I'd like to share my playlist with each chapter, so the title song for this one is: Foxes – Youth

Now I'm just chasing time

With a thousand dreams I'm holding heavy

And as we cross the line these fading beats have all been severed

Don't tell me our youth is running out

It's only just begun

Chapter 1: A learning curve

Kol opened his eyes with a gasp, which, truth be told, wasn't all that unusual for him. It had been a thousand or so years since he'd begun rising from the cold clutches of Death with a sharp inhale, much like jumping into an icy lake, but in reverse. At first, he was a tad confused, because his surroundings weren't all that familiar, but then it all came rushing back.

He'd been undaggered. It wasn't the 1900s it was the 2000s. His brother had found a Petrova doppelganger who had been made vampire in an unfortunate turn of events, which he really didn't much care for, but it was crucial to his issue, else he'd have discarded the information. The blasted doppelganger was attempting to find the cure to vampirism and was risking waking Silas. Yes, it was all coming back. He'd come to her house to reason with her or to threaten her, leaning more towards the latter, off the silly task. It had all ended up in one of his favorite games – hide and hunt, which he had been winning rather singlehandedly, last he could recall. They must've broken his neck. No matter, he was up and he would locate them easily enough.

With a sigh of mild annoyance, Kol went to push himself off the floor, only to find his hands going through the hardwood. No cracking. No breaking. He hadn't used too much strength, like he had once or twice in the past, his hands, and part of his arms, had gone through the darn floor.

"What the bloody-" Kol pulled his arms up, then tried again to push himself up, only to end up in the same predicament. There he was, the mighty Original Vampire, Kol Mikaelson, widely feared wild card of his family stuck on the bloody floor, lying down. He was suddenly immensely glad that he couldn't hear anyone else in the house.

Kol glanced to the other side, only to see feet. Shuffling feet. He followed them, only his head moving, eyes trailing up to the figures. The doppelganger and her blasted brother. They were talking, but he couldn't hear anything. Nik had mentioned that they had a witch. But, what kind of spell was this? A binding spell combined with a deafening and dematerializing? For a teenage witch, it would be no small feat, and not to mention that dematerializing spells had been mostly lost around the turn of the 15th century. Even he knew only a few dark objects still imbued with that kind of magic. Then, a cloaking spell? If so, why in the bloody hell was he sinking through the blasted floor?

Kol tried to sit up again, this time managing to get himself up by flexing his muscles and not using his arms at all. He looked down, only to see that his own arse had sunk into the floor, just a couple of inches, and that there was a pile of ash surrounding him on the charred hardwood.

Sudden realization flooded him and Kol swore rather colorfully. Jeremy fucking Gilbert had killed him. Killed him. He was dead. The damned hunter had used the White Oak stake from his own jacket to kill him. Jeremy fucking Gilbert.

"Well, you're not getting rid of me that easily," Kol smirked to himself, deciding to do the next best thing to killing the doppelganger and her brother. Kol decided to haunt the two for as long as he very well could.

In the next bit of time, Kol gained a new appreciation for ghosts who were able to interact with the world of living. It took him a while to manage to get himself off the floor. A few experimental steps had him sinking into it, like into quicksand. Kol quickly realized that being a ghost was a lot different than being a vampire or a witch. But, at least, he'd been able to keep his fangs, which was a comfort. That was the thing he'd tested before even attempting to sit up. The ever-present hunger wasn't there, the dull ache had left him, but still, when he thought about feasting on an enticing neck, he felt the telltale tightening of the skin underneath his eyes and the sting in his gums. Yes, he'd retained his weapons, which likely meant that once he was able to walk, he would be able to use his superior muscles just as well as he had in life.

He was furious. Kol was positively seething. How dare they kill him? He would haunt their arses to hell and back. He would ruin every single day of their lives with his haunting. But, first he needed to get himself out of the floor, as he had sunk all the way down to his knees with four more steps.

With a growl of annoyance, Kol yanked his leg up, but that did nothing to help him, as the other one sunk even more. Frustrated, furious and devastated by the realization of his own untimely demise, Kol yelled out, attempting to smash the nearby table, but his hand just flew straight through it, which in turn enraged him even more.

He looked up from his knees just in time to see the doppelganger rudely walk through him. Right through him.

"Oh, I'm going to ruin you," he swore to himself, grinning in hysterical desperation. That was when he noticed that the sun was up. Had he been attempting to get up the whole night? Perhaps his perception of time had been altered. How long had he been lying there, dead, without waking as a ghost? He could recall entering the Gilbert house late at night. He could remember the lights being on when he woke up. The whole night. He'd spent the whole night on the floor and on these six mere steps.

With another growl of frustrated despair, Kol realized that haunting wasn't going to be an easy thing.

It had taken him a few days to get the hang of the whole ghost thing. He wasn't too thrilled about it, either. Sitting at the Gilbert house, seeing faint figures of the living moving about, sometimes as solid as they had been while he was alive and at other times as blurry as shadows, his rage only grew. He could occasionally catch a snippet of their conversations, kind of like attempting to listen through water, a garbled connection. It was all very frustrating.

Kol was reminded of the friend he'd once had, a witch by the name of Else Gruber, back in the 1400s. She'd been a lovely young thing, witty and delicate. They'd enjoyed many festivities together in Europe, and he would be lying if he said that he hadn't partaken in her bed or her blood. Not that she was unwilling to give, though. They'd been quite the pair, until Niklaus had caught word of their fun and put an abrupt stop to it.

Else had been gifted in communing with the recently deceased. She'd told him much of her magic and how the tether to the spirits was like attempting to talk to someone who was submerged in water. Back then, he hadn't fully grasped the notion, but he was now painfully reminded of her words. If there was a chance that he could now say to her that he understood, rather intimately, what she'd meant, he'd have taken it.

But, Kol was a quick study. He had prided himself, both as witch and as vampire, in it. Kol had been the prodigal son of their mother, picking up her spells without much training or thought. The rest of his siblings had all been too occupied with other things. Elijah and Nik had been too wrapped up in their father and later in Tatia to focus properly on the wisdom their mother had to offer. Rebekah had never had much taste for magic, as every good-looking lad would pull her attention away from the spells. Henrik had been all too young. Yes, he'd been all too young. Kol, on the other hand, he'd been in love with his magic as much as he'd been in love with life itself. Everything had been so wonderfully, complexly intertwined and intermingled back then. Life, magic, power. They had all been blurred into a mystery of gargantuan proportions and indescribable interest to him.

Vampirism had been different, yet the same. He'd lost the most vital part of him when he'd turned vampire, but he'd unlocked another area of his character, one that he hadn't thought he'd had. Freedom and exhilaration came with violence and sadism. His teeth became his weapon, instead of his hands. His speed became a useful means of getting from one point of interest to the next, fleeting as they were. His immortality became a tool used for gathering knowledge and experience. He'd always been the one in their family to quickly embrace change and become accustomed to it in a flash. A monster he was made and a monster he had been.

Being a ghost was different. Once he'd finally managed to somewhat cool his head, he'd discovered that he could feel everything, perhaps more so than when he was a witch. He could feel the essence of every single being and object around him, taste their different energies on his skin and experience them as an intricate part of the world he now inhabited. That was how he realized the proper way to move around.

"Finally," Kol grunted as he managed to get out of the damned Gilbert house, slipping through the open door quickly before it was shut by the doppelganger. By constantly being aware of every single substance around him he could divide their essences and maintain his own in relation to theirs. It was grueling work, constant concentration, but Kol was nothing if he wasn't tenacious.

"Haunting is tiresome work," he said to himself, squinting in the bright sun. "Let's get ourselves out of this mess, shall we?" With a smirk, the former wild card of the Originals took to the streets. He tested out his speed, finding it mildly reduced, as it took too much concentration to both maintain himself and get around quickly. He stopped attempting his vampire run after slamming headfirst into a tree, ending up flat on his back.

"That will take some getting used to," Kol nodded to himself, rising, and headed for the center of Mystic Falls. Being the beacon it was for the supernatural, there were bound to be a few ghosts meandering about. Kol, luckily, had quite the bit of knowledge of magic, which led him to quickly formulate a plan.

Since he couldn't get his revenge through haunting, as getting used to becoming this apparition was a bit too much of a challenge even for him, he'd have to do the next best thing – get himself alive again. In all honesty, he'd prefer living again anyways. So, the Original saw it as two birds with one stone.

His information about necromancy was limited, but not nil, which wasn't too bad. First, he needed to communicate his desires into the world of the living. Hence, Kol had two options – witch or medium. In retrospect, recalling how the lovely Else had always spoken of unclear messages and garbles voices, he decided that he'd favor the latter. So, how was one to go about finding a medium in this state of confusion? Easily, by catching up with some other ghosts who would, undoubtedly, know something if they've been about long enough. So, Kol went into the very center of the city, seeking out his fellow dead.

"Recent addition, are you?" a figure of a young man, looking a little out of place by his clothing, asked as Kol strolled down the street.

"Just sightseeing for a while, mate," Kol nodded, coming up to the other ghost. He was taller than the other lad, but their builds were different. The young dead man was stocky, with dark hair and brown eyes, a gash right across his throat, still seeping blood. Kol could see a sizeable shard of glass embedded into the wound. "Nasty death?" he asked conversationally, looking away from the young man wearing a suit and a top hat to the sight the other ghost was inspecting.

"A bar brawl," the ghost chuckled. "Rather dull way to die, if we're being honest," he pointed out a middle-aged man in the crowd. "That's my great-grandson. I stayed around to watch over my wife and our kids, but ended up staying too long."

"Too long?" Kol raised his eyebrow.

"Yes, formed an attachment," the ghost shrugged. "Now I'm staying put, it seems. At least I get to live vicariously through my descendant's conquests," the ghost pointed out the pretty woman talking to his great-grandson. "She's the newest one in his long line of bed partners. Leah bet me that she won't last a week, but I'd wager at least a month. Look at her bosom, that's bound to keep him entertained." Kol laughed with the other ghost, nodding. Indeed, the young woman had quite the pleasurable figure, yet not to his own tastes. That didn't mean that he couldn't appreciate it objectively.

"Leah is another one of us, I take it?" when the other ghost nodded, Kol continued. "Have you ever attempted to contact your descendants?" His companion shook his head with a laugh, droplets of blood landing on the sidewalk from the wound in his neck.

"I'm not the one for hauntings," he replied. "But Leah has," he added just when Kol was about to label him as unhelpful and move on.

"Oh? Pray, do tell?" he smirked. If it could be that easy as to get a medium in the same town where he'd died, it would speed up the approximated time he'd deemed necessary until he could get his revenge.

"Well, you see, Leah recently died," the other ghost said. "She was killed, maybe ten or so years ago, and the police can't find the culprit or her body, so she stayed behind in hopes of pointing the investigation in the right direction. However, all that happened was that the police disregarded her as missing, presumed dead. She tried getting in contact with a witch to channel her, but it was all futile. I remember she told me something about a ghost who had passed through telling her about a very helpful medium, but she can't reach that far."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not certain, but Leah just says that she can't leave this town," the ghost replied. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to follow along," the young man pointed to his descendant leaving the café and tipped his top hat at Kol. "Leah is the brunette one in a wedding dress, stabbed through the heart. If she's reluctant to speak to you on the matter, do tell her that Michael sent you."

"Cheers, mate," Kol nodded to the departing ghost. Perhaps, this whole ordeal wouldn't be all too bad. Kol wasn't as paranoid as his brother, so he didn't mind the fact that he'd all too conveniently gotten the answer he liked from his first ghost acquaintance. He would simply chalk it up to his ever-present luck, both in life and death.

Luck was a relative term, apparently. Kol discovered another annoying fact about ghosts in the following few hours, which was that they lacked a sense of time and tended to flicker in and out of the present. He was certain that he'd been dead for two days, and yet, it turned out that it had been a week, once he'd glanced at the calendar of the local pub. He'd been wandering around for a week, searching for this Leah in a wedding dress.

"Blast it," Kol sighed, dropping onto a nearby bench at the park he'd been scouring for the ghost. "This is going to take a while." He was certain that he hadn't lost time. And yet, it had seemed like mere hours ago that he'd woken up on the floor of the Gilbert house. But it had been days. Would he even be able to enact his revenge in time? His dragged his hands over his face and dropped his head down, elbows on his knees. At the rate he was going, it wasn't likely. He needed to find a medium fast.

"Hello," Kol's head shot up, only to have to go back down. The person addressing him was rather small, after all. Curious brown eyes were looking at him.

"Hello, darling," he smiled at the little girl in a winter getup. She had messy dirty blonde hair and the most expressive brown eyes he'd seen in a while. She tilted her head to the side watching him, blue lips throwing him off as he inspected her back.

"Why are you sad, mister?" she asked him.

"I'm not sad, love," he replied, leaning back on the bench.

"I'm pretty sure you're sad," she nodded to herself and then struggled for a moment before she managed to climb up on the bench next to him. "I was sad, too."

"You know?" he was honestly surprised. Then again, the child was a ghost. She could be decades older than she looked.

"I'm five not stupid," the little girl told him, her eyebrow quirking up. At that, Kol laughed.

"A proper young lady, then," he teased the little ghost.

"You talk funny, mister," she told him, positively glowing at his compliment. "I like it," she added before he could say anything.

"Thank you," for once, Kol honestly said. Perhaps death had had an effect on him and his honesty. He wasn't sure. This two-minute conversation with a ghost of a child had him feeling more like himself than he'd felt in so long. "May I inquire the name of my lovely companion?" He pulled out all the charm, unable to resist making the blue-lipped girl giggle.

"I'm Lucy, it's nice to meet you," the little ghost replied.

"It's my pleasure entirely, miss Lucy," Kol replied, reaching over and taking her hand to kiss it gently on the knuckles which were peering under her long sweater sleeves, as per old customs. Her fingers were ice cold. "I'm Kol Mikaelson."

"Do you have a horse, mister Kol?" Lucy asked, giggling at his courtesy.

"I had a horse once, but not anymore," he said to her honestly. "His name was Storm."

"Was he a very fast horse?" Lucy asked.

"Quite," Kol said. "He could outrun my siblings' horses easily and it annoyed them to no end. I used to go riding in the morning and in the evening, almost every day."

"Did you live in a castle?" Kol frowned, but answered nonetheless.

"At one point, I did visit at a castle."

"Then, are you a real prince, mister Kol?" He looked down at the little ghost, seeing her eyes looking up at him, entirely too hopeful.

"I'm afraid I'm not a prince, darling Lucy," he told the little girl, immediately feeling bad when her face lost its hopeful expression. "But, I'm certain that you will meet the kind of prince you're looking for very soon." A smile came back onto her face, but Kol felt like it was more for his own benefit than hers.

"I'm five, mister Kol, and dead," Lucy giggled. "You don't have to comfort me."

"Don't have to and don't want to are two very different things," Kol shrugged, stretching out his legs and leaning back. The sun felt nice on his skin, even though he was dead.

"I know you're looking for Leah," Lucy said, making him open one eye and squint at her. She was standing up on the bench now, looking down at him. "I like you, mister Kol, even if you aren't a prince. So, I'll tell you Leah's secret place," Lucy bent down to whisper in his ear and Kol felt the freezing temperature of her ghost body for the second time. "She likes to go to sit in the church," Lucy said, her cold breath brushing his ear.

"Thank you very much, Lucy," Kol replied when the girl pulled away.

"I hope I won't see you again, mister Kol," she told him, and with a small wave, she was gone from the bench, vanishing into thin air. Kol frowned at the words, but shrugged them off and stood up. He headed for the church at a human pace, allowing himself to take in the sights as he went. He could see more and more of the living. The more he focused on separating their essence from the ones around them, the nature, the better he could grasp them and their sense of being. It was like opening his eyes for the first time after a long sleep, slowly waking up through bleary vision and realizing that he could see, hear, taste, smell and soon, touch.

The conversation of the living buzzed around Kol as he walked and he delighted in finally having the ability to eavesdrop on the secrets they muttered to one another, thinking themselves alone in the crowds. A week to master being a ghost and stalking the living wasn't too bad in his opinion. Now, all he needed was to find that Leah and to get the details from her about the medium she'd wanted to see. Then, he could finally organize a mission to get himself a witch and resurrect himself. And then… then they would all pay. He would start with the doppelganger and her idiot of a brother. Sure, they might've had some fun times, but Kol was petty and he loved it. He thought that betrayal was the worst kind of sin and he was the being as close to the Gods as possible, hence it was his to deal out the punishment for that sin. He would make them suffer. And when he was done… Well, when he was done, he would head for his family. They thought that they could leave him unmourned and unavenged? He would get his own vengeance and then he would force them to mourn. Not his death, as they obviously didn't much care, but their own loss. He would make them feel everything that he was feeling.

The church came into view and Kol waited for the door to open, slipping in through. Interestingly enough, despite all the myths about ghosts not being able to step on hallowed ground he could walk in without an issue. He would file that bit of information away for later use, if it became necessary.

There were few people inside the church, praying, lighting candles, shuffling about and going about their business. One form caught his eye. It was a lone woman sitting at the very front of the rows and rows of wooden seats, her chestnut hair in an intricate updo, white daisies sprinkled through the locks. She wore all white, from what he could see, and she seemed to be praying.

Kol silently walked forward, choosing not to disturb her but to sit next to her, leaning back in the creaky wooden seat, crossing his long legs.

"That's a rather disrespectful way to sit at a church," the woman spoke after a moment of hushed whispering, when she finished her prayed with an 'Amen'.

"I'm not certain that the whole new wave Christianity thing applies to me," Kol shrugged. "I was born in a different time, I admit."

"Then, why come to a Christian church?" she asked, finally looking up at him. Kol spotted a red stain on her pure white, lace covered dress. It seemed that her heart had been stabbed through.

"Looking for you, Leah," he put on his best charming smile. "I heard some jibber jabber about you knowing where I could find myself a medium?" Leah raised an eyebrow.

"Michael told you?"

"And Lucy," Kol nodded. Leah stopped short for a moment, then turned to fully face him.

"Lucy?" she tentatively asked.

"The little girl, yay high, mussy hair, wearing winter clothes?" he elaborated. Leah inspected him, head to toe, before nodding.

"If you've seen Lucy, then it's alright," she murmured, more to herself that to him. "It's not safe to talk about this here," and Leah stood, nodding towards the door. "We will have to move somewhere where we can't be overheard."

"Lead the way, darling," Kol smirked, hopping to his feet. He would never admit that he was eternally jealous of the way Leah slid through the wooden benches on her way out, passing through them, while he had to walk around them. He had to learn that trick.

That's all folks! Looking forward to reading your thoughts :)