wholeworldoutthere | Thursday, May 24

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caroline forbes

Thursday, May 24

That morning, Klaus did wake up with a rather horrible hangover. It was far worse than the one he had had in Venice, and it took a lot longer to vanish. A couple of hours, after sufficient blood-drinking, even if the blood provided by the replicator seemed particularly horrid. Eventually, he felt good enough to function, and saw Caroline's message when he checked his comm.

He still did not know exactly what he felt, only that he needed to know more, and now that it sounded as if she had told someone else of what they were...

It took him a while to find her, because he had expected her to seek out the company of others. She had never struck him as a solitary person, but he had never known her after an abduction to a space station, either. He ended up finding her at the end of one of the long dead-end hallways on the second level, and as soon as she spotted him he raised his hands in the international sign for 'I come in peace.'

"I want to know what happened to Finn," he told her, slowly walking closer, but something in his voice made it more like a request than it usually would have been.

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She heard him before she saw him, and in the five seconds that she had before he came around the curve, she'd bundled up everything, moving it into neat piles against the wall, the blanket across her lap, the pillow behind her like she was just sitting against a tree, and she looked... fine, her smile small but there, until she saw it was him and it dropped to a more neutral expression, nodding. He didn't need to know that she'd be here, that she was alone because what she really wanted was to curl up at home in her pajamas and eat way too much ice cream and not show anyone that things weren't okay.

But then he said he wanted to know what happened to Finn, and Caroline licked her lips, staring up at him. "They were trying to kill you, because you were going to kill Elena. We had White Oak stakes, but we don't anymore, not that we'd use them. Not now." She didn't know what he wanted to know, and she pushed herself up so she was standing, because if he did want to kill her, she'd at least be able to try to get away. She seemed calm, if tired. "But you had Bonnie break the linking spell, so it didn't hurt you." Thank God, because it would have killed Tyler, it'd kill her and Damon and Stefan and everybody.

What she said made little sense to him, but at least he imagined that if he had been having Bonnie work on unlinking them, it was not because he knew what they were doing. But he didn't see why they wouldn't use the white oak stakes anymore, and he didn't see why he would want to kill Elena. Keeping Elena safe was crucial. Now, that they had stakes at all was hardly surprising, given what Rebekkah had just told him before he came here.

He would have sat down with her if she hadn't got up, but as it was he leaned against the curved wall, hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"Why would I want to kill Elena?" That was the thing that made the least sense.

She stared at him. "I don't know. You always want to kill her or kidnap her, or shut her down in some cave with your sister. That's why everybody wants to kill you, because you want Elena, and you killed Jenna, but now they can't. We-" She swallowed hard. "We can't. And you know it, so. So it's not like I'm telling you something you don't know."

She bit the inside of her lip. "When you kill the Original, all their descendants die. So." She's still waiting for him to explode again.

That was his problem with their lot in a nutshell. He had once had to kill Elena; he had not particularly enjoyed having to do it, no more than he had enjoyed killing Jenna or the she-wolf, but he had done what he had had to do. Now, all he wanted was for her to live a long, happy, fulfilled human life, and he was the bad guy, when Stefan and Damon's continued spats would end up costing her her life.

But what she said next - no, he had not known that, and he frowned. "So..." He smiled, slightly, because now they could not want him or his remaining siblings dead, not if they wanted Caroline, Stefan and Damon to live. Not if they wanted Tyler to live. Not unless they knew who had turned Rose, and who had turned her before that, in which case Elijah, Kol and Rebekkah would not be safe. "You might want to couch the bad news in the good, next time," he suggested, pulling a hand out of his pocket to rub at his nape. "Do you know whose line you're from?"

"No," she said, hugging herself tightly. "But it could be any of you." Not Finn, obviously, but someone else. She shrugged, not looking away from him because she couldn't, because if he is going to hurt her, she'd want to see it coming. "So, do you know if you're going to kill me yet?" Her voice wavers a little when she says it, but she doesn't look away, and her eyes weirdly aren't accusing, just... it's that same tiredness.

Edited 2012-05-23 20:30 (UTC)

Something painful flashed across his eyes at her question, and he frowned. "I was never going to kill you, love." It was said almost in a whisper, and he wanted to reach out but knew better. "Now, what's this about your good friend Bruce?"

It was asked in a more normal, almost jovial tone, but he still had every intention of making sure the man never hurt Caroline again.

She shrugs when he says that he's not going to kill her, a sort of permanent shrug that leaves her shoulders sort of hunched up. "Oh." Just that one word, and she then forces herself to stand up straight, to drop her arms even though she stuffs her hands in her pockets. It's clear she's making herself because he'd seen the transformation, that she's forcing the smile on her lips.

"He's a good guy. He's just- he's got a problem, and-" She licked her lips. "His blood is poisonous. He wanted me to warn you." She doesn't talk about what he did to her, about what the other guy did. Because she's fine.

"He's the bloke that splattered your brain all over your hair," Klaus said, halfway between a reminder and a verification. "How did he manage?"

Because Caroline might not be as strong as he was, and she would have been injected with the same nanites tampering down their abilities, but it was still not as easy as it seemed to hurt her that way.

It was sort of alarming how quickly she turned white, how any sort of confidence just vanished, her eyes shiny as she spoke quietly, her voice rough where it had been fine a moment before. "H-He-- He changes-" She had to stop, looking away, swallowing as her eyes skimmed the wall to the floor. "When he's angry, he becomes this monster, and- I'm okay now."

She whispers that, and she is so very not okay, it's so clear she's not okay, but what else is she going to do besides say she's okay? "He doesn't remember it. What happens. He doesn't control it, it just happens."

"Hey," Klaus called out to her, soft and genuinely concerned. He holds a hand out as if he were going to touch her arm, but he doesn't actually go all the way. "It's all right, Caroline. He won't ever touch you again."

Klaus would make very certain of that.

"He's not a bad guy," she says quietly, and her voice is a little less strained, more insistent. She doesn't know that Klaus heard her when she was trying to get her hair clean, doesn't really know how much it shows that she's not fine. "He's a good guy. I- I freaked out because we were in jail, and- you don't know. Everything was awful, then I was here and- It was in m-my hair-"

She's losing her grip on her calm, and she's not used to it. "It's not his fault. "

"It's alright," he insists, his hand still held out just short of touching her. Given how frightened she was that he might want to kill her, the last thing he's going to do is force contact upon her. Besides, she seems on the edge of a breakdown, and he doesn't want to push her over.

"I'll take care of it," he assures her again, holding her gaze as much as she lets him.

She's not looking at him until he says it's alright and she just sort of explodes with the words "It's not alright. It's not, and I can't- he broke my neck and I woke up with pencils through my hands and he kept soaking the gag in vervain and he was going to make Elena kill me and then I'm in some space jail and my br-" Brains, she'd been about to say, but she's shaking and she can't really talk. She doesn't reach for him, but she curls up into herself and its what she's been avoiding. It's not the flippant 'I've had a bad day' she's been saying, it's the reality, and that she's alone and everything else.

It breaks his heart to see her like this, if he still has a heart to break, and it's tentatively that he reaches out again and this time, all the way to her arm. When she doesn't pull back, but keeps trying not to sob, he gradually pulls her into an embrace, and strokes her hair, because there's nothing to say just now, he suspects, and he can only let her get it all out.

"I didn't do anything wrong," she whispers it against his neck, and she doesn't think about who he is, that he'd made Tyler bite her, that she'd asked him moments ago if he meant to kill her, and she'd meant it. It was something more than that, and she was shaking when he held her close, but her voice broke as she spoke, the tears starting even though she didn't want them. "You saved me, you made him not come after me, why? Why do you care?" Her voice broke then, and she started crying, those soft, strangled sobs he'd heard once before, the day she'd shown up.

Edited 2012-05-23 21:42 (UTC)

They were even more jarring here and now, in this empty corridor, without the sound of the shower or a wall in between them to muffle the sobs. Klaus closed his eyes and stroked her hair, and took a few seconds to bleed the anger out of his voice. "You just tell me who did that to you, Caroline," he assured her in a soft voice, although he wasn't sure that she would even be hearing his words. "I saved you and I would save you again. Nobody here's going to hurt you."

She's never had anybody say that to her, not since she was eight years old and her Dad promised he wouldn't let anybody hurt her after she'd gotten in a fight at school. It sinks in a little- it's probably why her crying slowly dies off, why she tries to breathe and pulls back, her face puffy and red, even though she's knowing only back enough that she's not plastered to him, not so hat he'd let go of her. "I'm okay," She says, even though she's knowing not, because she's not used to this, to what she's supposed to say. She hadn't heard his question, and now his t-shirt is wet and she just pulls in another breath, in, out. "Bruce didn't mean it. It wasn't him doing it." Her eyes found his. "Okay?"

"He and I are going to have a talk," Klaus assures her, and moves one arm from around her only so he can gently wipe her tears from her cheeks. "Who hurt you in Mystic Falls?" All of it has made him forget that he still doesn't know exactly who killed Finn, but it can wait. Finn is dead; Caroline is alive. If she is here, then more might arrive, and he can protect her, even if he failed to protect Finn.

She pulled in a breath, then two, because she was making herself calm down, so that she'd stop freaking out because she didn't do this. She wasn't the girl who freaked out about this stuff, she was okay, even if they put her in cages and shot her, or if her dad strapped her to a chair and fried her whenever she saw blood. She was okay. She survived, because if she wasn't okay with it, then none if it would be okay and she'd be broken, and then no one would care anymore.

"Your mom did something to Alaric. He's- He's a vampire, but- but he's- staking him didn't do anything, it was white oak but it didn't do anything, Rebekkah got away, but- but he's-" She pulled in another breath, the tears slowly rolling down her cheeks even though she's looking up at the ceiling, trying to stop them even as she rubs them away with her hands. "He broke my neck, and I woke up- My hands- and -" She stops because she has to, and she takes one deep breath, then another. "I'm okay now. I'm alright, I know it's over, I know it's- I know. It's okay."

"You have a right not to be okay, Caroline," Klaus points out gently. The greatest proof that she isn't, no matter what she says, is that she hasn't moved out of his embrace. Flattering though it would be to think that she would remain in his arms when in a normal state, Klaus knows better. "You cry all you need, you let it all out, rinse, lather, repeat."

She shakes her head, even as her face twists. "I can't. I can't, I have- I'm okay." It's like she knows, even though she doesn't, because that's when she pushes at his hands, when she steps back, even though she's still scrubbing at her cheeks, and she smiles, and it's accompanied by a shrug. "He's not here, and it was an accident. I scared him, and- so it's alright." She pulled in a deep, deep breath. "I- your shirt. Sorry, I just- I freaked out a little bit." She takes another deep breath, like she's squaring herself away.

"My shirt'll be fine," Klaus assures her, without a look down at the tear-stained garment. He's watching her instead, the way she's building up her mask, and he lets her do it. He's told her she has the right to freak out, now it's up to her, and there's nothing more he can do, apart from give her a moment to pull herself together.

"Yeah," she says, and she looks away, her voice still sort of weird. "There's a dinner thing tomorrow. You should come help." She looks back at him, and her eyes are red-rimmed and she's a mess, but she's managed to shift the focus away from her. "It'd be good, probably. Lord knows somebody's got to make things better around here."

And yeah, she's holding herself together with her fingernails, but she's done it, she's managed to stop crying, to stop herself from being a wreck. "So you'll help, right?"

"Help what, Lady Grantham with her dinner?" he asks, surprised by the request. He's seen the message, of course, but he did not care. "You mistake me for my sister. I'm not the one who likes organising parties."

Not this sort of party, anyway, and what would he bring, a bag of blood? The very concept seems ludicrous to him, with the replicators being so stubbornly uncooperative.

"You're coming. Because I want to go, but I don't know anybody." She pauses, and then- "She needs help setting up and stuff." She sniffles once, because she's calming down, because this she can do. Nothing Klaus can say can out stick-in-the-mud Elena Gilbert, and she's been dealing with that since they were tiny. "She's an old lady. So, you're coming, right?"

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