nowhere is the dreamer, or the misfit so alone...

[icouldletyoudie]

Klaus was swiftly losing his patience for this nonsense.

He knew Lydia's life had been bound to the witches to ensure he didn't steal their precious toy before they had what they wanted from him. He didn't think, for one moment, that they would attempt anything as foolish as trying to kill her based on a vision.

The union of the Hybrid and the Banshee, the end of the New Orleans witches...it all ended with a prick to Sophie's palm, and a fever that, while harmless to Sophie, had Lydia collapsing, heart racing like a thoroughbred in her chest...some residual medical anomaly left over from her one encounter with an Alpha werewolf's bite.

The fever was a curse. It would raise the temperature of Sophie's blood, a curse intended to cost mothers their children...a curse that Agnes, the witch Elder, knew could also cost Lydia her life.

With Elijah's help, and a cool bath in the pool, Lydia's life was spared. She lost consciousness, but a visit from a local physician assured them all that her fever had broken...she would be fine when she awoke, she merely required sleep.

Now that Sophie and Lydia were no longer linked, the Mikaelsons no longer owed a scrap of loyalty to the witches. Rather than prevent the prophecy, Klaus felt that Agnes, now dead by Elijah's hand, may have enacted the very thing she feared by letting control of Lydia's life flee their grasp.

Klaus had not been there when Lydia was ill...as she sat in Elijah's arms in the cool water, half-delirious, dying...

There wasn't enough blood in the city to stop him from feeling.

Once Rebekah and Elijah were otherwise occupied, Klaus sat vigil at Lydia's bedside with his sketch pad, drawing furiously. He did her portrait, a full body sketch, studies of her splayed limbs: those small, strong hands with the fingers of a child, those rounded knees, the rose petal lips and flawless strawberry blonde waves that lay against her neck.

She breathed. Her heart beat, he could hear it...but it wasn't the same as having to manipulate her into pose, saying things he'd dare not speak aloud to another soul, baring his soul and exposing his secrets just to ensure he could have one more second to capture that perfect image. The barbs they traded, the things they learned about each other...those words filled the sketches he collected, and these were just...empty.

Empty of everything but the words in his memory and the sudden, crushing desperation he felt as he looked on her sleeping face.

With a growl he tried to stifle, Klaus slammed his pad shut, gathered his pencils, and vacated Lydia's room. Making a beeline for his study, he set the pad down in the middle of his desk, paused....

Then with a snarl, he opened the top drawer and shoved the pad inside. Normally, he was more careful, tearing loose the sketches and locking them into the drawer, but tonight he merely slammed it shut, the sketches sitting beneath the pad and all its contents.

And as he fled his study to find the sitting room, and the alcohol, the drawer closed only halfway before the bulge of the pad stopped it from moving further, leaving that single drawer jammed halfway open.

Comments

[wantadistraction]

The sound of something sharp and loud, like a slamming door, was the first thing Lydia was aware of when she dragged herself out of the dark, healing sleep she had spent the last few hours in. Confused, she shifted in her bed and then promptly went still with a sharp gasp when she realized how much she hurt in that moment.

It was a fleeting feeling, settling into an ache like a flu fading away, but she still moved slowly as she pushed back her blankets to crawl out of her bed. She could vaguely remember the last twenty four hours and the spell that had been cast on her as a ploy to keep the Originals in line, particularly Klaus. She remembered the searing pain that made her feel like something was peeling her skin off layer by layer while turning her insides out.

It was a feeling she never wanted to experience again.

Briefly she frowned at the long cotton nightgown she wore and the memories of Rebekah helping her to get changed after spending a couple hours in the pool but she was more troubled by the fact that she was alone. Especially since she was sure someone had been there just a little while before.

First she checked the study, half expecting to find Klaus there but he was nowhere in sight and that made her worry. What if he was out slaughtering a whole coven or two of witches out of retaliation? Or someone innocent?

She didn't feel the whisper of death though but she wasn't sure that meant much as she wandered closer to his desk and then past to peek out a window just in case she could spot him outside. There was nothing but shadows though and she shivered again because she was pretty sure she wasn't going to venture outside any time soon.

Shaking her head, she turned to leave again but the sight of the half open drawer gave her pause. Especially when she saw the glimpse of a drawing half under his sketchpad that he was usually carrying around. And maybe she wouldn't have taken a closer look except for the fact that the face, or the half she could see, looked familiar.

Intrigued, she pulled the pad out and then the drawings underneath. After that she felt breathless as she started flipping through them, laying them on the desk as she went. She marveled at each one since every one she looked at was of her. Sometimes her profile, sometimes her facing him straight on and there was even a couple drawn as though he were sitting behind her while she was focused elsewhere. All of them had a soft, dreamy effect to them too. It made her feel strangely giddy, like energy was buzzing along her skin and in her veins.

Clearly he had been drawing her for awhile now....

[icouldletyoudie]

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

Klaus's voice was quiet despite the venom in his words. He had a drink in his hand, his eyes were narrowed...but the fury there, seething under the surface, was one borne of fear.

No one was ever supposed to see those pictures. No one was ever supposed to know.

Now he felt exposed, laid open. Despite everything they'd shared in conversation, despite the fact that he'd used his own soul as bait to steal those moments in paper and pencil, she didn't know what he'd done...what he was willing to give for a few moments of safety, standing at the edge of all she was with every risk of falling.

She stood there in her nightgown, holding hidden things in those small, strong hands...and Klaus was the one who felt completely naked.

[wantadistraction]

Lydia jumped at the sound of Klaus's voice as it broke through her reverie, pulling her back to the present moment where she had just been caught looking at something that he clearly counted as private. The question was why though? Why was he drawing her and what was he angry that she had found them?

Even as she asked herself, she knew what the answer was. She had drawings of her own that she wanted to keep private and she knew what it was like to be pushed into something she didn't want to be.

"I'm sorry." She murmured the apology as she put the remaining drawings down on his desk very slowly. "I woke up alone and I came looking for you...and I just saw these." It sounded lame even to her but her words rang true as she looked up at him. She was sure he could hear her heart racing too.

[icouldletyoudie]

Cursing his carelessness, Klaus didn't let it show as he moved further into the room. His gaze drifted from the drawings to her face, his features angry but unreadable at the same time.

I woke up alone, and I came looking for you.

Alone, weak, confused...and she came looking for him. Not Elijah or Rebekah, with whom she got on splendidly...but him.

Instead of snapping, he moved over to her, and very deliberately reached over to pick up the sketches from the top of the desk before spreading his arms.

"Well...here I am." he replied, his voice quiet and equally guarded. "What do you want?"

[wantadistraction]

Lydia hadn't realized what she said or the full implications of it but she didn't really care either. Maybe it was because she had felt his presence before he left her or maybe it was being used to spending time with him, she didn't know, but here she was.

Nervous and yet relieved to see him.

"Just wanted to be sure you weren't out killing covens of witches." She remarked casually, her eyes flickering down to the sketches and then back. "Is everything okay now? Are...are they going to come after us again?" Her voice softened on the question which gave away a bit of her fear. Which she hated.

[icouldletyoudie]

Klaus heard that fear, and felt irrationally proud for the self loathing that touched her features when she recognized it in herself. He hadn't had nearly enough bourbon to soften his disposition, but he blamed it all the same as he accepted that feeling rather than chase it away.

"They will come again, and they will come for more than just you." He replied honestly. He rested his glass on the corner of the desk, rolling it idly against the edge, watching it rather than her as he spoke softly. "They will come for revenge, and they will come armed for war. It will be bloody, it will be terrible, and people will die."

He paused, and for a moment the only sound in the room was Lydia's breathing, and the soft rustle of paper as Klaus's fingers tightened around his sketches.

Planting his glass solidly on the desktop, he lifted his gaze to meet hers, straightening the sheaf of paper under his pad with his free hand.

"But not you." He finished in a near whisper, his tone somehow growing in violence the quieter it got. "I swear to you, Lydia: tonight will be the last time those harpies lay harm on you, by hand, word, or deed."

[wantadistraction]

She felt a strange sense of vicious anger of her own when he said the witches would come back and it would be bloody. Vicious because she almost wanted them to just so she could feel the death coming. Then she wanted to hurt them in the same way they had hurt her...and the realization almost made her feel bad. She was supposed to be better than that but how much?

She had been accused of being cold hearted before, after all.

Lifting her gaze slowly back to his when he looked to her, she felt herself go strangely breathless again as he made a sudden promise that the witches wouldn't harm again and, somehow, she believed him. It should have disturbed her too but it didn't. Instead she felt strangely safe with him standing there, eyes blazing cold and promising vengeance.

"At least one good thing came from it all." She murmured softly. "Now I'm even more determined than ever to learn how to control my power. Just so I know when they're coming."

[icouldletyoudie]

"A suitable instructor will be found." he assured her, the same quiet note of finality, of promise in his voice as he moved around the desk, and her, to take a seat at the chair behind it. Laying the loose sketches aside, he quietly flipped his sketch book open and began meticulously tearing loose the new work he'd done, adding it to the pile. "Someone who values their life enough to fear my wrath should they betray me."

He'd become too complacent in past weeks, content to skulk around the streets and quietly evade Marcel's notice rather than sweep in and take his throne in a sea of blood...perhaps Lydia's assertion wasn't too far off the mark.

Perhaps a coven ought to die tonight, and die in her name.

He reached for his bourbon, taking another sip before he drew a deep breath, then finished cleaning out his sketch book. Shifting to slip the sheaf of sketches into their drawer again, Klaus slid it closed, then locked it with a key from his pocket.

But he hadn't taken to slaughter as of late when angered...he'd somehow found his way to Lydia instead, pad and pencil in hand, and another page in his drawer in place of a body by the time it was all said and done.

"You should go back to bed." he advised, voice still soft, but louder this time, losing some of its deadly fury. Lifting his gaze to hers again, his jaw twitched at the corner as he grit his teeth with a harsh breath through his nose. "You need rest if you're to recover."

[wantadistraction]

"I don't want to." She admitted in a voice as soft as a whisper as she stood beside his desk, looking at the now locked drawer. Wetting her lips, she felt all the questions bubbling up as she turned her mind from the witches and her power to the drawings she had been admiring moments before he caught her.

"How long have you been drawing me?" She asked, arching a brow at him curiously. "Is that what you've been doing every time we talk? I mean, I see you with your sketchpad all the time."

[icouldletyoudie]

"Oh, for the love of God." Klaus sighed wearily, shooting her a murderous glare with no real heat in it, jerking his chin towards one of the wingback chairs on the other side of his desk. "If you're going to make a nuisance of yourself, bloody well sit down. You look fit to drop."

And she did: still too pale, high color in her cheeks, shadows under her eyes...she needed more sleep. If she sat, perhaps she'd drop off. If she died on him, he'd have to decimate the Quarter, then what would he rule?

With his orders issued, Klaus flipped open his sketch pad without really thinking, pulling out the pencil tucked in the binding. Almost immediately, the lines of her face and throat fell naturally onto the page, a product of intense study and repeated observation. The basic lines of Lydia's bone structure were as familiar to him by now as his own name...

"I'm...not sure how long." he admitted, falling into the familiar pattern of engaging her to keep her in place, prevent her from leaving before he'd finished his drawing. "A while now...I draw, I paint, it means nothing. It calms me."

[wantadistraction]

Lydia met the glare with a quiet look of her own before turning to make her way to the chair that had somehow become her own in the last few weeks. No one else sat there, after all, and it was almost like they didn't dare to.

Settling in the seat, she bit back a small yawn as she tracked his movements once more. Almost immediately she wanted to surge to her feet and peek at what he was doing but she wasn't sure she had the energy again. Not for a few minutes. That and she knew what he was most likely drawing and the idea made her smile softly to herself as she focused on his words.

"I guess I should be impressed with myself then." She said with another breathless yawn that she couldn't help. "Especially since I was sure I was annoying you all the time." Which he had been more than content enough to let her believe.

[icouldletyoudie]

"You were annoying me." Klaus replied flatly, bent over his pad, which he no longer bothered to hide, though he didn't draw attention to it as he added the lines of her shoulders and the neckline of her simple cotton nightgown. "And you're not the first person I've ever drawn."

But not even Caroline had he drawn more than a few times, and none had modeled for him quite this way. Drawing them hasn't been this...compulsion, nor this calming.

Glancing up with narrowed eyes, Klaus contemplated her next yawn and the slump of her shoulders. She was still exhausted, and still not quite well enough to sit for him for long. Logic dictated that he bully her back into bed.

"But be impressed if you like, makes no difference to me." He mused aloud, shaking the outline out her hair of that stolen look. "You're not the most inane model I've had, at any rate."

[wantadistraction]

Lydia didn't buy it for a second because she had a feeling that it did make a difference, even if it was just the fact that it made him mildly uncomfortable. It gave her an odd sense of power too knowing that was most likely the case.

"Trying to insinuate that I'm stupid or silly doesn't really work and we both know that." She declared then with a tired but knowing look. He wouldn't spend time with her if he found her either one of those things nor would she allow him to if he was silly or stupid as well. Neither one of them had patience for that sort of thing.

She fell silent for a moment then, turning her gaze back to the window as she fought back the urge to yawn even if she was slowly feeling more awake than before. Then she sighed. "Can I have a drink?"

[icouldletyoudie]

"I said you're not the most inane model I've ever had, but you're starting to make me wonder." he shot back gruffly...but there was heat lacking in his aggravated tone. It was hard to hold onto his anger as he stole another glance at her, captivated by the way the tendons in her neck stood out as she looked towards the window. His head dropped again, capturing the curvature of each with a few deft strokes...then reached for his eraser and scrubbed out part of one...then darkened it, finally satisfied he had the moment on paper.

Her request was met with a world-weary sigh he didn't feel. No, he was calmer now...far calmer. The alcohol, the conversation...the bloody damn drawing, it helped more than he cared to admit.

I woke up alone, and I came looking for you.

"You can have a drink if you'll bloody well lie down." he relented with an angry sneer, though his tone was still softer, gentler than it should have been. Snapping his pad shut, he pocketed his eraser and slid the pencil back into the binding of his sketch pad. Rising, he walked around his desk and offered her a hand up from her seat.

"Bourboun's in the sitting room." he explained shortly, reaching out to deftly pick up his own glass with his free hand. "You can kip on the sofa if you insist on harassing me in lieu of getting any actual rest."

[wantadistraction]

"The way you said it insinuated that you still found me silly or stupid on some level." She countered just as quickly though there was a smile in her tone now. She let her eyes flutter closed then for a moment as she felt the heat of his gaze on her once more.

Then she wrinkled her nose a bit at his answer. "I can't drink while laying down. I would spill everywhere and then I would have to listen to you complaining about it. Or Elijah for wrecking the furniture." It was strange how well she had come to understand them lately.

Still, she opened her eyes as he came to a stop in front of her and reached for his hand without hesitation so she could rise to her feet as well. "If you're that concerned, you can sit in the chair that is in my room now." She pointed out, trying not to smirk at his back.

[icouldletyoudie]

Klaus's nostrils flared as he scowled down at her, jaw set with tension...but not as much as there could have been. With her small, strong hand in his, and that barely suppressed smile, he had no foundation on which to hang his fury. Like the slide of his pencil on the thick stock of his pad, it slipped away from him, and all that was left was...a chair he'd pulled into her room, and that pale specter in his study, his sketches in her hands.

I woke up alone, and I came looking for you.

With a quiet growl, he released her hand once she was on her feet.

"Fine." he bit off. "To bed with you, I'll bring the bottle. Off you pop."

[wantadistraction]

"Pip pip cheerio." She called over her shoulder as soon as she was out of reach and she couldn't resist flashing him a small smirk over her shoulder as she hurried away quietly towards the stairs.

Despite however tired she felt then, Lydia made it back to her room rather quickly, wanting just a second to steady herself before he followed after her. The invitation had been somewhat innocent, a way of teasing him as it had made sense he was the one possibly sitting in her room while she slept but it was a gamble too. What if it hadn't been him and it somehow caused a fight?

Still, it made sense that it was him and no one else. Just like it was only him who would get an off-handed invitation to come talk to her, no matter how much she liked the other two. Elijah would have politely declined for the sake of being proper and honorable. Rebekah might have accepted but that was entirely different from the other two.

Crawling into the bed, she let out a relieved sigh as she settled onto the soft mattress while reclining against the many, many pillows. Then she rolled briefly to her side while drawing the dark sheets up as far to her waist.

[icouldletyoudie]

Klaus narrowed his eyes after her, shaking his head as he headed for the sitting room, finishing the last of his bourboun.

The child was insufferable. She was a miserable nuisance and he couldn't bloody stand her. Except when he did.

He stood her quite well. Tolerated her, even...

Reaching the sitting room, Klaus picked up a fresh glass and the bottle, hesitating as he gazed out the window without really seeing what was out there. He was seeing her face, the dark lines of pencil or charcoal, smelling her perfume mixed with paper and rubber dust...seeing her pale skin go waxy, hearing the steady beat of her heart melt into deadly silence.

He wanted to kill so badly in that moment he tasted bile and blood on the back of his tongue. The city no longer mattered, the city would burn for the natives that had nearly stilled that clever tongue.

Klaus didn't want this girl. Caroline was a vision. Cami was a pure soul, both called to him and brought out good things in him...

Lydia Martin brought out everything. She stole his secrets with a look demanding immortality, she challenged him with her strength and her fearlessness...she seduced humanity from him, and he did not like it.

Other women drew things from him. Lydia did something no other creature could: she compelled him.

So much so that the sound of knuckles on wood actually startled him...his own, against her door. His feet had taken him there without his permission, drawn him to her room like a moth to a flame...like a beggar to her gate.

Stunned into impotence for one instant, Klaus reclaimed his composure, and a shred of his dignity, by opening the door to admit himself without waiting for an invitation. She was already in bed...and for a moment, ensconced in pillows and sheets with her pallor still unwell, she looked for all the world like the child she was. Something about it moved him deeply, in ways he didn't want to examine.

Setting his pad on the foot of the bed, he walked over to perch on the edge of the mattress next to where she lay. Filling both empty glasses, Klaus set the bottle on the nightstand, then offered her one glass before raising his own.

"To your health." he toasted, only a little mockingly, before clinking his glass against hers and taking a sip.

[wantadistraction]

Lydia had been drifting in and out of her thoughts while waiting for Klaus to return and, at one moment, she wondered if he would.

The knock on the door, when it came, made her jump but she didn't get the chance to call him in as he let himself in a second later. Watching him, she could see the irritation radiating from him like a heavy cloak and it made her wary. It also made her wonder who or what had irritated him in the last couple minutes since she had seen him.

Arching a brow, she took her glass and echoed the salute before leaning back again. "Did Rebekah come home?" She asked before taking a small sip.

[icouldletyoudie]

"Not as of yet, and I'm starting to wonder what she's up to." Klaus sighed after a healthy swallow of his own drink. Setting his glass next to the bottle on her nightstand, he twisted around to reach for his sketch pad again. He flipped open to his half-finished piece...then slid a glance at her...

...then flipped to a fresh page. He'd finish the other one from memory, he wanted to capture this before he lost it. Or before she fell asleep.

"If she's not back in an hour, I'll have to go looking." he mused, roughing out the line of Lydia's body beneath the covers, eyes focused on the page as he moved to her shoulders, then her face, then the curve of her arms as she cradled her glass. "And if I don't like what she's been up to, she'll be daggered."

He stilled just as he was starting on her hair, remembering that the daggers were no longer in his possession: something he was fairly certain Lydia had a hand in.

Sliding a look back up at her, he scrutinized her features intently, eyes narrowed.

After a long, searching moment, however, his gaze slid back down to the page so he could finish the intricate splay and gathering of red-gold waves laid against the berry-colored pillows of her bed.

[wantadistraction]

"Oh." Lydia looked briefly confused as she brushed an errant curl back from her face. "I thought maybe she had come home because you seem kind of...grouchy suddenly." And she didn't figure it could have been her considering she hadn't been with him and so Rebekah irritating him had made sense.

Then she realized he had made a comment about daggers before looking at her expectantly as though waiting for a reaction, most likely an admission of guilt, but he got nothing. Just a blank, almost confused look before he glanced away back to the page that he was working on now.

"Why do you do that to them?" She asked softly then, curiously.

[icouldletyoudie]

Klaus snorted softly at the descriptor...grouchy, how juvenile...but the question about daggering his siblings actually had him thinking as he drew, considering each of them in turn. Kol, Fin, Rebekah...Elijah alone had eluded his wrath, but only because he showed Klaus the most loyalty...or at least the most respect and the healthiest fear of him.

"When you cannot harm or kill your family, what other way is there to punish them?" He replied simply, glancing up to find the shape of Lydia's eyes. "Other occasions, I was forced to do it because my family conspired against me."

[wantadistraction]

"Why would you want to harm or kill them though?" Lydia asked with a soft frown though the look was more curious than judging. She was trying better to understand his line of thinking when it came to making the choice to dagger them. She couldn't imagine Scott or even Derek making those kinds of choices. Peter would and that brief thought troubled her as she continued to watch the hybrid.

[icouldletyoudie]

"Because they wished the same for me...for becoming what I am." He replied quietly, falling into the same familiar pattern they'd established in the last few weeks, but with less subterfuge. His assessing glances were more open as he sketched her, and so long as she lay there with her drink, a child having her story before bed.

"And sometimes, they merely made poor choices." Klaus continued idly. "Rebekah's gotten herself daggered for decades at a turn for her wandering eye...loves far too easily, my little sister does..."

[wantadistraction]

"All of them did?" She seemed surprised at hearing that though she want sure she could believe Elijah or Rebekah would want that. "It sounds like none of you should have the daggers then, honestly."

Then she blinked. "You daggered her for falling in love?" She asked incredulously.

[icouldletyoudie]

"The daggers are no threat to me, thanks to my hybrid nature." He assured her lightly, tilting his head as he evaluated the shape of her mouth he'd just drawn. "As for my sister, she loves far too easily...makes poor choices."

His jaw tensed as he sketched out the slope of Lydia's nose.

"Chooses ill-deserved lovers over family when it matters."

[wantadistraction]

Lydia was quiet for awhile as she weighed her options then. Pushing the matter would only make him angry, she was sure of that, but she wanted to know more. She wasn't foolish enough to believe that she could somehow sway his thinking but maybe it wouldn't be so bad coming from her as opposed to someone closer.

"Hasn't anyone told you that you could get more flies with honey?" She asked, taking a small sip of her drink. "It's a stupid saying but it's true."

She continued on quickly before he could get angry and interrupt. "The Alphas that I know grow stronger as their pack gets bigger and the bonds get deeper. It extends to other wolves and humans, whoever join the pack..." Or it seemed to with Scott but maybe that had something to do with being a True Alpha.

"Did I ever tell you about the Alpha pack that came after us?" Of course she hadn't but it was an open question that could lead to more of a discussion if he wanted it to.

[icouldletyoudie]

Klaus had a lot to say on the matter of that old maxim, but Lydia pressed on before he could comment...a deft change of gears that Klaus couldn't help but admire.

It earned her a small, brief smile before he turned his attention back to his pad. Focusing on her face, he used his thumb to smudge the line of one eyebrow, giving her face a slightly less innocent expression. It was a bit more thoughtful now, even cunning...

Perfect.

"Wolves of my ilk don't have that sort of power structure or breeding...packs are merely families, lineages. Alpha is a title, not a gift." He replied evenly...though the idea of an Alpha pack did intrigue him. What little he knew of the wolves Lydia consorted with made it clear that Alphas had enviable power...

...but hearing about the bonds of pack made him think of his hybrids. All the accusations of trying to build a family so he would never be alone...a family incapable of leaving him...

The idea of a family that would accept him and grant him greater power was...beyond words.

A shadow crossed Klaus's features, but they softened at the same time as he studiously kept his eyes on his sketch pad as he worked.

"You didn't." He replied quietly. "Why? Is an Alpha pack's dynamic different from the dynamic in your own?"

[wantadistraction]

The brief smile was encouraging and she smiled back before letting her eyes fall to the motion of his hands as he went back to working on the drawing.

"Maybe not but I think a pack is stronger when they work together. Maybe that's really all the power is but somehow it takes on a more tangible effect on the wolves that I know." She murmured thoughtfully, almost like she had found a new problem to figure out. It did pose a question or two about the difference between the werewolves here and the ones she knew.

Dragging herself out of her brief reverie, she sighed softly as she looked up at him again. "I don't think so. But they were all Alphas that killed their own packs, betrayed them, to join under another Alpha. It didn't really do them any good in the end though." She shook her head.

[icouldletyoudie]

Klaus could sense that moment of deep thought, a thickening in the brief silence that drew his gaze to Lydia's face. He was well aware of her intellect, though it was nothing they discussed in-depth. He merely enjoyed testing her keen mind with the occasional barrage of questions, trying to feel out where her strengths lie. Thus far, he was rather delighted by her application of Darwinian theory to children her own age, and after one offhand remark about Father Kieran's position resulted in a thirty minute quantum physics lecture proving the validity of religion, he was already making plans to fund whatever field of scientific, or possibly mathematical research she chose to pursue once she'd completed college.

He didn't doubt that her sharp mind might easily be captivated by an anthropological and biological study of two differing bloodlines of the werewolf species.

By the time she'd pulled herself from her thoughts, Klaus's eyes were back on his paper, lest he be caught staring. The notion of gathering a group of Alphas under a single leader was a logical one, in his mind, but the way she spoke about it compelled Klaus to keep his own counsel on the subject...at least for the time being. There was, however, always a lesson to be learned in defeat.

"How did you best them?" he asked, glancing up visibly this time to study the thoughtful curve of her mouth. Satisfied he had it captured, Klaus relaxed visibly, giving his attention to extraneous details of the drawing, such as the shape of her body under the sheets and the rest of the surrounding bed. "I take it your leader brought about their downfall?"

[wantadistraction]

"It wasn't just us." Lydia admitted with a small frown as she briefly pulled up her memories of Jennifer. Her gaze flickered away from him then as she looked at the glass in her hand, wetting her lips as she did. "We believe Deucalion, the leader, killed one of them after he got injured in a fight. Then two of the others, the Twins, joined us because they didn't really believe in what Deucalion wanted."

"What he wanted was my Alpha who hadn't become an Alpha yet." She shifted in her bed, glancing briefly at Klaus as she did. "There was a Darach though, a former emissary of one of the betrayed packs, who started killing people to gain power. Weirdly, that was when my power started kicking in. She wanted the Alpha pack dead, so she killed Kali who was Deucalion's right hand."

"That was the fight where my friend became an Alpha and he beat them both. Well, he let Deucalion go but..." She rolled her shoulders in a shrugging motion. "See? In the end being an Alpha pack didn't help them at all."

[icouldletyoudie]

"They tore themselves apart." Klaus realized aloud, his pencil slowing on the page, and eventually stilling altogether as he listened to her story. It disturbed him, because it was a tale he knew. It was, in fact, a tale he'd lived.

Her Alpha Pack...it sounded far too much like his own family. Slowly consuming itself until the last man standing was left alone...

"Your pack, as you speak of it, seems equally powerful." Klaus finally observed with a sigh, shaking himself discreetly. "Yet you've not ripped each other to pieces the way the Alphas did. Why is that?"

[wantadistraction]

"Essentially, yes." Lydia nodded, falling silent to take another longer drink as she could already feel the effects running through her. It was nice, leaving her warm and fuzzy as she relaxed against the pillows a little more.

"I don't know, we care about each other. We trust each other." She wet her lips as she looked up. "And Scott, our Alpha, would never punish or hurt anyone in his pack. He just isn't that type of guy. He's the real do-good type." She smiled faintly, fondly, as she thought about him though it was clear it was just as friendly type of smile. "He's the kind of guy that would put himself on the line for someone else."

"He's also the guy that would let a friend up and disappear on a mission to find herself and what she can do." She watched him closely. "Even if he was worried about what could happen to them."

[icouldletyoudie]

Once again, Klaus found himself watching her, pinned by her gaze, engaged by the vision she put before him: a family like he should have had.

A pack which some distant, long dead part of him yearned for.

The revelation that her Alpha might have willingly let her come to New Orleans, release something so powerful in the name of self-discovery and personal betterment...without even realizing it, his pad went slack in his grip until he finally set it impatiently aside, leaving him sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her in startled bemusement.

"You think he allowed this?" he asked softly. "Let you leave just...to find answers? Knowing you could be stolen from him?"

[wantadistraction]

"Yes." Lydia shifted over to make room for him even as she matched his bemused look with her own. "He would. He would know that this was something I had to do and he would trust that I knew what I was doing. And that I would call him if I needed to." Because she knew, without a doubt, that Scott would come if she ever called him.

"It wasn't easy and he had a lot of concerns as well as questions but he knew I needed to figure this out. Especially after Allison..." She faltered, her eyes flickering down at the empty glass in her hand which she then promptly held out to him in a silent question for more. "He just knew."

[icouldletyoudie]

So much talk of trust and need...the Alpha as provider rather than king, a slave wearing a crown rather than a collar, chained to the servile virtues rather than taking hold of the power that was his by rights and having absolute dominion over all he surveyed...

Yet that promise of home called out to him. The loyalty this boy inspired, the love that shone from Lydia's eyes as she spoke of him...not love of a rival, but love of a brother...

Rival. The thought startled him as he stared down at Lydia, bundled comfortably into bed, holding out her glass for more bourbon...so unafraid, so childlike and innocently comfortable with him...so very trusting.

People had trusted him before. Warily, cautiously...there was no leap of faith for her, no danger. She simply...did not fear him.

Momentarily overwhelmed, Klaus swallowed thickly and accepted her glass, topping it off.

"Allison...the girl who was stabbed." he gently prodded. "You've mentioned her before."

[wantadistraction]

Almost immediately he would see some of the light inside of her wither away and die as he brought up Allison. It always felt like a cold rush of water through her, stealing her strength and churning in her stomach as the hand holding the glass dipped a little.

It didn't matter that Allison had survived the attack. It was more that she nearly hadn't and that Lydia had felt it coming. That, in the moment the blade had cut into her friend, Lydia had felt it too.

"What about her?" She managed, swallowing thickly as she stared at the glass with unseeing eyes. She knew he had filled it again but it didn't click in her head that it had happened. She was trapped again in the long, cold corridor with Stiles at her feet and she screamed over what she believed to be her best friend's final moments.

[icouldletyoudie]

"You speak of her so carefully, but so...fondly." he replied, lowering his gaze as he set the bottle aside again before tucking the glass back into her hand. "What is she to you?"

When he looked into her face once more, however...Lydia was far away, watching the glass he'd handed her without seeing it. The color drained from her already sickly features, and the look in her eyes...

Chalking it up to her power, Klaus felt his own heart clench in a sickening fashion, tightening with things he'd long thought himself incapable of feeling.

"Lydia." he whispered. When she didn't answer, Klaus took the glass back out of her hands and scooted closer, gathering them both carefully into his.

Despite the fever she'd only just woken from, they were cold.

The tightness in his chest got worse as he enfolded her palms between his, not quite warm because he hadn't fed yet. Klaus suddenly wanted a human to slaughter so he'd have heat enough in his flesh to warm her fingers on his own.

"Lydia." His eyes searched her face, his voice a little louder, tone gentle and coaxing. "Where are you, love?"

[wantadistraction]

Lyia didn't feel the glass leaving her hand but the connection of his hands curling around her own was enough to pull her back. Drawing in a shaky breath, her fingers flexed around his before clutching tightly as though he could keep her from drifting back into the horrible memories of that night.

"In a hallway..." She closed her eyes, letting out the breath she had pulled into her lungs a moment before. "I felt it when the blade slid into her. I screamed because she was going to die and...I think that she did. At least for a couple minutes." She paused, pressing her lips together as she opened her eyes to look at him again.

"She is my best friend. She came there to save me and they nearly killed her." She shifted her weight on the bed, drawing closer to him. "Her Dad took her to Paris after that to heal and...I needed to figure out my power more because I nearly failed in protecting her."