Imagine my great surprise at finding a recently showered man in my lady's apartment. I must confess that, given I had had hybrid stationed on her doorstep for days, I had rather hoped to be better informed of her goings on.

Caroline's pale face was not reassuring. Then her expression tightened. "What are you doing here? We agreed to a week."

"And just why was that?" I asked with a tightening of my jaw. She came forward—brave of her—and skirted around me quickly. I watched with gradually widening eyes as she placed herself next to the human, obviously shielding him from my wrath.

With a hand on his very bare chest, I might add. The unconscious, familiar gesture coupled with her defiant stare did not improve my rapidly deteriorating mood.

"You know why," she said flatly.

"Yes, I'm beginning to see."

Caroline snorted. "Rein in your imagination, Klaus. This is Colby. My roommate." She crowded just a bit closer to the redheaded man, ready to defend him at a moment's notice.

Thus her introduction's soothing affect was only minimal at best. "My my," I murmured, running my eyes down his...rather unspectacular frame, "aren't we progressive?"

To his credit, the human met my regard without flinching. "You were right about his being intense. One might even call it bellicose."

I cocked my head. "Would one?"

"You walked into an apartment that wasn't yours and practically accuse Terra of having a man sleep over. Considering you just showed up what, three, four days ago, you don't exactly have the right to get possessive, do you?" He put his hand over 'Terra's' and watched my reaction. "Bellicose," he repeated decisively.

This human and I were not going to get on. "A twenty-something with a vocabulary. How droll." I dismissed him with a glance at Caroline. "I believe you know your choices, love. Why don't you see to it?"

Her chin shot up. "How about not? Colby is important to me. And you promised."

He looked at her sharply. "What did he promise? Terra, why are you hanging out with this guy? He doesn't respect boundaries, what makes you think he's going to respect you?"

I could see from Caroline's flickering eyes that his words hit far to close to home. "Mind your business, my man," I growled. "The door was open. I came in to make certain she wasn't hurt."

"Oh? And the He-man display?"

"I asked her to explain—hardly a show of violence." Though that could be negotiated. I promised not to kill. Throw around like a pinata, however, was still on the table.

"Terra, look, I know it's not my right to interfere-"

I cut in, bristling, "It's not."

"But you and I both know the signs."

"The signs of what, you meddlesome-"

"BOYS!" Caroline snapped. "Bring it down a notch!"

She pointed at me. "I told you one week. You don't get to show up here and throw your weight around, with or without that epic apology I mentioned. Of which you are without." She turned to the roommate, her tone noticeably softer. "Colby, I know what you're thinking, and what I'm about to say isn't going to help, but it isn't what it looks like. Klaus has a problem with boundaries, but he has no intention of hurting me."

"Just bully you," he insisted. "Terra, this is how it starts."

My head came up.

She shot a glance my way. She opened her mouth, then closed it. There was no defense against the accusation.

A peculiar pain centered itself over my heart, stabbing deep.

There was a flicker of something in her expression. Weariness, perhaps. Certainly sadness. "I don't want to do this," she said with a swallow.

For a moment—an endless, impossible moment—I thought she was referring to our relationship.

No.

A growl began in my chest when she slipped her hands over his jaw, bringing his gaze to hers. "Colby."

The growl cut itself off, and I watched warily.

"The last few minutes didn't happen. Klaus knocked before he came in. He was helping you put up groceries. You decided you like him for now, but you're going to reserve judgment the way you would with any of my boyfriends." She cut off the link by blinking, then leveled a look at me that revealed in no uncertain terms her feelings on the matter. She cleared her throat. "So, Colby's a big fan of literature. Who knows, you might find something in common."

He blinked in confusion. "Yeah, maybe."

My voice was hoarse and quiet. "It is not unlikely," I allowed.

"Man, is it chilly in here or what? I'm going to run and get some clothes on. Be right back." He left the kitchen, still rather dazed, but that would wear off soon enough.

The atmosphere between Caroline and myself, however, was another matter.

She refused to look at me, hugging herself as she gazed at the floor. "You should go."

Regret quickly followed the relief I had briefly experienced. Faced with the possibility of her refusal, age old instincts had surged forth, only to be quashed as quickly as they had kindled. "Caroline-"

"Don't pretend you're sorry. We both know you're not."

"I am." In three steps I was before her. I refused to allow distance of any kind separate her from me again. She backed away when I would have cupped her waist, but trapped herself against the counter instead. I saw my chance and I took it, keeping her there despite her avoidance of my touch. "I'm aware that you've made a sacrifice for me."

She laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, because you couldn't tamp it down, could you?" She sniffed. Her beautiful eyes were wet and resentful. "I had a speech all planned out. It didn't have to be like this. I didn't have to mess with his mind. He took me in and gave me a home and he's my friend, Klaus, but he thought he was protecting me and now this."

"I came here today to make peace." It was important that she knew that.

"You've got a really good way of showing it."

She was not in the state of mind to listen. My window had closed and the curtains were drawn. I cursed my own sense of timing. I thought I had planned this so carefully, yet she still managed to turn everything upside down. I could not deny it was my own temper that had engineered the downfall, however. Too quick to react. I always was in Caroline's case. "You ruin my self control," I confessed to her in a guttural voice.

I cupped her face despite her protest and forced her to look at me. Her visage was as well known to me as my own, yet it had the power to bring me to my knees if she wanted. "I readily acknowledge that I am a bully. I forced your hand. But I cannot regret it, Caroline. I want you. I will be good to you. I swear that."

When I kissed her, she did not respond. No matter. This girl was mine, by fair means or foul, and I would coax her to want me again.

It was a light, unobtrusive kiss, a melding of her soft lips to mine, and I memorized their shape when I closed my eyes. I had already exposed the raw wound of my jealousy. I was determined to impart my ability to be kind and gentle as well.

She did not push me away. The heat and sparks between us was real, despite her cold reception of my attentions. It was only her stubborn nature that kept her from embracing me in return. I was convinced of that. Two years ago she had softened towards me, but she never allowed herself to feel. When she kissed me in her kitchen, she proved her willingness to be with me. When I kissed her in her bedroom, I accepted all that she was.

Here, now, I was communicating my resolve.

Perhaps even my love.

I did love Caroline Forbes, so much that it was a sickness in my heart that threatened to overtake it at the merest mention of separation. It was obsession, possession, capable of pushing me towards depths I had never explored. It wasn't the pure, light, euphoric thing that was the modern ideal. It was a powerful, drugging pull that would not release me no matter how I struggled against it.

I knew I would do what it took to pull her into the darkness with me, but I wanted to keep Caroline's light protected, surrounded in an impenetrable bubble. It was what made her Caroline.

I withdrew from her lips with a breath. "You could love me," I told her, "if you would only let yourself."

There was a sound around the corner, and then the ginger roommate returned. Fully clothed. "Whoa, am I interrupting something?"

I let Caroline turn her face away to hide her confusion, using her momentum to tuck her head against my shoulder. We were the picture of a cuddly couple. I held her there with a hand on her hip and an arm around her back. "Colby,"I greeted. "Would you care to join us at the aquarium this evening? There's room enough in the car for one more."

I felt her minutest reaction, but she didn't balk.

He glanced from me to Caroline, uncertainty written across his expression. "The aquarium? Uh, no, thanks. I've got a paper due the day after tomorrow and I haven't even started."

"Too bad. Another time. We'll be heading out to dinner after. If you change your mind, just call and I'll send the car back."

His brows twitched at the mention of the car, but he manfully held back his surprise. "Sure, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks again for the invite."

I backed away, taking Caroline's hand in mine. "No trouble, mate. Caroline speaks highly of you."

She managed a smile—her Miss Mystic Falls smile, to be exact—that gave no hint to anything other than happiness, bidding her roommate a cheery goodbye as we left.

She pulled the door closed behind her, pausing for the barest of seconds, then followed my lead wordlessly down the stairs and into the waiting car.

Not a word passed between us during the ride, despite our firmly intertwined fingers. It was very unlike the mood of our last date. I readily accepted my fault in that. The silence, however, continued far beyond paying for admission and strolling through the halls. She was not reticent to speak to me—she answered remarks and smiled at the antics of the fish—but it was clear to me that Caroline was not mentally present. She was far, far elsewhere. The blue loneliness of the tanks only heightened the feeling, until finally I could not stand anymore.

"Come on," I barked. I pulled her out of the aquarium halfway through the displays, briskly tugging her along.

"Where are we going?" She sounded utterly surprised, more lively than she'd been in over an hour.

"Away," I replied, in no mood to explain further. A quick ring and our ride was waiting. I deposited Caroline in her customary seat and slid in after her. "Take us to the museum."

Robby nodded and pulled out without another word.

I felt Caroline's curious gaze. "What museum?"

I did not trust myself to answer just then, and cast her a look clearly communicating so. She settled back in the seat, clearly uneasy.

It took mere minutes. We exited the car without much ado, and I barely glanced at Caroline when we walked into to the marble white interior of a nondescript building. Very little indicated the purpose of the place, with the one exception of a banner hanging on the back wall. It advertised some of the newer pieces in a Baroque exhibit.

Caroline stood in the lobby, clearly unsure what we were doing there. To the left were stairs that led to a cafe. A wall of windows behind us gave the place a certain glow, and just beyond the hep and admissions desk was a hallway that went right and left.

Visitors had a choice.

Everyone had a choice, I corrected myself, giving into a rare moment of philosophy. I quickly paid the entry fee and guided Caroline forward with a hand on the small of her back. I immediately went left.

"What's all this?" Her voice naturally lowered in the starkness of the atmosphere. We approached the double glass doors at a brisk speed.

I placed my hand on the handle. "Ancient history."

I opened the door.

The hush that fell over us was immediate, the same as one might feel upon entering a cathedral. Artifacts have that affect on people; they are proof that time marches on, and when confronted with such evidence, people are thus reminded of their mortality.

I, of course, viewed it through a somewhat different lens.

The museum originally began as one building back in the 1880s, according to my research. When the collection grew beyond the physical confines of the grounds, the board purchased the building next door. Then another, then another, connecting each with a series of glass hallways and manicured courtyards. What was billed as one museum was therefore actually a series of structures. I had visited before, in a maudlin moment, because the museum had a reputation for being quite diverse in nature. Simply put, it had an all encompassing collection. One part of the museum was dedicated to American history. The other...

Well, two guesses about that.

The first room was a sort of appetizer of things to come. Dimly lit to preserve the sparse number of items within, the walls were covered with reproductions of church mosaics and tapestry scenes. Before us stood a door, no longer connected to any wall but yet managing to seem as if it could open to another dimension. Caroline approached it with caution, staring at the repetitive reliefs hammered into the iron leafing. It was a work of functional art, and it was only the beginning.

Next to it, under a thick case of glass, hung a medieval clock suspended from a hook. Imagine a grandfather clock whose wood has faded away, leaving a steel system of pulleys and hands. I could hear the phantom ticking as clear as day. It was all too easy to close my eyes and hear the sounds, smell the smells of the Middle Ages. A time of fear and wonderment, short life and the beginnings of a scientific understanding that trembled in its infancy.

To our right stood an arched portal, bits of stone columns attached the walls, the missing pieces drawn to complete them. We could see the vague shadows of people moving beyond, their hushed whispers and yellowish lighting adding an almost unearthly feel to the place.

"Why are we here, Klaus?"

I lifted my chin. "I took something from you detailing your past. Unfortunately all of my relics are scattered in other places, so this will have to do as a replacement. Ask me anything about my past and I'll tell you."

She looked from the door to me, then the portal. "So we're doing a Q&A session, is that it?"

I did not detect a softening in her. She had not, however, rejected the proposal out of hand. "Nearly everything you will see beyond that archway is a piece of what I've experienced. One thousand years of my past will lay at your feet. All you have to do is find the courage to look."

She didn't appear to want to take the bait, casting a doubtful glance about without really seeing her surroundings. Then she bit her lip and pierced me with her eyes. "Anything."

"Anything," I affirmed.

She took a deep breath, releasing almost a sigh. Her gaze focused on the portal as if she were eying the door to the Underworld. I could very nearly see her gather the moxie I so admired and wrap it around herself. Her shoulders straightened. Her chin lifted.

She walked forward, through the gate, the way Persephone might have done so thousands of years before.

I smiled at her back. Queen of the Shades indeed.

xxxxx

I've been in a couple of museums. I've even been in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History once.

There was no comparison to what I saw here.

First of all, it was quiet. Graveyard quiet, a kind of stillness that gives you warm shivers on the back of your neck. There was a sense of presence, like the room had a lot more people in it than it did. Did I believe in ghosts before becoming a vampire? I'm not sure.

Standing in a room like this made me feel small. A teeny, tiny piece in a fabric so big no one would ever be able to see it from end to end.

And Klaus had lived a thousand years of it. I don't think it ever really registered what that meant before that moment. I walked gingerly up to the first case, just a few feet in the room, and peered in. I don't know what I was expecting to see. It was a lot like looking into a deep, deep pool. You want to see what's at the bottom, but you're afraid of falling in.

The objects inside were innocent enough. They were small gold buttons with a kind of rough pin backing. According to the plaque they were brooches used to hold capes or shawls together. I bent my head a little more. "630 AD."

"A bit before my time," Klaus said softly as he sidled up beside me. I looked at him; he had his hands behind his back. He was wearing his usual jeans and T-shirt, with a black jacket and who knew how many necklaces around his neck. He didn't look anything less than modern. He didn't fit. Was I thinking he'd suddenly turn into an ax-wielding barbarian?

Something felt very wrong. With the room or with Klaus, I couldn't be sure.

I walked along the case to the end. Inside were pieces of papyrus from Egypt that had migrated to Europe; an early sign of how extensive the trading system was. When I cleared the case I could walk into the greater part of the room. Each side was lined with cases, with a few dotting the middle. It only took a few minutes to figure out the system. We were currently in the Bronze Age. The majority of that consisted of jewelry and pottery. Most of it was taken from graves.

I can't describe what reading that made me feel. "Grave of unknown woman, necklace, earrings, hair comb, circa 650 AD." I love jewelry. I have bangles and earrings and a drawer full of rings. Did I want to buried with it all? No. But I wasn't going to be buried, was I?

My mother was. Well, she might go for cremation, but it was generally assumed she would be buried like the rest of our family and their families before them. I stood there, staring at the beads strung on a shaped wire to restore the shape, and it hit me. Chances were good I would be alive in one hundred years. Maybe even four hundred. Would someone dig up my mother and only find her jewelry in the ground.

I started to shake. I tried to bite my lip and hug myself to keep it in, but it got worse. A deep, dark, terrible fear started to assail me. A kind of panic I jut couldn't shake. I was losing it right there in the museum.

Suddenly a hand reached out and tangled with mine, gripping it tight. "Caroline." He stepped into my vision, his face filling up everything. "Breathe."

I inhaled automatically.

"Good." He didn't smile. He sounded as stern and no nonsense as a drill instructor. "Now exhale."

I did it.

"Again."

I was already beginning to feel more grounded. He was right there, the most unlikely anchor I could have imagined, and yet he made sense. He'd lived through this. Literally. He was proof I could survive.

My gaze flickered to the attendant standing just a little bit away from us; he was eying us like a hawk, probably ready to jump into action if I had a panic attack or something. Did that happen a lot?

That was funny for some reason.

"Good girl. You're doing well."

I nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. I don't know what came over me." That was a lie and he knew it.

He lowered his voice in deference to our audience. "Time means something different to us, Caroline. Remember that. Come," he commanded, using our hands to lead me away. We advanced a few yards. "This is what I wanted you to see."

It was a shield. Well, what was left of it. The wood rotted away a long time ago. It really was amazing how the museum put things together to really show the depth and breadth of the weaponry. Without the shield, they took the cap—a pointy piece of metal that was in the center of the shield—and constructed a scale clear plastic disc to represent the missing wood.

I guess they found more than that, because they took it a step forward. There was a two-d flat plastic representation of a horse. The shield sat where a rider would have held it. There were actual pieces of a bridle in the horse's mouth. There was a spear tip and a plastic shaft strapped to the side. At the bottom, in the stirrups, were crude versions of spurs.

At the top, adorning an invisible head, was a helmet. It had a slightly crooked nose guard and holes for the ears. There were lion-like animals, eagles, and god knew what else etched into the sides.

It was huge, and the whole setup was impressive. You could almost hear a horse whinny.

"The man who wore this was rich."

"How do you know?" I asked softly.

"No one but the richest of men could have afforded all this weaponry and a horse. It would have cost him the equivalent of a mansion in the nicest of suburbs."

I cocked a brow. "You're kidding me."

"Wealth was very literal, Caroline. The phrase worldly goods is no exaggeration. Everything was hard currency. If you did not have gold, silver, or jewels in your hand or land in your name, you had nothing. You only had clothes because you sewed them, and you only had a home because you cut it out of nature yourself." He was studying the display intently. "From there you either earned or stole what you could to advance."

I considered that. Talking to Klaus was calming. It gave me something to focus on. "Which method did you use?"

He looked down at me, a half smile gracing his lips. "A little bit of both, darling."

"I'm guessing high yield interest accounts weren't around at the time."

"High interest, yes. Moneylenders have been around for almost as long as the concept of money. Accounts...not quite. But unlike this man, I did not have my worldly goods buried with me. Wealth simply accumulates over time. New things become old, value rises, and the rest is history."

"Did you ever wear any of this sort of stuff?"

"Yes."

I pursed my lips. "Do you still have any of it?"

"From this era?" He seemed to have to think about it. "I'm afraid not. Unfortunately there was a time or two where we had to dash off unexpectedly, leaving most everything behind. No; I'm wrong. I think I have a sword or a dagger still." His brow furrowed. "I'll have to check," he said at last.

That was just beyond weird. He couldn't remember if he had a knife from 4 BC or whenever, when there were about a million people who would kill to have one.

Another sign of how old he was.

From there we wandered to other sections. I really, really did not like the religious collection. It smelled like dust and death. I mean, The Mummy Returns type death. The gargoyles were bad, but the tapestries were horrible. It was dark in that room, for the colors and everything, but the images were not the serene, beautiful images I was expecting. Nope. It was blood and guts and gore, depicted in vivid form. Klaus explained that God was not an abstract being in those days. He was a very big, very vengeful presence with a very hard sense of justice. If you did wrong, He punished you. The Devil was just as real. Things like crops failing were a sign of good versus evil, and just like God has His angels to be messengers, Lucifer had his witches and demons.

I was both horrified and fascinated. It was very confusing. I couldn't imagine living in a time when everything was so hardcore. "How did you survive?" I asked at one point. "If people were so quick to blame the Devil and witches, surely vampires weren't too far down on the list."

"A combination of wit, deception, and a great deal of compulsion," Klaus answered. "Although there were times when bloodshed was unavoidable."

I'll bet, I wanted to say. But I didn't. I had a lot of food for thought to chew over.

It got better after that. We moved on to the Middle Ages. The armory was the best. They had suits of every imaginable shape and size, including one for a child. The swords were humongous—longer than me!-and they had a life sized mannequin horse and rider all decked out in jousting outfits. Complete with lance.

I gaped.

I saw one of the first examples of a pistol, which doubled as a mace since it only had one shot. I saw toys, plates, giant ovens, everything, all the way up to the 1700s. By then my distress from Colby was lessening. In a way I still blamed Klaus for forcing me to compel my friend. If he'd done as I asked, I wouldn't have had to mess with Colby's head. But it was my decision in the end; it was just easier to erase the memories than deal with the constant hostility poor Colby would have directed at someone he thought was hurting me. It was too risky. For his own safety, the memories had to go.

I still felt like a jerk, but somehow not too bad of one.

We were on the top level, and rounded a corner where all the lights were off. For a moment I thought we'd ended up in a wrong corner, but then we must have triggered a motion sensor or something. Light flickered and glowed, revealing a U-shaped life sized display of clothes.

More than a dozen mannequins stood without heads, arms, or hands, filling out frocks and jackets with disturbing detail. It was both cool and creepy. Especially the children's outfits.

I looked at the bank straight ahead, where the 'men' stood. Pants only came down to the knees, then socks and high buckled shoes. Heavy jackets, vests, and a piece of cloth wrapped around the neck. "Did you wear that?"

"'Fraid so. That cloth there-" he indicated his neck with a sweep of his finger "-could be damnably itchy if not handled properly."

"Wild."

"I have a painting in one of my residences if you'd care to see."

I turned. "You're pulling my leg."

He chuckled. "Would I jest about my artwork? There are copies of Rebecca and Kol as well, from multiple eras. Elijah was always very stylish. He made for good caricature."

"What, you drew him with a big nose or something?"

His smile was wicked. "Among other things."

"I don't think I want to know." I went over and sat on the bench. We were kind of hidden away in this area, sort of like our secret hideout. The clothing wasn't so scary now that I had the image of Elijah clomping around in a set of high heels. I would bet he pulled it off, though.

Klaus sat next to me, turned in the other direction so we could, in a way, be face to face. "All of this must seem like a giant history lesson to you."

"I never had a history lesson quite like this in school," I pointed out with a raised brow.

He smiled a little. "Yes, well, none of it is very useful, is it, if one does not put it in context." He glanced up through his lashes at me. "You haven't posed one personal question to me, Caroline. Nothing that could be construed as much beyond polite conversation, at any rate." He searched my face. "Ask me. Anything at all. I owe you answers and in this case, I feel honor bound to settle the debt."

I angled to get a better look at him. He wanted personal? Fine. I could do that. "In your entire, very long life, have you really never been in a relationship with a woman?"

He raised his chin. "Once or twice," he admitted. "Centuries ago now. Neither one of them terribly memorable."

"Are we talking about real relationships, or some kind of secret vampire thing I don't want to know about?"

He sent me a look. "Caroline. Relationships. It was still quite early on, when I had yet to come to grips with what eternity meant. My interest—which was never fully engaged to begin with—withered away not long after commencement." We locked eyes. "I never loved them. I knew that even from the beginning."

"But I'm different." There was no point in hiding from it.

He didn't flinch. "Yes. You are."

"What makes me different, Klaus? What rates this kind of...devotion?"

He was silent. It was like he was memorizing my face. Now that I had a better grip on how many faces he'd seen in his lifetime, how many things had changed, I felt the weight of his feelings more than ever. For a few minutes he didn't seem inclined to answer, but then at last he said, "I don't know. I only know that you are you, and this is what I feel."

It was the closest he had ever come to saying I love you out loud. I thought he'd dodge it totally. I was wrong. Something had changed that afternoon. I didn't know what. He was handy and kissy and other stuff before, but now it was more emotional. He was letting himself be...dare I say it? Vulnerable?

The moment was getting intense. I wanted to turn away, break the tension. I couldn't.

He leaned in. "I made a mistake today. Despite what one may think, I do learn from mistakes. I also take care never to repeat them."

"You'll make new ones." There was no accusation. It was just a statement of fact. I wasn't excluding myself from it either.

His gaze warmed. "I am given to understand that relationships are a work in progress."

I couldn't help but smile at that. "Don't be cute, Klaus. I still haven't gotten that epic apology."

His brows shot up. "What, this didn't count? I'm taking you through a journey of time and space. Name one other person who has experienced the same." He looked at me expectantly, even a little playfully, his confidence clearly restored.

"Oh?" I scoffed. "I don't recall the words I'm sorry coming out of your mouth."

The mention of his mouth reminded me of kissing. You could love me, he'd said.

He was right. Terrifyingly right. It wasn't a step I was anywhere near ready to take, but I had a feeling that in the end I wouldn't have much say. When Klaus and I finally got it right, everything would change. I couldn't list all the ways how, but that didn't mean I was any less certain of the outcome.

"You scare the hell out of me," I confessed suddenly.

He sobered. "I know." His thumb came up to caress my chin. "The feeling, my love, is very mutual."

He leaned in and kissed me.

And this time, I closed my eyes and kissed him back.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note:

1. The museum described herein is based on the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuernberg, Germany. I've spent a ton of time in there, thanks to Wednesday evening/free admission from 6-9 pm. Nearly everything I've described can be found there. The armory is my favorite. Just freakin' love it. Just out their website, where they have a few pictures for reference.

2. I don't really sleep all too well lately. I have to occupy my brain somehow. Again, once a month updates for sure, everything else is just bonus.

3. I tend to zone out to music as I write. For a list of songs I have on my "soundtrack" just click on this link: de dot scribd dot com/doc/162381124/Soundtrack