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Many thanks to my beta Anastasia Dreams for all her amazing work... and tolerance!
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Title: A Promise Forgiven but Never Forgotten
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Summary: It was time for the last dance to be collected into a faded dream. And as his unbroken promise would come to its end all he would have to remember was that something unseen doesn't mean it has to be forgotten.
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Warnings: Angst, tragedy, no happy endings, character death
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The room was dark and he painted. As always he painted again and again. He heard her voice calling him and he gave shape to her whispers. He was always scratching at the paints afterwards. Always destroying his art. Always refusing to accept the result. He would maniacally scratch and scratch and would so much scratch until his hands would bleed and his skin would peel off.
He gave new colors to his madness. He dressed his insanity with crimson red and cerulean blue.
He screamed, he laughed, he cried but he always danced. He danced a dance macabre. He danced without a partner. With no shoes or clothes. He danced into a sea of blood and unbroken promises. Until his feet would break and he would fall in pieces over the painted floor.
He was doomed to forever be collecting his own last dance into the silence of her absence.
Now he painted the walls with his hands. He couldn't tell if the crimson color was made out of paint or blood. All he knew was that everything seemed like a bad dream.
Klaus Mikaelson had at last fallen from grace. Not that he ever ascended into it.
He was now back where he belonged.
The most feared Original that probably never existed. Part of the shadows and the nightmares again.
A nightmare that began with one last dream.
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In between the haze and the mist her form appeared. Dark and light still fought and brought shadows all around her. She was standing in the between. She was coming forth with each step. Closer and yet still so far away. But her silhouette was taking shape. Like a finished painting ready to be shown to the world.
He could tell he was dreaming. He could tell that nothing was real and yet everything seemed more realistic than the life he has led for so long. A life that somehow seemed stranger than this dream. A life he didn't exactly belong to.
And there she was now. Centuries had passed since the last time he saw her. Since the last time he had promised her to stay far away. A promise he had kept.
A promise he had regretfully kept.
And yet she was now standing in front of him. Ethereal, beautiful, exquisite. A vision so sublime that his undead heart hurt and his dreams were turned into a whirlwind of palpable emotion.
The world around him shook for a moment. A glitch of reality passing through the veils of his dreamland and he tried so hard to concentrate into the world he had so missed for so long. Into her.
He blinked when he noticed how the colors around him seemed more vivid, clearer, more intense. It was like a dream connection. As if someone was manipulating his dreams. Somehow, he didn't care.
The wise part of his mind was screaming danger to him, but he consciously quietened it. The wakeful thoughts finally suppressed, he allowed himself into that bizarre and yet vivid dream of the girl he used to long for.
Caroline was finally here.
Nostalgia and excitement ran over him like a massive wave.
She took a step forward and came closer. She stood in front of him. He could smell her scent. He could see her beauty and he felt alive again when she smiled that bright smile of hers once more.
"I am sorry," she said and the smile never left her face.
"For what love?"
"For making you wait so long," she whispered and he narrowed his eyes.
Her honesty was seeping through and yet something was amiss. Maybe it was the sadness that lingered in the depths of her cerulean eyes.
She took his face into her hands and she leaned closer. Her lips gently grazed his.
He sighed at the contact and brought her closer as his hands wrapped around her waist.
"This is a dream," he voiced over her lips.
He could feel her smile over his mouth as she deepened the kiss.
He let go with abandon, without understanding the sudden need to pour all of his emotions into that one kiss. Emotions that he always kept hidden away. Emotions that were his weakness and he was trying so hard to always exile. The same emotions that always raged when Caroline was near and now could not be control or subdued.
This felt real. It felt more than a dream.
What was a dream as if not a reality yet unknown? A moment of truth wrapped into a soul forced hallucination? Another world no less true than the one everyone lives in with their eyes and mind open?
And yet a dream, this dream, felt like a realm so real and true that it showed him not only the things that were unseen, but also the things that would never be forgotten.
She broke the kiss and took a step back as she looked at him sorrowfully.
"Remember this. Something unseen doesn't mean it has to be forgotten."
"You can hear my thoughts," he said and took a step back "Who are you?" he asked and his gaze sharpened.
"The girl that foolishly waited too long," she said and looked down.
"How are you doing this?" he asked her knowing very well that no vampire could easily manipulate the dreams of an Original.
She smiled at him.
"Tricks of the mind…or tricks of the soul" she cryptically said and went near him "Maybe even of the heart," she said and stood a breath away from him again.
"It is me," she told him as she took his hands and placed them over her cheeks; she didn't have to say anything else. Somehow he knew. It was truly her.
"Caroline."
"This now is real; it is where you want to be is it not?"
"Yes," he vowed to her.
"Then give me this last dance Niklaus Mikaelson because right now there is no other place where I would like to be either."
Around them the mists disappeared. The colors changed until she was wearing the blue gown he had once given to her and he was wearing the tux he had once worn at the ball he hosted in Mystic Falls. She looked like she did back then. Beautiful. Mesmerizing. A sight to behold.
In the ballroom of his mansion now only two bodies existed. His own and hers. Violins could be heard from the distance as their bodies twirled once again into an elegant waltz.
"You kept your promise" she said after a while as they the danced into a blur of colors and unshaped frames.
He never came back. He had kept his word. He had let her go.
"Why?" she asked as she recalled all the time that had passed.
"Because I gave it to you," he said and his heart beat faster as he saw the melancholy appearing in her eyes.
"Would you have preferred if I hadn't?" he asked with hope and felt his chest violently constrict as she shook her head.
"It was for the best, we wouldn't have worked, you and I," she said as her hands held him closer to her and their steps continued dancing in their synchronized rhythms.
"Why not?"
"I was too young and you were not," she simply stated.
"Are you still too young sweetheart?" he asked her with a knowing smirk.
"Not any more," she said and a smile boyishly appeared to his dimpled face.
"I have promised you more things," he said as he twirled her around. Her laughter bringing him back to life.
"Perhaps one day, in a year or even in a century you'll turn up at my door and let me show you what the world has to offer...however long it takes," he said in his husky accented voice once more and his words echoed between them.
"More than a day, more than a century and now... more than an eternity," she whispered and she slowed her steps until they were not moving anymore.
He didn't understand what she was saying. He couldn't understand until he felt a sharp pain in his head.
He was waking up.
He tried to hold on to her. No it was too soon. He couldn't wake up, not yet.
And he couldn't understand the terror he felt. He couldn't understand why he was trying to hold on to this dream with teeth and nail. It was not just because it was a dream of hers. It was more. He could feel it to his bones. To his darkest fears.
"How have you done this Caroline, how can you be here?" he asked as the pain increased in his head and yet he forced himself to remain in the haze of this dream.
"I am collecting my last dance," she said and then he finally understood.
The only way a young vampire could manipulate the dreams of an Original would be if...
His eyes widened.
"NO!"
She smiled at him, letting his hands go.
A memory then resurfaced into the back of his mind. Him and his siblings, alive and human, sitting around a fire as their mother a long time ago was teaching them about the souls of the dead. Her insignificant and yet majestic teachings from when they were nothing more than mortals living in a world of magic and brutal survival.
Esther's voice echoed inside him.
"When a spirit passes to the other side, if it is strong enough, if it wants to hold itself to one last splinter of life then it can reach out to you, but only for a few moments. Dreams are a spiritual getaway; the connection between this world with the other side. Cherish those moments. Make them last."
"Caroline, no!" he said as he finally understood, a tear escaping his eye.
She smiled contently. She didn't want to go and this is why she had held on so roughly to anything that could give her more time, but now she finally understood that everything would have to come to an end. Even the immortals.
She never believed that her last thread to this world would have been Klaus Mikaelson, but here they were. If there was something beyond them it indeed seemed to work in mysterious ways after all.
"It is okay, really it is" she said and breathed deeply.
He looked at her fiercely as despair covered him and somehow he could smell the ocean. They were still in the ballroom of his mansion in Mystic Falls, but he could feel the breeze of the wind surrounding them.
Her voice as lovely as ever reached his ears, but he refused to believe this. He wanted to know how this happened. He wanted to learn who did this to her; He wanted to ask her a million questions and even more he wanted to fight for her but he could feel their time running out. Her time running out.
"There must be a way," he desperately said as he hung on to his dream. For the first time he could feel real fear. He could feel dread. He was powerless. One more pawn to the games of fate. Unable to move at will, only to obey the inevitable.
"There is none," she said and he saw that she was finally coming to terms with her fate.
"If there is none then I will make one, even if it takes an eternity I will bring you back to me," he promised.
However long it takes.
"Even you can't do that, Klaus," she said as her gentle laughter warmed his heart, probably for the last time.
His hands refused to let her go. He caressed her body. Trying to memorize each centimeter of her skin. Trying to hold on to her.
"Let me go."
"Never!"
Her hand caressed his cheek and he leaned into it.
"From all the promises I have given to you how many have I not kept, sweetheart?" he asked her and he brought her closer.
"I am not letting you go, do you hear me Caroline!" he screamed at her.
But she was fading. He couldn't understand what she was saying. She was slipping away.
"Not yet, please not yet!" He closed his eyes and for the first time in centuries he prayed. He prayed to an unknown God he never believed in. He prayed so that he could be spared. He prayed so that she could live and he could die. He prayed to have just a few more moments with her.
"Am I forgiven?" she asked.
This time her voice sounded clear again. He opened his eyes and he saw her again. Those blue eyes and that blonde hair he so cherished.
"For what?"
"For taking so long to come to you…Although, you did deserve it," she said as emotions danced into her eyes.
"Always so stubborn, my Caroline," he said with a smile and then his lips crushed hers.
Fire erupted and this dream felt more real than anything else he had experienced ever before. All his emotions unraveled as tears fell from his eyes.
The moments were passing away and the pain in his head was magnifying by the moment. He couldn't hold on to her. As always Caroline was not his to keep. She was always the sand that slipped through his fingers. The light that he could not cage. One that swallowed him whole and spitted him out into his own dark.
He pressed his forehead to hers. His gaze locked with hers.
"You are always and forever forgiven my love," he told her as she faded away.
"Always and forever forgiven…"
"Always and forever…"
"My love…"
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He screamed, he fought, he surrendered.
And once the dance was collected the dream ended.
He woke up alone in his bed. He didn't have to hope. He didn't have to believe that the nightmare was not real for he knew better.
He knew that this dream was true.
When Stefan called him he didn't reply. He didn't have to.
Caroline, his Caroline, was gone.
Her light forever extinguished.
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He refused to sleep after that. He refused to close his eyes to see her fading away from him. He refused to exist in a world that was devoid of her light.
He didn't have to hear anyone officially announcing her death to him; he knew that she was gone for he felt it deep inside his soul. His cursed soul that refused to abandon his body and his damned immortality that he no longer wanted.
His blasted soul that was now a burden that he could not shed away.
He didn't leave his room. He didn't speak to anyone or answer any questions.
Silence became his best friend. Into the silence, he could hear the echo of her laughter again. Into the silence, the waltz eternally played. Into the silence, he could hear the strings of the violins breaking forever as the dance never ended, but the dream did.
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He should have known better. All his friends betrayed him in the end. So this serene silence became noise. Became anger. Became wrath.
No one intervened. No one dared.
No one went between him and his rage for the days that followed. Blood rained and carnage followed.
Everyone responsible for her death was ripped to shreds. But it wasn't enough. It didn't soothe the rage nor the torment. It only awakened the beast. The beast she would never forgive.
No one dared come anywhere near him as his sorrow blinded him in ways destructive to himself and to the world.
He let himself go. He allowed the darkest sides of himself to come forth. The animal inside roared. He became a nightmare for those he hunted down. He destroyed everything that would come close to his touch.
No man, woman or child would survive his rage and his pain. No one deserved it. The whole world would crash and burn under his fury.
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And one day he simply stopped. His blood reign came to a halt.
One day he just stopped all together.
He stopped because he couldn't bear the thought that her eyes followed him from the other side and saw him like this. He couldn't bear the thought that she was alone on the other side watching him becoming once again the monster he always was. The monster that only her touch had once tamed.
She was gone. His redemption forever vanished. And yet her memory was the only remedy to his madness. A remedy that fueled the madness more. A madness that spread wild. Unforgiving and cruel, but always there where she was not.
Somehow the madness took over, and the thought of her spirit was the only thing capable of halting his vengeance on the world.
On the world but not on him.
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As time passed him solitude and black magic followed.
He collected an army of witches and warlocks beside him. Everyone ready to do his bidding, even though they feared losing their heads from their necks should they fail.
He lost himself into shades of dark spells and Wiccan hexes.
Voodoo, witchcraft and sorcery. Blood and sex. Murder, threats, payments and more blood. He was using again any means necessary. Anything and everything he had at his disposal and then some more.
No one could come between him and insane pursuit. His quest.
It took him 1000 years to break his curse and even if he had to wait forever he would break his new curse too.
The curse of her absence.
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Caroline was always and forever forgiven, but how would he ever forgive himself for the promise he didn't have the courage to break?
As he retreated from the world and became part of the shadows once again he knew that no one would ever understand why he would never stop searching for a way to bring her back.
Because no one ever understood that Niklaus Mikaelson, the legend of the Original Hybrid that probably never existed, had never broken a promise he had given to Caroline Forbes.
Caroline Forbes. The girl that became a myth, nothing more than a fading dream.
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No one ever heard of him again. Not his siblings, not his allies, not his enemies, not the friends he never made. He disappeared forever.
No one ever knew if he kept his last promise to her. Some said he did, but the price was too high for both of their souls. Some said that instead of finding a way to bring her back he found a way to go to her.
Some said that this was the first promise he broke to her. Some said that he simply had never existed.
It all seemed as a dream that faded away and as if Klaus Mikaelson and Caroline Forbes never were part of this world, but only of another. One that seemed a dream and nothing more.
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But what is a dream if not a reality yet unknown?
Because something unseen doesn't mean it has to be forgotten…not really…