2

The door to his bedroom is open, and Katherine is not surprised. Rebekah smirks, cold and complacent, pale eyes crinkling in that familiar expression of I-am-better-than-you-dear-and-I-like-it, as she passes the younger vampire by.

"He is waiting."

She says, like if Katherine didn't know already, and Elijah had not just sent her up after receiving a full briefing over the situation she left in Mystic Falls.

Still, it is the gleeful inflection in her tone that gives her true meaning away.

Predictable, and Katherine hates her for it, but her face shows nothing of her disdain. Instead she nods like she doesn't care and goes in for the kill, steps light and spine straight, past the threshold and toward her sire.

Finding exactly what she expected.

He is naked in his bed, barely covered by the pale sheets tangled around his legs. The light that filters through the heavy curtains of the tall window catches in his blonde hair, falls over the golden skin and the taut muscles she is far too familiar with. Oh, she remembers the days she was in love with that body, that chiseled jaw, that perfect lying mouth.

Thanks to his chew toys, I also remember why I am not, anymore.

Sure enough, *they *are there as well, just as naked, one on each side of her sire. Greta Martin, teenager witch prodigy Klaus stole away from her family and brainwashed with promises of greatness. Gloria Esteban, centenary witch and bar owner in his pocket since the 1920's. Black bodies cushioning Klaus' pale one, littered with bites and hickeys but still spent with satisfaction. Gloria snores softly, face pressed against his back, while Greta keeps her head under the pillow, breathing a bit too deeply to be anything but genuinely asleep.

Exhausted and near-drained, it is not a wonder they didn't hear her entering.

Klaus is another matter entirely. He keeps his eyes closed, feigns flawlessly the lax abandonment of real sleep, but Katherine knows him. It's all a show, the very same he has been running since she was a fledging.

He is giving her the time to appraise the scene properly.

Almost cute. It's been far past a century since I felt any real jealousy.

She waits, looks down on the bed and its occupants without blinking, and she nearly convinces herself that she can appreciate the picture on a purely aesthetical level.

She would like nothing better than being able to say this particular game grew amusing.

Nope, despite their utter lack of any significance, I would rip them both to shreds and enjoy it.

But Klaus would like it too much. They already danced that dance far too many times for her to pretend not knowing the rules.

He fancies himself to be an artist, her sire. He took her from a whorehouse, delighted from her perfect resemblance to his first dream of love, and he offered another life to her, molding her in his image. He dressed her up as the finest lady, taught the right manners and all his vampire tricks, seduced her out of whatever innocence she had left… he persuaded her to play-act his fantasies of Tatia in return, as the most sinister, meaningless game.

Be Tatia today, be Klaus' flawless blood-daughter tomorrow, and forget the real Katherine Pierce ever even existed. Let him believe he erased you and remade you in his image like a god, let yourself to forget you were ever anything but a woman in control of her fate. Let it be a children play.

Except she remembers how bitterly it burned, once she realized she was hardly the only one and he took to shove it in her face on purpose. Once he called her a masterpiece, kissing every inch of her with reverence before taking her like a man possessed by a fever and she believed their play was … something.

Until she gave a more careful examination to his collection of pretty supernatural treasures and noticed, finally, that the most of them were female, and all of them were tortured or seduced or tempted into a new mold. To be a weapon or lover, a slave or a servant or just an ornament to his court. They were all tools to show to the world that the great Nicklaus Mikaelson could afford acquiring the very best and twisting it in his image. The heat of the passion her sire could spare on his prize the moments he was inspired to, it could feel searing, but it was never the person underneath the flesh he saw, only the reflection of his inspiration, his so called art.

My poor Stefan, you have no idea of what you are in for. Nobody leaves this circus once your name is on his list.

Katherine is not certain what she feels about. Stefan rejected her, and she is petty. He is in love with a stupider, weaker, colorless, passive lookalike of hers, and she judges him as vulgar for it.

Just another ordinary man in the end, picking the woman that allows him to not feel emasculated with her outdated pretense of maidenly modesty.

Stefan has disappointed her greatly.

But even with that … he probably does not deserve the hell that Klaus' imitation of love and friendship will bring in his little, trivial, so-neatly-organized-life.

Not my problem, anyway. Not anymore.

With some luck, now she has done what she was supposed to, he will allow her to be on her way. She longs for the open road, the wind in her hair and the illusion of freedom from his chains. Spain is lovely during this time of the year.

Klaus faux-stirs, his hand rubbing in false distraction Greta's back, and Katherine bites on her tongue to not snort.

He used to savor the pain in her gaze when she saw him in his little harem, and he has never stopped trying to resuscitate it ( everybody knows that much to her constant humiliation) but he won't find what he is looking for in her today.

She did not harden her heart for nothing.

His eyes meet hers, and she smiles while she leaves to him the first word.

"You are home."

He smiles back, voice throaty and sure, totally unconcerned with waking up his… morsels.

Hardly.

Her home is the open road, the memory of Kai and Nadia always warm in her heart, the grandiose pride she takes in being herself every time she looks into her mirror.

"I am home."

She lies so well, sometimes she even believes herself.