They were on the road the next day, driving. The stunt with the men had gained a little more media attention than they would have liked, and they felt the need to keep moving. Caroline swore to return one day, however. Despite the attack, she was attracted to the city, and nothing could stop her from coming back in the future.
Klaus kept glancing over to Caroline to see how she was coping, and she appreciated and was warmed by his care, but in all honesty, she had killed before. Killing in self defense or to defend someone she cared about was something she could come to terms with. It was just the combination of the men targeting her and how she had automatically elected to remove the mans heart – a classic Original move – that had shaken her.
"I'm fine, you know." She sighed as she felt his gaze move to her face again. "Eyes on the road."
"We could fly somewhere else, rest for a few days, not do anything." Klaus suggested, not wanting her to feel pressured. It had not been the best start to the Caroline planned part of the trip, and he wondered if she would overexhauste herself. No, he didn't wonder. He worried. He wasn't particularly happy that he worried, for worrying about his family was one thing, but worrying to this extent about Caroline was something he was not comfortable with yet. But there was no other option for him. Being changed irreversibly by another human being was not something that one could choose. He merely had to accept it, embrace it.
"You just want to get the control back." Caroline rolled her eyes at his voiced comment. "No chance, Klaus. No way."
"Whatever you say, love." Klaus conceded with a smile curling his lips.
"That's right." Caroline nodded vehemently, earning a chuckle from the hybrid.
"Now, the slow torture of Niklaus continues." Caroline joked. "First I take away the control, and next up is the introduction into music of this century. Where's the iPod?"
"Back pocket." Klaus grinned over at Caroline, trying to be difficult.
She merely raised one eyebrow before unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning over him. Klaus masked his surprise well while her hand went to search the back pocket of his jeans, staring her straight in the eye, their faces a mere inch apart while he somehow kept control of the car on the highway.
"Its not here."
"No? Must be the other back pocket."
Her hand went around to the other side even though she did not move from where she was leaning over him. She gave a thorough search even though the pockets themselves were not all that deep, purely just to feel his impeccable behind, but didn't find what she was looking for.
"Not there?" Klaus asked innocently while he smirked, and Caroline gasped in mock outrage.
"Niklaus!"
Klaus pressed his lips to hers hungrily. "I love it when you say my name." He said against her lips, his words soft but harsh with his deep husky voice. Caroline shivered deliciously, his action almost prompting a reaction from her, the word 'love' on the edge of her lips. But she pulled away, knowing it was neither the time nor place for such declarations.
"You just want crazy car sex." She said, and Klaus laughed again. Caroline pressed a kiss to his neck, nipped it, and kissed it again before returning to her seat.
"We'll both have to wait. There's still a long way to go."
"Sweetheart, are you planning on driving us to China?" Klaus said jokingly, then did a double take at the expression on Caroline's face. "Really?"
"Not China, but yes, this is going to be a bit of a road trip. Which is why I figured I'd get the music going."
"Check my coat pocket." Klaus said helpfully, and Caroline fished out the device from his discarded jacket and plugged it into the car stereo system. Ed Sheeran's voice filled the car, and Caroline sat back with a smile.
"Your lucky I'm feeling good right now. If I had felt vengeful, it would have been The Spice Girls."
"Then thank you for your kindness, love." Klaus said with a wrinkle in his brow. Caroline smiled, programming the GPS system without letting Klaus know the destination and settling back in the seat.
An hour later, they were still driving, the music still playing, but Caroline was no longer awake. Somewhere between songs, Klaus had looked over to see if Caroline had been taking in the scenery or thinking of another random question such as the ones she had been asking for the last 100 miles, only to find the baby vampire curled up with her chin resting on her shoulder, eyes shut, comfortably in oblivion. He could have easily just watched her, but he had a road to concentrate on. Instead, he let his mind roam, wondering how they had come this far, how he had managed to end up driving to who-knows-where with the beautiful blonde. Klaus conceded that all that mattered was that he was there, and so was she.
When Caroline woke up, she did so quietly, not moving or even opening her eyes, just letting her other senses work out her surroundings. It ended up being in her favor, for she heard her favorite Coldplay song start playing over the speakers, and she took care to mask her shock as she heard Klaus humming along.
Look at the stars, look how they shine for you
Caroline slowly opened her eyes, and sure enough, like a perfect movie cliché, she could see the stars just starting to appear in the darkening sky. They were still travelling along the highway, the lights passing over the car at a slow and steady pace.
And everything you do
"They were all yellow." Klaus sung softly, and Caroline couldn't hold back her surprise any longer, turning to see him at the wheel. He glanced back at her with an ever so slightly troubled look on his face, like he had been caught, and she wondered if she shouldn't ask about the singing. But she was young and curious and knew that they were slowly but surely getting to a place of complete comfort with each other, and so she didn't hold back.
"Were you singing?"
"And a hello to you too, angel." Klaus replied smoothly. Caroline looked at Klaus expectantly as she waited for him to answer, but he refused to even acknowledge her stare, eyes focused on the road for a change.
"Nik!" She said impatiently, and he bit back a grin.
"Hmm?"
"Were you singing just now?"
"What, along to this drivel?" Klaus nodded towards the stereo system. "How absurd."
"Coldplay is not absurd." Caroline huffed.
"The Beatles, Coldplay, all those English boy bands, they are nothing compared to the composers of the true artistic era." Klaus said wisely. Caroline simply thought he was just showing off.
"Look, just cause One Direction isn't Mozart or Bach doesn't mean that their music is 'drivel'."
"What is 'One Direction'?"
"Its not a what, it's a who."
"One Direction can't be a who, it's a where."
"Regardless, they're yet another English band – " Caroline raised her eyebrows at Klaus. "And might I remind you that you are English – "
"I'm technically from Mystic Falls – "
"But you have the accent – "
"But its not necessarily because I'm British, love."
"They're yet another English band," Caroline started again with a pointed stare. "That sings. Like you were singing before."
"I was not doing anything of the sort."
"Shame. Whoever was singing had a nice voice."
Klaus shut his mouth, and Caroline returned to gazing out the window at the lights from the road and sky.
Despite his effort to deny any vocalization, Klaus still hummed along with Chris Martin.
"Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones. Turn into something beautiful. You know, for you I'd bleed myself dry,"
Caroline glanced back at Klaus, not certain that what she heard was true. Had that always been the lyric line? How had she never noticed?
Klaus watched the road, unaware of Caroline's gaze, yet he seemed almost honest as he surprisingly kept singing: albeit, softly and under his breath. "For you I'd bleed myself dry."
Caroline blinked and looked back out to the sky, unable to handle everything while also acutely aware of how she felt now, and the fact that they were properly alone and every moment near him now gave her the ultimate dilemma of wondering whether they should talk, gaze at each other, or delight in each others bodies.
She always thought that hunger could be sated, that hunger could go away. It always had with food, always had with drink, always had with talking and kissing and the eventual sex that she had worked up to in her teenage years. But now, in her vampire years, she was finding that bloodlust was a harder hunger to shake. She had been happy that at least lust in general had been easy to sate, but that was being proved wrong again as she found that it didn't matter how much she had of Klaus, she always wanted more. And even though he could always give more – more companionship, more surprises, more tender words and fierce power and passionate, delicious caresses – it was never enough. She would keep taking from him for a lifetime.
It hit her again just how entwined her future was with him now, and she liked it. She didn't know what she would do without him. She was being ridiculous. But she didn't care. Love did crazy stupid things like that.
"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you..." Klaus trailed off to a hum, and Caroline shook herself from her thoughts.
"Right. My turn to drive. You can get some sleep."
"Don't need it." Klaus smirked over at her and her tousled hair. "You had plenty of beauty sleep for the both of us."
"Yeah, well, it looks like you need a good few hours of beauty sleep yourself." Caroline shot back, and Klaus made a big deal of acting hurt, but they both knew he was teasing just as she was. "Pull over, I'll take it from here."
"I'm fine."
"I didn't say you weren't fine, I just said pull over so I can drive."
"There's only one alpha male around here." Klaus grumbled, still doing as she requested and pulling over to stop the car.
"Yes, and one alpha female." Caroline smiled as they walked around to the opposite sides of the car. Klaus made sure to step in front of her a few times so she couldn't pass, which earned a laugh and a groan before Caroline slid across the nose of the car just to get to the drivers seat.
Despite his protest, Klaus was more than happy to stretch back in the passenger seat and watch Caroline with lazy eyes. Talk was easy and relaxed, and filled with stretches of comfortable silence that Caroline filled with singing along to whatever song came on.
"I wish those ocean eyes of yours, would see I'm not afraid of flaws. I wish those ocean eyes of yours, would not hide behind closed doors."
As she trailed off, Klaus opened his own sea blue eyes and gazed at Caroline.
"How come I've never had the pleasure of hearing you sing before?"
"Don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my friends painted you as the resident Big Bad of Mystic Falls?"
He chuckled. "Perhaps. Though I'm not sure if I should condone that I was merely 'painted' as the bad guy. I am the bad guy, love."
"If you're the bad guy, then so am I." Caroline said with sarcasm.
"That could be arranged. I'd be happy to tell you all about being the bad guy." He smiled winningly at her, and she suppressed the urge to catch his tempting, teasing lips with hers, focusing on the road.
"We'll be in the car for a while longer before we get to the place I had in mind, but I packed some food if you wanted to stop for dinner?" She suggested after the easy lull in their continuous conversation.
"Certainly, sweetheart. Where would you like to stop?"
"Just here? I don't mind having a camp out."
"Well I wouldn't be one to deny you of a chance to bask in the starlight." Klaus lifted his eyebrows, reminding her of their first conversation. Caroline wondered how they had come this far, the baby vampire and the Original Hybrid, and all because he had stopped her from burning, all because he had shown her other ways to live and piqued her curiosity, and all because he had come by and relentlessly swept her off her feet like a tsunami.
"I never got to thank you for that, by the way, so...thank you." Caroline said as she turned off the road and parked the car on the dusty ground by the highway. She glanced over to Klaus, seeing the grateful wonder in his eyes that never ceased to appear when he was thanked without need for thanks, and she knew she ought to do it more often with him. He barely got any thanks when he did things that technically saved her and her friends in Mystic Falls, and everyone needed to be thanked once in a while. "You saved me in more ways than one, just on that one day, and you keep doing that, so thank you."
"My pleasure, love." He responded softly.
Caroline hopped out of the car and grabbed the food from the boot, along with the cooler of blood. She had been practical and quietly stole some B+ from the blood bank in Istanbul when they had first arrived there, just to keep at the hotel. It was certainly proving useful now. When she returned to the front of the car, Klaus was nowhere to be found. Caroline frowned, till a chuckle sounded from behind her. She turned to find Klaus perched on the roof of the car, classic smirk in place, reaching a hand out to help her up. She accepted his hand and clambered up, setting out the food and taking out the blood bags to warm on the hood of the car as the engine cooled down. Klaus made a face, and she sighed.
"I know, not as good as it is from the vein."
"And I know I cant change your ways despite the fact that you had the misfortune to become a vampire in a town filled with those who prefer to self inflict punishment for things that are beyond their control."
Caroline frowned, but didn't argue. She couldn't argue when he made such a convincing argument that he appeared to be right. "Well I don't see any other alternatives our here, unless you'd like to try and hunt some wild cats or something."
"I could try my hand at the Salvatore bunny diet...but somehow it doesn't seem so fulfilling."
"I have to say you're right about that."
"I'm always right, Caroline." Klaus smirked, and she rolled her eyes, unpacking the store bought salad, pasta and bread. They enjoyed the meal together, for despite the fact that it wasn't special, the company and the view of the quiet landscape, far from city lights, make it exceptional. Music still played into the still night out of the car windows, and not a single car passed by on the road. They were completely alone with each other, and after the chaos of Italy and England, it was a beautiful shock to be alone together once more.
Caroline slid down to the hood of the car and checked the blood bags, but they were still fairly cold, and the engine was still hot, so they would take a little while longer to warm up. Klaus surprised her by appearing on the ground in front of her with the smirk she had come to know well.
"What do you have planned, Nik?" She asked in suspicion.
Klaus merely raised his hand to help her off the hood of the car, and when she didn't immediately respond, raised his eyebrows.
"I don't bite, sweetheart."
"Well that's a lie if I ever heard one." She scoffed, and he smirked again.
"I thought you might like a dance. Isn't that our thing?"
Caroline only just picked up on the fact that a slow song was playing, one that reminded her of the jazzy number from the 1920s decade dance. She smiled, reaching out to Klaus, and he lowered his hands to her hips and lifted her off the car to set her down on the ground so she was pressed completely against him, her curves against his hard lines. She laced their fingers together and steadied her hand on his shoulder while his curled around her waist intimately. This was far more personal than the last time they had danced together – it seemed that with every dance their bodies came closer together, from the ball to the decade dance and now here, like magnets. Caroline wondered at just how far they had come, just how comfortable she was in the arms of the man her friends had sworn was bad and would always be bad. Why had they even tried to kill him? Everything he had done was only as bad as what they did to him. Everything he had done, Damon and Stefan had done too. Damon was almost worse with the blood orgies and compelling Caroline, not to mention preying on Elena relentlessly and threatening her life. Who was bad? How were any of them worse than the next? They changed so often that the lines were blurred, so why should any of them judge when they could end up being in the exact same place later?
Caroline put it all aside, focusing on living here in the now and not questioning it. She could only question everyone else now. Klaus was not a question.
He could see from the distant look in her eyes that she was thoughtful, but he knew better than to question it. It was just how she was, a thoughtful woman, a beautiful face hiding deep thoughts. He knew that she thought she was shallow, and he wished that he could make her see that she wasn't. If she ever was as a human, she wasn't now. He had read her Miss Mystic Falls application, and the difference between the immature girl who had written that paper and the woman he held so closely in his arms now was almost shocking. She was so much more as a vampire, she comprehended more, she understood and accepted more, she was more. She was everything.
That simple thought alone made his thoughts falter, and he shook away the walls that instantly went up around him in his mind. No. Best focus and not worry about the effect the blonde baby vamp had on him. He was a thousand years old, for goodness sake. He needed to get a grip.
Caroline rested her head on Klaus' shoulder, the action surprising him and bringing his attention to the present. He spun them slowly in the dim light of the stars and moon, almost as if he were rocking Caroline to sleep tenderly.
For the rare allure about you
Makes me all the plainer see
How inane, how vain, how empty
Life without you would be
After you, who? Could supply my sky of blue?
After you, why? Could I love?
Caroline felt the words strike a chord in her chest, and closed her eyes, trying not to let it show just how deeply she felt them. She felt love for him, she loved him, but how to tell him? She had the terrible feeling that he would run if she so much as alluded to feeling so deeply about him. Elijah had confided in her about the episode with Katherine in the 1400s, and shared the quote that had obviously stuck in Elijah's head and now stuck in hers, "we do not feel, and we do not care". It made her feel apprehensive about sharing her feelings.
But she felt something else about him changing. It had always been there, but now it came to the surface, in every touch, every tease, every look. She could feel it even now, in the way his thumb stroked softly and continuously over her knuckles, the way his hand held her tightly pressed to him, not wanting an inch of lonely space between them, the way he pressed his cheek to her temple. It was certainly an emotion. She couldn't label it as love, but she almost knew that he had started to feel something strongly for her, something that transcended just sex or the games she had thought he was playing before, or even companionship. She knew he felt something, but she needed the word.
She needed to say the word.
But the moment passed, the song ended, and they were locked together in an embrace that seemed odd without music. They locked eyes, neither willing to break the moment, their gaze just as intense as it had been any time they danced. Caroline was the first to move, pressing a chaste kiss to Klaus' lips in thanks, and leaving his embrace to check how warm the blood bags were. Klaus helped her back onto the roof of the car, though they both knew she didn't need his help, and they lay back on the car with a blood bag to share between the two of them, watching the stars.
"Its so different, seeing the stars from another country." Caroline commented, needing to get back to a normal moment between them so she wouldn't end up just blurting out all of her feelings. "I saw the sky all my life from just the one town. I never really knew there were more to be seen like this."
"Do you know of any constellations?" Klaus asked, tilting his head to regard her.
"No, but I somehow get the feeling I'm about to be told." She smiled up at him.
"Well if you're going to be ungrateful about it, sweetheart, then I wont tell you." He commented lightly, and her smile grew.
"Fine, I don't need to hear."
"Fine."
"Fine." She waited a moment before giving in. "Alright."
"Alright what?"
Caroline sighed, and Klaus fought back his smirk.
"Please? Tell me all of the stories you probably learnt about wacky gods that you worshiped a million years ago."
"I'm not that old, love. And the stories are from Greek mythology, not Pagan religion." Klaus said in a tone that would have conveyed his temper, but his cheeky smile altered the meaning of his chastisement. "Clearly I should have made sure you finished your education before taking you to see the world."
"Okay, very funny, we've both been teased. Now tell me the stories." Caroline conceded, sipping B+ and curling into Klaus' body. He wrapped an arm around her so her head rested on his shoulder, and drank some of the blood from the bag too, wincing more so at the fact that it wasn't from the vein rather than the actual blood bag itself.
"Right. See the three stars in a line there?"
"Mmm?"
"That's Orions belt. If you look at other stars around it, they create his body. Legend says that he was a great hunter, and boasted that he could kill any animal. A scorpion was sent by the gods as a challenge to this claim, and he killed it, but not before it stung him with a lethal poison. With their death, the gods placed them both on opposite sides of the sky so they would forever be hunting each other, never in the sky at the same time."
"Whats the bright star next to it?"
"That's Sirius, Orions wolfhound, the Dog Star."
"So that's your star, then?"
Klaus dug his fingers into Caroline's ribs, making her giggle and squirm against him delightfully.
"Oh really? My star? Lets find your star then." Klaus surveyed the sky, picking out a constellation he knew well. "There. See the one that curves? That's Ariadne's crown, the Northern crown."
"And what's her story?"
Caroline could sense Klaus' eyes on the top of her head, but she didn't return it, tracing irregular swirling patterns on his chest and watching the constellation in question twinkle brightly above them.
"There was a beast named the Minotaur that was caged in an elaborate maze in the middle of a kingdom. People were sent in on a regular basis as a sacrifice. The princess, Ariadne fell in love on sight with a man named Theseus who was sent to enter the labyrinth. He wanted to slay the monster. She plotted with him and gave him thread so he could find his way back once the beast was killed. In exchange, he promised to run away with her and make her his wife. But Theseus deserted her on an island once the beast was dead. Rather than be thankful for her plan that had saved the lives of many, Ariadne felt foolish for trusting the young man. Soon after, the god Dionysus found her and fell in love with her for her passionate bravery and grace. She in turn fell in love with him, and became a goddess. Dionysus made her a crown and set it in the heavens to give her the stars eternal glory."
Caroline was silent as she processed the story. "So how do you see the parallels between me and Ariadne?"
"I don't think it needs explaining, angel."
Caroline thought back to the time in her town that he must have been referring to, with Tyler wanting to kill Klaus, Tyler leaving for the mountains to break the sire bond, Tyler breaking things off with her, Klaus starting to show interest in Caroline once Tyler was gone. True, it was not like the story in its entirety, and Tyler had been far more noble than Theseus, but Caroline saw the faint similarities. That would also make Klaus Dionysus, and while it was slightly exaggerated, she knew that he was more of a man than anyone she had ever known, on a different level to everyone. He was a god in his own right, and he potentially let it feed his ego, but it didn't make it any less true. And he seemed to want to give her everything in the same manner as Dionysus.
"You're almost too thoughtful at times, you know that?" She commented.
"It's served me well over the years." He replied.
"And I suppose I'll do the same, as another star in your sky, another fragment of your life." Caroline said, suddenly bitter at his knowledge, his life, how insignificant she was. Underneath the stars, she was so small, and she wondered if it would be the same with him. She loved him, but was she a mere shadow?
"Caroline." Klaus said harshly, cupping her face and tilting her head forcefully so he could see her face. His own expression was one of such intensity that she had never seen on him before – a sheer, brutal thing that flickered between the anger that she thought so little of herself and coincidentally of him, and the need to prove to her that she was something more to him.
"Caroline, you are more than you will ever know. You mean everything to so many people. And you mean more to me than even you could ever hope to comprehend. You aren't a single star in the sky, you aren't even a constellation. You are all of them, each and every single star in the galaxy." He could see all of the stars reflected in her impossible blue eyes, twinkling like they were stars themselves. He could see her struggle against something in her mind.
"Nik, I – " Caroline cut off her own words by kissing him, surprising him with the intensity behind her embrace as she craned upwards to kiss him again and again under the starlight.