Klaus heard Rebekah and Kol fighting as soon as he stepped into the house.
There was nothing new about that, they were always at each other's throats over something or another, so he slipped off his shoes and went to see if Elijah was home. His older brother had recently married his long-time girlfriend Katherine, and he'd been scarce around the Mikaelson house lately.
Of course, Klaus made himself pretty scarce too.
Still, he missed his brother. Elijah was the calm in the eye of this storm. He loved Rebekah and Kol, but they were a tad monstrous to his blood pressure.
"Oh. Boy," Mikael said as he emerged from his study, a little room just off to the side of the foyer where he locked himself up for business matters and Klaus suspected more…personal matters as well.
He braced his shoulders a little. Any time Mikael called him that it meant a fight. He didn't have the energy for it today. He wanted to just get a drink, visit with his siblings for a bit, and then get the hell out of here before Mikael could set in with the usual lecture.
"How's the business going?" Mikael asked, and stepped into the foyer so that he could face Klaus face to face, the Armani suit he was wearing filled to perfection with his intimidating shoulders.
Klaus had a lot of bad memories about the kind of strength in those shoulders.
But he wasn't a boy anymore, and with memories of his morning e-mail exchange with that intoxicating pen pal of his still fresh in his head and his heart, he squared off against Mikael and shoved both hands into his pockets. "Smoothly."
"Is that so? I suppose in comparison to what miniscule expectations I had for you."
Klaus' jaw tightened.
"Yes, stand there looking fierce, Klaus. We both know you'll just run off with your tail between your legs to cry in a corner as soon as I've turned my back."
It took him a moment to regain his bearings. He felt a vague pain in his chest, but he was used to it, and knew how to hide it by now. "I didn't come to fight. Father." He put a nasty emphasis on that last word, and swallowed hard as he waited to see how Mikael would react.
With anger. You could predict that, of course. What you couldn't know was exactly how bad that anger was going to be, and what form it was going to take. When he was a child he used to think some demon had come to wear his father's face because he hadn't been a good enough boy.
Mikael's cheeks went bright vermillion. "Of course you didn't, you coward. You've never fought for anything. You've hidden behind your sister's skirts since you were a child."
He turned his back on Klaus, and walked down the hallway further into the house.
He felt burning heat climb his cheeks, and tightened his hands angrily in his pockets.
Kol and Rebekah had stopped fighting, and came to the top of the stairs now, where they stared down at him Rebekah haughtily, Kol with a frown on his face.
"Nik, can you believe what our awful brother has done to me now?" she wailed.
"Nik, are you all right?" Kol asked, and he smiled weakly at them both and took one of his hands out of his pocket to finger comb the curls on his forehead.
Of course. He was used to Mikael's abuses, after all.
If they still hurt sometimes, it was just because he needed to harden farther that thick shell covering his heart, the shield he erected when Mikael's first mockings sent him crying to his room.
He visited for a while with Kol and Rebekah, but his heart just wasn't in it, so a few hours later, he had his limo driver drop him off at his favorite art museum, and spent the next couple of hours wondering each large room, going from painting to painting, lingering in front of his favorites, admiring the way the light hit them, how each artist brought his own personality and life to their work, the brilliancy and technique of each unique piece.
When he looked up from a painting he had stood for quite some time in front of, completely lost in thought, he saw her across the room.
Well, he saw her hair.
But it was her, all right, he could tell by the shape those curls made against her back, the softly feminine flare of the hips, the way his chest tightened just a little and he felt just a little breathless.
When she turned, and he saw the light soft on her cheeks, and the laughter in her eyes, he felt the last of the breath leave his chest, and stood frozen for a moment, completely spellbound by her.
She was alone, but you wouldn't know it by the joy in her face, she brought her own little sun with her, and chased away what rain clouds seemed to have been gloomily hanging over his head ever since he set foot in his parents' house.
He ducked behind a wall, and peeked around it, smiling mischievously as she turned her back to him once more.
When he was sure she was engrossed in the painting she was studying, he walked up right next to her, folding his hands behind his back, and standing close enough that their shoulders almost brushed.
"His technique is very nearly flawless, isn't it? One of my favorites. I never get tired of looking at it."
"Yeah, I-" she said, and then stopped, the rest of her sentence dying on her lips as she turned and noticed who her sudden companion was. "You."
He turned on the charm full-force, dimpling deeply. "Me."
"Isn't it bad enough I have to see you at work? Do you have to freaking…haunt some of my favorite places as well?"
"Relax, love. I'm not here to torture you. Merely as an awed spectator, just like yourself. It's a beautiful scene, isn't it?"
She eyed him warily, and turned back to the painting. "Yes, it is. You can almost…feel the grief. The artist must have put so much of himself into this one."
She was certainly more than a pretty face, wasn't she?
He mirrored her as she took a tiny step sideways, to get a better look at the painting beside the one they were staring at. "You're not going to, like, stalk me through here, are you?"
He smiled again.
"Look…Klaus, right? I came here to have a nice afternoon out. A peaceful afternoon out. That's all I want. And I deserve that, after this week, trust me."
"Tough one, hmm?"
He loved how pink her cheeks got when she was flustered. He would have to keep that in mind for the regular visits he was sure he would be making to her little store.
"Yes. Not that it's any of your business."
He swept an arm toward the empty room. "You've only me as an audience. Caroline, right?" he asked, grinning at her. "I'm not a half bad listener."
"No thanks," she said shortly, and crossed the room to the paintings on the other side.
He walked after her, his hands behind his back.
They stood for a moment in silence, with him quietly studying her profile, and she pretending not to notice. "Call it curiosity, love," he said quietly. "I've had a rather rough time of it myself."
She still didn't look at him, but he could tell what he'd just said intrigued her. "Well, for starters, this total jerk came into my store, threatening to shut me down."
"He sounds like a real wanker."
"Oh, totally. I may have made a little sketch of him after he left, and then thrown pen tips at his face. You know, the ones that come in a set with the dip pens? With the very pointy ends?"
He felt himself smiling despite himself. "Do you draw, then?"
"That's what you took away from what I just said?"
There was something about her that made one want to just keep smiling.
He ducked his head a little, dimpling at the floor. "I've drawn since I was a small child. I used to come here, actually, and copy some of the paintings when I was a teenager."
She gave him a strange look. "…So did I, actually."
"Perhaps we even ran into one another."
"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered someone like you."
"A jerk, I presume you mean?"
She crossed to another painting, her heels clicking on the floor. "That's not exactly the word I was thinking of. They both end in a 'k', though."
Absurdly, he felt his palms getting a little sweaty. What kind of woman was she, to have this affect on him?
He cleared his throat. "We're opening next week. You can always come have a browse, if you like. Maybe save some money." He raised an eyebrow innocently. "50% cheaper than any competitor's price, guaranteed."
Her eyes went icy, and he watched her lips tighten. "Thanks. I think I'll pass."
And with that, she walked away, her curls bouncing almost angrily on her shoulders.
Caroline sighed as she walked into her apartment, turning on the lights and kicking off her shoes. She needed a big glass of wine and to just curl up with a good book, or maybe a cheesy movie, and forget all about the fact that she had not one, not two, not three, but four missed calls from Tyler.
Not to mention, that jerk-off's annoyingly good-looking face.
Was he going to start showing up everywhere now?
That was a totally pleasant thought.
Not.
Just put your feet up and relax. You can't let a guy like that get under your skin. It's exactly what he wants.
She turned her TV on and turned down the volume so it was just background noise while she sorted through her mail. Junk, junk, junk, oooh, Macy's catalogue, junk, junk, bill, gross…she stopped.
There was a letter from a P.O. box she recognized right away, and she sat down on her couch to tear into it eagerly.
Usually they e-mailed or IMed one another, but occasionally her pen pal insisted on writing her a letter the old-fashioned way. He had beautiful handwriting. She kind of wanted to frame some of his letters, honestly, but that was just a little cheesy, and Bonnie would probably never stop giving her crap for it if she saw them on her wall. She had to sit through enough teasing as it was.
She rolled her eyes. Like this guy was any real sort of romantic possibility. With the way her love life had been going lately, she was pretty sure there wasn't exactly a Meg Ryan ending at the end of it all, waiting for her with open arms.
She shifted on the cushions, trying to get comfortable.
The phone she had tossed onto her coffee table stared at her accusingly.
Four missed calls. That was probably something important, right?
But what could Tyler possibly have to say, because you know what? It was just a little too late for sorry, pal.
She opened the letter.
She skimmed the first couple of lines, just giving herself time to settle, and forget about that insistently winking missed call light on her phone, and then she started to read for real, absorbing over every word, even reading a couple a few different times and smiling to herself all the while. He could always make her feel better, feel important, like she was something precious, something that deserved the kind of time he must have spent on a letter like this.
Dear Miss Mystic,
I could never express with the limitations of the English language how much I have needed our conversations, how much I have looked forward to them these last couple of months. I still cannot.
But an e-mail puts up a wall that a pen cannot, so I am writing my thank you by hand. I hope…I have managed somehow to put into these words everything I would probably never be able to say to you, even were we to meet in person.
I am no handier with a pen than a keystroke when it comes to expressing myself, of course. But as a writer cuts themselves and bleeds out what is most important, maybe I can, by hand, convey something that is lost in the translation of technology.
What I mean to say, of course, is thank you. Thank you for listening, for being a friendly face (sort of) when I am sitting alone in the silence of a 3 A.M. morning, waiting for my day to begin, for the cycle to restart. Thank you for your patience, your enthusiasm, your endless love for life. You are so strong, and beautiful. It shines through in everything you write, your light. I know neither one of us is ready to put an end to this anonymous exchange yet, but one day, I hope to make you understand just exactly how much I appreciate you. One day, I'd like to see your smile, which will, I don't doubt, pale every radiant image in my head.
Fondly,
Hybrid Heart
She felt the whole day drain away as she set down the letter, Tyler's calls, the pressing anxiety of her business woes, her ruined afternoon, and the lingering picture of those dimples that still clenched her stomach just a little, if she thought too hard on them, and she got up to go over to her laptop.
It was short and sweet, her e-mail, and she didn't have his talent with words, not everyone's got some fancy Ivy League education, you know, but he'd know it was from her heart.
Thank you for your letter. It was beautiful. I will always be your friendly face, for as long as you need it.