Angst. Implied Klefan and Klaroline. For Merita because she wanted me to finish it. And Kristen because she wanted me to kill someone. I go to cry now.
They had failed, in the end, though they had tried so hard to stop this from happening, to claim the cure as their own, their plans, their dreams failed, falling through.
Silas had obtained and taken the cure, killing himself, and lifting the veil. Their worst nightmares had come true. But where they had thought that the supernatural creatures would be returned to their corporeal forms, dangerous to them that had made enemies of them, they were little more than ghosts, unable to hurt anyone, to feel, to touch. Most of them found their way back to the other side, a few disappeared across the globe, seeking any happiness that they could, but one stayed in Mystic Falls, stayed with Klaus. And for a while, he was happy, truly, blissfully happy that he had regained the one that he had truly been sorry to lose. But Kol wasn't happy.
Klaus couldn't take it anymore. It was like he was being haunted every step, every breath by his brother. And he wondered why, why he had ever thought this could possibly be a good idea, why he had allowed himself to be happy about this. How he had ever thought that it could ever work out for him. When, when had anything in his existence turned out the way he wanted, the way he planned? When had he ever been happy for more than a fleeting moment, a breath, a blink, in the stretch of his long life. He could feel his brother's sadness, his loss and despair, at not being able to truly be a part of life. To have experienced the afterlife only to be seemingly stuck on the earthen plane. It was seeping into him, into his very being, and he no longer felt happiness at anything. Not in killing, not in drinking, not in painting, and not even in seeing Caroline anymore.
He was done, he realized. He couldn't find the strength, the desire to go on, not like this, not with the shadow of Kol following him every moment, no hope, no happiness for either of them anymore. But he still had his wits about him, at least in part, at least for the two people that he loved most, and he could wait, he could live like this for a little longer yet to spare them. He would not be responsible for the deaths of Caroline or Stefan. Everyone else in his bloodline be damned, though saving their lives would probably have to include everyone else's.
So Klaus found a witch who found a very old spell that removed the blood clause, saving them; it wasn't easy, and the spell took it's toll on the witch he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to care even a little bit. He had retrieved the white oak stake when Silas was taken care of and gone, dead as he soon would be, and once he had ensured all his affairs were in order, leaving everything he owned to his siblings and Stefan and Caroline, he plunged the stake into his heart, if it even still existed, and joined his brother in death.