Author's Note: I'm not entirely sure what this is. I had pieces of this written and I sort of just meshed them together in hopes of trying a different writing style. I hope you all enjoy it because I do think I'm pretty pleased with it.
A special thank you to Paige for being an amazing beta!
Please leave a review and let me know what you think.
Disclaimer: I do not own or am in no way affiliated with The Vampire Diaries.
She doesn't expect to run into him. He can almost see the brief panic flash and she stills immediately. But the years have been kind to her and she is no longer the baby vampire with her heart on her sleeve. She looks better. Her insecurities seemingly eradicated, or at least hidden incredibly well.
He saw her once in New York without her knowledge.
He never expected to see her in Tokyo.
"I've avoided this city," she admits after some coaxing and after the alcohol is humming through her system. Her knuckles are bone-white as she grips the glass.
"Rome? Paris?" he asks. She shakes her head.
"I couldn't bring myself to."
"Why now?" he focuses on the amber liquid in his glass, not looking up.
"Why not?" she counters with a shrug. He chuckles at that, one corner of his lips quirking up.
~ . ~
The lights are switching and flashing with eye-blinding Technicolor that she can hardly focus. Her glass reflects the greens and purples and she ignores the red with everything she has. Her hands are shaky and her throat aches when he slides into the seat next to her. Her whole body stiffens, muscles tightening, and she doesn't know what she was anticipating.
But it certainly wasn't to spend the next hour talking, downing shots, and glancing at the swarm of bodies swerving with every beat of the music with hungry eyes.
"You seem troubled, love," he remarks with a chuckle, flicking his wrist to bring on another round.
"I'm not sure why I'm here," she sighs, throwing him a quick glance. "In this city, in this club with you."
"You're over thinking it," he points out with a smile.
"Probably," she grins, throwing back the rest of the contents in her glass. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."
"Would you like to see the rest?" he asks after her playful remark. She fixes him with a glare that he meets head on, smirk in place.
"Sure," she replies, surprising herself.
She had waited decades. Why not?
~ . ~
She goes with him to Rome. They don't speak the way there and she treats him with a cold distance he doesn't think he'll breech. She smiles at every statue and every piece of history he feeds her. He takes her to the Colosseum and sketches her against the rising sun. She pulls the sketch book from his hand eagerly, and it's the first time during their trip that he lets his anger flare.
~ . ~
She shuffles back away from him, eyes wide with terror. His teeth are bared, eyes narrowed, and he's pushing his book as far away from her as he can. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, but all she recognizes is the fear and frustration, and she slips away from him as quickly as she can.
His eyes follow her even after she's gone. The harsh gold seeps into her thoughts with every smile and every quick glance at the young man who flirts with her at every turn.
~ . ~
She doesn't return to their hotel room that night.
He finds her batting her lashes at the connoisseur the next day and a growl slips from his lips. The sound was so low that no one passing would hear it, but she did. She threw a glance over her shoulder, smiled, and turned back to giggling and ignoring him.
"Love, we should get going," he whispers into her ear, hand sliding down to rest against her lower back.
She shrugs his hand off, stepping away from him to scowl before continuing out the door. The man seems to snort under his breath at the obvious dismissal, and Klaus considers tearing into his neck right there.
"Are you coming?" she calls back, shutting the door behind her after a brief reentrance.
He wonders why he follows her instead.
~ . ~
Her gums throb as she listens to the man with dark hair drawl on and on in accented English. She watches the pretty little vein in his neck most of the time, fighting to focus on his brown eyes instead. He's insisting that she visit some fountain and raving about architecture when Klaus makes his entrance.
She giggles and suggests that he show her a couple of the paintings he's been talking about and she tries not to notice the slight flush of his cheeks. Her breathing is shallow as she fights against that side of her, wishing she could tap into that vein she's been paying oh, so much attention to.
It helps when she feels Klaus move behind her and speak close to her ear. She can concentrate on that rather than the blood running through the guy before her.
~ . ~
They spend three weeks in Rome and she drags him to every statue and every landmark. She doesn't try to reach for his sketchbook again, but he does give her the drawing. She scoffs and tells him that she doesn't understand why he would choose to draw her with so many other things to choose from.
But there's warmth in her eyes when she admires his work, and she takes care not to make a single crease on the page.
It's the first time he seems to glimpse the old Caroline, the one who questioned her very presence.
"I wish I could see myself the way you do," she smiles sadly.
"What do you mean?"
"You draw me like I am beautiful," she states, shrugging. "I don't feel that way."
But he doesn't say a thing, and he is interrupted by her phone the moment he begins to.
"Hey, Stefan," she grins. Klaus tunes out the rest of the conversation.
~ . ~
She's still looking at the drawing in her hands when Stefan's voice fills her ear. She asks about Damon and if he's still trying to keep his brother in check. She should have noticed the way his chuckle sounded forced. She should have noticed the way his voice seemed cold and distant. She should have noticed so many things, but she was too focused on the sketch she held. Her fingertips traced the smooth lines and the smile was still on her face. She drifted off, wondering how hands that had killed so many could draw something so delicate. She had to ask Stefan to repeat the last thing he said.
"It's Matt."
The smile fades from her face and the drawing drifts to the ground.
~ . ~
Matt is sick, she explains as she hastily packs her suitcase. She was flinging articles of clothing in a way that could be comical if she wasn't ready to start crying at the drop of a hat. She reaches his drawing and her hands stall. She turns to him and her eyes are wet with tears she's fervently trying to hide.
"He's dying," she whispers, pleading for him to understand, though she doesn't owe him an apology.
"They all die eventually."
"Don't you dare," she hisses, smashing her palm against his chest and pushing him backward.
She's gone the next morning.
His drawing rests on the bed.
~ . ~
She frantically searches for Stefan at the airport. Her hands are gripping the straps of her carry-on so tightly that she thinks she might break it. She's shaking and her eyes are red. It hasn't set in yet that he's really gone. Stefan had said dying, but everything else implied that Matt didn't have long. They were the last ones to be told. They were the ones who would live on when everyone else around them died. She had gone through this with her mother ten years ago. She didn't know if she could take being too late again.
"Caroline," she hears him call, his voice soft, and she finds herself racing toward him instantly. His arms are welcoming and he smells like home. She sees Damon over his shoulder, solemn and immobile.
"We were too late," she breathes into his ear, her voice cracking near the end. "I know it."
~ . ~
He follows her, though she does not know it. He hangs back, watching from a considerable distance. He is not wanted nor is he welcome. He watches her drift to Stefan, and she clings to him throughout the service. Damon hangs back with them, far from the other people mourning, but close enough for their old friends to see them. She's gripping his hand tightly and quietly sniffling. He watches with clenched fists as the younger Salvatore leans forward, whispering something he can't quite hear to the troubled blonde. The anger flares and he feels a possessive tug when Stefan presses a soothing kiss to the top of her head. The pair seem quite close.
He watches her take a tentative step toward a hysterical Elena before being held back by Damon.
He watches as Bonnie approaches instead. Both of their hair is streaked with grey and they're both crying.
He watches Elena's children, who he has not seen since he stopped by to collect some of her blood years earlier, embrace their mother, their cheeks damp with tears.
They all mourn the passing of a friend, father, and husband, seemingly unaware of the vampires who are lingering in the back.
~ . ~
She watches Elena and Bonnie with watery eyes and she clings to Stefan tighter. Damon moves closer, slipping his hand into her free one, and she smiles at him as warmly as she can.
None of them had been back to this town in years. They hadn't spoken to any of them in decades. The humans of Mystic Falls were better off without them, but even they couldn't keep nature at bay.
The three of them stand there only a moment longer, locking eyes with their old friends, smiling with tight lips until the gaze is broken and they are no longer acknowledged.
"We don't belong here," Caroline whispers sadly, and both of the Salvatores grip her hands tighter in response.
Maybe they never did.
~ . ~
He goes to Paris without her, slipping through the streets with her blonde hair on his mind. He sees her in every passing smile and playful gaze. He hates being reminded of things he tries to forget. He drinks them dry in retaliation. The blood stains his mouth, and he takes relief in the taste and the way their skin fades to a pale white. He listens until their hearts slow and come to an end before licking his lips.
He always had preferred blondes.
~ . ~
She spends her time with Stefan, lying out on the patio of whatever house they were staying in whatever city. She hadn't remembered any details, just thanked them politely when they invited her to stay. The younger Salvatore is seated near her, journal in his lap as he scrawls away. She wonders if she's managed to make it into the day's entry.
Her hands are moving across a keypad, flipping through pictures she had stored. Mostly, she lingers on the pictures she has always saved, even though she would be better off deleting them. Her vision blurs momentarily as she comes across a picture of Matt, and she frantically goes to a more recent album.
Her hands still once she sees a picture of Klaus, sitting on a bench with his sketch pad in his lap.
She looks up to see Stefan staring.
She books a flight to Rome.
~ . ~
He's sitting at a table, a glass in one hand and a pencil in the other. He's been drawing for the past hour and doesn't understand how he'd managed to sketch her once again. He blames it on the meal he's recently consumed. He thinks of the poor girl's body slumped against an alley wall and he wonders if maybe she had a family back home, wherever home was. But he has to stop himself because he's Klaus and he doesn't think that way.
He hears someone sit across from him.
When he looks up, he's met with a familiar pair of blue eyes.
~ . ~
"I went back to Rome," she states after the initial shock has worn off. She feels a little sense of pride at having caught him off guard. "I thought you would still be there."
"I don't like to stay in one place for too long," he remarks, shading a part of his picture before flipping the sketch book closed.
"You stayed in Mystic Falls for months," she points out with a smile.
"And everything worked out as planned," he grins, finishing his drink quickly and moving to stand.
"You were supposed to show me Paris," she pouts, standing so that she was level with him.
"You weren't supposed to leave," he says before he can think better of it. "You have a bit of blood on your collar, love."
He watches her still and takes that as his opportunity to leave.
~ . ~
She doesn't follow him. Her eyes fill with panic and she quickly retreats to any secluded room with a mirror. She wipes frantically at the stain with shaky hands. She'll have to throw out the shirt when she returns to her hotel room.
She tries not to linger on her slip-up.
The man was asking for it, her mind argues. He was cornering a blonde in the corner outside an alley. She compelled the girl to forget and move on.
She hadn't moved the body.
She shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as she did.
She shouldn't feel so hungry.
~ . ~
He doesn't question why he sees her again outside his hotel.
He stopped questioning the coincidences.
~ . ~
She wonders if he knows how long it took her to find him.
She wonders why she was so eager to seek him out (but it's too exhausting to try and understand).
Mostly, she wonders why her thirst seems to flare with him around.
And she wonders why it grows progressively more potent when he isn't.
~ . ~
She's smiling, struck with complete awe. And he wonders what brought her here, to him, after all this time. He isn't the one to pull her closer. Her hands lock around his jacket, and she's suddenly yanking him closer, pressing her lips quickly to his before he even has time to register what has happened.
"I've always wanted to kiss someone on top of the Eiffel Tower," she breathes with a giggle when she pulls away. Her eyes flood with uncertainty and such vulnerability that he leans forward to press a kiss against her forehead. She doesn't pull back or recoil, and he wonders how long this sudden acceptance will last. "Thank you for bringing me here, Klaus."
~ . ~
She breaks away from him suddenly, eyes dropping to the floor, and she retreats to find an exit. She feels cornered, unable to grasp what she just did. She doesn't understand why she thought it would be okay. She doesn't understand why it felt okay.
Mostly, she doesn't understand why she was the one to initiate the action.
Or why she feels that thirst building to the point of it overwhelming her completely.
~ . ~
He's following her after her absence sinks in.
She had a good head start, but he's always been faster.
He just doesn't expect to see her tucked away in a corner, teeth in some man's neck and little moans of delight slipping past her lips.
~ . ~
She tries not to focus on the gentle thrum of the girl's heartbeat, the way it spikes when he moves closer. He was intent, eyes flickering and fading to that hue of amber both breathtaking and entirely frightening. He smiles at her, one corner of his lips moving, and she hates the dimples there. They didn't seem right. They didn't belong.
"Careful, love," he taunts. The brunette in his arms squirms, eyes glazed over, trapped in a daze. "Or you'll have to admit that you want it."
He was at her neck then, fangs slipping neatly into the column of fair skin.
She did want it, she realized when the familiar pang struck her. Her throat burned, a fire racing and licking at that thirst she could only fight for so long. The hunger she could never entirely stifle, especially with him near.
She forces herself to stand there, unmoving except for the occasional flex of her hand. Her nails bite into her palms every moment he decides to draw a little more from the wound.
~ . ~
He can hear her moving around, can hear her swallow every so often as if to fight off the thirst he knew she felt. He could smell the blood reach the surface when her nails pierce her skin.
He finishes feeding quickly.
~ . ~
Give in.
The chill seeps up her spine, setline along the back of her neck, and she prays that her thin strand of restraint won't snap. She doesn't want to become more of a monster. She doesn't want more death on her hands.
She always imagined death to be black. Black and grim and absent of all light and comfort.
When he pulls away, his lips are stained crimson, and he beckons her forward with a single glance.
She hates the way she reaches for him without hesitation. She hates the way her fingers trace the careful smudges. It's so bright, vivid, and it glares at her from his lips. She hates herself for bringing him closer, veins blurring and eyes flooding with the striking color.
Mostly, she hates him for allowing her to.
~ . ~
"Where would you like to go next?" he asks into her hair later that night when she's curled against him.
His fingers are dancing across her back, familiarizing himself with her skin, and he thinks of what it might be like to draw her this way with her hair spread across his chest.
"Away from you," she rolls her eyes, sitting up. "Because this was a terrible idea."
"I'm sure I could convince you otherwise."
"I only promised you Tokyo, Rome, and Paris," she reminds him with a fixed glance before standing and getting dressed, slipping into the red dress that had been thrown across the room so carelessly hours before.
He watches her dress and leave.
He doesn't remind her that she can only stay away for so long.