BKBKBK

"She's dead."

This was the consensus upon his arrival to Mystic Falls. Red-rimmed eyes. Caroline, Elena, Jeremy and Stefan.

Damon wouldn't believe what they had found down in the sewer and had hopped into his excuse of a classic car and peeled off into the night.

"No tears for a freaking dress."

Klaus was only sad that he didn't even get a chance to have them traipse around the world looking for their friend.

Instead of expert tracker of lost persons his role was switched to caretaker of fledgling vampires, a teenaged human and a former ripper.

They didn't make much noise about him being there; grief has a way of slumping your shoulders and blurring your eyes from whatever grudge you held before your best friend died.

Caroline glued her head to his shoulder. His shirt wet with tears.

Stefan, that somber martyr, only raised an eyebrow once at him, but closed his mouth when Caroline expressed that she was glad he had finally come.

But even as he stood up straight so Caroline could lean on him, and even though he made the blood bag runs and made sure the teenager didn't drown in Damon's liquor cabinet, he was a still outsider.

In the late-night huddles in the Salvatore living room, he hung back, a witness to their stories and their pain.

"I wrote the postcards because she asked me to, and then one day she was just gone…"

He was never asked to tell a memory. And rightfully so. He wasn't in mourning. He hadn't known their Bonnie. He was this Bonnie's antagonist, her villain, her reason to shake her fist to the sky.

In the shadows of the boardinghouse living room, he was the listener. Yes, he could have waited for Caroline at the Mikaelson mansion, or even offered to track down the eldest Salvatore so he wouldn't miss the memorial they were planning, but instead he haunted the periphery of their bonds with Bonnie. He listened in on their tales of the witch.

It was Caroline who finally noticed him mesmerized by their reminiscing, and she smiled with crimson streaked cheeks, and said, "I wish you had known Bonnie. You would have loved her too."

BKBKBKBK

Caroline is with Elena at the Gilbert's working on the contact list for Bonnie's memorial which gives him some rare time alone.

A moment to himself.

He thinks about calling her.

Thinks about calling up the dead.

He calls Elijah instead.

And his brother updates him on the little witch's day to day: her frequenting her new friend Antoinette's, her ravenous thirst for information on their mother, and their frequent outings with Marcel.

"What?"

"We have a fortuitous gain in this ruse because it seems he has taken a liking to Bonnie."

The phone is silent as Elijah waits for Klaus to rejoice to that bit of news, but Klaus clears his throat and advises him that with such a close proximity to his former protégé that it should not be long before the city is returned to its rightful owner.

"I have an old acquaintance visiting and Bonnie and I think we may have the means to end him without much bloodshed," Elijah advises. "And Niklaus, I trust that you understand with Marcel trusting us in his circle again that your presence here will only upset that harmony," Elijah states as more of a demand than a suggestion."

BKBKBKBK

"I really don't think I can do this," Caroline says, opening up a bottle of pinot noir and pouring herself a glass to the brim, "I really wish Elena could do this part by herself."

It only took a week and half to plan Bonnie's memorial and tomorrow was to be the big day. Caroline had nervously thrown out that he could leave, that he had done more than enough for her and she knew he had to get back to being the bane of someone's existence. But Klaus assured her he wanted to stay. He knew she thought it was because of his affection for her, and that was partially true, but more so, he wanted to make sure they buried the witch; that it gave them closure.

Caroline's hand shakes as she hands him the crumpled piece of paper. A speech about Bonnie.

Quickly scanning her cursive, Klaus reads a story about a teddy bear named Ms. Cuddles that belonged to Bonnie, and how in an eight-year-old jealous rage, Caroline had stolen the stuffed animal from Bonnie and buried it in the woods behind their homes, until wrecked with guilt she had laid down M&Ms from Bonnie's porch to the crime scene. But the birds ate the candy and she had to confess everything on her own to her friend, and true to form, Bonnie accepted her apology and told Caroline that she understood and she didn't stop once from being Caroline's friend. That's the kind of friend Bonnie Bennett was.

Klaus eyes the blonde, feeling a righteous indignation on behalf of an eight-year-old Bonnie, but also wondering if some of that Bonnie is still in there.

She scratches out the story calling it stupid when he hands the paper back, but Klaus fills her glass again and tells her not to nix it.

"It's honest."

BKBKBKBK

It is getting late and prior to this evening, Caroline had a routine of leaving him to spend her nights in a bed with a distraught Elena back at the Gilbert's. But Elena and Stefan are making a last-ditch effort to look for Damon before the morning.

"They should let him be. We all are getting through this in our own way," She says running her fingers though her hair, and glancing over at Klaus who had told her that she was welcome to stay the night.

Caroline fidgets and rocks a little on the balls of her feet, grateful for Klaus and anticipating Klaus, the Klaus who would mention her leaving with him after this was all over, the Klaus who would kiss her passionately and say that this was the time for him to be her last, the Klaus who didn't constantly reach for his phone and look after her like a big brother.

Klaus folds up her crumpled speech and tells her he has heard enough about Bonnie from everyone to help her write it. She will have a speech in the morning.

She lingers enough for him to ask her if she needs anything.

"You've changed." She says with a sad smile.

Shaking his head, he picks up the dirty wine glasses, "You're tired, Caroline."

And in the near three weeks he has been there she can finally see what she couldn't when he arrived.

With her blue eyes staring him down, he sets the glasses down and reaches for her cold hand, leading her back to the couch.

"Does she know who you really are?"

In the end he tells her there wasn't someone else but that they weren't right for one another and she agrees.

At least that is what she tells herself when she was alone with her head against the tear stained pillow.