A/N:

Trigger warnings: Sensitive content below concerning mental health issues and suicide mentions.


"Not every fairy tale story that begins with 'Once upon a time,' has a 'Happily ever after'..."

― Khalia Hades, Ariel's Demise


Mystic Falls, a few years ago, after Kol Mikaelson's death.

Caroline Forbes confidently walked inside Elena's house. Klaus Mikaelson was trapped inside but instead of looking helpless and imprisoned he was sitting back in the armchair like a King.

"You can't kill Tyler."

Her voice was soft and quiet, she was both telling him what to do and was pleading with him. Once more using her power over him to sway him to her side.

Klaus watched her with a detached look, as he sat back in the chair, with his arms wide spread on the armrests. The lamp behind him was casting a soft shade of pale light against the shadows that were circling him in the dark room.

"Not only can I, I have to," he stated with a calm malicious voice, "I have a reputation to uphold, moreover," he smiled with glee relishing in the thought, "I want to."

After all, he was a killer and this was fair retribution.

Caroline was watching him with pleading eyes but there was alluring strength in them. For she was a killer too, deep inside her good and soft heart, and so she wasn't moved by the coldness of his dangerous games.

She closed her eyes for a second only to draw on her inner strength and patience as she defiantly tried to reason with him. All so he could spare her beloved lover. If he wasn't the villain of the story and if she wasn't who she was to him he might even be moved by her plight and find this romantic. Alas, he was the great evil they all feared so since he could not shade his skin he would embrace his true self and in doing so he would be a mirror for Caroline to embrace hers. The Romeo and Juliet fairytales of love with simpletons were beneath her. In time she would come to realize it. Maybe he could expedite the process.

"I am not asking you to forgive him," Caroline said without missing a bit, "All I am asking is that you let him live, somewhere far from here."

He got up, feeling offended by the way she was demeaning herself and pleading for his hybrid's life. She hadn't pled for her life but she would for him. For that, he hated that useless boy even more so.

"So he gets to live a happy life," he bristled, "after he turned all my hybrids against me," he said walking closer to her.

Her chest was heaving up and down and the air was electrified around them. She was afraid of his proximity, especially after their last encounter. He had lost control, he had bitten her and almost left her to die only to prove to himself he wasn't weak for love was only for fools.

And what a fool he had turned to be.

But while he had come to accept this foolishness where it came to her, she was the only line he would draw between his savage instincts and his heart. For her, he had a heart. For the rest of the world, he had none.

But if she believed he could manipulate the last pieces of his heart only because they belonged to her she was about to be greatly disappointed. While he could make concessions for her and her alone, he was not about to allow her to use him and abuse his affection for her. He was still Klaus Mikaelson. And Caroline had to respect at least that.

So he walked towards her with intimidating intentions but despite the fear that ran in her veins she didn't move from her spot. She stood tall, holding his gaze hostage as he did hers and that was one of the reasons why she among all others she had gained his respect too.

However, the Lockwood boy deserved none of his respect. His life was nothing. He would relish in killing him and eradicating him from memory. Unfortunately, he also knew that should he do that he would make him a martyr and a memory of a haunting love in Caroline's eyes and he didn't want that.

But the desire to kill that boy was proving overwhelming and Caroline pleading for his life made that desire grow larger.

Oh, he would enjoy killing him and he would wait for millennia for Caroline to forgive him and move on from that boy's memory if he had to. After all, they had all the time in the world.

"After he tried to kill me," he continued his rant about intending to kill Tyler Lockwood, looking offended, "after he made it his life mission to find the cure so he could use it against me!"

"We all want the cure!" she exclaimed facing him with indignation and anger.

"Do we?" he challenged her statement with a raspy serene tone.

Her eyes spoke of a thousand thoughts she would not utter. He was sure she wanted to challenge him back, to argue but she couldn't.

Not with this.

He could tell he was the first to ask her this. No one else had bothered to ask her if she wanted to become human again. This story belonged to his doppelganger and his Caroline was nothing but a pawn. One expendable as long as Elena Gilbert got to achieve her dreams but as it happened he was certain that Caroline's dreams didn't align with those of her friends. It was her misplaced loyalty that made her side with them not her desire to become human. The ripper wanted to become a human, his doppelganger wanted to become a human but he and Caroline were made from another material. They were not weak. For Caroline, becoming human would be a curse, not a cure and he could see it.

He could see it so clearly in her expressive eyes that could not hide the truth from him.

She opened her mouth to refute him but she couldn't speak. There was a vulnerability in her eyes and shame for her desire. Her desire to be her true self. To rise into the creature of the night she was born and destined to become, despite all odds and chances.

Caroline Forbes was not considering mortality to be a gift. Becoming human was not what she wanted and she was ashamed to face that truth even though she had long accepted it deep inside her.

However, they were now here. Alone. Face to face and she could not lie to him. This pull and push they had was a complicated web that magnetized them closer and demanded the raw truth from them both. One that bound them and pulled them apart. One that brought them together for they may be the different sides of the same coin but they were the same coin nonetheless.

"Do you?" he asked her again, leveling his gaze with hers. But he knew her answer already. She would not. She would not choose to become a human even if she had the chance to.

"It doesn't matter" she deflected and he could detect the hurt underneath her words, "there is only one, so it's not like I am going to get it anyway," she said and he could tell how the hurt was coming from her hurt pride.

While she was here fighting for her friends, putting her life on the line, sacrificing everything for them over and over again they hadn't even considered asking her if this was her dream too. She was loyal to them but they were not loyal to her. She was here fighting for them but she had accepted her role in their little game. She had accepted she was lesser than his doppelganger in the little selfish bubble that lot had created all around Elena Gilbert and by extension all around her.

Klaus felt pity for her at that moment for he knew all too well what it meant to feel less. To feel unworthy. To feel as if you are not enough no matter how much you try. So you have to settle for less. It created a strange sensation of loneliness only creatures like him and Caroline could get to experience but while he took that rage and hurt out in the world Caroline made it empathy and love for all those that treated her like a pawn.

Only Caroline was also smart. She was accepting being a secondary piece in the game and was using that acceptance as her personal shield to hide her truth. To hide her darkest desires. While everyone around her dreamed of a human life she despised the thought of it and if she showed that to her so called friends they would judge her for natural instincts. For her choices. So the fact that she didn't have a choice was making her be one step ahead of all those morons that had never considered her in the first place when it came to who would get the cure.

She had found strength and strategy in the ingratitude of all those that surrounded her and were taking her for granted.

"But if you could?" he insisted and her eyes betrayed her. What she dare not say her eyes screamed in their emotionality that made him look at her in a new light.

Oh, what a glorious creature she truly was.

All that fire underneath, so cold as the stars of the night, so hot as the sun who burned in the darkness across the universe. She was a force of nature and she would not give away that power. She would own it.

This small town was too small to contain her. Even the world was. She was meant to rise, to conquer, and not stifle herself in the low expectations others, who couldn't see her for who she truly was, had for her.

Soft lines cracked around his eyes as his lips curled to a self-satisfied smile, "you wouldn't," he concluded almost smugly but with an understanding that only they could ever share, "would you?" he asked but they both knew it was a rhetorical question for he was seeing straight into her.

She lowered her head to the side and averted her eyes in quiet admission. She wouldn't take the cure and Klaus felt it like a personal victory.

"You prefer who you are now to the girl you once were," at his voice, her eyes found him and an invisible chord was now pulling them closer. Their bodies were not moving but the air was charged, their connection stronger than ever. She looked down but his voice was a temptation she could not resist. A smile bloomed in his face, "you like being strong," he recognized with admiration and she couldn't help but look straight into his eyes as his words enchanted her.

"Ageless… fearless."

He could see how each word of appreciation was igniting strength and desire inside her. Her eyes were starting to blaze responding to the gleam of his own. She could reach out and feel the potential of his words that were a promise that was already fulfilled in her vampirism. And Caroline was starting to get high and enjoy the sensation of the strength that came with immortality and blood. She wanted it. She wanted it all. And she didn't fear who she had become. She embraced it. She embraced the darkness that she turned into light. She embraced the instincts that came along with the fangs and the veins and the power that surged inside her. And he embraced that side of hers while all around her would condemn it.

He slowly came closer as she stood her ground, magnetized by his proximity, held captive by his eyes. This time she was not afraid or worried as she had been when she had entered the room. She was calm. She was accepting of her nature.

Of their nature.

She stood against him, an immovable object to his unstoppable force. And he stood there taking in the force she was without moving an inch as they remained still, their bodies so close, their eyes locked into battle and desire.

Most of all in honesty.

He was the devil's bargain but he was also everything she denied in herself. Because she had already made that bargain with the darkness long before he came into her life and she only grew in it and now she was almost ready to become the devil's bargain herself and it was an emotion that sparked new life in her. She was drawn into power. She was power herself.

And therefore she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He studied her, his eyes piercing deep into her untold secrets and there they stood facing each other as shadows of pale light and darkness danced around them.

"We're the same, Caroline."

He watched her pleased and he was feeling victorious in his absolute certainty.

His voice had been softly mellifluous. Content. Alluring.

And he expected nothing else when Caroline used the same tone, the same seductive dangerous challenge that would become a devil's bargain for him, that would tighten the web around them tighter like a vice for this was who they were.

"Then show me." she challenged him back, with absolute control and defiance and he looked at her intrigued, as she once more used the power she had over him.

'One day,' he made the mental promise in his head.

'One day…he would show her.'


Italy. Year 1114 AD

The fires were flickering in their torches as Rebekah jolted awake with a gasp. She rose and sat at the edge of the tall bed. She felt disoriented and lost, her skin tingling and an ache in her heart that felt like a burn she had never felt before. Her bare feet were cold, her hair disheveled and her gown was torn and shredded.

She looked around dazed. The villas' walls had changed color. The stones were no longer reflecting the light from the torches. They were wet.

So wet. So red.

From the corner of her eyes, she could see so many bodies. Dismantled. Gruesomely ripped apart…but in front of her there he stood.

Her brother.

Klaus was inside her bedroom, in front of her bed, standing amid a bloodbath. Blood was dripping down the stone walls and the white shirt of her brother was drenched in it.

Klaus was covered in blood. His neck, his arms, his clothes. His hair was dripping with blood and blood was a stain on her nightgown too.

"What happened?" she asked mortified trying to connect the pieces of her memory. The last thing she remembered was being in bed with Alexander, making love, talking about his plans to destroy vampires, and then the sharp bite of steel. She had looked down at the dagger protruding from her chest and then at Alexander's eyes that looked at her with a gaze that should have been filled with love but it was not. It was almost asking for forgiveness but she could see the harshness beneath it.

No. Everything was a haze. It had to be a dream…a nightmare. Alexander loved her.

Klaus stumbled to the side revealing her the gruesome side his body had been blocking from her eyes.

Tears prickled at the back of her eyes as Rebekah took in the horror she was seeing.

Klaus had impaled Alexander on the wall with a sword and he was showing her his dead body that was hanging lifeless from the bleeding blade. His blood was splattered everywhere. More blood was dribbling from his gaping mouth.

"Ask him," Klaus's demeanor was deceivingly soft as he extended his hand pointing at Alexander's corpse, "only he cannot answer because I have ripped out his tongue," he quietly said, "along with the rest of them."

So many bodies. All the hunters were dead. Klaus had savagely ripped them apart.

"Nik," she pled with dread, her chest heaving up and down, her voice barely coming out as she realized what had happened," I had no idea!"

"But you should have," Klaus accused her through gritted teeth without even looking at her. As if her presence was despicable to him. He had saved her but at what cost?

His rage was seething but his voice was a castigating whisper, "your only family was nearly wiped out because of your stupidity," he hissed the words.

Rebekah's gaze was blurred. Tears threatened to spill and the only thing she could do was tremble and shake her head.

Klaus was far more terrifying when he was being quiet and her skin was shivering with terror but also regret. She had been betrayed. By the love of her life.

Only Alexander had not loved her. He had used her. He had lied with false promises and he had only wanted to destroy her and eradicate her family and all vampires from the face of the earth. He had been her enemy while she had loved him with her whole heart and now it was him that was gone. Brutally murdered at the hands of her brother.

And now she had to face the wrath of her brother and the loss of her love. Not only that but she had lost more. So much more. Alexander's promise was gone.

"What did he promise you?" Klaus demanded without raising his voice but the words were spoken with revulsion and so much hate. So much anger.

"Nothing," Rebekah denied breathlessly, terror starting to build inside her more, "nothing…"

"He would not have made a move unless he knew you were vulnerable," Klaus bit out and she covered her mouth trying to stifle her sobs as her eyes would not leave Alexander's torn bleeding body. Klaus started walking towards her with unsteady but heavy steps and now she couldn't stop herself from crying as he was menacingly approaching her, "you trusted him," Klaus seethed, "over ME," he yelled furiously and Rebekah wept desperately.

Her brother finally looked at her, his eyes filled with angry tears. He wouldn't stop demanding answers and he knew her better than anyone. Niklaus, her dear beloved brother, knew her. She couldn't hide from him. She never could.

"What did he promise you?" he insisted disappointed and hurt, his pain battling his rage.

"Nothing Nik," Rebekah cried, her wailing leaving her without breath, her panic was stealing her heartbeat, "I swear," she bawled her eyes out but Klaus was like the sea. In his calm waters, she could always find refuge but in his storm, she would drown.

His screams ricocheted around her, shaking her to the core as his violence broke loose.

"What did he promise you" Klaus roared and she could only shake her head and cry. She couldn't stop crying. She couldn't stop the pain, the fear, the despair. She couldn't look him in the eyes and lie she couldn't.

She tried to stop him, to somehow make him stop but she couldn't. Her cries were incoherent now as her sobs wracked her body.

"Nik-"

Klaus grabbed her with fierce violence and strength that bruised the skin, broke bones and he picked her up from the bed, shaking her like a ragged doll.

His glare was burning her more than his fingers that had dag in her upper arms and he was the only thing keeping her up. His punishing grip became harder, his voice rose and shook the walls.

"Tell me Rebekah!" he howled, screaming in her face as he kept forcefully shaking her shuddering body.

Her tears would not stop falling. Terror and helpless agony like nothing she had felt before filled her heart as she uttered her broken dream to her brother. Alexander's promise that would never come to pass.

She was to remain an unloved monster forever.

"Human," she broke down in Nik's hands, "to make us human."


Gascony, France. Year 1118 AD

Shadows were dancing in the walls of the castle. Footsteps were heard climbing down the round stone staircase, running, stopping, and running again.

He could see the flash of blonde hair escaping him. The image of a ghost that ran down the castle corridors and stairs.

She would not escape him. She would not curse him again!

"Mother!" Klaus bellowed, his scream making everything around him quake from stone to dust.

He could hear the chants of his mother as she was spelling the curse to bound his wolf and in the far distance, he could hear Mikael's taunting laugh.

He gripped his head and lost his step tumbling down the stairs and falling on his knees.

He screamed and flashed after the shushing sound of the red gown.

He grabbed her by the long blonde hair not caring for her pleading or how everything around him was getting distorted. Esther's spell was becoming louder than Rebekah's voice.

Why was he seeing his sister? Why was her face kept transforming into his mother's?

He tried to focus, he shook his head.

He slammed Esther against the wall until parts of it fell around them. He heard her grunt, he felt the blood that splattered at the back of her head.

She would tie him to the cross again.

"Nik, please," Rebekah's pleading voice reached his ears and he blinked.

Alexander the hunter was right there. Next to him. Speaking into his ear. Telling him of his sister's betrayal.

Rebekah was helping Esther curse him.

He wrapped his hands around Esther's neck. He would rip off her head.

Alexander kept whispering to him, telling him to end her life and then end his. The only way to ensure Esther would never hurt him again was to follow her to hell.

"Nik, it's me! Rebekah! Please!" his sister croaked and his eyes widened. Veins appeared under his eyes and retreated.

His fangs dropped and he cried.

"Sister?"

"Nik, please," Rebekah coughed when he gripped her neck tighter. Her nails were scratching his hands unable to tear them away from her throat. She fought back and their bodies kept hitting the walls cracking the castle down making it fall all around them.

"You are weak, boy!" Mikael laughed at how Esther was winning the fight.

Klaus saw the woman he held. His sister's face was gone. His mother was looking at him. Her mouth was opening and closing. No sound was coming out but his memories emerged from the time she had cursed him.

His mother had sung lullabies to him as a child and then she had cursed him. She hated him. Everyone hated him. Even Rebekah as Alexander was telling him.

"Leave me alone!" he yelled at the voices and hit the wall next to his mother's face with all his strength breaking it.

He could hear pleading and Rebekah crying but it was coming from far away. He had to save his sister. His mother would destroy them all.

He pushed away at the whispers of Esther cursing his wolf. She was trying to lock his wolf in his body, to make him be always half, never whole! She was doing it again!

" I will kill you," he screamed as he pushed her in the windows stepping over Finn's and Kol's dead bodies. He had ripped out their hearts. They were aiding Mikael. They had wanted to kill him too. They laughed at his face calling him a bastard.

Rebekah had left him and now mother was here wanting to curse him again. He would not let her.

"Nik stop," Rebekah implored when he punched through her bones and grabbed her heart. He squeezed hard.

"I will rip out your heart for what you have done to me witch!"

The shadow behind him moved fast.

A sharp crack of bone and all was dark.

Elijah Mikaelson had snapped his brother's neck and watched horrified his siblings. Klaus had torn their hearts. Rebekah was gasping. She had fallen on her knees and with one hand she was covering her bleeding chest and with another, she was trying to hold on to Niklaus crying over him.

Elijah fell on his knees too. He closed his eyes unable to keep staring at Niklaus.

He had gone mad and he could not help him.

"Forgive me, brother," Elijah whispered as Rebekah fell into his arms and cried for their brother. He held her but he had to detain Niklaus before he would wake up again.


Granada, Spain. Year 1125 AD

"Nik stop!"

His sister yelled desperately from behind him. She had fallen down as he had broken her spine. She couldn't follow him. For now.

All the hunters he had once killed silently walked beside him.

He calmly walked past Elijah's grey body. He had impaled him with one of the long fire torches. The fire was licking his dead body as he hang there pinned on the cracked painting.

They wouldn't stop him from following her.

Her laughter was taunting him. The scent of lavender was clinging in the air. Calling him closer.

Rebekah's voice became a distant echo as he chased the red.

His hand almost reached for her smooth skin, her nightgown was flowing in the wind. She escaped him still.

His beautiful Aurora. Her beautiful red hair was a haze of autumn leaves drenched in blood floating in the night.

She turned around and smiled at him before she threw herself from the top of the tower.

"NO!"

He couldn't catch her. He couldn't save her. She fell and he fell right after her.

Without thinking twice he threw himself over the stone edge following her cries and her laughter, the scent of her body as he had once made love to her, and the lies of her betrayal that still haunted his soul, until his body crashed on rock and sea.

The foam carried his body and blood. He was free as darkness swallowed him but then the moment of peace became salt and water and he was drowning.

Waking up and drowning over and over again. Sinking into the darkness. Into the deep unforgiving blue and the waves that broke his body over and over again.

It would take months for Kol and Elijah to reach him following the destruction he unleashed once he reached the shore.

He had burned villages and scorched earth and he tore through people and ate their hearts and brains, clawing at their bowels as they were mocking him and calling Mikael to kill him.

So he killed them all.

The only one he couldn't kill no matter how much he tried was himself.


Kingdom of Castile, Spain. Year 1127 AD

He pushed the dagger deep into Rebekah's body. Straight into her heart. Her beautiful eyes widened. She gasped and started desiccating. She fell on his arms and he held her close. He kissed the crown of her head. He kissed his mother's head.

His brothers had tried to subdue him again but he daggered them all.

Klaus laughed as he laid between their daggered bodies and the madness set deeper. He was free to give in to it.

He looked around but all he could see were not the faces of his brothers and his sister. The daggers were coming out from the bodies of the hunters.

Hadn't he killed those hunters years ago?

They had daggered his siblings but they couldn't dagger him and now he had daggered them back.

He did dagger them did he not?

Or was that just his imagination too?

He looked down at his hands. Rebekah's body was gone. In mist and smoke, she was gone.

He watched around confused. Where did his siblings go?

They had left him all alone.


Kingdom of Castile, Spain. Year 1132 AD

The small moments of clarity were worse than the moments of insanity.

Time was ticking backward until he would lose his mind again. There was no escape. He couldn't even turn off his humanity. The curse would not let him and time was counting backward. Always. And Klaus knew it and he could not take the torment any longer. No matter how much he would starve himself, no matter how much he would hit his head on the walls until his skull would break and spill his madness in blood. He had tried to kill himself in so many ways and none worked. He was a true immortal and there was no escape.

He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that Mikael was nearing closer. He would find him and then he would kill him. As he killed him every day before he would wake up and be taunted by his mocking words and insults.

He pulled the dagger from Elijah's chest and scrambled back to the wall bringing his knees up to his chest. Tears were falling from his eyes. He couldn't stop them.

He felt feverish and small. Like when he was a boy and the fever had almost taken him.

Elijah inhaled sharply, his hand flew on his pained chest as life rushed back into his body, his veins turned from ash and stone back to flesh and blood…he craved blood.

Elijah had to drink blood so he blindly bit into the half-dead bodies that were still moaning. Klaus had left them to die slowly and so he finished them.

Elijah wiped his lips. There were drops of blood there and he saw the countless dead bodies around them.

Rot was spreading in the air along with the smell of diseases, spoiled food, and human waste.

He looked at the wall at the figure that had turned into a ball deeper into the shadows and rage filled him. Klaus had daggered him. He looked around at the dropped bodies of his siblings. Daggers were sticking out of their bodies. He had daggered them all.

For how long?

He took a threatening step towards Niklaus despite the dizziness and weakness he still felt.

But then he abruptly stopped.

Tears were flowing down Klaus' dirty cheeks. He was covered in blood, feces and mud.

"He will kill us, he will kill us all," Klaus kept mumbling into his madness.

Elijah realized Klaus was still holding on to the dagger he had daggered him with. He knew that one wrong step and he would find himself daggered again. He should run but as he saw his little brother so broken and lost he could not.

He approached carefully.

"Who will brother?" he asked quietly careful not to startle Niklaus with a hoarse voice he had not used for years.

Klaus' gaze snapped up. It was crazed and maniacal.

"Behind you!" Klaus screamed and pointed the sharp end of the dagger at him.

Elijah held his breath, preparing his body for a fight but he realized that Klaus was not pointing the dagger at him. He was pointing it at some shadow behind him. Elijah turned around and saw no one standing behind him.

"Father!" Klaus yelled warning him, "He is laughing!"

Elijah watched his brother with pity and his suffering broke his own heart. Klaus was tearing his long hair with one hand while gripping the handle of the dagger with the other and stabbing himself in the gut over and over again. Elijah flinched. He had to stop this madness but there was no cure. No matter how much he had searched there was no cure to save his brother from this unrelenting insanity.

"Watch out Elijah!"

Elijah stepped back as Klaus threw the dagger at his imaginary enemy missing him by an inch. The dagger fell on the ground with a clanging noise.

Elijah swallowed down hard.

He crouched in front of his brother.

"It's okay brother," he told Klaus with his most soothing voice. Like the one, he had used when Niklaus was a boy and was falling into sickness. He was always the one to nurse him back to health along with Rebekah and their mother's remedies.

Klaus' tormented eyes found him and Elijah's eyes watered as he saw his little brother in that scared gaze. Klaus was terrified. Just like when he was a boy.

"Can't you see him?" Klaus whispered and Elijah remained silent.

Klaus desperately stared at him wanting him to help him. To save him.

To save him from…Mikael.

Only Mikael was not there. As the ghosts, his brother was seeing were never there.

Klaus trembled, clenched his eyes shut, and when he opened them he gazed into Elijah's agonized gaze.

"I am losing my mind brother," Klaus whispered and his voice was begging him, "help me."

Niklaus fell into his embrace and Elijah held him as his brother hid his face into his neck.

"I will," he promised him and when Klaus tried to bite him with ravenous fury he snapped his neck.


Constantinople, Byzantine Empire. Year 1135 AD.

Elijah Mikaelson had taken his precautions. Klaus had left them with no alternatives. Elijah had locked his brother into an empty dungeon underneath an old Orthodox Church. There were no objects there that Niklaus could use to hurt himself but many times he would break free from the chains throw himself on the enchanted walls trying to kill himself by the impact.

Klaus was screaming day and night, he was muttering incoherent words and he was laughing. There were times he was falling silent and times he watched around him with terror. There were times he was in deep conversations with ghosts he could only see.

Klaus had tried to kill himself in a thousand ways, taunted by the hunters he had killed, by every innocent he had devoured, they had no names, they had no faces and yet he remembered their eyes, their eyes followed him.

He was starving and he was laughing and he was dying.


Transylvania, Romania. Year 1138 AD

He saw blood everywhere but he was starving.

Klaus Mikaelson was gone. All that was left was a wild beast that was trying to kill others and himself in any way he could. His instincts ordered him to attack, to hunt, to die.

He couldn't speak. He could only growl and moan and maybe throw some words that made no sense in any language known to man.

He had freed himself countless times, ending deep in the Carpathian mountains before his brothers would catch him. He had tried to behead him, to flay himself alive, to burn, to cut his heart out. Nothing worked. He would not rest. He would not die.

Before he had lost his ability to speak in human tongue he had given in.

In a rare moment of sanity, he had even tried to reach to witches to have him killed only for Elijah and Rebekah to destroy any coven that would dare give him aid. Much good it did since this only enraged him and he killed more witches in his path when he was not trying to drown himself or stake his heart or cut out his spleen. Nothing worked.

And so he gave up. He gave up to the ghosts. To the guilt. To the visits of his fathers. Of Mikael and of the one Esther had him with.

His siblings also taunted him. Laughed at him. Tried to kill him. Break him. Hit him and punish him as Mikael did only for them to lie and tell him this was in his mind and it was not true.

He could not say. He could not differentiate between lies and truth so he succumbed to nothingness. He would not react. No matter how many times the pain would be too real, too overwhelming. No matter how many times he would hit his head in the wall until his skull would crack and he would blissfully faint.

He ended up from seeking murder to seeking solitude. Suicide was not an option. There was no magical remedy to fix this.

He was left with his own demons in his head and even visages of his own self taunting him.

He saw wolves tearing him apart and heard their howls in the distance and he tried to howl back only it was a pathetic attempt for his mother, the mother that came every day and night to now taunt and mock him, had cursed him and he was not a wolf any longer.

Worse were the times when Henrik visited him and accused him of his death. Those nights were followed by images of his real father that cursed him and told him how he hated him more than Mikael.

Henrik would return and would die over and over in front of his eyes and he would hug his dead body only to reach for thin air and scream in agony for the loss that was becoming raw in his heart over again. Many times he would be the one to kill Henrik that was unbearable even in his madness.

He would stare at his hands and he would see his mother's heart. The one he had ripped out and her lifeless eyes were left staring at him from the ground. He had killed his own mother. He had killed his brother. He had betrayed his family. No one would love him if they knew the real monster he truly was. Only Mikael knew and always came to haunt him and remind him of the truth.

The word 'boy' spoken with hate and spat with disgust was always ringing in his ears with every cruel accusation and cruelty Mikael would throw at him. And when Mikael would not be there he was to be left in silence to cry and rage. The dead hunters to return and taunt him anew. Telling him to kill himself. Coaxing him to put an end. Ordering him to finally die.

If only this was possible.

He had lost the ability to sleep. He had lost the ability to think. His humanity switch was broken.

Everything was heightened until all he could do was drag himself to the stone walls of the cell his siblings kept him in, rocking back and forth and dragging his nails through the stone.

He eventually he stopped making any sounds all together. There was only mumbling on rare occasions.

And then his screaming fits in his mind were coming and going to remind him he was his brother's killer.


Thrace, Greece. Year 1141 AD.

It was only when in his madness Klaus mindlessly escaped his siblings and Mikael almost found him that Elijah decided to contain him leaving him with no hopes of escaping their family ever again.

They had locked him in a coffin with vervain, magic, and chains all around him.

He was staring into the void.

Somehow from somewhere far far away, he could swear he could hear his sister's voice.

"We can't keep him like this Elijah. Kol is searching for a magical solution. Maybe he will-"

"Until then sister we have no other options. If there is a way for a witch to undo this our brother will find it and we won't stop searching either but for now, this is the only way to save him. Mikael is getting close."

"What are we going to do?"

"Maybe we should start searching for ways to actually kill him and take him out of his misery," Finn's dull voice said and then there was fighting.

So much fighting.

And magic. The stench of it was overwhelming.

His siblings had witches create a barrier around the catacomb they kept him in only to kill the witches once they finished their spells and in the end, only Elijah and Rebekah could enter.

Just as in a dream he could see Rebekah leaning over his coffin, her eyes tearing up as she watched him slowly desiccate in silence.


Patmos, Greece. Year 1152 AD.

Elijah entered the cave, his cape wrapped around him to protect him from the unforgiving cold.

This was the tomb of Niklaus Mikaelson. The latest place where his brother was left comatose in an open coffin after his madness won. They had to keep moving him as to leave no trail for Mikael to follow.

Elijah touched Klaus' skin that had turned to ash and marble. His eyes were closed. He had been desiccated for so long there was no point to detain him with such inhuman ways anymore.

He would take him from here and guard him himself. He would devote his every waking hour to his care.

Niklaus always loved England. Maybe he would get him there.

With a flick of his fingers, he took off the chains and the vervain ropes.

He then took off his warm cape and wrapped it around his brother's body.

Klaus' eyes snapped open and Elijah's eyes widened.

He leaned over the coffin.

"Can you hear me Niklaus?" he whispered even though he knew that in his state of desiccation and madness Klaus was long gone.

A tear fell from Elijah's eye.

"Niklaus," his voice broke, "come back to us brother."

Klaus' eyes were vacantly staring unnaturally into the void but what Elijah could not see was that Klaus was seeing Tatia behind his brother smiling at him.

Tatia was reaching her hand over him… only she was not Tatia…she was stone and his eyes could see past that stone into a nightmare.

His eyes were screaming but Elijah couldn't hear.


Long gone were the days when Mikael was coming every day and night, staking him with white oak after taunting him.

Now unholy fires were leaking his desiccated skin until agony was taking over starvation and every organ of his was burning.

His skin was burning, he was burning alive, screaming but no one was hearing him.

His soul was snatched, broken from his body. Mikael's laughter followed him as his mind broke and every piece scattered into the void.

Endless void and then he was lucid again only he was no longer in a place of haunted dreams and madness.

He stood alone staring at the unknown surroundings.

This place was different.

He stood in chaos.

He screamed for Mikael to come and get him and then screamed for Elijah, Rebekah, Kol anyone…to come to him. To not leave him alone.

"Where am I?" he whispered with dread.

He was alone. In hell.

He fell on his knees and screamed.

Millennia had passed. Immeasurable time.

At first, for centuries he had tried to survive. To find a way out. Only there was none.

He hunted, he made shelter, weapons. He spoke to the void and the lurking monsters. He fought demons, legions of them until he turned to one.

His skin had turned black and his eyes red. His teeth were sharp and he had claws. There was nothing human, vampire, or wolf left in him. This place had taken everything from. His sense of self. His body. His soul. He was nothing but a monster feeding on decay and rotten flesh but deep down there was still a beat of a heart that reminded him that he had once have been human. He had once had a name. Only he couldn't remember it.

He was in perdition. His worst fears his only memory. His loneliness was the only thing he felt deep down under the savageness. He was alone. Abandoned. All alone.

Until the time eventually came.

He looked up. From the abyss that lingered beneath him to the swirling chaos above until there was…light.

He blinked. He had forgotten what light looked like.

Rays of colored shadow broke through the nothingness until they became light. He covered his eyes with his arm. The chaos was dissolving all around him and everything was restored into what once was.

Into who he once had been.

A man. A monster.

A different kind of monster but deep down born from a human womb and unleashed into becoming the world's infamy and not just a lost broken soul in hell.

Hell was slowly departing and he only had to reach for the light.

Klaus Mikaelson reached out his hand and the sun burned.


Essex, England. Year 1166 AD

The soft echo of a lullaby he hadn't heard since he was a boy reached his ears.

His sister's voice was a melody he had so much missed. How he had ached to hear her voice again!

He breathed out suddenly. Or he tried, for the gasp wouldn't pass through his chapped stony lips. His eyes opened but he couldn't move. He could feel though. Sensations he hadn't felt for so long.

He was so hungry but this hunger was different than the one he felt in perdition and before that in his madness and his hallucinations. He now craved human blood and life.

Soft sheets were stretched beneath him and there were pillows placed under his head and back. He was in a desiccated coma but not in a coffin any longer. The caves and the tombs were gone. He was in a bed.

Maybe he was dreaming, maybe he had reached from hell to heaven only he assumed heaven could never be as simple or mundane as the bed he was on.

Dusty rays of light were weakly streaming through the heavy velvet curtains.

It was over.

He was trying to speak but his whole body was screaming in agony.

The light caress over his arm was soft. Loving.

Bekah.

It took time but eventually, her eyes found him and widened with disbelief.

He heard her clearly and he would have winced at her shrinking voice if he could. Even that was a melody, however.

"Elijah!" Rebekah screamed as she watched Klaus with awe.

Time moved faster and yet slower than ever before. His siblings flashed into the room. Rebekah was crying, telling them he had awakened.

A tear fell from his eye and Elijah quickly bit his wrist and offered it to Klaus.

Healing his body but both he and Kol were ready to subdue him again. They had taken him from the catacombs into a spelled room. They had obviously been trying to keep the conditions humane around him. Even if he was lost to them. Nothing but a broken thing. A shadow of what and who their brother had been, lost in a coma.

He remembered now. They had all tried entering his mind but there was nothing left but blackness. Niklaus Mikaelson was no longer present.

Only now he was. And when Elijah touched his temple he felt his thoughts, his voice.

"I am here brother," he mentally told him and more blood was given to him. Until he was able to move and speak again.

"What happened?" he groaned feeling as if his throat was torn apart by fire.

Rebekah had sat next to him and was caressing his hair.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him tenderly, her tears would not stop falling.

"I am…fine," he grunted and tried to move up.

Elijah helped him sit, watching him like a hawk. Kol's eyes were narrowed too but Klaus could focus only on his breathing.

He looked around at the lavish surroundings. At the beautiful art.

It was a nightmare and it had passed. His siblings watched him with frowns and only Rebekah fell into his arms and hugged him but he could not hug her back.

This was her fault after all. Her stupidity with the hunters led to this. The hunters had subdued them all with daggers and he had killed them all. They had haunted him for years after their deaths and Rebekah could never repay him for that mistake of hers.

All because of love. He would never allow such weakness to any of them.

Yes, he would not forgive Rebekah.

Neither would Finn that had proposed to kill him instead of trying to find a way to save him. He would make sure Rebekah would never find any foolish love again. He would not allow her to endanger them again.

As for Finn. He would grant him death. A coffin for eternity.

He only had to regain his strength first.

His mind was clear again. He remembered everything so clearly now as he made plans of how to regain his power and punish his siblings.

Kol with all his magic tricks had barely bothered finding a solution for him and Elijah had put him in a coffin.

He would not forget.

The hunters had given him a curse but they had also given him a gift.

The daggers.

The daggers had worked on all of them except…him. He was immune to their power. His siblings were not.

"Be careful little sister," Kol warned Rebekah and if he could Klaus would smirk. Kol could always see straight into his darkness but right now Klaus didn't move. He stared at his little brother. If there was anyone that would have taken hold of those daggers that would be him. Or Elijah.

Finn was much of a weakling to even think of that. He had to retrieve them and soon.

His siblings had stayed by his side but only by fear. Should they had not and Mikael had found them his end would be the beginning of theirs. Maybe he could repay the favor and keep them close too. Forever. He would never allow them to leave him. He would never be left alone again and he would protect them from Mikael as they had done with him too.

Rebekah's hands framed his face and turned his head and his attention to her.

His beautiful traitorous sister.

"Oh my God," Rebekah whimpered. She looked into his eyes and her pained smile became a soft laugh, "it's not a lie, you are back. Nik you came back to us."

"How?" Kol demanded but Klaus didn't have an answer to give to that.

Elijah approached with weary eyes and grabbed him by the shoulder.

Klaus looked at him and gave him a slight nod. Despite his disbelief, a hint of a relieved smile appeared on Elijah's face but Klaus could not share their joy.

He could only think. He could only remember.

For the first time after so long he felt sane again…whatever left of the sanity that lingered in his heart meant anyway.


"How long has it been?" he croaked once he drained one more of the maids Kol brought to him. It was a stupid question because he had counted every day, every hour, every century down to the last second.

"50 years," Elijah answered and Klaus blinked. It was as if a light was suddenly turned on in his mind.

He dropped one more body on the floor along with all the others. They would need new servants. And with all the blood trail he was about to leave behind to quench his thirst they would soon need to move from this place too.

He closed his eyes.

50 years. Half a century.

Now that couldn't be right. It felt longer and yet as his brain registered the time and the madness that now seemed like a long-lost dream he realized that this was indeed the time that had passed and the rest of it was not real. It couldn't be real.

Those centuries, that place, was just a figment of his imagination, brought by the hunter's curse and nothing more.

"52 years, 4 months, and 9 days," he mumbled surprising Elijah.

Yes, he had counted. As his mind cleared from all the shadows and the demons that haunted him he realized he had been counting every day and every moment. Subconciously somehow. The flow of time had changed for him. Time had never passed so slowly before and he experienced every moment of him.

52 years, 4 months, and 9 days along with thousands more he had to forget. He felt old now while before he had still felt relatively young. Now he knew the value of time and he would not forget.

"How is this possible?" Kol asked inquisitively but Klaus had no answers.

It was a mystery to him how this torture had come to an end and he didn't even want to know. All he wanted was to leave this darkness behind him. All he felt was that his soul was hollow. The world seemed clear again despite how he was left in darkness. But this new world was bleak. Strange. Cold. And yet it seemed like a paradise next to the one he had been trapped into. The light was too far out of reach and he would never speak of that 'place'…the place where demons and monsters lingered.

Only that place was not real and he was back.

He had returned.

And the world would come to regret that.

The urge to kill himself was gone. At least it was gone in the way it existed before.

The weight had lifted from his shoulders and he was no longer hallucinating and from that moment on nothing and no one would defeat him ever again.

If that place was a nightmare so he would become. If there had been any innocence inside him left, that place had sucked it away. It was all gone and he would now transform into the worst nightmare to have ever walked the earth. The nightmare that would never fear again, would never be left alone, and would never be scared of the dark.

The nightmare all nightmares would come to fear.

He had returned but soon the world would find out that maybe some monsters were best to stay banished forever for if they walked the earth they could do nothing else than rule it.

Maybe that would make him forget. Power would make him forget. The terror of others would make him forget his own.

And that place would be long forgotten in memory.

This curse was undone. He was not weak, he had survived and he now had to break the Original curse and he would be free and now more than ever he craved that freedom more than anything else.

One day. One day he would break the binds of his mother's curse and he would never be afraid of anyone or anything again.

He didn't hug back Rebekah and he waited until his siblings were certain that his mind was clear once more and he was back to his old self.

For a long time, they kept an eye on him just in case the madness return but he retreated to his art and to old and new despicable ways that were not a product of any curse. He was the architect of his own fate now. Cruel, undefeated, and ready to conquer with a clear cold mind that would not succumb to any curse again. He would now make sure he would be many steps ahead of his enemies and he would become a legend spoken in whispers in the dark. Even Mikael would come to fear him because one day he would kill him. He would show no fear or mercy again. He would not be a victim or weak.

Eventually, his family realized that the curse of the hunters was gone for good.

What his siblings failed to realized was while the madness of the curse was over his old self had also died in the echo of the hunter's curse.

This was the dawn of a new beginning.


New Orleans. Present day.

Seeing New Orleans through Klaus' eyes was a new experience. Caroline had lived here for some months now but she had never felt the city's uniqueness the way she did now with Klaus Mikaelson by her side.

What surprised her the most was that once she relaxed and allowed herself to enjoy herself and the tour she realized that the muted colors changed and burst with color. New Orleans was bursting with life and energy and color and noise. She realized people laughed a lot and seemed happy and she was surrounded by music and culture and Klaus was there to explain to her every detail and every part of the city's architecture or the fine details of the art they saw in the streets. He told her stories from his past that made her laugh and stories that made her blood chill but intrigued her just the same.

She was used to hearing his English accent but she realized now that was a choice of his because as he described her the unique dialects one could hear in the city his voice would change and so would his accent. She assumed it was the same for his siblings too.

A thousand years had made Klaus a polyglot and his chosen accent was a personal preference and choice which made sense given where and when he was born. He could even still remember and speak dead languages as he reminded her of his Aramaic too making her roll her eyes at him.

When he particularly mocked her with his American accent she couldn't stop laughing. She promised him that she would repay him for that as they took a boat tour in which they had lunch and she tried more of the Cajun cuisine.

The city was dirty and smelly but was also beautiful and charming, bursting with life and magic. There was darkness in New Orleans but there was also so much more than just that. With darkness came light.

Along with Klaus they visited different parts of the city, cathedrals and enjoyed street musicians and street artists.

They even visited the Audubon Nature Institute and Klaus promised to take her to the New Orleans Museum of Art too but on another day where they could really have the time to spend the whole day and enjoy their visit there. Given how much Klaus loved art and how he was an artist himself it made sense and she found herself impressed by every artistic reference he knew about the architecture of the city and how in his eyes even the decay of the city was elegantly artistic.

Of course, they had beignets and she tried more street food with traditional specialties that were mouth-watering, to say the least.

The day seemed to resemble a fairytale and after a long time, more than she could remember, she felt carefree and… alive.


Those pralines were to die for! How come and she hadn't found this place sooner? She closed her eyes and almost moaned at the taste as the morsel melted in her mouth.

Damn. That was truly decadent.

Klaus' voice covered the sounds in the small outdoor café.

"Are you here because of Elijah?"

She opened her eyes and glanced at Klaus that watched her with a gaze of amusement but also there was lust and seriousness in his eyes and it alarmed her how far those emotions went deep into her and unsettled her.

He looked calm as he sat opposite to her. They were in a small rustic café sitting under a beautiful umbrella and Klaus was now taking a sip from his coffee as she ran her tongue around her lips noticing how his heated gaze followed that movement.

She reached for her espresso and took a sip. It accommodated the taste of the pralines in a sinful way inside her mouth.

"I admit he makes compelling arguments," she muttered bitterly setting her cup down, "and probably without his attempt to blackmail me it may have taken me longer to get here," she shrugged callously and Klaus gave her a knowing smirk.

"You can be stubborn."

She eyed him sardonically.

"Hello, pot. Meet, kettle," she sassed back and Klaus laughed at that.

She went for another praline and shook her head.

"How are these even legal?" she mumbled.

"What did he use against you?" Klaus asked her and she lifted her shoulders.

"Emotional warfare," she responded, talking calmly as if they were talking about the weather, "Your brother obviously thinks I can fix you and Kol. At least to a degree so to stop tantrums and flying daggers," she rolled her eyes and then gave Klaus a flat look, "or maybe he thinks I can just take up his place and clean up your messes in the aftermath of your family squabbles," she said and pointed a finger at Klaus, "which fyi it ain't happening!"

Klaus's features turned to a callous mask.

"He should know better," he remarked, "Not me. Not Kol can be fixed."

Caroline remained detached by his statement and waved dismissively.

"Probably because you don't need fixing?"

"Too broken?" Klaus mocked and she scoffed at that.

"Too stubborn," she threw his words back at him and he laughed once more.

Caroline sighed and pushed her hair behind her ears slowly. She raised her eyes and stared at him dead on.

"I don't think people can fix other people," she mused, "that's not someone's responsibility or purpose. And it really shouldn't be or makes any sense to be," she told Klaus that watched her with an enigmatic look now. It was as if he didn't believe her and she huffed out a clipped chuckle, "truth is I used to be a fixer but fast forward a century in Purgatory later and I can't fix myself how much more others," she admitted, "besides I am not a therapist and let's be real," she laughed, "You are a trainwreck. Even if 'fixing' you was possible it would take forever."

Klaus' eyes filled with scalding heat.

"Have at it then," he challenged her, his voice temping and raspy making her crave everything she had been lately dreaming about them.

Instead of lingering on those x-rated dreams however she quickly regained her composure and giggled at his insinuation and attempt to flirt with her.

He just would not stop and a part of hers was always flattered by that.

"Smooth, Klaus," she tossed back at him playfully, "really smooth."

He smiled at her but then his smile turned…vitriolic.

It was such a sudden turn that the hair at the nape of her neck stood.

"This is a nice hook Caroline," Klaus drawled and sat comfortably back at his chair, "I admit."

She narrowed her eyes at him and said nothing. Klaus smirked condescendingly.

"Elijah gave you the opening you needed," he recognized with a cavalier tone, "if he hadn't you would make one, wouldn't you?"

Caroline stared at him and then she replied with a cocky smile of her own. Dangerous, lethal, seductive, and she knew she had him. She had him because the desire that was born in his eyes was magnetic.

She leaned back to her chair and crossed her legs.

"And why would I do that?" she questioned, giving him her most insincere smile.

"I imagine you figured I have a soft spot where you are concerned. Nothing new here," Klaus lifted his eyebrow in admission, "you also figured that since you want to find my secrets you can't do that by being far away from me," he smugly pointed out and crossed his hands over the table, leaning forward, his stance self assured and arrogant, "you need to stay close," his whispered in a raspy voice that made her heart skip a beat.

She arched a brow at him.

He was right of course. She had made a tactical mistake and she now had to fix it. She had let her anger and frustration get the best of her and she did need to keep Klaus close if she wanted answers. She had chosen to put him in a corner, to anger him to the point of creating a rift between them to gain her freedom but what she truly needed to get was knowledge. Only then she would truly be free.

And Klaus knew that and in playing these games with her he seemed truly conceited and pleased with himself and she had to admit that this confidence and that smart mind of his were actually turning her on. Especially because they both knew he was right and because despite being right here he was anyway.

He was game.

And so was she.

In a way, he was trying to distract her as much as she was trying to distract him. The game was dangerous of course, which they both knew and liked, but in the end Klaus Mikaelson thought he had it all figured out but he was missing a small piece of her puzzle. That piece she would use against him by actually doing what he was saying. By staying close.

"To mellow me down or to unveil my mind's secrets on your own," Klaus kept guessing but it was not a guess or a shot in the dark. It was a certainty, "getting close here," his voice dropped lower as he leaned closer on the table and then placed his hand over his heart, "will get you close here," he figured out, eventually aiming a finger at his head emphatically.

Caroline let out a soft pleased sound and gave him a cute pout.

"And you don't mind right?" she surmised, "in fact from the looks of it since you have everything figured out you are enjoying this," she fired back.

Klaus now looked at her with a –cat ate the canary– look.

"Indeed," he chuckled and sat back, "it feels like the good old days," he happily noticed and drank his coffee casually, "you were always quite lovely when you aimed to distract me, sweetheart. That has remained unchanged," he praised her, running his intense gaze slowly all over her. Inch by inch.

Caroline relished in his attention before she threw her head back and laughed.

"Oh," she exhaled pleased, and reached for one more praline. She inspected it in her fingers for a few moments before taking a slow bite from it knowing Klaus was now following her every movement and was tuning in to her reactions and to the signals she was giving him. She finished her praline and beamed at him, "so you believe that since you know I am a distraction I can't distract you is that it?"

Klaus gave her a crooked smile that made his dimples appear.

He placed a hundred-dollar bill on the table making her arch her brow before he got up, sauntered around the table and stepped closer to her.

He towered over her.

"You will need to get closer for what you have in mind love," he advised her, his voice made of honey and sin, and the world around them vanished as she slowly, sensually, rose from her chair and straightened her body against his.

Klaus held his breath.

"Hm," she hummed thoughtfully pretending to think about it. She leaned closer just as the light breeze blew her hair towards him carrying her scent all over him. His pupils dilated and she looked at his lips for a moment before she ran her hands over the lapels of his leather jacket before she arched her head up and smirked.

"Don't worry love," she mocked him making an attempt to imitate his accent as he always did whenever he was trying to seduce others. She fixed her gaze on his as his brow rose, "you will enjoy it."

She confidently walked away knowing he would follow her since their tour was not over yet.

With a chuckle, he did exactly that.


They had spent the rest of the day with Klaus showing her the city and the truth was that she had found herself enjoying both the city and Klaus' company.

They were now back at the French Quarter, the sun was falling and the hue of purple and grayish-blue were signaling nightfall.

Street musicians were playing Jazz notes, people were laughing and partying, drinking and making noise, and she and Klaus were now standing in front of a painter that was working on his art.

Klaus seemed enthralled by it and she smiled at him.

"You know...I never really understood art," she confessed to him and he smiled back at her.

"And there I thought my lonely snowflake had a deeper meaning for you," he playfully jabbed at her and she laughed and pushed her elbow at him.

Klaus' laughter was deep and joyful and he leaned closer to her, his eyes not leaving the painter's brush.

"What do you see now?" he encouraged her and she pouted her lips in deep thought before she shrugged.

"Well, it's pretty," she said, noticing the trees and the misty background on the white canvas.

Klaus snorted a laugh and this time she hit him with her elbow.

"Don't mock me!"

"I would never!"

"Well, great artist, what do you see?" she threw at him almost spitefully despite how her eyes glowed happily.

Klaus smiled at her expression and favored her by wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pointing at the painting. Caroline followed his movement with her eyes, tensing for a moment before letting herself relax in his embrace and eyeing the angles of his face. Klaus was staring ahead but his lips were close to her ear. She looked straight ahead feeling her blood rushing inside her body faster at his proximity.

"One has to see past the surface, Caroline. Everything deeper lies underneath. Beneath the surface. Inside and beyond the boundaries logic sets for ourselves. If you see past the paint and the technique you will be one step closer in understanding the deeper meaning."

"This piece for example is about…time," Klaus explained gesturing at the artist that very fluidly was gliding his brush up and down to shape a deeper black line and give a new shape to his art.

"The way it rises, falls," Klaus whispered in her ear as she now saw from his point of view the silhouetted trees and focused on the movement of the brush that followed the tempo Klaus was setting, "races and slows. The humans feel the gravity. We feel it more," Klaus said and his hand comfortingly squeezed her arm. She glanced at the connection and watched the blank ink take form as Klaus' words resonated in her ears.

"The fiction of the clock, the lies the calendar tells."

Caroline breathed deeply as his words burned inside her. She swallowed harshly.

"We can live a thousand years, we can aim for eternity and yet in the end it is only a handful of years that become lifetimes of their own. A moment with someone you love, a moment laughing, even a moment of pain," Klaus trailed off, "pain can transcend time but time can eventually conquer it. Should you let it."

Caroline detached herself from his arm and she looked at the painting.

"I just see trees," she mumbled and shook herself out of the reverie Klaus had put her in as those trees now were taking a life of their own in her eyes and were haunting her like figures and shapes in Purgatory once did.

Klaus stared at her almost melancholically and she shook the weird emotion that was building up inside her.

"Okay," she sighed, stepped in front of him and forced a smile on her face, "maybe six," she half-heartedly joked but Klaus's gaze had turned serious.

"What is it that you really see Caroline?" he insisted and her throat bobbed delicately.

His eyes challenged her and she looked back, past her shoulder for a moment letting the blank ink engrave its path inside her mind, past the surface.

"Not time," she whispered, seeing the paint coming together in something else, more profound, less literal, "stillness," she finally admitted and turned around and gazed at Klaus intently, "I see stillness."

Klaus watched her carefully for a long moment and without batting an eye he shuttered the stillness that had swallowed her whole.

"Stefan Salvatore called, love."

Time moved.

Electricity snapped inside her and her breath hitched.

"Asking for you," Klaus affirmed and her eyes went round before Klaus continued, "about you," he amended before she even voiced her thoughts.

"Why?" she asked in a small voice. She was feeling the walls closing in, the world turning in its axis abruptly making her lose her balance.

"You obviously desecrated your grave and left a gaping hole in the earth," Klaus replied in a cavalier tone that was contradicting the softness that was blooming in his eyes, "in your defense you were never good at digging graves," he tried to lighten up the moment.

Caroline almost heard Stefan's voice from the past telling her to breathe. She forced herself to breathe.

Klaus' eyes were boring into her. She had lowered her walls and she gave him the chance to strike into what made her tick. Her cold bloody pragmatism was crumbling.

Her gaze sharpened and she groaned annoyed.

"Forgive me for not taking my time to delicately get out of my grave but there was a magic spell propelling me out of Mystic Falls when I came back."

"The travelers magic spell," Klaus mentioned, "I always meant to ask how you managed to break it."

"I didn't," Caroline grumbled with a hoarse voice. Both of them were keeping their voices low enough to be covered by the buzz around them but they could still hear each other.

She hated that she had to relieve this particular memory. Waking up inside her own grave was horrifying. The sensation of her skin getting back stitched together and the smell of death, decay and rot still followed her to this day.

"But Kol's soul was impervious to that spell and it sustained me long enough so to make it out of the town's borders," she said and then brazenly stepped forward.

"Why did Stefan call you?" she demanded. If Klaus had revealed to Stefan that she was alive she would make him regret it.

"He logically came to the realization that if someone cared enough to help him where you are concerned that would be me," Klaus explained and didn't seem to be moved by her ice-cold glare, "He asked for a witch to trace your body. But you obviously made sure you wouldn't be traced," he concluded with an arch of his brow.

"Yes," she affirmed with a cold tone, "however it wouldn't matter either way. Your mother's barrier doesn't only imprison me. It apparently shields me as well."

Klaus' gaze turned lethal at Esther's mention but Caroline wouldn't get sidetracked.

"He still believes I am dead?"

Klaus played with her nerves, driving her up the wall by stalling to answer but he finally nodded.

She exhaled sharply.

"You didn't-"

"Reveal him the truth?" finished her question and she tersely nodded.

"I respect your choices, Caroline," Klaus assured her and some of the tension left her shoulders, "even if I disagree with them."

"Snapping my neck says otherwise," she tossed at him begrudgingly.

"I never said it is easy to do so."

"To respect me?"

"To respect your ability to correctly assess the risks you are under when everything inside me wants to limit the risks you are in and obliterate them."

"You can't close me in a bubble Klaus."

"I understand that. As I said not easily," he emphasized, "but I do."

Caroline looked at him and made a non-committal sound.

"The ripper will however insist," Klaus warned her, drawing her attention back to Stefan Salvatore.

"Of course, he will," she huffed annoyed.

"They care for you," Klaus told her softly but his softness was unable to penetrate her hard exterior now. Neither was the hint of jealousy that coated his words at the mention of Stefan Salvatore. Klaus must have known that something was starting to begin between her and Stefan before her death.

She didn't dwell on that. It felt like a memory of an emotion she no longer had access to.

"They did," she blankly accepted Klaus's words before she caught his gaze hostage, "What else is there Klaus?" she demanded and his lips stretched to a smirk.

"That smart head of yours," he praised her.

"Sorry to disappoint," she rolled her eyes at him, "it's called having a brain."

"For most is a decorative piece in their little heads, love," Klaus dismissed and she shook her head amused.

"You are still such a snob," she sighed.

"They believe remnants of the Augustine society are in Mystic Falls," Klaus said turning serious, "they always experimented with vampires. Alive or…dead."

Caroline nodded. It made sense. They probably thought the Augustine society had snatched her corpse to experiment on it.

And yet there were too many coincidences to count.

Marcel Gerard's words echoed in her mind.


Flashback

"Have you seen this before?" Caroline insisted and Marcel frowned.

"May I?"

Caroline watched Marcel's open palm and she reluctantly gave him Forbin's pendant watching him as he examined it with sharp eyes.

"This design in particular no," Marcel answered as he inspected the silver circle with the engraved book in its center. His eyes focused on the intricate design of the key in the book's cover, "but it does seem similar to another insignia I have seen some years ago," he informed her and gave her back the necklace, "well at least the craftsmanship does."

"Where?" Caroline demanded breathlessly, "where have you seen it?"

"There was one cult that used similar pendants. Not exactly the same but close. They had tried to set their foot in New Orleans a few decades ago but I made sure they wouldn't get the chance," Marcel's voice was low and lethal now, "It would not bode well for our kind if they had."

"Who Marcel?" she whispered feeling as if the air was sucked out of the room. Her whole body tensed and her heart started pounding fast, "Who were they?"

"The Augustine Society."


Her eyes became haunted.

She stopped herself from reaching out to touch the pendant she always wore around her neck these days and tried to concentrate on something else. Unfortunately, her mind didn't drift into anything that would ease her worries.

If anything it took a darker turn.

She had left her grave open and now Stefan believed the Augustine society had her body. If her mom also believed they had done such a thing to desecrate her body and memory she would be devastated.

"They didn't tell your mother if this is what you have been meaning to ask," Klaus answered as if he could read her thoughts. He always had that uncanny ability with her and she had to find a way to make her thoughts less transparent to him, "they covered the grave and every trace. They wanted to spare her the added heartache."

Caroline averted her eyes and hummed absentmindedly.

"You can spare her all the pain, Caroline. Show her some mercy."

Caroline's eyes snapped back at him filled with rage and indignation. Filled with warning and threat.

"You," she hissed, "you have no idea-"

"She won't live forever," Klaus cut her off sternly but there was also something akin to understanding and pity in his expression, "your mother is human," he reminded her as if she didn't know. As if this wasn't haunting her every waking moment, "time for her is not as forgiving as it is with us. Or unforgiving if you want to see the curse of immortality instead of its blessing. Make no mistake sweetheart you still have a soft heart and you will come to regret it should you waste her days like this."

Caroline's felt the burn in her eyes and her hands turned to fists. She didn't want to do this now. She didn't want to do this at all.

She was stuck in this damn city and if she contacted her mother she would bring her into a war zone and put her in danger. Truth was that she had not intended to return to her even before Esther locked her inside New Orleans but this was not something she wanted to think or feel right now.

She had to focus her energy and her mind somewhere else. She had to. If she was to survive. And a soft heart wasn't going to do it this time.

"What else did Stefan want?" Caroline drilled him with a tone that dripped ice.

Klaus' answer didn't surprise her. He told her what she had already learned herself too. People had searched for her in Whitmore. And it was not connected with the Augustine society. She had compelled informers in Mystic Falls too.

"Marcel I imagine," Caroline gave him the obvious answer while playing with the secrets as well as he did.

"Among others," Klaus drawled and she narrowed her eyes at that. It was not just the Originals, Marcel, Esther, or even Hayley Marshall.

All those others…all the other eyes and shadows she felt following her had now vanished and crept back to their lairs now that she was Klaus. Imagine that.

"This is a warzone after all," Klaus continued, "but I run interference. You shouldn't worry about any of them," he said calmly and Caroline's smile became dangerous.

"Let me guess," she pondered with an arched brow, "shallow graves?"

Klaus' crooked smile left no room for debate about that. After all when it came to digging graves he was always better than her.

"What did you tell him?" Caroline asked, this time allowing some softness to coat her tone. She could only imagine how Klaus could convince Stefan that he had no idea about what happened to her before or after her 'death'.

"That I am not concerned for the dead," Klaus shrugged and Caroline gave him a pointed look.

"Which technically speaking is not a lie," Klaus chuckled, "you are alive."

"I am a vampire Klaus," Caroline deadpanned, "I am already dead."

"Aren't we all love?"

His laugh felt contagious as he walked her back home.

And yet something made her look back at the painting as they walked away and the stillness had moved.

Maybe she could see time too.


Purgatory.

Caroline wiped her tears. She was so tired. Exhausted. She hated feeling so weak. So desperate. She just wanted to go back home. But she felt so empty and drained. She felt this was all pointless. Kol's lessons. Or more accurately his abuse that he called a lesson. She felt like there was no way out. She was stuck here. And she would not get out.

She sniffled and Kol grunted. He was lying on the dirt, the back of his head resting on his crossed arms underneath it and he had crossed his legs looking as if this was the most comfortable place in the world to sleep.

"Stop being so dramatic. It's annoying," Kol mumbled without opening his eyes.

He was so creepy. And he never slept.

"How can you be so sure?" she whispered letting her vulnerability show.

"Of what?" he asked her bored, without bothering to open his eyes.

"That we can even get out of here."

Kol opened his eyes. He remained stoic and then he turned his head in the dark and stared at her.

"Do you believe in fairytales darling?"

Caroline shook her head frustrated.

"This is not a time for jokes."

"I am not joking," he jested, "even though there is always time for jokes. Especially the morbid ones," he winked at her and she huffed out annoyed making him snigger.

"In the circles of witches there have been legends about this place, far beyond the Other Side," he told her and she froze.

"You knew of Purgatory before-"

"Before the moronic posse of your so-called friends murdered me?"

"Before you died," she ground out and his smirk was right down malicious.

"Not knowing exactly, getting here kind of proved it," he said, "you see there are secrets witches don't share with vampires. Even my thrall could go only so far but there have been rumors in the dark. Stories of the old. Fairytales to scare children or to give hope."

"Hope for what?" she frowned confused.

Kol's smile was all teeth.

"That monsters get what's coming to them," he ironically told her, "that beyond life there is just suffering and justice for all those who deserve it."

Caroline's hands turned to fists.

"I don't deserve it."

Kol shrugged amused.

"If you say so."

"What did the fairytales say about this place?" Caroline forced herself to say in a low voice.

"That long before we died, another vampire escaped it."

Caroline's eyes widened.

"What?"

"According to legend," Kol reiterated, "a vampire ended up here somehow instead of the Other Side and in doing so he paved the way for all vampires ending here after him. This place remembers. So when the Other Side fell it remembered the first vampire who dwelled here for what I suppose was millennia if not million of years and then it took us in. Best guess…This shithole was originally created as a cosmic dumpster for evil creatures that were lost in legend and time long before my mother created our species. Eventually, a vampire ended up here too. I don't know how but sooner or later it would happen. Law of gravity, karma, magic, and all that crap. I barely believed it when I first heard the tales but it was whispered by the spirits and at some point and written down in riddles in some old grimoires. Ever since the 12th century, Elijah always liked to collect such memorabilia. They come in handy for avoiding curses and hexes which we realized the hard way" Kol snorted, "and I always like to read about witches. You can never know when an opportunity will arise in knowledge. I could never translate the whole riddles," Kol begrudgingly said, "Only bits and parts of them and they were incoherent. Punch line: perdition is real and someone got in and got out. But the thing is that whoever he was somehow this hell could not contain him. If it couldn't contain that fucker it sure as hell can't contain me," Kol finished smugly.

Caroline inhaled sharply and shook her head.

"So let me get this straight," she started in disbelief, "you are basing all this confidence, all this certainly that we can get out of this hell on…a children's fairytale?" she asked him incredulously.

"Sure," Kol shrugged nonchalantly, "why not?"

Caroline clenched her eyes in exasperation.

"Kol-"

"Shush now," he tsked closing his eyes again, "I was trying to sleep."

They were never going to get out Caroline thought and wanted to start crying again.

"Do you want me to tell you a fairytale to put you to sleep?" she fumed and Kol burst out laughing loud enough for some of the creatures that were hiding close to know where they had made camp for the night.

Great.

Now she wouldn't get any sleep either.


By the time they reached her apartment door, it was night. They could hear the buzz and noise of the city in the background of their hearing as a note of distant music.

Caroline smiled and leaned against her closed door.

"Here we are."

"Despite our last conversation and our first, I hope you enjoyed yourself today Caroline."

"I did actually," she told him, and surprisingly enough, despite second thoughts and plans and disagreements she had. Even Klaus mentioning Stefan and their conversation about the painting hadn't ruined that.

She had had a great time today. Intentions of distraction aside she enjoyed being with Klaus like that and at times she could even pretend as if there were no schemes, lies, and secrets between them. They were just themselves enjoying what the world had to offer. Klaus had once promised to take her to Paris, to Rome, and Tokyo. She had never imagined back then that New Orleans would be the beginning of that promise even when she had received his voice mail those years ago. And maybe the circumstances were not ideal but after growing up in a small town and then being confined in Purgatory and even here in New Orleans by Esther, letting go and enjoying the magic of such a beautiful city was liberating in a way. She hadn't felt that for so long and even though she had walked around New Orleans by herself and at times with Josh and Cami nothing compared with Klaus' charm and his knowledge of the city.

"One day is not enough though," Klaus teased her, light flickering in his eyes, "New Orleans is a city of wonders that one can't experience in only a few hours."

"Are you asking me for another date?" she asked him with a smile and Klaus beamed at her.

"So you admit it," he drawled happily and she gave him a look of question.

"This was a date," Klaus clarified for her and she smiled shaking her head as he glanced at his wristwatch, "and it didn't even start at quarter to never, imagine that," he jested and she threw her head back and laughed.

"Oh shut up," she tossed at him playfully.

Klaus watched her fondly now and she couldn't take her eyes away from his.

"I hope you enjoyed my company as much as you did sightseeing," he almost shyly whispered. And she loved seeing this contradiction in him. The boyish hope in contrast to his everlasting arrogance.

"I did," she honestly said, "it was interesting to see New Orleans from your eyes. It gave the city…depth past the surface," she sassed.

Klaus laughed at her using his words.

"This is a timeless city and yet time has changed her. I enjoyed it seeing it from your eyes too," he confessed and Caroline turned pensive.

"Sometimes I am not sure if this city is part of a fairytale or of a nightmare," she mused and Klaus ran the back of his knuckles against one of her curls brushing it away from her face and pushing it behind her ear. His touch was a wisp of air and yet so electrifying.

"Both love," Klaus claimed, "fairytales always have witches, villains and evil dragons. If not they wouldn't be fairytales. And this city definitely harbors evil as well as tales of beauty," he painted New Orleans vividly in her mind as a land of fairytales and darkness and maybe that was what it truly was, "you being here though makes it more beautiful than I ever thought it could become."

Caroline felt a shiver ran up and down her spine at the huskiness of his voice.

"Well," she started carefully, "if fairytales and nightmares go hand in hand and if this city, if we are part of that fairytale then you must already know I am not all beauty and you are not this fairytale's great evil Klaus."

Klaus stepped back.

"Many would believe otherwise," he countered and Caroline could detect both the pride and the bitterness in his tone.

"Many would be right and many would be wrong," she stated and lowered her head, "I," she paused for a moment before raising her gaze back to Klaus' stormy eyes, "you know why I said what I said," she sighed and rubbed the crease between her brows with her fingers tiredly, "it was the only way for you to let me go. I don't believe you are like Mikael," she spat the name with disgust, "but somehow I know deep down this is your greatest fear," she confided in him because she had the uncanny ability to read him well too at times, "I felt it when we bloodshared because you let me feel it, you trusted me and I used your biggest fear against you," she whispered and the feeling of guilt was like a sharp sting that thawed some of the ice in her heart.

Klaus' stare was now so deep that gave her chills. Not because of what he was or what she did. But of whom she was and what she had become. What they had both become. Either it was time or stillness both left scars and now they danced on a battlefield where they had to wear those scars like crowns. Crowns like those you saw in fairytales, some of gold, some of ash. All too heavy to bear.

"I guess that is what evil creatures do in the fairytales right?" she muttered in a dejected tone, "so there is a lot to ponder as what that makes me in this story," she admitted am swallowed harshly, "but truth is you have felt my biggest fear too. I showed you," she tried to make him understand, opening up to him. Just as she had in the morning. Maybe this was the way to end this day, in the same way, they started it, "I let you feel it and you were ready to trap me knowing how terrified I am of that. How desperate I feel that Esther has done this to me," she gestured frustrated, "I escaped one prison I ended up in another and you wanted to put me in yet another one and I felt-"

"Betrayed," Klaus found the word she seemed to be struggling to say.

She nodded and closed her eyes before she let out a long breath and watched Klaus gravely.

"I got really angry and then I-"

"Acted like me?" Klaus drawled with a knowing tilt of his head.

Caroline bit her lip.

"I have fallen far from grace obviously," she muttered peeved, accepting the truth of his words.

Klaus actually chuckled at that but became serious when Caroline reached for his hand and squeezed his palm into hers.

"You are not like Mikael," she insisted fervently, "I mean don't get me wrong," she emphasized lifting her brow pointedly, "you are not a saint and you are your own brand of terror but you are nothing like that asshole," she bit out feeling angry, "you could never do the things he did."

Klaus' apple of Adam moved against his throat almost violently despite how he maintained his composure otherwise.

"Kol has given you the graphic tales of Mikael's fatherly love, hasn't he?" Klaus said, his tone trying to convey that he didn't care and that all that was behind him now. Only Caroline knew him better than that. Mikael had been the dragon to Klaus' fairytales when Klaus had been a kid and much later even when he grew up.

Caroline hummed and stepped closer to him. He leaned her head back to level her gaze with his.

"If there is one thing Purgatory taught me is that fears haunt," she confided in him, "if you keep treating the people you love in all the ways that prove those fears right you will end up in a desolate place without ever getting in Purgatory and," she breathlessly added before she whispered honestly, "I would never want that for you."

Klaus watched her so intently that she feared he was staring deep into the abyss of her own heart and soul.

"Without getting there," he repeated and there was something in his voice that unsettled her.

He pulled his hand away from hers making her frown.

Klaus ran his hand through his hair and Caroline could see he was on edge now. He was breaking at the seams for some reason.

He turned his back at her and Caroline watched as his hands turned to fists.

He then pressed his fist against one of the bricks on the wall next to her door and she could see the veins of his palm pumping blood under his tendons and white knuckles. He was holding back. He was about to snap and take the whole building down.

Without knowing why she felt the need to touch him. To tame that thunderstorm that was brewing inside him. She gently placed her hand on his shoulder and felt how tense he became under her touch.

"What's wrong?" she asked him as her instincts were screaming not to. Suddenly the cominggg night seemed more bleak and the foreboding sensation she felt was eerie and was signaling to her that she was in danger. She felt the same way she did when monsters lurked in Purgatory. A sense of impending doom. Something that would strike her down at the very next moment.

Klaus jerked away from her touch and she felt the void he left. She longed to touch him again even though that touch felt like danger. She felt the fire at the edge of her fingertips and she felt rejected by his need to pull away from her touch. From her.

She took an uncertain step back when he turned around to look at her and the gold that flickered in his eyes contrasted with the colors of his aura that were dimming and darkening. She felt her own darkness start to resurface again.

Klaus gave her a pained expression and pressed his lips.

"You asked me to be honest."

"I did," she carefully said, not liking where this was going.

Klaus pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants and breathed deeply through his nose until the yellow of his eyes turned to blue so deep it seemed black.

"I rarely ever follow what others tell me to do or should do," Klaus began with an uncertain tone, and Caroline's brow furrowed. She couldn't guess where this was leading and that meant it was serious. She tensed and waited, "especially when these others are my siblings. More so if said sibling is Elijah."

Klaus watched at her for a long moment and Caroline saw the struggle in him.

"Putting aside his manipulative side, or maybe because of it, he generally gives good advice," Klaus snorted derisively, "he does know me after all," he shrugged, "maybe better than any other person in this world does," he admitted and Caroline hated the feeling of jealously that sparked inside her.

Why was she bothered by the relationship he had with his brother? Elijah and Klaus had been together for a thousand years. They were family. And yet a primal part of hers wanted to claim the part of Klaus where it would be only hers and would not belong to anyone else. The one she would know best. If this was a war between them then it would make that part of her spoils of war but she wanted it to be freely given and yet she knew nothing with Klaus was ever freely given. It had to be taken or you had to pay the price. She guessed Elijah had paid that twisted price but she was not a Mikaelson or an Original and she didn't want to become one. Her head had turned so messed up and she wondered if she would ever get it straight again. These twisted games had twisted her heart and her heart wanted so many things that contradicted each other. Klaus was at the very center of those things. Igniting both the light and the dark.

"And yet even when I do the opposite of what Elijah advises," Klaus continued lost in his own web of thoughts, "I know I am doing the wrong thing when I could just follow his advice and do the right thing. Maybe I am doing this out of spite towards my family," he crooned, "or myself or maybe I am allergic to the right thing and I am as evil as one can get," he lifted his shoulders, his words echoing from the past. From a time he had bit her himself and almost left her to die. When he had told her he was evil and she had told him everyone who loved could be saved.

Did she still believe that?

She didn't have an answer for that but Klaus still believed in him being the great evil.

"I think we established the whole fairytale beauty and evil conundrum just a moment ago," she countered slowly.

"This is not a fairytale sweetheart," Klaus denied, a dark undertone coating his words with something vicious, "my life has always been a nightmare."

There was something inside her that still refused to believe that.

"You are still the man who spoke to me about a thousand birthdays and genuine beauty. It couldn't have all been a nightmare," she softly argued and Klaus' chest rose and fell as if he was in pain.

"You would be surprised."

Calculation filled Caroline's gaze along with dread and a note of excitement. Klaus was on the verge of telling her something and something was always better than nothing.

"What did Elijah advise you to do?"

"He told me to give you something," Klaus told her, echoing her thoughts and Caroline almost shook her head at how much she admired and hated Elijah Mikaelson for being such a sly bastard. And to believe she had once believed Klaus was a Machiavellian figure when his older brother knew how to play them all to his tune. Elijah was seeing right through his brother and his weaknesses and he was seeing right through hers too. It was annoying because both she and Klaus could see what he was doing but they still ended doing what Elijah set them up to do. She had to reverse this game somehow instead of stepping inside Elijah's plans but it would seem in order to get the answers she wanted she had to play by his rules anyway.

"Something?" she repeated even though she could already imagine what Elijah had told Klaus to give her to placate her.

"A truth," Klaus said, "to use it as a compromise between us. But truth can never be a compromise can it?" he sadly noted and Caroline could see how Klaus' mind worked too. He was holding on to Elijah's advice too because he knew how to play the long game. She was accepting it because she meant to distract him as much as the Originals aimed to distract her too. And somewhere in between the lines of deceit that devoured them all Klaus had created a line of truth and lies, of mistrust and honesty between them, and she couldn't deny the pull and push it was giving them because for as much as she hated the lies and the mistrust she just as much appreciated their own brand of truth and honesty even if it was tainted by betrayal. It had so many layers to be contained to words with negative and positive connotations. It was bigger than them and always brought them back to each other. It was a twisted cruel and problematic relationship but was the kind of communication she could only have with Klaus and Klaus with her. No one could get in the between of that. Not Elijah, not Kol, not any of her friends past or present, or Klaus' family in general. Not themselves either.

Because truth could be many things. It could be hurtful. It could be a weapon. It could set you free or imprison you but it could never be a compromise.

"No, it cannot," Caroline whispered agreeing with Klaus. This could never be a compromise between them.

"Elijah told me it doesn't have to be all or nothing," he confided in her as she had done when earlier he has asked her if Elijah had put her up to this. She had answered and so now he did the same, "he pointed out that I can't demand everything from you without giving you anything in return. He prompted me to share a part of me with you even if I can't share everything of me. For now," he intoned.

"It would be a start," Caroline agreed feeling as if she was treading a very thin line and Klaus' smirk was condescending.

"He said that too," Klaus sardonically replied, "and he seemed to believe that the barest minimum of my honesty and my willingness to connect could bridge the gap between us, or at least it would be the first brick for creating said bridge," he revealed, "Elijah believes in your willingness to be the bigger person should I show you an inkling of selflessness. In his eyes that would be more likely for you to allow me to keep my secrets in exchange for a truth."

Caroline's smirk reflected the same irony Klaus' had.

"Basically buying time should do the trick right?" Caroline concluded and Klaus' lips curled in provocation. They were in sync. "well your brother for sure knows how to twist reactions out of people and relationships in general but he doesn't know me very well if he thinks I am a pawn you can distract so easily."

She had mastered distraction 101 and damn her if she allowed the Originals to play her in her own game.

"He doesn't," Klaus agreed proudly, "But I do. And Elijah fails to see what I do."

"What is it that you see?" she provoked him.

"Your lies in your truths."

"My lies?" she challenged him.

"Being just enough was never good enough for you Caroline. You want to be the one."

Her breath was caught at that and she held it in deep fearing to let it out. To let her insecurities show.

"And you are that," Klaus promised her, "with me or without me in your life you are exactly that. Never doubt it. You have never been a pawn."

Caroline closed her eyes and she could hear blood rushing in her ears.

"What are you saying?" she asked him, her voice barely heard.

"Elijah wants to use what I feel for you against me. And to use what you feel against you. All in the name of a redemption that does not exist," Klaus watched her deeply and her heart skipped a beat, "he believes he can diffuse the situation between us but he fails to see how you and I have been fanning the flame for a long time in a way even his manipulative mind can't predict or see through. This is what your friends couldn't see back in Mystic Falls, this is what you have been trying to deny for years and refused to allow yourself to admit."

Caroline swallowed harshly.

"What exists between us can't be contained. Not even by us. Do you believe in destiny Caroline?"

"No."

Klaus arched his eyebrow at her resolute tone.

"No?"

"Not unless you make it," Caroline insisted.

"Spoken like a true Queen," Klaus admired," one that holds her fate in her hands and shapes the fates of others. And yet some things are fated. The moment you entered Purgatory you were fated to escape it. It could never hold you."

Caroline's eyes flashed with anger and indignation.

"I did that," she seethed, "Not fate."

"What if you walked the path someone else had once walked in your shoes? Maybe even paved it without knowing it so?"

"I don't understand."

"I had once told you we were the same and even I couldn't grasp the meaning of it. But when I spoke the words you could feel how true they were. I asked you back then if you would choose the cure but I already knew you wouldn't. Because I wouldn't. But also because of who you are. You were destined to become a vampire Caroline. You were fated for greatness long before you were born."

Caroline shook her head confused.

"What are you talking about?"

Klaus averted his eyes only for a fraction of a second which had Caroline narrow hers but then Klaus' expression turned and hid what he would not share with her. Even now. She could see he was course-correcting but she also could see that he was on the verge of sharing something just as important with her too. He couldn't stop the tide now.

"I am talking about how you have lived a parallel life to mine without even knowing."

"This makes no sense Klaus. Enough with the dramatics. Can you just spit it all out already?" she scoffed frustrated.

"There are things Elijah doesn't know."

"About me?" Caroline asked holding her breath.

"About me," Klaus corrected her and she frowned.

"My truths hurt as much as your lies. You always knew that. You didn't need me to reveal that to you," Klaus said, "there is no diffusing anything between us. You have been bracing yourself for the truth because you know that some truths when spoken don't open windows letting air and light in. They close them further shut and the oxygen vanishes until one suffocates in darkness and while my intentions do come from a good place there are not many good places left inside me. You are one of the last and I hate that I am bringing you the nightmare and not the fairytale. I never wanted that for you," he swore.

Caroline believed him but it didn't matter anymore.

"You asked me to treat you as an equal. So know that the truth will walk you through my nightmare and the only reason I share this with you is not because I want to gain something out of this. It is not an act of selflessness either. If anything it is the opposite because if I was selfless I would keep this for myself and I would not burden you with it."

Caroline felt flames rising all around her. They were shining bright. She felt she was playing with fire and she couldn't stop Klaus from burning her. This felt hotter than hell.

"What comes next is because you deserve my respect and you have earned it. It is because when I succumbed to the nightmare you rose and I still believe in the fairytales and I don't want you to lose that faith. It still lingers despite the darkness that evaded your heart. You are not the evil or the shadow in any fairytale love, you are the fairytale."

"Klaus-"

"When I told you we are the same I couldn't comprehend how true that statement was even back then and how much more now but…I don't want you to be the same with me," he pleaded with her, and Caroline's eyes narrowed, "you can be better. You can do what I didn't, survive what I didn't," he urged her, "In the aftermath, you can choose another path. What I want for you… is for us to not be the same."

Caroline tilted her head unable to see where this was heading.

"And there is still…time," Klaus promised her and she could hear the despair underneath the promise, "Like in the painting. You saw stillness where I saw time but truth is that I have been still in time where you have the ability to move forward through the worst hardships a person can imagine. Where I fail short you persevere and where I fall you rise. You can't possibly hate me more than I hate myself Caroline and it has been a long time since I have felt anything but… but then I met you."

Klaus smiled, remembering, reminiscing.

"The young baby vampire that made me tell her stories about art and music and a thousand birthdays. You changed the course of my destiny that night. I found myself changing all my carefully premeditated plans because of just a girl. A girl that stared bravely into death but wanted to live. You breathed new life to me that night. The night I entered your room," he remembered, "In an endless nightmare you made me dream again. You were afraid but you were brave and you reminded me of a time when I was terrified but hadn't forgotten how to be brave too. Long before Mikael took that away from me. Long before I was… cursed."

Klaus drew in a shaky breath.

"As a human I was scared, a coward, an insecure weakling, or I was what Mikael made me believe I was. A failure. And when my mother turned us I felt strong for the first time in my life. Strong to overcome the abuse. Strong enough to become the best and the worst version of myself. You know how that feels don't you?"

"I do," she admitted because she had felt it too. As a vampire she was everything she could never be as a human, "but vampirism only heightens what we truly are Klaus. It doesn't give you a new character."

"No. Only pain can do that. And even that is doubtful. Maybe it is true that people can't change," he accepted, "Pain simply reveals more layers under the surface. Well hidden. Layers you didn't even know you had. But they were always there. Waiting in the dark. To be set free. To change you or to simply allow you to transform into whatever, whoever, you hid in the dark."

"That is a kind of change in its own right though, isn't it? It is called growth."

Klaus smiled at that.

"What about what grows in the dark love? You have bloomed in the dark."

"I withered," she said harshly.

Klaus' gaze became dark and he sauntered closer.

"So have I."

Caroline inhaled deeply.

"Now ask me why and I won't lie. But once you ask you cannot take it back."

Caroline stilled. Completely. So had Klaus.

One word, she could not take back, broke the stillness.

"Why?"

Klaus gave her a sharp nod watching her with disappointment. As if he wished her not to ask. As if he hoped she wouldn't ask even though she knew she would. Because he would have done the same.

The same. Those words now somehow had a different ring to them and she feared she was about to find out why.

"There have been three curses in my life Caroline and no one truly knows about the third," Klaus started unemotionally, "Once upon a time the first curse turned me to a vampire," Klaus began counting," The second broke my wings as it bound my wolf. At first, I couldn't howl and then I couldn't escape my own skin. I spent a thousand times trying to break Esther's curse and evade Mikael but it was another curse, the third, that has held me captive till this day."

Caroline's brows furrowed. Ok so the first curse was Esther turning her children into vampires and the second was Esther's curse that bound Klaus's wolf. Mikael hunting him was the third? No, it couldn't be that. Could it be something about his daughter?

"What are you…I don't…You broke your curse," Caroline muttered without understanding, "the ritual you did with Elena, the moon, and the sun legends you created. You won."

Klaus' smile was bitter.

"I lost. I lost a long time ago Caroline."

He stepped closer still. She could feel his heat seeping into her cold bones. She could feel his aura wrapping around her like a vice.

"This…I have never shared with anyone sweetheart. Not my siblings. Not even myself in the dark. It's a secret I have kept for centuries. And weirdly enough it's a bond between us that was created long before you were even born and was crafted only after you died and returned to the living."

Caroline gave him a warning glare.

"I don't understand," she whispered tentatively.

"You will," he vowed, "and once you do there won't be any turning back. Some scars can't be undone, Caroline. You of all people know this."

"Klaus-"

His finger touched her lips stopping her from speaking another word. Her eyes widened at that.

"There are things I have never shared with anyone. Not a living soul," he revealed and Caroline felt a shiver of ice ran down her spine that turned her to something cold and unmovable.

"There are still things that even now that I can't share with you. But this," he paused intentionally, "I feel I owe this to you and I had been a coward not to do it sooner. I didn't want to add to your pain or admit it was true."

Caroline wrapped her hand around his wrist and removed his finger from her lips.

"Admit what was true?" she questioned feeling fear. A fear she hadn't felt ever since she had died.

Tears gathered in Klaus' eyes, he wouldn't let them fall but they seemed to be her undoing.

"Even like that if I kept this to myself I could pretend it hadn't happened. To me," Klaus whisper was a sign of defeat, "but here you are. So much younger and you braved this terror in ways I never could. Here you are being the survivor I never was. Fighting the cowardice I could never escape from because some things are inescapable are they not?" Klaus seemed to be lost in his narration now and she felt that even if she wanted to stop him from talking she wouldn't be able to do so.

"Even when you escape them they still have a hold on you. And if they do, did you really escape?" he asked her and Caroline felt her body going taut. Her mouth went dry.

"If I do this there will be no going back," Klaus warned her again. Preparing her for what was to come.

Caroline pressed her lips and closed her eyes for a moment bracing herself before she opened them again. She held Klaus' hands and brought them to her face.

"Do it," she forced herself to say, making sure to press his fingers against her temples.

"Are you sure love?" Klaus tried again, as his hands were cupping her face, as his expression was one of mourning.

She said nothing but her gaze was resolute. She framed his hands with hers and pressed them closer to her skin.

"Let me in," Klaus whispered before she heard his voice into her head as she gave him entrance to her mind, "Forgive me."

Klaus' voice faded out as his memories started fading in her mind becoming as real as if she was the one living them.


It was a sunny day. Only but a few years ago. He walked down the street, past the large trees and the parked cars.

Caroline felt as if she was walking in Klaus' shoes as he sauntered down the streets of Mystic Falls. He was calling Stefan and he was waiting for him to pick up as he picked up his pace.

"I don't want to talk about it," came Stefan's curt reply from the other side of the line.

"Well, I can't imagine why," irritation surged in Klaus' bloodstream. It was so potent that almost overwhelmed him. He was so annoyed by the ripper's stupidity and his incompetence, "what with you ruining my plans for a hybrid-filled future."

"Well, it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't sworn me to secrecy."

Klaus almost rolled his eyes at Stefan Salvatore's attempt to lie straight through his teeth. As if he hadn't fessed up everything to his moron brother and their company of idiots by now. The whole lot of them were idiots. How was it possible for such a group of idiots to have stalled his plans and annoy him to that extent?

He must have grown soft after Mikael's death it would seem or he had found himself bored and liked to play games with these children. If he was being honest, however, aside from the squabbles with his siblings that got in his way, it had been his infatuation with Caroline Forbes that was one of the most annoying things that stopped him from eradicating this whole town and taking his doppelganger with him. His past self would have snatched his human blood bag and stashed her away in the far ends of the earth compelling her to give him her blood happily as he raised his army. And yet he hadn't done that and now that pale imitation of Tatia was a walking proof of his failure. A vampire of no use to him.

He had to change that.

His past friendship with the ripper had come to an end. His plans didn't include him any longer and he had to move quickly if he was to gain everything he ever wanted.

At that moment a flash of Caroline's smile emerged in his mind but he banished it away as he let his frustration towards Stefan show. He would have to deal with the Gilbert girl before she found herself dead before the day was done.

"Well, life is full of ifs Stefan," Klaus replied as he strolled down the pavement and walked closer to the Gilbert house, "let's accentuate the positive shall we?" he mocked his old comrade with faux politeness and calmness, "the hunter was one of five, we'll find another, it make take centuries but we've got nothing but time."

"You are using your calm voice today," Stefan remarked, "who's getting killed?"

Klaus smirked at that.

"Not you, if that's what you are worried about," he said with a straight voice before he turned his tone into something caring, "but I am concerned about your beloved," he drawled but couldn't help but grimace as memories he didn't want to remember started resurfacing in his mind, "have the hallucinations started yet?"

"What do you know about that?" Stefan asked with a worried voice giving Klaus his answer.

"I'll tell you, where are you?"

"I am at her house."

Klaus smiled as he walked the pavement of the Gilbert residence. He could already smell Stefan's and Damon's scents from miles away. The idea they had that they could trick him so easily was ludicrous.

"How convenient," Klaus remarked jovially, "so am I," he said and knocked on the door.

He closed his phone and waited on the doorstep as Stefan, with his everlasting brooding expression, opened the door and closed it behind him and walked past him.

"You know this would all be more civilized if I was just invited inside," Klaus pointed out gesturing towards Elena's house as he walked after Stefan.

"It's bad enough I am out here talking to you."

Klaus couldn't help the bitterness of being scorned that way by his old friend as he walked down the steps of the front yard of the house.

"What do you know?" Stefan demanded.

"I killed the Original five hunters, remember?" Klaus reminded Stefan and gained his attention as the younger vampire turned around to face him, "when one kills a hunter there's a bit of a consequence," Klaus informed young Salvatore as the biting memories of those consequences still brought him chills. He remained calm not showing Stefan weakness but he could already feel his blood turning to ice at the memories of what killing a hunter meant and he had killed all five of them.

"What kind of consequence?" Stefan questioned and Klaus locked his gaze with him seriously.

"The hunters were spelled by witches to kill vampires," Klaus told the story looking at the side as if he was detached and bored with spelling out the reveal Stefan so much craved, "if you prevent one from fulfilling his destiny, then he'll take you down with him," he grimly said.

"What do you mean? Connor is dead!" Stefan remarked and Klaus almost scoffed at that. Morons. He was dealing with morons.

"I mean," he spat annoyed, "Connor's death won't prevent him from making Elena his final vampire kill," he spelled it out for the ripper that immediately paled at his words.

"She'll need to come with me now," Klaus warned Stefan trying to coax him into reason. If anything he was offering his genuine help this time. Surely the Salvatores could appreciate his good intentions. After all, he wanted his doppelganger alive and well and human. If they couldn't trust him they could at least trust his intentions, "I'll lock her up," he proposed fighting back a smile, "keep her away from any sharp wooden objects."

"She is not going anywhere with you," Stefan fought back with foolish bravery.

"Well, if we leave her alone she will take her own life before the day is out," Klaus informed the ripper using a sympathetic tone that was all but condescending. Oh, he remembered. He remembered every time he had tried to kill himself in the past. Countless times. He had tried and tried and he had failed every time. Elena was not an Original, however. She would find blessed mercy in succeeding in taking her life and he couldn't allow her that relief. Not when he had plans for her still. After all, he only cared for her human blood, not her state of mind.

"She is stronger than that."

Klaus arched his brow at Stefan's beliefs.

"Is she?" he patronized his old friend, "believe me it's for her own good," he added, seriously because this was not up for debate.

If anything he knew this all too well.


Klaus' finger pads softly caressed Caroline's skin as one memory replaced the other. He was driving her through familiar places and faces to ease her transition into some of his most painful and excruciating experiences and he could feel the ache she deeply felt as she once more saw the people she loved and cared about through his memories.


Elena was struggling against his hold but he kept his arm firmly around her neck as she tried to pull it away and free herself.

He led her into the room, as one of his few remaining hybrids opened the door and stayed back guarding it as he served him blindly.

"Let go of me!" his doppelganger nagged and he let her go pushing her deeper into the room.

"Certainly," he humored her as Elena stopped in front of the bed staring at the room that was to be her new prison, "I apologize for the lack of windows," he politely said gesturing around the room, "it is to preserve the art."

Elena turned around looking at him confused.

"And of course to prevent you from taking off your daylight ring and burning yourself to death in the sun," he casually said.

Elena frowned at him with rejection.

"I am not going to kill myself," she objected shaking her head, "I'd never do that."

Klaus almost shook his head with pity.

"Oh, but you'll want to," he expressed somberly with absolute certainty.

Elena watched him surprised. Maybe because it was one of the few times he addressed her with honesty and even a slight sympathy.

"I did," he calmly stated saying the words softly as if the memories didn't still burn and kept him awake at night, "problem is I am immortal," he admitted feeling tired and showing for the first time how his eternal life was nothing but misery. A curse. A burden.

The Gilbert girl gaped at him.

"You went through this?" she asked him in disbelief.

"Yes I did," he revealed as if it was of no consequence but then he couldn't help himself as he added, "for 52 years, 4 months, and 9 days."

Elena empathized with him and watched him with compassion in her eyes and he couldn't understand how she could feel this for her enemy. She should be enjoying hearing from him how he had suffered but then again she had only had a taste of suffering herself. By the end of this torment, she would know what it would mean to truly be in agony and a part of him felt sorry for her.

He wouldn't wish such a fate even to his worst enemy.

He turned around not willing to show any more weakness to that girl.

"I was tormented," he simply said, "in my dreams for every waking moment," he sighed and recalled how the pain was unholy, inhuman, nothing he could ever bring to his enemies and foes, "an endless never-ending torture."

And it had been endless. It had been never-ending. It had been torture.

He faced Elena again and saw her studying him.

"It was the only period in my life I actually felt time," he sincerely told her and it had been.

In a way.

He had counted the real time in his head but there was the other time he couldn't count because he had lost count of the time he had stayed in a place he would not speak of even now. Let the doppelganger find out herself what the curse of the five truly meant. And once she would be banished in…there she would also know the difference.

She would start appreciating time herself too as time moved differently…there.

There were times he still doubted that place was true. It had to be a fiction of his madness, the eternal madness of his mind, and nothing more; only he knew better than that.

That place was real. It was out there. It existed. He knew it. As he knew he could never return there, no matter what he had to do. What he had to sacrifice, whom he had to sacrifice. Even his own soul. His soul that was broken, with parts of it, still left into that timeless hell.

Elena's eyes narrowed and her accusing voice brought him back to the present.

"So you knew this would happen if Connor died," she realized, "that's why you got involved. Did Stefan know too?" she asked him and he could see how much his answer meant to her.

"All he knew was that the hunter had to be kept alive," he said not seeing any point in lying. He could already see the wedge that had formed between the doppelganger and the ripper. It was quite amusing to watch and act benevolently during this entertainment. However, he couldn't help the anger that spiked inside him.

Elena, the Salvatores, they were all children. How they had survived him for so long was a mystery to him.

How they dared to believe they could go up against him was preposterous.

They could never understand what he had survived. They dared to oppose him without knowing what lingered underneath his nightmares. What kind of nightmare he had turned himself in order to survive.

They believed they knew of hardships and pain but they knew nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He walked aggressively towards the girl.

"You should have listened to him when he said he had it covered, love," he chastised her.

Elena inhaled sharply and glowered at him.

"What else did Stefan know?"

He tilted his head and smirked at Elena Gilbert.

"Well, that's one of life's little mysteries isn't" he mocked her unable to stop himself from having his fun after all.

He swiveled around ready to walk away when Elena's voice stopped him.

"How did you make it stop?" she demanded waving her hands in despair.

He halted and gritted his teeth.

He turned back slowly and his gaze became unfocused. He still didn't know. This was one more thing that was driving him crazy to this day. He didn't know how he had escaped that place. How the hallucinations had stopped. How the curse was lifted.

He sighed heavily.

"I didn't," he admitted to Elena, "eventually it just stopped."

Elena watched him desperately at that and he straightened his shoulders.

"The hallucinations tend to appear in strange forms," he warned her all but kindly with a knowing smile and knocked on the door.

His hybrid opened the door for him while he still stared at Elena Gilbert.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he gave her a fair warning, as his smile grew wider.

He walked out of the room before Elena could say or do anything and his hybrid closed the door locking her in.


His thumbs caressed Caroline's forehead, his fingers a warm sensation against her temples as Klaus eased her into a familiar memory that made her body relax in his hands. His will drove a memory they both shared but now she lived it through his eyes, through his heart and she ached just much as he once had. As he still did.


He hated this cheap place, with the cheap music, the cheap glasses, and the even cheaper wine but he had needed to get away from the house. He could hear Elena's voice as she battled with her hallucinations and it drove him mad. It reminded him of a time when he would see his own nemesis, his own ghosts, and would be driven mad by them.

So here he was. At the Grill. Drinking cheap wine. Trying to relax.

But then her scent infiltrated his senses and the world burst with color again. The ugly memories faded away and Caroline's beautiful fragrance cast away the smell of sulfur and decay from his nostrils.

Suddenly his surroundings didn't seem so cheap, so dim, so uninteresting.

"Place looks pretty good considering your hybrid got blown up in it."

The noise around them filtered out.

He smiled. She was using her sultry voice. She was slowly removing her jacket.

She was here to distract him.

And by the Gods he wanted her to distract him. To take away the pain, the memories, the feeling of loneliness. He knew her distractions always came with trouble but he would always welcome said trouble and even juvenile attempts to have him killed if it meant spending time with her.

"Caroline," he almost sang with reverence, loving the sound of her name on his lips. He looked down at his glass but without missing getting a glance at her provocative way of dressing up for him. She was playing the seductress which meant the Salvatores had put her up to it but he had his doppelganger locked up safely and guarded so he could play along for now, "to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked her using his most suave tone.

She didn't know it yet but this girl deserved the best the world and he had to offer. She deserved respect, romance, and everything she dreamed of. She was naïve due to her age but also wickedly smart despite her age. It was a deadly combination of innocence and potential, of danger and beauty. And he was drawn to that beauty. So much that he could not keep pretending this was an infatuation any longer. It had taken a sharp turn into something different.

Caroline stood by him and he could already see she was about to ask him for a favor.

She was flirting with him. Her body language was too expressive. She was too compliant. Too sweet.

"I want you to give Elena back," she sweetly expressed her desire and he closed his eyes in understanding.

"Ah," he realized exhaling the soft vowel, "they sent you to sweet talk me," and sweet she was. He was dying to dive into that sweetness and taste the bitterness that came along with it. He was dying for a taste, "well, good form," he respectfully said, and her form was good alright, "but I am afraid I can't do it."

Bloody Hell! When had he turned into such a weakling? He even felt a pang of guilt for not being able to give her what she wanted.

A flash of stubbornness and anger flashed through her fake naivety and Klaus relished at the predator that lurked underneath the soft exterior. She was defiant and driven.

"Why not?" she demanded, keeping her voice still low but this time with an edge on the tone she expressed her displeasure at being denied. It would seem he had spoiled her.

He narrowed his eyes at her, locking his gaze with hers.

"She needs my help," he only said and actually meant it.

Caroline scoffed at that and rolled her eyes exasperated.

"Look," he started, "I am not going to burden you with the gory details," and he really wasn't going to. Such ugliness should never touch this girl. "I know you have enough on your plate already."

Caroline's mood changed in an instant and she looked away from him angrily.

"That's none of your business actually!"

"Yes," he mumbled, "well just know that if Tyler was still sired to me, he never would have hurt you."

He felt her eyes on him and he faced her.

"I wouldn't have let him."

Her gaze was piercing him but he returned it with the same intensity for he meant it. If Caroline was his he would cherish her. He would need nothing else but her light. He would cherish her body, her mind, her heart and he would never look at another. She was everything and for some reason, he would rather see her happy even with that insignificant hybrid of his rather than unhappy and in pain because of that boy. The Lockwood boy was undeserving of her. He could never treat her right and Klaus could wait for Caroline to outgrow her feelings for his hybrid. He could wait patiently for her to come to him and in the meanwhile, he wouldn't allow anyone to hurt her. Not like this. She deserved to keep her pride. To be treated like a Queen. Rejection didn't suit her no matter how much she had been rejecting him.

It would not be the first time he had to fight to for an ultimate goal and Caroline was something worth fighting for. In time when her young humanity would fade away and she would grow she would come to see things his way. She would outgrow her loyalty to people who didn't deserve her and he would wait for her.

Caroline lowered her eyes and he hated how he had obviously made her feel uncomfortable. Young love and young breakups always hurt the young ones and she was still a young one. He couldn't forget that.

There was a small voice inside his head, his paranoid head, that told him not to trust her. That even her break up with Tyler Lockwood was a ploy but on the off chance that it was real, he couldn't help but hope. Caroline would be his downfall and he was free-falling without caring for the landing.

"Can I at least offer you a drink?" he proposed and hated how awkward he was becoming around her. Courting a lady had changed through the centuries and his ways were still old. He was old after all.

He knew how to flirt in the modern ways too but for some reason, Caroline managed to short circuit that ability of his and turned him back to the village Viking boy he had once been, or at least to the Lord he was when he was courting ladies centuries ago in old courts and castles.

Caroline seemed to think about his offer for a moment but then she yielded easily.

"Yeah," she accepted almost shyly giving him a smile of hers, "thanks."

He pressed his lips contently.

Yeah, she was definitely there to distract him.

But as he ordered a drink for her he realized he didn't care as long as she was next to him.


Like turning the pages of a book one more memory of theirs took life in Caroline's mind. She remembered that one very well too but the intensity by which Klaus' remembered the same things they had lived shook her down to the core.


This felt like a date and he would die to get another one. It was a distraction he knew that but if this was the price to pay to get her closer to him he would pay it. He just had to find more ways for drawing Caroline closer to him. Seduction, extortion, manipulation, emotional warfare. All were on the table. He wanted this to be genuine but until they got to that point he was not above playing dirty. After all, this was the game between them. She was always trying to distract him so it was only fair to repay the favor. All were fair in love and war and he wanted both with this woman.

They had chemistry. There was an undercurrent between them he could not explain but it pulled them closer. He felt somehow as if she was a kindred spirit to him. His perfect match. He loved her deviant ways. Her strength. Her way of embracing her vampirism without losing her light. He loved both her darkness and her shadows, things that no one else was able to see as clearly as he could. Not even her he imagined. He knew she was probably just learning how to explore her darkest desires and that took time. It must be frightening and he knew she was stubborn enough and controlling enough to deny her true self due to her young age and the human conventions that were still so deeply engraved in her.

She was a magnificent creature and he could see her potential but it was more than just that.

When he was with her he was at peace and he had lived long enough to know that was a rare feeling. He wanted to keep her close. To find a way to create a web around her and pull her to his side. To his bed. Most of all he wanted to keep her safe. All his well sorted out plans seemed to be ruined because of this sunshine girl and he had to reevaluate his goals because he had never expected for the wonder Caroline Forbes was.

He wanted her. And he was used to taking what he wanted. Only he didn't just want to take her. He wanted her to come to him and he was ready to use every trick in his book to make this happen.

This was one of the reasons he was always scanning her reactions, her temperament, her expressions to learn everything he could about her, and right now as she glanced at her phone he immediately noticed the worry that got painted on her features.

Caroline swallowed down hard, with fear before she masked it and gave him an awkward smile.

He didn't take his eyes off her and watched as she tilted her body and gave him her most angelic smile.

She scrunched up her brow in a cute way and actually fidgeted. He was amused by her reactions because she looked adorable but he also tensed because he could already tell that whatever she was about to tell him he would not like. There was worry and fear in her eyes.

He didn't want her to fear him. So he didn't want to startle her. He let the whole thing play out giving her time to fess up her latest distraction scheme against him. That girl was about to do anything the Salvatores made her do due to her misplaced devotion to his doppelganger. She was ready to throw herself into the fire if she had to and he couldn't allow that. Somehow he had to keep her out of this mess, something he had decided against all logic ever since he got to know her better. All his best laid out plans meant nothing when it came to her and that was disturbing him. Very much so. And he was still unable to make it stop.

"So here's the thing," Caroline started coyly blowing out a rushed breath, "I didn't just come here to try to get you to release Elena," she came clean trying to look as innocent as possible given how she was once more admitting at her intentions of tricking him.

He hated how much he enjoyed her audacity and her bravery. It annoyed him how she believed him to be this blind to her charm and more so that her charm was actually working on him.

"You don't say," he deadpanned with a smile, not taking his eyes away from her concerned gaze. He looked deeply into her gaze and even though he could tell she was afraid she was not flinching under his scrutiny or the calm smile of his that his enemies so much feared.

"I came here to distract you," she quietly said before she let it all out, "so that Stefan could go to your house and break her out."

The smile immediately vanished from his face.

"Which he did," she paused and went taut, her voice dropping lower, almost timidly, "and don't get mad," she tried to placate him and the next words got out of her lips with difficulty, "but then…he… lost her."

He stormed away from his chair barely listening to Caroline calling out his name trying to stop him.

How could he fall for her tricks when he already knew she was tricking him? How could he allow her to distract him like this, to starve for being the victim of her distraction when he knew what was at stake? When had this little slip of a girl became so important to him that he was ready to risk all his master plans and ruin them only to spend a few stolen moments with her while she didn't care for him at all?

He knew what the Curse of the Five meant. The torture was engraved in his soul and mind and Caroline's power over him was so strong that was capable to erase even that memory for a while.

If anything that made Caroline more dangerous than he believed her to be. He was about to lose his doppelganger, a chance at completing the dreams he carried for millennia only because a vampire cheerleader was flirting with him as if he was an inexperienced boy that hadn't seduced and destroyed endless women in his path throughout the centuries.

Caroline was becoming a weakness and at that moment he responded as he always responded to weakness. He wanted to erase the weakness, to snatch it from inside him and tear it apart.

He turned around at her feeling furious and wanting to lash out but even like that he stopped himself from reacting in a way he knew he was going to regret. But he had to get out of here for Caroline's safety and to find Elena Gilbert. Maybe even in order to kill some Salvatores too. Very, very slowly.

"Caroline," he bit out, testing out his patience, "you are beautiful," by the Gods she was, "but if you don't stop talking I will kill you."

His voice was soft. Lethal.

A threat she should very well take into account and run screaming for the hills but instead of doing that Caroline Forbes once more stood her ground and faced him like an equal ignoring the danger she was in.

He was the danger.

Anyone else in her shoes and would have bowed down in their knees trembling asking for forgiveness.

But not her.

Never her.

Just like him, she would rather die than show weakness. And she was very well risking her life for all those she called friends when she came up against him when she knew better than most what he was capable for. And yet she went straight into the wolf's den every time and he was barely holding back from clawing into her and devouring her. In another time he would have considered taking Elena and Caroline along with him. She would have been at his beck and call, unable to resist him, but he had grown soft. He had grown vulnerable around her. He wanted her to come to him freely, willingly. He wanted her to want him, to not fear him and the fact that she actually didn't fear him, or at least stood up against him despite her fear was also driving him mad.

Determination filled her gaze and he had to get out. Now. Before he hurt her.

"They figured out how to stop the hallucinations," Caroline blurted out quickly stopping him dead on his tracks.

The memories of his agony and torture were almost uncontainable by his flesh and bones. Pain sharp, electrifying charged through him.

He had spent endless time getting tortured when there was a way for the torture to stop. Even in day.

And if fate wasn't cruel enough with him already he would learn what that way was not by the siblings that had cared for him and should have found the solution centuries ago in order to save him but from Caroline Forbes.

He swallowed down his pain and fortified himself once more wearing his cold mask.

He slowly turned around and Caroline gulped down harshly and held her breath as this time he didn't hide the monster in his eyes. He let her see who she was dealing with. How close to the fire she was. He let her feel the heat that was threatening to burn her. And burn her it would.

She wouldn't come out of this play of distraction of hers unscathed this time. If he was to suffer like this he was going to gain something out of it.

And there was no greater prize than…her.

"Okay," he softly gave her the chance to fix her mistake, "you have ten seconds to tell me."


Caroline's body had become lax. Klaus knew how to get through her walls by mentally cracking open the door through their common memories and the people she loved. He melted her heart by giving her glimpses of her old friends and their shared parts but what was about to follow next would take her to another time.

A time she didn't belong to. A time, lost in time, long before she was born.

The next memories belonged solely to Klaus and his fingertips pressed harder against her flesh. They branded her with fire. They dag in deeper. They forced his will through her mental shields. She dropped them and he was in her mind. Deep inside where the darkness lured.

She was compelled by his power. She was powerless to it and yet she felt his power in her veins as if it was her own. As it claimed her every cell and bent it to his will.

She let him in. She let it all in before she let go.

As she surrendered herself completely to his mental powers, or as completely as she would allow anyone to enter, just as Klaus entered her mind to show her his memories she felt the tear that dropped down on his cheek through their connection and she felt it as if it was a river that brought an ocean under her closed eyelids.

She tasted the saltiness, the blood, the torment.

One single tear carried so much pain that it broke through memory and carried her deep into the sea.

The ocean was dark and cold and threatened to drown her. She fell inside the dark, twirling like a falling star in a well that hid an abyss made from the darkest ink of fate.

There was death Klaus had pillaged and conquered and there was death that had pillaged him and conquered him.

The abyss was calling her home.

She followed the calling.

An explosion unfolded in her mind and all she could do was hold on to Klaus Mikaelson as he shared his untold curse for the first time in nine centuries with someone. With her.

"Forgive me."

He shared his memories. His unspoken memories. All of his untold memories, boundless and limitless. Unending pain, chaos, and shadows that swallowed her whole.

Secrets suppressed that now…detonated!

Every step of the curse of the five she walked along with him. She felt everything. It was too much.

Madness, madness, madness, nothing but madness until the madness was gone.

Klaus couldn't feel relief for what was to come was worse.

He transcended leaving the hallucinations, the insanity, and the world of the living behind him.

He soared. For a moment he was free. He was unbound.

For just a moment before the chains wrapped around him harder.

Soul snatched from madness to stone. The curse was snatching him away. The hallucinations became real.

Passing through the ghost of Tatia's memory sculpted into ancient stone.

The whisper of a name echoed in the ancient timeless darkness. In death.

Amara.

Death.

Blackness.

No oxygen. No movement but stillness.

There was nothing.

And then-

The screeching, the pain, the terror. Intense despair.

The things that crawled in the night. Broken dead things devouring the dead. Every attack. Everything that bit him. hurt him, tore at him. Every slash, every scratch, every wound.

A barrage of images assaulted her mind, shifting, turning, whirling. Scenes were playing out in her head like a horror movie andCaroline trembled as Klaus guided her to another memory of his.

Of him breathing poison. Of how he drowned into the endless ocean of vervain until his flesh melted and his muted screams swallowed acid. How he died over and over again, a thousand times. He fought a thousand wars. He burned. He drowned. He fell apart.

This couldn't be true. But it was. The ghosts of the Hunters of the Five brought him here. Where he was meant to be. In hell. In a place older than time, unbending by time, by light, by hope.

Memories, more memories, came and gone and he still remembered.

In Caroline's mind, she could feel his memories. She could still hear his whisper through the thunder of his memories. Decades of memories. Only it wasn't decades or even centuries. He had stayed longer. Much longer.

Longer than anyone. Longer than her.

'Forgive me'.

Only he wouldn't stop. She had asked him to show her.

So he did.

He showed her.

How he cried and fell. How he trembled and yelled. He was rotting, his flesh was coming apart, he could see his bones through the gaps.

Klaus gave her a window in his darkness.

Into his desiccated… death.

It was not only physical. His spirit was gone. Gone into a place…familiar.

The window became her world. His world was her world.

Everything he ripped apart and destroyed. All the things he flayed and skinned.

Thousand teeth, million shades, blades clashing together.

He fought them all until he could fight no more. Until he was cut down a thousand times. Until he was broken over and over again. Until he was empty, drained, crippled. He was locked in this cage, left alone to die.

Every instinct. Every agony. The howling abyss.

The bloodshed. The poison. The torture.

Everything he had to endure. He led her deep beneath the surface. He gave her the figments of the screams and the torture. The hallucinations. The badlands. The monsters in the dark. The chaos. The abyss.

He gave her everything.

"Forgive me"

He pressed his fingers against her temples more. Feeling the bone beneath the skin. Feeling the fracture of her mind as their memories synced. Same memories. Same places. Same icons.

There was no escape. He hadn't escaped for a long time either.

She'd see. What no one else had seen. What he had shown no one else.

What she had already seen. What she had already lived.

The suffocation from the sulfur. The eternal fire. The acid beneath his feet, the chaos above in the sky. The hunger. The loneliness.

The ageless time. He burned. He was so cold. He was nothing. He felt nothing. He felt everything. Everything and nothing at all.

No forgiveness. No mercy. No love.

Alone.

All alone.

Forgotten. Lost in the wastelands. A ghost. A dead thing left to rot with no one to remember him, or love him, or care for him.

His memories filtered in her synapses.

There were no vague remnants of blurry memories anymore. In seconds he had shared with her everything. He had shared with her lifetimes. He shared every moment. As if he relived it and with him so did her.

Her mind screamed for him to stop, she wanted to shove him out but terror and shock had made it impossible for her to do so.

Their mental connection hurt. It brought back old hurt. Sharp. So sharp.

Her memories almost overrode his. She remembered how she clawed and broke out of her coffin through the dirt carrying Kol's soul shuttering apart every bone of her body to get out of her grave.

Klaus regained control of her mind and pushed through their blended memories giving her more of his own.

The scenery changed.


Hell blurred away.

His eyes opened in the darkness.

He was gasping for air. Or would have if he could.

He smelled the decay. It was coming from his body.

The shackles of madness and hell slowly loosened. They became mist and fell like whispers of a butterfly's wings.

He was gasping for air but no air could enter his lungs as they had turned into stone. The cave he had been desiccated in was no longer containing him and yet his soul roared under his grey flesh.

He was back.

He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. His mouth was dry. It was as if it was scratched by a million blades.

He had crumbled into nothingness and at the center of it, there was nothing but bloodlust. Rising bloodlust as he had suffocated into his madness speechless, silent, all alone.

He had clawed, he had fought, he tore through flesh and rot. His rotting flesh.

The castle walls had turned into his coffin.

The stone walls of the old castle with the velvet curtains that half blocked the sun. Oh, how he had missed the sun. The crisp cold air of England.

Air he could breathe again.

His soul passed the stone again. He bid farewell to Tatia's ghost once more and he hated how the gate of hell had the face of the woman he had once cared for but now hated right down to his core for she was nothing but a gateway to endless torture. In life and in death.

In that place.

That place that seemed like a dream of a madman that was waking up from a memory, a nightmare, a fairytale of terror. A fairytale with no happy ending.

A place so real. It had been real. He knew it deep down in his very core. Everything in him screamed it was real.

Nameless and true and real.

He could not even cry in relief, in pain, in despair.

His body was stone. The bed was soft but he was marble.

Birds were chirping. Rebekah's fragrance was lingering in the air. On the clean sheets. All over his. His dear sister. He had missed her.

He had missed her but no one had missed him. No one came to find him. They all left him alone to fend for himself in Hell.

But his was no longer there.

It took colossal power of will to move his eyes.

He begged Rebekah with his will to look at him. To see him.

He was back.

He had returned.


Caroline snapped back horrified breaking their connection. She looked at Klaus frozen with a gaze filled with horror and terror as if she had never seen him before.

Her eyes were wide, her breath was taken away as Klaus looked at her with eyes reflecting harrowing devastation just as he had when she had shared her memories of Purgatory with him after the ball in the Abattoir only now he was watching with the knowing understanding and fear for the secret he had just revealed to her.

This was what he had shown her. The Curse of the Five.

Every moment of it. Every part of his memories.

Only they were not his memories.

They were hers.

Theirs.

Oh God.