Klaroline Drabbles

55 part 2

Paris was dirty and the people were rude. The food in Rome made her feel bloated and Tokyo was too crowded for her liking. Her perception might have been warped by the fact that when she planned to go to these places, she didn't plan to go alone and as she exited Louis Armstrong Airport, she tried not to think about the decision she just made.

It had been ten years since graduation, since she had last seen him. They had kept in contact, sometimes there would be weeks between letters and phone calls, sometimes months, but she always felt the distance. As he had previously predicted at that decade dance so many years ago, there came a time when Mystic Falls no longer felt like home, her friends had embraced studies, work and travel which spread them out all over the globe, her mother had met a lovely man who truly appreciated her and settled into their own routine and after years of being a workaholic and worrying about her daughter, Caroline figured that it was time she enjoyed her life.

So she began to travel, visiting each one of her friends wherever the world had taken to them, but too much had changed, they had new lives, new friends and new experiences, there was simply no space for her. Solo travel was the next step for her as she inspected crevices all over the world looking for a place that seemed right, where she felt she belonged, but everywhere fell short.

The taxi dropped her outside of his mansion. She smiled at the ostentatious display of his wealth, she doubted more than three people lived in that colossal home. As she walked down the path that led to his front door, she paused yet again, he was not expecting her, and she did not know what was waiting for her on the other side of that door. Perhaps he was involved with another woman, he said he intended to be her last love, he did not talk about the in-between. But she put on a brave face, Klaus and her had stayed in contact, as friends and she will retain that she is visiting him as a friend.

"Caroline," he stuttered when he opened the door, shock evident in his eyes, his usual self-assured smirk absent from his face, "What are you doing here?"

Her smile faltered, perhaps her coming there was a mistake; perhaps just like her friends he had a life that had no space for her.

"I'm sorry if I came at a bad time, I just got back into the country and I thought I would come visit. Should I come back at another time?" she asked as she shifted uncomfortably.

"No," he responded quickly, "I was just rather startled at your presence, come in!" He held the door open for her as she entered into his foyer, she noted that the grandeur was not limited simply to the outside of his home, even in her travels many of the places she had seen had paled in comparison to what was now in front of her.

"So where have you come from? I hadn't heard from you in a while, I was beginning to worry," he inquired, his eyes never moving off her, inspecting her almost as if trying to discern if she was real.

She offered him a small smile, his concern over her was endearing, "I was in Melbourne, I went to visit one of my college friends and decided to leave before the weather became too unbearable."

He smiled at her, "You should have stopped over in Sydney, it is beautiful there this time of year and there is plenty more to see. But you must be jetlagged, I might be mistaken but I believe that Melbourne has a fifteen-hour time difference from New Orleans. Would you like a rest and then perhaps we could talk afterwards? I could have some food sent up for you?"

The adrenaline over seeing him again had masked the exhaustion that she never realized she felt until he mentioned it, "Yes sure, do you have an extra room where I can crash in?"

"Of course," he responded, providing no extra commentary.

"You know," she said hesitantly as he picked up her suitcase to carry it up the staircase, "I was worried that you had a woman over and I would be an awkward question." A shy laugh left her lips.

He stopped just before he reached the staircase, turning around with a serious expression adorning his face, "You still don't understand, you are the only one that matters. I would gladly throw everyone out of this house for you. You will never be an awkward question, you are always the answer."

Once again his honest declaration of his feelings rendered her speechless. He turned around again and resumed his task of leading her upstairs. She admired the way his body moved as he walked in front of her, almost as if each step was effortless. She had tried to deny his presence in her thoughts - both the innocent ones and the not-so-innocent ones - but they were too frequent for her to pretend that they did not exist so she learned to accept it. He was her vice. When she couldn't sleep, when she waited in long queues, whenever she felt particularly bored, her daydreams would fall on him, but now with him right in front of her she couldn't deny that the real thing was much better.

He paused between two doors; she saw the tumult in his eyes, almost as if he was mentally debating with himself over which room to pick, weighing up the pros and cons of both before nodding to himself and choosing the door on his right. Caroline followed him in and her jaw dropped at the sight in front of her.

It was the most beautiful bedroom she had ever seen. The bed that Klaus deposited her suitcase next to was a large four-poster bed decked in pale blue linen. She remembered how she believed that every princess had a four-poster bed and she used to beg her mother to buy her one, no matter how impractical and expensive it was. She moved in closer to inspect the antique dressing table, so reminiscent of something that would be owned by a lady of yesteryear, she saw a finely carved jewelry box and what was inside surprised her.

"Is this the bracelet that you gave me? Do you just keep it randomly in one of your bedrooms?" She asked curiously.

He leaned against the doorframe of the bedroom as he watched her make her way around the room, "This bedroom was created in case you ever came to stay, and I believed that if you accepted me enough to stay in my house perhaps then you would accept my gifts."

Without responding to him, she opened the jewelry box and removed the bracelet, clasping it around her wrist, signifying so much with that small action. He watched as she moved to admire the paintings stacked against the wall, a tear falling down her face, the affection just as obvious to her as it was to the other blonde a decade ago.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and murmured, "I didn't think I would be seeing you so soon, I thought my penitence would last at least fifty years."

She turned around to face him, the painting of her standing on the platform at her graduation in her hands, and the light in her smile shining brighter than the afternoon glow that covered the room and she replied, "I was already on my way."