"Paradise Circus" (Caroline, Klaus) PG-13 (Part IVd of V)
Title: “Paradise Circus”
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Caroline, Klaus
Spoiler: “All My Children”
Length: Part Vd of V
Summary: Klaus takes Caroline on a trip, but he’s the one to see the world.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.
Parts I, II, III, IV, IVa, IVb, and IVc are here:
Author’s Note: Honestly, there is no excuse for my behavior. NONE. Maybe it was a hurricane that gave me the push I needed to get over that writer’s block. Maybe it was discovering “Battlestar Galactica” reruns on BBC America, or repeated listenings to “Sigh No More,” or this crazy, bizarre, self-published romance novel my kindle guilted me into buying. Whatever happened over the last week, something inspired me to start writing again, to finish this fic that I adore and has been so lovingly supported by so many readers, and get my act together. So I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for such a long gap in updates. The good news is - I’m enjoying writing again. This was the trickiest chapter by far, which is probably why it took so long, and now that I’m over that hump, the rest should come more naturally. Anyway, as always, thank you so much for the continued support for this story. Cut courtesy of BSG. Title courtesy of Massive Attack. Enjoy.
~ * ~
Caroline kills someone in Krakow.
It changes everything.
---
There’s a steady thrum of pressure in her head when she wakes, a heady haze of blood and lust, and the night comes back in bits and pieces: Kol, the dare, the lightning running through her veins when she smiled into that boy’s eyes and drank deep.
There’s more too, Klaus’s lips slanting over hers and his fingers tangling in her hair, but she pushes the memory away. Last night was a mistake, a fluke; she can’t let it become the norm. She runs a hand through her tangled hair, grimaces at the wrinkled cotton dress tangled around her hips. Her teeth feel chalky and there’s an awful taste in her mouth. She hopes she can wash away last night’s behavior the way she can clean the champagne from her skin.
Klaus isn’t in the room, but there’s a train ticket on the bedside table and a note telling her to be at Warszawa Centralna at noon. There’s more too, a bottle of expensive bubble bath and sugar scrub, a line or two telling her to pamper herself before the grimy ride.
She crumbles the note with shaking fingers, pretends he can’t see what she needs before she realizes it herself.
----
Awkward barely describes the train ride to Krakow.
Caroline leans her cheek against the cool glass of the window, closes her eyes and opens them immediately, futilely attempts to block out the images flashing through her mind.
Across the car Klaus is smirking at her because he knows what she’s seeing: their mouths pressed together, hearts beating furiously in a shared rhythm. Nothing happened beyond kissing, but the implications are the same.
She’s in a relationship with Tyler but her lips burn from Klaus’s kiss.
---
She skips dinner.
It’s not like she needs to eat, but it’s a good routine, a reminder of her old life. Often, it’s her favorite part of the day. She and Klaus don’t always spend all their time together and meals serve as a means of sharing how they spent the hours. She also likes trying foods she’s only seen on Top Chef or read about in magazines. Klaus always watches with self-satisfaction because he’s taught her something new without even trying.
She can’t bear it tonight, being trapped at a table with him while he wears a smug grin and makes her relive a less than stellar moment. No matter how much she enjoyed it, it wasn’t right.
“I’m going to bed,” she tells Klaus when his fingers tighten at her waist as he tries to steer her into the dining room. She doesn’t wait for a response, just jerks out of his grasp before he can stop her.
She doesn’t look back, even when she feels his eyes on her every step of the way.
---
He crawls into bed with her.
There’s a couch in their suite and Caroline has piled extra blankets and pillows, made a space for Klaus, a separate space. She hears the click of the door and the rustle of fabric; she tenses as footsteps bypass the living room and head straight for the bedroom.
She turns her back, focuses on the thin line of moonlight peeping in between the curtains, does everything she can to ignore the way he swallows up all the space, all the air; it takes all her self-control not to stiffen when his bare chest fits perfectly into the curve of her spine.
“Caroline, we need to talk,” he whispers into her hair, blows it back from her face, locks her in place so she can’t roll away.
“I have nothing to say,” she insists, forces her voice into a hard, flat monotone. “We kissed and we shouldn’t have.”
He rolls her onto her back and rests his weight on tense forearms; even without her enhanced eyesight, she’d see the anger flashing in his eyes. “You weren’t complaining last night.”
It’s too much: his weight pressing her into the mattress, the feel of his skin sliding over hers, the inch of space separating their mouths. She catches him by surprise and pushes, leaps from the bed as he lands against the far wall.
She takes on a defensive position, fists balled and legs splayed, even though she knows it’s futile. Still, she’s not willing to go down without a fight.
Klaus picks himself up, brushes drywall from his shoulder. “I’m not going to hurt you, Caroline.”
She drops her fists but doesn’t back down. “What do you want?”
“I released you,” he reminds her. “Yet you chose to stay. Why?”
The fight goes out of her and she sinks onto the bed, hugs her knees to her chest. He’s not really the one she’s angry with. “You make me feel alive,” she says. “I never realized how small my world was until I met you.”
He sits beside her, close enough that their shoulders touch. “I knew,” he says softly. “On your birthday, I knew a small town boy and small time life wouldn’t be enough for you. You were dying and the world I promised is what made you live.” He tilts her chin so she’s looking in his eyes. The anger is gone, but she can’t read the feelings there. “I won’t push you but know this: eternity is a long time to run.”
She takes what he gives even it’s less than she wants. She swallows hard and eases her legs down beside his; there’s no going back to the way things were before.
---
She takes to wearing Tyler’s bracelet as a badge of honor.
They’re running out of clean clothes and she finds it buried at the bottom of her bag, beneath the light-weight cardigan she stows in her purse for tours of drafty museums. It’s a bit tarnished, but otherwise whole, the charms tinkling a bit as it settles in the palm of her hand. Caroline runs her finger over the heart, the football, the wolf howling at the moon. There’s a pom-pom as well, a tiny map of Virginia and a Cavalier too. It’s the sun and the moon that catches her eye, the bright gold complimenting the cool silver. It’s her and Tyler, how they came together and fell in love, but it’s more too. It’s who Tyler is now; it’s who made him that way.
Caroline jerks as Klaus comes out of the bathroom towel-drying his hair. The curtains are open and early morning sunlight filters in the room, capturing the gold in his hair and the chilly blue of his eyes.
She swallows hard and turns her back to clasp the bracelet around her wrist. She likes its weight, the way it presses Tyler’s love to the rhythm of her pulse and beat of her heart.
It reminds her that doing the right thing always comes with a price.
---
It’s mid-afternoon when Klaus comments on the bracelet. If he noticed earlier, he kept his mouth shut, but they’re taking photos of St. Florian’s Cathedral when he finally has enough.
Caroline had thought she was covering well: she listened to his stories of the medieval market in Stare Miasto, coronations at Wawel Cathedral and balls at Wawel Castle. She asked clarifying questions and fact checked his history in her guidebook, kept her commentary to appropriate tourism related comments. She wishes things were different. Krakow is beautiful, much more to her liking with its winding streets and narrow alleys, but the tension between them makes the city difficult to enjoy.
Especially when Klaus grabs her wrist and tugs up the sleeve of her cardigan so the metal gleams in the light.
“You chose me,” he says quietly. His grip doesn’t loosen, but his eyes drift to the ground. “Why are you still wearing his gift?”
Caroline jerks away, reminds Klaus that he can’t get his way by putting his hands on her. It’s easier than admitting she doesn’t know which way is up when she’s with him. “He’s my boyfriend, Klaus,” she reminds him. “I chose to keep traveling with you, but that doesn’t mean things are over with him.”
Klaus’s head snaps up and his eyes blaze. He takes a step closer, then another, and then he’s right in front of her, half an inch of space between them. “You have a selective memory when it comes to that relationship,” he says and drops his gaze to her mouth. “Perhaps a demonstration will help clarify.” He ducks his head and his hands drop to her hips and heat sears her skin but she can’t bring herself to care, not when he’s this close, when he’s threatening to give her exactly the things she tells herself not to want.
She tilts her chin but his hands drop and he takes a step back. “I’m no one’s second choice,” he tells her. His eyes are heavy and he can’t seem to keep them from looking away from her mouth, but he keeps to his word. “When you figure out what you want, you know where to find me.”
He leaves her standing on the steps of the cathedral, watching the strong, steady line of his back as he walks off into the sunlight.
She tells herself she won’t break; she knows it’s only a matter of time.
---
Caroline has one paper left, for AP Lit, an essay analyzing Raskolnikov through a Hegelian lens, and it’s hard and complicated and pretty much the last thing she wants to be doing, but it’s also a good distraction. She needs space, space and distance to forget Klaus’s hands on her skin, to remember the warm glow of Tyler’s love.
She compels an aide into borrowing at laptop at the Jagiellonian University library and sets up shop. It’s an easy delusion to bring to life. She wears hoodies and jeans, drinks too much coffee, and swears at the ancient copy machines. She has trouble with the Polish keyboard, but a pair of pre-med students take pity on her and help her through it. Their names are Marek and Anja and they remind her of Jens and Agathe, less in personality, and more in the way they immediately let her in.
“What are you working on?” Anja asks, digs her teeth deeper into her pen. Beside her, Marek’s headphones keep him from looking up. They’re taking some sort of advanced biology class that even their excellent English can’t quite clarify. But Caroline thinks she can explain her paper.
“Have you read Crime and Punishment?” she asks. Anja shakes her head. “It’s this book about a guy who kills people because he can. He thinks he’s superman, that he’s better than other people and that he’s allowed to commit murder, but when he actually does it, he can’t handle the guilt. I’m supposed to be analyzing his actions and finding common ground in both sides of the argument.”
Anja thinks a moment, grinds deeper on her pen. “That sounds difficult. What could be right about murdering an innocent person?”
Caroline swallows hard, searches for an answer. Instinct, weakness, just because I can… She remembers the carnival worker, the way it felt as she watched the life drain from his face, the warmth slip from his skin. She had killed someone but never felt more alive. Later, she’d rationalized it, found a way to live with the crime and stop punishing herself: it was the cycle of life for her kind, unavoidable but inevitable.
Anja is still watching her, waiting for an answer. She smiles weakly and makes a bad joke. “Even serial killers have mothers who love them, right?” She’s not sure she completely transcended cultural boundaries, but Anja smiles in return and even laughs.
Caroline forces a laugh too, turns back to her laptop while Anja bends over her book, but the contradiction that’s become her life holds her concentration hostage.
Tyler has kissed her hundreds of times but never in a way that spreads sparks from her mouth to her breasts to the tips of her fingers.
Tyler might hold her heart, but it’s Klaus that makes her body sing.
---
Caroline spends four days writing the paper, Marek and Anja taking her on like a latchkey child. They bring her coffee and extra highlighters and are patient when her fingers stumble over the unfamiliar keyboard.
They invite her to lunch on the fifth day, ask politely while she’s putting the finishing touches on her bibliography. “Lunch?” She sets down her red pen and rubs out a crick in her neck. They’re poor students and already done so much for her. She doesn’t want to inconvenience them further. “Are you sure?”
They nod in unison, but Marek does the talking. “Your paper is finished so you won’t be spending more time here. We thought it would be a nice way to say goodbye.”
Caroline blinks. “Goodbye?”
Marek smiles. “You said it’s your last paper for school. You won’t be coming around here anymore, and summer session starts up soon. We’ll be busy, and you’ll be home.”
Caroline blinks again. That word, home. It was once a town and a house and friends and family, but sometime it feels like the four walls of the hotel rooms she shares with Klaus have everything she needs. She feels that way a lot; before Krakow, she felt that way all the time. She pushes her hair back from her face and Tyler’s bracelet slips down her forearm and it’s the jolt of reality that she needs. Marek and Anja are kind, but they could never understand the choices she’s made.
The contradiction weighing on her heart has never felt so heavy.
---
They take her to a milk bar. She wrinkles her nose because she hasn’t had a glass of milk since the third grade, but Marek just laughs and makes a comment about A Clockwork Orange and crazy Americans that believe everything they see on tv. Klaus said something similar to her once, on the train to Florence when he promised a history far more compelling than anything she could read in a book. It throws her a bit but she forces another smile and follows them into the restaurant.
Marek’s right, the way Klaus was too, and even though her Polish isn’t great, she doesn’t think there’s any milk on the menu. It’s more like a cafeteria, all glorified street food and cheap beer, and she thanks them both when they order pierogies and lagers and steer her to a corner table.
The food is good and in better company than Warsaw, she manages to enjoy it. Marek chats about med school and Anja pipes in with plans for the trip they’re planning after finals, and Caroline avoids their questions and makes vague references to leaving town.
She turns the conversation to them instead, tries to solve the puzzle of two overworked students taking in a random stranger. “Why did you offer to help me?” she asks, careful to keep her tone neutral. She’s curious why they singled her out, took the time to make her life easier when they have their own studies to worry about. Has she been painted as an ugly American? Brilliant scholar? Beautiful idiot?
They exchange a glance and look uncomfortable. “I…” Marek starts, then drifts off.
“What?” Caroline prompts. It’s been so long since she’s been anything but a cheerleader or Elena’s friend or Matt’s girlfriend. She needs to know how these strangers see her.
“I thought you seemed lost,” Anja says, eyes going wide. It’s not every day that someone says exactly what they’re thinking. But the door has been opened and she presses forward. “What are you doing here?”
It’s there on the tip of her tongue, the full truth about how she ended up finishing high school by correspondence course rather than feigning senioritis with Elena and Bonnie. She wants so desperately to talk about Tyler and Klaus, the piece of her heart that she gave freely and the piece that was taken from her. She wants to ask for help, to figure it out, for someone to tell her what to do. Anja and Marek are nice, but they’re not one of her girlfriends or even Stefan.
She smiles instead and stares directly into Anja’s eyes, then Marek’s, repeats the same mantra. “I’m an exchange student from UVA finishing up my junior year. I look young for my age. You’re thinking about studying abroad next year and want to pick my brain.”
She breaks eye contact and leans back in her seat. Across the table, Marek blinks rapidly and begins peppering her with questions about living in a strange land, building a life so far from home. They ask her about the places she’s been and the things she’s seen, but she can’t choose a specific country or city because they’re not what have made this trip unforgettable.
She tells them the most honest truth she knows: it’s not where they go, but whom they take with them that makes all the difference.
---
It goes to hell by midafternoon.
The compulsion has worked and Marek and Anja stop asking questions about her past, but they do want to know about her present. Anja is intrigued by Tyler’s bracelet and asks about the charms; she’s particularly interested in the sun and moon, the easy blend of gold and silver, day and night. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “What does it mean?”
There’s no easy answer to her question. Three months ago it would have been about Tyler, but now Caroline’s no longer sure. There are two boys with dueling curses that have taken up residence in her heart.
“There’s someone,” Caroline manages to say. “He gave me the bracelet before I left town.”
“He has good taste,” Anja says and looks pointedly at Marek. He rolls his eyes but kisses her cheek.
Caroline pushes down the sleeve of her cardigan, keeps the bracelet locked in place against the pulse in her wrist. It’s heavier than she remembered, colder too. It doesn’t give her strength. It holds her back.
---
Caroline has been feeding on blood bags since Warsaw.
She has one in her purse and excuses herself, hurries to the bathroom for a quick fix. It’s her favorite, B+, but she can’t bring herself to drink it.
Once, it was a way out of a life she didn’t want. Once, it let her be almost normal, someone Bonnie could accept and Tyler could love. Once, she thought it was her salvation.
She stares at the bag in her hand, cold and dark, tasting of sacrifice and compromise, ashes in her mouth. She swallows hard but it’s not nerves; she just doesn’t want it.
She’s had it from the vein, felt the thrill of drinking the real thing, and she doesn’t want to go back. She ignores that it’s a metaphor for the conflict in her life, how Klaus makes her feel and where she thinks her heart should lie. It felt right sinking her teeth into that boy’s veins; it feels wrong denying what she is. Still, she can’t make herself open the bag and go back to who she was before.
There’s a knock on the door and Anja’s calm voice asking if she’s okay. It shakes her out of her reverie and she smoothes back her hair, pinches her cheeks before opening the door. Anya’s eyes are filled with concern, but it’s the pulse point jumping in the exposed skin of her neck that draws Caroline’s attention.
She’s not particularly hungry, but she is aware of easy access to her prey. Anja trusts her implicitly, completely, and doesn’t make a sound when Caroline drags her into the bathroom and sinks her fangs into the smooth skin of Anja’s throat. Anja jerks in her arms but Caroline ignores it, ignores everything except the spicy flavor of her blood and how normal it feels. This is what she is; this is who she is.
It’s not until Anja stops moving that Caroline realizes the enormity of what she’s done. She stares in horror at her friend’s body, broken and bruised, on a dirty bathroom floor.
The line has been crossed and she’s chosen sides.
---
Klaus rescues her.
She crumbles to the floor beside Anja and manages to call him through the haze of tears and revulsion. The one thing she swore she’d never do…now there really is no turning back.
“Caroline.” He sounds smug, because he’s won the game and she’s lost more than he knows. “Have you come to your senses?” With her hands shaking and her mouth unable to form words, and she can’t respond. “Caroline?” he asks, his voice laced with concern. “What’s wrong, love?”
It comes out in a rush of ache and regret. “I need you,” she finally says and waits for a mocking reply, but his voice is only calm and steady, soothing through the pain.
“Where are you?” he asks and she manages to give him directions, keep from losing it in the ten minutes it takes him to save the day.
He stands over her in a thin henley and leather jacket, his eyes shadowed and hair unkempt; their separation hasn’t been easy on him either. But she doesn’t pause to process, just throws herself against his chest and holds on tight. It’s not until his arms tighten around her, strong and safe, that she thinks everything might be okay. This is what he knows; he’s the one to make it right.
“I messed up,” she whispers, even with her face buried in his chest, her tears drenching his shirt.
“Shhh,” he croons, hands stroking gently over her back, his mouth whispering reassurances in her hair. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you.”
She believes him.
---
Klaus takes her home.
The hotel room barely registers, but it’s the things it contains that matter. She spots Klaus’s sketchpad on the bedside table, his camera on a spare chair, her clothes spilling from a suitcase propped by the balcony, everything that makes up her life scattered around one room.
He has an arm around her as he leads her inside, tugs off her sneakers and jacket and steers her to the bed. He strips off her clothes and slips one of his t-shirts over her head, tucks her into bed like her daddy did a lifetime ago. His shirt is soft cotton and feels good against her skin, but it’s how it smells that makes her feel safe: power, strength, a hidden decency that only she gets to see. It surrounds her, fills her, lets her slip into a dreamless sleep while Klaus saves the day.
He comes home smelling of smoke but he’s whole and he’s hers and when he slides into bed and holds her tight, it’s the only thing that matters.
---
The next morning, it takes her a moment to register what she’s done.
She can hear the shower running and the low hum of the tv in the background. The story is in Polish, but she doesn’t need words to recognize the burned out storefront that once housed a milk bar, the body count scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
Something hot and burning fills her, boils through her veins and into her throat and Klaus doesn’t see her coming when she launches herself at him, knocks him to the floor and locks her hands around his throat. He’s damp from the shower and his bare skin slides over hers, warm and wet, but she ignores the hum in her blood and tightens her grip.
“You said you’d help me,” she hisses. “You weren’t supposed to make it worse.”
He flexes his hips for leverage, just a tiny bit, but it’s enough of a distraction for him to roll her beneath him, lock her arms at her sides. “I took care of it.”
“All those people…” she trails off, tears stinging her eyes. “They didn’t have to die too.”
Klaus sighs and gets up. He’s naked and she keeps her eyes locked on his feet while he wraps the towel around his waist. He extends a hand and helps her to her feet, walks her to the bed and sits beside her. “They were witnesses, Caroline. If you want to survive, you can’t let others tell your stories.”
She shakes her head, won’t look at him and the solution he’s offering. It’s enough that she killed Anja, but Marek, all those students, futures snuffed out because she made the wrong choice. “I’m a bad person,” she whispers. What she’s done is no better than Damon, the Klaus she met in Mystic Falls. She realizes she’s been missing the point along - she wasn’t a different person back then; she did a better job of lying to herself.
“No,” Klaus insists, curves a finger under her chin and forces her to meet his eyes. She expects sympathy, but they’re hard and determined. There’s no pity there. “You’re a vampire, Caroline. This is what vampires do. This is what we do.”
“No,” she practically yells, pulls from his grip. “This is what you do. I know what I’m supposed to be, but that’s no who I am.” She has to believe her words; she can’t live her life any other way.
Klaus closes his eyes and sighs heavily. “I was there in Warsaw,” he says calmly. “You liked drinking from the vein.”
“That was different. Feeding didn’t mean killing anyone.”
He shrugs. “It will happen from time to time. You can’t ignore what you are because of a random mistake.”
She rolls her eyes, fingers folding tightly into the hem of his t-shirt. “You would think that,” she says, throws his words back at him. “I was there in Mystic Falls. I saw how you used people, disposed of them when they stopped being useful. I’m nothing like you.”
He says nothing, but she’s spent enough time in his company to read his face: the taunt set of his jaw, the downward curl of his mouth, the bright burning of his eyes. She waits for him to lash out, throw an epic tantrum that will confirm all her accusations, but he disappoints her, the way she secretly hoped he would.
He just disappears into the bathroom to dress, leaves her alone in the bedroom wondering when he was the one to grow up.
---
He gives her a wide berth for two days.
She wears pajamas and forces down bagged blood, obsessively watches the news and waits for the police to pound own their door.
Klaus comes and goes with his camera in tow, explores a city that was supposed to make her happy and has only broken her instead.
At night he tells her about the places he’s visited, the sights she’s missing, before turning off the light and clinging to his side of the bed. He doesn’t hold her and she doesn’t wake up each morning in his arms.
It feels worse than destroying what was left of her humanity.
---
On the third day, Caroline wakes to Klaus throwing her clothes into a suitcase, dumping a mound of toiletries on the bed and ordering her get ready.
“We’re leaving,” he says through the tight clench of his jaw. “Our train leaves in an hour. If you’d like your things to come along, you’d best start packing.”
“Where are we going?” she asks as he carefully stows his camera equipment. “Did someone find out?”
He puts aside the camera and zips to the bed, looms over her so she falls back on the pillows and stares up into furious blue eyes.
“You need to stop fighting your nature.” His mouth is less than an inch from hers, so close it takes everything in her not to push up on her elbows and kiss him, feel the heat and burn of his body against hers. “I promised to show you the world. You don’t get to choose which parts.”
He pulls back, chest heaving slightly, and Caroline feels the same tension. No matter the things she’s done, she can’t stop wanting him.
---
He takes her to Vienna.
They arrive via train and he spends the ride telling her its history, Hapsburgs and Mozart and Anschluss competing for dominance in a city that’s existed since pre-Roman times. “I liked it better then,” he tells her, stares wistfully out the window. “The Celts knew their way around a salt mine. The Romans cared only for gold and glory.”
“You wanted those things too,” Caroline reminds him, their first train ride flitting through her mind.
He shrugs, turns from the window. “There was wealth in salt. Don’t discount the simple joy in preserving food.”
Caroline doesn’t want to talk about food, the dietary mishap that led to this moment. “What’s in Vienna?” she asks to change the subject.
Klaus faces her, his eyes gleaming wickedly. “Your future.”
It brings her back to Mystic Falls, the deal she made and the bargain she struck. She’d thought her life was over then, but she was wrong: even now it’s just beginning.
---
If Caroline had to choose a European city to pull a Jens and Agathe, she’d start with Vienna. It’s elegant, but whimsical, with art nouveau touches that keep it from taking itself too seriously. She falls in love instantly, immediately, especially when they begin with a tour of the imperial gardens at Schönbrun Palace. They’re perfectly manicured, symmetrical and inviting, and she resists the urge to scream “Off with their heads!” She’s too old for Disney movies and the sentiment isn’t right, not after what she did. There are no painful silences filling up the space between herself and Klaus, but there’s little joy in this trip. Not with Anja and Marek hanging over her conscience like a dark cloud.
Instead, she follows him to the Orangery, breathes in the scents of citrus and spring and renewal. It helps her remember that even when things go wrong, life doesn’t stop. “It’s beautiful here,” she tells Klaus. “It would be perfect for prom.” She tries a joke, just to get him talking, but he only smiles distantly and bends to pick up a fallen lemon.
“The monarchy loved holding parties here during the winter months. Elijah came for Mozart. I came for the food.” His smile widens, but there’s nothing innocent about it.
“Klaus…” Caroline starts, but he tosses the lemon at her, hard, and the impact feels almost knocks the wind out of her
“We’re vampires, love. We eat people. Try to remember that.”
He turns on his heel and disappears into the rear garden. She glares after him and stalks towards the doors, stares at a couple fountains and rose bushes while her anger cools. He knows how hard this has been for her; she doesn’t understand why he isn’t making it better.
She spends an hour in the maze but it doesn’t clear her head. No matter how many times she loses her way, the road always leads back to him.
---
They fare no better on a walk around the Ringstrasse. It’s a beautiful boulevard that houses the Parliament and Town Hall, but Klaus has little interest in sight seeing.
Rather, he grinds to halt before the Vienna State Opera. “Rebekah and I used to play a game here,” he says and points absently at the road. “We’d throw ourselves before a carriage, watch the driver panic, wait until the last possible second before standing and brushing ourselves off and going on our way.” The ghost of a smile curves his mouth. “Rebekah could usually make off with a purse as well.”
Caroline glares at him. “What is your problem?” she snaps.
He shrugs, gives her shoulder a push. She falls off the curb, only inches from an oncoming car. “You have nothing to fear,” he whispers in her ear as he pulls her to safety.
She shoves him away. “You pushed me into traffic!”
“And you’re fine.” He runs his fingers down her arm and she feels his skin through the thin cardigan. “Not even a flesh wound.”
She shrugs off his touch and crosses her arms, puts up a barrier between them. “That’s not the point.” She knows what he’s trying to tell her, even if she disagrees with how he’s going about it: she’ll never be human again. She can’t keep thinking like one.
“You’re a vampire,” he reminds her and grabs her wrist to tug her down the street. His fingers lock over her pulse, the slow rhythm of blood that keeps her in perpetual undeath. “You’re not like them and you never will be. Try to keep that in mind.”
His grip tightens on her wrist and she stumbles after him, lets him drag her further into hell.
---
The Magical Mystery Murder Tour continues: Belvedere Palace, the Spanish Riding School, even torte at Demel Bakery. It doesn’t matter where they go, there’s always a story to tell. Blood, murder, death, torture. Chambermaids and grooms and artists’ models - there’s no escapeing the Mikaelsons’ reach. Caroline soaks it up, lets it sink in. This is her future; this is the life she should be living.
By the time they reach Stephansdom, she’s had enough. Klaus still has his hand locked around hers and he pulls her up the steps of the cathedral, stands back as she stares up at the majestic gothic arches and romanesque details, the studded steeple climbing towards the sun. “It’s beautiful,” she gasps because it’s the first place they’ve been all day that hasn’t begun with Klaus reminiscing about killing someone.
He leans against a wall, crosses his arms over his chest. “Kol and I killed a man here.” He points at a spot to her left. “The Minister of War died right where you’re standing. It was easy to go missing during a rebellion.”
And just like that, it’s too much.
“I get it!” she yells, actually yells, and it feels good to let out her feelings out. A group of tourists turn to check out the commotion and Klaus grabs her arm, drags her into the shadow of an alcove.
“You know better than to draw attention to yourself.”
“I get it,” she says again, softer this time, but no less forceful. “This whole day, it’s been about making me flip the switch. You’re trying to make me like you.”
Klaus takes a step towards her, so her back presses against the rough stone of the cathedral wall, and he rests his forearms on either side of her head. “You could never be like me.” He’s large and imposing, but she still doesn’t feel trapped. Despite this day, despite what he’s done, she knows there’s a method to his madness.
“Then why the tales of murder and mayhem? You know I already hate myself for what I did. Why are you trying to make me feel worse?”
He doesn’t drop his arms, but he leans down and rests his forehead against hers, his lips moving gently over her skin. “I wanted you to see that you’re not alone. We all go a little mad sometimes. You’re going to live forever, Caroline. You can’t carry every mistake in your heart.”
“I killed someone,” she whispers. “It was different this time. She was my friend.”
“I cart my family around in caskets. They’ve found a way to forgive me.”
Caroline shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t angry with her. She was there and I could get away with it.” Klaus moves back so he can look into her eyes. They’re laced with understanding and it gives her the strength to admit the truth. “I wanted to be in control,” Caroline whispers. “Everything else felt like it was falling apart, but I could decide if she would live or die.”
“You’re a vampire,” Klaus says yet again. “You straddle the line between life and death. We’re anomalies, but it makes us no less real.”
“I don’t want that kind of power!” Caroline is crying now, a big burst bubble erupting from her chest. “I want to be normal. I want cheerleading and school and blood bags.”
Klaus bends his head and presses kisses to her cheeks, licks the tears from her skin. “Is that what you really want?”
His voice rumbles against her face, sneaks inside her chest and forms a hot, tight ball. “I want my life back,” she says, but her voice is small and full of excuses.
Klaus sighs and pulls back, brushes his thumbs over the tear tracks on her cheeks. “I’d like to show you something.” His eyes are soft and his voice is gentle, like the Klaus who taught her history and showed her art, the Klaus who held her in his arms all through the night, the Klaus that catches her when she falls.
When he takes her hand, she’s ready to follow him anywhere.
---
It ends at the Leopold Museum, standing before “Death and Life.”
The plaque tells Caroline that it was painted in 1910 and is one of Klimt’s most seminal works, but the ensuing feelings tell her that all will be right in her world.
It’s mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children and grandparents, generations huddled together in a never ending cycle. Death hovers in the background, separate even as he’s always a part of their world.
Klaus stands behind her, arms gently encircling her while she leans against his chest. “We’re two halves of the same whole,” he explains. “No matter how many we kill, there are always more to take their place.”
“It doesn’t make what I did right.”
He turns her in his arms, so her breasts are pressed against his chest, his arms resting low at the small of her back. He lifts one hand and cups her face, tilts her chin so his lips brush over hers. It’s a light touch, no more than butterfly kiss, but she opens her mouth to protest, he doesn’t hesitate to take advantage. His mouth slants over hers and his hands tangle in her hair and against the muscles of her hip, and it’s her moan that breaks the spell. He pulls back, a sheepish expression on his face, but no regret lurking in his eyes. “Just because you think something is wrong doesn’t mean it’s not what you want.” He brushes her hair back from her face and looks deep into her eyes. There’s more than just passion burning there. “Caroline, what do you want?"
His voice is soft and a bit pleading and she’s tired of fighting, tired of pretending. He isn’t the monster she met in Mystic Falls; she’s not even the same girl she was in Warsaw. They’re good and bad, life and death, but mostly they can’t be either without the other. “I want you,” she says and it’s really that simple. She wants travel and adventure, strength and beauty and light. She wants someone who won’t judge her when she loses control.
“And Tyler?” Klaus asks, his voice tight and clipped. He’s staring at the floor again, and it makes something twist inside Caroline to see him so scared.
She cups his face, tilts his chin so he has to look into her eyes. She hopes hers say everything she can’t put into words: I want you, I need you, there’s no one else for me… “That ended a long time ago. I just wasn’t ready to let go.” She takes off the bracelet and turns it in her hand so the sun and moon charm shimmer dully in the florescent lights. “I started this for him, but now it’s about you.” She slips the bracelet into her purse and twines her arms around his neck. “You promised me the world. I’m not ready to go home yet.”
He laughs, a real, honest laugh that lights up his eyes and draws crinkles in the corners of his mouth, and kisses her again, soft and sweet but full of promises.
She loses herself in him, lets go of the girl she was, embraces the woman she was meant to be.
~ * ~
Writers live for feedback - please leave some if you have the time.
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Caroline, Klaus
Spoiler: “All My Children”
Length: Part Vd of V
Summary: Klaus takes Caroline on a trip, but he’s the one to see the world.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.
Parts I, II, III, IV, IVa, IVb, and IVc are here:
Author’s Note: Honestly, there is no excuse for my behavior. NONE. Maybe it was a hurricane that gave me the push I needed to get over that writer’s block. Maybe it was discovering “Battlestar Galactica” reruns on BBC America, or repeated listenings to “Sigh No More,” or this crazy, bizarre, self-published romance novel my kindle guilted me into buying. Whatever happened over the last week, something inspired me to start writing again, to finish this fic that I adore and has been so lovingly supported by so many readers, and get my act together. So I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for such a long gap in updates. The good news is - I’m enjoying writing again. This was the trickiest chapter by far, which is probably why it took so long, and now that I’m over that hump, the rest should come more naturally. Anyway, as always, thank you so much for the continued support for this story. Cut courtesy of BSG. Title courtesy of Massive Attack. Enjoy.
~ * ~
Caroline kills someone in Krakow.
It changes everything.
---
There’s a steady thrum of pressure in her head when she wakes, a heady haze of blood and lust, and the night comes back in bits and pieces: Kol, the dare, the lightning running through her veins when she smiled into that boy’s eyes and drank deep.
There’s more too, Klaus’s lips slanting over hers and his fingers tangling in her hair, but she pushes the memory away. Last night was a mistake, a fluke; she can’t let it become the norm. She runs a hand through her tangled hair, grimaces at the wrinkled cotton dress tangled around her hips. Her teeth feel chalky and there’s an awful taste in her mouth. She hopes she can wash away last night’s behavior the way she can clean the champagne from her skin.
Klaus isn’t in the room, but there’s a train ticket on the bedside table and a note telling her to be at Warszawa Centralna at noon. There’s more too, a bottle of expensive bubble bath and sugar scrub, a line or two telling her to pamper herself before the grimy ride.
She crumbles the note with shaking fingers, pretends he can’t see what she needs before she realizes it herself.
----
Awkward barely describes the train ride to Krakow.
Caroline leans her cheek against the cool glass of the window, closes her eyes and opens them immediately, futilely attempts to block out the images flashing through her mind.
Across the car Klaus is smirking at her because he knows what she’s seeing: their mouths pressed together, hearts beating furiously in a shared rhythm. Nothing happened beyond kissing, but the implications are the same.
She’s in a relationship with Tyler but her lips burn from Klaus’s kiss.
---
She skips dinner.
It’s not like she needs to eat, but it’s a good routine, a reminder of her old life. Often, it’s her favorite part of the day. She and Klaus don’t always spend all their time together and meals serve as a means of sharing how they spent the hours. She also likes trying foods she’s only seen on Top Chef or read about in magazines. Klaus always watches with self-satisfaction because he’s taught her something new without even trying.
She can’t bear it tonight, being trapped at a table with him while he wears a smug grin and makes her relive a less than stellar moment. No matter how much she enjoyed it, it wasn’t right.
“I’m going to bed,” she tells Klaus when his fingers tighten at her waist as he tries to steer her into the dining room. She doesn’t wait for a response, just jerks out of his grasp before he can stop her.
She doesn’t look back, even when she feels his eyes on her every step of the way.
---
He crawls into bed with her.
There’s a couch in their suite and Caroline has piled extra blankets and pillows, made a space for Klaus, a separate space. She hears the click of the door and the rustle of fabric; she tenses as footsteps bypass the living room and head straight for the bedroom.
She turns her back, focuses on the thin line of moonlight peeping in between the curtains, does everything she can to ignore the way he swallows up all the space, all the air; it takes all her self-control not to stiffen when his bare chest fits perfectly into the curve of her spine.
“Caroline, we need to talk,” he whispers into her hair, blows it back from her face, locks her in place so she can’t roll away.
“I have nothing to say,” she insists, forces her voice into a hard, flat monotone. “We kissed and we shouldn’t have.”
He rolls her onto her back and rests his weight on tense forearms; even without her enhanced eyesight, she’d see the anger flashing in his eyes. “You weren’t complaining last night.”
It’s too much: his weight pressing her into the mattress, the feel of his skin sliding over hers, the inch of space separating their mouths. She catches him by surprise and pushes, leaps from the bed as he lands against the far wall.
She takes on a defensive position, fists balled and legs splayed, even though she knows it’s futile. Still, she’s not willing to go down without a fight.
Klaus picks himself up, brushes drywall from his shoulder. “I’m not going to hurt you, Caroline.”
She drops her fists but doesn’t back down. “What do you want?”
“I released you,” he reminds her. “Yet you chose to stay. Why?”
The fight goes out of her and she sinks onto the bed, hugs her knees to her chest. He’s not really the one she’s angry with. “You make me feel alive,” she says. “I never realized how small my world was until I met you.”
He sits beside her, close enough that their shoulders touch. “I knew,” he says softly. “On your birthday, I knew a small town boy and small time life wouldn’t be enough for you. You were dying and the world I promised is what made you live.” He tilts her chin so she’s looking in his eyes. The anger is gone, but she can’t read the feelings there. “I won’t push you but know this: eternity is a long time to run.”
She takes what he gives even it’s less than she wants. She swallows hard and eases her legs down beside his; there’s no going back to the way things were before.
---
She takes to wearing Tyler’s bracelet as a badge of honor.
They’re running out of clean clothes and she finds it buried at the bottom of her bag, beneath the light-weight cardigan she stows in her purse for tours of drafty museums. It’s a bit tarnished, but otherwise whole, the charms tinkling a bit as it settles in the palm of her hand. Caroline runs her finger over the heart, the football, the wolf howling at the moon. There’s a pom-pom as well, a tiny map of Virginia and a Cavalier too. It’s the sun and the moon that catches her eye, the bright gold complimenting the cool silver. It’s her and Tyler, how they came together and fell in love, but it’s more too. It’s who Tyler is now; it’s who made him that way.
Caroline jerks as Klaus comes out of the bathroom towel-drying his hair. The curtains are open and early morning sunlight filters in the room, capturing the gold in his hair and the chilly blue of his eyes.
She swallows hard and turns her back to clasp the bracelet around her wrist. She likes its weight, the way it presses Tyler’s love to the rhythm of her pulse and beat of her heart.
It reminds her that doing the right thing always comes with a price.
---
It’s mid-afternoon when Klaus comments on the bracelet. If he noticed earlier, he kept his mouth shut, but they’re taking photos of St. Florian’s Cathedral when he finally has enough.
Caroline had thought she was covering well: she listened to his stories of the medieval market in Stare Miasto, coronations at Wawel Cathedral and balls at Wawel Castle. She asked clarifying questions and fact checked his history in her guidebook, kept her commentary to appropriate tourism related comments. She wishes things were different. Krakow is beautiful, much more to her liking with its winding streets and narrow alleys, but the tension between them makes the city difficult to enjoy.
Especially when Klaus grabs her wrist and tugs up the sleeve of her cardigan so the metal gleams in the light.
“You chose me,” he says quietly. His grip doesn’t loosen, but his eyes drift to the ground. “Why are you still wearing his gift?”
Caroline jerks away, reminds Klaus that he can’t get his way by putting his hands on her. It’s easier than admitting she doesn’t know which way is up when she’s with him. “He’s my boyfriend, Klaus,” she reminds him. “I chose to keep traveling with you, but that doesn’t mean things are over with him.”
Klaus’s head snaps up and his eyes blaze. He takes a step closer, then another, and then he’s right in front of her, half an inch of space between them. “You have a selective memory when it comes to that relationship,” he says and drops his gaze to her mouth. “Perhaps a demonstration will help clarify.” He ducks his head and his hands drop to her hips and heat sears her skin but she can’t bring herself to care, not when he’s this close, when he’s threatening to give her exactly the things she tells herself not to want.
She tilts her chin but his hands drop and he takes a step back. “I’m no one’s second choice,” he tells her. His eyes are heavy and he can’t seem to keep them from looking away from her mouth, but he keeps to his word. “When you figure out what you want, you know where to find me.”
He leaves her standing on the steps of the cathedral, watching the strong, steady line of his back as he walks off into the sunlight.
She tells herself she won’t break; she knows it’s only a matter of time.
---
Caroline has one paper left, for AP Lit, an essay analyzing Raskolnikov through a Hegelian lens, and it’s hard and complicated and pretty much the last thing she wants to be doing, but it’s also a good distraction. She needs space, space and distance to forget Klaus’s hands on her skin, to remember the warm glow of Tyler’s love.
She compels an aide into borrowing at laptop at the Jagiellonian University library and sets up shop. It’s an easy delusion to bring to life. She wears hoodies and jeans, drinks too much coffee, and swears at the ancient copy machines. She has trouble with the Polish keyboard, but a pair of pre-med students take pity on her and help her through it. Their names are Marek and Anja and they remind her of Jens and Agathe, less in personality, and more in the way they immediately let her in.
“What are you working on?” Anja asks, digs her teeth deeper into her pen. Beside her, Marek’s headphones keep him from looking up. They’re taking some sort of advanced biology class that even their excellent English can’t quite clarify. But Caroline thinks she can explain her paper.
“Have you read Crime and Punishment?” she asks. Anja shakes her head. “It’s this book about a guy who kills people because he can. He thinks he’s superman, that he’s better than other people and that he’s allowed to commit murder, but when he actually does it, he can’t handle the guilt. I’m supposed to be analyzing his actions and finding common ground in both sides of the argument.”
Anja thinks a moment, grinds deeper on her pen. “That sounds difficult. What could be right about murdering an innocent person?”
Caroline swallows hard, searches for an answer. Instinct, weakness, just because I can… She remembers the carnival worker, the way it felt as she watched the life drain from his face, the warmth slip from his skin. She had killed someone but never felt more alive. Later, she’d rationalized it, found a way to live with the crime and stop punishing herself: it was the cycle of life for her kind, unavoidable but inevitable.
Anja is still watching her, waiting for an answer. She smiles weakly and makes a bad joke. “Even serial killers have mothers who love them, right?” She’s not sure she completely transcended cultural boundaries, but Anja smiles in return and even laughs.
Caroline forces a laugh too, turns back to her laptop while Anja bends over her book, but the contradiction that’s become her life holds her concentration hostage.
Tyler has kissed her hundreds of times but never in a way that spreads sparks from her mouth to her breasts to the tips of her fingers.
Tyler might hold her heart, but it’s Klaus that makes her body sing.
---
Caroline spends four days writing the paper, Marek and Anja taking her on like a latchkey child. They bring her coffee and extra highlighters and are patient when her fingers stumble over the unfamiliar keyboard.
They invite her to lunch on the fifth day, ask politely while she’s putting the finishing touches on her bibliography. “Lunch?” She sets down her red pen and rubs out a crick in her neck. They’re poor students and already done so much for her. She doesn’t want to inconvenience them further. “Are you sure?”
They nod in unison, but Marek does the talking. “Your paper is finished so you won’t be spending more time here. We thought it would be a nice way to say goodbye.”
Caroline blinks. “Goodbye?”
Marek smiles. “You said it’s your last paper for school. You won’t be coming around here anymore, and summer session starts up soon. We’ll be busy, and you’ll be home.”
Caroline blinks again. That word, home. It was once a town and a house and friends and family, but sometime it feels like the four walls of the hotel rooms she shares with Klaus have everything she needs. She feels that way a lot; before Krakow, she felt that way all the time. She pushes her hair back from her face and Tyler’s bracelet slips down her forearm and it’s the jolt of reality that she needs. Marek and Anja are kind, but they could never understand the choices she’s made.
The contradiction weighing on her heart has never felt so heavy.
---
They take her to a milk bar. She wrinkles her nose because she hasn’t had a glass of milk since the third grade, but Marek just laughs and makes a comment about A Clockwork Orange and crazy Americans that believe everything they see on tv. Klaus said something similar to her once, on the train to Florence when he promised a history far more compelling than anything she could read in a book. It throws her a bit but she forces another smile and follows them into the restaurant.
Marek’s right, the way Klaus was too, and even though her Polish isn’t great, she doesn’t think there’s any milk on the menu. It’s more like a cafeteria, all glorified street food and cheap beer, and she thanks them both when they order pierogies and lagers and steer her to a corner table.
The food is good and in better company than Warsaw, she manages to enjoy it. Marek chats about med school and Anja pipes in with plans for the trip they’re planning after finals, and Caroline avoids their questions and makes vague references to leaving town.
She turns the conversation to them instead, tries to solve the puzzle of two overworked students taking in a random stranger. “Why did you offer to help me?” she asks, careful to keep her tone neutral. She’s curious why they singled her out, took the time to make her life easier when they have their own studies to worry about. Has she been painted as an ugly American? Brilliant scholar? Beautiful idiot?
They exchange a glance and look uncomfortable. “I…” Marek starts, then drifts off.
“What?” Caroline prompts. It’s been so long since she’s been anything but a cheerleader or Elena’s friend or Matt’s girlfriend. She needs to know how these strangers see her.
“I thought you seemed lost,” Anja says, eyes going wide. It’s not every day that someone says exactly what they’re thinking. But the door has been opened and she presses forward. “What are you doing here?”
It’s there on the tip of her tongue, the full truth about how she ended up finishing high school by correspondence course rather than feigning senioritis with Elena and Bonnie. She wants so desperately to talk about Tyler and Klaus, the piece of her heart that she gave freely and the piece that was taken from her. She wants to ask for help, to figure it out, for someone to tell her what to do. Anja and Marek are nice, but they’re not one of her girlfriends or even Stefan.
She smiles instead and stares directly into Anja’s eyes, then Marek’s, repeats the same mantra. “I’m an exchange student from UVA finishing up my junior year. I look young for my age. You’re thinking about studying abroad next year and want to pick my brain.”
She breaks eye contact and leans back in her seat. Across the table, Marek blinks rapidly and begins peppering her with questions about living in a strange land, building a life so far from home. They ask her about the places she’s been and the things she’s seen, but she can’t choose a specific country or city because they’re not what have made this trip unforgettable.
She tells them the most honest truth she knows: it’s not where they go, but whom they take with them that makes all the difference.
---
It goes to hell by midafternoon.
The compulsion has worked and Marek and Anja stop asking questions about her past, but they do want to know about her present. Anja is intrigued by Tyler’s bracelet and asks about the charms; she’s particularly interested in the sun and moon, the easy blend of gold and silver, day and night. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “What does it mean?”
There’s no easy answer to her question. Three months ago it would have been about Tyler, but now Caroline’s no longer sure. There are two boys with dueling curses that have taken up residence in her heart.
“There’s someone,” Caroline manages to say. “He gave me the bracelet before I left town.”
“He has good taste,” Anja says and looks pointedly at Marek. He rolls his eyes but kisses her cheek.
Caroline pushes down the sleeve of her cardigan, keeps the bracelet locked in place against the pulse in her wrist. It’s heavier than she remembered, colder too. It doesn’t give her strength. It holds her back.
---
Caroline has been feeding on blood bags since Warsaw.
She has one in her purse and excuses herself, hurries to the bathroom for a quick fix. It’s her favorite, B+, but she can’t bring herself to drink it.
Once, it was a way out of a life she didn’t want. Once, it let her be almost normal, someone Bonnie could accept and Tyler could love. Once, she thought it was her salvation.
She stares at the bag in her hand, cold and dark, tasting of sacrifice and compromise, ashes in her mouth. She swallows hard but it’s not nerves; she just doesn’t want it.
She’s had it from the vein, felt the thrill of drinking the real thing, and she doesn’t want to go back. She ignores that it’s a metaphor for the conflict in her life, how Klaus makes her feel and where she thinks her heart should lie. It felt right sinking her teeth into that boy’s veins; it feels wrong denying what she is. Still, she can’t make herself open the bag and go back to who she was before.
There’s a knock on the door and Anja’s calm voice asking if she’s okay. It shakes her out of her reverie and she smoothes back her hair, pinches her cheeks before opening the door. Anya’s eyes are filled with concern, but it’s the pulse point jumping in the exposed skin of her neck that draws Caroline’s attention.
She’s not particularly hungry, but she is aware of easy access to her prey. Anja trusts her implicitly, completely, and doesn’t make a sound when Caroline drags her into the bathroom and sinks her fangs into the smooth skin of Anja’s throat. Anja jerks in her arms but Caroline ignores it, ignores everything except the spicy flavor of her blood and how normal it feels. This is what she is; this is who she is.
It’s not until Anja stops moving that Caroline realizes the enormity of what she’s done. She stares in horror at her friend’s body, broken and bruised, on a dirty bathroom floor.
The line has been crossed and she’s chosen sides.
---
Klaus rescues her.
She crumbles to the floor beside Anja and manages to call him through the haze of tears and revulsion. The one thing she swore she’d never do…now there really is no turning back.
“Caroline.” He sounds smug, because he’s won the game and she’s lost more than he knows. “Have you come to your senses?” With her hands shaking and her mouth unable to form words, and she can’t respond. “Caroline?” he asks, his voice laced with concern. “What’s wrong, love?”
It comes out in a rush of ache and regret. “I need you,” she finally says and waits for a mocking reply, but his voice is only calm and steady, soothing through the pain.
“Where are you?” he asks and she manages to give him directions, keep from losing it in the ten minutes it takes him to save the day.
He stands over her in a thin henley and leather jacket, his eyes shadowed and hair unkempt; their separation hasn’t been easy on him either. But she doesn’t pause to process, just throws herself against his chest and holds on tight. It’s not until his arms tighten around her, strong and safe, that she thinks everything might be okay. This is what he knows; he’s the one to make it right.
“I messed up,” she whispers, even with her face buried in his chest, her tears drenching his shirt.
“Shhh,” he croons, hands stroking gently over her back, his mouth whispering reassurances in her hair. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you.”
She believes him.
---
Klaus takes her home.
The hotel room barely registers, but it’s the things it contains that matter. She spots Klaus’s sketchpad on the bedside table, his camera on a spare chair, her clothes spilling from a suitcase propped by the balcony, everything that makes up her life scattered around one room.
He has an arm around her as he leads her inside, tugs off her sneakers and jacket and steers her to the bed. He strips off her clothes and slips one of his t-shirts over her head, tucks her into bed like her daddy did a lifetime ago. His shirt is soft cotton and feels good against her skin, but it’s how it smells that makes her feel safe: power, strength, a hidden decency that only she gets to see. It surrounds her, fills her, lets her slip into a dreamless sleep while Klaus saves the day.
He comes home smelling of smoke but he’s whole and he’s hers and when he slides into bed and holds her tight, it’s the only thing that matters.
---
The next morning, it takes her a moment to register what she’s done.
She can hear the shower running and the low hum of the tv in the background. The story is in Polish, but she doesn’t need words to recognize the burned out storefront that once housed a milk bar, the body count scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
Something hot and burning fills her, boils through her veins and into her throat and Klaus doesn’t see her coming when she launches herself at him, knocks him to the floor and locks her hands around his throat. He’s damp from the shower and his bare skin slides over hers, warm and wet, but she ignores the hum in her blood and tightens her grip.
“You said you’d help me,” she hisses. “You weren’t supposed to make it worse.”
He flexes his hips for leverage, just a tiny bit, but it’s enough of a distraction for him to roll her beneath him, lock her arms at her sides. “I took care of it.”
“All those people…” she trails off, tears stinging her eyes. “They didn’t have to die too.”
Klaus sighs and gets up. He’s naked and she keeps her eyes locked on his feet while he wraps the towel around his waist. He extends a hand and helps her to her feet, walks her to the bed and sits beside her. “They were witnesses, Caroline. If you want to survive, you can’t let others tell your stories.”
She shakes her head, won’t look at him and the solution he’s offering. It’s enough that she killed Anja, but Marek, all those students, futures snuffed out because she made the wrong choice. “I’m a bad person,” she whispers. What she’s done is no better than Damon, the Klaus she met in Mystic Falls. She realizes she’s been missing the point along - she wasn’t a different person back then; she did a better job of lying to herself.
“No,” Klaus insists, curves a finger under her chin and forces her to meet his eyes. She expects sympathy, but they’re hard and determined. There’s no pity there. “You’re a vampire, Caroline. This is what vampires do. This is what we do.”
“No,” she practically yells, pulls from his grip. “This is what you do. I know what I’m supposed to be, but that’s no who I am.” She has to believe her words; she can’t live her life any other way.
Klaus closes his eyes and sighs heavily. “I was there in Warsaw,” he says calmly. “You liked drinking from the vein.”
“That was different. Feeding didn’t mean killing anyone.”
He shrugs. “It will happen from time to time. You can’t ignore what you are because of a random mistake.”
She rolls her eyes, fingers folding tightly into the hem of his t-shirt. “You would think that,” she says, throws his words back at him. “I was there in Mystic Falls. I saw how you used people, disposed of them when they stopped being useful. I’m nothing like you.”
He says nothing, but she’s spent enough time in his company to read his face: the taunt set of his jaw, the downward curl of his mouth, the bright burning of his eyes. She waits for him to lash out, throw an epic tantrum that will confirm all her accusations, but he disappoints her, the way she secretly hoped he would.
He just disappears into the bathroom to dress, leaves her alone in the bedroom wondering when he was the one to grow up.
---
He gives her a wide berth for two days.
She wears pajamas and forces down bagged blood, obsessively watches the news and waits for the police to pound own their door.
Klaus comes and goes with his camera in tow, explores a city that was supposed to make her happy and has only broken her instead.
At night he tells her about the places he’s visited, the sights she’s missing, before turning off the light and clinging to his side of the bed. He doesn’t hold her and she doesn’t wake up each morning in his arms.
It feels worse than destroying what was left of her humanity.
---
On the third day, Caroline wakes to Klaus throwing her clothes into a suitcase, dumping a mound of toiletries on the bed and ordering her get ready.
“We’re leaving,” he says through the tight clench of his jaw. “Our train leaves in an hour. If you’d like your things to come along, you’d best start packing.”
“Where are we going?” she asks as he carefully stows his camera equipment. “Did someone find out?”
He puts aside the camera and zips to the bed, looms over her so she falls back on the pillows and stares up into furious blue eyes.
“You need to stop fighting your nature.” His mouth is less than an inch from hers, so close it takes everything in her not to push up on her elbows and kiss him, feel the heat and burn of his body against hers. “I promised to show you the world. You don’t get to choose which parts.”
He pulls back, chest heaving slightly, and Caroline feels the same tension. No matter the things she’s done, she can’t stop wanting him.
---
He takes her to Vienna.
They arrive via train and he spends the ride telling her its history, Hapsburgs and Mozart and Anschluss competing for dominance in a city that’s existed since pre-Roman times. “I liked it better then,” he tells her, stares wistfully out the window. “The Celts knew their way around a salt mine. The Romans cared only for gold and glory.”
“You wanted those things too,” Caroline reminds him, their first train ride flitting through her mind.
He shrugs, turns from the window. “There was wealth in salt. Don’t discount the simple joy in preserving food.”
Caroline doesn’t want to talk about food, the dietary mishap that led to this moment. “What’s in Vienna?” she asks to change the subject.
Klaus faces her, his eyes gleaming wickedly. “Your future.”
It brings her back to Mystic Falls, the deal she made and the bargain she struck. She’d thought her life was over then, but she was wrong: even now it’s just beginning.
---
If Caroline had to choose a European city to pull a Jens and Agathe, she’d start with Vienna. It’s elegant, but whimsical, with art nouveau touches that keep it from taking itself too seriously. She falls in love instantly, immediately, especially when they begin with a tour of the imperial gardens at Schönbrun Palace. They’re perfectly manicured, symmetrical and inviting, and she resists the urge to scream “Off with their heads!” She’s too old for Disney movies and the sentiment isn’t right, not after what she did. There are no painful silences filling up the space between herself and Klaus, but there’s little joy in this trip. Not with Anja and Marek hanging over her conscience like a dark cloud.
Instead, she follows him to the Orangery, breathes in the scents of citrus and spring and renewal. It helps her remember that even when things go wrong, life doesn’t stop. “It’s beautiful here,” she tells Klaus. “It would be perfect for prom.” She tries a joke, just to get him talking, but he only smiles distantly and bends to pick up a fallen lemon.
“The monarchy loved holding parties here during the winter months. Elijah came for Mozart. I came for the food.” His smile widens, but there’s nothing innocent about it.
“Klaus…” Caroline starts, but he tosses the lemon at her, hard, and the impact feels almost knocks the wind out of her
“We’re vampires, love. We eat people. Try to remember that.”
He turns on his heel and disappears into the rear garden. She glares after him and stalks towards the doors, stares at a couple fountains and rose bushes while her anger cools. He knows how hard this has been for her; she doesn’t understand why he isn’t making it better.
She spends an hour in the maze but it doesn’t clear her head. No matter how many times she loses her way, the road always leads back to him.
---
They fare no better on a walk around the Ringstrasse. It’s a beautiful boulevard that houses the Parliament and Town Hall, but Klaus has little interest in sight seeing.
Rather, he grinds to halt before the Vienna State Opera. “Rebekah and I used to play a game here,” he says and points absently at the road. “We’d throw ourselves before a carriage, watch the driver panic, wait until the last possible second before standing and brushing ourselves off and going on our way.” The ghost of a smile curves his mouth. “Rebekah could usually make off with a purse as well.”
Caroline glares at him. “What is your problem?” she snaps.
He shrugs, gives her shoulder a push. She falls off the curb, only inches from an oncoming car. “You have nothing to fear,” he whispers in her ear as he pulls her to safety.
She shoves him away. “You pushed me into traffic!”
“And you’re fine.” He runs his fingers down her arm and she feels his skin through the thin cardigan. “Not even a flesh wound.”
She shrugs off his touch and crosses her arms, puts up a barrier between them. “That’s not the point.” She knows what he’s trying to tell her, even if she disagrees with how he’s going about it: she’ll never be human again. She can’t keep thinking like one.
“You’re a vampire,” he reminds her and grabs her wrist to tug her down the street. His fingers lock over her pulse, the slow rhythm of blood that keeps her in perpetual undeath. “You’re not like them and you never will be. Try to keep that in mind.”
His grip tightens on her wrist and she stumbles after him, lets him drag her further into hell.
---
The Magical Mystery Murder Tour continues: Belvedere Palace, the Spanish Riding School, even torte at Demel Bakery. It doesn’t matter where they go, there’s always a story to tell. Blood, murder, death, torture. Chambermaids and grooms and artists’ models - there’s no escapeing the Mikaelsons’ reach. Caroline soaks it up, lets it sink in. This is her future; this is the life she should be living.
By the time they reach Stephansdom, she’s had enough. Klaus still has his hand locked around hers and he pulls her up the steps of the cathedral, stands back as she stares up at the majestic gothic arches and romanesque details, the studded steeple climbing towards the sun. “It’s beautiful,” she gasps because it’s the first place they’ve been all day that hasn’t begun with Klaus reminiscing about killing someone.
He leans against a wall, crosses his arms over his chest. “Kol and I killed a man here.” He points at a spot to her left. “The Minister of War died right where you’re standing. It was easy to go missing during a rebellion.”
And just like that, it’s too much.
“I get it!” she yells, actually yells, and it feels good to let out her feelings out. A group of tourists turn to check out the commotion and Klaus grabs her arm, drags her into the shadow of an alcove.
“You know better than to draw attention to yourself.”
“I get it,” she says again, softer this time, but no less forceful. “This whole day, it’s been about making me flip the switch. You’re trying to make me like you.”
Klaus takes a step towards her, so her back presses against the rough stone of the cathedral wall, and he rests his forearms on either side of her head. “You could never be like me.” He’s large and imposing, but she still doesn’t feel trapped. Despite this day, despite what he’s done, she knows there’s a method to his madness.
“Then why the tales of murder and mayhem? You know I already hate myself for what I did. Why are you trying to make me feel worse?”
He doesn’t drop his arms, but he leans down and rests his forehead against hers, his lips moving gently over her skin. “I wanted you to see that you’re not alone. We all go a little mad sometimes. You’re going to live forever, Caroline. You can’t carry every mistake in your heart.”
“I killed someone,” she whispers. “It was different this time. She was my friend.”
“I cart my family around in caskets. They’ve found a way to forgive me.”
Caroline shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t angry with her. She was there and I could get away with it.” Klaus moves back so he can look into her eyes. They’re laced with understanding and it gives her the strength to admit the truth. “I wanted to be in control,” Caroline whispers. “Everything else felt like it was falling apart, but I could decide if she would live or die.”
“You’re a vampire,” Klaus says yet again. “You straddle the line between life and death. We’re anomalies, but it makes us no less real.”
“I don’t want that kind of power!” Caroline is crying now, a big burst bubble erupting from her chest. “I want to be normal. I want cheerleading and school and blood bags.”
Klaus bends his head and presses kisses to her cheeks, licks the tears from her skin. “Is that what you really want?”
His voice rumbles against her face, sneaks inside her chest and forms a hot, tight ball. “I want my life back,” she says, but her voice is small and full of excuses.
Klaus sighs and pulls back, brushes his thumbs over the tear tracks on her cheeks. “I’d like to show you something.” His eyes are soft and his voice is gentle, like the Klaus who taught her history and showed her art, the Klaus who held her in his arms all through the night, the Klaus that catches her when she falls.
When he takes her hand, she’s ready to follow him anywhere.
---
It ends at the Leopold Museum, standing before “Death and Life.”
The plaque tells Caroline that it was painted in 1910 and is one of Klimt’s most seminal works, but the ensuing feelings tell her that all will be right in her world.
It’s mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children and grandparents, generations huddled together in a never ending cycle. Death hovers in the background, separate even as he’s always a part of their world.
Klaus stands behind her, arms gently encircling her while she leans against his chest. “We’re two halves of the same whole,” he explains. “No matter how many we kill, there are always more to take their place.”
“It doesn’t make what I did right.”
He turns her in his arms, so her breasts are pressed against his chest, his arms resting low at the small of her back. He lifts one hand and cups her face, tilts her chin so his lips brush over hers. It’s a light touch, no more than butterfly kiss, but she opens her mouth to protest, he doesn’t hesitate to take advantage. His mouth slants over hers and his hands tangle in her hair and against the muscles of her hip, and it’s her moan that breaks the spell. He pulls back, a sheepish expression on his face, but no regret lurking in his eyes. “Just because you think something is wrong doesn’t mean it’s not what you want.” He brushes her hair back from her face and looks deep into her eyes. There’s more than just passion burning there. “Caroline, what do you want?"
His voice is soft and a bit pleading and she’s tired of fighting, tired of pretending. He isn’t the monster she met in Mystic Falls; she’s not even the same girl she was in Warsaw. They’re good and bad, life and death, but mostly they can’t be either without the other. “I want you,” she says and it’s really that simple. She wants travel and adventure, strength and beauty and light. She wants someone who won’t judge her when she loses control.
“And Tyler?” Klaus asks, his voice tight and clipped. He’s staring at the floor again, and it makes something twist inside Caroline to see him so scared.
She cups his face, tilts his chin so he has to look into her eyes. She hopes hers say everything she can’t put into words: I want you, I need you, there’s no one else for me… “That ended a long time ago. I just wasn’t ready to let go.” She takes off the bracelet and turns it in her hand so the sun and moon charm shimmer dully in the florescent lights. “I started this for him, but now it’s about you.” She slips the bracelet into her purse and twines her arms around his neck. “You promised me the world. I’m not ready to go home yet.”
He laughs, a real, honest laugh that lights up his eyes and draws crinkles in the corners of his mouth, and kisses her again, soft and sweet but full of promises.
She loses herself in him, lets go of the girl she was, embraces the woman she was meant to be.
~ * ~
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