Unexpected Surprise - Klaroline

15. A Righous End and A Heartfelt Goodbye

"Have you been tortured before, Damon?" Klaus asked. He has been in the basement of his home for the past several hours now and showed no signs of slowing down. On the other hand, Damon was beyond exhausted from both blood loss and pain.

"Yes." He replied through gritted teeth. Several days ago, Klaus had compelled Damon to answer every one of his questions swiftly and honestly.

"Well, never have you been tortured by an original." He paused for a second, cleaning some blood from his hands. He smirked. "Let me tell you my family has developed a special kind of torture... While all others are confined to just the physical torture, and if they ever want to get to the mental, well, that takes some training and skill. Now don't get me wrong, my siblings and I all have the knowledge through experience there, but we have an advantage. Especially for when we decide there has been a pesky vampire doing things we did not like. Tell me, Damon take a guess at just what you think this advantage might be."

"Compulsion." Damon grits out, and Klaus only smirks.

The torture lasts days. Every day Klaus would torture Damion in only the best ways possible. And after a thousand years alive, Klaus is essentially giving Damon a history lesson on how torture developed. From the start of his memories. Viking how they separated the victim's ribs from their spine, pulling their bones and skin outward to form a set of "wings," and removing their lungs from their chest cavity. Stacking brick after brick on his chest until the eventual cave-in. Compelling the most vivid and gruesome torture, Klaus could think of. Going from century to century, waiting for his body to keep healing only for him to do something new. Only to end with today's standards. Which were the least enjoyable, in Klaus's opinion. Torture today was less innovative.

Damon was now covered in blood hanging from the chains connected to the ceiling. Eyes hardly open, and mind barely focused.

Klaus finally grabs Damon's chin in a tight grip, nearly breaking it, and looks into his eyes.

"I truly do not believe you love anything other than yourself, and the closest thing you ever came to true love is Elena Gilbert, so I am going to give you something. You are in love with Elena. It becomes physically painful to be without her. Every waking minute you are alone, you can only think of her..."

Klaus' eyes turn yellow "But you killed her. You stuck your hand into her chest, gripped her heart, then slowly and painfully pulled out her heart." Damon was sobbing "You are a monster who hurt the one person you cared about more than anything. You are going to wander the Earth feeling that pain and misery about what you have done, unable to leave this life. You are going to do everything in your power to stay alive, but you don't know why. Damon, live your eternity, and when you see her face, the only thing you see is death and pain... you won't remember this conversation, but you will relive every torture you felt from my had or any other in your dreams" Klaus lets go of Damon as he collapses to the ground in pain.

****

Caroline is lying in her and Klaus's bed at his house, taking a nap, and is woken by a knocking at the front door. She looks around and sees a note from Klaus saying he is in the basement and he will come up in a little bit.

Caroline knows he has Damon down there but can't bring herself to do anything about it. But luckily, the basement has a spell preventing sound from coming out.

Another set of knocking shook her out of her thoughts, and now remembers what woke her up. As Klaus is occupied, Caroline goes to answer the door, still in her PJs.

"Bonnie, Stefan? What are you doing here?" She feels a change in the air as Klaus flashes behind her, oddly enough, completely clean. She leans into him, his touch giving her comfort.

"Um...

"If you are here for the other Salvatore, you are not getting him."

"No. we came to talk to Caroline." Caroline pushes herself further into Klaus for comfort, and he puts an arm around her. She looks up at Klaus.

Caroline sighs "Come in."

****

"So, what do you want to talk to me about?" Bonnie and Stefan looked at Klaus as he stood as a sentinel in the corner of the room.

"I'm not leaving." Klaus' voice is hard

Bonnie sighs "I know you have no reason to ever talk to any of us again, and we are not here for Elena. No matter how much she is plotting and trying to get in here, we are not here for her. We... I just wanted to say how sorry we are. We did not know what was going on back then." Bonnie was nearly crying.

"Caroline, we are sorry we did not think about it. I- I never thought about it probably because, as Damon was my brother, I was blinded to it, and I didn't want to see that he was capable of doing anything like that."

"What he did you. We will never forgive him. We neve-"

"It is not yours to decide to forgive or not." Caroline stood tall "What he did to me? Bonnie, it was rape. I will never be able to bring myself ever to have sympathy for Damon, and at one point, I thought I could just not think about it. That for Elena, I could forget it ever happened. I loved Elena so much that I was trying to push aside the fact that I was buried under my nightmares. The memories burned in my head every time I saw him. I can't push how I feel aside anymore. I still love Elena, and I still love the both of you, but it is not enough."

Caroline looked behind her at Klaus, holding out her hand to him. He doesn't hesitate.

"We- I am leaving Mystic Falls... It took me a while, but I know what I want, and it can't be found here." Caroline looked into their eyes.

"I do hope to see you again one day, but I am not coming back for a while."

Caroline saw only understanding.

"We get it." Stefan nodded.

Letting go of Klaus, she moved forward to hug them both. Several tears from all three.

"Goodbye, Caroline."

"Don't do anything stupid." Caroline laughed through the tears.

"I make no promises." Bonnie and Stefan chuckled.