I see you | A Klaroline Love Story

CH IV

(MUSIC: The song that inspired the first scene in this chapter is Oltremare by Ludovico Einaudi)

The room was dimly lit, making it impossible to see how far it reached. All Klaus could see was Caroline. She smiled as she danced. She danced. It seemed endless and effortless. She spun and turned and smiled; oblivious to his presence in the room. That’s all he was, a presence. It seemed like he wasn’t even really there. She just kept dancing. It seemed as if she was moving time and space to create this moment.Time didn’t seem to pass. If it had been a second or a century he could not say. He was swallowed up in her movement and her body. Then, Klaus noticed her dancing had slowed. She wasn’t smiling. She seemed to be concentrating. Hard lines formed in her face. Every movement that before had been precise, flowing together like she was immersed in an ocean, now seemed sloppy. She seemed weak. The music sped and she couldn’t keep up. She started to cry, but tried to keep going. Caroline ran to jump but only fell to the ground. Crumpled, like a broken animal. Silent tears fell from her eyes as she looked around the room. Then they stopped, and her face went blank, bare of all emotion. Slowly, she rose to her feet. She was not crying, but he could see the tears on her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them. The words slipped out of her mouth like silk. Emotionless, smooth, quiet; but sure.

“You promised.”

Then she took a deep breath and started dancing again, faster now; her face expressionless. As she danced and spun he could see her mouthing something, but she moved to quickly and he couldn’t quite make it out.

Klaus snapped awake, sitting straight up in bed. His heart was beating fast. ‘You promised’, she said. The words still repeating in his head. What had he promised her? He put his head between his knees and thought. The more he tryed to dig around in his mind for something, any memory of her, the more lost and confused he became. Sometimes he felt like he would go mad. He wondered if he would ever remember anything; or if it was gone forever. After thinking about it all for a while, he decided to try to get some more sleep. Today had been long. His head was still swimming with everything from ‘vampirism 101’. Shutting everything out of his head, he turned over and went back to sleep, hoping there would be no more dreams.

“Hello? Klaus?” Caroline stood over him, looking annoyed. “Are you planning on eating that or would you like to sleep?” She pointed at the plate of food she had made for him. The dreams hadn’t stopped. The same one had been repeating all night…he was exhausted.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t really sleep last night. Weird dream.”

It wasn’t fair to snap at him, she knew. But she was just so on edge. As much as she was enjoying this somehow new Klaus, kind Klaus, she hated herself for it.

“It’s fine. I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

He nodded while picking the food around his plate.

“Today’s Monday; I have work.” This hadn’t occurred to Klaus. He’d been too busy concentration on his life that he never stopped to think about what hers might be. Of course she has a job. And friends. And a whole world. All of the sudden this feeling came over him like he wanted to know everything about her life. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to know her, as much as he wanted to know himself.

“yeah; of course. Go.” He wondered what he was supposed to do all day.

The food on his plate was cold now, he wasn’t hungry anyways. Caroline was all over the place, cleaning the kitchen. It was near impossible not to watch her. Klaus tried, at least, not to make his stare noticeable.

“what is your job?” he asked. “What do you do?”

She didn’t bother to turn around to answer him. “I’m a teacher. I teach kids with special needs at a school in town.”

Somehow it seemed to fit her, but not fit her, at the same time. “Do you like it? Is it something you always wanted to do?” He could see a smile dance across her mouth as she turned to face him.

“Yes, I do like it…But no,” she paused, “I wanted to be an actress.” With that she turned back away. He could tell she didn’t want to say more, so he left it.

Again, Caroline felt that pang. That twisting feeling in her gut like everything was screaming at her how wrong this all was. Klaus Mikaelson shouldn’t be sitting in her kitchen, asking her about her life. She shouldn’t be letting him. More than that, she shouldn’t enjoy it as much as she did. The clock rang and brought her back to reality. He was sitting in her kitchen. This was happening, and she was enjoying it.

Before she left, Caroline stopped at the door. “You’re alone here I guess; sorry. I should be home at like, three or four. Okay? My mom won’t be home all day.” Klaus just nodded. “Bye Klaus.”

The door closed and he was alone. Everything was so still, utterly quiet. Klaus left his plate in the sink and walked around the house. He stopped in the living room and sat on the couch. The TV flipped on to an old movie and within minutes he was asleep.

When he woke, he was hungry. He went back to the kitchen to make something and ended up with a sandwich. The thought of going through a stranger’s food, in a stranger’s kitchen, in her home, might have seemed strange to him if everyone wasn’t a stranger, and everything wasn’t completely foreign to him. As he sat and ate, the memory of the dream still played though and through his mind: a record on repeat.

Not sure what to do, Klaus made his way towards his room. He stopped when he saw Caroline’s open door. He was thinking about the picture from yesterday, tucked inside her journal. His name signed at the bottom. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was over-thinking it. But it just seemed so personal. When he held it, although he had not even a trace of a memory of it, it was like something inside him remembered it, like he could feel it somehow.

The door slid open silently and he stepped through. He flipped on the light. The book had been lying on the floor with all her other books when he found it yesterday. He went over to the same spot but it wasn’t there. Then he saw it, next to her bed, on a table. He walked over and picked it up gently. This was so wrong.

Something else was wedged in between the pages of the journal. Holding the book, examining its cover, Klaus slid down the side of the bed to sit on the floor. His fingers found the space between the chunks of pages and he slid it open. A bracelet slid out. He caught it before it was halfway to the floor. The metal felt warm in his hands. It looked familiar to him in some way. He put it down and picked up the drawing.

Holding the picture gave him this uneasy feeling; like it reminded him how much he had forgotten. He knows nothing of his old life, now he trusts some girl from a photo with everything. With his whole life. How does he know he can trust her? But if not her, then who? Without Caroline he has no one. Besides, even though he hardly knew her, it felt like he’d known her his whole life. And he had known her, before. That was just something he’d have to trust.

His drawing was just as beautiful as he remembered it. It was hard to think he did this. Caroline stood next to a horse in the photo; looking at it. She was beautiful. Is beautiful. At the bottom it said ‘Thank you for your honesty, Klaus’. Her honestly. Klaus started to think there was more between them than she had let on. He wanted to know desperately what that might have been, but was too scared to bring it up. He didn’t want to ruin what may be the only friendship he had.

Klaus stayed sitting on the floor for what must’ve been about an hour before he could make himself get up. He tucked his drawing, along with the bracelet, in Caroline’s journal and placed them back on the table.