🌙 Midnight Phone Call

Pairing: Klaus Mikaelson x Caroline Forbes
Timeline: Post-TVD, a few years after Klaus’s "death"
Genre: Angst | Romance | Emotional Slow Burn | Poetic Melancholy

Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted
11:58 P.M.

The rain tapped against the tall windows like a persistent ghost. Outside, the world lay bathed in silver, silent except for the hum of night and memory. Inside, Caroline Forbes sat curled on the edge of a well-worn couch in her office, one leg tucked under her, a half-graded essay forgotten in her lap.

The fire in the hearth was little more than embers now, a dim flickering glow that threw long shadows on the walls. Her glass of wine had gone warm. Her mind wandered somewhere between the past and the weight of the present—always caught in a tether she couldn’t quite cut.

Then her phone lit up.

Unknown Number.

Her brows furrowed. Midnight calls were never just calls. They were omens.

Still, something in her stirred. A sliver of instinct. A chill at the base of her spine.

She answered.

“…Hello?”

A pause.

Static.

Then, a familiar breath—hoarse and laced with something older than sorrow.

“Hello, love.”

The voice rippled through her like thunder in a valley. She froze.

“Klaus,” she breathed, disbelieving.

A low chuckle slithered across the line. Smooth. Broken. Infinitely familiar.

“Took you long enough to say my name.”

She pressed the phone harder to her ear, heart clawing up her throat.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Aren’t we all?” he drawled, with that lilting accent she used to hate loving.

Her fingers trembled slightly. She gripped the glass of wine like it might anchor her.

“Where are you?”

“A quaint question, sweetheart. But I’m afraid the answer wouldn’t bring you comfort.”

“Klaus—”

“I’m not calling to be found.”

“Then why are you calling?” she snapped, sharper than she intended. “It’s been years. Everyone thought you were gone. Elijah—”

“Elijah,” Klaus repeated softly. “Yes. I buried him. Properly this time.”

Her breath caught. “You’re lying.”

“I only lie when there’s a point. Tonight… there is none.”

The line crackled with silence. Rain painted streaks down the windows like tears no one would admit to.

“I just…” he exhaled, slow and tired. “I just needed to hear a voice that didn’t want me dead.”

The words struck her like a stone in the chest.

“Why me?” she asked, her voice a thread.

He was quiet.

Then came his reply—low, raw, and entirely unguarded:

“Because you always saw something in me, Caroline. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

She shut her eyes.

He continued, more gently now, like he was confessing to the moon.
“You saw the monster… and stayed long enough to glimpse the man. That’s a rarer gift than immortality, love.”

Caroline turned her face to the window. The stars were veiled. All that remained was the soft ache in her chest and the voice of a ghost on the other end of the line.

“You sound drunk.”

“I am. But eloquently so.”

“And reckless.”

“Well, now, that’s not newsworthy.”

She smiled despite herself. “You always did love the sound of your own misery.”

He chuckled. “And you, the sound of your own righteousness. We made quite the match.”

She hesitated.

“Is someone chasing you?”

“Only regret, darling. And perhaps my own reflection.”

“Klaus—”

“No lectures tonight, sweetheart. No moral high ground or warnings. Just…”
He sighed. “Just let me have the sound of you. For a little while.”

She bit the inside of her cheek.

The way he said you—like she was sunlight, like she was sanctuary—unraveled something carefully kept.

“Do you ever think about it?” he asked after a beat.

“About what?”

“Us. The version of the world where I wasn’t a thousand-year-old disaster and you didn’t carry the weight of everyone else’s salvation on your shoulders.”

She laughed bitterly. “That world doesn’t exist.”

“No,” he murmured. “But I dream of it sometimes. A small cottage, perhaps. By the sea. I paint. You drink too much wine. There’s a balcony, and you wear silk robes, and I—”

“—don’t ruin everything you touch?” she finished, softly.

“Exactly.”

Silence stretched. Heavy. Endless.

“Klaus,” she said after a while, “do you miss me?”

He didn’t speak at first. Then:

“I miss the sound of your stubborn heart. I miss the fire in your voice when you’re angry. I miss the way you used to look at me… like I could be better. And I—”
His voice cracked.

“I miss the man I wanted to be because of you.”

Her eyes stung.

“I thought you were gone,” she whispered. “I mourned you.”

“Then let me stay dead. Just for tonight. Let this be a dream, Caroline. One I don't have to wake up from yet.”

She closed her eyes.

The years collapsed in her chest like a dying star.

“You ruined me,” she said.

“I know.”

“I let you in. And then you left.”

“I had to. You deserved light. I… don’t belong in sunlight.”

“You could have tried.”

“I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid I’d love you too much and break you anyway.”

“You already did.”

A beat.

“I’m sorry, love,” he said, and for the first time, there was no swagger in his voice. Just Klaus. Just a man with blood on his hands and her name in his bones.

Caroline’s voice trembled. “You don’t get to say that and vanish again.”

“I won’t vanish. Not really.”
Another pause.
“I’ll always exist in the corner of your mind. In the spaces between your laughter. In the pull of the tide when the night feels too heavy.”

“Don’t be poetic now,” she murmured, tears slipping down her cheeks. “It’s not fair.”

“I was never fair, Caroline. But I was yours. Once.”

She clutched the phone tighter.

The fire was nearly dead. The room was too quiet.

“Klaus…” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t do this again.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then what are you asking?”

He hesitated.

“Let me haunt you. Just for tonight.”

She choked on a sob she hadn’t realized was rising. Outside, thunder rumbled far away—fitting, as if the universe mourned with her.

“I’ll let you go,” he said softly. “But before I do…”

He took a breath that sounded like it scraped across time itself.

“You were never a fleeting thing to me, Caroline. You were constellations. The storm and the calm. And if I am damned to roam eternity, then let it be with your voice carved into every shadow I walk.”

And then—so quietly it broke her:

“Goodnight, love.”

The call ended.

No click. No goodbye. Just absence.

And Caroline sat in her dim office, the fire cold, her heart burning. She didn’t cry loudly. She didn’t scream. She just sat with her hands clenched around the phone, like maybe if she held it tightly enough, he wouldn’t fade entirely.

Two weeks later, a package arrived. No note. No return address.

Inside: a small canvas.

A painting.

Her. Laughing. Wind in her hair. A soft Parisian light behind her. It was the exact way she looked the night he asked her to see the world with him.

On the back, a single line written in ink:

“I never needed redemption. Just you.”
—Klaus