In America, he thought he would be free. Wide rivers and wider forests—run, Niklaus, run like the wolf you are—but it was not so. It is never so, because his father hates him and his mother's blood betrayed him, and there is no more peace in America than there was in the old land.
Somewhere between Elijah's holy patience and Rebekah's open pain, he finds a way to be very much like neither of these things.
He is florid, hateful words and warm, deadly smiles. He is the terror that stalks the night, and he never has to be alone.
(Except that he is. He is terribly, terribly alone.)
He thought that with power, he would be free, or he would be happy.
Power is very much like neither of these things.
.
"Don't laugh at me!" Caroline says, and yes, yes; he is laughing. She chases the shadows away; she is the only vampire he's ever met who seems to be a friend of sunlight. The dainty ring on her finger may say otherwise, but Caroline's hair, her laugh, her eyes, all the ways in which she lets herself be driven mad by the cares of a moment…these things, to Klaus, are bathed in light.
He is old. He is old, and bitter. He has bathed in blood; he has crowned himself with power. These are the things that immortals crave, almost more than fresh veins and ancient secrets.
.
She has been scolded, he knows, for being selfish, and shallow. For being transparent and weak. When in fact, she stands and lasts with as much fiber and fire as any of them. Klaus didn't live for a thousand years without becoming some judge of singularity.
His only true claim to that is his fixation on himself. There lies selfishness, if also depth.
He runs his tongue along his perpetual fangs.
She is standing on the doorstep of his heart. She is asking him for something—for Tyler, for a dress, for a reason to believe in him.
And he is old, and bitter, and he gives her more of these things than he means to.
.
Thank you for your honesty.
He wrote that once, barely knowing what he thanked her for.
.
"Are you coming?"
"Coming?" Caroline squeaks. And Klaus smiles, unpracticed. Almost unintentional. Humans and compulsion come to mind, what with the way that Caroline can make him move and—and feel.
"Your taste, my dear, must be our guide."
"Your taste is fine," she mumbles. He hears, and his tongue darts out to slide over his lip, taunting her a little.
"Is it?"
"Shut up, Klaus." Caroline narrows her eyes. "I just mean, whatever dress you stole from Ava Gardner is going to be amazing."
"I thought we were going with Grace of Monaco." The stairsteps creak beneath their feet. Klaus turns the key; they enter the garret.
Caroline's nose wrinkles. It is dimly lit, but her hair falls as bright as ever. "It's dusty up here."
"I keep drinking up the maid service." He waggles a brow. "Sorry."
Caroline huffs a laugh that twists something in Klaus's chest. He ignores the sensation and throws open the lacquered doors of a wardrobe.
Caroline gasps.
"Make your choice," Klaus says. "Though…if I may, the early Poirets are a little bloodstained. I was so—terribly bored in the 'teens."
"I'm sure you were," Caroline says absently, fingers skimming over silk and paillettes, and then she covers her mouth with her hand. "Oh my god. That was World War I. I shouldn't have said it was boring."
He's laughing again, softly. "Didn't know history was such a sacred thing to you, love."
"I'll be living it," she points out, sober for a moment. Then the moment passes. "I don't know what to pick! Choose!" she commands. "I asked youfor advice!"
He wishes she would ask him to kiss her, but she won't. Her heart still belongs to the werewolf whelp and Klaus's heart—
Well.
What does Klaus know about hearts, unless they are wet and heavy in his hands?
.
He'll never forgive Tyler. He'll never forgive Katherine. He'll never forgive anyone. Don't you understand, he wants to say, wants to take Caroline's face in his hands and pour the truth of it into her wide eyes, This is who I am. There is none of your mercy for me.
.
He chooses a column of pale gold for her, soft at the edges and gliding intricately over her curves. She looks like a goddess, and Klaus could worship her. Klaus, cursed by night and by day, could worship this sun.
"Don't come to the prom." She jabs a finger at him—the nerve of her, a vampire in infancy, jabbing a figure at someone who has drunk down thousands of lives and years. "You always make it bloody, and tonight's my night."
"Wouldn't dream of spoiling any night of yours," he drawls, and he thinks it will end there, this interest, this way in which the motes of dust shimmer around her face. But then Caroline smooths one silken curl behind her ear and smiles.
"Thank you," she says, like she wasn't just driving a hard bargain with him a few days ago, while he howled in pain. "Thank you, Klaus. It means everything to me."
He opens his mouth to answer her. To give her back in kind the sort of freedom with which she moves through a world that nearly traps her at every turn.
Instead, he says nothing. An empty vessel, a god who lives on others' blood rather than his own.
(Klaus's blood is a cure for everyone else.)
"Enjoy your prom," he says, just enough mockery in it so that she can shake her head at him and leave with no remorse, no backward look.
Klaus stares at the fire for a long time. Then he turns his attention to ruining his sister's life.
In the end, he will always choose himself. No one else will. Power does not give you freedom, and freedom, should he ever have it, would not give him love.
"It is such a hollow little life that you lead, Niklaus," Elijah says. Even Elijah's sneers are patient, are noble, are filled with compassion rather than cruelty.
Elijah has chosen weakness over control, memory over mercilessness. And in the end, Elijah is not so alone as Klaus, though neither of them has what they want.
The cure is in his hand. Isn't that what he wanted? He can go days, months, years without a thought for Caroline. It is only when she stands before him that she is all, and always, what he sees.
He lets Tyler go.
It doesn't—
It doesn't change the pang he felt, central and absolute, when he realized that someone else had stolen Caroline's last dance.