A/N : HELLO I AM BACK WITH A NEW CHAPTER...I HOPE YOU ENJOY... THIS ONE IS THE LAST ONE... IF YOU WANT AN EPILOGUE PLEASE LET ME KNOW VIA REVIEWS...
FLASHBACK
Ivory, white, cream and beige, different shades of the colour that depicted purity displayed around sewn into dresses that signified a new, jubilant chapter of one's life but hers was totally contradictory, a sordid and putrescent beginning. Her vision was blurry with tears that stubbornly kept falling. The seamstresses chalked her emotion to the sensibilities of a blushing, sentimental bride, none the wiser to the tornado of misery that was violently bombarding her innards.
Like a bird with broken wings confined within a cage, a spectacle for onlookers, no one knew how treasured free flight was. No one, aware of the true circumstances of her captivity. No one except her and him. Silent and brooding he watched her like a hawk, taking in her calculated robotic movements.
Her quiet compliance and attempt to be done with the farce with the first dress had him squeeze her arm, a subtle warning to act accordingly and not raise suspicion.
She stared back at his admonishing eyes with her own defiant ones. A silent tug of war until a slight movement and then she felt the metallic dread against her abdomen. Hence she swallowed the biliary hatred that regurgitated and sauntered off to the trying room.
All white, lace, chiffon and silk, the dress a flowing gown with a veil was ethereal but Caroline felt immured, bound in a large white shroud ready to be buried.
"We'll take this one." He murmured standing behind an ever present reminder that her life was loaned to her in exchange for his own self centred means. It was a win for him and a severe loss for her.
Ireful, she wanted to fling the clothes, snatch and tear everything apart, to slash and vent through the frustration she felt but alas like an obedient pet she murmured her assent and followed him.
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Once inside his room at his uncle's estate she blew up, unable to bottle the tumult she felt.
"Don't you dare threaten me again. You hear me. I have agreed to your…your….disgusting condition of this forced marriage but I will not be manhandled by the likes of you." Each word dripped the hostility and revulsion that was becoming septic each day.
That cursory unaffected tilt of his head boiled her even more. Pointing a finger at him she continued,"Do not entertain any misconceptions that I will meekly follow whatever path you lay down for me."
In a flash he had her trapped against the wooden door to the room, the only way to escape. Had she reckoned him to be unfeeling and unmoved, she kept miscalculating his temper.
"Misconceptions?" He thumped one hand on the door close to her face effectively jolting her to the grave reality of her status quo, a life she had begged for to stay alive.
Fear dilating her green eyes. The muscle twitching in his jaw was a sign of how close his temper ran. He didn't shout, didn't throw things but that single loud slap on the door was enough to terrify her.
In a smooth intimidating whisper he grasped her hair, she expected pain but was too focused on bottling down the terror that surfaced, to feel it.
Was she becoming unhinged, the longer he held her trapped the more she felt. His nearness, his rough hands and a tingle where his lips barely touched the sensitive skin below her ear, it was as if her sensory system was in hyperdrive.
He whispered close to her ear. "You will follow the path I laid down for you and you will get through this disgusting sham of a marriage without any further theatrics. You wouldn't want any harm to befall your brother, now would you?"
She tested his patience, but he had never so easily lost control at the least provocation, always expertly repressing his aggression. Ever since he had encountered her, the reins he had on his ferocity became precarious. The intense reaction he displayed to mere words hurled by her at him, befuddled him, but he didn't want to cudgel his brain at the moment.
His threat effectively delivered as her eyes widened even more. Frightened for her brother's life she shook her head. "Please…"
"I am not obligated to see through the deal I made with you, you are… Taking your life would be much easier than dealing with these annoying tantrums." Still close. She hadn't known she could feel such deep-rooted ire for someone.
Fright and apprehension incapacitated her for a few moments. Those tense stormy eyes raked her with such exasperation that she inwardly shuddered. Something different, more potent diffused into the air already pregnant with tension. As if he felt that invisible tug too gazing into her cautious, assessing eyes he pulled away and strode out without sparing her a parting glance.
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PRESENT DAY
She reminisced about every past grievance, every offence, wanting to trudge up the extreme hatred she had felt those first few months but it was fruitless. Accusing him for everything that went awry wasn't a feat, but ostracising him and yet still irrevocably loving him was certainly a conundrum. A hardship she unintentionally welcomed.
Agitated, she threw the stick that she had been staring at for the past fifteen minutes. Those two pink lines sealing an even worse fate. He had walked away. Deserted her in that cottage with a car and money at her disposal, all of a sudden growing a conscience for all his past misdeeds because apparently she deserved better.
After she had so pathetically confessed that deepest most ardent love for him, he had flung it in her face, crushed her heart under his boot and abandoned her.
It had been four freaking weeks since she last saw the passion and indifference of his entrancing blue gaze and three weeks when the divorce papers came. By all accounts he was right. There was no justice in the world, no justice at all, or else she would be celebrating the prospect of this enforced freedom. From an unwanted forced marriage to an undesired imposed divorce, where was the justice and fairness?
She could be finally free, unshackled from those transparent chains. Uncaged in the wilderness for the escape she had so desperately coveted and now she was ambivalent, hesitant to be untethered of the bond that had once snuffed the life out of her.
She scoffed at the tears that her heart cried for him. Yet again berated herself mentally for loving an insensitive, soulless criminal and now she bore the evidence of her own naive love for him. His child. A child that she already felt immensely overprotective of, a child who deserved better, much better than her. She sobbed harder realising she wanted it all. She wanted a home, this child and Klaus and the worst twist of fate was she could have neither.
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He meticulously scraped the wood using the short bent to make quick deep cuts in the block. Her teary face flashed in front of his eyes, torturing him, even as he gently surfaced the petals of the flower he was fashioning out of it. He remembered how urgently he had announced his next order of business for her. All the while not possessing the heart to glance back at her one last time.
Was any of it prudent? His actions since the day he had laid eyes on her had been anything but pragmatic. The marriage, her confinement, threatening her brother, every miniscule wrong -doing was an error in judgement on his part. Compelled by some faceless force, an over encompassing need to keep her close he had made rash decisions and justified them.
Maybe he was demented, contorted in mind to fancy a world where they could be together and he had been fostering these delusions since the day she had fought for him. Stood between him and her brother, just a few days after he had been shot.
FLASHBACK
"Caroline! Caroline! Where is my sister?" Stefan stormed through the large foyer looking for his sister, although they weren't related in blood but the affection and affiliation that they shared was much more stronger. He adored her as any real brother would his little sister, seeing as he had practically raised her.
Her sudden marriage and the suspicious circumstances surrounding them had always niggled at him like a splinter pinching in his flesh. And now he finally was in the know, thanks to Hayley who had overheard a heated conversation at the hospital, between the so called loving pair.
She rushed out and so did the rest of the occupants of the Mansion. "Stefan." Her surprise was evident on her face.
"Let's go. We're leaving. Hayley told me everything about how these ….. despicable people have been keeping you, blackmailing you…" then his gaze fell on his real prey, Klaus who casually sauntered down the stairs into the main hall.
"You." He grabbed Klaus's collar in an instantaneous, violent move. One of Klaus's men advanced upon Stefan but Klaus shook his head.
He cautiously controlled his fury for Caroline's sake, her generosity and kindness in saving his life and nursing him after that, at least demanded he show common courtesy to his brother-in-law even if Klaus had a hankering to punch him in his face.
"How dare you…" Stefan's outburst, subdued by Caroline, as she rushed to Klaus's aid and tugged at Stefan's hands "Stefan. Let go. Let go of him."
"How can you defend him after what he did to you?" Unable to reconcile with what was happening, Stefan's confusion and aggravation were visible in his rapid movements.
"Stefan, stop. Please. He is hurt." She stood between Klaus and her brother. Astounded, and defenceless against the tenderness that welled inside him, Klaus stared at her. He didn't need his empathetic wife to defend him, he was more than capable of holding his own, but her instinctive protectiveness of him, moved him nonetheless.
"Please brother."
Antsy and more than a little perplexed Stefan regarded his sister with concern. "Caroline. You don't have to do this anymore."
Esther moved closer. "Young man this is no way to voice whatever concerns you have for your sister…"
"Mother." Klaus warned, "This is between us. Please take Rebekah and leave." Esther and Rebekah complied. Whereas Rob and Marcel quietly stood on one side respecting Klaus's wishes.
"I know. Just please listen to me." She began ushering Stefan out when Klaus grabbed her arm. That moment, that rare precious second she saw Klaus's disquietude and peculiarly understood it too. A small reassuring gesture, she placed her palm over his chest, "Klaus. Please trust me." And he did, startling her as much as himself.
She walked to the main garden with his brother in tow.
"Stefan. Brother. No one is keeping me against my will anymore." Her words echoed inside him, Klaus felt an undefinable ache that condensed around his heart, unfurling into something serene.
"Hayley had no right to interfere in my marriage." She paced in the front garden. Her brother stood rigid, she saw he was ready to dispel any explanation she would give, unconvinced by her justifications.
"He doesn't let you practise. Keeps you locked here. Yells at you. Mistreats you. What else? Am I missing something?"
"He didn't initially, but you know I have been back at the hospital for a long time now. He is just a little possessive." Caroline glanced back at Klaus where he stood a few feet apart, pretending he wasn't eavesdropping but the grimace on his face said otherwise. In any other scenario it would have been comical.
"There were things in this marriage that I thought I couldn't bear but then somehow overtime things changed. Or maybe I did. Trust me when I say, he doesn't yell at me anymore. And I can come and go as I please." She looked back again at her husband and funnily saw him squint his eyes at the last part.
Caroline grasped her brother's arm then hugged him, "I love him." She whispered for Stefan's benefit.
Klaus hadn't meant to eavesdrop, just maintain a safe distance to ensure his wife was unharmed. He saw the siblings embrace and she mumbled something that apparently assuaged his wrath.
PRESENT DAY
That day both had begun trusting the other. Unknowingly depending and belonging.
That day for the very first time someone had fought for him regardless if he had been in need of it or not. That cursed day the shield encasing his emotions cracked and she wriggled in, inch by inch, everyday inhabiting a wider space in his core.
And now he was thoroughly deluged in the flood of fervent emotions and an ever consuming love for her. Her confession had left him speechless and transfixed. Hopeful and fearful all at once, but how could someone like her love someone like him, she a saviour and he an executioner. The irony of it all not lost on him, he chiselled in silence.
Klaus blew on the single long stemmed rose he had sculpted, the wood dust flew, dispersing in sunlight for a moment shining and then it fell becoming dirt under his feet. And that is exactly how different they were, Caroline the golden mist luminous and him the dirt muddying his shoes.
Despair and heartache were unpleasant companions ever since he had done the most foolish thing and let her go. Being honourable culminated in sleepless nights and agonising days. Unconsciously rubbing a hand on his chest where a constant pain rested he exited his studio when the bell rang.
TTTTTTTTT
He raced his car propelled by an urgency and the sense of impending doom that oscillated within him like a giant pendulum of an invisible clock ,in a never ending back and forth.
Jason had essentially signed his own death warrant having the audacity to abduct Caroline. Rob and Marcel knew where she was being kept but it didn't lessen the horrifying panic that kept bludgeoning him. A club beating his insides forcefully each time he thought of her.
Aware of Jason's volatility and his own hard luck, Klaus drove as fast as he could. Her words replayed over and over in his mind, taunting and tormenting him.
"There are no guarantees, Klaus. You can not promise anything. One of these days it's going to catch up with you and maybe I'll have to pay the price for your…sins and your cruelty and injustice…."
He sped and swerved, her eyes and the agony filling them flashed before his own, her voice and the raw ache it possessed echoing in his ears.
"One of these days it's going to catch up with you and maybe I'll have to pay the price for your…sins and your cruelty and injustice…."
He winded down a curve vowing to himself, that for all the promises he may have broken, the one he had made that night pertaining to her safety, he would fulfil, even if he had to do it at the cost of his own life.
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"Klaus!" The desperate yelled call gave him life. She ran into his arms and he crushed her in his embrace too afraid it might be a conjuring of his crazed mind.
Jason and his men, captured were being transported someplace where he would deal with them leisurely.
For a few tormented seconds he kept holding her, unable to let go. "I'm…." Too choked up to voice what he actually desired to say, he apologised, "I'm sorry." An agonising whispered apology. She saw remorse and concern. He cradled her face, "You're okay." He breathed a sigh of relief, "You're okay." She wasn't sure if it was an inquiry or a self soothing observation. His eyes scanned her critically as if surveying for any wounds. Overcome with emotion he hugged her again.
Her strong and sure heartbeat was reassuring evidence that she was okay. The alarm he had felt thudded in his rabbiting heartbeat. Her safety was a priority above everything. He knew his anxiety shot from the feelings he had developed, like an acquired taste that he had become intoxicated with. Her entrancing leafy eyes gazed at him with the same longing and tenderness he had witnessed the day she had worn her heart on her sleeve.
A moment's hesitation and then it passed,"Klaus please take me home." Wet eyes pleading, raking coals on an already bruised heart.
That mumbled request was louder than the righteous voice that urged him to be uncharacteristically noble.
He lifted her hands and warmed them within his own. His eyes never leaving hers. It was a spell that had him bound both in body and soul. "Caroline. Don't." He persisted even when he wanted to accede.
"Klaus. Please."
"I won't let you go." A word of warning meant to dissuade her but slipped out as a request.
"I don't want you to."
TTTTTTTTTTTTTT
A wave of unprecedented nostalgia and awkwardness hit her the moment she entered their room. He tended to her, cleaning her wounds with directions from her and with single minded focus. A man who once had been unmoved and unrelenting now visibly shaken and immensely tender. Love pure and potent, a force, a feeling enveloped them both.
"I'm pregnant." She punctured the thick silence with her weighty declaration. His hand paused mid air as he was applying the antiseptic on the corner of her mouth. Shock and panic filled his eyes. His hand shook once and then twice. She hissed as she felt the ache spread from her wound to her heart.
She hadn't known what she had reckoned but she hadn't expected his panicked silence. The lack of acknowledgment hurt more than perhaps the apprehensive denial would have. Her fingers curled in her palms, nails pricking the skin, trying to distract from the rejection and indifference drilling painful holes in her heart. He merely stood, very consciously replaced the items in the first aid kit and went to the bathroom.
Fear, bone deep and soul crushing drowned the voice of sanity. Terror emerging from the nascent bud of joy rocked him. Life was cruel and fate a fickle mistress had never been on his side and this blessing, this unforeseen fortune seemed another one of fate's mirages, clutching at his happiness and then brutally ripping it away for he, a destroyer, didn't deserve to create and nurture. He splashed the cold water on his face hoping to wake up from the nightmare turned into a coveted dream.
He exited the bathroom and found her on the balcony gazing at the wide obsidian sky. His wife was carrying his child, could he be so lucky to grasp and hold onto something so pure, something so valuable.
He joined her, standing behind her almost embracing, placing his hands by hers on the stone balustrade. Her softness and temptation too much but he bridled his desire to crush her closer.
She felt the heat of his body and unconsciously leaned in. "I'm keeping the baby."
"I know." Those two words utter with conviction aggravated her.
"You know? You fucking know?" She turned, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Her anger pronounced in the dilated green eyes, she would never not be wondrous to him, but knowing she carried his child evoked something even more primal within him.
He pushed one wind-whipped strand out of her face. "It means I know you love our child as much as I love him." He sensed her softening, "But I don't deserv…."
"If you say you don't deserve either of us I will clock you right now. Don't test my patience Nik. Do not do that." She shuffled out of his arms, his proximity was doing something with her head.
He felt a weird sense of loss when she moved away. "What do you want me to say? I am trying to do right by the woman I know deserves more than a man who has done things that are too bleak to even say. These hands are too filthy to touch something as pure as this child, Caroline." Irked, he ran one shaky hand through his hair.
Tears rolled down, erupting from the ache that rested behind her bosom. Twin emotions of misery raked him as well. She saw her pain reflected in his eyes. For a few miserable seconds they stared at each other and then she rushed in his open arms. His mouth found hers, taking and giving in equal measure. Pain and pleasure making for a heady mixture, intoxicating them. He pulled away resting his forehead against hers. "Please, Caroline…"
"Klaus…….I can't leave you…I..just.."
"I love you." He blurted out in a hurried statement amidst her confession and he saw another tear spill down her smiling cheeks. "And I tried doing the right thing but if you've decided to be obstinate about this. Know one thing I won't ever let you go. Never ever. Do you understand?" Caroline nodded as she felt love and elation spreading within her, even as he kissed her again, murmuring those three magical words that had changed her entire life.
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