Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries - the original books were written by L J Smith and the TV show was developed by Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson. This story is the product of their characters and world and my imagination.

AU from partway through 2x12 – Elena made a deal with Elijah and Klaus so Jenna wasn't used in the ritual, and Caroline was never involved either. This is an AU first meeting between Caroline and Klaus.

Life in Mystic Falls had gone to hell in the matter of a few months.

Caroline didn't know many of the details because her so-called friends hadn't properly talked to her in ages, but her mom had told her that a very old and very dangerous family of vampires called the Mikaelsons had arrived in town, and that they had used Elena in an extremely creepy sounding ritual, the purpose of which Caroline was still unsure about.

Soon after the ritual, all her friends had disappeared.

Jenna and Jeremy moved away to Colorado, and while everyone in town thought Elena had gone too, Caroline knew from some supernatural whispers that she was actually held within the Mikaelson mansion. Caroline had been concerned at first, until her mom (who seemed to have come to some sort of détente with the Originals, though she made Caroline promise to stay far away from all of them) explained that Elena had made some sort of deal with the Mikaelsons and that she was alive, healthy and in no need of rescue.

Bonnie was gone (without even a goodbye), apparently to spend time with her mom but really, as she had heard Damon muttering one evening at The Grill, also at the Mikaelson home learning magic from one of the Originals.

Matt had moved away too – Elena's disappearance was the tipping point for him after his sister's death. Caroline couldn't blame him really, and she only hoped that wherever he was he was happy and safe.

Stefan seemed to have gone ripper and she was thankful she never saw him anymore because it would hurt to see her friend like that. As for Damon, well she actively avoided him, wanting nothing to do with the vampire who had tormented and hurt her.

Then there was Tyler, who was still around but different somehow. He wasn't just a wolf now, there was something vampiric about him too. And he never talked to her, never talked to anyone at school really (when he even bothered to even attend, which was only about half the time).

Caroline was alone, trying not to draw attention to herself, trying to get through high school and get the hell out of Mystic Falls like her mom was urging her to. No one spoke to her or tried to explain what was going on. It was like they had all forgotten she existed.

She'd always known that in the eyes of the town she never measured up. She wasn't the golden girl like Elena. She tried so hard but she was never the one people liked, only the girl they tolerated and then bitched about behind her back.

She had her mom, but though their relationship was better than it had been in years, Liz Forbes seemed determined to shield Caroline and insisted that she stay home at night and not question why it was that years of friendship suddenly seemed to mean nothing to Elena and Bonnie.

The Originals made her mom nervous and Caroline felt much the same. The little she remembered overhearing from before the ritual had occured made her exceedingly wary of them. She didn't know what they looked like, but she hoped that their alleged age and power would make it obvious because she really wanted to know who to avoid.

Klaus, Elijah, Kol, Rebekah.

A group she never wanted to set eyes on.

Caroline was making her way back from a late cheerleading practice two months into her senior year when Damon appeared.

She was not pleased to see him.

"What the hell are you doing here Damon," she hissed, "you can't just lurk around the high school like some creeper."

"Oh shut up, blondie. It's about Elena."

"Of course it is," Caroline rolled her eyes, "everything in this town seems to be about Elena lately. Not that I know what's going on – since nobody cares to tell me anything – but I think it's pretty obvious that Elena's not getting away from the Originals. I still don't know who exactly they are, but my mom's terrified of them and that makes them bad news."

"They're the first of our kind, blondie. And they're planning on keeping Elena locked up for the rest of her life so they can have her blood."

Caroline sighed, a flash of resentment overriding her concern for her old friend, "great, so now Elena's got magic blood."

Damon flashed right in front of her with a dangerous look on her face, "I'm getting her out of there blondie, and you're going to help. You go in, distract Klaus with your feminine wiles and I'll sneak Elena out."

Caroline looked at him, completely unimpressed and kind of horrified too because his whole idea was absolutely terrible and ridiculous and bound to get her killed in the painful manner her mom was trying to keep her safe from.

"You are talking about Klaus …" she seethed, "Klaus who is apparently a murderous and ancient psychopath. You want me to go bat my eyelashes at him … and you think he's going to fall for that?"

"Oh it'll be fine, blondie. We've got to get Elena out soon, before they all disappear."

Caroline tried to breathe, tried desperately to not let her vampire features out.

She could hold in her fangs, but not her temper.

"What the hell Damon!" she shouted, "You expect me to go and almost certainly get myself killed, so that you can probably fail to save Elena and make the most powerful family on earth mad. I am not bait for your idiotic plans, Damon Salvatore. Elena is my friend, or at least I thought she was. But she and Bonnie stood by while you abused me, they barely told me anything about this insane supernatural world I got dragged into and I haven't heard a word from either of them since that crazy ritual happened. I don't care if you or the whole damn world thinks Elena Gilbert is some special snowflake – she is alive and probably more protected than she'd be anywhere else on earth. I am not risking my life, the life I have worked so hard to try and keep, on a suicide mission."

Damon's vampire face came out as she finished her tirade, obviously angered by the fact that she had a self-preservation instinct and actual functioning brain cells. Caroline loved her friends but none of them were dead or in serious pain from what she had gathered. All she wanted to do was finish high school, go to a college far away from the toxic place Mystic Falls had become and try to persuade her mom to move away with her. She wanted to garner absolutely no attention from what appeared to be the vampire royal family and she hoped that none of them ever cared who she was.

Caroline also wanted to rip Katherine Pierce's head off but she was working on achievable goals and she wasn't stupid enough to think she could outsmart that insane woman anytime soon.

She turned to leave, wanting to get away from Damon and back to the relative safety of her home, where Damon couldn't enter and she could use her mom's shotgun if he got stalky.

She hoped the elder Salvatore would go to the nearest bar to get as drunk as possible. She knew that was what he had been doing most days since Elena became the newest resident of the huge manor that the Mikaelsons had somehow managed to get built in less than a month.

But Damon was volatile. Damon was angry. And Damon did not like people who refused to help him with his stupid plans.
So Damon attacked.

Or at least he tried to.

Caroline wasn't a fool, however. She was the top student in her year and set to graduate as valedictorian (if she could only stop supernatural issues from interfering with her studying). And Caroline was always prepared. She had her lists and her colour-coded charts and her timetables, and, when she realised the danger that vampires posed to her (even though she was one herself) she did what she could to ensure she wasn't ever vulnerable.

She still had nightmares about Damon's compulsion, after all, and she was determined to never be that defenceless again.

She sewed pockets onto the inside of every jacket so that she could hide a stake on either side. She had only a small amount of vervain in liquid form and no way of getting more so she kept it on her at all times, ready to use as a weapon if she felt threatened. And she trained as much as she could with the limited resources she had, used youtube tutorials (more help than she'd expected) and books and what little she could glean from her mom without making her suspicious (because her mom didn't need to be worrying about Caroline any more than she already did).

And it worked. Damon was older, but she had the element of surprise and he didn't make as much of an effort as he could have because he underestimated her.

People always underestimated it. They saw her blonde hair and her pretty face and her party girl ways and they forgot all about the person underneath. Usually she hated it, but in this case it was a blessing.

She tossed the vervain at Damon's face, kicked him onto the ground and then stabbed one stake into his shoulder and the other into his leg. She didn't kill him but she knew she had incapacitated him enough to give her time to get home, grab the emergency bag she had stashed under her bed, leave a note for her mom and get out of town.

She wanted to stay and graduate, but with compulsion there was always another shot at that, even if it wasn't in Mystic Falls. She couldn't risk getting the stakes to finish Damon off (and even if it was Damon, she still didn't like the idea of killing) and she knew he'd be out to get her as soon as he recovered. She had to be gone by then, because he wouldn't risk chasing after her when Elena was still trapped in Mystic Falls.

Caroline took one last look at Damon and the murderous expression on his face, and allowed herself one brief moment of vindictive pleasure (because god did she hate him) before she flashed away.

Klaus Mikaelson stepped out of the shadows and watched as the blonde baby vampire disappeared into the trees.

Interesting, she was so very interesting.

He'd known about her of course, but she hadn't seemed like a player of any importance in the game he had started. She was Katerina's offer for a sacrifice and even when that hadn't worked out, when he and Elijah and the newest doppelganger had come to an agreement, she still hadn't appeared to be anything particularly special. She'd kept her head down since his family arrived and he'd barely given her a second thought, preoccupied by the acquisition of Elena's blood, the creation of his hybrids (starting, of course, with the conveniently situated Tyler Lockwood) and ensuring Kol didn't blow up the house while he taught the Bennett witch more about her powers.

But here was Caroline Forbes, stabbing the older Salvatore brother with what appeared to be no regrets, sharp and quick enough to have used her own talents to overcome the decades of experience he had on her.

And she had fire. She was loyal to her friends, he knew, and was loath to betray any of them, but she also refused to let herself be used. He'd heard bits and pieces about how she had been treated as a human by Damon, and he had noted how dismissive her friends often were of her. Yet it seemed that she had only ever reacted to their abuses of her and her good nature when truly pushed.

She was quite magnificent.

And though it seemed that she had been trying hard to avoid his notice, his interest was certainly piqued.

Damon Salvatore lay on the ground, bleeding out. Klaus had noticed only a hint of a reaction to all the blood from the baby vampire, which was impressive considering how young she was. He knew vampires who were a century or two old and would have had a stronger reaction.

Klaus flashed over, and though the elder Salvatore tried to cover his panic with a cocksure smirk, he knew that Damon was scared. Klaus grinned – he did so like to inspire a reaction, and Damon's terror was deliciously heightened by the fact that Klaus was still covered in blood from his recent meeting with a particularly difficult vampire (now missing his heart) from Kol's line who had been causing trouble a few towns over.

"Seems like you've been plotting, mate. I did try and warn you about the consequences of crossing my family, yet it looks like Stefan wasn't enough of an example for you."

He thought briefly of his old friend, pushed back into his ripper ways by Klaus with almost no effort at all and now cycling between bloodthirsty and guilty under the careful watch of Rebekah (who couldn't quite forget her feelings for her old flame) and a few hybrids.

"I had planned on letting you live," he told Damon, "it was highly entertaining to watch you self-destruct over your obsession with my doppelganger, and certainly a fitting punishment for trying to keep me from my goal. But I'm afraid you're making a bit too much of a nuisance of yourself and I really can't have that."

Damon tried to move but Klaus easily pinned him down and, pulling out both of the baby vampire's stakes with rough jerks, stabbed them into Damon's uninjured leg and his stomach.

The screams were music to his ears. It was always delightful to hear his enemies in pain.

"I thought of handing you over to Kol," Klaus explained, "he's got no toy at the moment and he does love a good bit of decades-long torture. Alas, he's so busy with that feisty Bennett witch these days, and I'm in a hurry you see, got to catch up with that intriguing little blonde before she flees town. So it will be quick, Damon, far quicker than you deserve, and I dare say very few will miss you."

He stuck his hand into Damon's chest and grasped his heart, savouring the light leaving the irritating vampire's eyes as he pulled the heart free from his chest, "goodbye Damon."

Caroline snuck out of the house, cursing the fact that her mom wasn't working late (for the first time in three and a half weeks) and that she would soon be home for the evening and therefore likely to notice Caroline was missing much quicker than she normally would.

She should have killed Damon. She probably could have managed it if she'd been quick and struck while he was still recovering, but she'd been so shocked by her own actions and the fact that she had actually managed to incapacitate him that she'd just wanted to get away as soon as possible.

Not to mention there was a part of her that abhorred the idea of killing anyone, even Damon. He was terrible, yet he was also quite pitiful now that Elena was out of his reach.

Of course he had tried to kill her, and had abused her when she was human … she still clung a little to the vestiges of her humanity, though, and that part of her always clashed with the monster that now lived inside her and craved blood and revenge.

Well, what was done (or in this case not done) was done, and she had to live with the consequences of leaving Damon alive. She had to leave before he came to pay her back.

So she quietly left her house with a packed bag and tried not to cry at the thought that she might never see her mom again.

And she ran straight into someone on her way out.

Caroline had hoped that she would somehow be able to tell who the Originals were, and she now knew that she could.

An aura of power and danger that sent her heightened instincts into overdrive.

Run, run, run was all that her mind was screaming at her.

Unfortunately, it was hard to run away when the Original in question had a vice-like grip on her arms.

He was beyond gorgeous, with tousled golden curls, a wiry but strong build and a face that made her think of angels.

Except the cruel smirk on his face, the darkness in his eyes and the blood all over him told her that he was about as far from an angel as someone could get.

"Hello, Caroline," he said, almost pleasantly, "going somewhere?"

She took a breath and tried not to panic. She just had to stay calm.

"Yes, actually," she replied as she tried not to tremble, "so if you could just let go …"

He laughed, "I like your bravado, love, but we're not done yet."

"I'm in a bit of a hurry," she told him, listening out for the inevitable sounds of Damon's pending arrival, "and I'm sure you've got better things to do than talk to me – shower perhaps," she suggested as she eyed his bloody clothes with a raised eyebrow.

She wanted to take the words back as soon as she said them, because baiting a psychopath was not on her to-do list, but the Original (and she still didn't know which one he was, though it would be just her luck if it was Klaus) only smirked.

"No need for you to worry about Damon, sweetheart, he won't be bothering you again."

Caroline's eyes widened at his implication. Still, she could not muster much regret that Damon was dead, and it was a relief to know that she was safe from any revenge he might have tried to enact against her.

"Now," he said, "if I let you go, you aren't going to run off, are you? Chases are tiresome, irritating things."

Her gaze darted around her, automatically looking for possible escape routes.

"Caroline," his voice was a warning now, a reminder to step carefully.

"I won't run," she agreed softly.

She didn't have to escape Damon's wrath now, after all. She could stay at home and her mom could see her graduate.

The Original let her go and Caroline took a few small steps back, eyeing him warily, "which one are you?" she asked.

He smiled at her, "how rude of me not to introduce myself, love. My name is Klaus."

She froze at the sound of his name, unable to hide her spike of fear.

He grinned, "ah, so you've heard of me."

"Bits and pieces," Caroline said warily, "enough to wonder why you're bothering to talk to me. I'm not a doppelganger, or a witch. I'm just an ordinary baby vampire – nothing for you to be interested in."

"Oh sweetheart, you don't give yourself enough credit. I happen to think you are a fascinating little thing."

She snorted, "and your opinion is the only one that matters?"

"Of course," he said, as if such an answer was the most obvious thing in the world.

There was a moment's silence as Klaus seemed to contemplate her. Caroline wondered what he saw, wondered why he was paying her any attention at all.

"I saw you earlier with Damon," he said, "you can be a vicious little thing when provoked, can't you, love? And you have an impressive control around blood."

Caroline shrugged, "yeah, well Damon was an ass. And Bonnie kept telling me she'd take away my daylight ring if I ate anybody, so that was a good incentive to control myself."

Klaus tsked in disapproval, "you have to readjust your perceptions when you become a vampire, Caroline. It's a different world, a different morality. Here be monsters, love."

"Well maybe I don't want to be a monster," she snapped at him.

All she had heard from her friends since she was turned (at least when they were still talking to her) was that she had to be a good vampire or they'd put her down, that she couldn't let her bloodlust control her. Talk of monsters was a sore subject.

Klaus flashed forward so that he was right in front of her. He lifted his arm and bit into it.

She could smell the blood immediately. It was the most delicious aroma she had ever encountered, a thousand times better than blood bags and even humans.

She could feel her vampire features emerging despite her desire to keep them hidden. And Klaus seemed delighted by the sight – he lifted one hand to brush her cheek briefly, "there you are, love."

"Stop it," she hissed, expending considerable effort to force her face to turn back to normal.

He shook his head, "all vampires are monsters, Caroline, even sunshine creatures like you. You will never be able to truly embrace your new life and all its possibilities until you accept that."

"I'm not going to embrace being a murderer," she insisted, "I won't do that."

Klaus sighed, "those Salvatores have a lot to answer for. They've been absolutely hopeless in teaching you about what it means to be a vampire. I imagine it's been all animals and blood-bags – did they even bother to try and show you how to safely feed from a human?"

"I don't know why I can't stick to blood-bags and animals," Caroline muttered, "I don't need to kill people."

"The former are not always available and the latter are no substitute for human blood – did you never wonder, Caroline, why Damon was so much stronger than Stefan, despite their being turned at the same time? Besides, a little practice and some compulsion is all you need to feed without killing, if that is your preference."

"No compulsion," she whispered before she could even think to stay quiet.

The mention of compulsion reminded her of Damon, of confused memories and bite-marks and friends who didn't seem to care what was happening to her.

Klaus' eyes darkened, "we'll come back to your reluctance in relation to that particular topic another time, I think. I'm sure it will be an enlightening and interesting story."

"Another time?" she asked, because surely he didn't mean …

He smiled widely, "of course, Caroline. Who else is going to teach you to hunt properly? Damon is very dead and Stefan, well he's in the excessively boring guilty phase of his ripper life right now so he's not in a position to be helping anyone."

"I can manage by myself," she told him.

She didn't want to spend any more time with Klaus. One meeting and he was already inserting himself into her life, pushing her boundaries and trying to get her to relax the tight hold she currently kept on the monster under her skin.

Only one meeting and he was taking more interest in her than her friends had in months.

No. That was a bad route for her thoughts to take. She had goals and plans and they did not involve personal tuition from a thousand year old Original hybrid.

"I insist, love," Klaus replied, and though his expression was still pleasant there was a hardness in his tone that made her wary of refusing.

"I … well … maybe it would be useful," she agreed, her voice carefully even, "I'm sure you'll be very busy with your hybrids, world domination plans and such, though, and I've got a lot of work for school – I'm on track to be valedictorian, you know."

"I'm aware, love," Klaus said, "you have a very impressive list of extra-curricular activities. Nevertheless, I'm sure we can find a bit of time every now and then. I'll speak to your mother, shall I, just so she isn't worried."

"Don't hurt my mom!"

The sentence came out fast, an automatic response borne of heightened emotions and the idea of someone like Klaus anywhere near her human mother.

"Shh, love," Klaus twisted a few of her curls around his rust-stained fingers and she shuddered at the thought of washing blood out of her hair later, "I have no intention of laying a hand on your mother. She's been very accommodating recently, which I imagine is largely to do with keeping you away from my notice, and I've no reason to hurt her."

Caroline relaxed slightly. Yes, her mom was on the Council and she was the sheriff too, so she was certainly useful to Klaus.

Suddenly, she could hear the sound of a car playing her mom's favourite radio station getting closer to the house.

"It looks like the sheriff is nearly home," Klaus said to her, "I'm sure you want to clean up before she arrives so that she doesn't think something is wrong."

The blood in her hair, Caroline thought, and the red handprints on her arms.

Klaus' fault.

"Off you go, love," Klaus nodded towards the house, "I'll see you soon enough."

It was a threat and a promise all rolled into one.

Caroline flashed towards the back door, and when she looked back Klaus was gone.

It wasn't a relief. She knew that he would be watching now, that he would be back.

But for tonight she was going to try and forget the events of the day. She was going to take a bath and watch a film with her mom while they ate take-out.

And she was going to avoid thinking about the consequences of being the recipient of Klaus' attention.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.