A/N- This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
AA/N- To Homeboy who pointed out that I don't use proper punctuation in my speech, you're right, I have never noticed that before and it never comes up as an error on Microsoft Word so I don't know if it's an English US thing but I will try to correct that fro now on.
Giacomo Farnese remembers with vivid clarity the exact moment he met Katerina Petrova.
It had been a summer's day and out of the desire for a poetic muse, he had decided to step outside of his bookstore and take a walk through the nearby green.
He had strode leisurely across the paved path at Woldenberg Park, pointedly ignoring the Mississippi River with its distasteful colouring and smell.
He had been deep in his musings about the beauty of crystal clear rivers when his eyes had fallen upon the beauty standing on the grass before him.
She was a vision. With her long hair flowing in curls down her back and a white lace dress that showed her lovely bare arms and olive skin. Her back was to him but when she turned slowly on her wedge heels he sees that she had large eyes and such a pretty face, with such a sweet, almost modest blush.
He realises mere seconds later that she wasn't blushing when her knees began to tremble and her eyelids fluttered closed. Using supernatural speed, Giacomo caught her as she fell down in a swoon, her hair tumbling over his shoulder as her heart pounded away beneath her breast.
"Hey man" a random passerby came up, "Is she okay?"
He shook his head, utterly perplexed as to human ailments, "I am afraid I have no idea."
The Good Samaritan reaches into his bag,
"Here" he holds out a bottle of water, "It's over a hundred degrees today and she looks sunburnt, I'd say its dehydration or heat stroke."
One hundred degrees? Ah yes, Fahrenheit.
As a vampire, Giacomo was incapable of feeling either hot or cold, which had come quite in handy in the centuries before air conditioners.
He gently lifts the woman up into his arms and looks about for shade, finding none, he determines that she would recover better indoors and carries her swiftly back to his bookstore, glad that nobody on the street thinks to challenge him as to his intentions towards the unconscious woman.
She begins stirring as he lays her down on the couch and her eyes are flickering open when he pours the water into a glass for her,
"Greetings" he bows politely and offers her the glass, "May I offer you refreshment?"
She swallows and he admires her long, thin neck,
"Where am I?" she asks in a sweet, albeit husky voice, "How did I get here?"
"I'm afraid you had a fainting spell in the park." he explains, "I brought you to my bookstore so that you might recover."
"A fainting spell?" she raises her eyebrows, "I haven't fainted in five hundred years"
Giacomo emits a noise of surprise, "Are you a witch then, milady?"
She shakes her head and quickly cradles it with her hand, "Katherine Pierce."
Ah.
"You've heard of me then" she teases, a flirtatious smile on her lips, "Good, I'd hate to think my reputation hadn't survived past the Age of Enlightenment in Italy."
He had heard of her. Of the woman who was the enemy of the Original brothers, the one who'd broken the hearts of men and women alike across the world. He'd heard of her cruelty, her cunning and her destructiveness. However, he cannot ascribe that infamy to the woman in front of him, the young woman with such beauty and warmth in her eyes, so fragile, so sweet.
By the time her lover, the Original Elijah, comes for her, it is already too late. Giacomo is watching her every movement with adoration, his heart jumping even as she greets the other man with a tender kiss.
Then again, what is love worth if there is not despair haunting its every step?
Giacomo has known a great deal of despair from loving Katerina Petrova, but he continues to love her still, although there are moments where even for him it is difficult.
Tonight had been one of those moments, to have her turn on him and lash him with her tongue. To have her beautiful face contorted with anger and distrust as she looked upon him. To have her accuse him of besmirching her reputation and being a danger to her.
As if he wasn't her greatest champion and dearest friend. As if he hadn't been caring for her daughter as if she was his own.
He takes his leave from the party almost immediately after this uncouth display and retreats to his home, uncorking three two hundred year old bottles of wine and drinking them far too quickly for vintage that rare and exquisite. He sits on his bed, still in his clothes and closes his eyes, losing himself to fantasies about the woman he loved who scorned him so easily.
Usually, he would feel guilt and shame over any dream of Katerina in which she was not fully clothed and engaged only in chaste actions with him, but tonight he imagines her naked and spread out over his bed, whispering sweet nothings and covering every inch of him with kisses as her hair slides across his skin.
He is so deep in his thoughts that at first he is certain that he hears her voice only in his mind. Until it is accompanied by the loud collision of a heavy object against his wooden door.
"Giacomo!" her voice can barely be heard over the pouring rain, "Giacomo let me in!"
She sounds terrified.
He's on his feet and flashing to the door, his mind running through various scenarios from another hurricane to an all-out supernatural war.
But when he pulls back the door it's to find that he gravely underestimated the severity of the situation.
Katerina Petrova is standing on his porch soaked through to the skin, her hair hanging limp and the smell of blood on her, she was wearing only the tiniest of silk nightgowns and it was clung to every curve with little more modesty than a scarf. She has wrapped her arms around herself as she shivers violently, barely able to keep herself upright,
"Please" she begged sobbing, "Help me."
When Giacomo could finally fathom that he hadn't stumbled into a nightmare and that this scenario was taking place in reality he immediately stood back to allow her to stumble inside. She was barely over the threshold before she collapsed and he caught her in his arms as she sank against the hallway wall.
"My dearest lady," he murmurs in horror, "What has happened?"
Her wits have temporarily left her and she appears to be on the verge of hysteria so Giacomo picks her up and carries her to his sitting room, placing her on the couch as gently as possible as he hurries about for towels and blankets. Cautiously he reaches for her and when she offers no existence, staring off into the distance he begins drying her off. He follows the scent of blood and sees a deep gash on the sole of her foot,
"I…cut myself on glass" she informs him numbly, "I can't remember if I removed it or not."
She hadn't. He can still see the shard wedged deeply into the skin but it is quick work to pull it free and stem the bleeding with pressure.
"Were you attacked?" he asks, wondering what could possibly have happened that the Princess of New Orleans was seeking refuge with him. She'd have to be moved of course, if enemies were after her, he would be the second person atop their list.
"I…" she reaches up and brushes the hair off her face and he can instantly see that she's been struck with cruel brutality, the mark is large and flaming red but already turning a grotesque shade of purple.
"I got home from the party and had a glass of champagne," she begins and he finds the last remnants of wine from his unseemly binge earlier to pour into a glass. If chaos is about to be unleashed on the Quarter they really do not have the time for this.
And by all of God's Angels and the Devil's Demons where was Nadia?
He goes straight for the landline and dials the number for her phone, so intent on seeing her safe that he doesn't immediately notice when Katerina stops recounting her night and begins trembling and stammering.
"I should be preparing…something…I have a drop bag in Woldenberg Park." she tells him this as she tries to stand only to collapse back onto the couch,
He takes her hand, "I'll go get it" he promises, wondering if they'll even have time for that,
"However, my dear lady first you need to explain to me…"
"I can't!" she shouts, flinging the glass of wine away, it lands on the carpet and rolls towards the disused fireplace, thankfully with only a few drops remaining,
"I…I was feeling tired, I fell asleep in the chair at midnight…I woke up in the bed to Elijah screaming and saying such things that I could hardly think…"
Elijah?
The Original Elijah had screamed at her?
Of course Giacomo had known the pair were having issues but he hadn't considered the possibility that Elijah would be so uncouth as to yell at the woman he called his 'Darling Ekaterina'
In fact, the only time Giacomo had ever known Elijah to act unchivalrously had been the afternoon following his revelation of his love to Katerina. She had fled his bookstore and mere hours later Elijah had come in to fetch her purchase with the scent of sex heavy on his skin and his lips bearing the nectar of…
Well, he had made it quite clear where Katerina's affections lay.
"I couldn't…I was so tired" she continues, "I could barely understand what was happening, I told him he was acting crazy and he…he hit me."
These last words fall from her lips like lead weights and Giacomo tries not to let the horror show on his face.
The disgust.
She frowns and runs a hand through her soaking wet hair, obviously replaying the scenario in her head.
"I was so sure that I'd fallen asleep in the armchair" she muses,
"But I must have gone to bed without him…which must be why…we never go to bed without one another" she adds as explanation.
And that explanation was not the worst reason in the world Giacomo had ever heard for beating a woman but it was definitely second or third.
The bleeding in her foot has slowed to a trickle and he exhales softly as he crouches down before her,
"Dear Katerina" he says softly, "Are you the only one in danger, was anyone else attacked tonight or is there some battle currently underway?"
Her frown deepened and her shoulders slumped as she glanced about the room,
"I don't think so?" she sounds so uncertain, "No more than usual anyway"
She still shivering from the cold and he resolves to run her a bath,
"He told me to leave" she whimpers, "Do you think he'll exile me? Revoke my freedom?"
What she'd had hadn't been freedom in any form but a glorious, gilded captivity, however that is not the truth she needs to hear tonight.
"I am so tired" she continues and by the time the bathtub is full she has sunk into a deep sleep on his couch.
Giacomo settles for standing guard over her and calls Nadia to tell her to search for her mother's drop bag in her favourite park. He does not go into detail or offer any reason behind this request but when Nadia turns up on his doorstep a mere two hours after her mother, she clearly has been informed of the situation.
"The story is all over the Quarter" she tells him grimly, "That Elijah Mikaelson threw my mother out onto a public street completely naked, and she was seen running away"
"She was wearing her nightgown at least" he contradicts, although the silk was hardly better than utter nudity,
"We'll have to leave" she decides, "As soon as my mother is able to walk"
"As soon as I can find us a car we'll be gone" he promises.
Of course neither friend nor daughter were aware that upon her arrival in New Orleans, Elijah had compelled Katerina not to leave the city without his express permission.
She was cast down and her world was shattering around her but she was also trapped within the city's confines.
When Klaus Mikaelson woke up that morning, on the couch with very little memory of how he'd managed to pass out there when he had a very gorgeous woman upstairs in his own bed, he hadn't realised just how violently the world had shifted on its axis.
An hour later and he was still struggling to come to terms with it.
His brother had apparently become a madman who, a mere eight hours ago, had thrown the love of his long, undead life onto the street as if she were garbage.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he roared at his brother,
"Setting aside the fact that Katherine loves you because that's apparently a moot point at this stage, did you really just destabilize our rule and give a very duplicitous woman a very good reason to hate us and join our enemies?"
Elijah is sitting at the breakfast table, dressed almost casually, with no jacket and tie and Klaus wonders if his brother is in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
"You answered your own question Niklaus" he sighs tiredly as he reaches for the tea pot, "Katherine is a very duplicitous woman, evidenced by the fact that she uses aliases as casually as others use nicknames. Loving someone so secretive is exhausting and I simply no longer wished to do so, especially when she was being unfaithful to me"
Klaus rolled his eyes and threw his head back, "You know as well as I that there was no grounds to those rumours, what proof is there that Katherine was cheating on you? There isn't a man in the Quarter stupid enough to put horns on your head"
Elijah gives him a disparaging glance, "No supernatural man perhaps, but the humans know us only as wealthy socialites"
The humans.
No one who has a vampire lover would take a human one instead. Stamina was a tremendous thing, as was supernatural speed and acquired knowledge.
But could he possibly convince his brother of that?
"You are being a fool" he seethes, only to see that he might as well be talking into the wind.
"Perhaps," he allows "However I am no longer a fool in love which makes me slightly more intelligent."
"For this is how it is with our family." he suddenly raises his voice and looks up, over his brother's head and Klaus turns to see Caroline standing on the gallery, pale in the morning light, her hair loose and her face free of make-up. She's gazing down upon them and he imagines her in that moment as an angel observing the demons and being disgusted by their actions.
Elijah continues his discourse, "We love someone passionately until the very moment that we don't and then we throw them out like the silly worthless garbage that they are."
Silly.
That wasn't a barb meant for striking Katherine.
Caroline flushes at the insult and releases a strangled laugh as she tries to write off the situation as a joke. Klaus reaches for the silver butter knife on the table and holds it up in warning to his brother, he turns away in scorn when he sees that Elijah is ignoring him and decides to see to Caroline instead.
Rebekah huffed in annoyance as Erik once again turned his face away from Ollie and refused to take the fruit,
"Come on little moppet" she sighed, pulling her nephew onto her lap,
"It's breakfast time and you need to eat. Fruit is yummy"
Without warning she takes the fork Ollie was holding and slips it into her own mouth, accidentally cutting her lip and fighting back her wince as she did so. The apple is sickly sweet and she suddenly understands why Erik might be put off his food,
"Are we sure this is ripe and organic?" she asks her boyfriend, "It tastes like it's been dipped in sugar"
"Uh" Ollie shrugs and scratches the back of his neck, "I don't know…I grabbed it from the kitchen so I assume it's edible"
With a smirk Rebekah shakes her head, "In the Original household that could make it older than sliced bread"
She stands up and hoists her fussing nephew onto her hip,
"Let's go find you something else" she sing-songs and walks carefully through the compound to the kitchen just as Erik's nanny came rushing in the door.
Erik's response was humiliating. "Ina!" he squealed eagerly, holding out his chubby arms, "Ina now!"
Mina or Tina or whatever the woman's name was all but snatched her nephew from Rebekah's arms,
"Hey sweetie" she cooed, "How are you this morning? Are you hungry? Let's have breakfast and then go to the park okay"
Erik giggled and nodded, "Woof-Woof!"
The babysitter cast a nervous glance at Rebekah, "Yes, there'll be woof-woofs at the park"
Rebekah was watching her, trying to figure out why she sensed the discomfort in the woman before she spoke up, "Do you want to come with us?"
She smiles at the friendly invitation and almost accepts before Erik shakes his head and her mouth turns down as she tries to swallow the rejection,
"No thank-you" she snaps, "Unlike some people my time is actually valuable"
Turning on her heel, Rebekah swans out of the kitchen and goes in search of Ollie and the comfort she could find only in his arms.
Of course, she can't bloody well find it when Nik is dangling her boyfriend by his throat,
"If you" her brother ground out, "Or any of your pack go near my son again without my permission, I will kill the bloody lot of you"
Rebekah screeches his name and throws him against the nearest wall, putting herself between brother and boyfriend, ready to defend Ollie from Nik's vicious outbursts.
"He's here because of me, Nik" she shouts, "I invited him and I trust him!"
Her brother has that look in his eyes that marks him as a stranger to her and to the beloved big brother she'd known during their human lifetime.
"Any man who climbs into bed with you is either a traitor or an idiot" he sneers, "So forgive me if I've misjudged him as a traitor but I'd just as soon not have a fool near my son either."
Rebekah inhales sharply at his casual cruelty, the way he offhandedly insults every man she's ever loved and her for choosing them, for the mere suggestion that she would endanger her nephew's wellbeing.
She loved that child. Even if he spurned her.
"Fine" she chokes out, "If you don't want us here, we'll leave."
She takes Ollie's hand and casts one last look at her brother, giving him the chance to take a step back and apologise.
He never has before and he doesn't now.
Instead, he seems more concerned with checking his phone rather than caring about his little sister.
She always has been a bloody afterthought for him.
"We love someone passionately until the very moment that we don't and then we throw them out like the silly worthless garbage that they are."
Those words play on an endless loop in Caroline's head.
Silly.
Elijah Mikaelson thought she was silly.
Just silly, stupid little Caroline Forbes. The girl who never said the right thing or did the smart thing, the girl who jumped into bed with a guy just to try and get him to stay.
She'd done that with Klaus as well. He'd barely recovered from Tyler torturing him and kidnapping Erik when she'd climbed on top of him and started kissing him.
She stands in his bedroom now, the place where she'd spent her first day of her winter break in New Orleans holding onto the headboard while Klaus took her from behind.
And about four days after that she'd lain on her stomach and moaned with enjoyment while he'd put his cock in her arse.
Trembling with humiliation and fear as she stares at that bed, she sniffs and runs her hands through her hair before grabbing her mini-suitcase from the large wardrobe and flicking it open.
Klaus stomps in just as she's packing up her toiletries and she purposefully lingers in the bathroom as she watches his reflection in the mirror out of the corner of her eye.
He's gazing down at her suitcase with a mixture of confusion and unhappiness in his expression and her heart breaks a little.
But is the man she's been living with all these months the real Klaus Mikaelson?
What had happened to the hybrid who'd terrorized Mystic Falls?
Had he simply gone into hibernation while he and his siblings apparently got along? Waiting patiently to emerge and start spilling blood the moment it suited him?
Caroline wasn't sure of the answer and didn't know entirely why she was asking these questions.
"Going to visit your mother, love?"
Caroline skips a step as she finally pushes herself out of the bathroom,
"Nope" she blurts out, "No…I…uh, just taking some of my stuff back to my apartment"
He visibly relaxes and she feels guilty, this is probably not what he needs right now.
"Hey, is Katherine okay?" she asks, "I tried to text her and she hasn't got back to me"
Klaus shrugs, "Best case scenario, she's laying low while she hatches a plan to burn everything Elijah loves to the ground. Worst case scenario, she's laying low while she hatches a plan to destroy us all"
He gives her a wry smile, "I'll find her later today, when I can do so without my brother finding out, and ensure she's alright"
Caroline walks forward and reaches up to kiss him on the cheek,
"Do you want to come with me?" she offers, "Stay at my place for a few days?"
Klaus quirks an eyebrow, "Go along to class, eat those dry noodles and wear those pillow-shoes?"
She smiles flirtatiously, "Have sex in small beds, library stacks, stairwells…"
"I have two mansions complete with beds, libraries and grand staircases, sweetheart." He argues and she sighs,
"That's true but" she breaks off and runs her fingers through her hair before closing her eyes and speaking,
"I want to get away from this toxicity, Klaus and I want to take you with me"
He pulls her into his arms and kisses the crown of her head, inhaling the scent of her hair and they stand pressed together for the longest time before he can bear to release her, holding her arms as he looks into her eyes,
"I'm the Vampire King, the Hybrid and a Mikaelson. If there is toxicity, Caroline, then it must be of my own making."
"Go" he urges her, "Go and enjoy being a normal student, plan parties and orgies and stay up all night with your peers as you discuss how you're going to change the world in ways that haven't yet been imagined and then look up the rising sun and see that everything you've ever wanted is possible."
She laughs and kisses him fiercely, throwing her arms around his neck.
"After this is all over, I'll come back to you" she promises, "I love you Klaus."
He has a shadow of a grin on his face, "I love you too, Caroline Forbes."
Which was why he had to let her go.
A/N- Told you so.