❝Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power.❞

― Gloria Steinem

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It was silent on the drive back and the hybrid didn't say a word. He didn't even know what to say. He was confused, hurt, and overall, angry. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he studied the blonde as she rested her cheek against the glass window of the car. 

This girl was so different from the one he'd seen in action not even an hour earlier. The woman that had stood in the Salvatore Boarding House was not the Roxanne that he had gotten to know these past few weeks. The cruelty in her eyes and the way she'd enjoyed torturing the young vampire was something he didn't see in her. Even now, it felt like he'd witnessed a different person. 

Two completely different personalities occupying one body. The Ghostess and Roxanne. It didn't match in his mind that they were even the same. The Ghostess' actions bordered on pure evil, driven by revenge. He couldn't judge her for that, though. He would never deny someone the sweet, honey-like flavor of revenge. It was something he had pursued many times in his long life. 

But, it wasn't like Roxanne. He felt as if she somehow had a split personality disorder. As if the Ghostess was a clone of hers. 

He'd longed for the Ghostess for many years. Rumors of her had been circling long before he was granted immortality. It drove him mad that he could never find her, never get close enough. He'd studied her actions, her whereabouts. He learned who she killed and why she did it. She had morality, but she was still cruel. She never hurt children or mothers. She never hurt men that were good fathers. But, she killed those that were corrupt, those that abused their families and those that ruined their villages. 

He'd seen the kills she'd done. The piles of bodies stacked on the edges of villages. But, he also saw the villages after. They were happier, healthier. Their people socialized more, they had more community. What she was doing was helping them, like pruning the dead leaves off a plant. 

He'd admired her work and seen her as an artist. He'd deeply desired to meet her. In his mind it was poetic, almost. The King of the Undead and the Goddess of Death coming together in unity, what could be better? He sought to court her, but he never seemed to get to her in time. He'd hear of her whereabouts and get there just moments after she'd left. Let it be as close as an hour or as long as a day, he'd arrive just a little too late. 

He always had. Or, so he thought. It seemed, according to what Roxanne had said, he had courted the Ghostess. He'd fallen in-love with her many times over, and had achieved what he'd hoped he would. Uniting two forces of death in love. 

Roxanne had lied to him. That was what made him furious. She lied to him so many times, and stolen from him. She'd taken his memories and like a coward, she ran. She couldn't bother even letting him remember the fact he'd had a lover. That someone could love him the way she had. 

He moved through his memories, trying to find the places that didn't quite match. Where she had ripped them out and stitched them loosely together with cheap replacements. There were a few inconsistencies, but that is what memories can do. 

At last, deep in his mind, he reached a door. It was locked many times over, and it was heavy. He could feel that. He suspected the memories were behind it, but there was no way to know. Klaus tentatively reached his hand out, brushing his fingers over the wood. Something small, barely a thread, hung there. 

He gave it a tug. It was a faint flash of colors and emotion. But, he saw something. Something he didn't remember ever happening. It was him in a field, painting on an easel. Laying in the grass, her blonde hair loose and a book between her hands, lay Roxanne. She was naked. They both were. The color faded, and it was gone. 

He chased after it, but the memory had ended and there was nothing more. His eyes darted to the side of her head, his chest rising and falling in quick succession as he ran over the image again and again. He'd felt a deep well of love in his chest, and the easel was beginning to show the image of her reading. 

He let out a long sigh, feeling the anger come to a boil inside of him. Peaceful memories, happy memories. He didn't have many of those, his long life filled with violence and revenge. The few he had were in New Orleans or England, and they were usually when he was alone. She'd taken those from him, too. 

Klaus stared at the road, trying to sort through his feelings. He wasn't used to having emotions like these, things that conflicted deep in his chest. His nature and his heart were at war within him and it was all over a girl. 

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Roxanne looked around the room she had only begun calling home. Wood panelled walls opened into a small walk-in closet with empty shelves. The bed was a queen-sized mattress with a beautiful, mahogany frame and headboard. The sheets were pale gray with white pillows and a pine green comforter. There was a wall of windows that opened onto a balcony, overlooking the orchard and the woods beyond. 

The door creaked open and a soft knock rapped against it. She finished zipping up her small suitcase and spun on her heeled boots, meeting the dark eyes of Elijah. 

"I spoke to Niklaus, he told me what was going on." The brunet rested against the door frame casually, his hands deep in his pockets. "You told him." 

The immortal kept her face carefully blank of emotion, her hands resting at her sides. "I had to." 

Elijah nodded, fiddling carefully with his daylight ring as he studied her. His head tilted to the side and a shock of brown hair fell on his forehead out of it's usual, slicked back style. "He also told me that he asked you to leave." 

The blonde nodded, turning and pulling her suitcase from the bed. She rested her palm lightly on the handle of the hard-shelled object. "Yes. I'm going home, I miss my pack." She wrapped her fingers around the handle, her thumb brushing over the button. 

"I understand." His dark eyes darted to her suitcase before meeting hers again. She pushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear and minutely adjusted her weight on her feet. "Roxanne, you will always be welcome in our home. You are a part of the Mikaelson family, you have been for centuries. I will talk to Niklaus." 

She let out a tired sigh and smiled at the man she'd always known as a friend. "I won't be coming back, Elijah. Your family . . . it is very special. I have loved you all for a very long time, and being with you hurts too much. I know Niklaus better than any of you, he will not forgive me. He never has." She reached her hand out, and he took it. "It is time for my life to take a different direction than yours." 

With a quiet nod, the blonde moved past him and to the stairs. He let her go. The walk down the stairs was difficult to do gracefully when holding a moderately heavy suitcase. She finally reached the last step and looked up at the overlooking balcony above. Her heart ached when she saw it was empty of the hybrid. 

Only Elijah stood there, his hands resting on the railing. The other Mikaelsons were gone, only the three of them were in the house. She was getting deja vu from this good-bye and she smiled softly at her old friend. He still looked as young as she'd remembered him, the years had not aged anything but his eyes. That good-bye she'd learned to recognize lingered in the deep brown depths, and her heart ached. 

"Good-bye, Elijah." 

Turning, she walked out the door and put her bag in the passenger seat of her rental, her gray eyes looking over the Mikaelson Manor for what she knew would be the last time. Staring up at the windows, a curtain rustled and her heart skipped a beat. 

Klaus. 

Sighing, Roxanne slid into the driver's side and put the key in the fob. Without a last look, she drove away. 

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As Roxanne drove, her mind wandered. What Niklaus could never truly understand was that Roxanne was old. Niklaus had centuries under his belt, but she had millenias. Her memories were blurry, like old photographs that had been worn and touched by too many hands. 

She'd seen empires rise and fall, she'd watched species go extinct and saw the stars change their positions in the night sky. Roxanne had been there for two thousand years, trying to carve her mark into an uncaring world. 

Her title was written in history textbooks as a legend, a fairytale, but it was never enough. She'd seen many books written about The Ghostess over the years, she had even sat down with the occasional historian, discussing the stories, trying to influence how she was seen. But, at the end of the day, she was a woman. Her story was often taken credit by men, and she'd watched as her tale had been twisted and destroyed for fame and money. 

It had been a long time since it angered her. Only Roxanne knew the truth about her history, about who the Ghostess truly was. She'd seen the disgust on Klaus's face, the way he'd looked at her like he couldn't put the two parts of herself in the same room, let alone the same body. 

His perception of her had been altered, too. 

Rumors and stories twist facts like nothing else. A part of her wanted to go back, to give him his memories back, to remind him of the truth of herself. But, before anything else, Roxanne St. Claire was loyal to her family. She could not betray them. She could not lose everything she had fought for. 

Running her hand over the steering wheel, she took in a deep breath and glanced at the compass on her dashboard. West. She was going west, and she wasn't planning on coming back. 

⊳⊳|⊲⊲

- Three Days Later - 

Niklaus drew his paintbrush across the canvas, trying to distract himself from the thoughts of the blonde immortal he strangely missed. The past few days had been a blur, lots of alcohol and lots of sex with meaningless girls. On top of it all, he hadn't been able to stop painting. 

It was always the same. Two eyes, soft gray with hints of green and blue looking out at the viewer. One of the eyes was wide and innocent, filled with intelligence and purity. The one was filled with hate, the eye of a killer. 

Klaus stepped back from his most recent work, caught in the stare of that familiar gaze. A part of him missed her, a part of him hated her. But, most of all, he grieved what he had lost.

He had tried to tug at that door, at that thread and those locks. But it had done nothing. He wasn't even sure if he wanted it open. It would just be memories of her, of his love for her over the years, and that would make killing her all the harder. 

His rage fluctuated as he stared at the fifth painting of her eyes he had completed, and he stepped away fully, turning to his alcohol. Taking the decanter filled with whiskey, he poured himself a glass and looked out the window at the orchard.

He remembered finding her body, the grief that had filled him. The anger that had sizzled into his bones as he thought about destroying whoever had touched her. 

Had that only been four days ago? It felt like lifetimes. 

Breathing in slowly, the hybrid took a small sip and stepped out of his studio. He found his brother standing there, appearing as if he was about to knock. 

"Niklaus," Elijah murmured, peering past him into the dark room filled with canvas and paints. "Have you decided to re-enter the land of the living?" 

Klaus rolled his eyes, stalking past him to the stairs. "Sorry to break it to you, brother, but we've been dead for centuries." He took a long swig of the alcohol in his hand, and stopped at the top of the stairs. "What do you want?" 

Elijah drummed his fingers against the railing, pursing his lips together. "I wanted to discuss Ms. St. Claire." 

Niklaus scowled, feeling his anger begin to rise once more at the sound of her name. He resisted the urge to growl as he attempted to self-soothe and keep control of his emotions. "What about her? Because, I am not interested in any attempts of forgiveness, Elijah." 

"You don't have to forgive her, Niklaus, I solely want to discuss her." 

He mulled it over, but saw no issue in a discussion. "Fine, let's talk, shall we?" 

Edited

September 11th, 2020

Rewritten

July 30th - October 07th, 2023