Coming Home (A Klaus Mikaelson Story)

1. Coming Home

As I drove past the Welcome to Mystic Falls sign I felt butterflies in my stomach. I felt like I was betraying my parents by being here. But I didn't have a choice. Growing up here with my parents had been hard. Don't get me wrong, I loved both my parents and I knew that they both loved me. To this day I'm convinced that they never stopped loving each other, but they argued nonstop when I was younger. I never knew the full story but I knew it had something to do with my dad being on the Mystic Falls Town Council. I thought back to when I was younger, to an argument I overheard. I woke up one night to raised voices and snuck out onto the landing; I sat on the stairs and listened. Mom was shouting that it wasn't safe, that living in this town would end up getting them killed. I must have made some sound, I think I gasped or something, because they stopped talking abruptly. I ran to my room as quietly as I could and jumped into bed. Two seconds later I heard my door open as my parents looked in on me. I kept my breathing easy and my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. The door closed again and I opened my eyes, I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. What could get us killed? What had my mother, one of the strongest people I knew, so scared? The next day was my 15th birthday, and my last day in Mystic Falls. My mother wasted no time in moving me out of the only home I knew and to New York City. How the hell was that safer than a small town in Virginia where the only people that died unnaturally were people that were killed by animal attacks? I mean yeah, sure, we had more than our fair share of those. But we were surrounded by forests and mountains. What do you expect?

Somehow, my parents separating made us more of a family. Every second weekend my dad would come and stay with us. He spent every summer, thanksgiving and Christmas with us. I remember back to the one time I asked my mom and dad if I could go visit him and my old friends. I missed Caroline Forbes more than anyone. All my life my parents had never given me any rules to follow. They never felt the need to. I was an honor student, never stayed out past curfew. Never fell in with a bad crowd, and although I'm convinced they knew I drank underage never said anything to me about it, as I would never come home drunk, or get in trouble. I was a good kid. But that day, as I stood in front of them, asking, no begging to visit my old friends, they put their foot down and made me promise to never go to Mystic Falls. I had no idea what the big deal was, but my parents were wonderful people whom I would do anything for. I was told my friends could come visit and stay with us, as long as I didn't go to them. So I promised. And I kept that promise until today. Today I come home to Mystic Falls, and tomorrow I bury both my parents here.

I pulled up to the family home. The house my family have lived in for over a hundred years. Of course it's been modified and changed over the years. I unlocked the front door, taking a deep breath and thinking back to this morning. The phone call from Sheriff Forbes of Mystic Falls;

I answered the phone with a smile on my face, a smile that was about to disappear.

"Hello"

"Jennifer, is that you? This is Sheriff Forbes, Caroline's mother, Liz. Do you remember me?" 

Of course I remembered her. The hardest part of leaving Mystic Falls was leaving Caroline. She had been my best friend from she was 5 and I was 8. At first she had been the annoying little girl who followed me around, but in the end I grew to love her like a little sister. I spent all my free time growing up with Elena and Jeremy Gilbert, Caroline, Matt Donavon, Tyler Lockwood and Bonnie Bennett. They were all two or three years younger than me but I always felt so much more comfortable around them as the girls my own age only cared at the time about makeup and boys. Don't get me wrong, we did as well but only to a certain extent.

"Of course I do Sheriff. How are you? How's Caroline?"

I hadn't yet thought about why she would be calling me, after all these years, or more importantly why she would ring me as the Sheriff and not just say hi it's Liz.