Whoo this chapter was rough. I made the mistake of rereading the story and I mean, there are some cool bits, but uajrhaejrhejrh at the rest of it, and it was a bit demoralizing. Seriously does anyone reread their own stuff and not want to vomit? Oh well.

1) There's a scene in here that's the first one I ever wrote for the story, and I've been trying to find a place for it ever since lol. 2) This chapter is 50% talking and 50% action, so if you don't like long-ass convos skip to the end. I like exploring how people think, even though (or perhaps especially because) Caroline is super difficult for me to write. 3) Still not sure how I feel about it, so posting now before I...don't. If you spot some glaring plothole in it, let me know.

Thanks to everyone who's reading, I truly hope you enjoy. If you like, please let me know how I am doing. I am a giant dork and greatly appreciate every comment.

Klaus's mouth is set in a grim line as he prowls the streets of Delhi, the wolf in him ranging under his skin and seeking release. He welcomes the instinct and heads north, passing the University and reaching the Northern Ridge where the forest briefly overtakes the city. A few acres in, one could almost forget they are amidst a city of 18 million were they not to possess Klaus' senses; for the film of pollution still coats the back of his throat and the juttering moped engines still sound like cannons in his ears. The Ridge is far, far smaller than he remembers and he scoffs lowly at the shortsightedness of humanity.

These humans and their constant folly. The horror of humanity is inescapable, he thinks, yet a baby vampire has served as his judge and jury because of the death of one. Millions upon millions claimed in the name of religion, race, and power and he is the one to suffer from that look, those eyes that flashed with the dampness of unshed tears. He feels the hollowness in the pit of his stomach and the rage that comes close behind and lets the bones start cracking to begin his transition. After just a moment, he scents something in the air and pauses, his head cocking to the side with the wolf so close to the surface.

He straightens as the curious werewolves circle him and his hand closes around a vial in the pocket of his jacket. Perhaps there is a means of acquitting himself after all.

"Just a sec, geez!" Bonnie's voice is tired as she unlatches the front door. Caroline's fist pauses in midair when the door swings open; she sees Bonnie and her face crumples.

"Woah, woah, what's wrong?" Bonnie steps outside and wraps an arm around Caroline's shoulders, cold with the evening's chill.

Caroline's response is a sob that works its way up out of her throat and Bonnie gives a squeeze, feeling delicate bones beneath her grip. Such a difference from hugging a boy, she thinks idly before her attention snaps back. She steers them upstairs into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

"OK, spill. What's going on?" Bonnie knows she should probably be less blunt about the whole thing, but she's tired and it's not like she's used to having girlfriends, so blunt it is. She lights a bundle of sage with a flick of her wrist, the privacy spell as natural as breathing.

Caroline hiccups a few more times before launching herself on the bed, burying her head in the pillows. A slightly coherent mumble emerges from the depths of the bedding.

"How d'you do it?"

"What?" Bonnie pulls the pillow off Caroline's head and Caroline grabs at it, flipping around on the bed to face Bonnie, her chin settling on her hands.

"How do you work with a monster?"

Bonnie gives a short bark of laughter, the question so similar to her own a few weeks ago. Seeing Caroline's mouth twist downward, she puts out a hand - "No, no no, I'm laughing because I asked Grams almost the same thing recently. It's just weird, sorry."

However awkward the delivery, it seems to cheer Caroline up infinitesimally. "You're not used to having friends, are you?"

Bonnie's glower is the only warning before a pillow smacks the side of Caroline's head. Caroline's scoffs, affronted, before she jumps behind Bonnie with a pillow poised for revenge. The room descends briefly into a chorus of giggles and an occasional angry screech until they both collapse on the bed, breathing hard, and Caroline's face turns sad once again. It was good to have a distraction for a moment, but reality was patient.

"Klaus killed Abhi's wife. For no reason apparently. And I was starti-" Caroline cuts off, breaking Bonnie's gaze to look down at the bed, her hand rubbing along the seam of the blanket pooled across her lap.

Bonnie doesn't miss the pause and can guess what Caroline was about to say, but she lets it go. "Oh no, Care….poor Abhi. That's so awful. Is he ok? What hap-?"

"-pened?" Josh and Bonnie's voices merge - he's right outside the door.

Bonnie looks to Caroline with a brow raised in inquiry and she nods, and mouths her thanks. Josh is pulled into the room but not before an imperious hand appears in the doorway.

"Ring."

Caroline rolls her eyes at Bonnie and Josh before taking off the cloaking ring and placing it in Rebekah's palm. Fingers curl around the jewelry and Rebekah's hand retracts, the door shutting with a heavy thud as she stalks off, presumably to go find her brother.

Caroline flounces back on the bed face first and rolls to her back, directing her words at the ceiling. "So, Klaus is a murderous asshole."

She doesn't say anything else and Josh looks to Bonnie for help. Bonnie helplessly grimaces, so he tries again.

"OK, so I mean, I guess I've known Klaus longer than you, but 'murdering asshole' is pretty textbook for him. Well, not always murdering. But asshole. So yeah."

Caroline lifts her head and looks at him incredulously. "Abhi's wife died because Klaus is a murdering asshole. Better?"

"Oh God, I'm sorry."

Caroline shakes her head at Josh, glaring daggers. "How do you work with him and just accept that killing people is part of it?"

"Yeah, um. I don't have a good answer for you, honestly. " Caroline raises a brow at him in a clear request for more information and he sighs. "Look, I came to New Orleans to have the time of my life and ended up with a dead friend and the urge to gnaw on people's necks for fun and nutrition." Josh's leg is bouncing up and down and Bonnie quietly puts a hand on his knee to stop him. "It's just - this is gonna sound all sorts of messed up. But I like being a vampire, I like knowing I'm strong and fast."

Caroline shrugs a shoulder. "I do too, but -"

"Hold on, let me get it out. I like the power, and I like being in the mix of things. And I mean I liked Marcel but Klaus pretty much nipped that in the bud after about two minutes, so Klaus it was. Ugh this sounds so freaking horrible." Josh studies the ceiling a moment before unfolding from the chair, his hands raised up to each side of his head, pushing back his curls.

"The supernatural world is crazy, and as an aside, I totally lowkey wonder if mermaids and unicorns are real too now, because hello? Anyways, Klaus has this weird twisted way of making me feel like I'm a part of something way bigger than myself, and I think it's mainly because I just...stay. Like he has his hybrids, but I'm the only one who makes a choice." He drops his hands and turns to face Caroline and Bonnie. "Aaaand I'm totally a horrible person."

Bonnie gives a small grin at this. "No you're not, Josh." She pauses, then shakes her head with a small laugh. "I was just legit gonna say 'Klaus tends to only kill people that try to kill him' like that's ok. God, we're ridiculous."

"See that's kind of what I'm afraid of." Caroline glances up and back down, clearly wanting to say more.

"What do you mean?"

"Is it just a matter of time? Like, will I start looking at death differently? At people? When will life matter less, or mean less? Because I -," Caroline sits up, tucking her legs beneath her and resettling, "I can kinda see how it happens. It's gonna kill me when my friends and family die. I mean look at why I'm here! So will I stop trying to connect because of that? I mean, I don't think so, but I just…" She trails off for a moment, her fingers worrying at the blanket again. "I'm the very definition of a monster, guys. I drink blood to survive. I'm scared that I'll forget, that I'll lose what makes me human.

And look, Josh," She laughs at the stricken expression on his face. "I was just gonna say I'm totally with you on the 'better vampire than a human' thing - seriously you would not have wanted to know me freshman year of high school - but I just…I look at Rebekah, at Klaus, and I worry that's the future. Treating life like it's nothing." Her eyes are huge in her face as she looks up and meets Bonnie's gaze.

Bonnie gives her a small smile. "You know what I think? I think it's like that old cliché where if you question your sanity it means you're still sane." She reaches over to a drawer next to the bed and pulls out a bottle, pouring some of the contents into her palm and rubbing them together. "Simply put - you're a good person, and since you're worried about becoming bad, that worry is what keeps you good." She pulls her hands through her hair, the scent of jasmine and vanilla filling the room. "It's just like anyone else, really. Do you stop growing, stop trying to work on yourself, or do you keep trying to become something better?"

Bonnie stands and wanders over to the bathroom, her voice echoing as she wipes hair oil off her palms with a hand towel. "Look, I know you're worried that being a vampire somehow changes things, and I admit I can't exactly relate to that part, but I still think it's the same question in the end. Do you care? Do you want to be better? Then that's what you'll be." She gives a sharp nod and Caroline can't help but smile, though it fades quickly.

"Do you think they stopped trying, then? Klaus and Rebekah?"

Josh tilts his head back and forth as if weighing the question while Bonnie pauses for a long moment before responding. "Yeah, I think they did, for a lot of things. I don't know. It's weird." Bonnie stands, arching her back in a stretch and sighing with contentment at a sharp crack. "I don't think they're pure evil, but yeah, I think they stopped...No, you know what it is? It's like one day they forgot to even ask the questions."

Even the creation of a new subcontinent of hybrids has done little to soothe the twisting in Klaus's gut. He is not ready to face her yet, not ready to see those eyes that, if he were to guess, will be flashing with anger and disdain, because each time he thinks about it, the guilt is immediately shut off by rage. So it is time then to quell it, to rend and tear and feel the blood drip down his canines because that is what he is, what she is, and she is just too young to realize. He is simply following his nature when he kills, seizing the monster's advantage, embracing the darkness that hums underneath his skin.

And so Klaus finds himself on a street corner, the pre-dawn velvet sky a fitting backdrop for his work as his cold breath rises alongside the steam of organs strewn haphazardly on the pavement. There - his silhouette, hands smoking with clutched hearts before a careless thunk thunk on the paving stones. The air thick with fear, piss, blood, sweat. His senses on heightened alert, blood crisp and bubbling, thundering in his ears - god he never gets over how LOUD it is - the cacophonous off-rhythm pounding of multiple hearts. He considers it an artist's duty to return the score to a gentler cadence, a measured thud thud thudding stuttering out, the streetlights hissing backup with burned blood. His movements slow with a lick of his lips, eyes dulling and fangs receding. And just like every battle, that part, that small part of him cries out, if one can be petulant amidst such carnage. The difference in this battle is that which causes the cutting ache; for it is not Mikael as it normally is, but a blonde who looks at him with hate and hurt and hope in equal measure.

Hearing an alarmed salvo of Hindi, Klaus cocks his head for a moment, considering, gone then reappearing with three blank-gazed women, their saris bright against the foggy winter streets of Delhi. Klaus motions to the first of the bodies, a glassy-eyed vampire with a bright bloom where his chest once resided. "There's a dear," Klaus nods, all self-satisfied grin and expectant raised brow. The saris' hems grow dark with blood as the women silently drag bodies into a neat pile.

Caroline's mouth is tight when Klaus finally returns to the house. She keeps leaving the room when he enters and her stubbornness is almost enough to impress Rebekah, if she weren't so annoyed at being left out of the conversation earlier. Not that she wanted to hear the baby vampire complain.

"Will you tell your brother that we'll be infiltrating the step-well this afternoon? Bonnie's fully recovered and I need to get the hell out of this world and back to my mom." All said, of course, within earshot of Klaus, whose jaw clenches in annoyance. Rebekah rolls her eyes and continues tapping at her phone, giving a small smile when Nik's frustration makes him speak up.

"Caroline, this is getting ridic-"

"Oh, you think it's ridiculous, do you?" Caroline all but spits the words out. "You are unbelievable!" She throws up her hands and leaves the room and Josh, now stuck in the room with the Original pair, awkwardly tries to blend into the wall.

"She's not going to forgive you, Nik. Let's just be done with this and get back to New Orleans already. Or we could just leave now." Rebekah is bored and tired of the pollution and noise, not to mention that faint tinge of fenugreek that seasoned all the blood in this town.

"For the last time, we are staying until after we find the cure. Caroline's temper tantrum notwithstanding."

"Seriously?" Klaus looks up at the word, used to hearing it from Caroline rather than Josh. "It's not a temper tantrum when you hurt one of her friends, Klaus. It's more like...righteous anger?"

Rebekah snorts at Josh's comment and Klaus glowers, his mouth turned down at the corners in willful mulishness.

It's when he clears his throat and swallows audibly that the air in the room shifts. "Is there... anything I can say to her, do you think?"

Rebekah's eyes widen at his words and Josh stammers in his surprise. "Um. Just give me a moment, that- that was - I didn't -".

"I can handle this, Jared." Rebekah breezes past and peers into her brother's eyes, gaze searching. "You really do care for her," she says, wonder in her voice.

Two originals, two baby vamps and a witch walk into a step-well. A setup to a bad joke, sure, but one with a hopeful punchline of the cure. They'd chosen daytime as their ally, hoping to at least keep the number of vamps down; because while they had power on their side, they certainly didn't have the numbers.

Caroline had swung by Abhi's earlier, blowing off some Klaus steam and urging Abhi to stay in his house as well as picking up the rest of collection of assorted witchery Myrna had given her what seemed like forever ago.

God, she really missed her mom.

With time being of the essence they now blast past Connaught Place, Josh and Caroline towing Bonnie between them as they speed past the bustle of the Metro. Hooking right onto KG Marg, they vault on top of the cars inching their way towards the city center, leaving mysteriously dented hoods in their wake. Caroline catches a foreign blur out of the corner of her eye and opens her mouth to warn the others, but Klaus has already sensed the threat, the blur now a motionless body 400 feet back and counting.

They arrive at the step-well with figurative guns blazing, Bonnie already starting a lulling chant near the stairs, Josh stationed at her back. Caroline scuttles around the side of the well to vault down from the back as she had done so many weeks ago with Abhi. Rebekah hangs back a bit, surveying the fenceline, before dashing and returning with two hearts clutched in her bloody grasp, a whine high in her throat.

"I thought this was going to be a challenge."

"I see you enjoy tempting the fates," Bonnie drawls as a guttural shout breaks the stillness of the air and the first of the pishachas emerges from the step-well, grey skin gleaming with a pewter shine. He gives a roar and several voices echo it, creatures beginning to tumble up the stairs, drop down from the trees on the perimeter, and pile out of cars parked close to the ancient structure. There are more creatures than Bonnie can safely count at the moment - werewolves, vamps with daylight rings flashing, several witches crouching around a lit brazier reeking of incense. Josh nods at her and she lifts a hand towards the witches; they need to focus on getting them down first and then neutralizing the pishachas.

There's no way to truly capture in words how vamp-heightened speed looks, Klaus thinks to himself as he idly snaps a few necks to his left and knifes a hand through a werewolf to his right. The closest he has managed is to term it a syrupy slowness, motion caught in a smooth blur, so slow you could see, for example, the energy roiling off the hand that now tears through a witch's aorta. It's this drawing out of time that is the true wonder – watching motion split the air with an ocean's wake, seeing the thread of sinews unravel and split, a moment stretched out to marvel at the intricacies of the human form before the next scream demands its benefactor.

A thousand years, tens of thousands of bodies, and all he's ever revered is the victory, but as he sees a pishacha reach for Rebekah he rips the casing off a flame charm and whips it at the demon. The charm catches the pishacha between the eyes and it has a moment to drop its hand and turn towards Klaus before the charm explodes and a white-hot gout of flame consumes the demon. Time seems to stop even for the supernatural world, an inhuman cry rising from the pishacha. Rebekah darts away and cracks the neck of the nearest vampire, extinguishing the flames that caught her sleeve on the vamp's jacket before he collapses to the ground.

The pishacha's high wheedling screech becomes the soundtrack for the next minute of the battle. Flame licks at the dry winter grass and soon the ground is a pool of flames. Bonnie edges inside the well and huddles in an arched doorway, eyes trying to find a focal point amidst the chaos.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee -

Caroline adds to the grotesque symphony with the sound of cascading rubble and snapped vertebrae, the werewolf she's just hit sliding down the column, chin to his chest. She's running on instinct and adrenaline, hearing the whoosh of displaced air and ducking before the next blow lands. Caroline spins in a low circle and lashes out with a fist, her assailant's hair trailing up and out as she flies backwards from the blow before stumbling to her knees. Caroline feels the time slow, watches almost disbelievingly as her own hand punches through the girl's ribcage. She makes herself watch the light die in the girl's eyes and her hands shake but there's no time for this crisis of conscience. She stares a moment more at the eyes that stare endlessly into the sky, and her inhale is loud enough to cut through the high-pitched keening and the wet sound of blood spilled.

Bonnie is chanting in Louisiana Creole, trying to force a speech-binding spell on the other witches. A turbaned warlock is fighting her while the others try to reseat the brazier she'd overturned with an earlier spell. She hears a snarl behind her and whips around with a hand raised, ready to deliver an aneurysm, but it's just Josh in her line of sight, looking a bit confused as he eyes the lifeless body below him. Bonnie turns back around bites back a curse - the brazier's back up now and the witch with the really bad dye job is flourishing her hands dramatically. Bonnie snorts before picking up her chant from moments ago, feeling the magic start to weave into place. They'll get one spell out, she thinks, hopefully it won't be a doozy.

Rebekah is entertaining herself by using someone's arm as a bat - she thinks Kol would be proud - when the smell of ozone taints the air. The vampire with the horribly tacky daylight ring raised to defend his head from Rebekah's limb beating begins glowing with a dull red light.

Rebekah sighs, pokes the hand at the vampire's chest, and watches the fingers shrivel and blacken. Wonderful.

"Bonnie! Could you perhaps pull your weight and do something about our suddenly untouchable foes?!" Rebekah bites off as she catches Klaus' gaze across the battlefield. She waves a greeting at him with the dismembered arm and watches a grin split his face before he's gone in a flash of movement.

Weapons. Klaus speeds back to an earlier kill, grabbing a short dagger and a katta with one round which he immediately shoots, blowing the face off of a werewolf who had gotten a bit too cocky and a bit too close. Klaus twists his grip, knuckles up, and swings his arm in a smooth arc, sending the spent pistol spinning to shatter the jaw of a young werewolf who turns and runs in the opposite direction, cradling his mouth.

Even if they could find enough weapons, this is now an uphill battle, as they've lost the element of surprise. Klaus dashes towards the steps and searches for Caroline, sees the shadow of her hands shaking imperceptibly as a body drops. Bonnie is to his right, holding her own as Josh awkwardly fends off attackers. They're lucky the enemy is not well organized, or he'd have to protect the witch himself.

Caroline is nearing the arch where the stones she toppled weeks ago still lay strewn about the walkway. She looks out and up, trying to spot a familiar face in the melee, and sees Klaus' face split in a double-fanged roar as he pulls a stake out of his chest, flips it, and drives it into his attacker's chest. She can almost hear him thinking turnabout is fair play. He is brutal and efficient and something about it makes her shiver in a way she's not quite ready to name. He turns to her just then, and even in their amber ferocity his eyes soften, an unspoken question asked as they trail over her form, checking for injuries. She nods an ok and turns away, ducking through the archway and trailing her hand on the damp wall of the small chamber.

The air is musty and still inside, and the room, despite the gaping hole in it, is surprisingly insulated from the noise beyond. A sandstone slab bisects the room, and a small, wooden coffer sits on top of it. Caroline's heart drops so far into her stomach someone could stake her right this moment and she'd still be alive - it's the cure, so innocuous in its humble wooden box.

It doesn't even register that she's whispering Mom under her breath when she lurches forward, hand brushing the top of the coffer. The wall seems to move towards her at the same time and she recognizes a beat too late that it's... not actually a wall. The demon's hand closes around her own and squeezes and the snap of delicate bones echoes in the vaulted chamber like a gunshot. Caroline sucks in a breath, the pain blurring her vision at the edges.

"I expected someone much stronger to be herald to our queen." The pishacha's voice is like gravel underfoot.

Caroline isn't here to to be a herald for anything, thank you very much, so she dips to the right, grimacing as she tugs at her captive hand and pain lances up her arm. The pishacha lets go more from surprise than anything else, expecting her to be weak from the energy drain. He's still staring dumbly at his own hand when she darts around him and grabs the wooden coffer in the crook of an arm, speeding to the tumbled masonry of the entrance. A flame charm drops from her good hand and she can't resist giving the demon her best Miss Mystic Falls smile before it disappears behind a wall of flame.

There's too many of them, even for us Rebekah admits, tossing a dagger slick with blood into the eye socket of her closest assailant. She hears Nik to her left, laughing his way through a swath of vampires, and wonders why he doesn't seem worried. He has to have something up his sleeve, but she's not sure if she has time to wait for it. A girl in a beautifully vibrant sari reaches for her and Rebekah is too slow this time, feeling a hand curl around a shoulder and tug. Rebekah's confused when her skin doesn't begin to blacken and wither, reality setting in when the girl's eyes flash red and a guttural, decidedly un-female laugh emerges from the girl's throat. Rebekah pulls away quickly but she can feel the drain, a heavy weight burning through the protective spells from their mother's grimoire and settling in her bones, slowing her down. Klaus better pull that trick now.

You don't fight a thousand years alongside someone without being able to read minds a bit, so it's not surprising that Rebekah's plea is quickly answered. Klaus lifts his head and howls, the sound incongruent in the bright daylight, and answering howls sound from all around. Rebekah wonders how he found time to befriend a werewolf clan; realizes he bypassed friendship and went straight to hybrids as she sees the newcomers' fangs descend. They pour into the step-well grounds, brandishing wide-bladed swords which they wield to great effect. One rushes at the disguised pishacha and chops downwards, slicing several inches into the demon who shrugs the blow off and turns to face its latest assailant. Rebekah flashes to a nearby tree and snaps off a sturdy branch, lighting it in the licking flames that have almost completely consumed the step-well grass. Rushing forward, she heaves the pointed end upwards, entering just below the side of the demon's jaw, piercing through the top of his mouth and into his brain.

The chaos has begun to die down when Bonnie lets the magic slip. The turbaned warlock senses it, shouts a phrase in Punjabi, and now Bonnie floats in a river of pain; her arteries tributaries, pushing fire through her body as her heart pumps a savage beat. Her body topples to the ground and she stares up into the grimy sky, drawing short, puffing breaths. Josh's face appears above her, and she's distracted for a moment by his mangled lower jaw before the agony throbs again and unconsciousness offers its relief.

Caroline's somehow both hyperventilating and vaulting up the stairs to where Bonnie lays crumpled. She puts the coffer to the side before grabbing Bonnie, cradling her and smoothing her hair away from her face.

"She's alive, but her heartbeat is faint." Caroline looks up at Josh. "Did you see what hit her?"

Josh shoves his jaw back into place with a sickening crunch, opening and closing his mouth in a stretch before shaking his head no. His voice sounds a bit garbled when he speaks. "I'm sorry. I was getting curb-stomped by that dude." He points to a werewolf whose head now rests about three feet from the rest of his body, courtesy of Klaus. "Well, ground-stomped, technically. When I was able to get up, she was like this already."

Caroline turns pleading eyes to Rebekah and Klaus, who each shake their heads no in response. Her voice is wavering when she speaks again. "Josh, can you call Abhi? He'll know what to do."

"Caroline, she's been spelled. There's nothing we can do without a witch. I have a contact in Mumbai, we'll get her here as quickly as possible." Klaus's tone is gentle, but when Rebekah sees the stubborn set of Caroline's jaw, her own is not.

"Instead of sitting here arguing about it while the pishachas regenerate because they can't be killed why don't we head back to the house, hmm?"

Caroline bites back a retort, mumbles an assent instead as she stares down at Bonnie's still open eyes. There's a thin red film hazing the whites, and they won't stay closed when Caroline gently pushes Bonnie's eyelids down. What if she did all this - the spell, the battle, the cure - and ends up losing Bonnie, this new friend that feels so oddly like an old one?

Josh nudges her with a shoulder and Caroline passes Bonnie over before picking up the wooden coffer and tucking it under an arm. Josh and Rebekah speed off first but Caroline stands a moment more, Klaus watching her with his blood-soaked henley underpinning the solemnity of his gaze. She closes her eyes, breathes in, and nods her thanks. They leave the scene as the first of many police lights to come spirals in the evening air.