Chapter Text
"I've done more than enough. I've shown kindness, forgiveness, pity because of you Caroline. It was all for you," Klaus said. He stood in front of Caroline, his face the most vulnerable and naked she had ever seen it. He was looking for a reward. He wanted her to be with him because he'd let Tyler escape with his life and he saved her from a fatal wound he created. It was ludicrous when she thought about it. You don't get rewarded with a person because you made baby steps, yet, when she looked in his eyes, she knew how significant the night was for him. Giving Tyler a head-start was likely the kindest thing Klaus had done in years. Part of her wanted to tell him it was good, commend him for the strides, and encourage him to keep going. Tonight, though, she couldn't bring herself to extend that kindness. Not when she just said goodbye to the boy she loved. She looked into his eyes, but said nothing.
Klaus stormed away from the Gilbert house. She had some nerve, berating him like that, standing by while her boyfriend plotted his demise, all to use his feelings for her against him to give unearned penance. What would it take? He hadn't tried to prove himself to somebody in centuries. He shouldn't even have to. He was the hybrid. What was she? Some new vampire who'd taken fewer than twenty rotations around the sun? He took deep, angry breaths, squeezing his fists together as he walked. And Tyler? That guy? He was what Klaus had to show for his hybrid family? He was who Caroline chose instead of him over and over again? An idiot who staged a half-baked mutiny against him, a fucking waste of space moron who dropped everything and left Caroline whenever it was convenient for him, that's who he sacrificed his entire reputation for? For her to not even say thank you? Did she even realize how many enemies he had? If it circulated that he spared somebody who betrayed him like that—
The pain hit him fiercely and suddenly. About two-hundred and fifty meters from the Gilbert house, Klaus doubled over, coughing up blood, falling to the ground. What the hell? Was it the Bennett witch? He looked around frantically, waiting for the attacker to reveal themselves. He felt like his insides were going to explode. He started crawling back to the house. If Caroline knew anything about a plot against him, he would get it out of her. As he crawled, however, the pain went away as suddenly as it struck. He wiped the blood off his mouth and sprinted back to the house in seconds, ready to pry the information out of her.
"Caroline Forbes, if you know—," he started. When he approached the stairs, however, he saw her laid next to a small puddle of blood on the porch. She looked up at him with the confusion as he felt.
"Klaus, what just happened?" she asked. Klaus ran and helped her up in a single motion by her elbow. She shook his hand off quickly, and he raised his hands up innocently.
"I don't know, but we better get you inside. Whoever did it could be out here," he said, and they walked back in the house and locked the front door behind them. He scratched his elbow; he thought he felt something. He peered out through the blinds, but saw nobody.
"It had to be a witch, right?" Caroline asked. "Doing one of those aneurysm things?"
"It was different," he murmured, not looking from the window.
"I don't get it," she said. "Who would attack us both?"
"Do you want me to make you a list of everybody I have pissed off in the last thousand years, Caroline? I bet it was somebody who heard that I no longer make examples of my betrayers, but rather let them go at the will of some girl," he spat.
"Oh yeah, your merciful reputation made the rounds of the supernatural community in twenty minutes." Caroline rolled her eyes. She walked to the living room and sat on the couch.
"Well, perhaps he is shouting it from the rooftops already, or from whatever little wolf love-nest he's made with what's-her-name," Klaus said. That one stung. Caroline crossed her arms and looked away from him. Klaus looked back and cursed himself. He stepped away from the window and walked toward her.
"It's probably just Bonnie's spell keeping me from going too far from my prison. Maybe she's all healed up and the magic just went lopsided like it tends to," Klaus said, sitting beside her on the couch. Caroline got up and sat on the floor across from him against the entertainment stand, her arms still crossed. He glared.
"Or, perhaps, it is instead the effects of your friend dying painfully," he said angrily.
"God, Klaus. Have you ever not thrown a tantrum in your life when people don't do exactly what you want them to?" Caroline asked.
"Says the one sitting on the hard wood so you don't have to sit near someone who just saved your life," Klaus retorted, leaning back against the couch.
"Right, right, saved me from that life-threatening wound you did to me!"
"You get stuck on that part every time," Klaus said with a smile. Caroline looked at him in disbelief, and a small smile escaped her. She sighed and stood up.
"You're probably right. The spell is just malfunctioning a little with you getting out early. It probably just affected me because I got in there with you. Let's just sleep here tonight and you can try to leave again when the spell is supposed to have worn off," Caroline said, standing.
"Oh, and you are certainly suggesting this plan because you A. value my company, B. are looking out for my health, or C. are trying to extend Tyler's head start as long as possible. Let's think about it…" Klaus placed a contemplative finger on his chin.
Caroline dug in the hall closet for bed linens, grabbed a couple of sheets and a pillow, and walked back to the couch. She started to put the fitted sheet over Klaus before he got out of the way, smiling.
"You can guess which," Caroline muttered, taking the back cushions off the couch and making it up for him.
"Certainly this couch isn't big enough for the both of us," Klaus said, sitting on the arm. Caroline shook her head in disbelief.
"I will crash in Elena's room," she replied.
"This house is certainly big enough. Isn't there some deceased Gilbert's room I can stay in instead? Not that this doesn't look comfortable," Klaus said. Caroline froze and looked up at him.
"You aren't sleeping in Jenna's room."
A moment of shame flashed in Klaus's playful eyes and he looked away from her. Caroline handed him a pillow and paused, looking at him for a moment. She sighed left to go upstairs.
"No warm milk?" He shouted after her.
"Go the fuck to sleep, Klaus!"
He smiled to himself as she slammed the bedroom door.
Caroline borrowed a pair of Elena's sweat pants and a Mystic Falls High t-shirt and crawled in her bed, a bed she's had many sleepovers and girl talks in before. She remembered when she first started dating Tyler. She and Elena laid in the dark in this room laughing together all night about it. Elena giggled to her about it was bound to happen. They were so perfect together. Maybe, when Stefan came back, they could go on double dates. A tear escaped the corner of Caroline's eye, and she quickly wiped it away. She got up and walked around her best friend's room. She picked up and looked at a framed photo of Miranda and Jenna. Elena, an orphan. Tyler, an orphan now, too. She sighed and put the photo back down on the dresser. She felt like the room was a memorial to Jenna. Jenna, who Klaus killed before she could graduate from her master's program, before she could find real non-Logan love.
Klaus's words echoed in her mind from earlier that night. It was all for you, Caroline. She looked up at the ceiling and closed her eyes. When she was dying, she told him there were moments where she wished she could forget everything he had done. The truth was, it was every moment she was with him. She decided to leave this monument to the dead and let herself forget. If she didn't, she would cry all night about Tyler, Jenna, and the guilt inside her from knowing that Klaus would always spare her, but nobody else. Caroline tore her eyes from the photos on Elena's mirror and walked downstairs.
Klaus lied between the sheets on the couch. His jacket was folded up on the chair and his shoes on the ground next to it. He looked up at her and smiled. She noticed he was drawing by the lamplight.
"Couldn't stay away, love?" he asked. Caroline ignored the question, and walked to the kitchen. She rifled through the pantry and found a box of popcorn bags. As she microwaved a bag, she looked up to find him staring at her. She turned away and looked out the kitchen window. The moon shone bright in the sky, and she wondered where Tyler was. When the microwave beeped, she opened the door, grabbed a bowl, and poured the popcorn in it. Klaus watched her, wondering if she was going back upstairs.
She waved her hand at him, indicating he should move over. Klaus smiled and spun to sit up straight, his bare feet peaking out of the bottom of the blanket. Caroline had never seen him without shoes on before. He looked so comfortable. He caught her eye as she watched him. They held eye contact for a hair too long, and she felt a flutter in her stomach. She shook her head and grabbed the remote off the coffee table and pointed it at the screen. Klaus grimaced at the TV and looked back down at his sketch pad as Caroline channel flipped with one hand and grabbed small bites of popcorn with the other. She tried to subtly peer at the picture without being too obvious, but he caught her and smiled.
"If you want to know if it's you, just ask," he said.
"Well, you happen to have my good side right now. I'm great in profile," she said, lifting her chin with joking pride. Klaus shifted to face her and flipped open to a blank page and to draw her in the new angle.
"Wait, now I'll have a double chin," she said. "You'll get me in zombie TV mode."
"I'll clean up the jawline for you," he replied, laughing. Caroline landed on some old Veronica Mars rerun and put her feet up on the coffee table. She knew she shouldn't fall asleep here. She was next to the most dangerous creature on the planet, after all. Just an episode then she'll go to bed. Just till she was tired enough the pictures wouldn't haunt her.
After half an hour of silence of Caroline watching the show and Klaus sketching quietly next to her, Klaus spoke. "I was doubtful, Caroline, but this is a pretty fine program."
"Well, I figured sassy blondes seem to do it for you," she said.
"I guess you're right," he said, adding texture to Caroline's curls in the picture.
Caroline pivoted, moving her legs onto the couch, and leaned away from Klaus, to get more comfortable. She bent her knees and placed her feet by him. He quickly grabbed the pillow she gave him from his right side and handed it to her. She took it, nodded her thanks, and placed it beneath her head. She was annoyed at how nice it smelled. Just as Kristen Bell was solving the case, Caroline felt sleep start to take her.
When Caroline awoke, she saw the bright sun outside of the back door window. The TV continued to play, but it had been muted in the night. She saw Klaus asleep in a seated position, similar to where he was when she fell asleep. His sketch book lay open in his lap and his hand rested on her shin. His head laid at an awkward angle against the back of the couch. It couldn't have been comfortable. She tried to lean forward so as not to wake him up, but she wanted a peek at his sketch book. There it was: a drawing of her. She suspected it might be of her sleeping, which would veer too far into creepy, but instead it was a photo of her smiling in profile, a few pieces of popcorn in her hand.
"Like it, love?" he said, stirring. As he got up, he felt the kink in his neck, and reached his hand to massage it. Caroline suddenly also felt a kink in her neck, one she hadn't felt before, in the same place.
"Ah," she said in some pain.
"What is it?" he asked. He alleviated the discomfort fast. His body didn't let things like that bother him for long. Caroline's neck felt better quickly.
"Nothing, just…" she trailed off. Her eyebrows furrowed.
"Not that it isn't cute when you're deep in thought, because it is, but if you'd like to share with the class—," he started. She got up suddenly and walked over to the kitchen. She grabbed a small knife from the knife block.
"Come here," she said.
"Do you have to be armed and dangerous for this request?" he asked, standing and walking toward her. He took in this sight of her. Bed-head. T-shirt wrinkled. Makeup worn. He smiled and stood in front of her.
"Trust me," she said, and grabbed his hand. Woah. She felt a weird sensation, like her own hand was being touched, but nobody was touching her. She pricked his index finger with the tip of the knife. A small drop of blood appeared.
"Ow," she muttered and looked down at her own hand. On the same finger, she had a drop of blood. As his finger healed, so did hers. Klaus looked at her with alarm. He took the knife from her hand without asking and Caroline got stiff.
"Oh, relax," he said.
"Says the guy who just impaled me," she muttered.
"You really hold a grudge," he said absently, taking her hand. He dropped it, startled. "Did you feel that, too?" She nodded. He picked her hand back up, trying to ignore the odd sensation, and made a small cut in the palm of her hand with the knife. On his own hand, an identical cut appeared. Both of their hands healed in sync.
"Okay, this is weird," she said, and he nodded. He looked up in her eyes, looking for any sign that she was faking her reaction, or this was a plan she was in on. All he found was the confusion and vague concern that matched his. She pinched him on the arm hard. They both flinched, and watched the nail marks fade from both of their arms. Their minds raced.
Caroline looked back at him and realized she had never seen him like this. Klaus in a t-shirt. Klaus first thing in the morning.
"We need to figure this out. This and our episodes last night can't be a coincidence," he said.
Caroline nodded, then looked at the floor, and a wave of guilt overcame her.
"Klaus…" she whispered.
"What?" he asked, following her eye line. He had walked across the remnants of ash where his brother's body had laid, and tracked them into the kitchen. He'd been too busy looking at Caroline to notice the stain. He looked away from her and tried to compose himself.
"Where did you take the body?" he asked.
"I don't know. I helped Tyler get Kol into his car, but I don't know where he took him," she whispered, looking down. She couldn't meet his eyes.
"How about you shower and I'll clean up in here?" she asked. Klaus looked away from her and nodded grimly. He left to go upstairs and Caroline rummaged for cleaning supplies beneath Elena's sink. This is where Jeremy and Elena killed Kol and his entire sire line with him. She knew Kol compelled Damon to kill Jeremy. She knew he probably even deserved this. What a waste it was, though. How many vampires would Jeremy have had to kill to finish the mark? 10? How many died when Kol died? Thousands? Thousands who might not hurt people, who are just trying to live normal lives like her, Elena, or Lexi. She thought of the hybrid upstairs, who'd now lost two siblings at the hands of her friends. She shook her head. The originals were the bad guys. Just then, she felt the sensation of hot water all over her body. She leapt. When she looked down, though, she was completely dry. She ran upstairs and walked in the bathroom.
"Unless you wanted to join me, Caroline, this is typically a solo practice" he said, peering around the curtain.
"I can feel the water," she said. It was the strangest sensation she'd ever felt, familiar but also entirely out of place. He frowned and nodded. Another thing to tell Bonnie. Caroline went back down and got back to work scrubbing the stain. It took a while, but after twenty-minutes, it finally came out. Klaus came downstairs.
"How was it?" she asked, pouring the soapy water down the sink after cleaning.
"Well, courtesy of the doppelgänger, I now smell like apple and honey," he said.
"Well, when Damon and Stefan get here, you better steer clear if you don't want them fighting over you," Caroline said, and Klaus laughed.
"Do you know when they'll be back?" he asked. "We need to have a word with the witch about what's going on."
"Should be soon," she said. He went back to the couch and put on his socks, shoes, and jacket. She wondered if he didn't want them to see him so at home in Elena's house. Maybe she was at fault for letting him be. Was it disrespectful to Elena? She felt guilty for their civil night of TV and drawing, right on Jenna's couch. Caroline dried the tub and placed it back under the sink, grabbed a towel, and dried the floor where Kol's body had been. Klaus watched her clean the evidence. The kitchen was good as new, like his brother had never been murdered there.
Suddenly, the front door burst open.
"There you are," said Caroline.
"Let's get him upstairs," Klaus heard Elena say. He got up to see the doppelgänger and Stefan, who carried Jeremy's lifeless corpse. A part of him felt vindicated. A brother for a brother. Stefan and Elena froze at the sight of Klaus.
"Go on, mate, I won't stop you," he said. Stefan eyed Klaus for another beat, and, after some nonverbal communication with Caroline, he took Jeremy upstairs with Elena. Klaus felt bubbles of jealousy rising from watching them silently understand and trust each other so easily. Caroline ran to the doorway, but saw nobody else. Stefan walked back down the stairs and crossed his arms at the sight of Klaus.
"Well, Klaus, by the smell of you, either your definition of 'hunting us to our end' is breaking into Elena's shampoo, or something changed in the couple days we were gone," he said. Caroline came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Something weird is happening, Stefan," she said. "Whatever happens to Klaus is happening to me and vice versa. Last night, when he tried to leave, he got, like, a block away before we both were hit with this sudden horrible pain."
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. When he came back, I felt fine again," she said.
"I'd like a word with your witch," Klaus said. "Bonnie's incompetence once again has me finding myself in an inconvenient situation. I would like to return to hunting Tyler, if she doesn't mind."
"Well, as motivated as I am sure she will be to let you get to murdering her friend, Bonnie is still on the island. A lot happened. Damon is there now looking for her," he said. Caroline got hit with a wave of concern for her friends.
"Well, if Damon's on the case, everything is fine," Klaus said, irritated. "What of my sister?"
"She's back there, too, trying to track down the cure. Katherine came and took it. She woke up Silas and let him… drain Jeremy," Stefan said.
"Oh my God. Jeremy," Caroline said, catching herself on the wall next to her.
"Elena is waiting for him to wake up," Stefan said.
"Ah, but he forfeited the magic ring when he became a hunter, didn't he? Pity," Klaus said. Caroline flashed him an angry look.
"Caroline, why do you think you guys are experiencing this… link?" Stefan asked.
"Well, I got in the barrier with him. Maybe something went wonky with the spell. I thought last night maybe Klaus just couldn't get too far from where the barrier was, but now I'm wondering if he just couldn't get too far from me." Stefan looked at them both curiously.
"Elena needs me right now, and probably needs this to be a Klaus-free zone. Maybe now is a good time to test your theory? I'll let you know if I hear from Bonnie?" Stefan said.
"Okay," Caroline said and got up to walk outside. Klaus followed her, but stopped to whisper to Stefan.
"If you hear back from your brother, tell him to bring the witch back fast before I get angry and do something stupid."
When they walked out the door, Klaus felt the fresh air on his face. Barring his brief, angry walk last night, it was his first time outside in days. He hated being inside when the moon was full. It called him to be outside.
"You know, a 'please let Damon know I would like to speak with Bonnie when they get back' would have sufficed," Caroline said.
"And how effective would that be?" Klaus asked, smiling.
The pair retraced Klaus's steps from the night before, but no sickness hit them. They walked a mile from the house before they accepted it was nothing to do with distance from the living room.
"Maybe it's over now? The full moon is over, so we won't get sick?" Caroline asked.
"One way to find out, love. Stay here," Klaus commanded. He walked away from her for a while until, roughly the same distance as the night before, he felt terrible pain and crumbled to the ground, coughing up blood. He looked up and saw Caroline in the same position. He managed to get up and walk closer to her and the pain disappeared as fast as it came. She ran toward him and found herself in front of him within seconds.
"It's like…" she said.
"Like we were dying?" he asked. She nodded.
"Fuck!" he yelled, kicking a mailbox off its post. She jumped. He took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. He spent centuries looking for true immortality. Now his life was linked to a brand new vampire. He sighed and they went back to the house.
Hours passed and Klaus got increasingly anxious waiting for the witch. Caroline spent most of the day trying to support the doppelgänger, but he recognized how little use anyone was to the girl now. Every person who came to tend to Elena, the doctor and the quarterback, leered at him when they walked in. Eventually, Caroline settled back onto the couch they slept on the night before. He was jittery, his leg bouncing, tapping his pencil against his sketchbook. When Damon's car approached, he and Caroline heard the engine at the same time, and they ran outside.
The witch embraced Caroline, which Klaus felt every bit of to his annoyance, and muttered some cult nonsense about dropping the veil and Silas. Klaus ran up to her and got his hand around her throat. Damon moved to attack him.
"Wait!" Caroline shouted. Damon stopped in his tracks.
"We're just going to have a quick chat then you can get back to your regularly scheduled programming," Klaus said.
"It's fine, Damon, just go find Stefan," Caroline said.
"Blondie, you have no idea how long it took to find her," Damon warned.
"I won't let anything happen to her," Caroline said.
"Assuring," he spat back, but he left them to it to go find his brother. There were more important things to discuss.
Klaus loosened his grip around Bonnie's throat, but held her still.
"Bonnie, we need your help," Caroline said, and she told her everything that happened.
"You got in the barrier with him, Caroline!?" Bonnie asked.
"Well 'got in' is certainly a way to phrase it. I like to call it I was impaled!" Caroline snapped.
"Okay, okay, fair. The thing is, spells have consequences. Two people can't enter the barrier together without being magically linked. When the spell broke, and Klaus left the barrier, the link was triggered. Your lives are linked. Whatever happens to one of you happens to both of you," Bonnie explained.
"Gee, thanks for the heads up, Bonnie!"
"I didn't realize, 'Hey Caroline, don't get in the magical barrier with the serial killer,' needed to be said!"
"Again, impaled."
"Ladies, not to interrupt this charming banter, but I just want to be clear. Are you telling me that, if Caroline is killed in the manner by which normal vampires are vulnerable, say, a stake to the heart, sunlight, that I would die with her?" Klaus asked.
"Well… yes," Bonnie said.
Before Caroline could blink, Klaus picked her up, and they were gone.
When Caroline came to, she realized she was in a basement, shackled to a wall. Klaus paced around the room trying to think of a way out of this.
"What the hell, Klaus!?"
"Sorry for the measures, love, but I need you to listen to me."
"Sorry, these shackles are deafening me!"
"Caroline, do you have any idea what this means? The second any of my many enemies find out about you, they will kill you to kill me. And if that witch succeeds in dropping the veil and my twelve hybrids come back from he dead, they will come looking for you first thing. I haven't been this vulnerable in a thousand years," he said, looking devastated. His entire life he was motivated by the pursuit of becoming truly indestructible.
"So rather than ask me what I think of all this, you chained me to a wall?" Caroline asked, bitterly.
"Well, I didn't anticipate you being particularly cooperative, love. Until we can find a witch to fix this mess, obviously you will need to be protected," Klaus waved her off. Caroline leaned her head back and closed her eyes. He was insufferable.
"Yeah, because none of our 'break in and kidnap the prisoner' plans have ever been successful, Klaus. Remember how we just got Elena from your own house? Did it occur to you that the safest place for me would be free with you? This is the mastermind who foils our every plan!?" She pulled on the chains, but she couldn't get them down.
"And what do you want me to do, Caroline? If I left it up to you, you would insist on carrying on with these friends in the Gilbert house, waiting to be picked off by the first person who knows to go there to find us. And how long would it take before one of your friends decides you're a necessary sacrifice to kill me, huh? You think Damon would hesitate to end your life if he knew the rest of theirs would be spared?" Caroline recoiled. A brutal, but fair point.
"What would you suggest?" Caroline asked.
"I don't know. If the witch drops that veil, you're going to be vulnerable to everyone on the other side who wants to kill me," Klaus said. He was pacing with anger.
Caroline groaned. "If they're on the other side, theoretically, they could be watching us right now. They know we're here and they know we're linked," she looked around the empty room. The thought of a dozen or more supernatural creatures on the other side chomping at the bit for a chance to kill her made her uneasy. She was a walking target to get to the worst creature alive.
"We need to get Bonnie to break the link," Caroline said.
"Bonnie seems to have other things on her mind, love, like a psychotic break. Besides, if it's between bringing the hunter back and saving you, we know what she'll choose."
"I get it, you think I'm expendable to my friends, you can quit hammering it home now," she snapped. Klaus stopped pacing and looked at her. He nodded his apologies.
"We should be on the other side of the planet, Caroline. Come up with a cover story until the witch gets around to fixing this or we find another one." Klaus laughed to himself. She would never go. He couldn't just dagger her and cart her around in a box either. Maybe he could get a witch to—
"Then why don't we?" she whispered, interrupting his thoughts.
"Why don't we what, love?"
"Why don't we leave?" she asked. Klaus looked up, confused. "After all, you're Mr. I-Can-Show-You-The-World. If Bonnie succeeds in dropping the veil, I don't want to be the first victim in some dead hybrid vengeance plan any more than you want me to. I love Elena, and I want to be here for her, but she's got plenty of Salvatore love right now. Let's go. You sent Tyler away anyway. I might as well go," she said, dejected. Klaus shook his head. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"You want me to take you places?" he asked.
"You could teach a course in selective listening, but yes, I suppose that's what I'm saying. We shouldn't tell anyone where we're going… they could compel them to give us up. You hear that, possibly eavesdropping dead Hybrids? Nobody will know where we're going!" she shouted into the empty room. Klaus lit up.
"Okay, then," he said, smiling. He released her from the shackles. "We'll have to hop around before anyone figures out they can hurt me through you. Where do you want to go?" he asked.
Caroline started crying, the reality hitting her. Who knows when she'd see her mom again? Her friends? This wasn't going to be some romantic backpacking trip she hoped she's someday have with Tyler. It was fleeing for her life with the man who sent him away.
"I don't care," she said, quietly. He sighed and nodded, helping her up.