Written for Caryn.

I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing here, tbh. I'm a failure. I'm sorry. Do tell me what you think though.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

When he had an eternity, she had a deadline.

Her heart, you see— A fistful of muscle and blood and it just so happened that hers came with a hole in it.

Poor girl, the physician said, wouldn't live for a day.

But the tiny one's a fighter—grows up to live as a handsome young lady and at the age seventeen, is set to wed the first bloke who proposed. Father and mother, a prudent pair they are and so very much eager to marry the sickly daughter out of the family the soonest they could.

It's the late 14th century then and whilst Niklaus tire of his vow of revenge in Bulgaria, the invitation falls on his lap. Silly humans and their silly human traditions… His vacation, it seems, how pathetic was that? But the human is valuable to business, and something about English women with their tea-flavored blood reminds him of home.

And so a week later, he arrives as a guest to the betrothed's home but the Original is more surprised of the girl who took residence in his mind.

"Do you want to play a game?" Is the first words Caroline Forbes spoke to him in a dark, dusty corner of the mansion's library, a few days before the ceremony. It isn't hard to recognize the fetching bride-to-be with her sunshine gold curls and her sky blue eyes but her back is on him and his is on her as they were facing opposite shelves. Still, he doesn't miss the erratic beating of her human heart which struck him somewhat as a beautiful anomaly among the sea of monotony.

"It's a simple game, really. Just a game of dares." She continues when he doesn't respond, taking his silence as a sign of interest. "So will you play?"

"I don't know. Will I?" He answers noncommittally without as much as a glance, tracing the spines of the books with his fingertip.

A quick wisp of wind signals she turned her head to his direction "You will."

He doesn't hold back the grin that curls on his lips. "And why is that?"

"Because you're different."

Really now, sweetheart? This coming from the girl who rolled her eyes at her beau and bit the inside of her cheek to hold back a laugh during the eucharistic service. Who stuck her tongue out at the court ladies and snuck away for a horse ride at midnight… For someone with one foot on the grave, the girl had fire. She's unrepentantly playful and clever, and to cage such pulchritude and let it expire within these walls… As an artist, he thinks it's hardly poetic justice.

Turning on his heel to face her, he crosses his arms, and leans back on the shelf. His knowing smirk says it all.

"Then I'll go first." She spoke a bit somberly, her voice falling into a whisper. "I dare you to save me from this marriage."

The urge to scoff is almost tempting. These silly humans and their silly human problems—

But he's intruiged by this girl. Awfully so.

"I mean… I heard you've been to places, Lord Mikaelson. Mayhaps just for a while I—" She pauses only to contain the rush of excitement in her tiny frail voice. "That is, you know, besides the fact that I think my fiance probably fancies another… A man, can you believe that? But… I've never been to anywhere and I think I want to see the world first, if I can."

He watches her string the words as if they could lengthen her punctuated life. Still, being an immortal and having the means to give it, sometimes he couldn't help but to play God.

"Oh I'm sorry, what was I saying? Forget it, will you? I think my sanity has—"

"Done." He says simply and her gorgeous blue ones spark with wonder. "Consider it done."

When her husband-to-be declares his undying love for the duke in front of the whole family the day before the wedding (which was subsequently called off), she isn't surprised.

Yet she never saw Lord Mikaelson again. No one has.

A week later, Caroline Forbes almost succumbs to an illness. And in a feverish haze, she vaguely recognizes the familiar sultry voice whispering in her ear.

"The game isn't over, love."

He dares her not to die and she doesn't.

He watches her wrap her dainty fingers around the man's throat, her thumb circling on the base as her eyes locked lustfully with her prey's helpless gaze. This is a fairly easy dare but nonetheless the chap was a goner the moment Caroline picked up on the chamomile on his breath, in his blood when he entered the bar. It is her favorite.

And as she sinks her fangs on the lad's throat—an almost perfect juxtaposition of beauty and brutality, life and death—he knows he is right—

Eternity suits her.

For three centuries, they massacre entire villages and reduce cities to dust.

It frustrates Elijah and annoys Rebekah to no end, this childish game they both couldn't seem to stop playing. But she says she want to devour everything the world has to offer and they will do just that.

Kol is amused at least but makes a mistake of calling her his pet. It would cost him a whole decade, that loose tongue of his.

Caroline's not his pet. She's more than that. She's ruthless and brave but at the same time, she's warm and fun, loyal and kind. Something about this girl that makes him want to please her in every way. Niklaus hardly pleases himself but if ever she asked, he would bleed the earth to darkness if only to sustain her singular light.

A companion, a friend… Call it what you will.

He made her.

She is his.

Sometimes she gives this little dares.

A quiet stroll in a vineyard in Santorini, a slow dance in a deserted hallway in Westminster Abbey… Tonight he carries her on a piggyback ascending the sandstone steps of Odessa and right at the top, she turns to him with a smile that always says too much.

"Okay, your turn."

Sometimes he wonders if she know how her eyes scream, what her every movement gives away. Klaus isn't unfamiliar to looks of adulation but rarely does one puncture—

And it bloody frightens him.

You see, people… They let you get used to their presence, to need, to crave but in the end they are all just waiting for you to commit a goddamn mistake before leaving without your permission, without even much a glance back.

And for eight hundred years, he has never allowed himself to get close. He built his defenses and kept everyone away at an arms length because the thing about Niklaus is he's bound err from time to time sorry, love, a broken man, truly he is. Always has been—

He would blow up, he would lash out. It would hurt so please, sweetheart, don't.

It's not worth it.

We have a good thing going from where we stand.

Let's keep it that way.

"Klaus." His name rolls out like velvet from her tongue. "Your dare?"

She would have to step back, he would have to pull away if only he could keep her a little bit longer.

"Kla—"

"You don't fall in love." With me, he doesn't say.

Caroline stills then, the blood pooling on her cheeks. Stolen moments like these are when he sees her the most human, her heart on her sleeve and a thousand emotions running in her eyes. But she gets it. Smart girl, that one, and finally she bows her head in agreement.

"Your turn then." Klaus speaks after a beat, a dimpled grin painting his face before he descends the steps.

She stays put and, with a held breath, watches his retreating back, the distance growing farther between them.

She follows him in a few moment.

1901 is the beginning of the end.

In January, Caroline travels to Russia without him, as per her dare, to watch Chekhov's The Three sisters.

February, March, April and May, she doesn't come back. Though Klaus merely shrugs when Rebekah begins to ask.

June, he starts to wonder himself. It's unlike her to be away from him for more than a few months.

July, he receives a letter saying she'll be staying with friend until the next month. He ignores Elijah's knowing look when he scoffed at the word "friend" and went back to his meal. Lately he's been craving for blondes.

She doesn't come home in August. Or in September.

October, he turns up livid in Moscow but finds all his anger melting away the moment he sees the smile on her face. For five centuries, he has never seen her that happy.

See, Caroline, she met a man—

With a heart that's flawed, just like hers once, beating a nostalgic broken tune in her ears, and a death sentence hanging around his head.

He wears his humanity on his skin. He lives everyday like there's no tomorrow. He gives his affections without apology, even after she tried to bite him. Either that makes him brave or sizably foolish, he doesn't care.

He holds her hand in his when they take a stroll and he doesn't pull away when she gets too close. He carries her like a princess with his frail human body, without her needing to ask or dare, he kisses her like he doesn't need to breathe and when he calls her love and he means it.

When she embraced this new life, she was taught to cast herself away. To take a step back and draw a line. Us and them. Predator and prey. Monster and human.

Sometimes you have to forget, you forgo emotions, to make the distinction stick and to keep the killing easier but him…. He gave it all back.

And she loves him.

November, she tells Klaus she's going to turn her lover.

In December, Klaus kills him.

"You broke your promise."

She doesn't answer, doesn't even spare him a glance, as she cleans the blood off her hands.

"You broke the dare. You said you won't fall in lo—" He stops abruptly as if the word burned his tongue.

"I wasn't aware that dare still applies." She speaks up after a beat, her voice flat and dull.

"You forget, love, we are immortals. Our little game runs without an expiration date."

"But the dare was meant only for you, wasn't it?' She lifts her eyes to meet his, the accusation almost deafening. "And I hate you, Klaus."

For two decades, the dares are put on hold to everyone's relief though for Klaus and Caroline, it's a alienating change. They tiptoe around one another, not knowing how to act or speak in each other's presence. It's pathetic really how they came to the realization they don't really have a real relationship outside the game.

Caroline leaves often but doesn't stay away for long. It's a force of a habit after all this time spent together. She knows too that a big part of her would never really shake him away. A part of her that would always crave him. He made her. She is his and that is that.

By mid-1920s, an exasperated Rebekah drags them to a bar in Chicago called Gloria's. Most of the time, they spend drinking and watching the blonde flirt with random men until Klaus, in mumbling small voice you wouldn't believe belongs to the King of the vampire race, asks her to dance and suddenly, everything stills—

He holds her like she's made of porcelain. He smells of sandalwood and earth and somehow she grows to yearn for the lush gardens of her childhood home. His eyes are bluer than ever and she remembers looking at them as a human, reminding her of the limitless sky she will fly to and the vast seas she will sail and God, how she misses him. The man she met at the library, an embodiment of possibilities and hope. The man who promised her eternity, who became her home for almost a thousand years.

She knows how he's been broken and battered by time and fate but if only he would let her be what he has always been for her then perhaps—

Her thoughts came to a staggering halt the moment she feels his lips on hers. It's soft and warm but with the alcohol buzzing and music thrumming it becomes hot and rough within moments. It all becomes blur after that but when the next morning she wakes up in his arms, his lips on her hair, fingers entwined with hers, and how her heart swells when he doesn't pull away…

She dares to hope.

The first day is a game of charades.

The second, a paradise.

But the third one is a tribulation.

The grasp he has on her wrist is so tight, she knows it would bruise if she were human. He drags her out the street, up to an empty alley after he flashed them both away from Gloria's. She isn't really certain what just happened. The spray of wooden bullets, the people screaming and Mikael—

She has only heard the name is passing. No one talks about him in the open, only in hushed whispers like it's some taboo word but by Klaus' horror stricken face, she understands they may have a better chance with running than choosing to face this mystery man.

"Klaus?"

No answer.

"Klaus? Where's Rebekah? We shouldn't have le—"

"Caroline, shut up."

And just like that she loses her voice, the words seeming to be stuck on her throat. He fucking compelled her! He hadn't compelled her before and he chose to do it now.

Her blood boils in realization but Klaus doesn't seem to mind. He's hell-bent to putting as much distance as he can from the whatever chaos ensuing in the bar, alternating from speeding to running for what seems like forever until they reach a house in the middle of nowhere.

Inside, Klaus starts pacing to and fro like a maniac, lost in his own world, all the while Caroline remains standing in the corner, anger etched in her pretty face.

He catches her eyes. "You can talk now, love."

"Where's Rebekah?"

"She's safe." He replies curtly but that's when she smells it. White oak ash. Of course she know it. After Finn, Kol and now—

"You daggered her." She murmurs, accusation evident in her tone.

He grows livid. "I'm protecting her!"

"You daggered your sister and you compelled me, you call that protecting?"

"You were being difficult!"

"And you're being an asshole!'

A flash of movement and suddenly he has her against the wall, his fingers around her throat. "Watch your mouth, sweetheart."

She meets his angry gaze head on and after a moment, he relents. Letting her go, she drops unceremoniously on the floor and he keeps his back on her, reining in his anger and concealing whatever emotions his eyes may give away. Sometimes she just wants to fucking pry his arms off. Don't hide, Klaus, I see you. But before you get even to close he keeps it all in and fold himself up. He tends do to that, you know, in frustrating consistency.

"Who's Mikael?" Caroline asks before she can stop herself and his back tenses infinitesimally. She really knows how to push his buttons, this girl. Most of the time, he likes the challenge but tonight… He almost lost her tonight so sweetheart, don't you bloody understand why he has to—

"No one you need to be concerned about."

"I want to help, Klaus, and I need to know. Don't you trust me?"

More than anyone.

He turns to face her. "I trust no one, Caroline."

"After all these years?" A dry laugh escapes her lips. "You know what, you don't even trust your own siblings so you daggered all of them. Too bad you can't dagger me, huh?"

"Maybe I'll just compel you again then?" He retorts and her temper flares at the memory.

"You wouldn't."

His face twists into a condescending smile. "And why is that?"

"Because I will hate you."

"And you think I care?" He takes a step toward her, hands on his back. "You already hate me, don't you?"

"Don't lie to me. You care. I know you do."

"I don't care, Caroline." Push. "I'm a monster." Shove. "I don't have a heart." Fold.

Her eyes begin to water. "That's not true." She has seen it. Only in passing glimpses but she's seen it.

"Then find it, Caroline. Show me my heart." He takes a steps closer and towers over her whimpering form. "I dare you."

She can feel all their centuries slipping through the cracks of her fingers. They're standing nose to nose but he seems far away than ever before.

"Go." He gives her a shoulder a push with a palm of his hand, gentle and almost teasing but it did more damage than all of their fights combined. "And don't ever come back empty handed."

She never comes back.

*TBC*

A/N: Okay so don't worry. There will be a Part Two.

Sorry for the spelling mistakes, historical and grammatical errors. Thank you for reading.