Vampire Diaries 1. Chapter 1

**The Transformation**

There was something ominous in the air, there was something dark roaming around, and Caroline could feel its presence even while she lay sleeping on the hospital bed. She shifted herself a few times trying to shake off the weird feeling she felt in her entire being.

Whatever Caroline did to fall asleep was of no use, she decided to give up on the idea completely, so she opened her tired eyes gently.

Her eyes opened to reveal a blurry figure of a man sitting on a chair in the corner of the room. She blinked her eyes once more hoping to have a clearer vision of the person.

When her eyes opened again she saw an unknown man standing next to her bed.

"Hello Caroline" he greeted.

It could have been his English accent or the way he looked at her or it could have been the plain fact that he was a complete stranger, but either way she felt that there was something which was not quite right about him.

"Who are you?" asked Caroline as she quickly tried to sit or may be to even get herself prepared to elope if required.

His lips curved in to a disturbing smile.

"Who are you?" She demanded an answer, all the while her brain urging her to jump off the bed and run, yet she couldn't, for some reason her body felt numb and helpless beneath his stare.

He moved his face near to hers, "I was hoping you could give the Salvatore brothers a message"

"What message? What are you talking about?" Caroline asked bewildered.

"You'll know in due time my dear… in due time" He answered and before she knew it, she was being smothered with a pillow.

Caroline struggled to push the pillow away but he was too strong for her.

Her lungs had gotten smaller and her heart had gone disarray she thought. She started to hear voices; voices from her childhood and voices of her loved ones. Images of her past emerged from the depths of her mind. Her head started to fill with memories she wanted to forget and memories that she never knew existed. And yet In the midst of the chaos going within her brain, she still tried to push him back. All her attempts were in vain for it only got harder and harder to breath.

With one more shove from the man, Caroline's mind went blank, her body shut down, her heart stopped.

She gasped for air and her eyes opened widely to her lonely hospital room, the creepy guy was nowhere to be seen.

"_This can't be! Was it just a nightmare?" _she thought_, "I... I should be dead!"_ Caroline tried to recollect what had happened, what that psycho attempted to do and most probably succeeded in doing. She felt as though a second had not gone past since the incident, but the clock on the wall told her otherwise. Caroline could not fathom whether, she actually survived after being attacked by a mad man or whether it was a dream conjured up by the many pain killers she had been given by her doctor. Whatever it was she was glad that she was still alive.

She lay on the bed looking at the ceiling trying to clear her head. She smiled to herself. Everything was back to normal, she believed; at least she wanted to believe.

Suddenly her stomach grumbled in hunger. It was a hunger that Caroline had never felt before. It was tearing her from the inside. She then started to feel thirsty for something she hadn't ever tasted and she could not give a name to it. She only knew that she could smell it.

Caroline got out from her bed and was surprised at her strength; never had she stood so firmly in her whole life. She walked out of her room following the stench that seemed to arouse her appetite. The tiled floor of the hospital almost appeared magical as each step she took seemed to help her reach what she sought after.

Caroline was finally there.

And there it was just hanging there, crimson as '_blood'_.

"_Blood?"_ she just realized. This is what she had craved. 'The blood bag', that was what she had smelt from across the room.

She didn't want to take it, yet she did, for she needed it.

"Hey what are you doing here? You should be in your room!" a nurse questioned Caroline with a fierce look.

Hastily she hid the blood bag inside her hospital gown and without a word walked to her room under the watchful eye of the nurse. The nurse smelt even more appetizing than what she had with her. She shook her head to get rid of the eerie sensation.

After Caroline got on the bed the nurse returned to her station.

As soon as the she was gone Caroline sat up and took the blood bag in to her hand.

"_What am I doing?"_ she questioned her own actions, which seemed to be driven by a force unknown to her. Actually she could ponder on it for so little time, for her hunger had already taken over.

She had taken a sip.

"Hello again Caroline" She heard the spine-chilling voice again and Caroline didn't even have time to react to the taste of the blood.

Holding the blood bag firmly in her hand she turned her head towards the voice. He was just standing there, looking at her with his threatening eyes.

"What did you do to me?" She asked half scared, half angry.

He started walking towards her, "You see sweet heart… Your friends have taken something very dear to me. They even dare to hold it as leverage, and this is my payback for their little gesture, 'my message'" he gently touched the edge of one of her golden locks and Caroline pulled back a few inches, clutching the blood bag almost as if she was worried he would take it away from her.

He smiled devilishly at her actions.

"When you run back to your dear friends, say that Klaus sent you, you'll be both my message and my messenger"

"What the hell are you talking about?" He was mental, that's all what his words meant to Caroline.

"You can worry about all these things later, just drink up that blood in your hand before it goes rotten" She didn't want to obey him, yet Caroline involuntarily looked at the blood once more. She succumbed to his words and started drinking it without a second thought. It tasted like rusted metal and she didn't give a damn. 'Caroline Forbes, 'Miss Mystic Falls' drinking blood out of a blood bag' that wasn't something she had on her bucket list, but she did it; she had to.

Once the bag was empty she threw the bag away disgusted with herself. Her eyes explored the room for Klaus, but he had disappeared.

The clock had ticked away secretly and it was already three in the morning, Time she believed had never seemed to move so fast, however everything else seemed to be moving far too slowly. Her ears were filling up with every little conversation that was taking place in the hospital and she could smell how everyone's blood tasted. Agitated, Caroline went to the rest room. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was turning in to something evil and nothing could be done to stop it.

"You can handle this Caroline. Just get it together" she talked to her reflection.

Determined to win the battle, she came out.

Somehow Caroline stole some cloths from some girl's room and managed to go out of the hospital without being noticed.

A newly found liking to the darkness made Caroline only walk in the darkest of shadows.

She abruptly stopped.

She was across the road from Elena's house. From the window she saw them talking about something called the 'doppelganger''. Elena, Bonnie, and the Salvatores, they were almost whispering but she could hear them, but their dialogue was far beyond her comprehension. She took a step forward to get to them. Then she decided not to and hid back behind a tree, when she saw Damon looking around as if he was sniffing around for her.

"What is it?" Caroline heard Stefan ask from his brother.

"Weird… I thought… there was... nothing I guess," answered Damon and turned his eyes to Elena and said something that made her blush and Bonnie roll her eyes. Caroline could care less about what made Elena blush. All that she was interested in was why she felt her insides cringe at Damon's voice. The more Caroline looked at him the more she despised him.

It was all coming back to her, the hurtful memories resurfaced. The way he used her, how he compelled and drank her blood. _She remembered it all_. She remembered how he treated her; how he tried to kill her once he believed he had no more use for her. _She remembered it all_. Hatred for Damon made her want to fly through the window and choke him to death, but Caroline remembered very well what he was capable of, so she stood there watching them. Moreover she couldn't understand what Elena and Bonnie, her two best friends were talking with him. _"It's not like they don't know what he did. How could they even be around the monster that did all those evil things to me?" _She could no longer trust them. She loathed them all. It was decided and final. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes but she didn't let them. There was only one person she knew she could trust, 'Matt'.

Caroline anxiously went to his house.

"_He must be asleep_" She reckoned and walked around his house and glanced through his bedroom window. She was right, he was sleeping soundly. She wanted to tell him everything but she didn't know how.

Caroline kept staring at him. She wanted him, she wanted him to calm her down, tell her that everything is going to be ok; She wanted him to tell her it was just a nightmare; She wanted him, to taste his blood.

And at the thought of blood her teeth began to hurt, her face began to change, and she wanted him even more.

"Caroline?" Matt has been woken from his sleep and he was now walking towards the window. Caroline didn't know what she should do, she no longer trusted herself. Her urges were too strong. The only thing Caroline thought she could do was to run. So she ran to wherever her feet took her.

When she knew that Matt was out of danger she slowed down. She couldn't hold her tears back for any longer. She walked not knowing what to do or where to go. Caroline feared to understand what was becoming of her, and wanted to blame it all on all the teen-novels she has been reading lately.

Soon after she realized that her feet had taken her to the Mystic Falls cemetery. It could have been because of the fact somewhere in the corner of her mind she believed this is where she belonged. She walked in the narrow paths, in between the grave stones of every person ever to die in Mystic Falls. The mist that sprung out of the grass filled ground made Caroline nervous, for it looked like ghostly figures rising out of the graves.

She heard a pair of footsteps walking somewhat ahead of her. Curiously she walked little bit faster towards the sound.

It was Damon, walking arrogantly even among the dead.

Caroline quickly wiped her tears; if she was ever to kill anyone she presumed it should be him.

Damon turned around. He already knew she was behind him,

"Oh! Hey Blondie! They let you out?" He was smiling as always.

She went to him. Each step she took was more assertive than the other.

He too walked to her.

"Should you really be walking around in a place like this, at a time like this? If it was anybody else they might have taken advantage of the situation" His words said one thing but his sly smile already told that he too might be willing to take the advantage.

"I remember!" Caroline stated confidently.

Damon stopped in his tracks.

She walked closer to him. Now he was mere inches away from her, and she wasn't scared of him.

"I remember it all Damon how you manipulated me, abused me, fed on me, how you tried to kill me!"

Sluggishly he moved closer to her. Damon's smile had vanished from his face, but he did well keep his 'I_ so do not care_' attitude intact,

"You can't remember, it's impossible, well unless you are becoming a…" He halted in mid-sentence, for he couldn't believe he was considering the possibility.

"I believe you know someone called 'Klaus'?" Damon's eyes flinch at the name. "He said to say hi," She added arrogantly. Caroline considered killing him right then and there, rip his throat out, but it wasn't worth it she figured and turned around to take leave.

"Wait!" the bemused Damon turned her from the shoulder.

She threw him off of her forcefully. Damon flew off and hit his head on a grave stone few yards away.

"You Suck!" The mere sight of him made her nauseous. Caroline turned around and marched away feeling triumphant.

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or the world or any other thing in this ff<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**The Antihero**

The sun was to rise in less than an hour. There were scarcely any Mystic Falls residents walking in the back alleys of its town, but it was where Caroline felt the safest. Staying clear of any human contact was her plan.

However she was hungry yet again and she was afraid to find out for what. Despite the fact that she was hell-bent on staying true to her plan, her hunger didn't take that much time to make sure that she deviated from it. The moment Caroline saw the feeble homeless man sleeping on the ground she got restless wanting to feed on him and satisfy her appetite.

Like a panther who had finally sought out the weakling among a herd of animals, she pounced on the homeless man. Caroline held him against the grungy wall that he was sleeping next to and took a bite out of his neck. The man could do nothing but cry loudly in pain.

Her hand loosened and jumped back the moment she realized she was about to take a man's life just for the sake of feeding her hunger. Caroline was her human self once more. Somewhere deep down, though Caroline might not ever admit it, a part of her did enjoy what she almost did. And it scared her. She started to back away looking at the homeless man who was now rolling around in the ground in pain.  
>She bumped into something hard and possibly human. She was lightning-quick to turn around to see what it was. Klaus emerged from the shadows.<p>

"You!" growled Caroline.

"You did this to me!" Her fangs came out. She tried to attack him.

In a fraction of a second, Klaus had clutched Caroline's neck with one hand. Her legs dangled in the air as he held her up tightly. Trying to free herself was futile. He was unimaginably strong.

"Be careful, my dear, you do not know who you are dealing with." He plunged her against the wall, her feet still suspended.

"I hope you have already given my message to your friends?"

Caroline grunted at his words.

She remembered what she learnt from her self defense class and tried kicking him. It didn't hurt him one bit for he simply laughed,

"You are a quite a brave little vampire, aren't you?"

She finally heard the truth she has been so afraid to accept verbalized,

"NO!" that's all she could scream out. She covered her ears wanting to stop the word 'vampire' from ringing in her head.

Klaus dropped her to the ground.

"I suggest you finish what you started," he dragged the homeless man and put him in front of her.

"No! I won't do it!" she was against it. She turned her face away.

"Don't keep this poor man waiting Caroline. He's going to die anyway now"

Caroline looked at him angrily, her eyes burning in rage.

The man reeked of blood and it was far too much to ignore. Caroline drunk his blood, she had killed him. The moment Caroline heard his last breath leave his body, she was certain she felt her humanity leave from hers. She felt empty and cold. She felt dead inside. The books she had read and the whole of popular literature had lied to her. If this is what being a vampire felt like, she didn't want it.

"I am a monster," She cried. "I killed him!"

"The way that I see it you did him a favor, he is better off dead" Klaus looked around at the place where the dead man had taken shelter.

Caroline's cries worsened.

"You should leave now sweet heart, before the sun comes out."

"I don't want to live like this, I rather die!" Caroline stood up to meet his eyes; she wanted to show how much she hated what he did to her.

Klaus turned around as if to avoid her stare.

"Go on now, run to your friends before it's too late" Klaus almost sounded remorseful for what he had done. He knew seeing Caroline hurt and devastated, would cause a great deal of pain to the Salvatores and the gang. However Caroline's cries, her lost of humanity were only to be witnessed by her friends, it was never meant to be seen by him.

He began to walk away from her.

"I can't be their friend, look at me I am not Caroline anymore"

He stood still for a second, his back turned to her.

"Like I said, the sun is coming out and you should go" he continued walking.

Caroline didn't know what to do except to follow him, but knew enough to keep her distance. She was lost and she depended on him apparently for some irrational reason.

Klaus was aware of her, and though he could have swiftly averted her, he did not. He let her follow him. He was no hero; he had no notions of comforting her. He plainly took pleasure in the fact that she followed him like a puppy seeking its master's attention.

Few minutes had passed Klaus had almost reached his manor. He no longer heard her steps following her but a quiet whimpering sound came behind him. He looked around concerned. He hadn't noticed it, the sun had risen and Caroline was struggling to stay out of it, in fact she was already burnt severely. Though he knew he shouldn't and though he knew he would regret it, he assumed that he had had no choice but to drag her out of there.

In no time Caroline was brought to a lounge of a mansion which looked to be in the process of refurbishment.

"You may leave once the sun sets" He said without looking at her and in a flash had vanished in to a room upstairs.

Caroline stood in the middle of the room confused.

She looked down at her hands, the bruises were healing rapidly. Then she looked around the room. There were few people walking about the mansion, carrying tools and what not. They were too busy to stop whatever they were doing, but Caroline could feel them scanning her with their eyes. None of them looked like construction workers or carpenters. From the looks of it she gathered that they were his followers, possibly vampires he had brought in to do his bidding,

"_Why did I follow him here? He's the one who did this! Do I have Stockholm Syndrome or something?"_ She thought pacing around, eyeing the room that Klaus disappeared in to.

"_I have no one now"_ Her eyes went back to the minions.

"_If I stay here, is he going to make me do his bidding just like them?" _Caroline speculated and strolled over to the staircase that led to his room.

She walked up the stairs tentatively and opened the door to the room where Klaus was.

It was a sort of a library. Stacks of books were lying everywhere and Klaus was reading a book resting his legs on a table, sitting on what seemed like a very comfortable couch. He looked up at her still sitting with his book at hand.

Caroline moved closer to him, his eyes were staring at her every step.

"What do you want Caroline?" Suddenly he closed his book. And put his legs down as if he was about to stand up.

Caroline forgot what she had come to ask.

Klaus smirked observing her apprehensive nature.

"What?" Caroline shouted at his smile for she hated his smile since it made her think that he looked down on her. That was one of the things 'Caroline Forbes' disliked, whether she was a vampire or human.

He stood up agitated at her tone.

"Is there anything that you want? If not please leave" he was annoyed and she could sense it.

"Who... Who are all those people down there?" Caroline asked whatever the first thing that came to her mind at the time.

"They are vampires, Sired to me, they do whatever I tell them to do" He had no duty to answer any of her questions by any means, but she coming to him for answers made him feel superior and needed, and he enjoyed it.

"Sired? Am I sired to you? Is that why I am here?" She asked nervously,

The instant she finished speaking, He was in front of her.

"Don't worry love. I won't make you do anything that you don't want to" He teased her.

The way he spoke, was making Caroline forget what he had done to her. His proximity was making her uncomfortable.

"So am I Sired?" her voice was soft, hardly audible. Yet she felt somewhat relieved for being sired was a good enough excuse for her to have followed him.

Klaus didn't answer her. It was not his blood that made her a vampire, it was Damon's. He just stared at her for a second and sat back on the couch. Then he returned his attention to the book.

Caroline was unsure whether she wanted to know anything anymore. She left the room, slowly closing the door behind her. Sired or not she thought she would go once the sun had gone back down.

On the other side of the room Klaus had lost interest in the book and he was more interested in the new blond vampire. There was a light about her, which he had not seen in a very long while. He had no clue, what he wanted to do about it, whether he wanted keep her as a pet for his amusement, a minion to follow his orders or rather he might have just wanted to see how fast he could turn her light into darkness. However, he saw that it was pointless to be making any such plans since she would indeed be gone when the sunsets.

Being over thousand years old, time meant nothing to Klaus, and being an 'original' meant he did not have any need to worry about the sun either. Yet today, he had imprisoned himself in his study room and throughout the day was searching through the window to see where the sun was heading. After peering through the window few hundred times or so, he discovered that it had now gone out of his sight.

He opened the door and walked down the stairs.

She was gone.

The other vampires were still around carrying about whatever the duties he had entrusted upon them.

"You all can leave for now, and come back before dawn" he ordered sternly as he always did.

They followed him like mindless zombies. And in a few seconds he was alone and it was a familiar feeling that he had quite never gotten used to.

He put on a Jacket and went out.

Then he saw her again. All this while, Caroline was just standing next to the gates of the mansion. The dried out streams of tears told Klaus that she had been crying.

"I thought you might have rushed back to your mother by now," He approached her.

"I don't know what she thinks about vampires, but I am pretty sure she would never forgive a murderer, I don't want to see her… I can't!" She was determined not to cry, she had no mental strength for it in any case.

Klaus didn't have any comforting words for her; he didn't care, for he was not supposed to. He set off on his path again.

"So are you coming along or not Caroline?" He did not want to comprehend his own motives behind his invitation, but he decided whatever it was, it was to be temporary.

Caroline too was fearful to think about what it meant to be following him, but she tagged along nevertheless.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Mentor**

"You're sure you don't want to have a bite?" said Klaus as he started biting into the red head he had brought home for dinner.

"I'll just stick to the blood bag, thank you" She sat down, drinking out of the bag. It had been a few days the last time she had drunk blood straight out from a human and it was her first and only time.

"It's your lost sweet heart" He bit further into the woman's neck whilst she mourned in both pain and pleasure. Though Klaus might have taunted her with fresh blood he didn't make her drink it unwillingly. However, even if she wasn't a part of the whole dinner party, just sitting there and not doing anything about it wasn't right either. Caroline couldn't take it any longer, what he was doing was wrong.

"You are no better than Damon, you are using this poor woman" she was lost as to why she didn't oppose it earlier and why she was opposing now.

Klaus let go of the woman's neck at her words. He shot a fierce glance towards Caroline as if to say how you dare compare 'Me' an 'Original Vampire', a 'Hybrid' to that idiotic Damon. He took a bite from his own wrist and let the woman drink some blood out of him to heal her wound. The red head was drinking the blood as if she had been lusting after it for ages.

"You won't remember coming here and anything about me, run along now!" he compelled her.

Then he turned back to Caroline and walked in her direction.

The few days she had known him, she had understood that he wasn't at all fond of those who went up against to whatever he was doing, and she had seen that he was capable of retorting to any extent to make sure that they never did such foolish things again. And it was the reason why Caroline hadn't contested against any of his actions before. Though she now remembered the reason, it seemed to be far too late.

"So what was that you were saying Caroline?" He asked her while he came towards her.

She stood up scared.

"Nothing, I was just…" She couldn't finish her sentence for she was taken aback by the speed in which he had reached her, and how close he was to her now.

"If you hadn't notice she was more than willing to offer her blood to me" he didn't owe her any explanations, yet he explained.

"So you mean to say you didn't compel her, she just came in here and said drink up?" She asked, forgetting how scared she should be.

Klaus was surprised at her confidence. He smiled without reason and pushing her aside he sat on the chair Caroline was sitting earlier.

"No I did not, I didn't need to. Believe it or not Caroline there are those who are willing to give their blood, without compulsion. I am not implying everybody I fetch for dinner is one of them but 'she' certainly was," he waited for her to say something. She rolled her eyes at his arrogance and sat back on the couch.

They were then silent. Klaus was eyeing her and Caroline didn't wish to know for what conniving reason. She looked about the room looking for an excuse to avoid him.

"I want you to do something for me" He was calmer now. He almost sounded like her favorite teacher in school.

"And why do you think I would do anything for you?" She was being herself, being stubborn, being 'Caroline'. Oddly this was the first time he had asked her to do him a favor, and actually he had never made her do anything at all. Caroline was always eager to know why but feared to learn his answer.

"I wasn't asking," Now he had turned from favorite teacher to high school bully.

"You know what I just figured out? I am not sired to you. According to what I know now I had to have drunk your blood to be sired by you, and I didn't. And that means I don't have to listen to you and..." before she could continue Klaus spoke back.

"You know what I just figured? I am a thousand year old vampire who seemed to be running out of patience and that I can kill you before you could even blink" he vary rarely spoke to her like he does to his other vampires that he keeps around, and this was one of those times. Caroline just stared at him without blinking, believing he truly would kill her if she did blink.

"Let's go," He stood up. Not a second had passed his eyes were again softer.

"Where?" and like always his eyes confused her.

He went out without replying.

She followed him once more.

Klaus had taken her to the 'Grill' and they stood in the parking lot, looking at its doors while it swung open whenever someone went through it. It had been a few days since the last time she openly walked out and about the town, and more importantly it was her first time going in to a place filled with so many humans after she turned. She was nervous to go in especially since a particular human called 'Matt' was there.

"I don't want to go" She said hesitantly.

"Do as you wish," he went inside.

She stood alone, looking at all the people who went pass her.

Some guy winked at her while he walked by. It frightened her, not that she thought he could do anything to her, but because she wasn't sure what she would do to him. She didn't trust herself around humans. Reluctantly she went inside, for she thought Klaus would not let her do anything stupid.

Caroline saw his back. He was sitting on a stool in front of the bar.

She sat beside him.

He drank his whisky with a sly smile across his face, "So you decided to come?"

"Oh I saw your boyfriend somewhere around here" he added just to get a laugh from her expression.

"Whatever!" She smiled mockingly.

"Hey Caroline, didn't see you around?" Matt called her from behind and she had nowhere to run. She could feel Klaus thoroughly enjoying the situation.

"I asked your mom and she said you… went somewhere?" asked Matt.

"Oh... I was..." She muttered. Caroline had compelled her mother to make her believe that she had left town, now Caroline had forgotten her own lies she told her mother.

"W... Well…I… I am back now …" She heard Klaus chuckle under his breath and before Matt noticed Klaus's reaction someone called him to place an order.

"Gotta go... I'll see you later"

Caroline watched him as he hurriedly took off.

Matt's eyes were fixed on Caroline, even while he took down the order.

"Bloody pathetic" complained Klaus as he gulped the last bit of whisky in his glass. She turned around to see his bothersome face.

"You are pathetic!" She called him and kept on scanning for Matt.

Caroline saw Matt going out the back door, and she went after him.

Without a care Klaus ordered another glass of whisky from the bartender as if he had been anticipating her actions all along.

There was no one around at the back, apart from for the two of them.

"Hey Matt!" called Caroline cheerfully.

"Hey" Matt turned and smiled. She put his arms around his waist.

"I missed you" She looked at him.

He kissed her softly.

She kissed him back passionately. As the kiss deepened, it was becoming apparent for Caroline that she not only wanted to taste his lips but wanted to taste his flesh. She pulled back.

"What's wrong?" Matt was confused.

"I thought I had it under control" She said to herself.

"What? Are you alright?" Matt wanted to comfort her. He tried to calm her down.

But all Caroline could only think was how his blood would taste.

"Caroline are you OK?"

Caroline couldn't help herself, it couldn't be stopped. She transformed in to the ugly monster. She jumped and latched on to Matt's neck. He must have tried to push her off, he must have shouted in pain, but Caroline heard nothing but the thumping sound of his heart.

Suddenly she was pulled off by someone, and had flown off and hit the brick wall of the 'Grill'. Caroline's head started to swirl. Her vision was blurred but she saw Klaus walking up to Matt,

"You got this ... from an accident… Now go home..." Caroline could hardly hear him, but she knew he was compelling Matt.

When she got up, Matt had already left.

Tears fell from her eyes inevitably. It was the end of 'them' she was sure of that.

"You should have tasted some fresh blood when I offered it to you. If you had listen to me this would have never happened." Klaus was mad that he had to take care of the mess she was about to make.

"If it wasn't for you none of this would have happened" She didn't know where she found the strength but she had managed to push him away somewhat. Albeit it was merely a feet nor he had fallen, she had pushed him somehow,

She walked away leaving Klaus behind not wanting to hear his excuses for killing her.

Klaus had pursued her.

"Let all things past, pass, sweet heart."

"I don't think I can!" She said as she started walking towards the Mystic Bridge.

"You know Caroline, the more you try to fight your hunger, the more power it would have over you, and I can help you"

Klaus saw her slowing down and he was not that far behind her.

"I don't want it!" She lied.

"So who are you going to ask for help from? Damon? Stefan, 'the ripper'? Or the witch that detest vampires?" Klaus was visualizing how he would one day persuade her to fight against her friends. He was trying to manipulate her.

"Anyone but you!" Caroline kept on walking.

"Think about it Caroline, who would you rather have help you, the friends who betrayed you? Or a thousand year old hybrid who could help you take vengeance against them?"

"I don't want vengeance!" she might have lied once more without realizing.

Caroline only heard a gust of wind run into her hair, as Klaus rushed to meet her face to face.

He smiled cunningly as he studied her face. Caroline looked away.

"You are a vampire Caroline, whether you want to or not, that is the truth, being a vampire means you are a predator, your instinct is to kill and feed, if you don't control it, it will control you!" His grim voice hurt her head for it was the truth.

"What should I do then?" asked Caroline innocently.

"I will teach you, it will take some time, but I will teach you" He answered.

Caroline nodded slowly accepting his help. Klaus sighed for he had finally convinced her.

"Why do you want to help me anyway?"

She could not for the life of her explain to herself why she agreed to accept his help and why Klaus was so keen on providing it.

"It's been a long time since I last had a pet, that's all love" He smiled, looking at her waiting for her retort.

It didn't take time for her vampirism to take over, she hissed like a cat.

"A Pet?" Shouted Caroline and leapt at him.

Klaus twisted her arm around, and she was now caught. He was behind her. His face was in the back of her hair.

"And there's one more thing you should know about Vampires Caroline, As a vampire your emotions are heightened, and you are on overdrive, We are sexual beings ," Klaus whispered in to her ear. Caroline was frozen. She wasn't sure whether he was compelling her or not since his words definitely were very persuasive.

Klaus let her hand go and grinned wickedly at her. Though she was mad enough to kill him, knew she couldn't.

"I hate you" She huffed at him.

"That's nothing new sweet heart" his voice dropped and looked as if he was caught up in some very deep thought.

Caroline could see a glimmer of humanity in him. She was surprised, 'The_ almighty original vampire cum hybrid could be hurt'._

"Let's go then!"it was her decision. She doubted it was the right one, but she decided he was to be her 'mentor'.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Unlikely Companion**

Though Caroline had been going through so many dubious incidents lately, nothing was dodgier than her waking up in Klaus's bed, wearing nothing but one of his shirts. Her head hurt, her body ached, however desperately she tried nothing came to her as to how she ended up in such a state. She put her hands through her messy blonde hair, and held her head tightly as if she was trying to wring out the memories from her brain.

She quit, "_Whatever happened, happened!"_ She tried to let go.

The comfortable four-poster bed felt like a mind warp. Caroline quickly sat on the edge of it wanting to get out but she rest still for a moment, realizing that the moment she put her feet back on the floor it would mean it was not a hallucination and she would have to face reality, no matter what it might be.

Caroline could hear his voice coming from downstairs. She slowly put her feet on the floor and tip toed out of the room not wanting to attract any attention. Of course even she knew by then about how good vampires were at listening into things that they were not suppose to, she knew even the quietest of creaks could be heard by him, but she foolishly hoped he was too busy to take note of it.

Her room was a few feet away from his.

Klaus was in the sitting room and on her way she could see him from the back.

Unknowingly Caroline was gazing at him.

He stopped talking and she knew he had sensed her.

The moment Caroline saw his head was about to turn to her, she was already inside her room and her door was closed. If she wasn't a vampire she would have definitely been caught, and she would have died of embarrassment.

Caroline rested her body against the closed door. If it was any other day the first to hear all about this ordeal would have been Bonnie and Elena. However, she thought that they would never understand her; perhaps they never did, even when she was a human. Caroline too was not perfect; there were times she had not been the greatest of friends, purely because her methods were always not the most conventional. Anyway, she wouldn't have kept any secrets from them, whether it was about trivial things in high school or about vampires, she would have told them everything. She wouldn't have let any of them hang around someone like 'Damon', but 'they' did.

"_Let her go Klaus!" Caroline remembered the day after she had turned, how her so called 'friends' came to her rescue. _

"_Let her go" Stefan insisted for the second time, Caroline didn't want to face any of them, she dwelled in the library listening._

"_I am not keeping her against her will, she can go if she wishes" roared Klaus. _

"_Caroline!" Called 'His' disgusting voice. "Come out Blondie, time to leave!" Damon called again._

"_It seems she has made up her mind, you both can just leave, before I lose my patience" The Salvatore brothers were silent, but Caroline could not hear them leaving. _

"_Leave, before I forget…" Klaus couldn't finish for Caroline suddenly came down._

"_Finally! Let's hit the road jack" Damon said brashly. The minions watched them eagerly, waiting for Klaus's commands._

"_No!" She wasn't leaving, not with him._

"_You are going through something you have never gone through before, you are confused Caroline,"_

"_No, nothing has ever been so clear" She spat._

"_Caroline please, you don't know what he is, he is using you to get back at us" pleaded Stefan. _

"_Everything is not always about you" though she suspected it was she didn't waver in finishing her words._

"_I don't need any of you to save me, I can take care of myself… just leave me alone" Klaus's face radiated victoriously. _

"_You came all the way down here to say that… Let's go brother" it was apparent Damon didn't come to save her out of compassion, it was surely another good deed he was trying to fulfill to impress Elena._

"_Do you know how many people he has killed?" Stefan ignored his brother's idiocy. _

"_Says the Ripper" Klaus replied promptly, much to the bewilderment of Caroline._

"_Don't!" Stefan seemed out of himself. _

"_Be careful baby brother, don't get too caught up" said Damon as he saw Klaus put his hand up lightly, stopping his followers who were about to attack them._

"_Listen to your brother, Stefan" Klaus was arrogance personified._

_Then both were then silent, both waiting for the other to make the first move. _

"_Did you know Caroline, back in the day, few decades ago, Stefan was a sadistic killer," Klaus broke the silence as he answered to Caroline's confused face._

_Stefan took a stride towards Klaus, wanting to shut him up anyway possible. Damon however uncaring he acted towards his brother, he too looked as if he was ready to provide the support Stefan needed. _

_The rest of the vampires were geared to react to anything that could harm their master._

_Klaus looked at Stefan like he was looking at a kitten who was striving to catch something that was out of its reach. "Really?" Klaus asked "You really want to fight me?" it was obvious that he would win._

_Caroline didn't have the strength to battle any of them but she got in between, and stood facing Stefan._

"_Stop this!" Caroline didn't want to see any more deaths, she had seen enough already._

"_Stefan, please go, I won't be coming with you" She had no idea who was right. It seemed according to their argument, in the world of vampires and hybrids, how humane you are depended on how long you have managed to restrain yourself from being a killer. But that was a concept she thought she would never want to grasp. _

A knock on the door behind her startled Caroline and she was brought back from her thoughts.

"Yes?" She hoped it was not Klaus.

"Are you up Caroline?" It was him.

"Hmm, yes." she wished she had been quiet.

"Good" his tone was unreadable to her and after a few seconds of lingering about she heard him leave.

Sighing, Caroline lethargically went to the bathroom.

She took the shirt off, and threw it somewhere, not giving it another look and jumped in to the shower.

As she let the warm water hit her back she realized she had forgotten to take off her ring, the ring that Klaus had given her to help walk in the sun. It wasn't too gaudy like the one the Salvatores wore but much to her liking it was rather cute. She kept looking at the ring,

"_Good Morning Caroline" Klaus's voice circled in her head as her mind got stuck on the thoughts of how and why she got the ring._

"_What do you want?" rolling around sleepily in her bed she asked. She could still recall how weary she was that morning, mainly due to the training she had on the subject of 'How to catch the perfect bunny for dinner if you do not like hunting humans'._

"_It's time you went back to school, I think you are ready now" his smirk made Caroline crankier. _

"_Seriously?" She sincerely thought the mentor role was messing with his head._

_He smiled cheekily and asked,_

"_Do you remember one week before, I told you I want you to do something?"_

_He had managed to take her attention somewhat for Caroline was now completely awake. Still covered in her sheets she sat on the bed, moving her knees closer to her. _

"_So you want me to go back to school? Is that what you want me to do?" She almost yawned._

"_Yes" he answered._

"_FYI if you have forgotten, I can't walk in the sun, I would burst into flames and die, and anyways why are you all of a sudden so interested in my education?". She wasn't sure what had gotten in to him._

"_Don't feel let down sweet heart. It truly has nothing to do with your education. I want you to spy on a certain someone."_

"_Spy on someone?" Caroline was angry; for she was convinced it was again going to be about 'Her'. _

"_Don't tell me you want me to spy on Elena?" It was always about 'Her'. _

"_No" he rolled his eyes as if he disliked Elena as much as Caroline hated hearing about her._

"_Stefan?" It had to be him, for he had his precious family coffins._

"_No, I want you to keep your eye on Tyler" _

"_That D Bag?" Tyler she thought was the biggest jerk in school. Though he was Matt's friend she never liked him that much, and she knew he didn't have a very high opinion of her either. Not only he treated Matt's sister badly, he was caught making out with his mother. Caroline only spoke to him just to help him amend his friendship with Matt, only for the sake Matt's happiness. _

"_Why Tyler?" She wanted to know, although there was a probability that Klaus wouldn't disclose his reasons._

"_No need to worry your pretty little head over anything, just do as you are told" She knew him too well._

"_So this is what you had in mind when you offered your help?" Caroline angrily got up from bed, and walked passed him and stood near the curtained window. _

"_Helping you was just an afterthought," It was the honest truth and he repented saying it. She was meant to be his pet not a follower, yet it was unfortunate she had to fit in so perfectly to make his schemes successful._

_She had no replies, the truth disappointed her._

_Silence took over the room, and it made a deafening sound._

"_I won't do it" Finally Caroline stated heatedly._

"_You will" He only let her talk to him like that, but he didn't like her disobeying him, He was 'Nicklaus' no one disobeyed him, and she could see it, but she couldn't be bothered._

"_Do it! Compel me!"She yelled. Although compulsion she thought was never an option that Klaus would consider when it came to her. She knew he had always held back on that thought for if he compelled her he would feel as though he was cheating on the game that he was playing with his pet._

"_That would be too easy," that wasn't his plan as expected. _

_Klaus walked over to Caroline. She walked back only to find the window ledge behind her. He was trapping her in between him and the window._

"_Don't you want your old life back Caroline?" He said in a sneaky voice._

_It definitely had to be a lie, for she couldn't see where he was going with it._

"_Don't you want to walk in the sun light again?" _

_She did. She didn't tell him._

"_All I'm asking you to do in return is to check up on Tyler, I'm not asking you to kill him" _

_Caroline was now definitely trapped by him, by his words, and by his eyes._

"_I... I... will.. No. I... "She felt spineless. _

_Klaus pulled her left hand and put a ring on her finger, she looked at his face dazed. Then he opened the drapes on the window behind her. Instinctively, her whole body clamped together at the feel of its heat. _

_Nothing happened, she wasn't burnt._

"_The ring protects you from the sun, It is has a 'Lapis Lazuli' stone" He was searching her face to learn her thoughts._

_She turned to look out from the window._ _It was like she saw the sun for the first time_

Even now whenever she looked at it, the ring in a way symbolized freedom, and in a way it also symbolized an indescribable link she had with Klaus.

She was completely wet, still her eyes were on the ring and how Drop of water slid down the rim of her ring. She came out of the shower and took it off and rested it on the counter. She looked at herself from the mirror. She hadn't aged a day, a perks of being a vampire of course, but ironically she could see a hint of maturity in her eyes.

Then she noticed that there was a light bruise in her left shoulder, another one on her abdomen, another on her leg. They seemed to be remnants of much deeper wounds, and were healing rather slowly. Bits and pieces of what happened were coming to her.

"_Don't get so close to him, a werewolf's bite can kill a vampire," He was threatening her. But that wasn't the answer she was expecting. "I might not always be there…" he started, but she didn't want to hear the rest._

"_Answer my question first, is it true? Did you kill Aunt Jenna? Why?" Elena had told her in an attempt to get her out of 'Team Klaus'. _

"_I don't owe you any explanations" it was because he couldn't explain himself or his actions to her._

"_I'm leaving" She didn't know for how long or whether it was forever, she just wanted to get out from there. _

_Caroline turned to leave._

"_It's a full moon tonight Caroline, don't get involved in matters that doesn't concern you "he growled and it was his way of saying 'be careful'. She saw through him._

"_Yes it's a full moon, and Tyler needs my help" she truly had started to see the former 'D bag' in a different light._

"_If you didn't want me to get involved you shouldn't have asked me to spy on him in the first place, you should have done it yourself" She was fuming._

"_I won't stop you! Go! And don't come running back to me when all goes wrong again!" He shouted._

_She walked off quickly not wanting to wait for anymore of his words to hurt her._

_The moon was nearly up when Tyler chained himself inside the tomb. _

_It was his first turn, and he was hurting. Caroline could recall vividly how his limbs bent and broke into ways unknown. Looking at him, from behind the gates that protected her from Tyler, she was wishing there was something more she could do to help him, for god knows if it was her she thought she would be crying for whoever that was there to help her lessen that extreme pain._

"_Tyler, are you Ok?"That's all she could do to help._

"_Get out of here Caroline" He begged, his eyes changing in to shades of yellow that no one knew existed._

"_No!" She was persistent. _

"_Get out now" That was the last thing which Caroline heard Tyler utter as a human. He had broken out of his chains and jumped at the gate._

_Caroline ran into the forest and looking back was not an option. She could hear Tyler in his werewolf form trailing her. _

_Then out of the blue he was gone. _

_She searched for him, still holding a defensive stance. As she looked about, something heavy pushed her to the ground from behind. _

_The werewolf was on top of her and was too strong and aggressive for her to control. _

_It bit her a several times, ripped her cloths apart with its claws and she bled badly._

"_Tyler Stop! No!"She screamed for the umpteenth time._

_And then suddenly it was gone. _

_She remembered looking at the bite marks. They didn't hurt much. But, she felt fatigued and shattered. It became impossible for her to stand up on her feet. The realization that her days might be outnumbered made her go in to a deep state of shock. It was the second time she felt as though she was standing in front of the gates of the underworld and this time around she thought she may not ever return._

_Furthermore, it was ironical for it was to be her birthday in a few more hours; she doubted she would ever live to see it. This time last year, Bonnie was planning her surprise party, but now Bonnie wanted nothing to do with her and Elena on the other hand wanted nothing but Caroline to be on the Salvatores' side. _

_Even if Caroline lived to see another day, she would forever be the same age, and she could no longer have a family nor bear any children. She closed her eyes as tears ran down her cheeks. It wasn't a life worth living; _

"_Caroline, Wake up "She could hear him vaguely. _

"_Do you know how long you have been here?" His voice was restless._

_Her eye lids were too heavy for her to keep them opened; they shut continuously against her will. She couldn't see his face that well. But she was sure it was Klaus. _

_Caroline felt the wind blow into her as he carried her across the forest in inhumane speed._

"_You should have listened to me, Caroline!" He laid her on his bed. _

_She looked up at him only to see him livid. _

"_Are you going to kill me?" She asked timidly. He should, for she felt she had defied him._

"_On your Birthday? You really think that low of me?" He was upset and she was surprised it was her birthday and he was aware of it._

"_Yes" She answered. She truthfully did, but just sometimes._

_He stared at her; she didn't falter either, for she too stared directly at him._

_Klaus came near her,_

"_It looks bad" _

_She didn't need him to say it she was already was conscious of it. _

"_My apologies, you're what's known as collateral damage, it's nothing personal."_

_Everything was his fault, he made her a vampire, and He made her get close to Tyler. He should have known 'Caroline Forbes' always would care too much about everything._

"_I love birthdays "He smiled sincerely._

"_Yeah aren't you like a billion or something "Her retort made him smile even more._

"_You have to adjust your perception of time when you become a vampire, Caroline. Celebrate the fact that you're no longer bond by trivial human conventions. You're free."He sat beside her._

"_No. I'm dying" At that moment of time actually it was the only thing she wanted to do; she wanted to 'die'._

"_And I could let you die, if that's what you want. If you really believe your existence has no meaning. I've thought about it myself, once or twice over the centuries, truth be told. But I'll let you in on a little secret: There's a whole world out there waiting for you. Great cities, and art, and music. Genuine beauty. And you could have all of it. You could have a thousand more birthdays, all you have to do is ask."Caroline could see something akin to tears forming in his eyes. And the 'truth' she learnt has never sounded more seducing._

"_I don't wannna die."Her weak will confessed to him. For a split second, and only in that split second, Caroline saw him as a friend to whom she could confess anything._

_He pulled up the right sleeve of his shirt and took her closer to him._

"_There you go, sweetheart. Have at it."He placed his wrist in front of her inviting her to drink his blood. She bit hard in to his wrist. His blood tasted like 'Life'. _

_He rested his chin softly up on her head, "Happy birthday, Caroline." She remembered him say. _

_It definitely was her birthday, for she decided it would be the day that spawned the birth of a new Caroline._

_His blood started to run through her veins and she already started to feel better._

_Caroline reluctantly stopped drinking the blood after few more sips._

"_You should rest now" Klaus delicately placed her head on the pillow._

_As she drifted away in to a deep sleep she could see him going through his closet looking for something._

Caroline looked at the shirt she had thrown to the bathroom floor. She understood now, how she came about wearing his shirt, how she ended up in his bed. She picked up the shirt. She was pleased nothing had actually happened between them but there was a tinge of melancholy surrounding her as she discovered the veracity of it all.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Next of Kin**

Indeed it was a liberating feeling for Caroline to be sitting on the passenger seat of a convertible and feel the wind blow across her face. It would have been a merrier ride if only the other vampire, 'The Original One' who was driving it was up for some chitter chatter.

She turned and her blonde hair partially covered her face,"Where are we going really?"

There was no answer from him. She couldn't read what he was thinking either for his eyes were hidden by his classic aviator sunglasses.

"Are we there yet?" Klaus was too focused on the road and reaching his destination to reply to her. She kept her eyes on him while she moved her hair away as it went wild with the wind,

"Well this is boring; you should have brought one of your slaves, not me"

"Will you just keep quiet for one second?" He barked at her.

Annoyed at him she turned her eyes back on to the road and from then onwards she didn't say a word.

Few minutes went by and he rotated his head her way somewhat,

"Caroline?" He called her.

She was still goaded with him, "What?"

"Nothing", Caroline puffed at his response.

"Caroline!" He said her name again.

She questioned once more in anger, "What?"

He shrugged his shoulders and stopped the car near by an old fashioned house guarded by a broken down white picket fence.

He took off his glasses and got out of the car, "We are here" he announced.

"Finally," Caroline looked about "Where are we exactly?"

"Be quiet and tag along love" he walked over to the house. The house seemed as though it had been abandoned for years, for the weeds had taken over its garden. The shabby windows revealed nothing about the interior of the house, for when Caroline tried to peek through it there were films of dust on the glasses, making it appear almost opaque.

As they got on the porch the floor below them made noises similar to a cry of a dying cat. While Caroline silently stood a foot or so behind Klaus, he tapped on the door. Caroline could hear someone's footsteps disturbing the wooden floor inside the house.

The door opened with a loud screeching noise. A middle aged man came out.

"Can we come in?" Klaus inquired as they needed to be invited in.

"Just you, not the young one" the man seemed to be a calm, strong willed person for he did not look as if he was afraid of Klaus, or it could have been because he didn't have a clear idea of who he was.

"It's all right I trust her" his words took Caroline by surprise; she knew he had some kind of trust over her for him to keep her around for so long, even after the whole 'Tyler incident', but to actually hear him declare it, was genuinely unexpected.

After careful inspection the man nodded and agreed to let Caroline in.

The house had almost no furniture, and there were some worn out paintings hanging on the walls. It made noises as if it was talking to them. In fact the bloodcurdling ambiance within the house made Caroline wish she had stayed back.

The man had guided them in to a long corridor leading to a door at the very end.

He opened the door for them,

"You can go in" he said and as soon as both of them stepped inside the room he left closing the door.

Caroline's nose twitched at the strong aroma of herbs spread within four corners of the gloomy room. All the windows were boarded up and not even a single ray of sun came in. Right in the middle of a host candles was woman in her late thirties chanting something. The woman's whole appearance screamed 'witch' and when her chants ended with a surge of smoke coming out of a very old book Caroline was convinced. However she thought it was awfully odd though, for even when she was just outside of the room she did not hear any sounds of a mantra.

"Nice to see you again Gloria" his cheeky smile flashed once more.

"Didn't think you'll be bringing company." The woman walked over with a smile matching to his. Caroline studied their interaction carefully, for it told her she was more than just a passerby.

"Just ignore her, She's not of any importance" Klaus casually remarked, fully well knowing Caroline's blood would be boiling at his comment.

"So then, did you bring me what I asked? The amulet?" Gloria put her hand out.

Klaus let the amulet hang from its chain, "Here you go, and there's one more thing I want you to find out, I want you to find out where Stefan has hidden my family, he thinks he can stop my plans by taking my family, but I won't let it happen"

Gloria grabbed the amulet, "I will try"

"You will not try, you will tell me everything, Now, today!" Klaus was his normal mad self and it wasn't something new to Caroline, she was more fascinated in hearing Gloria's answer.

Using her magic Gloria lighted every single candle in the room at once and replied to Klaus, "You may be a thousand years old but you still throw tantrums like a child, Witchcraft doesn't work the way you want to. Anyway take a seat both of you this will take some time" She pointed at the chairs that surrounded the small round table in the corner.

She then went to the center of the room and started chanting yet again.

With a deep sigh to let out his anger Klaus sat on the chair, and Caroline ensued.

"What is she doing?" whispered Caroline.

Klaus disregarded her question as if he didn't hear it.

"Do you think she will be able to find what you want?"The curiosity was killing her.

"She must" He wanted to answer something and shut her off.

"What if she doesn't? What are you going to do then?" She wouldn't stop talking.

Suddenly Gloria spoke loudly, "I see it… it's the doppelganger… Her blood…" She looked to be in some sort of pain as she described her visions.

Klaus impatiently got up from his seat, "What about her blood? Do I have to shed her blood? Do I have to kill her to make my hybrids?"

Caroline too stood up for she was alarmed to hear what Klaus was asking. For however much Caroline hated to be on Elena's side, she did not really want to see her dead either.

"No! Not to kill her" Caroline felt better hearing Gloria.

"Her blood… you should give her blood to the werewolves after they've transformed to hybrids" Gloria garbled.

Klaus had never looked so zealous to know something, "What about the coffins?"

"I can't see it, someone, some kind of a powerful force is stopping me from getting to it "She looked as if she was possessed by something.

Klaus went to her, "You have to find it" He threatened her.

"I can't see it, you need to bring me something else, the amulet is not working, they are not letting me see through the amulet," her eyes were completely white for her iris had disappeared.

"This won't do, bring me something else, I need something tied to you, something with a stronger emotional bond" Gloria breathed heavily.

"No! You are hiding something from me, tell me what do you see" growled Klaus and grabbed her by the throat. Immediately Gloria came out of her visions.

Caroline ran to the witch's aid, "Stop! You are killing her!" She seized his hand, but she was no match for him, she couldn't pull it away.

"Get Off!" his face was the look of death.

She looked straight at him, his eyes stared back, "No! Stop!" This time he yielded to Caroline's plea, he released Gloria and fumed looking at Caroline, for she impeded on what he was about to do.

Gloria was seemed rather shocked to see how Klaus's actions were affected by Caroline's words and her eyes were suddenly caught on the ring on Caroline's hand as if she discovered a lost puzzle piece hidden in it, "So the ring was for her?" Gloria's voice was still coarse.

Klaus's eyes were however was on Caroline but, Gloria's words took Caroline's attention.

He detained the amulet from Gloria and not wanting to face either of the women dashed out slamming the door behind him.

"Wait!" Gloria grabbed Caroline's hand as she was about to run after Klaus.

"I have to go" Caroline tried to shake Gloria's hand but she couldn't for suddenly very lucid but absurd visions rushed in to her head.

_She envisioned herself alone in a room with Klaus,_

"_Why do you look so nervous suddenly" He stood in front of her._

"_Nothing" She saw herself look away._

"_Why do I have this feeling, like you are hiding something from me" He ran his finger along the edge of her collarbone. Her eyes now followed his finger._

"_Are you afraid that I would do something to you or that I won't do anything at all" He was dangerously too close._

"_I have to go" She was trying to but he wouldn't let her. He held by her forearm as she tried._

_His lips lurked millimeters away from hers. He was about to kiss her, she felt herself anticipate it, but suddenly she was dragged out into another vision. _

_It was even more bizarre than the first. She was lying on his bed, her head rested upon his chest, their bare bodies covered with a single white sheet of clothing. He looked different, calmer. She saw him smell her hair and as she looked up at him he swiftly stole a kiss from her. He smiled crudely and started to kiss her more feverently along the curve of her body and she could hear herself mourn unable to endure the pleasure. Caroline could feel her body heat up out of excitement even though they were merely images within her mind. _

_Thankfully before she melted to the floor, she saw herself in an old scorched house. It looked familiar to her. She was walking inside the house and voices and chants began to ring in her ears. She then saw it, she saw what he had been searching for, the coffins, all five of them. She saw them open one by one, except for the one which was in the center of the room. _

Caroline all of a sudden jolted out of her visions when she heard a horn being honked repeatedly.

"Wha.. What was that? What did I just …." Caroline asked from Gloria who was as mystified as her.

She heard Klaus accelerating the car madly as he was about to take part in a race.

Gloria let her hand go, "You should go. He's waiting for you"

Uneasily Caroline nodded and in a blink of an eye had run back outside.

Just as Caroline got back to her seat, they were already on their way.

None of them were ready to converse with the other. One was too enraged, the other too mortified and afraid that if they were ever to talk all that should be kept secret would be exposed.

Home was not too far away, they had now been traveling for hours.

He had been sensing that there was something strange about Caroline, "You seem awfully quiet today?" It was so very abnormal for her to stay quiet for a few minutes, let alone for hours.

"I thought you didn't like it when I speak "Caroline was speaking again. She passed an annoyed look and so did he.

"When did you ever care about what I like sweet heart?" His temper had not died down.

"Well…" Caroline's eye brows went up, She was stuck; she was never the most obedient disciple.

As she searched for an answer, it didn't take that long for her head to be clouded with the visions she had about him. The way he almost kissed her, the way they were entangled in each other; it felt taboo to even be thinking about such things.

"What's on your mind Caroline?" He had noticed her forehead wrinkle out of concern.

"Nothing" She answered shaking her head to make sure the visions fell out of her brain.

"Don't lie to me Sweet heart" He wasn't letting it go.

"I… I nothing, what would be on my mind? really, there's nothing" she could never tell him.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened, for she always dared to take him lightly and lie to him as though he was a mere simpleton, she dared not to fear him for the monster he is.

"Do not lie to me Caroline" When Klaus demanded an answer it should be provided.

"I... I... think I had a vision" she mumbled.

He smiled for it had to be a joke for she was no shaman.

Sick of seeing his ever demeaning smile, she said the one thing that would get his complete attention, in fact the only thing she could divulge without being laughed at even more, "I know where your family is" She paused for his reaction, which actually did not take that long to come into sight. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and the screeching tyres upsetting Caroline's highly sensitive ears.

"And you are telling this to me now?" He got out of the car and grabbed her by the shoulders making Caroline involuntarily stand up. It hurt her, she didn't want to show it, but it was apparent, even to him. He let her go and kicked the car hard making a dent on its once perfect structure. Caroline was dropped back on to the passenger seat and she confusedly watched as he let out his steam.

"So tell me what do you know?" He could have eaten her in one gulp.

"Back at the house… when you came out… Gloria touched me and I… I.. started seeing things" He listened attentively.

"And I… saw where the coffins are… they are still in Mystic Falls, in the old burnt house, "She explained.

"Where the witches were burned?" He asked not able to believe that he did not think of it himself, it was definitely Stefan's style, hiding something in the place you least expect.

He jumped on to the driver seat and drove like a maniac.

The dead witches' residence he so impatiently hunted for was situated at the very edge of the town, in a part of the town which a typical townsman would not go wandering about. When they finally arrived at the place, darkness of the night had swallowed the very little unconventional beauty it had managed to keep preserved.

"Where are you two love birds off to" Damon blocked their path.

"Oh just bugger off "Klaus moved pass Damon.

Instantly as Klaus over took him, Caroline shoved Damon away and he ricocheted off of a tree and hit hard on the ground. Klaus spun around at the large thud sound and he was amazed at his little apprentice's strength. Caroline smiled back seeing his face so pleased by her actions.

"Nice to see you too Caroline" they heard Damon say from the bushes he had fallen into and with a swift swish sound, he had fled.

They marched forward into the house.

They searched every room in the house, the coffins were nowhere to be found.

"Are you sure this was the place?" Klaus was losing his composure.

"Yes I.. I.. think so" She couldn't have been mistaken, the visions were exceptionally clear.

He took his anger over on a burned down table by throwing it across the room.

"They have to be here, It was very clear, and They have to be, what other reason would Damon have to stick around with a bunch of dead witches" Caroline started searching again.

"Then they might be hiding it from us" He knew of the ways of the witches.

"Show them to me!" He commanded from the spirits.

It only resulted in making the spirits furious since they started to hear an unbearable sound and it made Caroline drop to her knees as she was unable to withstand it but Klaus was powerful enough to prevail through it.

"Stop or I shall burn down every house of every witch alive"

His threats did not stop the witches, it simply became even worse and Caroline started to shout loudly in agony. Klaus started smashing everything and anything that he came across. The witches didn't care for any of it.

"Stop or I shall destroy every single witch blood line, I will turn them all in to vampires," He found the key to stop them. The intolerable sound ended.

"Caroline?" He turned to her.

She stood slowly and affirmed that all is well.

The coffins then materialized out of thin air.

He smiled for he had won, Stefan had lost and he can go about his schemes.

Without long, with the help of his sired vampire mercenaries they managed to bring the coffins back to Klaus's manor.

He had prepared a special room to place them; it was more elegant and better decorated than his own room. For hours he was in the middle of the coffins contemplating something while Caroline rested in the study room alone, for it had been a long day for her.

Lazily she looked up on the stacks of books; the pictures on the wall, then realized it was the very place that she saw in her vision, the place where she saw him more or less try to kiss her.

She was too preoccupied to notice that Klaus had already returned to his usual chair in the library. She tensed up at his sight and got ready to leave.

"Why do you look so nervous suddenly" He stood in front of her exactly as in her vision.

"Nothing" She looked at her feet for they were not moving her out of there.

He moved his body closer to hers, "Why do I have this feeling, like you are hiding something from me" Her skin flickered as his finger traced her skin and she felt her body shudder for he somehow seemed to know that she wasn't being so forthcoming about her visions.

"Are you afraid that I would do something to you" She knew her face had given away her reasons.

"Or that I won't do anything at all" He teased her and she felt her knees go numb for she knew what was about to follow.

She was determined to say something else other than what she heard her say in the vision, but her brain failed her in finding an alternative, "I have to go" she understood it was useless to go against fate.

He dragged her closer by her arm and let his lips hover closely to hers,

"You know you never really thanked me properly for saving your life"

In order to stop his advances she opened her lips wanting to say something, but she only managed to find his lips crashing on to hers. His weight pushed her against the wall, they were too involved with each other's lips to try and codify the whys, the ifs and the buts of their kiss.

"Having fun aren't we?" Both of them broke off unwillingly from the kiss at the voice.

"Kol?" Klaus was either still breathless due to the kiss or he was truly staggered to see the man standing in front of him for Klaus's voice trembled ever so faintly.

"Well hello brother, who is this? Your dinner I presume?" Kol in an instant was by Caroline's side.

"I am nobody's dinner" Caroline pushed him aside and rushed and stood next to Klaus.

"That's a pity isn't it?" Kol winked to his brother.

"Leave her out of this" He looked menacingly at him, as if he was completely detested by his presence.

"Now now dear brother you should share your play things with your siblings. Shouldn't you? I did stay inside a coffin for centauries because of you. Didn't I? It's only fare that you share!" Kol's uncanny wit was getting on both Klaus's and Caroline's nerves.

Another wink from Kol was all that it took for Klaus to pounce on him and for them to start brawling. The speed in which they fought was out of this world; Caroline could not even get near them.

"Stop this at once" A well dressed man pushed the brothers apart, he was as fast as them.

"Elijah?" Klaus could utter no more.

"Elijah, my brother, I was just telling Niklaus here how very fond of we are of him" Kol stood next to Elijah smirking while Klaus placed himself in front of Caroline.

"Shut up Kol, This is not the time or the way to do this" Elijah's words were respected by Kol and even Klaus regardless of the fact that he was evidently stronger and faster than Elijah.

"How… How.. did you to get out?" Klaus asked.

"Read this!" Elijah placed a folded piece of paper in Klaus's hands.

Klaus keenly read the note as Caroline tried to read it over his shoulder.

"_Elijah,_

_I pulled the dagger out; when you wake up help us kill Klaus._

_Damon._

_P.S I took the dagger out of your other brother too"_

His writing was hardly coherent for he might have written it in a hurry, when he saw Klaus and Caroline arrive at the dead witches house, nevertheless the meaning was clear, they wanted him defeated and dead by any means.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Green-eyed Monster **

Elijah truly was the model brother and if he was not a vampire and if he did not have so many secrets to hide he could've easily run for president and won hands down. He knew how to be diplomatic, he knew how to control his overbearing brothers and make them eat dinner together sitting at one table without killing each other.

"Whatever happened or happens, we are a family, let's not talk about betrayals and treachery anymore, I shall always be loyal to my family" Elijah started the dinner conversation. Klaus though taken aback by Elijah's pledge of loyalty, he did not have any qualms over it.

"I assure you my loyalty is too to our family" Family has always been one of Klaus's priorities.

"That's a load of …" the look up on his elder brothers' faces stopped him half way and he shifted his attention to Caroline while he gestured one of the minions to pour some wine into the glasses.

"So Caroline, I hear you have been living here for sometime as Niklaus' pet?" His eyes were widely open in anticipation for her answer. Caroline just smiled sarcastically and went about eating her dinner. From the other side of the great round table they were sitting around, she could swear that she heard the sound of Klaus's jaw clench. She cast her eyes up on him; he was poking his meat with his fork as though he was solemnly considering about daggering Kol once more.

Realizing that something might erupt at any moment between his brothers, Elijah started speaking "I hope you would all agree with me about un-daggering the rest of our family" The way Elijah spoke was so well mannered and noble Caroline thought that no one would ever believe that he could ever be a blood sucking vampire.

Klaus stopped murdering the meat, "Elijah, Please try to imagine how pissed they would be at me, especially Rebekah you know how grumpy she can be?"

"Well may be we don't have to un-dagger all of them. Right? Rebekah can be dreadful at times, but she is no bore, maybe we could un-dagger her and let our beloved brother Fin rest in peace for a little while more," Kol sipped his wine nonchalantly and from the corner of the eye Caroline could notice him glancing her way.

Klaus smiled openly and it was very unlike him, "Yes he is no fun, is he?" he agreed and even the ever so noble Elijah joined in with a muffled grin.

"So then it is settled, tomorrow morning we are to only un-dagger Rebekah," Kol raised his glass. An Agreement was never made out loud, but it seemed they all had ruled against Fin.

"If I may ask, who is resting in the fifth coffin?" It seemed only logical that Elijah would want to know to whom it belonged.

"Let us save the answer for that for another day's conversation" Klaus's answer was a code with in a code, encoded in a manner which only Elijah could unscramble, for he at once bowed his head concurring to his suggestion.

Dinner with the Mikaelsens was no ordinary meal, not for the reason that there were goblets of blood beside the wineglasses and also not because Caroline was the only non-original vampire sitting among them, it had everything to do with the tension that was building up with every word they spoke. However, although their conversations may not have been conventional, strangely Caroline thought they were as normal as a set of original vampires could ever be.

"It has been a long day for all of us, I hope we could let the past go and start afresh, So then…" He got up as everyone was finished with their dinner.

"So good night" He tucked the chair back in and looked at Caroline with a gentle smile, "Good night Caroline" and he left the dining room.

"I think I am going to go out," Kol looked over at Caroline, "would you be a dear and show me around the town, and get a drink or do whatever the kids might be doing for fun these days "

"Leave her be Kol," Klaus couldn't stand Kol's interest in Caroline, for she was his pet not Kol's.

"Someone's a little possessive over his little pet, isn't he?"Kol though had been lying on a coffin for very long while, he knew his brother enough to see he had stepped on his nerves and Kol being Kol he was thoroughly enjoying it.

Klaus took a step towards Kol, "Why don't you get your own pet, and leave mine alone" It was in part an attempt to make Kol give up on the subject and partly an attempt to show that she was a mere pet to him, nothing more, nothing less.

"Would you two just stop it?" It hurt her to hear him refer to her in such a term, even after what had happened a few hours ago in the library.

Klaus could see the frustration in her face, but whatever he said was intentional it was no mistake therefore he had no business in feeling bad for her, yet there was a hint of something sore within his chest which he was quick to ignore.

"I have better things to do" She added.

"Like hanging around here? With all these ancient artifacts?" Kol pointed his eyes towards Klaus.

"Earth to moon, If I am right you are no younger either, and anyways anything is better than going out for a drink with you" She was stern.

Though every word Caroline spat back on Kol's face should make Klaus ecstatic, it made him pale; paler than a vampire's face ought to be for that form of conversation or exchange were suppose to be just theirs, it was where Caroline and Him and only Caroline and Him were suppose to live, that was their world and Kol was invading it.

"Have it your way then. I am going" Kol left with his silly grin intact.

"Caroline" Klaus called her gently.

Whatever he wanted to say Caroline didn't want to hear any of it, she ran up to her room.

Caroline dove in to her bed head first, her face buried in her pillow. _"What do they take me for? The pet thing just has to stop" _She screamed at herself for letting them talk to her as they did._ "And why in the world did I let him kiss me? He was just using me to pass time "_she had the luxury of the visions to well and truly steer clear of it yet she couldn't, and especially kissing him back did not help her cause in anyway.

"Caroline, open the door!" Klaus bellowed.

"What?" She yelled back.

"Open the damn door!" he insisted.

She opened the door "What?", but she wasn't backing down.

"Caroline" he paused. Her stomach fluttered for she assumed he had come to either apologize or to talk of the library episode.

"There's something I need to tell you" The more he dragged it the more it made Caroline nervous for her brain was coming up with so many illogical explanations as to why he was actually there.

"Drink this" he offered her to drink something out of a small glass bottle.

"What is it?" She was rightfully suspicious.

"It's just Vervein sweetheart" he put the bottle on her hand.

"Ehm, isn't that suppose to make me weaker?" She had never tasted it, but she had a feeling it wasn't going to go down her throat that easily.

He lowered his eyes to meet hers, as if he was about compel her and explained, "It helps you against compulsion, drink up love"

"I never had to before?" Klaus had never compelled her and she had to believe it, though there was no way she could be absolutely certain that he hadn't, for there's always the possibility that he had compelled her a million times and she just might not have known it, as thus the beauty of being compelled, the only factor that kept her sane from all the '_am I compelled or not compelled'_ drivel was the mere fact she knew how he enjoyed manipulating her with his words.

"Well, that's because I didn't need to compel you to make you do what I want. This place is now going to be crawling with some more of my family, and by family I do mean Kol, so if you want to keep your free will, I suggest you listen to me"

"What do you care? May be I would enjoy being his 'pet' than being yours" She hated that she called herself 'a pet'.

"Do as you please then love" He took the bottle back from her and turned around to go back.

"Wait" Caroline used her speed to block his path and grabbed the bottle and drank the vervein in one gulp. Her throat burned and her veins she thought might burst at once.

It took her a few seconds to recover, "Happy?" a scornful smile emerged through her bitter face.

He pushed her aside and she hit the drawer that was next to her.

"And one more thing love…" he stopped for a second to look at her. "If you are still wondering about our little kiss… as fun as it was… don't think too much of it sweetheart… although I wouldn't mind if you are up for another round " His crooked smile made Caroline's face red.

In annoyance, she raised her hand and flung the little bottle in her hand his way. It hit the door and broke in to pieces as Klaus had already left slamming the door shut.

Confrontations could always be avoided with ease when you are a vampire, it was a blessing when you are the one who was running away but when it was you who others run away from it felt like hell, and Caroline was no exception.

She heaved herself back on her bed. "I will not think of it again, I shouldn't care about it, it was nothing to him and …. It meant nothing to me too_" _she recited to herself like a mantra until she fell asleep.

For some time now the mornings at the Niklaus Mikaelson's mansion have been very quiet since the renovation of the mansion was not too far away from being completed and there were scarcely any worker bee vampires around the house. Yet this morning when Caroline woke up she could hear the mansion buzzing with a new kind of verve.

"I should just dagger all three of you! And you! I was by your side all this time and this is how you treat me?" A blonde in nineteen-twenties attire was airing out her anger in the room where the coffins were kept. Her tantrums stopped when she saw Caroline enter the room.

"Who is this?" She eyed Caroline wincing as though she had seen a creature that was pulled out of a gutter somewhere.

"Rebekah, Let me introduce you to Caroline, our brother Klaus's dear 'friend'" Kol came to Caroline's side and put his arm slightly around her waist. Though her initial thought was to move away from his hold, but seeing how warily Klaus was studying where his brother's hand rested Caroline decided to stay put.

Rebekah examined Caroline from top to bottom. "So is this what women are wearing these days?"

"Yes, I guess" Caroline was staring at her as well.

"Take me to the place where you buy your cloths" Her English accent made sure her arrogance was well announced. In fact each of the original vampires Caroline met had different accents, the only trait they had in common was their pride, 'the air of royalty' and if one were to prove that they belonged to the same family they might either need to do DNA test or put a dagger across their heart to see what would happen.

"Hey, You there! Are you dumb? take me to the place where you buy your cloths" Rebekah didn't have to wait for her fangs to come out to show how cruel she can be her voice said it all.

"Caroline, why don't you take my lovely sister shopping and show her around." Klaus was eager to get Rebekah out of the house before she started to jabber on and on about how he had backstabbed her.

"Not in those cloths, come I'll give you something to wear, and then we'll hit the mall" Shopping was something which was a mundane part of Caroline Forbes past which she seemed to have given up for 'bunny hunting' and the thought of going out for shopping made her excited even if it was with Rebekah.

Caroline took Rebekah to her room much to the relief of her brothers. It was no easy task dressing up a stuck-up original vampire who had been in a coffin for the last eighty odd years holding a grudge against her brother, for she was more than a little high maintenance and grouchy. Rebekah was a quick learner as were all the other original vampires as matter of fact, it did not seem that waking up after a few decades or centuries had bothered them at all, they adapted to the new times so naturally. Technology, science, and computers it only amazed her only for a few seconds, vampires were fast but the speed in which she was changing before Caroline's eyes was mind-boggling. Nonetheless her ego had remained the same.

"Next time we go shopping remind me to buy one of those too" Rebekah pointed at the mobile phone in Caroline's hand.

"Ok, sure" they both were back at the mansion gates and the two vampires at the either side of it quickly opened it for them.

When they entered the house they got their ears caught in a very heated discussion.

"You would not dare!"They heard Kol shout loudly.

"Well, let's just let her decide" Caroline could imagine his enraged face from the way he spoke.

"So you really think after all this time, after the way you have been treating her, you think you would have a better chance than me?" Caroline didn't know what might have sparked such a conversation but she had an Inkling that it had to do something about her.

"What could be more alluring to a woman the most powerful hybrid in the world? Or his obnoxious little brother" Rebekah's eye brows went up in amusement and she peeked at Caroline to see her reaction. And Caroline not to her surprise was nothing but blank.

"This is just a game, you don't need to get so riled up about it, don't tell me that you have fallen for your pet?" Caroline could hear her own blood boil at the not so endearing term he called her.

"Have you gone mad? I have met millions of women like her and she is nothing special," It saddened Caroline to hear such words from him for it was a depressing feeling to hear anyone talk of you as you are nothing but ordinary especially when that person is not a stranger.

"I hope you two are not seriously considering taking this on as a challenge, Have you not learned from your past experiences, these things never work out well, And if you do have any feelings you should stop this now!" The respect Caroline had for Elijah grew more and more with the way he commanded his brothers.

"I do not have any feelings of any kind for her!" Klaus could do nothing but to scream to prove himself. Caroline felt her already dead self die once again.

Rebekah moved towards the dining room following her brothers' voice as Caroline stood still near the front door.

"Like you always say brother 'A vampire's biggest weakness is love', I hope you haven't forgotten, so be careful" Kol was mocking Klaus with his own words.

"Oh Since when did you become the voice of reason Kol? I thought it was Elijah's job" Rebekah had made her way into the dining room.

"You're back? When did you come back? and where's…" Klaus was particularly worried.

"I see you haven't changed" Rebekah snubbed Kol and lounged idly on the couch.

"Hey Caroline!" Kol was thrilled to see Caroline who had suddenly showed up at the dining room.

"Whatever" she went out of the room as Klaus looked up on her distressed.

"You better admit defeat Niklaus and pay up, I don't think you'll ever get her now, after what she might have heard you say, you would never win now, unless you run after her now and express your undying love" Kol smiled ear to ear.

"I will rip your heart out just to wipe that silly grin off of your face" there was no hint of a smile in his face, all that remained was resentment.

"Calm down both of you, think before you act" Elijah truly was the voice of reason, for he knew what havoc this conversation might lead to.

Rebekah yawned, "I am so bored of this, let's go and have some fun"

"Didn't you just go shopping now?" It was mostly Kol's choice to un-dagger Rebekah before Fin and he looked as if he was regretting his decision.

"Whatever" She mimicked Caroline's American accent perfectly.

"I am going" Klaus has had it with his family; each one was more annoying than the other.

"Are you going after her then, Good then I'll get my chance to be her shoulder to cry on tomorrow" Kol was not planning of giving up on it.

Klaus turned back ready to pounce on Kol, but Elijah didn't let him.

"Consider yourself very lucky Kol" Klaus went out fuming.

Klaus walked about he didn't know what he wanted, what he was searching for, yet he strolled along the pavements until the sun had gone down. His head was much clearer. His temper had partially faded away. He sighed deeply and decided to return home.

He returned to find an empty house, for the looks of it he figured that Rebekah and Kol might have dragged Elijah to a bar somewhere. It seemed that Caroline hadn't come back either, once again he was alone and it disturbed him.

He heard the front door open and close.

"Caroline!" Klaus was surprised to see her.

She ignored him.

"Caroline wait, let me explain" He obstructed her path.

"I don't want to hear it" She shunned away from his stare.

"Wait" He grabbed her hand roughly to make sure she wouldn't leave.

"What? What do you want to explain?" this time she dared to look straight at him.

His eyes were caught in hers and he seemed to have forgotten what he was about to say. It could have been the lighting in the room or her teary eyes, for Klaus had never seen her like so. He kissed her letting all his thoughts and tribulations aside. She too seemed to have forgotten that she should be despising him for her lips didn't take that long to part and she began kissing him insanely as he was. Klaus smiled in between the kisses as if he had found something he had been seeking for centuries. Caroline was feeling breathless but didn't want to stop herself just to breath.

She suddenly felt weightless for he had lifted her up and was taking her to his room.

They somehow managed to stumble on to his bed.

"I can't let Kol take you away from me, I shall not be defeated" She heard him mumble against her neck.

She pulled back. She stared at him and he stared in return befuddled as to why she was resisting him suddenly.

She should push him stop it right then, for he might still be playing his little game with his brother she thought, but she couldn't. His eyes wouldn't let her; her body wouldn't let her, her heart certainly didn't let her. She kissed him more vigorously than before. It was wrong, but it felt right as though it was meant to be. As they started to kiss more avidly everything else around them went blur and all they could see was each other and nothing and no one else existed or mattered.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Living Dead **

Wrapped up in Klaus's arms, Caroline felt her world had once more become simple, the way it should be. She could hear his hybrid-heart beat, it wasn't the most humanely sound a heart could make or it might not even be a heartbeat at all but she heard it nevertheless. She kept her head still on his chest enjoying its unusual rhythmic melody. Caroline sensed his face in her hair, and looked up at him to catch his expression. He embraced her and got her engrossed in a deep lustful kiss. When it ended Caroline smiled against his lips, for she was undeniably happy. He began to kiss her again, and she could do nothing but moan in response as his lips wandered on her. She yearned for his touch and he for her tenderness. It did not take long for him to take complete possession of her and she had caved in without a thought, without objections; for it was inevitable, it was what she had once envisioned.

Unexpectedly he heard something said by someone, but it was no time to answer anything, he ignored the sound. "Nik open the door right now! Kol is trying to do something very stupid, and Elijah is not here! Open the door" He disregarded the voice for he needed nothing to do with anything but be with Caroline.

"I… I.. th.. think … you should go" Caroline moaned out softly.

He shook his head disagreeing and placed butterfly kisses over her face and landed on her mouth just in case she suggested him to leave again.

"Is that Caroline? Is she in there with you? You can continue your love fest some other time! Come out before I knock this down door. Open this! I am going to count to three…. One…" Rebekah started counting.

Caroline pulled away from Klaus a little,

"Go" she requested, for the little that Caroline knew about Rebekah was enough for her to know that Rebekah would not hesitate in actually breaking the door down.

Klaus too was well aware of it and how she might even find a way to annoy him with this incident for centuries to come.

Reluctantly they decided to get up from bed and found their clothes from wherever they had been thrown off to and wore them speedily as possible.

"Two" they heard her count.

They both were ready. "Let's go love" he placed a quick peck on her lips once more before he went to the door.

"Three" Rebekah was just about to break the door before Klaus unlocked it.

"What's wrong?" He asked irritated.

"Kol is trying to open the fifth coffin!" Rebekah peered inside the room and saw Caroline standing somewhat away from her view "So it is you!" she added with a disapproving sisterly look which made Caroline go red.

Klaus glanced at Caroline and turned back to frown at his sister. "Mind your own business and tell me what's going on"

"He has brought a Bennet witch with him, and he's trying to open the damn coffin, and something tells me you are not alright with that" That's all it took for Rebekah to make Klaus go into panic mode. Klaus wouldn't have taken Kol seriously if Rebekah had not mentioned about the presence of the Bennet witch.

Klaus darted to where Kol was while the two blondes followed him.

He pushed the door open only to see that Bonnie Bennet had already started working on her spells. He could not conceive the reason as to why Kol would want to do such a thing, right then; there, for it was not what they had planned last afternoon. He was positive that he had made it very clear to both Elijah and Kol when he disclosed all that was to be disclosed of the fifth coffin that it was not yet the right time to release it.

"Stop this right now!" Klaus charged at Bonnie.

Kol stood in his way, "Nah ah... ah… brother, this is what you wanted isn't it? Persuade a Bennet witch and open the coffin? I merely used a few of your vampires and asked them to capture her boyfriend. 'Jamie' I think it was, No! 'Jeremy' I think. Anyways hearing the news she was more than willing to give us a hand. And why may I ask that you are so against it right now?"

"You took Jeremy?" Caroline revealed her vampire face at him. Rebekah was quick to grab a hold of Caroline to make sure she did not do anything dim-witted, for even Rebekah herself would not dare to get close to her brothers when they had declared war amongst themselves.

Klaus would have no more of Kol's guile smiles and pretentious talks; he took Kol by the neck and threw him to the side. "This is not what we discussed yesterday, and I'm pretty sure you did not have my interest in mind when you arranged this mess,"

Klaus stormed towards Bonnie but shot back as there was a some sort of a force field created around her that barred him from getting to her.

"Of course I had your best interest at heart Nik" Kol's cunning smile could be seen across the room.

"What? You had a family meeting without me?" complained Rebekah loudly but got no replies from her brothers.

"Stop this now!" Klaus shouted at Bonnie who was terribly hindered by the spell to hear him.

He then pulled Kol by the collar of his coat. "Make her stop or I will…"

"What? Dagger me?" it was completely apparent that Klaus was stronger than Kol, yet he would not budge easily.

"What's going on here? I leave you all for one second and you are killing each other?" Elijah walked in.

"Elijah, Kol is trying to open that coffin" Rebekah tightened her hold on the struggling Caroline.

"Oh Nobody likes tattletale Bekah" Kol grinned pushing Klaus away from him, getting a much predicted puckered brow from Rebekah in return.

"Are you out of your mind Kol? What if she does this all wrong? We have no idea what it would unleash! When we said it's not the right time, it's not the right time! And maybe it would have never been the right time, but now..." Elijah was in Kol's face.

"Who are you to order me around all the time!" yelled Kol.

The scraping sound the coffin made, the crescendo of Bonnie's chants, swiftly seized their attention.

Rebekah's hold on Caroline had loosened as her focus was now had turned to the coffin.

The coffin began to come ajar; they had no time to react or rather did not know how to react.

It fully opened, and revealed someone, perhaps a woman, enclosed in a grey colored cloak, her face hidden; only her hands visible and its flesh shrunken down to her bone.

"Who... who is tha.. that?" incoherent babble coming out of Caroline's mouth was not heard by anyone.

Bonnie abruptly fell to the floor.

Seeing her 'once upon a time friend' Bonnie, unconscious in front of a creepy dead body, Caroline rushed to her aid.

The room became dim; the air became too thin, the dead body started to decay even further. In seconds it crumbled and turned to dust.

"Well that was an utter waste of time" whined Kol kicking the table next to him and breaking its leg.

However there wasn't a face left unconfused when the grime left on the coffin began to form back again to human form.

"Caroline, get back!" Klaus dragged her out of the realm where the coffin lied and Caroline managed to pull Bonnie back with her.

The dead body now seemed not quite so dead, for it woke up slowly, and indeed it was a woman.

She sat on the coffin. Her curly brown hair veiled her face and her body was still covered by the cloak.

"And I thought you needed a makeover" Caroline looked over at Rebekah who in the middle of everything had managed to find some time to agree with Caroline with a smile.

The unknown woman lifted her head up, "Niklaus? Elijah?" She spoke, her accent was unlike anything Caroline had heard before, but her face it was all but familiar for she was an exact replicate of her old friend 'Elena'.

"Tatia!" whispered Klaus, and Caroline could feel a sense of urgency in his voice and it worried her.

Rebekah looked even more revolted looking at the original doppelganger than she looked when she first saw Caroline. "Not her again!" she growled.

"Yes our brother Nik's very own and lovely Tatia" Kol looked over at Caroline.

Caroline turned around to learn Klaus' reaction, but as always his emotions and thoughts were very well masked.

"What are you trying to accomplish by all this?" Elijah asked Kol as he slowly approached Tatia who seemed more confused than anyone else for she started to say some sort of gibberish in a language modern man may have never heard.

"Oh, I apologize brother. What I meant was Niklaus' and Elijah's lovely Tatia!" Kol's antics as always only amused him and no one else.

Anyways Kol could not say anything further for he was tossed hard on to the table by Klaus breaking it into pieces.

"Stop this at once!" ordered Elijah while he attended to an almost crying Tatia.

Bonnie was waking up.

"Caroline, take her back, and see to that Jeremy is sent home" Klaus instructed her, his gaze fixed on Tatia and his feet moving towards her.

"Why me? No I …" She wanted to stay, to see what was about to unravel.

"Do as I say!" he pronounced every syllable slowly and Caroline knew nothing would be more foolish than to rebel against his wishes when he was in such frame of mind.

Caroline brought Bonnie back to her feet.

"Let's go Sweetheart" She had spent too much time with Klaus and it was noticeable to any idiot.

"Let me come with you Caroline," Rebekah wanted to do nothing with her brothers for she definitely had witnessed enough feuds spawned by the topic that was 'Tatia'.

Bonnie was still weary when Caroline put her in the back seat of the car. Caroline looked behind to see the closed doors of the mansion.

"I suggest we get going before, they kill off her boyfriend" Rebekah was keen on getting Caroline out of there.

Caroline drove out from the mansion gates against her better judgment.

"So this Tatia girl, who is she exactly?" Caroline didn't want to waste time in getting to know the details.

Rebekah checked her hair from her mirror. "You really don't know?"

"No… I mean, I know she is a doppelganger, I mean I can see that… but other than that… No I don't know anything about her" Caroline peeked over at Bonnie who made a grumbling sound as she slept.

"She's not just any doppelganger dear, she's 'The One' 'The original', the one whose blood help make Elijah and Klaus Vampires… The one that they both were in love with once up on a time when they were human," finally Rebekah stopped staring at the mirror and turned to Caroline and added "The one and only woman Klaus had ever fallen in love with" The grimace in Caroline's face fascinated Rebekah.

Caroline kept her eyes on the road. "How can she be alive? She's not a vampire! Is she?"

"I haven't quite figured that out either," Rebekah looked as if she was trying to solve a complex mathematical equation.

"So why do you think Kol wanted to wake her up? Klaus and Elijah didn't seem too happy about it. It was kind of weird that he would suddenly want to wake her up against his brothers' wishes" curiosity wrinkled Caroline's face.

"When Kol get an idea you really can't stop him, especially when he thinks he could win something over Nik"

Whatever Rebekah was implying Caroline thought was absolutely ridiculous.

"I really do feel bad about Nik, With Tatia he had and has to fight against Elijah and with you… he has Kol to deal with… but actually after what I saw this morning I doubt that Kol would even have a chance" Rebekah rejoiced at the fact that her sentiments made Caroline completely speechless.

Jeremy was held prisoner in one of the tombs belonging to the Lockwoods. The sired vampire's were thoroughly disappointed to learn that they had to let Jeremy go. For when Caroline and Rebekah told them to release him, they acted similar to a pack of hyenas that had to involuntarily give up their kill to a pair of lionesses. Jeremy too was not quite the happy camper about being used as a pawn in Kol's plan. However Rebekah did not take time messing about. She wanted to make Jeremy quiet so she easily broke Jeremy's neck once she got to know that he was wearing the Gilbert family ring and neither Caroline or the 'half asleep witch' was thrilled of her actions.

Caroline could not even dare to look at Bonnie when she dropped Bonnie and her dead boyfriend home. Bonnie too kept her silence. Their estranged friendship Caroline knew could never be fixed with only a few words as long as she chose to be with Klaus and as long as Bonnie chose to go against him.

The originals truly were a paradoxical bunch of vampires, for they had the ability to be both childish and complex at the same time. It was Caroline's misfortune that Rebekah was one of the Originals if not Caroline wouldn't have kept her alive for that long, since all that Rebekah did throughout the ride back was complain, groan and ask if Jeremy might be willing to go out with her after what she had done.

All was not that well back at the mansion either. When the blondes returned, the older two of the brothers were discussing what had to be done of the situation, while the younger one sat in a corner silently as if he was being punished for his bad behavior. The original doppelganger on the other hand was spotted by Caroline, walking around the room curiously poking her finger at anything and everything.

"So what have you all being scheming without me this time?"Rebekah claimed the vacant spot on the couch next to Kol and started skimming through the book that Klaus had left lying on the coffee table.

Nervously Caroline entered the room unsure if she should be there at all.

Klaus and Elijah failed to notice her but Tatia soon showed her interest in Caroline and her cloths for she tugged Caroline's cloths from here and there.

"You seemed to have found yourself a new friend haven't you?" mocked Kol and he waited for Klaus to notice to whom he had passed the comment.

"Caroline…. Why don't go to your room and rest … "It was a genuine request by Klaus.

"You do not have to worry yourself over anything, Caroline, you can go on and go about your life" The rough translation of Elijah's words meant 'Caroline' should not be lingering there among 'them', 'the originals' any longer.

She agreed with a nod and just as she was about to leave heard Kol speak out,

"I really don't understand what all this fuzz is about, the woman was dead, you kept her all this while wanting to wake her up one day, and now she's up and you two are acting like it is the end of the world"

Kol's inability to comprehend the situation was making Elijah edgy. "There are always consequences for using witchcraft to cheat death"

"And aren't we all really nothing but prime examples of that" Rebekah commented as she casually threw the book in her hand to a side.

To Rebekah's misery Tatia had now placed herself beside her.

"Yes and we are still to witness what consequences bringing back Tatia to life will bring us" Caroline heard Klaus say as she stepped out of the room.

"She does seem little bit out of herself, but I guess coming back to life after a thousand years could do that to a person" said Rebekah as she pushed Tatia away as one would drive flies away.

And that was the last of the conversation Caroline allowed herself to listen as it was clear to her she had no place in their family matters.

The bedroom had always been her place of refuge. Yet lying on the bed facing the window Caroline could not help but feel imprisoned by her thoughts, by her fears. The day had not turned out the way it was suppose to and she wished she could rewind everything to a time where she had nothing to do with vampires, Originals or Tatia.

Caroline knew if she listened in carefully she would be able to catch up on the rest of the conversation about the original doppelganger, but she wouldn't for she thought it would probably only succeed in confusing her further. As a result she kept her ears focused on the ticking sound of the alarm clock on top of her bedside cupboard.

Caroline's room had only a few personal touches, for she had no time to fully decorate it but the clock was one of the things she loved about the room. Not that it was an antique or an extremely high tech alarm, but she liked it.

Its circular glass screen was slightly broken and she could remember very clearly how it came to be so.

"_Alex show Caroline to her room" after directing the robust looking vampire that was standing next to Caroline, Klaus idly went in to his study room,_

"_My room?" Caroline remembered how energized and baffled she was hearing that she was to have her own room. _

"_Come!" Alex walked few steps in front of her._

_Caroline was aware of where Klaus' bedroom was and it made her something more than nervous to see that where Alex had taken her was not that far away from it._

"_This looks boring" It was the first thing that came to her head when she went inside her room. There was a bed, a drawer, a closet, a clock on the bedside cupboard and that was it._

"_May be we can make it more interesting" Alex closed the door._

"_What are you doing?" Caroline stood firmly. _

"_What vampires are supposed to do… have fun" He in a matter of a second had jumped on to her and landed on top of her on the bed._

"_Stop" She commanded but he did not care._

"_No stop!" One kick and he was off the bed._

_She had no idea where Klaus came from; all she heard was the alarm clock beside the bed fall to the floor._

"_If you want to live to see another day, stay the hell away from her, if You or any of the other vampire dare to even touch her I would make sure that none of you would not live to regret it," with one shove to the chest Klaus pushed Alex out of the room and as soon as he recovered he had run out of their sight._

_Caroline sat on the bed ready to stand. "I… I don't know what happened, all I said was the room was boring" She had no clue how showing her the room, change in to 'Let's have some fun' and she was even more confused of the way Klaus came to her rescue, of the way he threatened Alex._

"_Well you can't actually blame the poor fellow can you?" He slowly came to her side of the bed._

_He bent forward, his eyes met hers. "Sometimes it is hard to resist temptation" _

_His eyes looked dangerously inviting; it had to be something to do with heightened emotions of vampires she felt. Caroline hastily stood up. He picked up the clock that was next to her feet and put it back on bedside cupboard,_

"_It's a bit broken, but it looks more perfect this way" and he left smiling cheekily._

She realized that she had slept through the day only when she opened her eyes to check the time from her trusty timepiece. The feel of something heavy draping her waste woke her from her dream state. It was him; Klaus had returned to her side, he was behind her embracing her tightly from the back. She rotated herself to meet his face. It was dark only the outlines of his features were visible.

"Caroline did you take your vervein today?" He was gentle.

"I… forgot" She had no time to think of it, the day was all about the doppelganger.

"Don't forget next time" It was not a request but a threat.

"Ok I won't" Caroline quickly replied.

He shifted so that Caroline could rest her head closer to his chest, his hand never detached from her.

"Klaus?" She heard only her voice, he did not reply.

"Why… Why did you keep her for so long…? I mean… Are you… Do you still love her?" she had to get it out of her head for she for the whole day had been fearing the fact that Kol's plan in truth might succeed in keeping him away from her.

He was silent. She hoped it was because he was sleeping. She didn't want to turn and look to find otherwise, so she kept her head motionless, as if she was trying to catch his answer from his jagged heartbeat.

Among the heartbeat her mind however wondered of the reasons why he was there with her. She wondered whether he was there because he really and truly cared for her, or whether it was because he wanted not to be defeated by his brother as he expressed last night, or whether he merely wanted her to be his go to person when all was not well with his world. Whatever his answer was or will be she decided it would not matter because for the time being this is where he had chosen to be and she just had to be content with it.


	8. Chapter 8

**The She-devil**

Caroline could barely open her eyes. She could feel her verveined-body being dragged off by someone; she was too frail to even imagine how to break out from his clasp.

The man suddenly threw her off and she fell headfirst on the hard dry ground. The taste of dust in her mouth made her jerk back into better awareness.

A pair of black shoes stood in front of her while she lay helpless on her stomach unable to get back on her feet. Turning her head to see the man's face seemed a challenge by itself.

"I see you have woken up. Just in time, my dear" Caroline had no need to try and turn her head any further; she knew from the unbearable cocky voice that it was none other than Kol.

Using every bit of strength Caroline had in her she uttered, "What do you want from me?"

He showed off his typical smart-alecky grin. "If you have been willing to give me what I wanted earlier, I wouldn't have had to go to such extremes"

"What extremes?" At last she managed to focus her eyes on his evil caricature of a face.

Kol crouched down, and pulled Caroline from her blonde hair so that her face would perfectly rally up to his. "Wait and see Caroline, the fun is just about to begin, and when I am done with you, you would either be dead or will be wishing you were dead" He let her hair go and dropped her head back on the ground.

"Let the games begin" Caroline heard Kol shout as he walked away from her.

"Are you ready love?" He asked someone.

"Yes, … ready…" it was obviously Tatia, the accent was rather thick and too odd to be anyone else, for it had not been that long since she began to articulate herself in English.

"Are you sure you really want to do this? Your brothers wouldn't like any of this?" Caroline heard Gloria's voice from afar.

"When did I ever do what they wanted or liked?" Kol laughed and Caroline heard 'Tatia', the devil herself, snicker along with him.

"It is a good point Kol, but still, I am putting my life at risk by doing this," Gloria said concerned.

"The way I see it, you and your friend over there, can be killed right now by my own little vampire army or you can try to finish this spell for me, and live a little bit longer… until Nik shows up of course, but you never know you might even survive this whole ordeal," Caroline could hear Kol's footsteps move in the direction where Gloria's voice came from.

"What makes you so certain, I would do what you want and not do something to kill all of you?" The steadfast voice of Gloria yelled out.

"I could have used the cute little Bennet witch to help me… threaten to torture her dumb boyfriend again, Then again…" Kol sighed and continued clearing up his motives to Gloria, "I wasn't sure how strong she would be to do this kind of spell, mostly because it involves her BFFs…. And there's a huge risk that she would try to do something stupid to save them.…You on the other hand Gloria, I know definitely is powerful enough and unlike the Bennet witch, since you have no connection whatsoever with any of my hostages, I know you wouldn't give a damn about them to try and do something… and that you would do anything to save yourself and to save that human you love so much…. So for your own safety and your friend's I hope you wouldn't let me down"

Caroline at last had turned her body around to the trio's conversation, though Caroline couldn't understand what Tatia was murmuring into Kol's ear time to time as he spoke, Caroline knew it had to be something depraved and cunning.

"Let me go!"Howled a man and Caroline twisted her head to the voice.

Caroline recognized the man, he was the one who escorted Klaus and herself inside Gloria's hiding place. He was tied to a nearby tree and was brutally beaten up.

"Start spell!" Tatia ordered using her broken English.

"Let me go! Gloria, don't do it! Save yourself!" the man screamed before the vampire next to him punched him hard in the stomach.

Gloria began her chants, Caroline looked at them baffled as a ring of fire surrounded her.

"Caroline?" Elena's shaken voice called out to her.

Somehow Caroline was able to swivel on to her back and turn her attention to Elena's voice. She too was feebly lying on the ground not so far away from the boundary of the fire circle.

Elena's jeans were torn and her arms bruised, blood was dripping from her forehead.

"Are you ok?" Caroline asked.

"Yes … I think so... They… they want him to choose between us" Elena coiled inwards grabbing on to her knees, getting weaker by each word she spoke.

"What? What are you saying?" slowly but steadily Caroline stood on her knees, her head wasn't quite steady yet, but she tried to maintain her balance.

"They …want Klaus to choose between us" Elena's head crashed, and she spoke no more. Though Caroline heard what Elena said but for the time being she didn't want to make any sense out of it.

Using both her hands she pushed herself up. She could see that Elena too was trapped within a ring of flames of her own. Gloria's voice was vaguely heard through the sound of the raging fire as its blazing heat hit Caroline's face unceasingly. She collapsed back on to the ground for her legs were still not strong enough. The flames made her vision become hazy and her head whirl. As she drifted off, in between the high rising flames she could see Tatia's shrewd face, her smile reminisce of the same one that Caroline saw when she was caught kissing Klaus last night.

_It was either her kismet or karma that she had decided to walk by the study room just at that moment. _

"_If you think you can seduce me you should know that I am not the young man you met a thousand years ago" Caroline stood behind the closed door of the study room when she heard Niklaus's voice. _

"_This time around, I would be more than happy to let Elijah have you" The feeling of apprehension Caroline had been carrying around with her for the past few weeks died down somewhat. She was almost ready to give up on them, but hearing him, cleared some of the doubts she had been mulling over. For every night though he returned to her side, throughout the day he would either be training Tatia to do something, or asking Caroline to teach her etiquette suited to the twenty-first century or he would be in the study room for hours going through spell books for god knows what. _

"_Yes, many years, but I love you, my love is the same" Elijah had done the world no good by teaching Tatia English, for whenever she said something it always seem to cause problems or hurt someone, Caroline in particular._

"_But I don't! You certainly do not, you never did. You were just using us" He said confidently._

"_I am… Tatia...still… I do love you" she added, and then Caroline heard nothing. Billions of implausible and some definitely plausible theories that could cause such silence that she heard on the other side of the door made her duly stressed._

_She burst in to the room._

_It may have not been even one tenth of a microsecond that she noticed their silence before she opened the door and it may have not been even one hundredth of a picosecond that she saw their lips touch for Klaus had her thrown off of him at once, but to Caroline it looked like they were glued together for all eternity._

"_Caroline, it's not what you think!" She heard Klaus shout out, but her rage enthused tunnel vision only allowed her to focus on Tatia, who was cynically smiling at Caroline while she picked herself up from the hardwood floor._

"_Caroline!"Klaus turned her around from her shoulders._

"_Caroline, nothing happened! Talk to me!" He was impatient to hear what she had to say._

"_I believe you, I heard everything" Caroline truthfully did hear them and he truthfully did reject her, she was sure of it and in any case she certainly would not allow herself to admit that she questioned his feelings in front of Tatia._

_He kissed her forehead, and smiled endearingly looking in to her vexed blue eyes._

"_Are you ready Caroline? It's almost seven" Rebekah shouted from her room._

"_You better go and get ready love, If Rebekah knew you are still not dressed for her party she would be livid" he kissed her soothingly on her lips and stared threateningly at Tatia._

_Tatia walked passed Caroline brushing against her shoulder and if Caroline had the ability to shoot laser beams with their eyes, Tatia would already have been nothing but dust. "Klaus… do… not love you… not anyone… but him… his army… you will see" It could have been just Tatia's anger talking, or it may be the underlying truth why Klaus rejected her, for the truth could actually be he may not love anyone at all. It scared Caroline for it was not a thought that had not crossed her mind just once but a one that had been pestering in her head like a cancer for a while._

Caroline's heart was boiling up with the conflicted emotions she was feeling at the memory of it all, and her skin burnt from the intense flames of the circle of fire that kept her trapped; her ears prickled at the sound of Gloria's voice, that screamed out spells without no end. She opened her eyes with the irritating feeling that she was opening them only to witness her own demise.

"Time to start the show" Kol was somehow inside the circle with her. He opened her mouth forcibly and poured some type of potion down her throat.

Caroline coughed wanting to get the awful taste out of her mouth.

He smiled; yanked her head to him and kissed her hard and only let her go because she had managed to move back.

She narrowed her eyes and watched Kol with immense despise.

"I've always wanted to do that," Kol stood and the flames suddenly lessened permitting him to walk over to the other side of the ring without a hassle.

Caroline sat up straight; the power of vervein had slowly decreased. She then gradually started walking over to the edge of the ring hoping she too could walk out of it, yet it wasn't to be. The spell that Gloria had casted made a sort of an invisible container to keep Caroline confined.

Caroline looked over at where Elena was to see how she was coping.

She wasn't there. Instead there was another blonde headed girl sitting on the ground, her back turned to Caroline.

She immediately thought it to be Rebekah. Caroline opened her mouth to yell out to her, but no sound came from her. She fixed her throat and tried calling her again, not even a murmur came out of her. Making her voiceless had to be a part of Kol and Tatia's master plan she figured and if it was the case it would be a waste of her strength even trying to speak, thus she stopped trying.

The blonde on the other side was standing up, only the back of her head still visible. It surely wasn't Rebekah, the posture was too different to be her, yet there was something about her figure that Caroline thought had an uncanny resemblance to someone she know very well, she had a figure so familiar Caroline almost thought it was her own reflection. Even the dress she wore was very similar to what Caroline had on, what Rebekah had given her to wear to her party. It was the same red dress.

The blonde turned to face Caroline; both looked at each other mystified. At first Caroline thought her to be a mirage created by the heat waves that rose up from the fire, for the unknown blonde girl was a cloned version of 'Caroline Forbes'. She touched her own face to make sure it wasn't a reflection; it did not behave the way a reflection should, it did not follow her. Caroline swiftly spotted that her cloths too had changed, she was wearing jeans, they were torn somewhat, she spotted that the hair that hung to her own head was not her own anymore, not blonde anymore, it was dark, brunette, straight like Elena's.

Then it hit her, then she understood all that was happening, she understood what Kol meant when he said,_ "when I am done with you, you would either be dead or will be wishing you were dead_".

With the help of Gloria he had managed to somehow change their appearance, so that Caroline now would look like the doppelganger that would help Klaus help create his hybrid army, and Elena now would look like the woman Klaus supposedly loved. So that whatever Klaus chose, be it love or power he would ultimately end up losing both.

"Caroline, Like… my idea? Sorry I changed your dress" Tatia was standing outside of the ring smirking, batting her eyelids trying to act all naive.

If only Caroline could speak she would have been able to teach some cuss words to Tatia that Elijah surely hadn't. But sadly all that Caroline was able to do was to raise her middle finger at her, but that too she wasn't sure, was a sign that the doppelganger who had been dead for thousand years would actually understand. True enough Tatia merely strolled away with a puzzled look, unable to recognize the mark of hate that Caroline displayed. A smile of victory erupted on her face looking at Tatia's fading figure.

Caroline sat on the ground trying to come up with a scheme that could help her escape; she scanned around for something, for someone, anything that could help her. She noticed Elena who was now 'the new avatar of Caroline Forbes' too was searching for a means of escape. Caroline kept gazing at her, thinking back at the times when Elena used to be her best friend, the times she really did wish she was Elena, who all the boys liked. She thought back at the times when the most horrible thing that could happen to you was not being able to find that perfect dress for your prom.

"_It's the perfect dress for you" Was Rebekah's response when she saw Caroline wearing the twenties style short red dress. She remembered thinking that Rebekah should definitely go shopping with her to look for a dress for her senior prom._

"_Thank you" Caroline said happily for literally it was perfect, for it showed all the right curves perfectly. Rebekah walked around looking at Caroline marveling at her own good taste._

"_I know Nik would love it" said Rebekah in high spirits while Caroline looked up on her._

"_Well, it's better you than Tatia." Caroline beamed at Rebekah's words._

"_If it wasn't for Elijah she wouldn't be hanging around here anymore, you know that Tatia cannot be used to make hybrids right? So she is useless to Nik," explained Rebekah, forgetting one more thing, there's always 'Elena'; there would always be his quest to make hybrid slaves. _

"_I'm not worried about her, not anymore" Caroline had come to the conclusion that Tatia was not a threat any longer, at least not the way she thought, yet her face was not completely free of worry._

"_But you are worried about something, I can see that" Rebekah could read her face._

"_Nothing," she couldn't even bring herself to put her fear into words, for she was exceedingly terrified Rebekah would agree with her. Caroline's fear stemmed from knowing for thousand years the only thing he wanted was his army and 'she' was a mere coincidence, a coincidence that he might easily rule out as trivial, when and if a day comes that he had to choose between what he actually wanted and what he actually needed._

"_Come they all are waiting for us" Rebekah pulled the silent and upset Caroline from her arm. _

_She almost pushed Caroline down the stairs, for Caroline was hesitant to go down. She was not quite up to face him, not when she had been doubting him so much. She felt a traitor; she felt she was betraying just him by allowing her suspicions to stop her from loving him blindly as lovers should be doing. Yet however much she hated herself for always doubting where his priorities lied, knowing who he was and what he had been for centuries, it felt like she had no choice but to constantly be guarded about her feelings._

"_If you are not going, stay here, I am going… I hope Jeremy and Matt got my invitation" Rebekah went down the stairs merrily looking out for her possible love interests._

_Caroline exhaled loudly as if she was trying to make her worries and reservations flow out of her._

_She took slow steps._

_She loathed the stairs for one it had one too many steps; and another, the longer it took her to get down the more she had to endure Klaus's eager eyes staring at her, it made her feel completely bare and nervous, even more than she would normally feel under his stare. She loathed her heart as well for her vampire heart that shouldn't be making sounds always made such irregular noises whenever she saw the sight of him, this moment was no exception in fact the thumping sound was getting worse by the step. _

_He led her down as she reached the last steps of the stairs._

"_You look lovely" he kept her eyes on her as if it was the first time he had seen her, as if he was staring in to her soul. It made her forget that not too long ago she doubted how he felt about her, how could she have been so insecure, how could she, how could anyone._

"_You don't look too bad yourself" She almost patted herself on the back for not getting tongue tied._

_He smiled charmingly "Would the lovely lady, accompany me in a dance?"_

"_Of course" she followed his lead to the dance floor._

_The band was playing some kind of slow music, but their feet danced to their own beat she felt._

"_Why do I feel like everyone's staring at us?" Caroline whispered in to his ear._

"_Because they are, love" He whispered back._

"_Are we that bad at this?" she laughed._

"_Quite the opposite sweetheart" seeing the way his brother and his former lover watched their every move, he held her even more closely to him, _

"_Nik?" she wanted to ask him directly, ask him whether he truly loved her, since it had been eating her up from the inside for awhile and she could not take it any longer._

"_Yes love?" he spoke into her ear._

"_Nothing" her fear had gotten the best of her again._

"_Caroline," He spoke tenderly._

"_Hmm?" She stared in to the depth of his blue eyes._

"_I love you" he smiled timidly, like a teenager in love for the first time._

_Her lips parted, to say it back, but she couldn't for he had already sealed her lips with a kiss. She promised herself right at that moment she would not any longer have any misgivings whatsoever about his love, for what more can he say to convince her than to say that three word sentence that any woman would die to hear from the man she loved._

Tatia the she-devil may triumph one way or the other and hopefully 'The real Caroline Forbes' wouldn't live to see it for he would surely do the right thing, she believed.

For She believed in him, she believed in their love.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Chosen one**

Patience may be a virtue as they say, but when you are standing in the heart of a halo of fire knowing your life hanged so fragilely upon the hands of another, patience would so plainly become a virtue that anyone would fail to uphold. As for Caroline who indeed was not known for her great ability to be patient, just waiting and hoping for it all to come to an end was simply unacceptable, for she paced around thinking, calculating to find a way out, find a way to let Klaus know she was not who she looked like, so that he would actually have a better chance of getting hold of what he genuinely desired.

Gloria was preparing herself, while her friend was being carried off to somewhere, some place out of her reach. Most probably to assure that their leverage over her was not lost.

Sun rise may not be for couple of hours to come as darkness still had its wrath ever so strongly shed upon the sky. Caroline looked up at the never ending deep black sky as if looking for a sign. The fire around her, made it impossible for to see even a single constellation, even a single star let alone a sign.

She stared back at the foot prints that trailed behind her made due to her own restless pacing. She had no clue how the inspiration came about but spontaneously she had started writing her name on the ground with her foot. Elena who perceived Caroline's tries did the same with her own. They shared a smile, for whatever it was worth they had at least tried something, rather than just waiting to be saved. Although at the end of the day it may not even count for anything, momentarily it helped them feel better, feel like they had some kind of hope.

"Well, Well what have you two been up to?"Kol was within the realm of fire where Elena stood, he walked around where Elena had written her name.

He stopped right in front of her eyes, "If you try to do anything like that again, I will kill you. Stop trying to escape and erase this at once" He had compelled her. She hurriedly swept the dust away with both her feet and erased her name.

Then he came out of the fire his eyes set on what Caroline had written, "Do you want me to come there and threaten you as well?"

Caroline started wiping her name with her foot while her eyes held its hate filled gaze at Kol. His eyes possessed no sign of a soul, the last shred of humanity Caroline had sometimes thought she had seen in him were none existent. She could see the reflection of the auburn flames dance within his darkened eyes, causing her to stipulate if not for the vervein running in her veins right now he would compel her as well, yet again.

It was evident to her now, that it was her own doing that had led her here; her own doing which had made her vulnerable to compulsion. If only she had remembered to take the vervein as she was told time and again, her life would not have be in such grave peril and perhaps neither would Elena's; If only she had listened to Niklaus she would have been sleeping securely cuddled up in his arms.

"_I think we should stop dancing for a little while." she wasn't tired of dancing, not the very least, but swaying so closely joined together made her feel dizzy, made her want to do more than express herself through dance._

"_We are just getting started love." him sliding his hands smoothly down her frame, purely enflamed her desires._

_Caroline didn't want him to stop, she just didn't want him to do it in front of a zillion people. "Are you torturing me or something?"_

_His lower lip graced her neckline, making her shiver to the bone, "What, ever do you mean sweetheart?" he knew exactly how irresistible his touch was to her, he knew what kind of power it had on her._

_She tried to make an irritated face at him, but seeing his impassioned eyes only made her feel more flustered. "You're evil" she claimed._

"_So they say" he purely smiled and rolled his eyes._

"_You two seem to be having a nice time." Damon came from behind._

_Klaus's eyes fired up as he had to break his hold on Caroline to face Damon. "Don't you have better things to do? Like trying to find better ways to kill me? Who gave you an invitation anyway?"_

"_Your brother. Apparently he wants to start some kind of a 'peace talk'" Damon eyed Elijah, who was sipping his wine as he entertained few of the guests. _

"_And Caroline, don't you look so beautiful tonight, care for a dance? For all times sake?" he reached out his hand to her._

_Caroline looked away repulsed._

"_Do you have a death wish of some kind?" Klaus wasn't too amused by Damon's presence or his words, nor with his brother who had extended an invitation to him._

_Damon said something back but Caroline's mind wasn't quite set on their conversation, her eye had caught something shady happening in the backdrop of the dance floor. Her attention was on Tatia who she saw slyly follow Kol up the stairs._

"_Excuse me" Caroline removed herself from the conversation._

_While Klaus let her go disappointedly, thinking that it was Damon's abhorrent sight that made her take leave, he wasn't about to let Damon go without having the last word._

"_Don't think I don't know what you did to her, you will have to pay for it…" Caroline wanted to turn back and stand by Niklaus as he fought for her, but like a fool she had opted to follow Tatia by herself._

_She could hear Klaus and Damon slit each other's necks with witty lines and threats, she knew Klaus was more than capable of handling a few hundred years old vampire, and thus she carried on pursuing Tatia._

_Among the dozens of heads Caroline had lost her trail, she had no idea into which room Tatia had crawled. The music, the laughter, the party chit chat, made it fairly difficult to Caroline to discern from one voice from another; made it difficult to find out with certainty where she was or what they could be talking about._

_Caroline walked slowly from room to room her ear closely inspecting for any indication where they actually might be._

"_She didn't drink it today… I told you… My plan… It will work... let's do it… tonight… we have our witch…" Caroline could hear them speak inside the room where Finn's coffin was kept. She listened to them, rotating the Lapis Lazuli ring on her ring finger to calm her nerves._

"_Well we can, if you want to end up getting yourself killed and getting me daggered again."Kol's laughter was clear and sharp._

"_No... if we do my plan… right, we win… we live, they die… he gets nothing," it was either Tatia's lack of vocabulary or she had a great ability to be ambiguous, for however much Caroline tried to put the pieces together and understand what her 'big plan' was she just couldn't._

"_I may get nothing either, I am sure as hell after all this she would never be mine, at least not the way I want her," Learning that she herself may have a say in this plan of theirs did not surprise her._

"_I am not sure if I want to go through with this, I wouldn't want to get on his bad side. And he is my brother after all" An ounce or so it may be but Caroline was relieved that he had some sense of family._

"_Forget her… I am here… you don't need her, or him… we don't need them" Caroline wished she didn't hear the sound of their lips smacking together._

"_He put a dagger… in you… did you forget? Don't forget... It is your time… you will win!" Tatia panted as she talked._

"_Shhhh…." He made Tatia quiet._

_Caroline couldn't hear anything. So she stepped back from the door fearing she might have been caught._

_Before she could run, before she could call out for help, Kol opened the door and had drawn her inside the room._

"_I knew I heard something…" He had her firmly gripped; her mouth covered. Caroline squirmed tirelessly wanting to run off. _

"_A little birdie told me, you are not a big fan of taking vervein?" Kol was right. She hated how vervein tasted, if she was to be compelled she knew it was her damn fault for even as a little girl she hated taking medicine or anything bitter and 'vervein' was 'bitterness' objectified, she never drank it unless Klaus threatened to shove it down her throat._

"_Let's see if it is true." He stared right at Caroline. She could see her own reflection in his eyes, she could see his pupils dilate, "You will not let anyone know of this, tell anyone of this… about what you heard and what I am about to tell you and tonight at midnight, meet me outside the gates, and don't let anyone follow you." It must have been either the vervein in her blood that they had injected her, that was inside her now or the fact that he only told her not to let anyone know of it, and the fact that he never told her to forget the incident, either way there was a some kind of a loophole in his compulsion that may have helped Caroline recall how she was compelled in to keeping mum about the pact between Tatia and Kol. Anyways now she could do nothing but curse herself for not doing what she ought to have done._

_When Caroline returned to Klaus, he had already settled his argument with Damon._

"_Is something wrong love?" She knew he could notice a change in her._

"_No... There's… nothing... Nothing" she wanted to tell him something, but whenever she even thought of it her mind wouldn't allow her to contemplate what it was about or why she couldn't tell him._

_She saw him observing his expressions closely, but merely for a second for even though Caroline had no idea why, she had kissed him artfully to make him entirely overlook what he was doing prior to the kiss. Yet it nagged her, what she did to hide the secret that was seemingly unexplainable even to her, nagged at her subconscious whenever she saw his face._

_As the night went on, slower the dancing became, and slower it became the more intoxicated they felt within each other's hold, yet neither wanted to admit it, for they too knew not how, but it had become a dance of dominance, to show whose touch had more power over the other. They were not dancing a tango, not a rhumba but a dance that surpassed them all, a dance which only they could feel, a one which had a rhythm only they could understand. _

_Inevitably there came a time when the façade of dancing could not assist them in concealing what they had desperately danced around for._

"_Let's go love" was all he had to say, they were walking madly across the little bit of a crowd that was still left in the party looking for a place more secluded._

_They had made their way into the hallways leading to his room. She walked ahead of him holding his hand. They strictly allowed themselves to hear each other and nothing else. She turned around and giggled, and let his hand go. He chased after her as if a sailor enthralled by a mermaid's song. He couldn't bear to see her be even a feet away from her, he drew her closer to him from her hand, making her whole body turn. _

_He let her hair loose and her curls drop down to her shoulders. Caroline put her hands around his neck and stood on her toes expecting his lips on hers. As if to mock her, Klaus let the back of his fingers roam on the edge of her face until his fingertips reached her hungry lips. She gasped quietly as her lips quivered craving for more, craving for him._

_He removed the thin red strap of her dress off of her left shoulder, brushed her blonde hair from his hand and grazed his lips from her shoulder and towards her neck. A soft shriek escaped from her lips for she was incapable of handling not having his lips on hers any further. Impulsively he held her up alongside the wall and brought her closer to his mouth. Caroline needed no invitation; she couldn't wait for one, she nipped on his lips without lingering for long. He too impatiently indulged in the taste of her warm lips. _

_She wasn't drunk and neither was Klaus, yet the world around them started to twirl, started to not matter. As she feverishly let her hands ride along the back of his body, every muscle in his body felt the need to have her, love her not to ever let her go._

_He let her descent gently for his hands were in dire need to study every inch of her._

_However amidst of it all she heard a sound of a clock. At the time she couldn't understand why but she felt her legs lose its strength at the sound. _

_She wanted to be out of there, and she wanted to go somewhere more flattering, some where she couldn't hear the clock. _

_She slithered along the wall in the way to his room. _

_His lips almost touched the wall for she wasn't where she was supposed to be. Klaus was infuriated for what she did, "Where do you think you are going love?"He sped up to block her._

"_To your room" she said deviously smiling._

_A smile crept out from the corner of his lips as he was keen on the idea as well. _

_The room wasn't too far but the journey seemed to be. Thus He swept her up and carried her off in high speed to his door._

_It was almost ludicrous; Caroline started to hear the ticking sound of every stupid clock and watch in the mansion. _

_She held on to him tightly, kissed him fanatically wishing to filter out the ticking sounds._

_He was at his door._

_Caroline heard the grandfather clock down the hall strike once and it triggered her compulsion, "It's midnight. I have to go" she spoke as if she was under hypnosis. _

_She jumped out of his arms and stood as the bell rang one more time._

"_I have to go" Caroline remembered how disconcertedly and dejectedly Klaus stared at her as if he thought she had gone nuts._

"_I have something to take care of" She turned to go when she heard the thunderous sound of the grandfather clock again._

"_Now?" He asked grabbing her by the hand._

_For the fourth time she heard the bells, "Wait here I will come back." She couldn't let him follow her._

_Then the fifth bell rang loudly in her ear. _

'_Why? It's not like you would turn in to a pumpkin if you don't go. Do whatever you want tomorrow!" He just couldn't let her go, he held on to her arm powerfully. _

_The sixth and the seventh strikes were the loudest and it aggravated her. "I can't stay… let me go!" She couldn't be late, it was almost midnight._

"_No I won't! Did something happen? Let me come with you." His eyes burnt with annoyance as he couldn't work out the purpose of it all._

"_No! Just let me go!" It was her last try and for her bad luck he relaxed his grip on her, not wanting to hurt her, wanting to give her what she needed for whatever the reason may be._

"_Go!" he released her._

"_Wait here, I will come back." She kissed him hoping against hope that he wouldn't come after her. _

_The tempo of the bells seemed to have increased; she heard the clock strike thrice without an interval._

"_Ok, I shall wait for you then" he sounded terribly upset but he seemed to have believed her._

_She knew Klaus wanted to follow her, be with her, help her, yet she was clear, she didn't want him to._

_Caroline ran out._

_She wanted to run back to him, she wanted to stay, but she heard the bell ring once more reminding her she needed to be at the gates no matter what. _

_She ran without looking back._

A gush of wind was all that was heard, Caroline could see Kol's vampires dropping one after the other.

Klaus had come.

She saw his fury, she saw him speeding within her scope, thrusting away the poor young vampires as they were mere insects obstructing his path.

Klaus's own army was not far off. They brawled with the others trying to help their master.

Caroline had no time to do anything. She had no time to warn him since the same unbearable echo that she heard inside the old witch's burnt down house repeated itself in her ears and she fell down unable to muddle through it. She rolled around in pain her hands covering her ears. Elena was crumpled on the ground. The resonance of the noise had affected her as well.

"I think you and your vampires better stop all of this before I kill them both" at Kol's instruction Gloria was able to hinder Klaus's advances, he couldn't walk any further.

The remaining younger vampires were petrified as they were not clear if they should retreat or attack.

"Gloria, stop this at once if you want to live! You know you are not powerful enough to keep me bound for long!" Gloria wasn't listening to Klaus her mind was still set in rescuing her friend.

"It's time brother" Kol shouted.

Klaus had managed to move a few steps towards them. "Let her go!" He roared.

"Which one?" Tatia laughed like the crook that she was.

"Shut up!" Klaus darted his eyes at Tatia.

"It's time for you to choose. Whoever you choose lives, the other dies, and you better hurry up brother, they are dying as we speak." Caroline could hear only bits and pieces of what Kol said. It sounded surreal, as if she was in some cruel reality show where at the end of the day if you are chosen what you would be getting won't be a rose, but your life, your right to live.

"If you try to do anything dumb, I'll make sure none of them survive. So are you ready brother?"Kol raised an eye brow. He was jovial at the fact that his brother had no clue that the ultimatum that he had presented to him was distorted and skewed as they come.

"The choice is more obvious than you think!" Caroline could hear nothing more after those words from Klaus. The screeching high pitch like sound worsened, intensifying the throbbing pain in her body, mind and soul.

She could see him coming their way, in the direction of where both she and Elena were. Hopelessly she tried calling him knowing no voice would come out of her.

The way he had angled himself as he walked like lightening, Caroline assumed he was going towards Elena; Elena who now looked like Caroline.

Caroline was pleased he was going for her as expected, as she wanted. Sure she wanted to live but not without him.

Tears ran down from her eyes, of the pain she felt as her heart cried out loudly. She closed her eyes prepared to die.

The agonizing sound faded away, she had to be dying she imagined.

Caroline felt someone hovering above her.

"Are you ok?" She cast her eyes to his voice. Then the disorientated Caroline nodded her head.

She was alive and Klaus was with her; he had not chosen 'Caroline Forbes', he had chosen 'Elena Gilbert' the doppelganger.

She looked down at her hair, she was still a brunette.

"Are you sure?" he asked his eyes so fretful.

His concerned words only made Caroline further distress as she realized he worried not after her but for the doppelganger. If she could scream out loud and say '_I am not Elena'_ she would have. It had to be a nightmare she thought, disbelieving what had happened for there couldn't have been a means that he could tell apart their true identities. If it wasn't a nightmare he had betrayed her, failed her so miserably she felt.

Though she didn't want to believe he had failed her yet the evidence so blatantly existed, stood against her beliefs.

"It's time for you to die Niklaus, Gloria cast your spell" Kol commanded.

"Not so fast Kol" Caroline saw Klaus run after Kol. Gloria's magic proved not powerful enough to hold him back. Her energy seemed to have drained completely. Her voice slowed down, her chants became weaker and she passed out without finishing her spells.

Kol didn't even have time to retort .Klaus smacked Kol across the face, and he plunged to the ground.

"We really did let the wrong brother stay out of the coffin, Finn might have bored us all, but he wouldn't have been stupid as to betray me" He heaved Kol by his neck and daggered him right through the heart.

Klaus stood over his brother's decaying body, rage still possessing him.

Tatia looked as confused as the day she came out of her coffin. She was backing off from the debris of the disaster she help create.

"Hello Tatia," Elijah was standing behind her. He for the first time looked like a vampire.

"Elijah, it was Kol… he said to help him… or he will kill me" She cried.

"Enough!" Elijah saw through her lies, he pulled out a dagger from his coat.

"No Elijah! I love you… I know you love me too" begged Tatia.

"I thought so too. But I was wrong "he walked to her and she tried to take off, but he had gotten around her and stabbed her quickly.

As Tatia went on her knees holding the dagger in her heart, she smiled at Caroline, as if to let Caroline know though all may have failed, the point she wanted to prove was made in the end. For Klaus had chosen power over love, he had chosen himself for that's who he loved beyond any other.

"I should have done this the first day Kol brought you back to life" Klaus broke Tatia's neck from behind, depriving the last bit of satisfaction she was seeking to derive looking at Caroline's face. She died with her atrocious smile frozen on her evil face.

"Elena!" Stefan came running to Caroline's side and Damon was alongside him.

"Are you ok?" his eyes were gentle, and worried. Elena was truly lucky to have him Caroline thought.

"Are you alright? It took us a little while to figure out what was happening," Damon seemed just as troubled to see 'Elena' lying on the ground.

Caroline kept on saying "I am not Elena" but none of them were able to read her lips.

An unnatural feeling took over Caroline. Something was happening to her. Her skin began to tingle and a chilling feeling ran through her veins. Her hair was changing colour, from the roots to the edges.

"Barbie?"Damon watched her change back in astonishment.

"What's going on?" Stefan got up and looked around.

"Here! She's here!" Bonnie called Stefan.

Damon dashed away to Bonnie and as did Stefan.

"Is she alive?" Stefan asked Bonnie.

Caroline couldn't hear Bonnie answer.

"Caroline?" Klaus was next to her, kneeling he was as confused as the rest of them.

Caroline couldn't bear to look at him. She looked over at Elena who looked as good as dead. For the first time in a very long while, Caroline wished she was Elena, she envied her. Elena again had what Caroline wanted, which was to be dead.

She was worn out and her eyes were tired. Caroline closed her eyes tightly not wanting to see the light of day for tomorrow for as far as she understood, had nothing to offer her other than darkness and loneliness.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Dearly Beloved**

"_How are you feeling love?" Caroline woke up to the sound of Klaus's voice. He was lying next to her in bed, watching her, caressing her face softly._

"_Fine. I think…" there was a reason that she should not be fine; there was a reason that she should just reject his touch, reject him altogether, but the reasons evaded her mind and heart._

_She turned to his side, to see if she could find a clue in his face that may lead her to an answer as to why she felt so torn in his company._

"_Is there something wrong?" he asked and his compassion felt a fake to Caroline. _

_She sat upright feeling there was something amiss._

"_I don't know." She could feel the warm tears run down her cheeks._

_She saw him looking in to her eyes, cupping her face with his hands. His eyes were full of deceit she thought thus she looked elsewhere._

_He then started moving closer, probing for her lips. _

_His engaging lips aroused her much too much for her to refuse him, for her trembling lips opened up letting him kiss her as he pleased. She held on to his torso as she would die if he let her go for even a second. She tore his shirt open and threw it across the room for her eyes and hands had been starving for his flesh. _

_The dim light of the morning sun crept through the window and hit him making him more visible, more alluring. His hands clutched her waist tightly. His mouth was slowly finding its way down to her cleavage and her back stiffened and she stood on her knees as her lust for him could not be restrained. He madly groaned as he realized her sweater was in his way. She wanted him to get it off of her, shred it to pieces if necessary._

_As he moved his hands upward to tug her cloths apart, her eyes caught how her own nails dug in to his bare back from the mirror opposite their bed. She halted herself staggered as there was a confused pair of brown eyes above his shoulder staring at her from the mirror. It ought to be her own eyes that stared at her from the mirror, for there was no one else in the room except for Klaus and herself. _

_She lifted her head up, only to realize she 'Caroline' was 'Elena'; She 'Caroline' was trapped in Elena's body. The woman Klaus so ardently was holding in his arms, and has been kissing for all this while was Caroline but in the form of Elena._

_However tantalizing it was she just couldn't let him continue. "Stop it! Get away from me! What's happening to me…? Why do I look like Elena? " She screamed loudly as she held her dark brown head of hair trying to pull it out from her skull._

_She could feel his hands lay stagnant on her body, his eyes still overpowered by the passion he felt for her._

_Whatever he said to her at that moment were lies she felt, lies used to cover up the fact that he never really cared for her, never really cared for 'Caroline Forbes' to begin with. "Caroline, what's gotten in to you? Nothing's happening to you? Listen to me, you're still Caroline, you're not Elena!"_

_She glanced at the mirror; her distorted vision ascertained he was in fact telling the truth for once. For she actually did not look like Elena, at least not anymore. She was herself again, and she was wearing her red dress that she wore last night._

_A strong ray of sunlight set harshly upon her face as a sudden breeze rushed through the room blowing the curtain away. _

_In a hurry she looked down at her ring finger on her left hand, where her lapis lazuli ring was supposed to be, the finger she always wore it on._

_It wasn't there._

"_Where's my ring? Where is it?" She feared the sunlight, but feared the thought of losing her precious ring more. _

_He took her by the hand "It's right there, love" he kept telling her, she kept looking at her left hand where it always was but she just couldn't see it._

"_Stop lying to me! And don't you dare touch me, not now not ever!"She cried._

"Caroline love, wake up! You're having a nightmare" she felt him holding on to her arms as they shook hysterically.

The sight of him as she awoke brought back memories of how it all really happened, how reality was not so far off from her nightmare.

"Get away from me!" She tried pushing him.

"Caroline, stop!" he held on to her tightly, she grimaced for she had no way of getting rid of him.

"I hate you." her words did do its job for his face shrunk bitterly.

"Think before you say another word Caroline, don't say things that you know you would regret later" he kept his distance from her and she could see his face lose its colour.

"It's because of you Elena is dead… because of you and your dream of your hybrid army she was in danger… It's all because of you, It's your fault my friends hate me, it's your fault I am a vampire… you've never loved me and never will…. "All that was in her head poured out of her without a pause.

"Are you done?" his eyes held the same intensity that she saw when he took Tatia's life.

"No! I am not done. Why did you save me? Why?" she stood up and shoved him hard as possible.

His features changed and his eyes turned golden. She could see his teeth coming out, and at once he jumped at her, pushing her back on to the bed, his weight on top of her; his mouth wide open ready to bite her.

"Kill me, I don't care. I rather die anyway, I've lost everything because of you!" She was ready to endure the pain of his bite. She waited for his hybrid fangs to puncture her neck, let his poisonous bite release her of the hell hole that was to be her life, yet he merely gaped at her.

"I may have made you a vampire, but it's not my fault that your friends turned their back on you. And for the record, Elena is not dead. Your witch friend brought her back from the dead. And remember I never threatened you, compelled you to stay with me, love me. Believe me sweetheart I could have" his enraged voice sent tremors through her veins.

"Tell me the truth then, why did you save me?" she couldn't stand to look at him anymore.

"If you really want to me to explain to you why, 'why' I saved you, you should know it's not me who doesn't believe in us" his fangs slowly disappeared, and she felt his weight slowly removing itself from her.

He started to walk away.

"Then compel me to forget" at her words he stopped, as if he was shot by an arrow from the back.

"Compel me to forget about what happened, about you, compel me to never to love you again…" her crying eyes waited for him to turn and fulfill her request.

"You've been through a lot… get some rest now, anyways it will take some time for all that vervein to drain out of your body for you to be compelled, and if you still feel the same way by then … we'll see…" she felt the sorrow in his words, but she could only see the back of him as he walked out with his thoughts and expressions buried.

She jolted at the way the door banged as he left. She kept wondering about what she asked of him. Though she wanted to hate him, hurt him so badly she didn't realize that doing so, seeing him hurt as so would hurt her in return. She kept looking at the closed door as though she was using telekinesis to open It, as though she was attempting to drag back all she had said using some kind of power within her eyes.

He on the other hand stood opposite the door unable to move, unable to process what happened or what she wanted him to do. If he just hadn't let her leave in the middle of the night this might have never happened, it was his mistake he reckoned.

"_It's midnight. I have to go" out of the blue she had jumped out of his hands, and at first he thought she was playing with her._

"_I have to go" She repeated and he could not have been more disappointed for he was almost at the door, he almost had her all by to himself._

"_I have something to take care of" she was pleading._

"_Now?" He grabbed her by her left hand and the chill of the lapis lazuli ring hit his palm sharply._

"_Wait here I will come back." She said as the midnight bells rang._

'_Why? It's not like you would turn in to a pumpkin if you don't go. Do whatever you want tomorrow!" It had to be a joke for she could not have wanted to be anywhere else but be there with him, for he sure did not want to be. He held her tightly by her right arm. _

"_I can't stay… let me go" She was pulling at her arm trying to make him release her but he had no inclination of letting her go._

"_No I won't! Did something happen? Let me come with you."He tried hard to keep himself controlled, as he knew his ego could just as easily carry her to his room against her wishes._

"_No! Just let me go!" she kept on insisting, and he could not defy her any longer, her pleading eyes managed to soften his hold. _

"_Go!" he let her hand go. Her ringed hand slid through his fingers and he didn't know how he was even capable of keeping himself from capturing her hand all over again. _

"_Wait here, I will come back." She pressed her lips softly upon his, and he felt that she was draining his life out of him for how could he ever let her go after feeling the way he did. _

_Yet he knew he had to for that's what she wanted._

"_Ok, I will wait for you then" he had not even finished speaking and she was already on her way dashing through the corridor._

_For a minute he waited, for an hour he waited and he could wait no more for her return. He called her, went in search of her. He searched every room, every corner, every inch of the mansion he couldn't find her._

_His phone began to vibrate and he readily took it out of the pocket hoping it was Caroline. _

_All that he saw was a text message from Kol saying, 'I got her. Come and get her if you want. Come to the Lockwood Property'. _

"_Niklaus what's wrong?" Elijah was standing beside him._

"_He's got her" he turned to go._

"_Who?"He heard Elijah ask but he rushed off without answering._

"_Follow me!" He ordered his vampires and scurried away._

_He ran through the woods as if a lone wolf crazed over its enemy's blood, he could feel the human part of him fade away little by little and when he got to the grounds where Kol and Tatia had prepared their not so little test of his love, all he could see was Caroline, all he could think was to how to save her. He cared for no one and no other life. _

_His brother was asking him to choose between the two but he could see only one. "The choice is more obvious than you think!"The world around him slowed down as he ran towards Caroline._

_However, there was something all too easy about the whole thing he thought. He had a gut feeling that there had to be something more to this entire debacle than what was portrayed, for Kol wasn't that thick and neither was Tatia. _

_He could see Kol's laugh, Tatia's crooked smiles and Gloria's chants frozen in time. Tatia's eyes were fixed, not to where or to whom he was running to but her eyes were gazing somewhere else. They were gazing cruelly at an exhausted Elena. He could see Elena's eyes closing slowly, her lips murmuring something. If she weren't Elena he would have at once thought she was calling his name. He tried listening in vigilantly to what she was saying, but he couldn't hear any of it. Nevertheless his ears caught her heartbeat, it sounded different, cold-blooded, almost vampire like, arrhythmic and almost like Caroline._

_He turned back to see where Caroline lied. Everything was right about her, she was 'Caroline', and she looked the same except for one minor detail about her ring, it wasn't on her left hand but on her right. She always wore it on the left hand, on the same finger, ever since the day he first put it on her. He was convinced, even when he saw her last night 'the ring' was on her left hand. _

_He turned to Elena. She may have looked like Elena, but she felt like Caroline. It could be the biggest mistake in his life he figured but it would be an even bigger mistake that he would regret for all eternity if he did not follow his intuition. He wasn't sure if he believed in a god, but he hoped there was one as he turned to the woman who he thought was the genuine Caroline, and turned away from the woman that merely resembled her._

He did the right thing he thought. He saved the right person he thought. Actually the moment she opened her eyes and looked at him, he was self-assured that he made the right choice. Yet somehow he had ended up being the villain as usual for she still saw him as the person he didn't want himself to be, she still believed him to be the person everybody thought he still was. And it hurt him more than thousand daggers thrust into his chest to know that she thought he saved her because she looked like Elena, it hurt him because she had already established all by herself that who he really wanted to save was Elena, for he was and forever will be incapable of love.

His head was still filling up with all kinds of nonsense and more, as he sat in his study room.

He didn't know for how long and for how many hours but he was going through dozens of books, but none of them could hold his attention, he could only turn the pages, and stare at the black inked letters on it like an idiot who had never learned to read.

"Why does this place seem so gloomy suddenly? Where's Caroline?" Rebekah came in and she was still in her last night's dress.

"Where were you anyway?" He was angry with his sister; she should have been there for him.

"Well you know, last night Matt and I…" she began to say, but stopped realizing his interest on the subject was lost at the first word that came out of her mouth.

"What happened? Did you get in to a fight with Kol again? Or was it with Caroline? Or did you find out that you could never have your hybrid army?" She was being the annoying little sister again.

"Last night Caroline…"he couldn't carry on any more. The mere name of her made him feel as though he would break in to pieces.

"What happened to Caroline? Is she Ok?' he could see that Rebekah cared for Caroline more than she was willing to express.

"She's alright… I guess… Kol and Tatia tried to use her to get to me. And I had to put Kol back in his coffin again, and Tatia… I had to kill her." He explained to Rebekah in one breath.

"Oh poor Kol, it's not going to be much fun without him. I wasn't much of a Tatia fan anyway… so since everything is back to normal... I'll see you later Nik" he smiled amused at what Rebekah said as she walked away. She seemed to be in too good of a mood for him start explaining about the whole issue of the body swap between Caroline and Elena.

He sighed and returned to his book and started turning the pages again. He couldn't find where he left off since he never was reading it in the first place. He had had it; he could not fool himself anymore thinking he could wait for Caroline to come to her senses, wait for her to calm down so that she would hear him out with a clear head. Whether she would believe him or not he thought would not matter, for he decided that he would march right in to the bedroom and tell her everything, and let the truth be unfolded.

He threw the book in his hand to somewhere in to the corner of the room, and headed towards where Caroline was. He didn't knock, he couldn't wait for an answer for he knew she would hesitate and ask him to stay out; therefore he walked right in.

"Caroline let me explain to you before you scream at me again" He bawled, and halted near her bed where she sat.

"No! I don't want to listen to you… I just want you to tell me... Why did you save me?" He could not believe she even dared to ask her 'Why' he saved her, for the answer should be the most plainly obvious of them all. It wasn't the first time he had noticed a hint of cynicism in her eye. However her accusations this time were far more severe he felt, far more unjust.

"Why do you keep asking me 'why'? Don't you trust me?" He questioned her and he could see her caught in her own thoughts; her eyes searching around in confusion.

"I... I just can't. Not after everything that have happened. Trust should be earned, and you... you have always been a monster… everyone warned me… they told me I would get hurt… I didn't listen to them… I took a chance… I loved you and you betrayed me" she paused only to wipe her tears.

"Is that your true opinion of me?" He had thought he finally had found 'that' person who saw him beyond his reputation, saw him for the person that he was now not for the monster that he once used to be, She was supposed to be the 'exception' that he would give up everything for but after what he heard her say he couldn't help but feel that she was no different from any other woman who allegedly loved him.

"Why can't you answer me? You can't answer me because you are scared of the answer yourself! You know you saved me for the wrong reasons… because you know you saved me by mistake." She accused him. He may have not been the most trustworthy hybrid around, and the circumstances she just been through may have been causing her to react in such a way but if she loved him he felt she should have at least given him the benefit of the doubt, and not keep on asking him as to why he saved her. It demeaned him, demeaned his love for her.

"I'll give you one more chance Caroline, think and ask your question again… ask the right question and you'll have the answer you are looking for" If she would just believe in him for a second he would have in heartbeat would have told her everything, beginning to end, but her question bothered him and his pride wouldn't allow him to explain himself to a distrusting Caroline.

"The more you keep the truth from me, the more I am sure I am not the one you wanted to save, I rather have died… I rather be compelled to fall out of love with you, forget you, forget everything and go back to my old life" He stared back at her red eyes as they tried to hide from him. He inevitably began to question whether it was even possible for him to trust, to love anyone or whether loyalty or love really existed or whether they were just mere words used by poets to fool people into reading their work.

"Compel me… I've had enough time to think, enough time for the vervein to work itself out of my system… Compel me… I don't want to live with this memory… I don't want to keep getting hurt like this… I don't want to live my life always doubting… If you cared for me even a little bit… for even one second…you would compel me to forget you" She said stubbornly. She was testing his love, his patience.

He caught her by the nape of her neck and narrowed his eyes to her, he wanted to give her what she asked for, compelling her to forget would be a well suited reprimand for mistrusting him, for his thousand year old pride did not want to bow down and admit to the fact that compelling her would be a far greater loss for him in the end.

"Compel me" She demanded as kept her eyes widely opened glaring at his eyes as if she was daring him.

However strong his pride may have been slowly it began to shed as he gazed more and more into her persuasive eyes. He may have compelled thousands upon thousands of people, a million upon million times but suddenly compelling 'her', compelling her to forget him seemed a fete beyond his ability for she was his kryptonite, his vervein, his only weakness.

Yet he stared endlessly as she stared back, thinking whether to give in to her stubbornness or not, thinking whether to compel her not.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Masked Murderer**

"What is all this?" Elijah's eyes widened at the sight that was before him.

Three women were on the floor almost bleeding to death, one more hanged from Klaus's teeth as he filled his thirst, hunger and loneliness. It was a sight he had seen once before, when they first became vampires, when they all didn't know how to control their hunger, when they went from one village to the next meaninglessly and mercilessly killing the innocent just to feed their lust for blood.

Elijah went to him and flung the girl in his brother's hands to the couch. "You have to stop this or I'll…"

"Or you will do what?" He wiped the blood on his face from his hand and looked at Elijah loathingly.

Elijah stared at the blood filled floor and the dying young women. "Why are you doing this to yourself Niklaus, I thought you were…"

"You thought I was changing, becoming a better man? How can I become a better man when I am not a man at all, when I am not human, when all that I am is a monster? …This is what I am supposed to do. And so should you brother. Sooner you accept it the better. For a thousand years I thought I had come to terms with it, but apparently I hadn't, but thanks to her finally I have. And you should too before you get yourself fooled into believing you are capable of anything other than being a monster." He sneered and stepped over the women to get away from his brother.

Elijah couldn't let him escape without trying to put some sense into him, "It's time for you to move on. It's already been two years. it's been two years since Caroline left..."

"Don't even… Don't start this… I have moved on, can't you see…? Can't you understand Elijah? I have moved on I have become myself again. At last I am free…" he sighed and hesitated for a second, "And just to show you how much I have moved on I will throw the biggest party that this town had ever seen, invite every woman and dance with each one of them, "He claimed turning to Elijah.

"Who are you trying to fool Niklaus? Don't tell me that you haven't been looking for her. Don't lie to me or to yourself. You still miss her. Even if you throw hundreds of balls or parties and danced and sleep with every woman you meet, it will not change the truth. ..Let's stop all this and find her, admit you miss her and still love her and find her! …I'll help you, we can get a witch or warlock that could easily find her for you" Elijah stood his ground even when he saw his brothers eyes change in to a harsh golden yellow.

"No! I may loved her, but not anymore. Just leave me be," He didn't have anything more to say to Elijah any further, he thought he had no need to justify his life decisions to him.

"Niklaus?" Finn was coming in his direction.

He shoved Finn to the side without a regard. "Get ready we are going to have a ball in a few days"

Both Finn and Elijah stared at their brother as he stormed out.

Actually, that was all they were able to do for the past two years, look upon their brother as he went on rampage leaving them to clean up whatever the carnage he had created, for he no longer cared what the world would think of him or what they would find out about him.

Whatever Elijah or Finn had to say had no impact on him. In fact the few days leading to the fancy dinner and dance that Klaus had planned, in order to show to Elijah that he is over the whole Caroline era, he acted even more crazed than normal. The small European town that they have settled down into had no idea that there was a hybrid roaming around in their street in the dead of night seeking for his new source of blood, seeking someone that he could vent out his anger on. They had no idea that the recent animal attacks recorded in their city were caused by the same man that invited the whole of the town including its Mayor to a masquerade ball.

Evil or not, thousand years or not Klaus and the whole of the Mikaelsen family had a flair to throw elegant and extravagant parties.

Everything was well set. The day of the ball Klaus made sure his sired army of vampires had been given orders to make sure everything runs smoothly and that they kept their eyes opened for anything suspicious; just because he was an indestructible hybrid he knew it did not mean that someone would never try to kill him, take something important to him. Thus he was always cautious.

Their mansion was filling up with masked guests; the string quartet had started to play his favorite classical music. He felt his brothers' eyes on him, as they were concerned that he would kill the whole town in one breath. However In truth he had neither such designs nor any plans other than to show his brother and may be also to himself that he still remembered how to have a good time.

He mingled with every person he met, flirted and seduced every living woman who danced with him. Through it all his glaring eyes were always directed at Elijah as if he was boasting of his recently found bachelorhood.

"Hello, Mr. Mikaelsen… "A man with a heavy accent came up to Klaus with a drink in his hand.

"I don't think we have met, I am the Mayor of this little town and this is my wife" the stout looking mayor's ginger headed wife smiled coyly. Klaus smiled back merely out of courtesy and looked elsewhere searching for something more interesting than the old couple in front of him.

His sharp eyes caught the sight of a fiery red headed woman dancing in the middle of the dance floor. As she twirled around in her partner's arms, he could see her blue eyes peeking at him through her mask ever so often. He was more than mesmerized by the way her red dress danced along with her curvaceous figure.

He took a stride, not letting the red head go out of his range. "Do you know that girl?" he asked.

"That's our daughter Clare" The excited Mayor answered.

His answer disappointed Klaus, she in no way could be their daughter for he in no way should be feeling such a deep attachment to some woman he had seen for the first time. He thought he was going insane when he became mindful of a feeling he would not, should not and could not possibly feel for anyone anymore, especially not for the Mayor's red headed daughter.

He walked around the room, behind the crowd. His eyes followed her everywhere she moved. He wished he could just walk up to her and unveil the laced mask that covered three quarters of her face to make sure that it was indeed the mayor's daughter. Though it was not an impossible task, as he was the master of the house who was powerful enough to do anything, who could have her mask easily removed from her face without a care he couldn't do anything of the sort since what it could disclose frightened him.

He tried listening to her but he couldn't hear their conversations or what the puny man said to make her laugh so much. He couldn't hear her heart or the music that made her sway so dotingly with her partner for he couldn't hear anything but his own unpredictable cold-blooded heart strike loudly. It was as if he was rendered powerless by the mere presence of a woman that reminded him of a time that he thought he was more than an animal with an obsession.

His eyes promptly examined her lean fingers for a sign of a lapis lazuli ring, the very thing that one time; couple of years ago had helped him to distinguish between truth and lies. But there was no ring on her hand. He wondered whether he was delusional, or whether it was the same kind of witch craft that Kol used to trick him, at work yet again fooling him. He had found his way to the truth once, he knew in no time he could sought this matter out as well, but then again there was an impenetrable feeling within him that didn't want to find out the truth, that wanted to let the obscure be obscure.

They finally stopped dancing.

She stood in a corner with a glass of wine.

He walked undecidedly through the sea of people to get to her before anyone else approached her. The closer he got to her more spellbound he felt and surer he was of the fact she could not possibly be the daughter of that odd looking couple he had met a few minutes ago.

Her partner returned, before he could reach her and they were dancing again. Her partner held her by her waist and her hands were tied around his neck. He couldn't stop envying that scrawny little thing of a man that held her.

Hoping to ease the pain that was burning his insides as they danced, he grabbed a glass of wine from a waiter that went pass him and drank it in one sip. He feared that Elijah may have been right after all; for even some girl with red hair had managed make him evoke feelings that he thought he had kept buried so deep in his heart, in a place that they could never be retrieved.

The way her own set of eyes looked back at him scared him more and intrigued him more. He kept ogling at her and he kept drinking one wine glass after another and one champagne after another for that woman should not by any means be his addiction for the night, for he knew a moment with such a woman could be more lethal than all witchcrafts and spells put together.

"I see that you have found something interesting" Finn asked and glanced at the girl that had caught his brother's eye.

"Oh… I was just..." He himself didn't know what he was doing.

"Aww... baby brother… I may have been in a coffin for a long time, but I know what that face means" Finn laughed and it made Klaus want to punch him in the face.

The moment he looked at Finn and turned back the girl was already gone. He could only see her dancing partner all by himself. "Where did she go?"

"She was just here..."Finn walked over to where her partner stood.

Seeking for the alleged Mayor's daughter, Klaus had mindlessly walked in to the middle of the ballroom,

He restlessly looked about. He then saw her, running up the stairs cautiously, holding her long red gown. As he watched her run something within him was provoking him to call out to her 'Caroline', just to see if she would stop and turn, just to see what would happen. But he didn't for if she truly did not turn, he thought he would feel he had failed somehow and moreover he knew he would be laughed at by his brothers and deemed a fool forever.

Yet without discretion he followed the red head. He saw her recede in to the dark corridors of the second floor. She seemed to be luring him for some kind of trap he felt, for he had not felt so rapt by anyone for a long time.

He was attentive to the slightest movement, every little sound that could be her.

He heard the chandelier behind him chime and he hurriedly twisted around and saw her run across on the other side of the stairs, where he had kept Kol and Rebekah's coffins.

He was there with her within a second.

'What are you doing here sweetheart?" He caught her by the hand; her soft fingers fit his so perfectly as if it belonged in his.

"I... I think I am lost," She pulled her hand out of his grip and jumped back.

Her accent was American and her voice was so bubbly, arrogant and seducing at the same time. He in his long life had only heard one such voice and he had to try hard to hide his surprise. "Are you sure you are lost love?" he could read her body language; hear her lying inhuman like heart beat which he found to be familiar to a sound he hadn't heard for two years.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you alone" her demeanor changed in an instant, she was slowly stepping towards him. He thought he was hearing things, he thought he was seeing things. For a moment he forgot his purpose of following her, for a moment he forgot how to talk, for a moment he had forgotten how to be the thousand year old hybrid he was.

"I saw you looking at me from across the room" She was not that far from him, he could smell her and he believed her not to be 'Clare' the mayors daughter, for she in fact didn't even smell human.

"You reminded me of someone" he said softly, trying to examine her face through the mask.

"Who?" She came closer.

He wanted to ignore all his scrambled emotions that were running through his head thinking that they were just the alcohol mixed in his blood which was making him hallucinate.

"You can't be Mayor's daughter" His hand gently went to her mask.

But before he could lift it, by chance he noticed her hand reaching out for something from her back.

It was a pasty old stake and she was about to stab his heart. However disoriented he might have been he still was able to stop her inches away from his heart. He spun her around and snatched the stake from her hand. "Whoever sent you, might have forgotten to tell you that I am a hybrid that couldn't be killed by this stupid stake" He threw the stake behind him.

"That's where you are wrong Klaus, It's made from the white oak tree that all you original vampires seemed to fear so much" She smiled through her mask

He pushed her angrily, making her drop on to Rebekah's coffin. It instantly opened and she in a hurry took the dagger out of Rebekah and jumped back at Klaus. But again his reflexes proved to be too sharp, for he caught the plunging girl by her throat. "Who are you? Who sent you?" He rumbled loudly.

She smirked through the agonizing pain his grip was causing her. "Not the Mayor's daughter, I can tell you that much" and she pulled off the fake red hair on her head and a few golden locks dropped on to her face.

He raised his hand as if to smack her. She winced expecting his strong hand to strike her face.

But he had simply removed her mask.

"Caroline?" immediately he let go of her neck.

"How…How do you know my name?" In the midst of all the confusion Caroline had managed to dagger him on the stomach.

She stood speechless looking back at him as he crouched in pain and pulled out the dagger.

"You should know sweetheart that has no affect on me" She tried to run but he pushed her to the wall.

"Caroline, I... I" he stuttered for he didn't know what he wanted to say.

"How do you know who I am?" she asked as if she was fearful that he was able to read her thoughts.

"So, Rebekah really did compel you to forget me?" he knew she was compelled but it was one thing to know the truth and it was another to face it.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Caroline screamed.

"You!… how dare you dagger me again?" out of nowhere Rebekah jumped at Klaus.

"Get off" he rammed his sister to the ground.

"You deserved it" he growled and looked back but Caroline was gone.

"You idiot, this is all your fault" He ran out to see where she had gone to but she had already disappeared.

"Was that Caroline? But she was supposed to leave town. I compelled her to leave town" Rebekah asked.

"She did and she has" He huffed at Rebekah and left.

As he reeled away looking for any sign of her, he remembered their last conversation. He remembered how he lost her two years ago.

"_Compel me" her eyes dared to gape in to his, wanting to be compelled. _

_He kept his eyes on her, his heart just wouldn't let him compel her, he wanted to tell her the truth, but his head kept up bringing up what she asked, 'Why did you save me?' and it kept bringing up the fact that she called him a 'monster' again and again. _

_He doubted even after telling the truth the bond between them could be the same ever again. _

"_Here, I got this back from your friends" he took her ring out from his pocket, and placed it on her palm and ran away from her as soon as possible before his head told him to compel her and let the truth be forever untold for she did not deserve to hear it._

_He had not even been in his room thinking for a half an hour when Rebekah showed up._

"_Klaus I am sorry, she begged me" Rebekah had tears trapped in her eyes._

"_How could you?" he at once knew what his sister was talking about, he knew what she had done. His eyes inevitably glanced at the dagger and the bottle of white oak dust lying on the shelf._

"_She hates you for what you did to her and I hate you more for what you have done. I thought you have changed Nik. She said she can't be in love with a monster like you for the rest of her life. I don't blame her, you haven't given her any reason to believe in you. She wanted to have a better life, love someone who deserved it. Think about it Nik. No one can live a whole eternity loving someone who values the fantasy of building an army, valuing his own selfish dreams more than anything" her eyes were on her own nervous foot as it slowly drew scribbles on the floor._

"_And you of all people, my own sister doesn't believe that I am worthy of her? You don't believe that I did the right thing?" Fury had taken over him. He turned his back to Rebekah and secretly dipped the dagger in the little bottle._

"_How can I? after what she told me, she deserves someone better than you, but I..." he drove the dagger through her rib cage before she could finish and she collapsed to the floor next to his feet._

He remembered how he felt that day; he had felt betrayed and abandoned by everyone who he thought loved him and that day he had decided never to surrender to anything, any kind of feeling that could make him weak. His memories only served to help him realize that he could not and shall not love or trust anyone for he was a monster after all.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry I was late to update.. I was a bit busy... I think I was suppose to finish this long time ago for the Klaroline Challenge... I've missed the deadline :( ... but I'll continue anyway...<strong>


	12. Chapter 12

**The Truth**

"What's the password?" asked the old woman at the town's old broken down tavern.

"Vervein growing in the sun" Caroline replied her eyes focused on the large shelf of wine bottles behind the woman.

"You may go in" the woman answered and the shelf moved to the right opening up a very small passage way.

Caroline entered the passage, which was as old and boring as the tavern itself.

Ahead of her she could see a vampire sucking on some woman's neck leaning to the wall. He glanced intriguingly as Caroline walked by.

She stopped before a large wooden door, trying to collect herself, memorize her excuses as to why she failed in her mission. As the door flung open a couple of people walked pass her, seemingly drunk and covered with the stench of blood.

She took a deep breath and went inside.

There was an overpowering smell of blood, sweat and sex within the room. The old broken down tavern was a façade to keep away any unwanted guests from barging into the only secret gathering place in the town for vampires and vampire lovers alike. It was crowded with vampires and humans; humans who are willing to be nothing more than blood bags to the ravenous vampires.

Caroline always felt an irksome towards both the species whenever she was there, she felt ashamed to be related to either one of the species whenever she walked in.

She walked around the people who rocked slowly back and forth to the slow trance music playing in the odd little cave like club that had become a haven for them all. She was aiming to go towards another door at the corner of the club, when someone pulled her from her shoulder. "What took you so long?"

"He knew my name… How did he know my name? Katherine, I… I couldn't do it... he was too strong… and too fast… I failed…" So much for composure and explaining the details clearly, for she blabbered like an idiot.

"Well it was expected" Katherine dragged her to the room at the back of the club.

"Wait! What? You were expecting me to fail?" Caroline screamed as the door to their private room closed.

"No...Well I didn't think you will succeed. It was a test run anyway, to see if the potion would work and to prove that you are the right person for the job" Katherine pushed Caroline into a chair.

"Test run for the potion? Couldn't you have just given me the damn potion and told me to run a hundred laps or something and timed me with a stop watch? Wouldn't that have been better than sending me in to a death trap to test a stupid potion?" She felt as though she was under some type of interrogation as Katherine circled around her chair as she complained.

"He could have killed me!" Caroline's protests didn't even seem to catch Katherine's ears.

"The test run was not only for the potion. It was also to see whether if what I heard about you were true" Katherine played with her curly hair, twisting it around.

"What does that suppose mean? What did you hear about me? First of all tell me, how in the world did he, know my name!" There was something so very odd about everything about her mission, and Katherine's behavior and elusive answers made it further more evident to Caroline.

"Hello there Caroline," A graceful yet a crafty looking woman turned Caroline's chair around.

"Who the hell are you?" Caroline got up.

"I am Esther, I am the one who gave your friend, Katherine that potion to make you a little bit faster, stronger, and helped to make sure you did not die if and when you tried to dagger one of the originals. And I am the one who had put a spell on this room to make sure that no one beyond these four walls can hear this conversation" The woman walked confidently to Caroline as Caroline confusedly walked backward.

"She's the witch, who is helping us to take down Klaus" Katherine held Caroline by her shoulder.

"I… I don't care… they almost killed me, Can I have my ring back now? I did do what you asked me to do... I mean I tried… Can I have my ring and just go?" Caroline stared at the ring on Katherine's hand, waiting for Katherine to return it so that she could go back to her pathetic lonely life.

"The potion won't work when the ring is in your hand, that's why I had to take it" Esther took Caroline's ring from Katherine.

Caroline looked up on Esther as she examined the ring. "So it wasn't just leverage to make sure that I go through with the plan?"

"Well… there are always many reasons for anything that I do… enough about the ring for now, tell me what happened?" Esther put the ring on her own finger.

"The potion actually wore off more quickly than we expected, I could actually feel it wear off" Caroline's eyes were still on Esther's hand, she wished the strength of the potion still had remained for then she could have over powered both of them and taken the ring and just run out of there.

"Well the potion was just a part of our plan, just to make sure you didn't die before you helped us kill all of them" Esther said to Caroline.

"Kill all of them?" Caroline looked back and forth between the witch and the other female vampire.

"We'll get to that dear, so tell me what exactly happened," Esther took a seat.

Caroline boorishly carried on with her story, "He followed me around most of the night, but he caught me when I was about to stab him with the stake, then I took a dagger out of some blonde inside a coffin… and daggered him … so I guess the potion might have worked somewhat... I am still alive technically"

"Rebekah! The blonde was Rebekah" Esther answered almost as though she felt some type of a joy saying that name out loud.

"She is his beloved sister" with a raised brow Katherine added.

"Beloved? Seriously? I didn't see any love between them, If he loved her why would he keep her in a coffin like that, he's very creepy… and how the hell did he know my name?... can he read my mind?" whatever Esther and Katherine were rambling on about seemed insignificant to Caroline for she was concerned only about two things, one how to get her ring back and the other how Klaus knew her name.

"He is thousand years old Caroline… he must have his sources everywhere" Katherine's true cunning face emerged.

"I guess… wait… but… if he could have sources everywhere wouldn't he be able to find out about this little secret hiding place of ours? Especially since now that he knows there is someone out there possibly with a bunch of white oak stakes, wouldn't this be the first place he would come, looking for us?" Caroline feared being found out, she feared facing them again for may be by luck or some divine intervention she had escaped without her head being snapped in to two and she figured she may not be that fortunate the next time around.

"Yes, that's why we won't be meeting here, hereafter… I hate the smell of all the vampires here anyway…" Esther conceitedly walked around the room. Caroline began to doubt the witch's intentions for it seemed she had something against the whole of the vampire race, not just the originals.

With all the talk of Klaus being able to find out about their whereabouts Katherine seemed the most eager of them all to get out of the club. She paced, with her face red with frustration "So what are we going to do now? The potion isn't strong enough… and I told you it won't work"

"You knew the potion is going to fail and still you let me go through with the plan? What kind of a friend are you?" Caroline lashed out at Katherine, who she had considered a friend until the whole original business came around. Actually Caroline had decided to be friends with Katherine purely because she looked like 'Elena' her childhood friend, even though her conscious always told her that Katherine cannot be trusted she befriended Katherine for the sole purpose of wanting to have some sort of connection to her past acquaintances which she for no particular reason had no dealings with any further. Actually she had no contact with anyone in Mystic Falls for nearly two years ever since the day that she left town. Whenever she missed them, whenever she felt like just calling up her mother and saying 'Hi Mom', something unexplainable within her would always hold her back.

"Relax Caroline… I knew the potion wouldn't work and I also knew he wouldn't kill you", Katherine's impertinent tone reminded Caroline of Damon, the vampire who she hated the most in the world, so self assured and with an ulterior motive hovering behind each word.

"What? Why? " the way Klaus called her 'Caroline', popped in to her head again.

"He's… He's charmed by you… I mean I knew he will be charmed by you" Katherine's deceiving eyes moved around erratically.

"Are you sure that's the only reason?" Caroline wanted to read Katherine's mind, for there surely was something more to it than a thousand year old hybrid being charmed by someone like her.

"Yeah… what else could there be?" Katherine shrugged.

"You are here and nothing happened to you... let's not worry about what might have happened and what didn't happen… let's focus on what we have to do" Esther yelled, just like a mother trying to quiet down her annoying kids.

"Give me my ring back I am going! Find someone else" She shoved Katherine to the floor.

Katherine hit Caroline on the face as she stood up, "No, you won't Caroline! Not until Klaus is dead and I have my freedom back"

"Stop all this now!" Esther stood amid the two vampires.

"Listen Caroline, you cannot walk away from this now… You have to do this! You have to go there again and get a drop of blood from Finn, Elijah, Rebekah and Kol on the white oak stake, it will connect them together and then all you have to do is to stake Klaus, thus ending his life and his family all at once. I will make sure that the potion works longer than it did the last time, so that you could kill him without dying" Esther said stridently. The bit of elegance Caroline had thought Esther possessed seemed to disappear every time she opened her mouth.

"Are you guys kidding me? I am not going in there again… I don't have a death wish" Caroline yelled loudly.

Katherine slithered towards Caroline with a coy smile planted on her face, "For the betterment of the Vampire race Caroline, you are the only one who will be able to get near them without getting killed…"

"What? Why me? Tell me, what are you hiding from me?" Caroline felt as though she was going crazy with all the mysteries and conspiracies.

"If Klaus makes his hybrid army, we would have to start defending ourselves, fight for our lives every moment that we live... You are our only hope" Katherine maneuvered Caroline's attention swiftly to the mission at hand.

"Why don't you save the vampire race by yourself, why do I have to be Klaus bait?" Though Katherine kept saying possibly for some diabolical reason that Klaus would never kill her, Caroline saw no difference between how he may feel about Katherine and herself after being caught trying to kill him. Caroline did have some inclination about the relationship between Klaus and Katherine, if what Katherine had told her was actually true of course.

"The man has been trying to hunt me down for centuries… I don't think he would suddenly change his mind and pursue me or be seduced by me" Katherine grinded her teeth at Caroline's persistence questioning.

"But he would be seduced by me?" Caroline could not let it pass; she wanted to know the truth.

"He is already... isn't he? Isn't that why he followed you around the whole night?" Katherine said furiously looking back at Caroline, "Let's just say he likes blondes" she murmured hoping to end the conversation.

"But I wasn't a blonde when he started to follow me around" Caroline was quick to point out the plot hole in her theory.

"There's no time to argue… If I know my son well enough, I know he has already started searching for you to find out who else is with you" Esther walked over to Caroline.

"You are their mother?" Caroline could not understand what kind of a mother would want to see her children dead or what kind of children would actually deserve such a fate.

"Yes, he and all his siblings were my mistake… vampires were my mistake… this abomination on nature was my mistake… All the people they threatened, killed, their blood is in my hand too… it is time for me to reprimand myself of my mistake… With Katherine and her friend's help I came back to life after a thousand years, and my only reason for living is to see them dead" Esther was determined to see the end of her own family. "Get close to them Caroline. I need you to get their blood somehow, a drop, from each one of them" She explained in a low scheming voice.

"How am I suppose to do that? And if I get caught?" Caroline asked looking at the witch.

"You need to be smart Caroline… everything depends on you!" Esther held Caroline face up by her chin, and Caroline felt some kind of a reassurance looking back at her.

"You have to or" Katherine threatened.

Caroline huffed back, "But how am I suppose to get into their house anyway?"

"You'll have to get caught, I am sure they will take you with them and then all you have to do is to collect their blood, seduce him make him weak, and when he is at his weakest you can kill him." Esther seemed to not like explaining her plan to anyone for her face looked beyond annoyed.

"All I have to do is collect their blood? Seriously! Can you hear yourself talk? I hope there's a plan 'B', because plan 'A' really sucks" Caroline complained with a wrinkled face.

"No need to fret yourself Caroline… nothing bad will come of you…" Esther said softly.

"How can you be so sure?" Caroline screamed like little girl throwing a tantrum.

"I guess you'll just have to trust us" said Katherine with her typical wily smile.

Caroline rolled her eyes, for she knew very well that she no longer could trust anyone but herself.

"And remember Caroline when you get caught… tell him half truths but never lie…tell them that I am the one with this whole plan to kill Klaus... or else he will see right through you… make sure to drink vervein or else they will compel you to tell the truth… Don't tell them anything about Esther…and obviously not about the fact that you are there to take their blood…. Tell them that you are not there by choice… tell them you are there because I have something important to you. " Katherine explained the details of how to go about the mission.

"Here, take this stake, I have cast a spell on it. Once all of their blood is on the stake it will connect them all," Said Esther as she handed Caroline the white oak stake. Caroline took the stake into her hand, stared at it thinking that it could be the end of the whole original family or the beginning of the end of her.

They agreed to scatter not wanting to be seen together in one place for long.

Never in a million years Caroline Forbes the daughter of Sheriff Forbes, Caroline Forbes Miss Mystic Falls of year two thousand eleven could have imagined she would leave her comfy little town, life, friends and family, yet to her own surprise she had. Never in a billion years would she have believed that there were vampires walking on the street, but there were, in fact she was one. She had no memory of how she became a vampire but somehow she had learned to come to terms with the fact that she could nothing but accept it. She had no memory of why she left town and her friends. There was a lapse in her memory, that she just couldn't fill however much she tried. The smallest thing that would cross her path would remind her of something or someone but she would merely end up feeling she had the most bizarre déjà vu and would forget it all together.

And Never ever could she had been able to imagine she would be conspiring with a thousand year old witch and a vampire that looked like Elena to kill the most dangerous hybrid in the word.

Two days after their discussion Caroline was given instructions as to how to get in to their house.

She was ready for the job; she bound the stake to her leg and grudgingly drank vervein and hid the potion in a pocket.

According to their instructions, and belief someone or couple of the Originals were bound to end up at their secret hideout cum club looking for her, and all Caroline had to do was to let them follow her and catch her.

Sure enough they did come looking for her.

Caroline ran out of the club when she saw Klaus chase after her.

"Who sent you?" he jammed her path.

"Do you really think I will tell you that?"She said with a self-assured smirk.

"Tell me before I break your neck!" his malicious voice came alive.

"I have it on good authority that you just wouldn't do that" Caroline followed Katherine's script, all the while feeling as though her whole body would break down any moment in fear of the angry hybrid in front of her.

"Who told you that?" he was surprised and a subtle softness overtook his evil face.

"So it is true?" She was following her own script now, for she was curious and eager to know the basis of it all.

"So...You don't know why? They didn't tell you?" he sighed almost in relief.

"No" she could barely utter the two letter word for he had brought his face near to hers and she didn't know as to what kind of emotion her body started to react.

"I will tell you the reason if you tell me who is behind all of this" he suggested, staring at her as if he was about to eat her alive.

"Do… do... You think I am stupid enough to trust you?" she stuttered out her words.

"Well I guess you'll never know then" he moved back from her to leave.

"Wait... It's Katherine... Katherine wants me to kill you… Now tell me why you won't kill me?" She had to know no matter what.

He laughed arrogantly. "Katherine? I didn't think she is this stupid… think that I would just let you kill me!"

"Now tell me why she wants me of all people to do this?" Caroline demanded the truth.

He enjoyed her feeble attempts to command the truth out of him, for he merely grinned, "You should know sweet heart I am an evil evil man... you should have never trusted me... I lied… I do that sometimes …Now tell me where is she now?"

"I don't know" Caroline truly didn't know where either of them was.

"Are you lying to me?" he asked grabbing her tightly, as if to shake the truth out of her.

His grip hurt her; the way his gritty eyes stared scared her. "No! Stop you're hurting me!"

He at her words released her, and she for a second thought he looked a bit worried for her, yet she thought it to be highly unlikely since he was supposed to be this selfish hybrid that cared for no one.

He glared at her for a while and began to set off.

"You're just going to leave her there?" his brother had managed to find them.

"What else should I be doing, Elijah?" Klaus stopped but didn't turn around.

Elijah went to Caroline. "Caroline come with me?"

"No! Let me go... I don't want anything to do with any of you… kill me if you want. I won't come with you!" Caroline acted.

"Just let her go Elijah... What's the point of it all? She's working with Katherine to kill us. She wants nothing but to kill us… why would you want to take the very person who wants to kill us?" Klaus carried on walking.

"Niklaus.. We can't just… she's Caroline!" Elijah looked at Caroline as if he was looking at a lost puppy.

"Do whatever you want… but keep her out of my sight and don't try to do anything stupid like compelling her to…" Klaus began to lay down his prerequisites.

"I am sure she had already taken vervein anyway" just as Elijah answered Klaus had raced off to nowhere.

"No! Let me go!" Caroline didn't know how convincing her acting may seem but she acted for the sake of her life, for the sake of getting back her ring, for the sake of all other vampires.

"This is for your own good Caroline… if you don't come with me you would regret it for the rest of your long life" Elijah's words felt true and endearing, and Caroline couldn't imagine him being anyway related to Klaus, for their conduct were worlds apart.

Elijah dragged Caroline to their mansion and shoved her in to a room.

"What're you going to do? Keep me locked up in here?" Caroline yelled just for show, for it was exactly what she wanted, to be in their house.

"Well you won't be able to go that far without the ring… the rest of the night… Rebekah would be with you" Elijah pointed at the blonde as she walked by the room.

"What? Do you expect me to be babysitting her? I won't! What's she doing here anyway?" Rebekah groaned out loudly.

"Rebekah.. Might I remind you most of what happened was your fault?" Elijah raised his voice.

"Whatever I did it was well deserved… and that's why I think she shouldn't be here" Rebekah gazed at Caroline as if she owed Caroline something that she was unable to give.

"If you know the whole story you wouldn't say that" Elijah glared at his naive sister.

"I guess for a few days…" Rebekah looked though she was trying to listen to Elijah's thoughts.

It was not easy to get a drop of blood from an Original. Kol's was the easiest to obtain, for all Caroline had to do was to wait for Rebekah to leave in the morning and get inside where Kol's Coffin was kept. She then kept him un-daggered long enough to let the blood rush in to his veins and collected the blood and with a little bit of back up provided by Esther's potion, she daggered him back before he came to life.

Except for Klaus, who she very rarely saw around the house, Elijah and Finn treated her better than anyone had ever treated her. They treated her so well to the point they offered her vervein as a sign of faith. Finn did not seem to have gotten over the decade that he last lived in for he was always busy riding his horse around the mansion or practicing his fencing skills. Caroline somehow persuaded Finn to teach her fencing, saying that she was bored out of her mind staying inside the house without doing anything. Caroline thought it would be easy to get through his defenses and hurt him enough so that she would get a bit of blood. However it took her a little more than a week to scratch his arm with the very blunt fencing sword to get what she wanted.

Then it was Rebekah's turn. Caroline came up with the plan to suddenly try to escape and get in to a huge clash with Rebekah. It was a one-sided battle where Rebekah as expected got the best of her, but Caroline did manage to scrape her neck and make her shed some blood. Caroline went to her as if to apologize and assist and in the process managed to secretly collect the blood she needed.

Next on her list was Elijah. He was a tricky one. He liked to read and disappear for hours. It was very difficult to lay a trap for him. But luckily for her, an accident he had with a knife helped her out, it was kind of funny to her that an Original vampire was as careless as to cut himself while doing some mundane task, with all the fast reflexes he possessed.

She had everything she needed. She had mixed the blood of the Original siblings into the stake, and she waited for the right time for her to set the plan into motion. Hard as it was to collect the blood getting closer to Klaus was even harder. Since whenever Caroline was in the vicinity, Klaus would quit himself or would try not to engage in any activity, conversation that involved her. Yet time to time she could see him, glancing secretly as if a child looking at a jar of forbidden cookies. Secretly, though Caroline had no idea why, she welcomed his mysterious glances and she waited to see his awkward gestures as he avoided her as if she had some kind of a deadly contagious disease.

It had taken more than a month to complete three quarters of her task and by then Rebekah had slowly began to trust Caroline, trust her enough to believe that she would not actually leave them. At times Caroline too seemed to trust them like her own and she seemed to always forget that this family that had taken her abode for reasons unknown was not her real family though they certainly regarded her like so with the exception of Klaus.

Rebekah had gone off to somewhere and she had not returned and the sun was set. To Caroline's knowledge only Klaus was home. It seemed the time was right. She took the potion Esther had given her to make sure she didn't die when she stabbed him. But before it came to an end, she thought of taking a stroll around the mansion just to clear her mind, just to calm herself down, try to think of ways to start seducing him.

Just as she opened the door, Klaus walked in with a wine glass filled with blood.

"I.. I.. Was just going outside" she was caught and she feared he would hurt her.

"I won't stop you" He seemed unconcerned and aloof.

"What do you have against me?" Caroline closed the door loudly. He was actually talking to her and it seemed a good a chance as ever to get closer to him.

"Other than you trying to kill me a few days ago? Nothing much really…" He took a sip out of the glass of blood.

"No... That's not the only thing…there's something to why your brothers treat me so well.. and why you are so cold towards me…" the question had been stalking her head for days, though she knew he wasn't in anyway a happy go lucky person, the way he followed her the first day as if he was enchanted by her and the way he was avoiding her as if he was completely repelled by her mere existence was different as night and day.

"I am cold to everyone" he tried to look at her eyes, but he failed to meet them for some reason.

"That could be true... but there's something as to why Katherine told me, that you would never kill me, why she chose me out of all the vampires in the world to kill you… there are vampires who are stronger and faster than me but she sent me" Caroline gently paced over to him.

"Shouldn't you ask her that? Why do you really want to help her anyway?" He finally managed to cast his eyes at hers.

"I don't believe in what you want... Your hybrid army… It would be the end of the world as we know it" She had no intention of ending the conversation until she got the answers she wanted, thus she was more than willing to provide him answers to any question that he may have.

"That's your only motive? I don't believe it's your only motive… if it is you should know sweetheart… I have long given up on that… I lost too many things valuable to me because of that" He lessened the gap between them.

"You... What? But It...It's not the only reason… she has something valuable to me..." She was upset.

"What? What does she have… what is she using against you?" He was equally bothered hearing her answer.

She glanced down at her hand, where her ring had been.

"The ring! Surely you can get a new one… Do you really want to kill me just because you want some ring, just because you want to be able to walk in the sun? And People call me selfish" he seemed to have found something amusing about her answer for he smiled charmingly, and it was a sight that Caroline had never thought she would witness.

"No... It's not about what it does… It has been with me for a while and it's very important to me… there's a part of my life that feels empty and I know it may sound really dumb but I think the ring holds the key to it all… I think somehow it connects to me it all" Caroline thought maybe he had compelled her, surely all that vervein she drunk in the morning had to have lost its power for she was saying things she didn't have to.

His parted lips she saw suddenly trying to reach hers.

"Wha… what do you think you are doing?" she drew back, unable to understand how his attitude towards her abruptly changed.

"I... I am sorry" he looked down, embarrassed and defeated.

Caroline felt a prickling pain within her at the sight of him, with his head bowed in front of her. She was trying hard to comprehend her disheveled emotions, why defying his advances she thought would leave her feeling empty and deprived of something she had perhaps pined after for years.

"Klaus… " she didn't know why she called him.

He looked up at her.

Seeing his broken face she felt an urge to comfort him for some reason, console him with a few words, and kiss him for no reason. And thus she did; she grabbed his face and pursed her lips on his.

She let him go still feeling the burn caused by his searing lips. But to her dismay she had taken more than a couple of seconds to realize she was kissing the very person who she was plotting against.

She quickly told herself that it was simply a part of her plot to seduce him.

He stared deeply at her, "I need you… Caroline… I want you" he got a hold of her.

She wanted to struggle, but she couldn't. She lost her ability to be sensible.

"Caroline," he uttered her name softly before he covered her mouth with his.

His lips ran frantically up on hers.

She thought not of how to push the evil hybrid away but how to pull him to her even further. She persuaded her brain to believe that she was to use this as a ploy to make him weak, to kill him later and that there was no other motive. She said to herself that there shall not be any other satisfaction to be taken out of it other than the satisfaction of deceiving him and killing him in the end.

She felt his fingers run through her hair. She felt them run down to her waist, she felt his strength pushing her back and drag her forward, sway in the same darn spot kissing for a while before they finally reached her bed.

She looked up at the untamed beast on top of her as he tore his clothes off; he then sneered playfully and ripped her clothes apart at one go.

His eyes impatiently hovered at her bare curves and he then keenly pushed himself against her. His skin brushed her, burning her like a fever she had never endured.

She wrapped her limbs, her whole body around him. She wanted to give all of herself, all of the newly discovered passion running in her blood to him.

He explored her naked body with his hands, circling tenderly on her soft edges.

Her frantic hands had no control. They ran avidly, grabbing him, feeling his strong chest while he savored the taste of every part of her smooth body.

He nibbled on her neck a little bit too hard. He was sucking her blood, yet she didn't care as she knew he was her poison and her cure.

He clung harder onto her neck greedily for the taste of her that he had missed for years, it pained her.

"Klaus..." she breathed out and he held back stingily for a moment, breathing raggedly staring down at her exposed frame, as if a moment of clarity had taken over him.

She didn't want to wait for herself come to her senses and remember that she was there to kill him. "No... Don't stop!"

He needed to hear nothing further. He went to her. He moved slowly on top of her as she seethed under him.

Her body tingled with eagerness and she held her breath and welcomed him in, to her body and soul.

She felt waves of emotions scurry through her as he moved fervently within her.

As they took each other over the brink, she felt overwhelmed feeling his raging passion and he felt overwhelmed to be able to finally have her, feel her once more, to know her once more.

It was perfection he felt.

It was meant to be she was almost sure.

Caroline felt that she had woken up from a dream to a nightmare when she opened her eyes to discover herself lying curled into Klaus.

He had her tightly enveloped in him. He kept no space between them; they were lying entwined as one.

She with a light touch removed his arms from her. She stared at his peaceful sleeping frame. His gentle face gave out no clue of the monster within him. How someone who was able to make love to someone so passionately could ever hate the world so much as he did puzzled her.

She shouldn't be feeling so terrible, she shouldn't feel compassion to a cold creature like him, yet she did and that could not be allowed for she knew there was no denying the truth, for a monster he was and evil he was. Though he had told her he had no intentions to build an army, his words were not enough; they were not reliable enough.

Whatever she did, she did to trick him. Whatever she felt about him were just hormones, she justified her actions as so to herself.

She couldn't give up everything after one night of pleasure with someone, however perfect and destined it may have felt.

Hence she thought to go through with her plan.

Slowly she rolled away from him and reached for the blood dipped stake from under the mattress. She shot a glance back at him to make sure he was not up.

She saw him still and asleep.

Then she sat next to him, raised the stake up, ready to penetrate his heart. If she could go back in time she would have made sure she never made a friend like Katherine, had never agreed to kill him, kiss him or make love to him.

She wished she could let go of the bond she felt for her ring and that she could be selfish and throw the stake away let the other vampire's rot, just to find out what exactly was it about him that was pulling her closer towards him, and why she thought she could spend a year, a century a whole eternity lying in his arms trying to find out.

For a moment she paused, feeling a great deal of pain on the side of her neck and she dropped the stake quietly to her lap. She touched her neck carefully and twitched as her fingers touched the sore spot. She remembered his bite from last night.

His poisonous bite had begun to take over her blood flow, thus his life had become essential for her survival. She needed his blood to stay alive, when on the other hand the continued existence and freedom of vampires and werewolves relied on his death.

There was another feeling that lingered within her that made her want to see him dead, an unexplainable hate or something like it made her want to seek some sort of retribution that she didn't understand.

She knew it was now or never. If it was to be put on hold for another day another minute she feared she would never be able to kill him. She had to decide.

She heaved the stake up again, and let it quickly dive towards his chest.

"What do you think you are doing love?" He opened his eyes, just before the stake went through his skin, and she froze in fear.

He flashed out of the bed and detained her roughly from behind.

"Put it down!" his coarse voice in her ear made every part of her tremble.

She dropped the stake.

Tears built up in her eyes.

He was going to kill her with his bare hands before his hybrid bite had killed her, she feared. She knew she had done something horribly wrong by him and she was going to face its consequences.

He twisted her around made her head fall back on to her pillow; he kept her immobile thrusting her with his body. "Drink up love" he shoved his wrist against her mouth.

She drank without complain, digging deeper and deeper in to his veins with her teeth.

His eyes gawked crossly at her while she gazed back feeling ashamed.

It was the second time she tried to kill him and he let her live. He could not be a monster; if he was he could have just let her die. As her tears fell she could see his eyes glisten with desire. He cared for her more than he showed, more than anything, anyone and she could see it, feel it. She realized she too cared for him, more than she was willing to acknowledge. As she stared at him, drank his blood, she realized she was falling for him however much she wanted to deny and resist it.

"_Here, I got this back from your friends" Caroline started to remember a conversation that she had no recollection whatsoever until now._

_She remembered him placing her ring on her hand rush out of a room. _

_The memories flew hurriedly into her brain, in a speed she couldn't bear, in a speed that almost made her feel like they were mere nightmares disguised as memories._

"_Rebekah, I want you to compel me to forget him," She was in Rebekah's room somehow._

"_What? Why?" Rebekah looked like she had seen the dumbest person in the world._

"_He doesn't love me… I don't want to be in love with a monster like him anymore" She didn't want to tell the whole story for it hurt her too much, she wished Rebekah would just compel her with no more questions asked._

"_What have you been drinking?" Rebekah unconvinced of her reasons went to her mirror and started brushing her hair._

"_He doesn't… He chose Elena over me" Caroline grabbed the brush from Rebekah's hand and threw it aside._

"_What are you talking about Caroline? He loves you! I can see that... Any idiot can see that... " Rebekah checked herself in the mirror again before she sat on her bed._

"_No he doesn't… he had to choose between us and he chose Elena... Because he cares so much about his hybrid army… he cares about it so much he is willing to let me die for it," Caroline began to explain._

_Rebekah's attention was finally gained, she at last realized how serious Caroline was, how serious the situation had gotten between them. "Is this about Tatia and Kol's plan? Are you sure of this Caroline? Because he certainly seemed really worried about you when he was talking to me about it." _

"_I'm sure…" said Caroline and reluctantly briefed Rebekah about what had happened between them._

_When Caroline was done explaining Rebekah started to shout "He did what? I can't believe he did that to you! I thought he was changing because of you! I thought because of you I would finally get my brother back and he has ruined it for himself yet again… he's a fool… he doesn't know what's good for him… " _

"_So will you compel me?" Caroline gently moved towards Rebekah._

"_I'm sorry Caroline I can't… I don't think it's a good idea… you should live through these things then only you would know better the next time… especially when you are a vampire, when you have an eternity to fall in love, this would help you… help you to realize and understand people better, so I rather not compel you Caroline… and especially since Nik might not let me live after that" Rebekah's true age came across Caroline thought; she truly was talking from her thousand odd years of life experience while hiding inside an eighteen year olds body._

"_I don't want him to reel me back to him with his lies again... Please Rebeakh, Don't you think he deserves this? And when and if he realizes his mistake, I want him to live an eternity knowing that because of his own doing he had lost the only woman who loved him… and she's somewhere out there in the world without any memory of falling for him, or any memory of his existence. " Caroline wasn't sure her reasons even made sense, or whether they were even true, she only knew that she wanted to forget the awfully painful memory which was 'Klaus'._

"_Hmm… vengeance… is that what you want? I didn't think you had it in you, Caroline… and I must say I quite like it..." Rebekah clasped her hands together excitedly. "But still I may have to live in a coffin for few years, if he finds out I compelled you… he might be listening to us right now and might be plotting to dagger me as we speak" Rebekah's face shrunk as she wondered how his brother would react._

"_You told me once that he compelled Stefan to forget you and you lost him because of that, this is your chance Rebekah... He deserves this for what he has done to you" Caroline brought up whatever she could to manipulate Rebekah._

"_Are sure that this is what you really want?" Rebekah put her hands on Caroline's shoulder._

"_Yes, I'm sure" Caroline was contented hearing somewhat of a positive feedback from Rebekah, but at the same time she felt unsure and daft. _

"_Who is he to always hurt people like this... he compelled Stefan and it's time for me to get back at him for that and you my dear certainly deserves better... I will compel you, tell me exactly what do you want" It was difficult for Caroline to understand how Rebekah suddenly came to her decision. It was true Caroline came to Rebekah hoping she would help her, but she was never sure she would be able to convince her. May be it was because she understood her heart, maybe she merely loved to see her brother hurt even for a day, maybe like her brother she thrived and build her life up on words and feelings such as revenge and hatred._

"_I want you to make me forget him, make me forget the fact that I was ever in love with him… we were ever together… I want you to make me move out of town and compel me to never fall in love with him again" She told her conditions._

"_Ok… then… I will do it… for the last time are you sure Caroline? Is this what you want?" Rebekah stared directly at her._

"_I am" she wasn't._

"_Listen to me Caroline, you wouldn't remember anything about NiKlaus… how you fell in love or you two were ever in love… you will not remember any of his family… you will not remember how you became a vampire… and You will leave this town and won't remember why.. And never try to contact any one in Mystic falls ever… and you won't remember me doing any of this.. But you will remember all of this if you were ever to fall in love with Niklaus again... Because we need to leave something to fate and Nik is my brother after all and he may not deserve you now… may be in a few years, in hundred years when he realizes… I want him to have a fare chance at love and I want you to have a fare chance to decline or accept him by remembering all this again" It was Rebekah's way of making sure that Caroline had what she wanted._

Her scattered memories started to merged together into a perfect sequence. She began to remember everything from the night she became a vampire, the night that they first made love to the day she began to despise him.

"You don't love me… you never will" she pushed Klaus's hand away from her mouth.

"What are you saying love?" he stood up, blood drip from his hands to the floor as it healed slowly.

"You… chose to save Elena…" She pushed him away, put her cloths on and scrammed out of his sight.

"Caroline wait… how did you remember?" He was few steps behind her.

She didn't turn nor answered, she kept running and he kept following her, keeping some distance from her.

She flashed through the streets and he kept up with her pace.

She walked slowly, he was right behind her.

They kept walking, the leafy ground ruffled beneath their feet for they had walked to the woods at the far end of the town without thinking.

"Stop following me!" she finally shouted as she walked forward.

"Never! Not this time around" he was in front of her.

She turned back around, walked again; he walked a stride behind her.

A sturdy wind blew across them, his core somehow seemed to reach her as the gust hit her recklessly, making her heart yearn to get closer; but her brain acknowledging the idea of keeping the gap was far safer.

They kept walking, the distance still kept, still their emotions confusing them, betraying them.

It was a still night, where the whole town slept apart from for the two forlorn lovers who walked further and further in to the darkness of the night.

As she walked she began to think, wonder about their past, their present, and their future. How she met him again and fell in love with him again. She remembered how that night she kept asking him 'why he saved her' and how he kept saying to her to ask him the right way and he would tell her everything.

She turned around, once more wanting to know why he had saved her.

"Is there something that you want to know love? Ask me anything, anyway you want I will answer you" he didn't want to lose her once more because of his pride, thus he was willing to answer anything. Whether it was why, what, who, when, or how if she wanted to know, he would answer them all; he didn't care.

She opened her mouth to ask the same question she had asked him two years ago.

She stared at him and the way he looked at her she found that she did not need him to answer why he had saved her for she already knew the answer in her heart; he loved her, he saved her because he loved her. "How did you know it was me?" a different question came to her.

He smiled joyfully like a kid for finally she had asked what she should have asked what seemed like an eternity ago. "Would it be too cheesy if I say I knew it was you the moment I heard your heart beat?"

She nodded smiling at him, tears taking over both sides of her cheeks.

"I knew it was you from…" he was about to point at her ring-less finger.

"I actually don't need to know… I don't care…" she pressed her index finger on his lips.

He lovingly took her hand and gently kissed the finger which helped him recognize Caroline once.

As if by an epiphany it came to her, she remembered the way Elena's lifeless body laid on the ground, wearing her cloths, wearing her ring on the wrong finger. The truth was right in front of her all along, and why she didn't realize it sooner, why she didn't trust him when she clearly should have was all due to her foolishness she understood, and as a result she had almost lost him forever.

"I love you" She placed a light kiss on him.

"Don't ever leave me again love" He impulsively grabbed her and took her mouth by force.

"Love you" he repeated amid the kisses.

In truth neither knew what new enemies and how they would come about their lives, what obstacles may come their way, but it did not matter to them. For only truth that mattered was that they loved each other and knew that they would forever face them together.

**-The End-**

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading and reviewing. :D<strong>


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