AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello lovely readers! I know it's been appallingly long since I've updated, but suffice it to say that both original writing and this plot's complexity kept me busy and stumped for a bit.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any TVD/TO material.

P.S. In case any of you were wondering, there is no Hope/baby plot in this story. Happy reading! :)

"You wanted to drown in a woman. Here's your chance. Drown in her blood."

—the Darkest Night, Gena Showalter

A stake-to-the-heart? Seriously? Was this some kind of bad joke, or what?

Talk about cliché! There wasn't ending in the universe more trivial for a vampire than having a stake plunged right through the heart, for crying out loud! Romantic fantasies aside, Caroline refused to live as a cliché—let alone die as one. Not that she had much choice in the matter as it turned out…

xxx

Call it a necessary act of desperation.

Caroline allowed—encouraged—compelled Bonnie to stab her in the chest, positioning the stake over the X-marked place above her heart herself. She knew that staking a vampire was kind of like bobbing for apples—the desired prize hidden behind curtained flesh—and to accomplish her goal of freeing Bonnie from Kai and Freya's witchy mind control, Caroline needed her best friend to succeed on the first try.

Perhaps surrendering her heart, and the eternal life she loved, to a wooden blade seemed like a weighty sacrifice to make, but it wasn't one Caroline would regret in death. Not if it was for Bonnie. That mysterious golden-black light brewed inside of her like a sleeping dragon in nostril breaths, snoring and snarling for the dream of one day soon being unleashed. And although she didn't understand why she possessed it, or how to use it, Caroline laid back and listened to the potent strum of her instincts:

Accept the blow, it whispered, accept the blow.

And accept it she did.

xxx

Light as fierce and ferocious as hellfire erupted from Caroline's chest upon the moment of impact, the stake tearing through fabric, skin, and bone. It radiated the inside of the church in an eclipse-like brightness, tones of black and gold swirling, combusting together to form a colloid-star around their two bodies, incinerating the bracelet around her friend's wrist in seconds. Falling away, it crumbled to green, flaky ashes on the ground.

The chains of control had been damaged. The spell broken. Bonnie was now safe—free.

Freshly awoken, fully in command of her own mind, Bonnie fell back backwards off the altar. She blinked at her surroundings. Aghast. Horrified. Her eyes raked over the fractured destruction of the ancient church—at the bloodied sacrament cloths and ripped hymnals, at the clawed fingernail marks scraped into pews, at the unmoving hand poking between the balcony spokes, at the altar. At Caroline, her best friend...now nothing more than a sacrificial lamb adorned with a wooden blade stamped with DEATH—

—That was the moment the whip cracked against Bonnie's kneecaps sending her wobbling. Plummeting. Grasping at walls of oxygen, un-solid, that couldn't keep her on her feet. That was the moment her wails emanated from the rafters like a choir of choking angels. Ringing in dissonant notes of disbelief and fury.

The sound roared and roared in Caroline's ears as she drifted farther away. They echoed with pain she wouldn't soon forget. She'd always supposed that great power came with a price, but she found herself grateful for the opportunity to pay hers beautifully...with her whole heart. And because of that, despite the fact that light had extorted life from her and had gifted it to another, her eyes fluttered shut for the last time not with regret—but with triumph.

When Caroline died as a human, a past full of laughter, scraped elbows, familial and romantic love, and broken promises drenched her in dust. It buried her in the dirt of a well-lived life, rocking her into quiet acceptance of goodbye. But when Caroline died as a vampire, the untapped future rushed at her all volcano and avalanche, molding her into the enduring sunshine of possibility. It shined on all the tomorrows with un-paralled dazzle, infusing her with the thirst to stay. And to stay forever.

Fruitless or not, Caroline's hope of another tomorrow wouldn't concede to the definitive end she met today, only a few moments ago. She wouldn't relinquish eternal life any more than it would relinquish her. Apparently, it took time for the soul to extricate itself from its immortal shell—you know, as if death didn't suck enough already. Honestly.

Although morbid curiosity had never been particularly high on Caroline's priority list—she was a happy person, thank you very much—to say that she'd never wondered about death before would've been a lie. A big one. To be frank, though, she wasn't afraid of it. And why should she be?

Thanks to Katherine and a suffocating pillow to the face—total bitch move, by the way—she'd already died once. The Grim Reaper had already swooped down in his invisible, not to mention creepy, billowing cape and collected her…more or less. (Granted, he'd only made off with her humanness, all those shallow, ordinary parts of herself that she didn't particularly miss, but it still counted. It still counted because she remembered.) Caroline remembered how death felt, at least how it felt as a dying human:

—Blackness. It cradled her like a sleeping child, wrapping her in the sturdy, shushing arms of quiet, and rocked her life's memories through her mind as softly and as tenderly as a tire swing swaying in the spring breeze in her backyard. Freshness tickled her lungs and popped across her tongue in melodic hums. Loveliness spiraled through her, around her, and within her in a succession of endless tattoos that painted contentment with every single color of the mist.

—Steadiness. It rooted her atomized soul into unforced stillness like a tack, but with room enough to nourish her limbs with comfort. And peace. No questions were left unanswered; no answers were left unquestioned. A dark paradise warm with sightlessness breathed the death of life into organs that recalled everything. There were no forgotten flickers or dropped morsels to lament, because the darkness swaddled with security, with certainty. For once. For now.

—The darkness never once felt accosting; it felt alluring. It welcomed new lives, now old lives, with its arms wide open in starkness. There was no need for pretense or pain in this place of plainness. Only presence.

—Present was all Caroline needed to be in this place. It was all she could be.

Caroline had never imagined that a supernatural demise would mimic a human one, per se. But with the disintegration of the Other Side, which was no longer a viable place of waiting purgatory, she had believed it would be similar: Shadowed. Still. Silent. Or perhaps her optimism had merely tricked her into hoping that it would be?

Let's be real—under no circumstances had Caroline anticipated dying for a second time. Once was plenty! That being said, with ongoing supernatural wars and forever-increasing pressures, death always remained a possibility—but never one that she'd accepted as unavoidable. Or likely for that matter.

As Klaus had once reminded her himself, she was strong, resourceful, and resilient; Caroline was a well-equipped warrior primed to fight. And this warrior had plans, okay? She had things she wanted: college degrees, happy memories with friends, foot-popping kisses, love, and a long, interminable future to explore the world…and herself. So if vampire death had decided to rearrange her schedule so cruelly without her permission—which is just damn well rude, she should add—was it wrong that she'd wished for second-death harmony? Tranquility?

Perhaps not. Hope and faith were never wasteful commodities, after all, were they? No, they were beautiful.

Unfortunately, the problem with placing wishes in counted stars wasn't in sending them, but in receiving them in concrete terms. Stars didn't grant wishes, they didn't fix broken promises, they didn't construct stairwells that led to unfulfilled dreams. Stars didn't do anything. Except burn.

And Caroline didn't realize until she died for the second time that the only gift fire left behind...was ashes.

The where and when of Caroline's existence didn't matter right now, it was the freaking why. Why did this oppressive whiteness sting her eyes and assault her senses? Why did cymbals crash and clatter and clack in her head while turbulence hurricaned through her cells, shredding her nerves into singed sparks? Why did heat melt her flesh like thawing ice cream? Why did she feel as if she'd traded bodies with one of Khaleesi's dragons? Why was this happening to her? Why? Why, why, why?

xxx

Clanging commotion.

That was the best way to describe the absolute chaos igniting around and within Caroline right now. A vampire needed to die in order to experience overstimulation, apparently, which was probably a good thing because it caused such a massive, dizzying headache that she wanted to barf up the B+ blood she drank for dessert before sneaking out to save Bonnie.

The words, the faces, the people—they wouldn't stop flashing before her eyes. Flash, flash, flash. Talk, talk, talk. Scream, scream, scream. They wouldn't shut up, they wouldn't stop! And neither would the whirly, twirling, the veins-chafing-like-sandpaper, or the total-body-blazing.

At first, Caroline couldn't make sense of anything except the white. White noise. White sky. White perfume. White flowers and poisons. White liquor, white coffee, white chocolate. White hugs. White crawling beneath pores and clamoring to form puffy clouds. White here, white there. White colors and white invisible. White, white, white.

After an indeterminate amount of time, however, the white relented to Caroline's intense concentration…but not enough to lift the haze entirely. White still scalded her sharp senses, fraying them into disconnected puzzles of information that flashed through her brain in random movie-like sequences. They became indistinct images clumped together amid giant white blocks of nothingness:

—Bonnie, awestruck, her hands trembling, hot tears dripping from her chin, collapsed on her knees wailing, "What have I done, what have I done?" at the crumbling statue of the Virgin Mary. The statue's eyes crying blood and smelling of lavender.

—Slurred spells, Kai and Freya raging, "Snuff out the light, witch, snuff out the light!" Prayer hymnals raining from the twinkling church sky, blood magic tethering two souls like rope, and heat. Heat so profound it smothered lungs in smoke and power that tastes of sunbeams and moonlight. Lots and lots of power.

—Kol and Bonnie stumbling from the church pew wreckage while conducting an orchestra of hell. Magic pouring from their fingertips in ribbons of ultraviolet nightmares, double-knotting tongues around necks and fastening bound feet to rickety doorknobs, fury blasting typhoon thunder into the air. Drowning the sky in a storm of retribution and carving a cloudless path for escape. Hand-in-hand, they bowed into the New Orleans night and disappeared.

—Caroline's soul lifted. Floating high, high, high! Invisible wings carrying—carrying her away…

The moment the sun-and-moon pendant, which glowed with warmth , began to vibrate against her collar bone, the whiteness receded. Parting like a yanked-open curtain to reveal clarity in this sizzling, blank for the first time.

"Caroline." Sharp and near, Klaus' voice rang through the air. "Caroline, come to me," he demanded.

His voice compelled her to him by name, by spirit—just like it had at Rousseau's, though she hadn't recognized it then—and she could feel herself reeling closer and closer each time he spoke. Her fingers itched to touch his one last time, to find support in the strong, black bones she never realized she needed.

Caroline reached out, but she caught empty air. She couldn't touch him. No—the whiteness had fish-hooked her like bait, and these were her last breaths of air.

"She's fading."

Davina's face came into view. Her forehead drenched in perspiration, her fingers dribbled liquid over a gold saucer and addressed Klaus, "Her necklace allows for you to project—connect—in spirit," she said, "but once the remaining light expires—" Davina paused "—you don't have much time, Klaus."

With that, the witch dissolved into the air as quickly as she appeared.

xxx

A flash of black, a shooting snap like a rubber band, and Caroline suddenly found herself in the middle of a grand ballroom adorned in an elegant blue silk gown. Alone. It wasn't a place she'd been to before, but the champagne fountains, soft, romantic music, and garden-picked white daisies gave the space a comforting small town, big city sensibility. It bridged Mystic Falls and New Orleans in a perfect, seamless way.

As she tossed her head back and twirled amid the loveliness, a hand caught her tenderly around the waist.

"Dance with me, love," Klaus whispered softly.

Okay…so not quite as alone as she'd thought. Smiling, Caroline threw her hands around his neck and tilted her head, lifting her eyelashes to his serious face.

"This isn't a dream, is it?" Caroline asked.

His fingers drew infinity circles on the small of her back, "No."

"Too bad," she sighed, "because this is lovely." Resting her head on his shoulder, she added with a laugh, "Though, I will admit, I had fun chewing your ass out at the Mikaelson Ball a few years ago."

"I deserved it, if I recall correctly," Klaus replied.

"Boy, did you ever."

Minimizing the space between their bodies, he drew her closer against his chest and tucked his chin against her forehead, his blond stubble prickling her exposed skin. He hummed against her hair. A solemn smile crept across his lips as they swayed.

Caroline could hear the rhythmic tha-thump, tha-thump of blood pumping through his veins and marveled at how a heart—a thousand years dead—still managed to sound, and to feel, so human. Perhaps magic, no matter how dark or toxic, couldn't force a heart to beat in a new way? Perhaps a heart was the one thing that couldn't be tainted? Perhaps a heart was the only thing in this universe that truly survived?

"I'm dying," she said suddenly, looking up.

"Don't," Klaus warned. His eyes brooded with restrained emotion and his tone trembled on the edge of a violent dam about to burst. "Just tell me why."

Caroline's not sure what it was—perhaps it was the unavoidable death, the strange farewell circumstances, the wild look in his eyes, or the solitary waltz to a band that wasn't actually there—but she felt broken, truly broken, for the first time in her life.

"Does it matter?" she asked.

"Yes."

Klaus choked out this single syllable, looking vulnerable. Miserable. Terrified.

Call it a cruel parting gift, but Caroline endeavored to crack open that beastly heart of his as much as she could before she left. She'd push that baby open wide. She wasn't sure why, but she wanted to see inside. Or maybe needed was the proper word.

"Why?" she blinked. "It doesn't change anything. I'm still going to—"

"—Because!"

"Because, why?"

Caroline halted their slow dance by throwing her hands on her hips and staring him down.

"My saving Bonnie helps you, Klaus! Because of me, you now have one more witch on your side, one more person to help you locate Elijah and guard the ascendant, one more ally to help you defeat Kai and Freya. You have your siblings and the support of all the factions," she said. "You literally have everything you need to protect New Orleans. Why does it freaking matter how I achieved it?"

Klaus paced back and forth during the entirety of Caroline's speech, his hands tearing through his blond waves, his nostrils flaring, his jaw clenched into a snarl. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, all white-knuckled and stiff.

"You don't understand!" he growled.

"What don't I understand?" she countered. "You're being crazy!"

Klaus groaned at this, rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hands.

"You have everything—" Caroline continued.

"—No!" Klaus interrupted, flashing at her all hybrid eyes and teeth. He gripped her hard by the shoulders, shaking her, his mouth contorted with pain, and said, "I don't have everything, don't you understand? I don't have everything…because I won't have you!"

He dropped his hands from her arms and bowed his head, defeated.

"The power—the legacy—my New Orleans kingdom—none of it means anything without you, Caroline." His voice came out low and rough, trembling with weakness he could no longer repress.. "Nothing."

"For a thousand years, I wanted nothing more than to rule the world as king with my hybrid fist—I was Klaus Mikaelson: Invincible and alone, always and forever—and I was okay with that," he explained, "I'd accepted it." Pushing hair from her face, he lifted her chin with his finger and forced her to look him in the eyes. "But it wasn't—"

He paused for a moment, taking a sharp intake of breath. Caroline could tell that whatever he wished to convey wasn't easy for him to say.

"—it wasn't until I met you that I realized I wanted more, that I believed I could deserve more one day. And that was because of you, Caroline. You gave me that hope."

Caroline's bottom lip trembled as she listened, her eyes plastered to his face.

"Don't you see?" he continued, licking his lips and looking away. "I'd always hoped that one day I'd show you the world that I created in great part for you...and that, maybe, someday—" he hesitated, his lips struggling to form the words he so desperately wanted to relate "—you'd bestow me with the love I want and crave, but don't just now deserve from you."

"Is that—" Caroline stammered "—is that what you meant by however long it takes?"

Klaus pressed his lips together and nodded

"You're the one sunray in the infinite night sky that's been my existence, Caroline," His voice cracked as he traced her profile with his index finger. "You're the only true hope I've ever had."

"And soon you'll be gone," he despaired, "and all I'll have is blackness."

Caroline curled his hands in her own and squeezed. "You'll be fine," she said, her eyes full of tears. "I promise you'll be fine."

Klaus shook his head violently and tugged her into his shuddering arms. He ran his fingers through her hair, across her shoulders, around her waist, frantically trying to memorize the curves of her body. As the light from her pendant began to dim, he placed a gentle kiss against her forehead and allowed his lips to rest against her skin.

"I've ruined everything, love." He laughed, but it was devoid of humor and full of bitter irony. "I'm sorry—I'm so sorry."

Caroline raised her hand to his mouth and pressed her fingers against his lips in an effort to silence him.

"It's what I do," he shrugged, sighing derisively "I destroy. I destroy everything and everyone I touch. All the beauty in this world falls like slayed corpses at my feet, deadened by a sword I didn't realized I wielded."

"Stop," Caroline argued. "You do not destroy, you sabotage." Cupping his face between her hands, she tilted his head and peered hard into his storming blue eyes, a small smile curving the corners of her lips. "Sabotage and destruction are not mutually exclusive, okay? They are not the same thing, do you hear me?"

Klaus only grumbled.

"You may self-sabotage every good thing in your life, Klaus," she continued, "but you save others from doing the same, and there's redemption in that. There's redemption in you."

He attempted to pull away at this, but Caroline's grip hardened around his neck and she kept him firm. Steady. He needed to hear this. He needed to believe it…before it was too late.

"Do you hear me?"

Misery and conflict enveloped his features as he gaped back at her, desperately wanting to believe but, but—but.

That taunting but still lingered between them and Caroline didn't know if she possessed enough time to squash it, not when whiteness began to push at her from the sides like a closing elevator door. She shoved the doors open with her warrior's will, refusing to leave him—not like this. Just—more time. She needed more time. Please—just a few—minutes—more.

"You saved me from the darkest hour of my life," she said, emotion slurring her words, "you saved me when no one else could. When my mom died—"

Klaus made a move to interrupt, but Caroline stopped him by encircling their fingers and pressing them against his chest, over his heart.

"—you gave me back my strength," she breathed. "You reminded me not to let one moment of darkness obliterate all the light." She smiled through tears and caressed his cheek with the back of her hand, "And now I'm reminding you."

"Don't leave me," he pleaded in a frantic whisper, drawing her against him, "please, please don't leave me."

Tears ravaged his throat in a sob. His heart cracked and crackled against her chest, and she swore she felt a wrench dissect it open, shattering it like window glass. Irreparable pieces discarded everywhere, bleeding him harsh and dry on the ground before her feet.

"I—I can't let you go—" he stammered "—that word, that blasted, filthy word! I can't say it! I can't, Caroline, I can't—I'll never be able to say goodbye to you. Please, please don't make me say it."

God, why was this so difficult? Caroline cared about him—this invulnerable Original bowed and half-bawling in her arms—but she wasn't in love with him. Not quite, not now. And yet—and yet—no man had ever regarded her as the one sunray in his black sky before; she'd never been the One; she'd never been precious to anyone besides her mother. Somehow, his words sent black-and-golden sunlight vibrating into the depths of her soul and she couldn't find the solidarity to let go of him or his beautiful hopes for their future together. No, she didn't want to let go.

Caroline didn't want to leave—she couldn't say goodbye either.

"Then let's not," she said. "We won't speak it."

She clung to Klaus' neck with her fists buried around his tie as the scalding whiteness threatened to suck her away again into some unknown oblivion. Far, far away from him.

"Caroline, please," he cried, clinging harder.

Desperate for contact, for the feeling of his strong, hybrid arms around her one last time, she pulled him close and smashed her lips against his mouth. Lips conquered lips and tongues assaulted tongues. Noses brushed noses, fingers encircled fingers, and eternal soul ignited eternal soul. Their kiss expressed all of the desperation, longing, and sorrow that their words couldn't articulate. Not here, not now. There wasn't enough time—and there never would be.

"CAROLINE!" Klaus cried again.

Death had finally come to collect: in its flowing cape of white. As the light of her necklace pendant flickered from dim to off, she felt herself slipping, floating away back to heat and turbulence. Back to chaos and commotion. But before the whiteness swallowed her whole, shutting out life, shutting out Klaus, her voice cut through the air one final time:

"I promise I'll wave hello from the other side," she said. "To you—to the one heart that understood mine."

Klaus collapsed to his knees as she faded away, rabid and antsy, his hand swiping through the empty air. Reaching out—forever reaching out for a hope now stolen away. Extinguished.

Poof.

It was no longer there. It was gone. And so was Caroline.

2 months later:

66 days + 40 bottles of bourbon + 3 deaths—1 metaphorical, 2 literal— + 1 stewing supernatural war = one totally dreary, disgruntled Original Hybrid.

To hell with responsibilities and crisis! To hell with kidnapped brothers, dead protégés, and chocolate croissants! To hell with fastidious kingdoms! Klaus' life became all about drowning. In blood…in debauchery…in despair.

Cheers to losing his religion. Choke on that eternal screw-you, motherfuckers. Choke on that.

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.

Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

Don't leave now that you're here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

—Faiz Ahmad Faiz, 100 Poems by Faiz Ahmad Faiz: 1911-1984

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Don't hate me? *hides in corner* If you found this chapter to be heartbreaking, then I accomplished my task. Just know 2 things: 1) I cried while writing some of the passages. 2) If you think you know what's going to happen next, you probably don't.

As always, thank you all so much for your continuing interest and support. Leave a review and let me know what you think. ;)

xx Ashlee Bree