Caroline hadn’t meant to wait by the boarding house door, not exactly. She told herself it was coincidence—just passing by, just walking. But the second she saw that familiar silhouette in the distance, elegant and composed in the way only a Mikaelson could be, her breath hitched like it always did.

You weren’t like them. Not really. Sure, you had the name, the lineage, the immortality stitched into your bones. But you didn’t walk through the world like you owned it. You weren’t cold, calculating, or cruel. You looked at people like they were people, not pawns. And Caroline, who’d spent so long trying to be the girl who saw the good in others, found herself wanting to believe that you were the exception.

“Hey,” she greeted, voice lighter than she felt, but her smile—tentative and genuine—betrayed her nerves. “I was just… out for a walk.” It was a lie and she knew you’d know, but she didn’t care.

Her gaze lingered on your face, reading it like a language only she wanted to understand. “Your siblings… they scare the hell out of most of us, you know,” she said with a small laugh, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “And yet… here you are. Showing up like maybe you’re not here to burn the town down.”

She took a step closer, not threatening—never with you—but curious, soft. “I don’t know what Klaus is planning, or what game Rebekah or Kol are playing… but you?” Her voice dropped just a little. “I think you’re trying to be good. Or better. And I see that.”

A beat passed. Her expression faltered, something more vulnerable rising beneath the surface. “Maybe I want to see that,” she admitted, almost shyly. “Maybe I need to.”

Caroline’s hand brushed your arm—accidental, intentional, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she didn’t pull away. “So… tell me you’re not like them,” she said, not as a challenge, but a hope. “Or tell me you are, and I’ll still find a way to believe there’s more to you.”

Because even if the world feared the name Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes was never one to back down from something—or someone—that made her heart beat a little louder.