Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to The Vampire Diaries, book series or tv show. They belong to...whoever publishes the series. I don't actually know what publisher that is. Point is, not mine. I make no profit. :)

Note: I apologize for any continuity errors and inconsistencies. It's been a while since I read these books. But I adore Klaus and Katherine in the book canon.

like a plea to a callous god

When he finds her grasping at a rat in a dark alley - skin glistening white from lack of blood and eyes round and wet with tears - his lip curls in disgust.

She looks the sickly creature she was when he gave her immortality. She looks weak and frail; a broken doll.

But her face lights up with hope and need and desperation when she sees that it is him crouching down to stroke her cheek. Her voice is cracked and shaky when she utters his name; full of reverence.

He takes his pleasure from her before he cradles her head to his chest for her to drink. Fingers brutal and harsh all over her as he sips the watery thin copper still left inside her.

(Wisely, she does not protest, merely clings to him and cries out his name over and over like a plea to a callous god.)

'Stefan did not insult me,' she says.

The back of his hand hits the right side of her face with a resounding smack. 'Stefan rejected you.'

Her eyes fill with tears - she's so prone to crying, his beautiful Katherine - and her lip quivers. 'Stefan would not ever have hit me, either.'

His fingers grip her chin so tightly that she might bruise for a brief time. 'Then run back to your precious Salvatore, who cast you aside. For whom your love was not enough. See if he and his brother take you back.'

She screams wordlessly at him as he walks off to hunt.

(When he returns she is still there, full of apologies and silent pleas for affection.)

Her blood is sweet and cool on his tongue. She mewls like a contented kitten - blood drunk and satiated after their kill, after the taste of his blood he gave her - while he holds her with crushing force and tears into her pretty, pale neck.

She's bleeding rubies all over her tattered, torn dress.

He drags his curved fingers over her exposed flesh. He likes her curves, the softness of her now that she's plump on blood. He likes how slender and delicate she still appears; like a broken doll.

His broken doll. His beautiful, fragile Katherine; she's a ruin, but he loves tracing the cracks and split seams.

And then she has to go and ruin the moment, his simpering, idiotic doll. 'I wish I could have shared this with Stefan and Damon.'

(She holds herself together when he's done and walking away; her cracks have multiplied and her seams have been torn wide open.)

Sometimes he doesn't know why he keeps her; she's insipid and fragile. He has told her to be strong, shown her how - and she can be, oh, his Katherine can be a fierce, wicked thing when she wants to be - but somehow it always comes back to this.

Crumpled at his feet wearing nothing but the shadows of bruises fading and trails of blood exposing all her vulnerabilities.

'Stefan would not hurt me like this,' she whispers.

Because she will not learn. His beautiful and pathetic doll; broken, he cannot piece her together back exactly as he wants. Some of her refuses to fit. His lip curls in disgust, because she will not learn the easiest lesson.

'Stefan would not take care of you and make you strong," he hisses. He wants to hit her again - but as hard as he hits, he cannot beat this lesson into her.

Katherine's mind is going, slipping away, but she was a silly girl to begin with. He tells himself he does not care if her mind goes completely; he can still have his fun with her.

'Why do I not feel strong, Klaus?' Her eyes stare up at him - round and wet with tears. 'Why do I feel so weak?'

And he snarls - because she is weak, because she is broken and she will not be fixed (not like he wants her), too stupid and too stubborn to remember to forget her precious Salvatores that he can somehow never match up to.

'Because you are weak, Katherine. You were weak when I was brought to you and gave you life. You were weak when you left me. You were weak when I found you and renewed you. You will be weak when I leave you.'

She blinks back her tears and reaches for him. Her fingers are tight - thin, spidery bonds around his wrists - when she says, 'I will be stronger, Klaus. I promise. I want to have fun again.'

He smiles - because that is all he wants right now, fun fun fun with his beautiful, broken doll - and pulls her up. 'There is a good child, Katherine,' he praises.

(And she smiles, at the words of kindness from her callous god, while plots of burning down his temple form in her not so gone mind.)

Katherine catches him by surprise the day she thinks she killed him. Vicious and vindictive; his broken doll is a wild animal. She revels in his shock, in her victory, in her glorious 'kill.'

Klaus lays there healing and wondering how her madness and her 'Salvatores' kept him so blind to her strength beneath her weakness. But he thinks that when he finds her again, he will kiss his broken doll, and they can devour each other for days.

When she has had some time to herself. When she has found her pretty Salvatore boys again and played and found them wanting.

(But then he hears her screaming, crying in his head as the life he gave her is burned into ash - and Klaus almost utters her name like a plea to a callous god.)