VI. About Falling

The tide rolls by and I wonder why I felt inclined to try,

My starry eyes were sacrificed

The sea divides but I don't wanna get lost in the ocean

I don't wanna get lost in the ocean now

I come across smoke drifting out from the chimney of the funeral home. It's too late for an attendant to still be on duty, so I walk towards it, determined to get answers out of this virtuous Original brother, no matter what. As I approach, I can hear two people talking. A man and a woman. An argument.

'Yeah? And what am I supposed to do when he changes his mind?' She's been crying. I can hear it in her voice, hoarse, and breathy.

'He won't. I've made sure of it, remember?' A pause. Elijah? 'You have nothing to fear from my brother.' Klaus is the only brother he has left…What would he want with—?

'I don't know if I believe that.' Hayley! That's who it is. That wolf-girl who had a crush on Tyler. What is she doing here?

Things are getting really strange, and I'm not so sure I'm going to like what Elijah has to say. No time like the present. I knock on the back door to the building, since it seems to be the one closer to them. I hear Elijah mutter to himself, 'I wonder who that could be…'

His face when he opens the door is nothing short of bewildered. Eyes widening then quickly contracting into a squint. "Caroline? What are you doing here?" His hands subtly push the door slightly more closed. What is he hiding? I cross my arms across my chest. "May I come in?" I ask, sounding much more patient than I'm feeling. Elijah blinks twice. "Of course, please." He opens the door wide, stepping aside with a slight bow.

I look around the room. It's completely furnished with all the makings of a cozy bedroom, a rug, a large mirror, strings of lights hung around the ceiling, and Hayley sitting on a plush, queen-sized bed, eyes wet and glaring daggers at me. She's living here? With—him?

I shake my head. No, no, that can't be right. How would Hayley even know Elijah? I turn to face Elijah, whose fingers of his right hand are slowly rubbing against each other at his side, tense. Before I can ask anything, Hayley speaks up. "What the hell is she doing here?" She barks, voice laced with malice I'm not really sure how I've earned. I glare at her. "Elijah?" I prompt tentatively.

He clears his throat and speaks to Hayley; he chastises her, "Hayley." He gives her a pointed look. Elijah turns back toward me and clasps his hands in front of him, "To what do I owe this—pleasure, Ms. Forbes?"

My eyes narrow. Do people think I'm stupid or something? "I think you know what."

"Not exactly, no." He sighs.

"Fine." I huff, "Let's start out with what she's doing here, in the middle of a goddamn cemetery."

"I thought it would be more remote than a hotel, safer."

"Is she in danger?" I blink, thinking of what I heard just a few minutes ago. "Is it Klaus? Why?"

Elijah hesitates then, the muscles around his eyes tightening. He looks like he's struggling with something. He opens and closes his mouth several times before he speaks. "I suppose you ha—"

"Elijah, no. You can't" Hayley interrupts and I picture myself, just for a moment, snapping her bobble head neck. I let out an angry snarl. "Can't what? What the hell is no one telling me?"

"They can't tell you, sweetheart, not unless they want to lose their heads." The fake-cheery, accented voice of Klaus Mikaelson causes all to whip our heads around, seeing him walk through the doorway opposite of the one I entered. Is it freaking annoy the crap out of Caroline day?

I groan, "What are you doing here, Klaus?" I rub my forehead with the back of my hand. Can vampires get headaches? "And what do you mean, 'unless they want to lose their heads'? Elijah's your brother, goddamnit, just tell me what's going on!"

"Calm down, love." Klaus says, moving closer and putting his hands on my shoulders. "Just look at me, Caroline, I'll explain." I'm just about to do as he says when I realize the very few reasons why he would care if I were looking at him. I push his arms away, floating a few steps backwards. "No! You're lying to me; you were going to compel me, again! To what? To forget? Screw that, I want to know, Klaus." Anger bubbles inside me, and I whip around, looking for leverage. "Caroline, I don't have the patience to play games right now." Klaus's voice is low, dangerous.

"Neither do I." I murmur, more to myself than him. I come up empty handed in my frantic search for a trump card, and wonder if maybe since Klaus is so evil, I can just goad him into spilling his secrets like the stereotype villain he is. "Why do you want to hurt her, Klaus? And why does it matter if I know?"

He laughs, short and humorless. "Well that's an 'A' for effort, love, but regrettably, I think our time is up here." I expect him to lunge at me, so I quickly grab the lamp from the nightstand and break it, making a makeshift weapon. He simply shakes his head before he vampire speeds over to me. He's quickly behind me, and his voice is in my ears. "You don't want to hurt me, love." Funny thing is, I really, really do. I grit my teeth and quickly stab the broken lamp into his left shoulder.

Klaus growls loudly before ripping the shards out of his arm, his face contorted into a snarling mask with orange eyes and sharp teeth. It reminds me of my dream, even more so when I smell the blood trailing out of the wound before it can stitch itself closed. My eyes close briefly as I try to get my sudden hunger out of control. When I open them, again I see that Klaus hasn't moved, and he has the strangest smile on his face, like he's just had a wicked idea.

Elijah's voice sounds, and I jump, almost have forgotten he was here. "Niklaus, enough, just tell her. This was inevitable." He vampire speeds in front of his brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. Klaus's smile breaks as he looks to his Elijah. I'm afraid he's about to hit him or something when Hayley's grating voice sounds once again.

"Fuck this, I'm pregnant, I can't deal with this shit." She announces, getting up to leave. Pregnant. I feel like an elephant's sitting on my chest as the only meaning that could have hits me like a ton of bricks. I don't realize I've rushed over to grab Hayley's shirt until she screeches for me to let go. "You're pregnant?" I repeat, dumbly. There's talking going on in the background, but it all sounds so far away, like I'm under water.

Why would Klaus want to kill her, and why would she be here for that, unless—I feel like my heart's been ripped open, and lies bleeding in my chest. He slept with her. He slept with her and he didn't tell me, and he got her knocked up. Is that even possible? I care, why do I care? He wants to kill her. She's carrying his child.

A strange sort of choking fire burns my body, and I'm suddenly very aware of just how easily I could end this little were-whore's life. I want to. I want it so bad it hurts, and I'm only very vaguely aware that the only reason for that would be that I'm jealous, jealous and angry. I've never felt such anger in my vampire life. I've never imagined there could be that much in me. Especially not for him, not for a monster like Klaus. Don't kid yourself, Caroline, he's the only person you've ever felt so much for, monster or not. I don't want to think about that. I don't want to think about anything.

I can hear it, some sort of monster screaming. Me. "Is it true?" I shout, and the look of reluctance on both Klaus and Elijah's faces is enough to tell me they know what I mean, and that it is most definitely true. Klaus starts speaking, "Caroline,—" My sanity snaps just as the wolf's neck does.

The silence is deafening. Nobody expected that, I didn't expect it myself. My heat shatters when I look down at her lifeless eyes—monster—but then it re-forges, into unbreakable, crystalized steel, and I know I'll never feel that betrayed, or that disgusted with myself again.

Fuck. What the fuck is going on?

Caroline is standing over the body of the wolf-girl. Dead. Caroline killed her. Caroline killed her. My Caroline. If this is a dream, I'd like to wake up, right bloody now.

But it can't be, because I don't dream, not anymore.

I don't really care that she's dead. There is a small part of me that aches at the possibilities lost, but that's all. It's a great weight off my shoulders, actually. Now I don't have to do it myself. No, what I'm concerned with is the look in Caroline's eyes. She's too sweet to handle this kind of thing and walk away, humanity in hand.

She smiles, slow and emotionless. "Oops." She giggles, sounding so very much like the Caroline she was minutes ago, but I know it's not true. The real Caroline is buried now, and I don't know for how long. "I guess you're not gonna be a dad after all, Klaus." Elijah has rushed over to the body and is murmuring things in a lost language that I'm choosing to ignore. If he tries to kill Caroline for this, I'm not sure what I can do to restrain him until I retrieve another dagger.

Caroline walks over to me, looking over her shoulder at Elijah, and raising an eyebrow. She shrugs and turns back to me. "I feel much better now." She says, nodding to herself. It's my turn to raise an eyebrow. "I do believe better is a term reserved for positive things, love, not nonexistent ones." She smiles.

I see my brother getting up behind her. "You should go, sweetheart. We'll talk about this later; I think Elijah would like a word." Caroline looks as if she's going to refuse, but then her eyes darken slightly. "I could use a snack, actually. Have fun with that." She says, grinning cheekily, gesturing with a nod of her blond head to Elijah. I see him considering going after him as she rushes past, but he deflates with a melancholic sigh and instead sits down on the edge of the bed.

"Is our family not allowed even one happiness? Are we really so damned?" Elijah is starring at Hayley's dead body. It's ironic, how much he cared for the girl, and how little I, the father of her unborn child did. Not that that's what he's upset about, not truly. It's the idea, of what could have been, since he'd made it up in his mind that this child would pull what's left of our family back together, make us whole again. He's too noble to see that somethings are just broken for good.

"I'm surprised you're not going after her." I remark, quite honestly confused.

"What good would it do, Niklaus?" He replies, looking to me. "If I did manage to kill the girl, under your protection, you would never forgive me, and we'd be even less of a family than we are now."

"You're right, I wouldn't forgive you. Not in a million years." I don't think it's an exaggeration in the slightest. I gesture to the body. "River or ground?"

Elijah sighs, "I'll bury it, just go, brother. Make sure Caroline doesn't kill any more people today."

I nod, feeling unexpectedly at a loss for words. I feel like I should say something to him. He should be yelling at me, going after Caroline, doing something horrible. Anything so that I don't feel like I should comfort him.

I take out my phone and head off to find Caroline.

AN: I liked writing this one a lot, sorry if anyone's turned 'off' on the off switch cause of the whole thing with Elena, I just thought it would be fun to show sweet, bubbly Caroline sans humanity, but I'm not planning on dragging it out terribly long.

How was her death? Gruesome enough? I don't think so, but I suck at action scenes, so this is what I managed. I like the psychological pizzazz.

I'm thinking about bringing Kol back from the dead to be her humanity-less companion. Could I possibly get some thoughts on that? Please. I'll love you forever-Midden.