that way untruth lies
everyday a little death

—

It's raining again. It's been raining for a week now but she finds the dreary, gray skies a little comforting as the days pass by. They work well with her brooding mood, she supposes, as she studies some raindrops seeping in and trickling down the frame of the window panel.

Thumbing through the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird she wonders where everything has gone too. Katherine disappeared— vanished, died, call it however you want and life has begun to be a fleeting moment, busy minds taking over corrupted lungs and mind-blowing heart sickness, busy hands stopping the revert to a not better but more complete time permanently.

Always the overachiever Caroline reads the story about Scout Finch and her older brother Jem not for the first time—yes, she adds it as bonus that it's always the junior English class' first assignment, while growing up it became like a mantra every morning and she never gets tired of reading literary classics while other children enjoy SpongeBob and Patrick's adventures in the jelly fields (still do).

Nonetheless, she thinks.

Some days, she still wakes up to more than just a sense of euphoric excitement and nerves of anticipation for what's to come— would have come, about where Katherine would have taken her— them, or what trouble they would have gotten themselves into this time. Some days, she still wakes up with this disconcerting feeling of how little she really knew about her secretive friend.

She thinks about bad days, bad stuff happening, and being the last of their group still trailing behind their memories, thinks about Katherine, and how it was always a long story or too complicated for Caroline to hear, in her unspoken but arbitrary opinion.

As they drifted apart they (her) felt utterly alone. Loneliness is cruelty apotheosized. Darker than hate, deeper than hell, loneliness killed with beautiful lethargy. And she —

Has been alone for so long.

It is Elena she felt the closest to (longest kept in touch) but as soon as her family moved to Iceland— take it as it is. A chance, a fresh start, a one way ticket to happiness and protection, the calls became fewer and soon texts and emails stopped all together.

Bonnie—affectionately called Bon, became really serious about literature and her family history which got her new friends, a (not really) new boyfriend and a comfortable place being the centre of her own little world.

There is a time she even thinks about Rebekah (good old Bekah—Bex—Barbie, always straightforward, almost nice, a gold halo of blonde hair struck by lightening with eyes so blue). It is not like she cares—in fact she does—that she so easily found a substitute, walking the streets like the mean girl she once loathed ("Katherine Pierce is dead to me already").

And it's so funny, she thinks, how we got to know each other.

Flashback

They hated each other immediately.

It was so clichéd, so predictable.

For a moment, Caroline anticipated a hidden camera to appear and a jovial man with slicked-back hair to congratulate her on her candidacy for a bad sitcom. Then, the teacher decreed that they would be partnered for the first chemical experiment. And all hell broke loose.

By the end of the first year, they had developed a sort of rapport. A semi-quasi-pseudo-armistice, with the implicit rules being: they would simply ignore each other. And for a while, things were going okay—spectacular really. Caroline was promoted to rank first and Rebekah actually passed all her exams equally well.

They could even stomach being in the same room together. And if she was feeling particularly masochistic, Rebekah could bear it for almost an entire hour (that was twenty minutes more than Caroline).

Around the middle of their second year in middle school, Caroline started thinking that Rebekah wasn't that terrible. Rebekah stopped assuming the worst whenever they were assigned to the same group. As they passed by in the hallway, Caroline even smiled her way (but it might had been a yawn or muscle twitch).

"Caroline…do you think I could borrow your notes from class? It was my mother's birthday, and I kind of…ditched."

Surprised, Caroline struggled to find the words. The notebook tucked under her arm began to itch and as if on its own accord, it switched ownership.

Muttering thanks, Rebekah continued down the hallway. Caroline shrugged and walked the other way. It had been a long school day.

But maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

There is no contact—too much tension, too many memories—and the feeling of never really knowing them (Katherine is what and why) surprisingly scares her whenever she casually greets them.

And no one wants to admit it, that nauseating feeling nagging at everyone's head, but—she can't (doesn't) speak freely, only ever in her mind does it roam like a catchy tune she's remembering months after months, that bugs her over and over again but she just can't get it out of her head, she just can—

it's better like that.

For everyone.

(Like bees, they gathered around their queen, extinguished like a fire among thorns they destroyed.)

But there is that time she is in Chicago visiting her father and she already feels that things are about to change, if only for the good, the better, but she just knows that it doesn't work for Caroline Forbes like that. God hates her, Satan hates her, even freaking Buddha thinks he occasionally can joke around with her life (she is going to end up in purgatory anyway) and make her feel miserable.

She is sitting outside on her favourite chair, pretending to get dressed and dolled up while she obviously isn't because there are better things to do than eating out with her other family—not that she doesn't like Steven and his daughter Camille, but she rather prepares herself for school than hearing how successful her step sister is while Caroline's still stuck in child's shoes.

Besides the fact that she's officially meeting Niklaus Mikaelson (she thought it was a joke—"As long as he looks better than his name."—and she reminds herself to once just shut up), Camille's new boyfriend and newest show off.

As she contemplates the pro and cons of "going to really prepare herself for their dinner," and "snuggle myself in bed, watch The Notebook and don't leave the house for the rest of the evening," she sees a figure slipping between the bushes.

Well, look who is here.

Clearly not seeing her, Camille's new boyfriend Klaus extinguishes his cigarette in the potted plant (if her father could see).

She rolls her eyes in an old fashioned manner. "Shouldn't you know better? I mean, even though she changed her major, you're girlfriend was a med student, right?" she adds patronizingly.

He smirks, spotting her lounging on the wooden patio chair. "And you're a bit of a smartass." His British accent already does the good deed to her ears. "You're Caroline, right? Camille's told me about you; I'm Klaus, by the way," he introduces himself, blatantly ignoring her question; Caroline thinks that a boy like him doesn't belong in Chicago—there's a glazed over look in his eyes that's reminiscent of a world away, where people aren't handed scholarships and trophies on a golden platter, implements of silver spoons lined on the sides of embroidered rugs, stashes of silk tissues in preparation for a heartbreak or loss of a sudden opportunity.

"A bit?" she counters driving his point further home as she flips a page in her book, smirking. "Does Camille know you smoke?"

"Does she have to know everything?" he replies raising an eyebrow.

They share a smile, eyes locking, and Caroline already realises that she's feeling things she shouldn't.

Even a massacre can be beautiful.

Fingers touching, hands linking, Caroline thinks that there's no one more beautiful in the world. In the pastels of an unsettled storm, unlashing its last bite, Klaus' eyes are the colour of rain. Amazed, Caroline wonders what it'd be like to drown in those waters.

Awful and wonderful like birthing a train wreck.

His lips brush against hers, and Caroline feels herself falling; he tastes like poison and wine, a flavour when which combined causes a pounding in her head, perhaps a signal in her mind reminding her of Camille—oh yes, that's right, his girlfriend—and she pushes back, ocean blue eyes flashing with alarm; she doesn't think twice about looking in the other direction (anywhere but him).

"We should do that again, sometime," Klaus murmurs, his voice low and all too much wrong.

Caroline tilts her head in a quick and fluid motion, sharply. "Are you trying to ruin my life?" She asks, wondering how long it would take for Camille, who had been nothing but the perfect sister for her (some differences aside); realize that her tainted lips had been breached by another's, or more specifically, her boyfriend's. "Because, this isn't how it's supposed to be—I'm Caroline Forbes and you're…you're my step-sister's boyfriend, and this isn't right."

"I should go now." Klaus mutters and Caroline almost feels hurt at the indifference in his tone, and then remembers how she shouldn't care about what Niklaus Mikaelson thinks, because he's not even a part of her life, even if it feels like he is. She fingers the polyester material beneath her skirt, cotton candy lip gloss plastered upon her lips with the undertones of cinnamon and regret; uncertainty hovers like and execution of guilt, punishing in many different ways. She really should go, but can't bring herself to—not quite yet.

And then, somehow (screw you moral sense), it happens again.

He feels her lips hot on his. Caroline pulls him down and dots kisses along his cheek, past his jaw line and neck. Tracing the crisp edge of his collar, she fumbles with the knots. Easily, she strips him of his grey Henley (his necklaces cooling their skin).

—shaky hands and nervous smile—

He senses the distant arrest of desire. Dim and smoky, it filters through him like a gradual abrasion. The muscles on his back tense, breath shortened. Her fingers puncture like delicate stilettos—icy.

Gripping her thin thighs, he lifts her hips to meet him. She is warm and tight (lets out a tiny whimper). Gently, he eases in. He moves slowly. He wants to brand this moment on his memory. And he can't ignore the sick feeling that she is ready to spring up and flee any second now.

But instead, she captures his mouth, kissing him raw and brutal. Quickening (hurry now) he pushes deeper. Caroline moans, soft and light, and arches against him. Sharps ribs dig into him. She comes with a low hiss. And he dissolves away.

Next to him, Caroline falls asleep. He tucks back her messy blonde curls and gently cups her cheek. For a second (too long spend) he studies her. White shadows lined her chest (the moon—so distraughtly beautiful). Her expression reverted back to a stoic mask.

It had been a mistake. To be forgotten and embalmed. A nightmare that can't replay (reassures himself).

The lie rings blank—even to him.

He's not there when she wakes up and blatantly saying—Caroline feels that it's better that way. She's saying goodbyes to her father and Steven ("Stay well, okay?" she says) and hugs Camille one last time not knowing how to otherwise face her.

Klaus is not there. She doesn't care.

Lie.

Caroline's doing homework because she finds it much easier to concentrate on different (important) things than let her mind revert back to Niklaus Mikaelson and his damn good—

An alert from her computer pulls her away from the lewd scene playing in her head and she opens the new email with slight amusement.

Poor Caroline. Always wants what isn't hers. But remember, if you kiss I tell. –K

She is staring at the screen—horrified, her eyes zone in on one particular letter. K. Not that it's unusual but she finds it to be creepy that it feels like Katherine Pierce is standing right behind her, one hand on her shoulder—"Your naivety is priceless, Carebear."—relishing in the deep harboured secrets of others, using them for her own superficial gains and amusement.

Katherine is the only one who knows about her kiss with Matt while Elena and him were still dating (not that it was serious with them, it wasn't). It has to be her, she thinks, but how?

And it's like so intelligent—so Katherine Pierce—to be alive somewhere, still pulling the strings from whichever rotten place she is hiding in and playing her manipulative games with the people who mourn and miss her like the puppet master leads his marionettes.

Caroline walks over to the window that looks directly into Katherine's old room and she feels stupid thinking that there was a time when making Kat laugh in a good way made her feel like she is special. The blonde straightens up in surprise when she sees a flash of brown hair leave from the view of the window.

Katherine.

(she feels utterly ridiculous and confused now.)

They find her body on a Tuesday.

Bonnie, Elena and her do not speak. Usually. This is a firmly established mutual accord-a creed-and the first to break, the first to die. But this morning, Caroline is surprised when Elena nods her a hello-how-do-you-do.

And givers her one of her peculiar, tight-knit smiles.

"I heard the cops took Bonnie to the police station today."

Caroline feels the familiar panic brew in her core. She knows what Elena is getting at.

"You don't think she'd ever talk about—"

"The Rebekah Thing?" the brunette in question interrupts, stepping forward and joining them on the sidewalk now. "We made a promise."

(till death do us part.)

Reminiscing in old memories and stolen moments, the three long lost friends stay in silence to treasure the best friend they have lost (it seems) ages ago.

Death unites all. (so the saying goes.)

The day of Katherine's funeral is the first day Caroline sees both her friends crying.

(It will not be the last.)

Bonnie clenches her fists and shamelessly lets tears streak across her face. Elena blinks a bit more than can be blamed on springtime allergies and attempts to dry the wetness with a surreptitious swipe of her sleeve.

(There are no stifled sobs or heave breaths. Not even from Caroline.)

Caroline is the only impassive figure in a sea of mourners. She thinks of how Katherine was a terrible friend, a terrible leader, a terrible person.

(It is not hard for her.)

She looks up.

Across the church, Katherine is still motionless. And then Caroline tries to decipher: how she died, why she died. For peace, for justice, for the unholy, god-hanged reparations she promised?

But some questions are never answered.

And Katherine is still dead.

She waits until after they drop her deep into her grave, after they pile the earth of a new year onto her casket. She waits until after everyone has left to forget that manipulative, still lovable girl who got herself killed probably doing what she always did best-lie.

She waits until after the sun set and the moon rises and after the stars shine and dim and then-and then she drops to her knees and buries her hands in that loamy earth and razes her field with the salt of her tears.

There is a memorial at school and it feels like Katherine never left when Bonnie sits next to her and Elena arrives—strikingly beautiful and stricken at the same, Bonnie reaching out to squeeze her hand and Caroline reassuringly smiling ("everything is going to be better from now on," she says).

She is sitting next to her and swiftly takes a look at the black frame-a contrast to the chameleon soul being memorialized in it.

"Poor Kat." Elena says (gazing).

"Can you believe what a scene this is?" Bonnie inserts (mockingly laughing).

"Katherine would have loved it." Caroline agrees.

(popular in life and death, she thinks.)

There is a phone ringing—bring bring—and it makes Caroline cringe in a way she doesn't want to remember and she sees Bonnie look surprisingly the same as her (just seeing Elena's face makes her realize that they all are afraid of the same thing or better, person).

"Let me guess, you both got messages from –K, right?" the blond inquires to know.

She looks them straight into the eyes and wonders if it ever ends and wonders if it is true. Has there, has there really been? No.

Caroline sees Elena, sees Bonnie.

(yes.)

When the gossip unfolds, she turns her head.

"Oh my god, it's Rebekah…and Klaus…"

Heart pounding (soul scorches), she searches for a clue. She could not believe it. But there he was: all curly blond hair and the perpetual grin of a wolf etched on his face. Leading Rebekah into the school and sitting as far away from them as possible.

Something goes putrid inside her, debauches her thoughts (misses the beat of her heart). Slow, long ago, string her nerves up vertical and ear away. It is the only explanation on why:

She can't stop staring.

"Care?"

She turns at the call of her name. Calm and simple, Elena asks, "Who is he?"

"Klaus Mikaelson. I met him some weeks ago." (she doesn't have to tell, does she?)

Klaus Mikaelson, So I See.

"Why the hell does this guy—Klaus—accompany Rebekah, all the more to a memorial of a girl that she had no contact to anymore?" Bonnie asks, biting her lower lip.

(she ignores the flagrant intimation)

"There is a reason we get those messages after all." Elena says, quiet and firm.

Caroline scoffs but does not speak anymore. Mordant, the accusation cuts deep (she had a thing for him).

Sorry. As if that changes anything.

Thousand of sympathetic hugs and words later the three girls leave the memorial—one last longing look, but their mourning heavy hearts are interrupted by a coffee brown-coloured haired man approaching (like an arrow aiming an apple) them.

He looks at each of them and straight forward pinpoints them with their names, "Bonnie, Caroline, Elena, and…"

"Rebekah," the person in question says grinning (perfectly brushed strands of blonde hair, and the perpetual smirk is stitched over her mouth).

(turning around of course there stands the devil herself)

"Get lost; no one wants to speak with you," Caroline retorted easily.

"So?" Rebekah asks, raising her eyebrows, Nonchalance, that is the crucial and ingrains down to heart. "Maybe I want to speak with him."

Elena winces, not meeting Rebekah in the eye, not wanting to see the blue eyes full of mistrust while Bonnie's face flashes a brief spasm of distress as she tries to defuse the situation, "Do we know you?"

"I'm Detective Saltzman. I understand you all were good friends with the victim." he says, pulling out his business card and handing it over to her.

"Yeah, we were." Caroline says pointedly (Rebekah ignores the snorting glance)

"I'm going to need talk to each one of you."

"We talked to the police when Katherine went missing." Elena explains.

"And I intend to go over each and every one of your statements since this is no longer a missing person's investigation—it's a murder," the voice ran, smooth as silk, "And rest assured I will find out what happened last summer."

They walk, stone-cold somber, and hardly breathe. And from the corners of her eye, she sees two men (one smiley and squinty and dangerously kind-looking, the other has brown hair with an appraising look on his face-Alaric Saltzman)

"We know why you're back here." Caroline lies and twists a smile into place.

She bites her lip, tugs at a strand of hair, and refuses to meet her eye, "Yes, but for the sake of humility, let's pretend you don't."

"You are crazy if you think those messages will scare us," she says seriously, one side of her face dropping slightly, "Tell us: What's in it for you?"

Rebekah raises an eyebrow, wondering what game she is playing at.

"I know I'm a looker, but quit gawking and answer me."

She snorts and crosses her arms (pulls her lips into a smirk), "Maybe I'm a total bitch. Ever think about that?"

Upon seeing the girls' distressed faces Rebekah sighs (rolls her eyes), "I don't even know what you are talking about, so please stop looking at me as if I told the whole world about-how do you call it? 'The Rebekah Thing?'"

Abruptly, Caroline's mind goes blank. Nothing else comes to mind. Because—the nasty voice states—there is nothing else. Starve or slay (they deserve everything they get).

"I have given you my opinion. Ultimately the decision if you believe me, of course, is yours to make."

Hesitant but resolving, they say no more on the subject. Caroline knows when to let sleeping dragons lie. But they, like all misshapen desires and coiled beasts, will eventually rebel.

All in good time.

A minute later a man with sandy-blond hair and ferocious eyes appears ("Nik," she says). They are hesitant and curious, and she runs gladly towards him waving her arms. She shouts out hellos and other baby-sweet phrases (like missed girl: do you know her?)

"Are you okay?" Klaus asks.

She smiles, yes.

Caroline has no right (not at all) but she feels jealous and confused and neglected because he is not even glancing at her while she does all but glance (and more) at him howunfairhowcruel.

And they keep watching, grim and amused.

Like rehearsed their phones begin to ringring at the same time—like a newfound definition of orchestra in tune with the awe-stricken gasps of the girls as they take out their phones.

Elena blanches, eyes darting around fearfully, "Oh my god."

"Who the hell is this?" Bonnie snarls, glancing back to her phone.

Caroline shivers, even though the sun strikes down directly overhead, "I'm still here, bitches. And I know everything. –K."

They are in trance, suppressing the loathsome irritation and fear threatening to break out violently.

(Terror is straightforward. The trigger is who.)

A/N: Firstly, I want to apologize because I had to delay the update for so long but writer blocks and exams got in the way. Secondly, as you see this chapter still slightly follows the Pretty Little Liars plot, but that will change in the next one. Rebekah will play a big role (seen as she is on the poster for this story you may guessed) and we finally get some Klaroline and the love interests for the other girls will appear. Furthermore I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes, I didn't read this one again because I was just happy to finally have it finished and I mitigated my writing style because some people found it to complicated for a multi-chaptered story so I hope this is better and more understanding, I really tried.