"It's never about things getting worse or better," Klaus says, after a few seconds pass, and he's still sitting on the bed, leaning on his hands on either side of his thighs, and looking up at her. "Because they always can, in a myriad of ways. It's about finding the beauty and the light and all the other reasons that make it worth it. That make all of it worth it."

All of it, including the deaths, and the pain, all sorts of pain, all of it. There's only one moment in his life Klaus was unable to do that, and he likes to think of it as special circumstances.

"I can't tell you how to do that, and I can't tell you flipping the switch wouldn't be the way for you to get by for a little while." A little while; when you're a thousand years old, the time that tends to work for doesn't seem very long at all. "But there is so much light and beauty out there, Caroline, whatever form they take for you. Now," and he stands, his eyes on hers. "What do you need, right now?"