escritorzuela

Caroline, not without some effort, swallowed the hare’s wretched blood.

Coming from those men it had tasted so, oh, so much better.

She’d been wandering the woods for hours, wearing her father’s borrowed heavy clothes and his slightly too big boots, feverish with hunger, and she feared she wouldn’t find refuge from the sunlight on time.

Caroline had used the time alone in the woods to try and piece together the events of the past nights. She remembered the town dance –she’d danced, happy, and she’d accepted the request of one, two, three, maybe more of the boys in the town square. They had presumed, later. She remembers the feeling of her skull cracking against the pavement, a memory she’s sure nobody should be able to recall.

After that, everything was a blur until she awoke with their blood burning down her throat, spilled over her face and her hands, and staining her dress.

She ran away, her neighbors chasing her with all but pitchforks.

There had always been talk around the town, about a nearby recluse. A wise woman; a witch, who dealt in the otherworldly, who had a cure for everything.

Caroline remembered the boys and wasn’t sure it was a cure she wanted. Answers, that would have to be the first step.

She could’ve wept of sheer relief when she found the tower, the sky ominously clearer by the second. She could’ve wept of fury when she found she couldn’t see a door anywhere near the perimeter.

There was only a window, at the very top. Dried vines, golden and red due to the season, climbed around the tower, and Caroline dragged her tired body up with more ease than she anticipated.

She pushed against the windows, jumping inside the room as silently as she could. She’d been about to call out for someone with her best timid voice when her ears picked up a low, deep growl on her left.

That was all the warning she received before a wolf, illuminated by the moonlight that filtered through the open window, jumped over her. She screamed, at the top of her lungs, and fought it off with her new strength, but it seemed as adamant to eat her as she’d been him if she’d found it in the woods. Its teeth looked as big as her forearm, as deadly as the sharpest blade she encountered, and she could swear it was twice as big as any wolf she heard of.

Caroline managed to fight it off, walking –running– away from it with all but a few scratch marks. Her back hit a nearby chair in her escape, and she threw it against the wolf’s head, buying a few seconds. A sturdy closet sat unassumingly against the opposite wall, and she lunged at it, thanking the gods when it opened and let her in.

The wolf collapsed against it mere seconds after she closed the doors, holding them together from the inside. It kept trying and trying for what felt to her like hours until a blessed, charged silence graced the room.

She waited several minutes even after the noise calmed down, her heartbeat still accelerated, before she carefully opened the closet again. The sun now shyly entered the room, barely a few inches, far enough that she felt safe. In the middle of the room, crowed by tables and bookcases, instead of the wolf Caroline expected, she saw an unconscious nude man.

Someone like her, she thought. Not exactly. Akin to her, maybe.

With a sympathy she hadn’t expected, she grabbed a piece of cloth from the closet, and walked towards him to cover him from the morning cold. But when she got to close his hand clasped around her wrist, hard and painful, and unnatural eyes stared at her.

She could pull free, she thought, if only she pulled hard enough. But as if she was pinned in place by the stare of a wild animal, which in a way she was, she carefully raised her other hand, palms open, and said, “I mean you no harm.”

He released, not moving his eyes away from her, and stood up disregarding the cloth. He blatantly sniffed her, and Caroline didn’t know if it was out of place to feel vaguely offended by that fact.

“Vampyre,” he whispered.

Caroline wasn’t stupid. She’d heard the stories; she could add two plus two in her head. She just hadn’t thought –maybe hadn’t wanted to– about the one specific word.

“Yes. It’s very new,” she said, aiming for cheerful. Failing.

“Why are you here?”

“I’d heard someone here could help me. A woman. I don’t think you’re her.”

Had he come here for the same reasons? To get help? If he had, it didn’t seem to be a success.

He hummed. Since he’d woken up, his eyes hadn’t left hers, and it unnerved her beyond what she could explain. She wondered if he was still thinking about eating her; two could play that game.

“How new?”

“Just a few days.”

He repeated that irritating hum. “I know a thing or two about your kind. Maybe I could help.”

The offered seemed sincere enough, yet she felt like she was walking into a beautifully arranged trap.

“What else can hurt me?” she asked, remembering the itching burn of the sun.

“There is a plant,” he said, pointing at one of the bottles stored in the bookcase, “that will burn you just like the sun. Humans can consume it to protect themselves from you.”

She watched with suspicious as he walked away from the bookcase.

“And as for the sun, well. There’s a spell that can render you invulnerable to it. Any witch worth their while would know it.”

That was reassuring, she guessed.

"I don't know how it happened," she admitted, begrudgingly.

"You died, clearly. After drinking from one of them."

"I think I would remember if I had drunk blood before."

"Not necessarily. They have their tricks; they can manipulate minds, make you forget. You could do it too, to any human."

And wasn't that a terrifying thought; that she was missing even more memories.

At once, she realized the man was walking around the room as naked as when he’d first attacked, and she asked him, amused, “Are you thinking of dressing up any time soon?”

He tilted his head to the side as if confused about the inquiry. As if he’d just realized walking around with his manhood dangling around was a breach of manners. His stare was just as penetrating –did he blink at all?

“Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Not particularly,” she shrugged it off.

He walked two long, quick steps towards her, invading her personal space. His eyes roamed her face, her body, with a new type of hunger. She hadn’t gotten the opportunity to properly bathe in days; her locks must have looked like an unkempt nest, her clothes did her no favors and she was pretty sure there was still blood on her somewhere. She had to look feral. Two beasts.

Because that’s what he was. He reminded Caroline of those stories about enticing, handsome monsters that lured young women to the woods, never to be seen again. Some of those stories were told as warnings; others were whispered among girls with inappropriate and fearful glee, and Caroline had always been adamant that they did not resonate with her.

She raised her hands to his face, holding it between them. Caroline could feel his breath on her tongue. “You didn’t tell me your name”, she whispered.

“Klaus,” he replied, each letter felt over her lips, “yours?”

“Caroline.”

She counted three seconds, and when it seemed he wouldn’t make any move, she made it for him.

The kiss started slow, but that lasted less than a dozen heartbeats. Klaus pressed her against the table, and when she felt his hands over her clothes, she rushed to take them all off herself before he could tear them away.

He pushed her down until her back laid bare against the wood, and pressed open-mouthed, bruising kisses down her body till he finally arrived between her legs. He didn’t pause to think much, licking into her folds immediately.

Caroline pushed herself up with her arms, to have a better look at the action. He was completely focused on the task, lips, tongue, and fingers committed to bringing her pleasure. She couldn’t stop thinking about his fangs, about the claws whose mark had already healed from her forearm. She wondered if any minute now, they would both sprout again and he’d use them to devour her; that thought, that primal fear, somehow only gave her a rush and precipitated her rapture.

When she could feel the end coming, she possessively threaded her fingers in his hair, pushing his face closer, and let out a scream, blissed out. He raised and kissed her open mouth, his tongue tasting of her.

She pushed him down on the floor, willing to return the favor, and swallowed what she could of his member and fondled the rest with her hands. Caroline had never cared much for the taste, so she knew how to make it quick, and she used that there. When Klaus was brought to release with a low groan, she suppressed a gag and swallowed it all –better than having it spill on her face or her hair. A few drops fell down the corner of her lips, and she quickly cleaned them off with the back of her hand.

Caroline laid down next to him, taking a look at his face: relaxed, eyes closed for the first time. It was with the taste of his spill still heavy on the back of her throat that he said, “She will kill you.”

She froze in place. “What?”

“She hates monsters.”

Driven by instinct, she grabbed her clothes, whatever she could, and approached the window, willing to jump down. Only a few steps away from the sunlight she realized why Klaus hadn’t tried to stop her.

“Even if it was nighttime, you wouldn’t be able to leave.” He walked around her and tried to press his hand past the window. An invisible wall seemed to stop him, and a noise like a clear church bell resounded around them. “Creatures of the night can get in, but not out.”

She let the clothes drop to the floor, repressing a tremble. “Why would she want to kill me?”

“She heard about what happened downtown. The bloodbath.”

“They had it coming,” she rushed to say, furious.

“So did the man I killed before she locked me up; she even agreed. It did not matter.” He seemed amused, gleeful even, as he told her. “Either way, she went down there to help, yesterday; it’s a miracle you didn’t cross paths. But by now she must have felt you breach her barriers and will be coming back. You might have a few hours before she comes to end you.”

“And yet you’re here. Alive. Acting as her attack dog.” Caroline snapped at him; she felt victorious when she saw real fury in his eyes.

“Because I am her son.”

He looked as if he’d made a dramatic reveal, but Caroline didn’t have it in her to feel surprised. She could now imagine, as she wouldn’t have been before, how a mother could lock up her son; she could understand why she’d still make an exception. She tried as hard as possible not to think of her terrified parents, who had wanted her as far away as possible, yet had heard her pleads and welcomed her into the house to take off her bloodied dress and gather what she could to escape –including a sharp blade she’d only registered later, might not be necessary any longer, for she now was the weapon. She’d promised not to harm them, promised not to seek them ever again. They’d let her in, despite how bad an idea it could turn out to be. Despite how bad an idea it was.

She swallowed the knot in her throat and felt annoyance when she tasted him again. “Is there any way to break her spell?”

“A witch’s spells end when she dies.”

“You’re trapped here too. Why don’t you kill her?” She couldn’t imagine someone like him feeling loyalty to a mother who’d turned him into a prisoner.

“Besting her isn’t easy.” he replied. “That is not the only spell over the tower. Some of them are on me, too.”

“How many,” it suddenly occurred to her, “how many like us came here, finding their deaths? While you did nothing to help them?”

“Some. Some didn’t believe my warnings.” Caroline didn’t want to believe them either, but she could tell, down the pit of her stomach, they were true. “Some did. Some of those hesitated even then. All of them died, which I knew would happen. I don’t bet on losing horses.”

She could tell he expected her to ask if he’d laid with any of them as he’d done with her. That enough would’ve been reason enough not to raise the question, but in truth, she didn’t see how the answer would make any difference to her.

“I haven’t lost a day in my life,” she spat.

“You died.”

“And I ate the six men it took to kill me,” she yelled, attempting to look imposing.

A big, unhinged grin grew from the middle of his face. Feral.

When the witch arrived, she walked on a straight line to where her son waited and grabbed his chin with a possessive, gentle hand before lovingly whispering his name.

She could understand why others had doubted Klaus's claims. She looked matriarchal, powerful; mother nature incarnated into a blonde, soft-faced woman.

But it was how Klaus acted that felt jarring in the picture. Passive to her touch, dead-eyed, with an undercurrent on tension visible in every muscle.

Or maybe he just was uncomfortable with his clothes on.

Whatever the case, better to be cautious, in Caroline’s opinion. The witch hadn’t thought of keeping monsters out, to protect herself, her son, and their home; her spell was designed to lure them in and trap them inside, and there were only two possible outcomes: imprisonment or murder. Neither was acceptable.

And so, Klaus words didn’t fall on deaf ears –she didn’t hesitate; she didn’t bite her, mindful of that herb he’d mention. She lunged at her, trying to catch her unawares; she’d gone for the neck, intending to twist it, something quick and simple. The witch reacted on time, but Caroline’s push managed to make her hit her head against the bookcase, spilling various bottles over the floor.

The witch’s face didn’t show any other emotion other than drive and determination when she faced against Caroline. She raised her hand and shouted gibberish, making Caroline’s head feel on fire, feel as if she was dying all over again. She could feel blood coming out of her ears and taste it right behind her teeth.

Caroline dropped down the floor and took out the small knife she’d brought with her from her childhood home. With a quick draw, she slashed her ankles, interrupting her focus and making her drop down.

Before she could gather herself and stab her to death, a wild, screaming Klaus jumped above his own mother. He hit her repeatedly over the head –it took Caroline a second to recognize the object as a candelabra, finding it incongruent and confusing amidst the scene—, over and over. The sick sound of the metal against the skull continued after the woman’s eyes were empty, her blood mixing on her hair, red, grey and yellow. Despite her newfound taste for it, Caroline felt no desire to drink it.

Klaus let a half pained, half triumphant scream leave his body, sounding as if it came from deep inside his lungs. His breath was heavy, and his shoulders were dropped in defeat as his face looked blissful.

He stepped over his mother's corpse and walked towards her. For a second, Caroline knew he was going to kill her, and tightened her hand around the blade. Instead, he extended his forearm, placing it in front of her mouth. Confused by the dissonance, she bit into it still expecting the blow that never came.

His blood tasted richer than anything she’d ever tried, and it was a miracle she managed to stop.

They climbed down the vines after the last sun-ray hid behind the horizon.

Caroline had asked him if he knew how to reach any other witches, ones willing to give her the spell that would protect her from the sun. He’d willingly extended the information, and though she couldn’t see what he could possibly gain from deceiving her, she planned on maintaining a healthy level of distrust. On top of that, she couldn’t deny she felt some resentment, at the fact that she still depended on his help.

“I don’t expect you’ll allow some company,” he said, not appearing to be entirely joking.

“Tell me,” she demanded, “was I just your ticket out of the tower? Or were you just that lonely?”

“I told you. I do not bet on losing horses,” he replied, cryptic. He had an unnerving smirk on his face, his eyes even more unnatural now that the moon let her see them under more light.

Somehow, with clothes still on, he reminded her even more of those old stories. He looked exactly like you’d imagine one of those demonic monsters of legends, disguising themselves with the flesh of handsome gentlemen to trap innocent souls.

Caroline was not an innocent soul. She was a killer. And she, too, looked exactly like one of those legends.

She nodded goodbye and turned away, tightening around the heavy cloak she’d lifted from the witch. Klaus chuckled behind her, and she could picture him with that maddening, feral grin.

“Until we meet again, Caroline.”

Was that a promise, or a threat?

The pads of his paws welcomed the change from gravel to soil with relief.

He wasn’t aware of where he was supposed to arrive. He wasn’t aware of much, truth be told. He simply marched forward, driven by an inner force that gave him the impulse to keep walking for hours during the night, on an almost straight path.

He could feel in his blood he’d almost reached his destination. The sky was barely beginning to lighten, and he was growing more and more tired by the second. But he needed to keep going, and to finish his journey before the sun came out...

Caroline was coming back home from not visiting her mother’s grave —first overthinking her choice flowers, then whether she should bring something else, and finally, simply standing paralyzed in the middle of the path, not knowing which way she wanted to go— when she heard something moving and breathing heavily among the trees.

She stood still, taking a defensive position as soon as she saw it: she could distinguish a werewolf on sight. It was almost dawn —she was sure she could fend for herself and just wait out the transformation.

However, it didn’t seem to mean her any harm. It had stopped a few feet away from her, staring directly at her face, with something akin to recognition.

As the soon started to rise, the wolf changed, slowly, one painful bone crack after the other. The person left standing in his place was the last one she’d expected.

“Klaus…”

He hadn’t tried to get on his feet, his hands digging on the floor, his face a rictus of pain. She approached him slowly, telegraphing her movements, and laid a hand on his shoulder; that seemed to calm him down, barely.

“What happened?” she asked, softly as she could.

He emitted a low grunt, without so much as forming one understandable word.

She didn’t know what to do. Leaving him there in the open seemed… callous. But she wasn’t completely sure of whether she wanted to help him.

Klaus raised his head and looked her in the eyes, pleading and exhausted, as if he had read her mind. She sighed, cursing every decision she’d ever made that took her to that particular path in that particular night.

So she took pity on his vulnerable state, and tried to think of a way to sneak him into the town. But first, she took off her coat and covered him with it. Naked men drew too much attention.

Klaus threw the table of Marcel’s apartment against the wall in a fit of rage, letting out a frustrated scream.

Those damn witches… he’d slaughtered every one of them, but it didn’t change his current situation.

“That was an antique, you know?” Marcel berated him, with a tight smirk.

“We need to find that damn wolf!”

“Throwing a tantrum isn’t going to help, man.”

Klaus glared at Jackson. He shouldn’t even be there; he’d only been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and therefore made fifty percent of the people who knew about his predicament. He’d killed for less, but even if there was no doubt that Klaus would end up on top on if that fight happened, Jackson would likely sneak in at least one bite. Which he now was vulnerable to. He wouldn’t die, but he wasn’t keen on the hours of hallucinations and torment that would come with it.

“I need a witch,” he demanded. “Your girl, or the other one, I don’t care. I need this fixed.”

“Davina would be the last person in the world to help you, Klaus;” Marcel said, irritated, “and if by the other one you mean Vincent, he won’t help you either. He wants nothing to do with magic.”

“He’ll change his mind when I’m done with him,” Klaus threatened.

“No, he won’t. Not this one.” Marcel laughed, a shit-eating, prideful grin on his face.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously."

"Oh, I am. If you aren't the Original hybrid, your blood won't cure a werewolf bite. Not the best timing, giving the pack of untrustworthy hybrids in the city." He added, as an insincere afterthought: "No offense."

“You do know you have a witch sister, right?” Jackson asked Klaus, not bothering answering Marcel, “I know it's recent, but you live with her, you can’t have forgotten her already.”

“My family and I aren’t on the best of terms right now.”

Freya wasn’t angry at him anymore, but she wanted to mend fences between him and Elijah. And she’d want Klaus to tell him, to use it to bring peace. He wasn’t sure if Elijah wouldn’t be still mad enough with him to consider his loss of power akin to poetic justice, and he Klaus had no desire to subject himself to his brother's preaching.

“She’s probably the only witch on the face of the earth willing to help you.”

He had to concede that.

Caroline had made Klaus sit on her couch, thrown a blanket at him, and gone to look for clothes for him so that she could stop trying not to look at his junk.

She searched in the storage room, finally landing on a box with some of her father’s old clothes. She couldn't find underwear, to her frustration, but she picked up a few shirts and black sweatpants that could pass as your average workout clothes. She couldn’t really see Klaus in her father’s dress shirts. Or in any of his clothes, really, but this was what was available. Maybe she should get him something that fit him better? No, what the hell, she wasn’t going to buy the guy clothes, she wasn’t his keeper. He was rich, he could buy himself all the damn sweatpants he wanted.

She left the clothes in front of him. He, at least, didn’t seem to need help with that. Then she went the kitchen and grabbed a few blood bags. He must’ve been starved; if he’d crossed paths with regular humans he would have torn them apart.

But when she offered one to him, he recoiled violently against the wall.

A werewolf transformation that obeyed the phases of the moon, the blood, the fact that he had yet to speak a word… an idea was starting to form on the back of her mind.

She went back to return the bag to the fridge, backing away slowly. She put on the kitchen gloves and opened the drawer where her mother used to keep the vervain and grabbed some.

Klaus was standing in the middle of the room, following her with his eyes. She approached him as slowly as she could stand, and grazed the skin of his arm with the herb.

Nothing.

She released the breath she’d been holding, her mind going a mile a minute.

No one could find out. Damon and Bonnie had left town, so that was one less threat. Stefan probably wouldn’t have anything against Klaus, and Matt couldn’t do much, but still.

At least Tyler wasn’t in Mystic Falls anymore. He had every reason to hurt him.

A lot of people did.

And she didn’t know how the Heretics could play into this.

She sat on the couch, allowing herself one minute to feel overwhelmed, and Klaus sat right beside her. She could feel his eyes digging a hole in her skull.

She needed to call his siblings. They must be already looking for him. The problem was that after her last... conversation with Klaus, she had erased all of their numbers from her phone, as a way to wipe the slate clean. And she doubted the family appeared in New Orleans’ yellow pages.

Matt probably had Rebekah’s number, but she thought Elijah would be far more reliable. Or even Klaus’ number; he wasn’t traveling with his phone, that’s for sure, and it must’ve been somewhere.

And the only person who could have those numbers was Stefan. Who she was still avoiding.

She groaned, upset, repressing the urge to facepalm. She looked right at Klaus then; he hadn’t stopped staring at her, the creep.

“Why do you have to turn my life upside down every time you come back here, uh?”

Caroline had been trying to come up with a way of getting one of the Mikaelson’s numbers from Stefan’s phone the better part of the day. The problem wasn’t the lack of ideas, but the lack of nerve.

She decided to go shopping to psych herself up, and yes, to buy Klaus something. The guy couldn’t go around with no underwear, and she didn’t really like that he was wearing her father’s clothes, truth be told. She’d also decided she would need more food, at least for today.

And as she got out of the grocery store, she found herself face to face with Salvatore senior.

They hadn’t talked, but it was obvious that Lily Salvatore remembered her. She didn’t look hostile, just curious.

“Mrs. Salvatore.” Caroline greeted her, her voice a little too high, not knowing what else to do to fill the awkward silence.

“Miss… Forbes, right? The girl who turned her humanity off.”

“Yes.” Apparently, she was the only one trying not to make things awkward!

“I heard about your mother. A tragic loss.”

A lash of pain hit at her stomach, but she repressed the biting words that wanted to escape her throat, seeing that she seemed to speak candidly. She nodded in recognition and decided to change topics.

“So, what were you looking for?”

“I was hoping to get something for my family. They’re still acclimating to this world.”

“Well, I… hope they do.” Lily responded with a skeptic stare that Caroline had seen thousands of times in Damon’s face. “No, seriously, it would be the best for everyone.”

She nodded, believing her this time, and went into the store after saying a polite goodbye.

Well, there was no way talking to Stefan could be even half as awkward as that, at least.

When she arrived home, she found Klaus reading one of her mother’s books. He could clearly understand her, and read, and seemed to have a good grip on whatever was going on around him. He just wouldn’t talk.

She put all the bags on the table, getting out the clothes she’d bought for him. She smiled when she saw that he'd washed the dishes she used to make his lunch. Calling him "good dog" would've felt way too condescending, but in the limits of her own head it sounded hilarious.

He advanced to her, an inquiring look on his face, and proceeded to examine each and every one of them. He must’ve found them suitable, because the corners of his lips raised in an almost invisible smile, and he turned his face to kiss her.

She froze in place. The kiss didn’t last more than three seconds, but when he left to go back to her book —an Agatha Christie novel, she recognized now, but she couldn’t see which one—, her lips still tingled.

What the hell. Seriously. What the hell.

“What do you mean the spell doesn’t work?” Klaus asked, repressing the urge to scream at Freya.

“That it doesn’t work,” she answered, clearly reaching the limits of her patience. “You are here, and you aren’t. No location spell I know can work properly around that.”

Klaus bit down his tongue to not scream that maybe she could be of use if she actually paid attention to the supposedly limitless knowledge Dahlia had to offer. Instead, he kicked one of the chairs, taking pleasure on Marcel’s complaints in the background.

“Hi! Eh— I think I left my shirt here when…?”

After the kiss, she had decided that she needed to solve the situation as soon as possible, so she went to the Salvatore house and blurted the first thing she thought of.

It was the truth, so that helped.

“Yeah, come in.”

There was something decidedly smug in Stefan’s smile. He seemed happy to see her, and he probably thought she was making up an excuse to come here to see him.

Which was also technically true —except for the part where it wasn’t really about him.

“I think I know where it is, if you want to—"

Caroline saw that Stefan had left his phone on the table, and quickly turned around, trying to cover it with her body.

“I think it’s better if I stay… here.”

He nodded, with an understanding smile, and started climbing the stairs.

She quickly grabbed his phone, thankful for the lack of password, almost in the mood to dance with joy at how easy it was being. She didn’t know what she could’ve possibly done if he’d had the phone on him.

The "E" contacts. Elaine, Elena… no Elijah. Dammit.

She could hear some noise from upstairs, so she went to the “K”, committing Klaus number to memory. If nobody answered, she could always get Rebekah’s number from Matt’s phone; it’d be substantially easier. 

She put down he phone right before Stefan came back into the room, presenting her with her shirt. It was properly folded, and gave the fainted scent of a floral detergent.

He was too damn perfect. She kind of wanted to throw the shirt in the mud in frustration. She wouldn’t, obviously, but she wanted to.

Klaus answered his phone with a tone of pleasant surprise, ignoring the three pairs of eyebrows that raised at his change of mood.

“Hello, Caroline.”

“Wait. Klaus?”

“Who else did you expect to answer this number, love?”

“No, it’s just—"

There was an abrupt pause on the other side of the phone, while Klaus patiently waited for an explanation.

“How are you right now?”

That seemed too specific to be mere concern about his emotional state.

“I admit I’m not in my best moment. So if you called for help with a werewolf bite, I fear—”

“I think you need to come to Mystic Falls.”

“That’s not what you said last time. In any case, I have an urgent issue to deal with—"

“If by issue you mean your werewolf Doppelganger, he’s sitting on my couch.”

“First of all, you keep interrupting me. That’s really impolite of you,” he teased. “Second of all, I resent the term “Doppelganger”; he’s not a copy, he’s me; we’ve just been split for the moment. And finally: I’ll see you in Mystic Falls.”

And he hung up, because he couldn't not be a bit dramatic.

“I’ll grab the keys,” he said to Freya, “we leave in an hour.”

She didn’t move from her chair, and neither did the two other men. They all stared at him like he’d grown two heads.

“What?”

“Your wolf form,” Jackson started, “functioning on pure instinct, didn’t go to any of your siblings, to your family. It went to some random girl in some lost American town.”

“There’s nothing random about Caroline Forbes. She color-codes her calendar.” Impatient, he clapped his hands, rushing Freya. “Come on. We need to leave.”

Neither of them moved, and their eyebrows almost touched their hairlines, but he was not going to let their attitude ruin his good mood.

Her stomach dropped the next evening, when she heard the sound of a car parking close by.

She had spent a quiet night with… wolf-Klaus. He wanted to read, to be close to her, and to help her. The only minor problem had been when he’d wanted to sleep beside her, but she felt that would be crossing a line; worse, she thought that vampire-Klaus would somehow know, and he’d never let her forget it. So she had prepared the guest room for him.

She fixed her hair absentmindedly in a mirror, chastising herself when she realized what she’d done. Irritated, she went to open the door and invite them in.

“That is… not your sister,” she deadpanned.

“Nice to see you too,” he greeted her, his voice all syrup. “Meet my long lost older sister, Freya. My mother sold her to a witch and led us to believe she was dead.”

“That does sound like something your mother would do.” Freya snorted in response, amused. Caroline extended her hand to her and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“Well, where’s the other one? I hope he didn’t bother you,” Klaus said, jealously redirecting the attention to himself.

“Not at all. He’s a lot sweeter than you, actually,” she told him, snippy, and then he added looking at Freya, hoping to find an accomplice “He cleans after himself, and he doesn’t talk, which is a vast improvement.”

“I bet it is,” she agreed, amused.

She heard steps behind her back, and all of them turned to look at the other Klaus.

Ugh, the name thing was going to be a pain.

Freya examined both Klauses for over half an hour, while Caroline alternating between fidgeting in the living room along with them, and cursing that wolf-Klaus’ tidiness kept her from stress cleaning.

When she finally stopped her chants, the look on her face didn’t scream good news.

“I know how to reverse it,” she started, “but there are a few complications. It needs to be under another full moon, on the same sacred spot. And it requires at least five witches and a lot of preparation. We’d need to leave as soon as possible.”

When she heard that, Caroline’s chest tightened, her heart skipping a beat in what was, frankly, a disproportionate reaction. She could count the hours she’d spent with the guy, she'd been made to feel uncomfortable over half of them, and he wouldn’t even maintain a conversation.

But one look around the house could tell you he’d been there. The Agatha Christie novel —By the Pricking of My Thumbs, it’d turned out to be—, the clean sink, and just… his mere presence made the place feel actually lived-in.

She’d felt so damn lonely in that house.

When she raised her eyes, she discovered Klaus —both of them— and Freya had been staring at her, and she got a little defensive.

“What.”

Klaus gave his sister a pointed look, and she rolled her eyes.

“I’ll go take a walk,” she announced, just on the right side of annoyed. “A really long walk.” Then, looking at Klaus, “We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

She put on her jacket and walked through the door, waving her hand at them without looking back, and leaving Caroline alone —and slightly alarmed— with the two lookalikes.

"I was sorry to hear about your mother," he told her as soon as they were alone. It was the first thing he'd wanted to say to her. 

"Thanks. But I don't want to talk about that."

"He seems to have taken a liking to you." He settled for that to diffuse the tension. In any case, it was the truth. His other half seemed to gravitate towards Caroline, and he couldn't take his eyes off her for long. Klaus could relate. 

His stratagem seemed to work, because Caroline snapped at him. 

"He's you. You're obsessed with me."

"That's not the word I would use."

 She bit her lip and closed her fists in frustration, shaking her head. "You're so infuriating."

"I bet you prefer it when I can't talk." He pointed at the other Klaus with his head as he said that. 

"He's certainly your better half."

At her easy agreement, just to be a little shit, he asked, moving his eyebrows suggestively:

"Did you two ever...?"

"What— how— no!" 

"Seriously?" he asked, surprised and a little displeased. As ridiculous as it may sound, he couldn't help but be a tad jealous of himself at the moment.

"No! He kissed me, once, completely out of the blue! I wasn't— I didn't take advantage or anything like that." 

Amused at the fact that that was what had her so nervous, he laughed uproariously, seeing it echoed in the complicit smirk of his double. 

"I think he would've been fine with that." 

She looked between the two of them, a heated, curious-despite-herself look in her eyes. And Klaus knew how to recognize an opening. He leaned forward stopping when his face was mere millimeters away from hers.

"I know I would love it if you took advantage of me."

Her eyes dropped to his lips, dark and hungry, and she sat on top of him, pulling his head back.

"Shut up." 

She kissed him, hard and bruising, and he was happy to let her take control, laying back with parsimony.

He heard a noise besides them, and they both turned to it. It was his double, staring at them with curiosity.

Caroline examined them both with a calculating look, and put a hand in the other Klaus' cheek, leaning down to kiss him, much more slowly, but not less domineering.

She pulled his double's hand under her shirt, directing him. Klaus, feeling left out, bend down to lightly bite at her neck.

"Hey!"

"It's his teeth you'll need to worry about."

Caroline pulled the two of them up, guiding them with kisses and caresses to her bedroom, the three of them losing all of their clothes along the way. Klaus took a second to try and catalog everything that had changed from the last time he was there, but was quickly distracted by Caroline pushing him to the bed.

She didn't lose time, climbing on top of him and starting to ride him as she pressed his back against the mattress. She kept a slow, maddening rhythm, one which got slower every time she could read any sign of impatience: the pressure of his thumbs against her hips, the expression of his face, a word of encouragement.

While she kept that torture, she kissed the other Klaus, impassioned, while he got to touch her all over her body.

He felt her orgasm building up in the way her nails dug into his chest and her voice and her groans got higher and sharper. She picked up the tempo, getting to the frenetic rhythm he needed, and came on top of him, looking like a sun goddess. 

He followed her no long after that, feeling exhausted in all the best ways. She got off of him, laying down by his side as she caught her breath.

She raised on her shoulders, her eyes ahead. Klaus followed her stare, seeing his double above them, still hard as a rock.

"Round two for the other guy?" she asked, making him laugh.

It was a pity that those witches were all dead; otherwise, he'd send them flowers.

Oh well. The colors would compliment their headstones nicely.

The Mikaelsons were leaving early in the morning, and that was making Caroline feel a little blue. 

Freya left them space to say goodbye, waiting next to the car and facing the other side of the streets. 

Wolf-Klaus went to her first, stepping over her personal space. She surrounded him with her arms and let herself melt against him in a tight, long hug, that she didn't stop when she heard vampire-Klaus clearing his throat.

She did stop it when wolf-Klaus' hands started to get dangerously under her hips. She mirrored his bold smile and kissed his cheek goodbye.

"I don't get a hug?"

"Nope," she teased him, remarking the "p" sound as much as possible.

"Not even a peck?" he asked, tapping his own cheek.

"Shut up," she said, pushing him playfully.

A slow, content smile expanded on his face. "Goodbye, Caroline."

"Goodbye."

And with that, both men turned around to leave, making her feel like she was seeing double. Even the clothes she'd bought for wolf-Klaus were similar to the ones vampire-Klaus came with, something she refused to overthink.

The both drove away, leaving her alone in that house again.

A week later, still feeling down, she had another encounter with Lily Salvatore.

She mostly stopped to talk to her out of loneliness. The woman was staring ahead, lost in his thoughts, and Caroline decided to sit beside her on the bench.

"Did you like your human self?" Lily asked her, without so much as looking at her.

The question made her remember a story Stefan had told her not so long ago, in a voicemail, about his mother. She had nothing better to do, so she took it seriously.

"I wasn't really that different. I'm still the same person, deep down." It had been something she'd think once or twice, and made peace with a while ago. "But humans are vulnerable. Which isn't so bad if they're surrounded by their peers, but once vampires got into town... I was vulnerable, and I was hurt. And I got killed."

Lily was now looking at her, measuring her. For some reason, Caroline didn't want to come up short, but she knew she'd be fine even if she did.

"And ironically that was the best thing that could have happened to me;" she continued, "I like being capable to defend myself; I like being powerful, and how intense everything feels as a vampire. I love that I can have the entire world open and waiting for me to explore it and that—"

She stopped, realizing who she was paraphrasing.

"Excuse me, I need to— it was a pleasure talking to you, genuinely, but I need to leave now."

She looked taken aback, and slightly offended by Caroline's poor manners, but she nodded and got lost in her own head again.

Caroline ran back to her house as fast as possible without using powers, and packed everything she could under half an hour, knowing she might lose her nerve if she gave herself more time.

She got into her car, set the navigator straight to New Orleans, and breathed deeply, exactly one time, to calm her nerves. She was way too nervous, about something that —she kept telling herself— might be only a short visit.

She turned on the engine, smiling. At least for now, she needed to be around someone that made her feel as good in her skin as being immortal had always been.