"I see you watching me,
Eyes on your target.
Mix drinks and smoke rings,
It's already started.
It won't be too long before me and you
Are doing what lovers do.

Clothes on the floor,
We're exploring our bodies.
Getting you off is my new favorite hobby.
Lipstick on your neck brands like a tattoo,
Cause that just how lovers do."

The only thing that got me up and through each day without allowing myself to get upset about not being able to see Kol was the chaos going on around me. Bonnie had found her mom, and while it had been a bit touch and go—somehow, Klaus found out where she was going and sent hybrids ahead to threaten Bonnie's mom and adopted son of sorts—everyone came out alive and well. I had tried to keep Stefan in town while Bonnie and Elena went to talk to her mom, but it had been to no avail. It turned out for the better anyways, with all that went down.

Klaus had the coffins now, at least the empty ones, and Rebekah was helping us keep him distracted from them. Bonnie had gotten a lock spell on them, but I didn't get the chance to put another one on it as well. Getting them unlocked would be easy once he knew he had to do it.

Rebekah was trying to keep him from attempting to open them, however, without Klaus becoming suspicious. So far, it had worked out in our favor, but things could only go in our favor for so long.

Kol and I hadn't completely cut off contact either. We still texted pretty frequently, almost like a normal high school couple. He called me each night as well, mostly to make sure I was still alive and breathing. The only way I kept him calm usually was to assure him that I had his vial of blood with me at all times.

The fact that he was so worried about me was more than enough proof; if Kol didn't love me yet, I imagined he would soon. I didn't think he would bother worrying about someone he didn't love.

It was easy to find a million reasons why he wouldn't love me, count up all the flaws on my body and personality, but if Kol had seen past all of that already anyways, I didn't imagine he would take them into account all of the sudden.

On top of all the bad going on, there was a single highlight of the past few days: Elena kissed Damon. It wasn't something that had just happened as an afterthought, or even something he had done. Maybe he initiated it, but she didn't stop him. Instead, she kissed him back, and she was so confused about it all, I didn't imagine she would've told me had I not walked out on the porch and saw it for myself.

My idea of a fun Sunday night was not what I was actually doing; as a matter of fact, I was utterly alone at my house while everyone else went off to do various things to try and get that last coffin open. Elena was at Caroline's, as Caroline was the only one who could keep her from running to where Bonnie and her mom were trying to get the coffin—a place no vampires could go. Jeremy and Alaric were keeping an eye on things at the Grill. Damon met Kol somewhere out of town, somewhere Klaus or his hybrids wouldn't find him, and they were discussing a plan of action, one that would put Elena and me both out of harm's way.

It wasn't just Klaus we were worried about anymore; Stefan had completely lost his mind. In an attempt to force Klaus' hybrids out of town, as they were seriously starting to get in the way of just about everything, he managed to kidnap Elena and me, at a time Klaus wasn't currently standing guard of me. Not only did he kidnap us, he put vampire blood in our systems and drove towards Wickery Bridge at reckless speeds, all while on the phone with Klaus. Klaus broke; he promised to remove his hybrids, but warned Stefan about hurting either of us.

Some of my questions were answered. Klaus didn't want me dead yet, and he didn't want me to become a vampire yet either.

Aside from completely betraying any semblance of trust we might've had left in him, Stefan almost went even further than too far. He almost turned me anyways, even knowing that we had no idea what that would do me. It was easier to make Klaus submit if there was only one doppelgänger left alive.

There was enough going on to distract me from the absence of Kol, to say the least. Tonight was the first time that the pain was able to set in, but that was just because I was utterly alone.

If we weren't hiding from his brother, he would be here, and there was no way to know what we'd be doing. Of course we would've had sex, at least once, but maybe we would've been working on spells or sitting in my room listening to modern music while Kol complained that every form of art had just deteriorated.

That was the parts that I seemed to be thinking about the most, the man who could smile and laugh about some pretty dark stuff. I missed sitting on my bed and talking about how the world around me was dark and horrible, yet I kept a good head on my shoulders. Somehow, I could find the silver lining in just about every situation.

While I did enjoy having sex with Kol, more than I ever really thought I would enjoy sex, it was just an afterthought compared to how much I missed him.

All I could see was him half naked, walking across my room with an old grimoire in his hand while he went to change the "abomination" playing through the speakers on my laptop. Most of the songs we listened to were off of my big Spotify playlist, but it was only the modern pop ones that he despised most, the ones that had repeating choruses or generic beats that sounded almost like every other song out there.

When you come from a time where music is through nothing but instruments, it's easy to not appreciate the new styles that had come out.

A knock on the door ripped me away from the daydream in my mind, and though there was a smile lingering on my lips, I didn't sit around pretending that I didn't hear whoever was there. As much as I wanted it to be Kol, I knew that it wasn't. Damon had left earlier in the day to go meet Kol somewhere, so maybe they were done, but I didn't imagine he would've wasted his time knocking on the door, especially if he took a good listen and realized that there was only one heartbeat inside.

Who was behind the door was a mystery, but I knew not answering was pointless. If it was a vampire, they couldn't get in anyways, but they knew someone was here. If it wasn't a vampire, there wasn't too much to worry about anyways.

At the sight of Klaus on the other side, my entire body jolted back again, my eyes growing wide as they took a good look at him. His handsome face was dark, twisted into the image of hell, as the corners of his eyes tightened so much that they were almost just slits.

"Since no one else seems to be around anywhere, maybe you can enlighten me on why I was given empty coffins!"

If I had been given some kind of warning from Rebekah or Kol, maybe it all could've turned out for the better, but all I could really do was try and pretend to be confused, to not understand what he was talking about.

My eyebrows furrowed. "Empty? What are you talking about?"

His eyes opened up a bit more, though the tension was far from gone, but a rather tiny smile twisted his lips. "I almost believed you for a moment. You've even almost got your heart under control, but there was just the tiniest flutter. You're getting better, Darcy. I'm actually impressed."

I smirked. "I've been practicing."

"Now tell me what happened," he demanded, and he stepped up to the very edge of the threshold, a failed attempt at a threat probably. "Has Elijah been the one protecting you?"

"Elijah did call me the doppelgänger breath of fresh air," I agreed, letting out an actual laugh as my eyebrows rose. "Maybe he did."

"Yes, well, you'll have to forgive me for not finding this situation humorous," he snapped. "There are three very angry Originals out there, and I have lost possession of all of the daggers. You can see where this might be a problem for your little town here."

I shook my head. "Nope. Not even remotely."

"Angry," he repeated, his own eyebrows rising as he began studying me more fully. "Originals. The kind you can't just kill with some wimpy wooden crossbow or sunlight. They're a bit more complicated than that."

I snapped my fingers together and widened my smirk. "You know, you should be more worried about that coffin of yours."

"Oh I should?" he asked, and the darkness that clouded over his eyes again would've been scary if he had gotten permission to get inside.

I nodded. "Yeah. It could be opened at any time now."

"What? That's impossible."

My eyes tightened a bit, a single eyebrow raising in his direction. "Is it? Is it really? If it were impossible, you wouldn't be so worried about getting it back."

"They wouldn't leave you here for that," he said. "You're a witch, right? I'm sure they need all hands on deck for that."

The laugh that erupted out of me felt good, a bit cocky, which wasn't really like me. In the face of everything he had done to me recently, however, I felt as if I had earned a bit of cocky. "Why do you think I'm alone? You're following me everywhere I go, so if I go to where the coffin is, you'll be right behind me. They're not stupid."

"I'm calling your bluff," he said, but his locked jaw told me otherwise.

"You do that," I agreed. "But while you're here babysitting me, Bonnie's out there opening that coffin."

Hearing the snarl rip through him made me laugh harder, but that didn't stop him from turning and heading right back down my porch, towards the black SUV he had driven here to begin with. I stood at the door, still inside the threshold that he couldn't pass, and simply curled my fingers at him while he drove away.

He took away precious Kol and Darcy time, on top of all of the horrible things he had done—like kill Jenna or make Stefan turn off his humanity after already forcing him to resort back to his Ripper ways just for entertainment mostly, some old sense of friendship that only Klaus and Rebekah remembered since Stefan was compelled to forget them.

It was short lived arrogance, however, as my phone began to ring in my back pocket. Most days, I left it on vibrate, but it was an important day. There was no telling why someone might need to call me, so I had to be ready for anything.

At the sight of Boo, I was smiling before I even remembered to breathe, and I slid my finger across the smudged screen as quickly as I could. "You have impeccable timing, Kol Mikaelson. Your brother just left."

"I know."

My eyebrows furrowed. "You know?"

"What?" He let out a short laugh. "You think I just disappeared?"

"You never said where you were going," I reminded him.

"I didn't, but it wasn't away," he said. "Well, except when I was meeting with Damon earlier. No one needs to know where I am right now."

"Oh." Just the idea that he was outside somewhere had my heart racing, and I found myself stepping out onto the porch, looking all around for any sign of his car or even him. The streets were empty, though, so I imagined he was hiding out somewhere.

"Darling, will you please be selfish for the night?" he breathed.

My heart jumped inside of my chest, the very idea of what that might imply getting my mind racing back to the various daydreams I had had since I last saw him. "I have school tomorrow."

"Skip," he said. "You've earned it."

"There's too much going on right now," I insisted. "Any moment now, I'll get the call that they got the coffin open."

"Exactly, and we may not have a chance to see one another once this all goes down," he pointed out. "He knows we're not in those coffins now, so it's only a matter of time before the rest unfolds. Please. I have to see you."

The words were harder to hear this time now that they might actually be real. Any time we talked about what might happen in the future, there was always the dim reminder that things may not work out in our favor for a bit. It was unexplored territory that neither of us knew the first thing about getting through. Somehow, we would end up together, but we didn't know how long it would take to get there or even how we might go about getting there.

All we knew was that one day, everything would be okay again.

"I'm not ready to say goodbye to you," I disagreed.

"Then we won't say goodbye."

He had a way of ripping away any semblance of grip I had on sanity and pulling me into the abyss of fun and love and chaos. So far, I hadn't regretted a single moment of insanity, and while everything in me was screaming to tell him no, reminding me that there was too much going on right now, I couldn't actually get the two letter word out.

Instead, my legs were carrying me up the stairs, moving at a speed that was unlike me, especially in thick, fuzzy socks on wood floors. It was dangerous and completely reckless, but I didn't care.

"I'll take those rushed footsteps as a yes." The line beeped, and when I glanced at my phone, I saw that he had hung up.

I tossed my phone onto the bed and grabbed my duffel bag, but I barely got a few pairs of clean underwear in there before I was suddenly not alone. Standing in my doorway, with the golden brown of his eyes mixed together again in the warm beauty that I didn't imagine I would take for granted again, was Kol Mikaelson.

I didn't realize there were tears in my eyes until they actually obscured my vision, but I wiped them away, hoping he wouldn't see them.

His lips were on mine in an instant, but it was so brief. When he pulled away, a massive smile came out, brightening my room more than I could even begin to fully wrap my head around.

"Let's get you some clothes, although you won't be wearing them much."

I bit down on my bottom lip, but that didn't stop my own grin from coming out. "Mmm. That sounds like a hell of a time."

"Oh, it will be."

I walked over to my closet and grabbed a couple of winter dresses, a pair of jeans, and a couple of t-shirts. I didn't actually expect to be gone that long, but I had no idea what we were actually gonna do while we were gone, so I was preparing for anything.

Kol had figured out where all of my clothes went, after raiding my panty drawer and insisting that I wear this one lace pair that I honestly didn't even remember I had. Up until this point, I hadn't actually put them on, as they were cheeky and much showier than I was used to, but they were in the bag, if nothing else.

He packed up a few different sets of pajamas, and with the clothes in my hand, closing the bag proved almost impossible. If Kol hadn't been there, I don't know if I would've been able to close it myself.

While the two of us hurried down the stairs, towards the door and wherever he planned to take me, I pulled up a text to send to Elena. If I thought too much about what I was doing, I imagined that I would back out of it, so I just typed what made sense, what she needed to know.

I know this is the worst timing ever, and I'm so sorry to abandon you guys like this, but Klaus showed up again, and I'm just gonna get outta town for a couple days, try and recuperate after everything that's happened. I love you. Be safe. Make sure to call me if anything happens and I need to come home, okay?

A/N: Back from vacation! Hope you guys had a good few days! I was gonna come back and post more than one chapter, but to be honest, I'm exhausted. I'm just gonna post this one and crash.

The lyrics at the beginning are from the song Like Lovers Do by Hey Violet.

Flicker only has nine more chapters and an epilogue before it's over. I hope you guys enjoy where this story is headed. :)

As always, read, review, and most importantly, enjoy. :)