Title: Fated

Summary: In which Caroline moves on and Klaus realises that he can't have it all.

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to their respective owners. This story is produced without profit.

Characters: Caroline/Kol/Klaus. Assorted Extras

Genre: Angst/Hurt/Family/Romance

Rating: Older teen- Adult

Warnings: None

Status: One shot/ Complete.

Archiving: Please PM me

Inspirations/Dedications: I don't like TO Klaus. I miss the real Kol.

Notes: This was pretty painful to write since Klaroline is still my TVD forever otp, but I can't deal with TO Klaus. That boy needs life to hand him some lemons so...I did a thing :-) Kol and Rebekah are in their original bodies. Kolvina is not a thing. Steroline is not a thing. Haylijah and Klayley are definitely not thing. Katherine/Kol are miraculously revived due to [insert any reason you like] The events within this story are kind of vague and there is quite a bit of character exposition. It almost reads like a prequel or summary for a multi fic. This is mainly due to time constraints and other obligations. I would like to expand on this story in future but for now, if you have any questions, drop me a line.

Fated

Klaus hears the rumours only a year after Hope's birth.

His brother, Kol, is back from the dead once again and running around Europe with a young, blonde companion.

The first thing Klaus does is visit the young witch whose body Kol spent nearly a year inhabiting before he was forcibly expelled by the young lad's long lost coven. Kaleb is fine, if not a little traumatised by his out of body experience.

The next thing he does is call Stefan Salvatore to either give his condolences for the Gilbert siblings untimely death or offer a fair warning. He doesn't particularly give a stuff what happens to the majority of the Mystic Falls merry bunch but there are one or two of them that he would very much like to manoeuvre out of the way of Kol's warpath.

"He was here but we're fine," Stefan says, shockingly and inexplicably. "There was a situation with a powerful coven. They went after him and we helped out in return for him leaving Mystic Falls."

Klaus is still searching for the appropriate words when Stefan drops his biggest bombshell yet.

"There's something else," the Ripper says tentatively. "Caroline went with him."

Klaus doesn't even care that his voice takes on a decidedly effeminate squeak as he screeches, "What?"

He can almost hear Stefan wince at the pitch levels. The younger vampire sighs before he answers. "She lost her mom three months ago, Klaus. Cancer. She's kinda lost her mind a little. Kol told her that he heard about a witch in Slovakia who could make contact with the dead."

"And you let her go?" Klaus asks, incredulous. Perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. They don't know his brother as well as he does. They don't know that his favourite pastime is playing with the hearts, minds and bones of doting young women.

"She left us a note, Klaus. She didn't exactly tell us before hand what she was planning." Stefan manages to sound both offended and guilty as hell.

"I'll get some people on it," Klaus says. He figures Davina Claire might be happy enough to locate her former love interest, though explaining why Kol hasn't bothered to contact her since his resurrection might take some imagination. "You keep trying on your end. My brother might speak a good game when it comes to worldly promises but I know how easily he gets bored of his young companions."

His mind is already whirring with commands and plans and orders as he hangs up. He will drag them both home if it is the last thing he does.

...

He needn't have bothered trying.

Kol and Caroline return to Mystic Falls a week later.

Klaus high tails it out of New Orleans the second he finds out. By the time he gets there, Stefan has already recalled the whole story of their return. How Kol is as obnoxious and rude as ever and how Caroline is adamant in her hatred for him.

It warms Klaus's heart to know that Caroline now shares his antipathy towards his younger brother and can perhaps understand how Klaus could keep him in a box all those years. Maybe their little trip wasn't a waste after all.

"Welcome to hell," Katerina Petrova sneers as she answers the door to the Salvatore boarding house. Klaus doesn't even question her appearance there or even her resurrection. He has long ago given up on trying to make sense of why these people ally themselves with their former foes or how they seemingly pop up from the grave whenever the fancy takes them.

She isn't exactly wrong though. The tension is thick when he enters the living room. The gang are all assembled. Elena and Stefan looking tired and confused. Damon and a tall, dark haired companion depleting the liquor cabinet. Bonnie Bennett sitting sturdy and supportive beside Caroline, who is pouting and petulant on the couch. Her expression only darkens when she sees Klaus.

In the middle of it all, is his smirking brother, arms splayed across the back of the sofa like he owns the place. "Oh hey, Nik. Haven't seen you in a while."

Klaus is glad his baby brother has returned from the dead, he truly is. There has been nobody else on this earth whose company he has both adored and despised at the same time. Seeing him in his original body, dark as night and strong as steel, Klaus can't help but feel a familiarity and kinship that he couldn't quite feel when his brother was staring back at him through blue eyes and throwing around grins and sneers that weren't quite cruel enough.

Then Kol's eyes flicker curiously to Caroline, who is still glowering at him from across the room, and Klaus is reminded of every wicked scheme and deed that Kol has ever committed in name of a lifelong pursuit to get one over on his big brother.

Klaus can only think fondly on the coffin he still keeps in the Compound basement.

...

It has been a week since Klaus arrived at Mystic Falls and that is about the same time he has had a persistent headache.

"Give it to me, I'll do it."

"Get lost, I know how to read instructions, Kol."

"You need more flour. Bonnie isn't going to be very impressed with a flat birthday cake. The poor girl has already lost her whole family and you're going to give her a half-arsed birthday cake. Call yourself a friend, Caroline Forbes!"

The others might be assured that Kol and Caroline both hate and despise each other but Klaus has seen and experienced too many different kinds of relationships to be entirely convinced that they are right.

...

There is something there in the way that they snipe and spit at each other. Something that offers Kol a certain familiarity with Caroline that Klaus has never had.

There is something that allows Kol to offend and antagonise Caroline's feelings on a daily basis yet he never has to suffer the hurt and indignity of being frozen out by her for some perceived crime against her young emotions.

"I can't stand her," Kol tells him when Klaus dares to breach the topic.

"I don't owe you anything." Caroline says with more spite and implications that make Klaus want to stick his fingers in his ears, dagger Kol and lock Caroline away for fifty years.

Both their words are true but it's not like that will change anything.

Then an overzealous vampire hunter comes to town and Kol almost takes a white oak stake to chest while saving Caroline's life. A line is crossed.

"You had your chance," Kol tells him, three days later and not even bothering to deny his intentions anymore."It's not my fault you stuffed it."

His pursuit of Caroline has been all the more brazen since the incident which almost sent him to his grave for the third time but Klaus knows better than anyone that Caroline isn't so easily wooed by charm and flattery.

Any other time it would be fun to watch his brother flounder his feelings and intentions so desperately. He could almost feel sorry for Kol if it didn't hurt so bloody much.

...

Klaus makes plans to retaliate of course. He knows daggering Kol will only lowering Caroline's opinion of him even further but he is still a man of the world. He is still a man that managed to sneak into her heart once before. He can match Kol, charm for charm. He can win back Caroline's heart from his devious little brother who will only twist it and then discard it when he has had his fun with it.

Then he finds her sneaking through the back door one night, tiptoeing into the kitchen. Her hair is mussed and her cheeks are flushed and if he looks hard enough, he can just make out the slight swell of her lips. Star-kissed, he thinks bitterly. How romantic.

"You appear to be a lot freer with your feelings with Kol than you ever were with me. How long has it taken him to breech your defences?" The implication that she is a good for nothing whore hangs thick between them.

"How's Hayley?" Caroline sneers.

No more needs to be said.

Klaus decides to leave that night. Leave Caroline to her childish mistake. She will learn what his brother is like soon enough. He has a kingdom to run and a daughter to raise. The self-righteous glee he will feel in a few years when Caroline is just another sobbing victim of his brother's whims and desires will more than make up for the sharp sting of rejection he feels now.

"He makes me happy," Caroline mutters as Klaus walks away from her that night and the air hangs thick with an implication of her own. He makes her happy in ways that Klaus will never be able to, not anymore, because all Caroline has ever wanted was to be somebody's darling, somebody's first priority. She is a lot like Rebekah that way.

"Happiness doesn't tend to last very long with Kol. Don't come running to me when it's all over." is all Klaus says, coldly, sadly.

"I won't," She says, sickeningly determined in her promise. Then she nods and offers him the barest of smiles and for the first time since he arrived, he feels like he has been bathed in the light of god again.

What a wonder, this young, baby vampire is. He is going to miss her so very much.

...

There is a period of Klaus's reign that is relatively stable and calm. Hope grows like a weed and Rebekah is as happy as ever. Elijah and Hayley have reached a stalemate in their already tentative relationship but both are content in their respective duties that they manage to maintain a certain civility about them.

Elijah has taken to re-reading Keats of an evening and Klaus knows him well enough to guess that his thoughts are enraptured by a rather different, and ever consistent, dark beauty than the mother of Klaus's child. Almost 600 years old and still a nuisance.

"Kol is in Montana," Elijah tells him one evening, nose still in his book. Like Klaus isn't already aware. He might have let Caroline and Kol have their little affair without repercussion but he isn't stupid enough to lose sight of his scheming brother.

"I know. He has enrolled in school along with Katherine and Stefan." He doesn't mention Caroline out loud; isn't even aware if Elijah was ever privy to just how deep his feeling ran for Elena's young friend.

"You know he and Katerina are becoming increasingly selective in choosing their victims." Elijah says wistfully, somewhat hopefully.

Klaus can't help but sneer at the ridiculousness of it. "Yes, I've heard. Apparently Kol and Katerina are on a quest for redemption or some other queer notion."

A quest for redemption from two of the wickedest people they have ever knew. What a queer notion indeed.

"We should invite them here, for the holidays." Elijah says.

...

That is how Kol and Caroline end up in New Orleans.

When Klaus sees his brother, he is radiant and happy, and if the ever familiar smirk is still present on his face, there is also a calm and peacefulness that Kol has never possessed before. Caroline is as beautiful as ever; still good, still light, still strong.

Klaus spots the matching silver bands set with bright lapis lazuli. Caroline still has her original daylight ring; a gift from Stefan, on her right hand but Kol has discarded the ring his mother made for him.

Klaus swallows bile and bitterness as he hugs his new sister.

He cracks wood and stone beneath his fingers as Kol and Caroline enchant his kingdom and he ignores whispers of soulmates and how so in love the two are.

He finds Caroline on the balcony watching as Hope twirls around in Elijah's arms. She has a smile on her face and all her hurt is gone.

"It could have been us," Klaus says, words thick in his throat.

Caroline turns and looks at him with pity that manages not to stir up his rage and long buried shame. He only ever feels comforted by her sympathy, enveloped in the fact that she feels anything for him at all anymore.

"It was never meant to be us." She looks adoringly as her husband meets her eyes from the dance floor. He raises his drink and Klaus feels like he is intruding on their private moment. "I love him. I think it was always meant to be him." she confides. Content, at peace. The only thing in this world that Kol has ever put before his own selfish needs.

Then she smiles, brighter than the sun and gracious in her triumph over him. A light that he has long adored and once basked in.

Only now it burns him.

-fin