Caroline & Klaus

The Return of the King

Rembrandt/ 1593610

It was an image that had not left his mind.   The image of his brother fading into ash in front of him still haunted him.  Klaus Mikaelson felt the pain as the White Oak stake was plunged into his heart.  He felt his own muscles tighten as he did the same to Elijah.  Elijah was determined to die right by the side of the Hybrid.  It was Always and Forever right to the end for the Mikaelson Brothers.  Klaus met Elijah’s gaze right on as this world soon faded from view.

His eyes opened as a voice surrounded him from all around.   The scenery formed a bit darker than what he remembered, but it was Mystic Falls.   He’d died in New Orleans but this afterlife or what have you had brought him to where he’d been born all those years ago. Looking around, the images began to take a more definitive form.   It was Mystic Falls.  He was standing outside the Salvatore Boarding School.

He recognized the Headmaster immediately.  Alaric Saltzman was a good man.  It wasn’t all that long ago his spirit had taken over the body of the former History teacher of Mystic Falls High School.  Had he been drawn here to Alaric because of the connection they had shared against Saltzman’s will?  Punishment in the afterlife was certainly not unheard of especially for someone with as many egregious deeds to his charge.  To be attached to Alaric Saltzman would not be the worst of punishments.  Klaus watched closely as the scene unfolded before him.  The door opened to the Headmaster’s office and Hope walked in; his Hope.  

With his status as dead or in whatever hell this was, only grew worse.  Hope was in tears with her smaller form lost in the comforting embrace of the man who was there when Klaus was not.  In his status as dead, he was not without feeling or pain.  He felt his heart breaking because he was the cause of Hope’s pain.  It was because of him, she was broken.   As much as it pained him to see her like this, the alternative was worse.  He loved his daughter with every ounce of who he was.   Klaus Mikaelson willingly died so his daughter could live.  The love of a father for his daughter was what had deemed his soul as not completely lost and he knew it.   There was another that had told him that his capacity to love made him not past saving.  That was Caroline.

He had seen Caroline while in his afterlife as a ghost wandering around on the grounds of the school. She was still just as he’d remembered from the last time he’d seen her.  So many thoughts had raced through his mind:  if only they had been given a chance, if only the Hollow hadn’t have ruined everything, if only Klaus had not been such a fool.  Every time she left the campus to travel the world looking for ways to save the twins from the Gemini Coven merge, Klaus felt the heaviness of her heart.   He wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her all would be better but he couldn’t.

Time marched forward around him as he watched Hope grow into a beautiful young woman.  He had been there the night Hope wore the dress he’d bought for Caroline.  His spirit was filled with so much love seeing his daughter wearing something he had bought for the only woman that meant everything to him.  Love turned the beast into a man.  For that he had Caroline Forbes to thank.  Even dead, Caroline and the love he had for her would never die.  That type never did.

Klaus stayed as close to Hope as he could. He watched her at her most heroic.  He saw the lonely tears she shed because she missed him. Her sacrifice into the Malivore pit had caused a most interesting reaction.  Others had forgotten who Hope was, but he hadn’t.  As alone as she thought she was.  Klaus was watching over her.  Granted the tie to this plane was through Alaric, but it was there nonetheless.  He was never going to find true peace until Hope did.  

All the adventures with the arrival of the young vampire called Sebastian who took a fancy to Caroline’s daughter, Lizzie made Klaus recall his own love for Caroline. It was almost as though Klaus was being punished for losing what could have been with Caroline. He ached for Caroline and what could have been.  Surely this was his torture.

One day, everything changed.   The witch students had gathered to help Josie and Lizzie send something to a prison world.  There was more at play here than they knew.  Alaric was sent to another world.  When that happened, Klaus’ tie to Alaric had been severed.  The bolt of magical energy struck him.  He found himself falling.   He felt like Alice did tumbling down the rabbit hole.

Klaus was crying out with a loud voice for his daughter.  He even called out for Caroline. Whatever magic had sent Alaric to that prison world had cut Klaus’ spirit free.  The tether that kept him here was severed.  Where was he to go now?  How much more in eternity would he be forced to bear? He didn't think the endless falling would ever stop when finally it did.

The ground below him actually hurt as he landed with a thud.  Klaus curled his fingers around dirt actual dirt clods came up in his hand.  He stood to his feet brushing the dirt from his hands.  Turning his chin upwards, Klaus could feel the sun on his skin.  Was he…?  Did he…?   His daylight ring was still on his finger.  He started to remove it when he saw his skin start to smoke, he put it back onto his finger.  He was still a vampire.  Holding his hand out, he willed the wolf inside of him to emerge.  His fingers started to take on a canine appearance.  He immediately decided to halt that transformation.  He was still very much a hybrid.

Moving forward on the grounds, there was something familiar about it.  Why couldn’t he recall?  He could hear the murmuring around him.  The voice of a woman called out telling him he was supposed to be in his room.   He answered.  “I’d go if I knew where I was.”  He furrowed his brow.  He didn’t know where he was or who he was.  All he knew was that he was alive.