Stranger

Chapter 1:

A/N: Hi! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving this story a chance. This story sprang from my dying hope that they'll announce that Caroline will be a regular in the spin-off, the Originals, last minute. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries, OBVIOUSLY.

It was later that night that Caroline remembered her promise to her mom: she would get her out of town. She couldn't sleep after that. All she wanted to do was pack her mom's stuff up in her car and send her off to she-didn't-know-where. But she forced herself to remain in bed until the next morning, when she heard her mom pad about the kitchen.

She flashed out of bed, arriving exactly as Liz Forbes was pouring her coffee into a thermos. With a smile she said, "Good morning, sweetheart."

Her mother wasn't stupid. She could tell from her daughter's face that Caroline was about to bring up something serious. Bubbly, on-top-of-the-world Caroline always had that face when she was frustrated about something. Liz could guess that it had something to do with how she'd almost died last night at the hands of Silas.

"Mom," Caroline started, "I think it would be better if you didn't go into work today."

Liz looked at her quizzically. "In a town that's full of vampires, the sheriff can't just randomly take a sick day, honey." She turned her attention back to the thermos, which she closed and packed in her bag for work. Caroline's hand moved across the table to rest her hand on her mother's.

"But, Mom, you almost died last night. It's not exactly a random sick day."

"I didn't die, though. And it's my job to make sure that it doesn't happen to anyone else either," Liz explained.

Caroline frowned. "I don't think I've ever been as scared in my life as I was when I didn't know whether you were going to live or die. I don't want to ever feel like that again." She took a deep breath. "I think it would be better if you moved away."

"What?" Liz said, surprised. "I can't just up and leave just like that. I'm the sheriff. Being in danger is part of the job description. Besides, I couldn't leave you."

"Yes, you could. I'm a vampire, Mom. You shouldn't be worrying about me. You've got to go. At least for a bit."

"Caroline, the answer's no."

And, just like that, her mother left the house. Caroline stood there, not sure what to do. She wished for a moment that she could leave town instead. While that wouldn't exactly leave her mom in the utmost safety, at least she wouldn't be killed because of her, like last night. Heading back to her room, she thought about that a little more. After all, what was she staying for anyway? Her friends didn't need her because what on earth could she do to stop Silas? Last night had shown her that. She didn't need to stay because of Tyler anymore either. He was gone.

She couldn't leave before graduation, of course. Come hell or high water, all the world would have to freeze over before she agreed to miss graduation. But she'd applied to a bunch of colleges and she'd gotten into a few of them, including one scholarship, because of her straight-As. Caroline decided then and there that after graduation she would leave town for some school in some state far away.

Klaus couldn't wrap his head around why he was in his favourite city in the world and yet the only thing he wanted to do was drown his sorrows in alcohol. He didn't know what was worst: having been dethroned as king by Marcel or finding out that Hayley, a werewolf that he despised and had slept with once, was pregnant. Either way, he was going to get very drunk tonight.

"Hey, stranger!" He looked up to see the blonde Psych major he'd talked to on the street the other day. Camille was her name, he remembered.

"Hello," he drawled. "Could you get me something any stronger than this? A good whisky or vodka or something..."

"Hi, well, I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to cut you off. You look way too drunk to be having anything else. You're gonna end up doing somethin' you'll regret."

"Number 1, I never regret anything. Number 2, I'm sure that as a Psychology student, you're clever enough to know when a man could use a bit of liquor to drown his sorrows in. I am unfortunately in this situation right now so if you don't mind, I'd like some of that vodka behind you."

Camille ignored him and went on, "So what are you so damn depressed about anyway?"

"Tell me, love, if you came back to your favourite city in the world to find out that it's changed in a very bad way AND someone who you despise flipped your life upside down, would that be enough to drive you to liquor?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's sounds pretty awful, so awful that I don't know why you're sticking around New Orleans."

"Because I'm a bloody idiot." He then reached across the bar and grabbed the vintage vodka off the shelf. Cami shrugged, took the money Klaus had put on the counter and then went off to serve some other clients.

About half an hour later, when she was getting ready to close, she noticed that he was still in the same spot and looking dead to the world. Bar policy said that, in such cases, she should try to find the patron's phone and call someone. Luckily Klaus' phone was right there on the counter, next to his wallet and the finished bottle of vintage vodka. Absentmindedly, she scrolled through his past calls. The most popular seemed to be to a 'Caroline Forbes'. She was just about to press the call button when Klaus' hand shot out and latched itself onto her wrist. Cami, surprised, dropped the phone.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he growled.

"Fine! I'm sorry! I'm just supposed to call someone to pick you up, that's all!"

Klaus looked mad, and also very drunk. Cami knew from experience that that was not a good mix. "Rifling through my phone...my phone rec(hiccup)ords is invasion of private...You have no right...!"

Camille was silent for a minute. Softly, she said, "I have to call someone. Is there anyone you want to come and get you?"

For a second, Klaus was going to bark at her but he thought better of it. "Look for Elijah," he sighed, handing her the phone. She took and called his brother, saying that he was drunk and needed someone to pick him up.

"He'll be here in a few minutes," she said to Klaus, handing him a cup of water. Gratefully, he took a long swig. It wasn't long before the bartender struck up a conversation again. "So... who's Caroline?

Klaus let out a long breath. "For starters, I can tell you that you wouldn't have gotten anywhere by calling her, she lives in Virginia. As for who she is, I can't tell you that without ruining what reputation I have around here."

Camille smiled playfully, sensing a good story. "Oh come on, she can't be that bad."

He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open at that point but he answered anyway. "No, she doesn't have a shred of bad in her. That's the problem."

She was very confused but didn't have time to probe him anymore as Elijah walked through the door. When he saw Klaus, he let out a long "oh, brother!"

After having made her decision to leave town after graduation, her next worry was what she was going to tell her friends. She thought that they might judge her for leaving town when so much was going on or think it was stupid that a vampire was bothering with college. Thankfully, it became very easy to avoid them. The end of senior year is a busy time in anybody's life, particularly if you were part of the supernatural community. Elena was keeping the Salvatore brothers busy because when she had switched her humanity back on she found it hard to keep her bloodlust under control. Similarly, Bonnie was having trouble keeping her Expression under control and had to get help from Abby. Not to mention all the Silas problems.

Caroline herself was juggling her time between studying, graduation committees, organising the after party and preparing her valedictorian speech. While she still spoke to her friends at school, it had been awhile since anything about their lives after high school had come up. That was absolutely A-ok with her.

But about two weeks before graduation, Matt came up to her to ask her if she could help him with Math. Rebekah, his new official study buddy apparently, was going away that weekend to visit her brothers in New Orleans and according to Matt 'wasn't that good at math anyway'. They were sitting in her living room that Saturday when he asked: "So, Care, what are you going to do next year anyway?"

Caroline tried to sound careless. "Um, I'm going to college in Richmond next year."

Matt put that really sweet boyish smile of his and said "Caroline, that's great!" He hugged me. Caroline didn't know why but his enthusiasm kind of stung. She supposed it was because she knew that he hadn't been accepted anywhere and was going to stay in Mystic Falls as a bartender while taking some classes at the local community college. Still, it was heartening that at least one of her friends was open towards her choice.

On Monday, after Matt had boosted her confidence, she talked to Bonnie about her plans. Turned out that Bonnie had also been accepted at Richmond! After that, they spent all their time talking about how great it would be to be roommates and how nice all the classes looked.

Finally, Caroline got up the nerve to talk about it to Elena, Stefan and Damon. It was a week before the graduation ceremony and she was coming by the Boarding House to drop off Elena's robe, which she'd gotten for her when her humanity switch was off. She knocked on the door but only had to wait a second before Elena swung it open.

"Oh, hey, Caroline!" she greeted her.

Caroline put on her brightest smile. "Hi! I've got something for you," she said, handing the box to Elena.

"Thanks." Taking the box inside, Elena lifted the lid to see the dark red graduation gown and matching cap. She grinned but then her face fell. "Caroline, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it to graduation. There's a lot going on, you know."

Caroline looked shocked. She couldn't believe that her best friend, who had been dreaming about this moment for as long as she had, wanted to throw it all away. "You can't possibly miss graduation. Elena, it's the next step in the rest of our lives. We've been working our butts off for this since freshman year!"

Elena looked distinctly uneasy. "I know, Care, but with everything with Silas going..." she trailed off when she saw Stefan and Damon coming into the room. Damon, of course, ignored her and went straight for the ancient whisky on the coffee table.

"Hi, Caroline," said Stefan, hugging her. "What are you doing here? "

Elena was about to reply but Caroline cut her off. "Well, I was here to drop off Elena's graduation robe but apparently, she won't need it since she's not going!" The irritation in her voice was easily detectable. She fully expected Stefan to be on her side and remind Elena to hold on to her humanity. He didn't do that.

"I don't think it's the best time to be thinking about graduation. I mean, we'll all have hundreds of years to graduate. Right now, we need to think about the best way to deal with the Silas problem."

Well, this couldn't be going any worse than it is, Caroline thought. "What is a three-hour graduation ceremony going to hurt? This is our last chance to spend time together before we all go our separate ways.

That got Elena's attention. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Wake up, Elena! We're not all going to stay in Mystic Falls forever. Bonnie and I are going to college in Richmond next year."

Damon, who had been silent the entire time, spoke up at this, "Wait, what? Barbie vampire and the witch are going to college? Why? Blondie, we're vampires, we don't need to do that stuff."

"But I want to," Caroline replied. "I need to cling to my humanity and the best way to do that is by leaving the Crazy Capitol of the supernatural world. I've just had enough."

It was Damon's turn to look indignant. "Seriously? 'I've had enough,' that's your excuse?"

Elena put a hand on his arm and said, "No, Caroline's right to go." She turned back to Caroline. "You're right, we should go to graduation."

And with that, Caroline feeling utterly and completely contented with herself.

When Klaus woke up the next morning, he had a searing headache and was feeling like he could throw up his entire insides. He got up and walked tiredly to the kitchen of his New Orleans loft to make himself some coffee. To his surprise, Rebekah was sitting there, waiting for him.

"Hello, Niklaus," she said, absentmindedly flipping through some sort of fashion magazine.

"Bekah, to what do I owe this pleasure." He switched on the coffee machine and grabbed himself some water from the fridge.

A wicked grin appeared on his sister's face. "Oh, I just thought I'd pop 'round. Do some shopping, see the sights, throw a baby shower..."

Klaus clenched his teeth but said nothing. Rebekah kept on checking her phone every three seconds and then texting people so frequently he wanted to throw the infernal device out of the window. Finally he asked, "Who are you texting so much?"

"Matt," she said absentmindedly. "He's studying with Caroline and having a marvellous time apparently." She seemed a little miffed at that but perked up as she heard the jingle that announced a new text. She grinned. "Look at that, it looks as if Caroline's leaving Mystic Falls straight after graduation.

Even Klaus had to admit that that was very interesting news.

Thank you for reading! Please review to tell me if you like it and what I may or may not be doing wrong. I need a beta if anyone is interested.

A few notes:

-This is completely canon up to 4x21. If you're reading after 4x22, I'm sorry for any inaccuracies.

-This chapter might have seen long and overdrawn but I promise it was just this chapter so I could set up the story.

Thanks!