Thursday, May 24

[wholeworldoutthere]

That morning, Klaus did wake up with a rather horrible hangover. It was far worse than the one he had had in Venice, and it took a lot longer to vanish. A couple of hours, after sufficient blood-drinking, even if the blood provided by the replicator seemed particularly horrid. Eventually, he felt good enough to function, and saw Caroline's message when he checked his comm.

He still did not know exactly what he felt, only that he needed to know more, and now that it sounded as if she had told someone else of what they were...

It took him a while to find her, because he had expected her to seek out the company of others. She had never struck him as a solitary person, but he had never known her after an abduction to a space station, either. He ended up finding her at the end of one of the long dead-end hallways on the second level, and as soon as she spotted him he raised his hands in the international sign for 'I come in peace.'

"I want to know what happened to Finn," he told her, slowly walking closer, but something in his voice made it more like a request than it usually would have been.

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[wholeworldoutthere]

"I'm sure she's beautiful, if their casting director's any good," Klaus assured her, and nodded at her pillow and blanket. "Are you going to stay here? I always fancied you for a higher-maintenance kind of girl."

[brightestlight]

She looked down, and her eyes widened. 'Oh! Oh, that. I- I guess I just... needed to be alone for a while. You know?" She looked up at him, like- well. Like she needed somebody to say it was okay.

Why that person was him, she didn't really think it through. "I am totally still taking showers, though." She still felt like she had things in her hair, when she knew they must be gone by now. "Because I was being alone, not gross."

[wholeworldoutthere]

"You can't be alone in a room?" he inquires, eyebrows raised. It isn't that he thinks it isn't okay, it's that he wants to understand. It isn't really his place to say it's okay or not, not unless he feels like she needs to hear somebody say it, and he hasn't picked up on that this time around. "With a bed?"

[brightestlight]

"I didn't want anybody to find me." And the way she says it, she means him, or maybe him and Bruce, but who else does she know here? "It's okay, though. I'm done." She bends down, gathering up her stuff in her arms, and maybe she's weird and quiet, but what about today hasn't been weird?

"I should go put this back in my room. So..." She trails off, and then-- "I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning." Because... because she would see him tomorrow morning, because he said he'd show up.

[wholeworldoutthere]

"I'll see you tomorrow," Klaus agrees, lips twisted into a small smile, like there's a joke only he's getting. Close enough, there's a date only he will admit they're having. Not the decorating, that's a small price to pay. But the dinner itself? Yes, it's a date.

"You know where to find me, if you need me," he adds, as the smile fades, letting the concern seep into his tone. It matters that she knows she can come to him. If she needs him, or even if she simply wants him.

[brightestlight]

"I'm okay," she says again, but then she stops, and she opens her mouth, and then closes it, and then--

"I need a dress." She doesn't ask him for it, doesn't say she needs his help getting a dress, but just that she needed a dress, because the whole goth-surburban-housewife yoga pants was not working for her. "And shoes." She's watching him, and maybe she looks a little wary, maybe she is a little wary. She doesn't want to be in debt to him, she doesn't want him to think she owes him, but he's the only person she knows who's been here for a while, and he has normal clothes, which, by the way, she'd not returned and had no plans to.

[wholeworldoutthere]

"C'mon, then," he tilts his head in the direction of the end of the hallway. "Let's drop your things in your room, and we can go and look for someone with access to the wardrobe. I'll explain on the way."

He doesn't think she'll owe him. He's just honestly helping because he can.

[brightestlight]

She bit her lip for a second before she nodded, because she's still not asking him for help, he's offering it, and she's taking it, but she didn't ask him, and that's what matters. That's what makes the difference between debt and not, between her owing him and not.

It's not that she thinks he'll hold it over her head, it's that she's been on this slippery slope since day one, this slope that's got these huge thorns at the bottom like sleeping beauty, and everything is making her slip a little more - the bracelet, the drawing, him saving on her, her crying all over him like some sort of mental case - and this, too, him being nice, him offering his shower and showing her around, it's all her sliding further and further into the abyss that's eventually going to chew her up and spit her out, that's going to kill her. And she knows he's going to kill her, but she can't stop herself, and that's why she hesitated, but it's not like she's going to go to dinner looking like some weird soccer mom who really likes black. "Okay," she agrees. "And tomorrow, we decorate and then it's dinner and not a date. Sold."