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Hope you like the chapter, thanks, Bec

Katherine sat alone in her bedroom in the Panama hotel, unable to sleep as time dragged on till well past midnight. She knew Elijah must have been asleep, not a sound was coming from his room and Katherine couldn't help but think about him. She thought about his voice, his eyes, and his kindness. She thought about all the memories she had spent with him, mucking around with him when nothing mattered and talking for hours when everything did. The more she thought about him, the more she wanted him, despite telling herself that she couldn't go through this again. The feeling of need was… overpowering. It coursed through her body like a volcano about to erupt, like if she didn't see him it would burn her from the inside out.

All she wanted was to see him.

Katherine quietly opened to the door to her room and she was so light on her feet that she didn't make a sound. She turned to Elijah's door and her still hand reached down to the door handle and without any hesitation, pushed it open to see him lying asleep on his bed.

Katherine stood in the doorway, admiring how at peace he looked and how this so powerful original could look so vulnerable. When she was with him… once… she never took a moment to appreciate that, in fact, she never took a moment to appreciate him. She was always manipulating him and lying to him and she thought that she didn't want him, she thought that he was just another chess piece for her to maneuver, but now… now… he was so much more than that.

Her body and her mind separated themselves and she couldn't stop her legs from tip-toeing over to his bed. She leaned over above him, watching his chest slowly rise and fall to the steady rhythm of his breath.

As strange as it sounded, he was… beautiful.

Her eyes traveled slowly down his face. His eyes were softly closed and his mouth was fractionally opened, his jaw relaxed. Then her eyes moved down his neck and to his chest, covered only by a thin, grey cotton shirt. His left arm gently rested across the white duvet, which lay upon his stomach.

The way that he was sleeping, so relaxed and human, contrasted so extremely to the usual stiff and statuesque way he held himself when awake. Katherine was in awe of him, and didn't notice when his eyes began to blink open.

"Katerina?" Elijah mumbled, his voice husky and low from just awakening.

Katherine gasped and quickly took a few steps back, putting her hand against the wall she was now leaning up against on the other side of the room.

"What are you doing?" He said, slowly sitting up in his bed, rubbing his eyes.

"I… I…" Katherine couldn't come up with an answer.

What was I doing?! She screamed at herself.

Elijah slowly stood out of bed and walked towards Katherine. He was wearing loose cotton pants and he still looked so relaxed. It was the first time Katherine had seen him awake with his guard down.

Katherine swallowed as he became closer to her, but he stopped within a few steps from her.

"Were you watching me sleep?" Elijah said quietly. He smirked, his eyes gleaming.

"…Yes." Katherine whispered in response.

Elijah slowly approached her and when they were only inches apart, he placed both of his hands on the wall behind Katherine, on either side of her head; confining her inside his arms.

"Katerina-" Elijah cut himself off as Katherine leaned her chin up slightly and glanced down from his eyes to his lips. Elijah lowered his head so their foreheads softly touched and he closed his eyes, breathing in the air that they were now sharing. Katherine lifted up one of her hands and placed it upon Elijah's chest.

Katherine wanted Elijah to kiss her, but he thought she didn't want it, so he wasn't going to do it.

Sensing his hesitation, Katherine grabbed his shirt with her hand and pulled him towards her so their lips finally met with a burst of energy neither of them were expecting.

Suddenly Elijah was pushing his whole body weight against Katherine and pinning her to the wall while they kissed with an urgency and a desperation like they had been without human touch for hundreds of years – maybe they had.

Katherine had thrown her other arm around his neck and not even a breath of space divided them; it was like they had become one, or at least they knew exactly what the other was about to do and their intimacy was almost like a dance. Katherine pulled back and Elijah pushed forward, he lifted his head, she lifted hers – they were completely in sync.

After what seemed like mere seconds but was in fact much longer, Elijah pulled away from Katherine's lips.

"Why?" He asked with a slight measure of confusion.

"Because I realized that I should have never let you go." Katherine replied, a soft smile appearing on her lips.

Tyler Lockwood stood out the front of a mass of people, a mixture of hybrids and werewolves, all eagerly waiting to hear what he had to say. Hayley stood a little behind him, also staring down the mass. They had all come together for a meeting that Tyler had called.

"I hope most of you have an idea as to why I brought you here tonight." Tyler projected his booming voice over the crowd. He sounded angry, but most of all he sounded threatening, his voice pierced the guts of the whole crowd.

Nobody answered, only some shifted their weight as they stood, avoiding making any eye contact with the tall authorities of Hayley and Tyler.

"I've made this meeting so you can all see what I can't ignore!" He yelled.

Suddenly Tyler ran down to the pack and grasped a younger man by the neck – strangling him. He immediately reacted by trying to pull him away, and gasping with his mouth wide open – trying to breathe the little air he had – but Tyler was too strong. His eyes became glazed over with fear and he tried to scream, but not a sound could escape. Tyler dragged him back up to Hayley and as the man was dragged closer to Hayley, Hayley's face became covered in shock and she had to turn away from the man, she didn't want to know who it was.

"All of you have failed me." Tyler was now screaming, tightening his fist on the man's neck "Klaus was supposed to be dead by now and all of you have let him slip between your fingers…. Well I can assure you, that this man won't slip through mine."

Tyler lifted the man off the ground and he began thrashing against him, but he didn't let go. At that, an older woman in the crowd began sobbing.

"Stop! Please stop!" She screamed trying to push through the crowd, but an older man held her back, knowing that if she went to Tyler – she'd be killed too. She must have been the man's mother, as she was shaking and staring at her son with a panic washed over her face.

"Think of this man as an example." Tyler yelled over the gasps and screams of the crowd. "A metaphor or a symbol, if you will …that I am a forgiving person."

Tyler dropped him to the ground and he scrambled on the floor as a wave of relief washed away the grief of the crowd. The man held his neck and tried to refill his lungs with the air he thought he would never taste again.

He then began to stand up, but as he did, Tyler followed on. "But there are some things I can't forgive."

The man suddenly turned his eyes from Tyler and to the crowd, to see his mother for the very last time, before Tyler pulled his heart out, and his once strong body fell limply to the ground at Hayley's feet.

Only then, did Hayley find the courage to look down upon Tyler's victim.

It was Luke.

Tyler's strained voice broke Hayley out of her state of shock.

"He betrayed us all." Tyler's voice was quieter now, almost shocked at himself- shocked at what he had done. The sobs and moans of the grieving family of Luke filled his head as he stared down at the body. "He betrayed us all… He… He was the messenger that informed Elijah Mikaelson about our plans."

Tyler's voice grew now, becoming stronger as he tried to defend his murder. "I did what had to be done!" He now yelled again, madness and panic in his voice. "We kill Klaus right now. I'll go myself with a division of you all and we end this original tonight!"

Klaus sat alone in the living room of the hotel, while Caroline slept upstairs. He had deprived her of her home for another full day and he planned to take her home as soon as the sun rose in the morning.

He wanted to sleep but he couldn't. His heart was so flustered from Caroline and how her memory kept flooding back to her, but only like a flash of lightning, it was gone before you could even realize it was there.

He had come up with a theory as to why his compulsion hadn't worked.

He had seen repeatedly throughout his life incidents where vampires who didn't want to compel someone try to and find themselves unable to do it properly.

He had heard a story of a vampire named Kristopher that compelled his enemy, George to kill his mother, but Kristopher didn't want to do it, his conscious was too strong, and George never had to go through with it; the compulsion had failed.

Of course he hadn't truly wanted to compel Caroline to forget about him, but he did what was best for her, ignoring his selfish desires. But now that he didn't truly believe it himself, she didn't either.

He hadn't seen it coming, he was the most powerful creature in the whole world – there was no way that his compulsion failed. But it did. And now he was paying the price.

His daze was interrupted by barely audible sounds from outside his room. The apartment block has a series of staircases from each of the levels, and Klaus could hear the light tapping of feet on the staircases. It would have been passed off as a patron returning to their rooms, but Klaus had a bad feeling, and he slowly rose from his couch.

He walked to the door and unlatched it, turning to look up the staircase inside; hoping and praying Caroline remained asleep, as she was so fatigued. He walked out of the door and looked all around the surrounding apartment block, but it was empty. There was something inside him though that told him he couldn't ignore what he had heard, so he shut the apartment door behind him and remained outside, guarding the door to Caroline. A rattle of the metal staircase going up to the next level sounded and Klaus leaned over the bannister to look up at the next level of rooms, he could have sworn he saw a shadow of a man. As Klaus leaned back and looked across from him, he saw a dark hooded figure on the other side of the apartment block – staring back at him.

Klaus cocked his head to the side as he stared back at the figure and tensed his jaw; he knew that whoever it was wanted trouble.

Klaus walked as far forward as he could before hitting the railing and said out to the figure, "I wouldn't."

But the figure made no reply, it only lifted an arm and put a finger to it's lips, gesturing for silence.

All of a sudden two men had gripped Klaus from both sides and they lifted him up and over the railing, so he fell to the ground three stories below. Klaus jumped back up and was faced with Tyler Lockwood.

"I've come to do the dirty work myself." Tyler smiled.

"You shouldn't have." Klaus spat back at him.

"Oh why not?"

"Because I'm going to kill you."

Tyler lunged at Klaus, but he retaliated and sped to the other side of the quadrangle in the open area of the apartments.

Another man ran to Tyler and handed him a white oak stake and a cold shiver ran through Klaus at the sight of it.

"Where did you get that?" Klaus yelled at him from a distance, suddenly not finding the courage to approach him.

"I have my ways, Klaus. Just about everybody in the modern world wants you dead and I have found help easily enough" Tyler replied, tapping the stake against his other hand.

"Do you really think you can kill me?" Klaus laughed.

"Maybe not alone, you're right. But with help I can." As Tyler spoke, dozens of hybrids and werewolves crept out of the shadows... to say Klaus was outnumbered was an understatement.

Klaus knew he was doomed, he tried to run but he was surrounded. He refused to call for Caroline's help, they didn't know she was still here and he would leave it that way… otherwise Caroline could be killed.

Klaus ran to Tyler, he had to get rid of the stake but as he ran bodies came and pushed him to the floor so he was kneeling before Tyler and his hands were being held behind his back.

Tyler lifted up the stake and just as he was about to stab it through Klaus's heart, a girl appeared between Klaus and Tyler, and she drove her body through the stake, a human body shield for Klaus.
"Caroline!" Klaus screamed as she bent forward holding the stake that was plunged into her chest.

Caroline staggered forward and Tyler had to catch her from falling over. As his arms gripped her shoulders holding her up, Caroline lifted her head to stare at Tyler with shocked and frightened eyes and her mouth open from the pain.

"Caroline?" Tyler cried with a lump in his throat as he tried to speak. "Caroline, you weren't supposed to be here."

"Why did you do this to me?" Caroline stuttered out through the gasps for air and of pain escaping from her lips.

Caroline staggered back away from him and fell backwards into Klaus's arms and Klaus slowly lowered her to the ground.

"Get out of here, all of you!" Tyler screamed to the hybrids and werewolves and they slowly backed away, shocked at what they had seen, before turning and running again back into the shadows.

Klaus then ran up to Tyler and invaded all the surrounding space Tyler had around him.

"You're lucky she cares about you." Klaus whispered into Tyler's ear, and then shoved him away. "Get out before I change my mind."

Tyler began to hyperventilate and looked behind Klaus to see the body of Caroline lying on the ground, almost looking lifeless. He couldn't bear to think that he was the cause of her death, so he ran away and never looked back.

Klaus ran back to Caroline and inspected the stake. He couldn't tell if it was in her heart or not, there was such thin boundary around it he couldn't be sure.

"Klaus?" Caroline rasped.

"Why did you do that, Caroline?" Klaus shouted as he tried to stop the bleeding now pouring from her chest. He didn't mean to sound angry, but he didn't know if he was about to lose the woman he loved.

Then a thought occurred to Klaus, if Caroline was about to die, then he needed to tell her. He needed her to know – he couldn't live with himself if she died never knowing how much he loved her.

Then he realized that he couldn't live without her at all.

"Caroline you have to know." Klaus said as he lifted her and placed her head in his lap, wiping the blood from her chin; which was now pouring from her mouth. "I did something I wish I had never done-"

"Shh." Caroline smiled back at him. Caroline stopped and gripped the stake, arching her back from the pain of the splinters in her body. "I want you to know, that I love you. I always have, even when I didn't realize it. I don't know why I do – but I do. I realized as soon I saw you about to die, I was terrified about losing you, I couldn't lose you."

Caroline then began to weep as she stared into the eyes of a man who didn't think he was worthy of love, and yet she had laid out her life for him. But looking back into the confused and frightened eyes of him, it seemed that it still wasn't enough to make him see.

Caroline smiled through her tears and then she fell unconscious.

"No… No… No!" Klaus screamed as he tried to shake her awake again. He pulled the stake out of chest, but he still didn't know if it had reached her heart. "Caroline, please don't leave me here."

Klaus hugged the limp body to his own, knowing that whether or not the stake had pierced Caroline's heart, the only way he could tell would be to wait.

Wait to see if she would wake up again.

Klaus's own life depended on it.