Author's Note: The title of the story has been changed to This Could Be the One as a tribute to the song The One by Limp Bizkit. Please, keep in mind that chapters have recently been amended and their content slightly modified; a rewritten chapter will have an update date in the end. The story is on semi-hiatus, which means I update infrequently but intend to finish it nonetheless.

September, 1940

Being a creature of the night was surely an advantage in the front for the men, but for a London citizen as she was, vampirism wasn't of much use in the streets; aerial attacks could easily finish anyone's existence.

Dacia never thought about cooperating with the Allies as much as she supported them. She was seven centuries old; her survival was ruled by loneliness and depended on no Nazi threat. History would continue; she only needed to blink once to confirm that the war was already over.

Contrary to popular belief, she was having a blood feast. Most children had been sent far away but there was still life remaining in the alleys, rubbles and the Underground tunnels. Enlisting as a nurse would have been untenable. She preferred bloodbaths to be private and pleasant.

She was ecstatically enjoying a dead man's neck when all of a sudden she heard sirens shouting in agony, informing her that enemy aircraft was about to fly overhead. Dacia left the corpse decompose somewhere in that abandoned barricade and hurried to the nearest safest room as her refuge was distant and ruined.

She had chosen a fairly comfortable attire to run that night: black heavy boots, loose khaki trousers, an ivory blouse stained in fiery red and a grey coat. She was done with dresses, especially since she had no one to admire them.

She moved rapidly and got soaked in the puddles on the way, but the race was definitely worth it: she found the perfect hiding place for the following hours of terror bombing. The first thing Dacia did was to take off her helmet and glasses and confirm she was in fact all alone. The place was a true mess as it was full of wooden slats and scrap. She easily removed everything away and would have actually managed to make that place feel cosy if it weren't because of the coffins she found behind the improvised obstruction.

She disarranged her long blonde wavy hair, confused and intimidated at the view of the four uncovered caskets. Two men and two women lied there apparently staked, so she supposed they were all once vampires. The middle-aged woman was the only one who had died differently: her heart had been ripped out but her body was well-preserved.

She was beautiful and ancient: the grubby gown she wore corroborated her theory which at the same time didn't make any sense. If she had died that long ago, she should have been all bones now. Dacia simply stared at her, who kind of reminded her of her own mother. Sorrowful, she let her rest in peace and closed her coffin, moving towards the next one.

She leaned forward the first male victim, the youngest one. He physically appeared to be her age when he died in his mid twenties not that much time ago, like his clothes suggested. He was a stunning boy of hard facial features, suggestive eyebrows, wide jaw, appealing beauty and a perfect chaos of brown hair locks. As she thoughtfully watched him, she could only wonder how his eyes would have been. She quickly pushed that idea away though and focused on the metallic dagger through his chest.

"Daggers do not kill vampires..." she automatically said, confused, "but that guy's dead for sure."

Dacia thought carrying a weapon like that could turn out to be handy, so she just removed it, cleaned it and turned her back, admiring the fierceness of the blade.

"Well, isn't this a lovely epiphany? I must have truly died and gone to Heaven."

...

Slowly, carefully, she slowly raised her head towards the stranger and almost jumped when she saw the young man freshly awake, gazing at her with curiosity. "What the hell!?" She exclaimed, leaning her back against the bunker's wall.

The stranger just chortled and enjoyed her misunderstanding. "I believe I stand in front of my saviour. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Kol. Feel honoured that I owe you a favour, I usually don't."

If Dacia were human, she would have died from a heart attack, that is, if she truly had a bouncing heart. Startling her was a difficult work and the so-called Kol had easily succeeded. She squinted as if it was a dream, and then she finally absorbed what had just happened. "Dacia," she gulped in return. Kol just took her hand and kissed her knuckles gently.

He stared at her, slowly savouring her smooth skin behind his lips. She was small and thin. Her eyes shone in an impossible forest green, her nose resembled a sparrow's beak, and her lips were as appealing as a cool peach. Kol realized just how dark her eyebrows were compared to her blonde hair and he immediately guessed she had dyed it, probably to look trendy. He had heard there was a way to do it but never really witnessed it. For some reason, he liked it more than disliked it.

"It's my pleasure, Dacia." The mere pronunciation felt oddly fantastic, like reciting a disturbing but still beautiful Edgar Allan Poe poem. He had always been intrigued about the Roman Empire, that's why he recognized the meaning behind the name and found it curious. Dacia became a Roman province right after the conquest; it was today's Romania and Moldavia. Funny! He never thought he would ever think about it again. "Could you please tell me what year is it?"

"It's 1940." She answered, still puzzled and feeling kind of dizzy.

"1940..." He repeated in a drawling. Kol felt a flurry of relief; though he still hated time gaps, he could have easily been woken up in the next millennium if it weren't for her intervention. "Well, thankfully, I haven't missed much."

"I believe you have..." She stupidly giggled as Kol's warm hand still grasped hers. After catching up a little, Kol suggested inspecting the surroundings now that the planes seemed to have left. Dacia wasn't convinced about it at all. Usually, when the city was safe again, she would hear a second alarm... and she hadn't noted any yet.

"So there's a global war going on, the second one in such a short. How did that happen?"

She summed up all the events that had happened during his inexplicable chimera: the disastrous imperialism, the birth of blocks, the greed of power, the collapse of Germany; the fall of the Weimar Republic, the Nazis' repercussion, the massacres and much more.

"Let's go outside." He purposed. She looked at him blankly, holding onto his coffin when an unexpected bomb nearby made the place quake. "No new method of slaughter will kill me anyway."

"It will kill me!" She gasped in incredulity. Kol had returned from the dead; Dacia would never be that lucky.

«That is a risk you will have to take», she had expected him to tell. "Would you rather stay here waiting for the guy who stabbed me?" was all Kol said. His eyes softened a little, like delicious crunchy chocolate, but as soon as Dacia saw a lightning of genuine grief, his eyes lost all sign of emotion again.

"No, of course I don't want to. I choose not to be murdered."

After decades of feeling homesick, Klaus chose London as his next destination. He had promised his lifeless siblings they'd start from scratch once he'd land there. However, when the war broke, he couldn't do as he promised. He never wrote to Elijah, woke up Rebekah, Finn and Kol, or gave his mother a proper crypt. He just didn't like the idea of finding happiness in such a dark era.

He was thinking about travelling overseas and heading back to the United States, which apparently was safer than England. He had spent days planning the return, but it was quite difficult to move the bodies with so many attacks there and everywhere. He was stuck alone and frustrated in that godforsaken city.

It had only been half an hour when Klaus went back to the panic room and found Kol's coffin empty. He had gone exploring the ruins in search of fresh blood, a successful yet difficult work as the streets were always desert when the bombing started.

At first, Klaus could only be baffled at the disappearance of his brother. He couldn't possibly think about anyone awaking him. Klaus had a lot of enemies, but none of them could have done such a thing; both waking up Kol and infuriating Klaus were stupid. If someone wanted to enrage him, they ought to conceal all of the coffins or even burn them.

Klaus cried out of cholera and destroyed the casket with his own hands. Kol would be far away from there by now, obviously resentful. Whoever had interfered in his family plans, he or she would pay for his imprudence.

"This is rather depressing." Kol admitted, watching painfully St. Paul's Cathedral standing among all the destruction from the height of the roof. It was a damp and rainy day in London. There was fire and smoke everywhere. Thankfully, the shelling had finished twenty minutes ago, leaving the usual scent of gunpowder Dacia had always secretly enjoyed.

"It hurts to see the city you were born in turn into ashes..." She agreed, tediously moving away her eccentric steam punk aviator goggles.

"It hurts to see mankind stepping back on their way to evolution." Kol agreed, glaring at the lugubrious wasteland. "I hate wars. They are–" He himself was hostile by nature, but then again he had never tolerated socio-political hostilities.

"...tragic and primitive," she finished, slightly tilting her head to watch him closely. "How did you come back to life? I'm still wondering." She casually asked after a few minutes of internal meditation.

"I owe you a favour, not an explanation."

"I won't ever demand that favour. If I ever need your assistance I will humbly request it, you owe me something or not. That is how things work." Dacia replied, and Kol chuckled; he wouldn't mind to be humbly requested for a night in her bed.

"Are you aware of the Originals?" He asked, and she nodded. Of course she was! The Originals consisted of the first vampire generation. All vampires were their descendants in some way. Most considered them terrifying deities: for her, they were just a legend. She had always thought they were solely fictional, in fact, she had never heard anyone mention them ever since The Middle Ages' oral tradition. "They are no average vampires, no offense. They can freely walk in the sun and they can compel their own kind, but most importantly, they cannot be killed. Not anymore, not since they got rid of the only lethal weapon. Every time they pass away is not permanent, not even if they're slew with a wooden stake. The most comfortable way of keeping them harmless is using one of these." Kol explained brandishing the dagger she had been keeping in her purse until he furtively got it.

Instinctively, she swiftly stepped back to the edge of the housetop at the realization. She was about to take another step when Kol approached her, but her heel hung in the air.

"Relax, love, I mean no harm to you. I would have spent centuries in that repugnant coffin if you hadn't unconsciously helped me."

"I'm truly regretting it now..." She sincerely muttered. Kol curved his lips roguishly, amused by Dacia's simple presence.

"I was hoping you to take me to your hiding place."

Dacia felt confident enough to disrespectfully chuckle. "My property is not a hiding place. And why would an Original want to hide anyway? What are you afraid of?"

"Do not abuse of my generosity, woman. When I said I meant no harm to you I meant it, but you must know I'm incredibly short-tempered." Kol grabbed her swan neck in disapproval. "I just need a place to stay while I attend some business."

Dacia never gave up her sanctuary to anyone. It could sound stupid, especially now that she was challenging an Original's patience, but this time would not be different either. "I'm afraid you will have to find somewhere else on your own."

Dacia was about to turn on her heels when she heard Kol tut. She was hanging in the air now, her feet moving frantically due to the change of gravity. "I would gladly change my mind, though," she rapidly retracted, her voice hoarse, "if you were kind enough to release me. I don't think I'd find the impact pleasant."

Ever since he had let Dacia go, she had been irritated by his haughtiness and Kol would only smile in satisfaction, desperately attempting to ignore how Klaus had disappointed him.

Dacia owned a precious house somewhere near Piccadilly. Although it looked lovely and elegant, it was a shame that place was visibly damaged and hardly saveable. "Make yourself at home," she growled, going upstairs and shutting the door behind her.

"Gladly." Kol answered, checking the hallway with awe. It was large and spacious, just as he liked: the furniture was old, made of expensive and varnished wood, and the living room was full of withered flowers and avant-garde paintings. There was a telephone, a gramophone and a system he didn't recognize. Kol examined it carefully and took a vinyl standing nearby the chest of drawers; when he miraculously guessed how it worked, he lit the mood with one of Tchaikovsky's best pieces.

He thought about his next move with Klaus while he poured some vodka directly into his mouth. He would eventually find out his brother had gone missing. The thought of having bothered him consoled Kol. He thought he would wake up the rest of his family and deal with Klaus later, though that could wait one more day. The sun was about to rise and there was nothing to be done without the advantage of walking in the shadows.

He spent the morning nosing around and found nothing but countless books, loads of incense, bottles of alcohol and even a box of bonbons. He grimaced, not remembering the day he actually enjoyed any kind of food, even if it was chocolate. The only thing he cared about was blood, and with that thought he got really thirsty.

Dacia had not been doing much but hearing Kol's moves and writing in her diary. She was afraid of him, it was natural to be, but she was never going to show it or step back again. She was so headstrong that she would never subjugate to his undoubted power. She decided to calm down and so she waltzed in her private bathroom to take a bath in the darkness. She had never had a ring that allowed her to walk in the sun, and she never meant to get one either; that was the price of being a monster. She would never try to change it as much as she missed the warmth of the sun in her skin.

Dacia took off her clothes and gasped at the contact of hot water. A few moments later, she wrapped her body in a bathrobe and went out only to find Kol lying in her bed. Her face went red in anger when she realized she had been bathing with the door open and Kol in the adjacent room.

"I'm bored!" He announced.

"If you are asking for private entertainment–"

Kol tilted his head, looking at her from top to bottom with lustful hunger. "That would be so nice of you, thank you."

"You are so twisted!"

"Come on, don't be prude. I was going to reward you afterwards. I've brought food." Kol said, tossing his head towards a compelled man appearing to be a civil servant. "He's a messenger, and I need him alive. As long as you don't kill him, we can have some fun."

"You are crazy if you think I'd ever share bed and food with you." She exclaimed, and for a moment, Dacia remained motionless. Her hair was dripping an entire ocean but she didn't show any intention of mopping it. Kol had opened the blinds so there was no possible way of walking pass the sunshine.

"What are you doing standing there? Enjoying the view?" Kol asked, giving her a smirk full of arrogance.

"I was about to ask you to close those," she said, pointing at the blinds.

Kol just shook his head. "We'll have to get you a ring."

"There's no 'we'. As soon as you finish 'your business', you are gone."

"I tend to do what I want whenever the hell I want, love."

"Then let me tell you I tend to do the same. That includes kicking you asshole out." Dacia yelled, pointing at the door for a brief moment. The sun burned her accusing finger, and she immediately groaned.

Kol stood up and got closer to her, the tip of his nose just a few centimetres from hers. "You have a filthy little tongue there, I like it."

"Leave. I'm getting dressed." Dacia insisted, hands on hips.

"I never just ignore moments like this." Kol murmured lasciviously against her cheek, cornering Dacia against the wall and blocking any escape route possible.

"Don't make me spoil that pretty face of yours." Dacia showed her fangs in self defence, her emerald eyes reddening horribly. Kol laughed softly as a response. He was beginning to like that untamed beast; even with the characteristic evilness of her vampire form, Dacia looked dashing to him.

Updated: 24/02/2015