Above All Else

Chapter 1

I own nothing of the Vampire Diaries or The Originals.
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"Where the hell is everyone? I swear I leave town for a few days and no one even thinks to fill me in on what's been going on around here." Caroline muttered to herself as she walked up the steps leading to Elena's front door. "Someone could at least answer their damn phones."

Caroline didn't bother knocking on the door, walking into the foyer to hang her coat on the rack. "Elena, you better have a good reason for not answering me!" She shouted before her voice whispered mockingly. "And Damon the world's biggest jackass is defiantly not a good reason." Caroline turned around ready to find her friends when she was met by Tyler. Stunned and angry she snapped at him. "Where is everyone? And what the hell are you doing here?" Shouldn't there be some kind of girl code happening right now? Why was Tyler standing in Elena's house? Caroline had sent her and Bonnie a text before she left town about what happened, but as she thought about it she realized she never did get a response from them. "Shouldn't you be rolling around in a barn right now with your were-slut?" She looked at him with as much repulsion as possible.

Caroline watched as Tyler's face fell for a second as he started to hang his head in shame. "Look Care, I know you really don't want to see me right now. I get it and I'm really sorry but you need to know..."

God! Even the sound of his voice grated her ears! She had only came back when she felt she was prepared to face this issue again but hearing Tyler saying he was sorry had her scoffing out loud. "Really Tyler? Just what are you sorry for huh?" It made her smirk at how he flinched at the venomous way his name came out of her mouth. She had never sounded this way towards him. Not after he literally left her to the wolves, not after he bit her and not even after he left her. But this? Her anger and feeling of betrayal were heavy in the tone and on her face. "Sorry that you cheated on me who knows how many times? Sorry that you lied to me? Or are you just sorry that I just happened to catch you in the act itself and you couldn't lie your way out of it again?" Caroline roughly pushed past him to get further into Elena's house.

"Care, I know I owe you a lot but now is not..."

She spun back around to face him, "I do not want or need anything from you, so just leave me alone Tyler." Turning back around, she called out for Elena again. Seriously! Where was her supposed best friend?

"Caroline! Wait! You need to know what's been going on here." He said desperate to stop her from going too far into the house without knowing what she would be walking into.

Caroline rounded the corner of the stairs set on ignoring him. "You so do not get a say in what...I. Do..." she trailed off as she got closer to the living room and kitchen. She stood frozen at the view of a charred body was lying on the kitchen floor. Her breath hitched, naming the fallen vampire, "Kol?" She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Just days ago he was drinking with her in some run down hole in the wall bar outside of town. Convincing her she was worth more than her tears, this town.

The stool next to her scraped the sticky floor of the bar as someone sat next to her. "Well well well, if it isn't my brother's tasty little blonde obsession. What on Earth are you doing here of all places?"

"One, I am NOT your brothers anything. Two...I just...needed to get away." She knew the path her tears had taken down her face was still visible just as the roughness of her voice couldn't hide the fact that she was close to tears again. "Why are you here anyways, go through all the girls that could stomach you in Mystic Falls and needed to move on to seedier pastures?"

"Carful Darling, I'm not my brother who has some fixation on keeping your pretty little head attached to your lovely neck." The warning in his eyes clear but a playfulness was there as well. "But to show you I have impeccable manners I shall answer your question, you show you how it's done." He said leaning into her winking. "Nik has an agreement with the Sherriff that we are not to feed or kill the human residence of her little one pony town, strange that he would agree to that and ask for nothing in return." Kol eyed her up and down speculatively a lop-sided smirk growing by the second. "Then again maybe not so strange."