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Even once the last witch has taken her final breath, the dust clears slowly. Caroline knows it’s over since she doesn’t hurt from standing on consecrated ground anymore. She claws her way back up to standing and squints. It’s not the first time she’s stood in the middle of twelve dead witches, but that was more than a decade ago now, and she hasn’t helped with cleanup crew in a while.
“Hello?” she calls, coughing as she breathes in debris. “Anyone else need any help finding the other side?”
In her peripheral vision, a shadow shifts as a fevered whisper rises in tone, and Caroline strikes without thinking. Her chest aches as the young girl topples to the ground. Sixteen, maybe seventeen, blonde and beautiful. Her skin is fair where it isn’t smeared with blood. There’s almost a resemblance there… Looking into a distorted kind of mirror. Someone might mistake them for family, actually. Cousins, or some not so distant relation. Now she’s just the thirteenth witch to meet her end at Caroline’s hand tonight. An even baker’s dozen.
And to think – she was actually planning on relaxing over this vacation. At least the resort has a spa.
“That the last of them?”
“As far as I know.” Chest still heaving, Caroline turns and glares at Enzo. “Sorry, I was a little busy being held captive to count them all.”
They stand in silence for a long moment, listening for stray heartbeats. Just Bonnie, as far as Caroline can tell, so she shrugs off the hand Enzo rests on her shoulder. “Thanks for the backup,” she admits, grudging. She’s still pissed at being kidnapped in middle of her rest and relaxation, though, so she kicks the dutch oven in the center of the room – something dark and bloody sloshes out, thick and with a kind of rotting smell. Her nose wrinkles at the scent.
“Like the witchling would have stood by and let you be abducted without ensuring there’d be hell to pay. Shall we go see her?”
The abandoned cabin they brought her to is mostly destroyed after the fire and whatnot that Bonnie brought down on the coven. They make their way outside of the living room, stepping around broken floorboards, and Bonnie stands just outside the property line. Her eyes are glassy, and she exhales with relief when Caroline lifts a hand in greeting.
Bonnie’s hair smells like smoke when she pulls Caroline in for a desperate hug and then pushes her back, running a critical eye over her friend. “You’re good, right? You’re good.”
“I’m good!” The assurance is easy to give, bringing her in for another hug.
“I couldn’t come on the grounds, they were–”
“Consecrated against other forms of magic. I figured that once I started aching. And I’m fine. You and Enzo got me out okay.”
Enzo cracks a smile and then turns to stare at the smoldering cabin. “So, Gorgeous, been meaning to ask. Made any recent enemies?”
The structure shudders and creaks, the wood groaning before it collapses entirely. Whatever protections the witches might have cast on the grounds, they clearly didn’t care enough to reinforce the cabin. Leftover magic crackles in the air and buzzes around them, apparent enough that Caroline can tell there’s lingering spellwork. Bonnie’s handiwork, obviously, considering that she brought down a coven when she couldn’t even get close enough to physically reach them.
“Yeah,” Caroline drawls after a moment. “I started playing ding dong ditch on a few powerful witches for kicks. Figured that would go down great and all. No, Enzo, I keep to myself for the most part. You know that.” She shoves at his shoulder and scowls. The last time she decided to play supernatural politics was in Mystic Falls, and nothing good came out of it. Like she’s inclined to start messing around with that again.
A frown etches itself on Enzo’s face and then smooths out after a moment. “Right,” he agrees, and then shoots her a meaningful look. “I’d ask if your boyfriend has made any new enemies, but that feels more rhetorical than anything.”
“So not my boyfriend,” Caroline hisses as Bonnie raises her eyebrows.
“But most definitely still making enemies right and left. Unless he’s turned over a new leaf and decided to live in peace and harmony with the rest of the world. Whatever the hippies were spewing in the sixties.”
“More like smoking,” Bonnie corrects.
They fist bump as Caroline tilts her head back to watch the ash float down from the hill. This vacation was supposed to be nice – relaxing, time for her to chill out and enjoy a ski resort. Hot apple cider when she got off the slopes, hot ski instructors when she was on them, and she’d meanwhile do some catch and release hunting for blood with Enzo when they got peckish. Getting abducted so wasn’t on the agenda.
“Alright,” Bonnie decides, starting up towards the cabin, “let’s go see if we can find a spellbook and figure out what the point was.”
Enzo trots after her without a second thought, leaving Caroline shivering in the snow at the bottom of the hill. She’s of half a mind to just suggest going back to the resort and forget about the whole mess. Give her a shower and a blood bag and she’ll be good to go. Except for how she knows Bonnie so isn’t going to be able to relax, and Enzo will be on edge if Bonnie is, which means it’s time to sort through a crime scene. Getting the ash out of her hair is going to suck after this. At least she brought leave-in conditioner.
Defeated, Caroline trudges up after them, not even bothering to keep her grumbling to herself.
-x-
The warmth of the fire is delicious enough to lean into and savor, along with the fresh apple cider Enzo already called up from room service. Not exactly enough to make her totally forget about earlier, but it’s still nice. The cold has never been her favorite weather, and she’s always a snow bird over the holidays, but the ski lodge is gorgeous enough. Not to mention well-insulated. She offered to chip in for payment, mostly courtesy of all the miles and things she’s racked up from traveling the world with Klaus, but Bonnie apparently got a great deal. Who knew travel agents were still a thing in this day and age?
Caroline tucks the throw blanket around her legs and then leans over Bonnie’s shoulder to get a better look at one of the grimoires they found. It’s in Latin, which is total gibberish to her, but Bonnie calls it the building blocks of magic for a lot of covens.
“Alright, what do we have so far?”
“There’s a fair number of spells, but they don’t range far in terms of topics. A lot of physical transformation components, but there’s a wide range of use for those. Some covens get obsessed about bloodline resemblance in who the magic gets passed down to, sometimes they can be used as punishment. Could have been a vain group using those instead of botox. After the transformation stuff, there’s a good bit on memories. Mostly transference, although some bits of removal as well.” Flipping a few pages, Bonnie taps her finger thoughtfully against a new spell. “Then we’ve got the usual culprits. Revenge on a bloodline, taking power for themselves, etcetera.”
“Oh, yeah, the good stuff,” Caroline agrees. She swirls a cinnamon stick through her mug and then takes a deep drink. “Any clue about why they’d want me?”
From the other side of the fire, Enzo levels a glare at her. “Are we really going to ignore the obvious answer?”
“Again – he’s not my boyfriend,” Caroline returns, sharp. “But this stuff seems pretty direct. Bloodline revenge requires the actual bloodline, and unless I’m suddenly capable of carrying magical babies, that’s not going to happen.” Sharing a laugh helps to release some of the lingering tension. “Whatever, they’re not going to be casting anything now, so does it even matter? You said they never got to finish the spell.”
Tapping a finger against the leather cover, Bonnie sets it on the coffee table and makes a face. “Unfinished spells can sometimes have weird ramifications. No pain or anything on your end, right?”
“Not since I sent thirteen witches to hell,” Caroline agrees cheerfully. She holds out her hands as though to further her point. “You’ve already asked like five times. See? Totally fine. Now can we please make plans for what we’re doing tomorrow? I still haven’t gotten to do the diamondback yet!”
Enzo huffs a bit, and even Bonnie takes some convincing, so Caroline tops up everyone’s mug with a healthy pour of bourbon to move the night along. She’s so not up for reliving this with every probing question they throw her way.
They loosen up after a few drinks. She turns up the music and watches as Enzo helps Bonnie show off the salsa lessons they took last year, and it’s sweet to see them together. Bonnie is her oldest friend and the person in her life who deserves as much happiness as possible – especially since she’s determined to keep her lifespan mortal. Their adventures are a treat to hear about after spending her time lying low.
When she tells them as much, Enzo guffaws, waving a hand as though to emphasize how ridiculous she’s being.
“Lying low,” he echoes in wonder. “Is that what you’re calling it there days? What about those pictures and postcards with the most powerful vampires in the world?”
“Rebekah wanted someone to go with her for fashion week,” Caroline defends herself. “She bought a few pieces that didn’t fit her how she wanted, so they’re currently making themselves at home in my closet. And so what if I’ve helped Elijah with a few things they’ve needed to source? He didn’t want their name wrapped up in things. Also, I totally can’t be blamed for Kol – he blows through town every once in a while determined to raise hell, and I make sure he doesn’t burn anything down. Usually.”
There were definitely a few times where things did go up in flames, but those were more or less intentional.
Enzo stares her down in a battle of wills. “I’m waiting for you to mention the last sibling,” he hedges finally, his meaning more than obvious. Like she thought either of them might get away with just that.
There’s no more cider left, so Caroline just drinks the bourbon straight. “I’m allowed to have friends,” she defends herself with narrowed eyes.
This time it’s Bonnie who scoffs. “Yeah, sure. That’s what you and Klaus are.”
Well it’s not like there’s a better word for it, Caroline thinks with a scowl. Friends who sometimes accidentally on purpose run into each other, who go months without meeting up and then occasionally call just to chat like no time has passed. Friends with a sort of romantic eventuality headed their way even though she’s enjoying her life just fine on her own for now.
Usually, Bonnie doesn’t press the issue. She was there for the start of things, and there’s a certain don’t ask don’t tell level of understanding.
Apparently that understanding doesn’t extend to drunken interrogations.
Enzo claps his girlfriend on the shoulder after a long moment. “Big day ahead of us if we’re planning on enjoying the slopes tomorrow. We should probably get some water in you, huh? I’ll put a painkiller at the bedside in case you have a headache.”
They disband to their bedroom quickly enough, leaving Caroline to stare at the dying embers of the fire. Her skin still feels magic-tingly after the day’s events, and her stomach swoops in combination from the alcohol and the conversation they never really finished.
-x-
The rest of the ski trip goes according to plan, at least until Caroline shows up for her flight and finds the plane waiting at her terminal isn’t actually Southwest and is just a private pilot who looks at her blankly before asking, “Ms. Forbes?” and then leading her onboard.
Totally a Mikaelson move.
Her heart pounds until she catches sight of Rebekah, sitting with a glass of white wine as she flips through a screen of what must be next season’s looks. “Oh good,” she sighs when she notices Caroline, “you’re finally here.”
“Well maybe I would have been here sooner if you told me,” Caroline grouches, but it’s out of habit rather than genuine annoyance. Rebekah does things like make extravagant plans without telling anyone because it doesn’t occur to her that anyone would ever have anything better to do. And while it used to be actually annoying, now it’s just kind of funny. “I thought you were coming to New York in a few weeks?”
With a roll of her eyes, Rebekah kicks her feet up and flicks the fashion lookbook shut. “Originally, yes, but I had to go hunt for a few things, and then I just figured I’d come pick you up on my way back home. Seemed simpler and all.”
Because that’s the way Rebekah’s mind works, of course it would seem simpler to her, Caroline thinks, and then she pauses. “On your way back home?” she repeats after a moment. Because home to Rebekah only means one thing these days, and Caroline wasn’t exactly planning on going back unless she was issued an official invitation. Which wasn’t exactly looking likely given how things ended the last time she’d seen Klaus.
“Well, of course. Elijah needed me to go to Canada for some artifacts, and of course whoever packed my things couldn’t even do that correctly.” She waves a hand, unbothered. “I already ate them, but I’m still annoyed. Who sends someone up to the Great White North without so much as a coat?”
“The incompetence is startling,” Caroline murmurs, and Rebekah gives her a grateful nod.
“So now I’m heading back, artifact in tow, to have a conversation with my brother about just the sort of people he’s using for help. Like he’s plucking them off the street or something.”
The Original rolls her eyes and pulls out a compact mirror to check her makeup – she wipes a thumb by the corner of her lips, either to correct where her lipstick has feathered or else to remove a lingering drop of blood from lunch. Rebekah is always the picture of put together, but she can be unpredictable at times, and Caroline knows if she tries to leave the plane before takeoff she’ll wind up with a broken neck and slumped over. Looks like New Orleans is in her future a bit earlier than expected.
Accepting her fate with some small measure of grace, Caroline takes a seat and sips at a glass of wine as they taxi to the runway. “What artifact?” she queries, although who knows if Elijah even told his siter why he wanted the thing. “Bonnie is still at the hotel for a few days, she could look things over if you wanted.”
She regrets the offer the second she’s made it, because Bonnie has always been vocal about wanting no further contact with the Originals, and Klaus once disemboweled Enzo for daring to call Caroline ‘Gorgeous’ in front of him. Not exactly the way she’d wanted her dinner party to come to a close, but bygones are bygones. They’re all hopefully going to live long enough to forgive everyone one day, so she’s stopped trying to force get togethers.
Rebekah shakes her head and dismisses the idea quickly, thankfully uninterested in getting the opinion of the last of the Bennett line on whatever bit of magical mayhem her family is currently entangled in. “We have a witch at home for this sort of thing. No need to bother your friend and her companion. Sit back, have a drink with me, and tell me what you think of this line.”
While they were determined to hate each other in Mystic Falls, Rebekah is someone Caroline has come to call a friend. In a strange way, of course, because there’s nothing normal about Rebekah, but one day Rebekah decided Caroline was here to stay. They’ve more or less stopped fighting since.
“Hideous neckline,” Caroline can’t help but answer when she gets a look at the image on the tablet.
With pursed lips, Rebekah glowers. “I designed it,” she hisses.
Well, they’ve at least stopped fighting about whether either of them needs to die. So that’s really most things solved right there.
And while Rebekah’s ire isn’t worth the trouble, Caroline nevertheless finds herself poking at the image until the straps are repositioned and not as much cleavage is on display. “I think when the hemline, you don’t need to show so much – what about this?”
The engine rumbles beneath them as Rebekah considers, her scarlet nails tapping with urgency. Her scowl settles into a mask of displeasure when she shrugs. “I suppose it’s not so bad.”
Which is as close to admitting Caroline is right as she’s ever going to get. In the decade they’ve known each other, Caroline has learned to pick her battles, so she takes a drink and turns to the window to watch as they rise through the clouds.
“Out of curiosity,” she begins, purposefully nonchalant but her pulse is a dead giveaway, “does your brother know I’m coming?”
“Well I had Elijah arrange the stopover here to pick you up, so of course he knows.” With a fanged smile, Rebekah pulls out a nail file and arches a brow. “Or was there another brother of mine you might be interested in? Kol is picking up a few herbs from the Amazon and should land around the same time we do.”
They sit in stilted silence until Caroline figures that she’s going to have to deal with this anyway, but Rebekah apparently takes pity on her, sharpening her nails into points designed to draw blood as she comments offhand and with a coy look, “As for Nik? No idea. Figured you might be able to work him out of whatever mood he’s in, though.”
And that’s what Caroline was afraid of.
Her stomach sinks as they continue their assent, and then the captain cheerfully reports over the sound system how long she has to drink herself into a coma before they arrive in New Orleans. Rebekah’s watchful eyes track her, though, so she doesn’t down every bottle of top-shelf liquor available, and instead resigns herself to the awkwardness. She takes her phone out after a second thought, though, and taps out a quick message. At least this way they’ll both have to suffer with knowing what’s coming.
-x-
Caroline [4:31 pm]:
Your sister kidnapped me and is bringing me to New Orleans.
Only the second time I’ve been taken hostage this week!
At least this one involves a private plane and no blindfold.
Caroline [5:12 pm]:
I wasn’t joking, btw.
About either your sister or about being kidnapped earlier this week.
In case you even care.
Caroline [5:54 pm]:
I’m fine.
Ski trip to Winnipeg was just more eventful than planned.
Caroline [6:29 pm]:
We’re going to land in two hours.
If you could text me back, that’d be great!
Caroline [6:41 pm]:
Or not.
That would apparently work just fine too.
Whatever.
See you soon.
Caroline [7:55 pm]:
I was waiting on you to be the bigger person but fine – I’m sorry.
Things were weird and the future freaks me out and I said some things I regret.
I’m sorry.
I guess we can talk about it later.
Caroline [8:15 pm]:
When I said I didn’t want to do this anymore…
I wasn’t talking about you.
Is a fresh start too much to ask for?
-x-
Two Mikaelson brothers are waiting on the tarmac when they land – Elijah and Kol, no Klaus to be seen. Elijah hugs Rebekah and then shakes Caroline’s hand like they’re old business partners. Kol, on the other hand, pulls Rebekah into a headlock while she shrieks about him ruining her hair, and then after she’s attacked him and everything has healed, he reels Caroline in for a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“Well,” Elijah says, deadpan as he gets a hand on the back of Kol’s neck.
“I didn’t do anything,” Kol protests.
Rebekah stares mournfully at her leather boots. “I just had these cleaned, you psychopath – now there’s blood all over them. They’re going to have to re-dye them!”
“We’ll send them to the cobbler,” Elijah decides with a wave of his hand, and then he shoots his sister an inscrutable look. “Where is it, Rebekah?”
Caroline perks up a tad, eager to get a look at whatever magical piece of mystery Rebekah was sent to hunt down in the wilds of Canada. She’s expecting a locked trunk to be loaded off the plane, something weighed down with chains that rattle ominously. Maybe a crowbar unpacked to open things up, but instead Rebekah just pulls something out of her purse pocket and holds it out for inspection.
The twig has three leaves growing out, identical in shape and size. Maybe Bonnie would be able to say what kind of plant it is, but as far as Caroline knows it’s just something she could find on any hike.
“Not as powerful as one planted under the full moon,” Rebekah tells Elijah, a familiar know-it-all tone coloring her voice.
“We’re just looking at initial testing at the moment.”
Apparently the twig is good enough for Elijah, as he tucks it in his breast pocket and then turns to the car, leaving Rebekah and Kol behind to bicker like the maladjusted siblings they are. Caroline picks up her speed to fall in step with him and hopefully out of range of the bloodshed that’s sure to follow, unable to keep from asking, “So what’s all this about?”
“The other side,” Elijah sighs wearily.
Now that’s interesting. Her ears perk up, and she hums lightly. “Sounds like someone might benefit from a Bennett witch. Luckily, I know just the gal.”
“Ms. Bennett has made it increasingly clear that she will have nothing to do with our family unless it’s paramount to your safety. I’ve decided it’s best not to bother her for now.”
Whether Bonnie will be receiving a second request after they’ve gotten proof of concept is something Elijah doesn’t elaborate on, but Caroline knows how he bides his time and hoards his favors. She might have to make a call. Enzo will be pissed of course, but only because he refuses to let Bonnie deal with the Originals on her own, or even with just Caroline as backup. Something about a family of vipers not being trustworthy. She tuned out the last time he tried to get her to change sides.
“Who are you trying to reach? Anyone I know?” Thinking it over, no one immediately comes to mind. There’s a whole host of reasons they might be interested in bringing back a spirit, whether it’s someone lost unintentionally or perhaps just someone Elijah feels needs to be punished further in the mortal realm before being allowed to pass on.
He holds open the passenger side door of a black SUV for her, a short pause as he evaluates whether or not the family secrets are safe with her. Evidently, she passes the test, as he doesn’t try to change the subject.
“You would have crossed paths with her at one point. We’re looking to resurrect Finn’s paramour, Sage.”
She stops in her tracks, unable to move once the words sink in. Her heart is beating in triple time, and there’s not enough air – even though they’re outside, even though her body doesn’t actually need to breathe. Suddenly, she’s suffocating, seventeen with a pillow pressed against her face, eternity at the door but she has no idea what’s coming.
“Caroline?” Rebekah prompts.
A hesitant hand lands on her shoulder.
“Resurrection?” Caroline asks at last, the word coming out garbled.
Elijah blinks at her. “For Finn, of course,” he confirms, which doesn’t make any sense at all, except then Caroline looks up and sees the man in the driver’s seat is the eldest of the Original siblings, and the last Caroline saw of him was his still corpse as she covered it in a sheet.
From far away, Rebekah queries, “Didn’t Nik tell you?”
Well, maybe he would have if they were actually speaking, but no, Klaus very much did not tell Caroline that his brother was back from the dead. The last time they saw each other, he was getting increasingly agitated about calls and said there was something big coming, but other than that he was tight-lipped. It didn’t help that Caroline wasn’t exactly forthcoming with her own things, so she hadn’t pressed. Figured it was one of the usual suspects for that sort of thing – a new push for hybrids or whatnot, maybe he’d found Katherine again and was chasing her around for kicks.
“No,” Caroline squeaks at last, and then belatedly raises a hand to give a small wave. “Hi.”
Quirking an eyebrow as he takes them in, Finn says at last, stiff and overly formal, “Pleased to meet you.”
-x-
The ride through New Orleans is uncomfortable, to say the least. Kol is either the sibling with the most emotional intelligence, or else he’s just the one with the least tact. Maybe both, because Caroline has only just buckled her seatbelt when he leans forward to ask, “So, talked with Nik lately?”
“Kol,” Elijah says, but he doesn’t even bother to look up from his phone’s keyboard. Undoubtedly making some sort of preparations now that everyone has returned home. Or maybe he’s just setting up a guest room since it’s now probably obvious that Caroline won’t be sharing with Klaus.
“What? A man can’t ask his brother’s flame if the spark is still alive?”
Caroline deeply regrets actually befriending Kol at one point, because now all she wants to do is dig her thumbs into his eyeballs until they pop like grapes, except for if she does that he’ll probably never teach her how to skip a lane while bowling and still get a strike. Or how to drink a flaming cocktail without flinching. She crosses her arms and stares straight ahead, determined to ignore him.
“Kol,” Elijah repeats once more, a warning.
Next to her, Rebekah wiggles in her seat and pulls out her phone. “Kol – speaking of Nik, have you been playing pranks on him? He’s claimed you’ve added a contact in his phone. I hope he throws you off the balcony for it.”
“May I remind you both that we only just finished remodeling the courtyard from the latest bit of destruction?” Even so, there’s no actual threat behind Elijah’s words, just the weariness only acquired from putting up with family for more than a thousand years. Always the beleaguered eldest brother. Or, second eldest now, what with Finn back and all.
For all the years he spent daggered and actually dead, Finn isn’t a bad driver. He uses his turn signal and doesn’t lay on the horn just because another car happens to exist in the same lane, and he even turns to check his blind spot before making a turn. Actually, he’s probably the only Original who’s bothered to take a driving test this century.
Her observations clearly aren’t as stealthy as expected, because when she goes to shoot a covert glance while they’re stopped at a red light, Finn meets her gaze directly. “And Rebekah brought you here…” he prompts, almost bored with having to ask.
“I’m a friend! Of the family,” she adds after a moment, and Kol starts to laugh so hard that she hopes he chokes.
“We all became acquainted with Ms. Forbes in Mystic Falls when Niklaus broke his curse,” Elijah elaborates. “She knew the doppelganger.”
“Tatia,” Finn recalls.
“This century’s incarnation is named Elena,” Caroline can’t help but correct. She doesn’t very helpfully add that Elena is one of the ones who helped killed him so he might as well remember, because she does have some form of self-preservation. “Yeah, so we’re all old friends now. Or at least I’ve agreed to continue putting up with them for some odd reason.”
Again, Kol keeps giggling, and Elijah only sighs. Rebekah leans forward to recount their last trip to Europe over Paris’s fashion week, promising Finn the next time she goes he needs to come with so she can bring him to all her favorite places. “You’ll love Europe. So cosmopolitan – and much cleaner from the last time you saw it. Vampire bars and witch clubs in the catacombs,” she sighs dreamily, and that prompts Kol to launch into his diatribe about his apparent hatred of Paris. Something about guillotines and kings and mistaken identities, announcing vehemently, “I don’t care how delicious their fries are!”
Unable to keep from interjecting, Caroline informs him, “French fries are actually American, I’m pretty sure. Same with French toast.” She fidgets, checking her phone for the thousandth time before stuffing it back into her purse with a scowl.
No new messages, and they’re not even fifteen minutes out from the compound the Mikaelsons call home. Which means she could show up and surprise Klaus in person, and then they’re going to have to have it out in front of his whole family including his newly undead brother she’s basically never met before. So, really, why bother trying to make a good first impression now?
Instead, though, there’s no one to greet them at the compound other than whatever vampires are trying to ingratiate themselves with the family. One of them takes Caroline’s bag and whisks it off to somewhere – hopefully a guest room, because she doesn’t want to go through the hassle of moving it to one herself later. Another offers up drinks, champagne glasses filled with blood and alcohol, and one simply approaches Elijah with an outstretched hand to accept the twig Rebekah secured.
“Well?” Finn demands after a moment.
“Hm,” the woman murmurs. Probably the witch they’re working with for this, and she’s probably only got a handful of strength compared to Bonnie, but she’s still got enough magic to give Caroline an aneurysm if she catches wind of that thought.
With that in mind, Caroline keeps quiet as she takes a drink and follows Rebekah into a library off the main courtyard.
Collapsing into a chaise, Rebekah raises her glass in a toast. “To not having to make that trip again. Or to Sage and Finn’s eternal happiness, fucking whatever that means.” With a scowl, she takes a drink and then sits up a bit further. “Are you certain Nik didn’t tell you?”
“That you were looking to resurrect a vampire? Yeah, no, because that’s something I would have remembered.” Caroline can’t imagine a world where the implications of that wouldn’t have hit her like a ton of bricks – resurrection. Life beyond the veil. Beyond whatever comes next. She takes a hasty swallow to cover her discomfort. “And he didn’t exactly mention your brother either. How long has that been happening for?”
“Two months – nearly three, really,” Rebekah says offhand. “It’s weird that he wouldn’t have told you.”
Well, there’s the answer.
It’s not that Klaus was hiding anything – it’s just that it’s been three months since their last disastrous meeting.
The idea of Finn being up and walking isn’t so ridiculous – Kol came back after all, and it’s fitting for nature to want to reclaim that piece of magic without allowing it to linger on the other side. There were family politics to resolve with Kol, and Klaus always talked vaguely of Finn as though his death was only a slightly more serious form of daggering, no more permanent than any other punishment he might inflict on a sibling.
“We haven’t caught up recently,” Caroline tells her, shrugging. “He’s been busy, I’m sure. What with Finn and now with trying to get Sage back. Probably requires a bit of attention.”
“Sure, at first. But then a few days ago Klaus decided he wasn’t interested in helping with the Sage plan, so now Elijah’s been manning that one on his own. We’re helping of course, but Finn’s hardly good for anything other than moral support since he doesn’t have any pertinent connections in the modern era, and I mostly get sent on errands. Kol is helping, too. That is, when he isn’t distracting whatever witches are under Elijah’s employment. I think this one is number five? The one that brought Finn back died since he immediately drained her when he came back. Totally inconvenient if you ask me, I think we’d have gotten Sage back weeks ago if she’d stuck around.” Tapping her empty glass with her sharpened nail, Rebekah dangles it out as a vampire dashes into the room to replace it with a fresh one. “Anyway, they’re still somewhat new developments. Just surprising you hadn’t already heard.”
“I’m busy, too, you know.”
“With what? Skiing with your best friend and her pet vampire? Dancing at the supernatural clubs I showed you in New York? Unless you’ve decided arson is your favorite hobby since Kol introduced you to a Molotov cocktail, I doubt that’s how you’re filling your time.”
“I have hobbies – Bonnie’s teaching me how to read Latin,” she lies after a moment. Well, she’s always meant to ask Bonnie to teach her, just never gotten around to it. “And I was thinking of getting a cat.”
Rebekah stares her down, unflinching. “Of course,” she muses, generously willing to prevent Caroline from embarrassing herself further. “And you’ve been traveling, too, I take it?”
“Duh.” Taking another hasty sip only to find she’s drained the glass entirely, Caroline sets it on an end table, probably for it to wait for a vampire ingratiating themselves to the family to whisk it away for cleaning. Or maybe it’ll just get tossed into the trash to be replaced by whatever new fashions Rebekah’s currently amused by.
And Caroline has been busy. She’s been busy driving herself crazy for the last three months, running away from her problems and checking her cell phone for messages she might have not seen come through. Spent a few nights working up the courage to call, and then a few more waiting for the phone to ring. And then she reminded herself she’s a badass vampire and she’s never needed to wait around for anyone, no matter who they are, so she spent some time trying and failing to forget.
She stifles a yawn and prays her acting abilities are passable, or maybe that she at least seems pathetic enough for Rebekah to give her another pass. “It’s getting kind of late. I think I’m going to head to bed.”
Swirling the remains in her own glass, Rebekah turns to check the grandfather clock in the corner. “They put you down the hall, second door to the right. You can move your things, of course. Nik should be back anytime now.”
“Thanks,” Caroline tells her, smiling before she makes her exit.
Down the hall, second door to the right.
Since Klaus clearly hasn’t felt the need to respond to any of her texts, there’s no reason to harbor any hopes of kissing and making up. And every room in the Abattoir is outfitted with a walk-in closet and an ensuite (probably Rebekah’s doing in a recent remodel, because historical accuracy can only be ignored when it comes to comfort), so it’s not like she’s slumming it in a guest bedroom. After taking a quick shower and checking her phone for messages one last desperate and hopeful time, she turns the fan on and slips under the covers.
-x-
She wakes up to fighting. Most mornings in New Orleans probably start like this, because the Mikaelsons aren’t the kind of family to hold their tongues. Even so, Caroline didn’t expect to hear shouting first thing in the morning.
Pulling her pillow over her head only works for so long, so even though it’s unbearably early and probably barely daybreak, she heads to the shower and starts thinking about what in her suitcase from her Winnipeg trip might also be suitable to wear in the heat and thick southern humidity. The only thing that comes to mind is a turtleneck, but at least it’s sleeveless. She can ask Rebekah to show her around to the best boutiques later.
Before she gets out of bed, though, she checks her phone and resists the urge to throw it across the room. No new messages. This is so the last time she’s ever trying to be the bigger person.
“You,” Rebekah howls, “are the worst!”
Something shatters, and Caroline closes her eyes to briefly daydream about how she could slip out the window and be back in New York in a few hours. Rebekah would be mortally offended, though, and not to mention she’d never to sneak out in a house filled with Original vampires, so she’d probably just end up getting found out and then sitting uncomfortably through breakfast.
Might as well face the music now.
Rebekah has tears streaming down her face at one end of the table as she reaches for a crystal goblet, her knuckles going white around the stem. “No one needs to allow me to be my own person! I am one, and you’ve always hated me for it!” With that, the goblet goes flying across the table towards Klaus, who steps neatly out of the way without so much as blinking.
Rebekah turns on her heel to embark on yet another dramatic storm off, pausing only long enough to lock eyes with Caroline meaningfully.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she whispers after a moment. They’re friends, but she and Rebekah are there for the good times. New clubs, fun drinks, fashion show, and gossiping at the latest developments in the supernatural world. Actual comfort is an activity they’ve never attempted before.
The question manages to surprise Rebekah. Her face does something strange before she shakes her head vigorously and then points a damning finger towards her brother. “Do something about him,” she snarls, and then rips the heart from the vampire who arrives to sweep the shards away.
Rebekah’s heels echo on the stone floor as she stalks out of the compound, and meanwhile Klaus just lets out a long-suffering sigh as he reaches for a croissant and the butter knife. When he finally looks over, there’s no trace of the confrontation Caroline spent all night preparing for. Just the usual exasperation that’s been teased out by a sibling. His eyes catch on her and don’t flash with irritation or apology as he takes her in – instead, there’s a familiar heat to his gaze.
“I would apologize for my sister’s dramatics, but then I’m afraid I’d never do anything else,” he comments after a moment. “I’m Klaus. Would you care to join me?”
A beat passes before she catches his intentions, and then she abandons any thought of what might have Rebekah so upset. While this isn’t quite what she had in mind when she asked for a fresh start, she’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“I’d love to. I’m Caroline,” she tells him. Her secretive smile can’t be helped. She takes the seat Rebekah vacated, filling one of the glasses left intact with orange juice, and then nibbles on a piece of toast without bothering to hide how she’s looking at him. Of course this truce is temporary, but it’s still unexpectedly nice to not have to worry about how to handle the bomb their relationship has become while surrounded by the Mikaelson family. They’ll have plenty of time to diffuse things later. Preferably somewhere private.
“Care to tell me what brings you to New Orleans, Caroline?”
“Oh, you know. Your sister picked me up on her way home, so I figured I could stick around for a little while. Kind of a shock to realize you guys have jumped from bringing back the unkillable members to your family to just anyone.” She grins, but the idea of resurrection has been sitting uncomfortably with her since Elijah mentioned it yesterday. She hasn’t shot off any texts to Bonnie yet, but mostly because she wants to hear what Elijah’s witch thinks about the artifacts Rebekah and Kol brought back.
Klaus raises his eyes to the ceiling and then raises his hands to signal his innocence in the matter. “That little plot has nothing to do with me, I assure you. My brother apparently finds life difficult to adjust to without his beloved,” he says derisively.
From the limited information she has about Finn, she can only figure he’s right. Why else would the family be going out of their way to do something so outlandish? All the loss they must have experienced over the years, and this is the first they’ve ever attempted to reach to the other side for someone outside their own bloodline. Because the idea that just anyone with a connection to the supernatural could be pulled free… The consequences of that are startling.
“I think it’s sweet,” she counters, keeping things light. “To love someone that much, and to know they’re the only one.”
“Sweet? Perhaps. To me, the devotion only seems outlandishly foolish.”
“You really think that? Come on, you’re a romantic at heart, admit it.”
When his gaze meets her own, there’s no playfulness she might have expected, no teasing hint to his expression. Just a flat glance – like she’s anyone else, like they haven’t spent a decade dancing around each other, like he never called her his last love and meant it. Her heart squeezes in her chest when he says, “Whatever rumors you might have heard, I can assure you that my interest in companionship is a fickle thing.”
His words land just as she’s lifting the glass to her mouth. It’s at least the third piece of crystal to shatter at the table today, tumbling out of her hand and spilling orange juice across the mahogany table.
He arches an eyebrow at the obvious display of carelessness, but doesn’t say anything more.
Footsteps echo down a stone hallway, but suddenly Caroline can think of nothing more important than putting aside whatever game they’ve been playing at. “That’s too far,” she manages, halting but forcing herself to press forward even so. “I appreciate you not wanting to get into things with your family around, but I don’t want to sit across from you and pretend we don’t know each other. Okay?”
And his eyes don’t show a flash of recognition when he deadpans, “Pretend?”
“Klaus, I’m being serious.”
“And I can assure you, I’m not pretending anything. Have we met before then?” His smile turns lascivious as he looks at her and announces, “I don’t think you’re someone I’d forget.”
Shoving away from the table and knocking a few plates down in the process, she hisses at him, “Stop it!”
The footsteps come to a pause in the doorway, and Caroline is going to actually start breaking things on purpose if Elijah tells them to calm down in that overly pretentious tone he uses, but instead Kol just saunters in and grabs a pastry from the center tray. “Lover’s quarrel?” he asks, not bothering to smother his grin.
“Fuck off,” Caroline snaps without breaking eye contact.
“I’d have come sooner if I knew this meal came with a show,” Kol continues, completely indifferent.
Actually acknowledging Kol is only going to draw things out, so she refrains from flicking a spoon at his face and keeps her focus centered on Klaus. “I understand why you’re uncomfortable, but this isn’t something we can just ignore and move past. So let’s get it all out in the open – I freaked out, and I’m sorry. Can we start there? Can’t we just move forward?”
When Klaus breaks the silence, there’s nothing lighthearted in his tone as he says, “You sound entirely sincere, sweetheart, and I’d almost like to believe you. Yet I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He moves in a flash, and Caroline clutches at where his arm presses down on her throat, fighting for air on instinct alone. Her pulse skyrockets as fingers scrape against the left side of her side. He’s gone just as suddenly, leaving her gasping while Kol holds his brother on the floor, Kol shoving Klaus against the stone and bellowing, “Elijah!”
Two brothers against one makes for a fairer fight. Caroline watches them, dazed and disoriented, unable to blink away the image of how indifferent Klaus looked as he reached for her heart.
-x-
Rebekah is far enough away from the Abattoir to be out of hearing range during the shouting, so Elijah leaves her a voicemail with strict instructions for her to return posthaste. Posthaste, he says, actually using the word, like falling back on SAT words of the day is going to accomplish anything.
“What happened?” he asks for the third time in a row.
Once again, Caroline recites breakfast with Klaus. Rebekah’s storm out, playing at introducing themselves, and then Klaus’s failing memory. “I didn’t think it was weird,” she defends herself, “because I’d asked for a fresh start. If I was tagging along with Rebekah, I didn’t want things to be uncomfortable. So I thought he was going along with it – at first.”
“He attacked her, ‘Lijah,” Kol says, serious in a way he never is. “The kind of thing we’ve seen dozens of times, sure, but not–”
“–not at Caroline,” Elijah finishes.
They’re briefly interrupted by a loud thumping below them, because apparently one of the features of a recent renovation included dungeons. Dungeons which Elijah had fitted to be able to hold an Original. Even, it seems, the Original hybrid. Klaus howls obscenities at his brothers for the indignity and offers his incandescent rage for all to hear. The dungeons didn’t include soundproofing, as it turns out.
“I thought he was acting.” Caroline doesn’t know whether she’s requesting forgiveness or making an excuse. “Because why else would he, I don’t know, forget me? Like actually forget me. Did he get Eternal Sunshine’d? Did he get me wiped and no one told me? When did this happen?” she demands, because it’s not like anything else makes sense.
The reference goes over everyone’s head. Kol and Finn were daggered when the movie was popular, and apparently Elijah had better things to do than sit around watching a romcom that was really neither rom nor com in the end.
Her head in her hands, she looks at Elijah and wonders aloud, “Does he have to be locked up?”
“We cannot be sure at what level Niklaus’s memory has been tampered with,” he answers dispassionately. “Until we can be certain he isn’t a danger to anyone here, he’ll remain where he is.”
From the corner, Finn finally speaks. “And is Niklaus’s predicament with his beloved to take precedence over my own?”
“Um.” The word ‘beloved’ isn’t exactly the first that comes to mind when Caroline thinks of what she is to Klaus, but she doubts the correction would be appreciated. Probably something Klaus can inform his brothers about. Once he, you know, actually remembers who she is.
“Considering neither of them are dead, it’s probably an easier problem to solve,” Kol snaps. “And if you don’t like that answer, feel free to fuck off while we handle this. Because you might not have been around the first time, but I’m not dealing with Nik being cursed and out of his mind again. Now go read a newspaper, or learn how the telephone works, or whatever you do to keep up with mortals nowadays.”
Elijah sighs as Finn glowers at them over his shoulder while he heads out, nearly running into Rebekah.
“Nik’s cursed?” she demands, out of breath.
“Probably,” Kol tells her.
“We don’t know,” Elijah answers at the same time.
In a move that might have allowed for some clarity if they’d thought of it before Finn left, Rebekah stalks across the room and uncaps a bottle of bourbon. She pours out four generous glasses. Hanging them out, she stares at Elijah and announces, “He’s been an ass recently, but I don’t think he’s cursed.”
Klaus shouts something uncomplimentary below them that has Caroline taking a grateful swallow of her drink without savoring it. It’s noon now, barely, and that’s just going to have to be good enough for her to start drinking. It’s not every day a girl wakes up to find that the one guy she’s ever actually seen a future with has forgotten her completely. On that thought, she empties the glass and reaches for the bottle.
Returning Rebekah’s look, Elijah informs her of the morning’s events.
Caroline presses the palms of her hands to her eyes and tries to forget. The bland pleasantness, the minor intrigue not backed by any genuine affection, the searing indifference in Klaus’s eyes as he held her by the throat. It’s been a long time since she’s had nightmares, longer still since Klaus appeared in any. The terror of the supernatural world, and yet to her he’s only served as a reassurance against the other monsters that go bump in the night. Her insides churn. Or maybe that’s a reaction to alcohol on an empty stomach. It’s not like she was hungry by the time she got up from the breakfast table.
Scowling, Rebekah stares them down and then admits, “Well, I suppose this is more important than my manicure.”
-x-
The Abattoir is filled with libraries. The one Caroline’s found herself in on the third floor happens to be filled with a fair number of magical artifacts and books documenting their uses. Books on the arts can be found in Klaus’s personal study, and there are some spread on the ground floor. There’s probably a difference in subject matter, but at this point she doesn’t believe that any of them will actually be useful. Being up on her feet makes her feel better than doing absolutely nothing, though, so Caroline pulls a stack of books on curses and gets a lamp set up.
A kerosene lamp, because the family takes period-accurate light fixtures very seriously. Like they didn’t actually get electric installed straight away once the technology was available.
She’s midway though a witch’s journal, lamenting her lost love and practicing spells she might be able to use to get him back, when Kol snatches the volume out of her hands.
“Ah, Evangeline,” he remembers with a found smile, catching sight of the sign-off. “Firey woman, she was, and knew her way around a cauldron. And a dance floor, not that you asked. Unless you’re looking for love spells or the best ingredients to keep wrinkles at bay, you’re way off base. Whatever was used on Nik was stronger than something that would have needed a lock of hair or a ribbon they’d worn around their neck. My bet is human sacrifice.”
“What a lovely image,” Caroline grouses, though she doesn’t reach for Kol’s ex-girlfriend’s diary again. This time, it’s a tome that looks like more of a textbook. Power Through Blood, the title reads, and she flips to see a table of contents far more organized than anything she could have hoped for.
“Believe me, Nik won’t be taken down by anything he doesn’t seem worthy. This is a bump in the road, so the speak. And speaking of bumps in the road…” He flips through the journal leisurely, seeming satisfied with drawing things out as long as he pleases.
“What?”
“Finn killed the witch. Who was, yes, supposed to be helping with Sage, but Elijah was going to repurpose her until Nik was himself again, so Finn decided he’d through a wrench in things. Not the end of the world, but certainly an inconvenience. So Elijah sent me up here to ask you to call up your witch friend.”
In all likelihood, probably something Caroline should have thought of earlier. And she probably would have, if she hadn’t been so worried about pouring over countless unhelpful pieces of reference material.
“I’ll call Bonnie,” she agrees, because it’s not like she trusts anyone else to go routing around in Klaus’s mind. He might be annoyed at her call once he’s back to normal, but hopefully he’ll be able to see why it was necessary once Bonnie figures things out.
Kol’s face lights up in a grin. “Please do tell her I’m particularly excited to make her acquaintance, won’t you?”
“There will be no adding a Bennett witch to the notches in your bedpost, got it? Who knows what’s even happened with Klaus, so she’ll be visiting in a professional capacity.”
He grins and turns to rifle through one of the shelves next to him, finally plopping a new leather-bound volume on the table with a cat-got-the-canary grin. “That’s one notch that’s already been taken care. I believe your witch’s great-great-something grandmother would be responsible for that. And besides, we already know Nik is fine.”
She hits him on instinct. “Start with that!”
“Elijah and I did some investigating. Nik’s memory seems entirely unaffected except for where your existence is concerned. We don’t know if the memories will continue to erode beyond you, but for now you’re the only casualty.”
“Lucky me,” Caroline grumbles. She tucks her feet under herself and rests her head against the back of the chair.
Next to her, Kol hovers, unsure of whether to grab a book and camp out or perhaps to turn in for the night. Too early to go to bed, but at least he could be up making mischief somewhere else. At last, he positions himself in the armchair across from hers and motions to the stack of books she’s acquired in her search. “Cheer up – quite a number of beings pray to be forgotten by this family. The number of witches we’ve made mortal enemies of,” he tuts in amusement.
She arches an eyebrow at the word ‘mortal’, but Kol doesn’t look the slightest bit abashed.
“Mortal for them, you see,” he corrects.
Now that’s believable. She’s midway through a page on which magical conduits are the best for their intended purposes – iron for revenge – when she remembers the old, rusted Dutch oven on the cabin floor. Something makes her pauses, because she should have thought of this before.
“Kol,” she starts, heart pounding. He glances up from whatever volume he’s already found, barely glancing at the text as he casually dog-ears a page that’s at least a century old. “If it’s just me… What if, however it happened, they went through me?”
He rolls his eyes and then stares at the ceiling for a long moment. “And here I was looking forward to the mystery. Or least to Nik getting to spend a few weeks haunting the house like Rochester’s wife, and maybe if we burned the whole place down we’d actually try again with something more up to date.” And then, moving on before Caroline can even reckon with the fact he’s read Charlotte Bronte, he claps his hands. “Ah, well. Let’s summon the siblings again, shall we?”
-x-
In the morning, Caroline doesn’t so much wake up as she decides she’s spent long enough trying to get back to sleep. She caught a few hours here and there, but most of the night involved tossing and turning as her stomach churned.
The Abattoir is quiet in the early hours. Rebekah sleeps late, Kol stalked off somewhere in the night and has yet to return, and Elijah is probably off running errands. She hasn’t seen Finn since he stormed out yesterday, and Klaus is still trapped in the basement. Dungeon, more realistically. Supposedly he’s more tranquil now that he knows they have a lead.
Part of her wants to see him – only, she doesn’t want to him like yesterday. A veneer of cold politeness, humoring someone he didn’t know. The interest he showed was shallow at best. Whatever comfort she might need from the visit would surely be wanting. She’d come out worse than she is now. And, despite how she hasn’t looked in a mirror this morning, she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t be winning Miss Mystic Falls today.
Coffee percolates slowly through the fancy drip contraption and fills the kitchen with a heady scent. Klaus’s purchase, no doubt, because Elijah and Rebekah prefer tea, and Caroline has seen Kol drink gas station sludge without a care in the world. Caroline didn’t used to mind what form her caffeine came in so long as she had it in her, but that was before they visited Turkey and Klaus insisted on showing her the difference using a cezve made. Since then she’s been more selective – the American coffee pods are ash to her taste buds.
The memory of one of their last vacations is enough to make her sit down. Klaus put up with her playing Istanbul (Not Constantinople) when they entered the city, although he’d neatly managed to delete the song from her queue for all subsequent plays. They’d explored museums and markets in the daylight. The nights were made for diving into the supernatural underworld. She’d loaded tapestries and pieces of pottery on the flight back home.
When she opened the crate in her apartment, there had been a jewelry box resting at the top. A thin gold chain with a brilliant topaz pendant, and a note in pristine parchment rested on the velvet.
Until next time.
Next time had ended in veritable disaster, though, so Caroline tries not to dwell.
Checking her texts shows that Bonnie and Enzo are up and preparing to board the flight Elijah chartered for them, so they should arrive in a few hours. Elena has sent a picture of her, Damon, and Stefan in the Mystic Fall town square. They’re grinning, and Damon has Stefan in a headlock. Elena sends her love and a note that she should visit soon.
A few years ago, Caroline would have seen the photo and felt like she was missing out. Now, though, there’s just the fond remembrance of time spent together. She’ll probably go home for the holidays, putter around New York and go window shopping with friends, and then over to Mystic Falls and the Salvatore house for Christmas. Assuming all of this is actually wrapped up in a few weeks, of course. Just picturing a family meal with the Mikaelsons gives her a migraine.
The coffee is done, so she makes quick work of adding two sugars and a healthy splash of cream to one mug, the smallest dash of sugar to the other. And then she stands in front of both mugs before shaking her head and coming back to herself, lifting the one with just sugar and taking it to the sink to pour out.
“You do know me,” Klaus considers from the doorway.
She jumps and hisses as the steaming liquid splashes over the lip and onto her hands, setting it on the counter and shaking off as her skin heals over the burns. “Yeah,” she mumbles as she reaches for a dish towel. “Kind of tried to tell you that before.”
Klaus accepts the coffee when she passes it over, looking between her and the mug for a long moment before his gaze settles unerringly on her neck.
She feels at her throat, realizing why it caught his attention as she spins the wooden beads between her fingers. The necklace used to be one of the many worn around his own neck. “You gave me this. I didn’t steal it in the middle of the night. Now, stop sniffing for magic or poison or whatever – it’s coffee. I’ve passed on the opportunity to kill you before, so let’s just assume I’m sticking with the decision.” Her smile is brittle when she gives it.
Almost as though to prove he believes her, he takes a sip.
Must have been some conversation between him and Elijah yesterday, because it’s not like anyone else would actually get Klaus Mikaelson, paranoid scourge of the supernatural world, to take their word and trust her.
She busies herself with cleaning up, waving away his mention of getting someone in to handle things. “I can handle my own dirty work, thanks,” she dismisses quickly, familiar with the refusal. By the time the filter is on the drying rack, Klaus has taken a seat at the island and her coffee is cool enough to drink. Which means no running away from this conversation. Her nerves spike as she accepts the silent challenge and takes a seat at the other side of the counter.
“Kol wanted us to keep you locked up like in Thornfield,” she tells him. He’ll be pissed at her for shoving him under the bus later, but for now it’s something to talk about, and she latches onto the first viable option.
Taking another sip, Klaus asks blithely, “And leave you to marry the first governess to come along?”
“I’m Rochester here? That’s it, I’m searching the libraries for copies of Bronte and Austen,” she decides, making a mental note to start with the library nearest to Elijah’s room. “A secret knowledge of all those classic romances? No way you guys are hiding that stuff from me anymore. What’s next, does Kol read Sylvia Plath and take Polaroids while saying he was born in the wrong generation?”
Klaus smothers a smile, just slow enough of a reaction for her to catch it. “No idea, but please do let me know what you find out. And you must remember, while they might be classics to you, they were once the height of popularity to us. It’s always interesting to discover what can catch attention in a lasting manner rather than the fleeting spark of fame.” He stares at her, unabashed, and doesn’t look away when she meets his gaze head-on.
“Geez, okay. Must have been some talk you and Elijah had yesterday.” Suddenly she’s regretting not making more, because this is so not a discussion she wants to have on only one cup of coffee. “Let’s hear it.”
He raises a speculative eyebrow in challenge.
“You’re not the kind of person to trust blindly. What do you want to know? I’m glad you haven’t tried to slaughter me today over breakfast, but I’m not an idiot.”
“My siblings think I take my coffee black,” he tells her, tilting his mug slightly. “I haven’t told anyone that I prefer it with a very small and precise amount of sugar. And you seem to have the ratio down perfectly.”
They stare at each other in silence until Caroline can’t hold in her laugh and longer and then clasps her hands over her mouth. “Sorry,” she mutters, not meaning it but perfectly aware if this is a Klaus that doesn’t know her that means this is a Klaus who won’t make the usual kinds of exceptions. “It’s just… Coffee. That’s your shibboleth. Because you’re more interested in being seen as the kind of person who takes their coffee black than enjoying it. God, and you tease me about being a control freak.”
Startled, his lips quirk into an inquisitive smirk. “And here Elijah thought I might not believe him.”
This whole thing is making her hair stand on end. She pushes away from the counter and sets her mug in the sink, for once content to let the Mikaelsons’ endless supply of supernatural supplicants take care of things.
He doesn’t follow her when she heads to the door, so she lingers for a moment, looking at him and all to aware of how aware he is of her. At a certain point, she feels like she can’t go without actually saying goodbye. She starts to tell him, “My friend is coming in today.”
“The Bennett witch,” he agrees. “I remember.”
“Ah.”
In spite of what Kol said, it’s still strange to think about what that mean for his memory. If it’s just her that’s been forgotten, not all of the things she was involved in and the people he associates with her. How much space did she take up, how much of a blank spot is left behind? And is it truly so blank after all?
“Do you remember going to Sidney, a few months ago?”
He pauses to consider. “I take it we went together.”
Nodding, she wonders whether he’ll remember this later if he gets his memories back. When he gets his memories back. “You were upset,” she hazards, “when you left.”
“I was.” He drinks what’s left of his coffee but doesn’t move to put the mug in the sink, staying at the island and looking at her, waiting. “Did we leave together?”
“No.”
“Then I suppose that’s what I was upset about.”
She bites her lip. “Kol didn’t add a contact to your phone. Rebekah mentioned you were annoyed about something and thought it was a prank, but I think it was just me.”
“I’d figured as much. Do we always have this much unfinished business?”
“Believe it or not, no.” Tapping her nails against the doorframe, she wonders how much information he wants. Probably all of it, knowing Klaus – leave no stone left unturned. He’s barely refraining from interviewing her about their past. In some ways, it’s a wonder he’s even giving her the time of day. “Most of the time, things are pretty easy.”
Klaus turns away from her and looks at his mug. In a moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability, he admits, “I think I’d like that.”
-x-
“Somebody called for a witch?” Enzo calls loudly.
“Bonnie!” Caroline shouts. She leaves the library next to Elijah’s wing (so far, no romance novels to be found) and just barely refrains from catapulting over the railing to the courtyard. She flashes down the stairs instead and pulls her best friend into a tight hug.
“And I’m chopped liver, I get it,” Enzo muses, rolling his eyes at the consolation hug Caroline gives him once she’s let go of Bonnie. “How’re you holding up?”
“Fine,” Caroline answers, because she kind of can’t not be. Things are weird, sure, but it’s not like she’s going to have that conversation here and now with all the Originals lurking around.
“Ms. Bennet,” Elijah says from behind her. Speak of the devil.
Having never met a confrontation she didn’t meet head-on, Bonnie crosses her arms. “Before you say anything, this is for Caroline. I’m here to work on one thing only, and I won’t take payment.”
Unruffled, Elijah doesn’t blink. “I was merely going to offer my thanks. Though, should you change your mind, we can discuss a myriad of the magical objects or grimoires that can be at your disposal in a moment. Our family has gathered quite the collection. I’m sure many of their ancestors would only be too relieved to find their inheritance back in the hands of a reputable witch.”
“She doesn’t want to owe us anything,” Klaus interjects before Bonnie can give a scathing refusal.
Bonnie’s face takes on a pinched expression. She hates to be in agreement with Klaus, and the feeling is mutual most of the time. “I’d say I’m happy you remember me, but that’s not the case.”
Dropping their bags in the entryway without fanfare, Enzo crosses his arms. “Gorgeous says she’s the only one you’ve forgotten. Seems those witches certainly ended up completing some portion of their spell after all.”
“Witches?”
Caroline overlooks Klaus’s inquiry and puts on a happy face. “Well let’s undo it, shall we? Any luck with the spell book, Bon?”
“What witches?” Klaus repeats. Clearly, he’s not happy to be ignored by anyone, whether he knows them or not.
Enzo narrows his eyes and announces like a traitor, “Caroline got snatched while we were on vacation. And in spite of my suggestion that you might have been the motivation for such an event, she decided to blow it off. Not so crazy an idea now, hm?”
“Not now,” she hisses.
Because the universe conspires against her, Elijah hums. “It might not be such an outlandish idea for a sort of protection unit. We’ve discussed employing similar measures with Sage.”
“I don’t need–”
“You are a part of this family,” Elijah continues, completely nonchalant, like he’s not upending Caroline’s entire world in the process. Not to mention his brother’s. Klaus blinks in surprise that he masks quickly enough, shuttering back to forced neutrality after a few moments.
Bonnie straightens slightly. “Sage,” she repeats. “Please tell me you’re not talking about who I think you’re talking about. Because I think you’re talking about your eldest brother’s crazy ex-girlfriend, and she’s dead. So is he, actually, last I checked.”
“Finn is alive,” Elijah admits casually. “He’s around somewhere, currently sulking because the family is focusing on securing Niklaus’s memories.”
“So you’re talking about resurrection. Not even resurrecting a member of your own family who’s grounded to this world by the original magic, but reaching into the other side for sentimentality’s sake?” Bonnie’s mouth tightens with fury. “It’s not enough for you to rule over the realm of the living anymore – no, you have to have full control of what you don’t even understand. Because how else could your family ever be satisfied?”
Wincing, Caroline yanks at the handle on one of the duffel bags Enzo dropped. “Let’s get you guys settled, huh?” She flashes off, fast enough to where even Bonnie might not call on her ignoring the shouting match that’s getting started.
The fight lasts long enough for Caroline get their bags put away and unpacked in the guest room next to her own. She meanders down the hallway slowly, but arrives just time to see Enzo duck out of the way of an expected aneurysm, strong enough to make even Elijah wince.
“Well,” she announces herself, clapping her hands together. “I think that’s probably enough for today.”
“The witch hasn’t even begun to discuss my memories,” Klaus protests, pulling Elijah up with a grip on her wrist.
“’The witch’ doesn’t want anything to do with this family in the first place,” Bonnie reminds him with a scathing look. “And we’ll get to your problem once I can verify a few things. So as long as you stop screwing around with life beyond this world, got it?”
Elijah is about to fuck it all up by saying they’ve only stopped work due to Finn’s killing of the previous witch, so Caroline just crosses her fingers behind her back and lies through her teeth, “Absolutely!”
Elijah’s eyebrows twitch. Klaus locks eyes with her for a second, just long enough to get the message and tell Bonnie, “Of course.”
“For now,” Elijah agrees after a long moment.
Still aggravated, Bonnie glares at him before figuring that’s as good as it’s going to get at the moment. Enzo, on the other hand, puts an arm around her shoulder and asks, “Shouldn’t we get to verifying things, then?”
“Fine,” Bonnie snaps. She’s still glaring, but it’s not as bad now. “I need to double check some things with Caroline, and then I’ll need to talk to Klaus to be sure it is what I think it is.”
“And if it is?” Caroline can’t help but ask.
For anyone else, Bonnie would tell them not to get their hopes up, but for her best friend she just sighs. “We’ll go from there.”
-x-
Because Bonnie is amazing and perfect and powerful and every other adjective that they use in songs about great kings, she gets to the bottom of things by the next morning. Caroline is so going to have to outdo herself with the best Christmas ever. What do you get for the witch who has a vampire that will get her anything she could possibly need?
Breakfast is served in the courtyard with the usual full spread. In deference to the human among them, the crystal goblets have been swapped with golden chalices, opaque to conceal the blood. Things have been cleaned up since Caroline’s first morning in New Orleans, and yesterday’s splintered dining table has been swapped for something even darker and heavier. Clearly, whatever minions Elijah finds worthy enough to keep around are able to source quality furniture quickly – something to think about the next time she remodels.
“Bad news first: there’s nothing I can do,” Bonnie announces, placing a heavy leatherbound grimoire at the center of the table. Raising her voice over the uproar around her, she goes on to say, “The good news: It’ll time out. Because the witches who cast the spell died, there’s no one to give it continuous power, which is something a spell like this needs. Especially when cast on a powerful subject. Caroline says there were twelve original casters with a thirteenth who completed the spell. That means it should stick for twelve or thirteen days from origin, and that was a little more than a week ago. It gives me no pleasure to say this, Klaus, but you should be back to being creepily into my best friend in no more than four days’ time.”
Something unknots in Caroline’s chest at the realization Klaus’s memories coming back really is a when and not an if. She twists to pluck a grape from the fruit platter at the center and catches sight of the head of the table as Klaus’s eyes slip closed in relief.
Next to him, Rebekah arches an imperious brow. “And we’re just supposed to take you at your word?”
“Considering she’s got a vested interest in keeping her best friend happy, yes,” Enzo stresses without pausing in tearing a croissant to shreds.
“She hates Nik! You just heard her – she’s probably buying time so that she can make it permanent. The spell can be extended if it’s given more power,” Rebekah protests. “At least get another witch to weigh in!”
Elijah dismisses the thought. “Ms. Bennett is a trusted confidant, and I would consider her the authority in this situation. Besides, as Finn has currently disposed of the other witch our family was working with, I believe we’re a bit lacking in options for second opinions at the moment. However, I do understand your concern. Kol?”
Rebekah’s smile was starting to turn to triumph, but it drops in disbelief as Kol wedges himself next to Bonnie and takes the grimoire in hand. Bonnie’s face has the same expression, and she smacks his hand away while hissing, “Help yourself then, why don’t you?”
“Used to be a witch, don’t mind if I do,” Kol tells her as he flips through. “Which one of these are we looking at?”
Bonnie bats at him to move aside and thumbs towards the end of the book. She taps at the page meaningfully. “They would have had to use half of these at different times leading up to things, but this is the one they were in the middle of. The memories weren’t intended to disappear like that.”
“Ah,” Kol says. He takes the book back to go through it again, this time slower, starting at the beginning and furrowing his brows as he goes.
“Well?” Klaus prompts in agitation.
“Twelve days,” Kol confirms. “Thirteen if the last witch qualifies as martyr.”
Bonnie’s lips purse, and she gives a quick nod. “Swap the intended, then lose her? Even if the spell wasn’t complete, it went far enough.”
“Bon, love you, totally trust you know what you’re talking about – but can you explain to everyone here? Preferably using terms those of us not inclined to magic would understand.” Glancing around the table, Caroline shoots her friend a pleading look, because the Originals (other than Kol) aren’t known for their patience, and they clearly feel they’ve waited long enough.
Still flipping through, Kol whistles. “Nik, you really must have done a number on this coven. The revenge spells they were developing are no joke. If you’re going to slaughter a bloodline, slaughter all of them. Don’t leave the little baby crying in the corner. Haven’t you learned anything by now? They always get brought up to hate you and it leads to things like this.” He tuts over the obvious mistake before dog-earing a page for future reference.
“Wait, what?” Caroline looks around and tries to catch Bonnie’s eye, but she’s staring at Klaus, who is resolutely looking at the floor.
“Is this not the coven you told me about then? 1930s, Canada, you figured they were all gone,” Kol recounts. “I mean, really, points for originality on their plan here. Most would have killed Caroline and been done with it.”
Klaus’s chair scrapes across the stone floor when he pushes back from the table. He doesn’t flash across the room or up the stairs, and no one races to stop him. They sit in silence, almost spellbound by the sound of his footfalls, until his door slams and the echoes reverberate around the courtyard.
“God, I cannot wait for him to be back to normal,” Rebekah spits with venom. “Call me when he’s not brooding around and remembers how to be nice.”
She flashes off before Elijah can stop her, and the resident eldest Original lifts a hand to his temple as he winces.
“Bonnie,” Caroline says weakly.
Bonnie takes a deep breath, but Kol cuts her off, the grimoire dangling from his fingertips as he passes it across the table. “They were replacing you,” he says without fanfare. “Body modification spells to start with. There was a witch who wasn’t involved in the original casting – she was the intended, might have served as martyr like we mentioned.”
“She looked like me,” Caroline recalls. Even in the dim lighting and with ash slowly drifting to the ground, she’d thought the resemblance strange.
“Then they were further along than they should have been. The spell they used wasn’t to erase you, but,” he points to a symbol in the corner of the page, “to displace you. Memory transference is difficult. Twelve casters is enough, but only if they have direct access. And they were going to kill you anyway, so the kidnapping would have been necessary. Kidnap you, change everyone’s memories of you to their copy, kill you, and then add any finishing touches onto their intended before sending her out into the world in your place to infiltrate our family and wreak havoc.”
Next to him, Bonnie turns a page in the book. “The spell wasn’t completed, but this spell is designed to be a progression. So the displacement would have started with the person you care for most. When you killed the girl they’d swapped you with, those memories didn’t have anywhere to go, so they disappeared.”
Elijah stands and puts a hand on Kol’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should give you some privacy,” he announces, and then grips Kol by the elbow in case his brother didn’t catch that it wasn’t just a mere suggestion.
“God, I hate this family.” Rifling through the tray of pastries, Enzo pick up something stuffed with jelly and bites into it with gusto. “Atrocious people who happen to have great taste. In both pastries and in companions, Gorgeous.”
“Caroline,” Bonnie starts gently.
“But you guys – you knew me,” Caroline protests, her voice going high. “Right after. Immediately! It wasn’t like Enzo was asking who I was while we were surrounded by slain witches. And you were waiting just off the grounds, but we didn’t have to do an amnesia check on you when I came down. So the progression must be different, right?”
Bonnie closes the book and leans across the table to lay her hand on top of Caroline’s. “If you broke out when you said you did, the spell probably would have only had time to work on one person.”
“Boyfriend or not, he’s it,” Enzo confirms unhappily. “Just because you won’t admit it to yourself doesn’t mean your heart hasn’t made up its mind.”
That is what it means, isn’t it? She was so careful in the beginning, keeping things light. Never entertaining the thought of staying longer than a few days. Except for how the vacations started extending themselves after a while, and then Mardi Gras in New Orleans was too good to pass up, and then her radio silence in between invitations started to crumble. A letter here, a phone call there, and it didn’t seem like such a huge deal to invite him to New York to watch the ball drop and see the window displays. After a certain point, hanging out with his siblings on occasion was only natural. Why didn’t she see it earlier?
“You could see this as a good thing, you know,” Bonnie tells her. “You’re supposed to let yourself be happy.”
“Not now,” Caroline can’t help but protest. “Not when I should be spending this time with the people who won’t always be here. I mean – you’re… You’re mortal, Bonnie. And Elena, too, and I haven’t even gone to visit her recently! I wasn’t going to let this happen. Not yet.”
Walking to the other side of the table, Bonnie takes the seat next to Caroline. “That’s what this is about?”
Her face crumples with unshed tears. “No! Yes, I mean – I wasn’t there. When my mom… I wasn’t there. And I just want to be there, for you guys. I want to do better this time.”
“Elena and I don’t need you to miss out on your own life just so you can watch ours.”
“I’m not missing out! I’m going to have… Not forever, but I’ve probably got more time than you do. So why can’t I spend the time I have with you now?”
This time, it’s Enzo who answers. “You’ve been around long enough to realize even a supernatural lifetime isn’t guaranteed. Even you’ve cut a couple short.”
Bonnie gives her hand a squeeze. “I want you to be happy. And even though she isn’t here, I know Elena would be yelling herself hoarse if she thought you were giving something up for her. It doesn’t mean we’re never going to see each other again. Don’t torture yourself and use us as an excuse.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll figure things out,” she agrees willingly enough. “You’ll stay, though, right? Just in case things don’t go back to normal in a few days.”
“Of course.”
“Elijah wanted to talk to you about the resurrection stuff anyway.”
Breathing out forcibly through her nose, Bonnie shakes her head. “No. And I’m not just saying that I won’t do it, because I won’t, but I can’t. No one can, and any witch willing would find herself on the other side in the process. That’s not the kind of thing anyone should be messing around with, including Originals .”
“They did get two brothers out from there,” Enzo points out reluctantly.
“That’s different,” Bonnie dismisses. “They’re tied to this world in ways their descendants aren’t, so let’s all take a deep breath before we start seriously considering whether people can be brought back to life.”
Caroline taps her nails on the table, and she knows she shouldn’t but she can’t keep herself from saying, “I know it’s not likely, since she wasn’t actually a vampire… And there’s probably a cost to that kind of magic, but… If my mom had my blood in her when she died…”
Taking a deep breath, Bonnie squeezes Caroline’s restless hands. “Your mom is human, okay? She's not there. And even if she was, it wouldn’t matter. No one can come back from the other side – not Klaus’s brother’s girlfriend or whoever else they might want to pull back. Okay? And one day when I pass, I’ll be over there too, so don’t get any ideas about disturbing my peace.”
Across from them, Enzo echoes Bonnie’s deep breath but stays quiet.
“Elijah can ask me all he wants, but that won’t make it any more possible.”
Caroline’s stomach sinks as she sits in silence, but she accepts the pastry Enzo eventually forces into her hands.
-x-
Caroline doesn’t retreat to her room. She does, however, restart her library search. It’s a way to keep busy, so she moves from the ground floor and back to the personals. She hadn’t had the opportunity to fully eliminate Elijah’s as a potential source for romance novels, so she heads there and then pauses when she sees him stoking the hearth.
“Sorry,” she squeaks. “I was just looking…”
“For reading material?” he asks, ever the skeptic.
She steps inside and pulls a volume blindly. “Just kind of passing the time.”
“It is strange,” he supposes, pushing a log more firmly into the flame, “to feel there’s nothing to be done except to wait things out.”
Yeah, Caroline has noticed that patience wasn’t one of the virtues passed along in their family. No witches to be bribed, no spells to be worked, not greater power to be brute forced into submission. Sitting around and twiddling their thumbs is new. In a way, it reminds her of Mystic Falls and how their ragtag bunch of misfit toys was always trying and failing to overcome whatever obstacle had come up. With varying degrees of success, of course.
She’d say she misses it, except for how she really doesn’t.
Elijah gives the logs one last prod before he hangs the poker back on the mantle, settling back in his armchair. “In the days before you came, I’d thought there was something different about him. His temper quick to fire, his tongue sharper than normal.”
“That’s just Klaus,” she excuses, but it’s weak.
“It used to be.”
She hasn’t exactly been avoiding Elijah, per say, but she figured this was coming after the remarks he’s made over the past few days.
“Niklaus has always felt a certain sense of othering, even in family. His defensive nature is a reaction to that whether he realizes it or not, but it’s been soothed in recent years. Particularly since he made your acquaintance.”
“Don’t worry,” Caroline counters, breezy as ever, “he’s still defensive around me.”
“His reaction to the idea of Sage makes sense, in hindsight. Though it was never a sure thing, Niklaus was more willing to assist with the gamble when he found it worthwhile. Family means everything to us.” He gives her a meaningful look. “You’re included in that definition.”
Emotional conversations always make her feel like she’s wearing a wool sweater, two sizes too small. Itchy and uncomfortable. Plus, Elijah acts like he’s allergic to emotions most of the time, preferring to logic his way out of his discussions even as his prioritization of family is clear all the same. Which apparently means her, now.
“Let’s let Klaus decide if I’m included, okay? After all of this,” she tells him with a hand wave, “is over with. I think we have a lot to discuss.”
“Niklaus isn’t one to let his attentions drift once they’ve settled.”
Not exactly what she was worried about, but reassuring all the same. “I guess he’ll let you know if you can put me on the family Christmas card or not. But, Elijah, one thing to ask… If I am family, you can just call me Caroline, okay? Ms. Forbes is a little too formal if we’re going to start seeing each other at the breakfast table on the regular.”
He grins. “So you are planning on sticking around.”
And though the antique mirror in the corner is old and warped, it’s still clear enough for Caroline to watch herself color. “We’ll figure it out,” she says, rolling her eyes. “So I’m asking you to leave it alone. At least for now, yeah?”
Humming, he lifts up a cup of tea and then casts her one last bemused grin. “I suppose I can handle that. By the way, I figure the next stop on your quest for romances should be Rebekah’s library.”
“I knew it!”
-x-
The first few shelves are loaded down with sheet music that’s been carefully sorted by composer. There are a few books of poetry, a fair amount in languages Caroline can’t read and also can’t recognize, and it’s not until she gets to the very back that she finds what she’s been looking for. They’re older copies, of course, probably first editions, but they’re not the pristine condition she might have expected. Instead, they’re well-read, with notes scribbled in the margins.
Lousia May Alcott, Jane Austin, all three Bronte sisters, Daphne du Maurier Margaret Mitchell… There’s even a few Nora Roberts novels as a hint of something more modern.
Pride and Prejudice is heavily marked, and Mr. Darcy’s first proposal has a number of exclamations surrounding it, Lizzie’s subsequent refusal underlined in several different colors of ink.
The book is yanked out of her hands in a flash, and Rebekah glowers as she puts it back on the shelf. “Excuse you,” she huffs, indignant, “I don’t go digging around your private space for your diary, now do I?”
“Oh, I just – sorry,” Caroline answers. “I was trying to figure out why Kol and Klaus were referencing Jane Eyre earlier.”
Rebekah wrinkles her nose. “Because they cannot resist teasing me, that’s why. Nik once kidnapped my lover and squirreled him away in the attic. They took turns asking about ‘Bertha’ until I realized what was going on and released poor Edward. He wasn’t crazy when they locked him up, but of course he’d been driven that way by the time I freed him. A mercy killing was the kindest thing for him in the end.”
“That’s a little more extreme than the kinds of pranks Elena and Jeremy played on each other.”
“Well, isn’t Elena lucky? I bet she’s never had the lifeless body of one of her suitors thrown at her feet,” she muses. “And even if Elijah doesn’t kill them, they usually end up compelled to leave the country and find fulfillment in the kind of peasant life I’d never be interested in. You think turning them before introducing them to the family would lessen the chances of such a thing, but you’d be wrong. You’re very lucky to have grown up without any overbearing brothers intent on murdering your beloved.”
Caroline looks at the stack of romances and wonders why it took her so long to make the obvious connection. “Dating would have sucked,” she agrees. “Although it wasn’t exactly easy with a sheriff for a mom. I guess one of those has a trope of the dad polishing his gun on the porch when the date pulls up?”
“At least a few,” Rebekah agrees, glancing down the lower shelves.
“Not exactly something high school boys are thrilled about.”
“No, I would expect not.” Then, she suggests with a sly smile and a teasing lilt to her voice, “Nik probably wouldn’t go running scared, though.”
Raising her hands to her face, Caroline shakes her head. “I don’t even know how to talk to him now,” she starts, cutting herself off immediately. Klaus’s sister probably isn’t someone to have this discussion with, but her other local options are Enzo and Bonnie – who, while they are in full support of her happiness, are still a bit confounded by the fact that Klaus is the one responsible for it. And considering Kol would probably starting singing infantilizing nursery rhymes (Klaus and Caroline sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G) and she’d have to kill him, Rebekah is looking more and more like the best option.
Unbothered, Rebekah hums. “How come? He acts the same around you. Oh, don’t look so surprised – sure, he doesn’t know you, but it’s obvious those feelings didn’t just go away.”
“Klaus – this Klaus, at least – does not have feelings for me.”
“Well, at any rate, he surely has feelings about you.”
Caroline thinks of Klaus sitting at the kitchen island, staring at an empty mug of coffee she’d made him. I think I’d like that. How his gaze cuts across the room whenever Enzo refers to her as ‘Gorgeous’. Feelings don’t go away, but every time he looks at her it’s like he’s waiting on the answer to a question she doesn’t remember being asked, and it’s terrifying.
“Aren’t you going to do something about it?” Rebekah prompts, arching an eyebrow.
“I don’t want – he’ll be back to normal in a few days. And we can go from there.”
“I’ve always wanted it. The great romance, the happily ever after, as unrealistic as they might be.” Rebekah sighs wistfully as she kneels down to straighten some of the books on the shelf, pulling them into a clean line. “The books make it seem so easy. Your perfect match,” she muses, “and yet every time I so much as find a man interesting, my brothers tear him to pieces. Sometimes literally. Love is hard, or I assume it must be, as I’ve never been given the opportunity to have the real thing. And you have the audacity to take for granted what I want most in the world. So what if it’s hard or uncomfortable? You have to fight for it.”
Chastised, Caroline wonders how far concern for mortality would go over, but Rebekah just continues, still refusing to look at her, “He was getting better, you know? And things were going well, so I thought I’d bring you here and it would be the perfect thing. Soothe Nik enough to get an introduction in without anyone throwing their knives at the wall.”
“Who’s the guy?” Caroline asks, because for all the time she and Rebekah have spent together traipsing through cities, they’ve never founded a friendship on anything substantial.
Rebekah’s lips twitch into a fond smile. “His name is Roberto. He’s sweet, and he’s kind. Family is everything to him, and he said he wanted to meet mine. Of course, you heard how Nik reacted.”
Caroline has always tried to avoid over-promising on things, but she thinks of the many underlines of Darcy’s first proposal – vowing to accept the Bennett family as his own in spite of all their flaws. It’s no wonder Rebekah considers the books akin to her diary.
“Maybe he can still meet them,” she suggests after a moment. “Once things are back to normal.”
The look Rebekah gives her can only be described as hopeful. “Oh, Caroline,” she gushes, throwing her arms around the other woman, “I’m sorry for every horrid thing I’ve ever said about you.”
“It’s okay! Those were when we were on opposing sides. Right?”
Rebekah offers a tight smile. “Mostly,” she agrees.
-x-
It’s not that Caroline is avoiding Klaus, exactly. She’s just exploring the area. Even on her previous visits, there were so many things she didn’t get around to. Besides, the Abattoir isn’t so large he couldn’t find her if he wanted. That’s the excuse keeps telling herself whenever she hears footsteps and ducks back in her bedroom with the dorm firmly shut. If he wanted to, he’d knock.
Bonnie estimated the effects of the spell should last for either twelve or thirteen days, and on the twelfth Caroline gets desperate enough to go looking. She’s driving herself crazy by locking herself in libraries and then spending the rest of her time drifting around the French Quarter with a beignet in hand. Even the gorgeous scenery she’s surrounded by isn’t enough to forget her worries.
Either Klaus is back to himself and understands why she’s been so cagey, or else the realization is only a day away. Time to face the music.
Klaus’s studio is on the top floor, slightly more away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the place. Which is to say that siblings squabbles are well within earshot regardless of whether Rebekah is screaming in the courtyard or Elijah is lecturing the plebeians from the balcony, but it is least far enough to where none of the occasional uprisings have ever touched his work. Not that Klaus is apparently using his hybrid hearing at the moment. Caroline has placed in front of the door three times before figuring she might as well get things over with.
He doesn’t startle when she flings it open. “I did wonder how long you were going to stand there.”
Crossing her arms, she glares at his back, watching as he lays down a few gentle brushstrokes on the canvas. “I would have barged in earlier, see, but I was kind of waiting for you to come and find me.”
She spent the morning lingering at the breakfast table in hopes he’d come down with a spark of recognition in his eyes. When that hadn’t happened, she popped by a few of Klaus’s favorites in the city, places she hadn’t visited in case they might run into each other. Morning turned to afternoon as the sun hurried across the sky. The wait is over.
“Seeing as you’ve been mysteriously disappearing over the last few days, I thought you didn’t want to be found.”
“I never disappeared.”
“Your routine changed. The meaning was obvious.”
“And you just figured, what? That was okay, that you didn’t want to talk to me anyway, that you didn’t give a shit about me in the first place with this whole spell thing so there’s no point.” Tired of talking to his back, she moves further into the room and plops herself down on an arm chair in the corner. The leather is old and worn, not in a tired way, but it’s cozy. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that your memories haven’t come back. Or maybe they have, and you’re still pissed about things. Neither is ideal, but at least tell me what we’re working with here: bewildered by my existence in the first place, or exasperated by my audacity to refuse to let things go?”
When he looks at her, there’s no moment where the world stops turning or everything else just falls to the background. Just a cold and confrontational gaze, and Caroline told herself she wasn’t going to get her hopes up but they end up dashed regardless. She looks at the ceiling in defeat.
“I guess I’ll come back tomorrow,” she decides, getting to her feet. There’s no sense in arguing now when there’s still going to be another on the agenda.
“Caroline,” he says when she’s at the doorway, careful in a way he usually isn’t around her. “Whatever grievances you may have with me, I can only assume they’re well-deserved. Any apology I might offer now would only be seen as insincere. I just ask that you would listen when you’re willing.”
The request nearly bowls her over. She misses him. He’s standing right in front of her, and she misses him. “Believe it or not, you’re not the one who needs to apologize. I just can’t do it if you can’t remember what we were fighting about.”
“I have my own apologies to offer.”
“You didn’t know who I was – of course you reacted the way you did. It’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you, and most of the time you’re right,” she tells him quickly, because she doesn’t want to dwell on it. Seeing things from Klaus’s perspective though, it’s way more likely someone had been spelled to get close. Not to mention moderately correct with the intent of swapping Caroline out for the coven’s chosen witch. Thinking of that sends shivers down her spine, so she tries to keep at bay the image of his blank eyes as he reached for her heart.
His eyes shut for a moment. “While not my finest moment, I’m relieved you won’t hold it against me. I’m sorry for the danger you were put into because of me. The coven you came into contact with had a very specific agenda and used you as a way to infiltrate my family with trust never coming into question. I take full responsibility for leaving you vulnerable.”
It’s kind of nice to think that there are some things that never change.
“Not that you’d remember, but we’ve had this conversation before. To summarize: I am more entitled to my autonomy than you are to my protection. I appreciate your concern. If you send minions to stalk me, I’ll send back their hearts.”
“Speaking from experience?”
She gives him her most charming smile, flashing her fangs and watching a slow heat build in his eyes. And she’d already kind of figured, but it’s nice to have some reassurance. A girl can never be too confident.
-x-
Dawn peeking through the gauzy curtains in her eastern window is how Caroline has woken up the past several mornings. She’s slow to rise and prefers lingering in the comfort of her bed while the sun pokes over the horizon, blue sky chasing away the purples and pinks of daybreak. Views are important to her – she remodeled her apartment to have a full skylight because there’s nothing in the world like watching the sun come out from behind the clouds or a storm roll through the night. Early mornings are made for a cup off coffee and tucking her feet in the comforter while she readies herself for the day.
As far as wake-up calls go, this isn’t necessarily as relaxing, but it might be one of her favorites.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Klaus announces from the doorway.
And even though she’s barely awake, launching out of bed and hugging him is a reflex she doesn’t question. Because that’s Klaus – that’s how he sounds when he knows her. She doesn’t know how she didn’t detect the absence of warmth in his voice before. His arms pull her in closer the moment she doubts herself, and then she rests her head on his shoulder to take a deep breath.
“I missed you,” she whispers.
He hums, the reverberations soothing her further. Keeping her distance has been awkward and uncomfortable as she’s watched him watch her without context. How was she supposed to begin to explain them to him? Everything they’ve been through together, the idea that they are a fire that does not need to be tended to keep burning. The very specific assurance that she will always have a safe harbor. Klaus has always been aware of the certainty of them even when she wouldn’t admit to it. Seeing him stare at her and wonder what they are to each other is the kind of wound she won’t soon forget.
“I suppose things could have been worse,” he says, but there’s no levity to his tone. The hunted look in his eyes tells her he’s reliving the past few days from a very different viewpoint.
Eager to move past that, she waves a hand as though to banish those thoughts. “You were fine. Freaked, sure, but fine. To be honest, you trusted me way quicker than expected.” She shoots him a smile and pokes a his side as she takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “Coffee is your giveaway, huh? And to think that you’ve trusted me with your Starbucks order for so long. You need to be careful with that kind of privileged information.”
Klaus nods to the breakfast tray he brought in and set on the dresser. Coffee, blood, eggs Benedict, and grapefruit halves. Clearly someone started summoning minions early this morning. He passes her the mug with cream and takes a sip from his own before taking a seat next to her.
The silence lingers, but Caroline basks in it, turning her face to see the approaching dawn.
“The coffee is a part of it,” he admits.
She raises her cup in acknowledgement. “I think I’d still be drinking Folger’s if it wasn’t for you, so kudos to your good taste.” Now her own kitchen cabinets are stuffed with selections from Turkey, Cuba, and Columbia. There are about a million coffee contraptions she’s tried and discarded immediately before finding a few that might just stand the test of time. “Still impressed you drank it without grabbing a minion to serve as your taste tester.”
Giving her a slow smile, his eyes drift downwards until they catch at her neck. He reaches out and she stills when his fingers brush, feather light, against the column of her throat, eyes fluttering shut at the sensation. “I knew I could trust you because this.”
Her fingers wind through his own as they feel along the braided cord the beads are strung along. “I was wearing a turtleneck the first time, so you didn’t see them,” she recalls. “Is this the equivalent of wearing your letterman?”
“Something like that,” he agrees. “I carved these beads myself.”
“Very impressive. I’d offer to knit you a sweater, but the last time I tried I ended up almost strangling myself with yarn. Enzo says I can’t be trusted to make anything more complicated than a kindergarten arts and crafts project.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, brushing a kiss against her cheek that sets her skin aflame. “I appreciate the offer. No, Caroline, I mean that I carved these beads when I was a boy.”
She spins one of them between her fingers. She knew it was old, but old is a relative concept when the man in question who it belonged to reached his first millennium and didn’t look back. “It’s from the same forest I grew up in, too, then. That’s really sweet.”
“The same forest, but not the same trees.”
The implication of the words takes a moment to process. Her hand rests on top of his own, and she digs her fingernails into his skin hard enough to draw blood as her head swims. “Klaus,” she whispers, “please tell me this isn’t made from what I think it’s made from.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment before pulling away entirely. “It used to be a full necklace. I burned most of them, along with everything else from our home that proposed a danger once we realized.”
“Five beads,” she breathes, taking shallow breaths since anything else makes her chest feel like it’s on fire. “Five siblings. It’s an escape plan.”
Gaze locked on the horizon, Klaus takes a drink and doesn’t correct her.
Suddenly, the necklace she’s worn for years is unbearably heavy, and Caroline feels at the cord for imperfections, her every nerve on edge when she feels another place it might have broken. “This… This is too much.”
“They’re the last in the world.”
“Does anyone know? None of them know,” she answers as soon as she asks it. Because secrets like this can’t survive for long. She jokes about Klaus being paranoid, but he’s not the only one of his siblings with the same tendency towards distrust. They never would have accepted a weapon of this magnitude to go unchecked. Klaus’s fondness for the daggers would leave him as the last person they’d trust with this ability. She reaches for the goblet of blood and gulps it down, her fangs piercing his gums while she tries to keep the change at bay.
As though he hasn’t changed the entire world they live in, he tells her, “I was going to offer one to Finn. He should be able to choose.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? About him – or about Sage? Bonnie says resurrection is impossible.”
He stares at her and asks, not unkindly, “Would you have been able to stand even thinking it could be a possibility?”
Her heart pangs with grief, still sharp at the thought of her mother even now. She looks away first. Of course he knows why she’d find the idea exhilarating, of course he kept it to himself. Ironclad proof would have been necessary before broaching the subject. Even if they’d been talking and she learned about Finn, she knows he never would have brought up the idea of Sage.
“I trust the Bennett witch’s judgement. We’ll speak to Finn later,” Klaus agrees without bothering to fight it. “The difficulties were becoming more and more insurmountable as we looked into things. I’d hoped, of course, for Finn’s sake.”
“You were going to give Finn one of the beads…”
“If Sage cannot join him here, he would be free to make his own choice.”
Caroline closes her eyes. What’s that old saying? Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
What about if they’re undead?
She covers her mouth to keep from laughing. She’s wearing the last pieces of White Oak in the world, and she’s laughing.
“In a way, that’s actually very kind of you.” she manages at last, her pulse thrumming wildly in her veins. “And I don’t think I can say anything more about it, because holy shit Klaus. You said it was a promise. You can’t just give this to someone without–”
“Would you have rather known what they were?”
Absolutely not, and she glares at him when he arches an eyebrow to challenge her.
Alright then. Hell of a shibboleth. No wonder he hadn’t questioned her.
“And here I was thinking that how you take your coffee was the secret to gaining the almighty and powerful hybrid’s trust," she muses in disbelief. "Now I feel like I definitely need to make you a sweater.”
“Best you leave the yarn alone. For your own sake.”
“I took on thirteen murderous witches, a skein of yarn has nothing on me!”
The amusement on his face retreats at the joke, and suddenly Caroline realizes that of course they're going to have this argument again. However lightly she may have tread around the subject last night, Klaus is never going to leave her safety up to chance after this, and she knows it. She holds up a hand before he can start listing off exactly what type of protection unit he’d consider acceptable.
“Can we argue another time?” she asks.
Because he can insist all he wants that he’s entitled to want her alive and well, but he’s the one handing over the one thing that could end the entire vampire race without so much as a by your leave. They are going to have words. Not necessarily nice ones. Probably loud ones, the kind that might break a dining room table and lead to Rebekah grumbling about how she had to source that from some niche lumberyard in Finland. Best to reschedule for a time and a locale that won’t result in getting scolded by a sibling for their behavior. Caroline never handles it well, and Klaus always ends up threatening to pull out the daggers if they keep it up. No wonder they’d freak if they knew what he’s been hiding from them for who even knows how long.
“Look – I’m not saying there's nothing to argue about. I’m just saying that maybe it can wait. You… I just got you back, okay? So let’s table the discussion for now. For a while, even. And if it makes you feel better, you can consider yourself my personal bodyguard for the next week." She offers him a weak smile and then holds out her hand. “Deal?”
There’s a certain measure of surprise that Klaus masks quickly. “You’re staying then? For at least a week.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “At least.”
“I remember you implying that I was monopolizing too much of your time. I believe you used the words–”
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Caroline finishes.
He gives a cold nod.
At the time, she meant it. She’d gotten so caught up in things that the days had started to slip away into months, and then one morning the realization washed over her that she was letting Bonnie and Elena slip away at the same time. So she left. It was a simple decision when she made it, but Klaus’s radio silence had come through loud and clear with every week that passed with no updates. His siblings were confused when she asked, Rebekah clueless and annoyed to be questioned about her brother’s whereabouts, Elijah sad and almost disappointed, Kol issuing a challenge when he offered information she didn’t already have. So Caroline busied herself with her friends, ducking her head in the sand and pretending things were totally normal.
“You didn’t seem like you were opposed to the suggestion,” she reminds him, because the months of silence had been painful.
Klaus doesn’t even turn to look at her. “You wanted space, so I gave it to you.”
“Of course you think it’s that simple.” She sets her coffee down and wonders where to begin – the discussion with Bonnie is a good place to start, but it’s a lot to unpack. And while a part of her wants to go through everything now for however long it takes, she knows there’s no rush. Instead, she takes a deep breath. “The time we were spending together was getting overwhelming, because it meant I was missing out on other things. And that still scares me, but I don’t think it’s a good enough reason to not live my life the way I want to.”
“Which leaves us where, exactly?”
“Come to Mystic Falls with me for the holidays,” she suggests, impulsive and terrified. “Isn’t it about time we broke someone else’s dining furniture?”
Klaus blinks in surprise, the kind that thrills her because she loves to catch him off guard. “And your friends would be okay with that?”
Not exactly. Elena will be nervous but happy for her, and she’ll help keep Damon and Stefan in line for Caroline’s sake, and so that Klaus doesn’t go around snapping necks for a chance at peace and quiet. And it’s not like Bonnie likes Klaus, exactly, but she accepts who he is and what he means to her best friend, so that’s really all Caroline can ask for. It’ll be even more chaotic than usual. She thinks it might be perfect.
"They’ll get over it," she decides with a grin. “What do you say?”
He hesitates. “It’s a start.”
Because this tentative peace isn’t the end of things, not by a long shot, but Klaus is right. It’s a start.
“.”
… – ’