Fighting Free

Chapter 4

"You can take that room..." You pointed Klaus towards a door that was usually closed, before opening the door to the living room. "Make yourself comfortable... Bathroom is over there, living room and kitchen through here." You nested on the couch, not wanting to look over him when he was installing himself somewhere where he probably didn't want to be at all. You had gotten the remote and was flipping through the channels on your tv, without really watching what was on, when the door opened again.

"May I join you?" He was looking strangely out of place, wearing the same clothes as he had this morning –he probably didn't even have other ones-, and clearly not completely at ease with being a guest on your apartment.

Just like you. You nodded.
"Sure. Until we've figured out what to do, this is your home as well. I guess..." You didn't seem overly enthusiastic, and to be honest, you weren't. This wasn't supposed to happen. Today, you were just supposed to drop off Klaus at home, go home, live your own life, meet up for a drink in a few days and get to know him a bit better. You shouldn't immediately become roomies. That was... about three steps too far at this point. And still, there was no other possibility. You weren't going to kick him out on the streets. Which... probably made you better than his own father.

He sat down, clearly not comfortable as well.
"I'm so sorry to drag you into this, love. I just... I didn't know how they would react, and I have to say... in my dreams that reunion went a bit better than it did in reality, and that says something. Even though I should have known my father would react like this." He sighed. "Do you know this is the first time he even looked at me after..." he fell silent for a moment. "... after everything happened?"

You hadn't known. But then again, he had never spoken, or written, to be more accurate, about his father. Something that had wondered you sometimes, but he had the right to pick his own subjects. After today, you understood exactly why he had done that.
"He never looked at you during the trial? Or came to visit you? I mean, he's still your father, isn't he?" A few words the man had said stayed in your head, and you wondered if they were just the words of a bitter man who was mourning his wife, or if there was more to it. 'Someone I can't even call my own son...'

"None of them have been visiting me... Not my father, nor my siblings. Although after today, I start wondering if he stopped them from coming to me..." Klaus wasn't able to sit down quietly, kept looking at the door, as if he expected something to happen any time. He hadn't been able to be at ease for years. He had been constantly supervised, living according to a schedule, and maybe the transition to a normal life wasn't as easy as he had hoped for.

You wouldn't be surprised if he was right in that.
"After today, I can't really say I blame them. The man scared me to death..." And he wasn't even one of your relatives. He didn't have power of you, so if you would have been one of his children...
"Has he always been like this, or did what you..." Was there an easy way to talk about it? He had been convicted of killing his mother, and even though Mikael might have been harsher than he should have been, he had been the one losing his wife. "He must have been a different father when you were a child?"

He had noticed your hesitation, but chose to ignore it. Maybe there would be a time when he could talk about it with you, but not now. It was too early for that. He didn't even know if he could trust you, or if everything would be taken away from him again. It was better not to get attached, that way he couldn't lose anything either.
"And still you chose to stand up to him... even when it was just in one sentence. You were brave in there, love. I have no idea if I could have done the same in your position."

You blushed, not used to praise like this. You had spoken without thinking, regretting it the moment you did it, the moment the attention turned to you.
"I... I don't know how I managed to do that. I just thought it really unfair. And I pitied you." That was probably the wrong thing to say, because the moment you said that, you saw his traits harden, as if he was hiding behind a mask he had been slowly dropping when he was with you.

"I don't need pity.", was all he said about it. "And as for the other question... He has never been any different. Not with me, at least. Finn was the one he cared about most..." Finn, his eldest brother who had been nowhere to be seen today. Apparently he wasn't here now, something he didn't mourn for long.
"Elijah sometimes tried to stand up for me, but it didn't bring him anything. Otherwise he was the prodigy. Always able to do what father wished. Rebekah was his little girl, and the youngest two..." He shrugged. "He never liked me. Ever since I can remember, all I could do was disappoint him."

You held your breath, afraid to interrupt him. You learned more about where he came from, even about how he felt than in any letter he had written to you. Letters failed to bring over emotion, while watching him speak... you couldn't see him cry, and you probably wouldn't, not now, but you could see how his father's attitude still troubled him. Probably made him into the man he was now. It explained why he hadn't fought back when his father threw him out, why he had only been standing there, waiting for a judgement he knew could only be negative. Because that was all he had ever gotten from that man.

"Why?", you asked quietly. "Has he ever given you a reason for it?" Not that there could be a reason good enough to treat a child like that, but still...

Klaus stayed silent for a while, just staring at something you couldn't see, but you didn't interrupt him, didn't pressure him. If he didn't want to talk, you wouldn't make him.

The two of you just met, after all, and even though you had the feeling you had known him for longer, you didn't. Everything was new, both for him and for you, and you couldn't blame him for keeping some secrets and a lot of feelings from you. You didn't have a right to hear those secrets. You stood up, walking to the kitchen to make some tea, to have something to do.

The moment you were standing there, still just in sight, he started to talk again.
"I'm not his son." His tone was flat, the words were said almost silently, but it was as if he dropped a bomb.

You managed not to drop the kettle you had in your hand, which made you pretty proud.
"You're not his? So what he said was meant literally? Not because he doesn't want to know you anymore?" You sighed. It was the most logical explanation for what happened, but still, how you could treat any child like what you had seen was beyond your imagination. It wasn't like Klaus had chosen to have another father.
"So that's why he never liked you as a child?" The tea was ready, and without asking, you brought him a cup as well, which earned you a thankful look before he wrapped his hands around the warm mug.

"He didn't know back then. When I was but a child, I was just a major disappointment, never able to live up to his expectations. Not like Finn could. Or Elijah, whose only fault was caring too much for his failure of a brother."

You saw how he clenched his hands around his mug, the memories clearly still stinging.
"So how did he find out?"

He was silent again. You didn't even know if you wanted to hear it,
"It was five and a half years ago. My mother..." His lips pressed together as if he didn't want to say anything about her. "She made a mistake. She said something, and both father and I understood what it meant. She had cheated on him, and I was the result of that. And then she started to blame me for everything that happened because of that. He just laughed, at first, saying that explained why I was such a weakling. Why he had never been able to care for me like he cared for his other children. And then I got mad."

"So you killed her?" You couldn't help but ask it. You were too curious about what happened, and honestly? You couldn't even blame him that much for it.

He shook his head.
"I'm not ready to talk about that yet, love. I shut that away after the trial, and if I never have to talk about that day again, it's still too early." He stood up, putting the tea on the table. "I think today was long enough. Sorry, sweetheart, but I think I need to be alone right now. I'm going to bed..."

You nodded.
"Good night, Klaus.". You had a lot to think about, and even though you hadn't done it in the years you had been corresponding with him, you planned to go and look for the court records of his trial after work tomorrow. Somehow you wanted to know what had happened, or at least, what the trial said had happened. The story was never as simple as people said it was, and his confession tonight had made that clear.

Yes, maybe he had killed his mother. But maybe he had had his reasons to do that. Maybe it wasn't his fault he had become who he was right now.

You stayed there for a while, making sure you wouldn't run into him in the bathroom or something like that, slowly sipping your tea. Only when you didn't hear any movement from his room again, you stood up to go to bed.