A/N: So sorry for the wait there. Anyway, uh, this chapter is a little shorter and a little peculiar. I'm warning up here for above-the-waist lesbian kissing, so if that's not your thing I'm so sorry, you're missing out. Main portrayed pairings in this chapter are Katherine/Caroline, Katherine/Elijah and Elijah/Hayley, but it makes sense, you'll see. Enjoy!
If pressed, Caroline would have had a hard time saying what she did that day. With the previous night and the stubbornly unfading memory of rage stirring in her oesophagus, of rising up to grab at Adaeze's throat and thinking about killing them all, so easily—with the conversation with Malia and her surprising but hilarious celebrity that feeling that everything would collapse if Caroline didn't start running had abated. She was left with a sort of empty-headed feeling, not peace but something like a precarious calm which she didn't entirely dislike, however unfamiliar it felt. She had used to be so jittery. It had calmed a little with Tyler, but there had been days when she could barely keep still, when the mountains all around made her want to tear something apart, when she'd picked fights with Tyler just so she had something to do.
The afternoon was well underway by the time she found herself back in Manhattan. This time the city didn't feel crowded and aimless as much as it felt flowing, as though pushing Caroline to wander through streets whose square mathematical names quieted her, the soles of her feet hard with all the walking she had done, almost all of it at normal human speed. She popped into a coffee-shop and ordered a coffee with caramel just to be able to use the bathroom. The girl —woman— in the mirror looked back at her with an amused, indifferent expression, her hair matted with blood and dust. She didn't look anything like the girl Caroline remembered, or Tyler's wife for that matter. In the end, though, Caroline didn't care; it was just one more person to mourn.
When she came out of the bathroom she figured why not and sat down to drink her coffee. It was good, overly sweet; she watched people walking past through the almost-clean French doors, trying to read the backwards menu on the glass. She paid, smiling absently at the hipster pretty-boy type at the cash register. As usual, no one seemed to have gotten the memo that Tyler was dead, but Caroline didn't feel up to being mad at them for it. Outside the weather hadn't caught on either, and it was sunny but not sweltering for once, the sky an intimidating unbroken blue overhead. Caroline behaved like a lazy native rather than a tourist; she ended up getting a mani-pedi in a high-ceilinged shop where everything was pastel, including the staff. The girl who did her nails thinned her lips at her dirty hair and Caroline compelled her back to the bathroom just to be vindictive, pierced a mean little bite at the crease of her neck and shoulder and asked her the address for the best hairdresser within walking distance before telling her to buy a scarf that would compliment her outfit more than her shoes did.
She got distracted on her way to the hairdresser's by a shimmering of lights like a mirage, deceivingly similar to the snail-like trace she imagined a ghost might leave in its wake. By the time she'd abandoned the trail, kind of ashamed, her bottom lip had a clear mark etched into it in the exact shape of her teeth. She asked the effeminate hairdresser regarding her with shock-horror to go for honey strands while he tried to summon the courage not to ask what the hell had happened to her. She soon got annoyed with it and told him she'd taken a run that had ended in a wild romp in the bushes. He laughed, showing off LA-perfect white teeth, said, "I've been there," and Caroline decided she liked him —even more for not mentioning the blood. That probably wasn't the weirdest thing he had seen. This was New York, after all.
He kept up an unbroken stream of chatter while he rendered her hair to its former glory; by the end of it Caroline had learned the schedule of his dog's chronic diarrhea as well as all three of his mother's middle names. Caroline only told him she'd lived in New York for three years. Lying about who she was didn't disguise or even ease the grief but it did serve to make it more remote, the sick-white swelled flesh of a closing wound ready to re-open and gush out at any moment. Maybe she could live with that, Caroline decided. Then she closed her eyes to enjoy the hot swish of air on her skull and the image of Tyler's lacerated torso slapped against the back of her eyelids like it had every time she'd closed her eyes since that day—stinging tears came welling up—her throat closed up—maybe she could try to live with that, she amended.
She lied to all the people who asked her name. It felt good to pretend that there was no rush, that she was just adrift in the city, content with happening onto its secrets and dent-sized idiosyncrasies. She visited landmarks and small shops, wandering between the shelves with floating at the back of her mind the distant idea that this might be the last chance she got. Once she got out of that plane she would be all business; it didn't matter what happened to her as long as she got Tyler's due. She thought about the fan of Tyler's notes on pack dynamics she'd never even pretended to care about replaced by the others on the big oak table the night before his death; then she thought about the knife. All business—right.
When it got dark again, the whole day had been wasted and Caroline was presentable again, her reflection grinning back sharp and Barbie-pink when she caught it in store windows —when she was satisfied she looked like herself again, if a slightly anemic and baggy-eyed version of herself, instead of something feral and desperate—, she started towards Bonnie's apartment. She didn't know why she was going at first other than the pathetic instinct to grab onto her friend and never let her go; then she decided, and from then on it was set. Caroline was surprised at her own resolve. There was something tight and coiled inside her, like a pulled muscle; and she wanted to let go.
The power of memory made Elena's voice resonate in her ear again, ever the good angel: no more lies. But Caroline wouldn't lie, she didn't need to. She just wouldn't tell. There were things Elena didn't need to know. And Tyler was gone, after all. If he cared he would've stayed. Caroline cleared her throat to keep from sobbing in the middle of the street. Was it unjust? Maybe.
"Yeah?" Bonnie's voice emerged from the buzzer, tinny. Caroline tried to pick out her heartbeat, to see how she was taking the whole thing, but there were too many people in the building. If Caroline focused it was like music, a constant and atonal drumming, almost soothing.
"It's me," Caroline said after a while.
There was a silence, long enough that Caroline started to worry that Bonnie really was mad at her. Eventually she said, fake-casual, "Hey, Care. Come on up."
There was a metallic sound, and Caroline pushed the door open. The staircase still smelled faintly like witches, sharp wafts of perfume and cold silver. Caroline wondered idly if Malia had made it home alright, if she'd gone directly to see her boyfriend. If they'd last long enough for her to tell him what she was. Probably not. They were so young.
She wasn't winded when she got to Bonnie's door, but she felt breathless. She raised her hand to knock. The door drifted softly open.
"You shouldn't leave it open," Caroline said as she walked in. "It's not super safe, you know."
Bonnie was standing in the middle of the living-room, pouring tea —jasmine, it smelled like— in little ornate cups. Caroline noticed she hadn't given her a choice of beverages this time. Then again, Caroline could see how Bonnie might doubt her decision-making abilities right about now.
Bonnie shrugged. "You'll protect me," she said absently. Then she seemed to register what she'd said and she looked up, grinning sharply, "Or I'll protect myself. I'm pretty sure a robber would have more than he'd bargained for if he tried anything here."
Caroline tilted her head, conceding. "I guess you're right." She sat down at Bonnie's urging, toeing off her shoes and folding her legs on the couch. "Still." She rested her hands on her knees, fingers fanned. Her nails glimmered softly in the fading light, a light coral.
"Nice," Bonnie said, nodding at them, though she seemed curious.
Caroline grinned, holding her hand up to get a better look. The sunlight glinted sharply off the corner of her thumbnail. "I know, right?" She caught Bonnie's inquisitive look. "I needed some R&R."
"Hm," Bonnie said, and Caroline couldn't determine if it was meant to be judgemental or not. "Elena was here earlier."
Caroline ducked her head. She took a sip of tea to distract herself from answering: it was scalding, burned her tongue. She swore. Bonnie reached forward instinctively, then drew back and smiled, fond. "Nice diversion. You want some cold water?"
Caroline managed a quirk of her mouth. "Please." Bonnie disappeared in the kitchen and came back with a tall glass of water in which floated three ice-cubes.
They drank their tea in silence, Caroline blowing on it for a few minutes before she dared take another sip while Bonnie just drank hers, unafraid of searing. Caroline's tastebuds were numb, but the hot liquid sliding down her throat felt good nonetheless, as did the pregnant, soft smell of jasmine slowly suffusing the air around them. Caroline kept her head down, searching for something to say.
Eventually she went for, "I'm sorry for what happened yesterday." Bonnie nodded. "And not coming back right away. I was…" She flicked non-existent dust off her jacket. It smelled nice, like new leather. "I need a favor."
"Malia stayed," Bonnie said, which was about the last thing Caroline expected her to. She stared a little, dumbly.
"What?"
"Malia," Bonnie said, and gestured to her ears, "the one with the… earrings. Kinda aggressive. Black hair, braid. She stayed behind when we left."
"Oh," Caroline said. "Yeah."
"She didn't seem very happy about the whole thing," Bonnie insisted. "That I asked for their help with the ritual. Did she…"
Caroline realized that Bonnie was asking if Malia had tried to hurt her and wanted to laugh. It would've been unkind, though. It could easily have gone that way.
"No. Nothing happened. She just gave me a cigarette, and then she left." Without really knowing why, she added, "She'll make a good, uh, urban liaison. If that's really a thing. Adaeze was right to choose her."
"I don't know," Bonnie said, looking as though she was trying to figure something out. "She gets angry fast; it's not really an advantage for a witch. Not that I have any say in the decision anyway."
Caroline looked around the room. It felt like someone had been in there since the witches, an obtrusive and intimate presence; the ruffled quilt on the couch, a mess of unwashed glasses on the low table, and for once Bonnie looked more exhausted than Caroline, the bags under her eyes a faint bruised purple. Elena had been there, of course, but maybe someone else… Jeremy?
"—favor?"
"Huh?"
Bonnie leant forward and slapped Caroline's hand lightly, playfully, as though to say, pay attention. "I said, what was that favor? You could pretend to be here in spirit at least."
Caroline gave an apologetic smile. "Sorry. Yeah. Remember when Elena talked about tracking Hayley last time?"
"I didn't do it, if that's what you're concerned about," Bonnie said, frowning. "To be honest, with all that happened… I didn't even remember she'd asked."
"I know, it's like we got used to having a normal life, who knew. But I was thinking… you could still do it, maybe? For me? You still have the charm, right?"
Bonnie nodded absently. "Why would you want to track Hayley?"
"She has something I want," Caroline lied, because she wasn't going to say: she left without saying goodbye. She didn't even like Hayley. She added, as an afterthought, "Don't tell Elena."
"Why not?"
"She's got something against Hayley, apparently," Caroline said. "I don't really get it to be honest. If anyone should hate her it's me." Although the reason for that was tenuous, distilled by years of ignoring each other —there was only that time with Tyler even though that had been when he and Caroline were broken up; or her history with Klaus, but Caroline wasn't supposed to care about that.
"You don't?"
"She's alright," said Caroline —for the first time, she realized, but it was the truth. "She's been through a lot of shit, like all of us. Besides, you have to pity someone who went and fell in love with Elijah of all people."
Bonnie gave her an oblique look that suggested she wasn't fooled. Caroline kept her face carefully blank. But she didn't feel guilty. Resentment she was good at, but hatred eluded her —Bonnie knew that.
"Let me get the charm," Bonnie stood up and turned her back on Caroline to rummage in a drawer. She was beautiful, Caroline reflected again, like something you just couldn't break no matter how hard you tried. "It's a bad idea, you know that." The charm was dripping silver from Bonnie's hand. "You're just asking for trouble. You should just leave alone; if you keep looking for them you might just find them."
"It's only Hayley," Caroline said, pretending not to understand. Hayley was enough. She'd thank her for the note, get closure, tell her to run as far away as she could before she got herself in even more trouble. She owed her that.
Bonnie shrugged; this time it was purposefully judgmental. Before she could say something else about how bad of an idea it was —it wasn't like Caroline didn't know—, Caroline asked, "Was Jeremy here?"
Bonnie's eyes widened with surprise. She tried to play it casual, "He visits sometimes, I told you that. I know Elena's not—"
"No, I mean today. You told me Elena came, right? Was he here?"
Bonnie's face shuttered down. "I didn't know she was going to come," she said. "Jeremy was just—passing through, he does that sometimes, he doesn't have a phone, so… You know, what you did was fucked-up, I just needed to talk to someone."
And he's the one you talk to, Caroline completed in her head. She tried to picture the scene in her head: Elena rapping softly on the door and opening it only to find Jeremy on the couch with his feet squarely set on the ground, his arm around Bonnie's shoulders, whispering… She hadn't cared that they were dating, back then. She'd liked it, even; it meant both of them couldn't escape her, that they couldn't slip out of her grasp at all. Though of course she didn't see it like that. She'd said she was happy the people she loved loved each other, and Bonnie had smiled, "Something like that," like she wasn't fooled. She probably wasn't.
"What did she say?"
Bonnie sighed. "Nothing. They hugged, and then he left. I wish they would just set it to rest, Care. They could just have—" she shook her head, obviously frustrated. "Elena always prides herself on being so well-adjusted." Caroline had to smile a little at that. "I wish they would work out their issues already. They obviously love each other."
"Maybe that's the problem," Caroline said before she could think about it twice. With Bonnie's inquisitive eyes on her she expounded, "Loving people isn't always enough, right? You know that as well as I do. Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth."
The haircut and the new clothes hadn't done their job well enough: now she was discovering that beneath their protective disguise she was just as tired and brittle as she had been before, her head full of undreamed nightmares. She sighed; the only other option was to smash things on the ground, and there was no time for that.
"They're all they have," Bonnie said. She was fiddling with that bracelet again, and when Caroline discreetly looked she felt stupid for not having realized earlier that it was Jeremy's and that the little animal figure was a wolf. Its silver jaws were closed, though.
"Yeah," she said. "Not very healthy, is it? Maybe it's better that they just try without each other for a while." There was no polite way to say that Jeremy might not want to kill Elena as much if she wasn't the only person he loved in the world, but Caroline knew Bonnie would understand.
Bonnie gave her a look. She seemed on the point of retorting something Caroline wouldn't have liked to hear, but she didn't. Caroline was grateful. She rubbed her hands together. Her ring made a dull metal noise when it rasped against her new manicure. A long shiver shook her. She breathed in.
"So, will you do it?"
"The tracking spell? Yeah. Don't—" Bonnie darted a glance at Caroline, then thought better of it and let her gaze settle on her, deep and brown and steady. "Don't do anything stupid though, okay? Promise me."
Caroline's mouth quirked in a smile. She felt a little hollow inside. Maybe Elena had been right after all; you could forgive someone and still not trust them. "Pinkie promise," she said, holding up her little finger.
Bonnie returned her smile, then linked their fingers. They separated with a quiet slap of skin and Bonnie said, soft, "Make a wish."
Caroline had nothing left to wish for that didn't involve gruesome death, so she made one for Bonnie instead. "Thanks," she said then, and wished she had a cigarette to settle the skittering feelings in her chest. She'd never been uncomfortable with emotional honesty before, but now it seemed like just saying Thank you or I love you or I promise took years out of her. Not that she cared; she had hundreds of decades to spare, provided she didn't get her heart torn out by a stray sicko.
Bonnie laid out all her ingredients on the table. After the demonstration from Adaeze's coven it seemed a little amateurish, even though Caroline felt guilty for thinking it. It worked, that was what mattered, wasn't it? The sand started tracing curlicues on the map, slow as molasses. It was a long time before it settled on a nook in the Upper East Side, and Bonnie was sweating —nothing obvious, but it was soaking her shirt at the nape of her neck and beading over her top lip. Caroline pretended not to see, turned her head away when Bonnie went to wipe it with the back of her hand. She rocked back on her heels. When Caroline took her hand she squeezed it with something that looked like rage.
Then her face smoothed over, she was Bonnie again, composed and sensible and bitchy and wise, and she said, "I think I know where she is." She pointed at the map. "There's a club there I used to go to when I was new in town. Pretty high-end, but that's the Upper East Side for you. They make those drinks with smoke and like, day-glo chemical stuff, you know?"
"At least one of us is having fun," Caroline said, laughing.
"I honestly can't picture Elijah bobbing his head to Kanye West," Bonnie shrugged, "but who knows anymore. It has been a while." Her eyes cut over to Caroline. "Are you going to go?"
Caroline was already zipping up her jacket; one glance outside had informed her that the night had descended while she wasn't looking, and it was probably cold outside. "Yeah," she said. "Thanks. I owe you."
Bonnie scoffed. "Shut up," she said peremptorily. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," and when Caroline gave her an amused look she amended, "okay, don't get drunk on jaegerbombs or fuck some random in the bathroom, at least."
"I don't know," Caroline smirked, as though it wouldn't take a lot more than jaegerbombs to make her fuck anybody in the bathroom and not throw up at the reminder of Tyler crawling over her in their bed, in their house, as though she wasn't a fucking widow and this wasn't her swan song, more or less, "gotta make the most of my first trip to New York, right?"
Bonnie frowned. "It's not your first time here."
Caroline shrugged. "First time I actually bother to sight-see," she said, and caught Bonnie's gaze, the absurdity of it making them both burst into giggles. She stepped forward and hugged Bonnie hard, catching bones. "Thanks for everything," she said in the crook of her neck. "For helping us. Couldn't have made it without you." We can never make it without you, she thought.
"You'll be fine," Bonnie said, and Caroline didn't say that she had no way of knowing that because they were both aware of it. "Tyler…" she breathed against Caroline's cheek, and Caroline stiffened without meaning to, "he'd be proud of you."
Caroline pulled away, letting her hands linger on Bonnie's forearms. Then they were holding hands.
"Yeah," she said, numb.
"He would," Bonnie insisted, and where Elena would have looked earnest and overflowing she was just certain, something that took root in her heart and expanded far down beneath her feet, anchoring her to the ground.
"Okay," Caroline said, letting that certainty sway her. She rocked forward a little, as though she was going to kiss Bonnie on the forehead. "Take care. I'll see you."
"You will," Bonnie said, and it sounded cheesy, like a line from a revenge movie, the villain leaning over the table with his metal-grey briefcase and sunglasses, but Caroline didn't laugh.
She took a step back. The door was still open from earlier. "Okay," Caroline said, and then, when she'd found her balance, she repeated, "okay," and she left. Bonnie's heartbeat did a quick frantic tap-tap thing in the background, but by the time Caroline had made it down the stairs it had settled down into its usual steady rhythm.
It wasn't a long walk to the nightclub —The Lighthouse, Bonnie had told her its name was— but Caroline decided to take the tube anyway. She soon realized how dumb an idea that was: all the girls in glittery make-up and boys in tight jeans and foolish grins weren't half as attractive as the excited thrum of their blood was, and in the dense evening crowd it was overwhelming. She felt herself salivating with preemptive pleasure; if she closed her eyes she could imagine the taste of it washing over her. She felt dirty with lust and after a moment of hesitation she took off her wedding ring and pushed it down her jeans pocket where it would be safe. By the time she made it out into the clear night she was ravenous, not completely sure if she still wanted to talk to Hayley anymore or just pull a stranger into a dark alley and bleed him dry. She thought, fuck Hayley. This was her last night in New York after all, she'd been right when she'd told Bonnie she had to make the best of it. Soon enough everything would be blood and grime and revenge and the memory of Tyler everywhere, in the eyes of every person she talked to. Tonight she'd let herself off the hook, she decided, just walk into the first club she saw and dance until her hands fell off. Drink too much. Come back to Elena in the dead of night and carefully not lie to her, and tomorrow they would finally be gone.
The first club she found happened to be The Lighthouse anyway but the wide, dark building was strangely alluring and Caroline resolved to go inside nevertheless. Maybe Hayley was already gone. It was a big place; even if she wasn't, they'd never bump into each other. In fact, Caroline didn't know what she'd been thinking— talk about a needle in a haystack. She laughed to herself, almost drunk by proxy, almost safe in the crush of happily and exuberantly trashed people. The bouncer let her in without a second look, parting the pretend-gold cord with a bored nod.
The music was pounding. Caroline felt like she had been swallowed in a giant heartbeat; around her people were dancing, absorbed in the music, their faces shiny with sweat and glitter, only sporadically lit by the stroboscopic lights. Her eyes started roaming around the room on instinct until she remembered that she wasn't here searching for anyone and made her way to the bar, generously using her elbows. There was a band on the other side of the large, high-ceilinged room, and they played like they were dancing too. Typical, Caroline thought, a little dazed.
"Mojito," she told the bartender. He smiled at her in the darkness, but Caroline didn't return it. The feeling of uneasiness from earlier that day had come back, tense and uncomfortable in her stomach. She took a generous sip.
After a few drinks she felt marginally more relaxed, even though it took a lot more to really get her in the mood, vampire constitution be damned. And there was the fact, always at the back of her head, that although she and Elena had had that much-needed conversation it didn't mean everything was fine, far from it. There were still grievances on both sides, and what if— A guy with mascara stains around his eyes and long, slightly greasy hair sidled to her, smiling. In other circumstances Caroline would've rolled her eyes and told him to scamper off, but she felt a little buzzed, and besides, her husband was dead.
"Yes," she said, even though she wasn't sure he had asked her to dance. She took his sweaty hand and led him to the dancefloor, where he plastered himself against her. She pushed him back a few inches, smiling sharply. People never understood this particular smile until it was too late: Careful; don't come too close; I could eat you alive without even trying. She remembered a story Elena had told her, about Damon getting her to do just this, dance and drink from some unsuspecting girl in the crowd, swaying, let blood drip on your chin and hear that heartbeat stutter in time with the beat; the spark of something illicit and dangerous, the rush, getting away with it. At the time she had hated her for that story; thought, I could have been that girl. She shook her head to chase Elena's image. Not tonight.
She danced for what seemed like years. At one point she lost her partner in the crowd, but she didn't really mind; she gathered her arms over her head and let her body take the wheel, twisting and bending with the music. Fuck Elena. She didn't have any right to judge. If she believed in true love so much, why wasn't she the one who'd gotten hitched at twenty? Exactly. She had no right to talk, none at all. Caroline would like to see her, if Klaus smiled down at her like she was a particularly tasty lamb, if he kissed her like she was holding the sun between her teeth… And anyways it was irritating that she still pretended to be that perfect girl even though Caroline knew, had seen with her own eyes proof that that wasn't true. It wasn't like she had some kind of moral high ground, was it?
Sweat pervaded through her clothes, and even though she wasn't drunk she felt giddy, exalted to the bone. She would have to take a taxi to get back, she thought idly, and considered staying there until dawn not to have to crawl silently into her hotel room bed, trying not to wake up Elena. She wouldn't sleep anyway — she was too wired.
For the first few times she didn't hear her name being yelled somewhere near. It seemed doubtful that anyone would know her: hadn't she come here especially to get trashed without having to suffer through any more supernatural pow-wows? And it wasn't like she had many non-supernatural friends, at this point. But— wait, no. That wasn't why she'd come here in the first place. She'd come here to find Hayley, to—
"Caroline!" the voice insisted.
Caroline turned around, eyes fluttering open, and found herself face to face with…
"Katherine," she said, instantly sobered up, unable to keep the disbelief out of her voice. Great. She was really hitting the jackpot today, wasn't she?
"Long time no see," Katherine smirked. Caroline took her in, still incredulous: she was wearing a leather jacket and glitter all over her cheekbones, her hair messy like a rockstar. After spending so much time with Elena it was startling, too, seeing Elena's snarkier, eviller twin materialize out of the freaking woodwork.
"Career change?" Caroline couldn't help but ask.
Katherine laughed, unbothered by the sarcasm. "Still as charming as ever. So, lovers' reunion?"
Caroline rolled her eyes. "No. How do you know about that?"
Katherine shrugged. "Word travels fast." She smiled, predatory. "And what can I say, I've got a face people trust."
Caroline almost laughed at that. What she really wanted was to go back to dancing, but she'd learned her lesson along with the rest of the Mystic Falls population: turning your back on Katherine Pierce was never a good idea.
"I thought you'd be dead by now," she said after a while, too honest but also too out of it to pretend, to play the usual games. Seeing Katherine here was only another reminder that Tyler—
Katherine's eyes went sharp for a second, extraordinarily focused, and she grinned. "Why would you think that?"
Caroline shrugged. Why had she? No-one ever died anymore, except the people who really mattered. It was a good thing she'd given up believing in God, otherwise understanding why he had chosen to take Tyler instead of Katherine would have wrenched all the rage left inside her.
"Humanity gets old fast," Katherine said, unprompted, her eyes flitting from dancer to dancer until they settled back on Caroline. "What are you doing here?"
"I feel like I should be the one to ask you that." Caroline waved a slightly incredulous hand towards Katherine's kohl-rimmed eyes, her battered leather jacket and sour cherry mouth, "And why are you dressed like an Arctic Monkeys groupie?"
"Gotta blend into the surroundings, you know," Katherine said with a mischievous smile. "But I know what I'm doing here. I thought you were holed up in marital bliss with your little boy scout in the most boring state after Utah? Trouble in paradise?"
Caroline ignored the question. Her eyes roamed around the room again, trying to pick out things she hadn't been searching for when she'd arrived, unsheathed fangs, the well-pressed bloom of a pocket square. In the past the cat had never gone far without the mouse trailing —although the analogy didn't work that well, and Caroline lost a few seconds trying to figure out who was what or if both were a combination, rodent and feline blended together.
Katherine rolled her eyes, stealing a drink —acid pink with a jaunty little umbrella, Caroline noticed absently, and smoke rising off it in long curlicues— off someone and draining it in one gulp, her fangs catching on the rim of the glass. Caroline couldn't help but watch. "You're not going to find him if he doesn't want to be found," she said drily.
"What—"
"Oh, please. You're about as subtle as a car crash." Failing to find somewhere to set it down, she threw the glass lazily behind her. Caroline lent her trained ear, but couldn't distinguish the responding shatter. "Besides, as I said, words travel fast. I know all about your little roadtrip with Miss Mystic Falls and Elijah's werewolf girlfriend."
"I'm Miss Mystic Falls," Caroline corrected before she could help herself, and felt heat rise to her cheeks.
Katherine laughed, not exactly unkind. "Of course you are. Wanna get out of here?"
It sounded so much like a pick-up line —and it had been so long since someone had tried to flirt with Caroline, much less pick her up— that for a second she didn't know what to answer. Katherine picked up on her hesitation and smirked. "To talk," she clarified. "Unless you have something else in mind."
Caroline decided that the booze was getting to her head and ignored the last part of her sentence; this whole thing was confusing enough without Katherine trying to get into her pants. She went to touch her ring, but remembered belatedly that she hadn't picked it up before leaving the hotel. Now that she'd noticed, she felt naked without it.
"Yeah," she said, a little dazedly.
Katherine led her down a dark corridor whose ceiling was low enough that Caroline almost had to duck not to hit her head on it. The crowd got sparser, the music more and more remote, until the only thing Caroline could hear was the low, taunting patter of Katherine's heartbeat, the only thing she could see the glinting bloodthirsty red of her nail polish, hands trailing in her wake as though to grab Caroline if she tried to run away. At the end of the corridor they emerged through a fire escape, probably closed to the public: it was dangling above the city, too high, the streets twinkling with lights in the abyss beneath them. Caroline wasn't afraid of heights, not really, but she swallowed. Katherine followed the movement of her throat.
"Well," Caroline said, "what do you even want?"
"Just a nice conversation between old friends," Katherine smirked again, in that tone she used when she wanted to mellow you down before she stuck a knife in your back. She touched Caroline's wrist. The fire escape was too narrow to pull out of her reach; Caroline only squirmed away, trying to breathe.
"I know who you're searching for," Katherine said when she got bored of watching Caroline pretend not to feel like she was being trapped. She reached forward and her nails grazed Caroline's wrist, slid up her forearm. It didn't feel as bad as it should've. "Let me give you a piece of free advice: leave while there's still time."
"I've seen Klaus already," Caroline blurted out, her head too full to lie. She twisted until Katherine was no longer touching her; breathed in. "And I'll leave when I want to. My turn to give out tips," she added, regaining confidence and taking a step towards Katherine, her shadow splashing against the wall, boxing Katherine in, "maybe you should be a little more careful with me. I've grown up since you saw me last."
"Sure you did," Katherine said, sweetly condescending. "And I was talking about the werewolf princess, by the way." Her face contorted in disdain. "I don't care about your little affair with Klaus, idiotic as it may be."
Caroline's brows furrowed. "Why do you care about Hayley?" It was strange, saying her name —like they were friends. They weren't.
"I don't. But you've fulfilled your part of the bargain, Caroline. She's here, and so are you. No need to go searching for more trouble than you're already in, huh?"
For once she was the one who knew more, Caroline realized. Whatever she wanted, Katherine had no leverage on her: she didn't know why Caroline was here, or about Tyler, and why she wanted to see Klaus, or even— She laughed; she couldn't help it. Katherine didn't seem to like it: her fangs slid out with a slight hiss and Caroline barely had the time to blink before she was suspended over the sprawling darkness, her back bent on the metal railing, Katherine's hand tight around her throat.
"You might have grown up," she said amiably, "but I'm still the teacher here, hon. Best not to laugh in my face until you can actually manage to walk two steps without stumbling, how about it?"
Caroline tried to push her off, but her grip was solid. In the end she had to suffer it until Katherine saw fit to release her. She fell to her knees, coughing, holding her throat, glared up at Katherine, who was inspecting her nails. She sighed happily.
"I'd forgotten how good that feels," she said, watching with an amused smile as Caroline struggled up, leaning on the railing for support. "Well, where were we?"
"You've decided to ruin my night for no discernible reason, and apparently now you care about Hayley?" Caroline snarked, trying for poise and missing by a mile.
"Oh, yes. The coincidence seems a little far-fetched," Katherine said, reaching for Caroline again, unbothered when Caroline glared and swatted her hand away, "that you would happen into the same club as me, don't you think? Your dog is probably waiting for you back in fairytale land; why don't you go back to him and let the grown-ups play in peace?"
Caroline bristled at the term. Not that being centuries old made you a grown-up; she'd have trouble finding a more convincing twelve-year-old than Klaus, at least where impulse control was concerned.
"I don't care how far-fetched it is," she said coolly. "I'm here to relax. So how about you take your own advice and we just go our separate ways? I think we've established that sleepovers aren't in our future."
"I don't know about that," Katherine drawled, with a sudden smile that showed all of her teeth —she was still the predator. Caroline didn't like that smile at all. "Do you know what the problem with you is, Caroline?"
Caroline didn't answer, but that didn't deter Katherine in the least.
"Your problem," she said in a whisper, and when she advanced this time there was nowhere for Caroline to walk backwards, so she had to suffer it, the length of Katherine's slim, tensile body against hers, "is that you're so well-suited for darkness. You understand it. I guess it's a case of in the wrong place at the wrong time." She leaned in until her mouth almost touched the lobe of Caroline's ear. The chemical smell of lipstick and perfume was overpowering. "If only you didn't love Elena so much, following her everywhere like a lovesick puppy. If only you weren't so afraid. You're not the type to be satisfied to be second fiddle, Caroline. You should've been one of us."
Since when are you a part of anything? Caroline opened her mouth to ask, but she was struck dumb, Katherine's fingers playing with her curls, smiling wickedly down at her. It was strange to hear her talk about Elena when in the dark she looked like her at the end of a bad day, Elena when she decided she'd had enough and wanted to got out, have fun, dragging them all along.
"Well," she said, trying to regain her footing, "I'm not."
Katherine laughed, throwing her head back, and Caroline hated herself for noticing how beautiful, how delicious, how smooth her long white neck looked. "Yet," she whispered, and she placed a red, open-mouthed kiss along Caroline's jugular, making her jump, "there's still time."
Caroline tried to struggle out of the forceful embrace but for a while Katherine refused to let go, kept kissing and nibbling at Caroline's neck, unperturbed. Her strength was so superior it seemed to be child's play for her to keep Caroline's hands tied at the small of her back, bent backwards over the balcony as if she was going to threaten her with precipitation again. Caroline's right shoulder was mashed against the grainy wall, every movement making it rap on the stone.
"Let me go," she hissed. Panic was flooding her entire body; her head was cloudy with lust that felt like it had been wrung out of her. She shoved at Katherine more forcefully, to little effect. "If you don't let me go in the next ten seconds I swear I'll make you regret the days Klaus was the one chasing you."
Abruptly, Katherine let go. Caroline reeled. She rested her palms on the metal railing, breathed in, shocked. Katherine had to know it was an empty threat, that if Katherine could do this to her, how could Caroline… Without thinking she raised her hand to her neck. Her fingers came back with a smear of lipstick-red. Katherine's mouth looked a mess, like she's just been nose-deep into someone's blood.
She wiped at it with the back of her hand. "How furious," she said, almost wonderingly. She reached out for Caroline and Caroline snapped her teeth at her, her fangs hurting her lower lip as she did. Blood trickled down her chin, hot.
The music was still pounding in the distance. Underneath Caroline the void was gaping. She had to take a moment to breathe; then she pushed herself off the railing and tried to squeeze through the small entrance to the balcony without touching Katherine. Katherine let her.
"You know," she said, perfectly, disturbingly still, "we're not so different, you and I." When Caroline raised a skeptical eyebrow Katherine just looked at her, impassive. "Did you know I used to be named Katerina? Of course you knew that; I've gotten quite famous over the last few decades, haven't I? Well, Katerina was a good girl. She was such a good girl —or at least she tried to be, until she got knocked up by some random she had the misfortune of falling for, because isn't that always what happens to girls like us? I know all about your little wolf friend's tragedy. I don't care; I know it ends. The point—" She came closer and this time Caroline let her, mesmerized, "the point is, Katerina was a good girl until she wasn't, until she became a sacrifice so some douchebag could get more power. And then me. You think I'm so bad, Caroline Forbes? You think I'm the villain, the woman you never want to become? That's because I'm the future. I'm what you become when you've got nowhere to run. I'm not ashamed of it."
Obviously, Caroline thought, dazed; she couldn't remember ever seeing Katherine with her head so much as bowed. She would never kneel to anyone: that was what a life of running bought you.
"One day, Caroline," said Katherine, and her mouth was red all over and she looked like a wolf on the prowl, glorious and slightly unhinged, "someone will push you in a corner you won't be able to sweet-talk your way out of. Some day the big bad wolf won't fall for your baby blues and will want to tear you limb from limb instead, and you'll understand what I mean. You're the one that lives forever. Not Elena Gilbert, and not your husband—you. So," she titled up Caroline's chin with one red-nailed finger under Caroline's chin, "may I?"
Caroline blinked. For a second the world was completely silent, and she ran through her options in her head: run; pretend she didn't understand; surrender. It was the same kind of torturous propensity to surrender that had made her fall into Klaus's embrace last time, some traitorous nerve inside of her. She thought about Elena in their hotel room, and Adaeze saying that there was no bringing Tyler back, and Malia in the morning light. She thought about Klaus in his empty warehouse with his bottle of Château Margaux. She thought about what Katherine had said, about them being alike —she thought about the way none of it had sounded like a lie. And wasn't a revelation like that enough to make a girl want to get spectacularly drunk and lose her mind, forget about everything? Only it was hard to get drunk for a vampire. This—wasn't this as close—
"Yeah," she whispered. She cleared her throat. "Yeah," she repeated. "Okay."
She was pressed against the wall, the corridor open like a missed opportunity and Katherine was still coming closer, the music beating through the wall and rocking through Caroline's body. Katherine's hair was a halo around her face; she didn't look entirely human, her eyes blown-up and black, her lips too red. Caroline forgot to be afraid.
"You know," Katherine said slowly, just before kissing her, "you were always my favorite."
She swallowed Caroline's answering gasp —not surprise, but something like hypothermic shock—, her lips hot and stinging against Caroline's. Her hand curled possessively around Caroline's hip, her fingers digging into the sliver of exposed skin. When she pressed forward Caroline didn't resist, opened her mouth to the brutal, bruising kiss, Katherine's tongue sliding against her own, the tip of her fangs hidden under the flesh. Katherine kissed like she was trying to convince her, to fashion her into something more suitable for the future, crawl under her skin and remake her; she kissed deep and dark and unyielding, and if Caroline had been able to think at all she would have been horrified at herself for liking it.
Katherine pulled away long after any of them would have needed to breathe if they were human, and Caroline followed her mouth blindly, without thinking, falling forward. The wind was warm like syrup on her skin and Caroline felt flushed with pleasure; she thought, this is what I was searching for. This is why I came here. So she didn't stop herself, leant up to catch Katherine's mouth again, her legs bent and one knee between Katherine's, though she wasn't sure how that had happened. Katherine's eyes sharpened like she was hesitating —then she lunged forward again and crushed Caroline against the wall, wedged her thigh between Caroline's legs, hands keeping her shoulders in place. Caroline couldn't help a moan, twisting her hands in Katherine's hair.
It was… it was overwhelming, for one, and insane, and it felt good like nothing had felt good since Tyler's death. Katherine Pierce kissed you and it was like swimming in bleach, like forgetting everything you had been before: something you came out of with scrubbed-raw skin and seared lips, wondering what that shard of ice in your heart was doing there. When Caroline thought about it she was surprised to find that she wasn't surprised, not really. Her thing for bad guys was documented, after all —and who batted better for the dark side than Katherine fucking Pierce, the tragic Katerina Petrova with her endless machinations and her fierce, desperate will to survive?
She pressed forward and Katherine keened a little in surprise at the violence of the kiss. In a way it was a victory, getting one over Katherine Pierce, always so unfazed about everything, always coming out of the shadows with her full hand of cards, secrets no-one was ever sure how and where she got.
Caroline leaned back a fraction. The overwhelming urge was to clamp her hands over her mouth, oh-my-God-what-have-I-done style, but she just breathed, "I'm not going to get my guts ripped out by some Original or the other for this, am I?" against Katherine's mouth.
Katherine looked back at her with no trace of humor, just the faint imprint of a smirk over her lips. "I thought you liked taking risks," she said. "Tempting fate and all that."
She held Caroline's gaze, unblinking, and for a second Caroline could've sworn that she knew about that time at her wedding; but it was impossible, how would Katherine, of all people—
Katherine didn't give her the opportunity to finish that thought; her mouth was on Caroline's again and blood was rushing in Caroline's ears, Katherine's fingers hard on her jaw, lips feather-soft against Caroline's until she deepened the kiss and it was a fight again. Caroline didn't mind. The last person she'd kissed— the last person she'd kissed had been Tyler and it was a perfunctory kiss, the kiss of married people who know they're going to kiss again the next morning, and the one after that. But Katherine was always on the run. She woke up in a different city every dawn, in a different bed; the people who loved her —were there even any of those left?— stayed behind, or tried to hunt her down and failed.
(Would Elena kiss like that? Caroline couldn't help but wonder. No, of course she wouldn't. Elena was—Elena was a lot of things, and she was surprising, at times, and she was different with different people, changeable, terrifying, but if there was one thing she wasn't like it was Katherine Pierce. Still: it was the shape of her lips Caroline was kissing; her cupid's bow. If she— oh, it didn't matter.)
"Miss Forbes," came a voice from the darkness, silky as a glove. A shiver ran down Caroline's spine —guilt, probably— and she jerked backwards, the imprint of Katherine's lips suddenly burning on her own. She felt addled.
Elijah Mikaelson was standing in front of them, impassive as ever, three fingers wrapped around the stem of a martini glass. He wasn't looking at Caroline; his eyes were fixed on Katherine's outline in the darkness, the long smooth line of her body where it was pressed against Caroline's, voracious. Caroline waited for something to explode.
But Katherine just peeled herself off her body, calm as you please; she pressed her thumb to her bottom lip to wipe the smeared lipstick off her mouth. Caroline couldn't help but look and she saw Elijah look too, his eyes dropping to her mouth, their gazes meeting in the middle.
"We're past all that formality, don't you think?" Katherine asked lightly. "'Caroline' would do at this point. She did sleep with your brother, after all."
The ensorcelled look vanished from Elijah's eyes, quickly replaced by familiar annoyance. His lips pinched. "I recall," he said coolly. "Niklaus did always have some trouble with… impulse control."
Caroline glared at him, showing teeth but Katherine laughed and touched his wrist with two fingers. Caroline tried to convince herself that her whole body wasn't still buzzing with adrenaline, without much success.
"Don't spoil my fun," Katherine said, almost tender.
She moved away from Caroline and slotted against Elijah's side, their dark, timeless silhouettes melting into each other with disturbing ease. One hand fanned on her hip, Elijah took half a step forward as though he really did want to talk to Caroline about something; but something halted him and he ducked his head —quickly, so quickly Caroline probably wouldn't have noticed had her eyes not sharpened when her fangs had grown out all those years ago—, breathing in Katherine's scent for a millisecond, eyes shut—
And then: "Miss Forbes," Katherine pouted when he said it, "I believe we have urgent matters to discuss."
"Do we?"
"You've been searching for my brother."
"Yeah." Caroline didn't mention that she'd already seen him. If Elijah didn't know —if Klaus hadn't told him, well…
"Why?"
Caroline tried to wipe the kiss off her lips, discreetly; Elijah's gaze followed her movements, precise as a needle. "It's none of your business," she said eventually.
His mouth quirked in what could have been the beginning of a smile, had his face been capable of actually expressing emotions. "I think you'll find that isn't quite true, Miss Forbes."
"Isn't the point of being four hundred years old that you don't need a babysitter?"
Katherine snickered in her fist, and Elijah's hand slid up to her waist and squeezed hard. It looked painful, but Katherine didn't so much as flinch.
"Niklaus—my brother has been known to make some regrettable choices in the past. Especially when it comes to you."
Caroline took a step back, unsure how to respond to that. Most of the time she preferred to pretend that whatever there was between her and Klaus only happened there, between the two of them; that it was unfathomable, an anomaly of nature, and didn't bear any consequences on the rest of her life. It made things easier.
"I don't give a shit about foiling whatever plan he's hatching up this time," she said eventually. "He could blow Central Park for all I care. I told her," she nodded to Katherine, " I'm not searching for a fight. I'll be gone tomorrow. I just wanted a night on my own, so if that's your only concern, well, you can go dance the macarena. Have fun."
Elijah didn't look amused. "There is something to be said for knowing what's happening around you," he said matter-of-factly. "How did you think my siblings and I survived until now? It's about… well, it's about the bigger picture, I suppose you could say. Imagine it as a game of chess."
He wasn't threatening —he never was threatening, not outright, was never outrageous like Klaus— but it was obvious that his question was an order. Ten years ago Caroline would have tried to run, and he would have caught her by the throat and thrown her on the ground. She assessed her chances. They were stronger than her, even individually —and as much as she didn't want to tell them about Tyler, it wasn't like they weren't going to find out at some point, was it?
"I had something to talk to him about. About Tyler."
Elijah's eyes widened incrementally. "What does your husband have to do with this? It's not—" his face twisted into a mildly disdainful expression, as though the mere idea was repulsive in its inappropriateness, "another tryst, I hope?"
Katherine and Caroline laughed at the same time, Katherine low and mocking and Caroline a little punched-out. "No, it's not." Relief slackened Elijah's face a fraction.. Which made sense, when you thought about it; most of the problems he'd had to deal with the last few years were the result of Klaus's whorish tendencies.
Elijah's eyes focused on her once again, impossibly sharp. "What happened?"
Caroline breathed in. It never did get easier, did it? Saying it. "Tyler is dead."
Surprise registered clearly on his face — not Katherine's. But didn't all survivors expect everyone else to die, those who weren't fighting as hard as they were? Or maybe she didn't share her secrets, even with him. It didn't seem that far-fetched either, actually.
"All my condolences," Elijah said. "He was brave."
"Among other things," said Caroline, trying for light-hearted and missing by a landslide. "I thought you were the one on top of the gossip in the family?"
Elijah titled his head, reluctant. His gaze rested on Katherine for a brief second, loaded with something heavy and precious, myrrh, incense. "I've been… distracted, let's say."
Caroline laughed out loud, "I bet you have."
There was a moment of silence, what Caroline assumed passed for grieving among them, two giant indestructible beings standing silent side by side, dressed to the nines, sparing a minute to think about the ones that had died before moving on. Or maybe it was something else—maybe it was just for her. They probably didn't care about Tyler dying at all; they both killed people at the drop of a hat.
"What does my brother have to do with your husband's death?" Elijah asked, suddenly back to business. "I suppose you—" His gaze got sharp and ever-so-slightly amused; besides him Katherine appeared to have gotten bored with the conversation altogether and was sipping on Elijah's drink, "—or rather Elena Gilbert, suspect Klaus of being behind his death? I'm right in assuming it wasn't a natural death." It wasn't a question.
"You don't have anything to worry about. I didn't think it was him in the first place."
"And you're sure of it now," Elijah completed. The mind-reader act was getting old, Caroline thought. "Though it wasn't a completely unreasonable suspicion, to Elena's credit." Elena, Caroline noticed. Not 'Miss Gilbert'. "Niklaus always did have tremendous fondness for you, hard as it may be to believe."
Katherine looked up from the drink and smiled at Caroline, insolent and glittering. "Not that hard to believe," Caroline said before she could stop herself, affecting a mirth she didn't feel. Of course she'd wondered. She still did. "I'm amazing. I'm first-class."
Katherine made a loose fist with the hand that wasn't holding Elijah's drink, the red nails protruding from between her fingers like smears of blood, and held it up over her head, pumping it in the air twice. It was mocking, but Caroline didn't mind.
"I'm sure you are," Elijah said indulgently. "May I inquire as to who did kill him?"
"We're still working on that," Caroline said.
Elijah raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly between Katherine and Caroline. "Yes," he said slowly, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I can see that."
"I'm not sure you're one to talk, what with you know, the rekindling the flame with Catwoman here instead of taking over the world."
Elijah's eyes flashed, maybe amusement or maybe anger because she had taken it too far. For a second it looked like he might reach forward, tear out the railing and jam it through her throat. But he didn't. He titled his head, conceding.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he said again. Katherine hooked an arm into his and leant her head against his shoulder, looking as dangerous as ever. "And call us if you need help with the bodies," she cooed.
"I don't think we're at that stage yet," Caroline said, and Katherine laughed open-throated because it was a perfect opening and she said, "What gets me in your good graces then, Caroline Forbes? What exactly do I need to kiss?"
Elijah made what could generously be called a moue behind her, leading her to the narrow entrance of the balcony. Katherine's smile flashed one last time, the curl of vermillion offset against the luscious cotton of Elijah's suit, and then Caroline was alone on the balcony again. Silence rushed into her ears; she felt like she had escaped a great danger. There was still music streaming in from the inside, as though nothing had happened at all.
She rested her back against the cold wall, trying to process the conversation. The kiss was still at the back of her mind: the stinging bite of Katherine's lips, her laughter, her long, serpentine hands wrapped around Caroline's throat… It shouldn't have been attractive, really, any of it, but sometimes Caroline felt like she was wired differently since her death, because now she liked glowing eyes and sharp teeth and being slammed into walls. But maybe it had been like that before too. Maybe she just hadn't wanted to notice.
She took out a small mirror out of her pocket —one of the few things she hadn't left behind, that Barbie-pink mirror studded with fake diamonds—; when she opened it she looked disorderly and a little stunned. She spent a few minutes putting on gloss, making eyes at the small oval to convince herself she was still in control. It was only when she caught, at the very edge of the block of sound of the club, the drum-tight heartbeat she had come here to seek before giving into the need for one night without strife, that she stilled. Should she go? Hayley deserved a thank you for giving her Klaus's location; on the other hand there was no return address on that envelope, no sign that she wanted to be followed. In the end she was the one who'd taken Caroline's promises to Elena the most seriously: she'll be gone tomorrow, and then we'll never hear of her again. Caroline could say it now : looking for her had just been an excuse.
On the other hand… Katherine was right: it couldn't be a coincidence that they were all in the same place at the same time, that Hayley had been searching for Elijah and now the only thing between them —if that; if they hadn't already found each other— was the thumping crowd. Not to mention that Katherine was there and that had to change the stakes, too. Hayley hadn't sounded afraid when she'd asked Caroline if she knew her —Caroline doubted she was afraid of much anything, after everything that had happened— but she'd been appropriately wary, as though aware of her inevitable defeat in that particular square-off. Caroline… well, Caroline was smart enough to know that she ought to keep away from the whole thing —it didn't concern her at all, really— and herself enough that she was just dying to watch the drama unfold. She snapped the little mirror shut and headed back inside.
For a split second the tight, hot atmosphere of the room disoriented her and she couldn't do anything but blink stupidly, trying to find her bearings. A vampire constitution was in any situation a mixed blessing, because it came with its load of abilities —sight, smell, violence— but also with an overwhelming amount of information which wasn't always easy to triage. Parsing through the heartbeats to make out Hayley's was still a surreal experience even years after her transformation. But she did, and it was there, muffled by a thick velour curtain and an intricate network of weaved rope and there was a low growl surrounding it, the uncertain rumbling of an animal who didn't know whether to surge or to surrender. Caroline followed it blindly, closing her eyes to let the incandescence of it guide her. When she opened them again a wiry, dangerous-looking vampire was looking down at her, one hand folded over the breastpocket of his suit. Caroline thought, if Klaus's thugs had been like this guy maybe I wouldn't have gotten in as easily.
"Caroline Forbes," she said, with all the commanding haughtiness she could muster.
The man just kept staring at her impassively. For a beat Caroline feared he wouldn't let her in and she would have to cause a scene in the middle of the club —she let her blood run hot, revving the engine—; but eventually he nodded and unclasped the rope, sweeping a mildly deferent hand. Caroline slid past him, letting her eyes adjust to the obscurity. There were different depths of darkness in the room: the first immediately before her, where a sparse crowd of evidently wealthy vampires was sprawled on sumptuous couches, engaged in all sorts of activities; the area just behind the long gleaming bar, with Katherine leaning along its length, flirting with the bartender; and the room in the back, where Hayley and Elijah were talking. Well, talking.
Without thinking, Caroline beelined for Katherine, who didn't turn around until Caroline was almost pressed along her back, opening her mouth to talk.
"Already missed me, did you?" she grinned, all teeth, turning around dramatically. "I have to admit, I wouldn't have pegged you for the clingy type." The bartender deposited a neon orange drink in front of her. Katherine flashed him a dazzling smile. "Thanks, babe."
"Do you compel them all not to charge you for what you drink?" Caroline asked, in the absence of Elena.
"Oh, I don't need to compel them. They come of their own free will." Katherine took a sip, sucking obscenely on her straw. She clicked her tongue. "So you're here for the spectacle, I take it?"
"I—" Caroline didn't have a response to that, so she said what was closest to the truth, "I have to talk to Hayley anyway. Seeing you get rejected is just a bonus."
"You think I'm getting rejected?" Katherine laughed. Her mouth smelled of sugar and alcohol, and Caroline had to fight herself not to tip forward. Katherine drew up and peered into Caroline's face, unbearably sharp for a moment, "No, you don't. And Hayley doesn't need you to see her, I'm going to conjecture. You just want to taste it." She was delighted. "Well, come on."
She tugged on Caroline's arm and though Caroline would have denied it to the grave she came willingly. The room in which Hayley's heartbeat had been ricocheting off of Elijah's was separated from the main area with a door, but between them was a small antechamber, an alcove that sheltered them from the thick syrupy murmur of the lounge. The door was ajar. Katherine pushed Caroline against it, face first.
"Get off me," Caroline said, out of habit, but Katherine's spindly hand closed on the nape of her neck, and "Shush," she said, rubbing one finger in small circles in the dip of Caroline's right collarbone. "Pay attention."
"—leave," Hayley was saying. Her body was angled towards Elijah, but they weren't touching. "I just wanted to—"
She didn't finish her sentence. Elijah was watching her. His eyes were black, but Caroline couldn't tell if it was from desire, pain or just their natural disposition.
Hayley's eyes dropped to the floor. She looked miserable: her forehead was sweaty, body bunched with nerves. "This was stupid," she said. "I shouldn't have come."
"No," Elijah said simply when she started heading towards the door. In a blink his fingers were around her wrist. They traced her palm; Caroline felt like a voyeur.
She pushed back against Katherine's now-slack grip and they tumbled backwards, Katherine keeping them up with what would have seemed like unnatural agility had anyone in the lounge been even remotely paying attention.
"This isn't—" she started. "I don't want— I didn't come here to see this."
Katherine smiled. "I know, but isn't it fun?" She held her drink out to Caroline. Caroline ignored it. She snapped her fingers at the bartender, who winked at her and nodded. Katherine wasn't the only one who could ensnare cute humans, after all. "Still think I'm being rejected?" Katherine asked.
Caroline didn't say anything, but her face probably gave her away, because Katherine pouted. "I thought you were smarter than this, Caroline. Where's all that wit and beauty queen brains now? You still think we're like wolves," she scrunched up her nose in disdain at the word, "mating for life until we get massacred by one crazy witch or the other? Well," she let out a thin sigh like a whistle, "Klaus did say you were missing out on the advantages of our condition."
Hayley's heartbeat sped up in the next room and Caroline couldn't help but picture her lips crushed against Elijah's, his hands tangled in her hair. She pointedly didn't look at the embrasure of the door.
"But it's sweet, really, that you're concerned," Katherine was saying. "What would you do to avenge my honor, Caroline?"
"I've watched you die once," Caroline said. "I wouldn't mind doing it again."
Katherine didn't seem affected overmuch. "I have learned to fend for myself over the years."
And that was it, for a while: Caroline was antsy and jumpy but she didn't leave, couldn't leave, Katherine was back to sitting on her stool, making simpering faces at the bartender now dividing his attention between the two of them, and in the next room Elijah and Hayley were kissing like there was no tomorrow, her back pressed against the wall, an obvious patch of diffuse red heat. She had something to say, Caroline could feel it even at this distance —though she refused to think about how she already knew what Hayley was like when she had something to say, coiled and angry and waiting— but she couldn't say it now, not when Elijah's hands were pressing her forward, palms splayed and pushing at the space between her shoulder-blades.
When she couldn't hold it anymore she asked Katherine, "Aren't you jealous?"
Katherine tore her predatory eyes from a long, voluptuous woman who had just entered the lounge. "That was burning your tongue, wasn't it? I could almost hear the sizzle."
"Elijah's—" Caroline gestured at the door.
"A big boy," Katherine finished for her, "who knows what he's doing. Oh, Caroline." She came close, touched Caroline's hip with two fingers. Caroline batted her hand away. "You think I don't want to tear wolfie's little neck? You think I couldn't?"
"Then why don't you?"
"Marriage isn't for people like us, honey," Katherine said. "I thought you'd caught onto that. It doesn't work."
Caroline tried to find a way to ask, how do you tamp down that possessive urge that's always simmering beneath, how do you fight down the need to whip out your fangs and tear her away from him? In the room Hayley said, "I don't have a hundred years," and "You love girls who die before it can get difficult," even though Katherine was right there. Elijah said, "I could turn you if that's what you wish." Then Hayley just laughed, jagged.
Katherine's voice was like a shard of glass cutting Caroline from the scene. "The rules aren't the same. I'd kill that tramp twice if I could, but Elijah told me something the first time he spared my life by going against Klaus' orders. You wanna know what he said?" Caroline nodded wordlessly. "He said that now I was free. He said I knew how to survive and that was why I was still there, and he said that he was going to let me go because now he was sure he would know how to find me again." She made a face. "I know, cheesy, right? But the point is, we're free. That girl is five minutes in my eternity. She doesn't deserve the calories I'd burn tearing her throat."
Caroline dipped her lips into her drink. The icy cold burned her. Her cheeks were hot. "I'm leaving," said Hayley. Elijah asked where, but Hayley didn't answer. Probably she knew as well as Caroline the Originals' history of chasing after people, of refusing to give up, to forgive or forget.
"Oh," Katherine laughed, "you still have a lot to learn."
"Why are you still here, though?" Caroline asked, because she'd always defended herself by attacking. "A little masochistic fun to spice up the relationship?"
"There's nothing wrong with keeping an eye on things," Katherine said, and Caroline hated herself for understanding it, this need to always be in control.
There was a silence. Then Caroline asked, "What if he leaves with her?"
"He won't."
"What if he does?"
Katherine sighed. "Then he leaves with her. Then they live fifty years of boring werewolf subgrade happiness, his soul starves, his heart shrivels and he thinks that means redemption." She smiled; her teeth shone white in the darkness. "Then she dies, and he comes back to me."
"You'd take him back even after something like that?"
"I'm tired of running after things," Hayley said. Caroline would have liked to say she understood, but she didn't. The chase was always half the fun. Hayley was an animal too; wasn't it supposed to be carved into her bones?
"Don't make yourself more stupid than you are, Caroline. As fun as snapping someone's neck once in a while is, that's not what I mean when I say freedom. Elijah," this time she looked straight at the door, almost through it, tall and unafraid, "belongs to me. He's always belonged to me, and he always will. And he can run," Caroline saw, reflected in the golden brown of her pupils, underlined by the tar-black kohl, and I can run, "but it will still be true, and he will come back to me every time, just like you come back here, where the blood is pumping. Because you can't keep away. That's not who you are."
Her words were poisonous: Caroline hadn't seen searching for Klaus as coming back but now that she thought about it this way it was all too obvious. Of course she was coming back —why would she have been unselfish when nothing in the past predisposed her to be? Suddenly the need to avenge Tyler felt dirty, a flimsy excuse to put herself back in the center of the whirlwind, feel the current tear through her. Caroline felt sick.
Katherine didn't notice her discomfort, or she didn't care. "They've been telling you what forever feels like, haven't they? They told you how limitless and glorious it is. Klaus —he's been trying to ensnare you for a long time. They did the same with me. They thought teaching me meant owning me. Hayley's wrong: Elijah used to love girls and kill them, and now he loves me. You should have listened when they told you my story. They brought me to be a sacrifice, but —and that's where I tip my hat to Elena, you know, I do like her, family's family— I didn't want to die, so I didn't."
"Simple as that," said Caroline, but what she'd intended as sarcasm came out like honesty. Hayley's arms around Elijah were a vice, and his fangs were drawing blood from her mouth.
"Cake," Katherine said, as though Caroline didn't know the stories about that long hunt, too, decade after decade of hiding, of running scared. "Trust me, Caroline Forbes; those rules will take your hand, they'll put the stake in it, and they will kill you." She pressed a hard kiss to Caroline's mouth, bruising and proprietary. Caroline didn't resist. "Make your own."
Everything in Mystic Falls had concurred to make Caroline think that immortality meant settling once and for all the question of who you were and just going on with it, but as always Katherine refused to fit into the mold. At least, and for all that it didn't make his constant offers and temptations bearable, Klaus was somewhat predictable; but Katherine was slippery as an eel, always grinning before wriggling from between your fingers. It made sense that Klaus had never been able to trap her; it made sense, too, that Caroline had never hated her as much as she was wary of her, always trying —and failing— to anticipate her next move.
But one thing she remembered about all the Katherines she'd known over the years, even the one who'd hid in Elena's body for a while, giving Caroline's best friend sharper edges that Caroline had felt guilty for liking after, is that she cared about Stefan. That had been her method of choice for crushing Damon's heart, what had sent him hurtling into Caroline's arms like the douchiest, most manipulative manwhore on the planet —Katherine telling him just how much she'd never cared for him, that it had always been Stefan and it would always be him. Caroline couldn't say she didn't get it; Stefan was a forever kind of guy.
So she asked —she didn't really care at this point about sounding like a kid who wanted to know the whole story, who wanted to understand how the world works, since Katherine didn't seem all that opposed to teaching her—, "What about Stefan?"
Katherine's smile looked like it had been whetted with broken glass. "Stefan loves the version of me who smiles and shuts up."
Caroline frowned. "That's not—"
"Come on, Caroline." Katherine's sharp eyes angled to her. "It's just us girls, isn't it? I love Stefan too, but he lost his balls in the twenties and since then he's been cowering over true love and keeping a diary. You know that as well as I do."
"Stefan rejected you because you betrayed him," Caroline said.
"Semantics," Katherine said, just as a moan —Hayley— broke the silence in the next room. At the back of the lounge a couple's heads perked up at the same time, a man and a woman, and they laughed.
"Don't you think we should—" break this up, Caroline almost said, because her childhood did involve manners being drilled into her; but Katherine didn't care.
"Let her get it out of her system. She's going to need those memories when she's out there on her own." There was no sympathy in Katherine's voice.
"I thought you said you'd let them go."
"I would, if they were. But Elijah's not going to leave me, not now, and he's certainly not going to leave his brother. Those two are tight as bullets in a gun chamber." She leaned in incrementally. "Listen carefully, honey, because I'm not going to say this twice: we might look the same, your girlfriend and me, but we're not. I've lived longer than she ever will. You think I've never been young and dumb? You think I was born evil, right?"
No, Caroline thought. She didn't. She never had. This was the only part she'd listened to in church, love the sinner and not the sin; now it seemed like she'd been stocking for future offenses, to protect herself from the wrath of God, to be able to say, look, you have to love me. It's written.
But Katherine didn't care about that either.
"It takes more than dancing on charcoal to become like me," she said. "You tell that to your girl: it's easy to be good when there's a choice. But you and I, we know how it is, don't we?"
Hayley shivered so hard that for a second Caroline thought she was going to bring the building down. She closed her eyes to block out the sound.
When she opened them again Katherine had retreated back to the bar, her slouch liquid and melodious like there had been no conversation at all. Maybe there hadn't; right now, in the delirious half-light of this lunge filled with monsters, it didn't seem entirely impossible that Caroline might have dreamed it all up. But then Katherine smiled at her from over the rim of her drink, fingers tight around rope-like crystal, and— it wasn't a dream.
"Question is," Katherine said, but now that she was a few feet away from Caroline it didn't feel as much like her voice was infiltrating Caroline's thoughts, stealing her will from her, "what are you still doing here? Didn't you tell me you just wanted to dance and forget all about us big bad wolves?"
"I—" Caroline had had an excuse ready on the tip of her tongue, but now she couldn't find it. Instead she said, "Someone has to keep an eye on the two of you. It's not like you destroy everything you touch, right?"
"The world has been doing fine without you for a few hundreds of centuries," Katherine said, not cutting. "You should go home. If you stay here longer I might remember we're supposed to be enemies."
What a strange night, Caroline thought. From searching for Hayley to being kissed by Katherine to finding Hayley like this, to this conversation…
"And then what?"
"Then I'll pop those pretty little eyeballs with my brand new Louboutins and make sure there's no body to recognize when they start searching for you," Katherine said matter-of-factly, almost bored. "Which would be a pity." Caroline couldn't say if she meant that for Caroline or for her shoes; both possibilities seemed about as likely.
Katherine handed Caroline a drink so red it looked like freshly-drawn blood. "Here," she smirked, "they call it Red Riding Hood." She leaned in to add, as though in confidence, "The bartender named it after me."
Caroline couldn't help but arch an eyebrow. "Doesn't seem all that fitting." She took a sip; the taste bloomed on her tongue, rich and sour with just a hint of salt. It wasn't blood, but it was good, dizzying.
"You never know what's hiding behind a hood and a pretty face," said Katherine, her voice heavy with stormy laughter, as she swept past Caroline and into the room where Hayley and Elijah were still breathing hard, their composedness ripped to shreds. A handful of seconds after she'd disappeared the brush of her hand on Caroline's hip was still smarting and her words, "Good night, Caroline."
Caroline hightailed out of the club as fast as she could; holding onto that plausible deniability would be exponentially harder once she started to hear bones breaking.
—