Stories of old

All of this for such a tiny thing, he thinks while studying the cure in its box. It's a cocoon filled with a red liquid, one dose of something so many wants. He does wonders what would have happened if he had never mentioned its existence to Stefan.

Needing to make sure that Rebekah can't steal it from them, he hides it away, hoping she isn't planning to tear the house apart looking for it.

Soon thereafter knocking can be heard at the mansion's front door. He isn't expecting company, Caroline and Rebekah should still be at prom and the Salvatore's should be too busy keeping an eye on Elena to disturb him.

When he opens the door, he wishes that he hadn't done so. Not that he should worry about a human that can't do any harm, but still he's worried. "Sheriff, what can I help you with." He opens the door wide to let Caroline's mum through.

She looks just as uncertain about this as he feels, at least that is something, he's not the only one that feels out of his element. "There is something we need to talk about." She says and follows him into the living room.

He has never had to do this before, talk to someone's parent like this. But everything that has happened lately is new to him so how bad can this really get. "Why don't you start, Ms. Forbes." He sits down on the couch trying to relax.

"Please call me Liz." She says. "I would like to know more about your relationship with my daughter." She continues, looking determined at him.

What can he really say to that, he hasn't had a relationship like this with anyone before and those he would have wanted it with were lost to him over a thousand years ago. "I won't hurt her." he decides to say to calm the mother before him.

"That is something you will have to prove with more than words." He nods, understanding her worries considering that the first time they meet was when he had put Caroline's life in danger. "And this isn't just about the two of you anymore."

His hand closes, forming a fist. It shouldn't get him so upset, Liz has every right to worry about her grandson's safety, the only thing she knows of him is most likely the bad that Caroline and her friends have said over the year. But to hear her say it makes him worry that he will be as bad as Mikael.

He sighs and does his best to calm down. He is looking at the floor when he speaks to her again. "I don't know how to do this. I can't promise that I will be a good father, but if you or Caroline ever feared that I would hurt my son, then I want you to take him away, I don't want to become like Mikael."

When he meets Liz's eyes, she looks mostly surprised. "You know that it's a boy." Is what she says, and Klaus didn't expect that, that was what she would get stuck on, he thought that Caroline had told her.

"It's a long story." Trying to explain everything about his hallucinations doesn't feel like the best thing to do. "This is the first time in ages that I have no idea of what I'm doing."

Something gets Liz to sit down next to him and place a hand on his shoulder. "No one knows what it will be like to have a child before they have one, what's important is that you are willing to be here for it and try to do what's right."

He gives her a smile and prepares for the surprise his next words are going to cause. "I did have a child once, a boy that I took in, in the early 1800-hundreds."

Maybe the dance isn't exactly as she had imagined, but nothing really is any more and the fact that everything has stayed relative calm so far is definitely a plus. Looking around at the unknowing human just having a good time is making her smile.

After a while, Damon joins her. "Aren't you on "Save Elena" duty?" she could do without his company right now, he shouldn't even be at this dance since he isn't a student.

"Stefan mentioned that you were planning to take over with some new special powers." Of course, he did, couldn't it have waited until after the dance to tell people.

She tries to read how Damon is feeling about it, considering that to him she has only ever been the Klaus distraction, it would be reasonable to think that he wouldn't trust her with Elena's safety. But he isn't really giving her anything, only that he seems a bit bored.

"I'm going to try." She decides to answer him not feeling like arguing over it. "Can't promise anything, though." She sighs, she wishes she could promise that her new powers could fix all of their problems, but she doesn't think they will have that kind of luck.

Damon holds out his hip flask to her, offering a drink. "No, thanks." She says eyeing it suspicious since it doesn't seem like Damon to share.

At first, he just takes a sip himself before bringing his attention back to her. "Just wanted to see what you would do if I were hearing right." Now she's even more confused. "You can hear the heartbeat, Blondie." He clarifies.

Oh, she didn't think anyone was going to listen after it. "I thought you were too busy with Elena to notice."

He shrugs. "Mostly I was trying to read the new you after Stefan said that you weren't a vampire any longer." He even admits to her that it wasn't easy noticing the changes. "Does Tyler know you're carrying Klaus pup?"

He really had to go there she thinks, glaring at him. "No, and the one that's going to tell him is me." She just hasn't had a chance yet since he isn't in town and refusing to answer phone calls.

"Don't worry, I don't have any interest in your baby drama." He says. "At least not as long as it doesn't get in the way of protecting Elena." She could have guessed as much.

While they were talking Bonnie has made her way over to them. When Caroline can see her friend, she is looking scared. "We have a problem." Bonnie says and gets them to follow her to a more secluded place.

They wave over Matt and Stefan before Bonnie explains what has happened, of course, something had to go wrong. "It's Silas he is here, he made me see Jeremy. I could talk to him, feel him."

"Bonnie, that's what Silas does. You can't let him get to you again." Stefan says.

Damon is in agreement, just not in the most tactful way. "Yeah, because you all crazy and brainwashed is just not a good look."

"Really." Caroline says to him before she turns to her friend. "Stay with me and he won't touch you." She hopes that Silas hasn't learned of a way to overpower her yet, or that he knows that she will fall into a coma if she overuses her powers.

Once everyone is onboard on Caroline protecting Bonnie, she decides to tell them something else. "I learned something when I met Silas. His powers don't work on me, so I could see his real appearance." She takes a deep breath before she continues. "Silas is a doppelgänger, maybe even the first."

"Wait you mean that Silas is a she, that her real appearance is like Elena's?" Matt wonders understandable since the only doppelgängers they know are Elena and Katherine.

But Caroline shakes her head. "No, Silas is a he, apparently there is two lines of doppelgängers and this one looks like Stefan." She looks to her friend that seems to be mostly shocked.

Why he started to tell Liz about his past with Marcel is something he can't answer, but it felt incredibly good to get it out. Ever since Mikael showed up in New Orleans and killed Marcel he has carried that grief with him, not realising that he needed to get it out.

Once it has all been told he just waits for her reaction. "Sometimes I forget how old you really are." Is what she says with light laughter behind it. "All the things you must have seen and been through."

Klaus meets her gaze that is looking kindly back. "I guess you never expected your daughter to be with someone that is older than you."

"No." Liz says shaking her head. "But I also expected my daughter to be with someone that I could scare with the fact that I'm the sheriff and owns a gun."

"As long as it isn't loaded with white oak bullets, it's not going to make much of an impact." But if it would help, he could always let her shoot him since it won't leave any permanent damage.

Liz then takes a more serious tone bringing the subject back to what he has told her. "Are you worried that it's going to end the same with this child as it did with Marcel?"

He hopes it won't, but he doesn't know how to do better. "It feels like I failed as a father to him." All the jealousy he felt over the time Marcel spent with Elijah as a boy and the relationship he built with Rebekah, it made it hard for him to do right by Marcel. "I don't want to fail this time." he can't fail this time.

They are both silent while Liz tries to find the best way to answer his worries to help him realise that this can turn out different and even if he will fail in some regards, because no one is perfect, it doesn't mean the end of the world.

She failed a lot with Caroline, the terrible relationship they had after her divorce with Bill, it felt for a very long time like she and Caroline would never get back on good terms. Sure, she might still have times she wishes that Caroline could have stayed human, but she is also happy that her daughter has found her place in the world.

Turning her thoughts back to the man seated beside her, she does her best to put her thought to words. "It will never be easy, but there will be some differences that might help. This child your biological son will always be that your son, he won't grow up and starts to wonder if your relationship should be that of friends or brothers instead, the role of parent and child will be clearer."

To add to that they can at least be certain that he won't develop the same relationship with Rebekah as Marcel had done, this time around there is that blood relation to take into account. "And Klaus, you can always learn from your mistakes."

"That would be a first." At least when it comes to relationships. "But thank you for listening."

"Well, what is family for." Because that is what they are going to become, right? "And one more thing, you aren't going to do this alone, Caroline will be there with you through it all, and together you will decide how to raise your son."

It's a relief to hear her say that he and Caroline can do this together, he's always been worried that does around him will question every decision he might make. But knowing that as long as he and Caroline can come to an agreement then that is enough, or at least should be enough for those around them is something he needed to hear.

He has known from before that Caroline won't remove him from the decision or just overrule him because she would think she knows better, but it is everyone else he is worried about pressuring her to do so and now knowing that at least Liz trusts in her daughter's trust in him, it's like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.