This is story is inspired by the movie The Guest and must be read while listening to - Haunted when the minutes drag by the Love Rockets and Anthonio by Annie to get the right vibe! My tumbr has of photo sets that are perfect for Klaroline and this fic. Enjoy!

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The dry desert air ran along her arm and up into her hair, the sun warming her arm as she leaned on the open window, the desert streaked past on all sides. A vision of golden tundra and blue sky as far as the eye could see. In the rear-view mirror, she left dust in her wake as she travelled along the road, the only lonely dot in an empty sea of sand.

The radio played the cassette that had been in there for years, the cassette that had always been in there. The cassette that he had made.

"The word that would best describe this feeling would be, 'Haunted'
I touch the clothes you left behind
That still retain your shape and lines, still haunted"

Signs of civilisation were beginning to appear. Distant houses dotting the horizon, mail boxes lining the road, shops gradually appearing, and suddenly, she was driving along main street. The bustling town around her was as familiar as always. The same hardware store, same bank, same diner with the same old men sat outside. And she was still here, among them all, except... she wasn't the same.

She drove through town, and headed to the diner she worked at on the outskirts. It was popular with truckers and other people passing through. It had that vibe, transient, temporary, and it suited her just now, she realised as she pulled up outside and opened her car door, grabbing her handbag off the seat next to her and lowering her boots to the red hard packed sand. She noticed a Greyhound pulling in as she walked toward the low, squat building. Another group passing through. Reaching the front step she reached into her bag, checking her watch for the time, pulled out a last cigarette before her shift started.

She lit up, inhaling deeply as she watched people file off the bus. Most seemed like they were on their way somewhere else. Teenage runways in hoodies, shadow smudged eyes and a desperate look. Mothers with screaming children, looked exhausted and harassed. She felt a prickling on her arms, that insidious feeling of being watched, and glanced to the other side f the bus, where the driver was handing down luggage.

He wasn't all that tall though taller than her, certainly. Solidly built, in fact she'd be willing to bet that the muscled forearms, which were all she could see, were just the beginning. He was wearing a grey t-shirt, with a light zip up jacket over it, jeans and aviators hanging from the v on his chest.

And he was watching her.

Unperturbed she held his gaze as she drew on the last of her cigarette. His dirty blond head glinted off the dazzling desert sun, cut in a way that was vaguely familiar, short back and sides, cropped close, a little grown out, but still neat. His eyes were a blazing blue in a face of stubble and tan flashing white teeth.

She wondered what kind of picture she made, to someone from the real world, the world outside the desert and this backward town.

Standing in front of the white picket diner, her electric blue dress shirt dress riding high up her thighs, her curved apron, neon yellow, sitting snugly around her narrow waist, tumbling blond curls pulled into a bouncing pony tail. Her black nail varnish a constant complaint from her boss, the only thing giving any indication that she wasn't this small town girl, this no one, with nothing and no one to look forward to... except that she was exactly that.

She narrowed her eyes as smoke drifted into them, and stubbed out her cigarette. Casting the stranger and his inquisitive gaze a last glance, she turned and went into the diner for her 8 hour shift.

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Elizabeth Forbes hadn't meant to let he daughter lose her way, she hadn't meant for her family to fall apart... she hadn't meant for a lot of things to happen.

She hadn't meant for her son to die in a wretched war so far from home.

As she stared at the young man sitting before her. His erect posture his perfectly placed arms, it was as if Matt was sitting right across from her again. She realised she hadn't spoken in a while, and brought her attention back to his words.

"I'm sorry, what?" she said, forcing herself to concentrate.

"I said that Matthew and I were close... we served in the same unit for almost 2 years" his voice was cultured, well mannered, and she found her head nodding along to the things he said.

"I was with him... when he passed..." the voice continued and she felt the wrap around her heart like a steal palm. She stared at him, tears starting to drip down her cheeks, even as she dashed them away in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, really... I'm -"

"Please, don't apologise.. I should have called before coming here... I didn't mean to upset you." he said, pausing a long moment, before making to stand.

"I should go... perhaps I can leave you my email-"

"No! Please... I'm sorry, it's just a lot.. but I want to speak to you, about... him. Please" she said, her desperation written on her face. He inspected her a moment before sitting with a decisive nod.

"Ok Ma'am whatever you want" he said, a smile appearing on his rugged features. She smiled back, as a well of questions for him sprang up inside her. He reached into his back pocket and pulled a photograph.

"Here, this is us together... last year" he said, and she gripped it tightly, the sight of Matt, her dearest boy standing in a desert, which could have been home, if not for his army fatigues, and semi automatic weapon, held casually against his chest, and right beside him, his arm slung around her son's shoulders, was the man sitting before her.

"What was it like there?" she asked, and settled back, letting her mind drift to distant places, feeling all the while as though her very own little boy, grown into a man was sitting across from her.

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Caroline tugged at the elastic holding her hair and let the heavy mass fall onto her shoulders, which had never been tighter. Outside was now dark, another day gone, another day closer to death, she thought grimly, and what did she have to show for it? She sat in the driveway of the house she still shared with her mother, the only she had shared with her father and twin brother, not so long ago, before everything had changed.

She put her fingers to her temples and tried to massage some blood into her head, rid herself of the tension and tiredness that surrounded her like a fog. Slowly, moving with great effort she wrenched open the car door and stepped out onto the gravel.

The night felt alive around her, the insects chirping away, the night sky brilliant with stars. This far out, isolated as her house way, nature was undisturbed in it's symphony. She shut the door, the human noise in the wilderness and crunched her way toward her house.

Stepping inside, she slipped off the heavy boots she wore, her sartorial protest against the girlie waitress uniform, and stripped her long over the knee socks off, stuffing them into the boots. Lowering her bag from her shoulder, she walked along the hall, surprised to hear the tinkle of cutlery and glasses from the kitchen. It was so normal, such an everyday domestic normalcy that she felt the emptiness of the house even more keenly somehow. Wandering into the kitchen, she wondered what had finally inspired her mother to cook, and stilled in her stride as she saw the familiar broad shoulders and narrow waist from earlier. Her stranger.

"Caroline!" her mother exclaimed, turning from the stove, a glass of wine in hand, and a genuinely happy smile on her lips, something Caroline hadn't seen in longer than she could remember. She crossed her arms over her chest as she regarded the man who had slowly turned to face her, adopting a casual pose, leaning against the sink, his legs crossed at the ankle, the picture of ease, if not for the fact that something about him, some energy he gave gave her the impression this guy was not as relaxed as he looked.

"This is Nik... he is... was... Matt's friend." her mother was saying as the man, Nik, pushed himself off the stove and came over to meet her, holding a hand out, as she simply stared at him.

"You knew my brother?" she asked her arms firmly crossed over her chest as she watched his hand hover in the air before lowering unshaken to his side.

"Yes Ma'am, indeed I did" he asked, his southern accent dripping.

"Ma'am, seriously?" she asked, and ignored her mother's warning look. He grinned down at her, rocking back on his heels at her reprimand before conceding it.

"Habit." he clarified. She accepted it as an apology and nodded, stepping past him toward the hallway, glancing back as she reached the shadowy recesses.

"Are you staying for dinner?" she asked, and saw as he and her mother exchanged a look.

"Actually, I've told Nik he can stay for a while... until he gets settled again" her mother sounded nervous as she spoke, and Caroline knew why. Small town like theirs, no other men in the house, it was how gossip got started.

She ignored the intent blue gaze that blasted her from the side, though the urge to turn her head and meet it, get lost in it was almost overwhelming.

"Where is he going to sleep?" she asked curtly, and saw her mother stiffen with defensiveness.

"I thought he could sleep in Matt's room... it isn't as though anyone is using it" her mother whispered, her voice becoming more defeated before she trailed off. She stared in shock at her, for even suggesting it. The room had been untouched, and he knew her mother went in there at least once a day. The thought of this perfect stranger, with his square jaw and tan, his effortless, bursting vitality was abhorrent for a moment, until she noticed the tremor in her mothers hand, the wine swaying with it.

She wasn't telling her, she realised, she was asking permission. Asking her 21 year old daughter permission, so upended had their roles become in this house. Caroline was fully prepared to refuse, send this stranger away, after all, who knew who he was, he could be a liar... he could be anybody. And yet, if he wasn't she could see the way her mother had already opened up to something he had flat out refused to do before, make any changes to Matt's room.

She was aware of the stranger's eyes on her, Nik. His head slightly tilted to the side he watched her closely, and she had the impression that there wasn't much he missed.

Making an impulsive decision, she turned to meet that speculative gaze.

"Fine, just for a couple of days" She said, folding her arms across her chest again, ignoring the way his eyes dipped, dropped down over her at the movement, and the way it made her mouth dry up.

"Thank you, I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, Caroline. Matt always spoke so much about you" he said that charming grin turning up the corner his full lips.

"Yeah? Well, he never said anything about you" she said, flashing him a sarcastic smile, she turned on her heel and started along the hall to her room.

"Caroline, dinner?" Liz called.

"I ate at the diner" she said before she made it to her room and shut the door behind her, her heart beating strangely

Walking over to her dressing table, she stared at herself in the mirror, and saw Matt, as she always did. Twins, and she missed him, god she missed him.

She slowly unbuttoned her dress, her mind drifting to the handsome strange with the easy smile, sitting only meters away from her at the dinner table, making her mother laugh. There was something about him, maybe because he reminded her of her brother, and it was the last thing they needed. Or, it was something else, a feeling, an energy, like a wolf in sheep's clothing, or hardly even that, just a wolf... at the door, at the dinner table, in the room next to hers as the long minutes of night ticked past, thick and dark.