Klaus had imagined this moment a thousand different ways. None of them were right. Mystic Falls was dull, ordinary, painfully small for the amount of history buried beneath it. He hadn’t expected to find her there. Hadn’t expected to find her anywhere at all anymore. Then he did. She stood outside the Salvatore house, leaning against the railing like she belonged there. Dark hair pulled back loosely, posture relaxed, expression calm in a way that made something in his chest tighten painfully. Alive. Unbroken. Unaware. Klaus stopped walking. For a moment, he simply watched her. Centuries of searching, of bloodshed and bargains and whispered names, and she was here—breathing, whole, untouched by the weight of what they had been. Aurora looked up. Their eyes met. Nothing happened. No recognition. No flicker of memory. No sharp intake of breath. She frowned slightly instead, assessing him the way one does a stranger who lingers too long. “Can I help you?” she asked. Her voice was the same. That nearly undid him. Klaus took a step closer, then stopped himself. His expression remained carefully neutral, but his eyes searched her face shamelessly, as if daring memory to surface. It didn’t. “You’re a Salvatore,” he said quietly. Her brows lifted. “That’s usually not how people introduce themselves.” A pause. “Do I know you?” she asked. The question landed harder than any blade ever had. Klaus exhaled slowly. “No,” he said after a beat. “You don’t.” She studied him for another moment, clearly unimpressed but not intimidated. Not afraid. That much, at least, had not changed. “Then stop staring,” she said calmly. “It’s rude.” She turned away, dismissing him without a second thought, and walked back into the house. Klaus remained where he was long after the door closed. So this was how it would be. She was alive. She was safe. And she had no idea who he was. For the first time in a thousand years, Klaus Mikaelson felt something dangerously close to peace. And something far worse. Need.