"Nothing is with me now but a sound,
A heart's rhythm, a sense of stars"
- W. H. Auden, Compline
In which Charlotte Salvatore wakes after a 145 year slumber and is thrust into a supernatural world before she can cope with the modern one.
(THE VAM...
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Pandemonium ensued like Charlotte knew it would.
All heads had snapped to her and if Klaus didn't have her leaning against his chest he would've pulled her around to face him. She could hear her blood pumping in her ears when she finally spat out the final command Alaric gave her before she passed out from the pain in the classroom, half relieved to have told them.
Damon was the first to reply, his face falling into a look terror as he shouted out half angrily and half anxiously, "What?"
Stefan was kinder, his eyes softening in concern. He felt sure now that Alaric had instilled fear into her that he'd come back for her and he knew all three of them would do whatever they could to keep her safe, "He can't get to you Charlie. We'll keep you safe from him. He won't touch you."
Klaus was speechless.
"It's too late," she told them softly, she didn't sound sad anymore, already resigned to her fate she'd accepted it, "It's going to happen at midnight tonight."
"What's going to happen," Klaus asked her softly, more gently than he wished he could yell out as his heart pounded with horror.
"I'm going to kill myself."
Of all the things that Klaus thought he needed to protect Charlotte from, all the enemies he knew would seek to hurt him this wasn't something he thought he needed to prepare for. He was so relieved when he saw her in the school with Caroline, so relieved when he came home and saw she was okay, if not fairly battered and bruised. There were many things Klaus needed to worry about when he thought of Charlotte but never had he thought to worry that it would be her own hand that would cause her death.
"You're not," Damon snapped, unwilling to even consider the option that Charlotte would die after everything they'd done to finally get her back.
"I am," she said gently, "he compelled me to do it myself by midnight, it's not long now."
"We'll just stop you."
"You can't Damon. He said to not stop until I'm dead, to try over and over and over until I succeed. It's happening, there's no way to stop it."
"Bonnie can break the compulsion with her witchy juju."
"Not in three hours," she replied sighing, "There's nothing we can do."
"Darling, you're not doing to die tonight," Klaus told her sternly, "You're not thinking straight you've lost too much blood, let me heal you and we can talk properly."
"If you give me blood I won't ever forgive you," this was the most stern she'd been with any of them but she needed them to know it wasn't even an option. She loved them, but she almost didn't trust them, she remembered Elena's face when Damon had fed her his blood before the ritual and she didn't want that to happen, "Any of you."
