The Aftermath

Pain. That was Katherine's clearest memory of the night before she'd fallen unconscious. Her pain. Everyone's pain. Both emotional and physical.

Elena had teamed up with Esther to kill the Originals. Everyone else, of course, had immediately joined the cause. Even Katherine. Esther, the witch who had created them, was their best hope of killing them. Katherine hadn't thought twice about being a part of the great scheme; she wanted Klaus dead more than anything. If it worked, she'd be free at last.

Not everything had gone to plan.

She couldn't really pinpoint the details. Everything was a blur of blood, pain and fire. Klaus, Elijah, Kol and Rebekah had somehow cottoned on to the plan and it had all gone down hill from there. The last thing she remembered was having stake forced through her chest at the same time that she had her neck snapped from behind. The stake had evidently missed her heart, just, but the broken neck had rendered her unconscious for a while.

It was quiet now. Eerily quiet.

She opened her eyes and found herself looking up at the sky. It was nearing dawn. She turned her head to the side and almost jumped backwards when her eyes found Damon's. At a first glance it looked like he'd been watching her, gazing at her, but his eyes were blank and unseeing. A hole in his chest indicated what Katherine already knew; he was dead.

Katherine pushed herself up into a sitting position, readying herself for the carnage that was surely lying all around her when her attention was drawn to a figure standing above the mass of bodies strewn across the clearing. He'd obviously heard her stirring because his gaze had shifted from the mangled body of his mother to her the moment she'd sat up.

She drew her breath in sharply and flinched, waiting for the impact of his hand through her chest. He was sure to kill her, she had been working against him and his siblings, after all.

"I'm not going to kill you." he said, almost as if he had read her mind. "There's no point." his voice was bleak, devoid of any emotion. She didn't have to look very far to find out why.

She pulled the stake out from her chest with a groan of pain and pushed herself up off the ground. The scene of horror that met her eyes was one that even she was not ready for.

They were dead. All of them. Every single one of them except her and Kol. Their bodies had been mutilated and broken in ways that even she considered to be crossing the line a little; she looked down at Elena whose body had been so twisted and mutilated that it was hard to tell whether she was lying on her back or her stomach.

Katherine hadn't cared about any of them emotionally. Except perhaps Stefan and Damon. But seeing them all dead like this was horrific. In fact, she felt a little sick.

"How did you survive?" she asked Kol as she tore her gaze away from her doppelganger's body to look at him. He looked almost as bad as she felt. There were smudges of both dirt and blood across his face and matted in his hear and his clothes were torn and singed.

"I don't know."

"Neither do I."

"You seem upset. Why? Isn't this what you wanted?"

She shook her head. "I'm not upset. I'm sickened. I mean, look at them," she gestured towards the bodies and he nodded. "I didn't want this anyway. I wanted Klaus dead. That's all."

"We should burn the bodies."

She nodded. It would take too much time to bury them and they needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

"Where are you going to go?"

"I don't know, maybe, I guess I could, well, I don't know." she gave a light laugh and he looked at her quizzically. "It's just…well, I've been running from your brother for my whole life. Now that he's dead…I don't really know what to do with myself."

"You don't have a home?"

"I haven't had a home since I was fifteen years old."

"I know the feeling."

They were both silent for a moment and Katherine realised how tragic both of their lives had been. Both of them had lost their family too young. Katherine's had been slaughtered by Klaus and Kol's had been torn apart. Being vampires had allowed them to shut out the feelings but the pain was all still there…

Katherine gave herself an internal shake and attempted to pull herself together. She didn't feel, she didn't mourn and she definitely didn't feel bad about the deaths of the people who had died in the disastrous attempt at killing the Originals.

Except, she did.

Klaus had been the reason that she had turned her emotions off. They'd managed to break through every now and then but she'd managed to keep them in check. Now that Klaus was dead, they were threatening to come flooding back in.

"We should go. Get away from this town."

"What?"

"Together, I mean. If you want to. It's not like either of us has anywhere to go and," he gave a bashful smile, "I can't drive so I could really use the ride."

Out of force of habit, she was already tensing up and opening her mouth to reject his offer when she stopped. She didn't need to do that, anymore. She was free. Klaus was gone. She could do whatever she wanted.

"I guess I could use the company. I should warn you, though, I'm not used to having a companion. I've pretty much been on my own since, well, since your brother put a price on my head."

He grinned. She'd been around long enough to see the tell-tale signs, though. He was close to cracking. The grin didn't quite reach his eyes. He was putting on a good front but he needed to break. He needed to grieve for his family, but he didn't want to do it in front of her.

They ended up in a hotel in Chicago. There was only one bed in their room but it didn't really matter. Neither of them really felt like sleeping.

Katherine lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling while Kol sat on the far side of the room, staring out of the window, looking down on the city.

At some point Katherine must have fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes, the room was dark. Kol must have pulled a blanket over her because she found herself tangled in one. She pushed her hair out of her face and glanced over at the window. Kol was still there, silhouetted against the window.

She was going to lay back down and go back to sleep, give him some more time to himself when he turned to face her. She wasn't surprised to see the tears falling down his face. She was surprised that he didn't try and hide them, though.

"You ok?" she asked, pushing herself up into a sitting position.

He got up from the chair he'd been occupying and sat down in front of her on the bed. He looked at her for what seemed like an eternity before cupping her face with his hands.

"No, I'm not." he paused, stroking his thumb across her cheekbone. "Distract me." he murmured just before their lips crashed together.