Chapter Thirteen. California Dreaming…

The war had ended and we left Europe for good I had hoped. We moved back to California. Klaus found a lovely house in a cul de sac area in the rather posh district of Beverly Hills. It was the Fifties. The age of rock and roll, women wearing full skirts, cardigans and dresses with pointed busts. They'd have voluminous hair. I did not like the fashion though preferring the Forties and Thirties when clothes were more elegant in style.

Shiny, gas guzzling Buicks with their fins were rolling down the streets of perfect leafy suburbs, with manicured lawns. Houses with white picket fences, complete with all the modern amenities like a microwave oven, and a washer machine and color televisions, that looked like pages right out from some Norman Rockwell coffee table book. It was known as the American Dream. America was prospering after the war but it still was far from perfect, there was still segregation in the South and the witch hunting Communist trials during McCarthy's era.

My husband had his own American Dream too. Who would have thought? Klaus had became enamored with Hollywood and decided to set up a motion picture company. He had the funds to do it thanks to Hitler's gold that he and his band of vampires stole a decade ago. So with the help of a few producers, Original Pictures was born. Klaus even had a large studio for filming and soon he was ready to make his own movie. One he had written, and planned to direct and produce.

Klaus even wore glasses, horn rimmed ones that made him look like Buddy Holly. I only laughed. He didn't need glasses because his vision was perfect. He could see things five four hundred feet away but he needed to be taken seriously by the Hollywood heavyweights.

"Do you think I look like Clark Kent in them?" Klaus asked me one morning after breakfast. I gave him a strange look.

"Darling you look like Buddy Holly…" I said and sighed. Klaus frowned hearing that. He looked at the thick pile of papers for his movie. It was the script.

"So did you get Audrey Hepburn?" I asked him. Oh…she was my favorite actress. Such style and grace. That coquettish girlishness she had about her charmed me completely when I first saw her on screen in Roman Holiday. I was so excited. If Klaus was going to have her in his movie, I would get a chance to meet her. It would be a dream come true.

Klaus shrugged and gave a bored look. "She doesn't have an edge…too sweet and sugary for me. The girl's a cupcake, a bright daisy. I need someone edgy. I need a rose, beautiful, mysterious with sharp thorns."

"Sharp thorns?" I stared at my husband. "No one's going to want a watch some vampy bitch…"

"You should read the script Darling…" Klaus smiled. "Then maybe you'll get what I mean."

And I did just that. I spent the entire afternoon reading his script to discover in my horror who the girl was. It was me or at least it was based on me. Klaus wrote a script about a girl with dark hair and blue eyes. She was passionate and melodramatic. She gave the hero quite a heart ache and all she brought him was misery and pain. My eyes just widened in abject horror reading one of the scenes.

"Adele stared at him, looking at him with a challenging gaze. Her arms folded.

Adele: I'm leaving you Henry. I'm going somewhere far away from here. Somewhere you can't touch me. Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life. All you brought me is misery and pain.

Henry(furious and agitated): Then leave Adele! Being with you was no walk in the park for me either. Pain? You caused me pain too! I disowned my entire family for you. I renounced everything I knew for you..."

I flipped through the pages and in the end, the character Adele had set the house on fire, killing Henry in the process. She grew mad in despair and the last scene ended in a psych ward where Adele was seen talking to herself. I was irritated that Klaus would write our personal fights and issues out and made it into a movie script. He was airing out our dirty laundry for the world to see. I was so angry that I flung the entire thick stack of script into the fireplace and watched it burn.

Klaus came back later. He saw the script burning in the fireplace and sighed as he shook his head. "I made another copy just in case."

"How could you Niklaus!" I cried and stared at him. "How could you write our most intimate details and turn it into some movie script!"

"I gather that you hate it then?" Klaus asked, looking at me through that horn rimmed glasses of his. He moved to the bar and poured himself a drink and gulped it down.

"So is that really how you feel?" I asked him and walked up to him. "Do you really feel the way Henry does that I had brought nothing but misery to you?"

"Darling..." Klaus sighed and held both my shoulders. "It is just a dramatization. That is all..." Klaus pulled in his embrace and I just leaned there, my head on his shoulder. "You have been my only comfort Elly…" Klaus breathed. "My true home."

The other producers thought the script would be too much for people. They all wanted happy endings in their love stories. Klaus was so enraged that he drained the producers' blood when they came to the house for what was supposed to be a lunch meeting. I was shocked when I returned from a shopping trip and found three male bodies slumped in the dining room, punctured wounds on their neck. They were dead of course.

Klaus was just standing by the large glass window staring at the pool we had outside and the surrounding Hollywood hills.

"Niklaus…" I called him as I walked in.

He turned and gave me a sad smile. I saw the blood that still dripped from the side of his mouth. "They hated it Elly…" Klaus sighed. "They said it would be hard to market to the masses…"

I gave a sympathetic smile back and walked towards him. I held his hand and squeezed it before caressing his cheek gently. "They are stupid fools Darling. They can't recognize talent even if it's right under their noses."

Klaus nodded and bent to kiss my lips softly. He carried me up and brought me to the dining table where the dead, blood drained corpses of the producers laid. The kiss grew passionate and deep. I felt his need and desire for me rising. Klaus hiked up the hem of my dress. I smiled and pulled down his trousers. Klaus kissed me again, hungrily. I felt his fangs elongating and it nipped my lips but I didn't care even as my blood flowed, rivulets of crimson, staining my white cotton sundress.

He pulled the top of dress down and trailed kisses down my neck and décolletage, smearing blood on my skin. Klaus pulled away and I looked at him, seeing his lips stained with blood. I lifted myself up to kiss him again, slow, sensual, erotic. Strange that I didn't even care about the three dead bodies at the dining table. I just let my husband make love to me right there and then.

Klaus finally gave up his Hollywood dreams and sold his studio. He started investing plenty of money in other huge Hollywood studios instead. Names like Paramount, Warner Brothers and Twentieth Century Fox. The Fifties passed us rather quickly and then it was the swinging Sixties. The style and fashion was sleeker more to my liking. A young family had moved into the White House in 1960, it was the age of Camelot. And then, John F Kennedy got assassinated and things just didn't seem as optimistic. I was crying horribly when the news was announced that the President did not survive the night.

Klaus only shook his head when he saw me curled up in the sofa. I looked up at him with my tear stained, puffy eyes. He went to me and sat down on the sofa, pulling me in his arms, while I cried again. How could it be that Kennedy is dead?

"Come on Darling…it's going to be fine…" Klaus cooed and stroked my hair. I only kept quiet and rested my head on his chest the entire night.

It was 1963 and I wondered if things would ever get better when the years go by. Lyndon B. Johnson became president and all his Big Society programs came into place. Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and that was a cause for celebration. The Beatles invaded America and music was in its true golden age with Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Doors. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968, then Bobby Kennedy too. So many tragedies that had befell America. The Vietnam War was such a hot issue to deal with. With the peace protests that were going on. The Hippie era was booming and it was the rise of Feminism. Klaus hated it. He had always been staunchly conservative.

Klaus was driving his Porsche Roadster down Wilshire Boulevard that Fall in 1968 when he saw me protesting against The Draft with some new friends of mine, students from UCLA. Klaus had grabbed my hand, pulled me into the car and drove me home. The college kids just stared, still stoned from the pot they were smoking to do anything. Klaus frowned when he saw me dressed in my tie dye sundress, my hair with its small braids and he dragged me into the house.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I screamed. I also started to use the F word a lot, influenced by the heavy swearing used in speeches made by the anti war activists since the early days. Fuck Johnson! Fuck the CIA! Fuck the government! Fuck The Draft! We want peace! One two three four...we don't want your fucking war!

"What are you wearing?" Klaus demanded hotly, staring at me.

"It's just a dress…" I told him.

"Change…I don't want you to wear this hippie nonsense." He told me, his eyes glared at me. I shook my head stubbornly. "No." I countered back.

"If you want to behave like a child Elly, I will treat you like one." Klaus warned.

"I hate you!" I screamed. "You can't do this to me! I have rights too!"

"You are my wife Elly! And you will do what I tell you to!" Klaus took my hand and dragged me up the stairs. I was trying to pull away from his grasp but his hold was too strong. He walked to the shower and pushed me in while he turned the knob. Cold water just poured down, drenching me in my clothes.

"Go bathe and get ready. Your gown is out there on the bed. I don't want to be late for the ball." He told me, a cold angry tone in his voice.

"I'm not going to that stupid ball!" I cried. It was some Governor's ball that Klaus wanted to attend where the elites of California would be present. " Not when so many people are dying in Vietnam!"

"Enough of this Eleanna!" Klaus bellowed. It made me tremble hearing him. "No more of these ridiculous protests! No more of these crazy peace rallies and Feminist marches!" He started ripping my clothes off of me and then took the sponge to wash me.

"Stop it!" I screamed and pushed him off me but he was relentless and wanted to finish washing me. He grabbed a towel and dried me off and then pulled the beautiful red ball gown over me and zipped it up. I sat there pouting like a child while he changed into his tuxedo.

"At least, put on a lipstick Elly. You look like a corpse." Klaus told me coldly. I looked away and ignored him. Of course I look like a corpse Niklaus. Because I am one. I'm dead inside.

I still gave him the cold shoulder the entire drive to the mansion and the entire time we were at the stupid ball. I was surprised when Klaus drove the Porsche roadster up a cliff that overlooked the Pacific Ocean afterwards. He got out of the car and just stood there, watching as dawn approached. The sky was beautiful, almost magical. The dark colors of night met with the pink, orange hues of daylight.

I got out of the car and slammed the door hard. I looked at Klaus seeing that he was staring into space. I wondered what was going on. He looked so far away. So dreamy.

"What is going on Klaus?" I asked him. "Why are we here?"

"Do you still love me Elly?" Klaus turned and looked at me, smiling that dimpled sweet smile of his. He looked like an angel with the first sunrays shining upon him, making his burnished wheat blonde locks golden, almost as if there was a halo above him.

I was shocked that he would even ask that. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing…" He sighed. I frowned and walked up to him. "Of course I still love you Niklaus. Why are you asking me this?' I asked Klaus.

"Maybe you're right when you told me what you felt in San Francisco Elly. We've lived too long. Maybe it should just end." Klaus breathed. He smiled at me and took my hand. "Come on Sweetheart," He walked to the cliff's edge and I followed him.

"You and me…Forever." Klaus spoke and kissed me chastely on the lips.

I looked at him a little hesitant but sighed. I didn't think we would really die. I squeezed Klaus' hand and then we took a leap from the cliff, straight into the ocean. We missed the jagged rocks but it was exhilarating as we plunged into the water. The Pacific was cold when I came out and Klaus took my hand while we were in the water. He was laughing hysterically and pulled me close to him. I had to smile. It was such a silly, juvenile thing to do but that was Klaus. He loved life too much, he had to do everything with such passion and drama.

We took a walk along the beach that day, our clothes still drenched from the plunge and swimming in the ocean. It was nice I guessed. Romantic even to spend the entire day at the beach. Klaus had taken off his shirt and jacket. He was only wearing his tuxedo pants, which he had rolled up to his knees. I had taken the red ball gown off and Klaus had wrapped his jacket around me.

"I've got a new witch," Klaus smiled at me. We were sitting on the beach watching as the surfers got out riding the waves. There were children playing with the sand, building frail castles and people getting a tan in their swimming trunks and bikinis.

"Who?" I asked him. Klaus still kept his coven of witches. All who were working hard trying to decipher the ancient Grimoires, written in languages that had no longer existed. There was a secret ingredient somewhere, to break the curse without the need for the doppelganger or moonstone. They only needed to figure out what it was.

"Her name's Sheila Bennet," Klaus said to me. Bennet…I was suddenly reminded of Amanda, and I felt that twist in my heart. Beautiful Darling Amanda whose body was drained of blood, Klaus had killed her all those years ago in 1807.

I only stared at him. Klaus shrugged. "I didn't tell you did I? Amanda survived. She fled England about three days after I put you in the cellar."

"She did?" It just seemed so impossible. I looked at him incredulously. Amanda survived. She didn't die… It was like a miracle.

Klaus nodded. "Another reason why Lexie had to leave for America. She had to go find Amanda."

"But how is it possible?" I asked Klaus. "That Amanda lived? I saw her body."

"She was a witch Elly. She had her tricks." Klaus said.

"I wished you had told me Niklaus…" I sighed and leaned against him. "I wouldn't have spent all these years being angry with you."

"Would you hate me any less?" Klaus asked and looked closely at me. I gave a small smile and shook my head. He chuckled and pulled me in for a deep kiss.

"Do you think it's weird that I love you and hate you at the same time?" I asked him.

"I don't know Darling…" Klaus yawned. "Maybe that's why we're both cursed."

Sheila Bennet was a graduate student at Stanford University. She was very bright, serious looking with long curly hair and she wore glasses. She didn't seem like the type to help a murderous Original vampire. The reason she wanted to help Klaus was because he was willing to pay for her tuition and help cover the debts her family had incurred in Mystic Falls. They were going to lose their family farm and she had no other options. Sheila wasn't just a witch. She could also see and tell things no one else could.

She smiled at me one evening while I was sitting outside by the pool, the fire burning at the outdoor fireplace. "You're going to be a mother some day…" Sheila told me out of the blue.

I snorted hearing that. "I don't like children."

"You're going to love your child Elly." Sheila said and smoked her joint. "It will change everything." Sheila would know. She had a two year old son back home in Virginia. Sheila's husband had been drafted to fight in the war which she had so fiercely opposed and sadly lost his life there.

"It's not possible Sheila. Klaus has tried everything and we still can't conceive…" I explained.

"Trust me Elly. The day will come soon." She spoke. I only looked at her closely, wondering if somehow she was psychic or precognitive or maybe she was just sprouting silly nonsense.

"What else do you know Sheila?" I asked her. I was curious and intrigued by Sheila and her clairvoyance.

"Oh…" She sighed nonchalantly. "Many things…I know you would never love anyone like you do Klaus and it is the same for him."

"Klaus says we're both cursed. I believe it too…"

"Strange things these curses…" Sheila said and looked at me as if she knew something. "Most of the times…they're self fulfilled prophecies…" She sighed and stood up.

"Klaus thinks he can break the curse without the need for a doppelganger and he's right."

"He is?" I looked at Sheila curiously.

"The answer is you Elly. He needs to kill you. Klaus needs to rip your heart out during the ritual…and he will have his wolf half back."

"No…" I uttered and stared at Sheila who only shrugged. "See you were the one to have him cursed, he doesn't know that but I do. That's the only other way to break the curse, to kill the one who placed it on him…"

I did not know what to say. I was stumped. Speechless, shell shocked. Klaus had to kill me. There was no doppelganger and I was the only other way. How strange and at the same time ironic it all was. All these centuries, Klaus had been obsessed to break the curse. The same curse I had unintentionally placed on him and through out everything, the answer was there, right under his nose, right in front of his eyes. It was me. I was the key.

"Will you tell him then that I was the one to place the curse?" I asked Sheila, suddenly fearful of Klaus' wrath and also of the hurt and betrayal he would feel. Sheila shook her head.

"I'm never one to interfere with the affairs of others…I leave it to you Elly," Sheila spoke. "I'm only here to protect my own. My family. I can't have them thrown out of the farm."

"But I will tell him that he has to kill you Elly…" Sheila said and looked at me. "It's up to Klaus if he wants to break it or not. My job is done."

I stared out the window in my room. What should I do? Should I run away? Klaus would kill me. I was the key. During the next full moon, he could perform the ritual, sacrificing a werewolf, a vampire and lastly me, ripping my heart out and let me die the true death. No need for a moonstone or a doppelganger of my sister to recreate the curse. I breathed and closed my eyes for a while.

When I opened them my sister was there dressed in her bridal clothes, the wreath of flowers in her hair still looked fresh as if they had just been plucked from the fertile lush ground. Karina smiled at me again, a smile that reminded me a little of the Virgin Mary's.

"What are you going to do now?" My sister asked.

"I don't know…" I sighed. "Should I run away?" I pondered.

"Klaus can finally break the curse now." Karina said and I only nodded in agreement. "Do you think he would kill you for this?"

"Maybe…" I said and gulped.

"It's his first true test then…" Karina sighed. I looked at my sister curiously and wondered what she meant.

"To see if he truly loves you Elly…" Karina said and gave an impish smile. "Klaus has to choose between what he wants the most, what is so important to him and you."

"Klaus doesn't have to choose. I don't care… I'm willing to do it." I said stubbornly and looked at my sister. I had made my decision. I would let myself be sacrificed. It will put an end to all this. Klaus would break the curse and be all he was and I could finally be in peace. Dead but in peace. "I'm not running Karina."

"You're such a silly girl Elly." My sister scolded me before giving a sympathetic smile.

"Love is a silly thing…" I smiled.

What would you do for love? Many profess their willingness to die for it. I always thought it silly. It was a little too melodramatic for my tastes. Sometimes I wondered what would happen if Klaus had died. How would I move on? Could I survive not having him in my life? I knew it would devastate him if I had left for good. If I truly died. He had said we would always be together. There was no other way. It had always been like that. Me and Klaus, Klaus and I. The Original vampire Monster and his immortal bride.

I saw it first hand, he would not even bury me in the ground. Klaus would take my bones and bring me with him wherever he would go, just like he did with his family. He brought their bodies with him, wherever he went. All four of them, resting in their coffins, dead to the world unaware of the centuries that had passed. Darius, Adrienne, Amelia and Roxana. He had hunted them down for me and it had all been based on a lie. A lie that I had perpetrated, that The Originals wanted me dead. After Elijah had left, Klaus did not see the point of honoring the truce he had made with Anthony and went after them.

It was filial of him, I supposed to bring his siblings with him wherever he traveled. Family had always been important to Klaus. I knew he still missed Elijah and maybe in some ways, Klaus had learned to forgive his brother for whatever transgressions he thought Elijah had done against him. When Klaus loved someone he would not stop loving them. He was not all that cold hearted and callous as he was known to be. Only I knew who he truly was. Broken like me, surrounded by darkness, isolated from everyone. We only had each other.

I walked to the master bedroom later that evening. Klaus was sitting on the arm chair just staring out the large glass panel. I walked up to my husband and hugged him from behind, kissing the top of his head.

"Sheila told me…" I whispered and moved to face him.

Klaus only kept quiet, still staring out the window. He looked so melancholy, so far away again. I wondered if he was imagining it in his head when he would finally be able to transform. Klaus could be free and powerful, the hybrid that he was. It was so simple, all he had to do was to kill me. He didn't need the moonstone or the doppelganger. Just me, and of course a vampire and a werewolf. I knew I had to give myself up. I couldn't tell him the truth of course, fearful of the reprisal. Klaus would be so hurt by it and I couldn't bear that.

"I want you to do it Niklaus." I told him in a soft firm tone. I was ready. It was time. I had lived a long life. I knelt next to Klaus and looked up at him. Klaus gave a sad smile and caressed my cheek. "No Elly…We'll find another way."

"I am the key Klaus. I'm what you need to break this curse…" I said to him. "You don't have the doppelganger or the moonstone." I took his hand. "But you have me."

"That's what Sheila said," Klaus said softly. "She said that you were the closest link to your sister and that you were present when the curse was cast."

"I can't lose you Elly. You mean more to me than this stupid curse." Klaus sighed.

"Then you are a fool Niklaus!" I snapped. "Just kill me and be done with it. You'll get what you want and maybe I'll finally get what I want, some peace!"

"It means nothing to me being able to transform if you're not here Elly. Nothing…" He seethed angrily and stared at me. "You would leave me for this?"

"If that is what you want Klaus," I told him and folded my arms. "I just want you to be happy."

"And how can that be if you're gone Elly…How can I ever be happy? Everything will be worth nothing…" Klaus spoke fiercely. Hearing that, I sighed and rushed to him, hugging him tightly. Oh how I love him…

"I love you so much Niklaus…" I whispered in his chest. "I would die for you…I really would…"

"I know…" Klaus breathed and ran his fingers through my hair. "No one could love me like you do Elly. No one."

I smiled and breathed in his chest, his scent. I couldn't hear Klaus' heartbeat but I knew his heart was there. It was in me. I guess it was true what the romantics say, that if you loved someone, you were willing to die for them like I was for Klaus. Would he do the same for me? I never doubt that he would. Klaus gave up the most important thing in his life for me. His true self, the essence of who he was. The one thing he had wanted for so long. Instead Klaus had chosen me. He could have his powerful, beautiful Lycanthrope half back. But he didn't.

Klaus would probably live to regret that decision as the years went by and as our marriage deteriorated. I used to think that I loved him more but I could be wrong. Klaus had sacrificed so much for me, the one person who had betrayed him the most. Maybe Elijah was right, what he told me centuries ago, that love was illogical, it goes beyond all reason. But sometimes, you have to ask yourself, if love was enough? Would Klaus still love me if he knew the truth, that I had him cursed in the first place? It was a question that I didn't even dare to ask myself.