FORTITUDE

1

There was supposed to be safety in something that hadn't begun.

The rings on her necklace felt heavy. I was married and widowed on the same day. The devastation had been insurmountable, it seemed – but somehow, she had done it. Her husband's choice had torn her apart, but Caroline had slowly stitched herself together with threads of acceptance. There had been a finality to Stefan's death, and a shattering truth that hadn't ever made her look back: he loved her, undoubtedly – but not enough to sacrifice his brother.

But something about Klaus' impending death warred within her. It wasn't right; no avoidable or forced death ever was. But he was needed – he had a daughter who didn't deserve to be orphaned. He deserved the chance to live as the good man he had become; not disappear in some tragic redemption-sacrifice.

The threat of loss caught in her throat, and she paused mid-step. Turning back would be selfish; making him feel worse would do nothing. His choice was made, and she didn't have the right to convince him otherwise. He's being a good person.

He was all she'd ever wanted him to be – needed him to be. A smile whispered against her lips; a soft glow of pride in her chest.

She could feel his gaze on her – always had. In that moment, Klaus eyes bore through her back, reaching into her soul. Stay, his aura cried. The ache pulled at her chest, the urge to turn and rush back. But she couldn't.

Her smile faded, her lips trembled. She was no stranger to death, but she never thought she'd have to live through his. Klaus Mikaelson was supposed to be immortal, undefeatable. She could hear his breath catching, hear the tears in his throat. She knew how much he loved her, and always had. As a vampire, one day that list of loved ones would be so few – but somehow, she'd always believed he would be the last standing.

And now he wouldn't be. There was no promise to hold onto when everything was dire; no one who would understand her so completely, in the way he always had.

For Klaus' peace of mind, she had made him believe his death wouldn't haunt her; that a goodbye would give them both closure. But he had been right; it was a myth. Because while they had years of history together, they had never begun. Only ever an almost; almost in love, almost together. That would haunt her most of all. And she knew, as she felt the tears slipping down his cheeks – felt the unspoken words, his regret – that it would haunt him too.

Caroline strode out of the bar before she had to confront it, and didn't look back.

–.–

Inky bitumen and stark white paint flew beneath the rental car in a blur. It had been a few hours since her departure, but Caroline had never felt every minute more keenly than that evening. She could have flown – saved herself hours of travel. But she had needed to be on the road, in her own thoughts, and not suffocating in a crowd of strangers.

The solitary had done little to quell the war in her. The wall she had maintained so well fractured in the bar, splitting into fissures under hours of silence on the road. Some months after Stefan's death, she had constructed it out of survival: sleepless, teary nights had rendered her near-hollow. Loss had the ability to cripple her, as it had before – and although she hadn't feel the same urge to escape her humanity losing Stefan, she had been a shadow of her former self long after. Back then, as a mother with young girls, there was no room for all-consuming grief. Alaric needed her help parenting, and there was a school to be built. Life went on.

But for the first time, torn open by fresh death, she relived her agony: tears in another car, on another night. Guilt, sadness, and grief swarmed within her. Was it wrong that losing Klaus now, echoed her lost love back then? That she loved them both? Because she had, in her own way, always loved Klaus too. And it took knowing he would be gone, at that moment, to understand it. She had never been ready to be with him, and would now never have the chance.

The tears were silent first; slipping down her cheeks, down her neck, breaths rattled. But the echo of all losses soon took over, and the pain burst from her lips in sobs. Another death, another grave to mourn.

Why hadn't she tried harder to stop him? Done more than tell Elijah, but help him thwart Klaus' plans too? Why couldn't she have done more? A couple hundred miles away, a fifteen-year-old orphan now grieved her father, barely a couple of weeks after losing her mother. A child that she had always especially looked out for – not because it was her obligation as headmistress, but because the girl was his. And it all could have been prevented; Klaus himself has said there were other options. His sacrifice – orphaning Hope – had been futile. Caroline would have given anything to save her parents; remembered so keenly the desperation in trying to find a cure for her mother, another way–

A sharp ache gripped her chest, as if something had been torn from it. Caroline couldn't breathe, paralysed as the awareness dawned on her.

He's gone.

Caroline jerked the wheel to her right, sending the rental car onto the shoulder of the road – but she hit the brakes too fast. The tyres scraped against the gravel, spinning out of control as she desperately attempted to right her course. Caroline barely had a moment to curse her lack of seatbelt before the vehicle skidded down onto greasy grass, its body swinging wildly out of control – before the bonnet collided with a trunk.

Caroline hurtled through the shattered windscreen.

–.–

He couldn't explain how he knew. It was as if, in the afterlife, his soul not only found loved ones already there – but somehow kept tabs on every life-force he was connected to on the living plane. But in that moment, a familiar soul seemed to be caught somewhere in between; the energy screamed in agony, torn between two dimensions.

He looked to Elijah, who was dancing slowly with Hayley by the bonfire – their heads bowed, eyes closed. At peace. His brother had followed him in death, but didn't need to concern himself now.

Something was very wrong.

He could feel her, there. Her soul was like a beacon, sending out a distress signal.

He followed it.