A/N: I have not seen the leaked script for the KC phone call, I also don't really care if it's already been established Caroline can't lose the babies. This is my story, I am choosing to write what I want.

Klaus never got Hayley pregnant. Stefan and Caroline never got together. Title taken from Dashboard Confessional's song "Belle Of The Boulevard."

This is an angst-heavy piece, so be wary.

Trigger Warning: Miscarriage. Implied Major Character Death.

Summary: 'Magic,' he repeats. Then, 'I always meant to take you with me.'

Dry Your Eyes

Caroline falls. Falls straight to the ground. No, straight into Stefan's arms. He holds her, wrapping his cold arms around her swollen belly to stop her from crashing to the floor. He's speaking to her, whispering something - shouting something - but she can't hear anything above the loud, screeching silence ringing in her delicate ears.

Dead. He's dead. Beyond dedicated, beyond coming back. He's dead. Gone, like her mother, her father. Elena, Vicki.

Why does this happen to them? Why does this happen to the ones they love? They attract danger, they attract death. It shouldn't be that way. They are the undead. They should repel death. It should fear coming anywhere near them.

But perhaps Death is an unhappy man. He nearly got them once before, and now he spends his eternal nights searching for them, waiting for the opportunity to pounce. To steal them into the afterlife.

Stefan takes her to the living room to sit down. Places her on a lumpy sofa and kneels before her, holding her hands in desperation. She is crying now. She can feel the hot tears falling to her clothes, soaking the fabric in her sadness and anger. Stefan is still trying to speak to her. She can see his mouth moving, his eyes wide and pleading.

She remembers the last time they spoke. Suddenly, it's as if she's there. The trees are golden. Sunlight streams trough the balding branches. He looks strong and worn at the same time, the curse of being the oldest man to walk the earth. He's smiling, though. Like he's happy to see her.

She is happy to see him too.

'You've gotten bigger," he comments, referring to her belly.

She nods. 'I know. It feels like I can't walk anymore. My feet are so swollen.'

Klaus takes a step in her direction, then another and another. Leaves crumble beneath his weight, the noise satisfying her immensely.

He reaches her, eyes sunken and grey. Her undead heart stutters to a halt.

'Soon,' he says, the one word swirling into the crisp air.

Again, she nods. 'Soon.'

One week. That was a mere seven days ago. And now he's gone.

Caroline crumbles into herself, unable to fully believe the most powerful monster has been taken from existence. But Stefan is there, explaining it to her. She catches snippets. Single words that she can string together into her own story.

Stefan, she knows, was not expecting this reaction. He simply planned on telling her their ancient tormenter had died, finally. He does not know yet of their affair. He does not know they have been speaking to each other, seeing each other, since Stefan returned from New Orleans one month ago. For the moment, she decides, he is blaming her emotional response on the hormones swimming around inside of her. When she has gathered her strength, she will reveal the truth.

Stefan stays with her for a few more minutes, watching in horror as the lights that usually shine so brightly in her blue eyes slowly diminishes until she is green and ashy all over. He gets off of the floor after far too long, presses his sloppy lips to her tight forehead, and disappears.

Dead, she thinks to herself, heart lurching. Her stomach feels strained. Heavy and cramped.

This is not real, she tells herself.

Klaus is not dead.

Klaus is alive.

When the children are born, she will run away with him and never look back.

They will love until the sun goes out. Until the world burns to cinders and leaves nothing behind.

'Caroline.'

Lurching, Caroline's grip on her cell phone tightens so much she can hear something crack.

'Hellooo?' the smug bastard sings when she doesn't respond straight away.

'Where the hell is Stefan?' she demands, stroking her belly. One of the twins is pressing against her kidney. Not a good feeling. 'You haven't killed him, have you?'

'Yes, Caroline, I've killed our dear friend. There is absolutely no other explanation available. I have his mobile because I killed him,' he says, sarcasm dripping in every word.

Caroline huffs. 'That's not funny. You're not funny,' she tells him.

'Relax, sweetheart,' he says soothingly. She scoffs at his use of the pet name. 'He's alive and well. Off talking with some witch or another.'

'Then why do you have his phone?'

It is a reasonable question. He should have no trouble answering it.

'He left it behind. Witch's orders.'

Great. She was really hoping to talk to him.

'Why are you phoning him? Maybe I can take a message.'

'Ha,' Caroline puffs. 'I'll just talk to him when he gets back.'

'Come on, Caroline,' Klaus dares. 'Don't you trust me to get your note to the Ripper?'

'Believe it or not, but I don't.'

Caroline sucks in a deep breath and rubs her aching temple. She hasn't seen this man in two years. Everything has changed. Life has twisted itself into something unrecognisable. If Klaus came back to Mystic Falls now, it would be even more of a shock than when he came back the last time.

She wonders how he's doing. How he's liking life out in Louisiana. She wonders if it's better than life here.

It must be, she decides, considering he's only returned once, and that was to laugh in the face of a dying Katherine. And to sleep with her, but she won't think about that.

Nor will she think about how inexplicably happy she is to hear his voice. How her heart thrummed when she realised it wasn't Stefan speaking to her, but Klaus.

Those thoughts only ever lead to bad things.

'Stefan told me,' he says startlingly, voice sounding nearly tense. Uneasy. 'He told . . . me.'

Caroline, sitting by herself in her home, adjusts again, groaning when the weight pressing into her kidney worsens. 'Told you what?'

There is a pause. Lengthy, worn. 'About your condition.'

'My "condition,"' she parrots, moving again. Then it dawns on her. She widens her eyes and breathes out slowly. 'He told you about the twins.'

'Yes,' Klaus grits. 'How is it possible?'

She wishes she had an answer for him. She wishes, actually, that there was no need for an answer. She wishes this had ever happened, that she was still small and under the impression vampires could not get pregnant. That she could be herself again, not Alaric's unwilling surrogate.

'Magic,' she says instead.

'Magic.'

She can see him shaking his head. See it clear as if he were in the room with her.

'Magic,' he repeats. Then, 'I always meant to take you with me.'

Caroline sits up, sweat pricking her skin. He sounds so solemn. So serious and sad. Is this not Klaus "Love Makes You Weak" Mikaelson?

'What do you mean?'

'To New Orleans. I always intended to take you here. To snatch you from Mystic Falls. I wish now more than ever I had been able to convince you to join me.'

'Klaus,' she says, laughing breathlessly. This is a joke. It must be. 'You're not serious.'

'Oh, but I am. Two years is far too long, love. Too much can happen.'

Caroline stares at her belly. She understands what he is saying.

'It's too late now,' she says, not sure why she is humouring him. He deserves nothing from her. She wants nothing from him.

'Dear Caroline,' he sighs, and she can hear that smile of his. 'It's never too late.'

Blood. She smells blood. She feels blood soaking through her clothes. Its sickly warmth sticks to her skin.

She opens her eyes and immediately realises what has happened. She is empty.

'They've just disappeared,' Stefan explains to Alaric, his hand resting on their former teacher's shoulder.

'How?' Alaric asks, winded. He's crying. She can't stand that. 'How the fuck did it happen?'

Stefan looks over at her, his eyes full of too much sadness. He gets it now, she thinks. It wasn't the hormones.

Caroline has her own tears falling from her eyes. She had lived with those babies in her stomach for months. They had managed to leave an imprint. But she isn't crying for them. They aren't hers to mourn. Klaus is hers. Was. He was hers.

'I don't know,' Stefan is saying as a fresh wave of sobs clutches Caroline. 'I have no idea.'

She is packing a suitcase two weeks later when Stefan wanders through the front door. She doesn't look up from folding her trousers, but knows well enough to open her ears.

'How long were you seeing him?'

Dropping the pair of jeans in her hands, Caroline stares blankly at her bedroom wall. It's lilac in colour. The gentle purple once soothed her. Nothing is able to soothe her now.

'Only a month,' she responds distantly. 'We were going to run away together. After the twins were born, he was going to take me away.'

She almost smiles then, but, of course, she remembers before her lips can stretch. They quiver instead.

She looks at Stefan, whose eyes are garnished with their own tears, and runs her hands over her face.

'It's all so bad,' she says.

Stefan steps through the doorway and takes her in his arms, smoothing her knotted hair. 'Where are you going?' he asks softly.

'I can't tell you.'

'Can't?'

'I won't.'

'I'll miss you,' Stefan says, hugging her tight.

Caroline swallows the cotton ball sitting in her throat and says, 'No. I promise you, you won't.'

The ruins of Castle Acre Castle are nearly empty of tourists. Two other families roam the grounds, Caroline spots, with little children running about and chasing butterflies through the tall grass. Her heart aches the longer she looks at them. To distract herself, she opens the pamphlet she printed off of the Internet earlier about the ancient castle.

1066.

She reads the date of construction a few times, vision blurring the longer she thinks about what Klaus would have been doing around this time. During one of his visits to Mystic Falls after the phone call, he had informed her of his time in England in the early 10th Century, when this castle was more than random stones thrown about on the grass. When it was a beautiful structure with high walls and towers. He loved it here.

She can see why.

England in her mind had always been a dreary place. Cloudy, perpetually grey skies. Torrential rainfall that tumbled from the heavens in an endless flowing of cold, bitter droplets. She only ever saw rain and despair until Klaus. Now, standing here in Norfolk, surrounded by a millennium-old, fallen castle, she understands. Understands that her own warped images of places and things and people are so very different from their actual appearance. These grounds have a soul. She can feel it breathing every time the wind passes through the field.

Shielding her eyes from the thick sunlight, Caroline watches the children run around, fleeing from their parents. The families are leaving, grabbing the younger ones and dragging them away. She is alone, able to lay on the grass and not worry about being trodden on by children's small feet. And she does this, she picks a spot within the stony circle and places her head upon her seldom-used cardigan, closing her eyes and trying her best to block out the itching feeling that something is missing.

She awakens some time later. The sun is still shining. It will not set for another long while, something else she enjoys immensely about this place. Sitting up, Caroline takes her blue cardigan and pulls her arms through the long sleeves to combat the slight wind that rings through the distant trees. She rests her head upon her gathered knees, wrapping her arms around the shins, and listens to the noises of the wild. Birds sing the most haunting songs while bees tremble past her in search of sweet flowers.

She is not happy, she will never be happy again, but she is, she can decide, content.

Footfalls behind her, quiet and cautious, catch her attention. Though she left danger behind in Mystic Falls months ago, she is a vampire. Fear is her life. Her ears perk up, body goes rigid. She does not move.

When the person reaches her, she rushes to her feet, ready to fight. Her arms are up, fists clenched tight.

'Caroline.'

White, burning lights flash before her. Her heart thrums faster than a hummingbird's.

She is dreaming. She must be.

'You're dead,' she tries to say, but it leaves her lips like a whimper. 'Dead.'

Klaus catches her before she can fall to the ground, holds her. He smells so real, so alive. Alive, she reasons in her racing mind, as a dead man can be.

He kisses her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth, all while salt ridden water flows from her eyes.

'You had to believe it,' he says. 'You had to believe I was gone. But I'm here now,' he insists, kissing her mouth again, harshly. 'I'm here.'