Author's note: Thanks to my original beta Anastasia Dreams.

This chapter takes place just before 3.20 "Do Not Go Gentle."

Chapter 1: the gold god goaded me

The gold god goaded me …
His heat corroded me
~ Christabel LaMotte's poetry from AS Byatt's Possession


The most ordinary moments leave no discernable trace. We do not count them, take no heed. A run to the store, a bright new dress, a moment's anger. Fleeting. Yet, they move us towards our fate all the same, and sometimes too quickly. We look back muddled to find that, after all, one moment has left us a new world.

Two people met on a sunny afternoon in late spring and never afterwards mentioned it. Though it would be wrong to suggest they were not affected all the same. This is how it was …


She took a risk in coming all this way alone, unannounced and unexpected. But something had to be done, acknowledged, and she wanted no one to talk her out of it – or worse, accompany her. Tyler knew too much already, her friends knew too much already – even though Caroline was fairly certain that there was nothing to be known. Except for the picture that she had kept. Foolishly. It was the root of her present troubles. He was the root of all her troubles in one form or another.

Klaus.

Tyler back and un-Sired. She should have been able to celebrate in peace. Her one dream come true in months of horror.

She had arranged Rebekah's distraction with Matt for that very reason. Pretended to quibble over a dance's theme so that she could sneak off into the woods for Tyler. Well, not quite that reason. She had not then known that Tyler was unSired. She only wanted a bit of time with her boyfriend, uninterrupted. A romantic reunion. She deserved it and she needed a bit of happiness.

How else could she cope? Be strong? Everyone expected her to be strong. Elena was, even when she lost her parents and Jenna. Strength was a necessity.

Tyler fighting the Sire bond had been her hope of happiness when her father died. She dwelt on memories of his kiss when she cried alone in her bed at night and puzzled over Klaus's sudden interest. Why she couldn't shake the Original Hybrid.

Everytime she closed her eyes, she saw Tyler's confused and pained expression as he picked up Klaus's drawing and questioned her. And left her.

Stupid Klaus and his stupid drawing. It mocked her.

Honesty – yeah, she was a real pillar of honesty.

She didn't even know why she kept the picture.

Even when Klaus was not there, he still fucked up everything for her.

She was rather surprised to find no visible hybrids lurking about Klaus's grounds. Though she could smell them in the shadows, earthy like the forest, like Tyler had been when she pressed him to her. No locked doors either. So much for his famed paranoia. Although, she supposed that a locked door would not be much of a deterent to any supernatural creature. And mortals were no threat.

Her heels echoed, clip, clip, across marble as she wandered about the foyer and halls, peeking into different rooms, cautiously saying his name. All her bravado quieted within this cavernous building which seemed more like a museum. A long Finnish tapestry, thread-bare and dulled stretched across a gallery, medieval and probably long ago stolen from some prince's castle. Various Norse or Viking scenes almost bleeding together. Or Caroline supposed. She did not know much about such things, but it was strangely arresting, and one of the figures, a young lady with still-chestnut hair was eery. Liked she watched all who gazed on her. She sat beneath a tree, weaving with two other young women. Caroline ran her finger along the loom, the bumpy lines of the weave more prominent for having been worn away through the years. It must have been magnificent once. All bright colours, smooth and bumpy all at once. Full expressions in each figure's eyes.

"Those are the Fates, love," said a voice behind her, quiet, pensive.

"Oh." She dropped her hand to her side, guilty for having been caught touching such a treasure. It should be under glass in a museum. It was weird that she could not seem to retain her anger at that voice, different than his others. She had heard so many voices from him, each hypnotic in their way, chilling, carressing, even calming. No one used their voice like Klaus. Like a weapon.

She would not turn to him. She gave him too much already. Even if he didn't know it.

She could hear the ice cubes tinkling against his glass behind her. Drinking so early in the day? God, she hoped it was alcohol. She could almost feel his arm at her back, though he had not touched her. If she leaned back, just a little, she imagined that she would feel the cool glass, tempering the nerves that flared at his nearness. She should not be so affected. She should not. Except that she found that her thoughts did not wander around him, seemed anchored on him, on where he was, what he was doing. It could have been because he was the enemy still, and her vampiric instinct to flee for survival. It could have.

His hand glided over the figures she had just examined.

Too, too close.

Why wasn't she fleeing?

Where was her survival instinct?

"We called them Norns," he continued, pronouncing the last word in a peculiar accent, harsher than his typical English. "Three sisters, goddesses in the old world, but not like those Greek deities who interfere so much in the lives of mortals. They stand above all, immortal and removed."

She nodded without knowing what to say. She hadn't really said anything to him at all since he appeared behind her, catching her roaming around his home uninvited. Wasn't he curious or angry?

Still, she certainly wasn't going to goad him when she was in the wrong. She needed the moral high ground for that.

"They sit beneath the Yggdrasil, the ash tree from which the whole world and heavens spring, and dispense the fates of all mortals and immortals," he said with a smile, "in Norse mythology."

She did turn to him then, reflecting an impish smile of her own. "So that is why a tree is so dangerous that it can slay the most powerful creatures on this earth?"

"It is just a mythology."

She could not look away when his eyes bore into hers so solemnly, guarded and vulnerable all at once. Sometimes she wondered if he appeared thus for anyone else. Except his sister. Perhaps. When she did not turn away again, his lips turned upwards, like a smile, but not quite. Yet it transformed his whole face, made him almost boyish. Like he had smiled the night he showed her the painting and he had offered her Rome and Paris and Tokyo. No one else could smile like Klaus, she thought, or should smile like him. It was dangerous. "Do you believe in anything more powerful than yourself, Klaus?"

"I did once."

"Did you?"

"But it has been a long time, love." He cocked his head to the side, considering her for a moment. Almost peaceful. It was strange that she should have these peaceful moments with him, when she had almost none with anyone else. When her anger just evaporated. Poof. She wasn't even sure if they were talking of the same things. He had a curious, determined way of turning things back to herself.

The weight of his gaze was just too much, and she didn't want to falter so she turned back to the tapestry again, glancing at the figures beneath the tree. The stories that humans made to understand the world always fascinated her, even when she was a human. And he had seen it all – all these stories, mythologies, rising and falling. When Klaus was a boy, these ladies had been as real to him as any Christian saint she had studied in confirmation classes. Perhaps more than anything else, this struck her. Whole worlds had risen and fallen in his lifetime.

How could he possibly want anything of her?

The question choked, for however much she wanted to deny she could not help being flattered by his attention. That such a creature might fancy her. It was never her. Except with him.

Instead, she fingered the strangely clad figures again. His hand moved above her own, touching the long, golden hair of the standing lady, "This," he said, taking her movement as a gesture to continue. His voice was husky, as though pleased that she wanted to hear more from him. "This is Urðr, and she is the eldest. She guards the past, but it is she who weilds the most power, for the past is always tied to the present and the future. The past is never really gone." His hand slid down, barely brushing her own to the well at the sisters' feet. "She tends the well that nourishs the world's ash."

When he spoke, she could almost believe that it was truth and not mythology. He spoke the names so well, in another accent strangely familiar, though she had never heard it before. Like he slipped into something else, a tongue more familiar than English. Or had been once.

"And she is?" Caroline asked, pointing to the middle sister, staring straight ahead, the one whose's eyes seemed to follow the gazer.

"Verðandi," he answered. Caroline nearly shivered at the gutteral rythmic sound of the name. "She is the kindest of the sisters," he continued, "for her only concern is the present. She winds the thread that Urðr spins, the life of every being."

His own hand lingered on the veiled figure to the right, gazing at some unknown point, and seeming to caress the shears in her hand. "Skuld is the most dangerous. She is the future, and it is she who cuts the thread of life."

"Well, that seems kind of random."

Klaus smiled again. "Not always. She judges the worthy. As a Valkyrie too, she flies over every battlefield to collect the souls of warriors to dwell in Valhalla."

"So that is where the powerful go when they die?"

He nodded in assent.

"Even monsters?"

"Even monsters," he replied softly, gazing at her profile, almost as though willing her to turn to him again. But she resisted the pull. For a while yet, she would. "She is the most beautiful as well."

"Why should that matter?"

"Why else would a soldier so willingly follow a woman into the afterlife?" he said in some amusement.

Caroline stared at the figure for a long moment. What an unusual and harsh name after the beauty of her sisters' names. And strangely familiar. She could almost hear another peculiarly accented tone, I am Skuld. She touched the figure's long veil, marvelling at the intricate markings like they spoke to her.

She started at Klaus's hand at her back, and snapped her eyes open, unaware that they had even closed. When she turned around, he was much further away than she expected and taking a long swallow of an amber-coloured liquid. Observing her with candid yet hooded eyes.

Damn him. She was supposed to be angry with him, not asking for art history lessons.

See? This is why she avoided him. She could not concentrate otherwise.

"You!" she exclaimed, entirely aware that she appeared psychotic in her sudden wrath. Well, to him sudden wrath.

He only raised his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"I am merely enjoying a quiet afternoon at home, love."

She scoffed, arms crossed and defensive. Klaus never merely did anything.

And just like that, he was guarded again. "Is there a reason for your visit today, Caroline?"

"You are ruining my life!"

He nearly rolled his eyes. "Let me remind you that you snuck into my house today. Apparently to stare at a tapestry."

"You've broken into my house plenty of times!"

"It's not breaking in when I have an invite, sweetheart."

"One invite, Klaus. One. Not a standing invitation."

He moved towards her again, pulling her in when she needed to keep pushing him away. She stood still and would not take a backward step. She would not be intimidated. She hated his eyes like that, solemn and cold, like the killer he was. "Are you, then, rescinding my invitation?" he asked.

"As if I had the power to do that."

He merely brushed past her and continued down the gallery.

Caroline huffed and started to follow. He could not walk away from her. She was supposed to walk away from him. That is how it worked between them. She came all this way to yell at him.

He swung open a heavy mahogany door, but at least he did not slam it shut behind him.

"We were having a nice moment there, love, and you just had to ruin it," he said, pouring himself another drink and sinking into a chair by the unlit fireplace.

She remained by the door, leaning against a table and needing the distance between them. She could not afford to lose her anger again. "Me? You ruin everything."

"Aren't you a bit dramatic, Caroline?"

"Are you serious? Have you met you?"

He only glared at her and rigidly took another drink.

"You don't leave romantic gifts and drawings for anyone to find, Klaus!"

"So that is your problem?"

"Yes that is my problem! Among many others. Tyler found it, you miscreant," she nearly shouted and then paled. That might have been something to keep to herself. She should have said her mom. She definitely should have said her mom. Damn.

"Tyler, you say?"

"I meant my mom. My mom found it."

"I don't think so, love." He rose again and moved towards her. She inched a bit further away. "That is … interesting."

She stared at him for a long moment, but she could not read his careful features. Ever since the night he saved her life, she had felt like she could read him. But then, it was because he showed so much to her, wasn't it? Whether he wanted to or not. Not like he could see inside her soul, into the things she most wanted.

"I burnt all the drawings I made of you," he said. Emotionless.

She swallowed and tried not to look at the knife which lay so close to his hand. She did not think that he would hurt her. But he was impulsive, sometimes. It was never good to have Klaus so near to weapons.

"Do you know why, Caroline?" he continued. Emotionless and so still. Not frantic. No gleeful, sadistic teasing. Or even vulnerability. Just still. And it frightened her more than anything else in her life. Good Lord, what had she unleashed upon Tyler?

"No?" she ventured.

"Because of you, ironically. Bekah would appreciate that. She loves irony." Caroline hated the brief smile at his sister's name.

"Because you betrayed me."

"I didn't," she began to protest.

"You did," he insisted with some finality. "Do you know what I normally do with people who betray me, Caroline?" Again emotionless.

"You kill them?"

Why wasn't she fleeing?

Where was her survival instinct?

"Yes, but not before I torture them. You see," his voice lowered, like a demon in a nightmare, "I like to see their will to live slowly fade away until they can't even beg to be killed."

This was true. It wasn't just a scare tactic. Caroline saw the joy flicker in his gaze – amber flashing over blue as the wolf within him delighted at the memories of torture and slaughter long past. How many people had looked into this face as they died?

She gulped and could not look away from dagger lying next to his hand. She wondered how it would feel twisting into her heart. Except he would need no weapon. She had not feared him since the night she took his blood, but she feared him now. She ventured a brief glance to see his features crumble just a little.

"But I can't. I can't with you, Caroline. I just can't turn it off." In a flash he picked up the dagger and threw it into the wall, embedded to its hilt.

She yelped.

"You have ruined my life, Caroline. A thousand years and hardly anything touched me. Anyone. My brother is dead. My mother is out there waiting to kill us all. And I can't turn it off!"

She really did not like the turn in this conversation. She could not think how it would end, and she wanted none of the influence that he hinted. She only wanted to be left alone, to as normal life as she could manage for a while yet.

But when she looked into his eyes, blue and just a bit watery, she could sense the vibration in every limb, the effort to keep himself together, to avoid any explosion of emotion. This was the Klaus she could almost see at times and the reason that she kept his drawing by her bed. But she could not say this or explain this in any sensible way. And he would not want her to. It was not pity, though he would take it as such. Only a sense that she understood, that she could understand him. And it flared within her so strongly that she thought her heart might beat again.

She almost took a step closer, despite the danger of his erratic temperament and that he blamed her for everything. At least they had that in common. The ruin of one another. If she had any sort of sense, she would run away. But she had not with Tyler and she could not now – and this was a greater danger. He could snap her in more ways than one.

Except, sometimes, she could still taste his blood and it seemed to temper any flare of common sense concerning him.

All the while, she had been moving towards him and she did not even know it, and was startled when her hand touched the arm hanging by his side. Just the fingertips, a small graze, but she had never touched him willingly first. But he did not move away, seemingly fascinated by the expressions flitting across her face. What were they, she wondered?

"Get out, Caroline," he said, firmly and quite suddenly.

"What?" she sputtered.

He closed his eyes. "Just leave," without his earlier rancour.

She stepped back as though his skin burned her and stared confusingly into his once again closed-off expression.

Too, too much, she thought. Too much and too close. She could not keep doing this.

At least he had the sense to dismiss her when she got too close.