BKBKBK

He can't sleep. He never really needed much of it over the years, preferring to nap whenever he felt that pull; it would have been a death wish to have had a routine that required him to lay comatose for a stretch of time. His enemies would have loved that. Kill him while he's sleeping. He laughs at the absurdity of such a finish, it would have been completely beneath him and a pitiful way to exit this earth.

Most modern vampires still clung to their human ways, falling asleep at night, keeping up some internal clock they no longer had. The old ones not so much; they understood that the night belonged to them. But, there were always outliers, like the two star-crossed lovers who had slept as he burned their home to the ground.

"If you want me to stop seeing Rebekah, I will. But You have to tell me why, am I not good enough for this family?"

Klaus eyes the time on his watch and listens to Caroline finally drift to sleep from his position on the couch in the parlour of the Mikaelson Mansion.

He would be lying if he said the current state of affairs for him was not bizarre. For earlier, there had been the Caroline with the open eyes and a heart slightly ajar, ready for him, ready to try to be with him in a way he had obsessed over for so long. (But you could only see her and hear her voice when Caroline talked.) And in New Orleans, his brother and his witch (Elijah spoke of her differently, how many times did he have to say we) they were preparing to kill his nemesis without so much as a detail given to him. (Only the father can kill the son.)

Stuffing the speech into his pocket, Klaus breaks out of the mansion and into the evening air.

BKBKBKBK

He can write about her anywhere, really. But there is something poetic about being in her bed and amongst her things, it's here he will commune with the witch.

The house looks different or maybe it is him.

Last time he was here, he was too single-focused, too determined, too anxious that he might not find her body.

This time around, he was going to take his deliberate time.

He left Caroline to finish up her speech and look for that damned stuffed animal. A parting gift to give her the gumption she needs to speak tomorrow.

Closing the unlocked door behind him all the magic he wants from being in Bonnie's former home is cut short.

Someone is here.

Her bedroom is not like how he remembers it. Obsessive-compulsively arranged and organized. Now it is in ruins. Ransacked. Stripped. It has been torn apart from the ceiling to the carpet, nothing has been left untouched, even the very stuffing from the mattress and pillows has been emptied out. Pages and pages and empty envelopes are padding the floor, her college acceptance letters stacked in the trash, slashes of pictures and torn-off pages from her journals are tacked onto the wall with the many postcards she didn't write. There was some sort of beautiful mind-esque rendering of a mental map being played out on Bonnie's scuffed bedroom wall.

And a tall dark vampire is pouring over the details, his finger moving from a picture of Bonnie with her Grams to a postcard in the shape of Texas.

"I heard you were in town for Blondie, but I didn't believe it," Damon starts with his leather-clad back turned to the hybrid, "But really, when I think about it, it's a good play to make for her to finally give you some pussy," The eldest Salvatore says never breaking from examining his work and the road map of the United States splayed open in front of him. "What are you doing here, Klaus," Damon asks with a dark laugh in disbelief.

I am posed to ask you the same thing.

Klaus does not feel like bantering with Damon. He would much rather snap his neck.

The hybrid steps over pages of Bonnie's diary and catches a mention of his name on the floor as he takes a seat on the edge of her bed, "You finally decided to come and mourn your friend," He states, picking up the page to read about her helping his horror of a mother.

Damon picks up a red marker and circles Austin and puts a question mark next to Houston, "Does it look like I'm mourning?" He glares at Klaus, the maniacal stare that lets Klaus know that it was premature of him to believe that Mystic Falls would have closure.

"Seriously, Klaus, what are you doing, of all places, in Bonnie's bedroom."

Klaus flicks the torn page and raises his hands in faux peace, "Caroline is having jitters about her eulogy, mate. I thought it might help if I brought her the stuffed animal Bonnie had when they were kids. She references it in her speech. A Ms. Cuddles." He quickly scans the room for the toy and notices there are many stuffed bears strewn about.

Damon shakes his incredulous head as he continues to marker more cities, "Bon-Bon hated you. You ain't taking anything from her room, brother. Sorry." He finishes with a satisfied smile.

Yeah, mate. She hates me enough to lay down and open herself to me.

Klaus stretches his mouth into a deadly smile, "I don't remember the witch having particularly fond feelings for you either. If I do recall correctly she did leave you hanging in my parlour to be tortured by my sister."

Damon swishes his mouth to the side, his eyes narrowing on the hybrid, and then he stands so abruptly that it knocks the desk chair backwards, and he walks across the span of the cluttered floor and pulls up a light brown bear by its tattered ear and tosses it on to the bed.

"I take with all of this, "Klaus says nodding his head toward the wall, "You will not be memorializing Bonnie Bennett tomorrow morning with your friends and family."

The less-interesting Salvatore, pops the "p" when he says nope. "They gave up, "Damon spits, disgusted, "Not I. No, not the one who she let hang and get drained by your sister as you stated earlier. You can tell Blondie this in the morning when she's wondering why I'm not sitting in the front pew."

"Tell her what, Damon?"

And Damon faces Klaus with a look like you really want to know, you really want to know how close I am to blowing up all of your plans?

"After getting door and door slammed in my fucking face, I found a witch, a Bennett one, but a fucking distant one. And after wearing them down from that whole, 'I don't work with vampires.' I got them to do their woo-woo and peek on the other side and turns out," He slaps his hands, "The witch ain't there." He says with pride not noticing that Klaus is eyeing the desk chair's legs to form a stake.

Treading lightly in his speech and actions, Klaus flashes a look of practiced concern, and softens his words to a near whisper, "Damon. I hate to be the bearer of truth, I can see you clearly care about her, but she is not on the other side because she is dead."

Damon narrows his eyes and states without question, "She's alive, brother."

Klaus stills the imperceptible shake of his hand to reach for Damon's neck. And he swallows hard and exhales air he doesn't need. He is unbothered. Calm. He is bored at the news over the status of an inconsequential witch who had frequently attempted to kill him.

"How do you know this for sure, what evidence do you have." Klaus asks, his question more aggressive than he intended, his voice rising a bit more than he wanted.

Kill him.

Pull out his heart.

Leave a broody pool of Salvatore on Bonnie's carpet.

Damon sighs and ducks his head down, "I don't have any," he says frustrated, "I just…" He starts picking up another postcard and flipping it over to the forged handwriting, "She just can't go that easy."

Author's Note

To the readers who have been leaning and rocking with me since I started this story. I love ya'll. Seriously. I enjoy ya'lls takes on this story just as much as I enjoy writing it. Now it's time to see what Elijah and Bonnie have been up to and it's time for Klaus to get his ass back to New Orleans.