I could let you die. If that’s what you want.

He let her sleep in. He woke, showered, dressed...had a lengthy discussion with Elijah about the situation with the witches and the problem with Marcel's rule of the city. He came to New Orleans to be king, he came to take back his home...but it was no longer that simple. There were other factors to consider, the witches were an enemy and Marcel had them over a barrel.

Marcel had what Klaus wanted...and at the same time, Klaus had something else. He had a weapon of his own, a sword of Damocles ready to bring down on Marcel's head. He was still stringing it up, but when it swung high, it would be a terrifying sight.

That sword, however...was Lydia Martin. Clever and sensual and intimately experienced with the nature of power. She accepted his nature without accepting his flaws, believed he could be better. She endured his temper without fear or trepidation, she met him as though she had the power to kill him. She moved through the world like she owned it...she was every bit the weapon he needed.

And he was growing increasingly certain he could not live without her. More than anyone, she was the reason he still had his family by his side. Even Rebekah, though she skulked around with some bloke he was certain he had to kill...she was ever herself, and still by his side. She liked the girls, and she tolerated him.

Their family had not been so close to what they had now since Mikael had forced them out of New Orleans over ninety years before.

Marcel was growing increasingly paranoid, and Klaus saw an opening. He meant to take it, and today...and he'd have left twenty minutes ago for the Quarter if not for the fact that Lydia was straddling his lap as he sat on the edge of her bed, kissing him like he was the last living creature on Earth.

He'd come to see if she was awake. He'd come to assure her he'd be back later, but Marcel's name had come up and he was fairly certain she was stalling him.

Her tactics were delightful...but still stalling him, all the same.

"If you think...you're going to distract me into...a tryst when I'm busy," he finally managed between ardent kisses, "I'm afraid...you're sadly...mistaken..."

He trailed off, swallowing a growl as she nipped his lower lip, then let his hands fall to her hips to tug her closer as he kissed her back hard.

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.