This is an anon request from tumblr: AU/AH Klaus realizes Caroline is suffering from some form of PPD/PTSD after the birth of their first child. WARNING: This is about someone struggling with depression. If that is not something you feel comfortable reading about, skip this one-shot please.
Klaus first noticed something was wrong four weeks after Elise came into their lives. Caroline had a difficult labor and delivery and he knew she was slowly recovering physically but this was something else. Elise was screaming from her little bassinette in the other room, her little wails breaking Klaus from the brief he was preparing. He looked up to Caroline to see her sitting in the bay window looking out at the busy London streets below with a lifeless expression.
Klaus called out, "Caroline, love."
She didn't hear him; at least that's what he assumed. Concern filled him as he rose to go get Elise to soothe her little cries. But as his chair scraped across the wooden floor, Caroline jumped off the cushions.
"The baby is crying! Why didn't you tell me?" she snapped, rushing off into the nursery before Klaus could argue the point.
For the rest of the day, Caroline seemed herself a bright smile and twinkling eyes fooling him. Klaus chalked it up to Caroline being exhausted, having not slept well the night before. She even began humming a little dilly to their daughter when she was fussing later that evening.
But three weeks later, Klaus witnessed the same experience all over again. Except this time he didn't try to alert Caroline's attention, he just picked up Elise and rocked her until her eyelids dropped, falling into a peaceful slumber. The same exact situation happened twice more that day.
"I'm worried about Caroline," he said out of the blue to Stefan a week later. The business partners were sitting at the pub, Klaus nursing his scotch. Most of the hour he just spent listening to Stefan chatter on about wedding plans with Rebekah and not really contributing much to the conversation.
Stefan stopped mid-sentence, slamming his mouth shut. The brooding stare Klaus had grown accustomed to, was etched firmly in his friend's face, a knowing sadness.
"You've noticed too? I thought it was you guys just being new parents. I mean Elise is only about two months old," Stefan said with a heavy sigh.
Klaus shook his head, running his hand through his hair. Stefan was his closest friend, soon to be brother-in-law; he might as well know the truth. "I assumed that was the situation at first but now, I think it is something more."
Stefan gave Klaus a look, taking a deep draught from his cup. Klaus drained his, needing liquid courage. He didn't like sharing such personal matters even with Stefan but he had to talk to someone.
"She sits in the bay window of on the second floor all the time. I call out to her but she never responds and there is a void expression in her eyes. I truly fear she doesn't hear me," Klaus confessed through gritted teeth.
Their love story had not been an easy one, it took three years before they could even say they loved each other and now it felt like they were back to day one. Back to when they would gladly fling pencils at each other from across the room of their Shakespeare class at university. She had known ever answer to the question right away, some preppy American freshman who thought she knew everything there was to know about literature.
It had been Klaus' greatest pleasure to rebuttal her every remark with a snarky comment that tore apart her arguments. The class turned into a battle ground between the two of them about dear William, both equally frustrated at the end. Their professor just sat back and watched the fiery debate, the rest of the class placing bets on who would break first.
It became the trend then, every time lecture would begin Klaus and Caroline would be back at it. It was the highest attended Shakespeare lecture that term, everyone wanted to witness the epic battles between the two blondes. So when one morning Klaus awoke not remembering the night before and a naked Caroline in his bed they were the only two who were surprised.
Now it felt the same way, a punch to the gut of emotions he didn't know how to handle. "I don't know what to do, mate," he told Stefan.
Stefan shook his head as well. For a moment he stared off deep into his glass, before cautiously speaking, "Talk to her, and force her to open up. She is a firecracker who has lost her spark. Do something to ignite the fire again."
It was with those words Klaus decided to press his luck. He wanted his Caroline back, not the shell of the person she was pretending to be. Arriving home that evening he was greeted with a happy smile from her, looking absolutely radiant. She bubbled on about how exciting the day had been, Elise smiling for the first time at her. In their excitement over their parenthood, the advice from Stefan was pushed to the side. Klaus was so happy to see his wife smile in such earnest he had no wish to be the reason for that smile disappearing.
He couldn't help it, if there was one thing he was guilty of that was doing anything to see her smile. Elise kept growing day by day and learning all kinds of new things that the little baby overshadowed all other black spots in their relationship.
The high didn't last for long though; Caroline started once more occupying the bench seat of the bay window once more three months later. It had been going well for so long, Klaus assumed Caroline had recovered and he had been spared the torture of having to ask such probing questions.
So when he came home one night to find Caroline sitting in the same position he left in her that morning, he had enough. He could no longer sit in the shadows and pretend that everything was okay between them. They hadn't had sex in weeks, Caroline always complaining she was too tired or she didn't feel good. She wouldn't let him see her naked anymore and he hated it.
He wanted to scream at her to unleash all his frustration, shock her out of it but he knew that wasn't going to solve the problem. It didn't stop him from slamming the door shut, Caroline not even moving at the sound. Elise did, looking up at her father with a hurt frown from the floor.
Klaus cringed, instantly regretting the fierce action. Bending down to the ground he smiled as his golden haired princess rolled from her back to her tummy, raising her little head to level with him. He couldn't help but grin at the action. Leave it to his innocent child with crystal blue eyes to abate his sorrows and fill him with hope.
Caroline still did not move.
"Love," he called gently from the floor.
Slowly Caroline turned to him; her makeup smeared down her face two dried tear tracks of mascara evidence of her sorrow. Klaus felt his breath catch; she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He had known it the first day of that blasted class and he would go to his grave thinking so.
"This isn't you sweetheart," he started.
Try as he might, all the prepared words he had for her vanished from his mind. His only objective to let her know he loved her above everything in the world.
Caroline frowned, "How would you know? How do you know that this isn't who I am now?"
Her words were cold fury. Eyebrows were scrunched in maddening anguish a very vivid reminder of the free spirit she was inside. Klaus latched onto that, there was fire beneath those cold words, crack the ice and the flames would melt the rest.
"I have known you for almost ten years, and been married to you for six of those. I know your body better than you know it. I know that this shell who sits in the window and watches life pass her by is not my wife," he shot back.
Caroline grinded her teeth, fists clenching against the rim of the window seat to brace herself from lashing out. Klaus watched her face move from a vacuum to sorrow to white anger. He stamped down a smug grin at his ability to push her buttons so quickly. There she was his blonde fighter.
"My body, you think you know my body! I don't want to even look at my body!" she hissed out. She almost shouted the words but a glance down at Elise happily cooing on her little blanket with her teething ring gave her pause.
Caroline flashed her eyes back to him and in one swift motion, ripped her shirt up and off her body.
"Look at me Klaus! I have scars all over me a-and they won't go away." Caroline waved her hand to her stomach where purple lines of residual stretch marks ran across her ivory skin. Caroline's voice stumbled as she continued, "I can still feel the blood gushing from me when my skin tore from Elise's head. The epidural may have numbed me but I can still feel the hotness of my own blood leaving me."
Caroline was on a roll, emotions from five months breeching the surface. "Then they stitched me up and then shoved me out the room and said Congratulations you are mom. Good luck! I don't know what I'm doing, and half the time I wish I never had a baby. I take one l-look at my body and all I can see are just terrible scars. I want to feel beautiful again. I was a beauty queen for crying out a loud!"
It was all out then, every dark secret of her heart in the air never to be undone. Klaus stared at her in utter shock, not understanding why she couldn't she what a wonderful person she was. Then the tears started, hot unforgiving tears as Caroline fell off the seat and crumpled to the floor.
Klaus was right beside her, pulling her into his arms rocking her back and forth. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Elise frantically try to turn herself about, not wanting to be excluded from the action.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known and I think you are more so now," Klaus said into the top of her head. He wasn't the biggest on giving comfort but she needed him to now.
"These marks don't disfigure you in the slightest but are badges of honor of a woman willing to go to any lengths to bring her daughter into the world. You should be proud of them, I am."
Caroline stopped crying and unburied her face from the safety of his chest. A strangled laugh escaped her lips, "I told you I was a fighter, that I wouldn't let something like labor get in the in way of having a baby."
Klaus nodded, "And I told you I knew and it's what made me fall in love with you in the first place."
He was given an eye roll in response. Klaus was certain his heart doubled its pace, the signature move of his wife a sign the ice was melting.
"You were being arrogant and annoying."
"And you were strong and full of light."
A smile broke across her lips, the genuine article; something that hadn't been seen for weeks. The tension in the room lifted instantly and Klaus kicked himself for not talking to her earlier.
"Sweetheart, we are going to figure this out just like we always have. You are fighter, always have been and always will be."
Caroline sighed, not sounding convinced but a bit stronger, "Always and forever."
Klaus nodded his head and laid a soft kiss to her temple. Reaching over to pick up Elise he settled the little girl into his lap, Caroline resting her head on his shoulder.
"Now Elise, I need to tell you a story before your mother tells you. It began one day when this little American freshman thought she knew all there was about the Merchant of Venice," Klaus began in a playful voice.
Caroline groaned, "I did thank you very much. There was just this problem of some stup-"
"Hush love, I'm the better story teller," Klaus cut her off. Caroline huffed but fell silent, listening to Klaus relay their first meeting to the tiny baby in his lap.
Klaus did nothing to stop the devilish grin this time from spreading across his face. Caroline had a long road ahead but this was a start.