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Ashes to New Orleans

A Klaroline Gothic Romance Fanfic

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Act I – Interlude I: Caroline Forbes Journal

March 17th
Location: Mystic Falls — Late night, porch swing

Dear Elena,

I promised I’d write to you, to keep you tethered to all the little moments that make up a life.

I didn’t realize how heavy it would feel to hold the pen again. Not tonight.

You missed so much. Or maybe… You were lucky to miss it.

Alaric is gone.

He died trying to protect our friends and the girls when everything collapsed, the Heretics and Rayna Cruz...

I don’t even know how to explain it anymore. It doesn’t matter anymore.

It’s just ashes now.

One second, we ran out of the hospital trying to get away from Rayna, we got to the middle of town, trying to reach Damon and Stefan, and the next, I was holding Josie and Lizzie, covered in blood, telling them their father was a hero. I told them he loved them more than anything.

Valerie remained the only Heretic present, while Enzo was accompanied by humans from The Armory who had temporarily managed to restrain Rayna Cruz. However, she escaped again, taking with her a sword that allows her to locate vampires she has marked, including Stefan, who has since departed. Valerie also left, saying that she intends to seek a different life elsewhere.

And honestly, I understood.

Because I don’t remember the last time I lived, either. These past few years, I’ve been smiling. Helping with the party planning or revenge planning. Burying bodies. Smiling harder.

Stefan’s running now. From Rayna Cruz, after she stabbed him, trying to get to Damon. But Stefan has always been haunted by guilt that doesn’t belong to him.

And Damon… well, he’s Damon.

Now it’s just me.

I’m the one with the baby bottles, the dark circles, and the emergency vervain stash in the diaper bag.

And Bonnie... God, Bonnie.

She’s been cursed by this timeline, always trying to stop some calamity, always helping, always giving. Some nights, I catch her staring at the sky like she’s counting stars she knows she’ll never reach.

I used to think we’d grow old in Mystic Falls, you know. You and me and Bonnie.

Maybe even Damon and Stefan lurking somewhere nearby, arguing over eternity.

But this town doesn’t feel like home anymore. It feels like a ghost that wears our faces.

And Klaus called tonight. Yeah, that Klaus. He says Stefan’s in New Orleans. That he’s dying. Part of me wants to scream. The other part is already packing. Because something in my bones says it’s time. To go. To become something else.

I used to want normal — a husband, a home, PTA meetings, and matching outfits. Now, I want answers.

I want freedom.

I want to stop watching people I love turn into memories.

I don’t know what I’ll find in New Orleans. But I’m going. And when I do — I’ll write again.

I promise.

Love always,
Caroline

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Act I – Chapter Two: The Pulse Beneath the Stone

“There are things older than blood, older than memory — things that wait. And hunger.”

Klaus hadn’t painted in three days. 

The brushes on the side table lay untouched, stiff with dried color. He stood by the window of his study, watching the curve of the Mississippi shimmer under twilight. But his mind wasn’t on rivers or skies, it was on her voice. Caroline. 

He could still hear her voice, sharp, tinged with judgment and curiosity... and something softer beneath the judgment. Longing, he hoped. Regret, more likely. She hadn’t hung up right away. That meant something, he thought, before recalling the reason he’d called her. Stefan Salvatore was destined to die by Rayna Cruz’s cursed blade. 

Klaus left his study in search of Freya but paused in the hallway. Something was off. Not the usual hum of magic that clung to his family. Not Freya’s usual spellcasting. No, this was different. The space itself felt stretched, like it had breathed something in that it shouldn’t have. 

Inside Freya’s study, he felt it; a faint pulse in the air, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat buried deep in the stone. He filed the thought away for later. 

Freya stood near a spread of open books and sigils, clearly exhausted. She was trying to locate their sister, but she needed a break. And he had questions. 

“It’s spreading,” she said before he could even speak, already reading his mind. “He’s running out of time.” 

“Can you block it again?” Klaus asked, voice low. “Contain it long enough for us to get answers?” 

“Maybe,” she said. “But the scar’s connected to something older than Rayna. Something broken, not just cursed. I’ll need help. Real help, brother.” 

“Then you’ll have it.” 

She hesitated. 

Klaus noticed. “What?” 

Freya glanced toward the chalk remnants near her spell circle, brows drawing together. “Something shifted when they tried to cast that spell. The binding tether they used to stop the sirelines, the lines never broke, but...”.

“But?” he pressed. 

“Have you been down to the vaults since you returned?” she asked instead. 

Klaus narrowed his eyes. “No. Why?” 

Freya’s voice dipped lower. “I felt it. Something’s different down there since they attempted the spell. Something... ancient.” 

“What kind of ancient?” he asked, not sure he wanted the answer. 

Freya looked at him, steady and cold. “The kind that waits for someone to wake it.” A beat of silence passed between them. 

“This ‘something ancient’, could it be tied to Stefan’s curse?” 

Freya shook her head slowly. “It feels separate. Dormant, but not dead. Whatever it is… It’s been here longer than any of us.” 

He didn’t like that answer. He didn’t want any of this. 

But the scar was burning Stefan alive from the inside out. The witches were unraveling. And Caroline was on her way. 

Whether he was ready or not. 

And something in the bones of New Orleans had just started to breathe again. 

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Act I – Chapter Three: No One Stays Dead in This Town — Except Us

"There’s a difference between surviving and living. We just forgot how to tell."

“You can’t just leave, Caroline!” Damon’s voice snapped like a whip through the parlor of the Salvatore house. 

Caroline stood at the fireplace, arms folded tight, like holding herself together was the only option left. “I can, and I am,” she said coolly. Matt looked up from where he was leaning against the doorframe. “What about the girls? You’re all they have.” 

“I am all they have,” Caroline said sharply. “And I’m not going to keep them here in this cursed town, waiting for the next apocalypse.” 

Bonnie watched her quietly, pain flickering behind her eyes. 

Damon scoffed, stepping forward. “So, what, you’re just going to disappear into the night? Sounds familiar.” 

Caroline laughed bitterly. “Don’t even start. Not when half of this, all of this, started with you and your choices. I’m cleaning up your messes while raising two toddlers and watching Stefan run from that Phoenix curse for you .” 

That hit something raw. Damon’s mouth opened, but no sound came. No one answered. The silence was heavier than any argument. 

Later, the door clicked shut behind her and Bonnie. They stood in one of the upper guest rooms of the house, dusty, mostly unused, filled with old books and older ghosts. 

Caroline paced. “I didn’t mean to say it like that down there. I’m just...” 

“Tired?” Bonnie offered. 

“Exhausted.” 

The blonde finally stopped, her voice soft. “Stefan’s in New Orleans. Klaus called me. He said Stefan’s worse than we thought, the scar is cursed and spreading faster.” 

Bonnie sat down slowly in the corner of a desk. “So, you’re going?” 

“I have to. For him… but also me. For the girls.” Caroline met Bonnie’s eyes. “This place is poison, Bonnie. How many times have we rebuilt it from ash, just for it to destroy us again?” 

Bonnie swallowed hard. “I thought maybe, after Elena… after everything, we could have something like peace. But all we’ve done is bleed for this town.” 

Caroline’s voice cracked. “I’m tired of being a side character in someone else’s tragedy. A casualty of their love story.” 

The words hit like a punch to Bonnie’s chest because deep down, she felt it too. 

She had died and burned and suffered. And now, she felt cursed again, a slow death curled into her life like a viper. 

“I don’t want the twins growing up thinking survival is the best they can hope for,” Caroline whispered. “I want them to have a future that’s not made of funerals and compromises.” 

Bonnie stood. Crossed the room. Pulled Caroline into a tight, trembling hug. “You’re right,” she said softly. “I just didn’t want to be the first one to say it.” 

Caroline closed her eyes. Let herself lean in. 

“I’m going to find Enzo,” Bonnie added. “Talk to him. About all of it — the curse. I need to think. Maybe… follow you.” 

Outside, Mystic Falls looked the same. 

But something had shifted. 

They weren’t going to wait for the world to break them first.  

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Act I – Interlude II: Letter Never Sent

“I want to be someone you’d be proud of… not just someone who kept you safe.”

Dear Elena,  

I don’t know if you’ll ever read this.  

Maybe one day, when the spell finally breaks and you wake up, you’ll find it tucked between the pages of your old journals. Or perhaps you won’t. Maybe this is just for me. I’m writing because I need to say goodbye. Not to you, not forever. But to Mystic Falls.  

To the weight.  

To the guilt.  

To the endless grief that’s become too much like home.  

Caroline’s leaving. She’s taking the girls and heading to New Orleans. Stefan’s in trouble, worse than we thought, and Klaus is now involved. Yes, I know what you will say about Klaus. But that’s not why she’s going. She’s tired.  

We both are. I’ve died, Elena. You know that. More than once.  

And every time I came back, something was different. I’m Colder, more lost. And now, with this curse hanging over me like a shadow, I feel like I’m fading again, just slower this time.  

But Caroline reminded me, surviving isn’t the same as living. And I want to live.  

I want more than graves and goodbyes. I want magic that doesn’t wound. I want love that isn’t a tragedy waiting to happen. I want to dance again. To laugh without checking the sky for signs of the end.

So, I’m going with Caroline.  

We’re choosing something new, a life not built on sacrifice. I hope that when you wake, because you will wake, you find a world that doesn’t need us to bleed to keep standing.  

And I hope you’re proud of me.  

Because for once... I’m choosing me.  

Love always,  

Bonnie 

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Act I – Chapter Four: The Devil Wears a Smile

The rain had stopped somewhere in Mississippi. Now it was just dusk and swamp fog, curling around the road like ghosts waiting to whisper her name.

Caroline’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as the New Orleans city limits came into view. The twins were finally asleep, strapped in their car seats, tiny heads bobbing with every bump in the road.

She was tired, beyond tired. But more than that, she was determined. There was no turning back. Not this time.

They pulled into the French Quarter just after sunset. The Compound loomed like something out of a dream, tall and dark and quiet in the wet evening air, lit with flickering gas lamps that made the bricks glow. She had preferred the Mikaelson residence in Mystic Falls.

And there he was. Leaning against the gate like the last page of an unfinished chapter. Klaus Mikaelson. He looked… older. No, not aged. Just settled. Like a hurricane that had learned to wait for the right moment to break the sky.

Caroline’s breath caught for half a second. She hated that it still did that.

Their eyes met, and he smiled. That devilish, maddening smile she remembered from Mystic Falls. The one he wore right after she kissed him in the woods… and said goodbye. She hadn’t trusted that smile then. She should trust it even less now. But Stefan needed him.

Klaus stepped forward with gentlemanly ease, opening her door before she even unbuckled her seatbelt. “Let me,” he said, unfastening Lizzie’s carrier with one smooth motion. “She’s fussier than Josie,” Caroline said automatically. “She likes humming.”

He just smiled and turned, giving her space to scoop up Josie. She felt Josie’s little hands curl into her shoulder, and for a moment, it was just the three of them, a strange echo of something she never dared imagine.

“Come,” Klaus said, nodding toward the compound gates. “The guest rooms are prepared. You and the girls will be staying in the east wing, beside mine. Easier access. And safer.”

“I didn’t ask for...”

“I didn’t say you did.”

His voice softened, “I’m not here to control you, Caroline. Only to help.” She wasn’t ready to believe him, but she followed.

The courtyard was quieter than she imagined. In her mind, she pictured a place where magic hung in the air like perfume. She felt it now, subtle, charged.

He led her through the compound’s inner halls, Lizzie still quiet in his arms, eyes wide as if she knew this man was something… other.

They passed a grand archway and entered a spacious sitting room with velvet drapes, low lamps, shadows clinging to corners like secrets. And there was Stefan. He looked like death. Pale, sunken eyes, collar damp with sweat.

She’d seen him broken before in the ripper days, post-trauma spirals, but this was worse. This was withering. “Caroline,” he breathed. She walked to him, cautious, to hug him with Josie still pressed to her chest.

Behind Stefan stood Elijah, all black suit and composed restraint. She nodded to him, and Klaus reintroduced her. “Elena trusted you,” she said quietly. He inclined his head, “And I intend to earn your trust as well, Ms. Forbes.”

“Freya,” she guessed. Klaus confirmed it with a nod. “My sister. A witch. The best chance we have.” Freya offered a warm but wary smile. “We’ll have time to talk, Caroline. I’ll help in every way I can.”

She settled the girls in the adjoining guest room while Klaus brought in the bags, as if it were nothing. Like he hadn’t once been the nightmare in her rearview. Later, after she’d rested and everything was quiet, she knocked on Stefan’s door.

He looked worse up close. Pale, it was as if the curse was drinking him one drop at a time. “You look like crap,” she said gently. “Better than I feel.” They sat quietly for a moment at the edge of his bed.

“Where’s Valerie?” Caroline asked. The last she’d heard, Valerie had left Mystic Falls and then met up with Stefan to run with him. Another sour point between them. “She’s looking for answers to break the curse. Somewhere in Europe, I think.” Stefan responded.

Caroline looked away. “Must be nice. To… go.” Stefan closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. For everything. For leaving you when you needed me most. For not being...”

“Don’t.” Her voice was sharp. “I don’t need your apology. I need you to get better.” They stayed silent—that old, familiar ache.

She once thought Stefan could be her forever.

But forever had changed.

Chapter Text

Act I – Chapter Five: The Sigils Wake

“It started with a scar. But the wound was always deeper, older.”

It was almost midnight when the gate buzzed. Caroline was already pacing the courtyard, Lizzie strapped to her chest and Josie asleep upstairs in a makeshift crib Klaus had “borrowed” from an antique dealer uptown. She looked up sharply as the heavy compound doors creaked open.

And there she was. Bonnie bone-tired but standing tall, carrying two duffle bags and the weight of something much heavier. The moment Bonnie stepped inside, Caroline felt like she exhaled for the first time in days.

Klaus led them to the formal room, where Freya waited by the fire. The house was quieter than usual, as if it knew something was shifting.

“I’m not here to make nice,” Bonnie said after a few tight hugs and a moment alone, “I’m here to fix what I can and survive what I can’t.”

Klaus tilted his head with a faint smile. “So, you’ve finally learned how to speak like a Bennett witch.”

“Don’t push it.”

Bonnie reached into her bag and placed a notebook with all that they had on Rayna Cruz, the sword and stone, on the center table.

“That’s why we are here,” Bonnie said flatly, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Rayna used it to mark Stefan. I’ve been investigating the echoes and whispers of her reputation. We know that Rayna Cruz’s elders sacrificed themselves to give her an extended lifeline, at least eight life forces, and created the connection between her and the sword. The souls of the vampires that fall to her are locked in the stone, never moving on, never knowing peace.”

Klaus’s gaze snapped toward her. He’d noticed it too, the subtle tension in her shoulders.

Freya nodded. “When Stefan helped Klaus a couple of days ago by removing the block on the mark, and Rayna Cruz showed up, he managed to get the sword when he was escaping”. Pulling the sword from a side cupboard to the table, wrapped in a thick layer of enchanted cloth. Even through the wrapping, it pulses faintly with old magic, barely restrained.

The room dimmed perceptibly. “That thing,” Freya said, stepping closer, “is dark enough to poison the air.”

“We’ll have to hide it”.

Caroline spoke up, “But I want to know where. You’re not just hiding it in some warded drawer without our knowledge.”

“Alright,” Freya said. “Come with me.”

The two women descended into the lower levels of the compound past carved stone, damp air, and the occasional flicker of candlelight that never seemed to warm the shadows fully.

The vault was older than the house itself. Built from reclaimed stones of something Klaus had once burned, Freya explained. It had always been strongly magically inert, as far as she’d known.

But the moment they stepped inside…

Caroline halted. “Is it just me, or is the air… humming?”

Freya didn’t answer.

She was staring at the far corners of the vault, her brows furrowing.

Minor sigils, etched deep into the stone, were glowing with faint blue light. Subtle, almost shy. Like they’d been sleeping… and were now starting to breathe.

“I’ve never seen those before,” Freya said under her breath. “Not in here.”

“Were they always there?”

“I don’t know.” Freya turned slowly in a circle. “But they’re reacting to something. Maybe the sword.”

Caroline stepped back instinctively. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know yet.”

They stored the sword in the innermost ring of the vault, wrapped in cloth, bound with six layers of spells, blood-locked, and sealed. Still, as they left, Caroline could feel the whisper of it behind her like something that knew her name.

Upstairs, Bonnie was already combing through an old Bennett grimoire, its pages frayed but full of half-buried truths.

Freya joined her, fingers stained with vault dust. “There’s something we’re missing. The vault is reacting. To the sword… or something else.”

Bonnie didn’t look up. “What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. The bloodlines here. The failed spell to separate my brothers from their sirelines. There is power that’s awakening.”

“We need more information,” Bonnie murmured, flipping another page.

“We may need Davina Claire,” Freya agreed, tapping an old drawing of a vault much like theirs, with sigils inactive. “And her Ancestor grimoires. The ones she’s not supposed to have.”

Bonnie smiled wryly. “We’re all past playing by the rules.”

Outside, the moon was rising, fat and low over the Quarter.

In the compound’s silence, the glowing sigils in the vault pulsed once more, brighter now. As if they knew the pieces were falling into place.

And that something old… was waking.

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Act I – Interlude III: The Smell of Old Blood

“Magic leaves fingerprints. And Klaus? That man bleeds secrets.”

The night hung thick over the French Quarter; it felt humid and pregnant with tension.

Marcel Gerard sat by his apartment window, bourbon glass in one hand, a folder full of unsatisfying surveillance notes in the other.

Outside, New Orleans pulsed with its usual rhythm, jazz, shadows, and magic, but inside his head, a single question echoed louder with each hour: “What the hell is Klaus hiding?”

Stefan Salvatore. That was a mystery. Marcel had seen him once before, years ago, the Ripper of Monterey, but the man now looked like something sick was crawling beneath his skin. Like the daylight ring on his hand was barely holding him together.

It had been days since Davina attempted the spell to sever the sirelines with the Strix’s help. The plan, his plan, was to buy her enough time to complete it, then assist Klaus and Elijah. But everything had gone wrong.

A Hunter had shown up. Killing every vampire in her path before she was put down. Marcel knew Hayley didn’t fully trust him or Davina. But he hadn’t expected her and Stefan to move ahead before the signal. Before the plan.

He’d seen a lot in his time, Originals rising from the dead, hexes that twisted time, werewolves tearing through walls, but this. This didn’t sit right.

Marcel leaned forward and tossed the surveillance folder onto the desk. Inside, he had blurry photos from the Strix’s last tailing attempt, records of magical signatures traced from failed bloodline rituals, and a report on the strange disturbances beneath the compound vault, faint pulses, like a heartbeat in the stone, a phenomenon that had Marcel’s senses on high alert.

He muttered to himself, “If there’s a secret weapon in that house, I need to find out about it.”

The Strix weren’t helping anymore, not since Aya’s death. They were restless now, demanding answers and pushing harder with each passing day. They wanted to know how Klaus and Elijah had escaped unscathed, why the severance spell had failed, and why their sireline hadn’t broken.

Because Klaus was still alive. Elijah, still walking around composed, pressed suit, no visible scars. And now Marcel had been informed that another vampire had entered the Mikaelson Compound. A newcomer in town, no explanation, no motive.

He sipped his bourbon, frowning. Two vampires. Both are possibly tied to Klaus Mikaelson’s sireline. That wasn’t a coincidence. That was a setup.

And then there was the glow. Marcel had seen it, the moment Davina started that night, the moment the ritual nearly succeeded.

He walked to his bookshelf and pulled out a leather-bound book from behind a false spine, his grimoire, warded from even Vincent’s eyes. He flipped it open to a page marked: Dormant Sigils and Blood-Echo Traps.

He didn’t know what Klaus was concealing. Not yet, but something was shifting. And the last time New Orleans experienced a change in Mikaelson territory, it hadn’t ended well.

He closed the book and looked back out of the window. Somewhere in the city, the Ancestors were whispering from barely audible corners. The Strix were sharpening their next move. And Klaus Mikaelson... It felt like Klaus was always ten steps ahead.

Marcel just had to figure out if Klaus was running toward something this time… Or trying desperately to keep it buried.

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Act I – Chapter Six: The Sigil and the Queen

“Some bloodlines do not vanish; they sleep and when they wake, the world remembers why it feared them.”

The heavy oak door to Freya’s office creaked open, casting warm lamplight into the hallway as the eldest Mikaelson stepped aside to let the visitor in.

Davina Claire had changed.

She still carried herself with that same stubborn spine, chin high like she dared the Ancestors to strike her where she stood, but there was something different now. She did not seem calm or angered, but more focused. Her arms were wrapped protectively around a worn wooden box, burdened by at least four grimoires that looked like they hadn’t seen daylight in a century. “You’re late,” Freya said, by way of greeting.

Davina rolled her eyes and walked in, setting the box on the desk with a definitive thud. “You try getting past Vincent when you’re looking for anything with Ancestor sigils on it.” Behind the desk, Bonnie Bennett stood from her chair.

There was a shift in the air, just for a second, like the room recognized two different types of magic had just locked eyes. Davina paused mid-motion and turned to face her. “You’re not from New Orleans,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“No,” Bonnie replied, brushing a braid over her shoulder, “but I’ve been dealing with ancestral nonsense since before you were a Harvest Girl.” Davina’s brow lifted. “Impressive.”

Freya cut in. “Ladies, please. Bond over trauma later.”

Caroline, standing by the window with Lizzie in her arms, smiled softly. “Hi, I’m Caroline…”.

“I’m not here to make friends. Freya’s call intrigued me enough to come," Davina said, not unkindly. “I just know you are not the same cursed vampire I saw last week.”

Caroline blinked. “I... guess that’s one way to put it.” Bonnie smirked and leaned toward Caroline, whispering, “Well, this could get awkward fast.”

As the women settled in, Freya started explaining the situation with the Phoenix Sword, the cursed scar, Rayna Cruz’s connection to Stefan, and the unsettling pull the sword still had, like a whisper from something not quite gone.

Davina listened carefully, flipping through one of the books she had brought. “The magic on that sword isn’t Ancestral,” she said eventually. “It may have started as pure, maybe native or ancient, but over time it was corrupted. Twisted. That’s why it’s still bleeding through. The vampires are not just cursed. They’re a tether.”

Caroline looked away, jaw clenched. Freya frowned. “So, what do we need to do to break the cursed connection?” Davina shrugged. “A miracle. Or an equally dangerous counter-curse.”

While they talked, Caroline moved toward the desk, gently rocking Lizzie, who had fallen asleep against her shoulder, and idly scanning the stack of grimoires. Her gaze landed on one with a cracked leather cover, bearing a sigil burned into the binding: a spiraling tree with its roots cut off mid-curl.

Her breath caught. That sigil. It matched one of the faint symbols she’d seen pulsing in the corners of the compound vault.

“Freya,” she called softly. The elder Mikaelson looked up. Caroline nodded toward the book on the desk, turning it around to show the others. Davina’s expression dropped. “Wait. That one... where did you find that?”

“It was in the box you brought,” she said. “It seems like nobody’s opened it in decades.”

Bonnie leaned in. “Do you know what the sigil means?”

Davina hesitated. "We recognize it as the Fell sigil. It represents an old family line, believed to have been wiped out after they turned against the Ancestors. Their magic... disappeared. But the stories say some of their bloodlines survived, buried in the earth, waiting."

Caroline felt the air grow thinner around her; she turned to catch Bonnie’s eyes. “You remember that my mother’s maiden name was Fell before she married into the Forbes family, ‘Founding Families’ names used to carry weight in our town,” she whispered. Silence.

Bonnie sharply turned to Freya. “We need to go back to the vault. Now.”