Lost and Found Again

Disclaimer: I don't own any copyrights to anything that belongs to The Vampire Diaries.

This was a response to a tumblr request for Dark!Caroline where Klaus was the only one who could bring her back. I kind of enjoyed writing this style of Klaroline. Caroline as a dark character is definitely intriguing and I kind of wish I'd done more.

After a year of war with his protege, Klaus had finally taken a leave of absence from his reign in New Orleans. Once Marcel had killed Hayley and his heir, it became a bloodbath to the finish line, and naturally Klaus had been the victor. But Bourbon Street lay in ruins and he would have to return to pick up the pieces once the humans finished their rebuilding. Marcel had been about flash and flair but Klaus preferred subtleties. A king was only as strong as his people and the people needed a sense of security before they could be governed. Or…compelled.

He was traveling back to a small town he once inhabited for a single purpose. But when he arrived he'd found nothing even remotely reminiscent of the town he left. New stores had opened up, a complex of townhouses was being built, and all of the faces were now unrecognizable. The only place that had survived the transformation was The Mystic Grill. He waited out half the day there hoping to see at least one familiar face so he could find what he was searching for. But each person he compelled told him the same, nothing, leading him inevitably down a dead end.

He left the Grill, continuing his search. The Gilbert house had burnt down a year ago, he'd learned. The Salvatore boarding house was abandoned. The Lockwood Estate was undergoing foreclosure. And there wasn't a trace of a Bennett witch anywhere in town. When he came upon the Forbes residence, however, his heart finally dropped. The house was boarded up and flowers were arranged around the front stoop in a memorial of sorts. Candles burnt well past their wick were stuck to the steps in pools of dried wax.

Irrational with fear, he punched his way through the wooden barrier over the door and busted the door to the ground to walk through, dreading what he'd find inside. The house remained furnished and untouched, exactly the same as he'd last seen it when he'd saved her life the first time, but it still seemed eerily empty. A mug of coffee sat half finished on the coffee table, making rings in the wood, and beside that an open catalog to a page with sundresses.

There were no signs of a struggle anywhere as he searched the house. His heart pounded as he sped up the stairs to the one room he feared looking in. He didn't know what he'd been expecting when he opened the door. Blood stains, ripped curtains, a torn bed spread? But when he looked in, it looked like her room. The bed was neatly made, an outfit laid out on it. School books sat on the nightstand beside it. On the floor beside it lay a crumpled but familiar drawing from a night several months ago. He walked toward it and felt a small breeze blow from his right. He looked and saw the curtains blowing from the open window. For a second, hope filled him completely. He sped to the window and looked out but saw nothing. A presence behind him tensed his shoulders and he turned around with a half smile, expecting to see anyone but the cocky young fellow before him.

"Who the hell are you?"

Klaus was taken aback by the demanding tone of the young vampire. Judging by the carelessly tousled brown hair and out of date leather jacket, he was a rebellious spirit. Or that was the vibe he was trying to give off. He was a week dead, two at the most. The air of an overcompensating confidence he exuded gave him away, not to mention the lack of experience behind his grey eyes.

Klaus' eyes narrowed, walking towards the mystery vamp. "I think the appropriate question would be, why are you not afraid?"

"You're trespassing. This ain't your turf."

"My turf." Klaus lifted a brow and smirked, nodding. He grabbed the vampire's throat and lifted him off his feet, eyes searing through him as his jaw clenched. "You have three seconds to tell me where the inhabitants of this house are before I kill you."

The vampire choked in his grasp, managing to sneak out and jab a switchblade into Klaus' chest. Klaus looked down at it, raising his eyebrows to the vamp. He sighed, fed up as he pulled it out with ease and threw it to the ground, dimples appearing in a malicious grin.

"On second thought…"

He reached into the vampire's chest and ripped his heart out, dropping him to the floor and tossing his heart away while he gazed down contemptuously.

"You know it's rude to go through someone's room when they're not home," a voice crooned from behind him.

He smiled slowly. "Caroline."

He turned around to confirm her appearance and relief flooded him when he saw the blonde ray of light standing inside the doorway of her room. But there was something different about her, from the leather pants painted over her legs and crop top to the look in her unimpressed eyes as she walked over the dead body.

"You could've knocked."

"I thought I did," he retorted, referring to knocking down the boarded up door.

"Yeah. Thanks. That was supposed to keep idiots like you out."

"Well clearly it didn't work so well for this one." He gestured to the corpse on the floor.

"This one has a name. And he was invited." She frowned, annoyed. "Now I have to make another one."

His eyebrows lowered at her phrasing. Make? Since when did Caroline Forbes condone anything remotely vampiric?

She turned over her shoulder and grinned, flirting with her eyes from beneath what he realized were long faux lashes. "Unless you're here to finally take me up on my offer of hot hybrid sex?"

He looked down, slightly abashed and confused. "Afraid not."

Her eyebrows furrowed as she sauntered toward him, swaying her hips with a sultry pout. "Hmm…and why not?" She draped her arms around his neck when she reached him, eyes filled to the brim with seduction. "Don't you want to throw me down and have your way with me? Ruffle my perfect feathers?"

He searched her eyes for a trace of the girl she was a year ago, disconcerted by this new, overzealous persona. Her eyes were empty, and if he wasn't mistaken, a few shades darker than the baby blues he'd always been swayed by. Something was off with her, but what?

"What happened to you, Caroline?" His voice was soft, concerned as he lifted her arms off of him, holding her hands together gently.

She scoffed a laugh. "Nothing happened. This has always been who I am, deep down. I just stopped caring what people thought."

"No. You had a light about you. It's what attracted me to you. But I can see it's long since been snuffed."

"Are you always so pretentiously poetic?" She rolled her eyes and ripped her hands away. "What do you even want from me, Klaus? You're still in love with me after all this time?" She tutted, turning and walking away. "Get a hobby."

He sped around her, growing agitated with the act. His eyes shone with adamance. "Enough of the charade, love. We both know this isn't you."

"Why?" She tilted her head, eyes glowing with malice. "Because I'm not your perfect little Caroline anymore? Because I'm finally living and doing whatever I want without caring what people think?"

"The Caroline I knew had more respect for herself, her body and her life."

She crossed her arms stubbornly. "The Caroline you knew is dead. Get over it."

She walked down the stairs, irritated, stepping over the shambles of the broken door and into the night air. But before she could take another step, the hybrid was back and blocking her path again.

"God, do you just never take a hint?"

"What happened in the year that I left?"

"Because suddenly you care? You were never capable of real emotions, so don't try to pretend like you're actually upset." She stepped into his face, poking his chest. "You're the one who said we were the same. And we are. On the surface we can look as innocent as we want and fool anyone into believing it. But deep down we're both just monsters, aching to feed off, or kill, or fuck, or whatever the hell makes us feel good." He clenched his jaw, lifting his chin defiantly as she spoke crudely. "But who's the better monster now, Klaus? Cause it sure as hell isn't you. At least when I'm a bitch I can back it up. I'm bad with a purpose. You - you're just bad," she laughed snidely. "And you're bad at it. You let your self-pity get in the way. You were never a big bad, Klaus. You were just a big baby throwing a thousand year long temper tantrum."

She held his gaze a moment longer, relishing the disappointment and hurt in his eyes, then walked around him to disappear into the night. He let it all sink in as she walked away from him, unable to fathom what could possibly have doused the brightest of flames, not even leaving a smoky wisp of who she was behind. This new Caroline was confident in the wrong ways, cruel and careless, the polar opposite of what she once was. She didn't care, she didn't feel, she didn't -

And that was when it finally hit him.

"You turned it off," he breathed.

"Go away," she called from a distance.

He sped after her, catching up easily. "Why?"

"Because you're bugging me."

He grabbed her shoulders and glared at her, his voice rising. "What possessed you to turn off your humanity, Caroline?"

"I didn't turn anything off. There IS no switch, Klaus. Just…get over the Caroline you fell in love with. She's gone."

She shoved him off of her and tried to walk away again. Klaus tried to make sense of it in his head, and slowly pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. The flowers and candles on the stoop…and the boarded up house…

"It was your mother, wasn't it?"

She stopped, shoulders locking rigidly. It told him everything he needed to know.

Her voice tightened, growing threatening. "Don't."

"Silas killed her."

"I said don't!" she shouted, whipping around with a glare, her fangs bared.

"And you were left alone. With no one. Stefan vanished from the face of the Earth. And Elena had Damon. Bonnie was gone after lifting the veil. Matt and Rebekah were off having European adventures. And Tyler…" His eyes dimmed as he looked up at her, catching the flicker of bitterness that passed through her eyes. "He never came back, did he?"

She swallowed, her gaze burning through him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of answering or reaffirming his suspicions.

"The only one you had left was your mother. And if she were alive, she wouldn't approve of what you've become." He narrowed his eyes, hoping his cruelty would break through her defenses. "Not her little girl…"

Her lips twitched. "Shut up."

"Have I hit a nerve?"

"Shut UP!"

She zoomed forth, hissing in his face with veins protruding beneath her reddened eyes. He held her forearms, keeping her back just far enough so she couldn't reach his neck.

"This is all your fault!" she growled, frustrated. "If you hadn't left…you stupid…arrogant…selfish..."

She shook her head, breaking out of his grasp and turning around, eyes rolling up to the sky, forcing back tears. His lips parted with a startling breath as she fell apart.

"Silas destroyed everything," she told him, her anger growing and coming through in her voice. She whipped around with an accusatory glare. "And you just left us all here to deal with him! You left me here. And he killed my mom. And I couldn't stop him! But you could have, couldn't you?!"

"Caroline - "

"COULDN'T YOU!?"

"Silas is a 2000 year old vampire. He has powers I never even knew existed. If I knew how to destroy him - "

"Bonnie did. But Bonnie's dead too. So instead, he got to wreak havoc and destroy everything that was GOOD!"

He walked forward, cupping her face, desperate to get her back. "You're still good, Caroline. It's there, inside your heart."

"No it's not," she muttered, turning away from him.

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her against him, holding her tight enough that she couldn't move.

"Let go of me!"

"No. I'm not leaving you alone again."

"Why do you care?! You left already. If you fancied me so much you would have stayed and helped. You were the only chance we had." Tears began to stream down. "Everyone I loved is dead. Stefan!" She cried in anguish. "Stefan is dead, Klaus! He was your friend and you let him die!"

He swallowed hard, the revelation hitting him. That one was a blow. Not just a friend, but a brotherly companion. Of all things, he hadn't expected that. Caroline's lips trembled, anger brewing. She pushed on his chest, forcing him away.

"Leave! Just go back to your stupid New Orleans and leave me alone!"

She sped off into the woods away from him but he was on her tail just a quickly, grabbing her by the shoulders and slamming her into a tree to jolt some sense back into her.

"You have to let it back in, Caroline!"

"Let go of me!"

"Your mother is dead."

"Stop it!"

"She's dead."

"No!"

"And she's not coming back."

"Please!"

"She's dead, Caroline."

"No, no, no…"

Her eyes glazed with tears, fighting hard to blink them back as she struggled against his grip, emotion overwhelming her and sagging her against the tree. Her head dropped to his chest and she cried, tirelessly, grieving for her mother. He brushed her hair back from her head, whispering "Shh"s into her ear continuously as she cried the night away.

"You're all right…" He murmured, holding her head against his chest. "You're all right, love."

She sobbed into his shirt, feeling every emotion she'd repressed flooding back. The guilt from every feed, every fuck, every kill, every loss overwhelming her. Bonnie…Stefan…Her mother… She cried and cried in his arms until her throat was raw and her eyes burned so badly she couldn't see anymore. Klaus held her, silently, letting her feel it all and waiting until she was ready to move on.

She fell silent for a while, her head still buried in his chest. Her breathing was still erratic and she hiccuped every few seconds. But at long last she lifted her head and looked up into his eyes, sniffling as she found solace in them. She shrugged, at a loss.

"You don't have to stay here," she told him, unclenching a fist from his shirt to wipe mascara from her eyes. "Everyone always leaves me anyway."

He tipped her chin up, searching her eyes for the girl he once loved, still loved. There, just beyond the faded blue, he found her. His Caroline.

"I'm not going anywhere."