"Another," Klaus said, sliding his empty glass across the dark, slick wood of the bar to his favorite blonde bartender.
"You've had a lot tonight," Cami observed as she poured the amber liquid and passed the glass back to the Original who tossed it back without hesitation.
"Afraid I can't hold my liquor, love?" Klaus asked, sliding the once again empty glass back to her with an amused smirk.
She topped off his drink, "No, just wondering what's up."
"I'm an artist," He said, swirling his drink slowly around instead of drinking, "isn't drunk and brooding our prerogative?"
Klaus study the bartender as she wiped the counter. She looked like an angel in a dim din where people came to drown their demons. He'd been drawn to her company since he first returned to the Quarter six months earlier, from the first moment he'd seen her she reminded him of his own precious angel. She and Caroline shared a few superficial similarities, both blonde, both beautiful. However, the similarities went beyond that. They were both good and they saw the good in people, even when it didn't exist. Keeping company with Cami was a sweet torture. She was a reminder of what he'd given up, but she also reminded him why.
The young human psychology student had been caught in the crossfire a number of times during Klaus's little war to regain the French Quarter. Every time she came to harm he remembered that Caroline would have been just as fragile, just as easily lost. He was unable to ensure Cami's safety, but he could protect Caroline. He could stay far from her and give her the freedom to have the live she deserved. It would be a brief life. She was like a flickering candle, tragically short lived, but beautiful even in its brevity. He was the sun, burning on even when all reason to do so was gone.
"If you wanted to be dark and brooding, you would have stayed home along in that fortress of yours," Cami said, leaning across the counter to meet his gaze, "but you came here, to this bar, to see me."
"And what does that tell you?" Klaus asked, always impressed by her aptitude for seeing through him when even those whom he'd known for centuries.
"Marcel called," Cami said, avoiding the question, "said you left quite a mess for him to clean up. He warned me I might not be safe around you today."
"And what do you think?" Klaus asked, "Do you think you're safe around me?"
"I don't think you'll hurt me," She said.
"Are you willing to bet your life on that?" Klaus asked.
"What do you think I've been doing since you got to town?"
Klaus chuckled. He pulled out his money clip and fished out a couple hundred's and passed them to Cami.
"Thanks for the drinks, love."
He hopped off the stool.
"Klaus?"
Klaus stopped and looked back at his human friend.
"What's today?" Cami asked.
Klaus flinched. He prized Cami's insight, but sometimes it shot through his heart like a fiery dart. She saw his heart with ease while everyone else was busy debating whether or not he had one. She watched him steadily, and for a moment through his blurred vision, she might have been Caroline, standing before him waiting for the explanation he owed her.
"Today is a very special birthday." He said and left before another word could pass between them.
"Happy Birthday, Caroline!"
Caroline laughed at the sight of number "2" candle on her cake. Though she was celebrating her nineteenth birthday, but she was technically only eighteen. She was eighteen again. She'd spent a year as a vampire and during that time a big pause button had been hit on her aging process.
"Surprised?" Her mom asked, guiding her into the happy throng of friends in her living room.
"Very," Caroline said with a smile.
She waddled to her mothers' chair and sank down. She tried to ignore Elijah hovering beside her as though she was a human explosive device. She was never entirely sure if his hypervigilance and protectiveness over her was more annoying or sweet. He'd basically been her personal bodyguard since the night he saved her from Katherine and discovered that she was pregnant.
Nineteen and pregnant. She hadn't seen this one coming.
She'd never really thought about having kids when she was human the first time, and then she became a vampire and it was suddenly impossible. She didn't dwell on the loss because there was nothing she could do about it. She looked around the cramped living room at all of the smiling faces. Maybe her life wasn't playing out the way she'd expected, but it was a good life none the less. She had friends and family, people who loved her and would help her.
She'd heard people say that it took a village to raise a child, lucky for her she had one.
"What's all this about?" She asked.
She saw Elena and Damon in the kitchen talking and she was surprised that they'd come down from Whitmore for her birthday. They'd been so preoccupied with playing house since Elena left for college that the only reason Caroline knew they'd gotten engaged was because Bonnie told her when she came down for a weekend visit. Bonnie came home almost every weekend. She said that it was because she was homesick and wanted to see her family and Jeremy, but Caroline knew there was more to it than that. She came down to check on Caroline. She didn't say it out loud, but she was worried about her friend and the supernatural pregnancy.
Caroline appreciated her concern, but between her doctors' appointments and the weekly "checkups" from Bonnie, she was beginning to feel like a lab rat.
She didn't say anything, because she appreciated everything that everyone was doing for her. The hybrids, led by Haley, acted as her very own army, keeping tabs on everything magical to cross the town line. Stefan and Elijah had spent the past four month vying for the role of her personal guard dog. Her mom and Rebekah both insisted on going with her to every doctor's appointment. She knew their motive was to protect her, but she felt suffocated.
Someone was always there. They did it for her protection. She knew all of the reasons why everyone thought it was necessary to treat her like she was made of glass. She also knew that she should be more grateful for the lengths they had all gone too to protect her, but she wasn't grateful. Every vampire in the world would want the cure that was in her blood if they knew about it. They would want her to cure them or to use her blood against their enemies or to kill her before someone could get her blood to use as a weapon against them. And if anyone besides her friends knew or suspected her connection to Klaus Michaelson, she'd be hunted for that too.
Mystic Falls hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Original Hybrid in over six months. He was gone and he wasn't coming back. Caroline thought that Elijah probably knew more about his brother's whereabouts then he let on, but he didn't tell and she didn't ask. Besides, what did it matter? Klaus didn't care that he broke one former vampire's heart when he left. He'd done far worse to countless people. She really didn't have room to complain. He left her, but he left her alive and well and that was more than could be said for most of his victims.
Caroline counted herself as one of his victims. He came into her life like a whirlwind and in his wake he left her as a prisoner in her own town, a prisoner in her own home. With round the clock guards.
Stefan studied Caroline as her hugged and laughed with all her guests. She was lit up like the fourth of July, but in the rare moments when she thought no one was looking, the fireworks would go out and her expression would go dark. That was the way Caroline was now. She was sad, but she would only let it show when she thought no one was looking.
It killed him to see her brought so low. He would have talked to her about it, but he knew if he said anything she would just deny the suggestion that she was anything but perfectly happy.
But how could she be anything but sad? For a brief moment, she'd thought she'd had everything she wanted and then she lost it all. She would say it wasn't Stefan's fault, but he couldn't agree. If he had just interceded, told her the truth about how he felt about her when she'd asked he might have been able to drive a wedge between Caroline and Klaus before it was too late. Maybe if he'd done so, it would be his baby she was carrying and one human life they'd be sharing together.
But it was too late for that.
This was a mess of his making and the only thing he could do was try to fix what little he could. That was the reason why he'd refused the cure when Caroline had offered it to him.
He knew that Caroline probably thought it had something to do with Elena and Damon, but it didn't. He'd come to an acceptance about his brother and his ex-girlfriend. He loved Elena, but he loved his brother more and for that reason he could let the girl go. He'd realized that he would always love Elena, but he couldn't be in love with her anymore because he was in love with someone else.
But he was in love with a girl who was too broken to love him back, so he realized that instead of giving her his heart like he wanted to he'd have to settle for giving her what she needed. He would be her friend, her protector. That was why he refused the cure, he refused it for her, so that he could protect her. Since protection was all he could give her that he'd accept, he would make sure that it was something he could give.
He cut a slice of the cake and carried it over to Caroline.
"Want cake?" He asked.
She looked up him and smiled as she took the plate, "Thanks."
She propped the plate on her huge stomach, and Stefan struggled not to laugh at how ridiculous she looked.
"Happy birthday, Care," He said.
She took and squeezed his hand, "Thanks, Stefan."
"You look beautiful," He said before he could stop himself.
She laughed out loud, "I look like a giant human incubator, but thanks for lying."
Stefan laughed as well because it was easier than trying to convince her how beautiful she was to him.
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