A/N I conceptualized this idea ages ago. I made the aesthetic during one of the events, but I spent so much time learning how to use photoshop (poorly) that I never got around to writing it. I have an unhealthy obsession with star crossed lovers, but I hate it when one or both parties die for essentially no reason. My favorite star-crossed lovers are Aida and Radames. Their ill-fated romance was originally told by Verdi and later by Elton John and Tim Rice. The title is from their goodbye song, "Written in the Stars." This is meant to be a prequel to Klaus and Caroline finding each other in another life. Let me know if that's something you'd like to see!

P.S. I snuck in the Klaroline Valentine's Day Bingo 2020 prompt, "My Heart Will Go On."

A Stretch of Mortal Time

Hanging at dawn sounded like a real pain in the neck. As Klaus Mikaelson peered around the dank and gloomy dungeon where he would spend his last hours on earth, he looked back on what should have been. He was a boy who met a girl. In a perfect world, he'd have married that girl, had children, grown old and died together. Unfortunately, life in 10th century England wasn't perfect, and neither was he. In this world, he was going to die. Alone. He would never see the face of that beautiful girl again, but her eyes would stay with him until his closed for the last time.

Those eyes. Caroline's eyes. He'd fallen in love with those eyes the first time he'd seen her staring at the stables where he tended to her fiancé's horses. Tyler Lockwood was the son of wealthy landowner Richard Lockwood III. While Tyler was away at war, Richard had procured for his beloved son the wife he'd always wanted. The daughter of a notorious gambler, Tyler had been lusting after her for years. When Bill Forbes had come to the estate begging for scraps, there was only one thing Richard had wanted.

Caroline Forbes. She was seventeen and brilliant and bold. She was all that was good and kind and pure. Tyler didn't deserve her, but when her father had come to beg her to save their family's humble cottage, she'd gone willingly. She'd kissed her mother and three brothers one last time before venturing across the moors to her new home where she would become Lady Lockwood. It wasn't the life she wanted, but it was her duty and she chose to hold her head up high and accept her fate.

When Klaus found her leaning against the rails, she'd been crying. Unsociable and taciturn by nature, his instincts told him to send her back to the castle. Her eyes made his breath catch in his throat. In twenty-one years, those eyes were the only thing he'd ever been sure of. He knew in that moment that he would kill and die for those eyes. Five years later, fate had decided on the latter.

If love at first sight was a thing to be believed, that's what had happened between Klaus and Caroline that summer in the English countryside. He'd taught her to ride. She'd taught him to love. For a year, they were happy in their silent romance, but all good things come to an end. Tyler returned and their once simple lives were complicated when Caroline was forced to marry to settle her father's debt. He wasn't a bad man, Lord Lockwood. He was a cold man, indifferent to his wife's happiness, concerned solely with matters of war. It was rare that he came to her bedchambers. When he did, she closed those crystal blue eyes and dreamed of Klaus.

A bastard runaway, he was a simple stable boy without a coin to his name. Certainly no one of consequence in the eyes of his master. He tended to the horses and kept his head down and his name out of the Lord's ear. He and Caroline continued their love year after year as the battles raged across the sea in Ireland. They both prayed every time the carriages approached that with them would come word that Tyler had been killed at war.

Their dreams had not come true.

Not only had Tyler survived, he had found them together. Caroline hadn't known what to say when her husband came in and found her lover in her bedchambers after six months away. Klaus had spoken for her and told the lie of a lifetime. The lie that saved her life. The lie that assured his would end. The last thing he saw before he'd been dragged off in chains was her eyes. They were the same then as the day they'd met: sapphire spheres, full of sorrow, and full of tears.

Klaus looked around his dingy cell once more and sighed. If this was to be his final night on earth, he would watch the sun rise and go to his death proudly, knowing it had all been for her. He was lost in thought when the sound of a rusty hinge drew him from his reverie. He was on his feet in an instant as the love of his life threw herself into his arms. "Caroline!"

"Nik!"

Without a clue how she'd gotten there or how long they had, the doomed man did the only thing he could: he buried his nose in her sunshine hair and breathed deeply of her dandelion scent. Long moments passed in each other's embrace before he made himself pull away. "You shouldn't be here, love. If anyone were to see-"

"I don't care about them anymore!" Caroline sobbed, refusing to let him push her to the safety of her handmaiden. "Why did you say you forced me? You'll hang for this come sunrise!"

"I knew that when I said it," he replied, voice choked as he feigned strength, "but if I hang, that means you do not."

The heartbroken blonde vehemently shook her curls from side to side. "I can't let you do it. I will go to Tyler. I will tell him the truth!"

Grabbing her by the shoulders, he held her at arm's length and scolded her foolishness. "No, you will do no such thing. I must do this, and I must do it alone. You must live, Caroline," he implored her emphatically. "You have to live."

"I can't live in a world without you." As they had before in her chambers when he'd been taken away, tears streamed down her face in a cascade of beautiful misery. "If you die, I will die by your side. I will confess my sins and we will go to the gallows together. We must be together, Niklaus!" she cried, tiny hands fisting in his dirty linen tunic. "We are meant to be together."

"That's not how it works, sweetheart," he apologized, shaking his head sadly as he fought back his own tears. "Where I go, you cannot follow. You have to be strong. You have to be brave. You have to live, and you have to love."

"I will never love that brute!" she shouted, recoiling at the horror of his words. "Are you mad? My father sent me away to pay his own debt! What kind of a man sells his own daughter? What kind of a man buys himself a wife?" she spat in disgust as she thought of her husband. "You are my one true love."

"As you are mine," he agreed, pulling her back to his chest, "but I will not be your only. You have another still to come, another to love. You have someone yet to live for." Pulling back, he looked deeply into her crystal blue eyes rimmed red by her agony. "You're carrying our child, Caroline."

"What?" the lady gasped, one hand flying to her belly as she looked down at her womb. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Because you are my one true love," he explained emphatically, imploring her to see reason as his heart tore at his chest. "I know you better than you know yourself. Of course, I know you are with child. You must live. You both have to live." He looked down at her belly and tenderly placed his hands over their baby. Her eyes darted back to his and when she saw the confidence she'd come to depend upon over the years, she knew his words to be true. "I must go, but you must stay. You have to let me do this. You have to let me be strong. You have to go on."

"Not without you!" she sobbed, burying her tear-streaked face in the crook of his neck. "How can I live when my heart is broken? How can I raise our child alone? You say I will love. You say I will live. You say my heart will go on, but how can it without you by my side?"

"You'll never be without me. I will be with you wherever you go, always and forever," he softly promised, soothing her by rubbing circles on the fine fabric of her dress. "We may part ways tonight, but I will find you again, if not in this life, then the next. Our love is greater than a stretch of mortal time." He closed his eyes and inhaled her sweet scent. Lavender and summer and horses. He would carry her with him to the grave and beyond. "Now go, before you are discovered."

She looked at him miserably when he pulled back, his hands bracing her shoulders when her legs shook with the ferocity of the emotions destroying her. "I can't, Niklaus. I cannot leave you to die for my crime! I cannot say goodbye," she begged him, shaking her head from side to side, "not like this."

"This is not goodbye. We will never say goodbye, not truly. I will come back to you, Caroline Forbes. We will be together again; you'll see," he vowed, knowing it was a promise he would keep. He pulled back and looked in her eyes one last time. He traced her cheek with the back of his knuckle, wiping away her tears that now mixed with his own. He would never forget those eyes. They were a part of him now, as they would be a part of their child. Yes, he would go, but he would always be with her. With them. He took a deep breath and made one final promise before pushing her to the waiting arms of her handmaiden. "I was your first love, and I intend to be your last. I will find you, my love, however long it takes."