title: and we go on . . .

author: eena

rating: 14A

disclaimer: TVD belongs to Smith and co.

pairing: Caroline/Klaus

summary: Everything fades away, baby; time takes it all in the end.

notes: For the Klaroline Comment Ficathon, a prompt by ishi_chan

~0~

Everyone dies.

It is an inevitability that she fails to understand in time.

~0~

"Sometimes, their faces start to blur. Like, I'll think I remember the way Matt used to smile, but then it seems wrong or something. Then I wonder if it was Jeremy who used to do that half-smirk thing while shaking his head, or if it was Matt and I've forgotten absolutely everything about the way Jeremy used to smile."

Katherine runs her fingers through Caroline's blonde hair, spilled out on the pillows of their shared bed. "Time changes everything," the older vampire explains, turning over onto her side to face Caroline, one bare leg hitching up and settling in between Caroline's own. "You don't understand it at first, because you can't. You can be a vampire for thirty years and still not understand until you cracked that first or second century. You think you'll always remember because you haven't understood that forever is a long time to remember. Everything fades away, baby; time takes it all in the end."

Caroline shifts closer, the tremors of fear usually associated with contact with Katherine having faded decades ago. "At least I'll always remember Elena; you're good for that."

Katherine laughs, a poor disguise to cover up the irritation at the mention of her doppelganger. "You'll remember what she looks like, but how long before you forget the things she used to say, the clothes she liked to wear, or the secrets you whispered to each other under the blankets? How long until you forget everything that made Elena the girl that she was?"

She doesn't have an answer for that, not one that she wants to give anyhow. "If that's the case, why do we always have to run? Won't he eventually forget us too?"

"No-they're not like that. Remember baby, they're different. And he's not likely to forgive us our trespasses anytime soon."

Caroline sniffles, indignant in this as always. "It's not my fault he fell in love with me-I don't even like him."

"And it's not my fault he wanted to kill me-I just wanted to live," Katherine places a kiss on the corner of Caroline's mouth. "He's not fair, remember?"

Caroline shivers in the sudden chill of the room, burrows closer and closer to her dark mother. "One day, I'm afraid that I'll forget the important things and just let him have me. I'm afraid one day none of it will matter like it does today, and I'll start to love him too. I'm kind of stupid like that."

"It'll happen," Katherine assures, not an ounce of condolence or comfort in her words. "We live too long not to be self-destructive. Everything else gets boring."

Caroline nods and falls asleep while Katherine traces circles on the bare skin below her ribcage.

~0~

She likes Rio, likes the heat and the humidity and the humanity. Rio is colours and noise and tears and ecstasy. She can have a different lover every night, slip out of one bed and into another without the need for compulsion. There's something raw and almost animalistic about human nature in that city, something that causes her dead heart to beat faster and harder than it has in a while.

"He's here," Katherine tells her, and Caroline nods like she understands but she won't leave. Katherine smiles sadly when she realizes the truth, presses a sweet kiss on her forehead and warns her not to get dead.

"It's not him," Caroline insists. "I just don't want to give this up; it's been so long since I've loved a place so much. I don't want a life of having to give things up. I already gave up everything I had in Mystic Falls."

But Katherine leaves without believing her, and Caroline misses her a little as she dives into the sea of Rio's nightlife, hands grasping and pulling at her waist, but no one trailing fingers through her hair and whispering half jokes in her ears. She ends the night perched in the lap of a bronze-skinned man, gorgeous black locks and to die for chocolate-brown eyes. He has his hands up her dress and she's got her fangs in his neck, and their corner of the club is very dark and very private.

She pulls back when she's full, removes his hands from their upward travel, and compels him to sleep it off. She slides off his lap, runs her hands down the front of her dress to smooth out any wrinkles. "Leave him alone," she says distractedly. "He's just a meal, nothing more."

When he speaks, his breath flutters through her hair and her shoulders tense but that is it. "Then why isn't he dead, love?"

She turns, sliding her hands up his arms and entwining them around his neck. He looks a little surprised, but smirks nonetheless. "Are we playing this game again, Caroline?"

"I've killed four people since becoming a vampire," she tells him, as serious as the grave. "And that is four people too many."

He rolls his eyes at that. "Still stubbornly clinging to that pesky humanity? Thought Katerina would have burned that out of you by now."

"Because you burned it out of her without even trying?"

His eyes harden and she wriggles a little closer to soften them a bit. "Everyone dies, and everyone forgets. Time takes us all-that's what Katherine taught me. And I may forget the names of those four people, forget their faces and their screams, but while I do remember them, I will learn from it. I never wanted to be a monster, so I'm not going to be one."

"You all toss around that word like it means something, like it's supposed to matter," he leans in close, lips hovering just above hers. "Monstrosity, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder."

She laughs a little, feeling daring where there should be fear. "So says the monster."

He tilts his head at her. "Paris, Rome, or Tokyo?"

"Home-but later. Much later."

~0~

It's not very much like home anymore.

There's a Gilbert in city hall, a Lockwood with a medical practice, and the sheriff is named Donovan.

It's a funny twist of fate, makes her want to laugh at the wrongness of it all.

"No Forbes," he comments idly, trailing behind her as she weaves her way around the cemetery.

She stops to put a lily on her mother's headstone. "None left."

He laughs. "Are you it, then? The last and only of your kind?"

"Don't be stupid," she snaps, anger rushing in as quickly as always. "I died a long time ago."

He stops following behind her, glares so hard that she thinks she sees yellow lining his pupils. "We're not having this argument again, love."

She keeps walking. "It was never an argument in the first place, jerk."

He starts to follow again. It thrills her a bit too much. "I want another pet name. That one is horrendous."

It's probably not right to laugh in a graveyard, but she does it anyway.

~0~

They get to Paris, and she's dragging her heels the entire way there. Maybe it's that last piece of resistance, of that girl from the ball who threw a diamond bracelet in the face a man she didn't even like. Or maybe she's trying to see how far the grace of his love stretches, to see if it changes anything at all.

He's indulgent, she learns, but to a point. He's too stubborn for complete leniency.

They meet up with Kol in Paris, and by 'meet up' she means the younger Original brother interrupts their dinner one night and refuses to leave. Klaus seems annoyed, but she's starting to understand when the annoyance is an act and when it's real.

With Kol, it's never real.

Even when he kisses Caroline, in a blatant attempt to rile up his brother, and she kisses him back, because she's pushing the limits in whatever way she can. Even then, it's never real.

"Are you two finished, yet?"

She never thought, not once in the first century or so of meeting him and running from him, that he could be so laid-back.

So, she goes out one night and kisses a human boy outside in the rain. That boy's heart is carved out of his chest and presented to her at breakfast time.

"Kol is my brother; there are a different set of rules for him, and a different set for you."

She covers the bloody organ with her napkin, stomach roiling and upset. "Love shouldn't come with rules."

He sips at his coffee and opens his ever present sketchbook to a fresh page. "Everything comes with rules."

He draws her then, of unshed tears in her eyes and apprehension lining her mouth. She frowns at the sight of it, showing it to Kol with huff of annoyance. "I didn't think I could remember how to be afraid."

"Nik's good at reminding people of that."

And then he hands her back the drawing.

~0~

She runs away from him in Tokyo, thinks she's fulfilled her end of the bargain by staying with him for thirty years and those three promised cities. She remembers enough of Katherine's lessons to make a clean getaway, halfway back to North America with a new last name and a recycled personality.

Katherine finds her in London, scoops her up off the streets and books two tickets to Indonesia. "Island-hopping is a great distraction."

They find Stefan there, and Caroline knows it's not a coincidence, though she pretends because Katherine wants her to pretend. Stefan looks at her with a crestfallen expression and she thinks about the girl she was when she saw him last.

"Maybe you shouldn't have left," she growls at him, sick of his guilt and sick of his judgement, and sick of how much she missed him.

"Maybe you should have left," he counters, but there's no malice in his voice and yeah, he's missed her too.

"And maybe there's happiness, somewhere over the rainbow," Katherine rolls her eyes at the both of them. "Done? Good, let's get moving. He'll be here soon."

"What would he do?" Caroline asks when they land in Egypt. "If he ever catches us both, what would he do with his time?"

"Now there's a scary thought," Katherine smiles wickedly and drags both of them into the desert and it is a very long time before they find their way out.

~0~

She stops running in Russia, sitting down on the floor of their apartment and refusing to pack.

"She does this every couple of decades," Katherine tells Stefan, tugging him out the door. "She's so finicky."

Caroline throws a pair of really expensive designer shoes at the other woman, and Katherine blows her back a kiss that equal parts teasing and affectionate.

Stefan looks heartbroken, like he's leaving her there to die. "Katherine's right; don't pout about it."

And Rebekah will collect her this time, showing up in the middle of the night, looking pissed and put out and just a bit relieved. "He's been an absolute nightmare for the last fifteen years."

"How do you always forgive him so easily?"

Rebekah snorts, unladylike and uncaring. "Are we rehashing that now? You know why. Grab your clothes."

~0~

He very deliberately kills in front of her, drains humans and throws them at her feet. She just raises an eyebrow, unimpressed and unaffected.

"Rebekah was right; you're being stupid."

She's locked up in one of his English estates, barely allowed out of her room without a guard. He's got more hybrids now, and she knows what that means and every now and then when he's made her too angry, she starts ripping out hearts and tearing off heads.

These body parts she throws at his feet and maybe he'll grin at her like he's proud and maybe she'll like that grin-who really knows?

That they have sex almost immediately after one of these incidences is given. Rebekah is repulsed and somewhat scandalized. "Can't you two wait until I leave the bloody room?"

~0~

She sees Damon once, and only the once.

It's Christmas time and they're in Berlin. Klaus and Rebekah are arguing at home about something trivial like who has to compel a cook for Christmas this year and she goes out because when they bicker she gets super-irritated and wants to bash their heads together until the floors are slick with blood.

Rebekah remarks, offhand, that it's probably a good thing Caroline is an only child.

He taps her on the shoulder with some mistletoe, and she's not sure how she feels about him being there and being alive. But he kisses her quickly, thoroughly, and hugs her before melting back into the crowd of people around them.

She wonders if she's supposed to chase after him.

She wonders if it was actually real at all.

She goes home and Klaus's nostrils twitch, his eyes widen, and he punches a hole straight through a stone wall.

Then she knows it was real.

~0~

When it's time to leave again, she smiles and kisses him before she goes.

"You're awful brave, trying to leave right in front of me."

She laughs. "And you're getting bored, sitting here without me to chase."

He smirks at that, and lets her go.

~0~