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Camille O’Connell wasn’t born to die. Quite the contrary. She was born with a sort of life that most envied, a sort of goodness that was often stamped out and destroyed and yet remained in her.
Camille O’Connell wasn’t born to die, and yet she died young. She died quietly, choking on her own fear and blood with the man she loved asleep next to her. Then she woke up and the world lost its color for some time. The goodness she held flickered, it was a candle flame in the face of the wind.
Her goodness, the light she held was nearly lost on her. But because she was Camille O’Connell, because the supernatural existed and she had faced monsters and death more times than she could count. Because she decided long ago that maybe the world was not a good place, but she would make it one - she did not fade.
In the end, the light flickered, but it did not go out, and she lived. Well, she lived as much as she could without a beating heart. Cami lived and slowly everything seemed to fall into place, she was beginning to feel that maybe, just maybe this time she’d get it - Her happy ending.
And then, as it always must, it went wrong. Fate pulled the carpet from beneath her feet and Cami fell hard. There was a monster, and the monster was a man and she had known those like him. There was a monster and he sealed her death with a bite, and a burning feeling spreading through her veins.
Camille O’Connell wasn’t born to die, and yet it seemed that it was her fate. That all roads would have led to here, dying because of a monster and petty revenge and the man she loved. She wasn’t born to die, God, she hoped that was true, she prayed that it was.
The bite, and the venom spread, and her body failed her. The people she cared about, people whom she had grown to love while the world had tried its hardest to break her, desperately searched for a cure. They didn’t find one, not until it was too late, not until she had slipped into a beautiful day in Rome.
But the cure, like all things in this world, came at a cost. It was a spell, one that would strip her of the venom killing her. But - and there was always a but - it was a spell of utter destruction, it didn’t just take the venom, it took everything. It took your memories, every last one, the faded and torn and well-loved.
It took everything, and in return, it would take her as well. Cami O’Connell, the brave bartender, would be gone with it, and dead without it.
In the end, the decision was terribly easy to make. Klaus Mikealson, the devil himself, a hybrid who had slaughtered thousands and ended empires, who had lived for thousands of years and soaked the ground with blood. Klaus Mikealson, a man with whom Cami O’Connell was in love with, and who loved her in return, in a way he never had in all his years of life.
Klaus Mikealson made a decision, and it was as easy as breathing, and it hurt worse than if he had torn his heart from his chest. He made a decision and Freya Mikealson, Vincent Griffith by her side, cast a spell. He held her hand the entire time, while the dark veins faded, while her skin cooled and her body relaxed as the pain left.
He was not there when she woke but he heard every word as Elijah Mikaleson, the barest hint of grief on his face, compelled the no longer dying vampire. You’re name is Cami Conner, you grew up in Virginia. You were an only child with two loving parents, and a happy memory filled childhood. You were turned and abandoned by your sire after your parents passing. You learned how to be a vampire and decided to use your immortality to live.
Then softly, an apology and a begging for forgiveness although Klaus did not know to whom. You will not let this world drag you down and kill you. You will live and it will hurt, and it will be beautiful and it will be utterly alive. You will live and you will find your peace, no matter what form it may be in.
The hesitation then was gone, and Elijah had gotten quite good at burying people. You will take these bags and leave town, you won’t return until many years have passed if at all. Go, live.
Footsteps and he would know them anywhere, he would know them blind and broken. Klaus would know her anywhere. But it seemed she would not know him.
Cami tilted her head, looking at the painting from a different angle. But she only saw the same thing, a desperate sort of longing. The type that felt like it could kill.
“Do you think it veers more towards love or hatred?” She turned to the voice and saw a man with green eyes and a small smile. Something snapped inside her, or relaxed. Something odd.
Cami shook her head, “Why can’t it be both?”
“Ah yes, hatred and love are so often intertwined. Passion in its most extreme form.” She gave him a curious look and he held out his hand, a signet ring with the letter M on a finger. “Nik, it’s a pleasure to meet another who is passionate about art.”
There was a spark when she took his hand, Cami brushed it off as the static electricity. “Cami, well Camille but that’s a grandma's name, and as you can see. I am not one.” He wouldn’t know of course that she didn’t look her age, that she wouldn’t age past her late twenties.
Vampirism has a habit of removing the gray hair and lines. One of the few benefits was that she would never fit her name, an old hunched woman on her porch cursing the world. She had stopped mourning that fact years ago, now she took her immortality for all its worth. This was her fifth time in Italy, her first in Venice.
Nik smiled, “Although I must say that I understand the nickname.” She raised her eyebrows, “Niklaus, my parents were traditional.”
“We’ll at least when they try and send me to a nursing home I won’t be alone.”
He took a slight step closer, and really he could just be looking at the painting, “It would be a shame for someone like you to be alone, such beauty must be shared.” Nik said, as if he should be able to say things like that casually.
Cami didn’t startle, she had her fair share of up-front lovers over the years but something about this was - different. She looked at the sky, the sun high in the sky, the blue smeared with clouds. It was a beautiful day, and there was a beautiful man beside her.
Besides, what was the saying? You only live once, or in her case once and a half.
“Do you want to go grab something to eat? I know a killer cafe nearby.” Nik could say no, she wouldn’t blame him, and yet. Cami didn’t want him to say no.
He let out a laugh, a small thing that sounded like whiskey with honey. She didn’t know how that was possible but it did. “How could I ever say no to that?” He held out his arm, the perfect gentleman that only exists in stories.
Nik met her eyes, arm still out, and smiled. He was teasing her, testing her, to see if she could play this game with him. And Cami had learned to try everything, at least once. She looped her arm through his, and tugged him forward. “If we don’t hurry all the good pastries will be long gone. The people of this city are hungry!”
His eyes sparkled for a moment, with something dark and knowing, and her dead heart skipped a beat.
She laughed, and he watched his eyes burning, “Oh come on, your family cannot be that complicated.”
Nik shrugged, and Cami was drawn to the many necklaces dangling on his neck. Only the necklaces, she had gotten better at controlling any blood lust years ago. “You don’t know the half of it love. My family is,” He hesitated, as if struggling to find the words, or like he had given up on finding them years ago, “Rather odd.”
She shook her head, “I guess. Don’t have much experience.” At his look, Cami continued, “Only child, two good parents who passed when I was young. Normal life.”
He sat down his cup of coffee, a blend specific to this cafe, and the seventeen-year-old barista who definitely was a witch, or weirdly obsessed with herbs. “It may have been, but you have all of eternity to shake that.”
Cami didn’t quite freeze but she paused, a few things slipped into place. She listened closely, the noise and buzz of the city fading for a moment, and there - Or rather nothing there. Nik didn’t have a heartbeat, his chest the sort of empty that matched hers. “You’re a vampire.”
It wasn’t a question. Nik watched her carefully, everything about him meant to display not-a-threat. Despite that, now that she was looking, there was something very old, and dangerous surrounding him, an air of power she hadn’t seen earlier. “I am, of a sort. I’m surprised you didn’t notice earlier.”
Because he, of course, knew that she was one, and really, Cami needed to pay more attention. Vivian, a witch she had made friends with over the years with her wide knowledge of drinks, said she had to be more careful. She winced a little, and decided that if Nik wanted to hurt her he would have tried by now, “I’ve been told I’m a little oblivious to the supernatural, at least until it hits me in the face.”
He nodded, “How long has it been since you turned?”
She traced the ring on her finger, the one she had as long as she could remember, a glittering blue stone on it. “It’ll be fifteen years in a month give or take. Not exactly a baby vamp, but I don’t go seeking out the supernatural so I’m a little -” Cami groaned, putting her face in her hands, “I don’t know, clueless about the supernatural, as you can tell.”
Nik gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and when she met his eyes she felt the pull, the spark. “It’s quite alright. I was just a little surprised, it’s rare to find someone not deep in betrayal or magic, or some other plot.”
Cami shook her head, “I’m sure it’s not that uncommon, maybe you’re just not around the right people.”
His lips pulled up in a half smile, the sort that was more fond than anything. “I’ve been told that before, although certainly in less kind words.”
There was a moment of silence, a comfortable silence that felt almost - right, normal, practiced. Then she straightened her back, running a hand through her hair, “So what exactly are you doing in Venice, if it isn’t about betrayal or magic.”
“Well my daughter has recently moved out, off with her friends and she might just stab me if I followed her around, so here I am. Traveling the world, searching for -” Nik paused, and when he met her eyes they were unreadable. “Searching for something.”
She nodded, not questioning the daughter bit, adoption, or by birth, although she had a feeling that Nik was so old that it wasn’t an option. “I understand that. A friend of mine, a witch, once told me that she could never be a Vampire, because your entire existence is wanting. She didn’t elaborate but I get it. Immortality would drive us all to madness if we didn’t have something to look for, something to act towards.”
“You know, for a young Vampire, I have a feeling that you understand what it means to be immortal more than most.”
Cami leaned closer, their drinks and the city around them forgotten, “How so?”
Nik gestured to the crowds around them, “Humanity, for example, their drive is survival. They run from death and stumble into life. That is why they get up every day, that is why they fight, that is why they live. But for a species unthreatened by the mortality of humanity, we must find a different reason. Hence the want, the search, it differs for every being but it drives us all the same.”
“And what’s yours?” He watched her so patiently, so intently that it stole the breath she didn’t need. “What drives you Nik?”
He smiled, a small thing that seemed genuine, “My family, although often I’m afraid it blinds me, makes quite the fool out of me.”
Cami knocked his foot with her boot, an almost subconscious movement, “Eh, love makes us all idiots.”
“Quite.” Nik was doing that thing, that staring at her intently thing that she was going to blame on being - probably - ancient.
Instead of focusing on the actual issue, the really old vampire sitting in front of her, Cami let her mind slip. It had been a while since she had felt this joy, she had been content traveling the world, but her heart hadn’t beat, not like it did now. “I once jumped out of a three-story building, climbed into a pool, and then through a bush just to find my girlfriend's demented chihuahua. And then we broke up a week later.”
It worked, he laughed, and screw off, a girl could want to make a cute guy laugh even if he was a (probably) extremely powerful vampire. Nik tilted his head, “That is, certainly something. I’m afraid I can’t say I’ve done that.”
She smiled, almost without her say, and who the hell was this guy to make her feel like this? God, she wasn’t some teenage girl twirling her hair and kicking her legs. Cami drained the last of her cup, in an attempt to focus on anything other than the man in front of her.
It didn’t work, because when she sat her cup down Nik was staring at her. Watching her with this quiet look of awe, watching her in a way that made Cami feel like she had been set on fire. She cleared her throat, the thought rising so suddenly and desperately it scared her, she didn’t want this to end.
“Want to go to an actual art museum, and critique every painting there.” Nik smiled, soft and gentle, and Cami had a feeling it could end empires, that it had. And she had a feeling that she was one of the rare few who had ever been graced with it.
“I thought you would never ask.” When he held out his hand, she took it.
Nik stayed in Venice, and he had this terrible habit of finding her wherever she went. And he also knew the best places to go in the city, It’s been a few years love, but I still know a few things. So when he offered, Cami accepted, and somehow the next few weeks were spent with him.
They went to a winery, where Nik told her all the ways the wine was good, and how some were just disgraceful. She learned him too, vaguely guessing his age after one too many comments about how he was older than this wine, and how during this year Kol, his younger annoying brother, was a little mad.
His family, now that was a mystery that she loved putting together. And it seemed like Nik rather enjoyed watching her figure it out, judging by his smile.
There was Freya - the witchy eldest sister who, Would not hesitate to knock me around, if I deserved it. Cami certainly did not believe his innocent expression and smile, Which I would never.
Elijah was next, the responsible duty-bound older brother. More like a stick-up his ass. He was apparently quite the gentleman, and kept texting Nik to make sure he was on his best behavior.
Next in line, after him, The best out of all of them, of course, was Kol and Rebekah. The chaotic younger siblings, both vampires and both Even more of a pain in his ass than Elijah. Rebekah, whose closet Cami had found and promptly lost her mind at the extent in their old house, loved both fashion and culture and was one of the reasons why Nik didn’t look like a complete and utter mess. Kol was the one more violent brother, but he had calmed down through the years with his wife by his side.
And don’t even get Cami started on the extended family. Nik, the asshole, enjoyed watching her slowly lose her mind over them. Davina, Kol’s wife, was basically the daughter of Marcel, Rebekah’s husband, who was also Nik’s adopted son.
While she was stunned over that, he had said in between laughing, “And I haven’t even told you about my brother’s torrid affair with the mother of my child.” Cami had given up on his age then. She just stopped questioning the mystery that was Nik.
It didn’t occur to her, that maybe she should ask her witch friend about this powerful vampire and his complicated family. Really, few others were this oblivious about the supernatural world when it was literally standing in front of them.
So instead of figuring out exactly who she was talking about, Cami was just endlessly baffled by Nik’s family tree. Or she was utterly charmed by them, because out of all of them, he talked the most about his daughter.
He never told her her name, and she knew there was a reason for that, but Nik would talk for hours about her if Cami let him. About how brilliant she was, about all that she was learning with her magic, and just a week ago she was in Paris and she sent me a collection of magic-infused paints from there.
It’s no wonder she was halfway in love with him. Who wouldn’t love a man who had such obvious adoration for his daughter? Certainly not Cami, she always had a habit of loving too easily. Despite Vivian’s warnings she never did lose that, not even her immortality had tainted that.
So after a month, when Venice began to lose its shine, and there was the pull to something more, Cami took Nik back to the cafe they drank on that first day. “I’m leaving in a few days, usually once I’ve been somewhere long enough I spin a wheel and find a new place to explore.”
His expression had flickered, his hands tensing against the table. There was a raw sort of pain on his face that would have thrown her off if she wasn’t done talking. “But I’m realising how little I know about places. I could use a guide, who’s well-learned and traveled.”
It wasn’t subtle at all. Cami was saying without saying, I’m leaving, come with me?
Nik smiled, and the pain was gone, “And do you often proposition people you’ve just met?”
Cami rolled her eyes, “It’s hardly a proposition. But no, I only ask the ones I really like.”
There was a beat of silence, but it was soft, it was gentle, “How do you feel about Madrid?”
“Sounds perfect.”
It takes three months before she meets the first of Nik’s elusive family. They’re somewhere in Berlin, and she’s on a frantic last-minute shopping trip because he loves to drop the fact that they’re going to an elite dinner party where every dress costs at least ten thousand dollars. He had only laughed when she stole his credit card with the promise that Rebekah had done far worse before.
Cami returns to the penthouse and she hears it, the faint echo of voices. It only took her a moment, in which she determined that no one was being threatened, before she unfocused. Purposefully giving Nik and this mystery woman as much privacy as she could.
She walked further until she found her way to one of the two studies, this one Elijah’s and full of so many books that she had nearly fainted from awe when she first saw it. With a quick glance in she saw them.
There was a woman with brown hair and tan skin, not Rebekah then, and a too-slow heartbeat. Cami had gotten better at identifying the supernatural but she didn’t even have to try. Something about this woman radiated power, an otherness. You could tell from a mile away that she was more.
Hayley, she had a feeling.
She knocked at the open door despite her loud footsteps. “I didn’t realize I was interrupting something. I can come back later Nik if you’re busy.”
The woman turned, too quickly, at her voice. There was a beat of silence, a flicker of grief or pain flashing across her face. And to her confusion, something close to fondness, to remembrance. Then it was gone and she was speaking. “No, it’s fine. I was just leaving. However, I'll be back later to talk.”
She threw the word talk at Nik like he would know what it meant, and from his wince, Cami knew he did. The woman brushed past her but paused, placing a quick hand on her shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you Cami.” Then she was gone.
Cami waited until she heard the ding of the elevator, and then she turned to Nik. She saw the guilty look that was quickly wiped away. She raised an eyebrow, leaning against the door frame, “Did I just scare away your long-lost lover?”
He relaxed at her voice, smiling as he walked closer. “I’m afraid not. That was Hayley, and I’m rather certain few things could scare her away.”
“I figured. From everything you’ve told me she’s both stunning and lethal, it fits.” For a moment the room is light, and then Cami remembers the tense conversation she had walked in on, “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important?”
Nik shook his head, “Nothing but family talk love. Apparently, when they don’t hear any plots of world domination from me for a few months they get antsy.”
She raised her eyebrow, “And is that a valid fear?”
Nik smiled, his teeth sharp and his eyes alight with something chaotic. He leaned closer until he was only a few inches away and Cami found herself holding her breath, “I guess you’ll just have to find out.”
Then he pulled back, as if nothing had happened, “So did you find a dress to bankrupt me?” She took an unneeded breath and rolled her eyes, men.
Later it’ll occur to her that she never asked why the woman, Hayley, had known her name. The thought will quickly be lost as she quietly gawks at the dresses around her and That is literally just gold, it’s just gold.
After that, it’s like a flood. Whereas before Cami would sooner find a unicorn than a Mikaelson (“You’re Dad was named Mikael Mikaelson?” “Yes, no wonder he hated life.”) now she can’t seem to get rid of them.
And maybe it’s the Vampire and enhanced feelings, but she is going to try and kill someone if she gets cockblocked one more time. Because Nik keeps looking at her like he’s going to kiss her, or do literally anything but smile at her, and then another Mikaelson strolls in.
First, it’s Elijah and Hayley at some ball, because Nik always has an invite. Hayley looks stunning in her dress, and with Elijah at her side, they look like they could kill. And then the look Elijah gives to Nik actually could kill.
But then Hayley drags her off to the other side of the room, and Cami focuses on her rather than Elijah and Nik’s tense conversation. But no one ends up dead and she and Nik dance, and for a moment the world fades. Or maybe it ends, but honestly, Cami wouldn’t notice if the sky was falling down around her.
Not when Nik is looking at her like that, now when he’s holding her in his arms so tenderly, so gently.
After Elijah, it’s Freya and her lovely wife Keelin. A witch and a wolf, sage and pine, Cami actually notices when she meets them so take that Nik, she is learning. They’re both lovely, they’re both nice and polite but, and it’s starting to become a habit, Freya drags Nik away for another tense conversation that she doesn’t listen in on because of manners.
Still, Cami enjoys spending a night getting drunk on ridiculously old wine with them and talking shit about everyone and everything. When Nik comes back, Freya having kicked him out immediately, he sighs fondly.
She stumbles right into his arms and he glares over his shoulder, “Really sister?” Freya only laughs, tucking her head into Keelin’s neck. When they both give him the middle finger Cami laughs, and the look Nik gives her makes everything worth it.
He guides her to her room, and when she tangles their hands together, and says quietly, “Stay?” He does. Nik stays and he lets her curl up beside him, and he runs his fingers through her hair. For once, at his side, her mind goes quiet.
A few weeks after Freya and Keelin leave, they stumble across Kol and Davina in a magic-soaked city in Austria. Kol doesn’t flinch, but Davina pauses for a moment. Then her smile grows, soft and beautiful, and she greets Cami. She could almost forget the moment, the slight stumble and the way the air around them had tensed, but later in some fancy restaurant, Cami notices the way Davina looks at her.
The way her eyes keep darting around, like Cami shouldn’t be there, like she’s a ghost, like Davina needs the reassurance. It’s both odd and familiar, the way grief clings to her like a second skin. It’s like Nik, and the way during certain silences, when he thinks she can’t see, he’ll look at her like she’s the most devastating thing he’s ever seen.
But then the night is over, and Davina and Kol are on a train leaving the city. But Cami doesn’t forget, she can’t. Because she doesn’t know Nik, she feels like she does, down to her soul, but the truth is she knows nothing about him.
And she knows, she knows there is something he’s hiding, something he’s holding back.
Cami thinks she gets it in Montreal, when it’s nearing a year after they first met. When his silences become a little more prominent. When he keeps looking on the horizon, almost longing, almost grieving, and oh. She knows that feeling.
She waits until they’re out on the room’s balcony, when it’s quiet and the world is still. And then she leans closer to him, understanding why she had thought he was human when they first met. For a vampire, Nik radiated warmth, and life. “You lost someone, didn’t you?”
He flinched, a barely there thing that would be unnoticeable if she didn’t know him. Then he pressed his lips together and pointed his head at the stars, “You live as long as I have and you’re bound to know loss, grief.”
Cami chose her words carefully, thinking briefly about the time she had wanted to be a therapist. “I get it, I’ve known pain and grief alike. I know how terribly lonely it is.” She turned to him and met her eyes, “I’m not saying you have to tell me but I’m here. I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”
Nik laughed for some reason, the sort where you throw back your head and smile even when it’s tinged with sadness. “I can believe that. I have a feeling you are an excellent listener but perhaps another time. Another night that isn’t quite as beautiful.”
So she lets it drop, because she thinks she gets it. She doesn’t realize how wrong she is until she meets his daughter.
Hope Mikaelson storms into her life with as much grace as her father had, which is to say she magically locks Cami in a room before rambling. She looks like her father, she has his eyes and her mother’s hair. But her necklace, the carefully carved M that matches Nik’s ring is one of the main giveaways.
“You’re Hope, I assume.” Nik had told her his daughter's name a little after they had met Davina. Cami had taken it as the honor it was.
She smiled, “He told you, that’s good, that saves us some difficulty. I would have come earlier but my Mom only told me a few months ago, and it took me so long to figure out a spell that would work. And then I had to find the ingredients and test it to make sure it worked, and that it was safe. Because God knows he couldn’t take losing you again. So really I would have come sooner but -”
Cami gently cut her off, feeling too fond for the girl who trapped her in a secluded room, but really, she talked just like her father and how could she not like her, “Hope, is there a reason you locked me in this room? If you need your father we can wait for a few more hours and he’ll be back from whatever evil plans he had to take care of.”
Hope shook her head, looking like a nineteen-year-old who very much did not want to be caught doing something bad by her parents. “No! He can’t be here. He’s too paranoid, and scared of his own feelings. But I finally figured out the spell, it’ll work.”
Despite the reasonable response of fear Cami didn’t even try and run. Something told her that this girl wouldn’t hurt her. Something, a voice she couldn’t name, told her to stay, that everything would be alright soon.
“Hope, what's going on?”
The girl steeled herself, and then she said quietly, “It’ll all be okay. I promise.” Then Cami felt it, the familiar smell and taste of magic. Her body twisted, she stumbled a little and Hope’s magic gently caught her, cradling her before setting her down in the middle of a chalk circle she hadn’t noticed earlier.
Latin filled the room, the words quickly blurring as her vision faded. But Cami wasn’t afraid, even as she could feel herself slipping into darkness, there was no fear. There was only a familiar voice, an echo, I do love you, you know.
Then nothing.
She woke up with a killer headache, only worsened by shouting. Cami kept her eyes closed, but she listened in as her fingers twisted the soft bedsheets she was on. “What were you thinking?! You could have killed her Hope! You purposefully waited until I was gone, and you could have killed her or caused some irreparable damage!”
“But I didn’t! I have heard from everyone, from Mom and Freya, hell even Uncle Kol, all about her. About the love of your life, the one who forgot you, the one you lost, and how you were only hurting yourself because you couldn’t leave her. I helped her, for you.”
“Hope.” Oh, oh.
Cami got up quietly but when she sat up the bed creaked. The voices fell silent and within seconds there was a quiet knock at her door. Before she could call out it opened, and Nik leaned in.
Seeing him, just seeing him sent her spiraling. Cami was in his arms in a blur. She was sure her fingers were digging into his shoulders hard enough to create bruises but he held her back just as tightly.
She kissed him, soft and gentle, and oh, oh .
Eventually, she pulled back to breathe air she didn’t need and Nik rested his head against hers. Not questioning a single thing. He held her like she was the world, like she was his heart beating within his chest. There was something shifting inside of her, a broken bone lodging into place, a crack finally being filled.
Cami smiled and opened her eyes, the spirits or Hope Mikaelson or the girl she was whispering it’s about damn time. Then with slight laughter and a sigh, Told you he’d wait.
Klaus looked at her softly and she must be smiling like an idiot. “You did say you were going to meet me on a perfect day by a corner cafe in Venice. You really are a romantic.”
His grip loosened, his mouth slightly agape. Klaus looked at her, his eyes darted across her patient, love-struck eyes and the smile on her lips. “Camille?”
“I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting for so long.”