Original Sin

Chapter 16

Esther then gestured for Caroline to move in front of her but Klaus stilled Caroline's steps letting her face him, "Caroline, I'm begging you. You don't have to do this."

Caroline could see worry and resignation in Klaus' eyes, "yes I do, for everyone, all humans who have no idea of what is happening. For the supernatural, for family," glancing at each of the Mikaelsons, "for us, Nik, for us."

With one long exhale, Klaus brought her near for a kiss that told her everything he wanted to say to her abruptly letting her go and whispering, "I love you, always and forever."

Caroline looked into Klaus' eyes one last time and told him the same thing, "I love you, always and forever," then stepped to the spot Esther indicated. Esther gestured for her to drink the blood in the chalice and after a long breath she lifted the chalice to drink the contents entirely. Putting the chalice back on the table, she looked at Klaus again reaching out her hand to him and whispered, "Nik..." before collapsing in his arms as he quickly caught her.

Klaus had locked himself inside his bedroom with Caroline since the moment Caroline had collapsed in his arms. He had been looking at her non-stop, running his fingers across her almost translucent skin and whispering his loving devotion to her as he had her in his arms patiently waiting the time she would awake.

He was recalling the time he himself had been turned into a vampire several thousands of years ago. They had just finished dinner and Esther and Mikael had made them all drink a special wine brew, they had called it. Much later he was to realize it was the doppelganger blood of Tatia laced with wine. After dinner he went about his usual routine in the quiet of the woods when he heard a scream that sounded like his sister Rebekah. He had run back to the house picturing all kinds of scenarios in his mind of what had brought about his sisters' macabre scream. As he neared the house, he noticed his brother Kol just outside the open doorway with a gaping hole in the chest, eyes open and very dead. His blood had run cold then wasting no time entering the door in search of his sister. What he saw almost made him throw up, Rebekah was on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood lifeless. A few steps away he noticed Mikael his clothes and body full of blood and confronting Elijah who was frozen in shock. He shouted Elijah's name but his brother did not seem to notice or hear him and still stood petrified however Mikael had noticed him and changed direction to charge toward him.

Unsure of what was to happen, Klaus was unmoving and Mikael took the opportunity to swing the sword he was carrying and plunged it into him. Klaus looked at Mikael in disbelief as he faintly heard a cry from Elijah who had finally broken out of his stupor. As Klaus fell into his knees grasping for breath he saw two things, one, in the corner of the room as Finn also very dead and second, Mikael was charging toward Elijah and Elijah was just standing still as if waiting for his turn to be murdered by their Father.

Klaus recalled they had all woken about a few hours later confused and distraught with uncontrollable thirst for blood. That day the Mikaelsons had massacred entire villages feeding on men, women and children. It had taken days, weeks even before the thirst for blood had subsided to a single digit a day. Fear suddenly overtook his agitation, Caroline would feel the blood lust. It would be magnified considering the strength of the Original blood she would have in her veins, he hoped that she would have the similar instincts as before, when she was a baby vampire with tremendous control over her bloodlust.

One thing he knew she valued was the control she had over natural vampire instincts. It was a part of her that he loved, she had control when he had none. She had compassion and he had coldness, she had light when all he had was darkness surrounding him. He feared that all these and more would vanish when she woke up, that everything that was natural to him and his siblings, the killings, the urges, the rampages for a thousand years, all these would be something that will now be a part of her now that she had their blood in her veins, the consequence of being an Original.