Standing over the empty coffin that had once housed his beloved sister, Klaus stared emotionlessly at the spotless white fabric adorning the inside. The fingers of his right hand ever so slightly caressed the satin, unconsciously stroking the softness as his mind wandered in thought. He thought about nothing in particular. It was a skill of his: blanking out his mind from it all. He thought not about violence or sadness for he thought about nothing. It was his only escape, truly. Death, killing, only kept a person entertained for so long. It was temporary respite from the overarching theme in his life: immortality. His immortality, his inability to be killed, left him feeling more vulnerable than anything. There was that idea hanging over his head that, because he had lived so long, it was inevitable he would die.
And he refused to die.
But death, killing, left him alone. It filled him with a feeling of loneliness as he tore out the throats and hearts of those creatures he would remain fascinated with despite his own attempts not to be: humans. They were fragile creatures, with such short life spans, but they felt so richly, so powerfully. He despised them, but sometimes he was unsure if it was out of true hatred or out of jealousy. Imagining he could be jealous of such weak things only infuriated him and led to moments like this one where he erased it all from his mind, shut it all off.
Death had brought him here, to this empty bed where his sister had once lied. She was gone now, the one thing he could love more than himself no matter how long he denied it. He needed her, and she was gone. His precious Rebekah.
He didn't ultimately care about the deaths of his brothers Finn and Kol. They affected him in different ways, but Rebekah was the other half of him. He'd lost the part of himself that was closest to human.
A twinge of pain in his skull made him wince and absently shake his head. Frowning, he raised his eyes from the pucker in the fabric where he'd been staring blindly. Looking around the room warily, he shook his head, denying he'd felt anything. It was his imagination. He was on the cusp of losing it altogether and he was imagining things. That much was obvious by the fact that he had felt pain. Pain, as an immortal being, was something he seldom felt, and when it did, those instances were few and far between. He could withstand more pain than other vampires - because he was a hybrid after all, that made him better - and short of having his heart crushed within his chest, he pretended pain was nonexistant within him.
But the pain within his mind was unavoidable. No matter how much denial he filled himself with, no matter how long he vowed that he didn't care, it stayed with him. She was gone.
They had found the cure. There was only one dose. And Rebekah had taken it.
They all assumed, he had assumed, it would turn her human. She would simply be a mortal, destined to grow old and have children and live and die as she wanted. He had truly wanted that for her. He'd disdained on the idea - believing that sort of thing to be weak - but it was what Rebekah wanted, so he wanted it for her. He had been the one to give the cure to her, and he still remembered her fingers - the same temperature as his own - brushing his hand as she took it from him. Her eyes had riveted on the container, an ornate urn covered in ancient writings and drawings even he couldn't understand, and she'd never looked at him again.
The last time he'd seen her eyes was after she fell to the floor, dessicated and gone.
No one killed his sister. No one. But the 'cure' had killed her. It had turned her human, and it had been centuries since she was human. She had reverted to what she would be if she'd been human all of those years, and that was nothing more than a dessicated husk.
A single tear ran down his stubbly cheek as he'd ran his fingers gently over her eyes, closing them before the rigamortis set in. His body shook, trembling violently as a choked sob sucked in through his mouth. He'd been alone, except for Elijah, and he had cried. He'd screamed and thrown things, eventually running his older brother from the room. Elijah would repeat the events of that night to no one, such was his loyalty. They were the only two left. They had to be loyal to someone.
The pang in his head returned, making him frown irritably as his fingers gripped the edge of the coffin in anger. Pain was beneath him. Why wasn't it leaving him alone?
Reaching up, he pressed his first two fingers into his right eye, drawing a circle to massage out the headache. It persisted this time, building steadily as he sighed and turned from the coffin.
Suddenly, the pain ripped through his head, making him cry out as his eyes widened and he was frozen in place by the fire in his brain. Distantly, he heard the double doors on the room slam open and he struggled to see who had come through the red haze of pain blossoming in front of his eyes.
"Have you missed me, Nik?"
His light eyes widened in disbelief as his knees gave out and took him to the floor. Catching himself on his hands and knees, he struggled to keep his head raised as he watched her feet advancing toward him. The pain in his head intensified and shifted, driving his head backward so he was looking up at her.
"Rebekah..." he croaked, his face screwing up with the pain.
She smiled, that dark smile he'd seen the night Elijah had resurrected his daggered family members, and she flicked her wrist, sending him sprawling onto his back without ever touching him. He groaned and writhed on the hardwood floor, his eyes wide as he stared up at her. She looked devastating, and she looked beautiful, but she was supposed to be dead. He must be imagining things already.
"It's been too long already, brother," she purred, her fingers tightening as he felt his windpipe crushed within his throat. Choking, he reached for his throat and kicked his feet, struggling against her. "Just six months, and you've already found a way to screw everything up."
Her hand relaxed and the choking sensation was gone, as was the pain in his head, but he remained laying on the floor as he caught his breath. He was luring her in to that false sense of security she always fell for so easily. She was putty in his hands because she loved him, and he knew it.
In a blur of motion, he was on his feet with her pinned roughly against the wall, his eyes flashing with anger and a hint of betrayal. She was supposed to be dead. He had mourned her. She wasn't allowed to return, having been alive all that time and having caused him such pain. No one was allowed to cause him pain. His hand tightened around her neck and his eyes glowed golden as the anger of the wolf within him flared up. But Rebekah smiled at him, her eyelids lowering as she smirked, nonplussed.
"You're dead," he hissed, the gold fading as he shifted his weight and slammed his hips against her to keep her still. She sneered at him and glared, her smile fading.
"You'd like that? You tried enough times to kill me over the centuries, I'm not surprised you thought you'd succeeded, you coward," she snapped. The pain bloomed in his head once more, causing him to release his hold slightly as it caught him off guard. "How dare you? Through it all, I was always there for you, and you seem to forget that. Elijah stood by you all of these years not out of love, but out of a loyalty even he doesn't understand. But I... I loved you, and you were too twisted to accept it, when my love is the only thing you've ever been worthy of."
Her hand was against his throat now, and she squeezed slightly, taking his breath from him once more. Her other hand hit him hard in his chest, her fingers penetrating through the gapes in his ribcage. He sucked in a gulp of air at the shock and tightened his grip around her throat as his eyes flared in anger once more.
"By flexing my fingers, I could tear out your throat," he growled angrily.
"And with the flick of my wrist, I could rip out your heart," she replied hotly, glaring defiantly up at him.
He paused for a minute, cocking his head slightly as his lips drew up in a sneer. "How are you here? I watched you die." I mourned you. He would never say it, but the reality was there. He had mourned her unlike anyone else. He had mourned Henrik, but he had been human then. He was different now, shaped by the centuries of his life, and he had not mourned another soul the way he had mourned her. Shedding tears for Kol's fiery death was nothing like the bitter anguish he'd endured over losing his precious sister.
Rebekah smiled at him, almost as if she was proud of herself. "The cure didn't kill me, Nik. It reverted me to what I would have been if I was never a vampire."
"Dead..." he stated obviously, a sardonic tone raising in his voice. She rolled her eyes and glared at him as a teacher would stare at a petulant student.
"I appeared dead, but I was... changing form, you could say," she noted, cocking her head, mirroring his actions.
He frowned, momentarily confused through the pain and surprise he'd endured. "What are you talking about?"
She sighed and looked deeply into his eyes, slipping her fingers from his chest and pushing him away from her so he stumbled back a few steps. "I am a witch, you idiot."
His eyes widened and he glanced over her, recognizing the white shirt and dark jeans she wore. Her blond hair fell in waves around her shoulders, and she looked so familiar he wanted to reach out and fold her into his arms. But that was not his way. It was an understanding between them.
"But you're human. You should still be dead," he pointed out, raising his eyebrows slightly as he straightened his shirt and ran his fingers over the blood that was already drying on the fabric.
Shrugging her shoulders slightly, she shifted her weight and stepped away from the wall. "I may be more human than I was, but I'm the descendant of the original witch. I'm not... quite human." She smiled darkly, amusedly, and he smiled in return. They were still powerful, even more so now. They were still a team, and they always would be. Only now, his sister was a witch, what she'd been born to be before their mother had altered her.
Rebekah stepped toward him, her fingers outlining the line of buttons on the front of his shirt before she looked up at him through her long eyelashes. "We can be truly great together, Nik," she murmured, raising her chin to gaze up at him. He stared her down, feeling that electricity building between them as it always did. "We're a team, like always. Always and forever..."
"Always and forever," he confirmed, nodding slightly as he lifted his gaze and stared off into the empty space beyond her head. With her newfound power, they would rule again. They had always been great, but now, they would be supreme.