"If you're going to stare at my ass, you can at least make yourself useful and zip me up." Caroline said as she struggled to do it herself. She was standing with her back to the balcony, where Stefan had landed five seconds earlier. She heard him chuckle as he walked into the room and stood behind her.
"I wasn't staring at your ass, but now that you mention it…" Stefan replied as he zipped her dress and she felt him take a step backwards. She quickly turned around and slapped his shoulder, making him laugh as he took another step backwards.
"I've missed you, Stef." Caroline then said, dragging him in for a third hug that day. She was secretly impressed by his willingness to let her do so; Stefan wasn't a hugger. His arms wrapped around her waist and squeezed her tightly for a short moment until he was pushed away by Caroline.
"I can't believe you just left me alone with Klaus Mikaelson!" she exclaimed, slapping his shoulder one more time.
"I just thought the two of you needed some alone bonding-time." Stefan told her with a teasing glimpse in his eyes.
"Is that so? For your information it didn't go very well." Caroline informed him with her arms crossed in front of her. She was still utterly confused about what was going with her apparently forgetting that she had befriended the original hybrid. And she still had this nagging feeling that there was more to it.
"What did he do?" Stefan sighed and he looked at her with worry in his green eyes. Caroline looked to the floor for a moment as she calmed a hand through her blonde curls.
"It wasn't really what he did, more what I kind of yelled at him." she confessed and sent him guilt-ridden smile. Even though Klaus Mikaelson was supposedly all evil, she still felt bad for saying those things to him. She barely even knew where the words had come from.
When Stefan suddenly laughed, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. She couldn't exactly see the fun part of her pissing of an Original even though they supposedly were friends, or at least had been.
"What?" Caroline asked. "What is so funny?"
"You know, other than his siblings, not many dare even raise their voice to him because they know they might be a limb lesser afterwards. But you, you just keep pushing and all he usually does is to take a step back." Stefan explained with an amused smile on his lips.
"So you are saying that I've yelled at him before?" she asked incredulously as she moved to sit in front of the vanity in the room, where she started applying her make-up. She had to be at the Mikaelson house in twenty minutes for the dinner and she wouldn't risk annoying Klaus more by showing up late.
"I'll say five or eight times." Stefan replied casually as he sat down on the king-size bed in the room. Caroline's head whipped towards him and she didn't realize her mouth was open until Stefan laughed at her.
"And I'm not dead because…? " she inquired, but Stefan just fell back on the bed, his hands folded behind his head.
"You're a straight A student, Care. You figure it out." he said and he was back to teasing her. She stared at him for a long moment, before she returned her attention to the mirror. It took Caroline three minutes and seventeen seconds to put the pieces together and when she did, she almost fell off the chair.
"Oh. My. God." Caroline whispered to herself as she turned her head to look at Stefan again. He had obviously heard her, because he was sitting again, looking at her with over-played interest. "I'm that girl, aren't I?"
"Yes you are." he said with a smile, but when he realized what she had said, he became confused. "Wait, exactly what girl is it we are talking about?"
"The girl Camille told me about, you know the bartender." Caroline explained quickly, her mind racing to understand every single thing that had happened on Klaus' office earlier that day.
"Oh, the girl… wait, what?" Stefan asked again, not quite following what Caroline was talking about. "And when did you talk to Cami?"
"Yesterday, but she didn't know it was me. Different face, you know." Caroline said absentmindedly and Stefan deadpanned. "She told me about this blonde, who…"
"Who…?" Stefan asked, urging her to continue. Caroline gulped once as she recalled Camille's story.
"She told me about a girl that Klaus had sought after." Caroline started, but was interrupted by Stefan smiling at her last words. She glared at him for a moment and he managed to press his lips into a thin line.
"But the girl hated Klaus because he had done some awful things to her and her friends and she already had a boyfriend." she continued and Tyler popped up in her mind. "And then he left this town where she lived and came to New Orleans. Six months after I- I mean, she suddenly came to look for him and was here a whole week or something like that. They went back to her town, but he returned without her and then he apparently went all bananas. The girl hasn't been seen since…"
Stefan was looking at her with an emotionless expression on his face, but his lips were still pressed together so he wouldn't smile or laugh.
"Please, tell me all of that didn't happen five years ago." Caroline pleaded, knowing that it would explain the girl's – and hers – disappearance if it had. Klaus hadn't killed the girl, she had just forgotten all about his existence.
"I've been told it's ungentlemanly to lie." was all her best friend said before his smile broke out.
"Fuck!" Caroline exclaimed as she stood up and began walking back and forth in front of the bed.
"Is that the word of a former Miss Mystic Falls?" Stefan asked with fake disbelieve. He was having way too much fun with this and Caroline sent him a deadly glare.
"This is not funny, Stefan!" Caroline hissed and he immediately became serious, moving in front of her as he placed his hands on her shoulders.
"Caroline, it's okay." he told her with a soothing voice and she felt herself calm down a little.
"He said that we were friends, but apparently I hated him?"
"Well, as far as I know, you were friends in the end. He loaned you a dress for prom, when Elena stole yours." Stefan reminded her and she recalled the beautiful white strapless dress she had worn. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she didn't know where it had come from. Until now, that is.
"I went to Klaus Mikaelson for a dress?" she asked with a surprised expression on her face.
"It wasn't the first time he had given you one." her friend said and Caroline sighed as she already knew the answer to what she was going to ask next.
"What exactly did Camille mean with 'sought after'?"
"He fancied you." Stefan told her with a small smile and Caroline leaned her head against his chest with an even louder sigh than the one before.
"Camille just made it sound like some urban legend." she then said and sat down on the chair in front of the vanity.
"Songs have been made about the fair maiden who tamed the big bad wolf." Stefan told her ceremoniously and Caroline sent him are-you-kidding-me glare, which made him smile. Caroline had already done her make-up and was now looking at her filtered curls, suddenly feeling very aware of how she looked.
She fiddled with her hair for a minute and used her hands to make out different hairstyles, but in the end she let it fall back to her shoulders, deciding to let it hang loose.
"How am I supposed to face him again now that I know all of this?" Caroline asked with her back at Stefan as she walked over to her shoes that were standing by the closet.
"Klaus doesn't know that you know, so you can pretend like you're still clueless if that helps." Stefan told her, offering her some sort of consolation. When she had strapped on her red three-inch heeled sandals, she turned around to face Stefan and her hands glided over her dress in a nervous movement, when she saw the surprise in his eyes.
"What?" she asked him and followed his gaze down to her black dress. She knew it was very favorable to the curves of her body and she suddenly became worried that it was too much.
"Well, you certainly won't be making it easy for Klaus." Stefan said and shot her a teasing smile that made Caroline look away from him in embarrassment.
"Should I change?" Caroline then asked and moved to open the closet to grab one of the few other dresses she had brought. Stefan was quickly in front of her, making it impossible for her to open the closet without throwing him across the room.
"You look beautiful, Caroline." the Salvatore vampire told her, but it didn't ease her mind very much.
"I should change." she stated and tried to push Stefan out of the way. Before she managed to do so, her feet were suddenly in the air as Stefan lifted her from the ground, carrying her out of the room in bridal style.
"Stefan, what are you doing? Put me down!" Caroline protested as she tried to wiggle herself out of his grip without falling on her butt.
"Not before you promise that you won't go back and change." he told her, the amusement clear in his voice as he started walking down the stairs towards the lobby.
"Okay! I won't! Now put me down!" she ordered him and she was placed on the ground again, when they reached the second floor. She quickly straightened her dress that had crept up her thighs and shot Stefan a murderous glare before she descended the stairs with Stefan right behind her.
Marie wasn't in the lobby so they walked right through and out on the crowded street. The air was still warm and it didn't seem odd that Caroline wasn't wearing a jacket even though the sun had set behind the buildings. As they moved down the street, Caroline kept glancing at Stefan as she tried to find a way to ask what was in the back of her mind.
"You said fancied as in past tense." she finally said and Stefan had no trouble keeping up with what she was talking about.
"I honestly don't know much about what Klaus feels and don't feel. Sometimes I'm surprised that he feels anything. But I know that he has spent five years trying to forget you and it has been an uphill battle. And I know that he wasn't exactly calm, when I returned earlier after you'd left. Remember when you once told me that Elena and I were epic?" Stefan asked as they continued down the street.
She nodded slowly in response, fearing where the conversation was going. But her friend did nothing but smile at her and he knew that Caroline understood what he meant. She had her doubts about Stefan's judgment, though, because she had trouble wrapping her head around what he was implying.
Epic? Really?!
"What exactly is your 'relationship' with Klaus?" she then asked in an attempt to think about something else.
"Well, we have history, one you should know all about but probably have forgotten. He's like a brother to me." Stefan told her with a thoughtful look in his eyes. A question echoed through her mind, but the look on his face made her keep it to herself.
What about Damon?
As they reached the Mikaelson townhouse, Caroline stood undecidedly in front of the door with a patient Stefan at her side. She couldn't get herself to knock on the door and the time ran out on her, when the door suddenly opened, revealing a smiling Colin on the other side.
"Stefan." the minion greeted as he gave the Salvatore a nod. When they had stepped inside and the door had been closed after them, Colin's attention turned to Caroline and the memory of Klaus' reaction to Colin's flirting suddenly hit her.
"Caroline." Colin said with a smile on his face and an unmistakable glimpse in his eyes as he looked at her. She immediately sensed how Stefan had already picked up on Colin's behavior towards her and he was watching both of them intently.
"You look… nice." the minion vampire continued, using a much safer word than the one on his mind, when he noticed Stefan's glare. Caroline just smiled at him and couldn't help but feeling a little bad about giving him the silent treatment. But it was for his own good, Caroline had figured. At least this way he got to keep his heart in his chest.
They all turned their attention to the stairs, when they heard someone walking down from the second floor, talking in his phone with a low voice. As soon as Klaus Mikaelson came into sight, Colin disappeared from the big entrance hall and once again Caroline felt bad for the vampire minion.
"Don't say that I didn't warn you." Klaus mused before he hung up and put the phone back into a pocket in his pants. He had almost sounded amused and a smile was on his lips, but the underlining threat in his words had been clear.
When he noticed them at the bottom of the stairs, he stopped his descending and his eyes immediately darted to Caroline. She could almost feel how his eyes crawled over her skin and an invisible shiver ran though her, when her blue eyes met his. When he then turned his gaze to Stefan for a short moment and continued down the stairs, Caroline took the opportunity to stare at him.
He was wearing black khaki pants with a navy blue dress shirt, the top of it unbuttoned. She was impressed by how he could make it look so casual as he strolled down the last steps, ending in front of her. The small but amused smile on his lips told Caroline that he had noticed her staring at him and she only met his gaze for a couple of seconds before looking away.
When did I turn into an insecure teenager again?
"I am pleasantly surprised that you came." Klaus told her as he studied her face and Caroline looked at him as she tilted her head to the right.
"And why is that? It's not every day you discover that you've completely forgotten about someone, who supposedly was your friend." Caroline told him with a smile on her lips. She watched him intently as she said the word 'friend', but his face was like a mask and the only thing she picked up, was him shooting a quick sideways glance at Stefan. "And on top of it, that the person is Klaus Mikaelson."
"Our earlier encounter didn't end very… agreeably." Klaus explained and sent her an apologetic smile. He seemed to have thought as much as about that afternoon as she had and after what she had learned only minutes earlier, it shouldn't surprise her as much as it did.
"I did have to carry her some of the way." Stefan then said and she watched how Klaus' eyebrows flew up in surprise. Caroline was ready to kick Stefan, but ended up just sending him an angry glare that she hoped Klaus didn't notice. "She couldn't decide what to wear and we were running late so I did what had to be done."
"I think you look stunning." Klaus told her with so much admiration in his voice that it almost felt tangible. When Caroline's eyes met his, she was caught there and neither of them noticed that Stefan had already walked into the room on their right that Caroline earlier had guessed to be the living room.
Caroline had a hard time understanding the pull this man seemed to have on her and the eye contact only broke, when his eyes fell to her lips for a mere second. When he looked up again, Caroline had turned her attention towards Stefan, who was standing inside the other room, pouring wine in glasses. She could feel Klaus' eyes on her, but she focused hard on making Stefan's pouring skills seem like the most interesting thing she could think of.
"Shall we?" Klaus then asked, breaking her concentration as she looked back at him. It was clear on his face that he knew what she had been doing and she quickly gave him a nod before she walked ahead into the living room.
She could see the smug look on Stefan's face, when he offered her a glass of red wine and she narrowed her eyes as a warning before taking it. With her glass in her hand, she began moving around the room as she took everything in. She didn't chase away the feeling of familiarity, when it hit her as she figured she might have been in the room before.
She looked out at the windows that were facing the street, not noticing that the two men wasn't talking to each other as they just watched her instead. When she let her fingers run over the backrest of a big and old armchair that looked to be the seat of the head of the family, Klaus interrupted her tour of the room.
"You sat in that the last time you were here." he told her with an amused grin on his face. Both Caroline and Stefan looked at him surprise, but Klaus' eyes didn't leave her face.
"I believe it was some sort of statement. You were good at those." Klaus continued and he laughed silently to himself as he recalled a memory that she had lost.
"So where is the puppy?" Caroline asked as she placed herself besides Stefan in the sofa across from the one Klaus sat in. Another amused smile appeared on the hybrid's lips before he answered.
"Henrik is upstairs. I figured that you would want some answers and some of them might not be child-friendly." Klaus told her and a vexed expression crossed his face. Caroline couldn't help but think of what Camille had said about Klaus doing bad things to her and her friends and she figured he wasn't looking forward to reminding her of those things.
"Where is his mother?" Caroline then asked to break the uncomfortable silence. It seemed odd that she hadn't run into her yet.
"She's dead." Klaus answered with a detached voice and looked away. It was clearly not something he wanted to talk about.
"I'm sorry." she replied with as much sympathy as she could muster. She felt how Stefan shifted in his seat beside her, but she kept her gaze at Klaus, who sent her a sad smile.
"How old is Henrik?" she then asked as something dimmed on her. A weird expression crossed Klaus' face and he closed his eyes for a moment before he spoke.
"Almost five." was all he said and he seemed to want to talk about this even less.
"Oh." Caroline said as she shot Stefan a sideways glance. If Klaus had supposedly been in love with her, why had he slept with someone else then? Not that she had anything to say about the matter as she had been with Tyler at the time. Then another thought hit her. "Have I met him before?"
"Yes." Klaus answered and this time his smile reached his eyes. "When he was a couple of days old."
"I bet he was a cute baby." Caroline said in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"You thought so." Klaus replied and another memory seemed to reappear inside his mind. If only she could take a sneak-peak…
"He still is." she noted with a smile and she couldn't help but notice the glimpse of fondness that flashed in Klaus' eyes. And they called this man a monster?
"He called me the pretty lady." Caroline then recalled with a tilt of her head and it wasn't until now that she had thought about those words. The way Henrik had said it and looked at her; it was like he had seen her before, but that couldn't be as he was only a baby, when she had seen him last.
"I believe my son recognizes beauty when he sees it." Klaus said and once again Caroline was caught by his gaze. She managed to break the contact, when someone knocked on the front door and she quickly took a large sip from her wine. She had barely just met Klaus – from her perspective anyway – and he was already getting to her.
"Thank god." Stefan breathed as he stood up from the sofa and Caroline was embarrassed to realize that she had almost forgotten about her friend being in the room. The front door opened before Stefan reached it and moments later a dark-haired man was standing inside the living room, looking down on Caroline with a smirk on his face.
"Look what dropped out of heaven." the man said and Caroline's eyes widened in surprise. The man's words made Klaus stand up and Caroline quickly followed him.
"Brother. You're late, as usual. Couldn't remove yourself from the mirror?" Klaus said, the irritation clear in his voice.
Brother? So this must be Elijah, because the two others were killed, weren't they? What if I have already met his siblings, but have forgotten them as well?
"I admit that it has become slightly more difficult to be this good-looking after my return." the brother retorted before his eyes went back to Caroline. As his eyes glided over her body, she stared at him defiantly before he met her gaze, the smile never leaving his face.
"Caroline." she said as she offered her hand to him. The brother gently accepted it, but instead of shaking her hand, he placed his lips on it while he held his smoldering gaze on her. Caroline was sure she heard a growl come from Klaus, but she didn't dare look at him.
"I know, darling. And you really don't remember a thing, eh? I must say, Nik, you really hit the jackpot with this one." the man said with a teasing glimpse in his eyes and Caroline could almost see the fumes coming from Klaus' ears.
"Kol, I swear that if you don't shut your mouth, I will-" Klaus threatened as he stepped closer to his brother.
"You will what? Put a dagger in me? Lock me up in a coffin? That doesn't work on me anymore." Kol interrupted with a cocky grin, but Caroline could see the fear in his eyes. He was clearly afraid of his brother even though he did his best not to show it.
"Of course it works. It is just a more permanent solution and the coffin will have to be put in the ground this time." Klaus told him with a smirk on his face as he placed a hand on Kol's shoulder. There was a small staring contest between the brothers and just as Kol was about to speak, Caroline interrupted them.
"Kol? As in Kol Mikaelson? Didn't you die?" Caroline asked confused. She was sure that she had heard about the youngest Mikaelson brother being killed by some hunter about six years ago.
"The one and only." Kol said with a bow before he fell back on the sofa she had been sitting in, placing his feet on it too. "And I was killed. By your little friends to be exact. Klaus knows how disappointed I am that they are still alive."
"Wait, what? Who killed you?" Caroline asked as she had a hard time believing that any of her friends would be stupid enough to kill an Original.
"Well, Little Gilbert finished me off, which was quite hurtful for we had become so good friends after he moved from Mystic Falls. And his self-righteous sister helped him." Kol told her with a nauseated look on his face. Caroline took a small step back, when she heard the last name of her old best friend and had to take a deep breath before she continued. She felt how Klaus had inched closer to her, but she didn't look at him.
"Jeremy and Elena killed you?" she asked with an unsteady voice as she thought about the siblings that hadn't been on her mind for the last five years. Caroline was so focused on Kol that she didn't notice the whispers coming from the hall or the fact that Stefan hadn't returned yet.
"And all I did was to warn them about Silas. But they didn't listen and look where that has gotten you." Kol answered casually and his eyes roamed down her figure once more as another smirk formed his lips.
"So you died and now you're back from the Other Side as human?" Caroline asked and she enjoyed how Kol's eyes widened in surprise.
"Now, how do you know that?" Kol replied as he drank from Stefan's glass of wine.
"Well, first of all you reek of human. And secondly, I can go inside your mind a lot easier than I could if you had still been an Original." Caroline told him with a smug smile on her face. He was clearly both uncomfortable and intrigued by the fact that she could actually read his mind.
"Please tell me what is inside my mind, darling." Kol told her with a challenging look in his eyes. But the look wasn't for her and Caroline noticed how Klaus shifted on his feet beside her.
"Caroline…" Klaus started as he tried to warn her, but it was too late.
"You are afraid that your brother will actually kill you and you hate being human. You really are full of yourself, but you have found someone else that you have grown fond of. A witch and you brought her here tonight. Her name is…" Caroline told Kol, but her smile faltered when a pretty face popped into Kol's mind.
What Caroline had seen was impossible and for a moment she was sure that Kol was playing with her. When she finally took her time to listen, Caroline heard the voice coming from the hall and she unconsciously grabbed Klaus' arm in an attempt to be sure that she was still awake.
Before Klaus could wrap an arm around her waist to steady her, she had already stepped away again and was moving towards the voices in the hall. When the sound of her heels echoed through the great entrance hall, the voices stopped and their owners turned around to look at her.
Tears filled Caroline's eyes as she stopped to look at the girl, who was closer to her than Caroline had ever imagined possible and a smile grew on her face, when a pair of dark green eyes met her blue ones.
"Bonnie." Caroline breathed.
The blonde was frozen in place as she looked at her dead best friend, who wasn't very dead anymore. The dark-skinned beauty was looking at her with a bright smile and tears rimmed her eyes. Stefan was standing beside Bonnie, but he took a step backwards as Caroline managed to move forward.
The girls rammed into each other with such a force that they almost fell to the floor. Caroline buried her face in the crook of Bonnie's neck as she laughed and cried at the same time, still not believing that her friend was actually there and in her arms. Neither of them noticed how the men retreated to the living room as their laughter echoed through the great hall.
"How? How are you here?" Caroline laughed when she finally pulled herself out of Bonnie's embrace, her hands encasing her friend's. They laughed again when they saw the mess they had made of themselves and unconsciously, they began fixing each other as they talked, happy to be able to feel the other.
"The witches on the Other Side. They brought me and Kol back." Bonnie answered and Caroline barely noticed the way her best friend said the Mikaelson brother's name with such warmth. The blonde vampire could think of nothing else than her friend being back from the dead.
"Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but why?" Caroline asked as she dragged her thumb over Bonnie's skin to remove some smudged mascara from her cheek, which made Bonnie shake her head lightly in amusement.
'Not here' Bonnie mouthed and tapped on her ear, signaling that someone might be listening. Caroline frowned with slight indignation, but then gave her friend a nod.
She had barely been in New Orleans for two days and she was already wrapped in a net of lies and pretends. After all, the others were yet to know why she was even there in the first place. And Pheodora didn't know that Caroline had even left Europe and let alone that she was about to dine with the man they came here to remove from his precious throne.
"I'll tell you about it later." Bonnie then said, making sure nobody became suspicious of her unwillingness to answer Caroline's question. "Tonight we're going to talk about you."
Caroline rolled her eyes, when her friend winked at her and then pulled her in for another hug.
"I've missed you so much, Bonnie." Caroline told her with a soft voice and she felt how Bonnie tightened her grip around Caroline's back.
"I know." Bonnie said and Caroline pulled back her head to look at Bonnie with wondering expression on her face. "I've been watching you."
Caroline couldn't help but laugh at Bonnie's attempt to sound creepy as her friend had lowered her voice and sent her a perverted smile.
"I'm a little upset that I probably won't be able to set a foot in Italy, though." Bonnie then added and raised her eyebrows suggestively at the blonde vampire. "You had to go all Lara Croft, didn't you?"
"Wait, you were in Rome?!" Caroline asked with a wide smile on her face.
"I told you it was bad idea to break into the Vatican Library, especially while you were looking like me, but of course you couldn't hear a word of what I was saying." Bonnie told her and both girl smiled at the memory of Caroline sneaking into one of the world's oldest libraries, just so she could play Robert Langdon for a day.
Of course, she hadn't expected Vatican City to be vampire-proved and soon she had been chased down the street by several hunters, who apparently worked for the Pope.
"How did you even escape the Swiss Guard?" Bonnie asked curiously.
"I had help from a friend." Caroline told her with a secretive voice and when the blonde made no incentive to continue, Bonnie talked again.
"I'm surprised you didn't "dress up" as Angelina Jolie while you were at it." Bonnie joked and then laughed, when she saw the light in her friend's eyes.
"The night is still young." Caroline told her with a shrug of her shoulders and both girls laughed as they pulled each other in for another hug.
"I would love to hear what they were saying." Kol sighed with a suggestive look in his eyes as he sat down in one of the sofas. Being human wasn't exactly his cup of tea and he was growing insane knowing that his brother and Stefan were able to hear every word being said between the two ladies if they wanted to.
"I think it would be fair to assume that they are catching up after six years of your witch being dead. Or maybe Caroline is warning poor Bonnie about your ill intentions." Klaus suggested casually and smirked, when his brother straightened his back at the thought of Caroline saying bad things about him to the Bennett witch.
It had irritated Klaus that his brother had grown so attached to the teenage witch, but he was slowly learning to appreciate Bonnie, who made sure not to make it easy for his otherwise womanizing brother. And she was after all one of the reasons Kol was back, even though he was human again.
"I will gladly assure your little blonde that I'm the most honorable man she'll ever meet." Kol told Klaus ceremoniously and made his brother sigh in frustration. He still wasn't sure why Stefan had thought it a good idea to invite Kol for dinner as well, when he went to find Bonnie.
"And she might believe you. Or kill you if you ever hurt Bonnie." Stefan joked and Klaus almost laughed at the sight of his brother's reaction. Sometimes Kol acted as if a simple poke could kill him.
"Our sweet Caroline would never do such a thing. She has that light to the darkness kind of thing." Kol said confidently and then sent Klaus a mischievous glance.
"Willing to bet your life on that?" a voice rang through the room and Klaus found himself smiling at the mere sound of it. Caroline had just entered the room with Bonnie on her arm and she shone with so much joy that Klaus almost felt jealous that he hadn't been the one to create the bright smile on her face.
"I've been away for five years. Who knows how dark I've become?" Caroline continued with a serious voice that made the others stare at her in surprise. Her bright eyes darted across the room in amusement until they locked with his and she noticed how he was studying her intently.
Klaus still had a hard time believing that Caroline was back, standing so close to him that he was only a couple of steps away from touching her. He had accepted his fate not long after she had disappeared; he would never have her and he had thought it to be the ultimate punishment for a millennium worth of his unforgiving behavior and cruelty. He had never believed in karma until the day it hit him.
But Caroline had returned and Klaus felt the irony of the fact that he had been given a second chance; something he rarely had been generous enough to give. She had forgotten all about him though and he knew he had to remind her of all the things that had once made her hate him.
The few seconds their eyes met felt like hours and Klaus greedily absorbed as much of the beautiful blonde as he could before she shifted her gaze to the others in the room. But those seconds had been enough to understand the meaning behind her teasing words. Caroline could never grow dark; her light had always been so much stronger than his all-consuming darkness, but she had changed.
"Seriously?" Caroline laughed as her friends and Kol continued to look at her with shocked expressions. "Lighten up people! I was joking!"
"I don't know, I think a little evil would suit you. You would make a magnificent Catwoman." Kol cooed and winced, when Bonnie untangled herself from Caroline and hit him hard on the shoulder.
"I might be more of a Mystique kind of girl." Caroline replied with a smile as she referenced to her own shape shifting skills. Klaus almost growled as he saw the look on his brother's face as he knew what would come next; another inappropriate comment that would make his blood boil.
"Isn't she naked half of the time?" Kol asked with a sly look in his eyes and smirked at Caroline. Klaus didn't know who to be most angry with; Kol for starting the conversation or Caroline for participating.
"What kind of porn have you been watching?" Caroline responded with a cringed nose and disgusted look in her eyes that was tinted with amusement.
They all stared at Caroline with wide eyes, but she just shrug her shoulders at continued staring at Kol, whose cheeks had become a shade redder. Even though Caroline's question had shocked him, Klaus couldn't help but smirk at the sight of his brother. He couldn't recall ever having seen his younger brother blush.
"What?" was all Kol managed to choke out and Klaus felt his smile grow.
"She's from a cartoon, Kol. And most of the readers are children." Caroline explained and Kol's cheeks turned a more bright pink. Bonnie was still staring at her friend in shock, while Stefan tried his best not to laugh as he saw the expression on Kol's face. Klaus was looking at Caroline with both amusement and curiosity. She had definitely changed.
"Hold on a second!" Caroline said and emptied the rest of her glass of wine before she quickly thought everything through. They had been at the dinner table for half an hour, but Caroline had barely touched any of her food as she was too preoccupied to do anything but drink and listen.
Bonnie had started explaining what had happened the day, where Caroline lost all memory of Klaus and his family. Apparently there had been an unforeseen side effect to the spell – all magic comes with a price, you know – as it had been too strong for Caroline to control. When Klaus had been the first one to touch her after she had supposedly killed Silas, the spell had bounced off on him and Caroline's heart hadn't jumped out of her chest.
The Immortality spell had barely had any effect on Klaus because the part inside him was so small and he was so significantly strong and fast already. But that small part of the Immortality spell in Klaus also meant that there was a link between them that could be opened and closed at will.
If opened, they would practically be able to read each other's minds. Caroline could already do that, but the one time she had been inside Klaus' head, when she picked Camille from his mind, it had been almost completely closed off. She had thought it was because he was an Original, but maybe there was something else to it as well.
The only explanation Bonnie had to why Caroline had forgotten about Klaus and the whole Silas thing was that it was nature's way to obtain the balance and make sure that the two most powerful creatures in the world should never cross paths again. It was nature's way of saying that what Caroline had initially come to New Orleans to do, would possibly have devastating consequences.
She had tried to call Pheodora as soon as she was back at her hotel, but the Greek hadn't answered and there was only so much Caroline could do without acting suspiciously. She hadn't been able to sense anyone, but she couldn't be sure that Klaus hadn't sent someone to watch her.
Caroline still didn't know what all of this meant, but she knew that she had to inform Pheodora about what they were getting themselves into and that Caroline's help possibly wouldn't be available any longer. Which also meant that Caroline was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Because she couldn't get herself to fight Klaus, but she didn't want to fight Pheodora either by being on Klaus' side.
"So Silas, a two thousand year old psycho, 'guarded' the cure, but we went after it anyway because you wanted to make more hybrids." Caroline continued and looked at Klaus, who was sitting at the end of the table with Caroline seated to his left. "And your sister wanted to be human. And Stefan wanted Elena to be human, but Damon didn't. And neither did Elena in the end. I kind of remember all the cure drama, but Silas has just been erased from my mind. It's weird how so many things haven't made sense until now and yet I've never thought twice about it. God, I feel stupid."
"Don't, Care." Bonnie told her with a soft voice that made Caroline look at her. "It was the Immortality spell that diverted you from thinking about all those inconsistencies. You could have searched for ages and you might never have known what pieces that were missing. Didn't you ever wonder how you suddenly got those new powers?"
"I tried to find answers everywhere I went, but it was like…" Caroline started and slowly something hit her. "I would suddenly just lose interest. Or I would flip through a book and decide there was nothing worth reading in it even though I hadn't read an actual word of it."
"Is there a way to get Caroline's memory back?" Klaus then asked Bonnie and the tension between them was back immediately.
Klaus hadn't exactly been calm, when he learned what the witches had done with the Immortality spell. And even though Bonnie had assured him repeatedly that they had no idea that this would happen, he was far from ready to forgive and forget.
He also seemed sure that Bonnie had known what had happened to Caroline ever since the blonde had disappeared and that she purposely hadn't told him about it. Bonnie told him that she had barely been able to find Caroline for the last five years and that she had no idea that Caroline no longer remembered him. Needless to say that was a lie.
"No." Bonnie said through her teeth and sent Klaus an icy glare. "Because you killed the only witch that might would have been able to do it."
Caroline looked at Klaus with wide eyes and then at Stefan, whose eyes were on his plate as he deliberately tried not to look at Caroline. Bonnie was still shooting daggers at Klaus, who took a second to recall whose life he should have spared, which made Caroline fill up her glass with wine and drink half of it immediately after.
"Lucy." Klaus then said and Caroline almost spit out the wine in her mouth, making Kol almost choke on his food from laughing.
"You killed Lucy? Bonnie's cousin? Wasn't she the one, who helped with the whole Silas thing? The one we traveled all the way to Spain to find?" Caroline almost yelled at him and she felt how her anger heated up.
They had told her about everything that had happened since Silas rose from his grave and it was like the wheels inside of Caroline's head had started spinning again. It wasn't coincidental that she had met Lucy in Spain or that she had even been there. She just didn't remember having a traveling companion.
"After your departure, she refused to tell me what had happened to you. She was sure that I would corrupt you even though I had no idea what you had become. I suppose she didn't know where you went, but I thought I was being fairly reasonable in my inquiries and when she continued to be uncooperative, I suppose I lost my temper a bit and killed the witch." Klaus calmly explained and met Caroline's angry glare. It was only then she noticed the fire in Klaus' eyes and she realized that he still hadn't forgiven Lucy for not telling him what had happened to Caroline.
"Where the hell were you in all of this?" Caroline asked Stefan, who was sitting beside her and he laid down his fork with a sigh, unable to stay out of the conversation any longer. "Where the hell was anyone?!"
Caroline immediately noticed how everyone – except for Kol, who just seemed to enjoy the show – shifted in their seats and Stefan seemed to disappear into himself for a moment. She looked at them with impatience and felt her frustration grow. She was missing something, something important and she was about to go all Sherlock Holmes on their asses if they didn't tell her what.
"I was busy." Stefan answered with a detached voice and Caroline felt the need to smack him across his face. She knew that he had needed to get away from Damon and Elena after all the relationship drama, but he couldn't even pick up the phone, when everyone he cared about were fighting for their lives against an ancient psychopath?
"You were busy? What the f Stefan? How could you just-" Caroline started with a voice full of indignation, but was stopped by Klaus' sharp voice.
"Caroline." he warned, but she barely listened to him. Her head snapped in his direction for a moment and she lifted a finger to stop him.
"No!" she told Klaus and then returned her attention to Stefan again, not noticing the distressed look in his eyes. "My mother died because of that scumbag and you-"
"Caroline." Klaus said again, this time grabbing her hand to regain her attention. She whipped her head around with every intention of telling him to buck off, but the look in his eyes made her speechless. They were filled with both worry and regret, but he wasn't looking at her.
She followed his gaze to Stefan, who staring into nothing with a destroyed fork in his hand and she then looked at the others. Not even Kol seemed to be enjoying himself anymore.
"What happened?" Caroline demanded as calmly as possibly, but no one seemed to want to answer her question. Bonnie's eyes were fixed on Stefan, who still hadn't moved and Kol had placed his attention on his glass of wine.
"Another time, love." Klaus told her softly and Caroline looked back at him, meeting his glance for a long moment. When she finally sighed in defeat, he slowly removed his hand from hers. As his fingers traveled over the back of her hand, she felt her skin burn with a tingling sensation and she had to stop herself from gliding her own fingers over her burning hand.
"Well then, what's for dessert?" Kol asked casually and even though Caroline had her eyes fixed on Stefan, she couldn't help but smile a little, when she heard the sound of Bonnie's hand connecting with the back of Kol's head.
A/N: Yup, I did it. I brought them back. And as you might have noticed I'm somewhat of a Kennett shipper, which means there will be scenes with later;) And I always wanted to write Kol because he's awesome and it's really fun to do so. I hope this shed a little more light on what happened to our dear Caroline:) Still a lot of unanswered questions, but it'll come;)
The dinner still needs to come to an end but I figured I would wait till the next chapter since this already long enough.
Tell me what you think! I love hearing your thoughts about what you think happened/is going to happen!