[open] a little taste of hypocrisy and i'm left in the wake of my mistake

[persevere]

Who: Caroline Forbes + OTA + Closed Starters
Where: Everywhere
When: August + September
Rating: PG-13, anything higher will be marked
Summary: Caroline has a lot to make up for, but she'll do the best she can.
The Story:

Comments

[thevulnerability]

I don't think it's about strength. I mean, if I had that option when my dad died? I would have turned it off, too. No one wants to go through that. No one should have to go through that.

[ Chloe sighs, thinking about the kind of pain she's seen the families of victims go through. It's worse for the parents, though, the ones that lose their kids. Losing your parents, it sucks, but it's the way things are supposed to be. But sometimes Chloe wonders what it would be like if anything happened to Trixie and she knows how much it would destroy her, that it would likely turn her into a monster.

It almost did, once, when Trixie was kidnapped. She'd stolen evidence, killed a man to protect her daughter and protect Lucifer. To be able to turn that kind of fear and pain off was all too tempting. ]

But... You have to learn how to get through it, you know? My point is, it won't just be your mom. There will be other people you care about, other people you can't turn and can't save and it will hurt then, too. You can't turn it off every time it hurts. It's not... [ Chloe pauses. What is she supposed to say? It's not normal? It isn't, but she knows that won't help. Making Caroline feel like some kind of unnatural creature won't help her in the least. ] What you did doesn't make you weak, Caroline. It makes you... I don't know. It makes you human. We all screw up, we all make bad choices and sometimes we pay for those mistakes and sometimes other people do. You just have to figure out how to learn from it, how to move on.

[persevere]

[She can't imagine a pain worse than losing her mother, the one piece of her old life she still had left. In a way, Elizabeth Forbes was Caroline's tie to humanity; it made sense that it would be the thing that got her to temporarily shut it off.

She wouldn't do it again. She couldn't let herself.]

I didn't turn it off when my Dad died. It's just...it was my Mom, you know? It was just different...

[Her father's memory had been somewhat tainted with the events that had led up to it, of being locked up in a cell and burned repeatedly, of being tortured.

Things had changed, but something like that didn't just go away.]

I know better now. I can't do that again. I couldn't live with myself.

[thevulnerability]

[ Chloe watches Caroline quietly for a moment. She hopes so. She hopes the girl has the resilience to not fall into a habit. Chloe has seen plenty of people fall back on the types of habits that numbed them when things got too hard. Heck, it was one of her biggest worries with Seth, even if she did her best not to voice it. ]

I was always closer to my dad. My mom was... Well, we didn't agree on a lot when I was growing up. [ Her mom was manipulative and obnoxious. Still, Chloe found herself missing her. ]

Listen, I... I know I probably come on a little strong. The mom thing, yeah? [ She shrugs, settling back into her chair. ] I have a daughter back home. I guess I just... Well, I'm here, you know? If you need anything.

[persevere]

[She'd been closer to her own Dad for a time, while she was busy blaming her mother for their divorce, for splitting up their little family. It had been wrong, she realized later; Caroline just wanted someone to blame so that she didn't blame herself.

They'd figured it out, over time. They'd been closer than ever.]

No, it's fine. Really. [She manages a slight smile.] My friends...they lost her too. It's nice to know I'm not hurting anyone by talking about it, you know?

[Chloe isn't grieving her mother the way Damon and the others might if she brings it up.]

[thevulnerability]

[ Chloe knows she has a point. She wishes she'd had someone like that when her father died, someone other than her mother to grieve with. She'd lost her father and Penelope had lost her husband, and it wasn't easy for either of them to talk about for a long time.

They'd come a long way, all things considered. But Chloe found herself wanting to be there for Caroline, wanting to be that person she could come to when everyone else hurt as much as she did. ]

Yeah. Yeah, definitely and I am here whenever you need that, okay? [ She tilts her head. ] Elena is one of my best friends and I'd like to be your friend, too.