I wrote this in response to the many, many posts on Tumblr today when I should have been working. I hope you enjoy it.

The club was packed.

Teeth grinding, Stefan Salvatore stared at the mass of bodies moving together, the scent of sweat and alcohol heavy in the air. Human pulses and the deep, loud thrum of the base hid the irregular heartbeats of the undead. He knew he wasn't the only vampire in this club, but the problem was the one he hunted was hidden just as effectively as everyone else.

A flicker of blonde at his peripheral was a taunt, and he raked his hands through his hair. Two weeks since they'd fucked up; two weeks since Caroline had used that particular brand of ruthless practicality that made her so damn smart against them, and disappeared.

"Do not follow me, Stefan. I know where you've buried your secrets and you don't want to play this game with me. This is your last warning."

The cool, clipped tones of her voice had shaken him. Her sunshine sweetness might have occasionally been eclipsed by a particular brand of Caroline-bitchiness, but the Caroline on the phone had been a stranger. Damon had laughed off her threat, but Stefan knew she meant every word.

She'd staked him to the floor of her home, had taunted him with his fake lack of emotions, and snapped his neck.

"Stefan, Stefan - you think I didn't know?"

He blinked open bleary eyes and gasped around the stake in his lungs. Caroline was bent over him, lips painted blood red. She was smiling at him, but the coldness there made his gut hurt.

He tried to talk, and she pressed one finger to his lips. "Shhh. Don't talk, we both know you'll just lie to me anyway. You did a good job, with your little fake out, your impassioned plea to Elena. I liked that touch. Very dramatic."

She pressed her knees alongside his hips, hand pressing the stake harder into his chest. "You broke your end of the deal."

"Caroline." He managed and her nails cut into his chest.

"Shut up. You don't have permission to talk." Caroline bared sudden fangs at him, eyes dark with anger. "I'm done, you understand? With you, with Elena, with this town. I made rules - I was following them. You only had to wait a year, but I'm not Elena, am I? What I want doesn't matter. Well, fuck you Stefan Salvatore. It's my life, and for the next year, I'm going to live it how I want."

Sharp, dangerous teeth bent over his neck, and her breath brushed against his ear like knives. "No more rules, no more promises. Let's see how well the world bleeds, no?"

Then she'd snapped his neck.

It'd taken a tracking spell to find her; Caroline had completely covered her tracks.

This club made him uncomfortable. It was close enough to New Orleans to draw a large non-human crowd, but not so close that big players gathered near. But it was the blood that was pounding into his skull.

Fake. Fake. Fake.

A sudden hand clasped on his shoulder, spinning him around and Stefan felt the blood freeze in his veins. Klaus smiled at him, dimples cutting into his cheeks.

"Stefan, mate, you look like you've seen a ghost."

"What are doing here?" Stefan finally asked, eyes narrowing. "Why aren't you in New Orleans?"

Klaus smile turned sharp. "Ah yes. New Orleans. The rumor mill is a bit of a disappointment then, if you haven't heard. Let's get a drink."

"I'm not interested."

"I wasn't asking." Klaus said mildly. "You understand my curiosity when I'm passing through a few towns over, and I catch you looking particularly irritated. Who are you hunting, Stefan? Where's the rest of your friends?"

Stefan grimaced and turned to the bar. This was the last thing he wanted. An emotionless Caroline would be delighted to see Klaus and he wasn't sure he could take it. Watching her use Klaus as a weapon... but if anyone could help her, it might be him.

"What rumors?" Stefan asked once their drinks were served.

"New Orleans recently experienced... a culling." Klaus' eyes glinted, and the coldness there cut. "It's been accredited as the greatest loss of witches since the Witch Trials. Harder to fake death when your head is being ripped off."

"Why?" Stefan asked once he'd managed to swallow.

"Oh, you have your little gang to thank for that." Klaus nursed his whiskey. "Too much compassion, too many people who walked away spreading rumors that I was weak. Tyler's life expectancy is exceptionally short."

Stefan wanted to say Caroline wouldn't approve. But if he didn't find her, didn't force her back into grieving, in a year the Caroline he knew might very well be gone.

"Why are you here?" Klaus asked. He seemed generally interested, but Klaus was a master manipulator.

"Caroline flipped the switch."

Klaus went still - motionless in a way humans never could. Heart, lungs and blood - it remained unmoving as Klaus absorbed the impact of his words.

"Her mother."

Stefan nodded jaw working as he stared into his drink. "I've tracked her..."

"Caroline is here?" Klaus interrupted, face concerned.

"That's not why you are?" Stefan asked humorlessly. "You didn't have spies?"

Klaus arched a brow even as he turned, eyes scanning the mosh pit. "I'd hardly be talking to you if the was the case. What happened?"

"She wanted a year."

Klaus turned to face him, eyes narrowing. "Pardon?"

Stefan rubbed his face. "She asked us for a year, without emotions. As if that would help her cope."

"In the long run, maybe, maybe not." Klaus pushed himself up. "Seemed to do wonders for you mate."

"No it didn't." Stefan snapped. "And it's not like you can control an emotionless vampire, especially one as smart as her. A year could be a ploy."

"Is that why she asked?" Klaus questioned mildly. "To put you off her scent?

"She staked me to her kitchen floor," Stefan snapped. "Why else would she do that?"

Klaus shrugged, reached over and snapped Stefan's neck. Holding him up, he moved to a booth and shoved him inside. Smiling, he dusted his hands.

"A good question, mate. I'll be sure to ask her."

He found her leaving through a back exit. She walked over the broken concrete and gravel as if it was flat, impossible heels showing the shortness of the dress to advantage.

"Klaus."

Her lips were curved, but her eyes. Her eyes were wild, pupils blown from her blood high. She'd wiped her face clean, but had left her lipstick messy, the red smeared by blood. Klaus let himself drink her in, the crimson of her dress, the scent of blood on her skin and the wild curls in her hair. He'd sketch this later, the abandonment of her rules, the truth she'd hidden under her skin.

"Caroline, sweetheart, you look ravishing."

She tossed her hair, and his smile widened at the dark rust of blood caught in the ends. Messy eater, his girl. He wondered what this apathy and anger tasted like on her tongue.

"Did the Scooby-gang call you?" She drawled, lips twisted in a proxy of humor.

"Hardly love, although we both know you should've."

She rolled her eyes and turned on those heels of hers, sashaying across the low light of the parking lot. He followed, hands sliding into his pockets as he watched her move.

"Do we? Why? Are you going to help them? I saw you speaking to Stefan. Nice neck snap. I'll remember that wrist flick."

He grinned. "It's always the wrist sweetheart. Brute force is... so inelegant."

"Oh, I know." She dismissed him with a flicker of her fingertips. "So what did my newest paramour have to say for himself?"

"Paramour?"

"Oh, he'd like to be. Did you know that Stefan thinks he's my emotional trigger?" She glanced back at him and that smile he wanted against his bare skin. All wicked lies and her particular brand of calculation, just softened by deviousness. "That I'd turn my emotions back on if he pushed hard enough?"

"Does he? How exactly did he come about that particular conclusion?" Klaus didn't bother to hide the bite in his voice, the jealousy. Stefan was lucky that death hadn't been more permanent.

A shrug. A flicker of tongue against her lips, and her lashes hooded those eyes as she tasted blood. "I might have helped him along."

"Did you now?" He paced behind her, keeping within an easy distance. She smiled at that, but it was a sharp, dangerous thing. A weapon she wielded carelessly.

"My mom's dead." Her voice was flat, hard like the gravel beneath her feet. "My mom died and do you know what they did? It was about Damon."

She threw out her arms and his eyes traced the lines of her, lingering the smear of blood at her wrist, the tightness of her shoulders. The shape of her face in shadow.

"Mom. My mom. Mine." Her eyes were glittering. "But no - poor little Caroline, it's her mommy, but I loved her too. How can I understand that, what Damon lost? Fuck Damon. Fuck all of them. Do you know what Elena told me?"

How brittle she must have been standing with her friends, and watching them poor sympathy onto the man who raped her. Oh, hadn't dear Rebekah drooped that morsel into their conversations, taunting him - his promise to not return holding him rooted.

Impotent with rage and no outlet.

"Enlighten me."

"That she wouldn't let me make that choice." Her lips twisted into a sneer. "As if she'd the right. As if anyone cared when I objected to her, to Stephan being forced into it. But since they were shit people when they turned it off, then everyone must become their personal nightmares."

She arched her back, looking at the moon. "So I broke her neck."

"I'll hardly complain about that love," Klaus told her. "It's a pity the first time it happened, she'd vampire blood in her system."

Caroline laughed, spinning in a circle, palms lifted to the sky. "Elena hates it you know. Doesn't understand that being a vampire is..."

"Is what?" Klaus asked, watching her. The dips and plans as she moved through the moonlight. She paused and looked at him, curls settling around her face, a single strand of hair caught against the stain of her lips. Her smile was a feral thing, temptation in the curve of her mouth.

"Freeing."

He stepped closer, and she narrowed her eyes. He stopped, letting her study him. Oh, he might like that look - the lust, a predator recognizing another - but he'd wait. Caroline had never truly hidden her preference for vampirism. Still, Stefan was chasing her. Her friends were trying to force her to cling to humanity when she'd taken a blow to the heart she might not recover from, and all of it fit with what he knew of them.

But her?

"Why turn it off? Regardless of the distance Caroline, you'll grieve. And it'll hurt as much a year from now as it did yesterday."

Darkness filled her gaze, threaded below her eyes and she bared her fangs. He took three quick steps, pressed into her space and breathed her in. Carefully, slowly so that she could push him back, he ghosted his fingers along those black lines of malady.

Decided he'd trace more of her soon.

"Is this your choice, Caroline?"

She scoffed at him, but she didn't moved, didn't flinched as his knuckles grazed down her cheek. But she didn't put her teeth away, either.

"I told them I wanted a year." She said lowly, holding his gaze. The darkness swallowed his reflection, devoured everything she looked at. "No emotions, no caring, no worry. One year, and in return, I wouldn't kill anyone."

There was his missing piece.

That was the Caroline he knew. Devastated, grieving and lacking support... with Damon taking the spotlight, Stefan apparently making move to romance her through the funeral and Bonnie dead; his girl would make a choice. Better to turn it off and have rules, then be forced into it and do something she'd regret.

Of course the Mystic Falls fool would fight her on it. Of course they'd lack any understanding of what she was, what she wore under her skin.

She met his eyes, smiled. Black eyes, blacker veins and sharp, sharp fangs. But that smile - that was Caroline. "I warned them, you know."

He smiled in pure affection. "That was generous."

She reached out and caught his necklaces between her fingers, toyed with the beads. Flirted with her eyes, her lashes. "Hmmm. I can be generous. I told them that if they interfered, I'd become their worst nightmare."

He laughed, pleased with the deviousness in her gaze. "Is that why Stefan is hunting you?"

"Do you know how it eats at him, thinking I'll become a ripper? That I'll destroy what he thinks is good and pure, what he thinks he loves?" Her lips pulled away from her fangs in a sneer. "I'm not weak."

He twisted a blood-touched curl around his finger and smiled at her, dimples flashing deep. "Oh, sweetheart. Stefan is amusing, isn't he? All riled and frustrated, projecting his own failings on everyone. So easily tied into knots. Pity that the doppelgänger is just as weak - but you? Love, you're a queen."

She watched him under her lashes and the darkness slowly receded from her eyes. Blunt, human teeth caught her bottom lip before her tongue snaked out to wet it.

"Is this where you make your plea?" Caroline asked, false amusement touching her eyes. "Do I get to threaten you too?"

"I asked you once, if you'd make me the same deal you'd once offered someone else." Klaus said instead. He caught the hand in his necklaces, lifted her bloodied wrist to his mouth and licked away the stain. Her pupils went wide, lips parting slowly as she watched him.

"Make me an offer, Caroline."

She shuddered, breath pushing away from her lungs in a heave. "Your city - the baby, those fucking responsibilities?"

He bit her fingertips, blunt teethe scrapping over sensitive fingertips. "Razed to the ground. Burnt to ash. I don't allow liars to live."

Her head tilted and her eyes narrowed. "Haley?"

He laughed and kissed along her palm, lips pressing against what was once her pulse point. "Dead, as my preference. My kingdom at your feet, sweetheart. The world. Tell me what you need. Offer me what you've given others, Caroline."

She leaned forward with tiny, panting breaths hot against his lips. "A year. I want a year where I don't have to think, I don't have to breathe. Where I can be free."

His smile was a feral thing, but she didn't flinch. "What does free mean, Caroline?"

She touched his lips, fingertips lightly tracing skin until he shivered. "I made a list. So I'd remember and I wrote out the reasons; I might one day care about them."

"Oh?"

She sneered a little, lips curling away from her teeth. "I didn't want to kill anyone; what fun is apathy forever? I know that one day, I'll miss my mom. When that happens, I won't regret this. It might break me... When this is done I'll need something to cushion it - I don't want to break."

He kissed her, mouth skimming hers. Her lips parted with a greedy little noise that strained his control. Then she bit his lip with human teeth until he bleed and he shuddered, hands gripping her hair until she moaned.

Pulling back, he licked his lip and watched her chest heave.

"With me, sweetheart, there will be no regrets." He smoothed her hair and stepped back, hand extended. "Come with me."

She laced her fingers with his, face questioning. "Where?"

"First blood." He tugged her in the direction of his car. "Blood bags are required sweetheart, if you don't want to kill anyone. Then, you decide."

Her lips pressed against his ear, breath hot. "I can have whatever I want?"

"Anything." He told her, eyes shut as she sucked on his neck, just a little. Anything at all.

She pulled back, eyes glittering. "Klaus?"

She bit the corner of her lip, and that calculation that was such a turn on, it turned her smile wicked, and it caught at his chest.

"Let's go make some trouble."

He brought their joined hands to his lips, his smile a match for hers.

"I'd be delighted."

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