Chapter 1

Caroline Forbes rolled over to face her alarm clock, waiting for it to hit 6:25 and go off. Kol Mikaelson was dead and up until now the Original Family had been taking it easy on the Mystic Falls vampires, but that was definitely not going to happen now that they had killed their baby brother. She knew why Elena had wanted to kill Kol – to protect Jeremy – but a big part of her was angry at her best friend. They had killed an Original. Not only did Kol Mikaelson die – and honestly, good riddance – but every single vampire that was ever sired from his bloodline had died as well. The longer she thought about it, the more exhausted she felt. Elena had been her best friend since they were toddlers, but this was a new level of selfishness even for her. They might have told Klaus that they had to kill Kol to keep Jeremy safe, but everyone knew it was also so Elena could take the cure.

Her alarm finally kicked on, loudly playing the latest Taylor Swift song, and she reached over to turn it off. After ten minutes of staring at the ceiling, Caroline rolled out of bed and shuffled her way down the hall to shower. She stood under the spray for a for half a second before she realized it was more than hot – it was literally melting her skin with vervain – and fell over the edge of the tub in her rush to exit. What the hell? she thought to herself as she hurried to pat her skin dry with the nearest hand towel. Foregoing the shower in favor of some vervain-free dry shampoo and a quick swish of mouthwash, Caroline pulled on her cardigan just as Tyler's ringtone popped up on her phone.

"Tyler, thank God you're ok! Where are you right now? Have you tried to shower? Why the hell is there vervain in my house's water?"

"Care, I'm fine, the water situation is the same at my place – Jeremy told me that Mayor Hopkins put vervain in the town water supply – but that's not why I'm calling. I'm heading over to the Gilbert house right now. Klaus is trapped inside the living room and someone needs to watch him to make sure he doesn't get out," Caroline could almost hear the excitement in his voice at the chance to gloat over Klaus while he was trapped and couldn't fight back. This was not going to go well.

"I'll leave my place now and meet you over there; Tyler, don't do anything crazy, ok?" her voice softened at the end, hopefully Tyler would listen to her without making a big deal about her and Klaus again.

She heard a snort over the phone, "See you soon, Care." And the line went dead.

Caroline flashed downstairs to her kitchen and grabbed a blood bag to finish healing and headed to her car as soon as she was done. A few minutes later she pulled into the Gilbert driveway and walked through the kitchen door.

"You're still here? What are you doing?" both Tyler and Klaus were tense, and she decided to focus on getting her boyfriend to leave the clearly dangerous house before something else happened.

"Gloating," Tyler poured himself a drink even though it's barely 9:30 in the morning. She can hear footsteps in the other room and turned to Klaus.

"Hello, Caroline," She quickly breaks eye contact – this is not the friendly Klaus she went on a date with – and tries again to talk some sense into Tyler.

"Come home. Don't stoop to his level!" she reaches for Tyler, but he moves away before her hand can rest on his arm.

"He destroyed my life, I plan on being present for every second of his until I can kill him myself," Tyler almost growls.

Caroline takes a deep breath, ok, we'll stay here for a while, she thinks. "Fine, you can gloat and multitask. This place is a disaster, starting with the horrific burnt corpse." She drapes a spare tablecloth over Kol's charred body and catches a glimpse of Klaus watching her – are those tears in his eyes?

"Tyler's mother is dead. So is my brother, we're even." Caroline turns to face Klaus, "Call Bonnie, get her to let me out of here."

Was he delusional? He actually thought that she would try to help him after he'd tried to kill Elena again. Her rage simmered to the surface, "I will never, ever, help you" she seethed.

Klaus took a step closer to the barrier, "How quickly you forget the part where I saved Tyler from the misery of being a werewolf; or the night your mother invited me into her home to save the life of her precious daughter" he sneered.

That's it. He truly didn't see that his "heroic deeds" were to fix a mess that he caused. "How delusional are you? You killed his mother," although the thought that it was not that different from them killing two brothers flickered in the back of her mind. "And let's not forget that we're standing in a house where Elena's aunt Jenna used to live, or did you think your charm would make us forget how you killed her too?" he glanced down quickly then met her eyes with equal anger, but she was finished. "You know what? No. I am not going to engage in this, you are not even worth the calories I burn talking to you." Caroline huffed in simultaneous anger and satisfaction – she had put him in his place – when she was pierced through the stomach and yanked across the barrier.

She felt his hands in her hair as he forced her head to the side, exposing her neck, and bit into her savagely. As she fell to the ground in shock and pain she heard him mock Tyler with, "Now that was definitely worth the calories," before she slipped out of consciousness.

Caroline floated back to consciousness and vaguely understood that Tyler was begging Klaus for her life. She'd had enough of this and moaned, "Get me out of here, I can't even look at him." As she was walking away, she caught a glimpse of Klaus looking less satisfied than she expected – good, he should feel guilty about killing her.

Upstairs, in Elena's bed, Caroline trembled. "It's getting worse, I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"No. It's my fault, I'm sorry," Tyler stroked her arm.

"No! You didn't do any of this!" she couldn't have Tyler feeling guilty about her death, he needed to move on – revenge would only get him killed.

"I unsired the hybrids and turned them on Klaus, I should've just left it alone." Now that part might be true, but she couldn't let him spiral.

She looked up into his eyes, "You freed them, Tyler. People put their faith in you because you're a leader. Don't forget that." When I'm gone, she left out.

He glanced down and looked up with renewed determination, "Then you trust me?"

Tyler gently lowered her to the floor right outside the barrier, "You want to be in control, Klaus? Here, now you get to be in control of her life. If you want her to die, fine, but you can sit here and watch her die yourself." He slowly backed up, then walked out the back door.

Caroline turned her head to look up at Klaus walking towards her, please, please, please.

"Nothing personal, love. If I cure you, that means victory for him" he could see her sweating forehead. "Don't worry, it won't be long now."

Great, she thought, what was the point of having an Original Hybrid obsessed with you if he was the one to kill you? What happened to her being 'full of light'? Fuck this. She slowly sat up and scooted to the couch, "A little help?"

He hesitated. That goddamn hybrid hesitated to help her onto a couch while she was dying. She could see his jaw clench before he reached out to lift her, but he did get her settled somewhat comfortably on the cushions before he moved to the opposite side of the room. She wasn't going to let him off that easily.

With some effort, she turned her shoulders to face him, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about Kol."

That seemed to shock him. He turned his face away from her before speaking, "He was in a coffin the majority of his life, he will hardly be missed."

Caroline noted the set of his shoulders and his clenched jaw, right, she thought. "I know how important your family is to you, Klaus. I also know the list of people you care about is getting shorter and shorter. Don't do this to me," she thought for a moment about what her death would mean. "God don't do this to yourself!"

Nothing. He didn't move a single muscle. Caroline sighed and shifted to make herself more comfortable and a groan escaped her, "If you don't feed me your blood, I'll die."

"Then you'll die, and Tyler will have learned his lesson the hard way." Still no change in his posture.

"How could you do this to him? To his mom? To me?" Great. Now she was repeating herself, it must be the venom.

"I'm a thousand years old. Call it boredom."

"I don't believe you," it was getting harder to speak through the pain and the sweat over her body was making her feel clammy.

"Fine. Then maybe it's because I'm pure evil, and I can't help myself" he still wouldn't look at her. Bastard.

"It's because you were hurt," he slowly turned his head towards her, Yes! "Which means that there is a part of you that is human." He pushed off the wall and made his way over to the couch.

"How could you possibly think that?"

"Because I've seen it. Because," God, was she really going to tell him, of all people, this truth? Apparently. "Because I've caught myself wishing that I could forget all of the horrible things that you've done."

"But you can't, can you?"

Caroline took a moment to rationalize this next part in her head. She knew it was true, but to admit it would be to admit to Klaus that she wasn't immune to him. That she felt their connection too, however much she tried to deny it. "I know that you're in love with me, and anyone capable of being loved is capable of being saved."

He broke eye contact as his filled with water, "You're hallucinating."

She gave a slight chuckle and closed her eyes, "I guess I'll never know." It was so hard to breath. God, her neck hurt so bad. She seemed to be dying much faster than the last time she was bitten. Maybe Klaus' venom was more potent, maybe it was something about being bitten a second freaking time. She felt her body jerk involuntarily, then, she felt nothing.

"Caroline? Caroline!"

She came to with Klaus' bleeding wrist pressed against her mouth and her body pressed against the hybrid himself. Her hands reached up without her consent to hold his wrist closer, Holy shit, his blood was amazing! After her third pull, she felt her body grow unbearably hot and had to rip herself away from Klaus' warm body. She flopped onto the opposite end of the couch, panting, and reached up to touch her neck – healed. What the hell is going on? She looked to Klaus for answers, but he was hunched over with his elbows on his knees, panting, as he tried to control himself. Was he shifting? No. No, this couldn't be happening!

He raised his head and made eye contact, blazing yellow to her sea blue, and she scrambled off the couch and across the barrier. With a low growl, Klaus fell to all fours and completed his transition. Fuck.

A/N: This is my second attempt at posting a fanfic, I would love reviews! Seriously, anything is welcome - plot line ideas, questions, plot holes I might have missed...literally anything. The next chapter should be up in a couple days and that's where we'll really start diverging from canon. Thanks for reading!