"You're killing me." He says nothing, he never says anything, just looks at her like she's the key to everything. "Say something," She says, but no words tumble from his lips. "Say anything." She sobs, but the silence grows, and slowly gnaws away at her. "Please." His eyes grow cold, and he begins to pace around the tiny motel room. He paces at one side, while she cries into her half packed bag.
"What do you want me to say?" He asks, a viscous cruelty in his voice. "You're going, so go." She marches to the bathroom, taking her toothbrush from the sink, and shoving it in her bag. She's angry now, angry with him, with herself, with everything, and everyone.
"Is that it?" She questions, lifting the rucksack from the bed, because Christ, that's all she's got now. She used to have a lot, she used to have everything, but she's been this way since eighteen.
Since he became her everything.
"You tell me, Love." He sits on the bed, his back to her. And she doesn't know whether to smile, or to cry.
"I loved you." She tells him, because if she doesn't, she'll never go. Maybe, she'll never go anyway. Maybe, she'll stay. Maybe, she'll die, or maybe it'll be him.
They're killing each other, slowly but surely, and somebody has got to go.
"More than anything, in my entire life." She sobs, because she can't help it. His body tenses, and she thinks for a minute that he might ask her to stay.
But he doesn't.
And she feels sick.
"It's not too late, Klaus." She tells him, and she knows it's a lie. "Maybe, we could change. We could be normal." He stands then, and runs a hand over his face, and one through his hair. He walks to the dresser, and pulls the clear bag, filled with the purple liquid.
And she watches, one last time, as he injects himself, and a part of her wishes that she could too.
Become numb, blind, and deaf to anything but thrill and pure sensation.
He tells her he loves her when he takes vervain, tells her in all kinds of languages, and none is more beautiful than when he tells her in flesh.
The rain pounds heavily on the roof, and the wind howls angrily outside the motel room door.
"Klaus." She says, her voice trembling. He looks at her, his eyes barely glazing over. "Say something." He walks towards her, his movements soundless, and she thinks that it's so quiet, she can hear his stomach rumbling. "I-" He's so close that she can smell his body wash, because it's the same one that she uses. Coconut Kiss.
He looks so thin, unhealthily so, and she wonders if she looks similar.
She can't tell.
It's been three years since she's seen her own face in the mirror, because now all she sees is monsters, of all shapes, colours, and sizes, and worst of all, they all look like her. "I need help, you need help. This-" She takes a breath, because she feels like she's about to burst into flames. "You're killing me." She repeats, because it's been three years since she's listened to her own heart beat. "This isn't over." She smiles, almost trying to convince herself. "I- I need to be the girl that you fell in love with, and I'm not. This is not us." He's so close, but she's never felt further away from him. "I love you." She confirms. "This- It isn't goodbye. This is- I love you." She starts to cry, really cry. Her own tears feel foreign to her as they flow down her cheeks.
He smiles at her, a smile that tells her she's going to be okay.
He lips press to her forehead, and she clutches onto his shirt.
"Goodbye, Caroline." She can hear the words whispered, his lips only inches from her ears, but they sound so distant, like years have passed since she heard them last-
Caroline shoots up in bed, her pajamas stuck to her skin, her body drenched in sweat.
"Care?" Bonnie mumbles, reaching for her friend across the bed.
"Sorry." She says, and she means it. Who knew, after ten years, that you could still be so shaken up by a lost love. "I just-"
"You don't have to." Bonnie says, offering a sympathetic smile. She reaches a hand across her back and rubs soothing circles. "You're fine."
"I know. I'm just glad Stefan wasn't here."
"He wouldn't have cared, you know. Stefan knows what went on between you two. He understands."
"He shouldn't have to." Caroline sighs, and rests her head back on the pillow. "I shouldn't have dragged all this up again, Bonnie. I should have just ignored it. Stefan had to watch his brother go through this, and he hated him for it, for tearing apart his family. He doesn't need to be reminded that his wife used to be just like that."
"Stefan loves you, Care, scars and battle wounds included."
Caroline laughs, "Even if it was myself that I was battling?" Bonnie shakes her head, a small smile playing across her lips. Every single day she thanks God that Caroline is around. For three years she didn't see her best friend, or know if she were dead or alive, and it nearly killed her. "You're right." Caroline sighs. "You're so right. Silas and I were nothing alike."
"Caroline, you turned your life around. You should be proud. You've got a home, a husband, and three beautiful kids. And as tough as it may be, you need to leave the past where it belongs."
"In the past." She agrees, and settles her eyes shut, even though she knows sleep isn't going to come.
"The crazy bastard." Kol says, only to receive an elbow to the ribs from Rebekah.
"Please, Kol, don't make me bury two of my beloved children today." His mother sighs, from her pride of place at the front of the church. Kol wants to laugh. His crazy, drug addict, criminal artist, brother is going to buried in a church. It's madness.
Although, he is genuinely surprised by how many 'friends' have come to pay their last respects. Including one lovely gent', Psycho, or as he was also known, Viktor, had even written some poetry for the occasion.
One, however, that he is desperate to see is Ms. Forbes, his brother's first and only love. Few truly knew how deep their relationship really ran. His family, the entire town, had all seen their idyllic three months, but it was Kol who had seen them in their final three. The were joined at the soul, yet repulsed by each other. They were pure, unadulterated chaos, and his brother had reveled in in.
She's sitting towards the back, wearing a large black hat, and shades in an attempt to disguise herself.
"Very classy, Forbes." He greets, settling in beside her.
"Shut it, Mikaelson." Only Caroline Forbes, has the ability to make your own name sound like an insult. Old habits die hard, he guesses. "I- I'm sorry for your loss." She says, making eye contact for the first time.
"I'm not." He shrugs, because honestly, he has no idea how to deal with losing another brother. "What I am, however, is sorry for your loss."
"Don't, Kol." She says, squeezing his arm. An odd, yet not unwelcome, gesture of affection. "I- he didn't deserve this."
"This was it, Caroline." She takes her hat, and glasses off them, looking at him with nothing but confusion. "Klaus wasn't like you, no matter how much he, or any of us, wanted him to be. Getting clean, staying clean, it was never going to happen for him."
"Maybe-"
"No maybe." Kol shakes his head, and gives her a look, like he's a father telling his child that it's favourite pet has just died. "This was it, his life. There was never going to be an out. He was never going to marry the town doctor, live in the family home, and raise three lovely brats. There was no escape from the madness, Caroline." She tries not to cry, she really does. He wraps an arm around her shoulder, like a brother, like he owes her something.
Maybe, he does.
Maybe, they all owed him something.
"I dream about you," She whispers, running her fingers along the closed casket. "I dream about us, and what we were going to be." She smiles, "But then, I wake up screaming, and I can't breathe, and every bone in my body hurts. So, really, it's like you never left." She laughs, or at least tries, but it comes out as sad and pathetic.
"I've got three kids, nothing like the twelve we planned of course."
"Silas, Billy, and Eliza. I love them, and they love me. No conditions, no expectations, just love. What I always wanted, what we always wanted." She rests her head on the casket, thinking of the man that lies beneath. A shadow of a man she once knew, weak from years of toxic body abuse, and wrangled from the trauma of the impact, of the car hitting the bridge.
"You wouldn't have done it, would you?" She all but begs, picturing only Klaus as she chooses to remember him. His golden curls, his dimples, his lips, his smirk, his necklaces, his jackets, his heart, everything good. "You wouldn't have driven yourself off that bridge, I know it." And finally, she wants to cry, but she can't.
Not anymore.
"And for you to die in Mystic falls, well-" And she can't believe she didn't think it before. "leaving mystic falls, and without saying goodbye- that would be far to tragic for you, Love." She takes a deep, shaky breath.
"I love you." She tells a ghost. "As much as I ever did."
"This isn't goodbye." She whispers more to herself than to him.
And on the gold plated plaque, carved with his name, she sees her own reflection, distorted and foggy to her now, her own face is that of a strangers, a mad woman in love with a dead man, waiting for a morning that's never going to come.
Please review!
There might also be a part deux from Klaus' point of view if anyone is interested.