Red Passion

Chapter 17

It's Katherine who finds Caroline cooped up in one of the cold, empty guest rooms of the second floor, her usually lively blue orbs looking almost lost as they remain unfocused in front of her.

Taking a somewhat tentative step across the door's threshold, the brunette crosses her arms over her chest and clears her throat, eyebrows arched.

"Is everything alright?"

The inquisitive question suddenly breaks through Caroline's haziness, making her jump slightly as she turns around towards the deep voice's source.

She sighs, sounding almost defeated, and shakes her head to herself. "Do you really care?"

Katherine removes herself from the side of the door-frame that she was leaning against, fully entering the room.

"After spending most of my days with the original bitch for over a week?" she quirks up an eyebrow again, sounding a mix of cheeky and tired, "Yes, I do."

Caroline laughs at the oddly honest answer, feeling somewhat sympathetic; but the sound lacks its usual, genuine mirth and cheerfulness, which alarms the human doppelgänger even further.

Frowning, Katherine reaches the bed and sits down next to the blonde. The expensive mattress creaks slightly for a moment underneath the added weight, before a heavy silence settles in.

She ponders her next words for what feels like a few minutes but it's probably only a few seconds, not exactly used to ever caring about anybody else but herself. She is not sure if she would still be alive if it weren't for Caroline though, she knows that her safety is hanging from a very thin thread and currently depends on the baby vampire's decisions only; and so she tries, attempting to sound as disinterested as possible as she speaks.

"What did those witches have to say, to put you and the almighty hybrid in such a mood?" she asks, her eyes reading every emotion swiftly passing across the other girl's features—while she might have lost her immortality, she will never lose her cunningness, "It's already been two days."

Caroline shrugs, but her reply is too hurried to ring true. "Nothing."

Katherine musters her most skeptical expression as the blonde finally turns to meet her gaze, rolling her slightly amused, light eyes and smiling for a millisecond.

"Just—" Caroline sighs, briefly looking down at her fidgeting hands again, "Nothing that I can really explain. I don't know."

"You don't know?" the brunette repeats, her frown deepening somewhat; the action earns her a mock-glare from the young vampire, but it only lasts a moment.

Shrugging again, the blonde stresses the concept, looking dejected and almost as if she has been asking herself the exact, same thing this whole time. Katherine supposes that she indeed has.

"I don't know."

The doppelgänger nods twice, slowly and mostly only to herself, her eyes wandering away to the side for a moment as she thinks where to go from there.

Turning around again, she gives the younger girl a serious but at the same time almost understanding look, and Caroline would have never thought that it would be Katherine Pierce—like, seriously; of all people—the first person to ever ask her such a question.

"Okay, then let's start from what you do know: how do you feel about Klaus?"

And, yep—she doesn't even beat around the bush, nope; goes straight for the kill. And you would think that someone with an experience of over five hundred years in living hidden in the shadows while actually being in plain sight would possess some subtlety.