A/N: Ok, so this fic is long overdue. I meant to have it posted about two weeks ago, but ran into some unforseen computer issues that took me a bit to sort out. Then yesterday I tried to post it, got all the way to typing out the title and the sumnmary and was just about to upload the fic when I realized that the site had glitched and not saved the three hours worth of edits and notes I had just typed up. So here I am today trying again, and if this site attempts to put a kibosh on the process again, I swear I will eat its BALLS for dinner. I am done with your shit, FF. net.

Anyway, due to the length of this I have split it into two parts. Depending on the length of the second part, which I have already begun but not yet finished, this may extend into three parts, although I doubt it. At any rate, keep your eyes peeled for the second half of this. I will post them together instead of scattering them about in separate documents like the rest of the series, so if you're interested in the second part, be sure to add this fic to your alerts.

So. Some notes. There are a lot of hotels and street names that will come up throughout this fic but I have decided not to spell most of them out because I feel as though the context of the sentence generally makes it pretty obvious that I'm talking about a road or a hotel or whatnot. Just be aware that you're going to have a lot of names thrown at you.

First of all, I have changed Klaus' name to 'Nicholas'. This actually popped up in my last fic, but it was only a single line and may have been either overlooked or taken to be a typo. This is intentional; since Klaus is posing as a native Irishman, I thought 'Nicholas' would be more appropriate than 'Niklaus' while still essentially remaining the same name.

The 'electric torches' to which I refer are flashlights.

The Columbian Mocha and Tyrconnell to which Klaus refers as he is tasting the officer are a blend of tobacco and a brand of whiskey, respectively. (Not terribly important, but the explanation lends his comment about bad habits a bit more sense.)

The 'Liam' to which I refer is Liam Tobin, a prominent member of Michael Collins' intelligence network during the Irish War for Independence. 'Tom' is Tom Cullen, another rebel at the head of Collins' network. Harry Boland was a good friend of Collins' and yet another prominent Irish rebel.

'RIC' stands for Royal Irish Constabulary, the main police force of the time.

'Fenian' refers to either the Fenian Brotherhood or the Irish Republican Brotherhood, political organizations devoted to establishing an independent Irish Republic.

The 'Tans and Auxiliaries' were a paramilitary unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary.

A 'lorry' is a truck.

The 'coke' being smuggled in for the bomb factories that Collins establishes is actually coal. (This confused me quite a bit while reading my Irish history books, because to me, 'coke' is either a fountain drink, or cocaine. I'm not terribly versed in bomb-making, but I'm relatively certain cocaine is not used in the process.)

'Cathleen ni Houlihan' was a play written by Yeats in the early 20th century; Cathleen is the main character of the production and is actually a metaphor for Ireland.

I think that's it, so far as major terminology is concerned. You've either read all of this and are heading into this with some semblance of an idea of what's going on, or you skipped everything and you're careening blindly forward, enthusiastic but clueless. (Unless of course you're familiar with this particular time period.) Either way, good luck. I hope you enjoy this latest entry in the series.

Dublin, 1918

An Irish night is absolute.

The lights cannot see through the fog; the houses leap from nowhere. The midnight people, these polished officials, painted women, ragged children of the streets, pass in specter flickers from corner to corner.

The lamps paint his hands green.

The papers folded within his inner pocket crackle.

He presses the tiny star of his last peppermint to the roof of his mouth, cracks it like a bone between his teeth, rolls its thin slivers back along his tongue.

At Denmark he sees the officer with his electric torch, whistling as he goes, and out of the fog he steps, hand to his papers, smile on his lips, and though much of humanity consists of the bovine, that stupid cow complacency which takes so long to understand its death, this one scents the wolf beneath wool, tips up his hat, squints out into the night.

"You," the officer says. "Stop."

The rain makes a river of the street beneath him; the officer's boots with their gunshot heels shimmer within this great wet mirror, distort, ripple to pieces.

"Quite a miserable night," he tells the officer with smile still upon his lips, fingers tapping patiently against his papers.

Inside his mouth swirls peppermint fire, saline thirst, metal adrenaline, all these distinct flavors of the hunt, but he has no time to savor, to shut his eyes and lose himself in the feast, to drink deep, take his time, empty the veins.

Men of revolution are servants to time, this great ticking clock upon which their lives and causes dangle; to dally is to waste the grains, and once depleted the hourglass cannot be tilted again.

War hinges upon a schedule met, an appointment honored.

Sorry, mate.

He is upon the officer before he can stumble back, and from his hand he seizes the torch, and across his brow he slams its handle, once, twice, and now the man drops his stone weight to the pavement underneath him and he kneels down to slip his fingers between splintered white and liquid gray and he pulls his hand away black.

He licks his fingers.

Touch bitter, this one. Not been watching what he eats, and does he detect a hint of the Columbian Mocha, a faint suggestion of Tyrconnell?

He smiles down at the man's open eyes and slack mouth. "Habits like that'll kill you, mate."

He walks away into the night with hands in his pockets, whistling the man's tune.

Vaughan's is quiet.

He leaves his coat in a soggy pile on the rack beside the door, wipes his boots on the mat, crosses the threshold with papers in hand.

Two heads come up in the corner and now one of them is wreathed in a smile, and inside of him there is an answering tug, a pull, and so too is he touched by this instinctive stretching of the lips.

To view man as not meal but friend- to desire his respect, to hold onto his approval-

He is going soft, Bekah teases.

One hundred years ago he would have torn the great square-jawed head from the shoulders of this man called Michael Collins.

One hundred years ago he would have squashed this tiny ant man beneath his boot and ground down until at last he screamed no more, but one hundred years ago, sister, he needed no replacement for the two brothers who did not love him enough.

One hundred years ago, Elijah helped him up and pulled him back together and showed him how to go on with no sister beside him and no friend underneath him.

And now look at them, Rebekah.

Do you see how he does only what he has to, that he strikes out merely because his hand is forced- do you understand that Elijah had only to choose him, that he just needed his brother-

This man in four months has shown him what nine hundred years has not offered him, Bekah; loyalty- it is no complex challenge, no inaccessible goal, and yet how it eludes his own family, these creatures who with their multiple centuries have not grasped this most simple of concepts when this boy with his trifling two decades comprehends without effort.

"Mick." He nods.

"Any trouble, Nicholas? Liam's caught a whiff of uniforms around Parnell lately. Been on our toes for a raid."

"No trouble at all," he says, handing across the papers.

Collins unfolds the sheets, spreads them out across the table.

Tom cracks his neck and pops all the knuckles of his left hand, great firecracker bursts in his oversensitive ears. He hears the settling of the mattresses over his head, the creaking of the frames, the restless shifting of insomniac feet. "You want a drink, Nick? Bit of a bite in the air."

"No; I'll be on my way in a moment."

Collins' pen is a nail, his paper the chalkboard.

Tom breathes his great hurricane sighs and the insomniac feet thunder over his head and that bloody pen-

He feels his stiletto teeth puncture gum, tongue, lips and he shuts his eyes and tucks his hand with its officer's blood into his pocket, feels along lifeline trench and knuckle crease for all the little leftover flakes of this man's life, sees through his flickering lashes the ripe blue of Collins' wrist, the inviting white of Tom's throat-

He opens his eyes, blinks once, retracts his fangs.

His urges do not control him.

He is master, always and forever.

A shame brother, that you have never quite learned this lesson.

Collins folds the paper, hands it across the table to him, and back into his pocket it goes. "You got any plans for Christmas, Nicholas?" Collins asks, capping his pen.

"Just a quiet evening at home with Bekah, I'm sure. We're not much ones for the holidays."

"How is your sister?" Tom asks, and the poor besotted little idiot lights up, eyes, cheeks, all of him illuminated by this human failing.

Love, vanquisher of the rich, conqueror of the poor: a presiding deity, beneath the fist of which all will one day crumble.

The meek, the weak, these soft humans with their hearts in slave collars round their necks.

And dear sweet Bekah, who knows no better, who with her nine centuries should long ago have learned; always does this particular Achilles' heel trip her up- there is a boy who smiles at her, here a man who presses her hand, and how nice are their words in the beginning, how sweet their confectioner's promises: honey tongue, syrup smile, but remember, sister, where it all leads-

A brother's shoulder soaked, a mother's absence lamented, a man stalked unsuspecting from street corner to alleyway.

She makes such a mess when they break her, does Rebekah.

"Rebekah? Grand." Why, just the other day she licked her fingers clean of three trembling little RIC cowards who with their cries of "Fenian whore" turned her snarling upon them.

The young one with his beard in a peach down across his jaw tasted the best, he hears.

They always do.

"Tell her I said hello, would you?" Tom asks, so hopefully, he with collar taut, fate sealed.

"The boys and I'll be at Kidd's Back, Christmas morning, you want to join us, Nicholas."

He buttons his vest, collects his jacket. "I'll keep it in mind."

"You watch yourself out there, Nick."

He smiles and slips his arms into both sleeves, shaking the rainwater from his cuffs. "Of course."

He tips his hat to them both and makes his way out into Parnell Square, hands in his pockets, the officer's tune once more upon his tongue.

Catchy little thing, it is.

Mountjoy nets him his next encounter.

He grasps the boy by both shoulders, looks deep into his eyes, and just a bit of a push is all this one needs, quite the pliable little thing he is, this child with revolver wet in his hand, panic thick in his throat. "You run along and bring reinforcements as fast as you can, do you hear me? Michael Collins is at Vaughan's."

The boy flees.

He waits for the rumbling of the lorries, the dove flurry of the battlefield hearts.

The rain thins, the mist thickens, and in this pale shroud he waits, watch in his hand, hat cocked low upon his head.

The midnight people with their polished boots, painted cheeks, ragged trousers are swallowed away.

He stands alone, contemplating the lifeline trenches and the knuckle creases, the officer's blood in a brown paint across his hand.

On Capel St. there is a humming of wheels, a growling of engines, an aviary fluttering of twenty hearts set to flight.

He smiles.

"Raid!" he hisses, bursting in the door. "Off your bloody asses- there are two lorries just on the other side of Parnell!"

What an excellent mimic he is of the human condition: breath fast in his lungs, hand shaking upon the knob, voice high, knees loose- truly he has missed his calling with theatrics such as these.

"Fuck my ass!" Collins roars. "Harry and Liam are upstairs-"

"Nick, you get him out the back; I've got them, Mick."

Collins' hands dart out, gather up the paperwork in a thick snowfall on the table before him, shove these traitor's documents inside his jacket as fast as he can thrust them as Tom thunders away up the stairs, shouting as he goes.

The lorries stop to disgorge their passengers, close enough that now even Collins with his inferior ears hears their approach, and now to the stairs his eyes flit, brow crumpled, face torn, so much confliction when just beyond the door is the hangman's noose-

"Mick!" he snaps, drawing his revolver from his pocket. He jerks his head to the counter, and with a muttered oath Collins vaults over it, disappears into the 'employees only' section just beyond, and here come the officers, listen to their hearts, got 'im now, these little animal patterings proclaim, can't escape us this time, you Mick bastard-

He fires a shot into the first one through the door, smells the boy's ripe young blood, his pumping throat, emptying veins, and then he swings both legs over the counter, darts away into the hall beyond, kicks open the door to the back alley, listens to the rapid heartbeat thunder of Collins' boots ahead of him, the artillery clashing of the three boys scrambling down the fire escape above.

Boland descends with shirt untucked, boots in hand, Liam clinging with shaking white fingers, throwing himself from ladder to ladder, all of them slipping, tumbling, careening, Tom bringing up the rear with mussed hair, wild eyes, automatic in hand, envelope in his teeth-

"Fuck fuck fuck- go, boys!" he says through this stiff cream packet, spitting it down into his free hand as Boland staggers onto the final ladder and leaps from its top rungs to the pavement below, knees buckling, boots flying, and now down tumbles Liam, onto his knees, gouging his palms, up again in an instant, his blood pungent, his heartbeat intoxicating, more and more of this wet red elixir it pushes out, over his palms, down his fingers-

"Mick, go!" Tom snaps as Collins pauses to shove Boland's boots into his arms, hand on his elbow.

The British gush forward.

Clicking heels, jangling belts, rattling rifles- all of this a storm in his ears, the rain drowned out, the heartbeats muffled, Tom beside him, Collins just ahead of them, the mist a veil, the uniforms materializing through it-

"Make for Gresham!" Collins yells, pulling Boland along, Liam staggering forward on liquid knees; like startled prey he is off, gathering his gangly colt's legs underneath him, breath thin, sweat in a great pheromone cloud all around him-

"Nick-"

He steps forward as the first officer surges through the back door, smashes him back with swinging pistol and thrusting boot, and from this moist night with its climate in a smoke all around him appears the next, rifle to shoulder, and now at his side appears Tom, automatic thundering, and the officer's shoulder jerks, jets forth a spray of fragrant red-

They fire once more, simultaneously, and then Tom breaks for the alley, he close on his heels, the fire escape throwing cinders, the pavement deflecting bullets in little white stars, the rain a monsoon once more, the mist cleared away, their boots a thunderstorm upon the street.

Parnell is engulfed.

There is a third lorry blocking the entrance nearest Denmark; he skirts it, revolver still drawn, Tom breathing heavily beside him, the officers milling about like ants, the rain in its wartime volley on the streets muting their footsteps as they slip from pavement to grass.

Tom bellies out in the little garden out front of the darkened house whose front yard they cross, he in a crouch beside him, the revolver disappearing into his pocket, Tom's automatic slipped away as well, the British whistling, shouting, stamping about behind them.

He hears the tinny click click clicking of switches flipped, buttons pressed-

"Down!" he hisses.

The thin white fingers of their torches sweep the yard.

Tom hurls himself into the lilies compressed underneath him, crushing their petals to perfume, his face like chalk, his shoulders twitching with each breath he squashes flat inside his lungs.

He lies beside him, cheek to the dirt, hat jarred down onto the bridge of his nose.

Fantastic -the fear in this man- the bellows chest, the flexing throat, the rich rivers in their temptress coursing beneath his skin-

The rain fills his ears, catches in his lashes.

He listens to each little droplet land, stretch, roll itself from eye to cheek to chin.

Tom blinks, wets his lips, squeezes his eyes shut for just a moment.

The thin white fingers cross, jerk from porch to pathway to pavement.

The rain scythes these fingers, cuts them to ribbons, scatters them about in pieces, and as one of these little shards briefly touches one bright December flake to Tom's left hand he tenses, wrenches his eyes wide, lies staring across the grass with frozen face, statue fingers.

Nick, his eyes say but his lips do not.

Nick, please.

He reaches out to Tom's unlit right elbow, squeezes it for just a moment, tells him with tight fingers and encouraging nod what he cannot voice.

Believe, hope, trust.

And look at the boy- what hero worship is in his eyes- what relief there is in this hand that grips him back as the pieces dart away and the flake slithers off across the grass- when has he last been viewed in such a way- when has someone last laid their life down in his hands and believed so sincerely that he will not strangle it between his fingers-

What God did not grant humans in superior senses and advanced abilities, he made up for in this eel slickness of theirs.

Though you reach out to grasp them, to hold back, squeeze tight, they wriggle through. They tunnel, burrow deep, down your throat, into your chest, around your heart.

So few of them make this journey, these little chess pieces with their frail insect years.

But war makes comrades of all men. Through mud you wade, over corpses you skid, round the barbed wire, across the trenches, and all throughout this voyage marches little Tommy at your side, mortality with its guillotine shadow hung swaying over his head, pushing through, helping you on-

He has broken many of them: the ones who run he snaps across his knees; those who talk too much he rips from carotid to collarbone, and the looters, those vultures of the battlefield who rob enemy, friend, brother-

Those he eats.

Slowly.

Expendable little toys, all of them, with their eye blink lives.

But occasionally, there is one such as this, who gives him hope.

The boy lets out a shaky breath and grabs his shoulder with a smile, jostles him briefly, moves on in this cautious reptile slink of his, forearms gouging the flowers, boots digging down into their roots.

He slides over the grass after him.

Round the side of the house they make their way with bellies to the mud, cheeks smudged, nails full.

Tom lifts himself cautiously into a crouch, presses his back to the side of the house, kneels with hair plastered flat, cheeks streaming, lashes scintillating. "Jaysus, I thought they had us." He blows out another breath, shuts his eyes again. "Where are we? Mountjoy?"

"Backside of Denmark, looks like," he says quietly.

"Well, why don't we-"

"Wait."

He tilts his head, listening.

Two along the walkway with their torches, darting these long glittering cones in pebble skips over the black river of the street, the sunken marsh of the garden-

"Nick," Tom whispers, swallowing hard, reaching with trembling fingers for his automatic.

He crushes the boy's wrist in his hand. "You go around the back," he says into his ear. "You make your way down to Barry's, just up the road. If the roads are clear, move round to Gresham's. Do you understand?"

"And what are you going to do?" he hisses. "I'm supposed to just leave you then, am I?"

The British heels click click click; he blinks away the sunspot afterimages of their torches, smells their hot copper blood, sweating thighs, perspiring wrists.

"Yes," he snaps, bearing down on the boy's wrist, thrusting deep with his eyes.

With blank stare, stiff nod, Tom scuttles away, crouching as he runs, hand on his gun, breath rattling in his throat.

For Mikael to pick up his scent once more would be a shame; such a commotion they stir up, these Irishmen with freedom in their hearts and courage in their veins.

Truly he would like to see this little rebellion of theirs through.

So no tapping of the veins; no tearing of the throats; no shredding of these nervous young officers approaching with guns drawn and hackles raised.

He stands with both hands in the air and steps out from behind the house.

"On your knees!" the one on the left calls, pinning him in torch beam, pistol sights.

Sorry, mate.

He bows to no one.

He steps closer with hands still raised, smile on his face.

"Stop!"

He turns to the one on the left first, this boy with his itchy little trigger finger so pathetically eager to notch his first rebel into his bedpost. "I want you to have a sudden attack of conscience," he says, lowering his hands slowly to the boy's shoulders. "I want you to go to your commanding officer and tell him you've been working with Collins this whole time, and that you aided in the escape. You too," he directs to the boy on the right.

"But they'll execute us!"

His smile spreads. "I know. And so young, too. Shame, isn't it?"

He is swept up in Tom's arms as he steps through the door onto the Gresham's scuffed cream carpet.

Collins claps his shoulder, Boland grasps his hand, Liam pounds his back.

He is shaken, jostled, passed about between them.

Do you see this, he is a part of something- men they may be but they have chosen him- he has not compelled this hand on his shoulder or these arms about him, they have encircled him of their own free will, they smile to see him, they run not away but to -they like him, father- Nick the revolutionary, Nick the brave, Nick the friend-

A coward, father, is he- not to these men who praise his steel nerve, his courage under fire- should have seen him, like it was nothing and me about to piss me pants, Tom brags, with such fire in his eyes-

Brother, look.

Father, see.

Here is brotherhood.

Here is family.

Here are those who understand the bonds of loyalty, who know what it is to not leave a man behind, to offer him a hand as he is floundering, to pull him free, to reel him up.

Christmas is gray.

The clouds gather; the sky weeps.

If Ireland is to keep her coat of eternal spring, she must pay her dues in days such as these, with flooded streets, streaming windows, her white Christmas in the gutter, her chimneys smoking, all of the city black soot, gray cinders.

But inside, the light holds back this wet morning with its gay yellow. The glasses clink, the laughter swells, the cigars exhale.

And he is welcome to it.

He is expected.

He sits beside Collins on his stool, beer in one hand, cigar in the other, and he laughs until he can't breathe.

"Fuckin' boggin, Nick," Collins tells him with hand on his shoulder. "An' here's Liam, the fuckin' eejit, flattening the biddy like-"

"You shut your fuckin' mouth, Mick! Don't be startin' no rumors about me."

"Ain't got to start the rumors, you fucking caffler, ya' do that just fine yourself."

Liam flicks the butt of his cigarette at Collins; Mick catches it and good-naturedly lobs it back at him, and in a moment they are roughhousing among the tables, Collins with the smaller man in a head lock, Liam throwing short little punches into his ribs, the chairs kicked aside, the men hooting, bets placed, money exchanged, all of them in an uproar, his beer in a thin moustache along his lip, hand to his side-

"Two pound on the little one!" Tom cries. "Don't let him fuckin' push you around like that, boy!" He tosses his drink back and takes a drag from the cigarette of the man beside him, chasing it with his mouth as the man gestures from side to side with it, immersed in his conversation.

Collins triumphs. Liam ruffles his hair.

Tom takes up his boxer's stance and Collins circles, laughing, his hair in disarray, jacket askew, tie undone, and now they come together in a flurry, abandon this sport of the gentleman for their sloppy wrestler's knot.

He wipes the foam from his lip, brings his cigar to his mouth, sits holding this Cimmeron smoke in his throat.

Rebekah will complain, of course- touchy little thing doesn't like him coming home smelling of the pub, but she returns reeking of her men, and let's compare, shall we, sister? He rather thinks he'll come out top of that one.

He watches these boys who toil day by day with neck through the noose, that eternal drop just beneath their feet, and he is stirred.

They poke about this silt in which his soul has settled, hiding itself away, and to be reminded of it -how hot his chest goes, how tight his stomach can twist- what could possibly be left in a man like him, and yet they give him their smiles and they call out his name and something inside of him is lifted, all the way to his lips it reaches-

This is what you should have given him, Elijah.

This is all he required from you.

Tom twists out of Mick's arms with a laugh and glances a shot off his shoulder; he is seized in the man's great bear arms, screams mercy, flails out with feet, hands, tips over one of the tables, flips backward one of the chairs-

Elijah handled him in such a manner once.

Long ago in his chest beat the heart of a man who scrambled through woods, over hilltops, across village squares, who rode upon the back of his hero, that champion of the younger sibling: elder brother, immortal god, invincible warrior.

He inhales again.

He taps his foot upon the leg of his stool.

Elijah-

He shuts his eyes.

You asked for it, brother- all he has ever demanded is your loyalty, that you only honor the bond you forged- is that so bloody hard, Elijah- is it so bloody difficult to pay obeisance to your own family, Elijah-

"Nick!" Tom calls, and in his voice is warmth, laughter, so many bloody things-

His father found him wanting.

His mother deemed him unworthy.

But there is a special union between men who have lived and breathed and thumbed their nose at mortality, stronger than marriage, deeper even than this familial bond promised to him for all time, broken in mere centuries, and they have offered it up without thought.

They have drawn him in.

Take your scorn, father.

Have your rejection, mother.

But never will you take this from him. Never can you have these smiles that are for him and these hands that stretch out for his own.

He walks Camden with hands in his pocket, fingers round his revolver.

Tom nods to him from the opposite side of the street.

The lorry with its back full of Tans and Auxiliaries creeps slowly along, the men bristling, the rifles glinting, the March sun in full strength overhead.

Up the road a child steps from sweet shop to pavement, undoes the ribbons on her new caramels, leaves these thin red streamers on the sidewalk, skips away with her sharp orange cream breath and her sticky fingers.

In Tom's pocket is the clinking of a pin pulled, the rustling of a bomb unearthed.

His arm cocks.

The little sphere in his hand takes flight.

He listens to the whistling of its arc, yanks his gun as this little sphere rattles with a great crash between the feet of the lorry men who spill over its sides with shouts, curses, warning cries-

The grenade blows.

The lorry is cut to shrapnel; the shards fly; the officers dive, roll to their knees, bring their rifles to bear-

Tom unloads his revolver into the throat of one, the shoulder of another, hand, leg, hip, all of these are clipped, torn, battered about, the men in piles, some to never move again, others already crawling, slithering along to cover, gun metal to the pavement, boot leather against the fallen-

He fires.

The hammer slams, the gun bucks, the cylinders click.

Once, twice, six times he fires, all of these rounds finding their targets, his steady hand moving on down the line, from left to right, duck your heads, hide your faces, mates, won't do a bit of good- do you see a waver in his fingers; do you sense a vacillation in his conscience-

Nowhere in him do your cries resonate or your screams linger.

Tom has emptied his gun; he flees away into the streets, and together they make their way from alley to alley, from yard to yard, sprinting, hurdling, throwing themselves over fences, up walls, spurred on by the British heels and the lorry rumblings.

"If you don't mind, I'd like a bit of space for my things, Nik," Rebekah snaps, holding up a revolver she has discovered in one of the drawers of her bureau.

He looks up from his sketching with eyebrow cocked.

"If you'd help smuggle them, they'd be out of here that much faster."

"Is this bloody war over yet? The British have been here for ages; why don't your little friends just get used to it?"

"Because, Bekah, some people do not merely roll over and take what life has handed to them. Unlike others I could mention, who have been doing quite a bit of rolling over lately." He looks down with a little smirk.

"Don't tease, Nik. I can't find one I like."

"Why don't you take Tom for a spin round the block? Then I can stop listening to him prattling on about you."

She moves to the closet, flings it wide, stands contemplating the dresses she spends each day perusing for a bloody hour before deciding to don the most hideous of them all.

Really, sister, an artist for a brother and you can't conjure up a single modicum of fashion sense- it's no trick at all, you simply do not combine those colors you hold so reverently in your hand-

He sets aside his charcoal with a sigh. "The purple one."

She looks over her shoulder, chin cocked high, eyebrow lifted imperiously. "Did I ask for your opinion?"

"Obviously not, if you are for a moment contemplating that rag."

"You're such a snob."

"It's nothing to do with that, I merely have eyes, Bekah."

"I like the green one."

"I wouldn't use the green one to clean my hands after a day in the studio."

"If you like the purple one so much, you wear it," she snaps. "It's matronly. I'd look like an old lady."

"It's the latest fashion in London. You know I'd never outfit you in anything but the best."

She wrinkles her nose. "You smell, Nik."

"You don't think that's a slightly juvenile tack to take, Rebekah, just because I don't care for your taste in-"

"I mean literally, you ass. Didn't you clean dinner off your collar?"

"I haven't eaten yet."

She flicks her hand dismissively in the air. "You always come home smelling of blood. What was it this time? Another ambush?"

"Bit of a dust-up at Devlin's, actually. Few RIC poked their noses in where they didn't belong."

She rolls her eyes and turns away with gown in hand, puckering her lips thoughtfully at it.

He returns to his sketchpad.

There is a moment that is as close to peace as he will ever get with his hypersensitive ears and nose and mouth. Her skirts rustle, his charcoal scratches. Beyond the window is the honking of traffic, the laughter of children, the nervous breaths of men with their folded papers and their tucked-away guns.

The world is an assault, for one such as him.

But behind this window there is only Rebekah with her bright summertime scent of orange and cardamom, humming as she works her way from dress to dress, fingers nonchalant, hands unhurried, and he stops to watch her for a moment, this sister who loves him always, who sticks by him despite.

In the tenth century Mikael tried to pry them apart, lovely little Bekah and spineless half-man Niklaus. Put down your drawings, you little weakling; stop mooning over the horse, you stupid coward; don't laugh so loudly, boy -don't cry, do not ever cry- Rebekah, do you see this- your brother is not a man, leave him be, stop coddling him-

And when she crawled into his bed to bury her head in his torn back, to cry over his ripped shirt, dirty knees, skinned hands- so too did Mikael attempt to end this, to send her on her way, to shut him away in the dark with only his father's punishment in stripes across his back.

But little Bekah-

She always came back.

She crept on cautious toes, through the dark which frightened her so, round the creaking boards, over the silent planks, hopping from wooden slat to slat, hands shaking, eyes streaming, and when she at last reached his room it was her who needed to be soothed, who had fears to be calmed and monsters to be vanquished, but he never minded, you see, cradling that little head against his chest, spinning tales with lowered voice of woodland fairies and deep-sea mermaids.

He was not alone.

If father did not love him Rebekah adored him twice as much.

If mother did not protect him Bekah sheltered him more than adequately.

If Elijah did not have time to play Rebekah tagged along for the game.

When she grew too old to hold his hand she squeezed his shoulder.

She stood by his side.

I won't let father break you, she told him.

Don't worry, Nik.

I will always be here.

I am your sister, Nik, and as long as you have me he cannot hurt you- you will never be alone, Nik, do you understand? No matter what he claims, no matter how he tries.

Mother is dead, father on the prowl, Finn in his box, Kol rotting alongside him.

Elijah gone.

But there is still Rebekah.

There will always be Rebekah.

She stops her rifling and turns with another gown in hand, brow furrowed, and he lifts an eyebrow, tilts his head. "Nik," she says quietly, kneading this bit of fabric in her hands, lips thin, eyes distant. "Are you still mad at Elijah?"

He tightens his jaw and focuses on his paper, the charcoal creaking between his fingers.

"He didn't mean to hurt you."

"What Elijah intended is none of my concern. He betrayed us, Rebekah. It's really quite simple."

"I know," she says, and there is a little waver in her voice, a breaking-up, and don't do this sweetheart, not over someone who does not deserve your tears, who is not worthy of your time- Elijah made his choice and it was not them but look at him, Rebekah, here at your side forever and always- do you really need anyone else, sister, when he will never leave-

"I just wanted us to be a family, Nik. That's why I went to New Orleans in the first place- because I was ready to forgive, because I was tired of being alone-"

He flips his sketchpad shut, drops his charcoal with a hollow little tink against its cover.

"I know, I know," she protests before he can say anything, hastily wiping her eyes. "I'm wasting my breath, talking about him. He is nothing, there is only us, etc. etc."

He stands with both hands in his pockets, crosses the room to stand before her as she turns her attention to the gown in her fingers, fussing with its bodice, shaking out its skirt, cheeks still a little moist, lashes still a touch wet.

"Why don't we go and get you something to eat?" he asks quietly, dabbing away at her tears with his thumb. "You know you get moody when you're hungry."

"I'm not hungry, Nik."

He tucks a stray strand of hair back behind her ear and she sniffles, smiles just a touch, holds up the dress she has crumpled into a little lemon ball in her hand. "What about this one?"

"It looks like something by that horrible Picasso."

"Shut up," she says, and gives him a playful shove that slams him back against the wall, denting its plaster. "You're only jealous that his paintings are so much more popular than yours."

"Excuse my comments however you like, Bekah, but that dress is a monstrosity."

"You're a monstrosity, you ogre. I need a girlfriend; I can't trust your opinions at all." She flashes to the closet and tosses the gown unceremoniously back onto its hanger. "I can't decide- I'll just have to go out in this old thing, even though the whole city's probably seen me in it a million times."

"Just compel them to forget."

She smoothes her hair. "All right; I suppose I'm up for a bit of dessert. I hear a few children just up Kildare. Nothing too lean; tonight I'm treating myself."

"I have it on reliable authority that the O'Reilly's keep their ten-year-old well-fed. He is all yours, Bekah." He offers his arm with a smile; she takes it with a smirk.

"Oh, Nik; you do spoil me."

Rebekah at last crumbles.

While he smuggles in the coke for the bomb factories she buries revolvers in her skirts, and smitten little Tom- poor lad cannot stop singing her praises, as brave as she is beautiful, what a woman, if only Ireland had more like her, etc. etc.

Really it's all a bit much, and the boy is hardly a poet.

He likes the boy. Truly he does.

But if he hears one more stumbling attempt at a dinner invitation, he's going to rip out his spleen.

They run arms up and down Dublin, depositing them in a safe house here, a hotel there, Rebekah complaining all the while, Tom over the moon, Collins with one eye fixed always upon the British.

A revolution is always on the move; it seeks its next meal wherever one is offered, falls gratefully into bed beside three of his comrades though they must stack themselves one nearly on top of the other. A mattress which bristles its little needles of hay into the back is always the superior of a January field; a cottage home to as many rats as men is never the inferior of the open roads with their English scouts as far as the eye can see.

He lives as the men do, on the run, crouched in basements, huddled in churches, breath held, ears alert, eyes attentive, and though Rebekah pokes her fun at these little games he plays, he enjoys himself immensely among these rough country men who will not be stifled any longer.

Tom cheers him; Collins amuses him; dour Liam with his sleepwalker's shuffle bests him in one out of three chess matches.

In brief moments of peace, these little interims which crop up so infrequently and are cherished so dearly, they drink too much, talk too loudly, fight, forgive, fling themselves with all their youth into this rejoicing.

They mourn their losses, trumpet their successes.

They teeter with arms round his shoulders, voices raised, glasses lifted: to us, long live Cathleen ni Houlihan, God bless her, fuck them Anglo bastards, carry on the good work, boys.

But they are still boys, these young revolutionaries with peppermint in their cheeks and piss and vinegar in their veins.

They have only one life, and they want to live it.

They are willing to die, afraid to fall.

In all soldiers there is this struggle, a friction between cause and instinct: the brave man wants to die for his principles; the wise one wishes to survive for them. The dead do not carry on an ideology; corpses cannot shoulder a philosophy. A leap into the abyss accomplishes only an eternity of dark.

Only the living may illuminate.

And two decades- it is so little, just a handful, even a mortal's life has just barely begun-

But in watching Collins you see none of this friction, nothing of these struggles; when the other men flag he bolsters; when a dispatch must be gotten through and the way is too rough, the route too dangerous, off he pops on that bicycle of his; where one man fails he slips in to succeed.

He smiles so often. He walks so spryly.

But in the tiny guest bedroom of a sympathizer, his great weight sloping the bed down to the right, hands folded like a child's beneath his head, he does not sleep.

There is a restless shifting in the man, a tossing and turning: nothing is settled about him. Belly, thoughts, bile, all of these must be a storm, roiling, pitching, surging on, his plans in a tangle, his fingers in a sweat.

He hears the man's great heart beating, the bobbing of his Adam's apple, the roaring of troubled blood.

Collins' breaths rattle in his chest.

His hands shift upon the sheets.

His feet kick from his impatient legs the wool blanket draped over them both.

He opens his mouth to speak, shuts his lips to hold inside.

This man is not weak, and he does not desire help, he needs no words to help him through, no hand to hold him fast.

And yet.

He was once a boy who wanted to be strong, mate, and he understands well the squaring of the shoulders, the blinking of the eyes, all of these ways in which the tide is held at bay, pressed back, compressed slowly layer by layer into all the spaces where the conscience no longer reaches.

If he is unaccustomed to the reaching out of man, so also is he unfamiliar with stretching out first.

But in the dark he finds this man's shoulder with his fingers, and he squeezes tightly, one brief pulse -here is someone, mate, what matters is that you are not alone- and Collins touches his wrist, returns this one brief pulse with one of his own-

And beside this frail young man with his strong fingers and his steady heart, he shuts his eyes, and he smiles.

There is a girl

Pretty little thing.

She flutters her lashes, ducks her head, lights up so brightly when his eyes turn from carnage to carnality.

From this lowered head she aims her looks coyly, smoothing her skirts, patting her hair.

Sinead is her name.

She looks at him with stars in her eyes, apples in her cheeks, the lashes going, going, her tone not so innocent as her young cream face, her playful little hands snatching from his head the hat she perches upon her own, her laughter loud, her adoration clear.

Tch tch tch, love. He is wise to woman's Janus ways.

The lashes one day, the screams the next.

He walks with her upon his arm down quieter streets where there are no bombs or blood or pathetic screaming of the men with their limbs in shattered doll appendages all about them, and he listens to her hopes for Ireland, her ardor for this green gunpowder country with one hand always to the fuse.

He understands; he wants only for his great motherland to be free, to lift the British boot from its neck, to go about its days unchained, to pass the years not alive on its knees but dead on its feet if need be. Gladly will he give his life for this magnificent native land of his, down with these bloody Anglo bastards, long live Ireland, soon is its day approaching, sweetheart-

He holds her face softly.

He kisses her gently.

In the home of her father he undresses her carefully, lays her back slowly, takes her roughly with her nails in claws down his shoulders, hair in a halo underneath her, and when her father arrives home from a protracted drill with the Volunteers, he escapes out her window with pants hastily buckled, shirt in his hand, hat sideways.

He kisses her good-bye between smothered giggles and vaults the low wall out back to sort out his clothes in the alley beyond.

They lie together in the garden out back of her childhood home with hands clasped, heads together, smelling the flowers, listening to the bees, Dublin in a storm all about them, their bond a refuge, their relationship a sanctuary, what would she do without him-

She loves him.

He eats her.

New Orleans, 2013

They'll start by splitting up the city: those who are for Marcel, those who are against, those who are neither.

He needs to know who is on the edge, who needs only a nudge, who is entrenched, who will never be turned.

"So send me out there," she insists. "I can get anyone to talk."

He just looks at her.

Marcel is on the prowl, Sophie chained to her, she gets it, but this is her life and she has chosen to be player and not pawn, and it is ok that he is scared for her, she understands that he does not want to lose her, but he cannot hold her back.

Love- it's not like that. You let it go and you hope it doesn't run itself right into the sun, you pray and you worry and you lie awake waiting for it to come back, but you don't hold it until it beats itself to death against the bars.

It should never be a jail.

When he relents, she sees it in every line of him.

His jaw firms, his shoulders sag, his eyes skip away.

But this is another step, and she is so proud of him, and when he presses one of her hands between both of his, she reaches up, and she touches his cheek, and the way he just leans into this contact-

He has always looked too deep.

The others- they skimmed along her surface, splashed about in bubbly blonde kiddie pool Caroline, but they never bothered to dive a little lower, to look a little farther, and yet every freaking time he looks at her there is so much in his eyes.

He believes she is capable. He knows she is clever.

"You can start on Decatur St.," he tells her quietly. "The Hotel Mazarin is, of course, already spoken for, so we'll need to canvas the surrounding area, go over the city street by street, business by business. Quietly."

"Which means you need to stay home."

His lips twist into a humorless smirk. "Marcel knows your face too, love."

"Yeah, but you said that Michael Collins guy you ran around with in the 1900s moved around Dublin for years without any disguise because of the way he presented himself. Like a businessman, not a terrorist, right? And he slipped right under the police's noses, doing that. Do you really think all of Marcel's guys have my face memorized? You're the identifying factor, Klaus. I'm the blonde who hangs around you- that's how they identify me. Take you out of the picture, and there's my disguise, right there."

"You listen too attentively sometimes," he says, and touches the end of her nose with his fingertip, his dimples showing themselves just a little at last.

"So here's what we do. We leave together, right? And then I duck into a bathroom somewhere or something, you distract the guys who we know are going to be following us, and then I walk back out all touristy. Hair up under a baseball cap, French Quarter map in my hand, whatever. I'll keep an eye out for anyone watching me, thanks to my new handy dandy spy-spotting skills, and then I'll duck into the Bienville House. And we'll see which team they're playing for."

"And I just let you loose into the city, without anyone to look out for you."

"Where I will protect myself, if I have to."

He drops her hand, looks away, strokes his chin, and then his eyes shift back to hers and there is just that hint of a smile again, that little suggestion of those dimples she wouldn't mind kissing, if she weren't practicing this whole self-restraint thing, and now he cocks his head contemplatively and lifts both eyebrows and he sets her free.

"All right."

She can feel her smile in her cheeks, crumpling up the corners of her eyes, everything stretched, bunched up, lit so brightly, and now suddenly he seizes her, draws her in close, holds her face in both his warm, warm hands to roughly kiss her forehead.

"But you get out, the moment something seems wrong- the very second you feel uncomfortable, do you understand me?" he says against her forehead, holding her for just as long as she will let him.

She has lunch at Iris, right next to the double doors looking out over the back garden, and the food is so ridiculously delicious she nearly forgets to tune into all the little sounds around her, the scraping of the forks, the working of the throats, the waiters with their starched white shirts in a paper crackling about their wrists and necks.

She pushes past these, to the man behind the bar: cheating wife, unpaid mortgage, blah blah; the two waitresses bustling around the steaming food cart beside table four: check out her new earrings aren't they to die for, got them at the little boutique down the street (and they so totally are to die for, but she's here on a job, and she'll get the name of that little boutique later); the woman with her shiny gold manager tag askew on her shirt: sir I don't cook the food but I'll be sure to relay your comments to the chef-

Dessert is set down in front of her.

Orange sugar cookie sorbet, oh God, it's like a freaking orgasm in her mouth and only two hundred calories, and with her substantial vampire capabilities she can even mouth orgasm and eavesdrop at the same time: isn't being dead just freaking grand?

The couple to her right wants a baby; the man on her left is late for a meeting.

She clicks her spoon against the inside of her little white dish, watches the opening of the restaurant, narrows in on the lobby just beyond it. The man behind the desk sends his fingers in a rapid staccato over the keyboard of his computer; the valet out front squeals the tires of his latest acquisition a little too enthusiastically; the employees dart, the guests mingle.

She stands.

She throws down enough to cover lunch and a tip, and slips through into the lobby.

The man behind his computer looks up.

She sets her hands down on the counter, leans forward just a little, gapes her shirt, flutters her lashes. "Hi. You couldn't tell me if the owner's in today, could you?"

He is not.

Marcel? Of course he knows Marcel.

Wonderful guy.

He and the owner are great friends.

And yes of course he would be more than happy to forget this little conversation.

"Klaus!" she calls outside the Café du Monde, tapping one foot on the sidewalk. "Klaus!"

He materializes in front of her. "How could you possibly have spotted me-"

"I didn't," she interrupts. "I just know you. You're supposed to let me do this on my own, not lurk around in the background, you creeper."

He holds out his hands helplessly. "One step at a time, love." He smiles. "You're doing magnificently, by the way."

"Thanks. Now get lost."

"I have a better idea. Why don't we call it a wrap for today, hmm? You can tell me everything you've learned later. Over dinner. At Arnaud's?"

"I have an even better idea."

He steps closer, hands behind his back, both eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Yes. We're going home. You need to relax- you've been super uptight lately, about Marcel, his witch, this whole Sophie thing- you just sit around all day in that office of yours studying a bunch of maps. There's this thing Elena and I used to do whenever we were getting freaked out by finals or boys or whatever, and you're going to do it with me."

"Am I now?" he asks, raising his eyebrows higher, digging his dimples deeper.

"This little secret of yours is getting drunk?"

She flashes across his living room, foyer, whatever the hell you call these super fancy gajillionaire accommodations, bottle in her hand, finger tapping thoughtfully against her lips. "No, this little secret of mine is getting hammered. We need some music."

He gestures to the shelf in front of her from his seat on the couch, folding both hands on his knee.

"Bach? Mozart? No."

"These collections feature some of their most well-constructed pieces-"

"And I'm sure they're amazing. But this is not drinking music. This is study music, look-how-cultured-I-am music, my-brain-is-better-than-your-brain-music. What we need is flail music."

"'Flail music'?" He lifts an eyebrow, gives her his little I'm-waiting-amuse-me-peasant smirk.

"Flail music," she repeats firmly. "The kind of songs that when your coordination's off but you think it's not are just there, not because they're good, not because they even make sense, but because they have these ridiculous how-many-seizures-can-I-make-these-people-appear-t o-be-having-in-three-minutes beats. That's what we need for tonight." She snaps her fingers at him. "Where's your laptop?"

"In my bedroom."

She reaches it in a blink, whisks back down the stairs carrying it tucked beneath her arm.

She tosses him a bottle and sets the laptop down on the couch beside him. "Ok, Mikaelson, prepare to be swept away on a wave of booze and auto-tuned crap which is actually going to sound pretty damn good by the time we're done, thanks to that aforementioned booze."

She does most of the dancing, flashing back and forth across the living room (foyer?) with her second vodka bottle in hand, spinning, twirling, bringing this second vodka bottle in an impromptu microphone to her lips, her coordination a little off, her notes just a teeny bit out of tune, and he sits on the couch watching, and he laughs until he cries.

"How many have you had, you billion-year-old lightweight?" she asks, crossing the carpet in a flicker of a stride to take the tumbler from his hand, pushing her bottle between his fingers to take its place.

He takes a swig. "Well, I'm a bit past drunk, sweetheart, though I'm not sure I've quite reached 'hammered'."

"And your grammar is still annoyingly perfect. But you should at least have enough in you to get up and sing along with 'I Love It', right?"

"Absolutely not."

"Come on!" She takes the bottle from him, drinks, hands it back. "Actually, you know what, no. You'll probably hit every single note completely perfectly even with an entire freaking liquor store in you, which is so not fair- you've had a gajillion years to get good at everything."

He smiles. "Actually, I'm a horrible singer."

"Really?"

"There was a famous castrato in the 18th century called Farinelli who, once retired, turned to instruction, claiming quite insistently that he could teach anyone to sing. He gave up on me after two weeks."

"Seriously?" She pauses. "Can I hear it?"

"Not with an entire warehouse of liquor in me, Caroline."

"Oh, come on. I won't laugh. I promise."

"I highly doubt that, love."

"Ok- how about this: If I laugh, I'll let you beat me at Angry Birds."

He glowers up at her and drinks. "I don't need anyone to let me win, sweetheart. I'm-"

"The Original Badass, the supernatural anti-Christ, slayer of many, kicker of puppies, I know. Your score's still, like, two thousand points lower than mine." She goes for the death blow, eyes wide, lashes working just a little, and look at him melt, soften just for her- the power she holds over this thousand-year-old man with his slain villages and his toppled monarchies-

She snatches the bottle away from him, stands drinking with one eyebrow lifted challengingly.

He stands, takes it back, drinks without taking his eyes from hers, leaves the bottle against his lips for so long she wonders if he is tasting her, savoring her cherry lip gloss and her cream vodka saliva.

"Come on," she implores. "You take yourself so seriously. Make a jackass out of yourself just this once."

"And why should I do that?"

"I already gave you an incentive."

He gives her a look. "Besting you at Angry Birds is hardly what I would call an incentive, Caroline."

"So you admit you're losing to me. And that you need me and my awesome skills to back off so you can catch up-" She breaks off laughing as he gives her another look. "Ok, fine. What do you want?"

He smiles. "Well now, that's a loaded question, isn't it?"

He has her up against the wall so fast, his hands hooked beneath her knees, face half an inch away, and instinctively she locks her ankles together in the small of his back, and even more instinctively she grabs for his curls, fists them in clumps between her fingers- so much for this whole self-control thing-

"Are you happy here?" he whispers, impaling her with those eyes once again, driving them all the way through, burrowing them deep, but they have done this whole soul-gazing thing before, this intense piercing, this concentrated skewering, and ten months out, she would like to be impaled by something a little more tangible, if you know what she means.

Screw self-control anyway: it's as overrated as last year's Jimmy Choos.

She pushes slightly against his chest, works her heels impatiently against his back because she knows he will drop her -murderer, manipulator, whatever you can say about him he will not force himself on her- and just as she predicts he lets his hands slip out from beneath her knees, takes a step back, stare still intense, dimples showing just faintly-

She rips off his shirt, and she's pretty sure she startles even him.

She pushes him down onto the couch, throws herself on top, grabs his face in her hands, squeezes his legs between her own, and now suddenly the world upends, she is spun sideways, slammed down, their roles reversed, his thighs straddling hers, her hands captured in his, and with his necklaces in a cool itch against her collarbone, he leans down and he presses his lips right to her ear.

"You didn't answer my question."

She blinks.

He smiles, waiting.

An entire century, it takes her to answer.

He waits holding a breath he does not need to exhale and where his fingers pin down her wrists he feels the thin layer of his anxiety, the slight tremor in their tips.

And then she smiles, and this breath he does not need to exhale is taken away.

"Yeah. Actually, I kinda' am."

Her shirt disintegrates beneath his hands.

He presses three hot kisses to her stomach, one just a little higher than the next, still holding her down by the wrists, his skin hot against her, his lips too slow, his hips too fast, oh God, he knows how to use his tongue- over her abs he circles it, into her bra he dips it-

And then he leaves her.

She lies stunned for a moment, blinking up at the ceiling.

"Seriously?" she snaps, and she hears him laughing up in his studio.

Perdido is dark.

The cars with their blind white eyes sit silently waiting, the street a puddle underneath them, all the city still in a slow liquefaction though the sun has long since set.

The tourists complain, the locals soldier on.

He waits for them all to clear off, one shoulder against the lamppost beside him, arms crossed, eyes assessing.

"What are we doing here?" Caroline asks.

"In a moment, love," he tells her.

The humans slowly disperse, in trickles, streams, gradual drips and drops.

She stands so close her perfume is nearly a distraction.

The last of them trails away, dragging his daughter by her sticky candy-glued fingers.

"Move a little to the right, would you?" he asks, pushing himself off the lamppost, uncrossing his arms, and she complies with her own arms crossed, eyebrows high.

He rears back and kicks the base of the lamppost, toppling it with a shriek, right into the glass double doors of City Hall it plunges, and though of course he understands that these little slivers of glass are barely a wasp's prick to her, still he shields her with his back as they fly, his arms tight about her waist.

"What the hell, Klaus?" she yells over the screaming of the alarm, hands to her ears. "I thought you said you needed information on Marcel."

"I do. But the minions make the man in this case, Caroline."

She stares at him. "Would you care to elaborate?"

He smiles down at her. "Watch."

"And learn?"

"From the best, love- you couldn't ask for a better teacher."

"Yeah, my illustrious career in breaking and entering is really off to a fabulous start. I'm sure this is what the school board meant when they pre-approved my Valedictorian speech and told me I was headed for great things."

He smiles again and lets her go. "The minds of your little school board are far too small to possess even the slightest inkling of what you're capable of."

"Oh, sweet talk? Sorry, not going to cut it."

"Still sore about the other night, are we?"

"Excuse you, Mr. Ego, but no. I was drunk, which is the only reason any of it happened."

"I know," he says as at last the alarms cease their cries and from deeper within the city another shriek is taken up. He reaches out to touch her bottom lip with his thumb, runs it down over her mouth to the subtle dip in her chin.

He drops his voice, leans in close. "But one day, you're not going to be drunk, sweetheart."

He greets the police with warm smile, hands behind his back. "Good work, lads. Fantastic response time. Now, do you see that pole? Terrible thing- drunk driver careened right into it, knocked it right through the door. Saw the whole thing with my own eyes. Go on back to the station and write up a report about it, would you? Someone will be by in the morning to take care of this little mess."

They nod, tip their hats, step back into the cars with their lights in a garish paint across her face.

"So now what?" she asks.

"Now, we take that fantastic attention to detail you have, and we apply it to something that isn't catering menus or floral arrangements."

The files on the Hotel Mazarin will list all of its employees, he explains, name, social security number, all of the little minutiae which will give them a place to start, an enemy to identify. No longer will Marcel hold the city restrained beneath invisible tentacles, here one arm, there another, nudging, manipulating, repositioning.

She slides behind him to reach the file cabinet on his left, pressing herself closer than is necessary, and he pauses with his hands full of folders.

"What am I looking for?" she wants to know.

"Anything concerning the hotel. Put it in a stack here," he indicates, setting his own pile down on the floor beside his left knee. "We'll pull them all and then sort them. The building plans would be helpful as well. "

"Those would probably be in the Engineering division," she says absentmindedly, squinting down at the folder in her hand. She looks up to meet his eyes for a brief moment, then flicks her gaze back down to the file she flips open across her knee and holds pinned with one hand. "I interned really briefly at the city when I was fifteen. Motherly connections." She closes her file with a snap and drops it onto the little cream-colored mound between them. "So, you gather all of this information on Marcel's people, and then you, what, start taking them out?"

He studies the document between his fingers, furrows his brow, lays it aside. "No. Not all of them- I'll kill a few, just the ones who present the most immediate threat."

"And the others you're going to use. See if you can turn them on Marcel, get them to be your little spies."

This is what he loves about her, the little minx- quite the quick learner she is. "Beauty and brains- quite the lethal combination, sweetheart."

"Enough to fell a big bad heartless hybrid."

He looks up with a little smile. "After a thousand years you come to accept nothing less than the best."

"I'll give you that one," she replies with her own little smile.

"Does that mean I'm forgiven for my little transgression the other night?"

"Oh, no, it is not that easy. You've been out of the game a long time if you think you can get a woman to drop her grudge that fast."

He balances on his heels, hands folded between his knees, and watches her sort with a smile.

"I'll make it up to you when you're ready."

They sit side by side at the desk in his study, heads bent, hands touching, he indicating places of significance with little taps of his finger, she following along with her own, feeling the route out for herself, and though he does most of the strategizing, he wants to know her opinion on each of his plans, to understand her thoughts, to hear her concerns, to be told of her desires and her doubts.

"Danny Graber will have to be eliminated, as will Ashley Benson, Thomas McConnell and Bryce Decker."

"Ok, you hardly even know anything about them. They could be useful."

"I don't care. They all live within a block of the Ritz. I'm not leaving any of Marcel's people that close to Sophie until we can get the two of you unlinked."

"Which you could probably do more easily, if you hadn't killed slash pissed off half the witches in this town."

"'Half' is a very exaggerated estimation, Caroline. At most, I slaughtered a handful of them. And in future I assume they'll be much less eager to kidnap those I care about."

"Ok, Sophie is confined to one little hotel room, and she's surrounded. I mean, how many people do you have watching her? I think we can let those four live until we figure out whether or not they could play totally integral parts in all of this."

"No."

Ok, you want her opinions, then how about you consider a couple of them- she is not ignorant to the risks here, but all of life is a hazard, danger at every corner, werewolves and witches and hunters oh my, let her take her chances.

"Why don't you just compel her to reverse the spell?"

"Do you honestly think I haven't considered that? She's spent too much of her life around vampires to be manipulated so easily."

"So she's on vervain?"

"Vervain, or perhaps some kind of little witchy circumvention. We had a nice chat the other day and she was unimpressed with all of my methods of persuasion. My hands are a bit tied here, love. She knows I have no leverage against her- anything I do to her happens to you as well."

She leans forward in the high-backed chair she has pulled close to his desk, leather creaking underneath her, his smell all around her, and she folds her hands over the map spread out before them, cocking her head. "What if we don't have her reverse the spell?" He opens his mouth to protest and she holds up a hand. "No, just listen. You don't have any leverage over her- well, she doesn't have any leverage over you either. I'm the leverage, right? And that's gone now, at least for her. You can't do anything to her- well, she can't do anything to me."

"She's got an entire pack of irate werewolves after her, Caroline."

"Probably not an entire pack. Just a few rebels, right, the ones pissed off about how whoever's in charge has handled this whole situation? How many times has Marcel tried to have me assassinated in the last few weeks or so? People are trying to kill me anyway, on pretty much a daily basis. The risks aren't really increasing that much, staying linked to her. And really everything is probably balancing out in the end, because we've eliminated any threat from her end."

He contemplates this for a moment, sagging backward in his chair, fingers steepled, eyes thoughtful. "Compelling argument."

"So…?"

"I'm still killing all of them."

"Ugh! Would you just think-"

"No. It isn't a negotiation," he snaps.

"No, it's a freaking monarchy with you-"

"I am not taking any risks, Caroline," he hisses, leaning across the scant gap between their chairs, sticking his face right in hers, his fingers tight on her arm, his breath hot on her cheek, that warm spiced aftershave in a cloud all around her- personal bubble, asshole. "As soon as I can find a way to get her or another witch to undo the spell, it's done. And she is dead."

"You can't just kill her-"

"I can and I will."

"She's been here for a long time, building up resistance against Marcel- you don't think, if you're going to bring Marcel down, that she might come in slightly handy-"

"I don't care how useful she is. It doesn't matter, after what she did."

"Ok, I know you haven't been around very long and probably haven't been introduced to a little concept known as 'forgiveness', but you can, once in a while, let things go, if it's for the greater good and all-"

"I thought you were dead, Caroline-"

"That was your fault- you're the one who decided to just snap her freaking neck-"

"And do you think I haven't punished myself enough for that?" he roars, out of his chair in a flash, the table overturned with one blurred swipe of his hand.

The silence that follows is absolute.

She feels her stomach quailing, her heart thundering, hears the rapid fluttering of his own butterfly pulse.

And yet how still everything is.

"I thought-" His voice breaks just a little, wavers on these two simple syllables, and something in her twitches, all the way from fingertips to feet it runs, a little white jolt that hooks her nails into the armrests.

"For a moment, I thought I had killed you. That I had another thousand years to live with that, and a thousand after that. Do you understand-" He breaks off, turns away, brings one hand to his mouth to run it down over the blonde stubble of his jaw.

He is so pale, wound-tight, hunched up, and it's not like she doesn't have a pretty good idea of what she somehow inexplicably means to him, but the look on his face as he stands with eyes shut, thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose-

He came to her already broken.

Maybe he has never been whole.

But he plays at it, with his posturing, his grandstanding, with all his thousand fricking layers more ugly than the last, and so in moments like these, when he is just a man, when he has been peeled back, opened up- God she wants to hold him, smooth his hair, touch his cheeks, tell him it's ok, this is not a weakness, don't shut it away, it is all right for it to be seen-

And always always always he folds it back, lets his next terrible deed eclipse it, heaps and stacks and buries deep, but this time she is out of her chair, across the room, and don't you fold this one back, jerk, this is what she was talking about while she lay dying on that couch- this is why she stayed when she could have run-

Her hands find his face and she pulls his cheek into her neck and he barely even fumbles getting his arms around her waist, this man who does not understand how to touch without breaking, and for a very long moment, they just stand.

Tyler, she thinks with her cheek on his head.

Why did you have to go.

You were so safe, she never had to wonder, it was you and her and Mystic Falls forever-

And then along came this man.

Not a good man, not even a terrible man, something abysmal, stunted, warped, more gargoyle than guy, a thing of stone centuries, marked by time but never truly touched, no mercy in his heart, no pity in his eyes.

And somehow he fell.

And somewhere along the way, when, how, she doesn't know, ok, he reached out, and he snagged her halfway through his plunge, and for months he has dragged her along behind him, kicking, screaming, denying.

She is eroded.

His smile, voice, the smooth motion of his wrist carrying his brush through another loop, a different whorl- all of these wear her away, break her down.

She stands holding his strange irregular heartbeat against her own, his hair soft underneath her, his arms strong around her, and she tries so hard to remember your poor mom, to feel her lungs struggling for air, her arms fighting for purchase, these stained artist's hands pressing her down, holding her fast-

And God the way you sobbed afterward- big tough dickbag Tyler Lockwood, little boy lost in her arms, and she swore, she swore she was never going to forgive him, that never again would that little flicker of something that started in her stomach and worked its way somehow into her chest ever rear its ugly head, no matter how many goddamned ponies he drew or dimples he flashed- she was right all along, what a monster, what a freak, how could she have ever ever hoped for something more, stupid smalltown Caroline with her head up her naive little ass-

And now here she stands, Tyler.

Here she frigging stands with this monster in her arms, with this freak's head against her neck, feeling his hair, murmuring her reassurances, trying so hard not to kiss his neck, to find her way along his chin to his lips.

It is not one-sided.

She kept that drawing for a reason.

What else can she say except sorry, God she is so, so sorry- Mom please forgive her, Tyler this doesn't reduce you-

This is just something that happened.

If he doesn't know, this can still be ok.

If he never understands, she can still wake up in the morning and stand before her mirror as Caroline the girl and not Caroline the monster, eternally unlined, marked not by time, stress, or sun, but still Caroline who wore her crown with pride, who loved her friends without fail, who was going to make her mother proud.

In the sixteenth century he brought two prominent families to war with nothing more than a suggestion here, a seduced wife there, no supernatural powers employed, no superior strength exploited.

He forced nearly a century of alliance to its knees as mere Niklaus the peasant, not Klaus the king.

He was bored; they were a challenge.

This is harder.

In the beginning though she demands free rein he follows just behind, waiting for her outside hotels, across from cafés, in the alleyways out back of clubs.

He never lets her out of his sight.

And then one day, she steps out his door and she slams it with a huff behind her, and he does not move from his desk.

He shuts his eyes.

He listens to her go, her eager heart, impatient heels, all the little physical reminders of what joy she takes in her duties, in venturing forth into the world alone to make her mark upon it.

He gets no work done, of course.

His maps and his documents he spreads before him, elbows upon his desk, pointer fingers in a triangle beneath his chin, and for the entire eternal day he stares blankly out the window, seeing nothing.

And in what way is he compensated for these unsettled thoughts, churning stomach, damp hands?

In bright smile, hands on his shoulders, lips on his cheek.

And like a bloody boy he lights up, looks shyly down at his hands, flicks his eyes back to her only when he is sure she is not watching.

In the eighteenth century, he bedded two of Paris' most famous courtesans.

Simultaneously.

No compulsion, no threats, merely this smile that takes him so far and these dimples which work on so many save her, and for three nights they plied him with their best, positions enviable of those contorted circus showmen with feet upon their head, techniques worthy of the gods, enthusiasm surpassed by none; how much of Paris loved them; how many hoped to lure them away to marriage; how often they trapped a man by first his body and then his soul, these simpering beauties with coy eyelashes and calculated looks.

When he was finished he bade them fight one another to the death, winner take all, loves, good luck to you both, and then from that miniscule victory pool he chose his meal, and he relished it on the rumpled sheets where he had them both.

And all she must do is smile, touch his arm, press her lips to his beard.

Pathetic, and yet somehow he doesn't mind it; his time is divided, half to the maneuvering of this city which will one day be his own, half to the acquisition of another of these touches, one more of these kisses.

She misses her mother; he urges her to call every day, to check in, ease her mind, banish these dark wonderings of the unsure; she marvels at the lights, the people, the commotion of this great city; he takes her to the top of One Shell Square to view it in its entirety.

She likes chocolate in all its forms, but most especially paired with mint, he discovers, and collects this sharp winter treat in its bed of smooth cocoa from each little gift shop he happens across, a dozen different varieties, from bitterest dark to sweetest milk.

By day he directs her routes, by night he organizes her findings.

She scoffs at the piles on his desk, and when one evening he nods off in his chair, he wakes with chin upon his chest to find this steadily increasing collection tucked away within the filing cabinet against the back wall, Caroline bent over its last drawer, folder in hand.

"Ok," she barks. "Here you have 'Places', divided into allies, enemies, neutral, and unknown. These are all color-coordinated. In the next drawer you have 'People', each person with their own separate file, with a corresponding 'ally', 'enemy', 'neutral' or 'unknown' color tab. This folder is for any incoming messages from all the little lackeys I assume you're going to accumulate at some point or another; this one is for carbon copies of any outgoing messages. Both of these folders are divided into several different subsections according to the content of the message- we'll add to them later. This folder is for any intercepted messages or records, also divided into subsections according to content. Everything goes straight back where it is, got it?" She jabs her finger at him, both eyebrows high. "Sophomore year I made Gary Whittley cry because he hung the snowflakes for Winter Formal on the wrong side of the gym, and don't think for one single second I won't do the same to you if you screw up my system."

"I wouldn't dream of it," he says, hiding his smile behind his palm.

"And are we actually going to get on developing some kind of code? Any messages we need to get across the city are not going to freaking encode themselves, you know."

"Caroline," he asks, propping his pointer fingers against his upper lip, "have I ever told you you're fantastic?"

She flutters her lashes. "Not in so many words."

Sophie rouses from her despair.

Upon her turning she killed three innocents, and so for the last two weeks she has accepted quite meekly the oak-polished boundaries of her prison, but now it seems she has recovered sufficiently to again renew her campaign.

Her calls bombard him once, twice, three times a day.

He ignores them all.

"You're not even a little bit curious what she has to say?"

"Let her stew, after her little stunt."

He does not bow to pawns.

He murders those four unfortunates with their homes in a neat circle round Sophie's prison.

The petite little brunette is first, such a tiny thing- frail bird wrists, swan throat, human heart, fumbling about in her bag for her keys, his footsteps unnoticed, her peril overlooked.

"Hello, Ashley," he says warmly.

She drops her keys.

Her eyes tell him she knows him well, this nightmare of closet monsters, and yet still her instincts prevail, she tries to run, mouth open, tongue dry, scream withered, and he catches her round the waist, holds her close against him, presses his lips tight to her ear. "Shh, shh, shh, love. Shh. Shh. There now. Are we all right?"

Her skin twitches in a winter shuddering; her tears burn the hand he holds in a steel band down across her mouth. "I just want you to give Marcel a message for me, sweetheart; there's nothing to be afraid of."

"You're not going to kill me?" she whispers through his fingers.

"Of course I am, love. How else will Marcel get the point?" he asks, and with blinding reptile strike he rips open her carotid.

Danny Graber puts up a fight.

He is new to his supernatural superiority, full of hubris, that failure of man and monster alike, a thing of hot testosterone, hotter temper, a man consumed, a strutting cock.

Go on and ruffle your feathers, little peacock: he enjoys a good show.

He receives the boy's stake through his heart with smile upon his face, and Danny- little Danny, self-assured Danny with the pub still in a nicotine perfume about your shirt and your hair- little Danny, why do you run- little Danny come out come out wherever you are-

Little Danny, he'll huff and he'll puff-

Little Danny, you can run but you can't hide-

Little Danny-

Peekaboo.

Thomas McConnell recognizes him at once.

Thomas McConnell does not bother to run.

Bryce Decker insists he knows nothing, he is a nobody, he parks the cars, please, man, he is only twenty, he has a family-

Bryce Decker dies like a coward, screaming for his mother.

He has them packaged at the local butcher's shop and delivers them to Marcel in pieces.

Courtesy of Sophie, says the tag on their wrapping.

"Marcel's second-in-command is a 300-year-old vampire named Jacob Marks. He's going to be at the House of Blues tomorrow night for some kind of meeting. I've got three wolves willing to take him on, but they're going to need some back-up for a vamp that strong," his voicemail tells him.

Poor little Sophie.

Thinks she's grabbed the wolf by its jaws when she has instead snagged it round the tail.

Strapping young things, these three wolves, with their football shoulders in mountains beneath their coats.

He inhales the coffee and tea shop across the street, the warm mocha, the hot cinnamon, bright orange, smooth vanilla, all of these flavors in a thin layer over their nervous sweat, and he steps into the alley where they wait and smiles charmingly.

"Hello. My name is Klaus. Sophie suggested I pop round to offer you some assistance."

Brighter than they look: each of them eyes him warily.

He points to the blonde lad furthest to the right. "You, pop on in and warn Jacob Marks that Sophie's sent assassins round the back. The two of you, turn on one another. Make sure you kill each other," he orders, and commences the festivities with one sharp click of his fingers.

Just fantastic, the way they leap to do his bidding.

"Why did you do that?" she demands when he fills her in on his night's work.

"Caroline, love, this is war: everyone save yourself is an enemy combatant. You sow seeds of doubt between the witches and wolves, former allies, the threads of which alliance has already been strained by their own back-biting, and you turn their attention from yourself to things more immediately concerning, namely who among their numbers is a traitor. The wolves are already wary of Sophie; with this new betrayal Sophie now has reason to be wary of them as well. If she's as clever as I suspect, she'll play it close to her vest- she'll want to weed them out by pretending nothing is wrong, that those who have not openly turned against her still have her trust; she'll need to turn her attention away from my particular Achilles heel to this weak spot of her own. The wolves will also doubt their own, perhaps even turn on one another. Marcel will of course sense this dissention, see his chance, and come swooping in to finish them all off."

"Leaving you forgotten in the corner."

"Not forgotten. Relegated to the back burner, is that the expression?" He watches her put her feet up on the arm of the couch, her pretty little lips in a line, her brow furrowed, her arms crossed. "I can appear neither too weak nor too strong to Marcel; too weak and he'll try to pick you off; too strong and he will do the same. You are a point for him to exploit; I am only nearly infallible. Marcel knows that."

"Why would Marcel try and kill me at all? I'm his leverage over you."

"Marcel is not stupid, but he is arrogant."

"I wonder where he picked that up," she cuts in before he can continue, and he smiles, seats himself on the opposite end of the couch, picks her feet up off the arm and sets them down in his lap. She opens her mouth to protest as he slips off first one sock and then the other, and then with a huff she sinks back against the cushions, those pretty little lips in a soft 'o', the brow streamlined, the eyes half-closed. "Ok, so Marcel is arrogant, which I'm absolutely certain he didn't learn from a former teacher of his. What does that have to do with killing me instead of tying me up in his freaky dungeon and telling you that you can have me back when you can be a good little original hybrid?"

He works his thumb into the sole of her foot. "To take away what's most precious to the other side is the goal of all warfare. Kill its men, rape its women, starve its children- what can't the enemy accomplish, if it can do all of this? It's a spiritual battle as much as it is a physical thing. Kill the enemy's morale, and their military force is inconsequential."

"So Marcel thinks that if I die, that would just drive you right out of New Orleans? That you'd be so broken you wouldn't retaliate by just burning the whole city to the ground?"

He concentrates on her foot, runs his fingers from heel to inseam to arch, swallows the knot in his throat, presses down against the burning in his chest.

For a thousand years, he has suppressed.

Do not feel this, stop yearning over that.

Kill him, he has become too important to you, dagger her, she made you weak when all you wanted was to be strong.

But you cannot hold down forever, can you, love?

He has occasionally loved too much to allow life, but to deny death for this same emotion, to go beyond, to be unable-

He was going to let her die like all the others who inserted themselves somehow into his heart. He was going to watch her gasp her final breaths, make her peace, savor her moments, and how relieved he was going to be- she grew upon him, certainly, as people have done from time to time, but not so much that he couldn't let go, that he couldn't use her up, toss her aside, toe her out of line to make room for the next-

But of course he didn't.

Naturally he could not.

Love, you will never understand.

Sweetheart, you cannot comprehend.

Tyler Lockwood loved you with his simple boy's heart, with all eighteen years of his trifling little life, but he has laid down ten centuries of hate and indifference and domination for your smile.

"For Marcel, killing you would be the ultimate show of his power, a demonstration of just exactly what it is he can take away from me."

"Ok, but you wouldn't just leave, would you?"

"I would gut him, his entire family, this whole city. I would burn New Orleans to the ground, and then I would move onto the next city, and I would do the same. For the next thousand years, I'd kill everything in my path." He pauses, flicks his eyes up to find her own. "Because I would want the entire world to hurt as badly as I did."

She has read of wildfire love, scorching tongues, volcano loins, Fabio-the-stallion-sniffed-my-hair-and-boing-there -went-his-horse-sized-erection- all of that Harlequin crap.

And she used to think that was how it went, you ventured out into the world and somewhere on your way you picked up your Prince Charming, and he was transfixed by your hair, your eyes, your laugh, all of you was perfect, here milady, might he offer you a hand up onto his white steed, let us ride away quick.

Off into the sunset you went.

Mom didn't have enough time for you and Daddy was never home, but this Prince Charming- he wanted all of you, your flaws, your foibles, every fragmented little piece.

He liked you anyway.

And good God, the orgasms, whatever those were.

But then she grew up.

She moved beyond her world of flashlights beneath sheets, of giggling forays into Webster's dictionary in quest of the word 'tumescent', of white horses, handsome princes, happily ever afters.

Love was something that faded.

Men were deserters, women brooders.

When the flames burn out there are only hard eyes, cynical lips, new vocabulary: divorce lawyer, alimony, child support.

No one is going to love you forever.

And you -God you most of all- you'll be lucky to get a year, you with your parties, your pageants, your incessant Hitler orders.

Tyler promised forever, Klaus offers eternity, but it doesn't work like that- you can't just pledge yourself that way- it dies, it always dies, get it- one day she is alluring, the next annoying; her laugh grates, her smile infuriates.

You can't just sit there with your stupid British accent and your goddamn dimples and tell her with straight face and serious eyes that it is never going to be anyone else.

For the next thousand years, you won't want another- give her a freaking break, tell her another, what a frigging joke-

But sometimes…sometimes she has such hope, watching him smile at her.

She knows she is in trouble when she has to keep reminding herself of every horrible thing he's ever done, a little tally she ticks off each morning when she first gets up.

They fall into this comfortable little routine, he with coffee ready before she is even awake (because superwoman vamp enhancements or no she is barely even functional until her second cup), she with a flurry of reminders for him before he is out the door to check on Sophie: more blood bags, they're out of tea again, and could he please please pick up some more of those little orange cream hard candies from the shop on the corner?

At ten she starts her rounds; Klaus has bribed, dimpled, cajoled his way into the hearts of those few not on Marcel's payroll, and for the first couple hours of her day she circles around to them all, talking to hotel managers, shop owners, café proprietors, notes exchanged, information gleaned, gossip swapped.

At night they sit together at his desk, going over what she has learned, brows furrowed, fingers sweeping, Klaus with his warm, warm shoulder pressed against her own, his hair mussed, his boots up.

They thumbtack all the areas on the map over which he is beginning to exercise some control.

She falls asleep on his shoulder, he dozes off with his lips pressed to her hair.

She wakes up in his lap, his arms loosely around her, his mouth warm against her, and she pretends it is ok and she goes back to sleep.

They circle one another.

If he does not press too hard she does not step back terribly far; if he treads lightly she does not catch the scent of the predator; if he measures his advance in half inches she lets him come.

A finger down her arm one day, a kiss to her shoulder the next.

The snaring of a stubborn woman is a hunt: there is the laying of the bait, the long wait, the careful creeping.

The flourish of the weapons, no polished saber or thundering musket of the battlefield but calculated smile, clever hands, cunning words.

But she is of course no ordinary woman, and she knows what he's doing.

It becomes a game.

If he can dimple his cheeks so too can she flutter her lashes. If he leaves his hand pressed for too long against the curve of her waist as she slides off his desk, she stands between his knees for a moment more than is necessary.

She slides her hand high up his thigh as she leans forward to peer down at the map spread before them; he positions himself directly behind her while she makes tea in the kitchen, lips skating her ear, nose grazing her neck.

When one night they have finished their strategizing and she stands with arch in her back, hands over her head to bid him good evening, he kneels, and he presses his mouth to the soft skin just above her navel.

She jerks his head back by the hair at the nape of his neck, leans down, takes his ear between her teeth, bites down hard enough to wound, flicks her skilled little tongue out to lick up the blood.

Down his neck she works, tasting as she goes, and he can only dangle here in her grip, breaths rattling in his throat, hands balled in her shirt, all of him alert, in need, what a thing it is to have the tables turned on him-

"Good night, Klaus," she murmurs in his ear, and vanishes.

The next morning, he corners her in the living room.

She tenses when his arms come around her from behind.

He tests the curve of her throat with his teeth, just a pinprick, a deft hint of fang, a skillful touch of tongue and then he digs in, crushes her back against him, feels her whole body bow instinctively, her hands vising around his forearm.

He pulls away for a moment. "Relax, sweetheart. I won't hurt you," he whispers, and by increments she does, sinking into him, fingers gradually loosening, chest heaving, little helpless noises rising in the back of her throat as he gouges his teeth deeper, crushes her closer, and now unconsciously or otherwise she begins to grind herself back on him and with a shaky little breath he unhooks his fangs from her throat, holds his wrist to her lips, stands with head tilted back, eyes flickering as she rips into him-

He lowers his face to her neck again.

She cries out.

He slides his hands from waist to stomach to breasts and she curves her own hands over them, slips them underneath shirt, past bra, lets go of his wrist to latch onto his ear, sucks and tongues and bites it until his sanity is gone, his control lost- back against the wall he slams her, lips on her throat-

Her shirt is gone in a moment, her bra torn away in a blink.

She hurls him onto the couch.

She tries to pin him, to keep him trapped with her warm thighs and her crushing hands, but he is the alpha male, love, and he does not submit.

But if he does not yield neither does she and through furniture they crash, off walls they rebound, she pushing, he pulling, both of them bruised, bleeding, predatory, mouths insatiable, hands desperate, she wrestling for his shirt, he working the button on her jeans one-handed as he holds her pinned to the wall with the other, his lips attacking her throat, chin, mouth, his tongue dipping in, his hips pressing forward, Caroline straining forward to meet him, belly warm, breasts warmer, why in the bloody hell is there still this layer between them-

He helps her untangle his arms from his shirt and she tongues his nipple into her mouth, digs her fingers into his hips so hard he feels them through his jeans, sits him down hard on the couch.

She kicks away her jeans and straddles him in just her thin black lingerie, grinds herself down so roughly that for just a moment he does not care that their roles have reversed once more, she on top, he helpless underneath her, his breathing frenzied, his heart set to flight, their lips punishing, their hands even more cruel.

Do not have sex with this man do not have sex with this man- oh God, oh God-

She grips his head in both hands as he kisses his way from one breast to the other and then her traitorous freaking hands reach down to undo his belt, frantically fumble open his zipper, and now someone pushes aside her panties, her or him, she's not sure, and then he is inside her.

The first orgasm is quick for both of them.

A few brutal thrusts and she cries out, he buries his face in her hair, arms locked around her back, both of them shuddering, everything tinged black, her curls sticky, her breasts crushed, his lashes half-mast.

He opens his eyes and it is like he's trying to memorize every little detail of this moment, the sweat on her nose, the exertion in her cheeks, the raw lips, trembling hands, all of this taken inside, stored away, locked up tight.

He kisses her for so long, just stroking her cheeks with his thumbs.

The second time is slower.

In his bedroom he peels off his jeans and her Victoria's Secret boy shorts, lays her back down against the pillows, kisses her chin, her nose, her forehead, strokes the hair back out of her eyes, pushes his way inch by inch inside, one slow half-thrust at a time.

He has wanted this for so long.

There are all these little pauses in his rhythm, these brief interims in which he just lies here looking at her, brushing the hair back from her forehead, kissing her lips cautiously, his breathing shaky, his hands shakier, and she is just so full watching him do this.

It is ok for her to enjoy this. It is ok for her to not feel guilty, to not be ashamed, because right now he is not a thousand-year-old murderer, he is just a man, and he is in love, and this is so much progress- look at how far he's come-

She kisses the tip of his sweaty nose, draws her hand down over the curls at the nape of his neck, and he is suddenly frantic, his lips at her chin, her neck, her forehead, hands careful, hips still motionless-

She locks her legs around his waist, urges him on with her heels, digs her nails into his shoulders.

He presses his forehead to hers, kisses her once, twice, again, slides her hands from his shoulders to press them down into the mattress underneath, lacing their fingers, his hips moving again with that frustrating languor, his breathing labored, his chest slippery, his necklaces jingling.

"Klaus," she pants as the tension begins to build, everything tightening, her toes curling, hips surging, their fingers constricting.

He breathes her name into her hair.

He kisses the side of her face, the hollow of her throat, the curve of her shoulder.

She muffles her cries against the tattoo on his left shoulder as the tension spikes, swells, spills her gasping over the edge; she bucks against him, rides it out, arches her back as another wave coils all her muscles, contracts them sharply, releases them slowly; his kisses become rougher, his thrusts more frenzied, and then with a sharp exhale he bites down on her bottom lip, and he empties himself with a hot spurt inside her.

He lays his cheek down against her chest with a shuddering breath.

She strokes his hair.

He flexes the hand he still has laced through one of her own.

She lays for a very long time underneath him, just feeling his curls, the muscles of his shoulders, the ridges of his spine, his lips warm against the top of her breast, his lashes soft against her skin.

When he pulls away at last he kisses her mouth twice, the first brief, the second lingering, and then he pushes himself up off the bed and he stands smiling down at her.

He pulls his jeans back on, tosses her one of his shirts, and when he lays back down against the pillows and almost shyly extends his arm out to one side, an invitation, she even more shyly lays her head down across it.

She falls asleep quickly.

He lingers awake for a very long time.

It meant more to him than it did to her, of course he knows this, but still there is a tightness in his throat the next morning when he wakes up alone.

A/N: I tried to be very careful with the rating here, because this site likes to delete stories that venture into the realm of NC-17 where sex scenes are concerned. I think there's enough detail to warrant the 'M' rating but not to give the monitors heart palpitations. Hopefully. I would have liked to write something a bit more graphic, but as I said, I would really like to avoid any unnecessary deletions. With that being said, for my thousandth tumblr post I do intend to write some Klaroline porn, and since I'm not bound by any rating limitations, I can make it as detailed as my filthy, filthy mind will allow, so if you're interested in that, keep an eye on my tumblr account. I can be found under the same name on there. I'm about twenty posts away from 1,000, and with the way I ramble on and reblog, I'll be there in no time.

Oh, and what did Elijah do to earn Klaus' wrath? I'll never tell. (Well, I will eventually, but not for a while. I'll give you a hint, though: it has something to do with a significant event in Russian history that took place in the summer of 1918.)

I really do hope you enjoyed this, but if you are less than enthusiastic about it, I always welcome those opinions as well. Never hesitate to contact me, either here or on tumblr, if you have something to say. Stay tuned for part two, coming soon to a computer screen near you.