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After a millennium of living, there was little that surprised Klaus anymore.
He’d seen it all, lived it all—empires crumbling into pieces, wars that ravaged the world as they knew it, magic that turned a broken family into blood-thirsty monsters. There was little that could surprise an ancient monster like him.
Yet he had not seen Caroline Forbes coming.
Of course, there had been people throughout his centuries of life who had caught his fancy, people whom he’d been drawn to and devoted his attention to. But none quite like Caroline.
This baby vampire who shone brighter than the sun drew him in like a moth to a flame; a siren’s call luring him to his destruction. She stirred feelings he didn’t know were possible into the blackened little thing in his chest that used to be his heart so long ago. She had him—a blood-sucking, heartless monster older than most countries—at her mercy with just a flash of a smile.
Caroline, with her sunshine smiles and will of steel, had surprised him and she continued to do so. Like right then, when she’d shown up at his house.
Her showing up at his house was not surprising. Ever since she helped him when Silas tricked him with the imaginary white oak stake, he and Caroline had been friends…of sorts—at least he no longer felt like she’d push him into upcoming traffic if he approached her on the streets, it was progress and they did have all the time in the world.
So seeing her standing in the doorway of his sitting room was not all that surprising.
He’d heard the rumble of her car as she approached, the distinct way in which her heeled boots clicked against the wooden floors. His lips had instinctively turned up at her presence and he went to turn around, to ask how he could assist her and shamelessly soak up every second of attention she’d grant him, but nothing could’ve prepared him for what he was going to be met with.
Caroline looked the same as always—perfectly polished from head to toe, with her head held high and her features set into determination.
His lips quirked upwards, as they always seemed to do around her. “Hello, love.”
She looked at him straight in the eyes, blue locking with blue, her eyes wide and bright, while flashing him her perfect cheerleader smile. “I need your help.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. He didn’t think she’d ever been so quite straightforward before. “Well, it must be quite serious if there’s no time for you to play coy first, sweetheart.”
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Don’t pretend like you don’t like it.”
His hand went up to his heart, clutching his chest in mock offense. “Oh, I would never, love. I quite enjoy it as it is the only time you’re ever nice to me.”
She flashed him a look, exasperated and so utterly done—as if she hadn’t just strolled into the lair of the most monstrous being in the world and demanded his help. “Seriously? You’re like a bajillion years old, I’m sure you can deal with people being mean to you, now, can we get back to the topic, please?”
Klaus couldn’t help his smirk, devilish dimples hollowing out on his cheeks. Now that was his Caroline. “My apologies, love. What do you need my help with?”
She took a deep breath in and then held her head high, meeting his gaze with eyes ablaze with determination. “I’ll just show you but don’t ask questions, okay?”
He frowned but blindly followed her as she turned around and walked away—she could’ve been luring him to his death, but he’d accepted that these were just the things he’d let Caroline do to him.
She stopped at the trunk of her car, turning around and watching him with an indecipherable look, before looking back at the trunk and taking a steeling breath. Klaus frowned but it all gave way to confusion the second she opened her trunk.
He smelled the rot first.
There, in Caroline’s trunk, was Damon Salvatore.
Or, at least what remained of him: a greyed corpse, with a stake going through his chest.
Of course, this was not even close to being the most horrific sight he’d witnessed—it wouldn’t be even a thousandth as horrific as some of the torture he’d inflicted in his lifetime—but this was Caroline.
Sunny Caroline Forbes, a lighthouse in a sea of darkness, who was undeniably and irrevocably good to the core. Yet there she was, standing calmly by the corpse of Damon Salvatore.
Klaus had been there when she’d killed those twelve witches to save the Bennett witch’s life. She’d been a sobbing, trembling mess who could barely keep herself upright due to the guilt and horror she felt over what she’d done. But she was so calm, it was jarring to him.
He quirked an eyebrow, but he was sure it did nothing to ward off the perplexed look on his face.
She shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. “He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did, love,” he agreed, his eyebrow still quirked. “But I’m finding your ‘no questions’ stipulation hard to uphold.”
She rolled her eyes and threw her arms up in exasperation. “Oh you can kill someone for looking at you the wrong way and everything’s fine but the second I do it I’m the devil.”
“That’s not quite right, everybody does think I’m the de—”
Caroline flashed him a death glare. His mouth snapped close.
He cleared his throat and tried to fight the smirk curling on his lips. “Well, love, what is it that you needed from me?”
Even if he hadn’t wanted to help, if he didn’t befall to Caroline’s every whim, he still would’ve after this. He didn’t care if Damon Salvatore was dead—good riddance, he had it coming—but what could he have done to elicit such a response from Caroline? It was no secret she’d always had a distaste for him but would that be enough for her to kill him and so callously at that? He was surprised, which was a rare feat, and he knew there was more to the story than Caroline was letting in on.
And he’d get to the bottom of it.
She took a step forward so that she was standing directly in front of him, eyes meeting as something dangerous glinted in her eyes. “I need you to make sure nobody can find his body and that it can’t be traced down to me.”
Admittedly, he was expecting that. After all, he knew deep down that she had to have done this without the Mystic Falls Scooby gang knowing and he knew that if they were to find out she’d be burnt at the stake—he would not have let that happen, of course, but he knew they would at least try and it was in his best interests to have Caroline live for as long as the Earth spun.
Still, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t pleased she’d come to him.
The corner of his mouth quirked upwards. “Knowing you, sweetheart, I’m surprised that you didn’t make an alphabetized, color-coordinated plan on how to flawlessly get rid of Damon. It seems out of character.”
She rolled her eyes, but he saw her trying to fight the quirk of her lips. “You were my first choice, seeing as you’re such an expert gravedigger. Seriously, you should consider that business if supervillain-ing doesn’t work out for you.”
“Ah yes, the witches,” he grinned, devilish dimples hollowing out on his cheeks. “Is that our thing then? Disposing of bodies?”
This would be the second time he’d disposed of a body for her. He never usually disposed of his own victims’ bodies—he either mangled them to pieces or got someone else to do it—and much less for somebody else, but these were just the things he’d do for her.
Breaking his back digging into the earth and making offerings to the dirt; getting down onto the forest floor and laying it all down for her divine approval. These were the things he’d do for her.
“We don’t have a thing,” she rolled her eyes and flashed him an unimpressed look. “But if we did, it definitely wouldn’t be disposing of bodies.”
His grin widened impossibly so. “Well, sweetheart, seeing as this has become a common occurrence, it is definitely a contender.”
“You know, if you don’t want to help you don’t have to,” she crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her chin upwards and quirking an eyebrow. “I’m perfectly capable of figuring it out myself.”
“Now let’s not be hasty, love,” he raised his hands in surrender. “I’d be more than happy to help you.”
She nodded slowly at him as her lips quirked upwards. “Okay, well, seeing as this is your specialty, tell me where to start.”
He grinned at her.
—
For all his teasing of Caroline’s perfectionism, Klaus was the same way.
Klaus was notoriously a control freak—daggering his siblings any time they tried to step out the bounds of his control was a more than fitting example, even if an extreme one that proved he was a megalomaniac more than anything—and perfectionist, meaning he never did things halfway.
From every brush and stroke of his paintbrush on the canvas to the perfect technique in which to torture someone, Klaus had never done things halfway.
And this was for Caroline—the sole person on earth he’d bow down to, worship; the only person in his millennium of existence who’d held any hold of his heart. So of course, he took every step to ensure that there was not even a fraction of a chance of Damon Salvatore ever being found.
He was quite pleased that Caroline had asked him for help, not just because Caroline was putting her trust in him, but also because this was child’s play for him. A thousand years had taught him two key things: magic always found a way, but there was always a loophole.
Magic could find a way to track someone, even a corpse and even if it’d been burnt to the crisp, but Klaus had lived long enough to combat this pesky little rule.
When he’d been on the run from Mikael, he and his siblings would get witches to put spells to make them untraceable even by magic, as if they didn’t even exist—and he knew well that this was what Katerina did in all the years she spent running from him—but with corpses, no magic was needed to counter it.
Instead, the trick was to confuse the magic through a method Klaus was more than familiar with, one he admittedly used happily: dismember the body and burn it at the pyre. Seeing as the person was no longer alive and the magic could no longer follow their essence, it relied on the physical body and what was left behind of it, but it became nearly impossible to track when it wasn’t all stuck together and all that remained of what used to make up the person was black dust blowing away into the wind.
Which is how he found himself walking into the woods with Caroline, carrying a black trash bag over his shoulder that held the dismembered remains of Damon Salvatore, which would soon be nothing more than black dust blowing away into the deep forest of Mystic Falls and above.
Earlier, as he’d been tearing apart Damon’s corpse from limb to limb, he hoped that somehow he felt it, that whatever came after death was not a place of rest for him. Klaus had committed quite the number of atrocities in his life so the irony was not lost on him but seeing as he had no plans of dying, he could wish eternal damnation to Damon Salvatore because while he still couldn’t figure out what could’ve made Caroline murder him and in the way she did, he knew he had to have hurt her in some way.
He looked at Caroline beside him, leaves crunching underneath her boots as she marched through the forest with her head held high, and felt overwhelmed by how much this baby vampire with a sunny disposition made him feel; how much he truly cared for her.
He hoped that this desecration of Damon’s corpse stopped him from ever finding even a semblance of peace after what he did to her.
Still, he couldn’t quench his curiosity, if anything, going through the motions only made him more curious as to what Damon could’ve possibly done.
“So, sweetheart,” he started, breaking the comfortable silence that rose between them as they trekked through the woods. “What was it about Damon that finally made you cave and drive a stake through his heart? I personally always found the overt amount of confidence he had in his mediocre plans and mediocre self intolerable.”
She snorted. “Not to say Damon wasn’t extremely annoying but, like, you hate everyone.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s not entirely true, love. I certainly don’t hate you.”
She raised an eyebrow in turn, an amused smile tugging at her lips. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Ah well, maybe I’m just trying to avoid anything that might set you off. It may be impossible to find white oak now but that doesn’t mean I’d fancy having a stake sticking out of my back.”
“Oh please,” she scoffed. “Don’t be dramatic, there’s nothing I could do to you that you couldn’t handle.”
A full-fledged grin, with dimples and all, took over his face. “Love, are you propositioning me?”
“Seriously?!” she screeched and Klaus was sure the whole of Mystic Falls knew they were there in the woods getting rid of corpses and whatnot. “We’re hauling Damon’s chopped-up pieces through the woods and you think I’m flirting with you?!”
“Sweetheart, murder is an aphrodisiac for us vampires, it’s just a fact.”
“Or maybe you’re just demented and suffer from serious mental issues.”
“No need to be defensive, love. I’m not here to judge you,” he raised his hands in surrender, his lips curling into a smirk. “I’m at your service,” he winked at her.
She smiled, sickeningly sweet.“If you were, you’d be burning Damon’s ugly remains instead of flirting with me.”
His free hand went up to his heart and clutched his chest. “Ouch, sweetheart. Though, it is on me for underestimating your viciousness and thirst for blood.”
She flashed him an unimpressed look.
“You know, sweetheart,” he started, grin widening. “If all you wanted was Damon’s head on a pike all you had to do was ask.”
He looked over at her, as she walked beside him with the afternoon sun making a halo around her head, and expected her famous eye-roll or a scoff—her distaste for him was something he found utterly charming, strange as he was—but he found none of that.
Instead, Caroline’s face was unreadable, but she looked moved, as if he’d just professed his undying love for her or offered her the world on a silver platter. (Was this what it would take with Caroline? Not giving her the world or even his blackened heart, but avenging her? Did she need someone to dismember and disembowel every person who’d done her wrong so she could keep being sunny Caroline without repercussions? Because he would, for all eternity if she wished).
She shook her head, as if willing herself to snap out of it. “So,” she started and cleared her throat. “Are we deep enough into the forest to start setting fires?”
He wanted to look into those deep blue-green eyes of hers and ask her why that simple comment had unraveled her perfect control; why it seemed to strike a cord within her. He wanted to know what finally made her snap—because he knew that under all that perfectly practiced control and pretty cheerleader smiles there was a monster hungry for blood and control.
Instead, he shook his head, “Not quite yet.” He extended his arm out to her, she took it and he led her further into the depths of the forest. “Here,” he whispered, locking eyes with her.
She stared into his eyes, hers becoming a wild hurricane of emotions, and then abruptly, turned away. Klaus just shook his head and got to work.
Both of them gathered wood from the forest floor and piled them on top of each other. Klaus thought of the twelve witches from not so long ago, how they’d been in this very forest and how both times he’d been cleaning up Caroline’s messes—though the lesson to be learned from that was not that Caroline was some heartless monster who was hungry for blood, but rather that he was at her beck and call.
Once they’d gathered enough firewood, Klaus threw the remains on the pile while Caroline stood stoically behind him, watching intently as he struck a match and lit the pyre.
Klaus took a step back and next to Caroline as the fire rose and devoured what remained of the reckless Damon Salvatore.
The pungent smell of burnt flesh permeated the air; the heat of the fire was palpable and roaring in that clearing of the forest; thick black smoke rose into the air. And despite all that, Klaus’ attention was stolen by the single sniffle that left Caroline.
When he whipped around to look at her, he found her face scrunched up as tears ran down her cheeks.
“Sweetheart?” he asked gently, placing his hand on her upper arm, but she ignored him. “Caroline?” He was sure that was the first time he’d said her name all day.
She wiped at her eyes. “You ignored me when I was upset about the witches and now you’re choosing to pay attention to me?” she joked, but it came out choked.
His eyes softened. “Caroline…”
He was sure the regret was kicking in, that she felt like a heartless monster—like him—and while somebody like Damon did not deserve any grief wasted on him, Caroline was good no matter the blood tainting her hands.
“Sweetheart, regret is quite normal, especially as a young vamp—”
She shook her head so hard her neck could’ve snapped. “No, I don’t regret it,” even with the raspiness of her voice, he had no choice but to believe her because of her utter conviction. “I just can’t believe how long I had to be around him after everything he did to me—”
A sob escaped her throat and it was as if the damn broke; tears started spilling uncontrollably down her face and she broke out into full-on sobs.
There was so much he wanted to know, everything he’d bowed to learn was so close but at that moment, he did not care. All that mattered was Caroline.
He pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t even protest it, just melted into his embrace.
She sobbed onto him but Klaus just held her close, rubbing circles into her back as he supported her whole weight. If it was up to him, he would take all her pain too and hold it for her; he’d lived a thousand years, he could take it.
The time they were standing there, with Klaus holding Caroline as close as humanly possible to him while she soaked his henley with tears, felt like an eternity. But eventually, when her tears stopped, she didn’t pull away, just wrapped her arms around him in turn and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Thank you, for being here with me,” she whispered into his shoulder blade.
“Anything for you, Caroline.”
There, in the depths of the forest, they clung to each other as the charred remains of Damon Salvatore were incinerated behind them and blown away into the wind. To never be seen again.