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Kol was feeling nostalgic. There was no part of the world he hadn’t traveled. He'd visited every part of this globe five times over but still he found himself here, strolling silently in the woods surrounding his boyhood home. That had to be the reason he was here, of all places. Mystic Falls did not look as it once did. The squat buildings, with their Old American architecture, were relics of a past long forgotten. Nature had reclaimed the town, moss crawled along aged brick and other plants had burst through stone foundations. Wood had long since rotted to reveal rusted metal supports and whatever was left was covered in graffiti art. The smell of pine and damp earth lingered in the air, unmarred by the stench of carbon and smoke. Humans and their accomplishments were hard to find in recent years, the many who still live on Earth have fled underground and many more explore worlds far away from this one. But he would continue to endure like he had done for the past two and half millennia. He stands in a stretch of forest, nature thriving where humans could no longer, and stared at what was once his home. There have been many born here and many more who have passed but he lingers, tethered to this place by some invisible anchor.
He can hardly remember what it felt like back then, to have his mother teach him magic or go hunting for evening meals with his brothers.
“Funny I’d find you here,” He must have been too deep in thought, for he had not heard her. She walks towards him lighty, the blanket of fallen leaves and branches barely making a sound under her feet. Her expression is somber and contemplative. Over the years, you tend to forget things, the cities you have visited and the people you have met, but some seem to stick with you. So, he easily recognizes Caroline Forbes as she meanders to stand by his side, watching the same empty patch of forest.
How unlikely it is that amongst all of them, they are the last ones remaining.
They’d been enemies once, yet over the span of their lifetimes they've run into each other on occasion and developed a sort of understanding. A bar here, a party there, sometimes they’d share a drink or a bed never really speaking, just simply aware. Other times, like this one, they embrace the nostalgia and grace with the other with the full force of company.
“The millennium becomes you” he greets her easily “though it’s been some time since I have seen you amongst the living.”
“It’s my 1,500th birthday. I was feeling epic and besides,” She says with an eye roll, her mouth settling into a wry grin, “after a millennium and a half it’s pretty difficult to find someone old enough to remember what this place used to be.”
It is not often anyone who knew of his long history and even shared a part of it.
“How long has it been since you thought about them?” She’s blunt in changing the subject but Kol doesn't mind. They had all the time in the world to chat, “Do you think they understood what their decisions would mean? To everyone else.”
It’s not often that Kol thinks about the past. He usually finds it tedious to be bogged down by memories that can no longer escape him. However, something about the company that joins him and the trees he stands under presses him to answer. Caroline doesn’t seem to be in any hurry so he takes his time to think.
“To be quite honest, I think about them less than I like. Maybe I should be asking you the same question” Caroline is quiet. When she looks at Kol, she seems tired, nothing like the bubbly creature that had unwittingly seduced his brother. Caroline’s only response is the quirk of her mouth. He keeps his face neutral as he continues, “Niklaus, and Elijah never saw much beyond the promise of Always and forever. Rebekah had dreams of her own. Although I hear my niece is still running around here somewhere.”
He knows where Hope is, he would always know where she was. But true to form, he taught her everything he knew and then went his separate ways. She was powerful and a legend in her own right. They keep in touch, but Kol has become something of a recluse in his old age. They haven’t seen each other in over 500 years at this point. Kol knows Caroline’s daughter is still around too. Vampirism suited Elizabeth Saltzman as well as it did her mother.
“How about you?” Caroline asks when she sees he has nothing else to say, “You’re the one left to bear the weight of Always and Forever.”
She says that last part somewhat mockingly. He’s unsure how to answer her. When Kol was young, he’d always believed in the sanctity of that promise. He'd spent years being resentful of it, of his exclusion but now, he had lived long enough to know that when you couldn’t die, “Forever” was sometimes a burden too hard to bear and that “last” would never truly be such. It was ironic how, of all things, he was the only one left to uphold it. “I made my own promises to people I cared about, ”
“I can’t imagine Davina was able to extend her life for very long after we met.”
She and Caroline had gotten along in San Francisco all that time ago. Kol remembers her visit. “She was powerful, it is not often you find someone of her caliber, but eventually.” Kol agreed, “She was the first, but there have been others.”
“But none so much as her?” Caroline’s tone changes to something more teasing and her grin is sly but her eyes remain melancholy.
“Marriage suited me, but witches never did enjoy the perks vampirism had to offer.” irony coloring his words. “I loved her too much to take that choice from her” he finishes, trying to hide the regret in his tone.
He’d asked his wife once every twenty years or so and she had considered it for a time. But first and foremost she had been a witch, upholder of the balance of nature. It went against her being to share his fate and so he held her hand as she died, not willing to deny her the choice he never got to have. But now and then, when he remembers that she is gone and he is here, there is a part of him that resents her for not wanting an eternity with him. But he pushes that aside for now, choosing instead to stroll through the woods of Mystic Falls, each step bringing back memories best left behind them.
“Here’s to another millennium darling,” he toasts blankly, just for something to say.
“Of what?” Caroline is quiet and he can barely hear her over the soft whistle of wind, “ What does the world have left to offer that we haven’t already seen?”
In honesty the universe was limitless, mankind and by extension the supernatural, were no longer bound to the plains of Earth and had inched their way across space itself. Strictly speaking, there could be universes left. But he understood what she was asking. Was it worth it? Despite the gains of man they were the same. Greed and corruption still underlined each grand accomplishment, no different from when Kol was still human and for centuries long before and well after they are gone. What are mere humans in the eyes of the stars that watch from an untouchable sky? Mortal life flickers only briefly. Why is it that mortals burn so quickly yet seem to dance in the embers of their impermanence?
“Do you find no one to share it with?”
Nothing left to live for went unspoken. When she’s quiet he knows he has hit the mark.
“Your brother once promised me a thousand more birthdays. I've had that and so many more. Now I’m older than he could ever be, standing with the brother he left behind.” She frowns at him and he can see the glimmer of the fire that his brother was drawn to, “For the first few decades I still had Elena, and Bonnie for a few decades more. For nearly 150 years I was a mother and for generations, I was the weird grandmother, aunt or cousin that seemed to know more about family history than should be possible. I made friends, had lovers and experienced a lot over the course of existence but what's all of that when you have eternity?”
He can see it and he understands. She had once loved so freely and fiercely. Men and women walked into her life only to leave just as easily, many unable to face the idea of an endless existence. But there were the few who knew her for all her flaws and what she brought to the table but even they had been unable to bear the weight of her heart.
They had stopped walking now and Kol wasn’t sure if it was purely out of coincidence that they ended up in this particular clearing. He could easily recognize where they were. He was unsure if Caroline realized the significance but it was hard to forget the day they burned the original white oak to the ground. He could still feel the heat of the blaze, letting it warm his face when sunlight no longer could. He remembered reaching for something that had been taken from him that day, that piece that had been ripped from him, and the anger when it was nowhere for him to find. For Kol it had felt like the seal of fate. He would be trapped in a body and mind he no longer understood. But nature had a way of being cyclic because now, a new, looming White Oak tree almost as big as the original is standing in its place, branches outstretched. Vervain still flowers at its base and the lowest branches are still too high up for a normal human to reach from the ground. They are the same. They both began here.
“Does life really mean that little to you anymore?” He asks instead of answering.
Caroline is silent for a moment but he recognizes it as a one of contemplation rather than a lack of something to say, “Sometimes, when I’m alone in the woods here on earth, I can hear the life around me, different sounds going for miles. But something somewhere will stop, but the universe will grow and time will move on.”
Kol doesn't have the heart to push her for a real answer and instead responds with, “Then why don’t you end it?”
She shrugs, “fear? Spite? Guilt? I can never really decide. There are times when it's something that crosses my mind. I wonder where I would go, the other side doesn’t seem appealing ”
“I've heard rumors it’s not,” Kol says lightly but the humor falls flat and he continues “but it stands to reason that many find peace.”
Caroline smiles but doesn't look at him. "Peace is something that we all strive towards but can you really find peace if you have your own death on your hands? Despite it all, there will still be things I will leave behind and memories that will fade with me should I go. It would be a disservice to my family and to my friends who have no one left to remember them but me”
He hums in agreement and leans down to pick up a branch that has fallen off of the tree. The White Oak is heavy in his hands. Kol stares at it, wondering if he should have followed the same pattern and burned the tree it came from to the ground.
For a second, Kol considers it. He has died twice and each time he had to face purgatory of the worst kind. He wonders if there’s peace for him, where he can see his siblings all together as they were when they were children. He would give no small thing to listen to Nik and Elijah banter or tease Rebekah for her taste in clothing one more time. Maybe he and Finn would get along like they used to before their transition, he could hypothesize spell theory with Freya one last time. Maybe his mother could stroke his hair. Maybe he would see Davina, smell her favorite jasmine perfume and hold her hand before he faded into nothing. He imagines them all waiting across the river, hands outstretched, ready to welcome him and show him what he did not yet know.
Once, long ago, he had decided to bear the burden of being the last one standing. He made a promise to himself and to his family that he has kept to this day. He’s not going to deny that he’s appreciated the freedom that came with finally leaving the shackles of a different promise he once longed to be a part of. For the longest of times, grief had been a wayward companion, acknowledged but let go at the slightest turn. Scars have long since formed and new wounds cut fresh. There was no time to dawdle on lives lived so long ago that even the world did not bear a trace. He and his family were less than myth now, nothing but whispers in the minds of ghosts long departed. He and Caroline continue to stand, timeless, yet how the world has changed and how humanity has evolved into so much more. If it was one thing that their family always wanted, it was something more.
He looks at Caroline and extends the branch to her. It’s solid and study and her grip is strong. She pulls it from his hands, deliberately, and he feels like they come to an understanding.
She smiles and does not let go of the branch of White Oak. She does however, take a lighter from her pocket and press it into his hand. It’s obviously an heirloom, crafted in a style from an old storybook. With something like resignation in her eyes, she steps closer to him, and in a bold move, she wraps her arms around him, branch in hand “If you ever need me,” she says, “You’ll be able to find me.”
She’s tucked herself right under his chin, and her hug is solid and warm. He tips his head down to rest his against hers, he smiles, realizing that he was grateful to have her.
He plants a brief kiss on the top of her head“Always and forever Darling.”