"klaus could kidnap. Torture her and compel her and force her humanity away. And kol could try to save her." –AngelinaGuerin

"'I don't want to be somebody falling into relapse every time I see that smile again.' Kol pines after Caroline even though she's Klaus's girl."

–StefQ

"Klaus's reaction to Caroline and Kol starting to date"–tvdatotwhphg1

Merry Christmas! Here's some Koroline for the holidays.

Caroline reminds Kol of sunlight.

Specifically, the first time he'd woken from having his father's sword running through his chest cavity and into his heart with Tatia's blood mixed with the wine still on his tongue. The rays of sunlight peeking through from the window of the cottage and he'd stepped under the light to find himself burning.

He doesn't move out of the way as fast as he should have because for a moment he takes in the fact his whole being is about to burst into flames and realizes what is once nothing to him has suddenly become deadly.

That is Caroline to him.

The first moment he'd seen her is at a ball and she's just the girl in periwinkle on his brother's arm, she is nothing.

But then he sees her once again, his brother's hand on the small of her back as he guides her into the room ("Caroline is going to live with us from now on") after Nik has torn her apart, her bloodied angel feathers glued back on to her skin in the worst way like a disfigured masterpiece, all wrong and yet...

Her eyes stare into his and the blue that sparkled is now icy and dead.

He can't look away.

New Orleans is a lifetime ago. Nik's paper town he cut up and pasted into place with paper people he told what to do and torn apart when he got bored or upset.

Bekah and Elijah had fallen for humans who only died in their arms because paper people were too fragile to last and Kol set the paper walls on fire to see the shadows in the corners better.

His siblings think of this place as home when their real home is now long gone except for trees and drawings on a cave wall. Nik and Elijah plan to reclaim what they think is theirs and Rebekah moans and woes about not having a boy to love her.

Kol spends his days following Caroline around. The blonde vampire is much too young and close to Nik to be able to go around town freely without Marcel's goons trying to attack her so Kol shadows her as she moves about town.

With the vampire switch off, she's careless and loose. She tears into arteries, snaps vertebrae and takes away others' consent with so much ease he wonders what she was like before all this. She is not the 'strong, beautiful and full of light' girl Nik had so waxed about.

She is walking through a dark street, Marcel's men twisted and torn to unnatural angles and he follows behind her silently. She stops at a bench and takes a seat on it, her eyes unfocused as she sighs.

He doesn't step closer to her and just watches the moonlight glinting on the blood in her hair before she turns to look at him. "I'm bored."

He cocks his head to the side and asks her, amusedly, "Could've fooled me."

She gets up and walks away. He follows.

Nik is annoyed with Caroline since her constant bloodshed is not helping his cause any. Kol is listening to his brother shout from bottom of the staircase, ready to sprint to the blonde girl's aid if ever need be. But Caroline is quiet throughout the 'fight' as his brother gets louder by the second ("Don't you care at all?").

"No."

His brother goes quiet.

"I don't care at all."

Caroline leaves the room and stops for a moment when she sees him at the bottom of the stairs. She quickly goes down to stand in front of him, her eyes on his. "Take me somewhere."

He wordlessly offers her his hand and she takes it, the blood underneath her fingernails biting into his skin.

He doesn't take her anywhere with people (or vampires or anyone with a heartbeat) as that just causes her to want to tear them to pieces. It's not about hunger. It's not about violence. It's about-

"I can't feel anything." She tells him as she stares at the dark water of the lake. "No remorse, no sadness, no pity."

He keeps quiet as she continues. "And it's only when I'm hurting somebody else that I can feel almost...almost something. It's not anything good but it's something."

She looks at him, eyes dark. "Do you know what it is?"

Of course he does.

He smiles at her and its nothing sweet. "Satisfaction."

At others misery. It's nothing pretty or kind. It's not even worth putting a name to because only the damned would understand what it means to destroy someone when everything inside you is dead.

They're on the roof one day. Caroline lying down on her back, eyes closed and soaking in the sun. He hovers over her, staring down at her and how the sunlight glistens off her hair.

She blinks one eye open and then the other before she reaches up to tangle her soft hands into his hair. She reaches up until her lips are a hair's breadth from his. "Are you going to save me, Kol?"

"I can't even save myself." His lips brush against her as he speaks. "There's no saving me."

"And me?" She pulls away just a fraction. "Can't I be saved?"

"I can try."

His lips taste hers and she exhales.

Nik is furious but this isn't the first time. And Kol lets him shout and try to put a dagger into him before Rebekah shouts at them, "Enough! All this for a girl?"

Said girl is at the doorway watching the whole thing with semi-interest. Nik pushes Kol away to get to the blonde and bellows at her. "You were supposed to be mine!"

"Pity. " Caroline spits back but doesn't stand down.

Nik lets out a growl and lunges for her, his hands around her neck but she doesn't fight back.

"Just kill me." She just says. "I'm not going to get better so kill me."

Kol watches this all and fights every bit to push Nik off and take Caroline away to where he could try and fix her. But she's not some ceramic angel figurine he can glue back into place, all the cracks in her cannot disappear even with all the magic and power in the world.

And he promised to save her. So he would let her die.

But Nik doesn't end her like she wants, instead he does the worst thing. "Turn it on."

And with clarity returning to Caroline, her dead eyes with light once more, all the pity, remorse and sadness hitting her like hale from the heavens, she screams and wails until her lungs are bloody and raw.

And Kol is there in an instant to hold her as she falls apart.

She lies on the floor, his sure arms still around her as she recounts the faces and names of whose blood is underneath her fingernails. She repeats the syllables of their names like a mantra as he runs his fingers through her hair.

Bekah and Nik have long left them alone, the latter looking defeated. And Kol knows it's only a temporary respite before his brother is back to try and make the girl he keeps wrecking over and over again love him.

"Kol," Caroline rasps out, her blue eyes bloodshot, cheeks with dried tears. "I don't think I can be saved."

He caresses her cheeks and rests his forehead on hers. "I can still try."