A continuation of The Letter and The List.
Perhaps he understood why Rebekah sought for love so desperately now.
Prior to Caroline, Tatia had been the closest to his heart and that ended in a shower of tears and blood. Love, it was the unattainable high of belonging, to be needed by someone simply because they cared. No secret agenda, no ploy of emotions just simple devotion. It was a magnificent and terrifying feeling all at the same time.
For one briefing shining moment, he knew that feeling.
Now it was forever tainted by what could have been. He cursed himself, nature, and everything under the heavens. He desperately wanted to curse Caroline for making him weak and feel more deeply than he thought he was capable of but he could not. She had a way of doing that, pulling him out of his comfort zone and slapping him in the face with honesty and raw emotion. He hated it but yet, he needed it more than blood itself.
A soft laugh broke his brooding thoughts. Klaus tilted his head towards the sound to see a blonde woman crying and laughing at the man bended on knee in front of her. He watched the scene with dead eyes. The blonde woman was nodding her head in an emphatic yes, accepting the ring that was being offered to her.
His mind drifted, the shifting the scene in his head, the woman blurring into the graceful form of Caroline and the dark haired man bending on his knee into himself.
"Marry me, love," he would say.
Except he wouldn't bend on his knee-he would never kneel for anyone, even for her.
Caroline would laugh and cry at the same time, her blonde curls bouncing about and her ever running mouth finally stopping at the loss of words.
Would she say yes?
He would never know.
Klaus shook himself of thought, such fanciful daydreams were not the reason he came here. Nature deemed him too far gone to receive any measure of happiness; there was no use in wishing for it. Turning away from the human scene, Klaus returned his gaze back to the Parisian skyline. The ancient city a dark canvas of spotted lights, the night life of the city at full volume.
Her letter rested in his hands, covered in a protective plastic. It had been read so many times now that the edges had frayed and the creases in the paper scratched away the ink. Not that it mattered he knew the letter word for word.
Klaus kept it because it was one the few remaining evidences of her presence in his long life. In comparison to the span of his life she truly was just a brief moment. A brief moment that irrevocably shaped him, and depending on his mood it was a positive or negative change.
He gripped the cold iron in his hands, until he felt the railing bend under the power of his strength. The rush of power helped him focus, push down the emotions in his heart. He felt in control again. Four hundred and seventy-two years had passed since the arrival of the letter.
Four hundred and seventy-two years of never forgetting.
Klaus looked up at the heavens above, the pale twinkling lights of stars eons from him, brief spots of blinding brilliance on the eternal stretch of darkness. Just like Caroline had been for him. He let out a heavy sigh, his face cold and frozen in a mask of nothingness. Turning from the railing on the highest balcony of the Eiffel Tower he began the long journey back down the aging metal structure.
1. See the stars from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
He was starting the list over again; it would take a whole year to finish it. But it made him feel close to her, made him feel happy again for a brief moment. For it was all he had now, the words of her letter and the wishes on her list.