YAY NOTES: For Anne, who prompted this so long ago I can't even remember what her prompt was—all I know is that I was cleaning out my laptop and there was seven pages of this and I couldn't just leave it there. This is also for DJ, because holy shit she just updated you've a lazy laugh and a red white shirt; someone throw her a parade or something where there is confetti and pie and a bunch of people on their laptops and tablets liveblogging the whole thing.

Since I wrote the first part of this so long ago I barely remember the setting I had in mind, but in writing and re-writing this, I figured out that it's definitely before Elena gets her humanity back. I think it goes AU pretty much after the prom episode, because in this fic Silas isn't the one to trick Elijah into giving up the cure, but Klaus is. Also, I wrote this prior to finding out that Silas can only enchant one mind at a time. ALSO prior to finding out that he's some sexy ass Stefan doppelganger. So can we just pretend it never happened for the sake of this fic? Plz and thank.

I'd been leaving teasers sporadically on my tumblr and thought, you know what, this isn't fair to Anne, she asked for fic and I'm going to give it to her.

So yeah – kick your feet up, take a shot if you need to, read this goddamn fic of mine, and let me know what you think?

at home with a ghost (who got left in the cold)

1. you were a stranger in my phonebook i was acting like i knew

...

.

i.

There's nothing to see for miles around. Anticipation swells in his chest, dulled by the ache of sharp steel and poisoned dust. He keeps his eyes closed, not that it makes a difference.

Elijah is indifferent to the darkness—he's lived in it, dreamt in it, light and sound blurring in and out of an unyielding mist about him as the white oak dagger lays buried in his chest. Sometimes he moves as if he could still be held within those dreams, disappearing into the night as though cloaked in it; his steps light and fluid as he walks through hallways, a flick of his hand and bones lay shattered at his feet.

It is the shadows that cause a stirring in his chest, something like fear, he thinks—something an Original should not be accustomed to feeling. He opens his eyes, not exactly sure what he's trying to prove, and walks on.

Darkness extends its familiar hand and he moves with it, but the shadows—forever shifting, forever whispering—leave him with an almost out-of-body experience.

Is that you, Henrik? One hand grasps the dagger in his chest and the other clawing at corners that seemed so solid and so real moments ago. He hears footsteps and a child's laughter, but no answering call. He turns and sees Niklaus stepping out from behind pillars, the slant of his cheekbones cutting through the dark, and his brother whistles and his brother grins, and his brother asks, "I'm going home. Coming this time?"

Finn would put a hand on his shoulder, his eyes hooded from years of being just a distant memory, his smile a line cut into cracked marble. Elijah tears at the hand on his shoulder, but Finn is not there, and neither is Henrik. He looks back at Niklaus, back at blood that is his but eyes that are someone else's, and says, "Yes."

Elijah wakes up to Rebekah grasping the white oak dagger in both hands, with an expression in her eyes that does not match the tilt of her lips.

One should not look so grim when smiling. In the dim light of the room she looks so much like Niklaus, and Elijah can't help it—he shudders.

.

.

He has his first shower in what Rebekah tells him has been weeks. Nik kept you pretty well hidden, she tells him, "Which is why it took me so long to find you."

He doesn't mind, touched as he is that she was so adamant on her quest to find him. He touches the hollow space in his chest, berating himself for even letting Klaus jump him as soon as he'd gotten home from Rebekah's prom.

"You really need to stop falling for that," his sister rolls her eyes.

Rebekah brings a steaming teapot of Russian tea with dark cherry preserves into his room; butters scones and tells him all the things he's missed out on over the sound of rushing water. The hot water feels good running through his hair, untangling the knots at the base of his neck, gliding down his stiff back.

Three weeks, he reminds himself. He's had worse. And Finn, he's had far worse.

But a dagger in the chest is still a dagger in the chest.

"You should have just given him the cure," Rebekah says, after spiking her tea with O negative. The poisoned dagger lies beside her saucer, and she's careful not to scrape her finger against it as she reaches for the sugar bowl. "He doesn't take too lightly to your trying to rehab some sense into him."

Elijah says nothing, just searches for something presentable to wear after his shower. He fervently hopes that Rebekah has had the sense to press some of his suits while he'd been… indisposed. He glances over at her. She's stirring her tea with all the airs and graces he'd taught her in the 17th century.

Noticing her Elijah staring, Rebekah hops to her feet and pulls out a jacket for him. Navy, clean lines and two buttons. "I've always liked how your shoulders look in these." She hands it to him and he takes it without a word. "We've got to feel and look our best when we go get our brothers back."

His sister almost laughs at the bewildered look on his face. "You sure have missed a lot."

.

.

It turns out Niklaus had been holding out on the cure all along, hadn't traded it off someplace somewhere as he'd told them. He snarls and growls and spits from his restraints, and Elijah smirks up at him. Niklaus' wrath looks absolutely laughable when he's being hung upside down in chains from his ankles, and the blood crosscutting across his face adds to the comedy of it all.

("I've had hundreds of years of practice—I am perfectly capable of inflicting pain," Rebekah tells Elijah with a gleeful look in her eyes. She places another vervain-soaked nail in Klaus' stomach and smiles as he screams at her.)

"I'm through playing your games, Niklaus," Elijah tells him. If his younger brother would just stop his yowling, he can concentrate enough to reflect on how the hilt of the white oak dagger had embedded itself into his flesh. The force in which Niklaus had rammed it into him. His fingers curl into a fist he keeps hidden in his pockets. "Where did you hide the cure?"

When Klaus merely spits a string of profanity in response, Elijah gives a nod and a serene Rebekah buries another nail in him.

.

.

It takes hours, and as Elijah had predicted, it takes days. Klaus screams, Klaus howls, and for a brief moment when Elijah gets a little too carried away, he sees the beginnings of tears in his brother's eyes, hot and ready to well and break. He drops the stake he's holding, something in his chest twisting and stretching, images of Mikael he'd rather not see flashing before his eyes.

He leaves Klaus in the care of Rebekah, but it still doesn't drown out the screaming.

.

.

Klaus is weak, but still so petulant, still jerks away when Rebekah unchains him and says It's for your own good, you know. To which Klaus, with blood wetting his chin, had responded with, "I'd rather be haunted by Silas."

As Rebekah lifts the vial up to the light she responds, "You just might, after I down this like tequila."

Elijah frowns at her. Rebekah sighs, places it in his hand with some hesitance. "Kidding," she says shortly.

At the look on his face, she scoffs, turning away. Her humanity (or lack thereof) is a price to pay for the return of their brothers, and she refuses to acknowledge it as a small one.

.

.

ii.

The town is too quiet; no Salvatores running around with questionable tasks in mind, and surprisingly in their absence, no Elenas wreaking havoc. He steps on pavements and walks through alleyways, and finds no hormonal teenage vampires skulking around either.

Silas however, is another story—still lurking, still trying to get his hands on the cure. Elijah finds him in a coffee shop one morning and buys him a banana-walnut muffin. The age-old witch in the form of Finn now (which Elijah finds rather unsettling, but forces himself not to think about it by sipping his coffee and focusing on the mole on Finn's neck that Silas had managed to get just right), sniffs at it dubiously.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" Silas asks, closing Finn's mouth around the muffin.

Elijah sets down the dainty china. He doesn't have time for pleasantries, not today. "I have the cure. I'm willing to give it to you."

"In exchange for?" Silas chews on his muffin, crumbs dusting his lips. It's a fairly endearing sight, but Elijah does not smile.

"You're a powerful witch."

"And that amounts to nothing without the cure, or the Bennett witch." Silas swallows and smiles. "If you are willing to give me both I might be willing to give you what you want."

Elijah rests his chin lightly on his right hand, left hand tracing the damask of the tablecloth. "I want my brothers back."

"Hello, brother," Silas grins. At the dark look on Elijah's face, the grin slides off his lips. "Fine. Finn and Kol. And Henrik too, I suppose. You will get them back. You will get all of them back. Mikael and Esther as well." Silas makes Finn's dimple disappear in mock-confusion. "A happy little family reunion, so I do not understand."

"Let me enlighten you." Elijah leans back and places a hand on the breast pocket of his suit jacket, and Silas' breath hitches in his throat ever so quietly when he notices the lump beneath the fabric. "I want my brothers back. Only them. I'll give you the cure, you'll be reunited with your lover—but only if you seal up the veil after you've gone through it."

"Crossing the veil isn't like tearing a hole in fabric and stepping through it. It's a whole separate entity on its own." Silas picks up his muffin again. "What you're asking is entirely impossible, I'm afraid."

"Then so will your chances of ever being reunited with your long-dead love."

"You do realize," Silas says while leaning forward, "that I can reach out one hand and rip the cure right out of your chest, beating heart and all?"

"Do you think me so foolish as to bring the cure along with me?" Elijah reaches inside his breast pocket and pulls out the thing that had caught Silas' attention so. It's a pack of orange TicTacs, courtesy of Rebekah. "Would you like one? Magic or no, you still manage to capture my brother's halitosis vividly."

Silas glowers. This time Elijah does crack a smile, because he looks so much like the Finn he remembers then.

.

.

When Elijah returns, the house feels considerably warmer, the light shafting through the floor-to-ceiling windows and bursting through the silky white draperies much brighter.

"Nik left for a bit; don't know where he went," Rebekah says in lieu of a greeting when he finds her in the garden, hair adorned with those flower crowns girls her age (or girls she was pretending to share an age with) like, feet bare and buried in the green grass. Despite blooming like a spring rose, she still has the white oak dagger clenched tightly in her hands.

He says nothing about that, and Rebekah doesn't notice him looking because she's wrapped up in her own monologue. She lifts an ankle, shakes some leaves off of it. "To lick his wounds, no doubt. Took Caroline with him, or so I heard."

That would explain the absence—the teeny boppers had all gone on some search party. Elijah contemplates joining his sister (perhaps bring a stool with him first; grass stains in Armani cost a fortune to get out), but thinks better of it and goes back inside.

The sky burns blue, and in such glorious weather even Rebekah can't afford to look sad.

.

.

Silas appears in the armchair in the corner of Elijah's study, drumming his fingers together. He takes the form of Kol, but this time Elijah merely hums his assent. (He'd had the room decorated with Kol in mind anyway, a section of the room dedicated solely to his brother's fascination with old age biblical texts.)

"Don't you want to know what Finn and I are up to on the other side?"

The Original places a bookmark in the grimoire he'd been perusing. "I'm sure you're having a hell of a time." He tries not to look gleeful as Silas scowls. Petulant child.

"Your jokes are terrible. I suppose you'd want to know how it goes."

Elijah shrugs. After poking around his bookshelf for a while, Silas says, resignation heavy in his voice, that such a spell would require great magic. But Elijah had been expecting that, hadn't he? Oh, and what a spell it was. And as it were with great magic, comes great sacrifice.

"Blood, I'm assuming?" Elijah says, sitting at the edge of his Rosewood desk. Nothing that would shock Silas, surely. The age-old witch had done everything short of bathing in a river of blood—but even that remained questionable.

"Not much." He's perplexed. Elijah asks why.

"All in due time." Silas says gravely. It's an odd look on Kol. Elijah finds that he misses the mirth and laughter Kol always seemed to carry with him.

Silas looks up from his dancing fingers to find Elijah's eyes. "Family above all. Those are your words, I believe."

Elijah meets his gaze levelly. "Yes."

"So you'd be willing to do anything for them."

He thinks of Klaus, with tears masked as sweat running down his face. "Always and forever."

And so it goes.

.

.

iii.

The sun rises just as the plane dips ever so slightly, and Caroline's face is illuminated with whispers of golden rays. Her eyelashes flutter against the light and her head shifts against the rest, but never into Klaus' waiting shoulder.

Not that he'd expected her to, but after the week he'd had it would have been more than welcome.

Klaus runs a hand down his face and gestures for more wine; the air hostess is more than happy to oblige. The fabric of her sleeve brushes against his as she's pouring, and she nods her head to Caroline. "Her first time flying?"

Klaus turns and sees the fraction of Caroline's fingers peeking out from under the blanket; feels something rising in his chest at the way Caroline grips her arm rest so tightly despite being sound asleep. Her other hand is draped loosely around the blanket covering her knees, which are drawn to her chest. Klaus never once doubts that she's uncomfortable in the heated leather seats, just as he doesn't doubt that this is her first time flying in a private jet, or first time flying period.

"She'll be fine," he says and leans back in his seat, raising his glass expectantly. On cue, the air hostess retrieves a blade from her pocket and slashes her wrist, and her blood drips down into his glass "Thank you, Maria," Klaus says after an amount he deems satisfactory. She responds in a rather faint voice and leaves, drawing the curtains after her.

"You are disgusting."

"Caroline," Klaus says jubilantly, propping his feet up. "You're awake, fantastic. Sleep well?"

Caroline stretches as much as she can, paying no mind to the way his eyes track the length of her neck. "Considering the fact that I was kidnapped the night of my graduation and spent the last few hours handcuffed to my chair, pretty good."

"You came willingly," Klaus points out.

Caroline pulls off the blanket covering her arm, and tugs hard on the chain. "Does this look willing to you?"

Klaus switches seats so he's opposite her, inviting her to rest her feet on his knees. She just draws her knees closer to her chest. Sighing, he studies her. "You don't look as angry as I thought you would."

"I've had some hours to ruminate," says Caroline cattily, and looks out the window, takes in the sunrise. Her face is a golden glow, and she looks a vision with her rumpled hair and wrapped in a hand-loomed cashmere blanket that Klaus has to catch his breath—until she opens her mouth, and the moment is ruined. "What's taking so long, anyway? And did you bring me here to play out some twisted kink you have or something?"

"Sorry love, safety precautions." He tips his head back for a sip of his drink. Caroline tries not to stare. At this, Klaus holds his drink out to her, and at first she glares at him—before deflating and nods, give it here.

Klaus raises his eyebrows.

Caroline pushes out a sharp breath through her nose and intones, "May I have some, please."

Klaus knows Caroline is the sort of girl who knows what a shit-eating grin looks like, and, Klaus apologizes, truly he does, but there's one on his face his face as he leans forward and tilts his glass to her lips, and she catches his wrist to steady herself as she drinks deep. After she's had her fill, she turns her eyes on him. Her top lip is stained dark red, but Klaus doesn't bother pointing it out (he rather enjoys the colour on her).

"What do you mean safety precaution?"

"For my benefit, when I tell you why our flight is eight hours instead of two." Klaus swirls the blood in his glass, his mouth a straight line. Here we go. "Change of plans, we're not going to New Orleans."

"What?" Caroline asks sharply.

"I'm on the run, Caroline. When on the run, one must refrain from doing predictable things," Klaus says, slowly and carefully, eyebrows bobbing on each word he stressed.

Caroline's eyes widen as her breathing quickens just the slightest. "So you did kidnap me."

Klaus' face scrunches up as he mulls this over. "More or less, yeah. Don't worry though—left a note for your little friends. I suspect they're looking for you somewhere in New York."

Caroline flicks the glass of Merlot and blood right in his face.

Looking back, he supposed he deserved that.

.

.

They land in Heathrow, and Klaus finds he has to handle their luggage by himself because uncooperative Caroline keeps glaring at people bundled up in coats and mufflers and animal-faced beanies.

She's dressed for warmer weather, for swamp air frizzing in her hair, for tongues stained red from cherry popsicles. For lounging in hammocks with ice-cold Cokes, sweat just starting to drip onto her bare stomach; for licking her arms clean after eating half a watermelon all by herself.

Klaus realizes he's been staring a beat longer than he should be, and goes to relinquish his coat to drape around her shoulders. It's not for the benefit of the cold, but mostly to keep up appearances – and mostly to abate the pointed glares of the elderly woman standing next to him.

Caroline doesn't shy away when he stands close enough to brush his fingers down her bare arms as he's dressing her in his coat, but doesn't look at him either. With his jaw set, he steps away. I brought you here, he wants to tell her. Paris, Rome, Tokyo, he hadn't been lying – she can have it all. This is just a short detour, he wants to tell her, but she doesn't look particularly interested in having a conversation right about now.

He offers to show her around, but she scoffs and turns her back on him.

He has to stow his hands in his pockets to stop him from grabbing the nearest person by the throat. He could see it all—the choking, the tears collecting in the corners of their eyes when their airway gets blocked bit by frightening bit, the grasping, the way her cheeks colour and her eyes flash when she realizes what he's perfectly fine with doing, the people staring be damned – the way his teeth gnash together, Smile, Caroline, or so help me I will rip—

"Sir?" His driver steps up then, hat tucked in the crook of his arm. He had the air of dutiful obedience about him, shoes polished so shiny it rivalled the airport's marble flooring. Henry was a good man, which is probably why Klaus hadn't eaten him yet. "I trust you had a pleasant flight?"

Klaus pulls his hands out of his pockets slowly. Flexes his hands. "Pleasant enough."

.

.

iv.

"Should we book a flight to Cornwall, or should we drive?"

Caroline stares out the window, steadily ignoring him.

It's begun to rain. Her forehead rests ever so lightly on the glass, and she looks like she'd rather be outside, tasting the raindrops on her tongue. He wonders how that would look, if her hair would change colour from gold to wheat, if it would still feel as silky if he runs his hands through them. Wonders if she would shiver in the rain, still wrapped in his coat.

But for now—

"Caroline," he prompts.

"Are you actually being honest about our next destination now?" Caroline says to the window. "Really Klaus, I'm honoured."

Klaus glowers. Things had been going so well last night. Graduation, saving her and her gang of misfits. The mini fridge. "I couldn't exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind for Elijah to find, can I?"

After all, his brother is nothing but a one-track man he doesn't add. The slightest whiff and he'd be off like a Mastiff unchained.

"He's resourceful," Caroline says, sounding hopeful. "He'll find me – us – either way."

"Perhaps," Klaus says, "but don't count on it. One time, I went five hundred years without once crossing his path."

What was it he'd said? Don't come back – don't you dare show your face here until you've found Katerina – no, don't give me that look. How unbecoming.

And Elijah had fled, without a glance back. He still thinks about it, sometimes. Becoming a ghost in your own home, waiting for him to come back, years into decades into centuries of betrayal carved into the mortar.

It had been a pleasure to watch the place burn.

It had gone up in a swirling pall of smoke, rolls of grey and black engulfing the night. Too late, brother - you can come home, but there will be no home for you to come back to.

The sound of denim moving against leather as Caroline moves away from the window shakes him out of his reverie. Her hands return to her spoon, stirring her now-cold soup in its bowl. She's tired, he knows. She'd slept on the plane, but before that had spent hours and hours and hours staring out the window, looking very small.

The rain falls harder, and Klaus almost misses when Caroline asks, "How are you so sure that it wasn't Elijah's intention all along?"

"Of course it wasn't," Klaus replies, but it sounds harsh in his ears – too quick, too defensive. "He'd betrayed me; he was desperate to get back in my good graces—"

But Caroline just shrugs. "I don't know about you, but it sounds like he got a much-needed five-century vacation. From you."

Very carefully, Klaus sets down his fork and knife. The stainless steel doesn't even make a sound when it meets varnished mahogany. "If I'd known you were going to be this much trouble, I would have just stopped at the mini fridge."

"If I'd known kidnapping and veiled threats was part of your grand scheme to show me the world," Caroline says just as placidly, "I would have just searched for bus tickets on Groupon."

Klaus knows what she's doing, this – this irritating insistence on being difficult. She wants to set him off, wants to see him bare his teeth and snap necks like twigs, but that had always been Damon's style, hadn't it? He much prefers going at them with his teeth. She ought to know by now.

He takes a breath, not deep enough to soothe, but enough to calm the temper rising in him. He asks, again, "Cornwall. Flight or drive."

Caroline pushes her clam chowder away. "We just got off a plane. I want to see the sights."

It's a six hour drive, eight if there's traffic. He can already imagine the mundane small talk and her knees pointed away from him.

Remind him again how he thought bringing her along while he is on the run was such a good idea?

He gestures for the bill, and when they're waiting for Henry to bring the car around, he holds his coat over her to keep her out of the rain. She glances at him from under her lashes, and do you really need to look so surprised, darling? It must have shown in his own eyes, because she sends him a smile. A small one, but it's enough for him to make sure she remains dry the whole time they walk towards the car.

Her smile grows bigger with something almost like wonder, when he pulls out some notes that – lo behold – aren't green but in fact came in many colours to tip Henry.

And this, he remembers, this is why.

.

.

Once the luggage is safely in the car, and once Henry's procured an umbrella for Caroline, Klaus gives Henry the day off. The poor man looks confused, unsure of what to do now that he doesn't have to wait at the beck and call of a moody man and his indifferent companion, no doubt. "Are you quite sure, sir?"

"Henry," Klaus says, very nearly exasperated, "you have been driving me around for years. When have I ever had to repeat myself?"

"Never." Henry grins at him, at them, and puts his hands behind his back. Klaus knows what he's thinking and narrows his eyes; you drive me, not dissect my personal life.

Henry clears his throat and gives an awkward sort of salute, three fingers instead of two. "Have a nice stay, sir. And you, miss. It'll take a while to adjust to the weather – even Cornwall gets the chills."

"I have a coat," Caroline says, and waves her hand. His coat is big enough that its sleeves flap around her fingertips. "I'm good."

"Good," Klaus says. "Just one last thing—" and then he has Henry by the arm and looking directly into his eyes, "You woke up early today to come pick me up, but I never showed up. You waited, an hour, two hours, before finally deciding to go home. You left the car at my townhouse and decided to walk the rest of the way home."

Henry nods, rather dazedly, and walks away. His suit darkens in the rain and he doesn't even glance back.

Caroline looks appalled. "Dude, what the hell? You gave him the day off and then made him walk home? In the rain?"

"With any luck, he'll catch pneumonia and will be too sick to be interrogated," Klaus hums, sliding into his seat. He straightens the seat, checks the rear-view mirror – it's been a while since he's driven on this side of the road.

Caroline's still standing in the rain.

He sighs. "Aren't you coming, love?"

Caroline tilts her umbrella back, just a little. Her eyebrows are furrowed. "Where are we going? I thought we were going see London? Take in the sights? I mean, yeah, you've probably been here like a bajillion times, but – the book says by train it's only two stops away to…"

"Caroline," Klaus says quietly.

"…and I wanted to see Big Ben, maybe go up the London's Eye thing if the line's not too long? And wear black! I mean, everyone here's so gloomy, I love it – like, hello guv'nah, are you well acquainted with colour?" She's gushing now, spouting things she must have only seen in movies, only read about in books. He wants to pull her into the car, gently now, and tell her that it's called the London Eye, and No, love, he wants to tell her, no one actually talks like that.

He wants to show her around, he really does. He wants to watch the way she looks when the street lamps light up as they walk along the river, watch her take it all in, but this is Elijah's territory. This is where Rebekah buys her shoes, ridiculous amounts of them. Anyone, from the cobblers to the brisk-walking pedestrians, the men in sweeping coats and children in sensible loafers, the shopkeepers peering from behind their displays – anyone could easily ring Rebekah up, anyone could still owe Elijah a favour.

His hands twist around the steering wheel. "Get in the car, Caroline," he says, none too gently.

"I'm not going," she announces. "I've read all those Enid Blyton books. Cornwall sounds boring."

Klaus gets out of the car and slams the door behind him, not caring that the rain is now soaking through his shirt. "Mallory Towers was set in Cornish," he has to shout over the rain, "and that's besides the point. Get. In. The. Car."

Caroline lifts her chin, and her eyes flash. "Or what, you'll make me?"

The wind shifts and a car whizzes by, and great, absolutely fantastic, now they're both drenched with puddle water. He leans close, so close their noses almost touch, and just because they're so close he can count her every individual eyelash, doesn't mean he's above yelling. "Do you really think now's the time to test me?"

Caroline lowers her umbrella useless at her side. "Fine."

"Fine!" she says again, marches to the car and curls up in her seat. He's about to shut the door for her, but she grasps the handle and slams it closed herself.

The afternoon's started to curl in on itself, the sky shifting from a yellowish gray to murky purple as he drives down the road, his sleeves dripping into the leather.

They see Henry, huddled against the wind, shuffling inch by sodden inch down the pavement.

"Breadcrumbs," Klaus reminds her, but Caroline just shifts in her seat, her knees pointed away from him.

.

.

They stop for gas some two hours down the road. It's still raining, but you can't see the rainfall through the dark of the night. The only sign of it is the incessant pitter patter, water drumming down on metal, splashing across windshields.

"You never really told me why you're on the run," Caroline says. She's examining the way he pumps gas, he's pretending he can't feel his gaze on her. He could look over his shoulder and it would be so easy to call her out on it, like what you see, love? – but he's not Kol.

He considers lying, but the day has been long and they're in for an even longer night, and she has keen senses – she'd pick up on his lie the same way she'd picked him apart the night of the ball. So he tells her: "They're not happy that I daggered Elijah."

"Not happy? Is that code for they threw a hissy fit?" Caroline tilts her head. "Or did you?"

Klaus pulls the nozzle out of the tank, taps it a few times. He affects an indifferent expression. Bored, Klaus. You are bored. "There were no hissy fits throws, as you so eloquently put it." Well, there were, if you counted him swearing their demise as he hung from his ankles. "Elijah wanted the cure for Rebekah."

"I thought you wanted it too?"

"No," Klaus says, sliding back into his seat. "I wanted it as leverage. Against Silas."

Caroline raises an eyebrow. "So why didn't you… leverage-ize?"

"That's not a word," he tells her absently as they make their way down the freeway, "and I was waiting for the right moment to strike. One does not survive a thousand years by simply going at it by the nose."

"No, one survives a thousand years by being an indestructible hybrid Original," Caroline says, and it almost sounds like a song. "And you milk it for all it's worth."

She stretches her legs out and kicks off her ankle boots. She has little socks on, purple, with tiny rainbows all over them. "And I know for a fact," she adds, wriggling her toes, "the only reason you let Henry live is because it'd be way too suspicious if he suddenly turned up dead."

Collateral damage is messy, but necessary. What is one life, a mere human's, compared to his? Henry wakes up, probably puts the kettle on, reads a bit of news before pulling his gloves on and going to work – come back, repeat. The small detail that Henry had been loyal to him for years was just that – mere detail. What other business did Henry have other than being a good man? Yes, Klaus knows gratitude, but he also knows that one does not survive a thousand years by being merciful.

If it weren't for Elijah, if it weren't for Elijah – he would have held Henry by the throat, lifted him right off his feet, snatched the life from his eyes. A quick death, no need for teeth. Henry had, after all, been loyal.

O Sustainer of the Universe, Finn had been so fond of mocking, What righteous deed have you done today, brother? What poor soul did you decide was unfit for living today? And Rebekah had tried so hard to shut him up, Shush Finn, you shouldn't say such things – you know how Nik gets –

Finn would find out shortly after that, just how he gets. Nine hundred years in a coffin had not stilled his tongue, and he still gallivanted around town, throwing down his words like spitting on the ground before him.

"You have the Midas touch, Niklaus," Finn had said gravely, in his mournful tongue. "Everything you touch turns to gold, but it's just an illusion of grandeur, masking the serpent that lies beneath. There is no joy to it, and I am not interested in being wrapped up in your sins. You will die alone and starving."

He hadn't been too sad to see Finn go, and he didn't think Rebekah cared that much either, but he must have been horribly wrong, seeing as she would sacrifice her own chance of humanity to get him back. Wasn't she the one who clung to him for years, oh sour old Finn, he's such a bore, come play with me, Nik, come play.

Family is a dying notion. He'd known it the day Kol had died, the way Elijah hadn't even come back. There was no body to be buried, so what was the point of it all? He's a stain on the tiled floor, he remembers telling Elijah's voicemail. Finn had been a cracked, ugly thing, burnt to a crisp, but whole nonetheless. If you tried touching Kol, Klaus says into radio silence, his face would rub off like ash in the palm of your hands.

Is it guilt then, lecherous thing that it is, that makes Elijah so adamant on getting them back? On betraying him and striking up a totally new deal with Silas? It must have been Rebekah who'd talked him into it; she'd been strangely silent these past few weeks, keeping to herself, and he'd stupidly assumed it was because she was still sulking about the cure.

There's something bigger brewing in the distance, thunderclouds rolling in he knows. They'd made a bargain with a new kind of devil, and the cure would just be the beginning of it all, wouldn't it? And like hell is he going to stick around waiting for lightning to strike.

The rain is still falling, and Caroline is still looking at him. Why doesn't she ever look scared?

"This is why I brought you along," Klaus says at last. "For the commentary."