Author's note

As I told you before, this won't feature Klaus, it will, however, feature two of my favourite characters from TVD, so go and get excited. Also, last chapter, Caroline was starting her second semester. Yay :)

Thanks for reading and I hope you like it.

Caroline

Caroline still had some time before Jasper had to go to class, so she'd decided to make the most of it. "Isn't this cute. Seems like you've found something to drown out your dirty little thoughts about Klaus." Caroline stepped back from Jasper's lips and eyed the perky brunette that was standing there with an amused look on her face. "Please don't tell me you turned your humanity off again, Elena." Caroline said when she saw Elena. "Of course not, Care. I do not want to relive those days. So, who's the guy?" "I'm Jasper." Caroline eyed Elena warily, there was something different about her. "Well Jasper, nice to meet you, I'm Elena. One of Caroline's oldest friends." "Nice to meet you, Elena. Caroline has told me a lot about you." Caroline looked at the brunette a bit more closely. "Nice to meet you too, Jasper. Unfortunately, Caroline hasn't told me anything about you. I don't really blame her, though. You seem like quite the bore." Caroline was exasperated and dumbfounded. This wasn't Elena. Caroline suddenly gasped and threw the brunette against the wall. "Katherine?" "The cute one's back. Way to go, Blondie." Katherine pushed Caroline back with ease. "Sorry, Barbie, I have five hundred years on you. This won't end well for you." "How is this even possible? I saw Stefan stab you with the traveller knife." For once, Katherine didn't have anything to say.

"Caroline, what's going on?" Caroline cursed, she'd totally forgotten about Jasper. "Forget what just happened here. You never met Katherine or Elena and you never saw any of this. You will go back to your dorm and then you'll head to your class." Caroline compelled Jasper and he went on his way. "Well, aren't you going to kill me or something?" Katherine asked Caroline. Caroline sighed. She didn't know what to do. This was Katherine. The girl who had killed her. "Look, you're obviously a bit torn. Believe it or not, Caroline, I didn't come here to kill you. Not this time. I actually do need your help." "Wow, Katherine Pierce coming to me for help. If this is about me putting in a good word with Klaus, you can forget it. That's over and done with." Katherine flipped her hair back. "Oh please, Klaus would do anything for you. I honestly don't get the appeal. You're a baby vampire, you haven't lived, you're a goody two shoes, righteous and you barely know what being a vampire is about. But hey, maybe he's into that sort of thing." Caroline lost it and broke a leg of one of the chairs, using it as a stake. She pushed Katherine back against the wall, this time taking the brunette entirely by surprise. Caroline held the stake to her heart. "Way to go Kitty Kat. If she kills you, who's going to help me out? I told you not to get on her bad side. You should've been a bit more nicer, darling." A male voice sounded. Caroline looked at the newcomer and immediately released Katherine. She pointed her stake at him.

"Kol? You're alive too?" Kol eyed Caroline in surprise. "You can see me?" "You're kind of hard to miss." Caroline retorted. "Well, this is good news. I guess I'm not alone in this anymore. He's dead, Caroline. Kol's the one who needs help. It'll be easier if he explains it." Caroline's eyes slid from Kol to Katherine and back to Kol. She looked at him expectantly. "Here's the thing. I'm still on the Other Side, but there are some things I need to figure out about this place. Unfortunately, I'm incorporeal, which means I can't grab the books to find information. A week or two ago, Katherine and I crossed paths. I knew she had died, and I was bored, so I struck up a conversation. Turned out, Katherine wasn't dead anymore, yet for some reason, she could see me. I asked for her help with this and she agreed. This task is too big to deal with alone, so we decided that she needed help. Since Katherine doesn't have that many people to fall back on, we thought that you were most likely to help." "What about your siblings? Surely, Elijah or Rebekah would help. Hell, Klaus would probably even help you. Why not ask Katherine to play intermediary there? I have my life now. I'm done with all the supernatural things. I'm going for a normal college experience." She heard Katherine stifle a laugh and miserably failing at it. Kol glared at Katherine before answering.

"Well, my siblings would ask questions and I'd rather not answer them. They have their own things to figure out. Besides, I doubt they would even believe Katerina. And I'd rather not have them know what I am up to. I love them, but they would most certainly ruin things." "Well, isn't it nice of you to have that much faith in them." Kol wanted to say something, but Katherine was ahead of him. "Look Caroline, I know you have no reason to help us. You have this life you're trying to build for yourself and I am certainly not going to try to take this one away from you too. But, you were right when you said that I haven't got anyone I can ask for help. I'm a manipulative bitch, I know. I've looked out for myself, and I've been able to survive like that for five hundred years. Being Elena and meeting Nadia and dying has put things in an interesting light for me. That's why we came to you. You're a good person. You genuinely care. And in my opinion, your friends in Mystic Fall don't value you enough. If you don't want to do this, I'll do this on my own. I'll make it work. I won't kill you, I won't retaliate. I'll just leave and let you get back to your normal, supernatural free life." Caroline was surprised by Katherine's words and looking at Kol, she could see her surprise mirrored in his face. Caroline sighed. "Look, I'll need to think about this, okay? It's not every day you have a five hundred year old vampire and a dead Original at your door asking for help. I have to go to class and I just, I need to think." Caroline headed out the door and made her way to class.

Caroline was relieved when she sat down in her seat. This day had gone from crazy to entirely out of control. It was one thing that Katherine had somehow managed to rise from the dead, but being haunted by Kol Mikaelson's ghost was something else all together. And they wanted her help. Couldn't she have one year of peace? Only one year would've been enough. But no, that was apparently too much to ask. She could say no, of course. Katherine was right, she didn't owe them anything, right? Caroline looked around the auditorium and almost jumped in surprise when she realised that the younger Mikaelson was sitting next to her. "Hello darling. Don't mind me, I'm just here for class." Kol said with the signature Mikaelson smirk. Caroline ignored him and started taking notes when the professor started his lecture. During class Kol just behaved like a normal student. Well, almost. After a while, Kol got up and started walking around. No one else was disturbed by it, because, duh, they couldn't see him. Now and then Kol stopped to look at someone's notes and chuckled. She glared at him, but he didn't seem to notice. Or he just chose to ignore it. "God, Caroline, this dude's like totally checking his facebook. I didn't have that when I was in college. Lucky bastard." Caroline snapped her head at his comment and looked at Kol in disbelief. Kol just shrugged. "Sorry, I won't disturb you, you need to pass." Kol sat back down next to her and left her in peace.

After the lecture, Kol walked Caroline out. "That was enlightening. I feel as if I have learnt so much just by attending class. Imagine what it would be like if I could spend an entire semester here. Maybe Kitty Kat would like to go to college one day." Caroline laughed at Kol's statement. She couldn't imagine Katherine going to college. It didn't really seem like her thing. "Yeah, one can still hope, right? So, this is Harvard. I've never been. I did Oxford, only to get Elijah off my back for calling me an uneducated heathen. Then I did Princeton and Columbia, but that was more for entertainment than to really learn anything. I compelled my way through. But I must say, this place is quite fancy. I understand why you'd want to stay. It would be a damn waste letting this life go. I mean, look at all these people. They're full of life, so much potential. They're making the best of it, because this is the only shot they have at becoming someone. That's the beauty of mortality, isn't it? You try to make every moment count. Because you only got one life, right? Being a vampire changes things. You get hundreds of lives to get it right, to make the best of it. You never wonder about whether one day it might end, because you truly have an eternity. But for them, it's now or never." Caroline looked at Kol, surprised by his words. It was easy to be deceived by his boyish looks, but this man had lived a thousand years. He seemed so carefree in this moment, but there was something sad in his expression. Caroline felt a small tug at her heart. She sighed. "Why the sigh, sweet Caroline?" Caroline turned to face him, her mind made up. "I'll help." She whispered softly, but Kol caught it. His face lit up. "You will?" Kol sounded a bit surprised, but shrugged and started walking again. "Let's find our Kitty Kat and celebrate."

They met up in a bar. Katherine waved at them enthusiastically from a table in the back. Caroline made her way over there and sat down. Kol slid in next to her. "I took the liberty of ordering champagne. This call for a celebration. Kol, I'm sorry you don't get to enjoy it." Katherine said as the waiter brought over the champagne. Katherine raised her glass. "Here's to a partnership." "Hear hear." Kol said as Caroline raised her glass too. "I know I said I'd agree to help, but there are some conditions. I'd like to get my degree. I'll only be available during summer break and if it has to, on weekends." "We sort of figured. That's why you're going to be doing research mostly." Kol said. They really had thought this through. "What exactly are we looking for anyway?" "A grimoire." Katherine and Kol said in unison.

"Does this grimoire have a name? Or an owner we can track down?" "Please, Barbie, if it were that simple I wouldn't be needing your help. Thing is, Kol knew a witch in the eleventh or twelfth century. This witch had communicated with Qetsiyah and learnt some of the secrets about the Other Side. She also knew how to bring someone back from the Other Side, without anyone having to die in the progress." Caroline looked at Kol and Katherine in disbelief. "Are you for real?" "Of course we are darling. Besides, there are a lot more things in Gaia's grimoire." "What about contacting this Gaia? Isn't she on the other side or something?" Caroline proposed. "We've already tried that. It's as if she's impossible to find. I've been trying to find her ever since I died. My best guess is that she is either still alive, living somewhere in secret or that she has found a way to remain under the radar, either alive or dead." It was plausible. If this Gaia witch was powerful enough to figure out a way to bring someone back from the dead without having to pay a price, she might very well be able to conceal herself.

"Then where do we start?" Caroline felt excited about this new project, but also a bit frightened. She already figured that Kol wanted to grimoire to come back from the dead. And Katherine was probably in it for figuring out how she had come back. Who knows what else might be in it. Maybe there was a way for Bonnie to stop being the anchor. "That is an excellent question. I met Gaia several times, always in a different place, over the course of two decades. I wondered why we'd crossed paths so many times, but she told me that I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about it. Katerina has already been kind enough to retrace my footsteps on a map. It's probably best if we go over it someplace other than here. What we need to figure out is whether this grimoire has ever fallen into the hands of other witches or whether it is in use right now. If so, we track down the witch and kindly ask her to help us out. If not, we find out where Gaia may have hidden it." "And how do you suggest we do that?"

"That's where you come in. You do the research, here at Harvard. You have a library at your disposal, I'm sure you'll be able to find some interesting works on witchcraft and possibly on grimoires. We look for witchtrials, extraordinary weather, freaky occurrences, anything that we can associate with powerful witches. You will relay your information to Katherine and she will go delve a bit deeper. She'll visit the places or consult records and whatnot." Caroline wasn't sure whether this was going to work, but she didn't have a better plan. And if Katherine was on board with this, then so was she. It wasn't like she was going to be the one to have to do the heavy lifting. All she had to do was read some books and do research. She could do this. "Alright. Seems like a plan to me." "Great. Do you think we can involve your witch in this?" Katherine asked. Caroline shook her head. "I don't want them involved in this. I have only known them for a semester. Besides I don't want them getting mixed up with Originals and other endeavours." Katherine held her hands up in surrender. "It was just a suggestion." "Alright. You're also going to need a place to stay. I guess we're going to start delving into this together and you can't be in my dorm." "Afraid that I might kill you in your sleep?" Caroline glared at Katherine. "My roommates haven't met Elena yet, but they might and I don't want to explain the whole doppelgänger thing. Plus, if you pose as Elena and they meet Elena and she has no recollection of meeting them, Elena and the others will know you are alive and kicking." Kol nodded. "She has an excellent point. I knew bringing Caroline on board on this would pay off." Katherine rolled her eyes at Kol. "I'll find someplace to crash." Caroline nodded.

"Now we need some cool codenames to make it all official. I'll be Captain Original, Kat you can be Cadet Kitten and Caroline you can be Cadet Cougar." Katherine and Caroline both snorted. "In your dreams, Cadet Cockroach." Katherine responded. "Need I remind you that I am the one who started this thing. I am your leader." "Please, Kol. You're incorporeal, you need us. Care and I will be captains and you can be a cadet." Katherine proposed. Kol opened his mouth to argue, but Caroline stopped them. "Guys, are you seriously going to discuss codenames?" "Every secret operation needs codenames. People can't know what we're up to." "Fine. We'll all be captains and we can call our operation Titanic or something. This ship is sinking anyway." Caroline answered in defeat. She had to admit that it was kind of cool to have codenames. "That's a good idea. Gaia's grimoire is from now on called Davy Jones' locker. I'll be Captain Original, Caroline you can be Captain Cougar and Kat, you can be Captain Kitten." "You suck at coming up with codenames. There's no way I'm going to be captain Kitten. I'll be Captain Pierce. And Caroline can be Captain Swan or something, she has the grace of one anyway. Or Captain Barbie." They both looked at Caroline expectantly. She liked the sound of Captain Swan, so she decided to go for it. "Captain Swan." "In that case, let's hear it for Captain Original, Captain Swan and Captain Pierce ready to set sail for Davy Jones' Locker." Kol said and both Caroline and Katherine raised their glasses again.

So what do you think? Do you like where the story's heading? Do you like the fact that Kol and Katherine are back?

I've done my best so far to upload every week on Monday. I'm going to keep trying to do that, but I can't make any promises. I have a pretty full semester, I need to write two papers and I have a whole lot of tasks I need to do. But I'm going to try and get some writing in. Also, I don't really know where this part of the story will take me. I haven't figured it out. I'm planning on bringing Klaus in in Caroline's second year (only temporary, but there will be a lot of Klaroline in those chapters). I hope you bear with me and be patient. I'm trying, okay. I just need to figure out where I'm going to go with this. I needed to find a way to bring Kol back in with a purpose and I wanted Katherine because she's just a really awesome character. Then I thought of grimoires and witches and this is the result. Now let's hope I'm going to get somewhere.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. And if you don't mind, tell me what you think of the story or if you have an idea or something you want in it, I'll take suggestions. There's another four years of Caroline's college experience that needs to be written before she finally commits herself to an eternity with Klaus.

Thanks again :)