AN-Hey guys! Wow, it's been a looooong time since I posted the first part of this! Truth be told, I didn't know what to do with it, or how to explain it. But I knew I wanted to do something! So, you may not like what I've done with it, but give it a go and see! I have another story in the works-one I'm really excited about! I'm maybe three quarters through writing it, and I want to finish writing it before I post any, because as we all know, I am SHIT at posting regularly! I also partook in a thirty day AU challenge, which has loads of different couples and characters I ship and love from different fandoms! Would you be interested in me posting it? It's not finished yet, but it might be some day! Anyway, enjoy, and please review to let me know how you liked the ending and how I explain about our Nikky being there when Caroline isn't dreaming!

TRIGGER WARNING FOR SUICIDE, RAPE AND OTHER DARK THINGS. Know I warned you!

This story is sick and twisted, 'kay?

The Devil is real. And he's not a little red man with horns and a tail. He can be beautiful. Because he's a fallen angel, and he used to be God's favourite.

-American Horror Story

No.

No no no.

This isn't happening.

This isn't real.

He isn't real.

She's dreaming. She's dreaming of him again.

'You aren't dreaming, my Caroline.' Nik says, like he's reading her mind.

Maybe he is.

He starts moving towards her, sleek and agile, and she feels more and more like prey every second.

So she runs.

She's a cheerleader, Caroline can run fast.

But not fast enough, it seems.

Her heart is pounding, her legs are screaming at her but she doesn't stop sprinting across the football pitch.

Suddenly, she's not running anymore, she's being knocked to the ground. Caroline scrabbles to get away, her nails digging into the ground.

'Calm down, sweetheart,' he commands as she struggles, his hands ghosting over her hips, but somehow holding her in place. 'Don't make this more difficult for yourself.'

She kicks and scrabbles and cries, and whimpers. 'Please leave me alone, you aren't real! You aren't real!' Caroline screams, and she feels his lips at her ear when he says. 'I'm real, Caroline. And I will never leave you again. I'll always come back.' Caroline finds herself screaming and screaming, and then Bonnie arrives and she's still screaming as her friend tries to shake her.

'Caroline! Caroline what's wrong?'

But Caroline can't answer. She never could. Instead, she just keeps screaming and clinging to Bonnie; who hugs her friend, and can do nothing more.

Caroline waits.

She doesn't sleep.

She doesn't eat.

She just...waits.

She's afraid if she closes her eyes, she'll see him.

He still comes, though.

Of course he does.

'Leave me alone,' she hisses brokenly at him, as she sits straight up in her bed, staring defiantly forward. He's sitting beside her, stroking her hair, and it worries her how much she wants to lean into his touch, because oh, he still smells like forest, pine and mint. He still has the eyes of that little boy from the forest.

He isn't that boy anymore, Caroline, she tells herself.

He's now a crazy man, and she's a mad girl.

'I made a promise, sweetheart. I intend to keep it.'

She can't take it. She screams until her throat is raw, she doesn't sleep, yet every morning she finds herself waking on the forest floor, her feet covered in dirt and she has scrapes from the trees and by God, she will find a way to stop this even if it kills her.

Caroline was seventeen when she thought she was going mad.

She was eighteen when she was sure of it.

'I have something to show you,' Bonnie says and leads Caroline to her room. 'I found him,' Bonnie says, and Caroline's world comes crashing in.

He is real.

I'm not mad.

He's not just mine anymore.

Bonnie takes out an old photograph, and Caroline waits with baited breath. She sees those familiar moss green eyes and devilish smile and nods, unable to speak.

Bonnie's brows furrow, and Caroline wonders what's in store for her.

'Caroline, this is Niklaus Mikaelson.'

'I know,' Caroline replies. She decides not to mention she only knows him as Nik.

'Caroline, this is Niklaus Mikaelson. And this photograph was taken during the 1970's. This was taken before he walked into the local high school and opened fire, killing five people before shooting himself in the head.'

Caroline blinks, processing the information. Oh, and there is so much more to find out.

Bonnie proceeds to remind Caroline of the time she nearly drowned as a child, and Bonnie had a theory that Caroline died then. That provided a gap for Nik to get through and to link with her. As Caroline got older, their bond weakened as she grew further and further from death. It was once again re-established after the car crash Caroline was in with Tyler Lockwood and Matt Donovan.

By this stage, Caroline didn't think she was crazy any more.

She knew it.

But try as she might, she couldn't deny her best friends logic. So she did some research, and avoided Nik as much as possible. This was made difficult by Nik's constant presence, given the fact he wasn't just confined to her dreams.

Caroline was horrified by what she found.

Bloody bodies.

Screaming people.

Crying families.

Nik with his head blown off.

Caroline soon figured it out.

Nik was lying on her bed when she arrives home one day, and she snaps. The dam breaks and she finds all the secrets, their secrets, spilling out into the air between them.

'Why?' she demands, the question finally escaping her lips. 'Why would you do that to those poor people?'

Caroline is sure he'll kill her on the spot. Instead, he explains.

And to Caroline's horror, she understands.

He explains about the kids that bullied his baby brother. He talks about the senior boys that used, abused and raped his fifteen year old baby sister.

Caroline was seventeen when she started thinking Nik was a monster.

She was eighteen when she started understanding the monster and seeing the little boy with the moss green eyes again.

Caroline is eighteen and a half when she kisses him. It isn't like before-innocent, sweet, joyful. It's dark and twisted and he tastes like mint and longing, so much longing. It stays like that until you can't tell whose emotions are whose.

Caroline is two weeks older when he tells her he loves her.

She doesn't have the heart to say it back.

Not when she knows what is going to happen.

It's been building up for months and months.

All the 'you're mines' and the 'I love you' and those 'I will always come back for you, my Caroline.'

She has darkness on her soul, he tells her. She's almost convinced that she's a monster too.

Until the bodies start appearing.

It takes Caroline a while at first, to put two and two together.

She figures it out when Tyler is the next body.

Caroline tells him she wants to go to the forest for her birthday. Their place, she says. Tears sting her eyes when they run through the forest like when they were kids, young and free.

But Caroline isn't free anymore, and she knows it.

She's shackled by him, and it has to stop.

For as long as she is shackled to Nik, the rest of the world is too.

Caroline has just turned nineteen when she whispers 'goodbye, Nik' and plunges a knife into her own heart.

Caroline was eight when she met Nik.

She was nineteen when she died for him.

'Nik,' she sing songs.

No.

It can't be, he thinks.

But sure enough, Caroline, his Caroline dances past the trees, darting closer to him. His chest tightens, which is impossible, as he's DEAD.

And so is his Caroline.

'I'm right here, Nik,' she whispers as she glides closer, a white gauzy dress flowing around her. 'You said you wanted us to be together forever. So let's.'

And they run.