I've had this idea skittering about in my head for a while but I needed the song to cement it in for me. It's got a bit of Outlander about it but begins before the Salvatore brothers stepped foot in Mystic Falls of the new millennia. Enjoy.

ONE.

I stay alone, skipped a stone, from the known to the unknown
Feeding fires, spinning tyres, getting even
And for a while, I made you smile, saw the voodoo in you child
Girl, you know you are the reason
It's been a wild season
And the hunting never stops
'Till everybody drops

(Wild Season by Banks & Steelz Feat. Florence Welch)

Standing twenty feet away hadn't been the same. Hell, standing five feet away had been different. Standing on the edge of the cliff, the incessant crashing of water hitting water at a force she can't even fathom, it's entirely different. Fear's grip was cold around her heart.

She hadn't jumped.

"It's alright, Care," Matt laughs, throwing an arm around her, "it's a pretty big jump." His tone is easy, casually teasing, but she still bristles. Caroline Forbes didn't back down from a challenge. Well, ok, so she did earlier in the afternoon, but she had cheap beer running through her veins now and if Tyler made one more comment she'd jump right into the pitch water, fear be damned.

Bonnie gives her a sympathetic look, she hadn't jumped either, preferring to lay out on a warm rock but no one was bothering her about it. It was almost a rite of passage, the big plunge before junior year when their high school careers were half over, and Caroline had even bought a bathing suit for it. One that wouldn't snap with the force of her body hitting the frigid water.

But she hadn't jumped.

There's some boy talking to Elena while her friend wrings out her wet hair, a senior she thinks. She only notices the two standing so close when she sees the faraway look in Matt's eyes. Caroline huffs loudly, rolling her eyes toward Bonnie. Tonight was turning out to be a huge bust. Bonnie smiles when Caroline tells her as much.

"I'm going to get another beer, you coming Bonnie?" Caroline stands quickly, only hesitating to hear if Matt says anything. But he's still staring at Elena. She's quick to ignore the sharp stab of pain somewhere near her heart and links arms with Bonnie, heading over to where Tyler is passing out the plastic cups.

"You can't like him like that, Care," Bonnie's tongue is loose too, but still kind enough for comfort. Caroline doesn't want comfort though, she wants a freaking boyfriend. "You know he and Elena are still sort of a thing." She can appreciate her friend's concern and loyalty, but Caroline has had enough challenges thrown at her for the day and she's feeling a bit reckless.

"I'm just...appreciating," she grins at Bonnie, whispering playfully in her ear. Bonnie only raises her eyebrows but continues to follow Caroline. Tyler and some of the boys from their class are passing around beer with a side of not so subtle bragging.

"Hey Sean, can I get another beer," Caroline smiles prettily, adding a short please on the end of her request after a beat. She's silently begging Tyler not to say anything because once the gauntlet is thrown...

"It's alright Forbes," Tyler wraps his arms around her from behind, she struggles lightly but not enough to shake him off, "you can be a pussy when you have one I guess." She pauses in her struggles only long enough for the fury to build up within her, but a well-placed elbow eases his grip enough for her to escape. Gauntlet fucking accepted.

"What the fuck, Tyler?" Bonnie curls her lip in disgust and puts her hands on her hips, "did you skip Sex Ed or something? Because I'm pretty sure my knee could destroy your dick." He holds his hands up in mock defense, lip curling up enough to betray his amusement.

"Seriously," Caroline mutters in agreement, brushing herself off. "You know what? I'm done," she throws her beer on the ground and stalks off. Tyler Lockwood, of all people, did not get to make fun of her for not jumping. Bonnie calls after her almost half-heartedly but doesn't follow when Caroline continues her march away from the party.

She was going to jump.

The woods are a little harder to navigate at night, she had marched off in the wrong direction to start with and it takes her longer than it should to find the jumping spot. Standing in front of the jump spot though, her liquid courage suddenly flees. The night is dark with the lack of light pollution and the water is ever darker, an inky black that threatens to suspend her somewhere between time and space. The crash of the falls seems impossibly loud, louder than they were before when the sun shone through the water. But Caroline Forbes does not back down from a challenge. Or so she repeats in her mind.

Logically she should strip down to at least her underwear, but somehow standing naked in the woods and diving into the wide body of water without a stitch of clothing seems worse than the uncomfortable shifting she would endure in her underwear on the way home. Deciding against shedding some sort of clothing, she resists standing at the very edge. The roaring of the falls has sobered her up enough to realize her fears.

And so she runs, she runs right off the edge and lets her last step give her the push she needs to avoid the rock below. And she's falling.

It seems infinitely longer than it looked when her friend's had jumped and she thinks it might take forever to hit the water. Oh shit, Caroline realizes with a cold shiver, her phone was still in her pocket.

There's no time to worry though, because at that second, she hits the water.

Her fears had been real, the water is blacker than she would have ever imagined and she can barely see her limbs swirling about her in the water. It's colder too than it must have been earlier, her friends had shaken off the water and sprawled on rocks at the bottom of the falls, but this chill reaches her bones. Using every bit of strength she has, Caroline pushes off in the water, propelling herself upward to break the surface.

Tyler Lockwood could eat shit, she thinks to herself grinning. She starts to swim toward the edge of the water, ready to warm herself by the fire and brag to her classmates, but movement startles her. Stopping, she sinks until the water is just below her eyes, bobbing only to take a breath.

There are two men, she can tell by the timbre of their voices, but she doesn't recognize the language. Caroline Forbes knew everyone in Mystic Falls and even a majority of people in the next two over, but other than a few native Spanish speakers and a couple kids that went to the Chinese language school on Saturday mornings, but no one spoke whatever the hell she was hearing.

Seriously though, what the hell were they speaking?

Her legs are getting tired, so when she decides that the voices aren't coming any closer, she swims closer to the edge and tries to quietly haul herself out of the water. Her mind had sobered before her body though, and so with a loud splash, Caroline finds herself back submerged in the water.

"This could not be going any worse," she mutters, pulling herself out again. Of course, she must have done something awful in a past life, because then two men come crashing through the undergrowth and stare at her with wide eyes. "I lied, it's totally worse and...what the hell are you wearing?"

The men stare at her blankly, quickly eyeing her bare arms and legs, flashing to her wet tank top clinging to her chest, and then back over her shoulder. She'd smirk at them, pleased by how they couldn't help but give her once over, but somehow she doesn't think they're doing it because they're attracted to her. There's too much alarm in their eyes, despite a glimmer of attraction.

And they're also old. Like, not old old, she amends in her head, but old school old. And that hair, she could totally do without the hair. One of the men, he looks older than the other, steps forward and gives her a sharp command.

"What? I can't understand you. Do you speak English?" She asks, now thoroughly confused. The man seems to recognize her attempts at communication, gesturing toward her and indicating she should follow. "No, it's fine, I'm just going to find my friends," she jerks a thumb over her shoulder but her teeth are chattering loudly. It does not escape their notice.

The other man moves toward her slowly despite her protests staring at her like she was an animal about to bolt. He's rubbing his arms, a sad attempt at sign language, indicating that he's going to help warm her up. Normally she'd protest being hugged by strange looking cavemen while wearing practically nothing, but she was so damn cold. The first man says something to the one that's now wrapped around her, she's really trying not to be weirded out by it and just accept the warmth, and disappears back into the woods.

"I need to go find my friends now," she eyes the area over his shoulder, his hand still rubbing a sanding pace on her back. There're more trees here now than there were this afternoon she notices, but that's not possible, right? She looks for the old wood railing that ended the hiking trail but that wasn't there either, and she's pretty sure she hung her shirt over it to dry in the afternoon sun not a few hours earlier.

The man only hushes her, slowing his hands to a comforting tempo when he realizes that her heart rate is accelerating rapidly. There's not time for that now, she pushes off of his quickly already in panic mode. But, because it apparently can get worse, she'd forgotten how close she was to the edge of the water and stumbles backward into the deep pool.

This time, when the black water fills her vision, she does nothing to push her head back over the water. Caroline realizes, with a sudden acceptance that chills her even more, that she has somehow jumped into something that she doesn't exactly understand. This isn't stepping off the bus on the first day of freshman year, this is all encompassing realization that she is somewhere entirely foreign. But the water, the water had to be the key right?

She was a smart girl, able to think on her feet, so she lets the current from the falls pull her back under and hopefully back home. If they said chivalry was dead at home though, it must have just been beginning here.

There's a splash, the displacement of water clouds her eyes momentarily, and the man is pulling her back toward the surface, and back to his foreign land. Caroline finds herself unable to resist his pull and does not struggle when he hauls her back up to the grassy embankment. She coughs up a little of the water she'd swallowed in her surprise and he rolls her onto her back, eyeing her for any possible injuries.

"Hey buddy, eyes up here." She may have been in crisis mode, but she was nothing if not good in a dire situation. Granted her dire situations had generally involved crappy caterers and poor party decoration, but still. High stress was high stress, no matter the situation. He stares at her suddenly, an unexpected intensity, when the first man comes crashing back through the woods, with several others in tow.

Super.

"Caroline?" She looks up from the fire, smiling at Rebekah. Rebekah's smile looks more tentative than Caroline would like to see and reminiscent of the one she'd given her two months ago when Caroline had turned up on their doorstep. Or dirt path, whatever. Rebekah had been tasked with teaching Caroline their language while Caroline took on a share of Rebekah's chores in exchange for room and board.

It wasn't until very recently that she'd began to grasp where she was. Mystic Falls, she'd realized very early on, but when exactly was she? They hadn't gotten to world history yet and so Caroline was left in the dark. Seriously, they'd been over the industrial revolution more times than she could count, but a full history of North America was apparently too much for the curriculum.

The Mikaelsons had been kind enough to take her in, but she had her suspicions that it was really more of a finders keepers type deal. It had been Elijah and Klaus that had stumbled upon her in the woods that night and in true caveman form, a group of men decided she would stay with the family. Esther and Rebekah had been sweet, and she found herself enjoying Henrik and the banter that Kol provided. Elijah and Klaus were polite, if somewhat distant but she'd rather that than the cool disdain of Finn and Mikael.

She could almost communicate effectively now, although there were still numerous slip ups and she'd accidentally said more embarrassing things than she could count on her fingers and toes, but it was progress. And Caroline was nothing if not a quick study. Rebekah was a good teacher as well, once they'd gotten a basis of how to teach the alphabet. She suspected the full immersion learning method also played a significant hand.

Not only had Rebekah taught her the language, or at least most of what she needed to get through the day, but she had become a good friend as well. They clashed a bit, Caroline had laughed about strong personalities while Rebekah stared on blankly.

"Yes?" Caroline asks.

"The men have come to a decision," ok, so she has no idea what Rebekah means at this point, but she nods anyway, "you have been with my family for almost a season now but you are still without a place." That had taken some getting used to, Caroline had quickly realized that the people here had no concept of time and measured their days by the rising and setting of the sun. Their years were cut into changing seasons, measured by Summer and Autumn instead of numbered days and months.

"I have a place, it's here," she indicates.

Rebekah shakes her head, "you have no family here, no name. Someone must be given care of you. The men have decided that you will be given a husband."

"No," she can feel the blood drain from her face, "no, no, no, that is not a fucking option!" Rebekah can read the clear distress on her face and holds her hands up, as if to indicate to a wounded animal that she means no harm.

"Fuh-cking op-shion, what does this mean?" It would be funny if she hadn't just said that they were about to marry her off.

"I can't get married, Rebekah, I need to go home."

"If you wish to stay in the village, you must. It is a good thing, Caroline, you are of age and you will marry into my family," Rebekah nods, looking pleased with herself.

"Marry into...who? Who am I supposed to marry?" Caroline smooths her apron, coming to the realization that there won't be any getting out of this. At least pretending to accept her fate. She'd not been allowed back to the falls during her time there, women weren't allowed to travel alone, and sleeping in a room with 8 other people had made it near impossible to sneak out at night. Caroline was realizing that she would have to sneak out at this point though and make the trip to the falls.

She would have to jump.

"Mikael has decided that Nik would be a decent option for you," Rebekah smiles. She and Caroline had known about Klaus' secret girlfriend and the competition he felt with Elijah over her. There weren't a lot of eligible women around that were actually pretty apparently, so when one appeared, the men all began courting her. Caroline, without a name, family, or anything to her own name, had been thankfully left alone.

"Rebekah, he doesn't even like me."

"He is polite out of respect, you will make a good match," Rebekah assures her. "Come now, we need to finish dinner. I'll explain everything to you." Caroline wasn't exactly sure how to tell Rebekah that she already knew about sex.

It wasn't stepping over the sleeping family that had put her on edge, nor the trek through the woods. She'd managed easily enough, slipping out of the back door with her hosts none the wiser. Making it through the woods had gone decently as well, it was darker than she would have liked, but she'd been through the woods enough growing up that she almost thought she was home. Almost.

It's the falls that terrify her. They hadn't ween she was a child, not even when she was a teenager. She, Bonnie, and Elena had peered over the jump spot at the beginning of the Summer, tittering about what it would have been like to jump. She hadn't felt fear then, but she surely cannot stand in front of the falls without it lingering in her bones now.

"Would I make that bad of a husband?" Caroline jumps, nearly falling head first over the falls, but manages to keep her footing. Her hand catches rocks in the black of night, only the moon reflecting enough light for her to see her fiancé. "I apologize, I did not mean to startle you so. I saw you leave…" Klaus trails off.

"No, no, it's not you," Caroline sighs, shaking her head and moving away from the edge, "it's just that…" she pauses looking for the right words. "I'm not from here, Klaus. I miss my own people, but I don't know how to get back to them." It's a political answer, she'd good at that. Revealing what she needs to without the necessary information, but Klaus seems to have clued into the magic that carried her here.

"This is how you got here?" He approaches and peers down the edge of the cliff over her shoulder. She nods hesitantly. He looks back at her, much closer than he had been ever since their first encounter at the bottom of the falls. "Would you like to go back?"

Caroline finds herself shaking her head no. The idea of leaping over the falls again creates a pit in her stomach that she isn't quite ready to confront. "It's not right, not right now," she admits, gesturing with her head toward the falls, "the night I came here, the water was all I could hear."

"You can't go back," he murmurs to himself continuing to look out into the crashing water. He shakes himself from his stupor and turns his head so he's looking right at her, taking her hands in his, "there may not be love between us, Caroline, but I will make you a good husband. You will not want for anything and I will protect you from all things."

"Klaus, I…" she looks at his earnest face, his sincere words, seeing that he's decided to put forth an effort to make things between the two of them work. Right then, Caroline decides, survival of the fittest and whatever, at least Klaus seemed like a decent human being. "I'm not going to be the best wife, I have no idea what I'm doing and I've already screwed up more times than I can count. Although, if you want the truth, a couple of those times I was covering for Kol and, oh shit, I'm babbling, aren't I?"

The corners of his mouth are turning up, so she assumes she can't have messed up that badly, "right, what I mean to say is that I will do my best to make this work."

"What a strange creature I find myself marrying," Klaus hums, looking pleased. Her cheeks color, it had not been so long ago she'd stumbled across him and Tatia in the woods. His taking their forced coupling so well though, Caroline will count that as a stroke of luck.

"When are we getting married?" She questions. Rebekah had not had a date, indicating that it wouldn't necessarily be up to them.

"Likely just after the planting season," Klaus frowns and drops her hands, "I'll need to build a house for us before we can marry which will be difficult come the cold season." She nods and he moves away, gesturing for her to follow, "come, we have much work for tomorrow and you must rest."

Linking her own arm with his, Caroline allows herself to be led away from the falls, pleased to return to the warm room. She doesn't sleep much that night though, sandwiched between Rebekah and Klaus, but she is glad for the warmth, both physical and emotional, that they provide.