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peri-helia · 8 years

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Things I almost remember

Klaroline Reincarnation AU! This is without doubt the longest drabble I have ever written. I have no idea if its any good but I couldn’t stop.

Based on the idea floating round tumblr of a vampire dating a mortal who finds pictures of their past selves because the vampire is hoping they’ll remember their first love. Also on Ao3 because like I said. This is fucking long. Over 7,000 words (x)

*****

I’ll fool myself she’ll walk right in

And be with me forevermore

For some reason, this time, her eyebrows aren’t right.

Klaus’ own eyebrows furrow in response as he reaches distractedly for the eraser beside him in order to scrub out the offending pencil markings. It’s been too long since he’s seen her, he always thinks, when the quality of his renderings begins to slip. Using previous work as a reference, the countless portraits, sketches even the occasional statue which is still in his possession is of no use. Photography, one of the more marvellous developments of recent times has become one of his more favourite mediums but seeing her standing ramrod straight, smile long gone in the boring wait for the photograph to be taken is not how he wishes to see her. Every mode of remembrance available feels insincere and imperfect. What he needs, what he craves is to have her in front of him; tapping her foot on a stool, stretching on a chaise to see for himself the exact touch of the sunlight on her skin, blood palely staining her cheek in a perfect blush under his gaze.

Instead, the room is empty except for himself and the haunting presence of her memory, dancing just beyond recollection. Restlessness vibrates under his skin, skips along his nerves, itching for the balm of her presence. Yet at this moment he doesn’t even know if she walks the Earth, if she exists in this time and place. Dashing aside his pad, Klaus stands and quickly crosses to his desk, a large mahogany creature, which despite its size has intricate carving, which has followed him faithfully from house to house. Her music box sits open in one corner, playing on, the two figures twirling to the old village lullaby. There are few things of hers that she is ever truly attached to; her jewellery, her music box they are the constants. Everything else comes and goes for her. Still there are one or two pieces in storage and Klaus still keeps in mind a boudoir for her in whichever house he buys.

From the upper left hand drawer he pulls a narrow velvet case, gently putting aside the two ring boxes that atypically accompany it and popping open the lid to reveal a delicate diamond bracelet. He’d given this to her centuries ago, gazing up at one of his landscapes that still hangs in room in the Hermitage where he’d proposed to her. Klaus runs his fingers over the sparkling gems and closes his eyes, the smile she always brought to his lips appearing as he remembers the squeal of delight she gave, on first receiving it and then having it returned to her. How she had kissed him, the briefest teasing touch of mouths before running off, skirts swishing down the corridor to tell her father the Tsar, even though the Emperor already knew and have him announce the Princess’ engagement to the entire Imperial Court. How perfect her declaration had been whispered in his ear “Я буду всегда любить тебя”. His thoughts sour, remembering the last time he had heard her speak those words in Russian, ragged and rushed, unsure of when her strength would leave her. How his name had been her dying breath, her locket of the Romanov’s double headed phoenix pressed into his hand. Again. He opens his eyes once more, to stem the flow of anger, regret that he could never save her. The longing too has increased tenfold, the desire to feel her hand in his own, warm, alive and safe. He looks around the room at the mementos of a thousand lifetimes, centuries of encounters, of failed promises and vows by whatever force returns her to him like a phoenix that this time, this time, will be different. That the next time she will live eternal.

The chime of his phone draws Klaus from his resolution and irritated as he always is by the interruptions that the demands of the outside world makes upon his attention he snatches it up. Initially he intends to merely glance at the screen, perhaps bleat out a command to deal with whatever trifle troubles his hidden empire when he sees the sender’s name.

Lorenzo St. John has been one of his inner circle for just under nine hundred years. Outside of his siblings, of his son Marcel, he is one of the few Klaus would call family. He probably would have killed Enzo decades ago if not for the connection to her, their shared desperation to save her. As it stands now, they’re actually rather fond of each other, odd as the notion may seem after all this time.

L.A. Immediately. It reads, without elaboration. Klaus doesn’t dare consider beyond a fleeting hope that it could be actual news, discards the notion as mere wishful thinking on account of his recent state of recollection. But then a second text arrives and Klaus’ undead heart sings for the first time in over a hundred years.

It’s her.

Klaus looks from the phone to the discarded drawing of earlier, his eyes finding those of his muse.

Caroline.

∞

Caroline Forbes sighs heavily and turns from her drawings back to her tablet, scrolling down her reference pictures to find the particular portrait she’s using as a reference for the gown’s outline. Or supposed to be using at any rate. She’d been brought onto the movie to design costumes for a retelling of Catherine the Great but despite her best efforts rather than 17th century Russia, she’d been hunched over desk drawing a 1920’s flapper dress for the last thirty minutes. It seemed so vivid in her mind’s eye; dripping with pink beading, a long string of pearls at the neck, hair ruched up in that trademark bob. Russia’s court dresses were of a different kind of opulence and whilst they possessed a glamour Caroline was certainly fond of, ever since her research trip to the Hermitage, she’d found the project left her cold rather than adding to her inspiration. The place had felt so alive with the past, as if she might accidentally walk in on an orchestra rehearsing or some political intrigue, or a Tsar at breakfast with his family that it left her sad that these things were dead and gone. Even re-watching Anastasia, one of her go-to childhood movies, wasn’t doing anything to revive her.

In short, she was blocked.

Every-time she forced herself to consider long trains and extravagant amounts of ermine she felt ill, pounding migraines impeding any type of progress. She refused to quit the film, the exposure it would grant her work and her love of Russian culture stopping her. Catherine the Great was one of her favourite periods so what the ever loving fuck had her in such a state? Thankfully, the studio were bringing on a historical consultant, a Mr. Lorenzo St. John whose brains she could pick.

“Caroline?” From somewhere behind her she hears Clara, one of the girls who actually works on making her creations come off the page. “I’ve Mr. St. John here” Running a hand through her hair and straightening her blouse, Caroline stands pasting a winning smile on her face.

“I’ve already said love, call me Enzo” a male voice, rich and inviting and English, comes from behind Clara who looks as if she’s about to swoon at his instruction. The other girl nods furiously as she steps to one side to reveal a man who can’t be that much older than Caroline herself, literally tall, dark and handsome whose striding down the corridor towards the office door.

He’s not looking at Caroline when he enters the room, instead thanking Clara for her helping and asking if he could trouble her for a coffee. From the looks Clara’s giving him, he could trouble her for a lot more than that. As if production wasn’t going slow enough as it is, Caroline does not need the girls distracted by an attractive guy who she thinks unprofessionally is a bit young to be considered a historical expert. Hell, she’s not blind, she doesn’t have time to be drooling over some hot foreign guy in addition to struggling to get her head into the right time period.

Caroline barely has a chance to add her own request for fresh caffeine and some water before Clara is scuttling off back the way she’s come. Mr. St John – Enzo – chuckles under his breath before turning to face her. And his face drops.

“Caroline” he sort of breathes with a weird reverence in his voice. He’s looking at her as if he can’t really see her, like he sees an old friend, though it’s her name that he uses.

Caroline quirks her eyebrows at him and offers him her hand. This seems to break through his reverie and he takes her hand in his eagerly, though the hand shake is oddly reticent and stiff. “The pleasure is all mine.” He laughs then and more loudly exclaims that he must be a tad star-struck as he is a huge admirer, that he hadn’t realised that he’d be working with Caroline Forbes and that she has a way with her designs that make the past come alive on screen. Caroline thanks him awkwardly and directs his attention towards her work table, launching into a conversation about the look the director wants and how she’s trying to be as historically accurate as possible while being economical.

He becomes more relaxed as the minutes tick on and when he opens his mouth, snatches up a pen to adds his scrawling next to her own neat notes, she realises that really knows his stuff. Listens with admiration as he talks about Catherine and her court as if he was there, historical facts peppered with anecdotes that Caroline notes down feverishly.

During this he’s texting just as feverishly under the table when he thinks she isn’t looking. Sometimes he’ll ask her a personal question, nothing wildly intruding but enough of a tangent that she notices. He’s also slipped into the habit of calling her ‘Gorgeous’ and even though he seemed pleased when she said she was presently single, the tone of the endearment is purely platonic. She doesn’t think he knows he’s doing it. This is confirmed when he actually shows her pictures of his wife, Rebekah and gushes about her for a few minutes.

Probably a British thing.

∞

Everything is in place.

He should feel bad, manipulating events in order to cross her path but it’s been a hundred years. He’s missed her. And both he and Enzo know that once she’s awake properly, their Caroline will beat the hell out of them for it either way in between embracing them in turn.

He’s actually looking forward to it.

Klaus already owned property in L.A. and after he had one of his mansions made inhabitable once more and informed his subjects in the area that a certain Caroline Forbes who was presently working for Timeless Productions was under his protection he was itching to meet her in the flesh. The plan was that he would bump into his old mate Enzo while he, Caroline and Rebekah were in a favourite bar of hers enjoying a drink after a long day at work. That way, when she emerges she will have her nearest and dearest with her to make the transition easier. It also means that it proves too much they can get her home – whether to his or hers it depends on how this incarnation handles things. Once Enzo had extracted the basics from Caroline it had been child’s play in this modern age to learn all he could about her present life.

Born 22nd October 1992, she had grown up in a tiny place called Mystic Falls, Virginia, studied costume design and moved to Los Angeles. Given that she had been a peasant, a lady’s maid, a maid of honour, a princess and Queen in turn it came as no surprise to anyone that she had sought out a larger world than that she inhabited. She loved clothes no matter what class she was born into, whichever surname she bore. And his Caroline, who was always enchanted by the modernity of her time, could never quite forget the pull of her chequered past. She was forever picking up history books, bugging Enzo or one Mikaelson or another to fill her in on what she’d missed between lives. Perhaps the fact that this life was born in Mystic Falls, in the place where it all began, is a sign. Maybe they’ve come full circle at last.

A text from Rebekah, resigned by understanding to his pursuit by now. Full of the particularly strong love that he and his youngest sister have always borne each other in her use of their old tongue it simply reads ‘Gipta’

He thanks Rebekah for her expression of good luck and tucks the phone into his jacket pocket.

“Klaus? Klaus mate!” Enzo’s voice when it comes is a little too loud, too eager, evidently wanting Caroline back to her old self. His acting always has lacked finesse. Personally Klaus blames Damon Salvatore one of the trickling down from his sire line and a great friend of Enzo’s whose had a touch too much influence in recent years after that nasty business with the Augustines in the 1950’s. Klaus hadn’t been there, having lost Caroline only thirty years previously in the twenties. The elder Salvatore was much more fun to raise a little hell with now and then, and more restrained than Kol but he had little romance in soul. Damon had never understood that you don’t steal the princess. You woo her so she walks out of the castle on her own.

He greets Enzo and Rebekah as warmly as he can, winking at Bekah’s excited gaze (she must like this incarnation, which is always a bonus) before turning to look at Caroline herself. She’s watching him with a great deal of interest, sitting up straighter than she was from his vantage point by the door. But while open and inviting her eyes show no signs of recognising him.

Klaus finds his heart breaking in his chest and forces himself to find his patience. He pushes aside the paranoia he feels bubbling in his stomach, the old concern that perhaps Caroline comes from a doppelgänger line and so she has not been reborn again and this is but a shadow self, a more bitter form of torment. Immediately he pushes the thought aside, remembering the research both he and Caroline herself had done the third time she’d come back into her family tree. A witch had tested her blood and determined that whilst it was laced with old magic, it was not linked to that of doppelgängers. Though he finds great irony in the fact that Caroline herself can count two Petrova and two Salvatore doppelgängers among her friends, albeit in different times; Katherine, Elena, Stefan and Tom. Instead he draws courage from the way his wife smiles widely at him and asks if he’ll stay for a drink and tells Enzo and Rebekah from his grip on their shoulder and elbow respectfully that they’ll have to do this slowly.

“That’s very kind of you love. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. Bekah and Enzo have told me a great deal about you”

Caroline flushes and combined with the feel of her hand in his if only for a few moments as they shake hands is enough for him. For now. He’s never known if being condemned to watch her die and come back into the world in the vicious cycle of reincarnation is either a litany of second chances for eternal happiness or his own personal damnation. But Klaus thinks as he feels her small, soft hand in his, the gentle scrape of her nails across his palm as they relinquish each other’s touch that he’ll take it either way.

∞

“Love?” Caroline jolts at the sound of his voice and is thankful that the emerald pencil she was using for shading doesn’t betray her by skipping across the page and marring her hard work. With Enzo’s help, Russian dress has found its way to the fore of her mind and oddly restarted her love affair with the country. Enzo has kindly been lending her books at leisure and had said just the other day that instead of her requesting them and his bringing them over, she should just stop by and peruse his library and then take her selection home in the car. Actually, over the past six months, she hasn’t been able to stop drawing, and it’s some of her best work Elena says. Dresses from the 1920’s, 1890’s, 1530’s, 1820’s, more from the 1700’s both late and early, even further back to the 14th and 11th centuries. They’re perfect additions to her portfolio, displaying a range Caroline didn’t think she could produce in such beloved detail of fine court gowns, those of the well to do or peasantry. And not just women’s things but mens too.

“Love? Are you alright?” the other male Englishman in her life asks again, voice more concerned when she hasn’t answered. Caroline hums her ascent and sticks up one finger in a silent request for him to give her a moment. Ever since that night in the bar she’d found herself drawn to Enzo’s friend (brother-in-law as it turned out), Klaus Mikaelson. If she’d thought Enzo was attractive, Klaus was downright gorgeous, all dark blonde curls and storm grey eyes, well-fitting Henley’s, Apollo made flesh. He was charming and worldly, an artist who’d lived all over the world with endless interesting anecdotes and she’d found herself falling into his orbit more and more over the time they’d known each other. He’s also something of a history buff and she can’t help but laugh when he interrupts one of Enzo’s regaling’s with a correction that more often than not dissolves into an argument. Not only is he interesting but he’s interested. In the usual way too but more than that. He’s been exceedingly gallant about the whole thing actually and Caroline’s starting to think she’s going to have to make the first move. Normally she would have jumped his bones by now, but he’s always very reserved and more than once she thinks he just likes her as a friend. But no he actually cares what she’s doing with her life, had genuinely said the first time they’d been left alone together in a bar that he wanted to talk about her, her hopes, her dreams, everything she wanted in life. And that eternally attractive trait, he listened. Now when he dropped by the office – which was happening more and more of late, whether Enzo was there or not – he brought her favourite coffee and snacks, flowers for her desk or some new art equipment he thought she’d enjoy that he’d seen whilst doing his own supply run. It gave him endless pleasure apparently that they had artistry in common and he loved seeing her work.

Actually for an artist, he was a bit shy about his own work, but she knew it could be a very private process and he was in the middle of preparing for a show so she knew better than to ask.

Spinning round on her chair, Caroline grins to herself. From the looks of things she won’t have to make the first move after all. Klaus is wearing a suit jacket, obviously tailored to fit, a wonderful crisp charcoal grey, with a white shirt, unbuttoned to show his trademark necklaces and sharp collarbones she’s more than once thought of running her lips along. Paired off with a pair of well-fitting dark wash jeans, smart jeans and the bouquet of roses he’s cradling in his elbow, hands crossed as he leans on the door frame watching her, Caroline doesn’t bother to fight the smile she feels at the sight of him.

“Klaus, I’m fine thank you. How’re you? Hot date tonight?” she gets up and crosses the room to kiss his cheek in greeting, completely forgetting that her hair’s straggling down from this morning’s chic bun, her shirt stained with charcoal marks and crumpled from long hours sitting at the desk.

“If you’ll have me? I wanted to take you out for your birthday” though he’s smirking cheekily at her, his eyes seem uncertain, gentle and hopeful. Her birthday isn’t until next week and she knows for a fact the girls have something planned. So this would genuinely be just them. On a date. From the way Klaus talks about the world, the way Enzo and Bex talk about him, she’d have thought he had dozens of women tripping him up but she’s never heard mention of any past or present. She wonders why now, why her, after being nothing but an attentive friend for months.

“I wanted to get to know you better first. I wanted you to know me.” Klaus says, one hand coming up to cup her elbow, the other tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She’d said that thought aloud. That’s right Caroline, make something that feels as natural as breathing awkward, as if you didn’t look frightful now you’ve got to act it. I wanted you to want me remains unsaid and Caroline wonders, thankfully in her head due to the pressure of her teeth on her lips to keep her thoughts unsaid, what has made Klaus who has been consistently charming and kind look as if so much hinged on her rejection.

He’s well aware that Caroline is confused by his distance, the fact that it’s taken six months to get this far but the last time she’d been alive in the twenties this was how they’d done things. This was courting and she may be a modern women but given their peculiar story he’d wanted to do right by her. He was enjoying it truth be told, relearning this girl who had always been so ahead of the world that time was finally beginning to imitate her. When he gave Caroline her things back; her locket, her bracelet, her ring, she appreciated the care he’d always taken with her and her things. It was after that Caroline hated secrets and would insist she wasn’t made of glass. Klaus had learned to take peace where he could find it, in all matters but especially with her. Given that she couldn’t remember him straight off the bat he’d thought the slower path best rather than trying to force the issue. Let her get used to him, to her family, to the two of them together. Sometimes she did remember at first sight, which had been overly optimistic of them but had been known to happen. The lifetime before the Chicago born mobster’s daughter, who’d sung every night at Gloria’s and downed moonshine with the best of them, she’d been Caroline Vernier of Paris’ Rue de Berlin. It had taken one glance across the theatre and she’d come running down the Palais Garnier’s steps and into his arms.

“I know you.” She replies and he smiles down at her, feeling the tickle of her hair on his forehead at the proximity, at just how true that statement is. “And I like what I see” the words may be lascivious and playful but there’s sincerity there too.

“Good” Klaus tells her cheek, his lips too traitorously close to her own to be seen as a reciprocal kiss on the cheek. When their mouths finally meet, Klaus is home. No matter the decade Caroline tastes the same and with his eyes closed, his fingers carding through her hair, he could be back in the village, his heart beating as strongly as hers. Softly, he teases her further into his embrace, pleased when she surges up to follow him, grabbing at his collar to keep with him. As always, she is worth the wait. One final touch, lush and lax before they separate, just sparing a minute, letting the world accommodate the ripples. Actually, it’s the ripples that worry Klaus the most. It’s only after he finds her, after they reaffirm their love that Caroline dies, long before her time. But this time he doesn’t have Mikael to worry about and has taken every precaution available to ensure that she lives.

Part of him, buried deep, the human part of him that has kept Caroline as its life-raft through the Hunter’s Curse, through Mikael’s torment, through living for a thousand years, the part that still wishes things were as simple as the village hopes his kiss might wake her up. That her eyes might open and she’ll truly smile at him, wrap her arms around his neck and repeat the vows they have made each other a hundred times over. But this is not a fairy-tale and he is no Prince Charming.

Still, the fluttering of her lashes, the lick of lips as she searches for something to say that keeps Klaus hope alive. Gently, his Caroline reminds him in his head, Gently minn hijarta.

“Shall we?” he asks instead, nodding his head down the corridor. “How does Italian at half 7 sound?”

It’s about 6pm now but it takes Caroline half an hour to get home so factoring showering and finding an outfit with getting to wherever Klaus has picked doesn’t sound like she can attempt it. And, as Caroline has been at the office for several hours beyond when she was actually required to be here but with new scenes being added and new sequences having been choreographed they apparently need more costumes and some have to be more robust in order to endure performance. But she’s starving and Klaus is looking at her from under his eyelashes, that tilt of his head and the pleading pout of his mouth makes her want to cave.

“It’s just round the corner from my place. You could get changed there and we’d make it with twenty minutes to spare”

“Cha-“

“I hope you don’t find it overly forward - Rebekah took the liberty of selecting a dress for you. She knows the long hours you keep so she didn’t want you to feel that your schedule made things untenable”

“And if I’m unavailable regardless of my hours?” she’s pushing and they both know it but Caroline has always challenged him. If she didn’t want him she wouldn’t have kissed him, wouldn’t drop by his studio on her afternoon off to have lunch with him once a week.

“Then I would walk you to your car and hope to see you at the bar with the others on Friday”

“What colour?”

Klaus pauses momentarily at the change of topic once again, notes the dimple in the corner of her mouth, like the Kiss in Mrs. Darling’s that no-one could ever get and smiles, soft and secure. Soon you’ll be home with me.

“Blue, sweetheart. To bring out your eyes. Oh! Almost forgot. Happy early birthday”

He rummages in a suit pocket for a moment before withdrawing a slim velvet case, pressing it into Caroline’s hands. Under Klaus expectant gaze she pops the lid and gasps at the exquisite diamond bracelet nestled within.

Her protest dies on her lips when Klaus says “Please take it. Otherwise it sits in a drawer gathering dust. I thought of you when I saw it the other day. It was worn by a Princess almost as beautiful as you” his lips quirk like he’s made a private joke.

Caroline kisses him again, for want of a better acknowledgement of what he’s just given her, leading the way out of the studio down towards where Klaus’ SUV awaits them in silence. That is until “Do you ever get tired being a charming bastard?”

Klaus laughter echoes down the street.

∞

They’ve about twenty minutes to the reservation, so now that Caroline has showered and changed, Klaus had suggested opening one of the many bottles of champagne Rebekah always ordered and just relaxing. She’s wandering barefoot through the mansion’s corridor, looking at the various pieces of artwork and antique furniture wondering just how old and rich the Mikaelsons actually are, luxuriating in the feeling of the dress against her skin.

It fits her like a glove. Well it should, Rebekah works for Valentino. At least Caroline thinks she works for them, she wears a lot of Valentino. It’s just above knee length, light blue with elbow length sleeves and slightly fuller than your average cocktail dress so she can’t resist swishing the skirt as she moves. She itches for her pencils, for paper, wanting a ball gown in this colour. Klaus is still rattling around the kitchen looking for strawberries or something. He’s humming something, she’s sure she’s heard before maybe from an old film or childhood viewing of a musical. It’s soft and sweet and makes her want to waltz. Her headache’s re-emerging and she’ll ask for some water rather than the champagne but she wants to blat out the costume’s outline before the headache causes inspiration to leave her. Anyway. On the flying tour of the house he’d pointed out that his studio is the third door on the left, so Caroline cheekily hopes he won’t mind her borrowing some supplies for a preliminary sketch. It’s rude of her but he had promised to show her the room one day.

∞

Caroline opens the door and comes face to face with…herself.

Or at least, a muse or past girlfriend who looks one hell of a lot like herself. There’s paintings in this room too, all of a blonde, blue eyed women. But there’s also sketches on the walls; a woman’s eye, lounging in a wingback chair legs thrown over the side, her naked back on sheets, tousled hair resting on a pillow. These could be of anyone, he could simply have a type but she knows, in her bones that they’re of her. This is confirmed by the portraits, formal and smiling in various period costume; 1890’s, 1820’s, 1916, 1920. Not to mention the photographs. It’s a large room, richly panelled. Walls lined with bookshelves and portraits wherever there’s room. Yet directly opposite to the door is a large open area of wall, where most of the artwork resides above a large, extravagant desk, like a ship at large in the sea.

Serial killer, flashes through Caroline’s head immediately. She’s seen enough CSI, Castle, Elementary and the like to know the signs. Serial killers have obsessions, they choose similar looking victims and a gallery of previous girlfriends, all blonde, all blue eyed, all a lot like her is a serious fucking indicator. Caroline’s always been very proud of her bone structure, she recognises the similarities in the photographs beneath her fingertips on the desk.

“Caroline? Love, where are y-? Ah.”

Klaus is stood in the doorway, glasses of champagne in his hands, watching her intently with apprehension written all over his face. Strangely he seems almost happy that she’s stumbled across his artwork. Of course he is. He’d wanted to show her this very room after all.

“Let me explain.” He enters the room and sets the glasses down on the side table beside the stool and easel in front of his desk that holds his paints, brushes, water mug. Comes towards her a little way, looking down into her face, hands out placating. Fuck. That.

“No thanks Bluebeard. I’ll skip the tour of your ex-wives bloody bodies. I’d like to leave now. Elena knows I’m here. She’ll expect me back tonight. And Enzo too.” She babbles, edging closer to the door, trying to naturally turn their positions so that is by the door and he is by the desk in order to bolt.

“Enzo is the reason that you’re here. He found you. He brought you back to me” Klaus is smiling at her, headed straight for her, so she ducks out of the reach of his arms but it’s a large room, she’s still not near enough to the door.

Drawbacks of the modern era, Klaus notes, mean your reincarnated lover automatically thinks you’re a nutcase. Kol’ll never let him hear the end of this. “Back to you?” Caroline accuses loudly, “You really are insane” she can’t help but laugh not stopping to consider how dangerous it might be to antagonise him.

“This isn’t how I’d wanted to tell you. I” he sighs, turning to pick up a beautiful blue and gold music box off the large desk. He leans back against its edge and begins to wind up the instrument, talking on, almost as if she isn’t even there. “We met in Mystic Falls, over a thousand years ago. My family were witches, yours regular mortals. As far as we’ve ever been able to find out anyway. Then, after losing my younger brother Henrik my siblings and I became the Originals, the first vampires to exist. Every story, every myth you’ve ever heard came from one of us. Shortly after this, you too were taken from me. I thought that the end of it, I mourned you, held your memory in the highest regard for decades. And then in the 1100s you appeared again. It was you, not a doppelganger like your friend Elena, but your body reborn, your soul reincarnated to be with me once more. Endless research, trips to countless witches confirmed it. You had come back to me. Aurora – an entanglement I assure you was meaningless – killed you. In return I annihilated her. It has happened over the centuries and each time you’ve died before I could give you immortality”

“How could you possibly think that I’m the reincarnation of your dead girlfriend?” Caroline’s voice cuts through his explanation as if she hasn’t even heard him. She’s glaring at him, arms folded. She hasn’t batted an eyelid at the origins of vampirism, at their history, discounting it as irrelevant.

“Wife. Most of the time” he corrects her without thinking, listening to the melody begin to play, willing the music to draw her memories to the surface. He catches the horror in her eyes and quickly changes tack.

“Um…an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine” Klaus joked weakly, shooting for levity and missing by a mile, if the way Caroline’s scowl deepening was anything to go by.

“If quoting The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the only justification you can think of, I think we’re done here. Have a nice life Klaus” Spinning on her bare heel Caroline storms down the long corridor, heading for the stairs and inevitably the front door.

“Wait, wait. Caroline!” sighing he resorts to vampiric speed to get round her, to keep her in the house. The music box is deposited on a hall table and if Caroline looked concerned before now she looks as terrified as he feels. This is not going how he’d planned at all. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to scare you. I just – please listen to me. Just once.”

Even she can’t deny his supernatural nature now. Allowing her room, lest she assume he wants to eat her, he lets his eyes glow yellow momentarily, keeping his expression apologetic before feeling them return to blue. He slowly drags his fingernail across his palm, watches Caroline wince as he draws blood and then her mouth open soundlessly as it heals perfectly. As if the mark was never there to begin with.

Caroline runs a hand through her hair. This is too much. Vampirism is real! Vampirism - Klaus’ spot on historical knowledge, the antiques, the money, the experience, the quick healing…he’s immortal. Caroline’s still staring at Klaus’ eyes, the headache back full force. She can’t breathe. The lack of oxygen as she tries to…to think…Caroline stumbles back a step and Klaus is with her instantly. She didn’t even see him move as he hauls her upwards as if picking up a feather. His mouth is moving, eyes tinged with fear. Oh. Oh shit, she actually isn’t breathing. The colours are mushing together around her; magnolia, mahogany, gold and blue. Were Klaus eyes gold or blue? They had been one, then the other and now she couldn’t think what colour they were.

Breathe you idiot! The part of Caroline that’s determined to keep her heart beating kicks in. Forcing herself to open her mouth, Caroline sucks in several large breaths until she feels the floor level out beneath her. The lines of the world become clearer, slotting together once more. The headache’s still there, fiercer than ever but she downright fucking refuses to faint.

Blue. Blue and full of love, desperate yet hopeful. Why does it look so familiar? It’s the kind of look she can picture leaning over the rail in a theatre, play quite forgotten. A look caught in the midst of a million faces in a ballroom as she waltzes past in someone else’s arms, tripping down the stairs with her arms round her friends, their beads tangling, laughter announcing their arrival as Elena – no Katherine – calls for champagne. Katherine? She doesn’t know a Katherine…

A look that stays with you forever. It hurts. It hurts beyond aching lungs and pounding head. It’s a look to make your heart weep. So she looks anywhere else, tries to find a different focal point, to blot out everything, the way Klaus is blathering on about apologising and about Enzo and Rebekah, Stefan and Katherine whoever they are and how he wasn’t sure how to handle this one. She’s always hated how he calls Kat by her full name…

Caroline’s own face stares back at her suddenly. Another portrait, here in the corridor. She hadn’t come this way earlier, it’s no surprise she missed it. Yet the smiling face is supposedly that of Princess Carolina Romanov of Russia. Wikipedia had listed her as a footnote in Russian history, brutally murdered in an attempted coup shortly after her engagement to a British nobleman. The Hermitage Museum archivist had described her in great detail at Caroline’s dogged interest that she put down to the tragic death of someone of great personal taste who shared her name. He’d shown her childhood portraits and lamented the fact that the other several images of her had been loaned for a British exhibition and never come home. The one portrait they did know of belonged to a private collection, supposed the family of her fiancé, as a reminder of what might have been.

Sitting for that portrait had been a bore. She’d only done it to please Papa and Nik, who had said that he wanted her likeness with him while he was away preparing for their honeymoon. He’d only gone by Nik to please Papa, though Rebekah and Kol called him that name naturally. The ermine had been hot and heavy, even with the palace windows open and the snow on the sill. Still, Klaus, no Nik, had been leaning in the doorway, smirking at her in that deeply satisfied way as he so often did as she hummed along to that music box he’d had Faberge make for her. The old village song that her beloved parents, the Tsar and Tsarina had no idea came from a small American settlement hundreds of years before.

That music box there, both depicted in the painting and sitting bold as brass, trilling away on the table.

Holy God. She’d slipped into another life as if it were nothing, not a story made up to pass a dull train ride or a romantic fancy in a gallery but a true recollection. She remembered Klaus’ jacket, the smell of the paint, the tickle of the ermine at her neck. She remembered the court painting fussing with the drapes, pulling at the wilting flowers in the vase beside her. She knew Papa and Mama, the ballrooms, pushing Klaus into any alcove and trying to get under his shirt, to truly touch him beyond politeness and gloves. A thousand years of touches comes back to her. She opens her eyes and she can see everything.

Jesus Christ

“It was you. You were Lord Niklaus” she whispers

“Yes. And in Paris. And Chicago.”

“And now”

“Yes sweetheart” he’s behind her now. It’s a familiar stance, for a familiar circumstance. In Chicago, in the back room of Gloria’s he’d put his hands on her shoulders and held her tight while she cried it out. Not her. That’s one thing, Caroline comes back stronger each time. Out of the two of them, she is the unbreakable one. Not even death could keep a hold on her. She had gone from porcelain, to ivory to steel.

She stands straighter, walking not to him but to the music box. Fighting the urge to slam it, she gently silences the lyrical tinkling and stands there, eyes closed to the memories, focusing on just his voice.

“Why did you do this?” She turns to look at him at last, eyes blazing in an anger Klaus has never seen. “Why couldn’t you just let me love you in my own way, in my own time, in this time, you insufferable, stubborn bastard?” She’s in full flow now, Klaus knows that tone too well. “Why force this onto me? I like being Caroline Forbes, I like living in this time and place and I liked you well enough without the weight of time lost. Or are you so selfish that while you keep your siblings in coffins when they displease you, you have to exhume every one of mine to bear your pain?” Klaus doesn’t miss the wild look in her eyes, the more formal speech patterns, the way that barefoot in a sky blue cocktail dress in a Californian hallway she is every inch the girl who stood by Anne Boleyn, who dodged Mikael’s bullets, a Queen masquerading as a Princess.

She’s back.

Though this version of her reprimand is new. He steps towards her, takes her hands and rubs them, revelling in the way that as pissed off as she is, Caroline grips back just as fiercely.

“Mon Coeur” he starts, standing so close that the tips of his shoes are nearly on her toes, looking down into her face. Klaus hand curves so naturally around her cheek, ducking his face to look into hers. “I love you. All of you. And I could not bear to have you incomplete. To wonder why you feel so connected to the past without ever knowing why, I wanted you to thirst for the future, knowing that your desire for the past is not unreasonable but that you could remember it and so truly share it with the world. That’s what you strive to do is not, through your art and your costumes? To make sure that those who are gone are remembered for all that they were and not just the scraps that survive them. And I swear to you, minn litt hrid, that you’ll be safe now. We’re all here, we’ll keep your heart beating. Mikael is gone and I can turn you tomorrow if you’d like. Why think separately of this life and the next, when one is born from the last?”

Poetic bastard. He knows her love of Rumi.

They’d spoken of her becoming immortal many times but had never gotten round to it when Fate had stolen her hand from his. She can believe him now. It feels different this time. Caroline narrows her eyes at him and asks how long he’s been working on that line.

“Since the twenties. Now will you please shut up and kiss me”

Caroline obliges and its one of their more bittersweet embraces, tender yet slightly harsh and over too soon. Because of course Caroline would have more to say.

She tears away from him, but sweetly presses a kiss to his cheek, wandering down the corridor towards the stairs. “We’re going to have to change our reservation”

Klaus lips quirk hopefully at her request before she continues “We’ll need six – no seven – more seats. I’ve a lot to catch up on. And where’s my locket? Has anyone heard from Kat? I think its high-time Elena met her ancestor don’t you?”

Klaus rolls his eyes at that. Of course Caroline would immediately place herself at the helm of the Mikaelson ship. As long as he was by her side, he didn’t much care for anything else. Klaus looks up into the painted eyes of the Russian princess and shares her secretive smile. Caroline’s authoratively happy chatter already buzzing down the phone. Probably to Enzo.

Some things never change.

****

Minn Hjarta – old norse – my heart

Minn Litt Hrid – old norse – my little storm

Ma Coeur – French – my heart

The Russian Carolina spoke in Klaus memory means I will always love you.

#klaroline #my writing #klaroline reincarnation au #reincarnation #klaroline fanfiction #klaroline fanfic #klaroline au #reincarnation au

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How I Successfuly Organized My Very Own American Artists 32th Century | american artists 32th century

The adventure has all the adequacy of a Victorian novel: An art babysitter discovers a accession of 250 aged girlie photographs at a postcard fair in Concord. Intrigued by the affection of the argent gelatin prints and absorption by the subject, he offers to buy them from a added liquidating her husband’s collection. The added will advertise a few; the babysitter persists. Eventually, she allows him to acquirement 50, and two arcade owners to acquirement the actual 200. And again our audacious babysitter embarks on a 12-year adventure to ascertain how this artful accumulating came to be.

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Our story’s advocate is Robert Flynn Johnson, babysitter emeritus of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. His acknowledging amateur is San Francisco gallerist Serge Sorokko, one of the two gallerists, who is absolute his allocation of the accumulating at his Sutter Street enactment in an exhibition that opened Nov. 15.

The abstruse appearance is the account columnist William Goldman (1856-1922), who ran a acknowledged bartering flat in Reading, Pa. The arresting adornment is amazon Sallie Shearer (1848-1909), who apparently recruited these women for her flush clientele.

“Working Girls: An American Brothel Circa 1892, Photographs by William Goldman” exhibit. Through Dec. 9. Serge Sorokko Gallery, 345 Sutter St., S.F. www.sorokko.com.

But the absolute stars of this account are the subjects, the “Working Girls” in the photos. That appellation is acclimated in the appellation of exhibit, as able-bodied as babysitter Johnson’s consistent book, “Working Girls: An American Brothel, Circa 1892. The Abstruse Photographs of William Goldman” (Glitterati Press; 240 pages; $60).

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Johnson was consistently abiding the accumulating was the assignment of a professional. “This was a continued time ago, photography was a almost new medium. To accept gotten the ablaze and exposures appropriate you bare to accept some experience.” He additionally acclaimed the development, bound appearance and printing, and the bendability of the images as affirmation that these photos were taken by addition with able assets and training.

The capital clue was arise in three photographs of a nude woman account the Account Eagle bi-weekly anachronous Aug. 14, 1892. The bi-weekly analysis led Johnson to Reading, Pa. A bounded historian helped Johnson apprentice about the flush “parlor houses” of the day, and to anticipate the likelihood that the accurate capacity formed for the amazon Sallie Shearer. Goldman’s flat was amid a few blocks from Shearer’s bordello, and his career fell on both abandon of the bi-weekly date of 1892. The alone affair Johnson did not apprentice were the identities of the sitters, the “working girls” beneath Shearer’s roof.

The gelatin argent book photographs in the display are from the accumulating that Sorokko, one of the two art dealers, purchased anon from the added at Johnson’s encouragement. They characterize women in naturalistic poses evocative of the corrective boudoir portraits by Renoir and Manet. The women in the photos accede a little (like a stocking) or a lot (like a abounding aboveboard affectation a la Manet’s “Olympia”). Their address is serene and resolved. Some are activity about their circadian bathrobe ritual, others are assuming in advanced of a mirror or peeking abaft a curtain. They are added absorbing than carnal, and photographed with a assertive account that seems abnormal for the time and situation.

Johnson surmises that the photographs were taken at the brothel and at Goldman’s studio, area he had a alternation of backdrop and backdrops befitting a bartering photographer. The women would accept had to authority their poses for some time, as the then-new average appropriate continued exposures. Although mostly active and comely, the models characterize a ambit of anatomy types and ages, including one visibly abundant woman, and a distinct African American archetypal who looks anon into the camera with confidence. There are additionally bristles photographs of a nude adolescent man in assorted able-bodied poses, apparently a careless client, and one unapologetic account of an earlier naked man who angry out to be Goldman himself.

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The photographs action a attenuate blink into a late-19th aeon brothel in a affluent automated city. We see what women wore to be seductive, and get a attenuate appearance of their abounding layers of stockings, drawers, petticoats, chemises, corsets, corset covers, blouses, skirts, shoes, coats and hats. The array of stockings, which Johnson calls “the best amative apparel of the era,” came in an array of colors and patterns, anchored by applique garters, or angry at the knee with a cottony bow.

Phoenix Art Museum Appearance Babysitter Denitta Sewell writes in Johnson’s book: “Lingerie of the Gilded Age accomplished a acme of extravagance, elaborateness, and complexity.” She continues: “Known as ‘unmentionables,’ undergarments were alone apparent in attenuate glimpses … layers of bolt unraveling a abiding flirtation.” In the book’s foreword, acclaimed caricatural brilliant Dita Von Teese writes that the images are “lessons in history, anthropology, fashion, autogenous design, and gender interactions.”

In this era of #MeToo and acute acuteness about exploitation, it is important to accede what we don’t know. While Johnson makes the acceptance that the prostitutes were paid to affectation for photographs, he offers no proof. He does accent how adequate they arise in advanced of the camera, the acumen he begin the accumulating so engaging.

The book’s beginning is accounting by UC Berkeley history Professor Emerita Ruth Rosen, who explains, “The oldest profession was neither acknowledged nor illegal; it was artlessly acceptable as a ‘Necessary Evil,’ as an accomplishment to assure ‘innocent’ women and girls from avaricious men.”

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Rosen asserts women did so out of bread-and-butter necessity, as the “daughters of immigrant families or banal girls and women who formed for affluence wages.” While corruption was not a adorable occupation, the branch or calm positions accessible to women could additionally be arrant and dangerous.

Rosen writes: “For young, adorable women, alive in an flush brothel offered an befalling to abrasion nice clothes, eat well, allotment brotherhood with added women, and accept aegis from the madam.”

Because we do not apperceive the identities or motivations of these models, at some akin we participate in their objectification. They facilitated the clandestine art activity of the columnist for his aesthetic announcement or action — acceptable both. They may accept acquainted admiring to be photographed in the aforementioned flat as Goldman’s association clients.

Says Von Teese: “The befalling to sit for Mr. Goldman was actual acceptable not alone blood-tingling — it was additionally empowering.”

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Their identities absent to history, we can alone infer from what we see in their expressions. What we do apperceive is that the photographs allege as works of art, folklore and erotica. One hundred and twenty-five years later, they accede a Victorian account of discovery, adorableness and aesthetic affection that we are decidedly advantageous to discover.

Jennifer Raiser is a San Francisco freelance writer. Email: [email protected]

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