A/N: It's been a really long time since I've posted Klaroline on FFnet, so enjoy!

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Is it really fair to have one's life reduced to seventeen years?

It's kind of ironic, isn't it, Caroline asks herself, to live, die, live again, and then promptly die once again promptly in the same year?

She's sixteen, she's seventeen, and then she's seventeen forever.

Well, not anymore. She's dying.

She's almost dead.

Caroline's favourite grandmother, her mom's mother, had early onset Alzheimer's since she was forty-nine. Caroline remembers visiting her at the old age home, watching her beloved grandmother pinch her cheeks and ask her mother what she and her lovely daughter were doing at a place like this.

She remembers the lucidity. A few precious moments every few months, when her grandmother would remember who she was and Caroline and her mother rushed to the home to spend those few minutes with her, celebrating the fact that she recalled them.

It always felt fake, to Caroline. Something unreal. Another effect of the disease slowly eating away at her grandmother's brain.

Similar to the disease that's eating away at her. She's been hallucinating since an hour, plagued by memories, mostly of her grandmother and her parents. The period right now, the one where she's just lying on her bed, waiting for her hallucinations and the poison from the werewolf bite to just take over her, waiting to succumb to the pain because she just can't—

She can't—

That's her lucidity.

Calling her mom is hopeless. She loves her so much, so blindly, that her mother has spent the last hour just searching for a cure to werewolf venom, when in fact, there isn't one.

Well, not one that's going to be given to her anytime soon, anyway.

So Caroline waits. Waits for the poison coursing through her veins to kill her without even trying. Because what's even the damn point, when she can't even have her stupid birthday in peace without dying, again.

And the hallucinations must be reaching a point where she's nearly dead, because they're getting more and more vivid, because there's no way Klaus Mikaelson would be in her room.

She cracks open her eyes.

Oh.

There he is.

He's standing at her door, looking at her as if she's—

He doesn't care. Whatever's on his face, he just doesn't care. Live or die, Caroline Forbes, Klaus Mikaelson couldn't give a flying fuck about you. You're just a pawn in his game, something to be sacrificed. She'd been the original vampire to be killed when he was breaking his curse; she's a test subject to make sure the sire bond worked.

She's nothing. And he agrees.

So she asks, "Are you going to kill me?"

She hates that her possible last words sound so resigned. So weak, so pathetic, when she promised herself that at least her death would be prouder than how her life had been.

Caroline Forbes, born 1992, died 2009. She didn't do anything worth living in those measly seventeen years that she got. Go on, Klaus, rip her head off. It isn't like she can do anything to stop you anyway.

Klaus's eyebrows pull back, his lips parting slightly, as if he's actually surprised. "On your birthday?"

It doesn't shock her that he knows today's her birthday. He could have known her social security number and she wouldn't have been surprised. She makes no effort to show him any emotion when he continues, "Do you really think that low of me?"

She could have laughed if it weren't so pathetic. Was he kidding her? She was dying because of him and he had the audacity to ask her if she thought he was a lowlife? There had to be some amount of shame in the man, right?

Clearly not.

"Yes," she rasps out, not bothering to keep the contempt out of her voice.

Klaus doesn't say anything, moves towards her and reaches out to shift the blankets she's got covering her wound to the side. She flinches, but she's too weak to shove him away so she just lets him do it, see the weak, wounded girl he'd be killing in no matter but a few seconds.

Just get on with it, her brain screams at him.

Klaus, on the other hand, leans over just so, intelligent eyes raking over the bloody, infected bite on her neck. Caroline flinches, even the smallest touches sending stabs of agony pulsating through her body. Klaus actually makes a sympathetic noise, the asshole. "That looks bad." His eyes fly up to meet hers again, this time filled with a tiny bit of regret. Fleeting, but present. "My apologies, you're what's known as collateral damage, it's…nothing personal."

Caroline wheezes out a laugh. "Nothing personal? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Klaus doesn't say anything, and, what the hell? She's dying anyway, it's not like giving him a piece of her mind is going to do her more harm than what's going to happen to her. At least she'll die with her self-esteem still intact.

But she doesn't have the energy for that; she doesn't have any energy left at all, forget trying to berate him. So she says quietly, "Get out."

Klaus lifts an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"I thought immortal hybrids didn't have bad hearing. Get. Out."

Klaus doesn't, not like she had expected him to, anyway, instead cocks his head to the side. "So, you want to die?"

"Do you even care?" she cries, wincing when a bead of sweat drips into the wound, making it burn. "Just…please, get out, get out! I don't want to spend my last moments with the man who killed me!"

Klaus doesn't move. "Indirectly."

She laughs weakly. "Does it matter?"

It's almost as if she imagines it, but he nods fractionally, coming to sit on her bed, beside her. He reaches out to flick the bracelet on her wrist, the one that Tyler had given her what seemed like ages ago, when it was just this morning. "I love birthdays," he says quietly, with a small smile on his face.

Caroline can't help it; she scoffs. "Yeah," she sniffs, trying to get more comfortable on the bed. "Aren't you, like, a billion or something?"

Klaus smiles, something soft appearing on his face. "You have to adjust your perception of time when you become a vampire, Caroline. Celebrate the fact that you're no longer bound by trivial human conventions."

"My sincerest apologies," Caroline grits out. "Do excuse me while I lie here dying. The only trivial human convention I'll be bound by now, Klaus, is death."

Klaus appraises her. "And you're fine with that?"

She laughs. "I doubt very much that I'll be able to change your mind about saving me."

"Are you going to try?"

"Are you going to listen?"

"What makes you think I wouldn't?"

Caroline actually laughs. "Oh, I don't know. Considering I'm basically nobody and your newest lackey's girlfriend, I'm thinking I'm not that high up on your list of people you listen to."

"And yet you're unafraid," Klaus observes. "Staring at me with those eyes of yours…no one could call you intimidated by me."

"Yeah, you intimidate me, Klaus. I just don't care anymore. All that effort of staying alive through Katherine, and the tomb vampires, and—and Damon—" Caroline swallows. "And here I am, dying of a werewolf bite on my eighteenth birthday."

"I've never understood self-commiseration."

"No, don't you dare—" Caroline breaks off with a violent cough, the wound on her neck festering. The pain is killing her, but damn it, she refuses to go down without telling the person she's dying because of how little she really thinks of him. Would it matter to him? Probably not, but he deserves to hear it. Someone should tell him what a shitty person he is. "Don't you dare make this about self-pity. I am dying, Klaus. Do you get that? I'm going to stop existing. I don't pity myself. I'm telling you the facts."

Klaus stares at her, something strange in his eyes. "And yet you're not pleading with me to save you."

"I'd rather have you bite me ten more times than ask you to save me," Caroline snarls, "after everything you put me through."

"Oh, but I haven't put you through anything, love. Tyler was the one who bit you."

"Yeah, because of you and your freaky sire bond with him," Caroline growls.

"So your pride matters to you more than your survival?" Klaus sounds almost…disappointed. This causes even more anger to build up in her.

"No, my dignity matters more to me than my survival, you fucking asshole. If you were dying, and the only way to live was to beg the person who did kill you to save you, would you do it?"

Klaus stares at her silently, and she swears his eyes flash gold. When he says nothing, her anger rises. "Answer my goddamn question."

"No," he says finally. "I don't think I would. I don't have anything that important to live for. Does that mean the same for you, Caroline Forbes? Is there nothing, no one, so important in your life that you would not ask your worst enemy to save you, to ensure you could stay for them?"

Caroline vaguely registers something in the back of her mind telling her to answer yes, of course, I have Tyler, and Elena, and Bonnie—but no, she doesn't.

Not really.

The only person she would even consider this for is her mother, and that is why she hasn't told Klaus to fuck off yet. "Well, it's not like you'd save me anyway."

"Wouldn't I?" Klaus's tone is slightly amused. "Do you think I'm here for my own entertainment?"

She hates him. She hates him so, so much. The sarcasm in his tone bleeds into the slightest indifference and while Caroline shouldn't be hurt, she is. That's just how stupid she is. She wants to die with at least someone other than her mother by her side. Not her stupid boyfriend, or her friends, who've caused her more hurt than anyone, not her absent father.

"Why would I know why you're here." Caroline's voice drops. "I won't be around in an hour or so anyway."

"You sound so certain."

"You haven't given me much to form a different opinion."

Klaus's lips tilt upwards. "I'd tell you to mind your tongue, but something tells me you wouldn't listen."

"I don't have a fucking reason to. How many times do I have to tell you, I'm dying."

"And do you think I'm here to comfort you? Ease you into the trivial rite of passage all humans go through? Do you assume me to be your Grim Reaper of sorts?"

"You have," Caroline huffs out an immensely painful laugh, "such a high opinion of yourself."

Dimples. The terrible, murderous Original Hybrid has dimples. "No, I don't think that of you. I just think you're here to hold something over my mother."

Klaus actually looks impressed. "Tyler always spoke of your kindness, but never of your intelligence."

And some part of her actually hates Tyler for it, and it's like Klaus seems to know. Caroline's resolve hardens. "I don't want you here."

"I thought you wanted to live."

"You're not healing me."

"You haven't asked me to."

"Oh, I have to ask you to."

"Well, I'm not doing this out of the good will of my heart, am I?"

"I don't really care why you're doing this," Caroline says with a resigned smile. "I know it isn't out of concern, and it's either because either my mom or my friends have something over you, or you're just manipulating your way to get what you want."

Klaus observes her for a moment. "You realize it's been ten minutes since I've been here. Ten minutes closer to your death, and you haven't so much as even looked at me with anything other than scorn."

"And that bothers you?"

"Strangely, yes."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to. Which brings me back to my original question: why haven't you asked me to heal you yet?"

"I don't know!"

Caroline wants to scream at the burst of pain that comes with her outburst, and Klaus looks slightly taken aback, like her answer had surprised him. Tears leak down her cheeks, and she hates it, hates to show any sign of weakness to him. They're not tears of hopelessness, they're tears of pain.

She's hurting. And she wants it to stop.

"I don't think I have anything to live for," she admits quietly. "Not anymore."

Klaus is silent. "You're a vampire, Caroline," he says softly. "You have the whole world to live for. You're only eighteen. You have a life ahead of you. You're free."

"No," she says quietly, brokenly. "I'm dying."

There's something, something in Klaus's face she's never seen, an expression of slight wonder. He bends down and sits at the edge of her bed, his eyes unwavering from her. Caroline tilts her head back to see him properly.

"You are," Klaus says softly, "different."

There's a pause before he says the last word. "Yeah?" Caroline scoffs. "Have I exhausted your patience? Are you leaving? If you are, could you please ask my mom to come in here so I can at least die with her by my side? Or are you a hallucination?" She almost wants to reach out and touch his face to make sure he's real, that the venom hasn't taken over her entire brain. "Are you Klaus? Or am I just having this conversation with my Taylor Swift poster?"

Klaus laughs, lays a hand on her wrist, and takes it away. "I'm very real, Caroline."

The touch of him is different, rough, calloused fingers stroking the soft skin of her wrist. "Yes," she whispers, her throat raw. "I think you are."

He stares at her. "And I could let you. Die." When Caroline looks up at him with resigned eyes, he adds. "If that's what you want. If you really believe your existence has no meaning."

Caroline wheezes out a laugh. "Well, it doesn't."

Klaus doesn't move. "I'd argue against that."

"You wouldn't win."

"Try me."

"I matter to me," Caroline tells him. It's difficult to keep her eyes on him, the delirium starting to take over. "Not to anyone else. My mom, I guess. But the rest of my friends and family? They value me as much as a used tissue."

"Strange, that," Klaus says softly. "The bounds their idiocy reaches."

Yup, she's hallucinating now. Definitely.

"So, you don't."

"Don't what?"

"Believe your existence has no meaning."

"If you're asking me if I think I'm unwanted, then yeah. I do. I feel worthless."

"And because of your perception of your peers' feelings for you, you've decided that you don't deserve to exist. You want to die."

A tear rolls down her cheek. "It's better than living feeling you're useless. They don't like me. I…" she huffs out a laugh. "I don't even think I like me."

Something like moisture glistens in Klaus's eyes. They're lovely, beautiful and blue, with hints of grey. They remind her of the ocean, or the sky after a rainy day. Chaotic, and absolutely gorgeous. "I've thought about it myself." When she stares at him, too stunned to speak, he continues. "Once or twice over the centuries, truth be told."

Why is he telling her this? Is it because he's going to leave her for dead? That he wants to say something to someone, tell someone how he actually feels, but to not have the risk of them alive?

Before she can ask him, Klaus leans towards her, something on his face changing. A look of wonder, akin to the one he'd worn before, spreads through his eyes, making them light up. "But I'll let you in on a little secret."

And Caroline is…stunned. This man is…not heartless. He's not evil. He's telling her a secret, like they've known each other ages. He's so beautiful, and so terrible at the same time. He's wonderful, and mysterious, and she's absolutely enchanted.

He enchants her.

He's killed thousands of people. She has a boyfriend whom he turned into a hybrid against his will—whom she doesn't know whether she loves anymore. He made Tyler bite her. He's killed Elena's aunt.

And Caroline…Caroline wants to know him.

Klaus smiles, something enchanting in it. "There's a whole world out there waiting for you, sweetheart. Great cities, and art, and music."

"Art," Caroline echoes. "Music. Are you telling me those are things to live for?"

The smile on his face is of sadness. "Those are things to die for, my love."

Caroline's breath catches, unable to look away from his eyes. They're piercing, staring into her soul. "You are worth so much more than this sodding town, sweetheart. But you have to want to live to see it. Not just survive, merely exist, no, you have to want to live."

"I heard," Caroline gasps, the pain starting to become worse, "I heard…Paris is…is beautiful."

"There's beauty everywhere, Caroline." His eyes drift down to the bracelet around her wrist. He touches it lightly, flicks the chain like it's nothing. And Caroline thinks, she realizes it the same time he says, "Genuine beauty."

Her breath shudders. With something wet in his eyes, Klaus moves a strand of hair off her face. "And you can have all of it."

"Everything?"

"Everything," he echoes, his eyes flicking to the rapidly worsening wound on her neck. "You can have a thousand more birthdays."

Caroline sees it; living her life thousands of years after everyone she knows has died, Mystic Falls no more than a tiny footnote in the history books. Leaving her human life behind, exploring the world like Klaus tells her she's meant for. Living her life, not just surviving, like she's doing. And she can have all of it.

She's never seen this much wonder in anyone's eyes before. "All you have to do, love," Klaus whispers, "is ask."

She's seeing spots, but Caroline pushes them away, instead focusing on the man sitting on her bed, offering her a life. And she wants to say something, anything to him. She doesn't even care if it's scornful, or vindictive, or sarcastic. She wants to say something.

But she can't seem to think of anything. Caroline grits her teeth, blinks at him rapidly as tears form in her eyes, desperately trying to keep them at bay. She's dying, she's dying.

And she does not want to die.

She wants to be saved.

She wants Klaus Mikaelson to save her.

"I don't want to die," she chokes out, something catching in her throat.

Klaus smiles at her warmly, and she thinks, if this is a trick, if he's…playing with her…she'll…

Well, she'll die. And she'll die more miserably than she intended to.

But Klaus rolls up his sleeve, exposing a tanned forearm. He reaches over and carefully pulls her into his arms, placing them around her securely. He takes great care to avoid the wound on her neck, placing his wrist in front of her lips. Caroline looks at it listlessly, her energy starting to waver.

"There you go, sweetheart," Klaus rasps out, like their exchange is affecting him, like he's the one bitten. "Have at it."

She can smell his blood, and it smells absolutely divine. The veins under Caroline's eyes surface, and Klaus looks at her like she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He smooths back the hair on her face, and Caroline thinks he kisses the top of her head when she bites him.

He makes a sound, something like a groan, but it's not one of pain. Caroline drinks, rich, warm blood filling her mouth until she can't breathe, until all she can think of is blood, and living, and beauty, and Klaus.

"Happy birthday, Caroline," comes Klaus's voice, shaking her out of her stupor. The way he says it is almost tender, like he's being…affectionate.

The heaviness of the blood coupled with the strain her body has gone through, even with her vampire healing, has taken a toll on her. Klaus gently pulls her away from his wrist, smoothening her hair back again. Drops of blood cling to her lips, some of it staining her neck.

"You're absolutely stunning," Klaus breathes, laying her down on her pillows. "And meant for so much more."

Caroline can't help but stare, stare at Klaus, and his forearm, and his face, and the slowly closing wound on his wrist where she'd bitten him.

"Thank you," she whispers, because she doesn't think there's anything else she's capable of saying or thinking of at the moment.

Klaus's smile wavers, before he reaches over and tucks something into her side. "I know you hate me," he says, almost resignedly. "I probably deserve it. You're justified to."

He gets off her bed, throwing her one last look before he walks out of the room. "But I wish you didn't. Goodbye, Caroline."

When she opens her eyes the next morning, she remembers everything.

And she doesn't want to forget.

A/N: There was actually an alternate ending where Caroline woke up and didn't remember what Klaus said at the end, only remembered their exchange up to the point where she drunk his blood, but I decided to scrap that one and add this instead. Let me know which one you think is better!

Thank you for reading!