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]

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."