"I've never really been anywhere."
"I'll take you wherever you want to go," he said, his cheeks dimpling as if he were keeping some delicious secret tucked away behind his lips, as he took another step in her direction. In the still tranquility of the moment she could almost feel the echoes of each of his heartbeats.
Caroline couldn't stop the small smile from gracing her lips as she turned her eyes away from the painting only to meet a view equally as surprising: Klaus Mikaelson, the most lethal and untouchable creature in all of the world, looking at her without a stitch of his armor in place to mask the centuries of unreadable emotions that ghosted across his features.
"Rome..." He continued, slowly, his head inclining towards her as she was instantly overcome with the distinct feeling that she was drowning within the depths of his oceanic eyes.
Suddenly, she was no longer in that room, in that newly renovated mansion, in that small and forgotten town. Instead she was splashing hopelessly amongst the rough waters of her mind, overcome by memories of a life she didn't remember living, with her eyes burning from tears brought on by emotions she didn't understand. There was nothing that she could do to keep her head above water when the gentlest touch of his hand on her elbow became the undercurrent that ripped her beneath the surface.
Down, down, down she sank, a collage of moments - of her, of him, his siblings, them - spinning circles on the backs of her eyes.
"Paris..."
She could feel this moment engraved in her bones, her body instantly remembering what her mind struggled to decipher. She could hear Klaus' same words spoken in another time and place; she could describe the taste of his lips as they'd been coated in the sweetness of apple champagne, could smell the intoxicating aroma of the gardenia that had been pinned to the lapel of his tuxedo jacket. Flashes of a version of the man that stood before her danced through her mind's eye until all of the blank spots in her timeline were filled in and threatened to burst at the seams with the world that she had once known.
With every breath of a second that passed with his eyes locked on hers and his hand pressed to the bare skin just above where the white silk of her gloves ended, he unlocked another hidden memory inside of her. He sliced through every molecule of her body until she was sure that all of the seams that had held her together for so long would break under the pressure of it all. She could see it all - remember it all - so clearly, as if her thoughts were as tangible as the paintings and drawings that were scattered around the room.
"Tokyo."
She Laughed oddly, more entranced by the millions of moments replaying in her mind than the one she was currently experiencing. With a clarity she had lacked for decades, Caroline recalled her life without hesitation.
She remembered meeting Rebekah on the outskirts of the ballroom of yet another dreary ball. The two of them had ended up drinking much more than was socially acceptable for two unmarried women of society before she'd been introduced to one of her new friend's brothers -Elijah - who had charmed Caroline's mother instantly. Klaus and Kol had joined them later in the evening when they had ventured away from the ball (and Caroline's chaperone) to watch the sunrise over the Thames.
She could pinpoint the exact spot where the sharp pain the the back of her head had begun after she'd been violently shaken by her betrothed and lost her footing at the top of the stairs; how the metallic smell of her blood as it had pooled against her cheek and stained the floor beneath her had reminded her of the scent that lingered after a lightning strike. She could hear the echoes of Klaus' enraged snarl, followed by gasping breaths and the crunch of bone under extreme pressure, as Rebekah had made quick work of pressing her exposed vein to Caroline's lips.
She could feel the burn of the raw hunger when she'd woken up later that evening, made anew, and everything that had followed. She remembered every heartbeat, soft embrace, and violent curse in crystal clarity… including the night that he'd taken it all - her memories, her choices - away from her without a second thought.