A/N: I'm really unsure about this one. It's finished and all but I still get the feeling it's a little lacking.

Oh well, I hope you all enjoy it.

If it's confusing, please PM me - stay AWESOME.

to let the daylight seep in

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"So you're the tasty—uh, pretty little thing called Caroline," Klaus tilts his head and bows extravagantly, taking Caroline's hand and pressing his lips to it. "I'm finally honoured to grace you all with my presence."

He eyes the blushing blonde wonderingly. She's absolutely glorious—dressed in a beautiful white gown; stunning enough to rival the two Aphrodites in the room, and her sunlight hair is pushed up into a soft romantic bun, small tendrils of glistening gold falling out about her face.

Klaus can hardly take his eyes off her.

"Boy," Lord Mikael snarls as soon as he manages to find his voice, "you are not welcome here."

"Oh, come on, Father," Klaus spreads his arms jovially. "Just one itty bitty hour? I am the guest of honour, after all…"

"CAROLINE!"

Mikael's roar echoes throughout the ballroom threateningly and Caroline screws up her face, bites into her lip—"I need to go the bathroom!" she squeaks desperately as Mikael begins to walk down from his throne and turns but Mikael's speaking.

"Please, Caroline," Mikael begins and he's more calm now as he gets closer to Caroline, "tell me you did not invite my bastard of a son—,"

"I'm your son, now?" Klaus interrupts and continues in a faux American voice, "Gee, thanks Dad!"

Kol snorts into his glass and Caroline edges closer to him. Mikael heaves a sigh. "Caroline," he begins, "you cannot hide behind my drunkard of a son. If I had my thunderbolt…"

"What would you do, father?" Klaus asks. "I'm allowed to be here, am I not? It's the rules—the Lord of the Underworld is allowed to feast with the common ones on the Winter Solstice."

"Not when the Lord of the Underworld is you."

The atmosphere crackles with unresolved tension and every god and goddess seem to hold their breaths as Klaus' face darkens considerably. His hands ball into fists and suddenly the ball goes just that bit darker, the balloons become icier and everybody begins to shiver. Darkness starts to revel and the stale stench of death hangs in the air as Klaus begins to laugh.

"What did I ever do to you, father?" he asks bitterly as a slight beating of something begins to curl in the air. "All I ever did was try to gain your love, your approval. All I ever wanted was my father acknowledging—,"

"I am not your father!" Mikael suddenly roars and everybody gapes.

Someone whispers, "This is better than The Katherine Pierce Show," and Katherine, twisting in Stefan's lap, shoots them a dirty look.

"That—that's not possible," Klaus frowns and in that instant, Caroline sees a vulnerable little boy, 'you—,"

"He's right, Niklaus," Esther whispers from her throne and she descends far more gracefully. "You are my son but you're not his."

"That's why Nik's forbidden to step into Mount Olympus?" Rebekah demands as she moves. "I haven't seen my brother for centuries because—,"

"He's not your brother," Mikael snarls. "Come back here, Rebekah."

"Yes, he is," she shoots back and swishes her way to Klaus' side. "I've stood by your side, Father, for so long because I thought you were always right. But why would I stay by you any longer when you're so obviously wrong?"

Elijah stands up and instantly, the smell of raw fish swoops through the ballroom—Elena gags, Katherine tries not to heave, Caroline brings out her perfume, Kol almost chokes on his glass—the god of the sea frowns. He flickers his eyes around, wondering why everyone's holding their nose and shrugs—must be Kol. "Brother," he begins. "I am sorry. I should have probed further into this and—,"

"How about I promise not to tell anyone about the time when you wore the wrong tie with a suit and we'll call it quits?" Klaus offers.

So Klaus is allowed to stay.

Elijah tries to persuade everyone that he's never worn the wrong tie with a suit.

Mikael stews away on his throne.

Esther feels awkward.

Caroline squirts Hope perfume around the ballroom like a maniac.

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She twirls around with her friends and his younger brother, laughter like water as the red wine pours freely. The lilting violins pick up in tempo as Kol rolls his eyes, clicks his fingers and instantly, The Top Forty Charts begins blaring out of the violins. The band is startled as trashy pop music takes control of their instruments, floating in the air and singing loudly—the gods and goddesses who consider themselves more 'cool' begin dancing around to the music.

Klaus flirts with a nymph right in front of Mikael's throne. "You look good enough to eat," he smiles and the nymph blushes prettily—he can't help but compare her to the blonde dancing in the middle of the ballroom—as she stumbles over her words.

Rolling his eyes, Mikael pursues his lips. He must be mature and he's forbidden by his children—his children!—to lay a finger or a thunderbolt on that bastard boy. Esther taps at her throne impatiently with her fingers and her awkwardness has completely vanished—Rebekah entices her away with a dance.

Continuing with the compliments, Klaus makes the young nymph blush harder and harder until she almost spills her drink over herself. Mikael glowers.

"He's got herpes," he tells the nymph gruffly and watches with satisfaction as the nymph runs faster than Kol confronted with Damon's battle armour.

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"Are you having fun?" Caroline asks when she finally sees Klaus and sits down at his table.

"The most I've had in centuries, love," Klaus replies with a smile as he downs another glass of wine. "You got anything stronger than wine?"

"IT'S NOT JUST MEEEEEE!" Kol yells as he throws himself over the table.

Caroline rolls her eyes. "Kol, you're drunk."

"Nooooooo!" Kol shakes his head, grabs Klaus' drink and downs it. "LET'S PARTYYYY!"

He runs into a gaggle of nymphs who begin squealing as Caroline laughs. She spies Mikael frowning at them and sighs. "You guys really need to sort out your problems," she says to Klaus who knows exactly who she's talking about.

"You know, love, I'd rather stay here with you than have a heart-to-heart with my not-father," Klaus says, "You look ravishing, by the way. If it isn't obvious."

A slight tinge of pink touches at her cheeks but Caroline shakes her head. "Don't change the subject," she scolds, "we need to…"

She trails away and then suddenly looks excited. "You guys—this is what you need to do! You need to talk this out! WE NEED A TALKING STICK!"

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"I still don't see why we couldn't use Daddy's thunderbolt?" Klaus says as Mikael shoots him a glare.

"You do not get to call me—,"

"The last time you had Father's thunderbolt," Elijah interrupts quickly and Caroline spritzes, "you created a hurricane the mortals called Katrina. Caroline, I must ask—why do you keep spraying your perfume? Kol is not here."

Caroline looks uncomfortable.

"DID YOU MISS MEEEE?" Kol yells as he launches himself off his own throne and into the middle of the ballroom. He stops right before he smacks into the floor, using magic to float, and Caroline tugs at him, rolling her eyes, to his feet.

The ball's over by now and there's only a few gods and goddesses drifting about the room, the violins are playing half-heartedly, refusing to get into the cases. The ice balloons glide with the breeze as Klaus and Mikael sit on the floor, cross-legged, as per Caroline's orders. They are a good enough distance away that none can throw thunderbolts or threats of death and Elijah's here to help act as peacemaker—Caroline makes a mental note to buy some more perfume.

"Kol, you're drunk and you need to go to bed," she tells him but a call from Katherine stops her from continuing.

"CAROL-IIIINE!"

"What?" Caroline turns to find Katherine, Damon, Stefan, Elena, Rebekah and Meredith perched on the long table at the top where they usually reside.

There's a big box of buttered popcorn and a few bottles of wine—stolen from the kitchens, probably—on Katherine's lap as she lazily flicks popcorn into Stefan's mouth. They're all sat, curling up against each other as if waiting to watch a movie—it's only Meredith who stays as far away from the boys as possible because she takes her vow of chastity very seriously.

"We need more popcorn," Katherine smiles sheepishly as her twin tugs at the now-empty box.

"I actually have an Underworld to run," Klaus begins to get up from the floor.

"Oh, yes," Mikael sneers, "do leave—your presence is—,"

"NO!" Caroline shakes her head.

She points at Klaus. "SIT!"

Klaus sits.

She points at Mikael. "STOP BEING MEAN!"

Mikael simmers.

She points at Katherine. "GET YOUR OWN POPCORN!"

Katherine thrusts the box at Elena. "Get me popcorn."

She points at Kol. "GO TO BED!"

Kol blinks. "Whaat?"

And the god of wine is sober once again. One of the benefits of being the god of wine—no hangovers and you're sober in a couple of hours to drink yourself senseless again. Kol grins. "What are we doing?"

Caroline bats a hand at him, holds one of Stefan's journals—Stefan recognises it and begins to protest; Katherine shushes him, "This is the best part!"— and says, "Okay. Whoever's holding Stefan's—uh, this totally empty journal will be allowed to speak. That's it. Got it, both of you?"

Klaus and Mikael nod.

Elijah flips a drachma and Klaus gets the journal. He flicks through it curiously and comments, "Your extensive use of the English language is invigorating—Stef, have you ever thought about writing a novel?"

"You know, I actually have, come to think of it," Stefan begins in an excited tone.

Caroline glares at him. "No, Stefan," she says and to Klaus, she scowls. "Talk. Now."

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"Nobody can say you didn't try, love," Klaus says with a smile as he tugs on his jacket and brushes off a bit of dust. He runs a hand through his hair, takes out a bit of brick and drops it.

Caroline's Talking Stefan's Journal plan had sort of failed.

Caroline glowers. "But you guys were supposed to talk properly and figure out your feelings and everyone was supposed to be happy and you were supposed to be invited for the Summer Solstice!"

To be fair, Klaus had tried. He'd talked a little bit about his feelings—"I've always looked up to you as a father,"—while Elena whispered to Rebekah about how sweet and adorable it all was.

And then Kol went and tripped over a non-existent brick—"I SWEAR THERE'S A BRICK, CAROLINE!"—and the spark was lit.

Everything that had gone wrong, did.

Thunderbolts had crashed around the ballroom, Klaus went invisible and destroyed Mikael's throne. Katherine got a bit of dust on her dress and went mental. Kol was found trying to steal Meredith's bow and arrow to play Cupid with the nymphs. Mikael tried to kill Klaus. Klaus tried to kill Mikael.

It only really stopped when Elijah threw seawater over them all—there were a few fish in there, somewhere. So the ballroom's now crumbling, in some serious need of repair and sopping wet.

"Not everything ends up happy ever after, Caroline," Klaus tells her. "Have you seen Esther's hair?"

She giggles for a second but then frowns. "But doesn't this mean you won't get to come back to Olympus?" she asks. "What if you become even more depressed?"

"I don't think that'll be a problem, Caroline." Klaus puts a foot into his carriage and hesitates. "You know, love—there's one thing I forgot to do."

"What's that?"

"This."

He's not actually aware of himself pressing his lips onto hers. It just sort of—happens. And she's kissing him right back and there are sparks colliding with each other and all he feels is herherher and it's beautiful; she's beautiful. She tastes exquisite, like sweet honey and laughter like water and red wine all at once and smells mesmerising—her hand twists into his hair as he holds her ever tighter.

When he pulls away, Caroline protests rather breathlessly. "Klaus, what if you never come back—,"

"There's always the Summer Solstice Ball, right?" Klaus winks at her. "I heard a certain blonde was going to organise that."

The carriage shimmers to life as Klaus zooms away and Caroline slowly begins to smile.

"I'll be waiting for my invitation, Caroline!"

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fin