For almost a year I have taken a break from writing my other story, Innocent Redemption. It was never my intention to stop writing it or writing all together, but a pregnancy with complications got in the way. Then being a new mom got in the way as well. Now that I have more time, I wanted to start writing again, but found that I had lost my juju when it came to that story. So this is my attempt at getting back on the writing horse again. I'm not really sure where this story came from, I just decided to start writing and see where it took me, so if it isn't that good or doesn't make much sense, or if it is full of mistakes please forgive me. I wrote this all tonight in one sitting just so I could finish something and feel some accomplishment.
This is basically my take on Klaus and Caroline's journey over the past five hundred years after episode 5x11. Please let me know what you think! And for those reading this who had been reading Innocent Redemption, I will try getting back into writing. No promises however.
I do not own TVD, but all mistakes are mine.
Atonement
New Orleans 2215
He was finally king, had finally defeated all his enemies. It had been a long and grueling process, a two hundred year one to be exact. No one but his siblings from his first years back in New Orleans remained; even his beloved daughter had passed. She had lead a full life however, as a witch. She had the potential to become a hybrid like him, she possessed the genes, but she chose to have a human life with a man she had fallen in love with and despite his internal protests Klaus had been selfless and let her chose her own destiny. It had left him hollow inside when she passed one hundred and seventeen years ago. He still felt her loss to this day; forever a part of his heart would have a void. The other part of his heart belonged to a woman he hadn't seen since a beautiful afternoon he had spent with her in the woods two centuries ago.
He had kept tabs on her of course, at least that was until about forty years into his New Orleans battle. Her mother had died that year and she had disappeared from Mystic Falls. His minions had lost her, and they in turn had lost their hearts. He had ripped them from their chests when they came to him with the news that she had left town, slipping away in the middle of the night after her mother's funeral. He had spent the better part of the rest of those centuries trying to track her down, but Caroline it seemed did not want to be found by anyone. He had been furious and a bit prideful of her knack of going undetected for so long. It seemed that she completely abandoned her old life, something that shocked him as well, and that is how she was able to disappear. She contacted none of her Mystic Fall friends, left everything that tied her to that town behind and went off into the world. Klaus had hoped that she would turn up at that century mark, remembering words that he once spoke to her, knowing she would have no doubt remembered them as well, but she never did.
Every year that passed after that he lost a little more hope of her coming, or him finding her. He had been with other woman since, he was after all a man. But none of them ever captured him like she had, and he never let himself share his art or a glass of champagne with any of them, that was their thing of course.
He had minions out there searching, two on each continent, following leads, not that there were many and going country by country, city by city. Once or twice his men had come close, but she would already be gone and moved on, leaving nothing to indicate where she would go next and they would have to start all over again. He had kept all the possessions she had left behind in those locations, books with well-worn spines, music she had listened to, art she had on her walls. He had converted a wing of his home to house it all. Each room held the contents of one city and sometimes when he was feeling more melancholy then usual he would spend days in them, taking it all in, reading the books she had read, and listening to the music she liked. Appreciating her fine taste in art, hoping that when she had selected those pieces that a part of her had thought of him, wondered what he would have thought of them. Or at the very least he hoped that his name crossed her mind even for a second.
All this went on, the same thing every few years; more time passing in between rooms of cities she had visited being filled, but never finding her.
New Orleans 2347
She had gotten better; it had now been a hundred and twenty two years since he had any leads on her. Finally yesterday his minions he had stationed in Asia had arrived with another room for his wing. They had tracked her to Tokyo, memories of a ball centuries before when they had first met consumed him and he had dreamt of that time all the previous night.
Today he started to look through everything; again there were books, music and art. He took in the paintings his men had hung on the walls, there was something different about this art. The paintings of previous city rooms were more naive, clearly picked by someone young and only just seeing the world for the first time. These paintings however were a little dark, a reflection of someone in turmoil and his heart broke thinking of what could possibly have happened for her to surround herself with such things. He went to her pile of music and after thumbing through it selected some to play. It was all instrumental and again reflected that of a person in a deep sorrow. Hoping to find some further insight into what would have Caroline feeling such pain he took in the books on her bookshelf, he let his eyes run over the titles when a particular book caught his attention. It looked to be leather, brown in colour, and had no title on the spine. Curious he selected it from the shelf and his breathe caught when he took in the word journal etched in gold on the cover. Never in over three hundred years had she left anything as personal as this in one of her homes. He was for lack of a better word thunderstruck; he had never felt such elation in these past centuries.
He found a chair in the corner of the room, clearly of Caroline's fine taste and sat down, it seemed to caress him and he could still pick up her scent on it. The home in Tokyo had clearly been abandoned according to his men for several weeks, but his senses being what they were could detect vanilla and honey. A smell that brought back images of her sweet skin that afternoon in the woods and how he nuzzled her neck taking in her sweet scent.
Flipping the pages in his fingers he was disappointed to find only one entry in the journal. The elation he felt earlier deflated, but still this was more than anything he had of her in over three centuries and he would take what little crumbs of her he could.
He took a deep breath and flipped back to the first page of the book and again was consumed with emotion at what he found.
Dear Klaus,
I hope that this journal finds you, and finds you well. Although knowing what I do of you, no doubt the minions that you have had following will get this to you in due time. I caught wind of them today; you really should tell them they aren't that good at being stealth. Or maybe I hope that they will find me…you will find me, and frankly that thought scares me. Even after everything I have experienced, the things I have seen and done, your intensity and dare I say certainty of me frightens me. I assume from the way you have these men pursue me that you still in fact feel the same as you did all those years ago when I was just a naïve baby vampire and I hope that is not too presumptuous of me.
I have a secret, a secret I have been keeping for the better part of these three hundred and some odd years. A part of me that has kept this locked away, because I dare say it hurt me more deeply than I had cared to admit at the time, and I need you to know this.
When my mother died, the last piece of my human life died with her. I had decided years before her death that her passing would be when I could truly embrace my vampire side. When I could go out into the world free, without regret.
I chose you that day; I chose a life with you. How devastated I was when I learned that you however had no longer chosen me you will never really know. I had come to see you, in New Orleans. And see you I did, you of course never knew I was there. I had Bonnie spell me so that I could only been seen to you when I decided I was ready, that spell still holds. It was a cowardice move on my part I know, however I had to be sure that the choice I was making was the right one, that you still wanted me like you said you did, even after all those years.
I watched you one afternoon, at your home. You looked so happy, and truly my heart swelled for you, for your happiness. I know that after one thousand years of feeling so alone that you finally had family. I saw you with your daughter, my certainty that she was yours only had to be confirmed by her eyes and the dimples on her beautiful face. But she had other features, clearly those of her mother…Hayley. At first I doubted my instincts, but then she came out of your home and I saw the three of you together. You kissed her cheek and the three of you sat and ate lunch so happily as a family, that at the same time that I was truly happy that you finally had all the things you ever wanted, I was also breaking apart inside. My fears had been confirmed and instead of patting myself on the back for protecting myself with verifying your feelings first I found myself lost.
So I disappeared, I did my very best to put any thought of you out of my mind. I tried to avoid anything that would remind me of you. At first it was easy, but as I travelled and the world got smaller, it was harder to avoid those memories, thoughts, and places. Rome, Paris, Tokyo… I never travelled to them, until now that is. It was a few years ago that I by chance ran into your brother Elijah. I know right now you must be feeling rage bubbling up, as to why your brother kept this from you. Please don't be mad with him, it took much persuasion on my part and begging for him to keep this secret.
I was in Ireland, travelling the country side, when I crossed paths with him and his wife… Hayley. It was then that I realized that what I saw that day in New Orleans was not what I thought at all. You will be happy to know that Elijah informed me of everything. Although I still was/am upset that you never told me of your night with Hayley and your resulting child, I can understand why you didn't. The Caroline I was back then would have just pushed you away farther, and no doubt you feared that.
I spent the next years feeling regret that I never showed myself to you that day, never gave you the opportunity to explain. And I am sure you are wondering now why after learning this that I haven't come to you. The reason being that even though I have travelled the world, I haven't really grown. Those insecurities that were there when I was just a human teenage girl, they are still there. I thought they were gone, but all I really did was bury them deep inside. When I saw Elijah and learned what I did and allowed myself to think of you, they came back. Those men you have follow me, is it because you love me or because you feel like I belong to you? You have never left New Orleans, I know, Elijah told me, and I have to wonder how much I truly mean or meant to you if you never came looking for me yourself.
When I saw them today following me I decided something, and maybe I am banking on feelings that are no longer there, but I hope that maybe I am right. I am starting this journal, not for myself, but for you. I want you to write to me, tell me about yourself now, about the last three hundred years, about your daughter. Don't mistake what I have said in this letter to mean that I am ready for you to come find me, but a piece of you yes. I want what is in your heart. When you fill this journal see that it gets to me, I don't doubt your super hybrid capabilities to make that happen. Be patient is all I ask, that and your honesty.
Your Caroline
He was crying, something he hadn't done since his daughter had died. Reading Caroline's letter set his emotions on a rollercoaster. She was basically saying that the chance for her to love him was there. How could she doubt his feelings for her, he thought he had always been so clear on them. Clearly he had been wrong. His heart ached that she felt pain at misunderstanding his relationship with Hayley. He cared for her as a sister, as his brother's wife and the mother of his child. It frustrated him that someone as wonderful as Caroline could not see just how truly magnificent she was, and how much he adored her. He had always put her and her needs first, despite his own selfishness. But if more reassurance is what she needed them he would give it to her. He would divulge it all to her, his own insecurities, hopes, desires, fears, sadness and love.
He sprung from the chair and flashed across his home to his studio. He couldn`t write these things to her in a room so full of her sadness. He needed to be where he could see her light. Now seated at his art table he looked around the room, it was full of drawings and paintings all of her. Here he took up his pen and started to write.
It was all he did, all he cared to do. He spent his days writing to her and his nights dreaming of her face. It took nearly two months and not only had he filled the journal she had started for him, but fifteen others as well. They held it all, everything of importance over the past centuries without her. His hopes for when they would finally be together. He expressed his love for her, his apology for not telling her the truth and his sadness for the pain she had to endure all these years.
It took him six more months after they were finished to get them to her, after finally realizing she left him a clue in her letter. If she started the journal in Tokyo for him, perhaps she had travelled to one of their other cities.
He had been correct; when his men had only been in Rome for two days searching a compelled human sought them out to retrieve the journals. She had given them an address to mail them to. After much compulsion and questioning, they learned the human was compelled to forget everything once she delivered the address to him, he was actually quite proud of her mental skills with that.
When they travelled to the address to intercept her on that end, he was amused to learn that she had been at the original post the whole time and had the parcel before it even left. His Caroline was a clever girl, clearly having learned much over the years. He couldn`t wait to hear all of her stories.
But to his dismay he never heard from her, and she disappeared completely, until it had been a total of five hundred years since he had seen her.
New Orleans 2513
He had lost all hope, it was gone. She had truly crushed him. After he had sent her the journals he was sure that after a few years she would finally come to him, finally forgive him and grow like she had wanted. He had been wrong, at year ten the seeds of doubt started to take root. He had heard nothing, and not a trace of her could be found. But he was Klaus, and he was nothing if not persistent, so he waited, he went on with his life as usual, but she never came.
He replayed the night of the decade dance in his head many times. Maybe in a century you`ll come to me. So he waited, a century, and yet still nothing. He became angry, at her, at himself for revealing his very soul to her in those journals, something he had not done in fifteen hundred years of existence. He let his hope for her go, let his despair and anger and self-loathing consume him. Those around him suffered for it, New Orleans and its patrons suffered for it. He became Klaus the monster again, Klaus the selfish man who cared nothing for others. And even though he hated her for what she had drove him to become, he could never really stop loving her.
New Orleans 2515
He was bored, truly, there was nothing left of this city, this world that captivated him anymore. He loathed having to interact with people so he took to keeping in his home for months at a time without venturing out except to hunt alone at night. The nights where he would shift into his wolf form and run and hunt in the woods were the closest to happy he could get and he found that more often than not he was turning instead of just hunting as a vampire. There was something freeing at letting instinct rule over thought. For a few hours his only worry was finding a source of food and succumbing to his animal nature. When he was turned her didn't think of her and the pain would no longer be there. It was like being addicted to a drug, finding release in that. He was not a stupid man and he knew he was just barley coping, but frankly he could care less.
His siblings had given up on trying to bring him out of this deep depression as they called it. The final straw had been when he had daggered Rebekah and Elijah had managed to find her and remove it. They left that day and he hadn't seen or heard from them since. One year without any contact with his siblings, although he knew that Elijah was getting regular updates from his contacts in New Orleans. But with his recluse behaviour they would not have much to report.
It was at dusk one evening when he was making his way to the woods to turn and hunt that he was stopped dead in his tracks. There in front of him was a hummingbird.
It hovered right there, right in front of his face just like that day in the Andes, just like he had told Caroline about. His words to her played over in his mind.
I was on a trek in the Andes, and a hummingbird flew up to me. It just hovered there staring at me, its tiny heart was pattering like a machine gun. And I thought what a thing, you know, to have to work that hard every day just to stay alive, to be constantly on the verge of death, and how satisfying every day must be that it survived. And that was the only time I thought about being human.
Something struck him then and he raced back to his home, flashing at top speed. He was taking life for grated, not bothering to live it, going through the motions. Not acting at all. He needed to act!
He burst through his front door not caring that he sent it flying off the hinges. He continued up to his room and to his bedside table drawer where he kept the pages he tore out of the journal with Caroline's letter. He knew it by heart by now but he just had to hold it in his hands and read the part that he was so stupid not to pick up on before.
Those men you have follow me, is it because you love me or because you feel like I belong to you? You have never left New Orleans, I know, Elijah told me, and I have to wonder how much I truly mean or meant to you if you never came looking for me yourself.
How bloody stupid could he have been not to realize what she was really saying to him. It wasn't enough for him to send people to find her or for him to write a million journals about his feelings for her. She wanted him to show her. To prove it to her with actions, not words. To put her before everything and everyone else, above his kingdom, his subjects. She wanted to know that she was loved, not coveted like a trophy, that she was picked first. And the bloody idiot that he was failed to do that. No wonder she never came, no wonder he hadn't heard from or about her in over a hundred and sixty years. He hurt her, yet again. My god, would he ever be able to atone for everything he put this woman through. He would need another five hundred years.
The problem was, he had an idea where to start, but it was a bridge he feared he may have burnt. He had to try though; he could not endure anymore wasted time of not trying to find her. He dug his phone out of his pocket and skimmed through the contacts, finger hovering over his name briefly before he hit call.
After a few rings he finally picked up.
"Brother, I was wondering when you would finally come to your senses and try and find her." Elijah's words calmed and annoyed him all at once, something only his older brother was ever capable of doing.
"Lijah, I…well I am, I am sorry." There he had said it; he had apologized to his brother, something he had never done before. He hoped that he would see just how truly desperate he was and forgive him. At least long enough to help him find Caroline, he didn't think it was coincidence on her part either that she included that she had been in contact with his brother in the letter. Some part of her must have known that he would piece together that this was how he could find her.
"I know you are brother, I had hoped that you would have come to this sooner, but of course I couldn't push, it had to be you who realized it. She is quite smart Miss Forbes, I must say too smart for you." There was playfulness in his tone and Klaus released the breath he held knowing that all was forgiving so easily.
"I have been utterly the stupidest man brother, and I know that I don't deserve her or her forgiveness, but if I don't try I will be miserable for the rest of my wretched existence. Please, do you know where she is?" He hoped this would be as easy as Elijah having the answer he wanted.
Eljiah sighed. "Niklaus, I wish it were that simple. All she told me was to tell you that once you came looking for her you would know where to find her, and that I was to inform her by email once you finally went looking. Brother that was over a hundred and sixty years ago. I will of course do what she asked, but I fear you may be too late." His words were a blow, but he couldn't give up now that he had some hope.
"Thank you Elijah, I hope that you are wrong."
"I as well Niklaus, I as well." Klaus hung up at that, when Elijah had conveyed that Caroline said he would know where she was his mind went to her letter right away and the night of his mother's ball. Rome, Tokyo…Paris, she had to be in Paris, she had already been to the other two cities, it had to be it. He wasted no time, shoving the letter in his pocket with one hand he was already dialing with the other, ready to book a flight to Paris.
Paris 2515
Three days he had been there, and yet there was no sign of her. He feared that Elijah was unable to reach her, that she had given up on him. He had gone out every day in search of her, his heart would clench each time he would get a glimpse of blonde curls. It was torture; he would get feelings sometimes that she was right there, around a corner, behind a crowd of people or just right behind him. Every time he would look or turn though she wasn't and he didn`t know how much more of it he could take. He decided that it was time he call Elijah and ask him to email her again, maybe she just didn't get the first one. He could only hope it was something like that and not that she had forgotten about him.
The news Elijah had for him sent his heart plummeting into his stomach. The email had come back as non-deliverable. His worst fear was coming true, she had given up on him, and he was too late. He had been so foolish and too much time had gone by. He could only imagine how hurt she must have been that he never came for her, what she must of thought and felt. That she must have thought herself again not someone`s first choice. If only he could tell her that wasn`t the case, even if she never gave him a chance at forgiveness, a chance to be with her, he wished her could ease her pain. His own pain could be as damned as him; he deserved to live with it after everything. Every choice he had made over the years when it came to her had been the wrong one. He never should have walked away that day in the woods, he should have stayed, should have fought for her, despite if she was ready or not. Maybe if he had, even if they weren`t together now, she would know that she was his first choice; she would have known that she was loved like that, all consuming and epic as she liked to say.
He stayed five more days, spent each of them looking for her, just in case, just because he couldn`t give up that last shred of hope. On the fifth day though, he knew that if she hadn`t come by then, then she wasn`t coming at all. Reluctantly he made his way back to the flat he kept there in the city. It wasn`t as grand as some of his other homes he owned, but what it lacked in size it made up for with its view. French doors in the living room as well as his room looked out onto the Eiffel tower. When he lay in bed he could stare straight out at it. It was breathtaking, truly a beautiful sight. He wished she would have been able to share it with him. He decided he would spend one more night here. Wake up to the view in the morning and then put his flat up for sale. After today he never wanted to visit Paris again.
The moment he walked through his door he sensed something was different. He stopped and listened more intently. The doors that led to the balcony in his room were open, and he had not been the one to do so. He didn`t however hear anyone else in the flat so he flashed into his room and instantly he knew she had been there, on his pillow was a note. He flashed over grabbing it, hands trembling he read it.
Eiffel Tower, midnight.
Klaus had rushed there as soon as he had read the note, he was four hours early, but he just had to go, he couldn`t chance that he be one minute late and she leave, or that she would arrive early and then change her mind. So there he sat, on a bench looking at the base of the tower, waiting for a glimpse of her, his heart racing.
This was it, after five centuries apart he would finally get to see her, talk to her, hold her again, and that thought excited and terrified him all at once. What would he say to her, more importantly what should he say to her. How would he explain that it took this long for him to come? She had agreed to see him, but it had taken eight days of him being in the city, and without the email how had she known that he was here. He had questions for her, five hundred years' worth of questions. He just didn't know which one to start with.
He sat in his own world, mind running wild with thoughts of what his first words should be to her that he hardly noticed that the crowd at the base of the tower had thinned considerably. It wasn't until he felt wetness on his cheeks and realized that a light drizzle had started that he focused more on his surroundings. The few people left milling around started to clear out because of the impending rain. He checked his watch, 11:50pm; she would be there in ten minutes. Finally he would get to see his Caroline. Time ticked away slower than normal he was sure, because the ten minutes seem to feel like ten years to him. He willed himself not to keep checking his watch, but finally couldn`t bare it anymore, 12:02am. He was here and she wasn`t, was she late, or just not coming? He leaned back against the bench and his head dropped back looking up to the sky.
Fear was creeping into him, that she had changed her mind, realized that he didn't deserve her. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take; he just needed to know for sure one way or another. In that moment, without having heard anyone approach he felt a presence beside him, one he had felt in the streets the last eight days during his search for her. He lifted his head and looked but again there was no one there, he was alone. Was he losing his mind, going crazy from all these emotions? Or was this to be his punishment, always feeling like she was there but just out of reach. It was a cruel way to live out the rest of his existence. Another look at his watch showed that it was now 12:20am, and she wasn't coming.
It was over, five hundred years of longing, and waiting, and he realized too late what he should have done a million times over. He should have shown her that she was and would always be his first love, his only love. He needed to speak it once, even if it was only to put it out there in the universe, to make it real.
"I'm sorry my love. You should know it was always you, even before we met; I waited for you without even knowing it. You were my first love, my only love, my last love." He let out a shaking breath, noticing how the air had turned cold, fitting as that is how he felt inside. The rain was coming down harder now, it was time to leave. He closed his eyes, steadying himself for a future without her as a possibility when he heard it, a soft whimper beside him.
The sound of a woman crying, not just any woman though, because when he inhaled again he was filled with the scent of vanilla and honey. It was her, or his mind was playing cruel jokes on him, he opened his eyes and turned to her. Yes she was there, as if she had appeared by magic. Of course, his brain always did work faster than most people's when it came to certain things. She had written in her note that she had Bonnie put a cloaking spell on her and that he wouldn't be able to see her that day in New Orleans until she was ready for him to see her, and that in fact that spell was still intact.
She was looking at him, smiling, tears streaming down her face. By the gods she looked even more beautiful to him now than the last time he had laid eyes on her. No picture he had drawn or painted of her even came close to capturing her beauty. He was so lost in her eyes that he almost missed that she was actually speaking to him.
"Klaus, I thought you would never come for me." She looked at him with love in her eyes, but her voice still held some apprehension and doubt, and he really couldn't blame her. He showed the actions by coming and now he knew she needed to hear it, needed to be reassured, swept off her feet. She needed him to love her in every way he possibly could.
He turned to her and moved closer to her on the bench, he gently cupped her cheeks with both his hands, he could feel her quick short breaths whispering against his lips and he had to resist the urge to just kiss her and show her what he felt, but he needed her to hear it first.
"Love, I know you heard what I had to say just now, but you need to hear it again, every day for the rest of eternity." She smiled at him, shut her eyes and nuzzled her cheek farther into his palm. He smiled back at her. "I love you, I have always loved you and I will always love you. You are the most important person in my life, you always will be, and I will spend forever making sure you know that. Please forgive that it took me this long to tell you and show you this."
"Klaus." She whispered his name, and then opened her eyes to meet his. "Will you just kiss me already?!" She smiled at him again and he smirked back at her. He wouldn't deny her anything ever again, and certainly not this.
Leaning in it washed over him that this kiss was five hundred years in the making, but in this moment it felt like they had never left those woods that day, it was like she had never left his arms. He closed the distance between them brushing his lips against hers, not sure how much to push her at the moment. She responded eagerly, all passion and love. He was overwhelmed by her, her lips were soft but insistent and he was a slave to her bidding, opening up to her and deepening the kiss. Their hands were tangled existence had he been kissed or kissed another like this. It was wild, yet had moments of gentleness, like when she would pull back slightly and nibble his lower lip only to delve in again and devour him again.
It seemed like they kissed for ages, and eventually the fevered kissing turned to slow soft pecks and lips brushing against each other's cheeks. They were breathing each other in, savouring each other. It was the best moment of his life; he thanked whatever gods took pity on him that he hadn't screwed this up. A thought occurred to him then and he pulled back slightly so that he could look at her.
"Love, Elijah wasn't able to get a hold of you, how is it that you knew I would be coming here?"
She smiled at him again and this time she was the one cupping his cheek. "Klaus, I moved to Paris the day I finished reading your journals."
That was not the answer he expected, his heart ached, in a good way and he was speechless.
"After reading your words I knew you still loved me, but I admit I still needed you to actually come for me, to show me and choose a life with me. There were moments over the years that I started to doubt that you did, but then I would hear stories of the king of New Orleans and how he became cruel and recluse and I knew it must have been because you were hurting, and I assumed it was due to the fact that you hadn't figured out yet what I needed from you. There were times when all of me ached to go to you, to take that pain away, but then I would be that human girl all over again and I just couldn't do that. I regret that you had to hurt my love, I hope that you can forgive me for that."
She looked down and away from him not able to meet his stare anymore and he was in awe that after everything that he put her through that she thought that he could ever not forgive her, that she didn't realize that he valued and put her feelings above his always.
He must have taken too long in his musings, because she started to speak again before he could.
"I just need you to know, that I love you as well, somehow I think I always have. Please know that." He felt her start to pull back and he stopped her by pulling her into him. He rested the side of her face against his chest, right above his heart.
"Caroline, listen to me and listen carefully, there isn't anything you could ever say or do that would make me stop loving you. You need not ask for my forgiveness because there is nothing to forgive, if anything it is I that should be at your feet asking for yours." He wondered if she could hear how his heart was beating like a jack hammer in his chest while he held her. Surely she could because he could hear how hers skipped a beat at his words.
She pulled back to look at him again and gave him that smile that was full of light. "I guess we have forever to make it up to each other."
He returned her smile with one of his dimpled grins. From the glint in her eye he knew she saw the mischief in it. "Always and forever love, starting with tonight."