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(no subject)

Caroline feels like she's been going through the last two days in a haze. All of the emotions are more, they're always more, and she can't really handle them. She was a wreck already, still, continually. She hadn't dealt with the changes of the past month.

And, to boot, the last two nights, she's been having nightmares.

She looks like shit, she feels like shit, and she's been sleeping wherever she can find a room - and she's spending as much time as she can in the holodeck. Doing whatever she can to not think about what just happened.

It all would have been much easier if she hadn't walked out of the holodeck and nearly walked into Klaus. Her heart jumped into her throat, and her jaw tightened.

"Hi." She said it flatly, not knowing if he'd even speak to her, even though she's far more sober, and she doesn't know if she'll let him avoid her. She deserved better.

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She only breaks the kiss because she has something else to say, her hands cupping his cheeks in her hands. "I know who you are, Klaus, and I don't want to change you, but you can't treat me the way you did. You can't. It was-" She hesitates, her heart in her throat. "It was cruel," she says, her voice strained. "That you could think those things- I-" And she closes her eyes, leaning forward so her forehead presses against his for a moment. "I can't," she finishes, her voice raw.

She pulls back, her thumbs smoothing his cheekbones. "You do the things you do, but you can't do them to me. That's where the line is, for me."

What he told her was one thing, but it was what he let her think, really, that was the cruel part. Even if he hadn't wanted it to be. He had tried to tell her, but he had been unable to.

"Alright," he simply says, because he can't promise never to do it again, but he can accept what she's saying. That this is the line he's not supposed to cross. He's heard her, and he knows it, now. He kisses her forehead, tender, somehow intense, his hand on her nape. "Alright, love."

Her eyes close when he kisses her forehead, and she whispers it because she has to, because she can't give it full voice. "Did you mean any of it?" She knows he won't lie - she knows, and she's so scared of asking. She's scared of what he'll say, but she has to ask. She has to.

It hurt her, it ate into her worst fears, about him, about their relationship, about herself, and he hurt her two nights ago more than he ever had, before he'd come here, or after.

"I wouldn't like what it would say about me," he answers, addressing the only thing he really did say, his lips against her forehead. But then he pulls back, and uses his fingers under her chin to tilt her head up slightly, make her look at him.

"I wouldn't be with you if I thought any of it," he tells her, and means it. He's told her before, he'll tell her again. This is nothing new, even if two nights ago, and still today, it's unpleasantly crawling all over his skin. It doesn't show in what he tells her; all that shows is that he means it. "I wouldn't care for you if you were."

The wound that he can see in her, reflected in her eyes, is one that he put there. He must have seen it happen, when he'd pushed and pushed and pushed, and she nods, but she doesn't believe him. She does have to get past that doubt, and she will, but what he's saying isn't doing it. It's not really fixing it, but she just nods. "Alright," she says quietly, and she swallows thickly, not aware that she echoed what he said moments before.

"I love you," she says quietly, her voice raw, but she does mean it, no matter if she's hurt or not. "Even with- I do. I know you can't believe me all the time, but I do."

He isn't sure if she believes him, except he knows that she can't, because she already didn't believe it two days ago. How could she believe him now, after he's used it to hurt her? He nods along to her words, to agree. "I know."

Right now, he does, even as he feels bone-weary with all of it. Not the love, but this existence. He wants his wolf back, he wants the nanites gone again, and he wants to tear the heart out of whoever is toying with them here. Then he wants to use this bloody station to find a nice world to settle on, preferably a world without anything supernatural but them.

And if he happens to kill a few of the people on board who have pissed him off before they leave, all the better.

"We need to get off this station," he says, stroking her cheek.

"I know," she says, and she believes that at the very heart of her, and she turns her head to kiss his fingers. "I don't even care where we go, anymore," she says with a soft laugh.

She looks up at him, and says, quietly. "Show me. You tried to tell me how you feel, and I know you can't, but show me." And that's when she kisses him, shifting up, her hands cupping his cheeks. "I love you," she murmured against his mouth. "Everything, Klaus. I don't want you to change."

Which is a very good thing, because he's probably going to have to be himself more than he has been since getting here, to get them off this station. But now isn't the time for this, it's the time to kiss her in his turn, bringing her close, ignoring the reactions of the holo-people around them. Now isn't the time for words anymore, it's the time to show her, because what he's told her is clearly not enough, and she's asked him to.

Two words, there are just two words they need, because he'd rather not get interrupted by holograms.

"Computer, privacy."

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