Empathy [Ben Hargreeves]

Episode Three. Part III.

"Extra Ordinary"

Klaus was smoking a cigarette while idly drifting behind Elle who was making her way up the stairs. "You can shower first, but don't use all the hot water," he said with a wag of his fingers.

Nineteen bathrooms in the mansion, but only one shower or tub could be using the running water at a time or the pipes would burst. If anyone flushed a toilet, the water would turn boiling hot in an instant. The Warden never cared about the plumbing nuisances like the eight children did.

"I was going to anyways." Elle stuck her tongue out at Klaus before turning into the bathroom.

Eager to rid herself of the stench of garbage, Elle showered quickly and wrapped herself in a thin towel after stepping out of the tub. She twirled a smaller grey towel around her hair like a turban.

Humming to herself, Eloise brushed her teeth. She leaned down to spit in the sink, and when she picked her head back up, her eyes met a naked Klaus in the mirror.

Surprised, Elle whirled around and covered her now chocolate brown eyes with the hand not holding up her towel. She was blushing at her lack of decent clothing and his lack of any clothing. "Klaus! Why?"

Klaus shrugged his bony shoulders and turned on the tub faucet to refill it with fresh water. "It's nothing you haven't seen," he reminded her without shame. "We had quite a bit of naked quality time back in the day." A smirk played on his lips.

Elle gasped and stared at him with wide eyes. "You can't say that!" Not with Ben in hearing distance of his brother and girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend? "Ben doesn't need to think about that anymore." She clutched her towel.

"He's still salty that I touched you first," Klaus commented as he sat down slowly in the now-full tub of hot water and scented bubbles.

Elle winced. "Stop it. We didn't know any better." She rubbed her arms to warm herself in the cold bathroom.

"Doesn't mean you didn't enjoy it. I know I did."

"Why? Why are you being like this?"

"Off the drugs. You know how it is." Klaus closed his green eyes and relaxed against the back of the tub. Thankfully, the bubbles were covering his previously exposed parts, so Elle could now look at him without feeling guilty.

"I do not know how it is, thank you very much. I may be a stoner, but weed is my hardest drug. We aren't the same, Klaus." Elle turned on her bare heel and opened the unlocked bathroom door. "Stop riling Ben up when you know he can't fight back. You have an unfair advantage."

Klaus shrugged and waved her away. She rolled her toffee eyes and mumbled, "Sorry, Ben," into the air before shutting the door behind her. She stomped to her bedroom to get changed in privacy.

When she went back to the bathroom to get her only comb that she forgot on the counter, she called out to Klaus to let him know that she was coming in. There was no response, so maybe he had his headset on. He did that sometimes, even though it was an electrocution hazard.

"Klaus?" She opened the door and peaked in. A wave of distress slapped Elle in the face like a frosty winter storm.

There were no dark curls popping up over the water. She stepped in closer, worried. Klaus was below the surface, covering his ears with clenched fingers and locking his jaw to keep in screams. She dunked her arms under the water and pulled Klaus above the surface. He choked and coughed.

"Breathe, breathe," Elle encouraged gently. "Count back from ten."

"Too many voices, too many faces..."

Suddenly, Eloise was thirteen again comforting Klaus after she and Diego rescued him from the mausoleum. Hargreeves decided to train the séance by locking him with the ghosts until he got his abilities under control. Klaus had been petrified. His screams still haunted Elle seventeen years later.

Elle wrapped her short arms as best she could around Klaus' shoulders. She didn't care that her clean shirt was getting drenched as Klaus clung to her with pruned fingers.

She inhaled through her nose deeply, as if breathing in the dark emotion that had taken over her adoptive brother's shaking body. Despair was the most prominent emotion that slithered through Elle's bloodstream like poison ivy.

Her hands began to shake as she continuously used her abilities to rid Klaus of any negative emotions. Klaus shook his head to clear his mind, his wet hair slapping Elle in the face as he did so. The strength of Elle pulling away the emotions was magnified by her touch. When he was calm and his dark brown and blue-grey aura had settled to a pale blue, Elle forced herself to scrounge up positive emotions to send his way.

"They're going to come back." With shaking hands to match his shaky voice, Klaus lit a joint that was on the shelf above the tub with a lighter that sat beside it. He had tried stopping drugs cold turkey; the spirits had no mercy on his sanity when his head was clear.

"Are they gone now?" Elle asked softly. She brushed back a stray strand of hair that was sticking to his forehead.

Klaus nodded and breathed out a puff of smoke. "Thank you, darling."

"I'll go make us some hot cocoa, okay? You'll be okay." Elle had locked his fears into herself like she used to do with Ben every night so that he could sleep.

Elle wobbled to her feet, light-headed. She pressed her fingers to her pounding head. She hadn't had to use her empathy to that magnitude since she was a teenager. Her overexertion caused her nose and fingers to tingle like she was having an anxiety attack.

As Elle left the door open a crack so she could hear Klaus if he called, Elle saw him pulling his headset over his ears. He leaned back with his eyes closed and reveled in the serenity that floated through him.