to be with you?" She challenged, staring over at Klaus as she did so. "Or did you compel me too?"
"Never have I ever compelled Caroline," Klaus said in response. "And I'm not going to either."
Damon took a swig of his drink as everyone looked back and forth between Klaus and Caroline.
Caroline remained frowning. Even if he didn't compel her, that didn't change what he had done.
She got up from where she was seated and walked across the room. As she walked past Klaus, she grabbed onto his arm and yanked it with her without so much as slowing her stride.
"I need to talk to you." She said angrily, without even turning back to look at him.
Kol smirked as he watched Caroline half-drag his brother out of the room by the arm.
It wasn't until they were both in the kitchen and Caroline had closed the door behind them that she finally turned to look at Klaus again.
"Were you just never going to tell me?" She asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"I don't know," Klaus admitted. "I just thought that it would hurt you for no reason."
"Well you were right. It did," She responded pointedly. "But that doesn't mean that I don't have the right to know either way. And maybe if you didn't want me getting hurt for no reason, you should have thought of that before you compelled my boyfriend to go find someone else.
"I thought that you were supposed to be the one guy that I knew would never hurt me, but I was wrong. And maybe I'm just a magnet for hurt. Maybe I only fall for guys that I know, on some level, will hurt me," She continued. "…What am I even saying? Of course you hurt me. Because that's what you do, you hurt people. And this is all my fault for letting myself believe that there's a part of you that isn't completely horrible, for convincing myself that you aren't the monster that I know you are. I never should have fallen for your stupid act."
By the time that she had finished speaking, the anger in her tone had dissipated and been replaced by tears that she was struggling to fight back.
"This isn't your fault, Sweetheart," He told her, feeling more guilty from the look on her face and the fact that she was blaming herself than he thought that she would ever understand. "It's mine and you can't imagine how sorry I am; it's killing me to see you like this. I was stupid and upset and I would take what I did back in a heartbeat if I could. You know that I would never intentionally do something to hurt you."
Caroline could see the sincerity in his eyes as much as she tried to ignore it.
"It wasn't an act," Klaus continued. "It was never an act with you. I care too much about you to try to act like something else just to lure you in… I'm not different because it's part of some trick. I'm different because you bring out the good in me, the part that I buried a long time ago because I thought that love and caring were just weaknesses that would get me hurt again. But you showed me otherwise. Because caring about your friends and family is exactly what makes you strong. And that's just one of the reasons that I love you. And I'll spend an eternity making this up to you if you just give me the chance."
There was a pause as Caroline considered his words while a million different thoughts ran through her mind.
"Please tell me what you're thinking, Love," Klaus pleaded after a few long seconds.
"I'm not mad at you anymore, but I don't think that I'm ready to forgive you yet," She replied. "And I'm definitely not very happy with you right now."
"You don't have to forgive me yet," He told her as he took a step closer to her. He decided to take a chance and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Take however much time you need."
Caroline let him hold her as she rested her head on his shoulder. She really wished that he could just either be good or bad instead of just a shade of gray. Why did he have to do something so awful and then act so sweet afterwards?
After a minute or two, Caroline pulled herself away from Klaus's grip and turned towards the kitchen door instead.
"You realize that I'm not kissing you for at least another century, right?" She asked before reaching out to open the door. "And that's only if you're good."
Klaus smirked a little because, although he knew that Caroline had meant that as a punishment when she had said it, she had also unknowingly implied that she planned on still being with him in at least a century from then.
A/N: Please read and review! I hope that you guys enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading. I'll try to have the next update up sooner, although I'm not making any guarantees. And honestly short chapters are easier to get up and a lot easier for me to edit, so I'm not going to worry about the chapter lengths too much anymore because they're going to end up being whatever length they end up being no matter how hard I try to contain it. Sometimes I end up writing really long chapters and sometimes short ones, so we'll see what we end up with.
Another super big thanks goes out to all of the incredible reviewers of the last chapter! :D
REVIEW ANSWERS:
Lia: There will be more Beremy soon. :)
QuietFlightRisk: There will definitely be more Elena soon. :)
WeasleysGroupie: I just couldn't let him be the perfectly domesticated good guy, I needed a little bit of bad Klaus in this... Even if it was before he got Caroline.
Diamond Desert: Sorry, I know that there weren't many 'Never have I ever's in this chapter, but there will be more in the next one. I just needed to have the whole kitchen scene thing in this chapter instead.