AN: Please don't forget to let me know what you thought.

Part 7

Two thousand years ago

In the desert the night was dry and cool, and Caroline settled back in his arms for the relative warmth. His arms around her provided security from the unfamiliar powerful underneath her thighs. Not many had the chance to ride up on the horses of the Romans, and up high upon the beast she would have been terrified save for him. It was easy enough for him to extend the edges of his cloak to cover her, and Caroline in their desert solitude relished what he provided.

How easy it was to simply look up to the full moon clear in the skies now that the sandstorm had passed, to set aside in her mind that the calm surrounding them was in fact a sign that her sister had completed her crime against her nature and traded her very soul for Silas' immortality.

And she found herself weeping at her loss, because tonight she had lost her sister as certain as she would have lost Qetsiyah if the gods of the other worlds too her.

If Nikolaos noticed, he did not utter a word, and for that she was even more grateful.

Soon Caroline saw the few littered burning lights that bordered the camp of Nikolaos' army, and she caught her breath at the large expanse of land they occupied. More and more as she saw the flickering lights Caroline knew at once that he commanded a guard for Aurelian that was quadruple that of Palmyra's entire population, devastating in number even to a proud queen and her allies. Even in the approaching night the camp still was alive and busy, with several soldiers reconstructing pallisades that had fallen off in the storm, or digging a trench just outside. She did not miss the handful on sentry duty, ensuring the safety of the camp as they remained far enough from Palmyra to not so easily be revealed but close enough that one could stumble into them especially as the sandstorm could have turned travelers their way,

She turned around and looked up at him, watching his face as he gazed proudly at the spread. Caroline placed a hand over the arm that held her securely to him, just now finding an eerie peace and power at the knowledge of all that he commanded. Despite all this, how gently he treated her.

"There, Rena," he said, pointing to a large decorated tent pitted at the center, "is Aurelian. When morning comes, and you awake searching for me, that is where I shall be. But I suggest you remain in my tent until I return. By nightfall tomorrow I shall find you a place that is yours in the settlement."

And to her surprise, the words flew unfiltered from her lips, "You shall not have me remain with you?"

And uncontrolled or not, her question brought satisfaction to him. She could tell. He smiled, a pleased one. "Rena, our woman cannot remain in camp. But I will take care of you. Do you trust me?"

She wanted to tell him that she trusted him fully, with all of her heart and all of her soul. One could not look into those eyes and deny the extreme pull between them. Yet Caroline had survived long before he came, and would survive long after he left. Because that is what they were. They were strong and they took control, but rarely did they even last long enough to see through the rebuilding of all that they destroyed. "I do not need you to take care of me," she told him. "My sister and I fared well by ourselves years before your emperor knew Palmyra sat in this desert, within the grain route to Rome."

His eyebrows drew together at the response. And then, his thumb brushed below her cheekbone and caught a stray tear, one that had only half dried in the cool night air. "This is not what you want," he concluded.

"I do not have a choice," was her response.

Nikolaos set the horse down the path. They stopped in front of the large tent. It was another guard that reached up a hand to help her down, and Caroline hung back. Nikolaos jumped off the horse and helped her down. He gave curt instructions first to his men prior to going inside the tent. Caroline remained outside, looking to the guard who had proffered his assistance earlier and had been refused.

Within a second the flap on the tent parted and Nikolaos eyed her, "You are welcome any time, Rena, to enter or remain outside. I shall not take the choice from you."

Caroline flushed at his words. She stepped into the tent, and marveled at the unexpected furnishing in such a place. The Romans truly lived so differently, with their gold and silver on display even in temporary shelters put up on the road. She waited in the solitary privacy of Nikolaos' tent. He emerged from his sleeping quarters with a small leather purse, by the looks of which appeared heavy with coin. At once Caroline pulled away.

He took her wrist and pressed the purse into her palm, then closed her fingers over it. "I or any one of the guards could take you the settlement attached to the camp. There you can pay for a place for the night, for food or a change of clothes. If you prefer it is quite a walk from here, but I would not take that choice from you." She could tell, despite the intensity and sincerity, he was holding back some amusement. "Now had I a choice," he shared with you, "I would that you remained here with me where I can see to your safety myself."

Caroline thought it may have been pride, but she chose to explore the settlement outside the camp. Nikolaos assigned to her the same guard that she had refused, and who seemed to harbor no ill will against her. Together they found for her a place for the night for barely a coin.

It was late and dark, by the light of the fire outside, that Caroline sat and watched the settlement. Fascinated, she observed the life of the women that were tied to the life of the army. In Palmyra, and the house she served before her escape, it was limited what she saw. Tonight, barely hours away from home Caroline was astounded by how real and raw and different it was to truly live.

Perhaps she had heard a dozen children cry, probably a half dozen mothers she had observed carrying their children and rocking them to sleep. The soldiers came and went in the settlement as if it was part of their camp, oft buying food to complement what was served in their camp. There were many who entered tents and makeshift hourses as if it were theirs, and through conversations they heard many of the families were truly theirs, families built on campaigns, with the women following the camp around wherever they went to live close to their men, taking children from one city to the other to the other so that children grew up near their fathers.

And then there were those tents, where the women entertained soldiers plying their trade for a living, to lie there for a coin and some release, women who came out for fresh air and a drink and to sit across from Rena with a quiet regard.

It was the dead of the night when most of the children were abed, when the many occupants of the settlement had gone back to their cots, that Caroline found herself sitting alone with another woman in front of the fire.

"You have been sitting here for the entire night. I have not seen your face before," the woman declared as she sipped the hot water from her tin cup.

"Neither have I seen yours," Caroline said with light humor.

To which the woman did not respond with her own. Caroline gathered it was a challenge to laugh after three men. The woman shrugged. "He has not used you tonight. Do you need a coin?"

And Caroline's lips parted, surprised and amazed when the woman slipped two fingers underneath her cloak to fish for a coin. When the woman offered it to her, Caroline waved it away. "You are too kind. I have no need for it, please. Keep it."

"You have coin to eat? And to pay for a cot?" Caroline nodded. "And you did not need to spread yourself tonight?" The woman gave her a grin that revealed her missing teeth. "You got a good one." And the woman nodded to the mark on Caroline's shoulder, baring one of her own to the night wind. "Hard to find sponsors like that for our kind, no?"

Abruptly, Caroline lifted the fallen robe and hid her slave mark, excusing herself to the woman and rushing back towards the tent where she had rented space. Before going inside Caroline looked back towards the direction of Palmyra, wondering of her sister, of Silas.

Of the knowledge that she was here standing all alone, in the days before carnage and destruction.

While her sister threw caution in to the wind, unleashed her magick to give immortality to a man she loved, cursing her soul but claiming her happiness for as long as she lived.

And here she was alone in the night, surrounded by strangers, unwilling to take at least one leap of faith with someone who was a miracle for anyone such as she.

That was when she decided.

In the dark of the night, stumbling as she ran in the long chiton. It was a long way, but she remembered the path from when the guard brought her earlier that day. Caroline entered the camp, and in the darkness she was easily seen by the scouts. She ran towards the center building, gathered her dress in fistfuls in her hands and once she was at his doorstep she found herself surrounded by guards.

Belatedly Caroline realized how closely his tent was located to Aurelian, how much more important was Nikolaos the commander of the Praetorians.

The flap to his tent opened and Nikolaos peered outside, bare-chested, seemingly having just risen from his bed. "Rena?" He frowned, and she looked at him expectantly. Her hair had fallen in disarray, a bright burning waterfall cascading down her back, her chiton whipping around her ankles in the wind. He waved off his men and stepped back to allow her to come into his quarters.

She stood in front of him, her heart rapidly beating in her chest. He did not speak, in fact seemed to be waiting for her. "Here I am at your doorstep."

The statement was so plain, matter-of-fact, he stifled a smile. "So you are."

"Will you spare us, if I give you what you want tonight?"

Nikolaos sighed, then walked over to his bed and sat down. "Pray tell me, Rena, what is it that you think I want?"

Caroline blinked at him. "You want to lay with me."

He extended a hand towards her. Caroline looked at the hand, much like he offered it to her when she was caught in that sandstorm. Without hesitation now, emboldened, she walked towards and took his hand. She knelt down in front of him by the cot. This close to him, feeling the warmth of his body radiating from his skin, Caroline's breathing grew quicker. And then he drew her hand up to his lips, and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. "You are too young, love, if you believe that is what makes me come to you."

His eyes were sad. But when they met she knew it was only joy she brought to him. She lowered her gaze. "That is all men want." Involuntarily, Caroline reached up to ensure her dress was in place, hiding her mark.

He caught her hand, then bared her shoulder and brushed his thumb over the mark she was so ashamed of. "Because of this?"

And then he brought gentle lips over the mark, bringing tears to her eyes. "Because I am nothing." She was not different, or powerful like him, or magical like Qetsiyah.

His eyes narrowed briefly at her claim. "Then I am beneath the lowest beast, love, because I am enslaved by you." She caught her breath when he leaned down and pressed a kiss on her cheek. "We are not so different you and I," he told her. "Here you are offering yourself for your city. And I am sworn to the empire." He shook his head. "So no. You shall not equate youself to Palmyra. You are worth more than a thousand empires."

"You are no more of free man than I."

He stood from the bed, then once again offered her his hand. He helped her rise. "The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew I loved you," he told her. "Do you believe that?"

"No one has ever mistaken me for a woman of intellect," she said, self deprecating.

But he was serious, his eyes said it all. He tipped her chin up so she would look directly into his eyes. "Humility does not become you," he told her. And he shook his head. "If I were emperor, you would sit beside me and rule above them all."

Caroline swallowed, because for words not so presumptive, for assumption from those not as close to power as he was, people were stoned and left to die. "Nikolaos-"

"Fear not, love," he assured her. "I am never letting go."

Present day

He was a storm, rolling thunder and lightning as he crashed into the house.

"Caroline, where the hell are you?" he demanded from the vacant air around him. "Caroline!"

Klaus called out her name and his voice rang out and echoed, and if he was truly all that he always thought he could be, his voice would have been enough to shock her back into this existence.

But he was not, and all that he got from the effort was his wide-eyed sister running towards him screaming at him to stop.

But he had pleaded in private far too long. In private she had come, and now she was gone again. And he remembered his pleas, telling her she should not be around, but the emptiness was driving him crazy more than his hallucinations or her actually reaching out to him as a ghost.

"I don't want any of it!" he yelled. "Come back!"

He upended the table and sent the top glass cover crashing into the floor and shattering into a million pieces. And then his sister was on him, pushing him back against the wall, holding an ash-tipped dagger.

"That won't even kill me," he said.

"It will hurt."

"Should've looked for the stake, Bekah." And then he nodded at her, "Go ahead then, sister. At least let's have a bit of a respite from this."

Rebekah lowered the weapon. "Nik, you are in truly pain," she said in realization.

"Dagger me!" he demanded.

Rebekah tested the dagger, rolled it in her fist. She weighed the dagger and looked up thoughtfully at her brother. "For the first time in a thousand years I've despised you, you are in pain."

Klaus' nostrils flared as he came to her same realization. "Do it, Bekah. Dagger me."

"And spare you from finally being as base as a human, Niklaus?"

Klaus screamed in his rage and stormed away from Rebekah. She sighed. When Elijah called her there he promised to show her something about Niklaus that she had never seen before, and she had gleefully looked forward at least to seeing her brother suffer, given how much he had rdiculed her for her whimsical fantasies of love and humanity.

But this was just pathetic.

Rebekah walked over to the mantle and placed the dagger into the box, then dropped it into her box to hide. She still did not trust Nik with anything that could hurt her. She called the witch in Mystic Falls again, who answered on the first ring.

"Bored much, Bonnie?"

"Your brother brought me here, and he's kept me a prisoner for all intents and purposes," Bonnie retorted. "Forgive me if I'm eager to hear another person's voice."

"What?" Rebekah scoffed. "Just because he threatened to kill a resident for every minute you're gone?" Rebekah glanced towards the stairs where her brother had disappeared to. Her voice dropped. "You cannot leave until you fix what mess you've done, Bonnie."

Bonnie shook her head. "She's my best friend. Don't you think I've tried?"

"Well try harder!"

"She's not coming back!" Bonnie returned. "She isn't here anymore."

Rebekah's eyes closed. "What do you mean?" she asked softly. Even as she listened, she knew she needed help dealing with Nik. She was never going to be able to handle him herself once he found out.

"She's gone. Right after the accident, I could feel her presence. Even when your brother hung around in that room, I could feel her close by. I don't know what's happened, but she's gone."

Rebekah blinked, suddenly sad about the news. It was ridiculous. She loathed Caroline Forbes. Stupid tear ducts were faulty with age. "Has her body turned to ash, or burned?"

She cursed super hearing, really, because the moment the question dropped Nik was in front of her.

"No."

Rebekah licked her lips. "Then there's hope. We just have to pick up the pace." Rebekah hung up the phone. "The witch says she cannot feel Caroline anymore. It's beyond her now, Nik. It's up to us to find help here." Rebekah turned back to her phone. "I'm calling Elijah."

She looked up at her brother, and found him gone.

Present Day

She really should not have tears. She was a ghost, for heaven's sake. She could not touch a glass of water let alone drink it. She was going to end up dehydrated and really, how did ghosts rehydrate? Caroline could imagine ridiculous pictures of a saline drip just repeatedly dropping onto the floor.

But despite her ipressive logic, still there were tears. Not as much as there used to be of course, but there were tears nonetheless.

Elijah had made it clear. Klaus was going to be a father. And he could not even be bothered to tell her. He was going to have a family, one that did not include her.

Everything they had, was because he found her to fill the solitude, lightness to the dark.

She closed her eyes. What she remembered, as far as she could, of her old life was turning out to be much better than this one. Except of course that one thing she could not really escape from – Qetsiyah killed her.

She wiped her tears and turned around, and saw her standing there again in her cloak. Caroline stood her ground. She was not going to run away again. What else would Qetsiyah be able to do? She had already gotten the two of them caught in this odd place in between the Other Side and her world.

"I hope you know that everything I did was for you, sister."

Caroline scoffed in disbelief. "He told me that."

"I am your sister, no matter what has come to pass. One day you will remember, that what I have done I have done for you, never against." And really, a lot of what she remembered was similar to what she claimed now. She was so lonely, knowing she had lost Klaus and their connection. Qetsiyah reached up and pushed her hood back, and Caroline smiled involuntarily at the sight of her face. She was as lovely as she remembered, her sister and savior. "One day, you'll remember."

"Show me now," Caroline demanded.

It was then that Qetsiyah walked forward and was so close to her, and despite her earlier fear of her for her own admission of her death, suddenly she was not so afraid to have her so close. Maybe it was because she still thought of her other self so separately from herself, or maybe it was that she looked so much like Bonnie that Caroline found it ridiculous that she would harm her.

Or maybe because she needed her.

"Show me."

Qetsiyah placed a hand on her cheek, and asked her, "What good do you hope it will do, if I show you?"

"It will help me forget."

"Forget today, your present life?"

Caroline closed her eyes, and her tears fell like rain. "Let me remember some joy and take away this pain, sister," she pleaded, whisper-soft, hoping against all hope that she would lend a hand if only as blood payment. "And then wake me up. Once I forget, wake me up."

Qetsiyah nodded. "I never meant to keep you long. But tell me, sister, before we begin—do you forgive me, Caroline, for taking your life?"

And she would soon find out exactly how, and why.

Either way, she was searching Bonnie's eyes, her face, her soul. And Caroline wrapped her arms around Qetsiyah. "Sisters always. Whatever you've done, I forgive you. Now show me, and take today away."

"I cannot take away what's real."

"Can you take away the pain?"

Qetsiyah smiled. "You know how to take the pain away yourself." Caroline felt the feathersoft kiss on her cheek. "I love you, sister. Have a restful trip, and then rise."

tbc