A/N: Started a new drabble series for when I'm feeling frustrated with everything else. There should be more of these; I am feeling the frustration recently.

Thank you to impossiblekryptonitecolor for copy-edits!

'Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open
And finally it seemed that the spell was broken
-Blinding, Florence + The Machine

The icy mountain winds were brutal this time of year. Really, she should have picked June, or maybe July, to come on an Epic Quest. But no, here she was in January of all things, trekking up a narrow path in the Carpathian Mountains. She pulled her cloak tighter around herself and felt the sharp pain in her ribs respond.

Caroline pressed her gloved hand into her side and tried to tell herself that the warmth she felt was imaginary. Damn, she was probably bleeding through her bandages. The witch with the athame had gotten her good while she was distracted with the other. She'd killed them both in the end—no one was going to keep her from saving Enzo—but it had been a messy battle. They had been waiting for her about a third of the way up, aware of some secret path that she wasn't to beat her on the journey.

"You can't free him," the man had said. "The world is better with him in a box."

"Perhaps," Caroline had replied. "But I have need of him."

The fight was brutal but quick, and in the end, aside from what was hopefully a shallow stab in the lower part of her ribs, Caroline was the one left standing. It was hard to unwrap herself from her layers of tunics to dress the wound, so she did the best she could and continued up the mountain.

It was with a sense of surprise and numb feet that she finally stepped up onto the summit, a small, flat area in the lee of a tall jut of stone that blocked the wind a little. The only thing up here, apart from her, was a stone sarcophagus.

She froze in place, pulled out a thread of magic and sketched a symbol in the air, watched it turn to mist as it went to search for magical traps. Caroline waited patiently and after a minute the mist reformed in front of her into a glowing blue ball. It hadn't found any harmful magic. Of course, it wasn't foolproof; some witches were very clever about what constituted 'harm.' But then, Caroline was constantly tweaking the parameters of this spell to include other forms of magic to watch out for.

It was just as likely that the witches who'd created the prison were of the opinion that if you got this far, you deserved what you got if you opened that sarcophagus.

It must have been carved from the rock wall providing shelter from the winds, because Caroline could not imagine how anyone had gotten it up that rickety path. It was large, covered in symbols and pictograms, and she didn't have the time to look. Enzo didn't have time. Saying a quick prayer to the goddess and ignoring the sharp pain in her side, she put her hands on the lid and shoved. The lid slid slowly with a grating noise, until it unbalanced and tipped over backwards, revealing the sight of a sleeping man wrapped in chains.

But oh, what a man. Caroline had been expecting a dried out husk she'd have to reanimate, not this beautiful temptation with lush lips and dirty blond hair curling over his forehead. She thought very uncharitably that no wonder they had locked him up if Klaus looked like that.

"Hello, Klaus?" She leaned on the edge to get a better look at him and the enchantments she could feel practically humming from being laid into the chains, careful of her side. "I don't need to zap you to wake you up, do I? I feel that would put a damper on our working relationship at the start."

Golden tipped lashes raised over eyes like blue flame. They stared at each other a moment before his voice, warm and inviting, reached her. "You don't appear to be well, love. That's a particularly large amount of blood I smell."

She gave him a flat look. "That's not any of your business, and you can keep your teeth to yourself. I have something else for you if we can reach an agreement."

Those eyes flicked over her face. "You don't sound like a hallucination, then. You want something from me."

"No, I hiked up this mountain for fun. Of course I want something from you." The cold and pain were making her irritable. Pulling off her rucksack, she undid the drawstring and fished around inside until she found a particular leather pouch with an arcane symbol painted on it. Pulling her gloves off, she tucked them inside. Dexterity would be needed.

"I'm not in any position to grant favors at this time," he demurred, shifting slightly so that his chains clinked gently.

Unwinding the leather straps holding the bag closed took a bit. "I will assist you in gaining your freedom in exchange for your assistance in turning a man of my choosing."

"Lover?" Klaus seemed to almost taunt.

Caroline snorted. "Gross. He's my best friend, if that makes any difference."

"You want me to turn your… best mate?" He watched her reach her hand in the bag with wary eyes.

"Assist me in turning. There's a ritual I've worked out. This may itch." She pulled her hand out and shook it over the chains. A fine blue powder drifted from between her fingers and stuck to the metal. Some landed on his face and he clearly attempted to bear this up very stoically. At least it seemed to put to rest his idea that she was a hallucination.

"Fine, assist you in turning, in exchange for my freedom from this coffin and any enchantments. You have a deal." He nodded.

Dusting her hands off over his chest, Caroline squinted down at him. "Mmm, no."

His eyes narrowed. "No?"

"Yes, 'no.'" Putting her hands on her hips, she glared down at him. "Seriously, I mean you're clearly planning on eating me the moment you get out of there. You haven't asked nearly enough questions. I'm asking you to do a ritual and you're like 'Sure, okay.' Oh please."

Klaus looked outraged for one moment, and then shockingly, he laughed. "Perhaps I won't eat you, after all. What's your name, sweetheart?"

Feeling like finally they were getting somewhere, but not fully willing to trust it, she crossed her arms over her chest. "Caroline Forbes."

"Caroline—if I may call you Caroline—I have been remiss. One's manners do get neglected having only yourself to converse with for... what's the year? Julian calendar, if you please."

She looked at him warily, wondering if she had opened the tomb of a madman. "1423."

"Ah. Eighty-four years. Could be worse. Although I had expected my family to locate me by now." His voice sounded a little put out.

"Well, you can ask Kol about that if you can find him." Putting the pouch back in her rucksack took a second. "I had a lead on him before I left, but I had a better idea where you were, and we're running out of time." Putting her hands on the wide lip of the coffin, she boosted herself up to perch sideways on it.

"What are you doing?" he asked, wrinkling his nose slightly.

The chains seemed to be decently coated, she could work with this. "The enchantment needs to come off these chains or they won't come loose. One moment." Holding a hand over his chest, she chanted in a clear voice. Slowly, the ghostly image of a tangled knot of ropes rose from the chains to float above his sternum.

"There," she said, chant finished.

He wriggled slightly. "I still can't move."

Caroline nodded at the ball. "That's the enchantment. I have to unpick it first." With thumbs and forefingers, she gently started tugging on the loops of the knot.

His tongue darted out to wet his lips as he watched her. "Do you need to concentrate?"

"I am concentrating." she groused, and then guessed what he was asking. "But you can talk to me, yes."

"You mentioned you're 'running out of time.' Running out of time for what?" His voice was coaxing.

It was a few moments before she answered him. "Enzo, my friend. He's dying. It's a curse. Rival coven got clever, used mundane humans to sneak it past his defenses." A loop tugged loose, revealing a frayed end. "Aha!"

Klaus strained to see what happened, and she obligingly turned the ball so that he could see the dangling bit of rope. Something feverish lit in his eyes before he tried to tuck it away, but Caroline saw that flash of it, the depth of emotion that frayed rope brought. She hadn't contemplated just what it would mean to rescue a man—or something like a man—from a solitary prison. She'd assumed he'd be tricky; she'd assumed he'd be—eventually— grateful. Maybe she should have factored in 'slightly unhinged.'

That was a problem for Future Caroline though because Present Caroline had committed to her course of action, and Enzo was running out of time. The sharp ache in her side told her she was running out of time. Turning the ball back around—it felt like so much cobwebs and that funny shock you sometimes get from touching an iron knife in wool socks—she started to pick at the opening she had made.

"I'm assuming you didn't go through all this trouble for just any vampire." He tilted his head to look at her. "You need an Original."

"Yes." Another loop came loose.

"For this ritual."

"Also yes."

"Tell me about it. What is the purpose of it; how does it work?" He wrinkled his nose again.

"So, this magic that's killing Enzo, he has to die for the magic to stop. But if I tried a regular vampire, he wouldn't come back. I've studied the root of the curse very, very thoroughly you understand." She paused in fishing another end out to look seriously at him.

Klaus nodded gravely. "Understood." He ruined this by screwing up his face slightly.

"Oh, the powder. Here, close your eyes." Caroline bent over with a wince and with careful fingers, brushed the powder residue from his face. He didn't quite close his eyes, a pale sliver of blue kept trained on her face, but that was reasonable, she guessed. He was in a very vulnerable position at the moment, and she was an unknown. For a moment she hesitated, and then with her thumb she brushed the last of the powder from his lips.

Lashes lifted and he regarded her. Clearing her throat, she went back to the knot. "Is that better?" Thinking about how soft a possibly insane vampire's lips were when he hadn't even agreed to not eat her yet was the wrong move. No, nuh-uh.

"Much, thank you." He was still looking at her funny. "You were saying about the curse…?"

"Right!" Her fingers were starting to go numb and her palms were clammy; she rubbed them together and blew on them to warm them up. Chancing a warmth cantrip while she was fiddling with delicate magic would be a no no. "So, you're closest to the magic that made you a vampire. All other vampires have a spark of that that gets passed down your line, but it's not what you have. If I boost that with magic, I'm mostly certain he will come back as a vampire."

"Mostly. But not absolutely?"

Caroline frowned even as she untied another loop. "Not absolutely, no. But, he's going to die no matter what we do. This is his best chance. All you have to do is bleed into a cup for me, let me enchant the blood for better potency, preferably snap Enzo's neck after he drinks the blood, and that's it. If it doesn't work it wouldn't be your fault."

"No, but I daresay it wouldn't be yours either," Klaus offered. Now it was her turn to look at him funny. He made a shrugging gesture with his face. "Unless you secretly wanted to kill your friend."

She snorted. "Only occasionally, when the situation calls for it, and then it's not a secret." With the back of one hand, she wiped her forehead. It came away damp with sweat, and she swallowed.

Klaus' eyes were sharp on her. "Time is not on your side, and I don't have blood to spare."

Thinking of the two wineskins in her pack that she had filled with blood this morning from the goats she had bought in the village at the foot of the mountain and slaughtered in the forest, she wondered if maybe she shouldn't show a little good will. But then she didn't know how she would get back up to continue unpicking the spell. It would be unkind to torture him with the knowledge of what he couldn't have. No, just a little longer. It was going fast now, she had over half of it undone, rope ends drifting uselessly from the whole like seaweed adrift in the ocean.

"I'll be fine," she said shortly, bending stiffly to her task. "Almost done."

He watched her for a moment as she untangled a particularly snagged bit. "So this friend, where is he? And come to think of it, where did they end up entombing me?"

"I left him in Prague with our friend Bonnie to look after him and keep up his magic treatments. We've been stalling the degeneration some, but it won't last." She sighed, thinking of Enzo as she had left him in that small flat with Bonnie, wan but cheerful. "We're just over the Bohemia border in Hungary. There was a particular witch clan that lived here two generations ago. They left due to war and came west, leaving you in the Carpathians. I wasn't," she gestured at her side, "expecting anyone to be left still guarding you to be honest, although I wasn't unprepared. Lucky shot."

"And you, Caroline Forbes, how did you find me? My resting place appears to be well hidden." If he noticed her trembling fingers, he was polite enough not to mention it. What good would it do them anyway?

If she could just get through this little bit, he'd be free. Just keep concentrating.

"That witch clan? They died out from the Black Death. A sister coven stole their grimoire, and when I was doing research for Enzo I found a footnote about 'The Original Death Bringer Entombed.'"

"A footnote?" Klaus sounded disgruntled. Caroline's smile was shaky, but the end was in sight.

"There was some code in another section about the mountain that took a little while to decipher. But from there it was just getting us close enough. Now," She looped a finger around the last knot and looked down at him. "What have you decided? Will you help us, come with me to Prague and attempt to save my friend? Or do I leave you with a significantly weakened enchantment that maybe you can get out of in a decade?"

The fever was back in his eyes as he stared not at the knot keeping him from freedom, but at her. "I desire something more in return."

"What?"

"Time. I am giving your friend the gift of time; therefore, I require some of yours." This announcement was made like it was the only logical conclusion, and yet she blinked.

"Mine?" She repeated dumbly.

"Ten years. I know that's nothing to your kind with the right spells. I want ten years of your company." A smile curled his lips.

"You want a pet witch." She accused him.

He huffed a soft laugh. "My aim is not to bend your magic to my will, as I imagine any attempt would start a fight for the ages. I wouldn't say no if you felt inclined, however. Your clever mind should be celebrated."

Wrinkling her nose, she looked down at him. "This isn't a sex thing is it?"

The slow curling grin he gave her made her flush. "Not unless you want it to be."

She scoffed, trying to ignore the implications of that, and then screwed up her fuzzy mind thinking about it. Ten years wasn't so long really, and it would save Enzo.

"What about Enzo and Bonnie?"

His eyebrows twitched slightly. "They can come as well, if they wish."

"I can't," she shook her head slightly to clear it, "I can't speak for them. They'll have to decide on their own. But I'll give you five years for the attempt, and ten years if we succeed. And rules! There's going to be rules once I'm not so…" Gesturing her free hand at her head, she tried to encompass the floaty feeling that was starting to disconnect her from the rest of her body.

A smile curved his lips. "Rules, of course you would demand rules. Do you believe you can limit it to ten?" He asked smartly.

"Just for that I'm making up a new rule whenever inspiration strikes me," she muttered.

He laughed. "We have an accord, sweetheart; I agree to your terms."

Moment of truth. "Deal." Her finger tugged the last rope free and the enchantment disintegrated. Caroline reached down weakly and tugged the round, central device holding all the chains together over his chest, and it fell apart in her hands, the chains going slack.

They stared at each other for a moment. Then Klaus lunged for her and she jerked back.

Caroline barely had a moment to wonder where she had misjudged her choices so badly while she toppled backwards over the lip of the coffin, when she was caught up under her arms in strong hands and twirled around in a circle. 'Oh, we're celebrating,' she thought muzzily. 'That's nice.' His dimples were alarmingly pretty from this angle.

"Caroline Forbes, you did it." He pulled her close and her arms went around his neck to steady herself. This close, his eyes were so, so blue. "Such a clever little witch," he murmured.

She saw it coming and was completely fuzzy on why it was a bad idea, the press of his mouth to hers, lips as soft as they had felt against her fingertips. There was a brief moment where she wasn't sure what was making her dizzy, blood loss or his mouth, and then it was over, and he was smiling a mischievous smile at her.

"I must confess, the thought's been torturing me for a while now."

Swallowing, she licked her lips as her vision swung in and out. "Rule One," she said, trying to sound firm and completely losing the battle, "Never kiss me without my permission again." And then the darkness swept in, and she knew no more.