A/N So here's a thing that's been bugging me about some recent Klaus fics I've read, I don't know if any of you agree.
I've seen him in quite a few fics (decent fics not rubbish) described as tall and/or broad. Hmmm Joseph Morgan is mind-bendingly attractive but he is neither tall nor broad, he's what about 5'10" and decidedly wiry (which personally I find super sexy). Hmmm maybe I shouldn't worry about it
Ok on with the tale and something a bit fluffier for you
Chapter 12
Her finger's run through his short hair and she looks down between her own breasts to where his head lies on her belly. He looks so boyish, so human, lying there it's hard to remember he's been around for a millennia, even harder to remember the beast he showed her a short while ago, yellow eyed and growling as he ploughed her.
"What are you like as a wolf?" she asks curiously and he lifts his head and frowns slightly.
"Wolfish," he replies teasingly his fingers tracing lazy patterns on the skin of her arm. "Four legs and a tail"
"Hmm" she ponders his flippant answer. "What colour are you?"
He gives a bemused look at her persistent curiosity but indulges her and tips his head pointing at his own hair. "That colour," he answers and she laughs lightly.
"Ok" she says. "That make's sense. How do you feel, you know when you're a wolf?"
"Wild, liberated, but essentially the same," he considers his own answer. "Unlike true wolves as a hybrid I am aware, I control and remember my actions in wolf form."
"So you wouldn't hurt me," she clarifies to herself. "Can I see you as a wolf sometime?"
"You want me to undergo the agony of transition to satisfy your capricious curiosity?" he asks incredulously and his fingers take to tracing the outer curves of her breasts.
"Yep" she grins at him and pops the 'p' cheekily.
He shakes his head fondly and moves to lie beside her and watch the ceiling with her. "Ok"
"Cool" she twists onto her side and props herself up on her elbow. "Can I pet you?"
He narrows his eyes. "Sweetheart I may love you enough to indulge this silly whim of yours but there are limits"
"You…" she begins stunned by his careless admission.
He seems surprised by her confusion. "Did you think that had changed, Caroline?"
"I don't know" she flounders. "I just didn't know-"
"Yes you did" he interrupts her then mercifully changes the subject while she tries to right herself in the tumbling waters of what she has truly always known. "So what now? No doubt the trouble you've put yourself to for my family will have left you somewhat behind at college. I believe Elena and Bonnie are heading back there today, will you travel with them?"
"Yes," she isn't sure. "Um I guess. You're just gonna let me go back to college?"
"You thought I'd try and stop you?" he asks with a hint of annoyance.
"No, yes, I don't know"
Her bemusement gentles him and he looks into her eyes somberly. "I do remember what you said Caroline, about having plans, a future. And I understand your desire to live at least one human life. You have ties to humans, your mother is mortal, your friends."
"Yeah," she hasn't thought about the future, nothing beyond a vague feeling of not wanting to deny her feelings for him anymore and a serious case of the lusties. "So you go back and ruling New Orleans and I go back to college, just like that, see you in fifty years?"
He shrugs, "I'm a patient man Caroline and I am immortal. I can wait and when you've lived your future and got all those things that you want, the ones that I recall do not involve me, then I'll be there."
Jibe aside as declarations of intent go it's pretty epic, he'll wait for her, through the decades until she's done with all the things she wants from life. She's going to get her cake and eat it. Will they be exclusive she wonders suddenly unsettled, she thinks of college boys catching her eye, of trivial passing romances, she thinks of Camille always close by in New Orlean, beautiful and compassionate and perhaps not so trivial.
"Rebekah's been gone a while" she comments just to say something other than what's on her mind
He holds in a smile. "She's been back an hour love," he informs her. "I assumed you'd heard her"
"Oh god" she covers her face with her arm mortified. "Do you think she heard us"
His laugh is rich and easy. "She's human love, not deaf. Besides if she didn't I imagine Damon and Elena certainly did, you're not exactly quiet sweetheart."
She doesn't find it in the slightest bit amusing and his taunting isn't helping. "Shit" she swings off the bed and assess what's left of her clothes. "Oh shit" She's too busy trying to secure the ripped straps of her dress to notice that his movements are sharp and angry as he pulls on his jeans.
"Should I create a diversion so you can escape out the back Caroline" he asks in a voice that's supposed to be joking but is full of something hurt and nasty.
She stops fussing with her dress and looks over at him, taking in the rigid lines of his bare back as he reaches for his t-shirt. "Hey" she says softly and he stops but doesn't turn to face her, she steps softly forward and lays a hand on his arm to turn him. She doesn't look into his angry face she traces the birds as they take flight over his shoulder. "I'm embarrassed ok that's all"
He sneers and moves to turn away but she grabs his arm and holds him in place. "I'm pretty much mortified that your sister and my best friend just got the full audio of us…" she trails off making a waving gesture at the bed. "I'm embarrassed, ok? I'm not ashamed"
He tilts his head and looks doubtful. "I mean it," she says. "I'm taking a chance on you because I have faith in the promise you made me. I finally get it, that we, vampires I mean, we can't be judged on the past. We just live too long and we're too, I don't know, too hungry I guess. We can only judge ourselves on what we do now, on what want to be in the future"
He takes her in his arms again. "How can you be so wise my Caroline?"
She smiles and strokes his jaw. "Youthful intuition. Maybe you're just too jaded, aren't you like a billion or something?" she echoes her words of years ago.
"So" he moves away and pulls on his t-shirt. "Diversion or united front?"
"Diversion?" she asks with joking hopefulness. "Urgh ok, united front, come on"
Rebekah and Elena are sitting awkwardly in the large living room, Hope sleeps in her car seat at the original's all turn to look at them as they enter and Rebekah stands immediately.
"Finally" Rebekah sounds impatient. "I thought you two were going to be at it all bloody day." She lays a hand on her hip as she cattily addresses her rather than Klaus. The body couldn't look less like her real one but every gesture is exactly the same. "Now If you've quite finished shagging my brother's brains out he's needed back in New Orleans"
She thinks Klaus will scold his sister again but clearly his mood is too buoyant, a thousand years old and still such a man, and he just smirks and wander's over to squat down beside Hope and look into her sleeping face.
She gives Rebekah a forced smile and tips an open palm towards the hybrid. "He's all yours"
"Come on Nik," Rebekah demands picking up Hope's bag. "There are a million things to do before the wedding"
She can't believe they're leaving so soon, she thought she'd have more time before they're separation begins and she must look as lost as she feels because Elena stands and comes to her with sympathetic eyes and practical words, "We should head off soon too"
"Ok" she nods and looks over at Klaus as he picks up Hope's car seat, he looks handsome and slender in Damon's slightly too big for him t-shirt and she wants a proper goodbye, not this rushed public parting.
He stops before her as he follows his sister towards the door, deposits Hope carefully on the floor. "Goodbye my Caroline." He murmurs and kisses her forehead tenderly.
"Bye" she breathes and smiles a small awkward smile while her heart pounds angrily against her ribs and rails against this madness, he's just going to walk out. He's doing the right thing and giving her the time she needs to be ready for him and she thinks she actually hates him for it more than she thanks him.
"Wait," Rebekah is her unlikely savior. "You're coming to the wedding right?"
"I, er.."
"You have to, it's going to be amazing" Rebekah gushes. "It's Thursday night, Nik will pay for your ticket"
She glances at Klaus and he just lifts one shoulder in shrugging agreement. "Why not Caroline?" He seems to think she needs cajoling, doesn't he realize she's in no hurry for their separation? "I'll buy you a dress"
A smile breaks out all over her face, a stay of execution on their time together and a Klaus sponsored outfit, win win. "Ok, see you there."
…
Elena's car is cool as they make there way back to Whitmore, the temperature infinitely more comfortable than the atmosphere. Bonnie sits in the back staring out of the window at the rushing scenery and Elena chatters senselessly to fill the silence. The doppelganger held in her recriminations and is making a heroic effort to be understanding, Bonnie on the other hand has not been so merciful. It's not her fault, Bonnie thinks in human terms, has never taken human life, there is no way the witch can understand that forgiveness has to be different for their kind.
Eventually Bonnie falls asleep and Elena can speak freely. "Are you sure you know what you're doing Care?" she asks. "I know he said he'd be better but without you around do you really believe him"
"I have to Elena" she sighs she wants so much to get all this off her chest. How confused and frighten she is by his promise. How grateful and angry she is at him for leaving her to the life she told him she needs without him. "I know he's done terrible things to all of us, but I have to believe he's redeemable. That we're all redeemable, even Klaus"
Elena doesn't answer she looks thoughtful and the silence makes her squirm. "Do you think I'm a terrible person for caring about him, for having these feelings for him."
Elena gives her a warm rebutting look. "Care you are not a terrible person. If you can see the good in everyone, even in him, that doesn't make you terrible. That makes you amazing." Elena reaches over and briefly squeezes her hand. "I wouldn't change that about you for anything and if Klaus Mikaleson is the price I have to pay to have an amazing person like you in my life then I'll pay it. Gladly"
She chokes up at her friend's words and looks at Elena with a slight blurring in her eyes.
"I do want so much more for you than him though" the brunette continues worry creasing her pretty face.
"I know, to be honest I thought I did too and I tried Elena, I kept shutting my feelings for him in a box and promising myself I wouldn't open it again. But he's been under my skin from the start, even when he was at his worst something drew me to him."
"Oh I get it, trust me I get it. I remember hating myself for wanting Damon. I kept trying to see the monster everyone else saw, but I never could, I always saw him differently, like…" Elena smiles a loving inward smile as she thinks about her boyfriend, and she regrets how hard she was on them when they first got together. "Like everything was possible with him."
They're silent for a while she knows Elena is trying to think of something to say; her friend isn't great at silences. "So what's the deal with this separate lives thing? You're together but, what, on pause?"
So she tells Elena about their conversation in the forest, about his understanding, his patience, and she knows her voice turns soft and bewildered and yes a little loving as she does. Eventually she opens up completely to her friend and talks about her doubts, about not how not knowing where they stand on seeing other people is driving her crazy especially with darling Camille so clearly interested in him.
She doesn't realize Bonnie has woken up until the witch's hand touches her shoulder. "Just ask him" she says slipping seamlessly into the conversation and it reminds her of simpler times when they were just three girls talking about boys, "it sounds like you two can talk about stuff, so ask him?"
What Bonnie has heard in her conversation with Elena to soften her she doesn't know, she doesn't really care, she's just grateful that she doesn't have to fight her friends on this. She grasps Bonnie's hand and turns in her seat to smile gratefully and tearfully at her. "Thanks guys" she says and the girls nod and smile back.
The moment is too heavy and Elena frees them. "So you're going to let him pick your dress? Is that wise?"
She grins. "Yes" she says emphatically. "He has insanely good taste and money to burn. I'm hoping for Gucci, maybe Prada"
They all laugh and suddenly it seems possible and ridiculously perfect. She'll live her college life with her friends, maybe get that career in broadcasting she wanted, make her mother proud. She'll see Bonnie and Matt raise families and her mother grow old. Then forty, fifty, maybe a hundred years from now, she'll knock on his door and he'll be waiting, a better man than he is today and ready to be hers.
…
A/N I realize that feels final, it's not it's very much not, stay tuned my lovelies
PS Gucci and Prada are the only vaguely posh brands I can think of, if they are not super cool and wildly expensive then insert a brand of your own choosing in that sentence
