Continuation of To See Her Smile

There were several things she should want to see happen to him. She should want to see him desiccated- she could do without dying, thank you very much. She should want to see him alone and sad and heartbroken and maybe just simply broken by what people did to him. All the emotions that she was sure Elena, Tyler, Stefan, and the thousands upon thousands of people that he'd probably hurt in his long life- she should want him to feel those same things ten fold.

Logically she should want those things.

But then she saw the parts that people didn't see.

She saw that he was alone and sad and didn't know how to love and was probably afraid of love and afraid to admit that to himself and he felt like no one could love him and he would never be good enough ever no matter what he did….

She felt that way sometimes.

She couldn't find it in herself to actually want him to feel worse.

If the devil was in a hell of his own making did he need to be placed in a hell of the people he had hurt?

Maybe he deserved it, maybe he deserved retribution and all those he hurt should have justice.

But she was not an angel, and she was not God, and as much as she wanted it, she had no place to judge anyone.

Not that it stopped her from judging people, but in theory she knew that she shouldn't.

But back to Klaus.

She found herself wanting to… relieve the pain she saw reflected in his eyes.

If eyes were the windows to the soul…. she could understand why he did the things he did. Not that they were right, they would never be right. But there was a difference from agreeing with someone's actions and understanding why they did it. Maybe understanding was the wrong word to use- she felt almost a kinship with him, but she didn't understand the kind of pain that drove you to try and remove yourself from everyone and everything. When she was hurt by someone, she looked for another someone to make her feel better. She latched onto people and held on and couldn't let them go until they crushed her because she held on too tight and they couldn't deal with her level of crazy… Klaus pushed people away. Closed himself in on himself. He made people think that he hated them- he hurt them before they could hurt him.

So she didn't understand him, not on that level. But she did understand what it was like to be hurt, to be afraid of loving and being left. Wondering if anyone could love you because it didn't seem possible.

When the man that couldn't love fell in love with the girl who didn't think she could be loved, what did that mean?

In her more romantic, human days, she would have said it was fate. Some star-crossed lovers bull shit, like the universe wanted their two lonely souls to find each other.

In her human days, her insecure days, she would have fallen head first in love with him without a second thought.

But being a vampire and being around vampires had made her cautious and untrusting and removed the childhood naivety that she'd once loved. And it had made her scared of losing the last vestiges of her humanity- she couldn't age or die (easily, at least) and she didn't have to eat human food anymore and her stamina was amazing and she could drink without the consequences. And they were all great things, she loved that she had those things now because they removed so many fears.

Getting older and being more unloveable and no one wanting her and she was insecure about so, so many things and those things were almost gone.

She liked drinking blood though- she enjoyed the hot liquid filling her mouth and making her stronger and stronger and no one would ever be able to hurt her again-

She liked- she hated that she liked, but she liked- the feeling of having someone's life in her hands. She liked killing.

She hated that. She found that she hated herself in those moments when she let herself almost give in to who she was.

And yet she loved being a vampire.

Being around him reminded her of the fact.

He was everything she couldn't allow herself to be. He reeked power, and he owned it. And he was not ashamed. Except for with her, and it was those moments where she didn't want him to be ashamed, she didn't want him to try and explain. She almost wanted him to shrug and say "I am a vampire." She would have been alright with that.

But the contrition- which she knew was caused by his fear of losing her and not actual guilt-made him seem more human and then she put human standards on a man that could not have human standards applied to him.

If a god walked among them but he acted like a human, who would know that he was a god?

Gradually though, even if her mind told her that she was stupid, stupid, stupid, and no better than that human girl that let Damon in so easily, she found that her defenses were useless because like it or not- she liked him.

Somewhere amidst hating him and wishing him dead and wanting him gone from her life- from all their lives- and drinking and talking and bonding she found that she liked spending time with him. She looked forward to seeing him again.

That probably meant that something was wrong with her.

But she was a vampire and she convinced herself that she didn't care. No one really had the moral high ground any more. And maybe she was sick and tired of all of them acting like they did.

She found herself wanting him to be happy though.

How did you go from wanting someone dead to wanting them to smile?

Something about his smile transformed him. She'd seen his smiles, almost all of them.

There was the "I hate you and I'm hoping my laser vision will finally take affect" smile. The "I just snarked you into oblivion." And countless others that were meaningless and not happy smiles.

His happy smile made his handsome features that were usually cloaked in darkness lighten just a little. Like a cloudy sky getting a hint of sun. And she'd only ever seen him smile at her that way.

It made her feel special. Powerful. What right did the baby vampire have to make the all powerful hybrid humanly happy?

She noticed he smiled the most when she smiled at him first- when she really smiled.

She had to force herself at first because sometimes when she looked at him all she saw were the people that he'd killed.

Sometimes when she looked at her own hands all she saw were the people that she'd killed.

But then as she spent more and more time with him there was an ease and the smile spread across her face without her having to think about it.

How was it-

When did it happen-

Wasn't it amazing that the man, the monster, the whatever he was, made her happier than anyone else it her life?

Was it because he seemed to only care about her?

Or was it because he cared about what she had to say and he listened to her?

Or maybe it was just that it-

If he could be redeemed, if he could love, then maybe she was going to be alright. She could be a powerful vampire and she could have some of her humanity and it would be alright.

She was sure that he would always look at her as he was now. Like the world began and ended with her and it wouldn't matter what she did.

It was when she saw the good in Klaus that she started seeing the cracks in her group. The hypocrisy and the judgement and the unneeded and unwarranted hate and the ill understanding and letting themselves get away with murder but condemning anyone else that killed for the same reasons they did-

She hated them.

She hated who she was with them.

She loved them.

But she couldn't stand them.

There was something real about him that was missing in all of them. He was evil and all that, sure. But he knew it. He owned it. He wore it like a second skin to protect himself- but he never pretended to be anything other than what he was.

Maybe that was why his feelings for her didn't actually surprise her as they did everyone else. It wasn't weird to her or abnormal. It was just another layer of his personality. Of course he was capable of love. Everyone is capable of love towards something- the devil loved the idea of power so much that he was consumed by it. Love was love was love and it didn't matter who felt it.

Love didn't just apply to "good" people. Anyone could feel love; it was what you did with it that mattered.

He's incapable of real emotions!

Her words, thrown back at her by Tyler. Tyler who had the gall to judge her when she'd found the pictures on his phone of some girl- and he thought he had a right to make it about Klaus.

(Friend-terventions sucked when you were on the receiving end)

Elena and Damon and Bonnie and Jeremy nodding their heads in agreement and the anger building up in her.

And so she'd defended him. Someone had to. And maybe it should be her.

"At least he loves me! The same can't be said for most of you!"

More yelling and shouting things they all didn't mean that ended in Caroline being single and mostly friendless.

And there was a party the next night and she didn't want to go alone and she needed an excuse to go to Klaus.

So she did.

And he was there with a smile and a laugh and his desire to make her as happy as he could….

She'd never felt herself falling in love before. She tumbled and felt it all at once.

It was a slow burn with Klaus and she could feel all of it.

She took comfort just being in his presence.

He made her happy- even when she was mad at him and she didn't want to see him. He made her happy without trying and when he tried and she found herself happy just thinking about him sometimes and had to catch herself when she smiled in the middle of the day….

He made her happy and she wanted to make him happy in return. She cared more about his happiness than her own and if her being happy made him happy- well, that wasn't so bad, was it?