Happy Valentine's Day, sweethearts!

Since I really love Valentine's Day and I really love Klaroline, I wanted to write a lighthearted love story to celebrate both of those loves. Fair warning, though: when I say this story is lighthearted, that's exactly what I mean. This story is the written equivalent of cotton candy: sweet, fluffy, and pink. I really love it though, and I hope you will, too.

This story takes a sharp turn away from canon as soon as Klaus steps off the Gilberts' porch in episode 4x14, which for the purposes of this story (though the airdates don't exactly match up, they're similar enough, I think) takes place on the last day of January.

The title of the story comes from Ed Sheeran's song, "Give Me Love," which I consider Klaus and Caroline's song. The title for the first part comes from the movie of the same name. I claim no ownership over the song or the movie (though I do own copies of both), or any other songs mentioned in this story, nor do I claim ownership over the characters or storylines of The Vampire Diaries.

Happy Valentine's Day, again, and happy reading!

Caroline watched as Klaus stalked off of the Gilberts' porch, clearly disgruntled that she wasn't overwhelmed with gratitude for all of the 'kindness, forgiveness, pity,' that he claimed to have shown on her behalf. She felt oddly cold as he left, as though her 'strong, ageless' body had realized that she was alone. Tyler was gone, her friends had left on their search for the cure without inviting her, or even informing her that they were leaving. Caroline supposed that in her loneliness, she would have settled for Klaus's company to soften the blow of having been abandoned by someone who was supposed to love her, again. He would probably understand, since they were 'the same,' as he told her. She shook her head to clear it, ordering herself to stop dwelling on the things Klaus had said to her the past few days.

And what he didn't say, an evil little voice in her head taunted her.

But she couldn't think about that now. After she had sent Tyler away so that Klaus wouldn't kill him, she couldn't stomach the thought of overanalyzing what it meant that Klaus hadn't denied it when she'd said that she knew he was in love with her.

She couldn't think about how she'd meant it when she said that she'd said that there was a part of Klaus that was human, and that she'd seen it. She couldn't think about how, as she'd said it, she'd realized how she'd enjoyed spending time with the human Klaus that he seemed to allow only her to see, as stories of hummingbirds and humanity, promises to take her anywhere in the world she wanted to go, so that she could see all that the world had to offer, and dancing, and champagne, and park benches, and all the times he'd selflessly saved her started flashing from her memory to the forefront of her mind. She couldn't think about how much she'd meant it when she said that she'd found herself wishing she could forget all of the horrible things he had done, because she knew, she'd seen, that he was so much more than that. She couldn't think about how she knew that he was capable of love, and worthy of salvation. She couldn't think about how much he loved her.

What she could do, though, was get up from this porch swing and leave the house where she had almost died, where Klaus's brother had died, where her relationship with Tyler ended. The first thing she would do would be to stop by the Lockwood mansion and make sure Tyler was gone. She would just have to hope that Klaus hadn't had the same idea.

When she burst through the front door of Tyler's house, he was nowhere to be found, but there were four suitcases sitting in the foyer. The sound of footsteps on the staircase made Caroline turn towards the noise, ready to strike.

"Calm down, will you? It's just me," Tyler's werewolf friend Hayley said.

"What are you doing here? You have to go, it isn't safe here anymore," Caroline told her.

She didn't particularly like Hayley, mostly because she was fairly certain that the werewolf had developed feelings for Tyler while she was helping him break his sire bond, but she couldn't in good conscience let the other girl die.

"Yeah, I know, Tyler called me. He told me to pack up our things and meet him—" Hayley paused. "Somewhere. He said not to tell anyone where. I'm on my way out now. Don't worry about Tyler, Caroline. I'll take care of him," Hayley finished, biting her lip.

She lifted two of the suitcases and put them in the trunk of Tyler's car, then stacked the other two in the backseat before Caroline could think of a reply or offer to help.

"I really have to go. Was there something you wanted me to tell Tyler for you?" Hayley offered condescendingly, with a tilt of her head.

"Take care. Both of you," was all Caroline could say.

Hayley nodded once and got into the car, reversing out of the driveway quickly, without looking back at Caroline, who lingered in the doorway of the mansion for a few minutes after she left, contemplating where the revelation that Hayley was accompanying Tyler on the run left her. Then she trudged home to her empty house and hope that the mess that was her life now would look better after a good night's sleep.

~love~

Klaus had gone straight home and sequestered himself in his art studio, pouring himself a drink and putting a new canvas on his easel. He started angrily slashing black paint across it without care for what he was painting, just using the paint to reflect the turmoil inside of him at that moment.

He was furious.

Not because he wouldn't get to kill Tyler as he had planned, but because he had once again let Caroline Forbes weasel her way past his defenses and use his weakness for her to get her way. Because she made him weak. She had him wrapped around her little finger, and with one look, one plea, she had derailed his plans for revenge against an insurgent who stole his loyal followers from him. He had granted mercy for Caroline's sake, that she had asked for, for Tyler's sake.

Despite her claims of mercy and compassion, Klaus knew that Caroline would never plead for his life the way she begged him to spare Tyler. Contrary to what she thought, he did not relish the idea of killing his first successful hybrid, in large part because he knew how much it would hurt her.

But he had hurt her, as recently as the previous day.

He had been hurt over the death of the little brother who had somehow always managed to overcome whatever obstacle lay in his path, and never lost his humor. Kol took nothing seriously, Elijah took everything too seriously, and Klaus, for all his insistence that he needed no one, didn't know how he could keep himself balanced without both of them.

So he had lashed out at the only person who wasn't related to him who had ever seen anything human in him. Who might, given the right circumstances, be able to see past the (halfhearted at best) show of threats and apathy to see the brother who had once again failed to keep his siblings safe. And instead of giving her the opportunity to see that side of himself that he allowed very few people to see, he had attacked her, proving that he was the monster she thought he was, the tyrant who threatened and bribed instead of trying to understand anyone else.

He never would have let her die. He knew that, and clearly Tyler had known that, or he wouldn't have brought her back. And though he was in no position to be critiquing anyone, he couldn't help but think Tyler had been selfish and cowardly when he left Caroline on the floor of the Gilberts' living room and fled, leaving the girl he claimed to love to her fate, to live or die by Klaus's will. Even if he hadn't been trapped, if he were in Tyler's place, Klaus knew that he could never have left her. He could never have let someone he loved die on the floor of her friend's living room, with the sworn enemy of the people she loved most. If Klaus had chosen not to save her, if he had really allowed her to die as collateral damage in his war against Tyler, his penance for committing such an egregious sin would have been to hear her take her last shuddering breath, to watch her light fade from the world and know that nothing would ever be so bright again. And for the next thousand years, and for however many thousands of years he would have lived after that, he would have worn the pain her death would surely cause him like a shield to remind himself that his eternal darkness could never allow light to thrive near him, that loving an angel hadn't saved him, it had damned her.

Yes, she was correct. He was in love with her, even if he had refused to admit it to himself before she said it out loud. What was most curious to him was how she let the accusation hang in the air, stating it simply as if she knew it to be fact, just like she would have announced that she knew that she lived in Virginia, or that she had blonde hair. She hadn't seemed disgusted, or angry, or confused. She accepted this fact, even perhaps depended on it. Like it was something she could count on-the sun will rise in the morning, and Klaus is in love with Caroline.

Not only had she made the claim that he was in love with her with the same ease and certainty as she might have announced her age or middle name, she had also told him that because of his love for her, he was somehow capable of being saved. But by whom? Was she saying that because he was in love with her, Caroline would be able to save him? The idea of Caroline being his salvation was not only a heartwarming thought, but seemed remarkably fitting. Because Klaus had preserved her light, she would be able to use it combat his darkness and the monster that it encompassed.

Although, according to Caroline, he wasn't a monster. He was human. Like he had hoped she would, Caroline had seen through his flimsy claims of being pure evil and recognized him for what he was: a hurt young man who had just lost someone he loved. She was clever and compassionate, loyal and loving, and Klaus would never be worthy of the empathy and understanding she kept granting him, even when she was facing the possibility of her own death at his hand.

Klaus broke away from his thoughts to look at the canvas where he had been absently painting during his mental tirade. The canvas was all black except for a space in the middle that had been left white. A circular space with irregular points reaching out from it. Almost like the sun. He smiled a little, remembering how Caroline had complimented the snowflake of his contribution for the charity auction. He'd only participated because he knew how much that would mean to her.

Deciding this subconscious metaphor was too blatant to ignore, Klaus resolved to make amends for his abhorrent behavior towards Caroline. It wasn't enough that he had helped her uncover the meaning of the map to the cure. He had to show genuine remorse for hurting her and making her boyfriend leave.

His challenge would be making it up to her without completely changing himself and scaring her off in the process. She thought that he was a soulless murderer who could occasionally be nice to her. If he were to suddenly transform into one of the heroes of the romantic movies she liked, she wouldn't believe he was sincere.

His first priority would be checking up on her to make sure that she was safe and hadn't done anything rash like running away to be with Tyler. The supernatural misfits of Mystic Falls would be far less tolerable without her presence.

He turned back to his painting and finished his drink, slamming the empty glass down on the table.

He would start first thing tomorrow.

~love~

Perhaps Caroline's life would have looked after a good night's sleep, but she would never know, since she had spent the entire night tossing and turning. She hadn't heard her mother come in after her night shift at the police station, but unless someone had broken in, she was in the kitchen now, probably making coffee, without which neither Forbes could get through the day.

Except that Liz wasn't the one in the kitchen.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Klaus greeted her. "Cream and sugar?" He asked, holding up containers of both.

Caroline nodded warily, tucking her hair behind her ear and moving further into the room.

"Your mother is asleep in her room. There's no need to worry, I wouldn't hurt her," Klaus explained while fixing her coffee and handing her the mug.

"What are you doing here?" Caroline asked, her sleep deprived brain finally starting to wake up. Surprisingly, she didn't feel unsafe knowing that Klaus had entered her house without permission while she and her mother were sleeping. The rational part of her mind told her that if Klaus had really wanted to hurt her, he wouldn't have given her his blood the previous day, and the emotional part of her mind told her that Klaus wouldn't hurt her because he loved her. Combined with the times that Klaus had gone out of his way to protect her from harm, she felt completely safe in his presence.

"I just wanted to check up on you, I'm sure Tyler leaving was quite distressing for you," Klaus started towards her, but Caroline hurriedly stepped away.

"Tyler's 'lady werewolf friend,' as you called her, went with him, so he should be fine until she betrays him and sends him to his death like she did with the rest of your hybrids," Caroline told him bitterly. Klaus didn't seem surprised by her accusation, and since she had been in the ladies' room of the Mystic Grill with a broken neck, courtesy of Hayley herself, when the massacre had happened, she could only assume that Klaus had already figured out that it was Hayley who had manipulated him into killing his hybrids.

"Yes, the werewolf who mysteriously knew how to break sire bonds despite having never experienced having one. Very curious," Klaus smirked.

Caroline considered asking him what he meant by that, then decided she didn't want to talk to him any longer than it would take to get him out of her house. Hayley, along with Tyler, would be out of their lives for the foreseeable future, so it didn't really matter to her how she knew about the sire bond.

Klaus seemed to pick up on her reluctance to follow his train of thought, so all he said was, "Don't worry love, she will be punished for her crimes against us," before he changed the subject.

"Your friends are back from their search for the cure. Are you going to school today, or will you all be meeting at the Salvatore's to debrief?"

"Why would I be debriefed on a mission I wasn't invited to participate in?" Caroline answered. "I'm going to school, though I'm sure Damon will summon me if they decide to include me this time."

"It's their loss, love. I personally look forward to any time I get to spend with you," Klaus smiled.

"Well, if they need me, it will probably be to distract you, so try to remember you thought that," Caroline said. "I should go get ready for school. Thanks for the coffee, I guess, though next time you want to check up on me and bring me coffee, maybe consider not breaking into my house?"

Klaus chuckled.

"I thought that you would feel better if you got your mind off of everything. I hope you have a thoroughly distracting day at school, love. I'll see you soon." He gave her a searching look and lifted his hand a little, as if he wanted to touch her, but then changed his mind and swept out of the house.

He had only been there for a few minutes, but without his presence, the house already felt emptier. The Forbes house could, once again, be seen just as a home for the sheriff and her teenage daughter. A totally normal house, in a totally normal small town. Except that it wasn't. And despite what other people in town may have thought, that wasn't Klaus's fault.

"That was weird," Caroline announced to the empty kitchen. Then she put her empty coffee mug down and went to her room to get ready for school.

~love~

By the time Caroline arrived at school, she had decided that Klaus was right. She did need a distraction from the current drama of her life, so that hopefully, by the time she was finished, she would be over Tyler, they would have found the cure, and Klaus would be… well she wasn't sure if she still wanted him gone, but she wasn't sure what alternative she wanted instead.

Resolving to shelve that dangerous train of thought for some time in the future, Caroline consulted her planner, looking for a town event or committee meeting she could devote herself to in the meantime. Since that day was the first of the month, she turned the page in her calendar only to discover that she had nothing planned yet for the entire month of February.

Nothing. How could there be nothing?!

There were no fundraisers to restore the Wickery Bridge, no Miss Mystic Falls obligations, not even a test or project she could devote her free time to studying for.

Even with the days off of school in February for the birthdays of multiple presidents-famous, important presidents like Washington and Lincoln-there were no town events planned to observe them. Not a parade, not a picnic, not even a bake sale.

Then, hidden among those federally mandated days where schools were closed, she saw more of the printed writing that meant it was a holiday on another day.

Perfect!

How could she have possibly forgotten that that day was coming up? How had she become so preoccupied and overwhelmed with supernatural drama that she had forgotten that her second favorite day of the year (after her birthday, of course) was less than two weeks away?

But with all of her friends scrambling to find the cure, who could she ask to help her put her developing plan in motion? As she scanned the hallway, she saw the other member of their group of friends who had been left out of the trip to find the cure.

"Matt!" Caroline called.

"Hey, Care," Matt greeted with a strained version of his characteristic easygoing smile. Caroline assumed that meant he knew about Tyler's absence.

"Have you heard about Tyler?" she asked, to be sure.

"Yeah, he called me last night. All he said was that he had to leave town immediately so that Klaus wouldn't kill him. Then he said that anything else you would have to explain when I next saw you. How could you let him go on the run from Klaus alone?" Matt asked.

"I didn't let him do anything Matt! Klaus was all set to kill Tyler as soon as Bonnie's spell to keep him trapped in Elena's living room wore off! I practically had to beg Klaus to let Tyler live at all! Klaus thinks that he's being merciful by allowing Tyler to run for his life and I can't exactly negotiate further without putting Tyler's life at risk. And for the record, Tyler isn't on the run alone. His friend Hayley is with him, I saw her packing up their stuff and driving away in Tyler's car when I went to his house last night," Caroline explained, sighing heavily.

Matt looked properly chastened when she finished her tirade.

"I'm sorry, Caroline. I know this is rough on you too. I'm just worried about my friend," Matt apologized.

The bell rang, and students started moving through the hallway to their classrooms.

"I have to get to class, but we'll talk later, okay?" Matt asked, walking away before Caroline could say anything at all, let alone tell him about her plan.

Caroline just nodded and walked off to her first class, her mind whirring with ideas for her plan to distract herself until casual conversations about Tyler's wellbeing didn't make her feel sick to her stomach.

~love~

As Caroline had predicted, she and Matt were ordered to come to the Salvatore boarding house during their lunch period. When they arrived, Elena, Bonnie, and Stefan were already there, having skipped school for the day, as well as Damon and, to Caroline's surprise, Rebekah.

"How was playing house with Nik all weekend, Caroline?" the other blonde vampire taunted.

Caroline took a deep breath and plastered a sympathetic smile on her face, deciding that getting into an argument with Rebekah wasn't worth her time.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Rebekah," was all Caroline said.

Rebekah looked taken aback for a second, then her face softened slightly, and she offered a quiet "thanks."

"And I'm really sorry about Jeremy, too, Elena," Caroline added.

Her friend just nodded and gave her a watery smile.

"So now that the sympathy is out of the way, we can get to something that actually matters," Damon started.

Caroline, Stefan, and Bonnie sighed in unison.

"Here's what we know," Stefan said. "Katherine has the cure and she killed Jeremy to get it. What we don't know is where it is, what Katherine is going to do with it, or why she wanted it in the first place."

"Yes, we do," Caroline interjected uncertainly. "Don't we? I mean, why does Katherine ever do anything? To ensure her own survival or to try to negotiate her freedom from Klaus. That's why she turned me and made Tyler activate his werewolf curse, so that she could trade us and the moonstone to Klaus for the sacrifice. And since it's a lot easier to stay alive if you're immortal, she must think that Klaus wants the cure to make Elena human again so he can make hybrids, and is going to offer it to him in exchange for her freedom," Caroline explained.

"So you're the Klaus expert now, huh?" Damon smirked.

Caroline was starting to wonder why she was even here. Clearly her opinion wasn't valued, and she hated feeling like she was at Damon's beck and call. He'd hurt her, in every way she could imagine, and now she still had to be nice to him so as not to upset her friends. And in exchange for playing the peacekeeper, she was taunted and belittled for offering her opinion, and used as a distraction, as if Stefan and Damon didn't trust her or thought she was incapable of participating in their plans.

"She has a point," Elena conceded. Bonnie nodded.

"That may work for all of you who want to give the cure to Elena, but what about those of us who wanted the cure for themselves? And we still have to find Katherine to make sure that is her plan and to get the cure from her," Rebekah argued.

"I think that might be just you Rebekah," Bonnie suggested quietly. "Caroline doesn't want the cure, neither does Damon. Katherine doesn't want it for herself, and Stefan wouldn't go against the group to take the cure away from Elena. He may hate being a vampire, but he knows Elena never wanted to be a vampire, and hates it at least as much as he does."

"Is that true?" Elena asked. "Would you really sacrifice the cure for me?"

Stefan glanced at Damon, then at Elena, and nodded.

Rebekah watched this exchange, sighed exaggeratedly, then stormed out of the house.

Caroline understood why Rebekah was so upset and appreciated a drama queen tantrum, having performed many herself, but she also found it hard to believe that Klaus would allow Rebekah to take the cure. In fact, Caroline was fairly certain that if she tried, she would find a dagger in her back before she could get her hands on it.

"Should one of us go after her?" Elena asked.

"No," Damon insisted. "All of us need to come up with a plan to keep her distracted so that she can't get to the cure before we do. Now if this was a different Mikaelson, this would be your job Blondie—"

Caroline glared at him.

"She seems to like you, Matt. Do you think you could try to keep her busy for the next few days while we find Katherine?" Stefan requested.

"Sure," Matt agreed. "We should get back to school, not all of us took the day off."

By the time Caroline and Matt left, Rebekah was nowhere to be found. Caroline resolved to find her at school later or the next day to put the next part of her plan in motion.

~love~

Klaus was sitting in the living room when Rebekah stormed in.

"Did you put them up to this?" she demanded.

"Did I put who up to what Rebekah?" Klaus sighed.

He was used to Rebekah's theatrics, but usually she gave some indication as to what she was so upset about.

"Your precious Caroline and her friends are trying to keep me from the cure! Have you enlisted them in your latest plan to make sure I can never be happy?"

Ignoring the momentary thrill that ran through him at Rebekah calling Caroline his, Klaus immediately started working on damage control to prevent Rebekah from thinking that he was participating in a conspiracy against her, not just because he was offended by the suggestion that he would ever want to work with the Salvatores, but because he knew that whenever Rebekah that someone was trying to stop her from getting what she wanted, she only wanted it more.

"No Rebekah, I would not team up with the Salvatores, the doppelganger, and the Bennett witch to keep the cure from you. I'm counting on your own flighty nature to keep you from taking the cure," Klaus responded.

"So you admit it! You don't want me to take the cure!" Rebekah gloated.

"No, Rebekah, I don't. I haven't spent a thousand years protecting you from all manner of things that might want to kill you only to see you meet your demise because of your own stupidity. You are an Original. You have been alive for a thousand years. This cure is just another one of your passing fancies. You'll have moved on by next week, and you can't recover from becoming human after being a vampire for a thousand years!" Klaus lectured his little sister.

Klaus was getting quite tired of dealing with this cure nonsense. He certainly wanted to prevent anyone using it against him or his family, and he supposed that if Elena took the cure, become human, and was willing to donate her blood to the cause, he would consider making more hybrids, but if he were the one to get his hands on it first, he knew that he would almost surely destroy it rather than allowing anyone to take it.

"But they're going to let Katherine give it to you to exchange for her freedom! You don't want that do you?" Rebekah argued.

"Katherine has the cure now? How exactly do they plan on finding her down and convincing her to hand it over?" Klaus considered.

"I don't know, but Caroline said that everything Katherine does is either for self-preservation or to earn her freedom. Apparently Katherine assumes you want the cure so that you can make hybrids. Damon is going to look for her, but she'll probably find you before they find her," Rebekah explained.

"Then she will find me, and I will keep you safe, as I always do," Klaus promised. "I trust Caroline's assessment of her murderess. I'm not overly concerned. The last time we met in person she was the one who went running scared as soon as I allowed her to," Klaus assured her.

"You're really not giving in on this, are you? You are going to continue to try to keep me away from the one thing I want, the one thing that I'm sure will make me happy, and you are going to either destroy it or give it to Elena Gilbert to make sure that I can't have it!" Rebekah screamed, angry tears running down her cheeks.

Klaus thought, not for the first time in the thousand years he had known his sister, that Rebekah's stubbornness would be her downfall.

"Now, now, Rebekah, love, calm down. Just try to find something to take your mind off of this cure nonsense and it will be over soon enough. And then you'll realize how foolish you were to think that being a vulnerable human could make you happy when being a powerful, invincible Original vampire couldn't. This too shall pass, and then you'll move on to your next whim, the same way you have for the past millennium," Klaus told Rebekah.

Rebekah screamed wordlessly at him, then stormed out of the room and up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her.

~love~

Caroline couldn't find Rebekah at school, so she assumed the other girl had left early after her tantrum at lunch. Caroline had been to the principal's office during her free period to get permission for her planned distraction, which the principal had heartily agreed was a great way to improve the spirits of a weary student body. But even though she was willing to try in order to help Matt, she still wasn't sure if her idea would work. So, wanting reassurance, she called the one person she knew wouldn't make fun of her idea.

"Objectively, how successful was I as a distraction?" Caroline asked when he picked up the phone.

"Honestly, love, I always knew what you were up to, I just enjoyed your company too much to risk your friends finding another method of keeping me occupied," Klaus replied without missing a beat.

"So you think that if I were to try distracting someone else, I wouldn't be successful?" Caroline clarified.

"Sweetheart, I think you can be successful at anything you choose to. Can I ask what it is that you're planning? Can I be of assistance?" Klaus asked.

"How opposed are you to Rebekah taking the cure?" Caroline asked a question of her own instead of answering. She wasn't sure if she wanted Klaus's help, not wanting to put him in a position where he would have to betray Rebekah's trust. Plus she hadn't thought that Klaus would be interested in what she was planning.

"Between you and I, very. I did not spend a thousand years ensuring my sister's survival only for her to turn mortal and die in sixty years," Klaus answered.

"Good. Because I have a plan to keep her away from the cure."

~love~

"What is your plan, love?" Klaus asked.

He left his sketchbook on the coffee table and walked over to the fireplace. He had been in the middle of sketching Caroline when she had called him, as if his drawing had somehow prompted her to reach out to him.

He trusted Caroline's judgment, but he was wary of her plan, which was obviously to distract Rebekah somehow so that the rest of her friends could secure the cure for Elena. While Caroline had spent little time with his younger sister, and their relationship had always been too contentious for them to really get to know each other, he knew that Rebekah was ruthless when in pursuit of something she wanted. When he relayed this sentiment to Caroline, however, she just laughed.

"Is that a family trait, then?" she questioned through her giggles.

Klaus sighed. Couldn't she see that he was just trying to keep her safe?

"Very funny, sweetheart. I just don't want you to get hurt if she realizes what you're trying to do and retaliates against you," Klaus said.

"She won't," Caroline insisted, causing Klaus to roll his eyes at her willingness to risk her own safety for her friends. "I'm not the official distraction. I'm just… You were right. I will feel better about everything that's happened if I can just get my mind off it. I figured that with Kol, and the cure, Rebekah might need the same thing. I'm only trying to help, and if it helps my friends, too, well then that's a bonus," Caroline finished.

Klaus shouldn't still be surprised by the extent of Caroline's compassion, but as she described how she wanted to help a person who had never been particularly kind to her, he was momentarily caught off guard be just how good of a person Caroline was.

"How long will you need to keep the Rebekah preoccupied?" Klaus asked.

Klaus certainly wanted to prevent Rebekah from taking the cure, but he wasn't willing to risk Caroline's safety to do so.

"Damon says only a few days, but no one else has as much confidence in him as he does. We know that Katherine has the cure, and since we know that she has no desire to be human, she must assume that you want the cure to make Elena human again so that you can use her blood to make more hybrids. And we know that whenever Katherine thinks you want something, she tries to get it first so that she can trade it for her freedom. That's why she turned me and forced Tyler to activate his werewolf curse. She was planning to hand us over, with the moonstone, so that you could break your curse and you would forgive her because she helped make it happen. Whether or not it's Katherine who gives you the cure, we just want to make sure that it ultimately ends up in Elena's hands, not Rebekah's," Caroline explained.

"Then I suppose I am on your side. Do what you must to keep Rebekah away from Katherine and the cure, but please don't do anything to put yourself at risk. I am sure whatever your method is, it will gentler than the respite in her coffin that I threatened her with," Klaus agreed.

Klaus was wary about giving Caroline carte blanche with regards to keeping Rebekah from taking the cure, because he knew that Caroline would do anything to keep the people she loved safe, and he didn't want to see her hurt herself in her quest to help him stop Rebekah from becoming human. However, he also knew that Caroline would do whatever it took to achieve her objective, whether he gave her permission to or not.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

Sensing that she was about to end their conversation, Klaus quickly interjected.

"Caroline?"

"Yes?"

"I didn't know you at the time, but I'm still very glad that you were not the vampire I had to sacrifice to complete the ritual. I am loathe to be indebted to the likes of Damon Salvatore, but I will forever be grateful to him for helping you escape," Klaus confessed.

"Thank you," she said again, even more softly than before, her voice giving way to a pregnant pause as they each considered how devastating the alternative would be for them.

"You never told me, what exactly is your grand plan to keep yourself and Rebekah too busy to think about everything that troubles you?" Klaus steered the conversation away from such emotional territory.

"Oh yeah! I'm planning a Valentine's Day dance! I got permission from the principal today. There was nothing in my planner for this month, and then I saw that Valentine's Day was coming up with no events for it and I love Valentine's Day, so I figured, why not? Especially since the last decade dance got cancelled, and Rebekah staged a hostile takeover on the one before that, I haven't planned a school dance in ages and I think that's exactly what I need right now."

Klaus found Caroline's rambling adorable in any circumstances, but as he listened to her rattling off a plan to help prevent his sister from becoming human and help herself recover from the banishment of his hybrid, he found himself hanging on her every word.

"You're planning an event for Valentine's Day? Are you sure you want to focus so much of your time on a day dedicated to love? That might be counterproductive," Klaus asked.

"Yes! I love Valentine's Day, and I just think we need to celebrate love right now after we've lost so much, you know? And I already know exactly what it's going to look like, everything is going to be pink, and there'll be hearts everywhere, and I know I only have thirteen days, but if Rebekah's helping than that's more vampire strength and compulsion so I think we can pull it off," Caroline paused. "Will you come?" she added softly.

Klaus was still caught off guard by her choice of distraction, and still thought high school dances were trivial, but he knew that he could never deny Caroline anything she asked of him, especially when what she requested was his presence.

"If you want me there, I'll be there, sweetheart. I promise," he told her.

"Good," she replied.

~love~

The next day, Caroline approached Rebekah at her locker before school. She pasted on a cheerful smile and launched into her sales pitch.

"Hi, Rebekah, I'm planning a Valentine's Day dance, and as chair of the Dance Committee, I was wondering if you'd like to contribute, since you seemed to enjoy working on the last Decade Dance," Caroline inquired.

"You don't really want me planning the dance with you, what is this really about?" Rebekah eyed her suspiciously.

"I just needed a distraction from everything; Tyler leaving, Jeremy dying, Katherine's reappearance in our lives, the search for the cure. I thought you could use a fun diversion from all of the craziness too. Your brother asked me to reach out to you, he's worried about you."

That last part was a lie, but Caroline knew that Klaus would cover for her if Rebekah called her bluff. Klaus had told her to do whatever she felt was necessary to prevent Rebekah from finding the cure as long as it didn't put her in any danger. He would certainly support a little white lie that would persuade Rebekah to participate in a wholesome school-sanctioned activity to distract her.

Then Caroline tried a different tactic.

"I'm going to ask Matt to help too, since he and I weren't really included in the search for the cure, so we have a little more free time than the rest of our friends. He would probably go with you if you asked," Caroline said.

She almost felt bad for giving Rebekah false hope, because she knew that Matt would only agree because he had been tasked with distracting Rebekah from her pursuit of the cure, but she wanted Rebekah on her side, and though she would never admit it to her friends, she didn't want Klaus to lose another sibling.

Rebekah's face softened as she considered Caroline's proposal.

"Yes, I would like to help, thanks," Rebekah said.

"Excellent!" Caroline cheered. "I already have a bunch of ideas, I'm thinking pink paper covering the walls, and pink lights shaped like hearts hanging from the ceiling, and glittery pink confetti shaped like hearts everywhere, and cupcakes, and chocolate, and—"

"Breathe, Caroline. Let's have a planning meeting at lunch. I'm sure I'll have a few ideas of my own by then," Rebekah suggested.

As she walked away, Caroline could have sworn she saw the hint of a smile on Rebekah's face.

~love~

"It worked!" an excited voice cheered from the front door.

Klaus ventured to the door from his art room to find Caroline standing in the entry way, grinning at him.

"What worked, love?" Klaus asked.

"My plan to distract Rebekah from searching for the cure by convincing her to help me plan the Valentine's Day dance," Caroline explained, dropping her school bag on the floor.

"Excellent work, love," Klaus praised.

Klaus picked up Caroline's bag and gestured for her to come sit with him in the living room. He offered her a drink, which she politely declined, before sitting next to her on the couch.

"Thank you," Caroline said.

"Caroline, love, not that I don't welcome your presence in my home whenever you decide to stop by for a visit, but why did you decide to tell me this information in person when a phone call surely would have sufficed, especially considering your busy schedule?" Klaus asked.

"I just thought that you haven't seen me in a while," Caroline started uncertainly.

"I saw you yesterday, love," Klaus corrected her gently. "Are you alright?"

Klaus was concerned by Caroline's disorientation with the events of the past few days. He knew that she was upset over Tyler leaving, and stressed over her friends' search for the cure, but it worried him that she may not have been taking proper care of herself, if she was forgetting something that had happened only the previous day.

"Really? It seems like way longer than that. Yesterday seems like ages ago," Caroline said. "And are you aware that you've called me 'love' four times in your last four sentences?"

"Yes, love," Klaus smiled.

Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Absence does make the heart grow fonder, my love, maybe that's what you're experiencing, and why you were so eager to come see me in person when you could have easily called me instead," Klaus suggested.

Caroline responded with a loud peal of laughter.

"You are so cheesy, you know that? I almost regret planning an event for Valentine's Day because it gives you a prime opportunity to be cheesy," she said.

"You love Valentine's Day," Klaus reminded her.

"Yes, I do love Valentine's Day," Caroline agreed.

"So it stands to reason that you would enjoy me saying romantic things, that you call cheesy, on Valentine's Day," Klaus asserted.

"Only on Valentine's Day," Caroline ordered. "Not on February 2nd, or whatever date the ball that your family hosted was, where you told me that the bracelet you gave me was once owned by a princess almost as beautiful as me. Seriously?"

"But that wasn't a line, love, that was true," Klaus insisted.

Caroline sighed. "Whatever."

"So what is the next step in your plan for your Valentine's Day dance?" Klaus asked.

Caroline immediately leapt into her Miss Mystic Falls event organizer mode.

"We only have twelve days, so we'll have to spend pretty much all of our free time working on this," Caroline explained. "We have to design and print tickets and posters, we have to choose and buy decorations, we have to hire a deejay, we have to decide on and buy food, we need to get candy, and flowers, and plastic silverware, and everything has to be pink, and hopefully between Rebekah's willingness to compel people and her willingness to throw your money around, we should be able to get everything we need before the fourteenth," Caroline listed.

"I am sure that you will be fine," Klaus assured her.

"I hope you're right," Caroline said.

"I'm not sure whether or not I've said this already, but even if I have I should say it again: I really appreciate you working so hard to help me prevent Rebekah from taking the cure. I know that there is no love lost between the two of you, so it means a lot to me that you are so willing to help, and is a testament to how wonderfully compassionate and generous you are," Klaus complimented.

"Thank you," Caroline said, overwhelmed by Klaus's praise.

"I should probably go," she added. "We have a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it in."

"Of course, love," Klaus agreed, standing up to walk her out.

When they reached the entryway, Klaus gently placed Caroline's bag over her shoulder, then opened the door for her.

"I appreciate you coming to see me, love," Klaus said warmly. "Hopefully I will see you again very soon."

"See you later, Klaus," Caroline said, turning away from him and walking towards her car.

~love~

Later that evening, Caroline had finished her homework and was brainstorming ideas for the Valentine's Day dance while thinking about her conversation with Klaus earlier that day.

She was used to him being nice to her, even when he wasn't nice to anyone else, but she had been surprised by his obsequiousness when he thanked her for including Rebekah in her plans. And while he frequently called her 'love,' he'd never used the term of endearment in every sentence he said to her.

So what was going on with him?

He made no secret of his affection for her and his interest in her when she was with Tyler, so Caroline didn't think that he would suddenly start to actively pursue a relationship with her now that Tyler was gone.

She could easily explain why Klaus seemed so pleased to see her, but what wasn't as easy for her to explain was why she had gone to see him in person.

She had explanations ready if any of her friends asked why she had gone to see him: she wanted to try again to get him to allow Tyler to come home; she desperately needed to talk to someone, anyone, with Tyler gone; she knew her friends were busy and she hadn't wanted to interrupt them. She knew any of those excuses would be believable enough for everyone to accept them, move on, and not give it any more thought.

But she also knew that none of those reasons were true. All of those excuses were reliant on the idea that Caroline was merely taking advantage of Klaus's feelings for her, as she had when Damon, Stefan, and even Tyler had sent her to be his distraction, when Caroline knew that it meant more than that.

Caroline knew, in her heart, that Klaus meant more to her than just an enemy of her friends whose feelings for her could be used against him. But she also knew that knowing something in her heart didn't make it any clearer in her mind.

Caroline still wasn't entirely sure why she'd gone to see him in person instead of calling, when, as Klaus had pointed out, a brief phone call would have sufficed; or why it somehow felt like forever since she'd seen him, even though it had actually only been thirty-six hours; or why she'd felt more at home in his house with just the two of them than she had yesterday at the Salvatore's house with all of her friends.

But she knew, in her heart and in her mind, that these feelings meant something, and that they weren't going away.

As Caroline was contemplating this, her cell phone rang.

"I sent the tickets and the posters to the printer," Rebekah announced.

"Hi, Rebekah, thanks for taking care of that," Caroline responded.

"And we're going to the party supply store to get decorations on Saturday. I'll pick you up from your house at ten," Rebekah proclaimed.

"Okay," Caroline agreed.

"And Caroline?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you asked me to help you with this," Rebekah confessed.

"I am, too," Caroline said.

"Because you really need my help," Rebekah continued.

"Goodnight Rebekah."

~love~

Over the next twelve days, Caroline and Rebekah were practically inseparable. They spent every waking moment working on the Valentine's Day dance, from compelling the supplies they would need, to designing tickets and agreeing on decorations, to publicizing the event. The majority of the student body was excited about the dance, especially since the last decade dance had been cancelled, homecoming had been hijacked by Klaus to serve his own agenda, and prom was still months away.

While they'd argued and tried to outdo each other in the initial stages of planning, Caroline and Rebekah had quickly decided that it would be more productive to get along. Once they made that decision, not only did planning for the dance go much more smoothly, but they even started to enjoy each other's company. They found that they were much more similar in temperament and had more in common than they'd thought. With their similar personalities and attitudes, it took only a few days for them to be on the same page in most areas. Caroline had been prepared to make a concerted effort to try to get along with Rebekah, but she found that she actually quite liked the other girl and had even begun to consider her a friend.

Two days before the dance, Caroline and Rebekah were at the Mikaelson mansion finalizing their decorations. Rebekah had offered to host, since her house was far larger than Caroline's. The girls had decided that they wanted strings of hearts to hang from the doorway that students would be using to enter the dance, but couldn't choose between a light pink and a brighter magenta, so both were hanging from the entryway of the dining room when Klaus marched through them.

"What is the meaning of this, little sister?" he mocked, holding up the metallic pink plastic.

"We're choosing our decorations for the dance. We're almost finished," Rebekah answered.

"Hi Klaus!" Caroline called from the dining room table, where she was examining two very similar looking pink heart-shaped candles.

"Hello, love. What are you doing?" Klaus asked, walking towards her.

"Trying to choose between Romantic Rose and Strawberries and Crème. Any thoughts?" Caroline asked him.

Wondering how he, the most powerful creature on the planet, had been conned into smelling candles in order to decide which would be better for a high school dance his younger sister was helping to plan, he smelled them both.

"They're both nice. You have exquisite taste, Caroline, you must know that. I think the rose fits your theme better though," Klaus offered.

"Thank you!" Caroline said, immediately packing away the rejected choice. "I'm keeping the other ones though."

"Caroline! Which color hearts for the entryway?" Rebekah demanded.

Caroline examined the doorway from which both options were hanging.

"I think the lighter pink, since all of the other decorations are lighter too. Save the saucier bright pink for your dress, Bekah," Caroline smiled.

"Haha, very funny," Rebekah retorted, but she must have agreed with Caroline, since she took down the brighter pink plastic banner from the doorway.

"So it seems that you two are getting along," Klaus prompted once Rebekah had left the room.

"Yeah, we have actually. I was surprised at first but I realized that we were more similar that I wanted to think when we were both insecure and envious of the other, so we refused to get along. But I've had fun working with her on this, and I think we could be really good friends in the future," Caroline admitted.

"Team Barbie saves Valentine's Day," Rebekah deadpans, walking towards them carrying two bottles of soda. "Strawberry or cherry?"

"Strawberry," Caroline decides. "Pink heart-shaped cupcakes or one giant pink heart-shaped cake?"

"Cupcakes, of course. Who wants to slice a cake at a dance?" Rebekah answered. "We were deciding on food last, does that mean we're finished?"

"Yes! We've decided on the music, the tickets and posters, and we just finalized our choices for decorations and food. We are all set, we just have to set up right after school on the day of. I've already asked Matt to come help, and everyone else from the committee who doesn't have a prior commitment will be there too." Caroline informed her.

"Are you sure that will be enough?" Rebekah asked.

Klaus felt two pairs of blue eyes focus on him and knew that he was about to be asked to do something he didn't want to do. Of course, he also knew that he'd spent over a thousand years catering to most of his baby sister's requests, and that he would do practically anything Caroline asked of him, so it was a given that even if he didn't particularly want to do what they asked of him, he would still do it anyway.

"Will you please come help us set up for the dance?" Caroline pleaded, batting her eyelashes at him and pouting a little. Klaus almost laughed at her production, she had to know he would grant her a request as simple as this one without making her beg.

"Of course, love."

Thank you very much for reading!

I hope that you enjoyed the first part of the story!

I would love to know what you thought, so please leave a review; I would love to read them!

lots of love,

charlotte xoxo