Chapter 17: Promises, Promises

a/n: We're getting close to the end now, kiddos!

Rising from his crouched position, Klaus moved toward her like a predator stalking his prey. Placing his palms flat on the bed, one on either side of her hips, he brought his face up close to hers. His nostrils flared, drawing in even more of her sweet scent. Slowly, his eyes never breaking contact with hers, he moved forward, dipping his head toward her, intent on tasting her.

At the last second, his eyes flicked downward, hidden beneath hooded lids.

Cami sat transfixed, desire warring with trepidation inside her. Her fingers itched to find their way into the lush waves of Klaus's hair. She was expecting his kiss, but when his head dipped at the last second and his lips latched onto the tender skin at the base of her throat, her lips parted of their own volition, and she let out a surprised breath. She felt the scrape of his teeth and the gentle suction of his open mouth against her skin, and she knew that desire was winning the war.

Klaus felt Camille's warm, shaky exhale against his neck, and he was powerless to do anything except seek out the origin of that moist heat. Eyes closed, he found his way back to her mouth on instinct alone and sealed his lips over hers. He took from her, fiercely, nipping and pulling at her lips before soothing them with sweet, gentle sips.

Cami's hands, unable to remain immobile any longer, slipped into the soft curls at Klaus's temples. Her fingers pressed urgently into his scalp until their tips turned white under the pressure. Slowly, she relaxed into the kiss, letting him do deliciously sensual things to her mouth. She felt his tongue trace along the seam of her lips, seeking permission to come inside, and she opened for him, just as she'd known she would. Just as she had so many times before…as she likely always would.

Until he decides this is all a mistake and shuts you out again, her brain supplied, in warning.

Her heart squeezed in response to the painful thought, even as a pleasant warmth began to spread low in her belly, spurred along by the expert way he held her and touched her body.

Cami felt her towel start to slip, the loose knot beginning to give way under the masterful skill of Klaus's nimble fingers.

"Wait," Cami murmured, pulling away, abruptly. The wet pop of their lips separating, accompanied by the sounds of their harsh breaths, echoed through the otherwise quiet room. "Wait, I can't do this," she whispered, apologetically, placing her hand on his chest, as if to hold him at bay.

He looked at her with hooded eyes, full of desire and confusion, and licked his lips, hungrily.

She swallowed, thickly.

She knew that if he wanted to he could overpower her in a second, though she knew he never would. Her palm rested over his heart, and she flinched in response to the wild rhythm that thrummed beneath her fingertips. She shouldn't have let him kiss her, even though she wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anyone in her life…more than she'd ever even dreamed possible before she'd come to know him. She shouldn't have let him…until they'd settled whatever this thing was between them. "We can't do this if you're going to leave this room, and pretend like nothing happened," she clarified. "I can't take the silent treatment anymore, Klaus." She shook her head, "I can't."

She looked him straight in the eyes and let him see the hurt she'd been pretending not to feel all week.

He blinked his eyes and cast them downward, letting his hands drop from the knot at the front of her towel onto the tops her thighs. He sighed, defeated. "I never meant to hurt you, Camille. Point of fact, it is the last thing I wanted."

What did he want?

She was scared to know...what he wanted, what he didn't want, but it was now or never…she had to know what was going on in his mind.

"What do you want, Klaus? Because I remember when what you wanted…was me. I just…I guess I just don't understand what changed." She squared her shoulders and stared at the top of his bowed head, refusing to look away, as she asked, softly, "Is it me? Is it because…because I'm a mom now? Because I've changed?"

His head jerked up, and he stared at her in shock. She could always see right through him, read his mind…except when it came to her, it seemed. How could she have misread the situation so profoundly? She had to see that it was him, not her, that made it impossible for them to be together.

"You think that I don't want you? You think that you aren't beautiful to me?" He asked, breathing harshly, his voice rising with each word as it left his lips. "In my eyes, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. And you know you are important to me." His voice was urgent, sincere. "I've told you before…you're my family. But Camille, you know that if we were to pursue a life together…I would hurt you. I wouldn't mean to, but I would." He looked down at her lap, at his hands, large and powerful against the slender outline of her thighs. "And in doing so, I would destroy everything beautiful in my life, just as I've always done." He pictured his children, sleeping peacefully atop Camille in that hotel room, weeks ago. "Only this time…I've so much more to lose."

There was a sadness in his voice, but it also held anger, a bitter, self-loathing rage that crept into his tone, uninvited. As he met her gaze once more, there was a pleading in his eyes, though, that pulled at her. She ached for him, and her eyes stung, filling with hot tears, in response to his words. Regardless, she had to tell him the truth. Once and for all, she had to let him know how this constant push and pull was affecting her.

"You say you don't want to hurt me, that you've never meant to…but this, Klaus…this is you hurting me," she accused, quietly, tears slipping down her cheeks. "You-you come so close, you pretend you want to be a family…you're so open with the kids, but you don't trust me to stand by you, so you deliberately hold yourself apart from me." She pressed both hands to her chest, directly over her bruised heart. "That hurts. And I can't take it anymore." She gestured back and forth between them, weakly. "I can't do this anymore," she whispered, brokenly.

Klaus's heart sank. He'd known all along it would come to this, and now the hour was finally at hand. He'd finally pushed her away, well and truly. Of course he had…he'd known all along she'd leave, just as everyone else had.

Besides, this is what he'd wanted, right? To push her away?

And yet something hot and raging was boiling up inside of him in response to her willingness to just give up on him, on them. He jerked his hands away from her body and rose to his feet.

"Oh, that's just great, Camille," he said, angrily, reaching one hand out toward her. "Paint me as the bastard I've been since the day I was born. See me just as everyone else does…a monster, unable to feel, incapable of wanting real things. You say that it's I who am holding back but the truth of the matter is-I see the fear in your eyes when you look at me, the uncertainty. You are just waiting for the moment I turn into a monster and destroy the life we've built. You look at me sometimes like you think I don't care, like losing all of this wouldn't break my heart. All the while, I'm trying so bloody hard to be the man you wish me to be."

He was livid, but his was a wrath borne of fear. He felt Camille slipping away from him, and a coldness the likes of which he'd never experienced, began to creep inside of him, chilling him to his core. Besides his children, she was the one person in the world whose opinion of him truly mattered. "You, of all people, Camille," he accused, coldly. "I thought you knew me better than that."

Cami recoiled as though he'd struck her, and in that moment, something in her broke.

"YOU WON'T LET ME KNOW YOU!" she cried, her voice shredded and raw. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, KLAUS?" she begged, raising both hands toward him, palms up, pleading, her shoulders rising and falling in a helpless shrug.

Klaus stood staring at her, shocked and unmoving, and for once, he asked himself that very question, and waited for an honest answer to come to him.

What does Niklaus Mikaelson, thousand-year-old Original Vampire, want from Camille O'Connell, human, psychologist, mother of his children?

He stood there in silence as a strange realization began to creep over him.

They say that you see yourself and your value through the eyes of those you love…that that's how you define yourself. He'd been defined for so long by Esther, by Mikael, even by his siblings, as a bastard—an indiscretion, a mistake…half-beast, half a man…a half-sibling, even. It was Camille who'd first seen him as a whole person…damaged, perhaps…but a person, just the same.

Camille is perfect, and she cares for me; therefore, I must be…I must be...

Camille was the one person in the world whose eyes Klaus had ever been able to see himself through and see a whole person—a man who was loyal and proud…haunted, but decent…flawed, but not irredeemable…not heartless, and not lacking basic human emotions.

He needed that back. He needed her to keep seeing him as that whole man-imperfect, but worth saving. He needed the one person in his life who'd seen all of him, his whole self…to love him despite it.

"I WANT YOU!" he roared without warning, surprising even himself with the outburst. He raised his eyebrows, widening his eyes to keep the tears that had suddenly gathered there from falling.

With those three words acting as the catalyst, the dam on his emotions finally broke, and it was as if the little Dutch boy had finally, reluctantly, removed his finger from the dam.

"I want you to love me, the way I love you," he confessed, his voice ragged and uncontrolled. "And I want you to trust me as I trust you, and I want you to see me and still look at me the same way you did the night we made our son, and I know I have no right to ask it of you, and I know it's surely asking too much, but that's what I want!" he uttered, urgently. "That's what I want." After a thousand years of silence and mistrust and impenetrable self-reliance, all of his deepest, most hopeless desires had just poured out of his mouth and onto the hard, wood floor between them. He bowed his head, expecting to see his heart there on the floorboards along with his dignity and his pride. He'd just placed every emotion he'd spent a thousand years protecting on the ground at her feet for her to do with as she would.

If she denied him now, it would end him.

Without her, immortality was an albatross—something to be borne, not celebrated. He'd finally admitted the truth to himself, and inadvertently, to her…if he were ever to experience happiness, true happiness, he needed her love. He needed it. "That's what I need," he whispered, his voice harsh and desperate sounding. "I need you, Camille."

She felt her heart contract in response to the pain and self-doubt in his voice and then expand, swelling with joy, as the meaning of his words began to sink in.

She rose, on unsteady feet, and moved toward him.

"Klaus," she whispered, taking his face in both of her hands. "You have those things." She looked deeply into his eyes, willing him to look into hers, to search their depths and see and feel the sincerity in her words. "I love you," she said, insistently. "And I don't fear you," she said, vehemently, shaking her head. "That's just you projecting your own fears onto me-you're so afraid of hurting me that you're torturing yourself. You're pushing me away to keep me safe, but I don't need protection…not from you." She looked into his tear-filled eyes and implored him to believe what she was saying. "It's true, you might hurt me, but never on purpose and never in a way that I won't recover from," she assured, reaching down and taking his hand, her eyes never leaving his. "The truth is, I might hurt you, too." She shrugged, helplessly. "We might hurt each other, because when you love someone, you're vulnerable to that person. But I'm willing to risk it, Klaus, because I do love you, and I trust you…and, no, it's not asking too much, and you have every right to ask for love. My God, you are not this terrible monster that your family and the world and you have led you to believe. You are a good man, Klaus."

Tears spilled over his lower lashes though his eyes remained wide open, his expression unchanged.

"You are kind and loving and I am so grateful that you lo-," her voice broke, and she shook her head, struggling to go on. "That you love me," she was finally able to finish, in a near-whisper. "And you have to believe me, Klaus, because, God help me, I need you, too. And I'm trusting you not to let yourself get in the way of this, not to take this…you, away from me." She raised up on the tips of her toes and pressed her forehead against his. "I've loved you for so long, Klaus…you just have to let me in," she pleaded.

Somewhere in the midst of her speech he'd started to hear her, to believe her. Somehow, she'd gotten through to a part of him he'd thought was lost long ago. She really did love him…in the same way that he loved her. And she trusted him…and he trusted her, completely—with his children, with his life, and with his heart. He had loved her and trusted her for far longer than he'd admitted to himself, but now he was admitting it…to himself…and to her.

"Okay," he rasped, hoarsely, awed by his own willingness to finally acknowledge the truth.

"Okay?" she whispered, pulling back and looking into his eyes once again, searching for any sign of hesitation. She was almost too afraid to hope…

"Okay," he nodded, smiling at her despite the tears that slid from his eyes and wet his lips. "I love you, Camille…more than you will ever know, more than I can ever hope to convey to you in a thousand lifetimes." Reaching for her, he cradled her face in his hands, cupping her cheeks in his palms. "But I swear to you, I will spend my entire existence trying to find ways to make you understand how important you are to me…how loved and cherished you are." His eyes darkened, his words took on an unparalleled urgency. "No woman will ever be loved as well as you will be."

There was undeniable sincerity in his words and also an undercurrent of heated promise.

She was crying openly now, but, against his warm palms, her cheeks were dimpled with a wide, happy smile. "Promises, promises," she teased, an attractive blush staining her cheeks.

But very quickly, the playfulness faded away, and she asked, seriously, "Do you promise?"

Just as earnestly, he replied, "I promise…" He paused, and then with every ounce of sincerity he possessed, he said, "Always and forever."