"You have ketchup on your shirt," The little girl with the dazzling blue eyes pointed out as Klaus picked up a tiny vial of wolfs bane. He looked down, first at the girl and then at the remnants of the cashier at boutique Rebekah had dragged him to. He narrowed his eyes at the small spot of blood.
"It's not ketchup, love." He pointed out with a soft smile. The little girl smirked prettily and then bit her lip with a confused frown.
"Then what is it." Far be it from him to ruin the little princess' innocence. He stooped down so he was at eyelevel with her and looked her in the eyes.
"I'm a bit of a messy eater, its barbecue sauce." She seemed satisfied with his answer and nodded solemnly.
"So am I, but Sister Erika is trying to teach me to be better." He smiled. "I expected a grown up to be the best at staying clean." With a small chuckle he brushed some of her light brown hair out of her face. To him, something seemed awfully familiar about the girl, but he put it to having lived for so long. There was bound to be some descendant or other who looked familiar to him. "Honestly, love, grownups are even worse at staying clean." She frowned. "I say, it's because we're bigger. It's a lot easier to get dirty when you're huge." She laughed.
"You're not huge at all!"
"Huger than you." He grinned widely and reached up to pull one of the bouquets of purple aconite flowers by the silver wrapping paper, careful not to touch the stem. He held the small bouquet in his hand.
"Not by much." He stood up and she narrowed her eyes cutely at him. She was barely at his waist. This girl had enchanted Niklaus, interested him more than anyone had in a long time. He smiled again.
"Did you say you lived with a nun?" He expected her to recoil at the invasive question the way an older person would, but her innocent child mind only saw him as curious.
"Yes, all of us at St. Jude's do." She frowned again. "The nuns take care of us since our mommies and daddies all died." Klaus' teasing mood of earlier dissipated. He froze.
"Your mommy and daddy died?" She nodded bravely, obviously fighting back tears. He thought of Mikael then, how he'd never really been a father, and Esther, who had been stuck in a loveless marriage, too terrified to be with the man she truly loved. They had never truly been good parents but they were the only parents he'd had. "Mine too." She looked up at him in wonder.
"When they tried to take me to St. Jude's I was so sad I kicked Sister Erika in the mouth." The little girl was so proud and Klaus smiled. Then she cast a roving eye around the stall they were standing in front of. "She's supposed to be around here somewhere, but I wanted to look at the purple flowers." Klaus remembered the bouquet in his hand and held it out to her.
"Well now, you have your own purple flowers." She picked it up, by the wrapping paper as he had done and made the mistake of dragging her fingers through the pretty flowers. Then, everything happened very quickly for Klaus.
With a gasp, the bouquet fell to the ground, the little girl with the dazzling blue eyes cradled her hand against her chest, the red burn blisters already beginning to fade, a lady in a nun's habit ran towards them just as the sky darkened, the girl's blue eyes darkened to a cool navy and Klaus fell to the ground, a blinding pain in his head.
"I am so sorry, Niklaus!" The woman apologized profusely, grabbing the little girl by the arm roughly. "You were never supposed to know!" Klaus was beyond confused as he lay there, panting, trying to gain control of his legs amidst the pain. He saw them walking away, the little girl shooting him a sad longing look over her shoulder. The nun turned back towards him. "As far as you know, she's dead." He began to fall into darkness. "Forget this happened, Hayley would want it this way." With that, they vanished and he lost consciousness.