An Epilogue.

He knows she's waiting for him and he's late, purposefully. It's the worst possible time to be late and he knows that he's not helping his case any, but he can't face her. Not just yet. He's standing outside the door, knowing that she's on the other side waiting, and he can't bring himself to turn the knob. He wonders if she can hear his breathing and his heart thumping from the other side. If she knows he's stalling and she's letting him.

He can only stand out there for so long and so he does it. He takes the plunge and twists the knob and walks inside.

She can tell he's on edge when he gets in by the way his jaw clicks, the way his leg bounces with an irregular beat. She notices that he looks everywhere, but he doesn't look at her or the pile of luggage besides her.

They don't say anything for a long moment, he's too busy pacing about and looking anywhere but at her. Finally he saunters over, pulls the chair out from across from her and sits down.

"You're leaving," he states, pouring himself a glass of water from the jug at the center. He tries to sound nonchalant about it, but he's not at all successful. "You're really leaving."

She nods her head and tries to give him a small smile, but she just can't seem to manage it.

"You don't forgive me," his voice is hard and harsh, but at least this time he looks at her.

Once again she shakes her head only to contradict herself and saying, "Yes. I don't forgive you. Not this time."

She can tell he is clenching his jaw again.

"I shouldn't forgive you," she tells him. "I thought what we had would've been enough, but it's not. You hurt people I care about. I shouldn't forgive you," she takes a breath and glances upwards as if the answer to all their problems were written on the ceiling. "But that's the problem. I do. I've done it before and if I stay I will do it again. But that's not right. The things you want… it's not what I want."

"I really tried you know," he whispers. "You made me happy and I tried… it's just that I can't… I thought I could, but I just can't-"

"I know," she says, interrupting him. Because she does. When she found him in Chicago that whole lifetime ago she had believed him when he said he would try and give up everything. That if he could give up the world then she should give him a chance to show it to her and she did. She gave them a chance and she doesn't regret any of it.

For a good long while they were good together. The happiest she's ever been. And she believed with all her heart that he had been happy too. If they were normal humans that would have been a lifetime of bliss, comparable to any love story. It would've had a happy ending. But it's like he said. Forever is a long long time and they both still have miles of it stretched ahead of them. He simply cannot keep fight so hard against his instincts, against his inclination to survive the only way he knows how, even that means eventually pushing her away. And she can't keep turning her cheek, let him get away with everything that he does when it goes against the very core of her being.

She understands now why people called vampires the damned. The werewolves and the witches may have their powers, but they're mortal. They have a chance to make their choices and live with it. It's their one life to live. Vampires do not have that luxury. Nothing lasts forever because forever is endless.

"In the end… I really wasn't enough was I?"

He reaches over and clasps his hand over hers, just in time for the tear to land on the back of it. When she looks up she can see his own eyes glistening. His face is etched with tension lines and the way he is clasping her hand is like the way a drowning man would hold on to a life saver.

"I wanted you to be…" he whispers and she knows he means it, that he had wished it, tried so hard for love to be enough. Despite what the storybooks say, love does not always conquer all. That still doesn't mean it wasn't worth it.

With all her willpower she pulls her hand out from under his. His hand forms a fist where her hand should be. He's squeezing so hard his knuckles are white. "I love you," he says, his eyes still locked on the place where her hand used to be.

"I know," she says back softly, the tears now gone from her face. Her eyes have hardened he notices. She's different now. The years together was not just an experiment in changing him. She did not come out to this the same bright eyed eighteen year old Caroline that he first knew. She's not full of doubt and indecision anymore and he knows now that this meeting was more for his benefit than it is for her.

She looks to her watch and stands up, he follows suit.

"Where are you planning on going?" He's stalling. Grasping for any excuse to prolong her presence.

She breathes a deep breath and tilts her head to the side a little whimsically.

"I don't know. Somewhere. The world's wide open. You taught me that," she says with a smile, it reaches her eyes this time. "I can go anywhere."

She leans forward and kisses him. It tastes of nostalgia, of all the kisses they've ever shared in all the years, decades, they've been together. It's Caroline eating sushi for the first time in Tokyo , it's Klaus smoking cigarettes in Paris, it's the first breath of air they take together in Rome. It's also the first time Caroline manages to say I Love You in so many words and it's the last time Klaus didn't say it back even though he does. It means Thank You and I'm Sorry and Goodbye. It's all their up's and down's and it's almost too much to bear so they break apart.

"I love you, too." She says it simply, without dramatics, as mere statement of fact, like if she were to declare that the sky is blue or birds fly. She didn't need to embellish it with pretty words, she knew that it was the truth and so did he. They loved each other. They knew it in their bones, in their blood, and no one could take that away.

This has been a hard lesson in goodbye, but it's the second one and this time they both know it'll stick.