Notes: I don't think I've ever been more stressed than I have when writing than I was when I wrote this chapter. This fic has gotten way more popular than I anticipated! Hopefully no one's disappointed with the reveal! There's another authors note at the bottom, for anyone who's interested in a more detailed look into what the graphic novel's like in my head as well as some notes on the timeline.
NOVEMBER – FRIDAY
KLAUS:
Klaus can't remember the last time he'd felt this much anxiety prior to a rendezvous with a woman. Though the circumstances behind this meeting were definitely unique, compared to his other experiences. It's been years since he's been sweaty palmed and fidgety like this, possibly not since he'd been a teenager. He'd been distracted all afternoon, to Marcel's eternal amusement. They'd accomplished next to nothing of import, but luckily no deadline loomed.
He's standing in a hole he's dug entirely by himself, he knows, and he's not entirely sure how to dig himself out of it. How can he explain to Caroline that his fingers had positively itched for a pencil the very moment they'd met? And how that had spiraled from images in his sketchbook, just for him, to Violet, a character in a wildly popular graphic novel, read by many?
The phone rings, the set of tones that indicates someone's waiting to be buzzed in. He picks it up, says, "Hello?" in a mild tone, as if he doesn't very well know who it will be. The text Caroline had sent last night had been very direct, and very demanding. Klaus had often wondered if the force of her personality, the single minded focus she had, would translate favorably to more intimate activities.
Though that was probably not a thought he should be revisiting at this very moment.
"It's Caroline," her voice crackles through the line, the sounds of the street audible beneath it.
"Come on up," he tells her, and presses the appropriate button. Klaus takes a quick glance around, not that anything could possibly be out of place, given he'd last checked no more than a quarter of an hour ago.
He waits on pins and needles for the knock, takes a deep breath before he goes to answer the door. Caroline, on the other side, looks poised, and a touch wary, but offers him a small smile, "Hi," she greets.
Klaus hold the door open wide in welcome, "Evening love, come in. May I take your coat?"
She unbuttons it, "Are you weird about shoes like Rebekah is?"
Klaus laughs, "Not really. The floors are concrete so I'm not so worried about scratches and such. Whatever you're comfortable with is fine."
Caroline shrugs and toes off her boots, aligns them neatly by the wall, and drops her bag beside them, "Honestly? Taking off the heels at the end of the day is really satisfying."
"I wouldn't know."
She wiggles her socked toes for a moment, "I should probably wear flats more often but sometimes people think I look too young or too blonde to be competent and it helps when I can stare down at them intimidatingly."
"Can I get you a drink?" Klaus asks as he hangs her coat on the rack, letting her look around,
She glances at him over her shoulder, "Just water, please." He goes to the kitchen, pulls out a bottle. Caroline wanders in a second later, lifts a brow at the bourbon he's pouring for himself. It's likely a bit early, but it is Friday, "Do you really think you'll need that?"
Klaus lifts his glass in her direction, mimicking a toast, "You're the one who warned me that you'll show no mercy, sweetheart. Have you brought the thumbscrews? Perhaps a heretic's fork? It would fit into your bag."
"What's that? No wait, I probably don't want to know."
"Probably," Klaus agreed, "I've spent a bit of time looking into historical weapons and torture techniques and such. Research, you know."
"I don't even really like horror movies," Caroline confesses. "Pretty much every boyfriend I've ever had has tried to convince me they're awesome. No one's ever succeeded."
"I hope the content of my books didn't bother you."
"Oh no," she assures him, "stuff like vampires, werewolves, witches? Doesn't freak me out. I know it's not real. It's when the psycho killers are real people. Or you know, irradiated inbred mutant cannibals who were regular people at one point."
Klaus can't help but chuckle, "Because it's likely that such creatures might actually exist, somewhere out there?"
"I didn't say likely, did I? But it's possible. Don't laugh at me!"
Klaus tries to hide his amusement, lest she see it on his face, and grow offended, "Sorry. Do you want to sit in here or in the living room? Maybe the dining room? I feel like an interrogation might require a table."
"Oh ha ha," Caroline says sarcastically, with a roll of her eyes, "You should watch yourself, you know. Kol's down six bucks for all the wondering out loud he did about any cop fantasies I may or may not have. And another ten for being super, extra creepy when I reminded him that my mother is a sheriff."
"I believe it's my turn to not want to know." Klaus could only imagine where Kol's deviant little mind had gone with that.
"Yeah. It was not a pleasant evening in Casa de Forbes/Mikaelson."
Klaus thoughts went back to the conversation they'd had when he'd dropped by her office, "Shit. Caroline if I made you uncomfortable with the handcuff remark…"
Caroline waves his concern away, "No, that was fine. It's just the idea of that kind of role-play is kind of a ginormous turnoff, you know? Handcuffs by themselves don't squick me out."
Klaus shifted his weight, a touch uncomfortable. Also not a path his mind should wander right now. He cleared his throat, "Right. So, living room?"
Caroline nods, grabs the bottle of water off the counter, "Give me one second," she tells him, before making a beeline back to the front entrance. The only walls in the apartment are the ones that separate his bedroom and the bathrooms from the main living areas, so Klaus watches her rifle through her bag and unearth a notebook. He finds himself completely unsurprised that she's brought notes. He sits on the couch and she takes an armchair that sits adjacent to it, taking a sip of water before setting the bottle down on the table next to them. She pulls her legs up underneath her and spreads the notebook across her lap, "Okay, question one. What is the deal with the pregnant werewolf chick?"
Klaus blinks, the question not being at all what he'd expected, "What?"
"It just doesn't make sense!"
"Einar's a hybrid, so a vampire and a werewolf."
"A dead one! He was made a vampire, and then he triggered the werewolf curse. Triggering it doesn't make him, or his sperm, any less dead. He needs blood to survive still. So it's got to be a trick, right? Some witchy voodoo?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, love."
"Oh come on!" Caroline cried indignantly.
Klaus found himself grinning at how animated she was, "Sorry. It's a secret. Only Marcel and I know the answer, at this point, and it'll stay that way for a while yet."
"Ugh. Fine. I reserve the right to pester you about it in the future."
"As if I could stop you," Klaus says, and mentally kicks himself for the note of fondness, the thread of devotion, that was clear in the words and the way in which he spoke them.
They share a look then, and Caroline looks mystified. Klaus stays silent, in an effort not to make things worse. He's long since admitted that he feels something for Caroline, though he's never labeled it. He's not delusional enough to think that he knows her, not truly, though that's his own fault. And he's not sure how to even go about exploring the way she affects him, at this point, with his dismissive treatment of her standing between them. He's sure she's not immune to him either, if the occasionally flirtatious moments they've had recently are anything to go on.
She clears her throat, looks down to study her notebook and lets her hair hide her face from him for several long moments, "Okay. Next question…"
She throws him easy ones, and he can't help but be a little suspicious. She's not the only one who's watched a lot of late night Law and Order. Klaus is no stranger to insomnia, and that show was on constantly.
Caroline wonders about the names. He explains that they're all Old Norse. She questions Kol's in particular, claiming it was even worse than 'Helga.' She admitted the choice was apt once Klaus explained that 'Fritjof', Kol's character's name, meant 'one who steals peace'. She'd asked if there were any extra Mikaelson's Rebekah had neglected to mention and he'd assured her that no, Henrik and Freya were solely invented for dramatic purposes. She'd tactfully skirted the issue of his paternity though, since Mikael was long dead, he'd have had no problem admitting that particular element was, in fact, true. She'd asked questions about the mythology, was insightful about the plots, not afraid to say something critical, and Klaus found that he genuinely enjoyed the conversation. The more successful his work had become the less honest people were about how they really felt about it, he'd found.
Caroline was so open, emotions, thoughts and questions flitting rapidly across her face. Klaus finds himself trying not to stare too intently. The lack of guile is a big part of the reason he'd first sketched her. It's not something he's used to.
She'd steadily paged through her notes, and finished her water. The conversation petered out, and Klaus sensed that she was working up to something, was proven right when she said, hesitation evident, "So. About Violet."
"Ah, so you were trying to lull me into a false sense of security," Klaus teases, "just as I had thought."
"Oh, shut up. I actually was interested in all the other stuff, you know. I can see why so many people like the story."
"Thank you."
"Why'd you pick the name?"
"Marcel did, actually." Which is true, though Klaus had told Marcel to pick something timeless but not geriatric, much like 'Caroline' itself was. And he wouldn't mention that he'd rejected four others before agreeing to 'Violet.'
"I'm confused about the dates," Caroline says.
"Oh?"
"I did a little research. You're usually about 3 issues ahead of what's been published, from what I've read."
"That's right," Klaus confirms.
"Violet first appears in issue 29, as the sacrifice," Caroline shoots him a hard look of displeasure.
"True."
"Which was published in November of 2012."
"Also correct," Klaus said evenly. She was clearly getting annoyed at how he wasn't elaborating, but he's always liked what her temper did for her eyes.
"Why then? The first time I met you was over that New Year's trip, my freshman year of college. Years before. I moved to the city in July 2011 and our paths started crossing a bit more often. It just seems random."
Klaus really wished he'd thought to bring the bottle into the living room with him, so he could pour another drink, "It is. And it isn't."
"Seriously?" Caroline's fingers tightened on her notebook and Klaus suspected she was itching to throw it at his head, "You promised me answers, Klaus. Quit stalling. Rip off the damn Band-Aid."
Klaus rubbed the back of his neck and avoided her eyes, which were laser focused on him, and probably reading his nervousness loud and clear, "Right, fine." He reached under the coffee table and withdrew a stack of old sketchbooks he's stored there for just this purpose. He flipped through the oldest one until he found what he'd been looking for and handed it to her.
"It's me," Caroline blurted out, tracing the sketch with hesitant fingers.
And it was her. Not Violet, but Caroline as she'd been at eighteen, with a ski hat perched on her head and her eyes crinkled in laughter. It was dated December 30, 2007.
She flipped the page to see another, from the same day, of her and Rebekah, slumped together on a couch, half asleep. "These are…" she trailed off, glanced up at him in confusion.
"Creepy and stalkeresque?" Klaus finished dryly, "So I've been told."
"I was going to say beautiful. No one's ever… I mean, I'm not…" she closed her mouth with a snap, and shook her head, as if to clear it, "Just… why?"
"I guess I sort of felt as if I knew you, a bit, before we met. Rebekah and I are close so I heard all about the girls she was rooming with…"
"I imagine she phrased it less nicely," Caroline interrupted with a laugh.
"The word 'plebian' might have been used. You drove her mad. She's quite used to crushing everyone in her path and you wouldn't let her walk over you. And then you two slowly became friends, instead of enemies, and I knew her well enough to hear how thrilled she was about it, and how much you came to mean to her. So I was intrigued. And grateful, to be honest."
Caroline shrugs that off, "Bex is all sharp edges around an ooey gooey center. I'm glad we're friends and I don't want any gratitude. Get to the drawings."
"I don't quite know what to say. I suppose I just liked your face."
"You liked my face?" Caroline parroted, at a louder volume, her face creased with incredulity.
"You're very beautiful, Caroline. And engaging. I'm an artist, love. That's really all I need in a subject."
She once again gaped at him, "Are there more? Drawings, I mean."
"Dozens," Klaus told her, "at least one from each time I visited Bekah, or you came home with her for a holiday. More from after you graduated and moved here." She motions for the sketchbooks and he passes them over. She pages through them rapidly, lingering on the images of her. The silence is not the most comfortable thing Klaus has ever endured, but he's well aware her reaction could have been far worse.
"So if you've been drawing me for forever," Caroline says, setting the last book aside. "Why'd it take so long for me to make it into 'The Originals?'?"
Klaus shifted in his seat uneasily. This part was one of the more difficult ones, "Do you remember meeting a girlfriend of mine, Greta, at that party Bekah threw a couple of summers ago?"
"Um, kind of? You guys didn't stay long."
"Because she recognized you. Unbeknownst to me she'd been looking through my sketchbooks without my permission. She was a bit perturbed."
"Ooh, doghouse for you."
"Precisely," Klaus agreed, "she'd only seen one or two, since I usually store the older ones out of the way, so in order to halt what was sure to be a tedious fight I told her I was working on a new character for the books, rather than that I just felt compelled to draw you."
"She bought that?"
"Mostly. We broke up shortly afterwards so it ceased to matter. I'd already drawn you in, as Violet, at that point."
"Why didn't you just kill me off?" Caroline asked curiously, "You had the perfect opportunity."
"Drama, to start with. And then you got popular."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. We were quite often criticized for the lack of well-developed female characters in the early issues. You've quite the following among the fans."
"Huh," Klaus could see that Caroline was kind of excited by that particular bit of news, though trying not to let it show, "I did get asked to take a picture at a comic book store on Tuesday."
"I know. I retweeted it. It's got quite a number of likes, last I checked."
"You have twitter?" Caroline exclaimed.
"Of course, love. It's good for business."
Caroline studied him, "Did not picture that," she muttered. "So why the romance angle?"
"To boost our appeal to a female demographic."
Caroline crossed her arms, and shot him an unimpressed look, "No, smartass. Why the romance between comic-you and comic-me?"
"I should think that was obvious."
"Well it's not."
"I fancy you."
Loud, startled laughter came spilling out of Caroline, Klaus remained silent while she collected herself. Had he really just said that? He'd not planned to say that.
Calming, she wiped her eyes, "No, really."
Klaus merely raised an eyebrow and nodded in confirmation that he'd not been bluffing.
"Okay, first of all, Kol was right? I'm never going to live this down."
"He's deceptively perceptive," Klaus commiserated, "you grow used to it."
"Why the constant cold shoulder? Are you eleven? You really should grow out of the pigtail pulling stage at some point."
If was a fair point, and Klaus was more than a little ashamed of himself. He struggled to explain, "I didn't quite mean to ignore you, honestly. I was almost two years out of university and you'd barely started. It felt a bit pervy, thinking of you as I did, so I did my best to avoid you, in hopes that it would go away."
Caroline's face remained skeptical and unmoved.
"And I'd had some not so pleasant experiences with Rebekah's friends…"
"I heard the April story," Caroline told him.
"Right. And then there was the fact that Bekah herself would've likely been livid, had I expressed an interest in you."
"So what you're saying is basically that you're a big fat coward?"
Klaus winced, found himself unable to deny it, "Perhaps. I do apologize, Caroline."
She snorted derisively, got to her feet, "Well this has been super enlightening, but I need to go now before I'm sorely tempted to do something I'll regret. Like punch you."
Caroline stalked towards the door, her entire body tensed, and bent to jerk on her boots, Klaus trailed after her, feeling helpless, having no idea what he should say, "Caroline…" he started.
"You don't get it, do you?" She stood, put her hands on her hips, "Clearly you've never been a teenage girl. Newsflash: it sucks. I was a super insecure one. I've worked my ass off to be more than that but every time we were in the same room, and you treated me like I didn't matter, all those stupid little doubts I had would come rushing back."
Klaus shoved his hands in his pockets, "I didn't…"
"Mean to?" she cut him off, "doesn't matter. I just need to think about this."
Klaus nodded, resigned. "Do you still want those autographs?" he asked. "For eBay."
"No. I want to keep the books," Caroline said quietly, biting her lip and avoiding his gaze. "I like the way you drew me. The perv jar's proving pretty lucrative."
Smiling slightly at her attempt at a joke, and tamping down his shock at her desire to keep his work, Klaus murmured, "Whatever you like, love," and opened the door for her.
She stood still for a long second, and Klaus would be hard pressed to name any of the emotions crossing her face. She finally scooped up her bag and brushed past him saying, "I'll see you around, Klaus," before she walked down the hallway without looking back.
More Notes: Yeah, that got crazy long. Klaus' first POV though, so he had a lot to say, I guess? We'll be back to our regularly scheduled, bite sized chapters, when we pick up in December. Sorry to leave on a weird note! Also, even though the chapters take place in different months, the time gaps are sometimes longer or shorter. This week was November 15 – 21 and the next section is slated to be December 5 – 11.
About the graphic novel: I think a lot of people had guessed the contents? It's basically TVD, with the Originals as the focus. Issues 1 – 20 are basically the origin story, plus how they dealt with being turned. How did they learn they could turn others? What was Finn's deal? Etc. Issues 21 – 30 are Klaus closing in on the doppelgänger (I've always wondered how he recruited the witches? And why they were so devoted), whatever Elijah was up to, and the rest of S2. Issues 31 -50 are seasons 3 and 4 and the 50th issue, which Caroline got an advanced copy of, and there's going to be a party to celebrate contains the 'However long it takes' line, hence why she was kind of floored by it.
The names I chose, just for fun:
Freya = Freya
Finn = Hakon (the highest son)
Elijah = Brant (sword)
Niklaus = Einar (one who fights alone)
Kol = Fritjof (one who steals peace)
Rebekah = Helga
Henrik = Henrik
Caroline = Violet
Mikael = Ove (full of terror)
Esther = Vera
Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts.