Back from Narnia

[wholeworldoutthere]

Klaus was running in the forest with his pack, for no other reason than how bloody amazing it felt. Bloody was the right qualifier for it, too. He had fed on a Maenad, and he could feel the pulse of the world beating through him, in time with his feet hitting the forest ground. The wolves - his wolves, as he had so very quickly begun to think of them - might not have fed on anything that affected them as the Maenad's blood affected him, but they had always eagerly followed his shift in moods, and this was no different. One of them howled as they ran, and another took it up. They usually howled to signal their presence to each other, but in moments such as these they howled to signal their presence to the entire world.

Klaus laughed, exhilarated, and was about to join in with a howl of his own when he felt the pull of the teleportation. He had no sooner realised what was happening, tripping on a root, maybe, or his own horror at being torn away, more likely, that he found himself back on the station, in the Porta Ianulis, his hands hitting cold, hard, despicable floor as he caught himself in an all too lupine posture. He was barechested and barefoot, wearing nothing but filthy black jeans, blood and dirt smeared all over him, and he growled, a purely instinctive reaction to the loss of his pack, and of everything Narnia (Narnia, of all places!) had brought him.

He pushed up to his feet, and completely ignored the others around him. Caroline was not there, and she was the one and only good thing about being back here. The pulse of the world was still beating inside his chest, albeit more slowly, and his feet still followed it as they took him towards their room.

Caroline was actually on her way to test the wardrobe room door again, because she was getting tired of washing her clothes in the shower and unless she did she was down to yoga pants and tank tops - something which was great for bumming out on the couch, but not so great for anything else. She was walking and staring at her communicator, until her head snapped up - she could smell the dirt from halfway down the hall, and her eyes widened, but she couldn't stop the bright smile as she beamed. "Oh, hey!" She moved close to him just like that, vampire speed and all, but she'd tipped her head back to look at him. "I didn't realize you'd gotten back." And she picked a leaf out of his hair, wrinkling her nose just a bit. "Did you guys have a hard time?"

The pulse of the world got louder and faster when he caught sight of her, and he just looked at her as she spoke, barely paying any attention to her words, just taking in the sight of her. His eyes hadn't exactly been sore (although if she paid attention, she might notice dilated pupils), but the saying still stood true, and he licked his lips unconsciously before he grabbed a hold of her and kissed her. Neither particularly hard nor softly, but deep, and true, like an echo of the beat that kept resonating inside him as his hands loosened their hold to slide under her tank top and touch skin. It wasn't about sex, it was about touch, contact and them.

She wasn't really expecting him to kiss her. Not just kiss her hello, but to kiss her, and the smell of earth and blood like she'd never smelled filled her senses, and she could taste it in his mouth, and he was kissing her like she was- like it was something more than usual, and his hands slid under her tank-top to rest on her back and her side, and her eyes searched his, her brows high as she was clearly surprised. "Wow, I... It's nice to see you, too." Her surprise quickly faded into concern, her brows furrowing. "What happened?" She asked it softly, one hand on his chest, the other on the nape of his neck even as she licked her own lips.

How could he explain what happened? There were no words for it, and yet he tried when he saw the concern in her eyes. "Nothing." One of his hands slid out from under her top, and cupped her face instead, trailing down until it was resting against the side of her neck, fingers fanning against her jaw, towards her nape. Just touch, contact, them, and the word he had found was no good. "Everything." He smiled then, then chuckled, and shook his head. "I wish you could've been there, love. I've never lived anything like it."

She stared at him, her mouth opening and closing for a second, until--

"Are you high?"

It was sort of incredulous, sort of amused, and a tiny bit accusatory, but not negative or judging. She leaned up to brush another kiss across his lips, before she pulled back and shook her head. "You need a shower." She paused. "And then maybe you can tell me what happened?" How he'd found- well, not drugs. But whatever he'd eaten that made him like this.

"I don't need a shower," he protested, his hand in the small of her back pulling her back to him when she tried to pull away, "I need..." His pack, the forest, the rivers and the sun. He growled, low in his throat, more the wolf than she had ever heard from him, and his eyes flashed yellow. "This place is wrong. Everything's dead here. Everything but us."

Caroline's eyes widened when his eyes turned yellow, and there was actual fear there, but she forced it away, because she trusted him. Even now, even with whatever this was. "Klaus, there are people here. Alive people. I know that this is-" She looked around them. "That it's this lifeless box in space, believe me, I can't leave. But you're not there anymore. You're here. With me." Her brows had knit again, and she asked quietly. "What did you feed on, down there?"

"Of course they're alive," he told her with a frown, he hadn't meant... or had he, and what did it matter. "It was bloody Narnia, Caroline," he told her, smiling again, almost a child's smile, one that held far too much joy. "What do you think I fed on?" He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and slid his hand around to catch hers. "Come on," he told her, pulling her along. "I'll take that shower if you take it with me."

"Narnia," she said again, because she'd not actually read the Narnia books, she'd just assumed that it was fields and castles and maidens. And, to be honest, she'd been a little bitter about being left behind, because she hadn't gotten her ring back. But he pulled her with him, and she followed, trying to ignore that flash of yellow minutes ago. "So, like, elves and stuff? This is what happens if you feed on elves?!" Because he was- Well. Totally high. "And yeah, sure, absolutely. Shower." Because he needed it, and she wasn't about to let him out of her sight. "I missed you," she said, because she had, and because this was more than just... whatever this was, in this second.

Maybe they should be more careful, in regards to what they ate.

"Elves and Hobbits, no," Klaus shook his head, walking them to their room, bare feet padding softly on the station floor, so wrong, like the artificial light. But there was the pulse of them, and that was enough for now. "Centaurs, dryads, maenads, fauns, more that sort of things. Didn't you read it as a child?" He assumed it was a classic. It had seemed so at the time, anyway. "It's so much better than the books." They walked inside their room and he stopped, shower forgotten as he looked at her, hands still linked, his thumb over the pulse point of her wrist. "You don't know what happens. I wish I could make you feel it." He paused, and stepped closer to her, right into her personal space, both hands gently cupping her face, his eyes on hers. "I could try. If you opened your mind to me, I could try to make you dream it, love."

"I... didn't really read, unless I had to for school." Or unless it was a magazine. She blinked up at him when they stopped, and she swallowed thickly, her voice low. "But wouldn't it hurt you?" Her eyes searched his, her hands, on his wrists - not pulling him away, but she was still concerned. Still really concerned. "I trust you," she whispered, even though she shouldn't, and she didn't know what else he'd see if she did open herself to him, but... she wasn't really one for secrets. She didn't really know what she was doing, but when she stared into the blackness of his dilated pupils, she let that grip on herself slip, her breath slowing.

Klaus trailed one hand from her face, keeping the other there, and his eyes on hers. He brought his wrist to his mouth and his face shifted, eyes turning wolf-gold as his fangs dropped, and he bit into his wrist, then offered it to her. No words needed for this communion - drink, for this is my blood - it would only have been more fitting if he had managed to feed from the Lion Christ. Second-hand would not work as well as straight from the source, but it would give him the extra connection he might need to make it work. She deserved it and so much more, she deserved it all. She ought to know what it was like to run in the sun with your pack around you, the freedom of nature and the true beauty of the world, so very much alive, the pulse of all things.

She stared at him, and then her eyes flicked to his wrist, her own turning black, even as she tried to resist for only a moment - and then that was all, that was all as she drank from him, the sound she made in her throat something not quite human as she tried not to bite into his wrist, not to feed but to be given, but her control-- she was still too new, and she bit even as his wound had started to heal, before she'd forced herself back, stumbling back a step, her lips smeared with blood. "What?" She licked her lips, and ran her fingers across her chin, licking them clean, even as she felt as if everything was- was more, and she could hear her heart thrumming in her ears. Nothing like what he was experiencing, but it was something. "Is this what you feel?" She didn't know it was more pronounced, with him.

"Come here," he told her, and fangs still out, bit his cheek, and his tongue, shifted back, and pulled her into another long, deep kiss, giving her more of his blood as he prodded at her mind, "Let me," murmured against her lips, opening his eyes to look into hers, waiting for that abandon again so that he could try and make it as much as it should be, for her. "I'll give you the sun and the life, love."

The blood buzzed under her skin, and the power of it - of having 'fresh' blood in her mouth, even if it was from him was electric, and it reminded her of when she'd fed, when she'd fed weeks ago and her body sang with the bloodlust, and just now she stared into his eyes, and there it was, that shift that spurred from I trust you and then settled in I love you and I'm yours, when she let go and her eyes seemed to be slightly more unfocused, her lips slightly parted as she lost herself in his eyes.

For a moment all she could see was the dark of his pupils, and then a single, bright point of white light in the darkness, until it dilated into a world. The forest he had just left, and his pack around them, all of it as he experienced it, so alive that it made his heart ache in the most perfect of ways. Klaus was holding Caroline's hand and smiling at her. "Let's run."

Caroline turned where she stood, not letting go of his hand, but she was so incredibly overwhelmed. "But- But the sun, Klaus--" Her eyes found his, and then flicked to the wolves around him, and she realized then that she did not know if they were wolves or wolves, and the fear prickled at her heart even as she could feel the beat of it, feel the beat of her heart running counterpoint to his, to the Earth, to the arching sky above them. She could feel it all.

The wolves stood around them, a couple of them pawing at the ground, clearly waiting for Klaus's word. "The sun, and the life, I promised you," he confirmed, oblivious to her fears, because nothing mattered but the sun and the life. "Let's run," he said again, and tugged on her hand. "They'll run with us. We're one when we run. Let's run, Caroline. Let's be one and make it all ours. Because it is." His eyes shone brightly, and the smile had not left his lips. He had promised her the world and was giving it to her.

She didn't protest again, trusting him, and she took a deep breath, letting her feet guide her - her instincts, which she'd ignored 99% of the time she'd been a vampire. She ran with him, and it seemed like it would never end, both of them lost together in the forest that seemed like it would never end, that lived in Klaus' mind and was pack, and she remembered nothing but how deeply, how desperately she loved him, that he was her mate - which, if she was in her right mind, she would have never used that word, but now-- well. 

They ran. They ran, and Caroline felt, for what seemed like the first time.

***

The high had lasted hours. Sharing his dream with her hadn't, his hold on her mind slipping sooner than it should have, and they had been back on the station, the sterile, lifeless station. Anything to make it more alive, more tolerable, and Klaus painted the walls of their quarters with anything, edible or not, the replicator provided when he asked it for colours. At some point, he had also painted Caroline's body, before making love to her again, and again, and again, everything magnified in her eyes and the curve of her lips, her pulse so loud to him, in synch with his.

He had tried some replicated blood, but spit it out and poured it down the sink in disgust. Eventually, he had fallen asleep, curled up around Caroline, to wake up in a start, drenched with sweat, sharp pain twisting his stomach and his veins on fire.

"I need more," he told Caroline, his voice as hoarse as if he had spent all night screaming, and tumbled out of bed in his effort to get up.

Caroline woke with a start as Klaus pulled away, pushing herself up with one hand, realizing only after a moment that everything- everything was a wreck. She blinked blurrily, staring at him. "What? Klaus-" Her head was pounding, but she pushed herself off the bed, sliding through sticky smears of what might be marmalade, moving to the replicator. "Blood. Fresh, please?" She shoved her hair out of her face, sighing softly. A second later, and she's offering him a blood bag, because she doesn't know just how bad he's got it. "This'll help," she says, her own voice scratchy. "Okay?"

Klaus truly believed, for a wonderful, ecstatic second, that she had what he wanted and needed. He moved towards it, and her, in a split second, fangs out, eyes yellow, but before he brought the bag to his mouth, the smell hit him and he dropped it on the floor, blood splattering everywhere as he backed away just as fast, his back hitting a wall where there shouldn't be one, only freedom and life, and he glared at Caroline, and told her, loud and just a little desperate, and a little wounded, "No! None of that vile stuff."

It was a rebuke and a plea all at once, and he was clearly in pain, and not even thinking of shifting back as another cramp grabbed at his stomach and got his knees to buckle from under him, bringing him to the floor.

Caroline's eyes widened, and she first backed away when his eyes flared yellow, when he stared at her like she had given him poison. "Okay, I'm sorry, but you're not there anymore. There's no more maenads, Klaus, there's just human blood now." She held herself in check, her body tensed even as she moved closer to him, crouching close. "You need to eat. I know you don't want to, but you need to eat, Klaus."

"I can't," Klaus told her, breathing hard through the pain and looking into her eyes, "eat that dead filth. It's revolting, Caroline. I have to..." He trailed off as he focused on pushing back up to his feet, leaning on the wall, and then headed unsteadily towards the door.

Her eyes widened. "Oh, no you don't." She moved supernaturally fast, slipping between him and the door, her hands on his shoulders. "You don't have too. You can manage, I know you can." She pushed him back, her eyes searching his. "Pitchforks, remember? We don't eat people here because they'll kill us if we do, and alive's a plus. They can't kill you, but they can kill me pretty easy peasy." She was trying to see if she was making any impact, if any of it was seeping through past the hunger.

"Let me..." He laughed, and brushed hair back from her face, his hand trembling. "Gods couldn't catch me, love, which is all for the best, since one is here. We'll be alright. I need to feed." And he opened the door, making to move past her.

She moved, fast enough to get in his way. "No way. No way, I'm not- You can't feed on them, Klaus. You can't, you'd kill them. And they can't catch you, but somebody's going to turn up drained of blood and guess who they're going to blame, since Mycroft already thinks I'm Elvira." She's not going to let him past her. "Lay down, we'll get through this. Okay?" Her eyes searched his, and she was breathing too quick, her pulse beating in her throat - even if she was technically dead, it didn't stop her body from trying to act as if she was still alive.

"I. Need. More," he told her, and kissed her, because he needed her out of his way and he needed to get past her and his thought process was muddled up in his emotional process in a way it never normally was, but it all boiled down to kissing her then and there, never mind that he was still fanged out, he couldn't process the danger of that kind of kiss right then, pressing her back against the doorframe, completely oblivious to the fact that the door was open and that he was stark naked.

It's the fear that does it. The stark fear, and it's not from him pressing her against the doorframe - of course not, and not that he's naked, it's that he's fanged and all it would take is one nick, one cut and she'd be down for the count. It's the fear that gets her to yank her head back, and she smacks it into the wall hard enough that she sees stars, but she's moving too quick for human eyes to see. She silently thanks her training with Bruce as her leg finds his knee, and of course it buckles because she's not holding back, not now, and his head slams into the desk hard enough that it makes a really horrible noise.

And, thank god, he's not dead. She's breathing too hard, her shoulders rising and falling. "Close the door, and lock it." She hears it hiss closed and click shut, and he's just sort of lying there, and that's when she's pale white, stick white, but still, she's got to move him onto the bed and clean this place up and pray that he'll be over all of this when he wakes up.

***

"Caroline," he says when he starts to wake up, although he isn't sure he is waking up at all. Everything feels off, and he feels like his skin is crawling when it has been buzzing for days, and like all of his organs are rotting inside of himself. He can't command his body the way he wants to, and his fingers curl on the bedsheet, something to cling to, anything. He can't breathe, can't get enough air into his lungs, never mind that he doesn't need to, it still feels like drowning, like dying, like worse. "Tatia... please," he moans, curling up on the bed as if he might blink out of existence, anything to stop feeling like this.

It's all clean now - it's been hours, and the worst of the food on the walls is cleaned up, and the blood on the floor, and he's in clean sheets even if he's sweating through them. The wound on his head - apparently she'd caused more damage than she'd meant too - had closed long ago, and she sat by his bed, a glass of blood by the bed. When he says her name, when he says Caroline, she reaches for him where she's been sitting for the past hours. "Hey," she whispers, and reaches for the blood-

And then he asks for Tatia. She doesn't pause, but she forces a small smile, because it gives an extra few ticks to that perpetual doubt, and she just swallows, and then shifts to sit on the side of the bed, the glass in her hand. It was fresh - or close to it, the trash filled with twenty bags that weren't good enough, and even though she wanted to drink it, even though it'd be the closest she'd have gotten to a real person since, well, Mycroft, she's offering it to him. "Are you hungry? You need to eat." Her fingers skimmed his sweat-soaked curls from his forehead, and she'd do what she could. Of course she would.

The smell of blood overrides everything, and no matter how weak he currently is, he moves vampire fast to grab the glass and down it. It's just as fast that he's bent over the edge of the bed and throwing it all up, because it isn't good enough, and nothing would be at this stage, his body rebelling against anything that isn't the kind of blood that put him there in the first place. He throws up the blood, and then bile, and he's shaking worse than before, and curling up on the bed again, whispering nonsense in his mother tongue, interspersed with the names of the members of his family, and Tatia's.

She hears him say Tatia's name again and again, and she just ignores it, she just has to ignore it, because she's got to help him, and she's cleaning it all up. She doesn't know how long it's been, listening to him talk thickly, listening to him talk about his family. listening to-- to everything. It's been hours, maybe days, she doesn't know, just that she's fallen asleep in the chair next to the bed, and she's forgotten to eat herself, but she's not leaving, only jerking awake when she half-fell from the chair, and he's still there, still lost.

He says so much more, whenever he half-surfaces into something vaguely resembling awakeness. It's never quite consciousness, but it's enough to make him rave out loud, instead of trapped inside his own mind. There's his family and Tatia and Katerina, there's telling his mother he's sorry and asking why they never loved him, there's flipping the switch off because what else is he supposed to do and there's begging for it to keep working because he can't deal with all of this, with so many emotions, so intense, and there's hope and betrayal and yet more hope, there's belief in family no matter how many times it stabs him in the back, and there's quiet, and Caroline, and hybrids, and hope renewed, the one surer than the other, but the other better than the one, and there's pleading for true death because this pain can't be worth living.

Eventually he comes out of it, and the sheets are drenched, and he's blinking drearily, and his eyes focus on Caroline beside the bed. He feels a deep, raging hunger, and he feels like shit, but he remembers wanting to die and this is miles better. It takes him two tries before he manages to lean up on an elbow, and a couple more tries before he manages to form the one word, "Blood," a request, a kindness. He needs to feed, now.

She hears is all, and there's a lot hat she can't understand because it's in a language long forgotten, but she stays by him, the room clean enough, the glass on the bedside table. She hasn't told anyone, and she hates herself for it, that she's too afraid to go for the one doctor on board because now is the time when Klaus is vulnerable, and she is as well. She listens to him speak, and dozes because there is only so much she can stand hearing of Tatia, of Katerina and she thinks it's only seconds before she hears him say Elena's name, too, and she doesn't want to be that person. She doesn't want to be that jealous girl, the one who remembers all too clearly that when she said that compared to Elena, she was collateral damage.
When the fever broke, she nodded at his request, feeling the hunger in herself when she handed him the glass, when she helped him sit up enough to drink it, praying that he'd not throw it up again. "Hey," she whispered softly, when he'd drained the glass. "More?"
"More," he agrees, hoarsely, and he isn't throwing it up this time, he needs a fuckton more if you ask him, but he doesn't have the energy to swear, so he just adds, in the same kind of strained whisper, "A lot more."

"Okay," she says with a nod, and she pushes up from the bed, and she asks the replicator for blood. More and more, glasses and blood bags, and she keeps her back to him as she downs a glass - it's disgusting, she's taken the coldest one knowing it would be disgusting, and it had a sort of blackish tinge that tasted bitter and off, but she needed something- and he needed what wouldn't make him sick.

Because blood vomit? Way, way, WAY worse than regular sick. 

"Okay." She's got a glass in both hands, and a blood bag under her arm when she comes back, and hands him one, putting the others on the night table before she goes back for the rest, and it's a lot, all told, just sitting there waiting for him, Caroline wordlessly handing him a new glass and taking away the dirty ones. "Better?" She ventures the question - soft, and careful - when he's finally on the last glass.

"Less bad," he answers, and can't quite pull enough his usual, half wry half warm kind of humour, his tone still too flat for that, but it's meant as humour even if he doesn't have the energy for it. He's fallen back on his pillow, and he's still feeling weak, and shaking, and he wants the sunshine, the forest and his wolves like he doesn't think he's ever wanted anything before.

But he looks over at Caroline, frowning, because he doesn't remember what's happened in the last few... however long it's been, and that is not good news. "Did I... Are you alright?"

"Who, me?" She stared at him like he was crazy. "I'm fine. You're- You just sort of... you were really sick," she said quietly, and she reaches to touch his forehead, and at least he's not burning with fever any more. "I can get more blood, if you want it?" She wonders, then, if he wishes that they were here - one of the dopplegangers, and then he could make what he wanted. If he cared for Katherine the way he cared for her, since he said he loved Tatia. 

And none of those thoughts were good ones, which is why she smiled, and moved to take away the dirty cups so she could bring him new. 

"No," Klaus says, even as his body says yes, because of course it needs more blood, but he needs so much more. He's weak as he doesn't remember ever being, but he still forces himself to move, and catches her hand, or means to and catches her wrist instead, falling back down on his pillow and tugging her closer. Please, he almost says, but instead adds, "Stay."

She sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and then paused before she figured out what to say. "Do you remember anything?" She asked it quietly, and she honestly hoped he didn't - he'd been in so much pain, and had suffered so much. "I'll be here for you, I'm not leaving." She wasn't leaving now, when he was conscious and talking, no matter what he'd said, or what he would say.

His fingers rested loosely around her wrist when she sat back down, and he relaxed, as much as he could in this state. He isn't sure what she's asking about exactly, and his memories of the last few hours are hazy and elusive, like a dream's, full of old memories and ever-present fears. "What did I do?" he asks, frowning and worried. He knows how he reacts to fear.

"Do? You were.... Sick. Crazy or whatever because you were so hungry, and blood just made you throw up." She paused, and then said quickly, "You were kissing me while you were all grr, and you wanted to eat the people on the station besides so I sort of... hit your head on the desk hard enough to knock you out." And, if he'd been a normal person, give them serious brain damage. " It's been days, you were talking your.... I mean you weren't sleeping, so I guess you were sort of talking through the crazy." She didn't really mention Tatia or Katherine or that he'd thrown up everywhere or how long she'd spent cleaning everything, because to be super honest, she was just glad that he was ok again, and not just crazy forever.

Crazy, unable to feed on replicated blood, out of it enough that it was a very good thing she'd knocked him out - and weak enough that she'd managed. But Klaus was mostly stuck on the fanged kissing, and he had to ask, "Did I bite you?" She didn't look it, but he did remember feeding her his blood.

She leaned forward to brush her fingers across his hair, smoothing it off his forehead as she spoke quietly. "No, I'm fine, I promise." Her smile was exhausted, and she was starving, but she didn't mention those things, either. "And you are, too, now. It's over." She didn't think she'd have told him even if he had bitten her - not now, at any rate, but eventually. Eventually, she'd tell him. She didn't plan to tell him any of the rest that happened, anyway, content to just sit beside him while he recovered. "How do you feel? Are you sure you don't want more blood?" She shifted - not enough to pull away, but so that she was close, clearly willing to go get it.

Caroline was actually pretty good at the Florence Nightingale thing, if you asked her. She just... eventually, she'd hit the point where all the other stuff would come rushing to the surface, but right now? Right now she was still totally in fit-it mode.

Satisfied with that answer, Klaus nodded, which in bed mostly meant bowing his head slightly. "Honestly, I feel like I could use a week's supply."

He did not feel like eating, but he was, at long last, aware enough that he knew how hungry his body was.

Caroline nodded, and it was a long process, but after a couple of trips she got to the point that he actually didn't actively want more, and she settled back to sitting next to him, and even though she thought to ask about - about anything, about Tatia and Narnia and what he'd actually eaten and to get his reassurance that it was a bad idea and he wasn't going to repeat it, she just smiled - a little tight, a little stressed - and held his hand. "You should get some sleep now, if you can. You didn't sleep a huge huge amount before, and it'd help, I think. Let the blood soak in." There were literally piles of dishes that needed handled, and when he was well enough to walk, maybe he'd help clean some, but right now? Caroline knew it wasn't happening.

"The blood's going to soak in anyway," Klaus assured her, his thumb stroking the back of the hand he held. His gaze focused on the wall behind them, and his lips quirked up in a half smile. "Didn't like my art, love?" It was, in its own way, thanks for cleaning it up. Much as he would have liked to keep it, he remembered enough about what he used to paint it that he realised the impracticality of it.

"It's been a couple of days," she said quietly. "Not exactly the best for food - I got you some paint, though, so that next time--" Not that there'd be a next time, if she had anything to say about it, but, still. "-- there's some things that aren't going to smell really bad." She touched his cheek, her normally bright eyes surprisingly serious. "I was scared for you," she said quietly. "For us, but mostly for you. I know that you're impossible to kill, nearly, at home, but..." She trailed off, looking away, and taking a deep breath before she exhaled slowly, and she smiled, a little too bright, a little forced. 

"But you're okay now, right? Just tired. We can handle tired."

"I'll be just fine," Klaus assured her, squeezing her hand softly. "And it was worth it. Did you feel it?" He wasn't sure how much he had managed to communicate to her. And his pack... He would miss those wolves.

It was worth it. That was fine for him to say - that even though it was clearly hell to live through, he barely remembered it and he wasn't the one who was awake the whole time, barely sleeping, watching him throw up and have him kiss her while he could have bitten her, and having to slam his head into the desk with that sickening crunch. 

"I felt it," she said first, her brows furrowing. "But- you can't do that, Klaus. You were going to attack the people on the station, and I'm not strong enough to protect us both. You have no idea how sick you were, you don't even remember it." Her brows furrowed. "It seemed like you were dying. I can't- Will you do it again? Would you do it if it kills you?"

"It's not going to kill me, love," he tells her, painfully, because he clearly didn't manage to make her feel it, and that smarts. He remembers paying for it, for showing it to her, before it all became a blur of pain and need. It smarts that he didn't manage, and it is so unfair that he was alone to feel that glorious freedom. "Blood won't ever kill me, and I might be weaker right now, but I'm stronger for having gone through it." He mostly means the high, but the withdrawal, too.

"I'm sorry that I scared you," he adds, and means it, sitting up to let go of her hand and cup her face instead, "and I'm more sorry than words can say that you couldn't be there with me, but..." He has to look for the right words, and eventually he finds them, as he thinks of the pack, the blood, everything that Esther would have liked to keep him from. "I've never been more me. And that can't ever be a bad thing. That can't ever kill me."

"It may not kill you," she said quietly, "But it can change you. It can change you forever, Klaus. Like Bruce's blood." She had felt what he had felt, but not as much, not as clearly as he had - and she had no ties, no pack. She wasn't a wolf, and to her, it was a shining moment into who he was, deep inside... but she also saw the aftermath. "I felt you," she said lowly. "I felt what it was like, I think, to be- to have that, I just- I was afraid for you." She leaned her face into his hand, closing her eyes for a moment, exhaling slowly, because she's so tired and worn and hungry, even now. "I can't ever leave. The people who got their stuff back got it because they found the prize or whatever, but I can't leave to find the prize." She rubbed a hand over her face, and then shook her head. "You know, sometimes-" She looked away, swallowing thickly. "Every once in a while I wonder what it would have been like if I was like you." She glanced back. "I know it's different, and it's horrible, but you've sort of got a built-in family with the wolves, right? I could feel it."

It's so very obvious the way part of him shuts off when she says that, and it's not the kind of thing he wants to explain. It's something, yes, the wolves, but being what he is cost him so much, and it's all wrapped up in his family and he doesn't want to know what he might have said about Mikael and Esther when he was in withdrawal.

So instead, he focuses on the built-in family part, as his hand falls back down to hers. "Not so long ago, you were berating me about not giving people a choice." It's not an attack, not by a long shot; it's far too tired for that.

Her reply is sharper than she means it to be, and she bites the tip of her tongue before she speaks but she just goes ahead anyway. "Yeah, well, you spend a couple of days cleaning up vomit and listening to the person you care about calling for-" And then she stops, and she takes a deep breath. "You know what? I'm starving. This really is not a conversation we need to be having right now, when I feel like I could just eat somebody's face. Right?" Right. She's exhausted and sort of angry and it stung - every single time he talked about them, it stung, and her temper was short, and she'd been terrified for him, and he's all it's no big deal and it makes her want to puke. She feels like she should be happy he's fine, happy he's happy and alive, but it's just not working out that way right now, and even when she tries to force it, it bottoms out at 'civil'.

"Go, eat," Klaus tells her, and strokes her forearm before pulling his hand back. He doesn't sound angry, or sad, or anything but tired, which he is. There is so much he wants to tell her, regardless of the exhaustion, but she's right. Now is not the time.

She moved and took the time that it took to get some decent blood and drink it - three bags, far less than he had taken but still a lot for her for one meal, mostly because she had barely been eating. It was only when she had to, she only slept when she'd been unable to stay awake, falling asleep by his bedside. But Caroline took that time to level herself out, to take deep breaths and when she came back she seemed a lot more even less likely to snap. She settled back at his side, and her smile is small but at least it's not forced. "Do you want to get some sleep? Or do you want to talk more?" She asks it quietly, her hand reassuring on his. They could deal with the doing this again is stupid part later, and just be glad about the whole you're doing better thing.

Klaus watches her as she feeds, and focuses on how he feels at the same time. He's had enough blood that even with the nanites, he can feel himself improving, little by little. When she once again asks him if he wants to sleep, he raises his eyebrows. "Trust me, love, when I want to sleep, I will." It's not hostile, it's a statement of fact, and he threads their fingers together. "What were things like when we were gone?"

"The usual," she says, and she reaches for him, to touch the curls on his forehead even though she can't think why. "You need a haircut," she says softly, and it's an oddly vulnerable moment, before she looks away. "People were just home. None of the people who had vanished were able to go to Narnia, so everyone was pacing around here like a bunch of trapped animals, except for the people who didn't care. How was- I mean, besides the obvious?" Her voice lowered. "I miss it. I miss- I mean, I guess, I miss not being here."

"I wish you'd been there as well," he assures her gently, and means it, even though he knows it would have made everything more complicated, he knows he might not have found his pack. It would still be worth it to have her by his side. "I would've asked the witch for her help, but they told me she was dead." The wolves did. "I'll keep looking."

He would not wait until the station saw fit to return their belongings to them, not if he could help it.

"Would you go back? Would you go back and stay, if you could?" And it's sort of a quiet question, because she's sort of trying to assess her value, which is weird and probably something she shouldn't be doing, but she licks her lips, and then glances away, because she's having a lot of feelings, because she's Caroline, because she's still mostly human, and she was afraid he'd die. That's why she leans forward, holding herself up with one hand as she kisses him gently, and it's not like how she's ever kissed him before, her eyes closed. It's short, and she rests her forehead against his for a second before she pulls back, taking a deep breath. "We'll figure it out." She doesn't know if they actually will, but she's going to try, because she's scared about both being left behind, and now - when she's never been before - about something happening to him and her not being there.

It's not that she thinks she can stop stuff from happening, but she doesn't want him to be alone.

Klaus is - not confused, exactly, but he's given up trying to follow her logic. Instead, he welcomes her touch, her kiss, a hand framing her shoulder lightly, and reacts to what she gives him. "We can figure it out right now, love. The station isn't letting us stay down there anymore than anywhere else, and I wouldn't if I could." Much as he hates to leave his pack behind and will forever cherish these memories, staying there forever would not be an option.

She stares at him, and finally gets to what's eating at her, of a sort. "You were talking," she said lowly, "In your sleep, and-" And then she stops, her brows furrowed and her lips pressed together, and she shakes her head. "I was afraid that you'd die. That the blood was poisoning you, or- I don't know." She'd never seen anyone go through withdrawal, before. "I'm so glad that you're alright, and-" She shakes her head minutely. "There's no one to ask or help or- Nobody can know, so it's just us." She's avoiding what - or who, more precisely - is bothering her, her mind bouncing back and forth; Tatia, Katerina - it makes sense, except for the last part, and that's- 

Maybe that's why she's so flustered. Maybe it's something else, because it's been a hard couple of days with real upside, past my boyfriend's alive, so that's good, right?

Even if people knew, they couldn't help them. It's an increasing number that does, anyway, starting with Mycroft and his brother, Kirk and Spock of course, the geek, Nuada, Thor, the Hulk, and the American poster boy... And those are only the first few that come to Klaus's mind. But for all that they know, there is nothing any of them could do about anything mystical, save maybe for Nuada, in the right circumstances. "If something like this ever happens again - or something different - Nuada's the most likely to have a clue what to do." After Klaus himself, of course, but that's in case he isn't here, or he is unable to help. But beyond that, there's something it feels like she's been circling around, and she brought it up to cut herself short this time, so he can't help but notice. He sits up, because he's already feeling better, and he wants to be close to her as he asks, holding her gaze. "What did I say?"

"A lot of it was in...  I don't know, Icelandic or whatever." She shrugs a shoulder, and glances away, then back. "You kept asking for somebody named Tatia." Which didn't particularly bother her so much, because she didn't know who she was - family, maybe? But... ".... and... Katherine. I mean, Katarina, so I guess it might now have been Katherine, but-" She shrugged, and licked her lips, because she didn't know anyone else named Katarina, and it just weirded her out, especially after... well. Collateral damage. She didn't really forget this sort of stuff, as much as she might want too. "Yeah. Uhm. And your family, you were pretty out of it, though, so. You know, there's that." And she can't really hold his gaze, so she's looking down at her fingers that are in her lap, before she glances back up, then away. "It's been a really long few days," she says softly. "For both of us."

Some threads of his not-quite dreams of the past couple of days come back to him now, helped along by her words, and the knowledge that he called for Tatia makes something bitter churn in his stomach, but the thought that he might have called for Katherine? That is laughable, actually. Whatever he was telling Katherine, he doubts that he was calling out for her help. That one he left entirely to Elijah, emotionally speaking. Practically speaking was something else altogether.

But Caroline keeps talking, and he can't focus on that or address it, at least for now. "For you, mostly," he answers gently, raising a hand to touch her cheek in a caress, before he leans in and kisses her, soft and tender. "I remember some of it, now. It's blurry, but I thought I was back in the past. And if you heard Katarina or Mikael's name, trust me - I wasn't calling out for help." They were the last persons he would turn to, although he could imagine being out of it enough to call for Esther.

"It hasn't been easy for you," she said quietly, because she's never really been comfortable talking about her feelings off the cuff - it's always a planned sort of salvo, a soliloquy of this is how I feel, I need to tell you with way too many words and wait for a response. Not just talking about it, especially not when she wasn't really the one spearheading the subject. Instead, she tipped her face to his hand, and then turned her cheek to press a kiss to the palm of his hand. "I'm glad you're back to yourself," she said quietly, even though she was changing the subject away from his family, and she had to steer it back.

"It was mostly your family. I don't think you really knew where you were."

"I'm positive I had no idea," he agrees, softly, and he wishes she wouldn't hide away from him that way, but he lets her. There's no use pushing her, and even if he wanted to, today would be a bad day for it. He isn't exactly at his best right now, after all. "Curl up with me for a while?"

"Of course I will," she said with a smile, and she shifts from where she was sitting beside him. "Hold on." She moves and does all the normal things - getting into one of his t-shirts, washing her face, all her normal stuff, all of her human stuff, before she slides into bed with him, and it's just natural that she's curled against his side, her head on his shoulder. "Do you miss them?" She asks it softly, shifting to get comfortable. "Home. Your family." Because that's sort of what she walked away from this from - among a lot of other things, it was that she missed them, because someone besides her would have known what to do, could have taken over, could have helped - but Caroline was alone, except for him. 

She had friends, but not the sort who knew who and what she was, not really. And not about Klaus.

"Of course I do," he says, quietly, not a reproach for her asking, more like a show of vulnerability. He's tired, and he doesn't feel like putting up a front. He rarely does, but for all that he barely remembers the dreams, they still left behind an odd sort of quiet sadness and unease. He doesn't add, 'in case you hadn't noticed, they mean everything to me', because the bitterness that would underline the statement is aimed at her friends more than at her, and at Stefan mostly. He tries and thinks of something else to say, but there are no words, really, that work for him, for this, for them, for now, so he just strokes her hair, and kisses her forehead.