Reader request from tumblr: Klaus defends Caroline from Elena.
The splintered front door of her childhood home stopped Elena dead in her tracks, flinging her arms out to stop Jeremy from stepping further. Damon was right by her side and sensed the distress in her rigid body. Both men froze at the sight of the door and then peering through the windows surveyed the utter destruction of the furniture inside. Elena turned to Damon with a confused frown, "I don't hear any heartbeats."
Damon frowned listening and slowly waling up the front step in front of Elena. "You wouldn't, they're all vampires but I hear Klausy breathing."
"Caroline and Tyler are supposed to be here, what's going on?" Elena muttered, without stopping she burst into the house calling out to Caroline.
Damon sped after her, leaving Jeremy to trail behind, leaping up the steps with his human speed. Both men froze when the saw Elena standing frozen in the kitchen, pulling a wooden stake out of her stomach. Klaus was still trapped in his invisible cage the room around was laid to waste, everything in shambles and piles of sawdust. He was gripping tightly to a wooden stake in his hand, seething with his fangs protruding his enraged expression fixated on the trio standing before them.
Klaus glared at the dumbstruck frowns of the Gilberts and Damon wishing he could push past his invisible prison and rip their undeserving hearts from theirs chest and watch the blood pool on the ground. He had spent the last three days imagining all the ways he could bring out their demises each concocted image more gruesome than the last. It was entirely their fault for the position they were in on and he had no qualms with reminding them exactly of that.
"Enjoy your little quest?" he spit out, the red in his eyes scaring all of them.
"Where's Blondie?" Damon countered. He stepped cautiously in front of Elena, pushing her back when she protested.
Klaus sneered, "Now you care for her? How deliciously rich coming from you Salvatore."
Elena froze instantly but then brushed past Damon to stand up against the barrier, "What did you do with Caroline?"
Klaus roared at the statement, the sound filling the room with anguish and hatred. He felt bile push up in his throat at the audacity of Elena; he had never hated the doppelganger more than this moment. The vain and pretentious little girl was nothing more than a blight upon his life and the instant the barrier dropped he would gladly devote the rest of his eternity to hunting her down. He paused, he give her a head start just so he could least have the promise of a hunt.
Ignoring their questions, he lowered the stake in his hands and began pacing the room tossing the stake back and forth. "Tell me loves, did you think for one second while you were gone about the well being of Caroline? Or did you just assume that she would be safe in the presence of the big bad wolf?"
Elena's eyes widened and she zoomed back into the safety of Damon's arms, suddenly very frightened where this conversation was going. Klaus smirked at seeing her squirm uncomfortably under his piercing questions. A slight satisfaction sated his wild beast, driving him to obtain more control and power over the situation.
"Better yet did you think for one moment about the consequences of your selfish actions on the people around you, or were you too consumed with your own need to find if your love was true to think about others?" Klaus went on goading the trembling girl.
Damon snapped, "Hey, that's uncalled for! Elena's been nothing but a friend to Caroline." The vampire's eyes were glinting just as black as Klaus' the veins in his eyes starting to crinkle and appear. Klaus let out a laugh, "So you do know her name."
Damon snarled his own fangs completely dropped now, Klaus just scoffed at the action with a condescending brow. "You would gladly whore out her services to keep me at bay just to save your own skin."
Elena squeaked at the statement, stuttering out excuses but unable to form any real cohesive words. Tears began to prick at her eyes as truth dawned on her and she snapped back furious. "You killed her, you bastard!"
The wooden stake flew past Elena, the dangerous speed slicing a section of her long brown hair. Elena froze watching the hair fall to the floor and turned to see the stake embedded into the staircase behind her. Damon and Jeremy both jumped against the barrier furious. Klaus stepped up against as well the power and authority of a thousand years of walking the earth and unadulterated rage making them cower back under the intensity.
Eyes never leaving Damon and Jeremy, he spoke to Elena in a deathly tone, "I would never harm a single golden hair of her head let alone rob her of the beauty of life."
The finality of his words hit Elena in the face, snapping her from her petrified state. A sense of dread filled her and she gazed past him into the room and saw lying on the couch the mummified body of Caroline, her face gray and eyes closed. Elena wondered why she didn't smell the unsettling odor of decay earlier. Off to the side by Kol's body was the also equally dead body of Tyler, a stake jutting from his chest.
Klaus sneered at Elena finally grasping the situation. "You quest for the cure left Caroline open to attack from every other vampire hunter out there. She came running here concerned for my safety, her compassion overriding the obvious danger."
Elena started crying trying to step forward but Klaus cut her off. "You are not worthy of speaking her name, none of you are."
"But she's my friend!" she protested, tears falling down her face.
Klaus wanted to reach out and squeeze her throat until the shrill voice for once just shut up. Her statement grated the wrong way, his patience finally breaking.
"You aren't her friend, but nothing more than a common tart using the people around you to get what you want. You don't even compare to the person Caroline was and you never will be."
Damon recovered from everything let himself casually lean up against the entryway into the room, letting his coolness calm Elena. "Don't flatter yourself; Barbie was never to going to go for you."
"SHE DIED SCREAMING FOR ME!" Klaus roared his angry consuming him, the shouting so raw the veins in his face protruded and threatened to burst under the strain. They hadn't been there for the three days to see Caroline hold him as he cried for his brother or the gentle kisses she had laid on his lips, or the promise to run away with him away from all the death and chaos.
Klaus was done with them, but he couldn't help but he grateful Caroline wouldn't be there to see him drain the life from them. Their stunned silence and fumbling about was the only sound in the room. Klaus ignored them and went back to the couch where Caroline was lying in eternal sleep. Touching the faded tresses he could only think of how she was the image of perfection truly beautiful, more than her friends ever thought she was.