Always Yours.

@ momentai.
Charlie shook her head at his words, "Feeling human is everything you should want to feel, Niklaus." She stated as she looked at him with a frown, "Feeling human isn't too many vulnerabilities. Feeling human means you're able to feel. If you feel human, you can still feel love, and emotion." She explained to him. Even when she first turned, Charlie was always one to try and stay close to the human race. She never wanted to let her old self slip away despite how broken she was after Klaus had left.

“You can feel all of those things without being human,” Klaus pointed out, “Having those feelings doesn’t make us human, they simply mean that we have our humanity.” He shrugged gently in response, knocking back another drink as he ordered once more. “I don’t want to feel human. I am perfectly fine with experiencing the emotions that are heightened for us, the emotions that make us who we are, but those heightened emotions don’t make us human. If that was the case, humans would feel them as strongly as we do and they don’t.”

@ momentai.
Charlie frowned slightly at his words, "Do you feel anything anymore, Nik?" She questioned. She could tell already that he wasn't the same as he was when she knew him in 1918. Of course, Charlie had heard of the lore of the powerful original, Niklaus Mikaelson over the years, but she could never picture him as anything but the loving man that she knew. He had his faults back then, as did most of them, but she didn't ever mind them. She always loved Klaus more than anything and saw him for the man she knew he could be.

Klaus arched a brow to her words as he looked over at her. “I feel plenty of things,” he said simply as he drank before he ordered another glass. “Betrayal, anger, fury. Just because I do not wish to be a human or because I do not pretend to be a human doesn’t mean that I don’t feel. It just means that I have no interest in how humans are. Our emotions, as vampires, is so heightened, that I wouldn’t dare care for being a human again, not with their dulled senses.”

@ momentai.
Charlie held her hands up in defense at his words, "You may be right, Nik." She replied before taking a drink from her bottle. Charlie looked over at Klaus with a smile. It had been so long since she had last seen him, and yet he remained almost the exact same. Charlie could see the changes in him. He tried to remain the scary hybrid that he had his reputation from, but Charlie knew him too well not to know that he was a teddy bear that would only kill when he or his family were threatened, "Nik, what changed you? Or was it a who? Because you're definitely not the same man from 1918." She questioned curiously.

“Who changed me?” Klaus repeated, looking to her, “Let’s speak about Marcellus’s betrayal. He manipulated my sister into calling Mikael here. Mikael chased me out of the city I love and I was led to believe that Marcellus was dead. I mourned Marcellus. And, when I returned to the city, I found out that, not only had he survived, but he had almost a hundred years to inform me otherwise - and, the worst of it, was that I found out the truth about how Mikael came to find me.”

@ momentai.
Charlie raised an eyebrow at Klaus's words, "Niklaus, Marcel didn't manipulate Rebeckah into calling Mikael here. They did it together on their own will. Marcel told me the story." She replied. She made sure she kept her voice even so she wouldn't upset him, "Marcel resented you because you never wanted him to be with Beckah. She was in love and you made sure she couldn't have it. I understand why you feel betrayed, but you have to see it from their side as well." She explained.

“You heard the story and you still defend them?” Klaus asked as he looked over at her, “When they’re the ones who brought Mikael here to have me driven out - or killed, as my sister partially admitted?” He frowned, watching her for a moment. “Rebekah would have never brought Mikael here if Marcellus had not suggested it. Rebekah would not have put that torment on me. I had granted them my approval to be together and they threw it in my face, Charlie. And, even before that! Marcellus himself, alone brought Papa Tunde to New Orleans to put me down. Even now, all Marcellus does is try to drive me out and you're defending him.”

@ momentai.
Charlie winced slightly at his words before she sighed and looked at him with a soft expression, "I understand why you're upset, Nik, I really do. There isn't an excuse for what happened." She replied, "But you also have to remember my side of this. I owe my life to Marcel. I was so close to ending it after everything that happened with Mikael, and yes I know that Marcel is the one that brought him here, but he made sure that I didn't have to live my life alone. You all were my family, and you always will be my family, but Marcel was apart of that family as well, and we made it through together." She explained. Charlie knew in Klaus's mind there was no excuse and no forgiveness to betrayal, but she desperately needed him to see her side of the story as to why she's been on Marcel's side this whole time.

“Charlie, are you not realizing that the reason you would have had to live your life alone?” Klaus asked in return as he looked to her, watching her with a frown. “He brought Mikael here, had me driven out, took my family and me away from you. If he hadn’t brought Mikael to New Orleans, we would have never left. You made it through with the very person who drove away the rest of the people you are calling family. How does that make him family, Charlie? How does that justify what he did? We could have been here, with you, but we didn't get that opportunity, because Marcellus took it away from all of us - he took it away from you, too, and you don't see it?"

@ momentai.
Charlie frowned at Klaus's words, knowing he had a point, "I'm not saying anything of what he did was justified, Nik. Though, I do believe that his saving of me was a way to try and repay what he had done. I know it wasn't to you or your siblings, but I believe Marcel knows what he did was wrong, and he saved my life in order to repent for what he had done. He knew that I had lost three of the most important people in my life, and I just think he didn't want me to be alone because of what he had done. He's told me a couple times he feels awful for how everything he did impacted the chance I had...well with you, Nik." Charlie explained. The two always danced around their feelings for each other in the 1900's, but it was plain to see that the two had strong feelings for the other, and Marcel had always apologized to Charlie for being the one to ruin her possible life that she could have had with Klaus.

“If he was so sorry, why did he not try to contact us, Charlie?” Klaus asked as he watched her, arching a brow expectantly, “He had nearly an entire century to contact us to let us know that the two of you were alive and he did not do so. Instead, he focused on taking over the city that my family and I built together. And, there is no excuse for him being unable to - he contacted my father with a spell, he could have easily done the same for us, especially with the witches having been under his thumb recently.”

@ momentai.
Charlie put her hands up in defense at his words, "I cannot attest for that and I give no excuses for that. I was just as mad as you are. I'm furious that he didn't tell me you were alive and well either because I could have seen you sooner. I would've come back sooner had I known that you were here." Charlie replied as she put her hands back down, "Nik, I'm not trying to change your mind about Marcel. I'm just trying to get you to see that it's not that easy for me to just betray him like he did to you. I know that he is the reason that I lost you. I know he's the reason I lost Rebeckah and Elijah. I just can't hate him because without him doing all of that, I would have never become a vampire, and I wouldn't have been able to reunite with you after all this time because I would be dead. Even if he hadn't called your father, and I never had lost you or your siblings, I still would have grown old and lost you all eventually."

“You don’t owe him anything,” Klaus said as he watched her, “Plenty of people get turned and hold no care for those who turn them. Just because he turned you and granted you this opportunity - which you do not even know whether it would have happened or not at some point if we’d still been here - does not mean that you owe him any allegiance after everything he’s done to chase us out, to keep us apart, and to still try to chase us out of New Orleans to this very day."

@ momentai.
Charlie raised an eyebrow at his words, her mind instantly going off track from the topic currently being discussed, "You would have turned me?" She asked curiously. Charlie had always thought of her life with Klaus had Mikael not run the family out of town. Eventually the two would have admitted their feelings, and Charlie knew that she would have never wanted to grow old if Klaus wasn't, so she would have asked to be turned, but she had always thought that he would refuse. Marcel had told her that Klaus had refused multiple times before actually giving in and turning him.