Apparently something in that stream of feeling and weakness had struck a chord. Caroline had walked over to him, swearing she would never walk away from him much as he apparently would aggrivate her and he couldn't deny he probably would. He was good at that. But it was all so new to him, letting someone that close, letting the guards down, actually pleading with her, was this how it was to be, fighting and storming off and then explaining she still loved him. He wasn't entirely sure what had happened or which of them had won, but he suspected she had. It seemed likely.
"Alright." he finally said. "But you have to bear with me sometimes, all of this, everything like this is newer to me than I'd like to admit. You're the first in a long time to get this close to me." Possibly the first ever, oh there had been women, countless over the centuries, some had even surrvived the experiance. But none could he have claimed to love as he did her.
And he'd only really nearly killed her twice.
"And I won't lie and tell you I cared for those people. Jenna was an unwitting pawn in a wider game, a sacrifice. Jeremy Gilbert...well, you know my opinion on that boy and it was a mercy I didn't make him and his sister suffer what Kol did at his hand. But they were important to you, all of them. And that matters to me. Your humanity matters to me. Because its who I fell in love with. And yeah, being with me, maybe you start to realise you're finding things easier to stomach, part of that will happen. But, and god I can't believe I'm saying this, there are those of our kind that manage it, Stefan, Alexia and her love, her for almost four centuries now. You can retain yourself, be that voice at my side urging me to show mercy. And there will be times when I won't, when the crime or the insult is too great. But for you Caroline I would do a great deal just on your word. And I don't ever want you to lose that."