"Paradise Circus" (Caroline, Klaus) PG-13 (Part II of IV)
Title: “Paradise Circus”
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Caroline, Klaus
Spoiler: “All My Children”
Length: Part II of IV
Summary: Klaus takes Caroline on a trip, but he’s the one to see the world.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.
Part I is here:
Author’s Note:
Couple things:
1. Thank you for the support. I’m having a blast writing this fic and reminiscing about my various trips to Europe, so it’s been a bit of a trip down memory lane for me.
2. I hope it’s cool, but the history nerd in me was so ANNOYED by the flagrant disregard of facts that I rewrote the Originals backstory to better match what actually happened.
3. This fic is looking to be longer than I originally intended. Hope that’s cool too.
Cut courtesy of Sir Winston Churchill. Title courtesy of Massive Attack. Enjoy.
~ * ~
The next morning, Caroline can’t meet Klaus’s eyes.
He’s up before her and leaves the curtains open so bright, blinding light streams in. With the room so well lit, there’s nowhere to hide.
“Good morning,” he says, watches her from his chair. He’s all the way across the room but her cheeks flush from the way he looks at her over his coffee cup.
The night is over but her skin still burns.
---
She gets ready in silence, thankful for the early March weather.
It’s chilly enough for sweaters and she chooses a bulky wool cableknit that hangs to her knees.
Klaus watches her dress.
Even when she’s fully clothed, she still feels naked.
---
Caroline signed up for an adventure with Klaus, but that doesn't mean she wants to spend every waking moment in his company.
He doesn't agree.
“Where are we going?” he asks and pulls on his jacket. She’s added a peacoat and hat and is rummaging through her suitcase for her gloves. Her guidebook is stowed neatly in her purse and her day has already been planned. Her hands still and she straightens.
“I’m spending the day touring the old city.”
Klaus slips a messenger bag over his jacket. “I know the perfect tour guide.”
“I want to be alone.”
Klaus smiles and doesn’t back down. “You wanted to see the world. How could you do it without me?”
She remembers the deal she made, practically wrote the terms in Tyler’s blood. She’s come too far to renege now.
“Fine,” she says, slings her own bag across her chest. “But I get to make the plan.”
His smile only widens. “You always do.”
---
She soon realizes that traveling with Klaus is really a trip down memory lane - his memory lane.
When he sulks or pouts or stares at her with heated eyes, it’s easy to forget he’s lived for over a thousand years. When they’re confronted with history, she can’t ignore the lives he’s lived.
They’re touring the Forum when he stops beside a massive arch, his mouth compressed into a thin line.
Her guidebook tells her that it’s the Arch of Titus, erected in the first century AD in honor of the emperor’s victory during the Siege of Jerusalem. She watches his expression change as they take in the arch’s southern panel.
“I was there,” he says softly, reaches out to run his fingers over the candelabra. “My legion was the one to cut them down.”
“You were not in the Roman military.” She doesn’t believe him, even when he looks at her with those sorrowful eyes.
“Yes, I was. I was young, strong, and there was great wealth in the East.”
“What was it like?”
“Violent. Brutal. Wonderful.” Nostalgia fills his voice and a hint of a smile curves his mouth.
“How could it be brutal and wonderful?”
The smile widens. “There was gold and jewels. More than enough food.” She shudders because she knows exactly what - who - he fed on. “It was hard to walk away.”
“But you did.”
“Yes, eventually. It was…enough.”
They fall into silence and she studies the images carved into ancient stone. In a thousand years, she’ll have more than marble to tell her stories.
“Were you ever in the army?” She finally asks, wonders what other monuments to his past that Klaus has left behind.
He doesn’t take his eyes from the arch. “No.”
“Why not?” He’s going to live forever; she assumes he’d spend years amongst the spoils of war.
He turns to her and his eyes darken in the sunlight. “I’d had enough death in my life.”
He abandons the arch, stalks towards the Temple of Vesta. Caroline hurries after him, twists her ring so the lapis lazuli digs into her skin.
There will always be death in their lives.
---
The stories keep coming.
He tells her about chariot rides in the Circus Maximus and worshipping at the Pantheon. They tour the Colosseum and he points to one of the gates, casually mentions the lion that tried to devour him.
“It was terrified,” he says, that familiar nostalgic smile playing over his lips. “I could hear its heartbeat but it couldn’t feel mine. And then it was nothing at all.”
Caroline tries to imagine Klaus in leather and steel, ceding the role of predator so he could play the prey. She can’t picture it, even when he’s smiling; she knows the pain he can inflict. “Who won?” she asks even though she already knows the answer.
“I’m still here,” he tells her, casts his eyes towards the gate. “No matter what they unleashed, I remained.”
She lets him take her elbow and steer her to the exit. She wants to get out of this place. She doesn’t want to feel his past.
---
He documents everything.
Wherever she goes, no matter how she looks, he’s there with his Nikon clicking away.
“What are you doing?” she asks on their third day in the city, as she pushes through a crowd of German tourists to meet him at the bottom of the Spanish Steps.
He holds the camera to his eye and snaps a photo so close to her face it will highlight every pore. She knows better than to argue; he’ll follow up that one bad photo with ten more. “I’m taking pictures of you.”
“Yeah, but why? Are you really going to look at these again?”
He lowers the camera, fiddles with the lens cap. “Maybe, maybe not. But you’ll want them to keep.”
“I just don’t get why you care.”
“You’ll see Rome a thousand times before you die, but it will never be like your first time. Memories fade. Here’s your proof that it happened this way.”
He’s no longer looking at the camera because he’s looking right at her. The intensity in his gaze is unnerving, how closely he’s studying her with those blue eyes, but she doesn’t break the contact.
No matter the passage of time, she’ll never forget this trip.
---
They share a joke outside St. Peter’s Basilica.
Caroline keeps shifting from foot to foot as they wait in line, biting her lip as they creep closer to the entrance.
“What’s wrong?” Klaus asks.
She glances left, glances right, then speaks at a volume she hopes only he can hear. “We’re about to walk inside a church. Are you sure we’re not going to burst into flames?”
He laughs, rich and full. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
He keeps laughing, so close to genuine that she joins in with him.
It feels more natural than it should.
---
He keeps drawing her, eyes hot as they caress her naked skin.
When she wakes in the morning, she meets his gaze.
---
Klaus provides everything but nourishment, and after a week she fakes an injury and compels her way into the hospital’s blood bank.
She takes enough blood to last them both for a month, but he isn’t alone when she comes back to the hotel.
There’s a slender brunette perched on his lap, two bite marks marring the long column of her throat. When he smiles, his teeth are stained with blood.
“Welcome home, love,” he drawls, strokes the girl’s hair back from her neck. “Hungry?”
At first, all she can do is stare. Then, she remembers: this isn’t a pleasure trip. This is Tyler’s life in her hands, and Klaus is still Klaus.
She flings her bag onto her bed and puts her hands on her hips. “Are you serious?”
He shrugs, sinks his fangs into the girl’s jugular. “You must be starving.”
The blood smells delicious and she can feel her own fangs sliding down over her bottom lip, but she pushes them back. She’s not like him.
“Stop it now!” The girl’s eyes are rolling back in her head and her skin is a sickly shade of pale. This isn’t a pleasure trip, but Caroline also doesn’t want to spend her evening disposing of bodies.
Klaus doesn’t stop and his eyes slide closed as his victim’s skin bleaches to pure white. Caroline zips across the room, yanks the girl away from him. He doesn’t fight back, but does lick his lips and cross his arms across his chest.
Caroline hurriedly bites into her own arm, dribbles a few drops of blood into the girl’s mouth. Her color starts to return after a moment or two, and Caroline looks deep into her eyes. “You were never here. Your study session ran late and you’re just getting home.”
The girl looks at her with blank eyes and walks, trancelike, to the door. Caroline turns to Klaus immediately after it closes. His arms are still crossed and he’s sulking in his chair like a little boy.
She doesn’t fall for his act this time.
“What were you thinking?” she scolds. “We can’t kill people!”
“Why not?” She stares at him incredulously. “We’re vampires,” he reminds her. “Blood is life.”
She stalks to her bed, opens her bag and tosses a blood bag at him. “If you’re hungry, eat up.”
He wrinkles his nose and tosses the bag aside. “I prefer mine fresh.”
“Not with me.” She closes her eyes, the weight of that carnival worker’s death still heavy on her heart. “We might be vampires but that doesn’t make us better than them.”
“Of course it does.”
She knows he’s right. She’s stronger, smarter, comes equipped with better senses. But she’s not ready to flip the switch. “I…I can’t do it, okay? And if you’re going to be with me, you can’t do it either.”
His expression changes, his eyes hardening as he gets into her space. “You do remember why you’re here, right?
She glares at him, Tyler’s face flashing before her eyes. “How could I ever forget?”
His expression shifts again. She keeps her chin up, doesn’t back down. She won’t feel sorry for protecting someone she loves; she won’t let him lose sight of why she’s here.
“I’m tired,” he says and pushes away from her, opens the door to the balcony. Cool night air filters in as he steps outside, but it doesn’t dull the tension filling the room.
He’s still outside when she gets in bed, the long line of his back curved over the balcony railing. She rolls to her side and closes her eyes. His guilt isn’t her problem.
She tries to sleep but can’t stop waiting for the scratch of charcoal over his sketchpad.
It never comes.
---
There’s a Fendi purse waiting on her bed when she gets home the next afternoon.
It’s ridiculously expensive and the size of her travel bag and she once spent an hour staring at it in an issue of Vogue.
There’s a note too. It says I’m sorry in Klaus’s strange, flowery script but it doesn’t make her feel very forgiving.
Instead, she takes a steadying breath to keep the veins from flaring in her cheeks and calmly goes to the corner store to buy kerosene and matches.
She waits until she hears his keycard in the door before dropping the purse in a trashcan and lighting the match.
Her eyes match the blaze when he comes inside. “I told you once: you can’t buy me off.”
His eyes sag but hers keep burning bright. “I saw you admiring it the other day. I’m sorry about last night.”
“When are you going to learn? It’s the thought that counts, not the price tag.” She shakes her head in disgust and storms onto the balcony.
She lets him clean up the mess.
---
She books tickets to Florence the next morning.
They dress and pack in silence and she leaves his ticket on his bed when she goes out to throw one last coin in the Trevi Fountain. Rome is eternal, but she wants a guarantee that she is too.
They don’t talk on the train ride either, and she alternates between reading her history textbook and watching the Tuscan countryside.
An Italian spring is beautiful, but she wants that diploma and forces herself through the origins of civilization.
“Hey!” she squeals as she rereads a passage about the Punic Wars. “You lied to me.”
If he’s surprised that she’s speaking to him, he doesn’t let on. His tone, though, is annoyed. “I have done many things, Caroline, but I have never lied to you.”
She shakes her head and shoves the book into his face. “I know about the cave. If you became a vampire a thousand years ago, there’s no way you were alive in ancient Rome.”
He laughs and leans back in his seat. His smile lights up his face and for a moment she forgets about the night before. In his long-sleeved tee and jeans he looks like a college student during a semester abroad. She likes him more this way.
“I already told you, Caroline. You can’t believe everything you read.”
“But your family - ”
“Did you never wonder how a group of Eastern Europeans were living in Virginia half a century before colonization?”
She blushes and stares at her lap. Until Elena told her the story of Katerina Petrova, she thought Bulgaria used to be part of Yugoslavia.
“But the runes…”
“My father was partial to Old Norse.”
“And Bonnie’s ancestor?”
He takes her history book and opens to a map of the Roman Empire. It spans all of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa too. He traces a line from Thrace to Ghana to Constantinople. “Ayana was real but she didn’t set the original curse. That came later, when my mother realized she could no longer control us.”
“So why the fake history?”
He shrugs. “When there’s no one left to remember, who’s to say what’s really true?”
"But the drawings, the photos...you know what really happened."
"Memories are ours to keep, but history is what you make of it."
Before she can stop him, he’s tossing her book out the window. “What are you doing?” She doesn't care that her voice is hysterical. She needs that book to pass the class.
He grasps her shoulders and turns her to face him. She glances into calm blue eyes and some of the panic eases. He’s going to fix this, she knows he will. “You don’t need that book. I was there. Let me be your history.”
She knows she should protest. After all, he just revealed that everything she knows about him are lies. And he did try and kill a girl the other night. But she remembers the Klaus she saw in the Forum and Colosseum, the Klaus who didn’t hold back about the man he was and the world he created.
She tells herself she’d rather watch the scenery than bury her nose in a book. She pretends it’s anything but the light in his eyes when he tells her about the lives he’s lived.
---
Caroline likes Florence more than Rome.
It’s less ancient, but it still feels old and proud. There’s history here, even if it’s a different kind.
They take a walking tour on their first morning and visit the Uffizi in the afternoon. It’s sprawling and enormous and Klaus uses it as an excuse to tell her about the Renaissance.
He hated the Medicis, but loves the art they patronized. They stop for a moment beside the Birth of Venus and Caroline tries to see what’s so incredible about it. There’s a naked blonde girl and a bunch of cherubs and it’s entirely two-dimensional. She really doesn't get it.
“She’s based on Rebekah,” Klaus tells her.
Caroline rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
That warm, familiar smile curves his mouth. “Would I ever lie to you?”
Caroline takes a closer look. There’s not much resemblance to Rebakah, but it is a painting of a woman with people waiting on her hand and foot. “Well, she is the center of attention. I guess I can see it.”
His hand strokes her back. She returns his smile.
---
They’re finishing their tour when a woman comes over and taps Klaus on the shoulder.
Caroline flinches, hopes he doesn’t ruin what’s been an otherwise lovely day. She relaxes when he turns to the woman with a bright smile.
“Yes?”
The woman’s accent is thick, Midwestern American and she’s actually wearing a fanny pack around her middle. Caroline suppresses urge to laugh; they’re not called stereotypes for nothing.
“I just wanted to say, my husband and I overheard you discussing the paintings and if you’re not already a teacher, you should consider a career in education. The way you talk about the art…it’s like you were really there.”
Klaus bites his lip to keep from laughing, but is entirely gracious while he thanks the woman and shakes hands with her husband.
They both dissolve into laughter when the couple walks away. Everything about it feels right.
---
They don’t need regular food, but they do start each day with a morning coffee.
Caroline likes the ritual, watching people start their day and cities come alive.
Klaus watches her while she gulps down cup after cup.
It does little to calm her nerves.
---
They have an early entry to the Galleria dell’Accademia and Klaus tries to hurry her though breakfast.
She glares at him and takes a defiant sip of her coffee. Time ticks by and he taps his foot restlessly as she moves into her third cup.
“Enough,” he finally says and grabs her wrist to drag her to the feet. “Let’s go.”
They start down the sidewalk but she’s resistant. She remembers all those times Matt complained about poor tips at the Grille. They haven’t even paid their bill.
“We need to pay.”
Klaus’s eyes take on a deviant light and he signals to the waitress. “Compel her,” he whispers in Caroline’s ear.
“Why? We can afford it.”
He pulls her tighter against him so that his mouth moves against her ear. “Maybe today, but there will come a day when you’ll need to lie. Practice makes perfect.”
“No,” she insists and twists out of his grip. She smiles at the waitress, but doesn’t take her eyes off Klaus as she drops a five Euro note onto the table.
He’s not wrong, but today isn’t that day.
---
When she sees David in all his glory, all she can say is, “Oh, my.”
It would be one thing to view a giant, naked man with Elena or Bonnie, to go home and compare notes about the statute and the boys in their lives, but she’s not here with one of her girlfriends.
“Impressive, isn’t he?” Klaus says and she’s acutely aware of his presence at her side. He’s lean and muscled, not unlike the sculpture before her.
“Uh huh,” she manages to say when she makes the mistake of turning to answer the question.
There’s a knowing smile curving his lips.
It dares her to see how he compares.
---
She raids another hospital before they depart for Cinque Terre.
Klaus even offers to help.
He grimaces the entire time but downs his bag without protest.
---
She loves Venice more than Rome and Florence combined.
It’s crumbling and smells funky and might fall into the sea at any moment, but it’s different than any place she’s ever seen before.
They spend the first day wandering the streets, crossing canals and getting lost in back alleys.
They don’t talk much, but every time their eyes meet, she sees a smile there.
---
They end the day with a gondola ride through the Grand Canal.
There's only one seat, backed by a giant red heart. It's the last place Caroline wants to sit, but she holds her head high as the gondolier helps her into the boat and she settles against Klaus's chest.
He's firm and muscled but fits perfectly against her back.
It's way less awkward than it should be.
---
He takes her to Murano on their third day. St. Mark’s Basilica and the surrounding square are lovely, but she’s getting tired of churches and museums.
The Museo Vetrario is another museum, but the glass is a nice change of scenerey. Klaus hovers behind as she roams open-mouthed through the museum. She’s sure he’s seen these pieces a hundred times before, but he never complains.
Her favorite exhibit is a giant red bowl woven through with strands of gold. She’s always been partial to the color, but she knows it’s more than that: the crimson glass is deep and rich, like the blood that defines her existence.
She shivers and turns away, moves onto a display of blue and green vases.
She likes the way they remind her of life.
---
They’re heading back to the ferry when Klaus comes up behind her and rests his hands on her waist.
“Stop for a moment,” he tells her and she halts in her tracks. The setting sun is gorgeous and she no longer has breath but she remembers what it felt like, to see something so stunning that it catches in her throat.
“Wow,” she says, thinks it’s just about the sunset but then something cold and hard settles into the hollows of her collarbone.
She reaches behind and undoes the clasp, holds up a strand of red beads streaked with gold.
“I saw you admiring the bowl,” Klaus says shyly, stares at his feet rather than meet her eyes. “The color will look beautiful against your skin.”
The beads aren’t expensive, but that’s not what matters. She presses her thumb to Klaus’s jaw, angles his face so he has to look into her eyes. “I love them.”
She leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek, pulls back and smiles.
She’s never seen him look so scared.
---
He starts drawing her again.
He shows her a sketch the night before they leave Italy. He looks the way he did on Murano, eyes cast at the floor while she studies the picture.
She’s clothed, sort of, because he’s drawn The Birth of Venus in her likeness.
“It’s wonderful,” she says and his smile warms her from head to toe.
Her cheeks flush and she turns back to the drawing, stares at the girl rising fresh and pure from the sea.
She feels something new is starting.
~ * ~
Writers live for feedback - please leave some if you have the time.
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Caroline, Klaus
Spoiler: “All My Children”
Length: Part II of IV
Summary: Klaus takes Caroline on a trip, but he’s the one to see the world.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.
Part I is here:
Author’s Note:
Couple things:
1. Thank you for the support. I’m having a blast writing this fic and reminiscing about my various trips to Europe, so it’s been a bit of a trip down memory lane for me.
2. I hope it’s cool, but the history nerd in me was so ANNOYED by the flagrant disregard of facts that I rewrote the Originals backstory to better match what actually happened.
3. This fic is looking to be longer than I originally intended. Hope that’s cool too.
Cut courtesy of Sir Winston Churchill. Title courtesy of Massive Attack. Enjoy.
~ * ~
The next morning, Caroline can’t meet Klaus’s eyes.
He’s up before her and leaves the curtains open so bright, blinding light streams in. With the room so well lit, there’s nowhere to hide.
“Good morning,” he says, watches her from his chair. He’s all the way across the room but her cheeks flush from the way he looks at her over his coffee cup.
The night is over but her skin still burns.
---
She gets ready in silence, thankful for the early March weather.
It’s chilly enough for sweaters and she chooses a bulky wool cableknit that hangs to her knees.
Klaus watches her dress.
Even when she’s fully clothed, she still feels naked.
---
Caroline signed up for an adventure with Klaus, but that doesn't mean she wants to spend every waking moment in his company.
He doesn't agree.
“Where are we going?” he asks and pulls on his jacket. She’s added a peacoat and hat and is rummaging through her suitcase for her gloves. Her guidebook is stowed neatly in her purse and her day has already been planned. Her hands still and she straightens.
“I’m spending the day touring the old city.”
Klaus slips a messenger bag over his jacket. “I know the perfect tour guide.”
“I want to be alone.”
Klaus smiles and doesn’t back down. “You wanted to see the world. How could you do it without me?”
She remembers the deal she made, practically wrote the terms in Tyler’s blood. She’s come too far to renege now.
“Fine,” she says, slings her own bag across her chest. “But I get to make the plan.”
His smile only widens. “You always do.”
---
She soon realizes that traveling with Klaus is really a trip down memory lane - his memory lane.
When he sulks or pouts or stares at her with heated eyes, it’s easy to forget he’s lived for over a thousand years. When they’re confronted with history, she can’t ignore the lives he’s lived.
They’re touring the Forum when he stops beside a massive arch, his mouth compressed into a thin line.
Her guidebook tells her that it’s the Arch of Titus, erected in the first century AD in honor of the emperor’s victory during the Siege of Jerusalem. She watches his expression change as they take in the arch’s southern panel.
“I was there,” he says softly, reaches out to run his fingers over the candelabra. “My legion was the one to cut them down.”
“You were not in the Roman military.” She doesn’t believe him, even when he looks at her with those sorrowful eyes.
“Yes, I was. I was young, strong, and there was great wealth in the East.”
“What was it like?”
“Violent. Brutal. Wonderful.” Nostalgia fills his voice and a hint of a smile curves his mouth.
“How could it be brutal and wonderful?”
The smile widens. “There was gold and jewels. More than enough food.” She shudders because she knows exactly what - who - he fed on. “It was hard to walk away.”
“But you did.”
“Yes, eventually. It was…enough.”
They fall into silence and she studies the images carved into ancient stone. In a thousand years, she’ll have more than marble to tell her stories.
“Were you ever in the army?” She finally asks, wonders what other monuments to his past that Klaus has left behind.
He doesn’t take his eyes from the arch. “No.”
“Why not?” He’s going to live forever; she assumes he’d spend years amongst the spoils of war.
He turns to her and his eyes darken in the sunlight. “I’d had enough death in my life.”
He abandons the arch, stalks towards the Temple of Vesta. Caroline hurries after him, twists her ring so the lapis lazuli digs into her skin.
There will always be death in their lives.
---
The stories keep coming.
He tells her about chariot rides in the Circus Maximus and worshipping at the Pantheon. They tour the Colosseum and he points to one of the gates, casually mentions the lion that tried to devour him.
“It was terrified,” he says, that familiar nostalgic smile playing over his lips. “I could hear its heartbeat but it couldn’t feel mine. And then it was nothing at all.”
Caroline tries to imagine Klaus in leather and steel, ceding the role of predator so he could play the prey. She can’t picture it, even when he’s smiling; she knows the pain he can inflict. “Who won?” she asks even though she already knows the answer.
“I’m still here,” he tells her, casts his eyes towards the gate. “No matter what they unleashed, I remained.”
She lets him take her elbow and steer her to the exit. She wants to get out of this place. She doesn’t want to feel his past.
---
He documents everything.
Wherever she goes, no matter how she looks, he’s there with his Nikon clicking away.
“What are you doing?” she asks on their third day in the city, as she pushes through a crowd of German tourists to meet him at the bottom of the Spanish Steps.
He holds the camera to his eye and snaps a photo so close to her face it will highlight every pore. She knows better than to argue; he’ll follow up that one bad photo with ten more. “I’m taking pictures of you.”
“Yeah, but why? Are you really going to look at these again?”
He lowers the camera, fiddles with the lens cap. “Maybe, maybe not. But you’ll want them to keep.”
“I just don’t get why you care.”
“You’ll see Rome a thousand times before you die, but it will never be like your first time. Memories fade. Here’s your proof that it happened this way.”
He’s no longer looking at the camera because he’s looking right at her. The intensity in his gaze is unnerving, how closely he’s studying her with those blue eyes, but she doesn’t break the contact.
No matter the passage of time, she’ll never forget this trip.
---
They share a joke outside St. Peter’s Basilica.
Caroline keeps shifting from foot to foot as they wait in line, biting her lip as they creep closer to the entrance.
“What’s wrong?” Klaus asks.
She glances left, glances right, then speaks at a volume she hopes only he can hear. “We’re about to walk inside a church. Are you sure we’re not going to burst into flames?”
He laughs, rich and full. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
He keeps laughing, so close to genuine that she joins in with him.
It feels more natural than it should.
---
He keeps drawing her, eyes hot as they caress her naked skin.
When she wakes in the morning, she meets his gaze.
---
Klaus provides everything but nourishment, and after a week she fakes an injury and compels her way into the hospital’s blood bank.
She takes enough blood to last them both for a month, but he isn’t alone when she comes back to the hotel.
There’s a slender brunette perched on his lap, two bite marks marring the long column of her throat. When he smiles, his teeth are stained with blood.
“Welcome home, love,” he drawls, strokes the girl’s hair back from her neck. “Hungry?”
At first, all she can do is stare. Then, she remembers: this isn’t a pleasure trip. This is Tyler’s life in her hands, and Klaus is still Klaus.
She flings her bag onto her bed and puts her hands on her hips. “Are you serious?”
He shrugs, sinks his fangs into the girl’s jugular. “You must be starving.”
The blood smells delicious and she can feel her own fangs sliding down over her bottom lip, but she pushes them back. She’s not like him.
“Stop it now!” The girl’s eyes are rolling back in her head and her skin is a sickly shade of pale. This isn’t a pleasure trip, but Caroline also doesn’t want to spend her evening disposing of bodies.
Klaus doesn’t stop and his eyes slide closed as his victim’s skin bleaches to pure white. Caroline zips across the room, yanks the girl away from him. He doesn’t fight back, but does lick his lips and cross his arms across his chest.
Caroline hurriedly bites into her own arm, dribbles a few drops of blood into the girl’s mouth. Her color starts to return after a moment or two, and Caroline looks deep into her eyes. “You were never here. Your study session ran late and you’re just getting home.”
The girl looks at her with blank eyes and walks, trancelike, to the door. Caroline turns to Klaus immediately after it closes. His arms are still crossed and he’s sulking in his chair like a little boy.
She doesn’t fall for his act this time.
“What were you thinking?” she scolds. “We can’t kill people!”
“Why not?” She stares at him incredulously. “We’re vampires,” he reminds her. “Blood is life.”
She stalks to her bed, opens her bag and tosses a blood bag at him. “If you’re hungry, eat up.”
He wrinkles his nose and tosses the bag aside. “I prefer mine fresh.”
“Not with me.” She closes her eyes, the weight of that carnival worker’s death still heavy on her heart. “We might be vampires but that doesn’t make us better than them.”
“Of course it does.”
She knows he’s right. She’s stronger, smarter, comes equipped with better senses. But she’s not ready to flip the switch. “I…I can’t do it, okay? And if you’re going to be with me, you can’t do it either.”
His expression changes, his eyes hardening as he gets into her space. “You do remember why you’re here, right?
She glares at him, Tyler’s face flashing before her eyes. “How could I ever forget?”
His expression shifts again. She keeps her chin up, doesn’t back down. She won’t feel sorry for protecting someone she loves; she won’t let him lose sight of why she’s here.
“I’m tired,” he says and pushes away from her, opens the door to the balcony. Cool night air filters in as he steps outside, but it doesn’t dull the tension filling the room.
He’s still outside when she gets in bed, the long line of his back curved over the balcony railing. She rolls to her side and closes her eyes. His guilt isn’t her problem.
She tries to sleep but can’t stop waiting for the scratch of charcoal over his sketchpad.
It never comes.
---
There’s a Fendi purse waiting on her bed when she gets home the next afternoon.
It’s ridiculously expensive and the size of her travel bag and she once spent an hour staring at it in an issue of Vogue.
There’s a note too. It says I’m sorry in Klaus’s strange, flowery script but it doesn’t make her feel very forgiving.
Instead, she takes a steadying breath to keep the veins from flaring in her cheeks and calmly goes to the corner store to buy kerosene and matches.
She waits until she hears his keycard in the door before dropping the purse in a trashcan and lighting the match.
Her eyes match the blaze when he comes inside. “I told you once: you can’t buy me off.”
His eyes sag but hers keep burning bright. “I saw you admiring it the other day. I’m sorry about last night.”
“When are you going to learn? It’s the thought that counts, not the price tag.” She shakes her head in disgust and storms onto the balcony.
She lets him clean up the mess.
---
She books tickets to Florence the next morning.
They dress and pack in silence and she leaves his ticket on his bed when she goes out to throw one last coin in the Trevi Fountain. Rome is eternal, but she wants a guarantee that she is too.
They don’t talk on the train ride either, and she alternates between reading her history textbook and watching the Tuscan countryside.
An Italian spring is beautiful, but she wants that diploma and forces herself through the origins of civilization.
“Hey!” she squeals as she rereads a passage about the Punic Wars. “You lied to me.”
If he’s surprised that she’s speaking to him, he doesn’t let on. His tone, though, is annoyed. “I have done many things, Caroline, but I have never lied to you.”
She shakes her head and shoves the book into his face. “I know about the cave. If you became a vampire a thousand years ago, there’s no way you were alive in ancient Rome.”
He laughs and leans back in his seat. His smile lights up his face and for a moment she forgets about the night before. In his long-sleeved tee and jeans he looks like a college student during a semester abroad. She likes him more this way.
“I already told you, Caroline. You can’t believe everything you read.”
“But your family - ”
“Did you never wonder how a group of Eastern Europeans were living in Virginia half a century before colonization?”
She blushes and stares at her lap. Until Elena told her the story of Katerina Petrova, she thought Bulgaria used to be part of Yugoslavia.
“But the runes…”
“My father was partial to Old Norse.”
“And Bonnie’s ancestor?”
He takes her history book and opens to a map of the Roman Empire. It spans all of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa too. He traces a line from Thrace to Ghana to Constantinople. “Ayana was real but she didn’t set the original curse. That came later, when my mother realized she could no longer control us.”
“So why the fake history?”
He shrugs. “When there’s no one left to remember, who’s to say what’s really true?”
"But the drawings, the photos...you know what really happened."
"Memories are ours to keep, but history is what you make of it."
Before she can stop him, he’s tossing her book out the window. “What are you doing?” She doesn't care that her voice is hysterical. She needs that book to pass the class.
He grasps her shoulders and turns her to face him. She glances into calm blue eyes and some of the panic eases. He’s going to fix this, she knows he will. “You don’t need that book. I was there. Let me be your history.”
She knows she should protest. After all, he just revealed that everything she knows about him are lies. And he did try and kill a girl the other night. But she remembers the Klaus she saw in the Forum and Colosseum, the Klaus who didn’t hold back about the man he was and the world he created.
She tells herself she’d rather watch the scenery than bury her nose in a book. She pretends it’s anything but the light in his eyes when he tells her about the lives he’s lived.
---
Caroline likes Florence more than Rome.
It’s less ancient, but it still feels old and proud. There’s history here, even if it’s a different kind.
They take a walking tour on their first morning and visit the Uffizi in the afternoon. It’s sprawling and enormous and Klaus uses it as an excuse to tell her about the Renaissance.
He hated the Medicis, but loves the art they patronized. They stop for a moment beside the Birth of Venus and Caroline tries to see what’s so incredible about it. There’s a naked blonde girl and a bunch of cherubs and it’s entirely two-dimensional. She really doesn't get it.
“She’s based on Rebekah,” Klaus tells her.
Caroline rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
That warm, familiar smile curves his mouth. “Would I ever lie to you?”
Caroline takes a closer look. There’s not much resemblance to Rebakah, but it is a painting of a woman with people waiting on her hand and foot. “Well, she is the center of attention. I guess I can see it.”
His hand strokes her back. She returns his smile.
---
They’re finishing their tour when a woman comes over and taps Klaus on the shoulder.
Caroline flinches, hopes he doesn’t ruin what’s been an otherwise lovely day. She relaxes when he turns to the woman with a bright smile.
“Yes?”
The woman’s accent is thick, Midwestern American and she’s actually wearing a fanny pack around her middle. Caroline suppresses urge to laugh; they’re not called stereotypes for nothing.
“I just wanted to say, my husband and I overheard you discussing the paintings and if you’re not already a teacher, you should consider a career in education. The way you talk about the art…it’s like you were really there.”
Klaus bites his lip to keep from laughing, but is entirely gracious while he thanks the woman and shakes hands with her husband.
They both dissolve into laughter when the couple walks away. Everything about it feels right.
---
They don’t need regular food, but they do start each day with a morning coffee.
Caroline likes the ritual, watching people start their day and cities come alive.
Klaus watches her while she gulps down cup after cup.
It does little to calm her nerves.
---
They have an early entry to the Galleria dell’Accademia and Klaus tries to hurry her though breakfast.
She glares at him and takes a defiant sip of her coffee. Time ticks by and he taps his foot restlessly as she moves into her third cup.
“Enough,” he finally says and grabs her wrist to drag her to the feet. “Let’s go.”
They start down the sidewalk but she’s resistant. She remembers all those times Matt complained about poor tips at the Grille. They haven’t even paid their bill.
“We need to pay.”
Klaus’s eyes take on a deviant light and he signals to the waitress. “Compel her,” he whispers in Caroline’s ear.
“Why? We can afford it.”
He pulls her tighter against him so that his mouth moves against her ear. “Maybe today, but there will come a day when you’ll need to lie. Practice makes perfect.”
“No,” she insists and twists out of his grip. She smiles at the waitress, but doesn’t take her eyes off Klaus as she drops a five Euro note onto the table.
He’s not wrong, but today isn’t that day.
---
When she sees David in all his glory, all she can say is, “Oh, my.”
It would be one thing to view a giant, naked man with Elena or Bonnie, to go home and compare notes about the statute and the boys in their lives, but she’s not here with one of her girlfriends.
“Impressive, isn’t he?” Klaus says and she’s acutely aware of his presence at her side. He’s lean and muscled, not unlike the sculpture before her.
“Uh huh,” she manages to say when she makes the mistake of turning to answer the question.
There’s a knowing smile curving his lips.
It dares her to see how he compares.
---
She raids another hospital before they depart for Cinque Terre.
Klaus even offers to help.
He grimaces the entire time but downs his bag without protest.
---
She loves Venice more than Rome and Florence combined.
It’s crumbling and smells funky and might fall into the sea at any moment, but it’s different than any place she’s ever seen before.
They spend the first day wandering the streets, crossing canals and getting lost in back alleys.
They don’t talk much, but every time their eyes meet, she sees a smile there.
---
They end the day with a gondola ride through the Grand Canal.
There's only one seat, backed by a giant red heart. It's the last place Caroline wants to sit, but she holds her head high as the gondolier helps her into the boat and she settles against Klaus's chest.
He's firm and muscled but fits perfectly against her back.
It's way less awkward than it should be.
---
He takes her to Murano on their third day. St. Mark’s Basilica and the surrounding square are lovely, but she’s getting tired of churches and museums.
The Museo Vetrario is another museum, but the glass is a nice change of scenerey. Klaus hovers behind as she roams open-mouthed through the museum. She’s sure he’s seen these pieces a hundred times before, but he never complains.
Her favorite exhibit is a giant red bowl woven through with strands of gold. She’s always been partial to the color, but she knows it’s more than that: the crimson glass is deep and rich, like the blood that defines her existence.
She shivers and turns away, moves onto a display of blue and green vases.
She likes the way they remind her of life.
---
They’re heading back to the ferry when Klaus comes up behind her and rests his hands on her waist.
“Stop for a moment,” he tells her and she halts in her tracks. The setting sun is gorgeous and she no longer has breath but she remembers what it felt like, to see something so stunning that it catches in her throat.
“Wow,” she says, thinks it’s just about the sunset but then something cold and hard settles into the hollows of her collarbone.
She reaches behind and undoes the clasp, holds up a strand of red beads streaked with gold.
“I saw you admiring the bowl,” Klaus says shyly, stares at his feet rather than meet her eyes. “The color will look beautiful against your skin.”
The beads aren’t expensive, but that’s not what matters. She presses her thumb to Klaus’s jaw, angles his face so he has to look into her eyes. “I love them.”
She leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek, pulls back and smiles.
She’s never seen him look so scared.
---
He starts drawing her again.
He shows her a sketch the night before they leave Italy. He looks the way he did on Murano, eyes cast at the floor while she studies the picture.
She’s clothed, sort of, because he’s drawn The Birth of Venus in her likeness.
“It’s wonderful,” she says and his smile warms her from head to toe.
Her cheeks flush and she turns back to the drawing, stares at the girl rising fresh and pure from the sea.
She feels something new is starting.
~ * ~
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