"People are responsible for what they do unless they are insane."

Jenny Holzer

Sinking on the bed, Caroline watches the last of the day fade across the wall. She wasn't good at people being mad at her, for some reason it bothered her on a deeper level no matter how much she liked whoever it was. Sure, she and Klaus got on great sometimes, fighting like cats and dogs at others, but he was so rarely actually mad at her.

Honestly, if the pit in her stomach didn't ease soon she was going to flip out.

He'd waved her off the afternoon before, claiming that he needed to make some calls and she should pick a bedroom. She'd huffed, tempted to pitch a fit at that because, hello, he didn't get to waltz in here and uproot her tenuous living situation. But then he'd had to go and drawl out a play by play of her explaining the whole situation to Stefan, an accurate enough prediction that she'd just decided that the second room on the left was perfect.

Bonnie had dropped her stuff off later that evening, frowning at Caroline's explanation. Things at the boarding house, Bonnie had told her, were dangling by a thread. She was almost sure that her friend had thrown a wistful look at the house behind her, jealous that Caroline was able to escape Alaric and the Salvatores. She didn't bother offering a room to Bonnie at this point. They needed a sane connection and between Klaus' skulking and the Salvatore's incessant need to be right, both women knew that it wasn't worth it.

And that was it. Klaus had been radio silent, holed up somewhere in the house, while Bonnie settled things on the other side of town. Leaving Caroline with no one to talk to and the dreadful feeling that she was just another unimportant player in a new game on the same playing field.

"Caroline," she hears Klaus from some other part of the house, "if you sigh one more time I'm going to lose my already weak grasp on sanity."

"Well it's not like I have anything else to do," she mutters. Klaus heaves a long suffering sigh of his own, the drama queen, and she hears a quiet knock on the door.

"You can come in," she props herself up on the bed to watch as he leans against the door frame. It was dark out by now, he hadn't bothered to turn on the hall light and she had yet to turn on a lamp in the bedroom she was staying in, but he watches her in the dark for a moment.

"You look tired," it quietly rolls out, she hadn't meant to say it exactly. He closes his eyes for a minute before approaching so he can perch on the edge of the bed. "Klaus," she hesitates, shifting so he can sit, "what happened when you left? What…" she stops herself. What broke you?

Even Stefan hadn't looked so weary when they'd finally pried him from the safe, even Damon hadn't looked so drained when Elena had been placed in the family grave. Klaus, for all of his bravado and all of his spirit, even after a millennia of running...he'd never looked so lifeless.

"My redemption," he snorts half-heartedly, guessing her second unsaid question, "lies of course, but not without consequences." He doesn't look at her in the dark, doesn't turn from where he's hunched at her side.

"That's right, I'd heard about…" she can't bring herself to say Haley's name, not with how much bitterness colors his words.

"Just a tangle of magic and deceit."

"You wanted it to be true?" She finds herself asking. She couldn't imagine him with a child, not without blood dripping from his fingertips. But with the moments of gentleness he spared for her, Caroline could see where it might affect him more than he left on.

"Of course not, I'm...well," he doesn't bother going any further down that line of conversation, she knew what he was. "It was everyone else, the constant smothering need they all had that after a thousand years I was someone else underneath it all. That this facade," he spits, "was hiding a gentle man and the monster I'd become was just an ancient nightmare. That news of a child, of my own child, would break the curse of the man locked in the beast's body."

She isn't sure what to say to that, doesn't think she could have an answer for his problems after a hundred years. She settles instead for a hand on his shoulder, her thumb moving gently over his shoulder. She doesn't flinch when he presses his face to her hand, his lips brushing the backs of her fingers, doesn't move it when he blinks for long moments in the dark.

"Death has arrived," he mutters quietly. His comment startles her before she realizes what he means. He stands, moving back to the door, but waits for her to join him.

"Klaus," he turns back toward her, eyes lingering on her face, while she pushes herself off the bed. Coming to stand in front of him, she ducks her head, trying to untangle her thoughts, "I'd like...it'd be nice if you didn't kill so many people, but I don't think I'd know what to do if you weren't you." God, she sounds really stupid, but he presses a momentary kiss to her cheek and links their arms together, leading them out of the darkened room.

There's a light on in the sitting room, a dark head tucked away in the chair in the corner. When Klaus steps into the room, he drops Caroline's arm in the doorway, moving instead to pour himself a drink. She pauses there and the head makes no inclination that they had even heard Klaus and Caroline come into the room.

"It's just you then?" Klaus asks from the other side of the room.

"For now. You know how Lorin is, perpetually late. Lilith is dealing with a few loose ends but should be here by morning," whoever Death is, it's a woman. Caroline hadn't expected that or the accent. It was some dialect of British, a little more coarse and lilting than Klaus or Enzo's. Maybe Irish?

"And Miguel?"

"Still running whatever errand you sent him on last month I suppose," Death turns her head toward Klaus, giving Caroline a view of her profile, "I really wouldn't know." Klaus watches the woman for a moment, apparently assessing her words.

"Carolina, this is Moira," at Klaus' introduction, Moira turns to fully face Caroline. Given Klaus' general crew of pretty people, Moira was nondescript in almost every way. Nothing really stood out about her, from the singular tone of her brown hair to her plain black boots. She wasn't even wearing makeup. Average, Caroline realized, was the point. Pretty enough to be a pleasant face to look at, but also forgettable. The perfect sort of person to blend into a crowd.

"Pleasure," Moira nods before redirecting her attention back to Klaus. "You will need to call your family and Miguel needs to come out of the shadows if we're to collect the objects." Klaus grumbles at that but excuses himself to make sure the deeds are done.

"So," Caroline starts, moving to sit on the couch, "you two work together often?" It's an awkward question and her tone is a little stilted, but for the love of god, this woman has known Klaus for over 500 years.

"You could say that," Moira hums. "Given your relationship I doubt I'd be well out of my position to tell you that I am, for all intents and purposes, Klaus' spymaster."

"When you say spymaster," Caroline leads. She can't quite get a read on Moira, but she suspects it's more because the woman doesn't want to give anything away.

"I was the confirmation of the Petrova doppelgänger. Both actually," Moira frowns, considering the thought. "You don't remember me though, do you? I was on the JV cheer squad when you were a junior."

"Wait, really? I would have…" Caroline blanches, realizing that she hadn't actually remembered and her Southern manners rankle at the thought. "That's how Klaus knew?"

"The fact that you don't remember means I was doing my job," Moira's upper lip curls back into what could be considered a smile, "I like to think I'm part of the reason he has the reputation he does, being his eyes and ears and all."

"You're basically the head henchwoman of the world's most prolific psycho killer and you wear that badge with pride?" Moira's lips curl back down into a neutral position, she was insulted by the insinuation.

"Actually, the title of world's most prolific psycho killer belongs to the thing your friends raised," her words have a bite to them but before Caroline can even fathom a thought to defend herself with, Moira stands to greet Klaus.

"That bad then?" He questions.

"There's been a surge in Expression all over the world, I'm told it comes more easily now," Moira pauses to examine her fingers carefully. "We've been putting it down as fast as we can, but there are too many of them and too few of us."

Klaus turns toward Caroline, a heavy look in his eye, "do you understand now? The choices made by two men that should have been dealt with long ago have led to consequences for everyone. For witches, werewolves, and vampires, but also for the humans that have died in the crossfire. This is what their actions and your lack of action have resulted in."

Caroline is rarely stunned speechless, though Klaus had pushed her there a few times, but this is too much. He was right, she knew. Their lack of control even within their own group had led to more problems than solutions, but when other people died because two idiots decided that the lives of their lovers were worth more.

"We couldn't have known this would happen," Moira argues quietly, surprising Caroline. She hadn't expected the woman to come to her defense, especially given the venom in her previous words. "We couldn't have known that the spell had survived."

"Then that is your mistake," he whirls on Moira, "you were sent to eradicate this and yet it still lingers. And it's my mistake for not ripping out Damon's heart years ago."

"And Alaric's," Caroline whispers from her spot near the door.

"How many times does that man have to die before it sticks?"

"He's the…" she has more to say, but her phone buzzes, Bonnie's name popping up on the screen. "Hello? Bonnie?" Klaus doesn't bother to listen, brushing past her on his way out, and motioning for the two women to follow, "slow down, I... we'll be right there." Sliding into the passenger seat of the car he'd pulled around front, Caroline only tells him what he already knows before they're speeding off into the night.

They're too late by the time they arrive, the front door hangs off its hinges, but she can already feel the lingering static electricity of magic. It isn't the overwhelming sense that every hair is standing on end, not like the first time Silas had appeared. But there is no sound in the boarding house.

Approaching slowly, she lets Klaus take the lead while Moira eyes the street behind her. Even going in with two powerful creatures, there's still an overwhelming sense of dread, a voice in her head that shouts, that screams for her to turn around. It takes everything she has to ignore that voice when she notices Bonnie crumpled on the ground.

"This one's dead," Moira kicks the body lightly with her foot, staring at the head that had rolled a foot away. "The head was torn off, it looks as if much of his throat was eaten," she's standing in a pool of blood, cooling rapidly by now, but it puddles around her boots. There's no point in trying to keep clean, not with the blood sprayed on the wall, the ceiling.

"Alaric," Caroline tells her from across the room. She's trying to keep her own head, trying not to vomit at Alaric's decapitated one while she clutches Bonnie tightly to her chest. Somewhere in her head, it occurs to her that Moira already knows who Alaric is, or rather was. Once again though, he's just another body in a pile of rubble. Moira frowns at the body but moves on.

"Stefan is alive," Klaus confirms, "broken neck." There's no concern in his voice, none of the thoughtfulness that once colored his tone for Stefan. He looks to her now, eyes turned down to study the body in her arms. His eyes are still cold, still assessing the situation. He prowls toward her, edgy and anxious, as though Silas is waiting just past one of the ripped curtains.

"Her heart is still beating," she tells him, looking up at him with wide eyes. He nods decisively and she wads her sweater up to prop under Bonnie's head. Caroline hesitates, wondering if Bonnie needs blood to heal, but Klaus pulls her arm away, shaking his head.

Instead she stands to survey the damage. Chairs are ripped open, a fire poker stands twisted and bent in the wall, and wood splinters litter the floor. It's not the worst mess they've cleaned up, in regards to property destruction, but she's hoping to not be the one to mop up Alaric's brain from underneath the dining room table. The smell though, that is inescapable and it's all she can do not to gag.

Her head snaps up when she hears shifting feet and a low chuckle. She turns her eyes to Bonnie one more time, making sure her friend is still breathing before she flashes up behind Klaus.

"Damon," Caroline whispers, stepping up to where Klaus has his hand blocking her from stepping any closer. Moira stands on his other side, watching the scene unfold with bated breath. Damon laughs again, at least she thinks so. It's more of a high pitched wheezing sound and he turns his wild eyes toward her. Cocking his head, his lips curl back unnaturally over his teeth, as though his mouth is suddenly too large for his face.

He opens his mouth wider, as if to say something, but it's a high pitched barking laugh. His eyes are no longer their normal shade, but a pallid blue grey. His limbs all dangle awkwardly, twitching like a body near death after an adrenaline surge. She doesn't want to think about why that analogy flashes through her mind, too horrified by what once was a man standing in front of her.

He moves, almost as if to take a step forward, but Klaus is faster and soon Damon is in a heap on the floor with a broken neck. She doesn't want to know if he'll wake up. Pushing his upper body flat on the ground, Klaus is quick to reach a hand into Damon's chest cavity, a small mercy to pull his life from him in a short snap.

"No!" Caroline barely has time to turn before Stefan is hurling himself toward Klaus and Damon, only Moira's quick reflexes stop him from hurtling over the two. "No, Klaus, you can't...you, Caroline," his desperate gaze turns toward her, "please, just. Please. I need time, we need time, I can fix this, just, please."

"Stefan," she tries to put her hands on his shoulders but he shrugs them off as best he can from Moira's bear grip. "Stef, he's not right, we need," she doesn't bother saying anything more over his pleas, only turns toward Klaus.

"Klaus," she whispers. His jaw sets before he turns toward her, not bothering to hide the disgust contorting his face.

"How many more, sweetheart? How many more do you plan to send to their graves for them?" He removes his hand from Damon's chest cavity, shoving the body toward Stefan. There is nothing warm, nothing comforting in his gaze. Stefan scrambles toward the body of what was once his brother, Caroline doubts there's any coming back from what Damon had become though.

"Lock him up. Now," Moira commands Stefan, snarling at him when he hesitates. "Silas is probably still in his head, he'll know we've been called." Stefan gives Caroline another long look, a silent thanks before fleeing with his brother to the basement. She can't help but feel as though she's made a very grave mistake.

"How many people have died so far, Moira?" Klaus asks, not taking those cold eyes off Caroline. He stands, not moving from where he'd been crouched.

"Excuse me?" His spymaster doesn't look as she approaches, keeping her own eyes on the floor.

"How many have fallen from Expression in the past week?"

"They leveled a city," she tells him quietly. He repeats his question again, still not satisfied with her answer. "Tens of thousands, at least," Moira admits, "if not hundreds." Klaus doesn't move when Caroline's face crumples, doesn't flinch when her stomach heaves.

"Are all of those people worth Damon Salvatore and Elena Gilbert?" No, she knows. No, they aren't. He can already read her response though, clear as day on her face. He says nothing to either of them and is out of the house with a growl.

Klaus doesn't return that night.