A follow-up that the crossover deserved. Follows TVD 7x14 and TO 3x14.

Caroline is putting Josie and Elizabeth to bed (she's seems to be getting the hang of this better than Alaric now) when she feels it.

A sudden flare of scorching heat in her blood.

She glances down, gazing open-mouthed in pain as an orange glow passes below her skin, her veins appearing as it travels higher and higher.

It's not too unlike her desiccation recently.

Then Caroline feels the tug on her blood.

There is an emptiness spreading in her veins, her blood, like something that she didn't even realize she had is disappearing before her eyes.

It's not painful, though the glow in her veins stings like a bitch. The tug is more lonely, more like separation, as if Caroline is being abandoned.

By what, though?

Within minutes, before she can let out a scream or a whimper or anything to alert Alaric that something's wrong, the glow passes. It's over.

The sensation of emptiness and separation fades, and Caroline blinks slowly, watching the orange glow wane before disappearing completely from her skin.

Caroline stumbles and sits against the couch in the nursery, the only room besides Alaric's that they've managed to furnish, clutching her left shoulder in disorientation.

What was that?

She can't call Bonnie to ask; she and Damon are still finding ways to help Stefan.

Stefan may know. But she cannot endanger her boyfriend.

There's Klaus…

But…

It doesn't even appear that the glow had a lasting effect.

Caroline sits for hours as the sun goes down, fiddling with her purse, unsure whether to stay or drive out to search for one of Bonnie's witch contacts. Surely there's one in Texas?

Her phone rings loudly, and Caroline chastises herself for forgetting to turn the ringer off while the twins were sleeping. She ducks into the other room and answers it, glancing at the screen in confusion as she does. "Stefan?"

"Caroline!" The voice on the other side, miles away, is of relief and of hesitation. "Did you feel something a little earlier ago, a strange burning sensation for a brief moment that disappeared?" her boyfriend asks.

Caroline's eyes widen. "Yes," she hisses into the speaker. "What was that?" If he felt it, then what was that?

Stefan proceeds to tell her.

After a series of events where Klaus and his brother were taken and Stefan and a few more of Klaus' sires, along with Hayley (ugh, Caroline knows that she is the mother of Klaus' kid, but she has never forgiven the werewolf for betraying her and Tyler), a powerful witch, just a few years younger than Caroline herself, had broken the sire line, the bond that linked Stefan, Damon, and her to Klaus.

"This means if Klaus dies, we're safe," he finishes telling her. "This is good." Stefan is definitely pleased but is that pity in his voice, for Klaus?

"I don't know," Caroline admits hurriedly. "I gotta go. Bye."

Stefan responds, "I love you."

"Yeah, I know." The words she wishes to say are staying stuck in her throat. Finally, she chokes out, "Love you. Stay safe."

Caroline had been unnerved by her phone call with Klaus.

The way the hybrid repeated her exact verbatim to her from that day in the woods; Caroline had shivered and, for some strange reason, felt intensely guilty.

This isn't the right time.

She is with Stefan, and he has his daughter and his family.

But how she felt drawn to him; he understood her better than anyone, strangely enough.

She had found herself blurting out the truths about the babies that she had suppressed since the day she had found out she was pregnant.

And, now, she finds herself unexpectedly and inexplicably dialing that old number.

"Klaus?" she inquires hesitantly as the call is connected.

"Caroline." The answering voice is rough and bedraggled, not at all like the playful yet inquisitive tone that had said Hello, love to her yesterday.

"I heard…about what happened," Caroline begins cautiously.

There is a sharp intake of breath of the other side.

Caroline can imagine the hybrid's face at the current moment, closed-off, haunted look in the eyes.

Klaus continues speaking coldly. "I assume Stefan told you, love."

She is not discouraged by his tone. "Yes, he did," she admits.

"Of course, he did," Klaus says spitefully at the confirmation.

Caroline knows this tone. It's not spite towards Stefan but at something else. Klaus had sounded like this after the hybrids betrayed him and forced him to kill them.

"I'm sorry," she tells him bluntly. "I don't know how it must feel, losing thousand of vampire linked to you for almost the entire ten centuries of your lifetime, but I can imagine it comes pretty close to being pregnant with children that are not yours, when some part of you betrays you."

Klaus doesn't respond for a moment.

Caroline finds herself holding her breath, waiting.

Finally…

"Did you feel it, sweetheart?" he asks, defeated.

She frowns despite herself. "I did."

"What did it feel like?"

"There was an awful stinging. It felt like something was tugging on my veins, calling them, but there was an emptiness spreading through my blood, like something was being ripped away." Caroline draws a single finger to her hair, twirling a lock nervously.

"Imagine that, sweetheart, but a thousand times worse: Your blood is on fire, and magic is flooding your body. Bonds are breaking continuously, some ancient and some brand-new. That feeling of something being ripped away, a thousand times repeated." Klaus sounds distressed, melancholic. "I felt them leave. I could feel each link break, Caroline. I saw each face as their bond broke. Lucien, my first sired. Marcel, my almost son. The Salvatore brothers. Your Bonnie's mother. You, sweetheart. I saw you."

"I'm sorry," Caroline repeats sincerely. She hesitates, "There's something else, isn't there? You're not afraid because you are unprotected now, are you? You're afraid because you don't believe that anyone will fight for you now that they will be safe if you are dead."

"Caroline," he sighs. "I once told you that we are the same. Weak and insecure humans, we both were. Paranoia and fear of being left alone, that's what drove me to repeatedly dagger my dear siblings. You have no family now, but you have your friends whom you love. How many times have you feared that they wouldn't aid you, give you strength in times of comfort?"

"That's why I turned my humanity off." Caroline breaths harshly. "Stefan didn't say what I needed to hear, and I turned it off."

"Yes, I heard about your little escapades." Klaus turns serious. "Never turn it off again," he orders. "Pain is what build you up, love. It will give you strength for your vampire years. Turning your humanity off will destroy your light."

She nods silently before realizing that Klaus cannot see her. "Yes," she chokes out.

A wail breaks out in the room next door; one of the twins has woken up.

Caroline curses under her breath as Klaus lets out a low chuckle.

"I remember that with Hope; she always woke up at the worst possible moments."

"Does it get better?" Caroline questions desperately. "I swear I could not have been so cranky as a newborn!"

"It does," Klaus confirms with amusement in his voice.

The crying increases as two voices rise in symphony.

"Ugh, there goes the other one. I gotta go," she groans.

"That's the second time one of them have interrupted us, love," he reminds her.

"Bye,"

"Goodbye, love."

As Caroline sets the phone on the table besides her, she contemplates for a moment.

Everything could have been different, if she hadn't told Klaus that afternoon in the woods that he didn't belong in her future. She had been lying.

She had seen him in her future, not immediately but eventually. She had not been ready three years ago, but if she had taken the leap…

If he hadn't gone to New Orleans.

If they both hadn't had children.

If she hadn't fallen in love with Stefan.

A lot of ifs.

Josie screams in hunger from the nursery, and Caroline startles to her feet.

"Coming," she calls to them, vamp-speeding to the kitchen and back.

There would be time for contemplating later.

But nothing denied the swelling of her heart that was affected by Klaus' voice but not Stefan's.