Grace // Klaus Mikaelson

29

"You did," she reassured him gently, "when I was holding my stomach you asked me if I was okay I just told you to drop it. It's alright it's not your fault."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't tell Nik because you know he'd go right back to Mystic Falls and I don't want to go there and there is so much that he can't know - he can't find out that I've been...that we've been lying to him this whole time."

"Grace, why didn't you tell me."

"Like you said it's your brother, your friend, your girlfriend I would never put you in a position when you had to choose between your promise the Nik and them because the answer is so clear."

"Them." "You." They both said at the same time.

"What?" Grace asked wiping her eyes again for what felt like the tenth time that day. "What did you say?"

"You, Grace it's not my obligation to Klaus or to them it's you." Stefan smiled. "The more time I spend away from them I think perhaps my life doesn't revolve the drama of Mystic Falls. Life is at once more simple and more exciting and I'm enjoying that."

"Nik has dragged you through hell to try and mould you into what you used to be when you had no control. There is no way you have enjoined this, you've sulked the whole way." She laughed through her final words but she still didn't understand what he was saying.

"It's not the same, not anymore."

"Stefan, I remember watching you in agony as Nik forced that blood into your system - nothing has changed since then. Nik still has all the power and you're loyalty and duty is to everyone back in Mystic Falls."

"Maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe it isn't."

"You've got a girlfriend." Hushed times was all she could really handle. It was her turn to process what the other was saying.

"A girlfriend who doesn't trust me and turns up half way across the country to try and trick me into letting her knock me out so she can fix me."

"She is here?" She was startled by the news, Elena complicated everything.

"Yes, Damon and her won't let up."

"Does she know how much everyone scraficed to keep her alive and her secret safe. You know if he finds out that he will kill her and everyone that hid her from him." Thoughts rushed through her mind, the danger they were all in, the danger that Elena had intensified and provoked by following them what she could only assume to be all summer.

"See that's what I don't understand?"

"What?"

"Why do you protect her, I know why everyone else keeps her secrets but why you? You hate her!"

"Yes!" Grace yelled before her voice lowered but was cracked and strained. "Alright, I hate what she did to me but I don't hate her. I don't what her dead."

"Oh Grace." Opening his arms she fell right into them, he could feel her tears on his shirt. She had been through a rough few months but she was breaking.

"I'm not a monster." She sobbed.

"I never said you were." He whispered, pulling back to look her in the face. "I know no one will ever tell you this but thank you. You kept her life secret and in doing kept her alive, you did your bit and what ever happens now is Elena's hands."

"He'll kill all of us when he finds out."

"No he won't, Klaus wouldn't lay a finger on you." Stefan reminded her.

"You don't know what Nik would do."

"I know he can be erratic and irrational but he would never hurt you."

"He has spent a thousand years trying to make this moment a reality because he feels so alone in this world. No one is going to stop him getting that, his flesh and blood couldn't stand in his way and he can't just dagger me up and stuff me in a casket Stefan. What do you think he does to humans that get in his way?"

"I...I don't know."

The silence seemed to stick with them as they walked further and further. Stefan was still trying to wrap his head round several things, Grace's belief that Klaus would literally kill her to get what he needed was seriously starting to concern him, as were her seemingly unstable emotions. However, his most startling discovery and biggest concern was his brother.

Although his was well aware that his brother and Elena had been mounting a campaign to track him down he didn't realise quite how much they had been interfering. At first his pushed them away of of duty to his promise, part of his still willing them to somehow rescue him from his debt to Klaus but as the summer went on he seemed to change his mind.

Grace probably had something to do with that.

She had interested him the minute they met, officially that was, and ever since that day at the grave yard he had been trying to rack his brain and figure out why they had never met before but still couldn't seem to understand it.

They continued on for a bit further by and as Stefan thought harder he began to think less. It seemed the more he tried to process his thoughts the deeper he got lost looking at Grace. He almost tripped over his own two feet, something he hadn't done since he was human. Grace seemed to fall deeper and deeper into her own thoughts. Her pace had picked up ever so slightly liked she seemed to when she was thinking about something or nervous.

"Where is your mind?" Stefan asked, looking at Grace's creased brow and intense stare.

"It's my story to tell and I am tired of my fear being the one writing the narrative."

"What are you talking about?"  Stefan asked, kicking some imaginary stone out his way, hands in pockets as the walked along.

"I can't live a life dictated by fear." She began, talking slowly but definitely as though she was coming to a realisation. "That's not really much of a life is it?"

"Grace you are so full of life, more so than anyone I know." Stefan reassured her giving her a comforting squeeze on the arm and a warm smile.

"That's because most people you know are dead or undead." She giggle looking up at him, her eyes were still slightly puffy from before but they seemed invigorated with a new found spirit.

"Unfounded but also fairly true." Stefan smiled gently. "It still stands though, coming to Chicago was huge, you confronted your fear in such a big way."

"That is what I mean, him and my fear of him almost stopped me from coming to a city! No one should hold that power over me, I haven't been the same since it happened and each day of this summer had brought me closer and closer to the fact that I miss who I used to be."

"And who was that?"

"Someone that was actually full of life." She said, the inflection made Stefan raise an eyebrow. "I love books, something my dad and I shared but I also loved singing - I used to sing all the time with my mum."

"I didn't know you could sing."

"Precisely, I haven't sung since they died."  Grave smiled sadly. "I love music but he stole that from me."

"What do you mean."

"He was a sick and twisted man, I don't really know if I can even put in to words everything he did."

"Well you know I can see." Stefan whispered softly, taking her hand. "Vampires have the ability to visit memories and see them."

"You mean relive them."

"I suppose."

"And I would have to...watch as well."

"I would be there right alongside you."

"Perhaps you are right, maybe it would help."

"Together?"

"Together"