AUTHOR'S NOTE: This piece sprouted from a prompt offered for Klaroline Wednesday on Tumblr. I'd always wondered what kind of advice/words of wisdom Klaus would offer after learning not only that Liz died, but that Caroline turned off her humanity. I hope you like it.

"You have exactly two minutes to tell me all about being the bad guy before I hang up," she muttered. "Go."

She could feel the force of his smirk through the phone.

"Hello Caroline," he drawled in that irresistible British accent. "How lovely to hear from you."

After their last scandalous (passionate) encounter, Caroline had sworn to herself that she'd de-Klaus her life—an Original Hybrid detox, if you will—and would remove both him, and her feelings for him, from her life forever. When he'd promised never to return, she'd sworn silently never to talk to him, never to think of him again. Unfortunately, she found this forever vow was hard (impossible) to preserve. At least where he was concerned.

As a result, here she was: parked in the middle of Nowhere Tennessee, her head pressed against the steering wheel with a bag of open Doritos resting in her lap, on the phone…with Klaus Mikaelson.

Caroline hated it. She despised herself for this weakness, for this hybrid-sized Achilles heel. But Klaus? Oh, Klaus loved every minute of it. No - wait - that wasn't right. He didn't just love it. He relished every second of this. The smug bastard.

"Only one minute fifty-five seconds left," she reminded him.

"Right. So is this interest personal or academic?" Klaus asked without sounding deterred at all.

Eyes closed, Caroline sighed. "I didn't know who else to call.."

Hearing her dejected tone, that lackluster inflection, Klaus dropped his wry pretense. His voice was low and gentle. "You called the right person, love. Now," he seemed to change tactics, his attitude a little probing, "what is it you want to know?"

Caroline jolted back in the driver's seat, allowing her head to rest comfortably against the headrest. Muting the radio, which seemed to be blaring music from Sad FM at present, she threw her forearm over her face and slumped, unloading her words in an agitated, need-to-vent manner. "Here's the thing," she said, "my mom's dead. I don't know if you know that or not but my mom died. From cancer. Not from a supernatural curse, a rogue vampire, or a werewolf bite, but from cancer. Freaking brain cancer. Isn't that ridiculous? To die of something so human—in Mystic Falls?"

Caroline hiccupped here, either to prevent herself from laughing or crying. Who knew which one?

"Anyway, I couldn't deal with it. I just…couldn't. I couldn't breathe, Klaus. I couldn't fucking breathe! So I shut it off." She paused, licking her lips. "I shut off my humanity and gave into my darkness. The one temptation I swore to myself, and to you, that held no charms for me. I gave in." She scoffed, obviously disgusted with herself. "I gave in all the way."

"And…?" His voice was a balm, his response judgment-free.

"And it was amazing! It was awful," Caroline checked herself. "I—I was awful," she corrected. "Though I still controlled the bloodlust, I was a heartless and vindictive bitch. I terrorized my friends, my town; I persecuted perfect strangers who offended me for literally no reason. I was one destructive decision away from becoming a one woman Bonnie and Clyde."

Klaus chuckled softly at that. Though he said nothing, it was obvious he took some odd delight in hearing her tale. And something else, too. What was it? Satisfaction? Pleasure? Pride? That's it—that's what it was. A part of him sounded proud.

Her repressed guilt simmering, Caroline pressed on.

"I mean, not only did I almost revert Stefan back to his Ripper days (and we all know how many years he takes to recover from one of those episodes), but I played Caroline trivia with my ex-boyfriends and snapped some guy's neck simply because he refused to buy me a tequila shot. I blood-binged, which ruined my necklace. I traumatized innocent studiers because I wanted to watch fear settle into their bones, to see how fast they'd run away from a monster's pursuit. And I killed six people to prevent boredom on a Friday night. All of which, by itself, would have been terrible enough, but together? Together it hammers the point home: I suck!"

At this, Caroline smacked her hands over her eyes and let out an exasperated huff. Rubbing at her temples, she begged for the guilt to disappear. To fade. To lessen. Anything that would appease that relentless fire that scalded her veins with remorse, with regret. She'd do anything to stop the torment. Anything…

Seriously.

She heard Klaus shut a door before plopping down on something soft, a bed or a chair of some sort, probably cradling his phone into his neck."Hold on," he dangled, "what on earth is Caroline trivia?"

Her eyes popped open and she glared at his name on the call screen in her car, "Are you freaking kidding me? I unload a mountain of humanity-less crap on you and that's the one thing you want to know?"

"Sure. What's the harm in that, hm?" Caroline could almost see him fixing her with that infamous puppy dog stare, his blue eyes twinkling with flirtatious mischief. He'd jut out his lower lip for extra emphasis, too, just to irk her. "I'm simply curious, sweetheart. Don't hold it against me or anything, for you'd be liable to mend my poor broken heart," he crooned.

She made a dismissive sound.

Secretly, however, she was amused. A small smile crept across her lips as she readied herself to answer him. Though it was weak and felt a little foreign on her face, Caroline savored the pleasantness of smiling again after so many weeks of misery, especially when she acknowledged to herself that only he had been able to instigate it. Only he had been able to draw warmth from her.

Interesting.

Scratching a hand through her hair, still warm and tingly from this unprompted smile, she tried to explain.

"Matt and Tyler stumbled across me at a bar where I was engaging in some murderous activities. They disapproved, of course, and wanted to go. But I decided that only the winner of my game could leave. Since they'd both dated me, Caroline-themed questioned seemed like the most fun. Whoever won, would live," shivering in remembrance, she nestled her legs against her chest, "whoever lost, would die."

"That's rather creative," Klaus replied, interest piqued. "Who won?"

Opening her bag of Doritos, she grabbed a handful, "Neither one."

Silence.

Shocked? Startled? Surprised? Whatever he was, Klaus masked it well. He delivered his next words in a practiced monotone. "Ah. So you…killed them both then?"

Caroline coughed, almost choking on her junk food.

"What? No—no! Damon ushered them outside before I—before I could—no. No, I didn't kill them." She shook her head and laughed without amusement. "Could you imagine? Could you imagine if I had been responsible for killing one of my friends? Or worse, one of the ex-loves of my life? I just—" her hands crumpled into fists "—there'd be no return to humanity after that. Not for me."

Klaus considered her words for a moment, measuredly and deliberately. "What makes you so sure?"

"Because! I'd never forgive myself, okay? I'd never recover." Caroline wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel and leaned forward into the speaker, almost like she was about to tell him a secret. When she spoke again, it was in a choked whisper, "The guilt and shame would—I couldn't—it'd," she trembled, "it'd bury me. I'd never survive."

"You would, though," Klaus said. "I know who you are. You're strong, Caroline, stronger than you know." His tone was uncompromising and unyielding, like he spoke an absolute truth. "And the strong are resilient, sometimes stubborn, and often tenacious to the point of obsession. I would know. Better than almost anyone, you could say," he added with an air of mockery, of self-disdain. "People like that always find a way to survive. You would, too. You already have in your own way."

"What are you talking about? I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here," she countered, half hysterical, "don't you get that? I'm barely living, barely tolerating my own existence! I mean, listen to me! I'm locked in my car, alone, at some crummy Tennessee gas station vampire-shaming myself to a rage-a-holic hybrid who's probably killed more people than I've ever met!"

"Fair point, love. Fair point."

Tears trickled down her pale cheeks, smearing her brown mascara. Embarrassed, she blushed. Why was she acting like this? She'd called him, after all, not the other way around.

"I'd wager a majority of my past homicides either resulted from collateral damage or from boredom. It's difficult to remember let alone calculate."

Sniffing, she shook her head. Laughed faintly. "Is that supposed to make me feel better or something?"

"Can't make you feel worse, surely," Klaus said.

Another smile broke loose at that.

Caroline could almost imagine him lying there, locked away in some swanky mansion in New Orleans with his head resting against fancy pillows, his mind wandering to his burgeoning list of victims, ticking off the numbers of both innocent and guilty alike. How many were there? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?

She shuddered at the thought.

Wearier now, allowing her forehead to collapse against her hands on the steering wheel, she exhaled in surrender, "I'm so lost, Klaus. Can't you just be a pal and tell me your goddamn secret already? I'm tired."

A hearty laugh escape from him at this for some reason. It sounded warm and relaxed, like he had received a reprieve and could take a moment to revel in something amusing instead of something dire or derogatory. He sounded almost—well, happy.

In the meantime, Caroline was drowning. Typical.

"Your secret? Hello!?"

After taking a minute, he cleared his throat, "I am an almanac of secrets, love. Which one would you care to pick apart?"

"Just, you know, tell me how you do it. How you swallow your regrets and prevent them from consuming you? Don't lie to me, either," she mumbled as her eyelids pressed into leather. "I know you have them."

"You presume to know me well."

"You do vile, despicable things, Klaus. But they bother you. They always have," not lifting her head or opening her eyes, "they always will," she added.

Caroline heard the lid of a decanter, then the sound of liquid - probably Bourbon - clinking against ice cubes as it emptied into a glass. He needed a drink. And from the sound of it, a strong one. Taking a sip, Klaus let out a small groan. Smacked his lips.

She could almost feel him scratch the stubble on his chin in thought.

"Time helps. Years, decades, centuries—" he said with age and listlessness taking hold of him, "they help to fade the atrocities you've committed so you're better able to overlook them. Live with them, so to speak. You never truly forget but you learn to ignore. Repress. You…I suppose you redirect the shame. With time and practice, and as eon after eon after passes away, you'll master the skill of evasion just like I have. You'll learn to mute the worst of your mistakes. After you take a deep breath, or a moment for reflection, then you'll move on again. The trick is to keep track but not to slip back into the abyss. It's a delicate balance. I haven't quite perfected it yet myself."

Devoid of callousness or calculation, his words expressed an openness, a truthfulness, that struck Caroline in the heart. Klaus had granted her access into his psyche willingly and without restraint. He wanted her to know him. To understand him. It was like she'd accidentally cracked open a window into the dungeon where his demons lived and his soul had blown into arrest her, awakening her heart with its empathetic breeze. That touched her. She hated to admit it, but it did. It genuinely touched her.

"What do I do until then? You know," her lips twitched softly, "until eternity passes and I'm a billion like you?"

"Distract yourself."

"How?" she asked.

"Well, for starters…drive." Caroline heard Klaus take another large swig from his drink. After he finished, she heard the clunk of his glass on the counter and the pling from the decanter which signaled he'd unplugged it for a refill. "Put the keys in the ignition and start up your car. Drive out of that dilapidated little town you're hiding in, and go," he said. "Just go."

"I can't." With her knuckles whitening around the gear shift, she bit at her bottom lip, "I can't go back to Mystic Falls, okay?"

"So don't. Just drive." Persuasion underscored his statement but it was calm and vague. It was not at all pressuring which made him more convincing somehow, with his advice more likely to be heeded.

Abruptly and with no goodbye, the call ended. Like a new moon, Klaus disappeared into the black March night. He had spoken his wisdom, and then was gone.

Rolling her forehead across her left hand, Caroline peered at the call screen with one eye and stared at his name still plastered there in flashing white letters. They'd spent more than fifteen minutes on the phone. Much longer than she'd expected or intended.

After releasing a long sigh, she sat back in her seat and started the ignition. As she maneuvered out of the parking lot and onto the interstate, she extracted a map from the glove compartment. Laying it flat on the passenger seat next to her, she gave it an affectionate pat. Although she still felt lost, she at least knew her next destination.

The map was already starred and circled with the name of a city. It was a place Caroline had never visited but had always wanted to see, so why not? She wasn't happy back home. There was no one there to hold her back now. There was nothing much left to lose except time. Besides, didn't she deserve an adventure anyway?

And so, like Klaus suggested, she just drove.

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