"You need to join hands," The girl named Davina instructed.

Caroline licked her lip nervously before reaching out, slipping her hands into Klaus's waiting grasp. She could feel him smirking, even though she wasn't looking at him. It seemed like no matter what happened Klaus had a knack for ending up on top. He's screwed her over and broken her heart. He'd abandoned her and now six and a half months later, her life was back in his control. She was at his mercy.

And the knowledge riled her intensely.

She knew his hands were probably the safest to hold her fate, she was well aware that he still loved her and that no matter what he had said that had never changed, but that didn't change the fact that she hated needing him. She'd fallen for him completely and he'd been able to just walk away. When the threat of his mother was past, what was to stop him from running away again?

No…

She couldn't let herself need him. Maybe she couldn't stop herself from loving him. But she wouldn't need him again. He might still have a hold on her heart, but she wasn't about to pull it out of her own chest to hand it to him. Not this time. Not when it was all too possible that if she did he'd leave her to bleed.

Davina, Bonnie, and Josephine stood around them in a circle, taking hands and chanting. Caroline's heart raced at the thought of what was coming. In a few moments they'd be linked. She was still afraid of giving him such open access to her emotions when he was already so good at making her think and feel things she didn't want to.

She jumped a little when Klaus's thumb brushed over her knuckles in a reassuring way. She frowned a little when she realized it was because he could hear the way her heart was pounding. It was especially hard to play it cool when the person you were trying hard not to love could hear the way your heart responded to their presence.

She felt the rush of magic pulse through her and for a moment she couldn't tell where Klaus began and she ended. She gasp, swaying forward, but he instantly wrapped his arms around her to make sure that she wouldn't fall. Her mind was flooded with images, memories. Seeing through Klaus's eyes childhood, suffering at the hands of Mikael. Turning into a vampire and triggering his werewolf side, earning the utter loathing of Mikael for Esther's betrayal. The agony of having the curse placed to subdue his wolf side for a thousand years. The loneliness. The boiling angry he could never quite subdue. And then she saw him break the curse and for the first time in a thousand years he could breathe easy, he wasn't a prisoner in his own body.

And then she saw herself.

She saw him take her gently into his arms to heal her werewolf bit. He could have just spilt some of his blood into a cup and handed it to her, but instead he held her close and let her feed from him. She felt that he had found her beautiful and interesting and desperately wanted to touch her and that impulse was what led him to treat her gently when he could have been done with it brusquely in a matter of seconds. Instead he made it a tender moment, lingering with his arms around her, far longer than he needed to.

Then she felt the rush of passion he'd felt when he'd seen her sweep into his home with the dress he'd picked out for her, looking like a work of art. Every memory of her stood out white hot surrounded by a millennium of memories that blurred together, the details lost to time.

Then she felt the dread that washed over him when he realized she couldn't be a vampire again. A thousand lonely years and for one bright moment he'd let himself believe that loneliness was over. Now the one person he'd ever been in love with would slip away from him in a handful of years. Afraid and angry at the fates, he did the only thing he could. He pushed her away to keep her safe and to save himself from the unbearable pain of losing her after a single lifetime.

The link faded so it just sort of throbbed gently in the back of her mind. The memories dissipated, leaving only a warm feeling of… love? Caroline frowned, but she couldn't quite bring herself to pull her hands away from Klaus.


Elijah paced up and down and alley near Bourbon Street. He was clearly agitated, trying to deal with an abundance of emotions, chief among which was guilt. Guilt for ripping out the heart of the woman he had loved unwaveringly, hopelessly for five hundred years. Guilt for the dishonorable and treacherous thoughts that plagued him now that he knew he could have her back, have everything he thought had been lost to him forever, if he betrayed his brother… and Caroline.

Perhaps it he was simply looking at a betrayal to his brother, he could see his actions as justified. But Caroline… aye… there was the rub. The history of the Mikaelson family did feel rather Shakespearian or Greek in nature with betrayals, patricide, murder and madness. But Caroline Forbes was guiltless in the whole tangled mess, as guiltless as Katerina Petrova has once been before they lured her into their world and ruined her with their cruelty and manipulations. He desired nothing more than to save Katherine from him mother, but in so doing he would have to forfeit Caroline's innocents.

The dark spot on the soul of every Mikaelson and even Katerina Petrova had not yet tarnished Caroline. And the twins… They were the hope of the family, they were the opportunity for redemption for Niklaus that Elijah had so long thought beyond reach. Could he sacrifice Niklaus's last chance for the sake of a love so torn and battle scared that Elijah could no longer remember the pure and unscathed love that had once existed between the innocent girl he'd met in England and himself.

"Elijah?"

So lost in his dark thoughts, he had not heard the approach. He knew the voice before he turned to see the face that had both haunted and given him joy for a thousand years.

"Katerina." He murmured as his eyes locked on her warm brown eyes, warm only for him.

"Hello Elijah," She said softly.

Elijah took a step toward him before restraining himself.

"What message has my mother sent you to convey?" He asked calmly.

"She didn't send me… I came to see you." Katherine whispered.

Elijah's heart lurched at her words, but he maintained his aloof expression, "And why is that?"

"Because I love you… And I always will."


Haley lay on the heat burned grass staring up at the dusky night sky, lightened to a deep, hazy gray by the lights of the city. She couldn't see the rising moon yet, but she knew it was the night of the full moon, she could feel it in her bones. She enjoyed the relief from having to transition, but there was a part of her that missed it. A part of her missed just being a wolf, ruled by instinct and passion, her mind entirely her own. She didn't feel a need to break the sirebond, because it had softened her feelings toward Klaus to genuine liking and it wasn't like he'd ever asked her to do anything she didn't want to do, wasn't going to do anyway.

She knew she could still turn into a wolf, but it was difficult to knowingly and willingly choose to endure that kind of pain. She let out a forlorn sigh.

"If you missed me that much, all you had to do was come find me, darling." Kol said, from somewhere out of her line of sight. She could practically fee the arrogant smirk twisting his handsome face.

"I miss you like I'd miss a canker sore," She snapped.

He came and sank down on the slightly crispy grass beside her. She heard every individual blade crunch and crackle as he crushed them. He didn't say anything right away, he just lay beside her, his arm almost touching hers.

"I liked being a witch." He said, his usual mocking tenor, absent. "It was the hardest part about becoming a vampire. It was like a part of me was gone… They call it a phantom limb when an amputee can still feel their missing limb even years after they've lost it… That's how it feels. I feel the hole magic left… I've spent my life looking for ways to fill it."

"Anything work?" Hayley asked, feeling an ache of familiarity at the way in which he described the lost. She felt that for her loss of humanity. She turned her head to look at him and meet his gaze, his dark, intense eyes that sent a thrill through her.

"Only one thing." He said, looking away and up at the sky.

She watched him for a long moment, "And what's that?"

He didn't look at her, "You."

It sounded like a line, but the blunt, honest delivery told her that it wasn't. She turned her head to look up at the dark sky. She didn't know what to say, so instead she slipped her hand into his and felt her stomach flip when he interlaced his fingers with hers.


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