wholeworldoutthere | (no subject)

Klaus beams in with everybody else, but a quick look around assures him that Caroline's body isn't here, and he knows just where to look. He ignores everyone, although on his way he finds John Watson and gets him to give him a proper splint. Watson clearly thinks that Klaus is a little insane for having walked even this little with his makeshift splint, and tries to get Klaus to take a crutch, at least, but Klaus ignores him.

Once he's fixed up enough that he can walk - painfully, but that's nothing, and the broken bone will have mended in a couple of hours - Klaus is on his way again, towards the morgue.

It's not an easy thing, bringing Caroline's body back to their room on a broken leg, but he does it anyway, and changes out of his Port Royal clothes. He loosens Caroline's corset, feeds her a little of his blood in case it helps, and waits. He's taken her ring off, and he's holding it and wondering what to do with it. Now that they're cut off from the bloody witch, it might not subject the wearer to her will anymore, and yet still work against the sun, if she enchanted it for that at all. Best not to trash it, but he doesn't like it.

Eventually, his leg mends, and he's sketching again, the ring abandoned on the desk - sketches of Caroline in Port Royal.

And eventually, Caroline moves, and it's an effort not to crowd her. Instead, he puts pen and paper down and leans his forearms on his thighs, body angled towards the bed where he laid her out.

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"I don't know." And those three words sound so incredibly hopeless, and she's hugging herself where she's standing in front of him because she literally doesn't know what to do or what she needs or anything, and that's when she says it, small and vulnerable. "You killed me." There's not blame in that, but a sort of helpless confusion that's very unlike her, like she's a ship adrift at sea with no moorings.

Klaus simply nods at that, his eyes quiet on hers, a slow, steady nod that means I know, and that means you know, too, you know why it was the best option. It's acknowledgement, but there's nothing he can do to make it better if she doesn't know what he should be doing, if she doesn't tell him.

It's the first time he wants to make it better for someone he's killed.

Well, for someone whose neck he's snapped, anyway. He didn't kill her, but he knows what she means and it isn't the time to play on words - or maybe it is, but he doesn't because he trusts that she doesn't need that much, that she knows that much already.

She nods too, and it's when her face crumples, and she looks away as she starts to cry, but it's not big active sobs like before, just tears trickling down her face. "I need you," she said thickly, but she doesn't know what more than that, what she needs more than that, or what she expects him to do. She's torn and trying and it's up there with the most difficult things she's ever done, even if it's not -the- worst.

She's barely said the words that he's there, arms wrapped warmly around her, not too tight, because he did just snap her neck a few hours ago, so she needs to know that she can get away if she likes, if she needs. One hand is stroking her hair, and he presses a soft, long kiss to her temple. "You've got me, love. I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere."

It's one of the things that she still doesn't know what to do, and she just stands there for a long while, letting him hold her as she stood in his arms. She didn't know how long she was there, how long it took for her to curl up in bed and sleep what amount she could. She had nightmares-- it was no surprise that she had nightmares, and it was days before things even sort of got close to normal. Even after a week it still wasn't right - he'd move in the periphery of her vision and she'd tense, and the amount of time she spent in their room, in pajamas, eating whatever ice cream she could coax out of the dispenser was somewhat surprising, before she started going out in the world, again.