Chapter Eight: wash these sins away

It's a long, bitter two days.

No one speaks much. Caroline has taken to the backseat to lay down while Nik drives and Rebekah rides shotgun with an actual shotgun lain across her lap and pointing out the window. Apparently shooting a gun is just like archery (of course Rebekah is skilled in archery. of course.), but Caroline doesn't know how true that is. She should probably learn how to shoot. It can't be too hard, right?

They don't argue. They don't make snarky remarks to each other. Caroline thinks some silent agreement has taken hold and now there will be peace to some extent. At least, she hopes that this is the fact. She's quite tired of fighting, to be honest. It doesn't solve anything. What's happened in the past is where it should be. In the past.

So it's quiet. Spine-shuddering silent. When she looks out the window, there is nothing but dilapidated towns and beaches. There are carcases of animals on the roads and the usual dead body strewn across in parts. She's been desensitized to death by this way. All of them have. It's not shocking and it isn't scary. It's the norm.

When night falls, Nik parks the SUV in a parking lot outside of an old playground. He's driven around the town for an hour or so, but there weren't any signs of stragglers. Either they all moved on once they realized that there was nothing to eat, or this place was just abandoned. It wasn't in disarray as a lot of the towns they've been in. In fact, it's pretty nice. Ridgeview, it's called. Ridgeview, Maryland. Right on the Chesapeake.

The moon is high in the sky and the stars light up the atmosphere and if they think really hard about it, then they can just pretend for a few seconds that nothing is wrong in the world. That it's just a normal night under the stars.

After they eat their dinner of canned vegetables and the last half of their bottle of water, Rebekah reclines her seat back and turns on her side.

"If anyone wakes me, then I'll purposely get bitten and come after you," she says rather seriously.

Nik smirks. Three minutes pass and her breathing has gotten so quiet he can barely make it out, so he does what any loving brother would do: he jams down hard on the horn.

Rebekah shoots up in her seat and a slew of curses exit her mouth as her hands slam against the dashboard. Caroline snickers and snorts from the backseat and Nik is laughing so hard there are tears budding in the corners of his eyes.

"Both of you can rot in hell!" she snarls, her eyes flaming. "See if I care." Then she falls back asleep just as soon as she did before.

Lovely girl, really.

"If we get attacked because of that," Caroline whispers from the back and leans up so that she's right next to his ear, "then I'll be expecting you to sacrifice your life for my safety."

Nik chuckles. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

He looks at her through the rearview mirror and watches her relax back into her seat. The white bandages cover over her forehead, making her seem to be worse off than she actually is ("It's really not that serious, Nik. It doesn't even hurt anymore. And look! It's not even bleeding!" "Precaution, love. Precaution." "Seriously?") and the weight she's lost is evident in her cheekbones. She's not yet frail, not so weak, but not really strong. Maybe in her mind she can take on the world head first, but in this state...not a chance.

"Come on," Nik says all of a sudden as he opens the door. "Let's take a walk."

Caroline raises an eyebrow. "Are you high?" she asks genuinely, but suddenly she's so intrigued that her hand finds itself tugging on the handle.

He shuts his door quietly and opens up Caroline's. "If by high you mean high on life, then you are absolutely correct."

"I think you mean high on death."

Nik pretends to frown. "Whatever happened to the optimistic cheerleader I met?"

Caroline shrugs. She doesn't think she's ever been optimistic a day in her life. If she has been, then it's all for show. Her personality was never truly genuine. It was the only way to stop herself from ever being truly miserable. When her father finally told her mother that their marriage wasn't working out because 1) he had an epiphany that he just didn't find vaginas appealing any longer and preferred something similar to him and 2) the fact that Liz was clearly wearing the pants in their marriage just didn't feel right. That woman was a tough cookie.

Which was why Caroline never cried in front of her. Liz was understanding and she was a great mom, and dad from time to time. But with her erratic work hours and trying to keep Mystic Falls safe, Caroline somehow took a backseat in all the mess. They were never really close (as far as mothers and daughters usually are. Looks like Elena Gilbert beat her in that department too, even if she is adopted.), but they shared a mutual dislike of Bill Forbes and basically anything to do with ponchos. Yes. Ponchos.

Then, at this moment as she crosses the playground with Nik, she realizes she's never stopped to wonder where her dad might be. Does that make her cruel and wicked? A bad daughter?

"Because of this," Nik offers, breaking her out from her daze.

She looks down at his hand and the folded up piece of paper in it. She takes it and unfolds it slowly and suddenly her eyes catch sight of possibly her worst photo ever. In it she looks completely washed out and covered in sweat in her warm up clothes. What was she thinking when she scheduled their team picture for that day?

"Why do you keep a picture of high school cheerleaders in your pocket?" she deadpans. There are literally several things she could've asked, but that's the one that boils to the surface.

Nik doesn't even know how to respond. Why does he have it? He has Rebekah so there's no point in keeping a photograph of her.

Caroline narrows her eyes and feigns disgust. "Dirty. Old. Man."

"I'm twenty-nine!" he defends.

"I think you mean forty-nine," she retorts and then she takes off. She probably shouldn't be running anywhere, but it makes her feel alive. The salty bay air expanding her lungs, the stars and the moon her only source of light, the dirt pathway her only navigation; it feels human.

She doesn't even realize how loud she's laughing until he catches up to her and he's so winded it sounds like he's going to collapse any minute. His fingers clasp around her right wrist and he pulls her backwards, making her lose her balance and topple right in to him.

It's so cliche, Caroline muses. But she'll take it. She likes the way it feels. To be so close to someone alive and not worrying about whether she's going to die in that right moment. When she looks in his eyes that are so strong, but clouded with secrecy and muddled thoughts. It's what Rebekah let slip.

She told herself that she wouldn't ask him about it. That she wouldn't pester him or anything, but over the course of the last two days, she asked him once or twice. Hinted at it.

We should be honest with each other, she had told him while they were scouting through a department store. About the big and little things.

He had looked at her with such scorn and aggravation. How dare she? Was this her way of being subtle?

Or not, she'd tried to say. None of my concern, right?

He didn't even respond.

How dark could it have been? What could be so bad that he didn't want to talk about? What did he do? Rob a bank? Kidnap somebody? Who really cares? She just wants to know. Besides, it isn't like curiosity is going to kill the cat.

"Why were you in prison?" she asks abruptly.

Nik pulls away from her and his face contorts into something somber. And to think that he figured he would be able to evade it until forever after. But then again, what's really the point in hiding it? Partially it's because he himself doesn't even want to come to terms with it, although there's another part of him that is so proud of what he did. He was the saving grace, the redemption, the hero.

"And don't say it's none of my concern," Caroline says. "Even if it's true, I told you about myself, so why don't you do the same?"

First of all, he never asked her to tell him anything. She was the one who blurted everything about being second choice and all that. So he doesn't owe her anything. If anything, she owes him. He's saved her life, what, three times?

"Why don't you trust me?" she asks as she sits on a swing they've neared. It creaks as she rocks back and forth, her feet just brushing the woodchips at the bottom.

"It isn't about trust," he snaps. She winces. "I don't like to think about what I've done. Why can't you understand that?"

"Because the world is ending! What difference does it make? Do you want to die without ever letting everything out? Have that fester in your heart?"

"There is nothing in my heart that's festering!" The vein in his neck rises under his skin and his face turns to crimson. He's done his time. He doesn't want to think about it anymore. Ever again. Why can't she just understand this?

"Then what is it? Why won't you tell me? What is so bad that I cannot under any circumstance know?" Her voice feels raw. Like she's swallowed a bucket of hot sauce. Her blood curdles under her skin and she could just slap him just like Rebekah. Here she is, generally concerned about him. If he can't trust her, then why is she even here? It isn't like she has anyone to tell. As far as she knows, everyone she knows is gone. Dead.

"Why do you care so much?"

"Because I don't have anything!" she screams as she hops off the swing. She shoves him so hard that he stumbles backwards. There's a forest fire in her eyes and no amount of water is going to put it out. "What am I supposed to care about? What else is there, Nik?"

Because she cares? No, that's wrong. No one cares. No one has ever cared. But she wants to know? She so desperately wants to know and pretends that she'll just accept him like it's nothing. Like she's so forgiving. So he'll tell her and she'll call him a monster-how could you, you sick literal bastard-and then she will go back to hating him because that's what they all go back to doing. It's natural and he doesn't even mind it anymore. The years of self-loathing he's put himself through, the years of being the other object of brutality from a hefty hand and a glass bottle; he can handle little Miss Caroline Forbes hating him during the apocalypse. This will be nothing.

"I killed my father," he says so casually that he even does a little shrug. Oh, didn't you know? I just shot him while he was sleeping.

Caroline stares at him, wide-eyed with her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Did he just say he killed his father? What?

"I don't..." she says, her voice so low she can barely hear it herself. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think I can be much clearer than that," Nik laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. "You wanted to know...you cared to know. Regret it already, love?"

She can't tell if he's just nervous or he generally finds it funny, but that's not really what she's focused on. She's trying to figure out why. How. When. For what reason was he so angry that he killed his father? It seems so foreign. She isn't particularly fond of her dad, but she would never intentionally hurt him. She was a part of him. She wouldn't be in the world had it not been for him. How could you hate your father so much that you killed him?

"He was a means to an end," Nik sighs.

What the fuck? "And the end being?" she practically screams.

"Peace."

"Peace," she repeats slowly. One word. One syllable. Peace. And how chaotic was his life before this? How unpeaceful was it that it justified murdering a man? Murdering his own father?

"And you felt vindicated?" she scoffs.

"It was never about vindication or...or justification." He looks right past her as if in some type of trance. "I never tried to acquit myself for anything. You see, Caroline, the difference between me and any other criminal is that I don't have any regrets. I could go to sleep at night and not feel a hint of guilt. I still can and I always will, because what I did was the right decision. Had I been given a choice, then maybe I would've chosen something less violent so I wouldn't scar my younger siblings, but we can't change the past, can we?"

Clouds cover the moon and the stars don't seem to twinkle as proudly as they have before. Nothing seems as bright as it used to be up until this moment. Caroline's heart thumps in her chest. The realization that she's been riding in a car with a murderer crashes over her. At any time during this whole thing, he could've easily disposed of her. Maybe as easily as he did with his own father. And if he didn't care about him, then he certainly doesn't care about her.

He trails his gaze back to Caroline's startled face. Her afraid, angelic face. She isn't angry, she isn't upset; she's just confused. Heartbroken for this man who she does not know because no one should ever die from their child. That has to be the ultimate betrayal.

"Why?" she asks and she's surprised how heavy with grief her voice is. "Whatever it was, did you really have to kill him?"

He seems so cold just standing there, rigid and stiff. What if she just touched him? Would he push her away? What if she just took a step forward? Would he take that gun in his waistband and end her right there?

"My father...Mikael was his name..he..." Nik stops, unsure of what to say. It's such a long story and he's never told anyone about it personally. Everyone always just knew. His siblings knew obviously, and even with all the court dates and whatnot, Elijah was the one defending him, saying all the right words to give his brother the lightest possible sentence ever.

"There was a significant amount of turmoil in our household. My father being the main factor in it all," Elijah had said. "He was never fond of Niklaus because he was an illegitimate child. Not my father's."

"Technically, I'm not his son," Nik finally says. "My mother had an affair some time after my brother Finn was born and it continued for a few years until she found out she was pregnant. My father found out when I was-" Nik closes his eyes and thinks back to the day when it all came out. How old was he? Five? Six? He had just came in from playing football with those Pierce boys and it was time for supper. Nik came in through the kitchen door, covered in dirt and grass stains when Elijah came out of nowhere and quietly snuck him upstairs and covered his ears. But that didn't work. Mikael's anger still seeped through the cracks of Elijah's fingers. Through the crease underneath their bedroom door.

Mikael said spiteful things. Hateful things. Corrosive words that stung when they hit you. They tore through flesh. They were daggers in your heart.

"I want that bastard out of this house immediately!"

"He's our son, Mikael! He's only a child!"

"Did you think about that before you fucked that man behind my back? Did you, Esther?"

Silence. There voices are faint, drifting upstairs through the vents and through the hallway, but Nik can hear it even though he doesn't want to. He doesn't understand what it means. Elijah says it doesn't mean anything. That adults fight sometimes and it's nothing to worry about. They aren't talking about him even though his name is constantly mentioned. It's another Nik.

"Father doesn't love me," Nik decides one night. He's seven and this distaste forms in his mouth for the first time. He doesn't like it and wants it to go away. Please just go away.

"No matter what you do," Mikael tells him when he's nine, his breath smelling of a fatal mix of gin and vodka. How do you? "You will always be an eternal mistake, boy. A walking failure."

"Leave him alone, Mikael," Esther pleads weakly. "He hasn't done anything."

Mikael turns his glare on the woman covered in black and blue bruises. He laughs. Hasn't done anything? "He was born, Esther. That's more than enough."

"He was awful," he goes on. "He was a drunkard...abusive. He hit our mother in front of us before. Then he tried to go after Bekah, but my brothers and I stopped him."

Caroline has on her brave face. The face she wears when she doesn't really know what to say so she just sits there and keeps her eyebrows knit together and her lips pursed. It's a good thing that they've moved to a bench because she isn't sure she would be able to stand up anymore after all this.

"Why didn't you tell someone?" she asks. "A relative? The authorities?"

"They would've split us up," he says instantly as if it was never, ever an option. And it wasn't. Together always and forever. "My real father moved to Northern Ireland before I was born, and they would've shipped me there to him. I don't even know what he looks like."

"But how do you know? They might not have, Nik. You never took the risk."

"It wouldn't have been a risk. Neither of my relatives had room for five children and my mother was emotionally unstable to take care of us any longer."

Caroline nods as if digesting all of this. She doesn't even know what to ask anymore. She should be comforting, but he doesn't need any comforting. He just looks ahead and continues to tell her everything and she'll listen. She'll listen forever if she has to.

"One night it got so bad Eli took us to a hotel." He smiles. "The looks on the clerks face when they saw three boys with a toddler stroll into the lobby with no adult supervision was priceless. Of course they didn't give us a room, but we rode on the elevator up and down until we fell asleep."

"Does Rebekah remember?"

He shakes his head. "Not Rebekah. It was Kol. He was only three. My mum had still been pregnant with her."

After everything that's happened to his mother, Caroline can't even imagine how she would have the strength to let that man touch her in a provocative way. How could she let him do that to her? And at least two more times after Nik? How could she ever even have the utter power to do that?

"When did you do it?" Caroline swallows.

Nik turns his head and catches her gaze. She's a great listener. Maybe she does care, he thinks. Maybe she's different.

"He was exceptionally pissed on my eighteenth birthday. So much that he could not form a complete insult without losing focus. He stumbled around a lot. It was funny actually," he laughs. "This man full of rage and hatred fumbling around and tripping over his feet. Then he hit my mum with a broken bottle of whiskey. He'd never hit her so hard that she actually lost consciousness, but she did. And you know what he said once he realized what happened?"

Caroline shakes her head, almost afraid to hear the answer. Whatever it is, it's going to be bad.

Nik sucks in a breath and fishes around in his pocket for another cigarette. He's gone through four already just with recollecting all these memories he's stored away into a corner of his mind. He lights it and takes a long drag, before blowing it out.

"Rebekah hates cigarettes," he says as he regards the thin stream of smoke floating off at the end. "Says it reminds her of him."

He takes another drag. "Anyway, he said 'this is your fault' and then he laughed at me. Literally laughed at me. I think that may have been the breaking point. The, what do you call it, the straw that broke the camel's back. I helped my brother's get my mother in bed and shortly after Mikael passed out as well. Right on the sofa with a bottle of bourbon clutched to his chest. So I...I," he swallows. "I went upstairs and into his study where he kept a pistol in one of the drawers. It was already loaded as if it was...summoning me to it, yeah? I picked it up and it was the lightest thing ever. I thought it would feel like an anvil or something similar, but no. I carried it in my hand and stood right in front of him. Put it between his eyes..." those cold, heartless eyes "and pulled the trigger."

They sit there in total silence once he says those words. Minutes pass. Maybe an hour passes. Doesn't really matter. Time isn't important any longer. Once it's up, it's up.

Caroline's mind is blank. She's not the type to offer consolation, but the type to be consoled. She never knew what to say to Elena when she found out she was adopted, she didn't have a single word to offer Bonnie when she found out her mother didn't want a single thing to do with her. But they had words for her. They rubbed her back and wiped her tears as they slid down her cheeks. ("Yeah, your dad sucks so much, Care," little eight-year-old Elena said with two missing teeth. "But you have us." "Yeah," Bonnie said while she donned one of her many costume wigs. "We'll be best friends forever.") And then as they got older, it was always I'm so sorry and it'll work out in the end, sweetie.

But really, the most honest thing, was saying nothing at all.

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A/N: You guys! You don't know how grateful I am to your response. I made time to update for you guys because you're that awesome. Seriously. I went out on Tuesday with my friends for like the last time until like Thanksgiving (my creys!) and we ended up going to my friend's college because she had some last minute stuff to work out before she starts, so me and my other friends went to the library and I got some writing done while I was waiting. It was pretty great. Um it's 1 in the morning here and I've got a shitload of things to do later on (I have not even begun to pack oops) so we'll see how this college thing goes. Thank you guys so much! I will try to update as soon as I have time to write, sweethearts! You rock!

P.S. did anyone see that picture of JoMo that everyone was freaking out about on tumblr? because I didn't see it and I was highly upset! D: