Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries is owned by author L.J Smith, show creators Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, and CW. I am just playing in their sandbox.

A/N: This one shot was inspired by Joseph Morgan's heart wrenching characterization of Klaus and Ep. 4.12 "A View to Kill". Spoiler alert for anyone who has not watched this episode.

He was trapped in the house for exactly four days.

For a hybrid as old as he was, time was a relative thing. But trapped in the Gilbert house living room, with only the rotting corpse of his younger brother for company, four days seemed worse than eternity.

The first night, he had spent himself by hurling himself at the invisible barrier relentlessly, as if it would somehow work, and he would be freed from the prison the witch had magicked. He had eventually collapsed on the floor, panting harshly, glaring at the space where he knew the invisible barrier to be.

There was absolutely nothing he could do until the magic lifted.

There were times where he had feared magic and what it could accomplish. Then there were times like this, where he absolutely despised it.

Klaus never liked feeling helpless.

Morning dawned, and the sun rose, casting its bright light into the kitchen, and drawing his attention to the charred remains of his now deceased younger brother. It looked like some grotesque and ironic reminder of the creature that Kol used to be and was no longer, he thought distantly, the sunlight seemed almost mocking as it shone on Kol's unmoving corpse.

His younger brother was well and truly dead.

He could feel the grief rising his in chest, gripping his undead heart and strangling it like a vice. He could feel the tears welling in his eyes, threatening to spill. He could feel his hands clench into fists as he tried to will his emotions back, tried not to feel the flood of grief that could very well destroy him. But then one tear escaped, and then another, and it was like the floodgates had opened, and he could not help himself as he wept like he had not done since Henrik had died.

He mourned the annoying younger brother, the volatile younger brother, the mischievous younger brother, the quick-witted younger brother, the aggressive younger brother, the snarky younger brother and the rebellious younger brother. He mourned the younger brother who laughed at and with him, and plotted with and against him, and went with and against him. He mourned the younger brother who could no longer laugh and smirk and love and argue and fight and intimidate. He mourned the younger brother who chased after witches, and charmed his way into many a lady's knickers. He mourned the younger brother who teased his siblings and defended them with the same breath. He mourned the younger brother who he could no longer protect, who was murdered and who died right in front of his very eyes. Most of all, he mourned a yet another sibling lost to death.

On the second night, he regaled Kol with the many events of his younger brother's life that he knew of, or could remember. Most of them were amusing anecdotes that featured Kol's worst escapades and ideas. If Kol were still alive, he would probably protest the indignity, a glass of scotch in hand, and an embarrassed smirk on his face.

He could almost see it.

A day had come and gone, and Klaus had talked himself hoarse. And still he continued, for despite being daggered for the last hundred years, Kol had lived a very eventful nine hundred.

It was deep into the third night when he finally fell silent, having run out of Kol-related things to talk about. Then, calmly, and methodically, he tamped down all his feelings of grief and buried it into a thick concrete grave in his mind, where he was determined it would remain for the rest of eternity. That emotion was too powerful and crippling; it made him weak, and could destroy him if he let it linger.

He welcomed back the white-hot rage, and the hatred, used all of that to fuel him while he waited the rest of his imprisonment out. The barrier would not hold forever, he knew. Such hastily used magic had would fade eventually, no matter how powerful.

Making himself comfortable on the living room sofa, he coldly plotted the slow and excruciating demise of the doppelganger, the hunter, the witch, and the Salvatore brothers.

Klaus sat up at dawn of the fourth morning, satisfied with his plans for revenge. There would, inevitably, be hiccups along the way, especially since these group of murderous traitors seemed to have the devil's own luck when it came to staying alive, but, as always, he had thought everything through and had backup plans with backup plans so that none of them would escape his wrath.

He tested the barrier again, as he had done for the past few days, and was pleased to find that the magic has lifted, and that it was gone. After four days, he was finally freed. And not a moment too soon. That witch will get what is coming to her, he vowed. They all will.

Carefully, he gathered Kol up in his arms, and carried him out into the front yard, laying him gently on the grass lawn. He could feel the grief beating against the concrete walls, crying to be let out as he gazed at the pained expression etched onto his brother's face. He immediately slammed a brick wall on top of that grave. He refused to feel that pain or let it rule him again.

"I will be back in a minute for you, Kol," he rasped to his younger brother, draping a throw that he had found in the living room over his corpse. "We've got some business to attend to first."

He could see the sun rising in the distance signalling the fourth morning since Kol had been murdered, and the witch had trapped him in the living room of the Gilbert house. A peaceful quiet lingered in the crisp morning air, lending the street an impression of tranquility.

Klaus's lips lifted in a cruel smirk. The Gilbert's neighbours were about to get a very rude awakening.

The rays of the sun had just hit the Gilbert house when it exploded and went up in flames.