Chapter One: The Letter
When Klaus receives the invitation, his immediate reaction is to toss it in the trash. High school had been fun, sure. But there are reasons that, even ten years later, cause his pulse to quicken and his stomach to clench at even the thought of returning to Mystic Falls. Well, not really multiple reasons. Just one. The only one that matters.
He always checks his mail on the way home from work. A creature of habit, he has a routine. A routine that helps keep his bachelor pad apartment tidy. That, and the maid that comes by every Thursday afternoon. (Thursdays specifically so that it is sparkling and impressive in time for the weekend). The single ladies of New York always appreciate a man with an impressive apartment, after all. Hence the routine.
He checks his lock box every evening, and rifles through the mail on the elevator ride. Immediately, he shreds the junk mail in the shredder he keeps in his spare room office, while placing any bills in an inbox on his desk that he either sees to immediately or leaves for a more convenient time on the weekend. No stray mail is left to decorate a kitchen counter or get lost in a cushion or under a piece of furniture. And nothing with his address is ever placed into a mere trash bin. Identity theft being as rampant as it is.
The invitation arrives on an innocuous Wednesday. He is distracted as he enters his building, waving at the doorman as he rifles for the key to unlock his box. He cradles his phone to his ear, all the while trying not to drop it or his briefcase and suit jacket he has slung over his arm. He is unsuccessful in his endeavor though and curses as the phone slams to the marbled lobby floor.
"Need a hand, Mr. Mikaelson?"
Klaus waves off the doorman with a grim smile in his direction and retrieves his phone, giving it a cursory glance before returning it to his ear. Rebekah natters on, none the wiser. She is throwing a dinner party for Marcel. He's been promoted, and it is supposedly a happy occasion. An occasion worth a monkey suite and boatloads of the best champagne the city has to offer. Klaus is personally sick to death of Rebecca's dinner parties, and doesn't much care for having to play nice with Marcel. Again. But every excuse he throws at his determined sister is met with a rebuttal, and Klaus has to laugh as he finally gives in. She is almost as stubborn as him.
"You won't regret it, Nik. I've even hired this company that will deliver the hors d'oeuvres via these flying drone thingys."
"That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, no? Can you imagine Kol after a few glasses of champagne interacting with those things?"
"But they light up and everything," Rebecca wines, only because she's seen the truth in his words and doesn't want to let go of her fabulous scheme.
"Bekah, dearest. If you go through with it, just make sure you have top notch liability insurance. Oh, and be sure to get the whole bloody thing on film…."
He's just entered the elevator with his phone crooked in his neck so he has both hands to flip through his mail. He's only half paying attention as he peruses, being as caught up in the conversation as he is. He almost flips right past it. Bill, bill, junk, junk, bill. Wait.
"Nik, are you there? I think I lost you."
He knows the return address by heart, and for a second he can't breathe, much less respond to his sister.
"Nik!"
"I, um, I. I think I just received a letter from Katherine Pierce."
The silence on the other end of the phone is deafening. Out of all his friends and family, Rebekah is perhaps the one that most clearly understands the amount of damage Katherine did to him. To his heart.
"Are you sure?" she asks carefully, tone suddenly serious with the implication.
"Yes," he dares to breath. Then he snaps, "What the hell could she possibly want?" Now that the initial shock has passed, he's angry. No. He's livid.
"You have to open it, Nik. Do you want me to come over?"
He's at his apartment door now. "Don't be ridiculous, Beks. I'm fine. You don't have to come here. It's 5 o'clock traffic and you live across town, you daft wench. By the time you got here, the letter will be yellowing in my hands. Besides, I'm not opening it."
"Why not? Aren't you the least bit curious?"
"No, but you are, and I'm not opening this letter just to satisfy your curiosity. There's nothing she could possibly say to me to I would want to here. I'm tossing it in the bin as we speak."
And he does. And he mostly means it.
When Klaus ends his call with Rebekah, he resumes his nightly routine. Even though it's a week night, and he has work in the morning, Klaus still has plans. Kol is in town and is due to arrive with beer and pizza any moment. He has the Manchester United game recorded on his DVR, and they have plans to get a bit thrashed and holler obscenities at the screen until his neighbors complain.
Klaus glances at the trash bin for maybe the tenth time since he's been home, and suddenly he can't stand it. He picks up his phone. "Kol," he says when his little brother answers. "Forget the pizza. We're going out."
o-o-o-o-o
When Klaus arrives home, alone for once, several hours into Thursday morning, he's a wee bit smashed. Ok, he is pass out level drunk. The only reason he's home at all is because he insisted, and Kol had tipped the Uber driver to wait on him so he could see his brother safely to his door.
Klaus makes it, only stumbling twice, to the kitchenette to fetch a glass of water. He's leaning on the counter, having downed the glass, and is trying to remember where he keeps the Paracetamol, when his gaze locks on the bin. There's no lid. The letter still sits on top. The return address blurs for a moment before he is able to focus again, but it may as well be lit up and flashing neon.
Despite himself, Klaus reaches for the letter.
He opens it messily, almost ripping the contents with his drunken endeavor. The envelope does not survive the encounter. When he has the letter in front of him, finally, he lets out a loud guffaw. He cannot believe his stupidity, how he had completely and utterly fell apart at this! He briefly peruses the form letter and attached RSVP card, vision tunneling and refocusing, but he gets the gist. Their ten year high school reunion weekend. A mixer in the gym. A dinner at The Grill. An after party at the Salvatore Boarding House. He crumples the whole lot and tosses it back in the trash before passing out, fully clothed, on his pristine leather sofa.
o-o-o-o-o
When he wakes the next day with sofa seams embedded on his face, he thinks he may be dying. He's still a little drunk. Head pounding. The cheery sunlight streaming in the floor to ceiling windows is a sharp contrast to his mood, and an unwelcome nuisance to his eyes. It's not the morning sun that wakes him, however, but it takes him a moment to register what has.
Rebekah's voice. She's talking to herself? No, she's on the phone, but he can't seem to quite focus on her words.
He peels himself from the sofa and drags himself to a barstool in his kitchenette where Rebekah has a glass of water and Paracetamol waiting. "You're an angel."
"I'll call you back." Rebekah sits her phone down and studies him shrewdly. It's only now that he notices the crumbled sheet of paper lying on the counter before her. And he remembers.
"Are you going?" she nods down to the paper. "You know you have to, right?" she says before she even gives him a chance to answer her. "It's a big honor, and you can't let her stop you from receiving it."
Now he's confused. Since when is being a ten year post high school grad an honor? Many people have done it. Many people have skipped their reunions. There's no one he keeps in touch with from Mystic Falls. No one he cares to see whatsoever. And he definitely doesn't want to see her. Katherine.
Rebekah notes his confusion. "You didn't see? They want to induct you into the Mystic Falls High School Hall of Fame. They want you to display your art at the gym mixer and give a speech about your success and how your high school experience contributed to it. You have to go."
This information is too much for Klaus to take in. His mind is too muddled from the alcohol still coursing through his veins. He needs food. Something greasy.
He pushes Rebekah aside to grab a pan from the cabinet and begins to heat it on his state-of-the-art stove top. He grabs the bacon from the fridge, gestures at Bekah. "Want some?"
She shrugs. Nods her assent. Asks, "Why did you think it was from Katherine?" "The letter," she clarifies, as if he didn't know.
"Make yourself useful and prepare some coffee, will you?"
Rebekah huffs but does as he asks. She's stubborn and he knows she won't leave well enough alone.
"It was her return address on the envelope," he mutters, grudgingly.
"Oh," is all she says in return. Neither wanting to acknowledge the ramifications of his still recognizing that address all these years later. It didn't even have her name at the top, for Christ's sake!
Then, "I wonder why…"
But Klaus knows what she is about to ask. "Class secretary," he offers, and Rebekah makes a face of surprise.
Katherine was never the class officer type. She wasn't a joiner. She didn't belong to any sport or club. She never attended a school sanctioned dance or rally. She was a trouble maker to the core. Wild and free. So it was as a joke that he had nominated her for a class office position their first day of senior year. She had rolled her eyes at him and laughed but then been outraged when she actually won the vote. Klaus might have wheeled and dealed on her behalf to make it happen, but she never had to know that. Her aghast face when the announcement was made had been priceless. Later, in the backseat of his car parked at the falls she would tease, "You just wanted to bed a politician." Klaus hadn't been able to hide his smile as he kissed and nuzzled her neck.
Turns out, though, that despite her reticence at being involved in high school in any way, she was rather good at it. It was her nature to never to do anything by halves, so she got shit done. "I hate you for this," she would say to Klaus as she performed some sort of secretarial duty or as she prepared to sit through yet another dull meeting. But she would always smile as she said it, the heat in her voice never reaching her eyes.
And apparently, she's still rocking the position. "It would be her responsibility as a class officer to help with reunion preparations," he tells Rebekah.
"I know that you nitwit. I was an officer every year, lest you forget," she snaps as she pours him a cup of coffee in his favorite mug. He plates the bacon, adds two eggs he'd cooked as an afterthought, and trades her the mug for the plate. "You have to go," she repeats one last time before they dig into their breakfast in silence.
As she leaves a little later, he tosses out, "I want my key back," but the door slams and he's alone with his thoughts.
o-o-o-o-o
The crumbled invitation sits on his counter for a week. He doesn't move it, tells the cleaning lady to leave it be. It's an eye sore, this crumbled piece of paper, but he just cannot bring himself to do anything about it one way or another. And so it sits.
o-o-o-o-o
He's at his studio the following Friday when his phone rings. He almost doesn't answer because he doesn't recognize the number, but he's been expecting a call from a gallery in Chicago, so he answers.
"Hello. This is Niklaus Mikaelson."
"Klaus, hi! It's Sophie Devereaux. How are you?"
Klaus inwardly groans. Sophie had been the President of his senior class, he recalls now. He knows why she's calling.
After the niceties are out of the way, Sophie asks the question he's been dreading. The one he can't decide the answer to. He's gone back and forth both ways. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to return to the scene of the crime, to have to see the woman that ripped his heart to shreds and made it so he could never love again. He doesn't want that at all. On the other hand, it may be vindicating to return triumphant, successful. To seem unfazed by her presence. Maybe even pick up a chick or two right in front of her. He's got the touch after all. Has had it since high school in fact. If he remembers correctly, Sophie Devereaux is quite pretty. And doesn't she have a sister?
Without giving himself time to talk himself out of it, he responds, interrupting her query. "I apologize for my lack of response. I've been quite busy at the studio this week. I, of course, will attend, and I am honored at the recognition."
"Great. We can discuss details when the event gets closer. Looking forward to seeing you again, Klaus."
And just like that, the conversation is over and the deed is done. He's going back to Mystic Falls. He's going to face Katherine.
Never once does it enter his mind how his classmates know about his successes. Never once does he think that this honor has been orchestrated because of her.