Full title: Malicious Villain or Broken Hero?

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She hated him. And he hated her.

In the end, she decided the best thing for her to do was to focus on that.

So then why wasn't she focusing on that?

The two were currently driving back to New Orleans, and for the better part of an hour, Katherine couldn't stop thinking about what happened between her and Klaus. Not exactly the physical part, though she couldn't deny it had been a hell of a good time. Klaus easily put all her past lovers to shame.

At the moment however, she more focused on what happened after. She chose to focus on her hatred for him and his hatred for her. But what she felt when he left the cabin to bring her clothes over, and what she was feeling now, it wasn't hatred. It was longing.

She had actually wanted him to stay with her. To hold her in his arms after spending hours re-exploring each other's bodies. She somehow convinced herself she didn't know why she craved his touch and affection so much, but that must've been the biggest lie she ever told herself. She knew why. It was the same reason she kept sneaking glances in his direction right now.

Klaus understood her.

It was never Elijah or Damon or even Stefan. Especially not Stefan.

Stefan loved her, but he would never admit it unless she changed, and became someone else. Someone that wasn't her. Someone he could be proud to love.

And she had loved him so much that she didn't care sometimes. She didn't care how humiliating or frustrating it was, as long as she had a little bit of his affection.

Damon loved what she made him feel. He loved the idea of someone like her being able to see and love someone like him.

And Elijah...Elijah loved who she was in 1492. She didn't want to admit it. Because through it all, she knew she still had strong feelings for him. However, it was the truth. Regardless of it being a truth she didn't want to face at the moment.

But Klaus wasn't like that. Klaus knew her. He knew her desires, her fears, her flaws and her virtues. He knew all of her, and it didn't matter. He never once judged her for it.

Because they were the same.

The realization caused a tiny smile to form.

She didn't suddenly think she loved him or that he loved her. But she was now wondering if it would really be so bad to think about the possibility of there being something between them.

"Are we going to stop at the Emerson Hotel again?" She forced herself to speak, looking over at him.

"No."

She raised an eyebrow. "Okay Mr. cryptic, why not?"

"Because."

Katherine narrowed her eyes at the response. "Are you just going to give me one word answers now? Because if so, I have a word for you. Asshole." She muttered and turned her gaze back to the window. She couldn't believe how easily he could back to being cold and indifferent with her after what they just did.

Klaus sighed. "No Katerina, we are not going to stop at the Emerson Hotel because it is in the process of it not being a hotel anymore."

"Wait. What?" She frowned. Suddenly her thoughts of Klaus and their moment of passion were replaced by the curious ones she previously had regarding the werewolf pack he tracked.

Her subconscious tried to argue she didn't actually care about the pack or whatever happened over two hundred years ago, and that she was only trying to use this as an excuse in order to not deal with her feelings.

If that was the case however, she gladly welcomed the distraction. Anything was better than spending the next two days solely focused on Klaus, how good his hands felt on her body and how badly she wanted to feel his touch again.

"Did you buy it back? The hotel?"

"No. I gave it to Kalina. It belongs to her anyway."

"Kalina? The badass werewolf alpha is named after a flower?" She snorted. "Of course she is."

A ghost of a smile formed on his lips before he forced it away. "Yes her name is Kalina. Based on what I know about her family, she must've been the great, great, granddaughter of George Thomas. He-"

"Wait." She interrupted as a memory came back to her. "Was he the old friend you mentioned, who put up the giant painting of you in the kitchen?"

It was a few minutes before he answered, but eventually she saw him nod.

"Who was he?" Her voice was soft and not at all forceful, letting him know he didn't have to answer if he didn't want to. But to her surprise, he did.

"He was...a friend. We met by chance. I ran into his pack. He had no idea who I was at first. I thought it to be a blessing, but it was actually a curse.

Despite me being a vampire, he let me travel with their pack for a while. We lived in the Emerson hotel. It was just a house back then. I purchased it and, offered it to him for the pack and his family. I met his wife, his children, and..."

She smiled a little, lowering her gaze. "You forgot who you were for a while. It became addictive. Being around someone who didn't know anything about you, the horrors you committed or the life you had on the run." It was exactly how she felt when she met the Salvatore brothers.

He nodded, a glimpse of sadness lingering in his eyes for a moment. "Eventually I decided to tell him the truth. About me being an original vampire and the would-be original hybrid had my doppelgänger not escaped." He gave her a look.

Katherine ignored his look, mainly because she could guess what happened next. Something similar to what happened when she revealed to Stefan that she was a vampire. "Let me guess. Things were said, and you took back the house out of spite?"

"No actually. I was certain that was what would happen. However, by the time I told him, I had already been with them for over a decade. Most of it was spent traveling and a little over a year was spent in the Emerson house. Well, back then it wasn't called that." He mumbled keeping his eyes on the road ahead. "I watched his children grow. I was there when his wife passed away. That night he told me that no matter my heritage, I was family." The word felt so foreign in his tongue. Even his own siblings sometimes had a hard time thinking of him as family.

"That was his mistake though."

Katherine heard his voice grew more bitter then, and she knew whatever happened next hadn't been good.

He didn't say anything for the following minutes, clearly struggling with what to tell her next. Part of him wanted to tell her everything. To let her in on every deep and dark hidden secret he had. Because part of him knew she would never react the way others would. Part of him knew she would never pity him, hate him or assume him to be soulless for what he was going to say next. Yet another part of him, the more insecure part, still doubted. He would tell her regardless, but he hoped she would have the reaction he needed at this moment.

"I had been too caught up in the idea of having a family again that I didn't think about the consequences. I didn't think about what would happen if I had people that actually dared to care for me." He scoffed. "In 1804 Mikael finally made his way to Colorado with Les Filles de la Lune de Sang, ready to kill me."

Katherine remembered she told him when the coven tried to kill him, he had an alliance of his own. Now she knew what that meant. The pack.

Reaching over, she took his hand and held it firmly in her own. It was her way of telling him that she already had an idea of what happened and she didn't need to hear anymore if it was too much for him to say. She knew despite the seemingly nonchalant personality he always seemed to have regarding anyone else but himself, when Klaus cared about someone he really cared.

And judging by the pain in his eyes, she knew George was someone he cared for.

He squeezed her hand in return, but continued to speak no matter how difficult it was becoming. He wanted to tell her. He needed to see if he truly had behaved as monstrous and selfish as Elijah described him to be when he told him the same story. "They failed to kill me. The pack, however, was a different story."

"Despite my protests, George wanted to fight against him and the coven to protect me. He led the pack to Mikael in an effort to give me enough time to escape. And out of seventy five members, one six survived. George and one of his children were two of them." He was silent then, attempting to figure out how to say the next part. The part where Elijah claimed he was incapable of remorse even when people were foolish enough to lay down their life for him.

"Naturally. They couldn't kill Mikael. But they did manage to steer him away from me. Especially when the coven failed to do their job as well. He focused on killing them and I focused on saying goodbye to George and his youngest child. The only one of his children that survived. Emerson."

"The hotel." Katherine whispered in realization. It had been his way of honoring George, his family and the pack for their sacrifice.

"The hotel." Klaus smiled a little. "He tried apologizing to me. For not being able to hurt Mikael enough or better yet find a way to kill him. I told him about a phrase I heard once. Selhání se nerovná vzdání se. I explained failure was not equal to giving up. It only meant there was another opportunity to succeed. I told him it was nature's way of telling you that you had a second chance."

Katherine couldn't help but smile as she listened to his story. It was something so beautiful that if he wasn't the one telling her about it in this very moment, she would've assumed it was a lie.

"After that, he was on the run as well. From Mikael. We came up with a system together for him and what was left of the pack. One day spent in the woods anywhere in the world, two days spent in a city, three weeks out of America, four weeks with every member in different parts of the world separated from each other, and finally five months back at the house. George decided creating a camp in the woods was safer however."

"Why didn't you tell me before? When you were talking to Kalina, you literally had me escorted out of the cabin."

"I did not want you to know. Not then. I had no way of knowing how you would react."

She raised an eyebrow. "How I would react?" She repeated incredulously.

Klaus was hesitant. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, taking note of her confused expression before a quiet sigh escaped his lips. "I did not want your opinion of me to grow even worse."

"Even worse for what?" Katherine scoffed. "You didn't chase George for five hundred years too did you?"

He chuckled.

"No. But I let him go fight Mikael and lead his pack to a slaughter. I knew they couldn't win. I knew everyone would die. I did not expect any of them to survive. I only hoped it would give me enough time to escape."

Katherine shook her head. "That's not true. Maybe that's what you made yourself believe but, that's not what I heard. You told me you asked him not to go. 'Despite my protests'. Those were your exact words. He went anyway. Not because you made him but because he wanted to save you. Apparently that's what people do when they care about someone." She rolled her eyes. "If you're waiting for me to insult you or call you an asshole again I'm not going to. Not for this anyway." She smirked. "Look. At the end of the day, you saved a father and his son from your homicidal non-biological father. Sure most of the pack died. But you didn't kill them. Mikael did. And it was their choice. The way I see it, you were more of a hero in that story than a villain." She shrugged and let go of his hand, turning her attention back to the window.

A small, but completely genuine, smile slowly formed on his lips. He couldn't say he was surprised that had been her answer. Deep down he knew only she could've seen the guilt he still felt and how badly he wished things could've happened differently. Only she could see him.

Katherine looked out the window calmly, watching the scenery. She was glad he told her that story. It let her see a side of him she hadn't seen in a very long time. A side that up until now she thought he had faked when they first met. The realization that he hadn't, made her decision regarding her feelings a lot easier than she thought. Now that she knew the truth, she also knew what to do next.