So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light
Cause oh they gave me such a fright
And I will hold on with all of my might
Just promise me that we'll be alrightBut the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view
And we'll live a long life

—"Ghosts That We Knew" by Mumford & Sons

When Caroline wakes up, she knows.

She knows that it's the end of the first.

The curtains are still drawn, but her sharp eyes catch the way Tyler's eyes are squeezed shut with unease, even though he's sleeping. His dark, dark hair contrasts against the white pillow case and Caroline Forbes presses her lips together in newly accepted solitude. They can't keep meeting back up and falling back into bed as if no time has passed, even though the years always feel like decades and each time she sees him she feels as if she knows him less and less.

They're not teenagers anymore.

She pulls back the sheets and climbs out of her bed, careful not to disturb him. When he wakes up she'll be gone, and there won't be a note or a message on his phone that'll tell him where she's gone off to. Caroline quickly pulls on a fresh set of clothes and disappears out the front door, and she decides not to dwell on the fact that their positions are usually flipped.

Usually Tyler is the one sneaking out in the morning without bothering to leave a message behind.

She stands in front of her car, purse clutched in her right hand and fingertips trembling just a little bit. Her phone sits still and silent in her pocket, and she knows, she knows how easy it would be to pull it out and call Elena or Stefan or Bonnie or Matt or—

Caroline's friends care about her. They love her. They love her even when she's constantly pestering them with human things, such as Christmas parties and college graduations and the ten year high school reunion.

Which, of course, none of them had been able to go to. People tend to notice if you haven't aged in ten years. And Caroline… well, she can't really pass for any age beyond twenty-four.

And she never will.

Frowning, Caroline gets into her car and turns on the engine. And she doesn't look back.

"I'm just, you know, taking a trip. For a couple of weeks. Or months."

"Wait, months?" Elena's voice sounds distressed and irritated on the other line. Caroline can hear Damon clamoring about in the background, probably talking about something stupid which didn't matter.

And yet Caroline still finds herself feeling fond of him, after all this time. Ridiculous.

"I just want to clear my head." The blonde blinks down at her lap as she sits in the airport parking lot, completely and utterly at her wit's end.

"You realize that you can clear your head in Mystic Falls, Blondie?" Damon says, obviously listening in on the conversation. There's a muffled sort of scolding, as if Elena is covering the receiver as she tells Damon to shut up, and then Elena is back and apologizing for her boyfriend's behavior.

"I'm just worried about you," Elena says. Caroline believes her.

"I'm fine. I just—I need to get out of town. I can't be around him anymore, or anything that reminds me of him. I need to get over him. Properly."

"You can get over Tyler without being thousands of miles away—" There's a smacking sound, and Damon lets out an affronted cry of pain.

"Sorry." Elena sounds beyond annoyed. "He keeps trying to steal the phone away from me."

Caroline glances at the clock embedded in her car's dashboard. "I'll check in every week," she promises. "And I'll totally send presents!"

"But—"

Caroline ends the call and raises her hands to grip the steering wheel. She lets out a shuddering breath, slowly counting to ten in her mind. She doesn't consider herself a liar. But she's just lied to Elena, her best friend, and it probably didn't even seem like a big lie—

Caroline got over Tyler two weeks ago. Two weeks, three days, eight hours and twelve minutes ago.

Tyler had been her first love.

Caroline Forbes isn't sure if she's ready to confront her last.

She calls Klaus when she's had a bad day, and only when she's had a bad day. She wonders why she's so comfortable having him hear her at her worst. She never cries, just rants and shouts and snarks and she can almost see his amused smirk from states and states away.

Klaus rarely if ever offers advice or commentary beyond the occasionally dry comment or two. But he listens, he listens and somehow Caroline always finds his silence comforting. She knows that he cares.

Except he stopped asking her to come to New Orleans five years ago.

Caroline never asks him why he's stopped, never asks him why he doesn't seem so persistent anymore, never asks if he even wants to talk to her, if he even wants her anymore. Caroline never asks because she's afraid that the answer she'll get will hurt her. And she hates that it will hurt her.

At the end of their conversations he'll always say, "Goodnight, Caroline." She thinks that maybe he's restraining himself; she wonders if maybe he wants to say more, to say something else.

She feels like a foolish, foolish girl for wishing that he would say more.

When Caroline gets off the plane she doesn't call anyone. Not her mother. Not her friends. Not Klaus.

In fact, when Caroline gets off the plane she almost turns around and gets back on it. She didn't pack, she didn't plan, she didn't think and this is easily the most un-Caroline like thing she's ever done and yet…

And yet she's already here.

Sunny California greets her when she walks outside.

It takes her a grand total of two days to realize that she is completely and utterly an east coast kind of girl. All those middle school years she spent swearing to Elena and Bonnie that California was the place to be while they all watched the O.C. seem silly to her now. The sun is a little too bright, a little too hot, and even though the clothes that she'd bought are fantastic—

She misses home.

She stares out at the beach from her hotel window. The beach had been great until she somehow had managed to get sand in her underwear.

She scrolls through her phone, about to purchase a ticket that would take her straight back to Virginia, when she stops.

The sun is sitting against her skin and keeping it warm and she slides her phone back into her pocket. She misses home, but she's not sure if she wants to go back. Not just yet. This is what you call temporarily escaping, she thinks to herself.

No, this is what you call running away, something in her mind whispers back to her.

It sounds an awful lot like him.

Caroline ignores Facebook updates and text messages from Bonnie and Damon's petulant voice mails. The only person who she calls back is her mom, and that's really so that she can keep the Sheriff's anxiety at bay. Not that her mom tries to get in touch too often. Her mother had accepted her adulthood a long time ago. More than she should have, perhaps.

When he calls, she picks up right away, setting down her glass of vodka cranberry before placing her phone against her ear.

"What?"

There's an exhale from the other end, and she can tell that he's smiling.

"I heard that you've taken off on a little adventure." Klaus's voice is low and smooth and she wonders if he knows that she's smiling too.

"Oh, yeah? Who'd you hear that from?"

"A few worried little birds have been tweeting about it."

Caroline quickly downs the rest of her drink and then stretches back across her bed. Her eyes take in the ceiling and she tries not to notice the music playing in Klaus's background.

"All by yourself? You've never been a solitary creature, love."

Caroline huffs. They both know it's true, of course. She's a social butterfly by nature. But she skips over this fact, determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he's right. "I'll be fine. Can't a girl ever get some alone time without everyone worrying their heads off?"

"And what does a girl like you need alone time for?"

She bites and works her bottom lip with her teeth. "Just…"

She can't tell him. She can't.

Except she has to.

"Some Tyler stuff." She counts the ceiling tiles as she waits a beat for his response.

"Ah, the continued romantic escapades featuring Tyler Lockwood. Any new updates on that front?" She can hear the grit in Klaus's voice and her chest feels heavy and light at the same time.

"We're over." The admission is soft and she squeezes her eyes shut as if to hide, even though she's technically alone. "For good this time."

The silence on the other end is absolutely deafening.

"Is that so?" comes his lazy drawl, and Caroline swallows and tries to press down the upcoming freak out. There's a bang in the background and then Klaus's voice is back. "Afraid I have to go, love. Some matters have come up that need my attention. But you enjoy your little adventure."

The line goes dead as he hangs up and Caroline curls in on herself, wanting to cry but not having the ability to do so. Confusion and anger and stubbornness war within her and she wants to call him back and scream at him for not showing any excitement whatsoever.

She nibbles at the inside of her cheek and fumes and wonders where she should venture off to next instead.

She thinks about cutting her "adventure" short when she starts to get thirsty.

The back of her throat burns with need, and when she catches herself staring at the gentle pulse jumping from a barista's neck she considers flying back home.

Home is safe. Home is guaranteed.

Instead she grabs a local newspaper and finds an advertisement for a blood drive at a nearby hospital.

It's not hard to sneak in through the back.

"I saw a movie by myself today." Caroline sits on the bed at her new hotel and stares contentedly out the window at the drizzly, gray London weather.

"Oh, you've finally decided to call me back, huh?"

Caroline has the decency to wince.

But Bonnie continues on, not one to make too much of a fuss. "You've never seen a movie by yourself before?" She sounds surprised and quizzical from where she is, hundreds of miles away and across an ocean. "Really?"

"I never got the point in seeing a movie by yourself." Caroline opens her mouth to continue, before realizing that she used to not see the point in doing a lot of things by herself.

"I see movies by myself sometimes. You know, the ones you and Elena refuse to see."

Caroline cracks a smile and pulls her comfy sweater closer to her body. "Sorry, Bonnie, but there's only so much arty-fartsy films that I can take!"

"Yeah, uh huh. You two just lack an appreciation for culture," Bonnie jokes.

"Says the girl who isn't currently in London," Caroline points out, and both women crack into giggles.

And then Bonnie groans. "Jeremy is calling."

Caroline opens her mouth and is briefly set on telling her friend not to answer, but to keep talking to her, to keep her company instead.

But instead she exhales a silent sigh and clears her throat. "All right. I'll talk to you later, then."

They exchange the typical "I miss yous" and "goodbyes" and then Caroline is left alone in a quiet, cozy hotel room.

For a moment she desperately wishes that she had someone there in the room with her, someone who she could talk to. And not just about silly things, like how the boy who works the hotel desk has asked her out to the pub three times, or how their reality T.V. manages to be more engrossing on the other side of the pond.

She wants to talk about how everyone's accent make them sound just a little bit like him, and how she thinks about whether or not she's seeing a part of the world that he had wished to show her.

Denial.

The word occurs to her the very next day as she's sitting on a double decker bus.

She's made a run for it, she realizes. She's made a run for it and she hadn't even understood that that's what she was doing.

Caroline is in denial about her own feelings. Feelings that are there, that have always been there—subtle, but slowly growing stronger as each year passes.

She'd occasionally wondered if there would be loves in-between her first and her last. The answer is beginning to make itself very apparent.

The answer is no.

And, finally, Caroline Forbes has made it to Paris.

The first thing she does is buy a nice camera because, hello, the scenery here will make for a fantastic Facebook album. The second thing she does is fondly remember her early high school years, where she'd had Eiffel Tower key chains and notebooks and purses, and how she'd dreamed of taking a trip to Paris as her graduation present. Fifteen-year-old Caroline had been completely set on finding love in The City of Love, since high school boys couldn't even begin to make the mark.

Funny, how life never works out the way you think.

She stands in front of the Tower, staring up at it with wide, sharp vampire eyes and takes in every detail of its magnificent beauty. She memorizes it, stores it away.

When Klaus had first told her that she wasn't meant to stay in a small town, stuck, for the rest of her eternity, she'd had a dream. A specific dream, and sometimes it was a nightmare, because Klaus was the last soul that she ever wanted to dream of.

She'd dreamed of standing here, right here, under the Tower, and then she'd turn around and he'd be there. He'd be watching, and sometimes she'd smile at him, or frown, or reach out and touch him, or run. Her dreams would always reflect her feelings toward him, but each variation of the dream ended in the same way.

Klaus would always take her hand, and his skin always felt warm against her own.

Caroline steels herself, sure that if her heart still beat that'd it be hammering, and turns around.

No one. Only tourists that part around her, who don't cast her a second glance.

She swallows, not feeling sick or upset or emotional. Only resigned.

She thinks about calling Elena and apologizing for the way she'd reacted to her relationship with Damon all that time ago.

It's easy to decide to hate enemies that are demons, but it becomes harder when you find out that demons feel and hurt and ache just like the rest.

Klaus is a demon; Caroline loves him all the same.

It's when she sees the Hello Kitty store in Japan that she realizes that it's time to go home.

Caroline remembers the massive Hello Kitty themed birthday party that her mother had thrown for her when she was seven, and how every gift was Hello Kitty related. Seven-year-old Caroline had basked in Hello Kitty gloriousness for weeks after.

She still has all of her gifts; they're in her closet back home. She doesn't have the heart to give them away. Childhood had been fleeting, and she'd been determined to hold on to some piece of it for as long as possible.

Something pricks in the back of her eyes and Caroline lets out a shaky breath, suddenly so home sick that she wants to sit down in the middle of the street and cover her head with her arms.

I'm not meant to be alone, she understands.

She's at the airport two hours later.

She still purchases a Hello Kitty stuffed animal, though. For old time's sake.

Caroline knows why she's here.

But she hates herself a little bit for stopping here all the same.

She expected music and dancing and hundreds of people to be in the streets of New Orleans, but that's not quite what she's greeted with. It's not quiet, per se, there's still jazz coming out of every shop, but most tourists are walking around with their lunches in their hands, laughing and talking amongst themselves.

She frowns and eyes a taxi that passes her by, wondering if she should call one and high tail it back to Virginia before her life becomes even more complicated than it already is.

She turns sharply around, suddenly set in heading in the other direction, when she slams into someone carrying beignets. Powdered sugar instantly coats and sticks across her blouse and she freezes, eyes going wide, as the slightly drunk man apologizes and maneuvers around her.

Grinding her teeth in irritation and fully prepared to turn around and yell at this guy for being so careless (he could've at least offered her a beignet ), she's cut off by someone chuckling.

And she looks up and it's him, and it's sort of like her Tower dream but at the same time not at all.

"Klaus," she says, voice filled with disbelief, before remembering herself. She stands up straight and crosses her arms over her chest, not bothering to heed the dusting of powdered sugar covering her.

He laughs again, ageless eyes bright, and shakes his head. "Ah, my dear Caroline. What a way to see you again."

"This isn't funny," she grumbles. "I'm covered in sugar and I can't even eat it."

"It's a little funny, admit it."

The corner of her mouth lifts a little in displeasure, and she wonders how he always manages to get underneath her skin so easily.

"How'd you find me so quickly?" she asks. "I haven't even been in town for an hour."

Klaus shrugs casually. "You wanted to be found, so I found you." He says it so simply, like it means nothing at all.

And Caroline wants to smack him for his smirk, for saying the most perfect thing and making her want to scream in frustration and kiss him simultaneously.

She uncrosses her arms, suddenly unsure of what to do with her hands. How old is she again? And how is he making her feel like a love sick teenager again?

She points a finger. "You—you are so frustrating! I told you that Tyler and I had broken up and you basically had nothing to say! How could you have nothing to say?! You always have something to say because you're Klaus, even if it's annoying and stupid and evil, and you used to never shut up about me coming down here to join you, and the one time I actually wanted you to ask you didn't ask! When did you finally decide to get over me and why didn't you give me the memo?!"

He smiles a small, patient smile. "I didn't."

A hasty breath fills her lungs and she rocks back on the heels of her boots, mind going blank.

"You were going to make me wait, Caroline. So I waited for you to come join me here, instead of continually asking like before. I figured that when you finally joined me voluntarily, that you'd be ready."

Caroline's most agonizing demon ducks his head, and her head reminds her of all the terrible things that he's done and her heart reminds her of all the steps he's taken to try to make it up to her.

"Are you ready, Caroline?" he asks, holding out his hand.

And Caroline thinks that she'd like for him to show her the rest of the world, so she takes his hand. His skin is warm against hers.

She knows that it's the beginning of her last.

A/N:

I ignored some canon things, like the creepy Hayley/Klaus Renesmee baby and Bonnie being 'dead'. Mostly to suit my own laziness, admittedly.

I've wanted to write something for this ship for ages, and the season four finale finally gave me the push I needed. I sincerely hope everyone enjoyed.

Review and let me know your thoughts, if you feel so inclined.