Klaus receives a letter from Caroline

Klaus dared not open the letter Stefan handed him, already fearing the contents within. His long time friend still had tears in his eyes. Stefan quickly grabbed a tumbler off the cabinet, filling it with a generous helping of amber liquid. Klaus watched him throw back the alcohol with no effort at all, refilling the glass to repeat his action.

Klaus' eyes drifted down to his hand, his name scrolled in neat cursive, perfectly centered on the side on the letter. His vision blurred and he failed to notice the tremor in his hand, the letter shaking slightly. It was the only noise in the grand room, both men silent.

After what seemed an agonizing space of time, he gently opened the page to see it full of the same neat cursive that was on the outside. Taking a deep breath he began to read the words addressed to him.

Klaus,

When you read this it means I didn't make it and I'm sorry. It means Stefan didn't find me fast enough and I won't be coming back to you.

I'm sorry we'll never get to visit all the places that you promised to take me. I really wanted to go to. After you first left to distract myself I made a list of all the different places I wanted to visit and somehow it morphed into all the places I wanted you to take me.

I found the more you were in New Orleans and I was away at school, the more I thought of you. I tried to date humans, vampires, werewolves all of them but nothing ever panned out. I told myself it was because it just wasn't the right time or because I wanted to explore life for awhile. You told me all these wonderful things about being a vampire and I wanted to do those things so badly. Now I know it was something else entirely.

When you bit me that night and forced Tyler to leave I hated you. You gave me all these ideas of what life could be like except I wanted that to be with Tyler. I found him you know, and it turns out his ideas of eternity and my ideas of eternity were so totally different. Truthfully, it turns out my ideas of eternity are your ideas of eternity. We're the same that way, just like you said.

You stupid man, you got under my skin when I didn't want you to. You made me feel emotions I wasn't prepared for. You gave me hope and dreams, made me want to live and sparked even deeper emotions but I couldn't see past what you did to my friends. I didn't want to forgive you and I hated you. But now, I'm dying and I'm so tired of fighting my emotions.

I guess what I'm trying to say in all this crazy rambling is I care about you Klaus. I think that I might even love you. I don't know when or how about somewhere along the way I stopped putting all my energy into loathing you and realized it was a lot easier to care about you.

I know you and you want to go out and kill the wolves that did this to me but don't-seriously. Stefan already took care of it.

I wish I could have seen you one last time and I'm sorry I was too much in denial and stubborn to confess earlier. If I had confessed my feelings earlier, I wouldn't have gone to Richmond for school. Instead I would have followed you to New Orleans. Dying here in the middle of the swamps is not how I pictured my end.

There are so many things I wish I could write but it is getting harder and harder to focus. So instead I've asked Stefan to bring my box to you.

I love you Niklaus Mikaelson. Thank you for believing in me and letting me see how beautiful my life could have been.

Love, Caroline.

Klaus crumpled into the couch behind him, numb to everything around him. She loved him. Caroline Forbes, baby vampire, former Miss Mystic Falls, loved him.

She loved him and he lost her. Nature would not let him have a moment's happiness.

He sat curled up tightly on the couch, Stefan equally stony in a chair by the fireplace. They both stayed there silent and unmoving lost in pain and grief. At some point Klaus became aware of himself again and noticed the box Caroline had referred to in her letter resting on the end of the couch. Stefan must have moved at some point and placed it there.

It was just a simple shoe box, no doubt leftover from one of the many shopping trips to feed her never ending shoe obsession. The contents of the box though surprised him; it was full of all kinds of memorabilia. He gingerly noticed the invitation from his family's ball, his drawing for her, and a tiny cut out of a snowflake. Everything was related to one way or another to their relationship, or whatever it was that they had. It was wildly romantic and girly but that was Caroline.

He tried so hard to stop the tremor in his hands but it was physically impossible even for him. The self proclaimed unfeeling hybrid that had a thousand plus years experience at burying his emotions could do nothing to stop them now. When it came to Caroline though, he was never in control as much as he wished.

Stefan noticed his distress and left the room. Finally in the privacy of solitude did the blurriness of his vision finally relieve itself as hot tears coursed down his cheeks. How long he cried silently he didn't know, he just continued to relive every memory of her stored in that box. In the midst of all the memories Klaus noticed a well worn stack of papers, scribbled on in all varying colors of ink.

It was her list. Taking it out, Klaus set the box aside, curious to know what she had written. A small smile flashed across his face as he read the first line.

1. See the stars from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

2. Dance in the streets of New Orleans during Mardi Gras.

3. Go to Disneyworld -drag Stefan along?

Klaus laughed after the third item, settling into the couch he continued to read the list, desperate to read anything that had come from her lips. It was ten pages long and well over two hundred ideas were listed, some described in great detail. He decided in that moment he would follow the list and visit everything on it. It would be his way to remember her, and he would repeat it until the stars fell from the sky. Why?-because Carolina Forbes had loved him, the only person in all existence to give him a chance.