The sky was soft and the palest silver. Almost tipped into yellow. They were still seated in the rather uncomfortable chairs. She had been dozing, she recognized that after rousing herself to a gentle wakefulness, wiping at her mouth, and glancing over at him. He was relaxed and lounging, feet up on the low cement wall, head on the chair back, face turned, watching her out of slitted eyelids. She startled slightly, then scowled at him.

"What, love?"

"Don't watch me when I'm sleeping. That's creepy."

"Creepy?"

She saw that she had injured him again, one of the hundreds of small arrows she continued to strike him with. She frowned.

"Those who continue to draw the bow-" He said this haltingly, a sad resignation in his voice, standing.

She could see disappointment in the shape of his shoulders. He stretched tall on the balls of his feet.

"What?" She rubbed briskly at her arms then began to massage deeply into the palms of her hands.

"Don't 'what' me, sweetheart. Time to get you home."

"I can get myself home, thank you very much."

He nodded, watching her, then suddenly and with no warning signs, reached for the chair he had been sitting on, lifting it in one fluid movement and flinging it over the rooftop. It hit the sidewalk below, one leg snapping clean off, and skidded across the cement, ricocheting between two city planter boxes and sliding up against the edge of the donut shop. The noise a deafening punctuation in the early morning silence.

"Wow. Mature."

"Stop. Please." He walked away from her, hands pressing into the small of his back, staccato strides to the far end of the rooftop. For a long, disgruntled moment she assumed he would just keep going, over the edge, down onto the street, and disappear into the strange new morning. But instead, she watched him stop, his hands coming up to brace the back of his neck, pulling his head down and the posture was so poignant that she moved quickly to his side.

"Klaus."

His lips were pressed tightly together, the beautiful arch of them flattened and white along the sharp edges.

"I don't know why I do that." She was contrite without realizing it.

Silence and now his eyes were closed, one shoulder turned slightly away from her. The body protecting the vulnerable side of itself.

"I don't hate you."

A small nod.

"This," she indicated the rooftop, knowing he wasn't watching, her fingertips came to settle between her breasts, tapping at the hard part of her body. "This meant a lot. I needed this. And I know I'm behaving terribly."

"Let's go." He turned and she followed.

Small human steps trudging down the stairs. He was a body-length in front of her and for five floors she was able to study him until finally, nearly to the street level, she had memorized the cadence of his descent, the way his shoulders tensed then relaxed, the swing of his arms, from the elbows down to the lengths of each of his fingers, curled back inside his loose fists, the gentle connection of the soles of his boots with the cement treads, the reach for the metal handrail but the ghosting of actually grasping it, a memory more than a need. The purposeful tilt of his head, holding his face away from her, she knew he knew she was watching him. Watching the control of his body in space, the inhabitation of his skin and bones. At the bottom, they walked through the front doors after he broke the metal jambing, and as he held the door open for her and she ducked under his arm, her stomach twisted into a knot so fierce that hunger became every emotion coursing through her body. She was ravenous.

He had stopped and finally turned towards her, his face open and imploring. "I want to say something. I need to say this."

"No," she answered, stepping up close to him, fingers on his mouth, pressing his lips closed.

He stilled under her touch, she could feel the power in his body, could feel the tension in his face, the teeth behind his lips, something trembled out of him towards her. It sparked into her fingers, down her arm, across the span of her ribs and into her heart. With clarity so instantaneous that she had to close her eyes to the visualization, she recognized that she was the step-leader arcing down from the storm cloud and he the streamer leaping out of the earth to meet her, welcome her to his embrace, open a path in which lightning could crack and explode and sear the air between them. It was not he striking her, it was she crackling and flashing and searching for a way to ignite. He was the charge wanting to ground her with heat.

She was aware of him. Now. In an emotive physicality that was new. The suck-breath moment culminating in a delicious vertigo. Before, it had been visceral and cerebral. Churning guts and a closed mind.

He sensed the sea change in her. His blood was hot, his bones bending towards her bones. His lips on fire, he could feel the memory imprint of every single one of her fingertips on his mouth. His teeth ached.

They had stood, pressed very nearly together, for a long moment in which everything fell away, they molted their old skins, on the sidewalk. The morning sun warming the new day with an intangible sense of hope. As though of a single volition, they began walking again, shoulder to shoulder, arms brushing, fingers reaching across. The space between them crackled.

"Where are we going?" she asked softly.

"Wherever our feet take us, love."

"That's very zen of you."

He laughed and she smiled.

"Damon turned Elena's humanity off."

He nodded, shoved his far hand deep into the front pocket of his jeans. "Not a popular opinion, but I do think Damon has her very best interests at heart."

"I tried phoning Tyler."

"Did you?"

"He never answered. Didn't call me back."

"He's gone, Caroline."

"I know."

"Lost love is quite different than lost life."

"Yeah? What kind of difference is it exactly?"

"Lost love hardens you, lost lives soften you."

"Until you disintegrate."

"That's good," he paused. "Yes, I think so."

She reached for his hand and his heart stammered.

"Tyler's been gone less than a week." His voice was cautious.

"It's not the first time." She squeezed his fingers, shook her hand almost free, then reached out for just two of his fingers and held on tightly.

He stopped, turning to face her. They were in the woods, a shortcut back to suburbia and the house she lived in. He reached out with his empty hand and she filled it.

"Caroline. It's been a long, long time for me."

She almost laughed, the sound was forced and uncertain. "I don't know what that means. A few days? Weeks? A month maybe?"

"Centuries."

"What are you saying?" She looked at him, he held her gaze. "Since you? Really?"

"You're so surprised?"

She bit her upper lip, worried at it between her sharp, white teeth. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm not sure. To warn you?"

"They say it's like riding a bicycle."

"That's a bit crass. And not exactly what I'm talking about." He stepped closer to her, could hear her hold her breath. "I never learnt to ride a bicycle."

"Klaus…."

"Be sure. Just be sure."

She nodded, her gaze locked to his. She leant into his body and let his hands go, her arms around his waist, pulling their two trembling forms together. He opened himself to her, his embrace a slow and gradual locking. Their heads bent towards one another, foreheads touching. He closed his eyes and marveled at the starscape of her universe spreading across the black sky of his eyelids. She closed her eyes and fell into the mottled grey space shaped exactly like his body.