44: Two halves of the whole

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She opened her eyes with great effort, feeling like she had just been put through a meat grinder. Her limbs and her entire body felt heavy, and she wondered for a moment whether it was due to the strange spell Esther had cast on her or the return to 'normal' gravity. Probably the latter. Gradually lifting herself onto her elbows, she blinked a couple of times and looked straight into Klaus' anguished eyes.

Her heart all but exploded.

"Niklaus," she whispered breathlessly, not bothering to stop the tears that were beginning to flood from her eyes.

In a blur, he was at her side and crushed her to him, his hands in her hair, his lips on her face, kissing her as if his life depended on it. And it does. Like mine depends on him. She heard the faint noises of feet shuffling, and she knew that everyone else was leaving the room to give them privacy, but she couldn't have cared less. He was all that mattered right now.

Pulling them both up onto the couch, he buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent, holding her and letting his hands make certain she was really there. His fingers were trembling, his breathing was shaky… and then she suddenly felt waves of tremors rock his body.

He was crying.

Oh God, Niklaus… please don't! Her heart broke into a million pieces, and she gathered him as close as she could, wrapping herself around him and stroking his back, his arms, his neck. Her voice was raw with emotion when she whispered, "I'm here, my love. I'm back, I really am! And I swear to you that I will never, ever leave you again. You won't get rid of me, not in a hundred thousand years." She pulled away and cupped his face, struggling to keep it together at the excruciating sight of the tears on his cheeks. Very softly, she kissed each and every teardrop from his face, and every touch of her lips was echoed by her almost inaudible murmur. "I love you… I love you… I love you…"

Klaus did not say a word for a very long time. His eyes had closed, and each time he heard her voice, his grip tightened a little more. After a while, he wordlessly scooped her up and flashed into their room where he closed the door and gently put her down, staring into her eyes with so much anguish that her heart broke over and over again. His voice sounded cracked and raspy when he finally spoke.

"Caroline, I… there are a billion things I want to say to you, and yet, I cannot find any words. I do not know where to start. Ever since I met you, there have been many moments when my head was too full of my heart to form a coherent sentence, but never like this. Never like right now. I want to yell at you, kiss you, tell you just how insanely I love you, beat you up for everything you put me through, marry you all over again, stand in the corner and sulk, look at you for hours… and all at the same time." He ran a hand through his hair. "I am totally lost."

She took his face in her hands and whispered, "Why don't you start by telling me that you're glad I'm back? I need to hear it, Niklaus. The Other Side was… no, I'll tell you later. Now I need your love, and I need you to be as cheesy, romantic and Love Actually as you possibly can."

Pulling her into his arms, Klaus kissed her forehead and rested his cheek against hers. "My darling girl," he murmured at her ear, "did you know that when you died, my Signum remained intact? Your mark will not be on me for as long as you live, but until the day all time ends. And I would not have it any other way. You are asking whether I am glad that you have returned to me?" He kissed her Signum, and she felt a rush of warmth spread from it through her entire body.

"My love, I was ripped apart the second you died. It took all my strength to go on functioning, and I only did because I had promised it to you and because it was the one way to bring you back as quickly as possible. Look at me." He pulled back from her and held her at arm's length so she could look into his eyes. Everything inside her came undone at what she read in them. He had always gazed at her with feeling, with love and adoration, but this was more. It was something so absolute, so boundless and perpetual that she stopped breathing and felt another tear slip out of her eye. What she saw in his eyes mirrored her own feelings – he was her life, her death, her eternity. Her everything.

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