I have no excuse for how long these chapters are taking me. I feel that it may be long winded and boring or maybe just a shit load of over kill. It just seems to suck overall. I'm sorry if this is horrible.

I never thought I'd miss charcoal eggs before today.

Hayley's absence feels like someone's ripped the air from Klaus' mansion. I sometimes touch my lips just to be sure no one's suffocating me. I'm not sure whether it's the lost way Klaus wanders around, so aimless and lonely in his personal world of thought. Hayley would know what do to about the forlorn look in his dazzling eyes. All I can do is worry from a distance.

What had the hybrid done in the house? Did she clean? Cook? Coddle Klaus when he needed a good hugging? I had no conscious idea. To be completely honest, I can hardly remember a time when Hayley wasn't by Klaus' side or missing when he was. Her cooking skills were subpar and I can't imagine the woman getting on her knees to scrub the floor. So what had she done when Klaus didn't hog her every thought?

I like to think she had friends to spend time with or a hobby she was fond of wasting time on. Maybe she had stacks upon stacks up puzzles stored in her closet or an 'unauthorised' room in which she danced around and worked out complicated dance routines that would put any vampire to shame.

I just didn't know.

And for that I felt like utter shit. I've known her quite some time now, not enough to consider myself a close friend, but enough to leave the impression that we shared small talk and knew the bare minimum for two women living in the same household. Come to think of it, I know barely anything about Hayley besides her time with Klaus. Did she have any friends? Or was her heart so set on protecting Klaus that she'd forgone any life of her own?

Just thinking about it makes my heart hurt for the familiar stranger.

Ducking my head I try to focus on the task at hand. It's been exactly three days since Elijah threatened us and Hayley left. I came to the conclusion (after seeing Klaus mope about and avoid the study continuously) something had to be done. Perhaps this was what Hayley had done, I ponder; maybe she spent her days cleaning up after Klaus' tantrums. And the Lord knows there's a lot to clean up.

It was one thing cleaning his wounds and picking wood splinters from his skin – it was something entirely different to remove the damaged desk itself and sweep up the many forgotten pieces of it left on the floor.

I lift my forearm to wipe at my forehead. It's hard labour – especially after work and at an hour in which most the country is still asleep. I won't complain too bitterly though if it means Klaus will move himself back to his private alcove and stop freaking me out with his listless pacing.

Twirling the broom between my two hands, I observe the mess left after I've moved most the larger chucks of wood off to the side. For as long as I've been here the hearth has not been lit even once. I'm not sure whether there's a reason for it or if Klaus simply doesn't mind the chill that's starting to creep in with the night.

Despite my unnaturally high body heat even I can feel the cold.

I've piled as much of the wood as I could salvage close to the fireplace, already mentally preparing myself for the soft crackling and orange glow that comes with a good fire. Internally my mind links the idea with memories from my past, mostly pleasant although some leave a bitter taste at the back of my throat. I recall s'mores and warm fingers; tales of our history mingled with hopes for the future. It all seems like such a distant thing now.

I wonder whether my pack still gathers in that clear spot outside Billy's home for a good bout of fireside rowdiness. I can't stop myself from longing for that comfort of companionship.

Although I'm sure they've suspended moonlight sit-outs in favour of warm home interiors – more than likely Sam and Emily's place. Winters in Forks got a little too chilly at times to tempt hypothermia– even for wolf packs.

"Clearwater,"

My heads snaps around so fast that an answering ache springs in the back of my neck and I groan. Amusement flashes across a stoic face, enough to give me hope, but not enough to fuel it. Brown eyes meet crystal blue. "You're here," I accuse lightly as Klaus continues to stand in the doorway.

He snorts, "Where else would I be?"

I shrug in answer, honestly having no clue.

Klaus' face pinches slightly before he releases a heavy breath. "You shouldn't be using that broom," he states mildly with a sour grimace at the plastic contraption in my hand, I'm three seconds away from asking his royal highness to point me to something better when he enters the study. "I've always found the old way better," he dangles an old wooden broom from his fingers – one of those you see in witch movies or in the ancient versions of Cinderella. "Modern technology provides quantity and less quality, they did it properly back in the 20's."

I try not to frown… because really, I know Klaus is a vampire and 'technically' one of the first to be created. It's still strange to hear him talk about a time line in which I wasn't born yet as if it were only yesterday. I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable with it. I marvel at how Bella or Elena handle it…I might just have to ask.

Instead of handing me the cleaning utensil though, Klaus lowers its bristles to the ground and in one fell swoop manages to clean a good 30cm of desk debris and scattered paper. "You can start with those," he murmurs, indicating the scattered, scrunched up drawings of Caroline with his chin.

I can hardly protest. There's a slithering of pleasure gained from collecting the frumpled images of Caroline's face. Not for spite of the vampire, merely because it makes me feel that the wall between us is being crumpled with each scattered drawing. As long as Klaus can't content himself with Caroline, perhaps I'll have a chance.

I cringe at my own musings, hating the territorial side of the imprint which forces me to view Caroline as a rival and menace to my happiness.

Just because I've been deprived of contentment once does not mean that it'll happen again. Yet I cannot contain the satisfaction coursing through me as I scrunch up the drawings further and chuck them in the packet of large splinters I'd picked up earlier.

Out the corner of my eyes I watch Klaus working. His biceps bunch with each sweep of the broom, his gaze focused on the small sections of ground he's uncovering bit by bit. The scene seems horribly domestic and pleasant. It's the kind of thing I could get used to too easily – working side-by-side with Klaus in order to clean our home…

Fanciful thinking can only lead to hurt; I feel my lungs pain behind my ribs at the stab of loss the thought awakes in me. I don't want to feel this. I don't want to find hope if it'll only backfire on me later. Klaus may not be Sam, but I don't think I've matured enough from that part of my life to really tell the difference just yet.

Then again, I want to give it a chance. It's already started, whether I like it or not. Klaus is no longer just a nice body and crazy threats – he entices me, makes me feel warm and breathless when his gaze focuses on me. I get excited to come here, home, to Klaus after work in the evenings. There's this lightness in my mind whenever Klaus looks to me for assistance. It might not seem like much, but I know what this is. I know the beginnings of love. I've done it before. Granted the previous time felt more exhilarating and once-in-a-lifetime, because it was my first time, but that doesn't mean this one will hurt any less if I allow myself to fall into the same trap again.

So, yeah, I don't want to welcome the inevitable. I don't want to let myself fall when there's no chance I'll find my feet again. Not this time. Not with Klaus. Sam may have been my first love; but Klaus is my true love, my soul mate. I won't recover from that, of this I'm sure. Then perhaps if I reject these feelings they won't be too strong and won't cut me as deep as I can imagine they could.

It was easier to ignore with Hayley around to bounce my mind babble off.

I release a heavy sigh and pause in collecting the last scattered pages. Eyes skittering to Klaus for a moment, I start to straighten the edges of the page. I'm not sure whether I expected a change from any of the other drawing's he has done, but it still makes my breath catch to see Caroline's face fixed so affectionately across the page. For a long while I content myself by staring at the image. Klaus' skills are truly beyond words and I let myself for the briefest moment imagine what it would feel like to find a drawing of myself sketched by Klaus' hands – the hands I dug splinters from and was allowed to cradle against my warm skin.

"Can I light a fire?" I ask tentatively, glancing at Klaus over my shoulder.

His head barely lifts to acknowledge me, but his hands pause in moving the broom. After what feels like a minute he starts sweeping again. "If that's what you want, go ahead,"

I spend an extra minute observing Klaus, not sure what that was implying and not being able to figure it out anyway. I turn to the hearth and crouch down, "Why do you never start a fire here?" I ask quickly, moving deftly to place pieces of desk and scatterings of Caroline's image in a haphazard pile. "I mean, it probably gets rather cold and there's just something about fire that warms the soul," I mutter, peaking at Klaus from the corner of my eye.

This time he does raise his head, chore forgotten as he heads over to me with an answering sigh. "Always so curious,"

I shrug.

Klaus stares at my pile of ruins, eyes glinting with thoughts I did not know. He crouches down beside me, "Fire isn't comforting to all." He pauses before continuing. "There was a time, I was still human then, that I was thrown into the flames. Scorched skin has the worst stench…" he blinks and adds another crumpled picture to the pile, "Then there was the witch hunts, I cannot count the amount of times they nearly burned Rebekah at the stake," his lips twist, "They could never keep her down though, she was strong…she is strong." Curiosity bursts from me in teems, but I bite my lip to keep silent, the man has more to say. "It reminds me of this one time humans attempted to burn down a house over our heads, if I concentrate, I can still hear them chanting for us to die."

As if he words set off some unknown trigger, I can feel my skin blazing. Heat scorches at my skin and smoke burns my lungs. The support beams over our heads quiver and let out a shriek as they tumble down, crushing me to the ground. Yet over the sound of roaring flames and Rebekah's terrified cries I can hear the chanting. Like a swarm of bees getting closer and closer…

"Die!"

"Die!"

"DIE!"

"Monsters!"

The fear that floods my body only intensifies with the revulsion in those livid voices. I'm going to die here…

"Niklaus! Niklaus, get up!" My head jerks to the side and I see my brother, standing there with half his face dripping with blood, his hair nearly scorched off while his arms cradle a Rebekah whose skin has blackened with the fire's wrath. "We need to get out of here! Get up!"

Elijah's panicked voice registers in my mind the same time that I realise that the fallen beam is trapping my legs. I know I can escape – but I'm weak, I haven't fed in days and my body has grown lax with hunger. A cry of pain reaches my ears and I watch Elijah stumble for a moment, his arms nearly releasing Rebekah. Flames lick up his legs, burning away his pants within seconds. "Elijah!" I bellow, frantic as my fists begin to slam down against the wood over my body. Splinters fall around me, catching alight before they even reach the ground. "Get out!" I shriek at the same time the roof groans above us.

My brother lunges, his body and that of my sister fall on top of me. For a brief moment I register that the beam is light enough to be lifted with Elijah's help, yet at the same time wood rains down. My brother yelps and he too is crushed. My screech fills the air as I shove my way out from under him.

We aren't going to die here!

I gasp, my heart beating in my throat as the hearth comes back into focus. The world around me dims to the placid lighting of indoor florescence and I nearly cry in relief for having escaped the fire.

But it wasn't me in the fire. I know that, yet my skin still prickles and my legs still ache from the weight of the beam. I can feel the anxiety and fear of losing my family crushing my chest, even though they're not mine to loose. I wasn't there, I was never there. And everything suggests that I had indeed just been trapped in a burning house. But not me. Never me. Klaus… Klaus was trapped in the burning house. Klaus was trapped under the beam. Klaus saw his brother being crushed by the caved roof. Klaus was the one whose scream filled my ears.

Suddenly tears rush to the surface and I have to press a trembling hand over my mouth to block the sobs. I'm not sure how or why that just happened. And I'm not even positive that it had. Only that every part of me aches and shudders for the fear my soulmate could have experienced. I burn with the insane possibility that perhaps this is what my mate suffered and had to endure.

It felt so real…

Next to me Klaus shifts, his face turning to me, brows set in a deep frown, questions written in the pinched corners of his beautiful lips. If forces more tears from me and before I can ask permission or Klaus can offer, I slump forward, my head finding its way to rest against his shoulder. My hands come up and wrap around his prone body, needing, needing to know that he was here, that he wasn't trapped in fire.

"Clearwater, what are you doing?" Comes the deep, annoyed voice I know so well.

I cling tighter to his unmoving form, "I'm so sorry! You should have had to go through that. It's so terrible, so, so terrible…"

There's a moment where only my sobs fill the air, before Klaus reaches up a hand and awkwardly pats the top of my head. "It all happened long ago, Clearwater, there's nothing to be sorry about,"

I shake my head, my tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt, "No! No no no no no! It doesn't matter!" my arms tighten and I feel him stiffen under my embrace, "There-there was so m-much pain." I choke out, unwilling to release him just yet. "I'm sorry, I-I shouldn't have m-made you think about it ag-gain…"

He shakes his head, a sigh brushing the hair by my ear. "Calm down would you? I'm fine," slowly his hand atop my head drops to my shoulder and he gently pushes me away, "I think the room could use some warmth anyway,"

I scrub my hands over my face, trying to get rid of the waterfall of tears to no avail. Klaus on the other hand seems more amused than anything else by my reaction – then again he didn't know of my daydream-slash-premonition thing either.

I must seem like a complete moron to him. All he'd done was tell me that his past with fire hadn't always been so good and here I was bawling my eyes out and apologising for something he didn't even know I'd thought up.

"S-sorry," I hiccup, still scrubbing at my face.

"Okay then," Klaus pushes to his feet, giving his soaked shoulder a weary glance before looking back at me. "I'm going to change my shirt while you start the fire, don't get too carried away and burn the place down though," he mutters and leaves me alone.

A gaping hole appears in my chest and I sniffle. Oddly his teasing words don't have the effect he surely expected them too. The level of pain swimming around in my stomach is testament to the vision I'd just had. It scares me much more than it really should and I wonder whether Klaus is internally terrified that his words – meant for bantering – may just become true instead.

Still not long enough. Whatever. Please review?