Klamille drabble written for Klamille Appreciation Week on tumblr, Day 7 - Wishes for Season 3.
Beginnings
He found her standing in the rain, in the middle of Lafayette Cemetery, shuddering in front of their graves without even a jacket or umbrella to protect herself from the weather. He hurriedly shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it across her shoulders, his hands lingering on her cold arms.
"You're freezing," he said. He wanted to grab her and carry her out of this place away from this weather but he needed to know why she was here in the first place.
"I forgot," she said somberly.
"Forgot what?"
"Today marked the first anniversary of his death. I forgot. I only remembered as I was going to bed. I didn't…" she trailed off, voice shaking. "I didn't even get him flowers."
He exhaled sharply. "I should have remembered."
"No. It was my fault—"
"It was I who ended his life. The least I could have done was remember when."
The rain steadily beat on, drenching the both of them. His shirt was now soaked, but things like that didn't really matter when one couldn't really feel the cold. She, however, looked completely pitiful, shivering under his jacket, the only protection he could offer at this point.
"You saved me," she murmured, barely audible with the sound of the rain around them. "How could you even blame yourself?"
They stood there for some minutes, looking at the priest's name in silence, remembering each moment that passed during his last night on earth.
He didn't know what made him do it. Or perhaps he did, he just couldn't dissect it and put it to words at this point. Without looking at her, he slowly took the hand resting on her side with his, and feeling her fingers cold and trembling, gently squeezed them.
He knew those weren't just raindrops trailing down her face. He didn't have to look at her to know. He just knew. And he shouldn't have cared, but he did. If there was one thing that could make his chest hurt physically as much as getting stabbed with the white oak stake, it was seeing the tears on her face.
"Camille," he said quietly. "Don't cry."
She stared at him in surprise, as if she was unaware of the tears falling. "I'm sorry, I was… " She trailed off and gave a shaky laugh. "They just left me alone. All of them."
He looked at her face, at those eyes that have already seen too much for someone who'd spent but two decades on this earth. To the rest of the world, she had put on a bright smile, but he knew better, the strength it took to keep up that farce. That as soon as she went home and was by herself, that same smile faded off into oblivion to be replaced by her true nature, which was just as tired and broken as his was.
"I should go, I still have to be up early tomorrow," she said, moving to take off his jacket.
He grabbed her wrist to stop her from doing so, and she stared back at him, momentarily letting him glimpse such deep sorrow in her green eyes, and he knew then that nothing on earth could possibly let her go back to her apartment like this. Thinking she was alone. Thinking no one was by her side. Thinking no one was looking out for her.
When he always was.
Don't cry.
He stepped closer to her, reaching out to cup her cheek. "You're not alone."
She looked up at him, eyes searching his in question, unsure where he was going. The vulnerability in them should have frightened him but it didn't, and he pulled her closer to his body, lowering his voice to whisper the words she needed to hear, "You have me."
And against all the voices in his head telling him to do otherwise, he kissed her.
He kissed her with a warmth and a gentleness that he didn't know he possessed. He kissed her with all the apologies that went unsaid, for the times he hurt her, for the times he put her life in danger. He kissed her with all the dreams he'd had in his head of a man for a woman. Of the countless nights he'd lain to sleep thinking of her. Of the mornings he woke up envisioning her face beside his. He kissed her with all the passion that rekindled his weary soul.
He kissed her with the love that built up for a thousand years, waiting for her. Just her.
He stopped and let her take a breath, and she looked up at him in wonder, the two of them standing in the middle of the cemetery, hearts pounding amidst all the chaos of the rain.
He placed her hand over his chest and gazed at her. "You will always have me, for all of eternity."
And he knew, as she smiled and nodded with such joy and gratitude in her eyes, that she understood it was the truth. That Camille O'Connell would never be alone, not as long as Niklaus Mikaelson was here.
…..