Caroline walked up to the Mikaelson mansion hoping Klaus wouldn't mind that she was coming over unannounced.
"Klaus?" Caroline called. "Klaus? Are you home?" She called from the foyer and just when she was considering coming back later he rounded the corner.
"Caroline?" He smiled. "This is certainly a surprise."
"I know I should have called first-" She began but was cut off.
"Nonsense." Klaus told her. "You're more than welcomed here. So what can I do for you? I assume you want something."
"I do." Caroline said, not bothering to deny it. "I was hoping you could do me a favor and help me out with something."
"If it is within my capabilities I'll see what I can do." Klaus told her.
"Well as you are more aware than anyone Silas's abilities with mind control passes even that of your family." Caroline began.
"I am aware." Klaus said tensely.
"Well, I was thinking what if one could block out his ability you know like resisting mind compulsion." Caroline said.
"Yes but you resist mind compulsion with vervain." Klaus pointed out.
"Not necessarily." Caroline said, thinking of her father.
"What are you talking about?" Klaus asked, shortly.
"My father was able to resist compulsion without the assistance of vervain." Caroline told him.
Klaus was surprised by this, he'd never heard of such a thing before. "How?"
"He said it was the mind, the mind could be trained, that the mind was more powerful than given credit for." Caroline said.
"Caroline." Klaus began. "Even I couldn't keep Silas out of my head."
"I know it's a long shot, but my father was able to do it and I want to at least try to do the same." Caroline said.
"How long did it take your father to learn that skill?" Klaus inquired. "I'm sure it wasn't over night."
"Years." Caroline admitted after a moment.
"Years?" Klaus repeated. "And what? You expect to be able to do the same in so little time?"
"Well no." Caroline answered honestly. "But I would like to get a start on at least trying; however, I'm a vampire and can't be compelled unless it's by an original that's where you come in."
Klaus looked at her in surprise. "You want me to help you with this little mission of yours by compelling you?"
"Yes." Caroline answered.
"You trust me that much?" He looked at her searchingly.
"To be honest, I'm not sure I do." Caroline admitted. "But out of all the originals I do in fact trust you the most. I don't know your brother, Elijah, Rebekah and I can't get along for the life of us which leaves you."
"I feel so honored to be your last choice." Klaus said dryly.
Caroline rolled her eyes. "You're not my last choice, lately when I have a problem I turn to you."
Klaus stared at her. "Why?"
Caroline considered not answering but felt compelled to at the intensity in his eyes. "Because I know you'll be there. That you wouldn't let me down."
Klaus stared at her a moment before giving her a smile. "When do you want to start?"
"Now would be good." Caroline smiled. "The faster I learn the better and it's going to take time and serious effort, so yeah, now would be good."
Klaus nodded and turned her around, leading her further into his home, his hand hovering over her lower back.
"Okay, seriously, I feel like we're getting nowhere." Caroline complained.
"We have only been trying for a week." Klaus laughed, though he might have been biased since he was spending a large amount of time in her company.
"I haven't been able to fight the compulsion, not once." Caroline was beginning to get frustrated.
"Rome wasn't built in a day, Caroline." Klaus told her.
Caroline ignored him. "Maybe I need a little more incentive."
"Like what, love?" Klaus raised a brow at her.
Caroline was quiet for a moment, considering whether her idea was good or not, admittedly it was reckless. "Compel me to do something life-threatening to myself." And watched as his face went blank.
"No." He said flatly.
"Think about it I'll have a reason to really try not to." Caroline persisted.
"I am not compelling you to threaten your own life, Caroline." He said flatly.
"I'm not saying let me kill myself just you know, stop me and un-compel me if I can't fight it off."
"No." He said flatly.
"Klaus-"
"I said no." He said, voice like steel.
"Find, how about a compromise?" Caroline signed annoyed. "How about just compel me to cut myself or something?"
"Caroline!" Klaus sighed in exasperation.
"We're not going to get anywhere if I don't have any real motivation." Caroline said, but saw he was unmoved, she sighed. "I trust you." She told him.
Klaus sighed, her words doing him in. "Fine!"
"Fight it, Caroline!" Klaus told her.
"I'm trying." She said, slicing a knife across her wrist.
"Try harder." He snapped.
They had been at this now for two weeks.
"This isn't working; we need to try something else." Klaus said, shortly.
"Are you serious?" Caroline's eyes were wide as she gripped the stake soaked in vervain poised over her leg.
"You either fight it or you're going to be in quite a bit of pain, love." Klaus told her, pushing his reservations away.
Caroline sent him a heated glare as she tried desperately but failed, screaming out in pain, she withdrew the stake and impaled it again, screaming out again.
Klaus steeled himself against her screams, turning away, unable to see her pain it was bad enough he had to hear it, but turned back when she breathed in raggedly.
"I can't do this. This was stupid and reckless." She said. "I was wrong. I'm not strong enough."
Klaus turned back to her, moving forward and kneeling in front of her. "Don't say that. You are." He said. "You have no idea how strong you are."
Caroline locked gazes with him, breathing deeply from the pain. "And how would you know?"
"Because I know you, you're brave, fearless and selfless and you don't do anything by half." Said Klaus. "When you're faced with a problem you don't run and hide you face it head on. You face everything head on. You look for the best in people and you never back down, never give in, never give up 'cause that's not who you are." Caroline's breath caught in her throat, and she found herself caught in his intense gaze, his words like a balm on her insecurities. "You, Caroline Forbes, are a fighter."
Caroline didn't know how to respond to that so she only nodded, slowly, gaze still locked with his before ripping the stake from her leg, she clenched her jaw to keep from screaming out with the pain it caused.
Klaus saw the fire in her eyes anew and smiled standing and taking a step back. "Concentrate, think of what you want and fight the compulsion and then break it."
"Break it." Caroline repeated.
"Now again only this time aim for your stomach." Klaus told her, using the compulsion once again.
Caroline wordlessly lifted the stake high before bringing it back swiftly toward her abdomen but at the last possible second her arm jerked and she threw the stake with such force it imbedded itself in the wall of Klaus's home.
Caroline stared on, wide-eyed in shock and surprise before she let out a surprise laugh, she got up from her chair and went to the stake examining the wall it was imbedded in before turning to Klaus with a happy grin to see him smiling his crooked smile at her. "I did it!" She said in disbelief.
"That you did." Said Klaus with a nod of his head.
Caroline grinned unable to contain her happiness at the small amount of progress they finally made after the weeks that had pass of her trying to break compulsion, she walked toward him and catching him off guard threw her arms around his neck.
It took Klaus a moment to get over the surprise of her initiating physical contact with him on her own but once he did he slowly hesitantly wrapped his arms around her after a moment he relaxed and his arms tightened around her instinctively.
Caroline pulled back from him with a grin, removing her arms from around him but not taking more than a step back. "I can't believe I did it."
Klaus released her reluctantly. "I think this calls for a celebration. What do you say to dinner?"
Caroline paused, surprise by the offer and the fact that she didn't immediately want to say no. "Yes." She finally answered. "I would like that."
Klaus smiled his crooked smile, he had been expecting her to say no but he was pleased that he had been wrong in his assumption. "I know this quite exquisite restaurant, surprisingly enough the only place in this little town worth going to."
"Hey!" Caroline swatted at his chest. "No insulting my town."
Klaus chuckled. "My apologies love." He braced a hand on her back. "But before we go you might want to clean up, you can't very well walk into an establishment covered in blood and not expect to cause a scene, now can you?"
Caroline looked down at her blood covered jeans where she had stabbed herself several times in both her legs. "Right." She said having forgotten about that. "So I'll just head home and change and then we can go get dinner."
"Sounds good." Said Klaus, leading her through his home, his hands braced on her lower back.
Sometime later, after Caroline had returned home, showered and changed clothes, found Klaus and Caroline in a rather low key but rather nice Italian restaurant. "This seems more like a date setting." Commented Caroline, taking a drink from her wine glass.
"I have no idea what you mean?" Said Klaus, feigning innocence.
Caroline hummed doubtfully. "So I figured once I start resisting your compulsion with ease that we could try and up the ante and see if I can keep you from getting inside my head."
Klaus had been raising his glass to his lips for a drink but placed it back on the table. "You're placing a lot of trust in me with this, Caroline."
"I know." Caroline replied quietly, looking at him. "And usually I wouldn't trust you at least not with the people I care about."
"Yet you trust me with your own life." Said Klaus his blue gaze locking on hers intensely.
"Because I know you won't hurt me." Said Caroline, leaving out that time when he stabbed her and bit her. "Or I hope you wouldn't."
"I won't." Klaus swore to her. "The amount of trust you put in me I haven't said it but it means a lot to me that you trusted me enough to help you with this."
Caroline reached a hand out, placing a hand over his arm and giving it a squeeze, smiling softly at him.
A comfortable silence fell over them as they smiled at one another gazes locked until the sound of Caroline's cell broke through it. She moved her hand from his arm grabbing her phone from her pocket. "It's Stefan." She said.
"Go ahead." Klaus gestured for her to answer, tearing his gaze from her and lifting his wine glass to his lips taking a long drink.
"Hey, Stefan." Caroline greeted.
Klaus watched her over the rim of his glass.
"I'm busy at the moment but I'll come by later, in an hour and half or so. Okay. Yeah. See you then." Caroline finished the call and hung up, placing her phone on the table. "Sorry about that." She apologized.
Klaus waved her off. "So tell me how is graduation planning coming along?"
Caroline smiled and proceeded to tell him how things were going and the conversation naturally drifted to lots of subjects to Caroline's plans for after high school. She told Klaus how she Bonnie and Elena had plans to attend the same college, share a dorm room, she was hopeful that by then Elena's humanity would be back on and they would be past all this Silas and cure drama.
Klaus smiled listening to every word, enjoying her company. He enjoyed that they had grown close enough to talk about their plans and a lot of things in general. He just really enjoyed being in Caroline's presence, there was just something about Caroline that being around her made you feel things, other things seemed to matter less, his problems with his siblings, Silas, they didn't seem to matter all that much when he was with her because when he was with Caroline that was all that mattered.
Over the next two weeks Caroline had gotten better at resisting compulsion so much to the point she was able to fight it off most of the times when it did take hold of her but mostly compulsion stopped having an effect on her. And because she was able to do so more often than not, they moved past the compulsion, now Klaus would attempt to get in her head and she would try to block him out of at the very least expel him out if she was unable to block him. But so far she was only capable of expelling him from her mind.
She wasn't able to stop him from getting inside her head but it was progress and she hoped with time she would be able to block anyone from getting in her head ever again.
She drove down the road after leaving Klaus's after another session when her car engine cut out coming to a stop, she cursed, trying to restart the car but failing to do so. "Great. Just great." She opened the car door and stepped out of the car, pulling her phone out just as she closed the car door.
She glanced around at her surroundings looking for a road marker and not seeing anything but trees lining the road and the quickly darkening sky. She was just about to call for a tow truck when she heard the sound of a car nearby, she watched as a car came into sight and stopped beside her, two dark haired women inside.
"Are you having some car trouble?" The one on the driver side asked.
"Yes but I have it handled." Caroline answered with a polite smile.
They both stepped out of the car. "We can give you a ride into town if you like?" The other one offered.
"That's not necessary." Caroline told them. "I'm just going to call a tow service and then have a friend come pick me up." She dialed the tow service number, pressing her phone to her ear.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to assist." Said the one that had been driving the car.
"What?" Caroline leveled them with a confused look at their insistence. "Look, I appreciate the gesture but I'm fine so you can just get back in your car an-" she cut off abruptly as the women blew something out of her hand into her face. And she immediately began to cough and waved her hand in front of her face to wave whatever it was off to no avail.
"What the hell?!" She said, growing angry, feeling the veins raised under her eyes and her fangs elongate but as soon as she made a move toward them, her step faltered and her vision went unfocused. "What did you-" she stumbled backwards into her car, leaning against it for leverage. "Wha-" her words trailed off as she felt herself collapse to the ground her phone slipping out of her hand and clattering to the ground with her vision darkening the last thing Caroline saw before she lost consciousness was the two dark haired women standing over her.
A/N: I always liked how Bill Forbes was able to resist compulsion so this was me expanding on that skill only with Caroline instead.