Hello lovely readers!

Here's the epilogue you've all been waiting for—for much longer than I thought you would have to wait, so I'm very sorry about that, but it is over 45,000 words long, so hopefully the extensive length helps to make up for the long wait. I also sort of love that I was able to finish and post this epilogue today, so that I can say it took me less than a year to write this story—even if only by less than twenty-four hours.

Thank you with all my heart to everyone who voted for Sanctuary in their Hearts in the Klaroline Awards! Thanks to you, this story won the award for Best Debut Fiction! I am so grateful and honored to have won this award, and I'm so happy that I have such lovely, passionate, dedicated readers who love reading this story as much as I love writing it! Again, thank you with all my heart to everyone who voted, read, reviewed, followed, favorited, and recommended this story!

Thank you for all of your reviews on the last chapter, and for all of the suggestions for the sequel! I'm really looking forward to writing it, and I'm so happy that you are looking forward to reading it as well!

Thank you also for four hundred followers on this story! It's insane to me that four hundred people want to be alerted when I post my writing! I am forever amazed and grateful for your commitment to this story!

The epilogue is titled, "A Life You Love," which is special for two reasons: it comes from a quote from A Tale of Two Cities, like the title of this story, and (drumroll, please) it's also the title of the sequel! This epilogue gives this story its happy ending, while also serving as the starting point for the sequel, hence the double duty for the title.

The epilogue is the first and only installment in this story to feature flashbacks, which, for your convenience, are in italics and labelled with the date that they occur as well as when they occur relative to the current time in the epilogue.

Another thing: I know I said I was ignoring seasons four and five of The Originals in this story, however, I am considering the flashback scene in episode eight of the last season in which Klaus and Hayley name Hope as canon in the universe of this story, since technically the scene occurred sometime during the season one finale, and the scene only really serves to retroactively establish as fact something that has been true for the previous three seasons. So, if you haven't yet seen that episode, or if you (wisely) chose not to watch the final season of The Originals, all you need to know is that after Klaus told Hayley what Elijah had said about her and the baby being the family's only hope, Hayley decided to name their daughter Hope, then Klaus added Hayley's birth name, Andrea, as Hope's middle name. I don't particularly like the name or Klaus's reasons for suggesting it, but I also don't want to contradict something that was explicitly stated on the show.

Speaking of middle names, I made some up for the twins, because the subject does come up when Caroline is brainstorming names for her and Klaus's daughter, and I do think that they have middle names (since most people do), we just don't know what they are because it's obviously more important to the story that their first names are in honor of their mother and Caroline's mother, respectively. I assume that Alaric just gave them common, sort of generic middle names off screen, probably before he introduced them to Caroline. So I hope all of you are okay with me just picking middle names for them (after giving it some thought, and consulting my resident name expert, Artemis, I ended up giving them my two living aunts' middle names), and I'm not going to watch Legacies, so even if they tell us what the twins' middle names are in the first episode, I won't know and I won't change the ones they have in this story, but if that happens and it will really bother you if they have the 'wrong' middle names, send me a message and I can use the 'correct' ones going forward.

Also, I'm intentionally sort of vague with regards to the legal standing of the characters, because the show is sort of fuzzy on those details. For example, since the Originals were born a thousand years ago, we can all be certain that there is no actual record of their birth. But since Caroline was born human, to human parents, in the '90s, we know that she must have a birth certificate, Social Security number, driver's license, etc. Since the twins were born in a hospital, with a human father determined to have a normal human life, I assume that they have proper records as well, but since Hope was born in a church with her parents as the only living witnesses, she probably doesn't. With no textual evidence to confirm anything, I'm just sort of making educated guesses based on what I think makes the most sense. So when it comes to legal issues like marriage and adoption, please just go with it, thank you.

Similarly, while I did refer to season seven of The Vampire Diaries to refresh my memory regarding Caroline's pregnancy with the twins, there isn't exactly a wealth of information and precedent on the topic of vampire pregnancy, and many of the complications that Caroline experienced then wouldn't apply in this case because this child isn't a siphoner. So this is another instance where I am requesting that you accept any details that might seem inconsistent with a normal human pregnancy (which I also researched, though I apologize for any inaccuracies; I consulted multiple sources, some of which offered conflicting information, and I don't have specialized education or personal experience in this field) and/or Caroline's first pregnancy as true in this particular scenario.

Here's my last disclaimer for this story: there are several references to movies, music, and other fictional characters, and I don't own any of them. There are also some words that are a part of a legal proceeding that were either inspired by or copied from an internet source with extensive information on said legal proceeding (I'm trying really hard to avoid spoilers, even though you can probably figure out what I'm referring to).

I hope that with this epilogue, I have given you a conclusion that answers any questions you still may have, is worthy of the time you have spent reading this story and investing in its characters, and gives you the happy ending that you deserve after supporting these characters and following along on their journey for so long.

For the last time for this story, happy reading!

"…when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!"

~Sidney Carton, A Tale of Two Cities

November 7, 2020 (three years later)

Caroline was wearing a wedding dress. The perfect wedding dress that she would have chosen even if she had her choice of ever wedding dress ever made and unlimited time to choose. It was made of satin in a warm, creamy ivory that made her skin glow and would give off a slight shimmer under the lights, with a sweetheart neckline that was covered by the lace overlay of the dress where it connected to the sheer lace sleeves. After weeks of dress shopping with her bridesmaids and her children, and months of waiting for the customizations and alterations to be completed, every detail, from the pearl buttons down her back to the small train sweeping out behind her, was perfect.

The problem Caroline was currently facing had nothing to do with her dress, or her flowers, or her jewelry.

Caroline's problem was that her flower girl was missing.

"Have you seen your sister?" Caroline asked Hope, who was already wearing her pink lace bridesmaid's dress.

"She ran off as soon as Auntie Bekah finished getting her dressed," the eight-year-old answered. "She said something about needing to give Dad a hug, or something. I don't know."

"Of course she wants to go be with your dad, I don't spoil her the way he does," Caroline complained.

Victoria Grace Mikaelson had replaced Caroline as the love of Klaus's life the moment she was born. In the two years, four months, and four days that their baby had been alive, Klaus had made sure that she wanted for nothing. He gifted her love, attention, any possession she asked for as easily as he drew breath.

"Or it's because this is the longest she's ever gone without seeing her father, and since she isn't exactly an expert on wedding traditions, she doesn't understand why," Rebekah interjected. "Relax, Caroline, we will find her and bring her back here in time. Today is your wedding day, everything has been perfectly planned and executed, and nothing can derail your perfect day, not even a runaway toddler."

Caroline sighed.

"Since you're ready, will you please go retrieve her?" Caroline asked Hope.

Hayley had stopped by that morning to help get her daughter ready, lingering only long enough to fasten the pink pearl buttons on Hope's bridesmaids' dress and curl her hair, then left to meet Jackson and join the other guests.

The adult bridesmaids had formed something of a buddy system to get the child bridesmaids ready. Freya was helping Lizzie, Davina was helping Josie, and Rebekah was helping Victoria, leaving Katherine and Bonnie to help Caroline get ready.

"Okay," Hope agreed.

"I can go get her, it is my responsibility to get her ready," Rebekah offered.

"It's okay, Hope probably wants to say hi to her dad, too," Caroline replied. "You should start praying that Victoria hasn't managed to get her dress dirty."

Rebekah stared, wide-eyed, as the possibility occurred to her.

Hope left the room, seeing the urgency on Caroline's and Rebekah's faces.

"How is it that no one saw a two-year-old wandering down the hall and, I don't know, tried to stop her and find out where her parents were?" Caroline asked rhetorically.

"There are enough of us that Nik needed to reserve the whole floor," Rebekah answered.

From the moment that Caroline started to plan her wedding, she knew that she wanted it to be an opulent affair worthy of royalty. Klaus, as usual, had offered no opinion of his own and insisted that Caroline get whatever she wanted.

Caroline's search for the perfect wedding venue had come to a sudden end when she had fallen in love with the Roosevelt Hotel. It was elegant and decadent, with its gold interior and intricately detailed décor. The luxury hotel looked like something right out of The Great Gatsby, and Caroline was certain from the moment she stepped through the doors that it was where she wanted to get married.

Klaus had asked her multiple times if she wouldn't rather have a destination wedding, anywhere in the world of her choosing, but Caroline didn't want their children to have to miss several days of school to attend their parents' wedding.

Once Caroline had made the argument that, as lovely as it would be to get married in Paris, New Orleans was their home—it was where their family lived, where their daughter was born, where they'd finally confessed their love, where Klaus had proposed—Klaus was happy to agree to Caroline's choice of venue.

They had decided that all of them would spend the night in the hotel the night before the wedding, for the convenience of not having to coordinate transportation for their extensive wedding party, and to take advantage of the amenities that the hotel offered.

The previous day, Caroline, her bridesmaids, and her youngest daughter had eaten lunch in the hotel's restaurant, then once Caroline picked Lizzie, Josie, and Hope up from school, the entire bridal party had gotten manicures, pedicures, massages, and facials at the hotel's spa before attending the rehearsal dinner in the ballroom that evening.

When it had been time to go up to their rooms after the rehearsal dinner, Katherine had suggested having a slumber party with all of the bridesmaids, but Caroline had steadfastly refused, not wanting anyone to look tired or hungover in her wedding photos. As they'd retired to their rooms, Caroline hadn't noticed that all of the rooms between the Bridal Suite, where she'd slept the night before and where she and her bridesmaids were getting ready now, and the Grooms' Suite where Klaus had stayed and where he and his groomsmen were getting ready, were occupied by the numerous members of their family.

"Put me down! Hope, put me down!" came a high-pitched squeal from the doorway.

Hope was carrying her youngest sister into the room, and Victoria was not happy about it.

Hope set Victoria down in front of Caroline. Looking up to see her mother staring at her disapprovingly, Victoria's wide eyes blinked rapidly and she quickly painted on a wide, charming smile.

"Hi, Mommy!" the little girl exclaimed.

Caroline knew that she was biased, but Victoria was at least as gorgeous as Esther promised that she would be, and possibly even the most gorgeous little girl on the planet.

Victoria had perfect blonde ringlets just a shade darker and more golden than Caroline's, which Caroline had never had the heart to cut, so they hung well past her shoulders. She had a little round face, a tiny delicate nose, and a sweet smile that could melt the hardest of hearts. Thanks to the unusual circumstances surrounding her birth, Klaus and Caroline had known almost everything about what their daughter would look like before she was born, but they were still surprised by one detail about Victoria's appearance: though her stunning silver eyes were uniquely hers—a carefully selected variation on the blue-eyed gene she inherited from both her parents—their large round shape was a perfect copy of Rebekah's.

Caroline, who'd spent years envying Elena's doe eyes, was thrilled that her daughter hadn't inherited a feature that had caused her so much insecurity. Rebekah was overjoyed to see that her niece bore this noticeable resemblance to her.

As for Klaus, it didn't really matter to him. Once his baby girl started batting her eyelashes at him, he was toast.

"Hi, princess," Caroline couldn't help but smile. "You know that it scares Mommy when you run off."

"I'm sorry," Victoria offered.

"Today is a very important day for Mommy and Daddy, so I need you to see where I can see you for the rest of the day, okay?" Caroline instructed.

"Okay," Victoria nodded.

"Great, now that the magically disappearing flower girl has returned, we can get back to getting ready," Katherine said. "We do have something of a tight timeline, you know."

"Wait, Mommy!" Victoria cried out, holding out a small black velvet jewelry box that Caroline hadn't noticed that she was holding. "It's from Daddy."

Caroline took the box from her daughter, removing the small card that was attached to it. Flipping open the card, Caroline was greeted by Klaus's familiar handwriting.

My Love,

The most precious gifts I have ever received have all been gifted to me by you: your love, our beautiful daughter, and now your hand in marriage. This in no way compares, but please accept it as a token of my infinite, eternal love for you. I'm told that you require something new.

Always yours,

Klaus

Caroline opened the jewelry box.

"Okay, who told him?" she asked the room at large.

"What are you talking about?" Rebekah asked.

Caroline turned the box around to show them the contents: an elegant necklace consisting of a gold outline of a heart covered with diamonds, which was surrounded by about ten small light pink pearls on either side, with a delicate gold chain making up the rest; and matching earrings made of light pink pearl studs with diamond-encrusted gold heart outlines dangling from them.

"Those are so pretty!" Rebekah exclaimed.

"And they will fit perfectly with the neckline of my dress, which he shouldn't know," Caroline said. "He also didn't send a matching bracelet, presumably because he knows that I have long sleeves!"

Caroline was wearing her spelled bracelet, which she never took off, under the sheer lace sleeves of her dress, but she hadn't planned on wearing bracelets as part of her wedding jewelry because they wouldn't be visible with her long sleeves. The sheer lace part of the dress reached up to cover her collarbone, then opened to the top of the satin body of the dress in a narrow, U-shaped neckline, where the necklace that Klaus had given her would fit perfectly—so perfectly, in fact, that Caroline was certain that the necklace had been specially made for her dress, so that where the necklace was visible, it looked like an ordinary pearl necklace, while the thin gold chain would be invisible and lay flat without adding any bulk underneath the lace of the neckline. Caroline couldn't even really be annoyed with Klaus for knowing what her dress looked like before he had seen it, since that information had helped him give her the perfect wedding gift.

"Or he just knows you really well?" Katherine suggested rhetorically. "Considering you admired Grace Kelly enough to name your kid after her, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine that you might have taken some inspiration from her wedding dress when you were choosing yours."

Caroline smiled, thinking of another reason Klaus would know how much she admired Princess Grace. To her, Princess Grace was the epitome of beauty, and class, and, well, grace. She was Hollywood royalty during its Golden Age, and then actual royalty when she became the Princess of Monaco. She was everything Caroline would ever admire or aspire to be.

It only made sense that Caroline would want to emulate the person that she admired so much on a day that was as important to her as her wedding day. And Klaus would know that, because on another important day in Caroline's life, she'd asked him to help make that happen for her.

It had been the first time she'd ever asked him for help. Sure, she'd sought him out to spend time with him, asked for favors, taken advantage of his feelings for her, traded her time as part of some scheme before, but this was the first time that she had gone to him, with no ulterior motive, because she genuinely believed that he was the only one who could help her.

She'd stormed into his house like she owned the place, knowing that he would never turn her away. And even though he had been sulking alone when she'd walked in, she'd managed to put a smile on his face within minutes. He'd laughed at her when she'd explained the plight of her stolen prom dress. He found the entire premise of prom laughable and trivial, yet as soon as she'd asked for his help, he had leapt into action to give her exactly what she wanted.

'I want to look hot. Like Princess-Grace-of-Monaco-hot.'

She'd made her demand and he'd fulfilled it as if it was the most important task on his to-do list. For someone who probably would have never given any thought to prom if it wasn't for her, Klaus had been dedicated to doing all he could to make sure Caroline had an enjoyable prom experience, starting with the perfect dress. When he would gain nothing from helping her, he had gone out of his way to make her prom night perfect.

'In the shared interest of giving Caroline the night of her dreams…'

She hadn't meant to overhear. There were times in the days and months that followed that she wished she hadn't heard. That Klaus had temporarily abandoned his revenge when it was within his reach, just to make her happy.

"You're right, he would have known," Caroline agreed.

"Now that that's settled, come here, I need to finish your hair," Katherine ordered.

"Wait," Rebekah interjected. She took the necklace from Caroline, stepping behind her to clasp it around her neck. Caroline kept the earrings in their box, not wanting them to get in the way while Katherine did her hair.

Caroline sat down in a chair in front of a lighted vanity mirror, examining her appearance as Katherine brandished a curling iron above her head.

Katherine and Bonnie finished doing her makeup before she put her wedding dress on, but she (and Victoria) were too excited to wait for them to finish doing her hair before putting on the dress.

Her blue eyes looked luminous under the champagne pink shimmer that Katherine had brushed on her eyelids, with mascara and a thin line of eyeliner grounding her eyes while making her eyelashes look long and full. Her cheeks were a rosy pink that betrayed her excitement. Bonnie had painted her lips with a sheer pink stain, then added a shimmery pink gloss. She looked like herself, with a little extra polish and shine, and Caroline couldn't remember a time she'd felt happier with the way she looked.

Caroline glanced at Katherine in the mirror as she wrapped strands of Caroline's blonde hair around the curling iron. Caroline had grown out her hair since she moved to New Orleans, and it now reached the bottom of her rib cage, which meant it was going to take a long time for Katherine to finish.

Fortunately, her helpers had accounted for that, as Bonnie pulled out an identical curling iron and went to work on the opposite side of Caroline's head.

With nothing to do but wait until they were finished, Caroline decided to check in with the rest of her bridal party.

"I haven't heard the sound of six-year-olds complaining in a while, is everything okay, or did Freya put a silencing spell on the twins?" Caroline asked, only partly joking.

Freya laughed in response.

"No magic. I just told them that they needed to be very still while we curled their hair or they might get burned," she answered.

Caroline still sometimes found it hard to believe that the twins were six years old—twice as old as they had been when she'd brought them to New Orleans. They were happy, healthy, doing well in school, and thriving under the tutelage of the Mikaelson and Bennett witches teaching them to use their magic.

They weren't her babies anymore; they were becoming little ladies with their own personalities and interests.

She couldn't see them in the mirror, and she couldn't turn her head with Katherine and Bonnie each pulling sections of her long hair and wrapping them around a curling iron, but it didn't surprise her to hear that despite their previous complaints, they were cooperating and sitting still, unlike their baby sister, who was spinning in circles just to watch the pink lace material of her dress fly up around her as she twirled.

Rebekah had her hands full trying to supervise Victoria, who was naturally vivacious and enthusiastic already, as excited as she was at the prospect of wearing a fancy dress and spending the day playing dress-up with her mother, sisters, and aunts, then going to a special party with her family, even if she wasn't old enough yet to fully understand the life-changing significance of a wedding.

To Victoria, the wedding actually had very little significance. No ceremony or legal document changed the fact that Caroline was her mother, Klaus was her father, and her mother and father were in love; or that Hope, Josie, and Lizzie were her sisters. Her aunts and uncles, Marcel, Vincent, Josh and Aiden, wouldn't adore her any more after the reception than they did at the moment, since Caroline was certain that it would be impossible for them to love Victoria any more than they already did.

Hope was gaining a stepmother and two stepsisters, but she'd considered the twins her sisters for years, she'd been campaigning for Klaus to marry Caroline for almost as long, and she already had one stepparent who she loved. Unlike most children whose parents weren't together, Hope had no fantasies of her parents reconciling. Even from a young age, she was mature enough to recognize that Klaus and Hayley had never been in love, and wanted them to be happy apart, with new partners that they did love, rather than unhappy, pretending to like each other for her sake.

Lizzie and Josie had considered Hope their sister for half their lives, and Klaus was their father for all intents and purposes. The only difference was that after the wedding, they would officially be a family, since Klaus was going to adopt the twins.

Several minutes later, Davina announced that she was finished helping Josie get ready. After Josie got up and wandered away, Davina started quickly wrapping strands of her own wavy hair around the curling iron in order to achieve the same perfect ringlets as everyone else. Only Victoria's and Katherine's naturally curly hair already fit Caroline's vision for her bridesmaids.

By the time Freya was finished with Lizzie's hair, which was the longest of the four girls', Hope and Josie had engaged Victoria in a game of Twenty Questions in an attempt to get her to sit still.

"Okay, I'm finished," Freya announced triumphantly. "Can we get the girls to come over here to get final approval from the bride?"

The four girls obediently lined up in front of Caroline for inspection.

The junior bridesmaids' dresses were cotton candy pink lace confections with cap sleeves, high rounded necklines, pink pearl buttons down the back, and silk ribbons in the same color wrapped around the waist and tied into perfect bows in the back. They were each wearing headbands made from the same material as the sashes on their dresses, with the front sections of their hair twisted back and tied with little bows made from matching ribbons. Though they were barely visible under their floor-length dresses, the ballet flats they were all wearing matched as well. They had each been given simple pink pearl jewelry to wear—a thin strand of pearls around their necks and each wrist, and a pair of matching stud earrings—in addition to the spelled lockets they never took off.

Victoria's flower girl dress was nearly identical, except it was tea-length rather than floor-length to accommodate her shorter height, and her shoes, jewelry, and hairstyle were exactly the same.

"They're perfect!" Caroline cried.

"You can't cry or you'll mess up your makeup," Katherine scolded.

"Sorry," Caroline replied.

"They're perfect!" Caroline repeated enthusiastically.

Victoria clapped her hands happily.

"Now that the girls are ready, we're going to get dressed," Freya announced, picking up the garment bag containing her dress, then the ones on either side of it containing Davina's and Rebekah's.

As part of the gifts Caroline had bought for her bridal party, she'd given them all pink garment bags embroidered with their initials in fancy script writing, decorated with tiny, ornate crowns, all enclosed in the outline of a heart, using sparkly gold thread. She'd also given them matching pink silk robes for them to wear while they were getting ready, that were decorated just like the garment bags in the front, and had a larger version of the gold crowns, each girl's name written in fancy script, and the date written in the outline of a heart across the back. Rebekah, Freya, Katherine, Bonnie, and Davina were still wearing theirs, while Caroline's (yes, she'd gotten one of each of their gifts for herself as well), Victoria's, Lizzie's, Josie's, and Hope's were hanging from a portable closet rod that Katherine had convinced the concierge to bring to the room.

Victoria toddled over to the rack, tugging gently on one of the sleeves.

"Mommy?" Victoria asked, but Caroline couldn't turn to look at her with Katherine and Bonnie working on her hair.

"Auntie Bekah?" Victoria tried again.

"Yes, princess?" Rebekah answered.

"Where is mine?" Victoria pointed to the robes.

"Here it is," Rebekah pulled Victoria's tiny robe from between Caroline's and one of the twins, where it had been hidden between the larger sizes. She held it out so that the back was facing Victoria, pointing to where her name was embroidered.

"See?" Rebekah pointed to each letter of Victoria's name as she said it aloud, spelling it out for the two-year-old who was still too young to be able to read the fancy script writing.

"You know, Victoria, your name is very special," Rebekah told her niece. "Your mother named you after a queen and a goddess, so that you would have a name that's as special and important as you are."

{ }

November 17, 2017 (three years earlier)

"Klaus?" Caroline tried to get his attention, which was unnecessary, since Klaus's attention rarely wavered from her. In the month since they'd discovered that she was pregnant, Klaus had become even more protective over her than he usually was. The only time she got complete privacy was when she was in the bathroom. Klaus's incessant hovering was almost as adorable as it was irritating.

"Yes, my love?" Klaus answered.

Caroline sat at the dining room table, a baby name book open in front of her.

Rebekah, Elijah, Katherine, Freya, and Bonnie were also in the room, but they were all engaged in their own conversations and plans.

"Does Hope have a middle name?" Caroline asked.

Klaus looked almost embarrassed for a second before the expression vanished from his face.

"She does, actually. It's Andrea," Klaus answered.

"Andrea," Caroline repeated. "What made you choose that?"

"It's my name," Hayley announced from the doorway.

"Wow, I didn't even hear you come in," Caroline said. "I think the vampire equivalent of pregnancy brain is your supernatural abilities getting dull."

"Are you all right?" Klaus immediately asked.

"I'm fine," Caroline reassured him. "I'm just going to be a little less sharp for the next eight months. Your daughter is taking oxygen from my brain, so it's just something I have to live with."

"Is that really what's happening to you? That sounds dangerous," Klaus panicked. "There has to be something we can do to fix this. I won't allow you to suffer."

"I'm not suffering, I am experiencing a totally normal side effect of creating a human inside my body. This is the miracle of life at work, so please take a chill pill, and then explain why Hayley has two names," Caroline ordered.

"My birth parents named me Andrea Labonair," Hayley explained. "The Labonairs were one of the royal families of the Crescent Wolf Pack. That's why I'm the Alpha, or the Queen, as I know you like to call me. After my parents died, my adoptive parents renamed me Hayley and gave me their last name, Marshall. When I got to New Orleans, I was able to locate the rest of the Crescent Wolves, and in the bayou, I found a record of the Labonair family, and the last name written, Andrea, had been born on my birth date. Later, I met Jackson and he confirmed my identity. I guess, to me, Andrea represents who I was supposed to be, if my parents hadn't died, if I hadn't been adopted. I would have grown up with a family, as the princess of the pack, knowing that I was a werewolf and that I would grow up to be the Alpha. That's what I wanted for my daughter, and she has all of it. As much as I wanted her to have that name and everything that it means to me, I don't think I would have suggested it on my own, so I was touched when Klaus suggested it as Hope's middle name."

Caroline looked over at Klaus.

"That was very sweet and thoughtful of you," Caroline praised. "But Elijah said that he chose Hope's name, so does that mean that you didn't get any say in Hope's name?" Caroline asked Hayley.

Hayley shook her head.

"No, I named Hope," she corrected. "We were trying to come up with a name, when Klaus mentioned that, when I was dead and Hope had been taken, Elijah had told him that they had lost their family's only hope. When we say that Elijah gave Hope her name, we really just mean that he inspired it, he gave me the idea. It wasn't the first time he said something like that, and he didn't say it intending for us to name her Hope. He probably would have called her the family's hope no matter what her name was."

"Okay, so I'm going to need Elijah to be very quiet and not make any statements that contain girls' names until I pick out a name," Caroline said.

A few people chuckled, even though Caroline hadn't been joking.

"You've never given any indication that you didn't like Hope's name," Klaus remarked.

"I don't dislike Hope's name," Caroline insisted. "It's a little like getting a puppy for your kids to try to teach them responsibility and then naming the puppy 'Responsibility,' but she isn't my child and I didn't name her, so I don't really get an opinion."

"Hope is in the courtyard, by the way," Hayley informed them. "I'm taking her home to the bayou for the weekend, but she has next week off of school for Thanksgiving, so I wanted to find out what your plans were and if we needed to make any special arrangements for Hope for the holiday."

"Good news, the Mikaelsons are celebrating Thanksgiving this year!" Caroline cheered. "This girl is already shaping up to be as big a fan of Thanksgiving as her mom, we've been craving sweet potatoes and cranberries all month," Caroline pointed to her stomach. "I don't know what the Crescent Wolves do for Thanksgiving, but you and Jackson are welcome to join us, and we've decided that the girls are too little for Black Friday shopping, so I'm staying home with them, because I'm a delicate little flower who can't survive the mall—" Caroline paused to glare at Klaus. "While Katherine, Rebekah, and Freya go."

Hayley smiled.

"I'm sure Hope would love to have Thanksgiving with all of her family, thank you Caroline," she said.

"Then our usual arrangement need not change," Klaus declared. "You can take Hope home with you after Thanksgiving dinner, and I will pick her up from school on Monday, as always."

"Thanks. I'll let you get back to baby name brainstorming," Hayley said.

Klaus and Caroline followed Hayley into the courtyard to greet Hope, who was playing with her favorite toy, the little princess archery set that Klaus had bought her the previous month.

She was wearing the uniform of the private school that Klaus had enrolled her in just three weeks earlier: a red and white plaid pleated skirt, white tights, a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, a red cardigan, and black t-strap shoes.

Hayley had fought with Klaus over sending Hope to private school. She hadn't wanted Klaus to make a financial commitment of that magnitude, knowing full well that she couldn't afford to pay her fair share. Klaus insisted that he would pay the entirety of her tuition, which angered Hayley, who didn't want to be financially dependent on Klaus or deprive Hope of luxuries that he could afford but she couldn't. Hayley had only agreed once Klaus had made the argument that the exclusive private school, with its rigorous standards for both students and instructors and its secure gated campus, would ensure Hope's safety. In addition to the school's already stringent security, Klaus had compelled the headmistress to hire a number of his hybrids, who he'd ordered to serve as security guards, which confirmed that, while Hope wasn't the only supernatural child at the school, the administrators weren't on vervain to protect themselves from any vampire relatives that students may have.

Caroline had already agreed to enroll the twins in the school when they started kindergarten in two years, and the baby who wouldn't even be born until the next summer when she started school five years later.

Hayley walked over to Hope, who was still clutching her toy bow and arrow.

"Now I'm curious," Klaus said. "What would you have named her?"

Caroline looked at Hope, thinking for a moment.

"Diana," Caroline answered matter-of-factly. "It means 'divine' and it's the name of the Roman goddess of the moon, the hunt, the forests, wildlife, archery… which is perfect for a little werewolf princess and the miracle child of the most powerful creature on Earth, if you ask me, and it continues the pattern you started with Marcel's name of giving your children names that come from mythology. It's also the name of a much beloved princess of England, which is a good omen considering her position in the supernatural world. And last, but not least, it's Wonder Woman's name."

Klaus and Hayley both looked at Caroline.

"That would have been perfect, if only we'd thought of it," Klaus responded. "Not that I'm surprised that we didn't think of it, since we didn't even discuss what to name our daughter until after she was born."

"I'm not leaving it 'til the last minute like that," Caroline warned. "I want to have the baby's name picked out by New Year's."

"Diana Mikaelson," Hayley whispered almost reverently. "She could have been Diana Andrea, or even Diana Hope. My little huntress; princess of the bayou, queen of the forest and the moon," Hayley shook her head. "That is a really great name, Caroline, you should consider it for your daughter."

Caroline shook her head.

"This one isn't going to be a werewolf, remember?" Caroline reminded her. "And even if she had gotten to keep her werewolf gene, she still wouldn't be a werewolf princess like Hope is. Hope's werewolf royalty because of you, not because of Klaus. Plus, now I associate the name with Hope, so I don't think I would feel comfortable using it for her sister."

"Oh, right, I'm sorry, I forgot," Hayley quickly apologized, looking forlorn, as if she couldn't think of anything more horrible than not being a werewolf, and in Hayley's case, that was probably true.

"Okay, well, Hope, it's time to go," Hayley said hurriedly. "Say goodbye to your dad and Caroline."

Hope ran over to them and hugged them both as Hayley waited indulgently. After several minutes of hugs, promises to see each other again Monday morning since Hope didn't have school, and a five-year-old's explanation of Thanksgiving to her unborn baby sister, Hope and Hayley departed, hand-in-hand.

"What about the twins?" Klaus asked once they had left. "Do they have middle names? I assume you're only asking about Hope's so that you can determine whether or not you need to choose one for our daughter."

"I wasn't sure how the Mikaelsons felt about the institution of middle names, since it isn't like they were popular a thousand years ago when you all were named," Caroline explained. "And yes, Alaric gave the twins middle names: Jenna and Carol."

Klaus's eyes widened in a combination of shock, guilt, and suspicion.

"As you would say: seriously?" he asked.

"No, that was a joke," Caroline admitted with a laugh. "It would be way too weird for Alaric to name his daughter after her mother, his late wife, and then also name her after his girlfriend who died years earlier. And he didn't know or like Carol enough to name his daughter after her, plus Elizabeth Carol and Caroline Elizabeth are a little too matchy-matchy considering that Alaric had no intention of me being in the girls' lives at all after I gave birth to them."

"No one in your life anticipated that you would grow to love the children you'd carried, and found the idea of leaving those two little girls without a mother so soon after losing your own devastating?" Klaus wondered aloud, shaking his head. "How is it that none of your so-called friends knew anything about you?"

"This particular instance was more about him and less about me, I think," Caroline replied. "His plan was to move away from Mystic Falls, away from everything supernatural, so that he and the girls could start over and have a normal human life, and a vampire surrogate doesn't exactly fit into that vision."

"He really thought that he could just take the last two living members of the Gemini Coven and live a supernatural-free life?" Klaus asked incredulously. "And naming one of the twins after your mother was what, a 'thank you for carrying my children even though you were actually forced to against your will, but anyway, even though I appreciate this tremendous favor, I don't actually want my children or I to have anything to do with you from now on because you're a vampire' gift?"

"It must have been because of me, since it isn't like Alaric and my mom were best friends," Caroline pointed out. "But this is getting dangerously close to speaking ill of the dead, so enough. Since you asked, Josie's middle name is Marie, and Lizzie's is Lynn. At no point was I given a chance to make suggestions or asked my opinion."

"Well, I'm sure that you will come up with the perfect name for our baby girl," Klaus said, kissing her cheek affectionately.

{ }

December 28, 2017 (two years, eleven months earlier)

Caroline pulled into the parking lot of her destination after driving for nearly two days. Her thousand-mile journey had been exhausting, but she'd finally arrived, after having to spend the night in Georgia and stopping for more snack runs and bathroom breaks than she could count.

She slowly lowered herself out of the drivers' seat of the car that Klaus had bought her for her birthday. This was the first time she'd driven the car, since usually she went out with either Klaus or Rebekah and they drove, but she'd managed to convince them both that this trip was something she needed to do on her own.

So the day after Christmas she'd packed enough clothes for a week, even though she'd only planned on being gone for three days, intending to leave first thing in the morning. However, by the time she'd finished getting the girls dressed, fed, and ready for their day, the baby had decided it was time for a mid-morning nap, and she didn't end up leaving until after lunch.

With her driving interrupted by a dozen stops and at least as many phone calls from Klaus, Caroline had only made it as far as Northwestern Georgia by nightfall. The next day, Caroline was able to get an earlier start, completing her journey and arriving at a familiar house around dinner time.

Which lead her to where she was now, standing in the parking lot of the Mystic Falls cemetery.

She walked around to the passenger seat of the car, where she'd placed the flowers she'd brought to place on her mother's grave.

Caroline took the flowers and carefully navigated the cemetery until she reached the place where her mother was laid to rest. She set the flowers down in front of the headstone, then carefully knelt next to them.

"Hi, Mom. Your favorite daughter has come to visit you. I hope I'm not the only one who comes to see you and bring you flowers. Matt comes to check in on you sometimes, doesn't he? Or maybe Damon? Though if he doesn't come here anymore, that's my fault. Because I never told you this, but years ago, when I was human, Damon hurt me. He hurt me so badly, Mommy, but he was your friend and it seemed like you spent more time with him than you did with me, and I didn't know how to tell you that your stupid, desperate, shallow daughter had been abused by the only guy to ever act like he wanted her more than Elena, and that wasn't even true. And then everyone else forgot about it, and I felt like I had to forget about it too, or at least act like I had. Anyway, Klaus—I'd ask if you remembered Klaus, but how could anyone ever forget Klaus?—found out what Damon did to me, and he decided to get revenge on my behalf. I don't know what Klaus did to him, but I'm sure that he isn't my biggest fan right now, so I'm really sorry if he's taking that out on you by not visiting, I never wanted you get hurt.

"But that isn't what I came here to talk to you about. The reason I haven't been here in a while is because I moved to New Orleans. It's a very long story, but it wasn't safe for us to stay in Mystic Falls, so I took the twins and I got out of town as quick as I could, and I took them to New Orleans because I knew that whatever happened, Klaus would be able to help me keep them safe. And I know that you never loved Klaus after what he did to Jenna, and Carol, and even Elena, but I love him, Mom, and he loves me. I've never loved anyone the way I love him, and no one has ever loved me as much as he does, with no conditions or reservations, like I'm the most important thing in the world to him.

"Which brings me to my news, and my belated Christmas gift for you: I'm pregnant. I know what you're thinking: 'One unplanned vampire pregnancy was crazy enough, but two? How did this happen to you, Caroline?' So I'll tell you how it happened. Once again, I was a victim of witches interfering with my reproductive system. But this time, the witch who did this was the Original Witch—you remember Klaus's mom, Esther, right?—and she was powerful enough to do a fertility spell on me so that I would get pregnant again, but this time the baby is biologically mine. So congratulations, Grandma! It's a girl! I have no idea what to name her, since Alaric named one of the twins after you; and I have no idea what she's going to be like—I mean, half me and half Klaus, she might literally kill people with kindness; and I'm really nervous and I hate that you can't be here to meet this little girl, but I'm so, so happy about this baby, Mom, and I hope that wherever you are, you can be happy for me, too."

Caroline rested her hand on her stomach, the slight bump invisible under her winter coat.

She spent the next few hours telling her mother all about Lizzie and Josie, the Mikaelsons, the council, and everything else about her life in New Orleans. She promised to come visit again after the baby was born so that she could introduce her to her grandmother.

She kept talking until her stomach growled.

"Sorry, Mom," Caroline said. "The baby is reminding me that it is lunch time and she needs to be fed. You'll be delighted to know that this baby has to be at least as demanding as I was, so the Forbes genes are clearly strong in this one. I mean, she'll want cotton candy ice cream at three in the morning, not any other flavor, and it has to be pink, because if I buy a brand that dyes their cotton candy ice cream blue instead, she'll know and she won't be happy about it. Remind me to look up if babies can be allergic to blue food coloring, now I'm concerned. Okay, well, I'll talk to you again soon. I love you, Mom."

And then Caroline got back into her car, ready to start the long drive home.

{ }

February 14, 2018 (two years, nine months earlier)

"How are my lovely Valentines this morning?" Klaus whispered in Caroline's ear the moment she woke up.

"I'm tired," Caroline yawned. "Your daughter is currently training for the ballet, and I really wish she'd stop practicing her pirouettes while I'm trying to sleep."

Klaus leaned down so that he was level with her baby bump.

"Good morning, my littlest love," Klaus said. "And today, you're also my littlest Valentine. You know who else is my Valentine today? Your mother. So I would really appreciate it if you would move around a little less in there so that your mother can rest, because she's just trying to be as healthy as possible so that you can be as healthy as possible. And I'll know if you're doing what I asked because we get to see you today. Are you ready to get your picture taken? We'll see you soon. Your mother and I love you very much, littlest love."

Caroline smiled.

"What's that smile for?" Klaus asked.

"You're just so sweet," Caroline said.

Klaus looked insulted.

"Did you just call me 'sweet?'" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes!" Caroline laughed. "You talk to the baby multiple times a day, you've read all of my pregnancy books, you've downloaded a pregnancy app that tells you about the baby's development every week, you've bought almost as many clothes and toys for her as Rebekah has, and I know that you're working on paintings to hang in her room."

"I couldn't let Rebekah purchase another thing without taking action," Klaus insisted. "The poor girl would have a year's worth of outfits that say 'My Auntie Loves Me" and none that mention any other family member, and I can't have my daughter thinking that Rebekah is the only person in this family who loves her."

"Which would be a really big problem if she could read," Caroline pointed out. "And she won't know who bought them, so for all she knows, it could be Rebekah, or Freya, or Katherine, or Davina, or Bonnie. Or all of them. She's plenty loved, even if she doesn't happen to have any clothes that say so."

"Still," Klaus relented. "She can look at pictures when she's older and know that Rebekah wasn't the only one who cared enough to shop for her."

"A valiant effort, but no one shops as much as Bekah," Caroline said. "The baby's room is full of clothes and stuffed animals and shoes and toys, and I won't even give birth for another four months at least."

Rebekah had taken her promise to buy her niece so many pink outfits that she would never have to wear any of them twice very seriously. The baby's room was overrun with massive piles of dresses made with pink lace, pink onesies patterned with hearts, pink jackets with small heart-shaped buttons, and all sorts of other tiny pink clothing. It seemed that every time Rebekah left the dress, even if she hadn't intended to go shopping while she was out, she would inevitably return with a little pink hair bow, or set of pink pajamas, or bibs with cute sayings written across them. It was like she genuinely couldn't help herself.

"We could go shopping after my doctor's appointment if you want?" Caroline offered.

Klaus was still convinced that Caroline should never experience inconvenience or hardship, or have to do anything other than exactly what she wanted to do, for the entire duration of her pregnancy. If she wanted to go somewhere or do something, she had to be the one to suggest it, because Klaus refused to ask her for anything.

"If you would like to go shopping, then of course we can," Klaus agreed.

Caroline quickly got up and got ready for the day, showering and then dressing in a festive pink sweater decorated with a heart made of red sequins and red velvet maternity trousers. Caroline had stubbornly refused to wear maternity clothes until the rest of her regular clothes had threatened to rip at the seams if she tried to put them on, but now that she had a noticeable baby bump, she had no choice.

When Caroline went downstairs, all three girls were already dressed and eating cereal for breakfast while searching through the pink gift baskets she'd made for them for Valentine's Day, which were filled with seasonal candy, school supplies, hair accessories, socks, and other little gifts. She'd made sure to label each girl's basket with their name so that they wouldn't fight over whose was whose, even though the contents were nearly identical, only occasionally varying in color.

Predictably, fellow early-riser Elijah and a reluctant-looking, yawning Katherine were also seated at the table.

"Hi Mommy," Lizzie greeted. "Is the baby's check-up today?"

"It is," Caroline answered.

"Okay, we were thinking that you should name the baby Tiana, because Tiana lives in New Orleans, and we live in New Orleans," Lizzie announced.

Caroline smiled. Lizzie had been suggesting names of Disney princesses for her sister for months now. At this most recent one was a reasonable suggestion. She'd also proposed naming the baby Cinderella or Rapunzel when she found out she would have blonde hair.

"That's a great name, sweetheart, I'll add it to the list," Caroline replied.

She had wanted to choose the baby's name before the New Year, but that hadn't ended up happening. She would readily admit that as a human teenager, she had already had the names of her future children picked out, but now none of the trendy names she'd liked in 2007 seemed good enough or important enough for her daughter, who was also the daughter of the Original Hybrid—supernatural royalty.

"Are you ready for school, littlest wolf?" Klaus asked Hope as he walked into the room.

Hope shook her head and dashed off to brush her teeth.

"Don't forget the valentines we made for your class!" Caroline called after her.

After Hope and Klaus had left, Caroline addressed the twins.

"This morning, Klaus and I are going to the doctor for the baby's check-up, and then we're going to go out to lunch, and then we're going to go shopping to buy some clothes for the baby. So I need you two to please be good for, I think it's Freya, Bonnie, and Finn who are twin-sitting today," Caroline told them.

"Yes, Mommy," they agreed.

Josie and Lizzie were clearly more interested in their baskets than what she was saying. Like Caroline, they were dressed festively for the holiday, with Lizzie in a white shirt covered with hearts in a number of shades of red and pink, and Josie in a red shirt with a large white heart with two puppies with hearts in their eyes and the caption 'Puppy Love' in it.

Caroline also planned to look for some birthday gifts for the twins while she was out. She knew they were excited to turn four next month, but that it would be also an emotional day for the three of them, as it would be the twins' first birthday after Alaric's death.

By the time Klaus returned from taking Hope to school, all of the twins' babysitters (though they insisted that they were no longer babies whenever anyone called the family members responsible for supervising them while Caroline was out 'babysitters') had come downstairs.

After a few minutes of conversation, and strict instructions to make sure Lizzie and Josie didn't spend the entire day eating candy (partly so that they wouldn't get a sugar high, and partly so that they wouldn't cry when all of theirs was gone and Hope still had a full basket), it was time for Klaus and Caroline to leave for their appointment.

At Klaus's insistence, Caroline's medical care for the duration of her pregnancy was being overseen by the best obstetrician in the city, who had been either compelled or bribed not to notice Caroline's not-exactly-human characteristics.

While they waited for the doctor, Caroline perused a new baby name book, which, unlike her other books, listed names in categories rather than in alphabetical order. She found herself particularly drawn to the 'Goddesses' and 'Real Life Royalty' categories. She was just reaching into her purse for a pen and pad of paper so that she could write down her favorite names from each category when a nurse called her name.

Klaus and Caroline followed the nurse into an exam room, where Klaus sat in the corner and Caroline climbed onto the exam table while they waited for the doctor, who Klaus had compelled to perform every aspect of Caroline's appointments herself, since his thousand-year history of paranoia had decided that the best way to keep Caroline and the baby safe was to make sure as few people had information about Caroline's pregnancy and the child she carried as possible. Caroline thought that his attitude was a little extreme, since she didn't think that his enemies knowing what hospital she went to or when her due date was would make it any easier or more likely that they would show up at the hospital on her due date to hurt her or the baby, but she had to choose her battles, and she'd chosen not to fight this one.

After the doctor arrived and asked Caroline a few questions and took a few measurements, she readied the ultrasound machine, smiling at Klaus and Caroline as she said, "Let's take a look at Mommy and Daddy's little Valentine, shall we?"

A moment later, the fuzzy, black and white figure of their child appeared on the screen.

She was lying on her side, facing them, with her legs crossed at the ankle and her arms wrapped around her stomach. The melodic thumping of her heartbeat filled the room.

"Baby Mikaelson looks totally healthy," the doctor informed them. "Now, remind me, did you two want to know the sex, or would you like to be surprised?"

"Please, tell us," Caroline requested.

For months, they had been operating under the assumption that Esther had been telling the truth about the baby's gender, simply because Esther had nothing to gain by lying. Now, however, Caroline wanted to be certain, if only to give them enough time to purchase clothes for the baby that weren't the frilly pink dresses that Rebekah had purchased by the dozen.

"Congratulations, you're having a baby girl," the doctor said. "She's measuring a little small compared to the average size for this week in the pregnancy, but that's nothing to be concerned with, it wouldn't be an average if about half of the samples weren't less than that."

Klaus and Caroline were still staring at their baby on the monitor.

"I'll just print out a copy of the sonogram for you, and you can be on your way," the doctor concluded.

She handed them a half-dozen photos before saying her farewells and leaving so that Caroline could redress and get herself ready to leave.

It was only a few minutes after exiting the doctor's office that Klaus and Caroline were seated in one of their favorite French restaurants in the city. Caroline had fallen in love with their poulet rôti the first time they'd eaten there, and it was one of the foods she craved the most during her pregnancy so far.

While they waited for their food, Caroline once again pulled out her baby name book and her pad of paper to make lists of her favorite names, her left hand resting absently on her baby bump as she often did, wanting to have a physical connection with her daughter as often as possible.

"What are you thinking?" Klaus asked, nodding towards the book.

"I want her to have a special name, you know?" Caroline sighed. "Something that's worthy of a girl who even your evil mother talked about like she would be the most beautiful girl to ever live, and who might—if she inherits her father's ambition and determination, and her mother's organization and leadership skills—actually rule the world by the time she graduates from college. I want her to have a name with a special meaning, and a special history, and connections to her family, and that fits in with all of her sisters' names. I want her to have the name of a queen, or a goddess, or both, if that's possible!"

"Is that all?" Klaus deadpanned. "First of all, I have every confidence that you will find a name you think is perfect. Second of all, many of your requirements for a name overlap. If you give her the name of a character from mythology, she will have Marcel and Freya for company. If you give her the name of a queen, she will have that in common with you and Elizabeth. I would suggest you start with those two categories and see if there are any names you like in either one."

"I'm looking up your name first because I actually still don't know what it means," Caroline said.

Flipping pages quickly, Caroline soon found the one she was looking for.

"Here it is. Niklaus is a variation of Nicholas which means 'victory of the people,' from the name of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, and the Greek word for people," Caroline read. "So I have a queen's name and you have a goddess's name. If we can find a name that's both, she'd have the best of both of us."

"Well, don't just choose something that so that you can check some boxes. I'd rather you choose something that doesn't fulfill your requirements but that you like, than you choosing something you don't like just because it happens to be on both of those lists."

Caroline had already stopped listening, flipping back and forth between the page with the list of goddesses' names and the page with the list of queens' names. Now that she was carefully combing through each list looking for commonalities, she saw that there was only one name that was written twice.

And it was perfect.

"Klaus, I've got it. I found the perfect name," Caroline exclaimed. "A queen's name and a goddess's name, and it does way more than just check some boxes."

"What is it?" Klaus asked.

"Victoria," Caroline grinned.

Klaus nodded thoughtfully.

"Let me explain all the ways it's perfect," Caroline started. "Queen Victoria was a queen of England who ruled for over the largest empire in history for over sixty years and was the longest reigning monarch until she was surpassed by a queen named—wait for it—Elizabeth, and is only one of two queens to have a period of British history named after her, the other one being a different queen named Elizabeth. If it wasn't enough for you to name our daughter after this impressive queen, Victoria is also the name of the Roman goddess of victory—the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Nike, who your name comes from. And the name itself means 'victory,' obviously, which makes me think of Hope, and how you and Elijah and Hayley all thought of her as the only hope for your family while you were in the middle of fighting a war, but now you've won. You've made peace with Marcel, and you've defeated your mother… Maybe, just like Hope was a symbol of hope that one day the war would be over and your family would be reunited, this baby can be a symbol that you accomplished those things, and everything that you came to this city to do. That you were victorious, and maybe now you get to be happy."

Caroline looked up to see Klaus looking at her proudly, a soft smile on his face.

"It sounds like you've made up your mind," he made a half-hearted joke.

Then seriously: "I can't think of anything more fitting."

"And there's another thing that's more of a personal association," Caroline continued. "My friend Matt had an older sister, Vicki, who you never met, because she died before you came to Mystic Falls. We weren't exactly best friends, but she was sort of like I was back then: hovering on the edges of the group because she had connections to multiple people on the inside. She was Matt's sister, and Tyler's girlfriend, and she was hooking up with Jeremy," Caroline paused. "She caught Damon's attention not long after I did. But instead of abusing her the way he did to me, he turned her for his own entertainment. Just fed her his blood and killed her, without her consent, without her knowing what he was doing to her, just so that he would have a vampire playmate. She was never really able to get her vampire urges under control, so Stefan decided that he had to kill her in order to protect everyone in Mystic Falls, which as usual with Stefan, really just meant Elena, but he had everyone—including himself—convinced that he was playing the hero. And because Vicki had had problems with drugs, and her parents were never around, everyone assumed that she'd just run off until her body was found," Caroline took a deep breath. "By me. I was the one who found Vicki's body. And I guess I just want to acknowledge that not all of Damon's victims were as fortunate as I was, and to honor not just Vicki, but all of the good people that didn't survive Mystic Falls like I did, if that makes any sense?"

Klaus was still looking at her with that proud smile. He reached around the table to place his hand on her stomach.

"Victoria," he addressed their daughter. "You are very lucky to have an angel for a mother."

Caroline turned her head, looking down bashfully, allowing her hair to cover her blush.

"We still need to think of a middle name," Caroline pointed out. "And we need to shop!" she added, standing up abruptly.

"Okay, we can go now," Klaus acquiesced, quickly pulling out his wallet to pay for their meal.

As they left the restaurant, Caroline explained hurriedly, "We have an advantage over Rebekah: we can get the baby all sorts of things personalized with her name, and Rebekah can't, because Rebekah doesn't know her name yet!"

Klaus laughed.

"And you accused me of trying to compete with my sister over who could by our daughter the most clothes and toys."

Caroline raised her eyebrows, fixing him with a challenging stare.

"What sort of things did you have in mind, sweetheart?" Klaus asked.

When they arrived at the mall, Caroline sped straight for her favorite baby clothes store like she was on a mission. She loved this store because in addition to clothes, they also sold sentimental keepsake items, and even some nursery décor; and because they would personalize anything purchased there for free.

Within a few minutes, Caroline had collected a heart-shaped, cotton candy pink sign to hang either on the door of the baby's room or above her crib (she hadn't decided yet), a round ottoman in a similar shade of pink that opened up to reveal a storage compartment inside, a coordinated set of onesies—one of which was white and had 'mommy's little angel' embroidered in light pink and decorated with a matching embroidered halo, and the other was the same shade of pink and had 'daddy's little princess' embroidered in white and decorated with a matching embroidered crown, light pink bedding trimmed with matching lace, six pink dresses, four pink hair bows, a dozen pairs of tiny pink baby socks, a book of Disney Princess stories, and a pink, heart-shaped jewelry box that came with a little rose-gold plaque that already had a small heart engraved on each end and could also be engraved with the recipient's name.

Caroline stuffed the clothes, the bedding, and the book inside the toy chest so that it would be easier to carry around inside the store, then brought the sign and the jewelry box over to the counter to be personalized. After waiting a few minutes, an employee returned them both to her, the sign now with the name Victoria written in script across the widest part of the heart in shiny, metallic, bright pink writing, and the jewelry box now proudly bearing a rose-gold plate with 'Victoria' engraved in ornate script writing between two hearts.

Upon seeing a little backpack embroidered with a monogram, Caroline was reminded of her other goal.

"Okay, so middle names," she started. "First, we have to eliminate any initials that would spell a word. I can't think of any words that start with a V, end with an M, and only have one letter in between, but I still think we should not consider any names that start with an O, just because of the association."

"Is it really so tragic if her middle name starts with a vowel?" Klaus wondered.

"Yes, Klaus," Caroline sighed. "Hope's initials spell HAM. Middle school bullies will literally oink like pigs at her when she walks by. I am trying to prevent middle school bullies from miming throwing up every time Victoria walks passed them."

"Do you have any other considerations?" Klaus asked, apparently accepting Caroline's concerns.

"Well, Victoria and Elizabeth are so clearly a perfect set that it would be nice if her middle name had something in common with Josie's or Hope's names," Caroline suggested. "Obviously there isn't the same pressure to choose the perfect middle name as there is to choose the perfect first name, but it would be nice if we could choose something that we like a lot as well, and I'd like to pick something that we think works well with her first name."

Caroline pulled out her baby name book again, finding a list of middle names that promised to go with virtually any first name.

"Since I picked her first name, I suppose it's only fair to let you have the first choice for her middle name," Caroline said, holding out the book somewhat reluctantly.

"How gracious of you, my love," Klaus answered with a smirk, but he readily turned his attention to the book.

"How about Grace?" he proposed a moment later.

"Grace?" Caroline repeated.

"I seem to remember you having quite the admiration for the princess of Monaco," Klaus elaborated. "The first time you asked for my help, perhaps the first time you ever saw me as a friend, rather than the nemesis of your friends whose affection for you could be easily exploited, your goal was to look like this princess who was almost as beautiful as you."

At the familiar words, Caroline looked down at the diamond bracelet on her wrist, which Klaus had given to her once to charm her, then again to protect her.

"Victoria Grace Mikaelson," Caroline said aloud. "That's perfect."

{ }

June 8, 2018 (two years, five months earlier)

For the record, Caroline had insisted that a baby shower was unnecessary.

With the amount of clothes and supplies Caroline and the Mikaelsons had already purchased for baby Victoria, she really didn't see the point in devoting an entire day to buying her more stuff.

In fact, Caroline couldn't think of a single thing that she still needed. All of the furniture for the baby's room had arrived earlier in the week, and since all males had been forbidden from the baby shower, Klaus, his brothers, Marcel, and Josh were going to paint and set up the furniture for the nursery during that time.

As far as she knew, there were less than a dozen people coming, and only two of them (Hayley and Eva) didn't already live in the house, which Caroline had hoped would translate to a more casual, intimate event, but since Rebekah was in charge of planning, she knew that wouldn't happen.

Rebekah had asked to plan the baby shower weeks ago, and since Caroline hadn't given it any thought up until then, she agreed easily once Rebekah started whining about how she'd never gotten to plan or even attend a baby shower before and she was so looking forward to it.

Leaving Rebekah unsupervised was clearly a poor idea. The entire dining room was filled with pink, heart-shaped balloons; a shiny, metallic pink banner made up of eight hearts, each emblazoned with one letter of Victoria's name, hung from the ceiling; and the table was covered with cookies shaped like rattles and baby booties, covered in pink frosting with 'It's a Girl!' written in white icing.

"Wow, I shouldn't be surprised that Rebekah went overboard," Caroline said sarcastically, yet hesitantly, in case Rebekah was listening.

"She made us nametags," Freya chimed in, gesturing incredulously to the pieces of pink, heart-shaped plastic on the side table.

Caroline obediently picked up the one that said 'Mommy (Caroline)' and fastened it to the top of her pink dress. Rebekah had also enforced a strict wardrobe of only pink, as there was no other color appropriate for a baby shower for a little girl in her mind.

Looking at the table again, Caroline saw that, as Rebekah had intended, everyone except Hayley and Eva were already in the room. Some of them were even already rebelling against Rebekah's rules.

Katherine was wearing her 'Auntie Kat' nametag, upside down, just above the hem of the shortest dress Caroline had ever seen. The dress was pink, but Katherine was clearly determined to test Rebekah as much as possible.

In contrast, Lizzie was proudly wearing her 'Big Sister Lizzie' nametag on the belt of her pink dress and happily reaching for a rattle-shaped cookie.

"Caroline!" Rebekah happily bounded over to her.

"Wow, Rebekah, this is… astounding," Caroline said. "I really appreciate all of the effort you put into organizing this for me."

"I was happy to, it was so much fun!" Rebekah responded.

Rebekah took Caroline's hand and enthusiastically led her around the room, showing her all of the decorations, food, and activities she'd planned. It seemed that Rebekah had searched for popular baby shower games and chosen the top ten results.

"No one is measuring my stomach, Rebekah," Caroline insisted, placing her hand over it as if that would keep Rebekah at bay.

Though she wasn't nearly as big as she had been when she was pregnant with the twins, she'd still reached the point in her pregnancy when she felt like the rest of her body had been swallowed up by her ballooning stomach, and even though Klaus had made it his mission to tell her and show her how beautiful he thought she was as much as he could, she still felt like a whale most of the time.

"Why not?" Rebekah whined.

"Because I already know that I resemble a blimp. I do not need to know the exact measurements of this living submarine," Caroline answered.

"Oh please, you aren't even close to how big I was with Hope," Hayley interjected from behind them. She had played along with the dress code in a simple blush tee-shirt dress paired with her signature green military-style jacket.

"Yeah, the doctor keeps telling me that Victoria is on the small side, but even though I was way bigger when I was pregnant with the twins, I'm just ready to not be pregnant anymore," Caroline replied.

"I hear you. I felt like I was pregnant with Hope for way longer than nine months," Hayley commiserated. "And giving birth to an over-eight-pound baby was no fun, either, but once she was born…" Hayley trailed off, unable to describe the sublime moment.

"I'm glad I don't have to go through that," Caroline said. "Vampire birth is a lot quicker and less painful than a human one. I have a C-section, and by the next day, my vampire healing has kicked in and I'm good as new."

"I'm sure humans would be so jealous if they knew," Rebekah laughed.

"I'm just hoping that this time, delivery goes a lot smoother than it did with the twins," Caroline told them. "A vampire hunter was on the loose, and the babies kept trying to siphon the life out of me, while I was giving birth. This time around, things should be a lot calmer."

"Well, you know that Nik has made sure that you're in the best possible medical care he could find," Rebekah pointed out. "He will make sure that you give birth under the perfectly ideal circumstances, even if he has to evacuate the city to do it. Don't worry about a thing other than keeping yourself and my little niece as healthy and happy as you can."

Rebekah soon excused herself to set up the first game.

Katherine and Bonnie wandered over to say hello just as Rebekah recruited Freya and Davina to help her prepare the supplies for the first activity.

"I'm surprised to see that you even own a pink dress," Katherine commented to Hayley.

"It's barely pink," Hayley scoffed. "And I didn't want to face the wrath of Rebekah, so I bought a dress and now I'll be prepared for every one of these things in the future."

"What do you mean?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah, this vampire pregnancy is a fluke caused by evil magical intervention, and it won't be happening again," Caroline added.

"And how long after she sees your baby girl do you think it will take for Rebekah to get baby fever?" Hayley inquired. "What if Kol and Davina want kids in the future? Or you and Elijah?" she directed towards Katherine. "Now that we know that a powerful enough witch can make that happen, I wouldn't be surprised if the girls had more than one cousin running around in the next few years."

"Not me, my child-bearing years ended five centuries ago," Katherine insisted.

"What about you?" Caroline asked Hayley. "Would you want to have kids with Jackson if you could?"

"I don't know," Hayley admitted, fiddling with her engagement and wedding rings on her left hand. The matching wedding bands that she and Jackson had chosen featured the same alternating pattern of emerald-cut diamonds and emeralds as Hayley's engagement ring, though the five stones were smaller of course, allowing the larger gems of her engagement ring to rest on top of them, covering only the top of the plain white gold band but not the gems themselves. "I would have to think about it if I were ever given the chance."

Their conversation came to an abrupt end when Rebekah called for their attention and introduced the first game.

After several hours of playing games that no one had the heart to tell Rebekah weren't actually any fun, it was time for gifts.

Rebekah sat dutifully at Caroline's side, notepad and pen in hand, ready to record which person had sent which gift for when Caroline sent thank you notes later. On Caroline's other side were the girls—Lizzie, Josie, and Hope, all squeezed together in a row like little ducklings.

Caroline knew from the first box she opened that the Mikaelsons had gone just as overboard with their gifts for the baby shower as Rebekah had in planning the baby shower.

A large box from Freya contained a light pink baby pillow, a matching baby carrier and bouncy seat, and a baby book that was light pink with a heart-shaped window for a photo of the baby and closed with a darker pink ribbon tied in a bow.

"Thank you so much for all of this, Freya!" Caroline exclaimed. "And I love that this stuff is by the same brand as the car seat and stroller we picked out, so all of them are the exact same shade of pink."

"You're very welcome," Freya replied. "Shopping for baby clothes and things is so much fun."

From Bonnie, Caroline received a box full of basics that they could never have too many of—blankets, plain onesies, pacifiers, bibs—all in the same soft shade of pale pink.

Katherine and Elijah had offered a pretty pink mobile with pink hearts, white horses, and gold crowns to hang above the baby's crib, as well as a stack of at least two dozen popular children's books that her parents could read to her, and a small pink piggy bank that Elijah, as the Mikaelson family's resident accountant and financial advisor, had surely chosen.

Kol and Davina had clearly tried to think outside the box with their gifts, which included a pink heart-shaped keepsake box, a mini mobile that attached to the baby's car seat, and a journal with a light pink cover on which Davina had written, 'Baby's First Grimoire.'

After thanking Kol and Davina for their gifts, Caroline turned to the next box. The ever practical Vincent and Eva had given her all of the supplies necessary to baby-proof the massive Mikaelson mansion, a task that seemed so strenuous and time-consuming that Caroline had refused to even think about it.

The gifts that Hayley and Jackson had chosen all revolved around a theme: light. In the box, Caroline found two pink heart-shaped nightlights—one for the baby's bedroom and one for her bathroom, a string of pink lights that could be hung up in Victoria's room, a stuffed owl that lit up when squeezed around the middle, and tiny pink light-up sneakers.

Rebekah's gift consisted of a dozen picture frames, about half of which were made of ornate gold filigree, and the other were traditional wood painted glossy pink. Half of the frames already contained pictures—one of Klaus and Caroline, one of Hope and the twins, one of the entire Mikaelson family taken at Thanksgiving—and the other half were empty and waiting to be filled with new memories. Then, to no one's surprise, she had also thrown in at least a dozen pink dresses that looked far too frilly and delicate for the baby to actually ever wear, since it was very, very unlikely that little Victoria would ever be invited a royal wedding or the Academy Awards, but the dresses were very pretty, even though they were impractical.

"Thank you so much for the picture frames and the dresses, Rebekah," Caroline said.

"There's more in there," Rebekah grinned.

Partly nervous, but partly excited, since she remembered Rebekah's incredibly thoughtful and generous birthday gift, Caroline reached into the bag again.

Wrapped very carefully in tissue paper at the bottom of the bag was a very pale pink baby blanket. At first, Caroline didn't see anything special about it. Then she turned it over.

In the corner, using a darker pink thread, two lines of text were embroidered in a simpler cursive font than the ornate script that had been used to personalize Victoria's blankets and other things: 'Caroline' and 'October 10, 1992.'

"Found that in your attic and thought you might want it, along with some other things," Rebekah explained.

Caroline carefully unrolled the blanket. Tucked inside were a little pink and white striped hat, which must have been the one that she had been given in the hospital when she was born; a onesie patterned with pink, grey, and white hearts, which must have been the outfit her parents brought her home from the hospital in; both hers and her mother's hospital bracelets; and a framed photograph of her mother holding an only-hours-old Caroline.

"Wow," Caroline breathed out. "Thank you so much for this, Rebekah. It was really thoughtful of you to track all of this stuff down for me, and I really appreciate it."

Once Caroline finished opening all of her gifts, the girls all traipsed upstairs to see the baby's finished nursery.

When the door swung open from the inside to invite them in, Caroline started crying at the sight of the haven that Klaus had created for their daughter.

The brick walls had been painted a soft and inviting shade of light pink. All of the furniture was glossy white with scalloped edges. The pretty crib that Caroline had fallen in love with in the store, with its bars made of towers of three-dimensional hearts, was positioned along the right wall, already made with the pink, lace-trimmed bedding that Caroline had picked out on Valentine's Day. The pink, heart-shaped sign she'd had personalized with Victoria's name hung on the wall in line with where the baby's head would rest, so that she could look up and see it. The dresser was pressed up against the opposite wall. Caroline pulled one of the heart-shaped drawer pulls, finding that the dresser had already been filled with neatly folded piles of Victoria's clothes. In one corner was the bookshelf and the pink ottoman/storage chest, where Victoria would be able to sit comfortably and read or play when she was older, and in another was a pink rocking chair. On the far wall was a changing table, already fully stocked with diapers, baby wipes, and all of the other supplies they would need. The last wall contained Victoria's closet, where dozens of the baby's fanciest dresses were already hanging. Throughout the room were paintings that Klaus had been working on for months in anticipation of hanging them in their daughter's room. One of them was of a small blonde girl wearing a pink dress with a matching ribbon in her hair, sitting in an ornate, bejeweled throne. Another was of the same girl, dancing gracefully. The last was the view of the New Orleans skyline from the window of the room in which they stood, at sunrise, the sky turning a warm, optimistic shade of pink to greet the new day.

"This is perfect!" Caroline cried. "This is more perfect than anything I could have imagined!"

Through her tears, Caroline hugged and profusely thanked everyone who had helped with the nursery. Klaus wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, while Elijah, Kol, Finn, Marcel, and Josh offered either indulgent smiles or looks of concern.

Caroline smiled. The nursery was complete, all of the shopping was finished, the girls were ready and excited to be big sisters, she and Klaus were ready to be parents and were surrounded by loved ones who were equally thrilled by their daughter's impending arrival.

Now all they needed was the baby.

{ }

Present

"And that's it, you're finished," Katherine announced.

Caroline looked up into the mirror, excited to see the final result that Katherine and Bonnie had been working on for almost an hour.

Katherine had gathered Caroline's long, curled hair into some sort of elegant twist at the nape of her neck, leaving the length of her hair to cascade freely down her back.

"Wow, I love it!" Caroline exclaimed. The style was romantic and elegant, without being fussy or uncomfortable, fitting in perfectly with her dress and the wedding itself.

"Good," Katherine replied. "Now it's our turn to get ready, so just sit still and do not cry, because we don't have time to fix your makeup."

Katherine and Bonnie grabbed their garment bags and went to change, leaving Caroline alone in front of the mirror.

Caroline put on the earrings that Victoria had delivered from Klaus as the final touch on her bridal attire, then, barring any last-minute touch-ups, she was completely ready.

For a few moments, Caroline just stared at her reflection. Everything was perfect; exactly as she had always dreamed she would look on her wedding day.

Her dress was perfect, her jewelry was perfect, her makeup was perfect, her hair was perfect. She was surrounded by loved ones, both in this room and down the hall. There were notable absences, of course, but Caroline could feel that her parents were there in spirit, and it was easier to come to terms with Elena's absence once Caroline acknowledged that, considering Elena's feelings towards Klaus, she might not have come to the wedding even if she could have.

Looking around the room, Caroline saw Rebekah doing her makeup, Freya helping with Davina's hair, and the girls sitting at the table in the corner playing a game. Caroline almost wished that she hadn't gotten ready so early, since now she had to wait for everyone else to be ready and for it to be time for the ceremony to start. There had been a lengthy debate as to the order of the preparations, at the end of which it had been determined that Caroline would get ready first, since as the bride, she was most important that day; then the girls, because they would need the most help and no one wanted the extra stress of rushing to get four girls under the age of ten ready in a rush; then the adult bridesmaids. Though Caroline had worried that the girls might get bored with nothing to do but wait for so long, or get their dresses wrinkled, she know conceded that it had been a wise decision. Rebekah, Freya, Davina, Katherine, and Bonnie had plenty of time to get themselves ready, and the atmosphere of the room was surprisingly calm considering how soon the ceremony would be starting.

Victoria toddled over to her mother, stepping carefully so as not to trip over the hem of her long dress.

Though Caroline thought that Victoria was prettier than her, with both of their faces together in the mirror, it was plain to see how much her daughter looked like her. There were obvious traces of Klaus, and even hints of Rebekah, but for the most part, Victoria was a smaller copy of Caroline, without the traits that she had hated about herself as a human teenager: Victoria's eyes were bigger, her lips were fuller, her hair curlier and more golden, and her eyebrows a little thicker. Victoria truly was a combination of the best of each of her parents.

"Pretty!" Victoria exclaimed, reaching towards Caroline's necklace.

"Thank you, I think it's pretty, too," Caroline replied.

"I like pink," Victoria added.

"I know you do," Caroline smiled indulgently.

"I want," Victoria pouted, a surefire way to get what she wanted from her father.

"You have some of your own, greedy girl," Caroline pointed to the necklace, bracelet, and earrings Victoria was wearing with her flower girl dress.

Victoria looked down, her face lighting up when she touched the bracelet on one of her wrists. She looked back up at Caroline, a happy smile on her face. But when she saw Caroline's necklace again, she went back to pouting.

"I want," Victoria repeated, pointing at Caroline's necklace.

"Maybe when you're a little bigger we can get you a matching one, or something similar," Caroline suggested.

Victoria gave her a look that she'd seen on all of the Mikaelsons' faces—one that meant that they were sizing up an opponent in order to determine the best strategy with which to defeat them—in this case, how to convince her mother to give her her jewelry and let her keep her own when she knew that her entire flower girl outfit was going in a pretty pink rose-patterned keepsake box that she'd helped pick out. It used to disturb Caroline to see that calculating look on her baby girl's tiny face, now it just made her laugh.

"That's the best offer you're going to get," Caroline told her.

"Fine," Victoria grumbled.

"Rebekah, if you come across any pink pearls in your jewelry hunt, Victoria has taken quite a liking to the ones we're wearing," Caroline called out.

In the weeks leading up to the wedding, Rebekah had been (with Caroline's help) going through all of her old clothes and jewelry that were stored in the attic, looking for Caroline's something old and something borrowed, and while she was at it, decided to set aside some things that she wanted to give to the girls when they were older.

Long after Caroline had decided to track down something of her mother's for her something old and chosen a pair of cream lace pumps that Rebekah had purchased the previous year before deciding she didn't like them after all as soon as she got home for her something borrowed, Rebekah was still sorting jewelry she no longer liked or wanted to keep into four piles, one for each girl, based on which one of them she thought would most like each piece. Rebekah's jewelry collection was so extensive that even though she was only giving away a small fraction of what she owned, each girl's pile still contained several pieces and was probably worth at least a million dollars.

"I haven't seen any so far, but if I find any she can have them, and if I don't, I'll just buy her some," Rebekah replied.

Caroline laughed.

"You know how much more free time I would have if I didn't have to spend every waking minute trying to prevent you all from spoiling my children?" she asked rhetorically.

Even after three years of living with them, Caroline still felt a little uncomfortable with the amount of money that the Mikaelsons freely spent on her and her daughters. Birthdays and Christmases were extravagant affairs, nothing like the holidays of her own childhood, and the girls often received generous gifts from members of the family for no particular occasion. Trying to raise children who appreciated the value of a dollar and were willing to work hard and save up for things that they really wanted was a challenge when their upbringing was far more privileged than her own. Of course Caroline wanted her daughters to have everything they needed, and even many of the things they wanted, but she didn't want them to expect or demand everything they wanted, or prioritize material possessions over relationships and experiences.

"I don't know, but after today, you'll officially be a Mikaelson, and what is ours is yours," Rebekah grinned.

Caroline had decided to change her name after the wedding. She'd always thought that she would want to hyphenate her name, so as to keep her maiden name and take her husband's last name, but now she actually found the reality of having to deal with two last names unappealing. 'Caroline Forbes-Mikaelson' would never fit on a signature line, not that she would ever have the patience to write out every one of all of those letters as she felt the annoyed glares of rushed, impatient fellow customers in line behind her.

In her heart, she'd already been a Mikaelson for years: since Klaus had told her he loved her, fulfilling his promise to be her last love. Her status as a member of the family was cemented further when she got pregnant with Victoria.

Victoria was the biggest reason why she had decided to change her name once she and Klaus were married, even more than Klaus himself, who she knew was thrilled that she'd decided to take his name. She wanted to have the same last name as her daughter and her daughter's father, and—since after the wedding Klaus was going to adopt the twins, making them officially Mikaelsons as well—all three of her daughter's sisters. It was just as important to her as it had been to her mother, who'd continued using her married name, even after her husband had left her for a man and left town to start a new life with him, not because of any lingering love or loyalty she felt for Bill, but because of Caroline.

So Caroline knew that her mother would be the first to tell her that she was making the right decision. A name or even blood didn't make a family, what made a family was the desire to be a part of it and love for the people in it. Her name represented her identity, identifying her as a member of the family she wanted to be a part of, and as much as a large part of her identity would always be that she was Liz and Bill Forbes' daughter, she didn't need to have the same last name as her deceased parents to remind herself that the three of them would always be a family, especially now that the other most significant parts of her identity—Victoria, Lizzie, and Josie's mother, Klaus's wife, Hope's stepmother, Rebekah and Freya's sister (as they would surely refuse to insult their relationship by relegating it 'sisters-in-law' status)—made her a central, irreplaceable part of the Mikaelson family.

"That doesn't mean I'm going to go on a shopping spree the second the marriage license is signed," Caroline countered.

Bored with the conversation, Victoria wandered back over to where her sisters were playing a game of Candyland at the table, sitting primly in their chairs so as to prevent their dresses from getting wrinkled.

"You can't just walk off in the middle of the game, Victoria," Josie chastised.

"I'm sorry," Victoria apologized.

"It's your turn," Lizzie told her.

Victoria drew a card and moved her red mover to the correct space. Though this game wasn't the most challenging for eight-year-old Hope, it was one of their only games that two-year-old Victoria, who couldn't count very well on her own yet, could play with them, so they played it fairly often, especially when Klaus and Caroline need to keep all four girls occupied. The game was also based on luck rather than skill, so Victoria wasn't at a disadvantage because of her age.

Caroline watched as Lizzie took her turn next. Just as Victoria was always the red mover because it was closest to pink, Lizzie was always yellow, Josie was always blue, and Hope was always green.

"Okay, we're back," Katherine announced, with Bonnie following close behind.

Caroline almost cried at the sight of all of her bridesmaids in their dresses. They were made of the same pink lace as the girls' dresses, but without the ribbon sashes and with a sweetheart neckline like Caroline's dress, but with thin silk straps that their hair would cover instead of the sheer lace overlay. They were wearing the same style jewelry as the girls, though the pearls they wore were somewhat larger. Their shoes were the same color and material, but they wore heels rather than flats.

"No!" Katherine pointed at Caroline. "What have I told you about the crying?"

"It's my wedding and I'll cry if I want to," Caroline retorted.

Katherine shook her head.

"You make me crazy, you know that? You're the only person who could make me dress up as Ballerina Princess Barbie," she lifted the skirt of her pink lace dress. "But you drive me insane."

Katherine hadn't been thrilled when Caroline had chosen light pink, gold, and cream as her wedding colors, and even less so when she'd picked out girly, relatively conservative pink lace bridesmaids' dresses, but to her credit, she'd carried out all of her bridesmaid duties with a positive attitude and only minimal good-natured complaints.

"There's no such thing as Ballerina Princess Barbie," Caroline insisted. "I've looked, for the holiday that's next month, for the littlest one."

"Caroline, your littlest one is a living Ballerina Princess Barbie," Katherine chuckled.

Caroline had to admit that Katherine had something of a point. Though more formal and expensive, the dress Victoria was wearing for the wedding wasn't much different in color or style than what she usually wore, and was probably the little girl's dream dress.

Victoria had chosen that moment to start listening in on their conversation.

"I'm a Barbie?!" she squealed.

"You're just as pretty as a little doll," Rebekah cut in, trying to tame her niece's excitement.

"Auntie Kat said I'm Ballerina Princess Barbie!" Victoria insisted, stumbling a little over the pronunciation of the word 'ballerina.'

"You can be anything you want to be," Rebekah replied diplomatically. "Though it would be fantastic if you decided you wanted to be a person rather than an inanimate object," she added under her breath.

"I regret saying anything," Katherine said.

"So moving on: how close are we to being ready, because the ceremony is scheduled to start in exactly one hour," Bonnie changed the subject.

"I'm getting married in an hour!" Caroline cheered.

"Well, probably not exactly an hour, since no wedding in the history of weddings has every started on time, but knowing you, you might be the first," Katherine replied.

"Davina and I are ready," Freya called out. "And sorry for not participating more in the conversation, we've been using our teeth to open bobby pins for the last half an hour."

"Same here," Bonnie chimed in.

The bridesmaids were wearing their hair in an elegant twisted style similar to Caroline's, only with the top half of their hair rather than all of it, and very close to the girls', just with hidden pins and clear hair elastics instead of pink ribbons.

"You both look gorgeous!" Caroline complimented.

"Thanks, Care." "Thank you, sister." They replied in unison.

"Okay, so it looks like Rebekah needs to get her hair done, Katherine needs to get her hair and makeup done, and Bonnie needs to get her hair and makeup done, too," Caroline reported.

"Remind me, why didn't we hire a hair stylist and makeup artist?" Katherine asked.

"We wanted this to be a family bonding experience," Caroline answered. "Plus, you and Rebekah have lifetimes more experience doing your own hair and makeup than anyone we could have hired."

Davina stepped forward and quickly began twisting Katherine's long curly hair into place, while Freya brandished a curling iron above her sister's head. Bonnie started doing her makeup while she waited for her turn to get her hair done.

"How are we doing, girls?" Caroline asked, turning her attention to where they were still playing their game.

She was met with enthusiastic, positive responses from all four of them.

{ }

July 3, 2018 (two years, four months earlier)

4:43 a.m.

In what might have been the most normal, human moment of her extremely unusual, vampire pregnancy, Caroline was awakened in the early hours of the morning by her water breaking.

Caroline immediately turned over and poked Klaus to wake him up.

"Klaus, wake up, my water just broke," she told him.

Klaus was out of bed and standing next to her in less than a second.

"How are you feeling, are you all right?" he asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," Caroline assured him. Klaus still looked skeptical. "Seriously, I'm fine. Being a vampire means that my body can't undergo all of the painful changes that normal human's would have to in order to accommodate childbirth. I will not be in labor for hours, I am not having contractions; in fact, I am not in any pain whatsoever. So let's wake someone up to watch the girls, and then go to the hospital, because we are going to have a baby in the next few hours."

Klaus nodded, still looking a little shell-shocked. He looked uncertain of what to do for a moment until Caroline got out of bed and pulled some clothes out of a dresser drawer. Within a few minutes, they were both dressed and ready, Klaus in his usual henley and jeans, and Caroline in leggings and a loose-fitting dress.

"So, who are we waking up?" Caroline asked. "I have a feeling that Rebekah might kill me if I let her sleep through the birth of her niece, but I also don't want to leave any one person with the responsibility of watching all three girls on their own, plus possibly taking all three girls to the hospital to meet their new baby sister all on their own."

"Wake up Rebekah, I'll wake up Elijah, and after we've left they can do whatever they want. They can wake up everyone in the house for all I care," Klaus decided.

Caroline turned around and walked down the hall to Rebekah's room, while Klaus headed in the opposite direction towards Elijah's.

"Rebekah," Caroline called out quietly. She stepped forward and tapped the other girl on the shoulder, calling her name again.

"What do you want?" Rebekah whined groggily.

"I just thought you might want to know that my water broke and Klaus and I are going to go to the hospital now," Caroline said.

Rebekah shot up in bed.

"The baby's coming?" she asked.

"The baby is coming, this morning," Caroline confirmed.

"What do you need me to do?" Rebekah asked.

"Just be here, so that when the girls wake up, someone is here and awake who can explain to them what's going on. Klaus went to wake up Elijah, so if the two of you could bring the girls to the hospital after the baby is born, that would be great."

Rebekah nodded eagerly.

She stood up and followed Caroline out into the hall, not bothering to change out of her garnet silk nightgown, though she did put on a white robe over it.

Klaus stood in the hallway with Elijah, who was already dressed in a suit, his tie perfectly knotted, and Katherine, who was wearing a short black silk nightgown trimmed with black lace and a sheer black robe.

"None of you should be allowed to look cute while I'm 87 months pregnant and as big as a whale," Caroline complained.

"Sorry for not wearing ugly sweatpants and a parka to make you feel better about yourself," Katherine shot back.

Rebekah tried a gentler approach.

"These are the last few hours of your last pregnancy. Don't you want to cherish these moments before they're over?"

"She's clearly never been pregnant," Katherine said.

"Are you ready to go, my love?" Klaus asked Caroline, ignoring the squabbling between the three women.

"I just need to get my bag."

Three weeks earlier, Caroline had packed the bag she would be taking with her to the hospital with a few changes of clothes for herself and the baby and everything else she thought she might need.

"I have it," Klaus gestured to the overstuffed bag on his shoulder.

"Do you have your phone?" Caroline asked.

Klaus pointed to the front pocket of his jeans.

"Then I think we're all set," Caroline said. "We'll see you guys soon."

Rebekah, Elijah, and Katherine all waved, wished them luck, and said goodbye as Klaus and Caroline left the house.

{ }

5:18 a.m.

The maternity ward was crowded and bustling with activity, even at five in the morning.

Loitering loved ones hurried to get out of Caroline's way when they saw her large belly, so she made it to the front desk before Klaus finished fighting his way through the crowd after her.

Caroline gave her name to the receptionist, who smiled and told her to sit down and make herself comfortable while she paged her doctor.

Once she sat down, Klaus hurried to her side.

"They're paging my doctor," Caroline explained. "She should be here soon, and then it's time to have a baby."

Klaus just nodded.

"Are you okay? You've been kind of quiet," Caroline asked.

"I'm merely anticipating the birth of our child, that's all," Klaus responded.

"Are you nervous?" Caroline asked with a conspiratorial smile.

"I wouldn't say that," Klaus denied. "It would be irresponsible for me to not be aware of or concerned about the possibility of something going wrong, but I know that you will be cared for by trained professionals, and I don't anticipate anything going wrong."

"That just sounded like a stuffy, wordy, Klaus way of saying that you're nervous," Caroline said.

Caroline, surprisingly enough, found that she wasn't particularly nervous about giving birth. She had done this before, under far more stressful and dangerous circumstances, and with two babies who were clinging to her as a source of magic rather than just one who wasn't. The last time she'd given birth, she didn't even remember her water breaking, or arriving at the hospital, because she'd been desiccated from the twins siphoning the magic out of her. The fact that she was awake and coherent at this stage in the process was a vast improvement in her view.

"Well, Caroline, you might remember what happened to Hope's mother shortly after her birth," Klaus pointed out.

Caroline had honestly not thought about what had happened to Hayley at all. Their situations were so different, and she didn't want to allow herself to consider the possibility of dying and panic.

"Well, as you said yourself, I will be cared for by trained professionals," Caroline replied. "I am giving birth in a reputable hospital, with well-educated doctors and nurses, not in a church, attended by witches who want to kill my baby and are willing to slit my throat to get me out of the way so they can do that. Our situations are totally different."

"I wish I could be as optimistic as you are," Klaus said.

"I'm going to be fine," Caroline reassured him. "Victoria is going to be born in probably less than two hours now, maybe three at the latest, and she is going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine."

Klaus was saved the trouble of coming up with a response by a nurse approaching and calling Caroline's name.

"Well, it looks like someone's an early riser!" the nurse said cheerfully. "And how are Mom and Dad doing?"

"Very excited," Caroline answered honestly, though she had to be careful not to act too enthusiastic or people might get suspicious of the fact that she was supposedly in labor, yet seemed to not be in any pain.

"Excellent! Let's get you to your room and then we can check to see how things are progressing while we wait for your doctor to arrive," the nurse continued.

Klaus and Caroline stood and followed the young woman through a set of double doors and down a sterile-looking white hallway. She kept up a brisk pace as she led them passed closed doors and open ones, empty rooms and occupied ones.

She stopped in front of an empty room that seemed to have been chosen at random.

"Here we are!" the nurse exclaimed. Caroline wondered how she could possibly be so cheerful at five in the morning, then realized that the nurse probably hadn't just woken up like she had. "I'll give you a few minutes to get changed and settled, and I'll be right back to check your progress!"

The nurse handed Caroline a hospital gown and turned to leave, but before she could get very far, Klaus compelled her to not check on Caroline but to think she had, to not say anything about he or Caroline to anyone except Caroline's doctor, and to forget everything about them unless she was physically in their presence, until after they left the hospital, when she would forget about them completely.

The nurse blinked, a little dazed, then left the room.

Caroline quickly changed into the hospital gown and sat up on the bed.

"And now we wait," she said.

{ }

5:41 a.m.

"Hello!" the doctor greeted as she poked her head in the door.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting," she continued as she stepped inside the room. "I was just finishing up an emergency C-section when you arrived. Fortunately, mother and baby are going to be just fine. Anyway, how are we doing? Are we ready to have a baby this morning?"

"Very ready," Caroline replied with a smile.

Klaus stepped forward and compelled the doctor to believe that Caroline had a preexisting condition that would make it impossible for her to deliver the baby naturally (which was technically true) and that she would need a C-section immediately. Then, like with the nurse, he compelled her to not question them, find anything unusual about them, and to forget that they had ever existed the moment that Caroline was discharged from the hospital.

"Right, you have a preexisting condition that would make it impossible for you to deliver the baby naturally," the doctor repeated to Caroline. "I'll go prepare for the surgery."

The doctor left the room in the same dazed manner that the nurse had.

"Do you want to maybe call home and check in?" Caroline asked Klaus.

Klaus pulled out his phone and dialed. Caroline could hear Elijah answer through the tiny speaker of Klaus's phone.

"Caroline wanted me to call and update you," Klaus told his brother. "The doctor just arrived and is preparing for surgery now."

"Thank you for the update. I'm sure everything will fine, this is a routine procedure that the doctor has surely done hundreds of times," Elijah responded.

"Ask him if the girls are awake," Caroline instructed.

"Caroline would like to know if the children have woken up yet," Klaus repeated.

"They have not," Elijah replied. "I can wake them if you'd like? Rebekah has already woken up Bonnie, Freya, Finn, Kol, and Davina. We were wondering if you would like us to call Marcel, Vincent, and Josh."

"Call Marcel," Klaus ordered. "If he chooses to inform Vincent and Josh, that is his choice, but you are not a switchboard operator. And let the girls sleep. I'll call again after the baby is born, at which time we would appreciate it if you would bring them here."

"We would be happy to," Elijah answered. "I will speak with you again soon then."

Only a few minutes after Klaus ended the call, the doctor and nurse returned to the room, along with an unfamiliar man who Caroline assumed was the anesthesiologist.

The doctor handed Caroline some papers to sign, which she assured her were just standard consent forms for surgery, while the nurse attached a heart monitor and an IV in Caroline's arm.

"Do you have any last minute questions before we get started?" the doctor asked.

"Caroline and the baby won't be in any pain, will they?" Klaus made the question sound like a threat.

"That's what the anesthesiologist is here for," the doctor answered with an indulgent smile, presumably used to nervous fathers in the delivery room. "Caroline is going to be numb from about the rib cage all the way down, so she won't feel anything, and we've never had a baby complain about the procedure," she tried to lighten the mood with a joke.

It didn't work. Klaus just glared at her.

"Mr. Mikaelson, I assure you, your wife and daughter are perfectly safe," the doctor promised. "I have been monitoring the pregnancy for nine months now, and I have no reason to believe that we will run into any complications, but if we do, I have the training and experience to ensure that both of them remain safe and healthy for the entire duration of the surgery and their recovery."

"Klaus, the sooner you stop threatening the doctor, the sooner I can actually give birth," Caroline chided. "I appreciate you concern for me and our baby, but there are no other options. My water broke, so I have to give birth now, whether we like it or not, and because of my 'condition,' this is the only way that I can give birth, whether we like it or not."

Klaus sighed and nodded his ascent.

The anesthesiologist introduced himself to Caroline, then explained what he was going to do, though having heard Klaus's concerns about Caroline being in pain, he wisely hid the large needle he had to use from Klaus's view until he was completely finished.

At that point, Klaus administered the usual compulsion: to not talk about them to anyone outside of the people present, to not question anything about them or find anything unusual about them, and to forget that they had ever existed the moment that Caroline was discharged from the hospital.

"We'll give you two a few minutes to yourselves while we wait for the anesthesia to kick in," the doctor said. "And if there's anyone you need to call, or anyone else you want with you in the delivery room, now would be the time."

"Do you want to call Elijah again?" Caroline asked once they left.

"I don't think it's necessary, but if you'd like me to I can," Klaus offered.

"You just seem anxious about this, I thought he might be able to calm you down," Caroline said.

"Am I supposed to be excited by the premise of you being cut open and our daughter being ripped out of your body?" Klaus challenged.

Caroline grimaced.

"I wouldn't have put it that way, but no, I didn't expect you to be excited, I expected you to see this as what it is: a means to an end. I love that you're so protective of us and that you don't want to see us in pain, but you have to remember that I'm not actually in any pain right now, the anesthesia will keep me from being in pain when they 'cut me open' as you so delicately put it, and I'll start healing as soon as it's over and be good as new by tomorrow; and that when it's over, we'll have our beautiful baby girl to love, and hold, and take home with us. That's what's important," Caroline insisted.

"That was much better advice than any Elijah could have given me," Klaus replied.

"Good," Caroline responded. "Then I think we're ready."

{ }

6:14 a.m.

While they waited, Caroline talked to the baby. She talked to Victoria several times a day, but she often did so when no one else was around, since she always felt self-conscious talking out loud but not to any of the other people in the room.

Caroline was telling the baby how excited she was to meet her and how soon she thought that would be when the obstetrician, nurse, and anesthesiologist returned.

"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked.

"Calmer than I thought I would," Caroline answered. "Though it is a little strange to talk to the baby, and know that she's there, even though I can't feel her anymore."

"Then it's time to go to the operating room," the doctor said. "If you're going to be in the room, you'll need to put these on," she handed a set of scrubs to Klaus, who obediently pulled them on over his clothing.

Within a few minutes, Caroline was settled in bed in the operating room, Klaus had compelled everyone in the room who he hadn't already, and the doctor and nurses were washing their hands and doing all of the last minute preparations they needed.

One of the nurses pulled a blue cloth across the top of Caroline's rib cage, ensuring that she couldn't see what was happening, while another secured an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. Caroline looked up at Klaus, standing next to her, who squeezed her hand gently in response.

"All right, Caroline, we're ready to get started," the doctor declared. "Depending on how long it takes me to move your baby into position, the procedure could take up to half an hour, but if either you or the baby starts to show any signs of distress, I can have the baby out in two minutes if that's what needs to happen to keep you both healthy. Okay?"

Caroline took a deep breath.

Through the curtain, she could see the silhouette of the doctor's hand holding a scalpel as it approached her stomach, but she looked away before it met her skin. Even though she couldn't feel the sharp metal cut through her skin, she still didn't want to see it happen either. She kept her eyes on Klaus, who kept hold of her hand and whispered quiet words of support and encouragement.

After several minutes of careful maneuvering, a sharp, high-pitched cry pierced the air.

It was the most beautiful sound that Caroline had ever heard.

"You have a healthy baby girl, congratulations," the doctor announced.

The doctor lifted the baby up so that Klaus and Caroline could see her, then handed her over to a nurse to get cleaned up.

"Time of birth: 6:46 a.m." Caroline heard one nurse say.

"Baby weighs 6 pounds, 4 ounces and measures 18 inches long," another reported.

"Does she have a name?" a third nurse, who was filling in the information the others were calling out on a chart, asked Klaus.

"Victoria," Klaus answered, looking over the nurse's head to where another nurse was swaddling Victoria in a pink blanket. "Victoria Grace Mikaelson."

"That's a beautiful name," the nurse offered with a smile. "She sounds like a little queen in the making already."

"When can Caroline see her?" Klaus asked.

"She's going to spend a few minutes under the warmer, just to make sure her body temperature is up where it needs to be. That's standard procedure for all babies born via C-section, I'm sure your daughter is perfectly fine," the nurse added quickly, seeing Klaus's expression. "The doctor will finish closing up the incision, we'll remove the oxygen mask, then we'll bring your daughter over to your wife to hold."

For a few minutes, the only sounds in the room were Victoria's soft cries and the faint hum of machinery.

Then the doctor announced, "The incision's closed."

As promised, a nurse pulled the oxygen mask off of Caroline's face, and another picked up Victoria and carried her across the room, gently depositing her in Caroline's waiting arms.

As soon as Caroline laid eyes on Victoria, she felt her heart swell and her eyes fill with tears. She couldn't believe that she'd helped make this perfect little person, or that she was somehow able to love her even more than she had before she was born.

Caroline was stunned at how beautiful Victoria was. She had a few thin strands of golden blonde hair that peeked out from under her pink knit hat; large round eyes that curiously scanned the room, never focusing on any one thing for very long; a tiny, delicate nose; a cherubic round face; and thin blonde eyebrows that curved in a rounded shape.

Caroline could easily identify traits that Victoria had inherited from her, ones that came from Klaus, and ones that she had in common with other members of the Forbes or Mikaelson families.

She was so overwhelmed, her heart so full of love and gratitude that it threatened to burst, that she and the love of her life had created this beautiful, perfect little girl, and that she got to be this beautiful, perfect little girl's mother.

"Hi, baby girl," Caroline breathed out. "Hi, Princess Victoria. I'm your mommy and I love you more than you'll ever know."

Victoria seemed to recognize her mother's voice, because she turned her little head towards Caroline, her unfocused blue-grey eyes blinking up towards her mother's face.

If Esther was to be believed, Victoria's eyes would change to a silvery-grey in the coming weeks. And since Caroline could see that Esther had been correct when she'd told her that Victoria would have golden blonde hair, a round face, Klaus's mouth and dimples, and Caroline's nose and eyebrows, she saw no reason not to believe that Esther's claims about Victoria's eye color would be false.

"Aren't you perfect?" Caroline cooed to the baby. "Do you want to look at Daddy, too? Do you want to let Daddy see how pretty you are?"

Caroline adjusted her arms so that Klaus was in Victoria's line of vision.

Klaus smiled at their daughter.

"Hello there, my littlest love," he said, repeating the term of endearment he'd used to address the baby throughout Caroline's pregnancy.

Victoria blinked a few times in a row, then made a quiet hiccupping noise. Caroline wasn't sure what that meant until she felt Victoria's arms move inside the blanket she was swaddled in.

"I think someone wants her daddy," Caroline laughed. "Do you want to hold her, Klaus?"

Klaus swallowed and shook his head.

"No, I can't," he said.

"Why can't you hold your own daughter?" Caroline questioned.

Klaus looked at Victoria again, who had turned her attention back to Caroline.

"She's too perfect," Klaus finally replied. "I would taint her, ruin her, and I couldn't live with myself if I did."

Caroline sighed.

"Klaus, she's a Mikaelson. She's already half you. Half of her DNA, the building blocks that make up who she is, came from you. You won't ruin her; you love her, and she loves you, and she needs you. You can't be just the perfect expectant father for nine months and then decide that your daughter's too good to have anything to do with you and walk away as soon as she's born. I won't allow it."

Klaus looked Caroline in the eyes, saw the fierce protectiveness reflected there.

"Okay," he relented, holding his arms out, though Caroline could tell that she hadn't completely convinced him and made a mental note to revisit this conversation when they got home.

Caroline transferred Victoria to Klaus's arms, crying some more as she saw the two of them together.

Klaus smiled down at Victoria, swaying slightly back and forth to rock her gently.

"We're going to take Caroline to recovery now, and the baby to the nursery," one of the nurses informed them.

Klaus clutched Victoria to him more tightly. Caroline smiled inwardly. Just moments ago, Klaus had been afraid to hold their baby, now he was visibly upset at the idea of a nurse trying to take her away from him.

"It's standard operating procedure for the hospital, sir," the nurse continued. "We need to check her into the nursery, where she'll be monitored by nurses who are specially trained to care for newborns. Her parents can visit her and take her to her mother's room at any time, here," the nurse fastened a hospital bracelet matching the ones that Caroline and Victoria were wearing to Klaus's wrist. "You'll need to show this to the nurse on duty so that she can release your daughter into your care when you want to take her from the nursery."

Klaus reluctantly allowed the nurse to take Victoria from him and put her in a wheeled bassinet with clear glass sides. On the front was a chart printed on pale pink paper, with 'It's a Girl!" written in brighter pink, and all of Victoria's pertinent information—her name, her parent's names, her time and date of birth, her weight, her length, her blood type—in the corresponding boxes.

Caroline cried as the nurse wheeled her baby away, while the other two pushed her in the opposite direction. Fortunately, the recovery room wasn't far away from the nursery where Victoria was, or the operating room they had been in.

"Klaus, you should probably call Elijah now and ask him to bring the girls," Caroline suggested.

The nurse left to give them some privacy while they spoke to their family.

"Brother, I hope you're calling to inform me of my niece's birth," Elijah answered the phone.

"I am indeed," Klaus responded. "Victoria Grace was born at 6:46 this morning. Since then, she's been cleaned, weighed, measured, examined by nurses, given a hat and a blanket, and confiscated from us and taken to the nursery."

"I'm surprised you let your daughter out of your sight, Niklaus," Elijah commented.

"My next order of business is to compel all of the nurses to allow Victoria to stay in Caroline's room at all times. I just wanted them to make sure she's in perfect health, and I need to make sure everyone who's seen her or heard about her gets compelled to forget everything about any of us whenever they're not in the room with us and as soon as we leave this hospital."

"Well, you are nothing if not efficient when it comes to compulsion," Elijah remarked. "I will wake up the other children, and we will be there soon."

{ }

8:02 a.m.

One of the compelled nurses was just finishing up another check-up on Caroline's heart monitor when they arrived.

Klaus had sent Elijah a text message containing Caroline's room number, wanting him to be able to take the girls straight to their room, and as they approached, Klaus and Caroline could hear a stampede of footsteps coming down the hallway.

The nurse pulled open the door to leave just as Hope, Lizzie and Josie standing dutifully at her side, pushed it open from the other side.

"Good morning, Mikaelson sisters! Are you ready to meet the newest member of your little club?" the nurse smiled brightly.

All three girls nodded enthusiastically.

"What's a Mikaelson?" Lizzie whispered.

"That's what we are," Hope answered authoritatively, a silent eye-roll echoing at the end of her statement.

While the nurse led them over to Victoria's bassinet, the rest of the family filed into the hospital room.

"Oh my goodness, Rebekah," Caroline sighed.

Many of them were holding large bouquets of light pink roses. Those that weren't were holding bunches of light pink balloons, all of which had a silver Mylar one in the middle with "It's a Girl!" written in pink. Rebekah, Freya, Bonnie, and Katherine were holding both flowers and balloons. The girls were all wearing pink tee-shirts that said 'I'm a Big Sister!' in glittery pink script.

"How did you know it was me?" Rebekah asked.

"Because I know you," Caroline answered.

Rebekah made an indignant noise, then demanded, "Where is my niece?"

She stalked over to the bassinet, where the girls were all gathered, listening to the nurse tell them how many hours old Victoria was, and how big she was.

"Leave us alone," Rebekah quickly compelled the nurse.

Then she reached into the bassinet and gently picked up Victoria, who was now dressed in a pink onesie made of the softest material Caroline had ever touched, with her name and a small heart embroidered on the right side of her chest.

"Hi, angel baby," Rebekah cooed, letting Victoria's pink blanket fall open so that the baby could grab onto her offered index finger. "I'm your Auntie Bex, and we're going to be best friends, you and I. Whenever Daddy says that you can't do something fun, or that you have enough dresses and you don't need anymore, that's what Auntie Bex is here for."

"That's enough, Rebekah," Klaus called out.

"Aren't you just the prettiest baby in the whole wide world? Aren't you?" Rebekah continued to talk to Victoria, completely ignoring Klaus. "See, I can see where you look like your mommy, and I can see where you look like your daddy, and I can even see where you look a little like me. You're going to be the most beautiful girl in New Orleans when you get bigger, aren't you? But don't worry, Auntie Bex won't let your daddy lock you in a tower until you're forty."

"Quit hogging the baby, Rebekah," Katherine complained.

"Wait, I have a present!" Rebekah remembered.

She dug through her oversized purse and pulled out a small jewelry box, opening it to reveal the spelled necklace that Katherine had given Caroline the day she had announced her pregnancy.

Seeing her confusion, Rebekah held the necklace out so that Caroline could get a closer look. On the front of the locket, there were now three words engraved in an ornate script font: 'Always and Forever.'

"We got them all done this morning," Rebekah said proudly. "I found this one in your room, and snuck the other girls' off their necks while they were asleep, then we compelled the jeweler to open early and do the engravings right away, then put them all back where we found them before anyone knew they were gone."

"I love this, Rebekah, and I'm sure all of the girls will, too," Caroline thanked her.

Katherine took Victoria from Rebekah so that she could put the necklace on her. The chain of the necklace was so long on the tiny baby that the locket landed at her waist. Freya stepped forward and cast a spell that shrunk the necklace so that it was a reasonable and appropriate length.

"We can resize all of them when we need to as the girls grow," Freya explained. "But we need to keep the two pieces of the amulet, the locket and the chain, together, otherwise the protective spells will break."

Caroline just nodded in understanding, assuming that one of the witches would take care of that when the time came.

Rebekah reluctantly stepped away from Victoria, leaving her with Katherine.

"Well, since it seems that we're all introducing ourselves to you, I'm Auntie Kat," Katherine told Victoria, whose wide eyes followed the face of whoever was speaking to her. "You really are very cute, even though you look like Klaus, and those big round eyes are Rebekah's. You must have enough of your mom in you to cancel out all of that Mikaelson. I hope the same principle applies to your personality. I can deal with another eternal optimist like your mom, but I don't know about another temperamental tantrum-thrower like your dad and your aunt."

"Could you all perhaps wait a while to start badmouthing me to my daughter?" Klaus cut in. "She's barely two hours old, and I'd like to put off her hating me for as long as I can."

"Then it looks like my turn is over," Katherine said. "Bye, baby girl. Who's next?"

"Me!" Freya exclaimed, reaching out to take Victoria from Katherine.

"Hi, pretty girl," Freya cooed to Victoria. "I'm your Auntie Freya. Are you tired of people telling you how pretty you are yet? I hope you aren't, because you haven't met all of the family yet. You have a really big family, who all love you so much."

"Care, when did you say Victoria was born?" Bonnie asked.

"6:46 a.m." Caroline answered. "Why?"

"I'm making her birth chart," Bonnie replied.

"Well, she was born in early July, so that makes her a Cancer, right?" Caroline confirmed.

"Well, now that I know her time of birth, I can tell you that her sun sign is Cancer, her moon sign is Pisces, and her ascendant is Cancer," Bonnie told her.

"Is that good?" Caroline asked.

"There are no good and bad signs, they're just different collections of characteristics," Bonnie explained. "Victoria's particular combination means that she'll be highly emotionally intelligent, a romantic who always sees everything through rose-colored glasses, empathetic, compassionate, intuitive, emotional, sensitive, imaginative, but who can also be naïve, indecisive, unfocused, passive, shy, timid, with a tendency to be withdrawn whenever a situation is unfamiliar or she feels uncomfortable… She'll be a kind, caring individual who is considerate of the needs and feelings of others, and who can think outside of the box to come up with creative solutions."

"That sounds good," Caroline said.

"If you believe that a person's personality is determined by the constellations that happen to be in sky at the exact moment that they were born," Rebekah scoffed.

"That's rich, considering you probably don't even know your own birthday," Katherine retorted.

"I'm just saying, Victoria is beautiful and amazing and perfect, and that has nothing to do with what date she was born. She would still be beautiful and amazing and perfect if she was born six days ago, or six weeks ago, or six months ago."

"Now's whose turn is it?" Freya asked.

"I'll take her!" Kol volunteered. "She hasn't met any of her uncles yet."

"Should we be monitoring this?" Klaus whispered in Caroline's ear. "You seem awfully calm for someone whose newborn daughter is being passed around like a hot potato."

"Her family is excited to meet her and hold her for the first time," Caroline pointed out. "And since they're all witches or vampires who are more than capable of protecting her, I know that Victoria is in good hands, whoever's they may be."

"So how are you, and when do you get to go home?" Freya asked Caroline, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

"I'm very happy, and healing. This time was a lot quicker and easier than last time," Caroline gestured to the twins, who had curled up next to her on the bed. "Victoria can come home tomorrow, and since I should be fully healed by then, too, we'll compel everyone we need to so that I can leave with her."

"Well, we're all looking forward to having you home," Freya replied.

Caroline looked around her hospital room. She counted at least a dozen bouquets of pink roses and at least a dozen bunches of pink balloons. Rebekah had taken charge of directing everyone's turns holding Victoria, from Kol to Elijah to Bonnie to Davina, as Finn, Marcel, Josh, Hope, and the twins waited their turn. Caroline already knew that she would cry when it came time for her to help the twins hold their baby sister, and hoped that it occurred to at least one of the adults in the room to take a picture. Because after everything that all of them had been through, this family deserved some long overdue happy memories together.

"Yeah," Caroline replied. "Me too."

{ }

Present

"Girls, it's almost time to go downstairs, so I need you to clean up your game now, please," Caroline requested.

Hope collected the cards while Josie folded the board and Lizzie gathered up the movers.

Caroline smiled as Rebekah directed them all to stand, demonstrating a silly little dance for them to do to shake out any wrinkles or creases that may have formed in their dresses.

The air in the room was thick with the scent of hairspray as Caroline and her bridesmaids put the finishing touches on their hair and makeup. Those who hadn't already put on their heels and their jewelry.

"Before we can go down there, we have to make sure: do you have something old?" Bonnie asked.

"I have my mom and dad's wedding bands," Caroline answered, pulling the long chain out from under her dress. Caroline had decided that this symbolic way for her parents to be present at her wedding was more important to her than the superstition of their failed marriage somehow being a bad omen for her own.

"Something new?"

"The pink pearl necklace and earrings Victoria brought from Klaus."

"Something borrowed?"

"My shoes are borrowed from Bekah's closet of never worn items," Caroline lifted her skirt to show off the cream lace pumps.

"And something blue?"

Caroline pointed to the heart-shaped aquamarine—the twins' birthstone—ring that Klaus had given her for Christmas the year before Victoria was born on the index finger of her right hand.

"Now, as your maid of honor, I am obligated to ask you this," Bonnie started. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I am absolutely, positively certain that I want to do this," Caroline answered emphatically.

Then Katherine stepped forward.

"Now, as the only person who is willing to say it out loud, I am obligated to ask you this," Katherine imitated. "Are you sure that you only want to sleep with one man for the rest of your immortal life?"

Several people groaned in response.

"Yes, I am sure," Caroline replied.

"And you're sure you want to get married? Because if you ask me, 'til death do us part' is pretty much meaningless when you're immortal," Katherine continued.

"'As long as we both shall live' is a completely acceptable substitution," Caroline responded. "And I don't see marriage as an insignificant human tradition the way a lot of vampires do. And maybe that's because I haven't been a vampire long enough to forget the fairy-tale dream wedding of my childhood, but it isn't even about the perfect princess wedding as much as it's about belonging to him and him belonging to me in every possible way for the rest of our lives. I want to be Klaus's wife: the only person who he has vowed to love, no matter what, for the rest of our lives. It's the only thing, the only title, that's big enough to hold all of the love that we have for each other and the permanence of our relationship. Wedding or no wedding, Klaus is the love of my life and my forever; the wedding just makes it official, and since there's no supernatural equivalent of marriage, we have to do it the human way, which I don't think is a bad thing. It's good for us to remember that we were people before we were vampires, and to stay in touch with our humanity."

"Wow," Katherine said, taken aback by Caroline's passionate response.

"Okay, now I feel like I need to make sure that you don't just want to get married to prove some point about how special you are because you're the only person that Klaus has ever wanted to marry," Bonnie cut in.

"It isn't like that at all!" Caroline insisted. "Come on, Bonnie, you know how much I love Klaus and how much I want to be his wife. I mean, is it daunting to be with someone who has nine hundred years' worth of romantic history before you were even born? Absolutely! But I know that Klaus loves me more than he's ever loved anyone else, and that I'm the only one he's ever wanted to marry because he loves me that much. This isn't about showing off to all of the people who Klaus has ever slept with or dated, who, with possible rare exceptions, are all dead. I'm doing this for me, and for Klaus, and for the family and the life we've created together. No outside influences or ulterior motives."

Bonnie smiled, looking appeased.

"You know, I never thought I would see the day when Klaus Mikaelson got married, but a part of me always thought that he would. He just seemed like a caveman, who would want his wife to belong to him, like you said. But not even in a misogynistic, ownership sense, more like his wife would be his responsibility to protect and provide for, so that she would need him and wouldn't leave him. And we all know how much Klaus likes to feel needed, and hates to be alone," Davina chimed in.

"That was really wise," Katherine offered.

"Very insightful," Bonnie agreed.

"Have I sufficiently proven myself ready to get married now?" Caroline asked impatiently.

"You still need…" Bonnie trailed off as she rummaged around for something in Caroline's garment bag. "Found it!" she exclaimed, pulling out Caroline's veil.

Bonnie, Katherine, and Rebekah worked together to pin the cream-colored lace fabric into Caroline's hair using a gold hair comb made of hearts arranged into the shape of a tiara and decorated with small, round diamonds. Once it was in place, they flipped the front of the veil over Caroline's head so that she could see.

"Here are the flowers," Freya chimed in, holding a stack of bouquets in her arms. She handed a dozen light pink roses tied with a light pink bow to each of the adult bridesmaids, while Lizzie, Josie, and Hope each received a single rose to hold as they walked down the aisle.

"And for the flower girl," Freya gave Victoria a round white basket filled with pink rose petals. The basket was covered in a sheer layer of light pink lace, with more lace hanging around the edge of the basket like a skirt. The handle had a row of pink pearls glued along it, with a light pink bow tied around each end.

"Yay!" Victoria cheered, gripping the basket tightly.

"Remember how we practiced last night: you need to be very careful and throw small amounts of petals at a time, so that you don't run out before you get to the end," Caroline reminded her.

Victoria nodded emphatically, taking a tiny fistful of petals and letting them fall out of her hand onto the floor next to her to demonstrate.

"Just like that, great job, Victoria," Caroline approved.

Victoria beamed under her mother's praise.

"And, of course, for the bride," Freya held out a larger bouquet of eighteen light pink roses, with four pure white roses—one for each of their children—in the center, tied together with the same pink ribbon as the bridesmaids as well as a piece of lace that had torn off of the edge of her mother's veil.

Caroline took the bouquet, thanking Freya.

"So who do you all think is going to be the one to catch this?" Caroline asked.

"Are you kidding? Rebekah will physically push people out of her way if she has to so that she can catch that bouquet!" Katherine insisted.

"You're just as competitive as I am, and you're actually in a relationship! I think it will be Kat," Rebekah chimed in.

"I hope that those two are so busy fighting that no one even notices that it's fallen into Davina's lap," Freya added.

Caroline and Bonnie laughed, while Davina frantically insisted that she was not at all ready to get married, and wouldn't fight to catch the bouquet.

Then Katherine pulled a bottle of champagne from out of nowhere (knowing Katherine, she'd snuck it in herself when no one was watching) and handed it to Caroline.

"We need a toast!" she insisted.

"Do we have any glasses?" Caroline inquired.

"Um, yeah, hang on," Katherine started pulling champagne flutes out of her large designer purse.

Caroline smiled and shook her head incredulously. That was Katherine, in a nutshell.

Caroline filled each glass half-way full with champagne and distributed them to everyone who was old enough, then raised her own glass.

"In case I haven't said this enough, you all are the most amazing, fun, supportive, beautiful, loving bridesmaids and sisters a girl could ask for; I could not imagine doing this without all of you here with me, and I love you all with all of my heart," Caroline toasted. "Cheers!"

"Cheers!" everyone repeated, draining their glasses.

Bonnie poured a refill for everyone, then lifted her glass.

"To the beautiful bride, the only person for whom we all would not just sit through, but participate in, Klaus Mikaelson's wedding," Bonnie said. "Caroline, you are a lighthouse, lighting the way for all of us even through the darkest nights and the fiercest storms, and no matter what life throws your way, you never stop shining. You are the most loyal, loving friend that any of us have ever had. I can't even tell you how thrilled I am that you've turned a beast into your prince charming and found your happily ever after, starting with this fairy-tale wedding. We love you so much, Caroline. Cheers!"

"Cheers!" everyone repeated again, draining their glasses once more.

"Thank you, Bonnie," Caroline said, trying not to cry, because they definitely didn't have time to fix her makeup now, or for Katherine to scold her for messing up her makeup by crying.

"You're welcome, Caroline. Now let's go get you married!" Bonnie exclaimed.

The other members of the bridal party cheered and rushed towards the door.

"Victoria, stay close to Mommy, please," Caroline called out.

The little blonde girl obediently waited for Caroline to catch up.

Somehow, they all fit in the elevator for the journey down to the ground floor.

"Is he waiting for us downstairs, or is he with the boys?" Caroline asked Rebekah quietly.

"He's waiting downstairs, he texted me," Bonnie was the one to answer.

And sure enough, when the elevator doors opened, wearing a classic black suit with a pink tie that matched the bridesmaids' dresses and his usual easygoing smile, was Matt Donovan.

From the moment she'd started planning her wedding, Caroline had searched for a place for Matt. With Tyler dead and Elena in a magical coma, she desperately wanted Matt there to represent her childhood friends—who had loved and supported each other through human and supernatural drama, and were family in all but name—along with Bonnie, who she knew right away would be her maid of honor. It wouldn't be enough for her just to invite him.

Unfortunately, Matt wasn't close enough with Klaus to be chosen as a groomsman, and even if he was, adding him would make for an uneven number or require Caroline to add someone to her bridal party—and the prospect of choosing a dress that would suit the five of them was daunting enough without adding a sixth person.

After wondering aloud if it would be too weird to have a nearly thirty-year-old man serve as their ring bearer (the general consensus was that it was, so, without a young male relative to do the job, they'd decided to tie the rings to the inside of Victoria's basket), Caroline had figured out Matt's role in the ceremony when Elijah had asked for a private word and told her that if she wanted him to and didn't have anyone else she could ask, he would be honored to walk her down the aisle.

Caroline honestly hadn't thought about that admitted important part of the ceremony until Elijah brought it up. She knew, of course, that her father was dead, and though she certainly planned to invite his partner, Steven, and Steven's daughter, she wasn't close enough to them to feel comfortable giving either of them a significant role in the wedding.

If she'd gotten married in the years between her parents' deaths, she would have automatically asked her mother, but while her mother was the natural replacement for her father, there was no one who could replace Liz Forbes.

That train of thought had led her to consider the person who had replaced her mom as sheriff, tasked with keeping Mystic Falls safe, just as her mother had. She also liked the symbolism it inspired—it would be as if Mystic Falls itself was giving her one last sendoff before she completely shed her human, small town girl cocoon and became the wife of the most powerful creature in the supernatural world and the queen of New Orleans.

So she'd called Matt later that day, asking if he could step up to represent Mystic Falls and try to fill her mother's shoes in another context, and though he'd asked her multiple times if she was sure, he'd agreed.

And now he was standing in the hotel lobby, wearing the suit she had picked out for him to wear and beaming at her.

"Care!" he greeted, stepping forward into the alcove where the elevator was located. He wrapped his arms around her in a friendly hug. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you," Caroline replied. "And thank you so much for being here."

"Are you kidding? I couldn't miss the military operation that Caroline Forbes's wedding is sure to be," Matt teased.

A woman carrying a clipboard and a walkie-talkie crossed the lobby towards them. The woman, whose nametag read 'Donna,' was one of the hotel's event coordinators, and though Caroline had done most of the planning for the wedding herself, Donna had handled the logistics and would be making sure that the ceremony ran smoothly, since Caroline would be too busy being the bride.

The wedding coordinator led them a few feet from the elevator to a door that led to a small room that attached to the ballroom with a short hallway. The room could be used for storage, as a dressing room, a meeting room, but for weddings, it was used as a staging area for the bridal party as they prepared to make their entrances.

The wedding coordinator instructed them all to line up in the order they would be walking in, with Victoria at the front, Caroline and Matt at the back, and Lizzie, Josie, Hope, Davina, Katherine, Freya, Rebekah, and Bonnie in between.

Donna crouched down in front of Victoria.

"Now, when I tell you, you're going to walk out into the hallway and down the aisle. You'll know when you've reached the aisle because there's a carpet laid out on the floor, okay? When you get there, start dropping little handfuls of petals from your basket. Don't throw too much at a time, you don't want to run out before you get to the end. Just keep walking and throwing petals until you reach your dad at the end of the aisle, and then you're going to sit down in the little chair we set up for you in the first row, right in front of where your mom is going to stand. Do you understand?" she asked Victoria.

"Throw flowers, walk to Daddy, sit in front of Mommy," Victoria parroted.

"Where are you going to throw the flowers?" Donna quizzed.

"Carpet," Victoria answered.

"And can you show me how you're going to throw the flowers?"

Once again, Victoria demonstrated, taking a small handful of flower petals from the basket, then letting fall out of her tiny fist and on to the floor.

"Well done," Donna complimented. "Are you ready to do it for real?"

Victoria nodded.

The wedding coordinator spoke quickly into her walkie-talkie, directing the musicians to start playing, then the videographer to start recording, and the photographer to get ready to take the pictures.

Donna waited four seconds, then said, "It's time to go, Victoria."

Victoria stepped forward into the hallway and out of Caroline's sight.

Donna the wedding coordinator could either still see her, or she just had a lot of experience with arranging weddings in the hotel ballroom, because she waited for almost a minute (and over a dozen camera clicks, making Caroline grateful that the photographer was taking her request to 'photograph every single second of this wedding' seriously) until Victoria must have been about halfway down the aisle before turning to Lizzie, Josie, and Hope.

"Okay, girls, it's your turn. Remember to hold your flowers at your waist and not at your chest, it will look better in the pictures."

The girls linked arms, holding their single roses, as requested, at their waists with both hands, closing the links of their little human chain.

"Perfect, now go," Donna instructed.

They stepped forward, following Victoria into the ballroom.

{ }

July 10, 2018 (two years, four months earlier)

Lizzie wandered into the dining room, rubbing her eyes.

"Mommy, Victoria's crying again," she said.

"I hear her, thank you, sweetie," Caroline replied.

"Why is Victoria always crying?" Victoria asked as Caroline stood up to go take care of the baby.

"She's only a week old, Lizzie, she doesn't know how to talk yet," Caroline explained. "Crying is the only way she knows how to let people know that she's hungry, or she needs her diaper changed, or she's tired and needs a nap."

"When will she learn how to talk?" Lizzie asked.

"Not for several months, I'm afraid," Caroline answered.

Caroline knew that adjusting to having a newborn in the house was challenging for the girls, and she wished she could be more sympathetic to their annoyance, but as the mother of said newborn, as well as two four-year-olds, she was far more stressed out and sleep-deprived than they were.

"I found her!" Katherine's voice called out to someone from the doorway. She was carrying Josie on her hip and had her purse slung over her shoulder.

Rebekah and Freya, who was holding Victoria, entered the room moments later.

"Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, I just needed to grab a blood bag before I started to desiccate, but I can take her now, thanks, Freya," Caroline responded.

"That isn't the plan," Katherine said. "And we were actually looking for Thing Two, not you."

Lizzie scrambled out of her chair and over to where Katherine, Rebekah, and Josie were waiting.

"Then what is your plan?" Caroline asked.

"We're taking the twins shopping," Katherine answered. "Freya and Elijah are going to babysit Victoria, and you are going to sleep for more than an hour at a time for the first time in a week."

Caroline opened her mouth to protest that Victoria and the twins were her responsibility, but Katherine interrupted her before she could even get a word out.

"Caroline, take advantage of the fact that you have a house full of family members who love your children and will gladly supervise them so that you can get some rest," Katherine ordered. Then she delivered the final blow. "You aren't doing any of your girls any good if you are running yourself ragged trying to take care of them to the point where you aren't eating or sleeping, and either desiccate or become the first vampire in history to pass out from exhaustion."

Caroline could tell from the resolute expressions on Katherine and Rebekah's faces that they would not be entertaining any arguments from her, even if she wasn't too exhausted to argue anyway.

"Try not to go too overboard," Caroline sighed. "I don't want them to think that we're bribing them into liking their baby sister."

"Don't worry, Mom, we're just going to get some piercings, maybe a few tattoos, see if we can get some guys to buy us drinks," Katherine listed facetiously.

"Katherine! We're going to the Disney Store, and Carter's, and Build-a-Bear Workshop, and maybe Cinnabon!" Rebekah scolded reproachfully.

"I guess we can go with your plan," Katherine relented.

"Please be good for Auntie Bekah and Auntie Kat," Caroline told the twins.

She waited until Rebekah's car pulled out of the driveway before racing upstairs for a long-overdue nap.

When they returned several hours later, all four of them laden with shopping bags, Caroline was the closest she'd been to well-rested since Victoria was born.

"Mommy!" she heard the twins call for her.

Caroline dashed downstairs to meet them.

"Oh my goodness," Caroline murmured when she saw them. "Rebekah, I said don't go overboard!"

Rebekah and Katherine had bought each of the twins at least twice as many clothes as were already in their closets, both from the shopping trip Rebekah and Klaus had taken them on when they first arrived in New Orleans and from what Alaric had shipped to them from their former home in Mystic Falls.

At least on that first trip, Rebekah had largely limited herself to clothes that came in pink; now, from what Caroline could see threatening to spill out of the overstuffed bags, they must have cleared out every item of clothing that came in the twins' sizes from every children's clothing store, in any color.

"Oops, my bad," Rebekah responded unapologetically.

"Mommy, look at this cool dress Auntie Bekah bought me!" Josie exclaimed.

Josie held up a cap-sleeved dress made of a shimmering, iridescent fabric that appeared to be either silver, periwinkle, or lilac depending on the lighting.

"That is very cool," Caroline agreed.

As Lizzie and Josie kept pulling the clothes they'd chosen out of the bags to show her, Caroline was able to sense patterns in the styles of clothing each of the twins would pick now that they were given the opportunity to select their own clothes.

Josie seemed to favor primary colors—bright red, yellow, and blue—and cool-toned pastels—the more difficult it was to tell whether the color in question was light blue or light purple, the more Josie seemed to like it—and simple, uniform prints like stripes, polka dots, and chevron print.

Lizzie, on the other hand, was in the market for a new favorite color after hearing Rebekah say that her goal was to ensure that Victoria would never wear an outfit that wasn't pink—and from the appearance of her shopping bags, she'd decided to try every color to determine her new favorite, although it seemed that, just like she hadn't wanted to share pink with her younger sister, she also didn't want to have the same favorite color as Hope, since green was the only color entirely absent.

"Look at all the colors, Mommy!" Lizzie cried, as if she herself had discovered them.

Her bags were stuffed full of clothes of all sorts of different colors, though unlike Josie, she seemed more attracted to warmer colors—shades of orange and red, some yellows and purples—and Caroline saw that she hadn't completely given up pink, but instead had chosen colors that Caroline would think of as 'pink-adjacent'—rose and blush; peach and salmon; coral, berry, and fuchsia—though any shade seemed to be acceptable when it was part of a print, since Caroline saw several floral prints featuring some pink flowers.

"Did you have fun choosing all of those colors?" Caroline asked.

Lizzie nodded enthusiastically.

"We both like purple, and yellow, and red; and all of us like purple," Lizzie said. "But I'm the only one the likes orange. And I love the pinkish-orangish colors, and the pinkish-purplish colors."

"I'm glad you've found so many colors you like," Caroline told her.

When Lizzie was that happy and excited, her blue eyes sparkled and almost seemed to laugh. While the muted blue color of her eyes came from Alaric, the exuberant expression could have only come from Jo.

After Victoria was born, Caroline found it hard to believe that she and Klaus had ever entertained the idea that Lizzie looked anything like what a child of theirs would look like. Yes, she had soft blue eyes that were somewhat similar to Klaus's, but how many millions of people in the world had blue eyes? And her hair color was approximately half-way between Klaus's and Caroline's, but genetics didn't work by taking both parents' genes and averaging them out.

Klaus had even confessed to Caroline that, for a time, Lizzie had even reminded him of a young Rebekah, though when Caroline asked what it was about the little girl that reminded him of his younger sister, the blonde hair and blue eyes were as specific as he could articulate.

Now that they had Victoria, they no longer needed to pin the hopes of what felt like a forbidden dream on Lizzie. They didn't need to imagine what their biological daughter would look like, because now they knew what she looked like—a tiny version of Caroline, with Rebekah's eyes and Klaus's mouth.

Yet Caroline didn't—couldn't—feel that Victoria had accomplished something that Lizzie had failed to. Lizzie simply wasn't the biological child that Klaus and Caroline had been certain they could never have.

As their entire family was trying to adapt to the massive change of having a new baby in the house, Lizzie had also had to react to several members of the family viewing her differently, as well as releasing her from unrealistic expectations that she had never asked for.

So while some of the attention that Lizzie had received up until recently now was given to Victoria, she had also been given a little more freedom, such as choosing the colors of her clothes.

"Where's Klaus? He went out before we left, and he still isn't back yet," Katherine wondered.

"Marcel called him early this morning. Apparently a visiting vampire spent the night drinking from as many unsuspecting tourists as he could get his hands on. They had to find him, snap his neck to keep him restrained, find out if he was on vervain, bleed it out of him if he was, then compel him to leave the city if he can't follow the rules," Caroline answered.

"Why did Marcel need Klaus's help with that?" Katherine asked, arching an eyebrow.

Caroline hesitated.

"Girls, why don't we have a little fashion show of all of the clothes we bought today so that your mom can see?" Rebekah suggested.

The girls took their bags and ran out of the room.

"It's more that Klaus volunteered," Caroline said quietly as soon as the twins were out of earshot.

"Why?" Rebekah asked.

"He's avoiding Victoria," Caroline replied.

"Again, why?" Rebekah repeated.

"He still seems to think that Victoria is too perfect for him, and that he would taint her or ruin her if he gets too close to her," Caroline sighed.

"Well, of course Victoria is perfect," Rebekah responded.

"She's also his daughter," Katherine added. "He can't avoid her forever, and he's already such a huge part of her, so if he was going to ruin her as he claims, I'm pretty sure inheriting half of her DNA from him would have already taken care of that."

"No positive thought can survive around you, can it?" Rebekah accused.

Just then, the girls came skipping back into the room, Josie in a royal blue and white striped dress with a bow in the front, and Lizzie in a mauve dress with a sequined top, tulle skirt, and lavender ribbon belt around the waist.

"Those are very pretty dresses," Caroline complimented, which caused both girls to grin.

"Let's see another outfit," Katherine encouraged.

The girls scampered back out of the room as quickly as they came.

"I want to check on Victoria while they get changed," Caroline announced.

Caroline used her vampire hearing to locate Elijah and Freya in Elijah's study.

Victoria, wearing a pink onesie decorated with little teddy bears dressed up as ballerinas, was sitting in her light pink bouncer while Elijah read aloud from the newspaper.

"Thank you so much for watching her while I slept," Caroline told them. "How was she?"

"Completely lacking any interest in personal finance," Elijah answered seriously. "She was wide awake and completely attentive—well, as attentive as a one-week-old baby can be—throughout the local news, national news, politics, and style sections, but she fell asleep when I got to business, she cried the entire time I read from the sports page, and by the time I finished and moved on to the weather, she'd worn herself out and was fast asleep."

Caroline laughed.

"I'm sure you'll teach them all they need to know, just maybe not in the first week," she joked.

Caroline unstrapped the now wide awake Victoria from her bouncy seat and held her against her shoulder.

"Okay, I'm taking Victoria with me, so you two are officially relieved from babysitting duties. I really appreciate your help," Caroline told them.

Elijah and Freya both replied that it had been no trouble at all before Caroline and Victoria went back to the dining room.

"Hi, baby princess!" Rebekah exclaimed as soon as she saw Victoria.

"Oh, here we go," Katherine muttered under her breath.

Caroline had to fight to hold back a laugh, understanding Katherine's reaction.

Rebekah was obsessed with Victoria. More cynical members of the family thought that she was just being fickle, as she often was, and that as soon as Victoria's newness wore off, Rebekah wouldn't treat her any differently than she did the other girls. Caroline didn't have the time or energy to theorize about how Rebekah might act in the future, and for now, she was just glad that Rebekah loved spending time with Victoria and was eager to help out.

Rebekah offered Victoria her hand, and the baby reflexively latched on to Rebekah's index finger with her fist.

Josie and Lizzie returned a moment later, Lizzie wearing a coral dress with fabric flowers on the sleeves, and Josie wearing a dress in the color that must be the precise meeting point of pastel blue and pastel purple.

"This is my favorite color," Josie announced.

"That seems fitting," Klaus responded, standing in the doorway.

Lizzie ran over to give him a hug, but Josie stood resolutely and demanded an explanation to Klaus's statement.

"Why?"

"Well, this color appears to be part blue and part purple. Among other things, the color blue symbolizes trust, calmness, confidence, and stability; and purple symbolizes nobility, power, wisdom, and magic—all of which are qualities that you possess."

Josie considered this for a moment.

"It's a compliment," Katherine cut in.

"I'm magic, too," Lizzie interrupted.

"She needs a sign: 'Caution: former youngest child, not adjusting well,'" Katherine teased.

"Be nice," Caroline requested.

"How was my littlest love while I was gone?" Klaus asked, walking over to Caroline and Victoria.

"Rebekah and Katherine orchestrated a hostile takeover to get me to sleep, so she spent the morning with Elijah, reading the newspaper, while Bekah and Kat took the twins shopping," Caroline answered.

"She's reading already?" Klaus asked jokingly. "You're so smart, my little princess."

"Well, Elijah was quite discouraged that she fell asleep when he read the business section to her, but apparently she was a fan of the politics and style sections," Caroline commented. "Do you want to take her?"

Klaus shook his head.

"She looks content with you, I wouldn't want to jeopardize the peace and quiet."

Caroline exchanged a concerned look with Rebekah.

She knew how much Klaus loved their daughter. She just needed to find a way to prove to him that she loved him and needed him in return.

{ }

August 3, 2018 (two years, three months earlier)

Very early in the morning on the day that Victoria turned one month old, Caroline packed their bags and strapped Victoria, Lizzie, and Josie into the backseat of her car. Caroline had specifically planned the trip for that day, since it was a Friday, which meant that Hayley would be coming soon to pick up Hope, so Hope wouldn't be the only child left in the Mikaelson house while they were gone.

With three young children, the drive took longer than the sixteen hours her phone thought it would take. Victoria needed to be fed or have her diaper changed every few hours, and the twins needed regular bathroom and snack breaks as well.

It was well past midnight when they finally arrived. Caroline carried all three girls inside and tucked them in bed before retrieving their luggage and going to sleep herself.

The next morning, Caroline dressed Victoria in one of the many light pink lace dresses that Rebekah had purchased for her, a matching pink lace headband with a bow made of the same pink lace material attached, and tiny white Mary Jane shoes with pink bows covering the straps. Josie and Lizzie were old enough to dress themselves most of the time, but that morning they each needed help doing up the zippers on the backs of their dresses—Josie's navy blue on top with a navy and white striped skirt and a red belt, Lizzie's a pastel watercolor floral pattern on top with a peach tulle skirt and a taupe belt with an ivory rose attached to it.

Then she strapped all three of them into their car seats and drove to the edge of town.

"Where are we?" Josie asked when they reached their destination.

"We're here to visit Grandma," Caroline told her.

The twins had been to a cemetery before, at Alaric's funeral, and a few times to visit him since, but they were still too little to really understand the point of visiting a dead loved one. Whenever they went to Alaric's grave, they just stared uncomfortably at the headstone, either unable or unwilling to make the connection between it and their father.

"Is Grandma in the ground like Daddy?" Lizzie asked.

Caroline made a mental note to make another attempt at explaining death to the twins, since their current way of describing people who had passed away would sound insensitive to anyone outside of the family.

"Grandma died a few years ago, and now she's buried here," Caroline tried to explain.

"Okay," Josie seemed to understand.

"Here we are," Caroline announced, coming to a stop in front of her mother's grave. "See? It says, 'Elizabeth Forbes.' That's Grandma's name."

"My name is Elizabeth, too!" Lizzie exclaimed.

"That's right; you were named after Grandma," Caroline responded.

They stood silently for a moment, then Caroline started speaking.

"Hi, Mom, I'm back," Caroline said. "And this time I brought the girls with me. All three of them. Mom, I want to introduce you to our newest addition, Victoria Grace. She's a month old as of yesterday, and she's beautiful, and perfect, and so very loved. I wish that you were here to meet her for real."

Caroline paused to organize her thoughts, considering what to tell her mother next.

"Caroline?" a familiar voice called out.

Caroline turned around to see Matt Donovan approaching them, a multiple bouquets of white flowers in his hands.

"Hi, Matt!" Caroline greeted enthusiastically. "What are you doing here?"

Matt stepped forward to greet Caroline with a one-armed hug, so as not to crush the flowers he was holding, inadvertently avoiding touching the baby resting against Caroline's shoulder in the process. Then he knelt down and hugged each of the twins, who greeted him cheerfully.

"I should asked you the same question," Matt replied. "I try to stop by once a week, though I can't always come as regularly as I'd like."

Caroline was touched by Matt's dedication to her mother and his predecessor as sheriff.

"I really appreciate that you come visit her," Caroline told him.

Matt shrugged off Caroline's emotional, heartfelt thanks.

"I'm the only one left," he said. "It only seems right for me to check up on all of the loved ones we've all lost. So when I come to visit Vicki and Tyler, I stop to pay my respects to your parents, Elena's parents and Aunt Jenna, Bonnie's Grams, even Stefan in that creepy Salvatore crypt."

"Thank you for doing that, Matt," Caroline said.

Matt just nodded.

"Now enough talk about the dead, I'm far more interested in what you and these girls who have grown so much since I last saw them have been up to," Matt changed the subject.

"Funny you should mention that," Caroline started.

"Only you could turn a basic, 'How have you been' into a 'Funny you should mention that,'" Matt chuckled.

Caroline turned Victoria around and shifted so that Matt could see her.

"You have a baby," Matt stated, clearly stunned.

"Yes, I have a baby," Caroline replied patiently.

"Wait a minute," Matt took a couple of steps forward. "She looks like you."

"That's because she's my daughter," Caroline responded.

"How is that possible?" Matt asked.

Caroline told Matt all about The Void, how Esther had come back to life, Esther's plans to kill Hope, and all of the times that Caroline had found herself caught in the middle of those plans, including the time when Esther had magically orchestrated Caroline's pregnancy.

"That all sounds insane," Matt managed to respond. "Even more insane than the last time you got pregnant."

"Agreed, though the pregnancy itself was considerably easier and less stressful," Caroline added.

"So, you still haven't told me her name, or how old she is," Matt pointed out.

"Right, sorry," Caroline said. "Matt, this is Victoria. Victoria Grace Mikaelson. And she is one month and one day old."

Caroline smiled down at the baby, and when she looked up, she saw that Matt's eyes were glassy.

"You named her Victoria?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," Caroline confirmed. "Partly because I wanted her to have a queen's name like my mom and me, and this one was especially perfect because it's the name of the Roman goddess of victory, which is the equivalent of the goddess that Klaus's name comes from, and partly because I wanted to honor all of the loved ones that weren't fortunate enough to survive Mystic Falls like we did, sort of like what you're doing by visiting all of their graves."

Matt smiled softly.

"Thanks, Caroline."

He shifted a little awkwardly, clearly intent on saying something but unsure of how best to say it.

"I just have to know," Matt blurted eventually. "It's hard for me to picture Klaus as a father, so I need you to tell me, truthfully, that he's a good dad to her."

"To all of them," Caroline promised.

If Matt was uncomfortable or upset by Caroline referring to Klaus as the twins' father as well, he didn't show it.

"Good," Matt looked at Victoria, then each of the twins in turn, before he leaned down to place his flowers in front of Liz's grave. "They deserve better than what we had."

{ }

September 18, 2018 (two years, two months earlier)

Klaus could hear Victoria crying using his supernatural hearing abilities, and the baby monitor that he still wasn't sure why Caroline had bothered to purchase, given the aforementioned supernatural hearing abilities.

He waited a second to determine if Victoria's cries had woken Caroline, but it seemed that this was one of the infrequent occasions when Caroline's sheer exhaustion won out over her vampire reflexes, because she remained sound asleep.

Klaus pulled himself out of bed to go tend to Victoria. It wasn't unusual for him to be the one to get up in the middle of the night to feed or soothe the baby, but Caroline did it more often than he did because of their sleep schedules. Caroline, who lived by the 'early to bed, early to rise' mentality, would feed and change Victoria shortly before she went to bed, then Klaus, a night-owl, would check on her and feed her or change her diaper if necessary before he went to bed. That way, by the time Victoria woke up in the middle of the night, Caroline had already had several consecutive hours of sleep, and any additional sleep she was able to get after she got Victoria back to sleep would be a bonus.

Klaus quickly made his way next door to Victoria's nursery, hoping that she wouldn't wake anyone else up. The girls had gotten pretty good at tuning out their baby sister's crying, and his siblings had had centuries of experience deliberately not using their vampire hearing.

As he approached Victoria's crib, Klaus saw the baby lying on her back, wiggling her arms and legs, trying to free herself from her blankets. Smiling at her determined squirming, Klaus took pity on his daughter and picked her up.

"What seems to be the matter, my littlest love?" Klaus asked Victoria. "You don't need to be changed. Are you hungry?"

Klaus wasn't sure why he asked when he knew she couldn't answer him, yet he still felt his frustration increase when she continued to cry.

"Do you want your mother? I can't blame you, I would want Caroline instead of me, as well. Your mother always seems to know exactly what you want and exactly the right thing to do."

While he knew that Caroline knew the circumstances of Hope's birth and the first months of her life, Klaus wasn't quite certain that she'd ever considered the implications: namely, that he'd never had a newborn before.

Hope had been in his custody for mere hours after her birth before he had handed her over to his sister for safekeeping. It was only after eight long months that he saw Hope again.

By then, she was sitting up on her own, eating baby food out of a jar, and sleeping through the night a lot of the time. He had no frame of reference for any development that had occurred before then, and even though he had done research to try to make up for it, he had no first-hand experience.

So he had no idea what he could do to get his six-week-old daughter, who did not seem to need to be fed or have her diaper changed, to go back to sleep.

"I'm sorry, Victoria, I'm not very good at this, I'm afraid," Klaus apologized.

He moved to sit down on the rocking chair they kept in the corner of the room.

A few minutes of quiet rocking did nothing to lull Victoria back to sleep, though her cries did decrease in volume, so Klaus concluded that he was doing something right.

Klaus looked down at Victoria, wearing tiny pink fleece pajamas, her increasingly silver eyes blinking sluggishly up at him.

"Were you just lonely, sweetheart? You spend all day with the whole family doting on you, showering you with attention and affection, and then when it's bedtime you're in here all alone, but you've learned that whenever you cry, someone comes running to give you whatever you want," Klaus shook his head, smiling. "It's taken you all of six weeks to figure out how manipulate all of us. You truly are a Mikaelson."

"It's a lifetime of this for me," Klaus continued. "You will never want for anything. There is no limit to what I would do to keep you safe and happy. You aren't old enough to understand this now, but in the world we live in, I'm the king, and your mother is my queen, which makes you our princess. Our sweet, beautiful, perfect littlest princess."

Victoria yawned, her tiny mouth forming a perfect 'O' shape.

"And because you're so sweet and beautiful and perfect, my little princess, I never want anything to hurt you or make you unhappy, and I've been so afraid that maybe I could hurt you or make you unhappy. I've worried that I would taint you or ruin you, because I'm not perfect like you are, or like your mother is. But no matter what, I need you to know and never doubt that I love you with every fiber of my being. There aren't even words that I can use to accurately describe to you just how much I love you."

Victoria had finally stopped crying and now looked moments away from succumbing to sleep, so Klaus decided to keep talking to her until then.

"I didn't have a good father, but I want to be better than he was, for you, because you deserve better than what I had to suffer. You deserve the best. And I can't promise that I'll be perfect, or that I'll never mess up or let my own fears and insecurities get the best of me, but I can promise that I will always try to be good enough for you. I want you to be as proud to be my daughter as I am to be your father."

When Klaus looked back down, he saw that Victoria was finally asleep. He smiled and carefully stood up so as not to disturb her, then made his way across the room to place her in her crib.

Klaus placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, then pulled her pink baby blanket up to cover her.

"Sweet dreams, my sleeping beauty."

{ }

October 31, 2018 (two years, one week earlier)

Caroline might have just officially reached the end of her rope.

She was trying to get four children ranging from four-months-old-on-Saturday to six-and-a-half-on-Friday into their Halloween costumes, while setting up for the Halloween party she was throwing—which happened to be the first event she'd hosted since before Victoria was born. The girls were too excited at the prospect of candy to cooperate, which meant Caroline needed to be upstairs in the twins' room supervising them rather than in the courtyard setting up the decorations, and the rest of the Mikaelson family had practically disappeared.

Well, that wasn't entirely fair. Rebekah, Freya, and Bonnie had asked when it would be most convenient for them to go change into their costumes, and, now realizing that she'd grossly underestimated the amount of work she still had to do, Caroline had told them to go ahead, assuming that Hayley would be arriving any minute to help get Hope ready.

But Hayley was running late, without even an apology text, and Caroline was already on edge after Bonnie had announced yesterday that she planned to move out in the new year.

Caroline understood where her friend was coming from: As Bonnie put it herself, "When I first came to New Orleans, I had no idea how long I would be staying. Then everything with The Void happened, then I stayed to help you defeat Esther, then I stayed with you during your pregnancy and to help you take care of a newborn, but you don't need me under the same roof anymore, and I want to be a single, independent woman living on her own in the big city for the first time."

As far as Caroline could tell, Bonnie hadn't told anyone else about her intentions to find her own place to live, and she didn't want to be the one to share that information if Bonnie wanted to keep it to herself, so she couldn't even talk to anyone (except Victoria, though not being able to talk yet seriously hindered her daughter's ability to give helpful advice) about how her best friend was leaving her.

"Have I told you that your idea to throw a Halloween party here tonight is genius?"

Klaus was standing in the doorway, having just returned from a patrol of the neighborhood with Marcel, trying to stop any potentially harmful Halloween pranks before they could happen.

"Not recently, why do you say so?" Caroline asked.

"With every supernatural creature in the city in our courtyard, they won't be out terrorizing the human population," Klaus explained.

"I must admit, the thought did occur to me while I was planning," Caroline acknowledged. "I have to help the girls change into their costumes, and we're going in order of how likely it is that they'll spit up on their costumes, so can you take the baby while I help the twins?"

"I can do that," Klaus agreed, a little stiffly. He had gotten a lot more comfortable around Victoria in recent weeks, though he still hadn't completely overcome his worries that Victoria was too good for him and would be better off without him. Caroline imagined that they would have to revisit this topic the first time Victoria misbehaved, since she doubted that Klaus would immediately feel comfortable disciplining her, but he did go out of his way to hold her and talk to her more than he had when she was first born.

Caroline handed Victoria, still wearing an ordinary pink dress rather than anything festive, over to Klaus.

"Hello there, my littlest love," Klaus greeted Victoria, as he always did. "We're having a party, are you excited?" Victoria made a little noise that Klaus interpreted as being in the affirmative. "What's there for you to be excited about? You can't eat any candy: you don't have teeth!" He told her in a deceptively cheerful tone that made the twins laugh and Victoria offer a gummy baby smile.

Caroline's phone vibrated on the dresser, and she picked it up immediately, seeing Hayley's contact name (her name followed by a green heart emoji, a wolf emoji, a crown emoji, and another green heart emoji) appear on her screen.

'A member of my pack triggered their curse today, but I've done everything I can for him and I'm on my way now.'

"Hope, your mom is on her way," Caroline told her. "Someone from your wolf pack triggered their curse today, so she needed to help him."

Hope nodded agreeably.

Caroline set down the phone and picked up the packages that twins' costumes had come in.

"Which one of you wants to go first?" she asked.

Both Lizzie and Josie excitedly cheered, "Me!"

"I thought they would dress up as princesses since they already have the costumes," Klaus said.

Caroline rolled her eyes. She took Josie's costume out of the bag, picking up the tights and leaving the rest on her bed.

"That would be no fun, since they already have the costumes and wear them to play all the time," Caroline explained. "They want something different for Halloween."

"So what did you and Rebekah pick out for the littlest one?" Klaus asked.

Caroline pointed to the clear plastic bag on Lizzie's bed that held the pink Minnie Mouse costume that she and Rebekah had fallen in love with in the store and decided that Victoria just had to have.

"She doesn't even get a break from pink on Halloween," Klaus commented.

"Never," Caroline agreed. "But she does get to wear mouse ears."

Caroline instructed Josie to sit on the bed so that she could help her with the tights, which, at four, the girls still had trouble with. When her tights were in place, Caroline grabbed the leotard and let Josie lean on her shoulder for balance while she stepped into it.

Josie was just pushing her arms through the sleeves of the leotard when Hayley came rushing into the room.

"Hi, Mom!" Hope greeted enthusiastically.

Hayley was already in her costume, dressed as Robin Hood in an olive green blouse, tan trousers and a matching vest, dark brown flat boots, a quiver of arrows hanging across her back, and an olive green cap with a feather in it.

"Hey, great costume! Hope's costume is on Josie's bed if you want to help her get ready," Caroline told Hayley, who nodded.

While Caroline helped Josie with her tutu, which instead of having an elastic waistband, wrapped around and tied with a ribbon, Hayley quickly helped Hope change into the top and skirt of her costume.

Once they had each put on the accessories that went along with their costumes, Caroline did Josie's hair, tying the top half up using the ribbon that matched the one on her skirt.

"Look, I'm a fairy!" Josie announced as soon as Caroline finished.

Josie had chosen the costume based on the fact that it came in her new favorite color, and that fairies could do magic, but weren't witches (because, as she put it, what was the point of dressing up as a witch when she already was a witch?). The costume was made up of white tights, a light bluish-purple leotard, a tutu made of alternating layers of purple and blue tulle, iridescent blue and purple wings with silver trim, a silver wand with a purple star-shaped jewel at the top, and dark purple flat shoes with ribbons that laced up her legs and tied in a bow just under her knees.

"You're an adorable fairy, Josie," Caroline said.

Then Hope stepped forward to show off her costume.

Hope was dressed as Wonder Woman, wearing the blue skirt patterned with white stars, the red top with the superhero's logo, and the signature boots and bracelets.

"Is it my turn now?" Lizzie asked, still wearing the orange tee-shirt with a smiling jack-o'-lantern that she'd been wearing all day.

"Yes, we'll get you ready, and then get Victoria ready, and then it will be time to finish the decorations. You three can help, won't that be fun?" Caroline said.

"When I got here, Kol and Davina were taking care of the decorations," Hayley mentioned.

"That is the best news I've heard all day," Caroline sighed in relief. "I mean, I'll still have to make sure everything is in place according to the chart, but moving a few things is a lot less work than setting everything up in the first place."

"You know what's even less work than that? Taking a deep breath and not being an uptight micromanager," Katherine said, announcing her presence.

Katherine had decided to dress up as a pirate, even though everyone had expected her to dress up as Catwoman, responding to the suggestion by insisting that the costume would be a little too on-brand for her. She was wearing a short black and white striped skirt, fishnet stockings, over-the-knee black leather boots, a white off-the-shoulder peasant blouse with a black corset over it, and a black and white bandana tied over her long curly hair. Caroline knew that there was no way she could have reined Katherine in completely and convinced her to choose a costume that was child-friendly, but knowing Katherine, she could have worn something much more frightening or provocative than what she was wearing.

"Actually, an extreme makeover of my entire personality sounds like it would be a lot of work," Caroline retorted.

"She has a point," Freya offered from behind Katherine.

Freya was dressed as Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's in a classic black dress, pearl necklace, and heels, with her hair, temporarily dyed dark brown, twisted into a neat knot at the back of her head.

"We can help get Lizzie ready so that you and Klaus can get Victoria changed into her costume, if that will help you out?" Freya offered.

"Yes, thank you," Caroline replied.

Caroline took Victoria from Klaus and laid her down on Lizzie's bed, quickly exchanging her day dress for the bubblegum pink polka-dotted dress of her costume and covering her chubby little legs with white tights. Then she tied the oversized bow at the front of the dress, straightened the lace trim at the hem of the dress and the sleeves, fastened the black patent Mary Jane shoes with matching pink bows covering the straps, and put the Minnie Mouse ear headband featuring a matching pink bow on Victoria's head.

The reason that Caroline and Rebekah had chosen this particular costume for baby Victoria was that it wasn't much different from what she usually wore, so it wouldn't be unusual or uncomfortable for her. At the heart of it, the costume was just a pink dress, which Victoria wore almost every day. This dress just had Minnie Mouse's signature polka dot pattern, and her headband had mouse ears decorated with a pink bow rather than a pink heart or flower.

"She's so precious!" Rebekah exclaimed from the doorway.

Rebekah was stunning as Marilyn Monroe, wearing her infamous white dress and matching heels. She'd curled her long blonde hair and pinned it in such a way that the length appeared to only reach the tops of her shoulders.

Rebekah quickly walked over and picked Victoria up, speaking quietly to the baby.

"Lizzie's finished, too," Freya announced, stepping back to let them see.

"Why did she want to be a bee?" Klaus asked Caroline in a whisper.

"She liked it, and she saw that Josie had wings, so she wanted wings, and this was the cutest costume in the store that came with wings," Caroline said.

As odd as her costume choice may have seemed, Lizzie looked adorable in her black and yellow striped top, yellow tulle tutu with black trim, black tights, and translucent dark grey wings. The costume hadn't come with shoes, so she was just wearing her black ballet flats. Freya had coiled her honey-colored hair into a bun that resembled a honeycomb before putting on the antenna headband.

"You all look wonderful!" Caroline cheered. "If we're all ready, we can go downstairs to see how the set up for the party is coming along!"

"Wait for me!" Bonnie shouted, running down the hallway. Bonnie was wearing a Harry Potter themed costume: a long black robe with the Ravenclaw house logo, a white button-down shirt with a blue striped tie, a grey pleated skirt, blue and grey argyle socks, and black shoes.

"Hold a grown-up's hand, please, girls, we don't know what kind of Halloween mayhem Kol has managed in the time we were changing," Caroline said.

Hope took Hayley's hand, Josie took Katherine's, and Lizzie took Freya's.

"I left Jackson down here to help out, since I knew that Kol would be the only one who would find his costume funny," Hayley said.

"What is his costume?" Bonnie asked.

"He's wearing the same green flannel shirt and blue jeans he's been wearing all day, but now he's carrying around an axe from the tool shed and calling himself a lumberjack," Hayley frowned.

"That's almost funny," Bonnie offered.

"No, it isn't," Katherine countered. "But Elijah is doing the same thing, though fortunately without any puns. I'm not sure if he's decided on James Bond, or the President of The United States for his 'costume.'"

Downstairs in the courtyard, Kol (dressed as Frankenstein's monster), Davina (dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, with Josie's stuffed dog playing the role of Toto), and Jackson (dressed as a lumberjack) were trying to get the fog machine to work.

Caroline was pleased to see that they had started with the practical tasks—setting up the sound system, bringing tables for food and drinks outside, moving a giant cauldron to cover the planter—leaving the decorating to her.

"Thank you for all of your help, guys!" Caroline called out.

"You're welcome!" Davina replied.

Together they were able to make quick work of the remaining decorations. Caroline hung the strings of lights (some orange pumpkins, some white ghosts, and some black bats), set the jack-o'-lanterns out by the gates, and set up the spotlights (which alternated between orange, black, white, and purple) in the corners of the courtyard. Kol and Davina set up the fog machine inside the cauldron, so it looked like a witch's potion, along with some lights that let off a shower of sparks at random intervals. Hayley and Jackson hung a full moon with the shadowy silhouette of a wolf in the corner from the balcony, as well as hanging some bats and spider webs around the courtyard. Freya and Bonnie took charge of the food, covering the tables with festive tablecloths before setting out candy, the punch bowl, and the festive cookies and cupcakes that Caroline had ordered from the bakery. The twins and Hope were responsible for placing the balloons around the courtyard. Rebekah (once she'd given Victoria back to Caroline) had written messages in fake blood and drawn chalk outlines of bodies on the ground.

Freya had also put a boundary spell on the house, so that guests could access the courtyard, but not any of the rooms inside.

Caroline checked the time on her phone.

"We have about half an hour until the first guests start to arrive," she announced. "And we're just waiting on Elijah and Finn to finish getting ready and come down here."

Several members of the family looked at her questioningly.

"What?" Caroline asked self-consciously.

"You weren't going to wear a costume to your own Halloween party?" Freya asked tentatively.

Caroline looked down. She was, in fact, still wearing a Mystic Falls High Cheer sweatshirt and a pair of leggings.

"I forgot to get myself a costume," Caroline realized. "I was so focused on buying costumes for the girls, and then preparing for the party, and then getting them ready that I forgot all about me."

"Okay. Did anyone buy a backup costume?" Rebekah took charge of the situation.

Everyone shook their heads.

"Well, there's no way that I'll find anything this late in the day on Halloween," Caroline lamented.

"It will be fine," Rebekah insisted. "Go up to the attic and find a dress you like. If it's from the '20s, you're Daisy Buchanan. If it's from the 18th century, you're Elizabeth Bennet. The possibilities for historical and literary figures up there are nearly endless, and if we all search, I'm sure we can find something decent in the time we have before the party. Give Nik the baby, Care, and let's go."

Caroline, Rebekah, Freya, Katherine, Bonnie, Davina, Josie, Lizzie, and Hope rushed upstairs, running into Finn, who was wearing drab black clothes with a toy raven perched on his shoulder—clearly dressed as Edgar Allan Poe—on their way up.

Caroline quickly found the dresses she'd rejected the day of the Gatsby party she'd planned, which she could wear tonight because she didn't have to worry about matching with anyone else.

"Those will be our last resort; while it's not technically repeating an outfit, it's very close," Rebekah declared.

"These look like dresses I wore when I first arrived in Mystic Falls," Katherine said, looking through a rack of long gowns with wide hoop skirts.

"Yes, those are very Civil War-era Southern Belle," Rebekah chuckled. Then she turned to Caroline. "Your favorite movie is Gone with the Wind. Pick one of these dresses and be Scarlett O'Hara."

"As awful as she is, the costume will do in a pinch," Caroline agreed, grateful that they'd found something so quickly.

"Do you not like the movie anymore?" Freya asked.

"Not as much as when I was a teenager," Caroline answered. "Anything set in the antebellum South is automatically problematic; as much as I used to admire Scarlett's independence and perseverance, she also treated people horribly, to sum up her faults succinctly; and Rhett Butler wasn't exactly a nice guy either. It isn't a movie that I would show to my daughters and hold up as some sort of example for how they should act or what a healthy relationship looks like."

"Would you rather be Marie Antoinette instead?" Rebekah held up an even more elaborate dress in shades of cream and pale pink. "I stole this from her."

"You stole a dress from Marie Antoinette?" Caroline asked.

"It wasn't like she was going to be using it," Rebekah insisted.

"Okay, if only for the thrill of wearing a dress that was once worn by a queen," Caroline agreed.

With help from Rebekah, Freya, and Katherine, Caroline changed into the dress, which had such a full skirt that she wasn't sure she would be able to fit through the door.

Rebekah sped out the door and returned seconds later with Caroline's makeup bag.

"Freya and I are doing makeup, you three are on hair," Rebekah instructed. "We only have fifteen minutes until the party starts."

"That's cutting it very close," Caroline worried.

"We'll be able to stall," Rebekah reassured her. "The first people to show up will be Marcel, Vincent, Josh, and Aiden anyway. Plus, Victoria's cute enough to distract from the fact that you're not there."

But sure enough, thirteen minutes later, with the help of vampire speed, Caroline was as ready as she would be and they were all making their way downstairs. Had she had all day to prepare, she would have done her hair in a more polished pompadour, and she might have put on eyeshadow, but the pinned-up style that Katherine, Bonnie, and Davina had arranged her hair into was more than passable consider how quickly it had been done, and she considered everything beyond foundation and mascara a bonus in the rapid-fire makeup look she was currently wearing.

The party itself went off without a hitch. As soon as Caroline arrived downstairs, she was met by Marcel, who was dressed as The Phantom from Phantom of the Opera. Hope was thrilled when she saw Josh and Aiden dressed as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Caroline didn't recognize Vincent's costume, which led her to believe that he was dressed as a notable figure in New Orleans's history.

Caroline spent the next several hours playing hostess: refilling the punch bowl, directing party guests to the nearest bathroom, giving out candy to children when they said "Trick or Treat."

Victoria was with her part of the time, while other times, Klaus, Rebekah, or Freya would carry her around, showing her off to the party guests. She saw the twins less frequently than she was really comfortable with, but she knew that they were in good hands, as each of the three girls had been assigned a couple who had offered to supervise them for the night while Klaus and Caroline were busy hosting the party and essentially babysitting the entire supernatural population of New Orleans.

It was long past the girls' bedtimes when the last guest finally stumbled through the gates. Rebekah was holding Victoria, Klaus was standing with his arms around Caroline, Freya was taking down the boundary spell now that it was no longer necessary, and Bonnie was chatting with Marcel, who Caroline didn't consider a guest, but part of the family who didn't live with them, just like Bonnie soon would be.

From what Caroline could hear of their conversation, Marcel was offering to compel her an apartment in his building, and Bonnie was politely refusing the offer, citing her need to be independent and self-sufficient. Marcel asked if she would like him to at least let her know of any available units in his building so that she could consider them, to which Bonnie agreed and thanked him. Caroline appreciated Marcel's offers, knowing that she would feel much more comfortable about her best friend living alone if there was a powerful vampire living in the same building who would protect her in the event of a supernatural catastrophe (which she and Bonnie had already survived more than their fair share of).

Hope was standing with Hayley and Jackson, who were saying their goodbyes to the Mikaelsons and preparing to leave as soon as they tucked Hope into bed. Josie was standing in between Kol and Davina, holding each of their hands, while Kol held the wand that came with Josie's costume, amusing her by pretending to cast spells with it. Lizzie was sitting on the ground in front of Katherine and Elijah, her tutu lying flat on the ground around her.

"Victoria won't stop crying," Rebekah told Caroline. "Nothing I do is working."

Caroline took her wailing daughter from Rebekah, but after several minutes of rocking, talking, and singing, she hadn't made any progress in trying to get Victoria to calm down.

"Victoria won't stop crying," Caroline told Klaus. "Nothing I do is working."

"What do you think I can do that you haven't?" Klaus asked. "You're better at this than I am, and she likes you better than me."

"That isn't true," Caroline insisted. "She loves you, and she needs you."

Klaus still didn't look convinced, but he did willingly take the baby.

"Let's see if we can't get you smiling again, my little angel," Klaus said to Victoria.

Several startling things happened within the next few seconds.

Katherine collapsed.

The fog machine malfunctioned, causing the courtyard to go from shrouded in a light, misty haze, to looking like the middle of a tornado.

The lights went haywire, sparks flying everywhere like bolts of lightning.

"Nobody likes me anymore!" Lizzie wailed.

"Elizabeth, did you do this?" Elijah asked sternly, gesturing to Katherine lying on the ground and the thick fog swirling around them.

"I didn't mean to!" the little girl cried.

"You have to learn how to control it, Lizzie," Josie scolded her twin. "You can't use your powers on people every time you get mad or sad."

"Hey, Elijah and Elijah, Jr., you aren't helping," Marcel cut in. He leaned down closer to Lizzie's height. "Come here, honeybee."

Lizzie pouted, but obligingly stood up and walked over to Marcel.

"Marcel…" Caroline started, but wasn't sure what to say next. Should she apologize for being a bad mother? For being stretched so thin with four children that she didn't realize one of them was falling apart? For writing off Lizzie's changes in behavior as simply adjusting to having a new sibling?

Marcel just nodded and picked Lizzie up.

"Don't worry, Caroline. If there's anyone here who understands what it feels like to have your adoptive father have a biological daughter who seems more important to him than you are, it's me."

As they walked away, Klaus asked quietly, "Do you know what it was that set her off?"

"You called Victoria your little angel, which up until now, was a term of endearment reserved for Lizzie," Caroline sighed.

Klaus looked surprised.

"Oh. Well, I can go back to only using that for Lizzie," Klaus proposed, but Caroline shook her head.

"I wouldn't. The damage has already been done. Lizzie now associates that name with Victoria, and Victoria replacing her. So use it for Victoria or don't use it Victoria, but you can't use it for Lizzie anymore."

In the periphery, Caroline heard Marcel and Lizzie sit down at the dining room table.

"And did you expect Josie to scold her the way she did?" Klaus asked.

"Yes," Caroline answered. "I'm just glad she didn't try to set her sister on fire this time."

"Josie lives by the Spiderman motto: 'With great power comes great responsibility.' She takes her magical abilities very seriously, and she doesn't have much patience for Lizzie when she thinks Lizzie isn't taking her powers seriously. Josie has always had an easier time than Lizzie controlling her magic, even in stressful or emotional situations, and she hasn't developed enough empathy yet to understand that Lizzie doesn't have the same ability, so she thinks that Lizzie is being careless when she allows her emotions to control her magic."

Caroline listened in on Marcel and Lizzie's conversation.

"Come on, shortcake, you know your dad loves you," Marcel was saying. "And even if you don't know that, I know your dad loves you. And you know I wouldn't lie to you."

"Everyone loves Victoria more," Lizzie said quietly.

"I don't," Marcel said bluntly. "As far as I'm concerned, all four of you are my baby sisters, and I'd take a stake through the heart for any of you. Think of it this way: do you love Josie more than you love Hope or Victoria?"

"No," Lizzie admitted.

"It's the same for your parents," Marcel explained. "They love all of you the same. But you're big enough that you can walk and talk on your own, so they don't need to carry you around everywhere and spend time guessing what you want. Victoria needs more help and attention than you do right now, and it isn't because your parents like her more, it's because she's little."

Caroline had to strain to hear Lizzie's small voice over the sound of Victoria crying. Klaus kept talking to her, trying to soothe her, but nothing was working.

"I know my sweet little princess is hiding somewhere under these mouse ears," Klaus said. "Which don't look very comfortable if you ask me."

Klaus pulled the headband off of Victoria's head and lifted her up so that her head was tucked under his chin.

Within minutes, Victoria had stopped crying and was sleeping contentedly, curled up against Klaus's chest.

Caroline mentally scolded herself as she realized her mistake. While Victoria did regularly wear headbands, she only ever wore the soft fabric kind that stretched around her head, not the hard plastic ones like the mouse ears.

"I should have realized that she's not old enough yet to be desensitized to the headache that comes with wearing a headband," Caroline said. "Remember this the next time you think that you can't figure out what she needs."

Klaus smiled almost shyly at Caroline before leaning down and pressing a kiss to the top of Victoria's head.

"But Auntie Bekah buys pink dresses for Victoria and not me, and Klaus called Victoria his little angel and not me," Lizzie whined from the other room, clearly audible now that Victoria was silent.

"Then you'll be his something else," Marcel told her. "And your aunt took you shopping and let you pick out dresses in every color you wanted. Isn't that better than just one color that she picked for you?"

"But it's just me," Lizzie continued. "Josie and Hope are the same."

"Everyone's different," Marcel replied. "Just because they aren't sad when you are doesn't mean you can't be sad. Maybe they just see the situation differently, or maybe they're choosing to focus on other things, like Josie working on her magic with Davina and Kol, or Hope spending half of her time with her mom and their werewolf pack. It's okay that you feel this more deeply than they seem to. You don't have to be Hope or Josie or Victoria, or your dad's little angel or your Aunt Rebekah's Barbie doll, okay? You can be anything you want to be."

"Be," Lizzie giggled. "I'm a bee."

"See? Victoria isn't a bee. You're the only bee here, and I gotta say, you're a pretty fantastic bee," Marcel told her.

"I can be a bee."

"Okay, honeybee. You think you're ready to go back out there? Maybe say you're sorry for the mess you made when you got upset and lost control of your magic?"

"Okay," Lizzie agreed. Then, remembering her manners, "Thank you."

"Anytime, sunshine. I'm always here for you."

Lizzie walked back out to the courtyard, holding Marcel's hand.

"I'm sorry," she said with a pout.

"It's all right, darling," Klaus said. "No lasting harm done. You'll get better at controlling your magic with practice."

Lizzie walked over to Katherine, who was still lying unconscious on the floor.

"I'm sorry, Auntie Kat," Lizzie told her.

"Maybe we'll try that one again when she's conscious," Caroline proposed.

Freya and Davina offered to put the twins to bed while Bonnie stayed behind to fix the machines and Caroline supervised clean up while feeding Victoria.

As Marcel made his way towards the gate, Caroline called his name to stop him.

"Thank you," she said.

"Like I told Lizzie, anytime," Marcel replied, and then he left.

"Okay, but if Lizzie is convinced her new identity now that Victoria is the victim of Rebekah's desire to have a living, breathing Barbie doll to play with is a bee, we're going to need to keep her away from that weird movie with that weird talking bee who has a weird romantic relationship with a human woman," Caroline said.

Everyone looked varying degrees of concerned and disturbed.

Only Bonnie seemed to recognize the movie Caroline was referring to.

"Yeah, we're going to need to intervene before this whole bee thing gets too weird."

"You're going to miss this when you're gone," Caroline told Bonnie.

While everyone else asked Bonnie where she was going and why she was leaving, Caroline and Bonnie dissolved into an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

And the next day, a gift arrived to the Mikaelson mansion for Lizzie: a sign, shaped like a bee, with the words, "You can bee anything you want to bee," written in red on the yellow stripes.

{ }

Present

"Daddy!" Caroline heard Victoria squeal happily as she reached the end of the aisle.

"My littlest love," Klaus returned, his smile audible in his voice, as he scooped Victoria up into a hug.

"Did I do good?" Victoria whispered.

"You were perfect, my little princess," Klaus assured her.

Caroline didn't hear them say anything else, so she assumed that Klaus had set Victoria down and sent her to sit in her chair.

"Now it's the bridesmaids' turn," Donna the wedding coordinator announced. "Just like I told the little ones, hold your flowers at your waist."

Davina, who would be walking in first, nodded, adjusting her bouquet and stepping forward. At the coordinator's nod, she walked down the hallway and into the ballroom.

Donna waited less time between the bridesmaids as she had between the flower girl and the junior bridesmaids, so Katherine was sent down the aisle less than a minute later.

When it was Freya's turn, Bonnie, seeing that they were getting close to making their own entrances, turned around and helped properly position Caroline's veil so that it was covering her face. Caroline was grateful that she had waited until the last minute, since she had trouble seeing through the lace fabric.

After Rebekah's cue, Matt turned to Caroline and said, "Last chance to make a run for it."

"Thanks for the offer, but no," Caroline replied.

"Okay, then," Matt replied.

Bonnie offered them both a smile before starting her walk down the aisle.

Less than a minute later, Caroline heard Donna cue the musicians to change songs, and she recognizes her cue as the Bridal Chorus started playing.

As soon as Caroline entered the ballroom, her arm linked through Matt's, everyone stood.

Though the ballroom was beautiful, with its ornate cream and gold walls, the blush carpet on the floor, the light pink ribbons and pink roses decorating the rows of seats; Caroline hardly noticed any of it.

Even though it had seemed so important to her to carefully select each shade of pink and the color of the chairs, none of the decorations seemed to matter much in the moment.

All she could see was Klaus, and all she could think about was that she was about to become his wife.

She was only vaguely aware of the groomsmen standing behind him, Elijah at his side as his best man; Kol, Finn, Marcel, and Josh (who Klaus had really only agreed to include because Caroline had chosen five bridesmaids and wanted even numbers on each side of the wedding party), all wearing the black suits with ivory dress shirts and pale pink vests and bow ties that she'd picked out for them, looking more handsome than she'd ever seen them.

She tried to increase her pace so that she could get to him faster, but Matt gently squeezed her arm, a motion that would be imperceptible to anyone else, but kept her from running off, which she would probably be grateful for when she watched the video later.

She looked through her veil at Klaus, knowing that he hadn't taken his eyes off of her since the moment she walked into the room.

Klaus looked happier than she had ever seen him. He wasn't crying, but he was wearing a smile that she had never seen before; a combination of sublime happiness, gratefulness, and complete contentment.

When they finally made it to the end of the aisle, Matt helped lift Caroline's veil off of her face, then relinquished Caroline, though, since he wasn't her parent, he didn't feel comfortable performing the traditional gesture of placing her hand in Klaus's. Caroline extended her hand to Klaus, who kissed the back of her hand and then her palm before lacing their fingers together.

Caroline then turned and handed her bouquet of pink and white roses to Bonnie, joining her other hand with Klaus's.

Though they remained standing facing each other, they both turned to look at the officiant.

As neither of them was particularly religious (Klaus had joked about the church catching on fire if he were to set foot in it), they had decided against having a priest marry them. Caroline had also voiced objections to being married by a judge or justice of the peace (it seemed cold and impersonal to her, reducing the ceremony in which the love of her life promised to love her for the rest of his life to a legal transaction), and to a family member getting ordained online and marrying them (which seemed impractical, since most of their family was in the wedding party, and would make Caroline feel like it wasn't really official), so Donna the wedding coordinator had offered the suggestion of a nondenominational officiant to conduct the ceremony.

"Please be seated," the officiant instructed the wedding guests.

Everyone sat down.

"Dearly beloved, we have come here today to witness the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony," the officiant started.

The officiant then launched into a rather generic sounding speech about the importance of marriage in contemporary times and throughout history.

Caroline was sure that the speech was informative and inspiring, but she had to strain to pay attention to the officiant's words.

All she could think about was how Klaus's eyes never wavered from hers, how he was trying to silently tell her with his eyes how much he loved her, how happy he was to be marrying her, how lucky he felt that she wanted to marry him.

Caroline squeezed Klaus's hands and tried to return the same message back to him with her own eyes.

"Marriage is a sacred institution," the officiant was saying. "It is a commitment that must be entered into freely and completely, with no reservations. We are here today to share this special moment with Niklaus and Caroline as they make this commitment to each other."

Klaus made a face as the officiant referred to him by his full name. Caroline had insisted, stating that anything as official as marriage needed to be done using their full, proper names, and though Klaus hadn't been thrilled with the idea, he had agreed to make Caroline happy.

"Into this union Niklaus and Caroline now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not be lawfully wed, speak now, or else forever hold your peace," the officiant said.

Caroline knew that no one would object, even if they truly had just cause, out of fear of Klaus's wrath if they did so. They had both turned to face the wedding guests, but Caroline didn't need to see Klaus's face to picture his menacing stare.

Caroline instead looked at Victoria, who had asked at the rehearsal dinner yesterday what this part of the ceremony meant. Donna the wedding coordinator had informed her that it was to give anyone who didn't want Klaus and Caroline to get married the opportunity to say so.

"But they have to get married and live happily ever after!" Victoria had insisted.

It was only after Donna had repeatedly told her that it was an old-fashioned tradition and it was rare that anyone actually voiced any objections that she started to calm down.

But now, from her little chair on the aisle, Victoria had turned in her seat to face the rest of the guests and mimed zipping her lips, locking them, and throwing away the key.

After a pause, Klaus and Caroline turned back to face each other so that the officiant could continue the ceremony.

The officiant turned to Caroline.

"Caroline, will you have this man to be your husband; to live together with him in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto him as long as you both shall live?"

"I will," Caroline answered, her voice weighed down by her emotion but unwavering, her gaze locked on Klaus's face.

Then the officiant turned to Klaus.

"Niklaus, will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together with her in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto her as long as you both shall live?"

"I will," Klaus answered.

"Niklaus and Caroline have chosen to recite their own vows," the officiant announced.

"Caroline," Klaus started. "For many years I lived by the motto that love was a weakness, and I criticized and mocked my siblings every time they fell in love. And then I met you, and I was proven right. Loving you did make me weak, and vulnerable, more than I'd ever been before, but I didn't care. Every time I risked my safety to ensure yours, every time I went out of my way to spend time with you or try to make you happy; the rational, strategic part of my brain knew that I was turning into the lovesick fool I had always accused my brother and sister of being, but I didn't care. One of your beautiful smiles made me feel like I could take on the world, one touch of your hand made me feel like I had been struck by lightning. I found myself telling you things that I'd never told anyone else, and when you kept my confidence, I realized that I trusted you, even though at the time the idea of trusting anyone outside of my family was at least as unlikely and foreign a concept to me as loving someone other than my siblings. You are my sun, Caroline. My world revolves around you, and you are what brings light and warmth to my life. I have already made you promises in the past, to take you anywhere in the world you wish to go, and to love you for the rest of our lives. I intend to keep every promise I make to you. To me, getting married is just one more promise to love you and care for you: one that will allow me to call you my wife—a very basic human desire, which makes sense, as you bring out the humanity in me—and allow us to officially be a family. Always and forever."

"Caroline?" the officiant prompted.

"Klaus," Caroline started, struggling to control the emotion in her voice at least enough that she could be heard and understood. "You told me when you asked me to marry you that I was the reason that you were able to love our daughters as much as you do, because you already loved me more than you ever thought you could be capable of. But what I don't know if you realize is that you're the reason that I'm able to love them, too. When the twins were born, I was scared of how much I loved them, scared of being a bad mother, scared that I was in college, building a life for myself, with plans and a future and things that I wanted, and becoming a mother so young, under those circumstances, was not at all part of my plans. But you had faith in me, even when no one else in my life did; and you knew that I loved them and wanted to be their mother, even when no one else in my life did. You have always encouraged and inspired me to learn, and grow, and change, and live up to my full potential, and I have always loved you for that. You have always encouraged and inspired me to dream bigger, and set my sights higher, and live as though I hold the world on a silver platter, and what's more, is that you truly believe that I deserve it, and I have always loved you for that. Before I met you, I always felt like no matter how hard I tried, I was never the one who anyone chose. But you make me feel so important, and special, and like even if you could choose any person on the planet, living or dead, you would still choose me, and you wouldn't even have to take a second to think about it, and I just need you to know how happy it makes me every day that I'm the girl you've chosen to love forever."

Klaus let go of Caroline's hands briefly to wipe away the tears that had fallen down her cheeks as she spoke.

"Niklaus, please repeat after me," the officiant instructed. "I, Niklaus, take you, Caroline…"

"I, Niklaus, take you, Caroline…" Klaus repeated.

"To be my lawfully wedded wife…"

"To be my lawfully wedded wife…"

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live."

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live."

"Caroline, please repeat after me," the officiant instructed. "I, Caroline, take you, Niklaus…"

"I, Caroline, take you, Niklaus…" Caroline repeated.

"To be my lawfully wedded husband…"

"To be my lawfully wedded husband…"

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live."

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live."

Caroline had started crying when Klaus said his name, and hadn't been able to control herself since. She was so overwhelmed with happiness that she couldn't stop the tears of joy.

"May I please have the rings?" the officiant requested.

Elijah handed the rings, which he had retrieved from Victoria when she'd walked in, to the officiant.

The rings that Klaus and Caroline had chosen were identical yellow gold bands, inlayed with small, round diamonds all the way around, identical to the inside of Caroline's engagement ring, and designed so that her two rings would fit perfectly together.

The officiant handed Caroline's smaller wedding ring to Klaus.

"Niklaus, please repeat after me," the officiant instructed. "I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness. With this ring, I thee wed."

"I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness," Klaus repeated, sliding the ring onto Caroline's ring finger on her left hand. In preparation for this moment, she had moved her engagement ring to the ring finger of her right hand after removing the rings she usually wore there. "With this ring, I thee wed."

The officiant then handed Klaus's wedding ring to Caroline.

"Caroline, please repeat after me," the officiant instructed. "I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness. With this ring, I thee wed."

"I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness," Caroline repeated, sliding the ring onto Klaus's ring finger on his left hand. "With this ring, I thee wed."

"By the power vested in me by the state of Louisiana, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride," the officiant concluded the ceremony.

Klaus smiled, reaching forward and stroking Caroline's cheek softly with his thumb before leaning in and kissing her gently.

When he pulled away, far too soon for Caroline's liking, she could feel him breath the words, "I love you," against her skin.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I now present to you for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Niklaus Mikaelson."

{ }

July 3, 2019 (one year, four months earlier)

Caroline had set her alarm to go off at 6:30 that morning so that she would be up in time.

"Come on, we have a birthday girl to wake up," Caroline said quietly to Klaus, who had sat straight up in bed the second the alarm started blaring.

They quickly dressed in jeans and the shirts that Rebekah had had custom-made for the entire family in honor of the occasion—cotton candy pink tee-shirts decorated with a heart made of darker pink glitter, with 'Princess Victoria's First Birthday' written in fancy script that was made to look like it had been cut out of the glitter heart. The shirts were ostentatious to say the least, and Caroline was certain multiple members of the family would refuse to wear theirs, but one thing Rebekah could never be accused of was subtlety, and their baby girl would only ever have one first birthday, so Klaus and Caroline were willing to play along (if only because no one outside of the family would see them).

Once they were dressed, Klaus and Caroline made their way to Victoria's nursery next door.

At exactly 6:46 a.m., Caroline gently scooped the still-sleeping baby out of her crib and sang 'Happy Birthday' to her.

"Happy Birthday, Princess Victoria; Mommy loves you so much," Caroline said softly into her daughter's golden blonde curls.

Victoria was apparently not very impressed with her mother's singing or affection, because she slept through the entire thing.

"It is clearly not as important to Victoria as it is to me that we sing 'Happy Birthday' at the exact time the birthday girl was born," Caroline commented, setting Victoria back down in her crib.

"I understand your disappointment, but it is Victoria's first birthday," Klaus pointed out. "She doesn't know what that means, or why today is important, or why she's getting presents and everyone is wearing these outrageous shirts. She won't even remember it. So do whatever will make you happy, but just know that we're mostly doing this for us, and for the pictures we can all look at later."

"Where did that fortune cookie of parenting wisdom come from?" Caroline asked, still somewhat disgruntled.

"I did successfully raise Marcel to adulthood, in case you've forgotten, and now I have four more children," Klaus remarked. "I was bound to learn something about raising them at some point, if only by accident."

"I suppose you have a point," Caroline conceded.

"Now, let's let her sleep, and I can give you your present," Klaus suggested.

"It isn't my birthday!" Caroline exclaimed.

"If we're celebrating Victoria for being born on this day, then it's only fair that we celebrate you for giving birth on this day," Klaus argued.

"That isn't how birthdays work, but I'm getting the feeling that this is one of those times where you've made up your mind and there's nothing I can do or say to get you to change it," Caroline said.

"Your feeling is correct," Klaus agreed, leading her out of Victoria's room and back into their own.

Caroline sat down on the bed as Klaus reached into his bedside table, pulling out a black velvet ring box.

"Happy Our Baby's Birthday," Klaus told her, handing her the box.

"Thank you, you too," Caroline replied uncertainly.

Inside the box were two rings.

Caroline picked up the first one, an eternity band with alternating round rubies and diamonds set in yellow gold.

"This looks just like—"

"It is," Klaus interrupted.

"Okay, two things. One, how on earth did you track down the exact ring that Prince Rainier proposed to Grace Kelly with when most people don't even know that she had an original engagement ring and then wore a bigger, flashier one when her fiancé found out that other Hollywood actresses had huge diamond rings? And two, with this, we have officially driven this symbol of our relationship into the ground, it is dead and buried six feet under, never to be revived."

"Agreed," Klaus chuckled. "And if you were ever inclined to do so, you would find that there is very little that the combination of money and compulsion cannot accomplish."

Caroline rolled her eyes, taking out the second ring. It was a pearl on a thin band of yellow gold, simpler than any piece of jewelry that Klaus had ever given her.

"That was worn by Queen Victoria," Klaus explained when Caroline looked at him questioningly.

Klaus took both rings from Caroline, then her right hand, putting first the ruby ring and then the pearl ring on her ring finger.

"Victoria Grace," Caroline said quietly with a small smile on her face.

She looked down at her hands.

"But I wanted my girls together," she complained.

For Christmas the year before, Klaus had given Caroline a beautiful ring to represent the twins: a heart made of their birthstone, aquamarine, set on a band made of two thin strands of gold twisted together and covered with pink sapphires. Since it fit on her index finger and her daylight ring was on the index finger of her right hand, her aquamarine ring had ended up on her left.

"Just switch your daylight ring to your other hand," Klaus suggested. "Didn't you used to wear your daylight ring on your left hand?"

Caroline had long since passed the point of being surprised that Klaus remembered minute details about her.

"Yes, but then Freya made me a new one, so I put the new one on before taking the old one off, so I couldn't put it on the same finger," Caroline said.

"I can protect you from the big, bad sun for the few seconds it will take to put your ring on your other hand," Klaus chuckled. "I think it makes more sense to have the rings for the girls on your right hand, since you're right-handed, so you'll see them more as you go about your everyday activities. Even though you like your new daylight ring much more than your old one, it still won't give you the same joy to see it when you move your hands."

Deciding that Klaus did make a good point, she crawled over the bed to sit on the floor in front of it, where the thin line of sunlight coming in through the closed curtains wouldn't reach her, and moved her daylight ring to her left hand and her aquamarine ring to her right hand.

They only had to wait another hour for the birthday girl to wake up. Caroline immediately dressed her in her favorite pink jeans and her version of the custom shirts Rebekah had ordered—nearly identical to everyone else's but with 'Birthday Princess' written in the heart instead.

On their way downstairs, they ran into Hope, who was wearing her birthday shirt with olive green shorts and her beloved green Converse All-Star sneakers.

"Happy Birthday, baby sister!" Hope told Victoria, who giggled and clapped her hands adorably in response.

As they continued downstairs, Hope chattered excitedly to Victoria, who responded to the best of her limited ability. She had said her first word during Hope's spring break from school ('love,' echoing the term of endearment that her father often called her mother), but had started babbling and saying little baby talk words that had no understandable meaning to anyone else around Christmas time. After continued prompting and encouragement from her parents, she could now also say 'mama,' 'dada,' 'yes,' 'no,' 'mine,' and 'nap.'

Their next goal was to teach Victoria how to say the names of everyone in her family, so as they crossed the courtyard, Hope repeatedly asked Victoria if she could say 'Hope.' Victoria, looking confused, kept saying, 'no,' in response.

"Victoria does not need that many birthday presents! She's turning one! She isn't going to remember any of this!" Caroline said, gesturing to the already massive pile of gifts that captured their attention as soon as they entered the dining room.

"Caroline, you know that I see cute pink baby things, and I can't help myself, I have to buy them," Rebekah defended herself.

"You aren't the one who has to make sure she doesn't end up spoiled," Caroline shot back.

"Wasn't much chance of that," Klaus muttered under his breath.

Caroline glared at him.

With only Rebekah (wearing the birthday shirt), Katherine and Elijah (both stubbornly refusing to wear the birthday shirt) and Freya (wearing the birthday shirt) in the room, that meant that the pile of presents that Caroline had started the night before when she'd brought the gifts from her and Klaus downstairs, only contained gifts from the six of them, and would only grow larger once Kol and Davina, Finn, Bonnie, and Marcel added their gifts.

Even the usually more reasonable Finn added half a dozen presents to the pile when he came downstairs (wearing the birthday shirt).

Elijah had decided to make breakfast for the girls, cooking pancakes and eggs at the stove for Hope and the twins while Caroline fed Victoria baby oatmeal with a bright pink plastic spoon.

Lizzie and Josie entered the room a few minutes later (wearing their birthday shirts), quickly hugging Victoria and wishing her a happy birthday before sitting down to eat.

Once everyone arrived (all of them wearing the birthday shirt), Klaus and Caroline caved to Rebekah's pleas to let Victoria open her presents right away.

It took almost two hours to get through all of the packages, but afterwards, Victoria was the proud owner of several hundred new pink dresses, a few dozen pink stuffed animals, and a wide array of clothes, dolls, toys, and books, as well as a few pink bows that she'd torn of gifts and stuck to the top of her head.

As soon as Victoria had finished opening her presents and Caroline had finished cleaning up the remains of the wrapping paper, Klaus announced that they had an appointment after breakfast.

"Who's 'we,' and what kind of appointment?" Caroline asked.

"The two of us and the four girls, and it's a surprise," Klaus answered.

"Do I need to change clothes?"

"Not if you don't want to."

Caroline spent the time it took the girls to get ready to leave to think up all the possibilities she could for what the mystery appointment was. If Klaus wasn't making them change clothes, then they couldn't be meeting anyone outside of the family. It couldn't be related to the council or a new enemy, or the entire family would have been invited.

"Whenever you're finished speculating, we can go," Klaus teased knowingly.

They strapped the girls into the backseats of Klaus's car, and drove for just under half an hour before they reached their destination.

Klaus pulled into the long, circular driveway of a palatial plantation home on the outskirts of the city. There didn't appear to be another home within miles of this residence—whoever the owner was, they must like their privacy.

"Whose property is this?" Caroline asked.

"It's ours," Klaus answered with a smile.

"All this belongs to us?" Caroline questioned.

The house was considerably larger than the Mikaelson compound in the city, and even more opulent than their mansion in Mystic Falls. Caroline could count at least four stories to the house that stretched out at least half a dozen times as wide as the house she grew up in.

If the Mikaelsons' home in Mystic Falls was a mansion, and their home in the French Quarter was a fortress, then this home was a palace.

"What's wrong with the house we live in now?" Caroline asked.

"Victoria will start walking any day now, and that house isn't the safest environment for a small child just starting to be able to move around by themselves. I want her to have a safe and happy home to grow up in, so I had this house built," Klaus said.

"How long have you been working on this?" Caroline asked.

"Since the day after we brought Victoria home from the hospital and you complained about how much work it would be to baby proof the house," Klaus answered. "Would you like to see the inside?"

"That would be great," Caroline agreed, still a little overwhelmed.

They got out of the car, unbuckled the girls from their car seats, and made their way up the long driveway, Caroline clinging Victoria closely to her so that she could focus on the little girl in her arms rather than the inordinate size—and equally obscene cost, she was sure—of this house where she was apparently going to live.

Klaus pulled out a key and unlocked the front door.

On the other side of the door was a grand foyer with large windows that allowed sunlight to land in beams on the wood floor. There was an opulent spiral staircase on either side of the room, leading to the second story, which had a hallway with a half-size wall between the two staircases, so that that portion of the hallway also functioned as a balcony overlooking the entryway, though Caroline was relieved to see that the shorter portion of the wall was still tall enough to keep the girls from falling.

There was a door on each side of the entryway, which Klaus said led to a coat closet and to a staircase down to the basement and the wine cellar, respectively.

Klaus led them all further into the large foyer, gesturing around them as he spoke.

"The first floor is the common rooms, the second floor is the additional rooms, the third floor is our rooms, and the fourth floor is for everyone else. I'll give you the tour," he said.

The first room they saw was the large, state-of-the-art kitchen, which had vanilla-colored walls, marble countertops, top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances, and a large island. Attached to the kitchen was a large walk-in pantry that could surely hold at least a year's worth of food.

Next to the kitchen was the informal dining room. The room felt cozy, with the round maple wood table and one of Klaus's paintings already hanging on the walls as if they already lived there.

The family room had a similar welcoming atmosphere, with its muted pumpkin orange walls and overstuffed beige couches, along with the big-screen television on a maple wood TV stand.

The other rooms on the ground floor, as lovely as they were, felt extraneous to Caroline, and she couldn't see herself using them very often. She simply didn't see the point of having a formal dining room and formal living room when she would only use them on holidays.

In the Mikaelson mansion, there were several rooms that didn't seem to serve any specific purpose, at least that Caroline knew of, while in this house, it seemed that the designers had needed to fill the excessive amount of space with multiples of the same room.

As Caroline started to lead the girls towards one of the staircases, Klaus stopped her.

"Wait, there's still one room on this floor you haven't seen yet, my love," he said.

He led them back to the foyer, striding purposefully towards a set of double doors directly across from the front door that Caroline now realized led to far too large a space to be the closet she had originally thought.

It was a ballroom.

"So that you no longer have to throw parties outside in the courtyard," Klaus told Caroline.

Its positioning in the house made sense. They could throw a party and easily contain their guests to the foyer and the ballroom while restricting access to the other rooms. It also divided the main floor, which had an otherwise open floor plan, between the formal rooms and the common rooms, with the kitchen, pantry, informal dining room, and family room on one side, the formal dining room and living room on the other, and a bathroom on each side.

The ballroom was easily the largest room on the first floor, with high ceilings and a cream and gold color scheme. There was already a sound system tucked discretely out of the way, with speakers attached to the ceiling, which, along with the bar along one of the walls, would make setting up for events much easier for Caroline and whoever she convinced to help her.

"Wow," Lizzie said, tipping her head back to look up at the ceiling.

"When you're all done admiring this room, we can go upstairs," Klaus invited.

The second floor contained all of the rooms that would only be found in a house of this size, owned by a person of Klaus's wealth. There was a massive library, a movie theater, a TV room, a game room, a music room, a magic room, a lounge, a den (though Caroline wasn't sure what the difference was between them or why they needed both), and a bathroom at each end of the hall.

After exploring the rooms on the second floor, all of which excited the girls, they went upstairs to the third floor.

"That's the children's wing," Klaus told them, gesturing to the left.

"The children have their own wing?" Caroline questioned.

Klaus nodded, smiling, leading them down the hall.

Four of the six doors had nameplates on them, which had a pastel background and the girl's name in a darker and brighter version of the color with a shiny metallic finish.

On the left side of the hallway was an unmarked door closest to the staircase, then a door with a periwinkle nameplate with Josie's name written on it in bright metallic bluish-purple script, then a door with a mint green nameplate with Hope's name written on it in metallic emerald green script. On the right side of the hallway was a door with a cotton candy pink nameplate with Victoria's name written on it in metallic hot pink script closest to the staircase, then a door with a pale peach nameplate with Lizzie's name on it in metallic coral, then another unmarked door.

"What are those two rooms?" Caroline asked, pointing to the doors without nameplates.

"We'll save those for last," Klaus promised. "Now, I put Victoria's room closest to ours, since she's the baby."

He opened Victoria's door, revealing a near copy of her room at the other house, though this room was almost twice the size. It had the same color pink paint on the walls, the same glossy white furniture, and the same pink bedding and décor. The only difference was that on one wall, there was a mural painted of a castle, with the sunrise turning the sky pink behind it.

"What do you think, Victoria? Do you like your new room?" Caroline asked.

"Mine?" Victoria repeated.

"Yes, yours, my littlest love," Klaus confirmed.

Victoria clapped her hands and grinned.

Next, they went next door to Lizzie's room, which had peach walls and pale wood furniture with curved lines—a twin-sized bed, a dresser, a bookcase, a bedside table—though a desk was conspicuously absent. She also had a mural painted on one of her walls: a colorful flower garden with butterflies and bees flying above the plants.

Then they went across the hall to Josie's room. The walls were painted periwinkle, except for the wall with the mural of a sunny summer sky above the ocean. She had simple wood furniture, though she didn't have a desk in her room either.

Last was Hope's room. Three of her walls were painted a soothing mint green, but the mural on the fourth was the most elaborate of all of the girls'. It was of a pack of wolves running through the forest at night under the light of the full moon. Her wood furniture had been stained a cool grey with subtle blue and green undertones that picked up the colors in her mural.

Each of the rooms were almost twice as large as the rooms they had now, with attached walk-in closets and en suite bathrooms that were almost twice as large as the ones they had now.

None of the older three girls' rooms had been decorated like Victoria's so that they could choose their own décor or keep what they already had in their rooms at the other house.

"Did you paint all of those murals yourself?" Caroline asked Klaus when they were back in the hallway.

"I did," Klaus answered. "I wanted them to be perfect."

"Girls, say thank you so that he knows how much you appreciate all his hard work," Caroline prompted.

The older three girls immediately thanked Klaus, while Victoria said something that sounded more like, 'hey you.'

"Now this room," Klaus opened the door to the last room on Lizzie and Victoria's side of the hall. "Is something that I'm not quite sure about."

The room was painted pale yellow, with two twin beds, two dressers, and two bookshelves. It didn't have its own mural.

"This is the twins' room," Klaus explained. "I wasn't sure if they would be ready to have their own rooms, so I decided to be prepared either way. If they want to use the rooms I prepared for them individually, we can move the furniture out and have this room be dedicated to the girls practicing their magic."

Caroline was touched by his thoughtfulness and thanked him.

"And what's that last room?" Caroline asked.

Klaus showed them.

It was a combination of a playroom and an office. In the front of the room were four desks, two facing each of the side walls, each with a desktop computer sitting on them. The twins' desks were together, as they would be in the same grade in school and would be learning the same material, and Hope's and Victoria's were on the opposite wall. Caroline could tell whose desk was whose by the color of their desk chair: orange for Lizzie, blue for Josie, green for Hope, and pink for Victoria. Against the back wall were four toy chests in the same colors with the girls' names written on the front, leaving the rest of the space in the room for them to work or play.

"This entire wing is so amazing, I'm sure the girls will be really happy here," Caroline said.

The girls agreed, talking excitedly about how much they loved their rooms.

"I'm glad," Klaus replied.

They walked over to the other end of the hallway, which only had three doors; one on each of the three walls.

"This is our wing," Klaus told Caroline. "This is my art studio, which can also double as an office if I need it to," he pointed to the door on the right. "And this is your office."

Klaus opened the door on the opposite wall, showing Caroline a room painted an inviting light beige, with a large mahogany desk with a large desktop computer and printer, a couch, whiteboards printed with a checklist and a monthly calendar, and a cupboard where she could keep party supplies.

"I love it, thank you," Caroline said.

"You're very welcome," Klaus replied.

Next, they visited the master suite. The room was painted a warm beige with rosy undertones, and was at least twice as large as the house Caroline grew up in. It had a sitting area with four round-backed chairs and a round table, a large and luxurious master bathroom, and a walk-in closet and dressing area the size of the courtyard, in addition to the inordinately large bedroom.

When Caroline tried to question the necessity of such a large room, Klaus quickly shepherded them all up to the fourth floor.

They took a look at all eight bedrooms and attached bathrooms, the media room, and the study, all of which gave Caroline a hunch.

"These are all guest rooms," she concluded after seeing yet another neutrally painted and decorated bedroom.

"They are," Klaus agreed.

"So, we aren't all moving here. It's just the six of us," Caroline inferred.

"That is correct," Klaus responded. "As much as I love my family, I don't know if I want our daughters thinking that it's normal to be raised practically in a commune. And I don't want them to think it's healthy to be as co-dependent as my siblings and I have been. I want them to be raised in a household with two parents that love them, and be visited by their extended family who loves them, but do not need to be with them every second to prove that they love them."

"It feels like we're growing up," Caroline said. "Bonnie seems a lot happier and more confident now that she moved out to live in that apartment in Marcel's building, now we're moving into this beautiful palace that you had built for us, I wouldn't be surprised if Kol and Davina or Katherine and Elijah decided to get their own place soon either."

"Maybe we're finally learning that we don't have to live in each other's pockets to be a family."

Having seen all of the interior of the house, they headed outside to the enormous backyard, which could also be accessed through a door in the ballroom, offering even more possibilities for parties.

There was a huge patio attached to the house with chairs and tables, an outdoor kitchen, a barbeque, and a bar. When they descended the steps of the patio, they arrived at a large in-ground pool, surrounded by deck chairs and cabanas. Beyond that were acres and acres of land that were undeveloped for the most part, except for a stable and a gated paddock for horses, which all three of the older girls had expressed a desire to have.

With the girls uncontrollably giddy at the prospect of getting ponies, they went back inside the house.

In the foyer, Klaus took Caroline's hand and turned her to face him, then he took her other hand as well and laced their fingers together.

"I built this house for you, because I want my home to be with you," Klaus told her. "I want to continue building my life around you, because you and our daughters are what make me happy, and what make my life complete. You are the reason that I can love them so completely, because I already loved you more than I ever thought I could be capable of, and I love you more with every passing second. You told me once that anybody who is capable of love is capable of being saved; well, you were the one who proved that I was capable of love, and loving you is what saved me. Now, I already promised you that I would be your last love, knowing that no matter what happened, you would be mine, but I want to make very clear to you in every way that I can think of that I will love you, more than anyone has ever loved or could ever love another person, until the moment this Earth ceases to exist."

Then he reluctantly let go of one of Caroline's hands to reach for something in his jacket pocket, and carefully dropped to one knee in front of her.

Caroline was weeping before he even managed to get a word out.

"Caroline," Klaus started, an almost imperceptible nervous quiver in his voice. "I would consider it the greatest honor of my long life if you would agree to become my wife. Will you marry me?"

"Yes!" Caroline cried as soon as he finished asking the question.

Klaus stood, picked up Caroline's left hand and slid the engagement ring he had chosen for her onto her ring finger.

The ring was stunning, but not at all what Caroline would have chosen for herself. She recognized that her tastes tended to be more trendy, which wasn't appropriate for a piece of jewelry that she would be wearing every day for the rest of her life, which could be thousands of years.

The ring that Klaus had chosen for her was the perfect combination of classic and unique, so that the ring would remain beautifully timeless through the years, but no one else would have anything similar.

The ring had a large, oval-cut diamond—short and round, nearly as wide as it was long—that took up almost all of the space on her finger up to the first knuckle, and on either side of the main stone was a heart-shaped side stone that followed the tapered curve of the yellow-gold band, which was encrusted with tiny round diamonds on the rest of its surface.

Caroline couldn't stop staring at the gorgeous diamond ring that she would wear every day for the rest of her life.

"It's so beautiful," Caroline said almost reverently. "I love it. I love you!"

Caroline threw her arms around Klaus's neck and clung to him, surely soaking his shirt with her tears of joy.

Almost having forgotten that they were in the room, Caroline could hear the girls cheering as they ran over to hug their parents, Victoria wiggling out of Lizzie's hold to try to reach Caroline.

"Yay!" Victoria cheered, beaming up at her parents.

{ }

Present

An hour later, they had returned to the ballroom for the wedding reception.

Their guests had spent the hour milling around with cocktails in the lobby, while the bride, groom, and their wedding party had spent the hour taking pictures.

Caroline had ordered the photographer to keep continually shooting the entire time, so that they would have candid pictures in between the posed ones.

And there were many, many posed pictures: the bride and groom; the bride and groom with the best man and maid of honor; the bride and groom with their children; the bride with the children; the bride with her bridesmaids and flower girl; the groom with his groomsmen; all of the children together; the entire wedding party. It seemed that the photographer was trying to capture every combination of people she could.

Finally, the photographer was satisfied and declared them finished with the photo session and Donna the wedding coordinator led them back inside to the ballroom for the reception.

The ballroom had been transformed. Where just an hour ago there had been rows of chairs, there were now dozens of round tables with the palest pink tablecloths surrounding a circular dance floor. On one side of the room was a long table for the wedding party on a platform raised two steps above the floor. In front of that table was a smaller kids' table for the four girls. That way, they were close enough for their parents to keep an eye on them, but they felt independent and grown up enough to sit by themselves. The kids' table was placed directly in front of the center of the head table, so Victoria's and Lizzie's seats were right in front of Caroline and Josie's and Hope's seats were right in front of Klaus.

At her seat, Caroline picked up her place card, determined to keep it for her keepsake box. The name cards were the same pale pink as the tablecloths, with the person's name written in metallic gold script. Caroline's said 'Mrs. Caroline Mikaelson' (the first time she'd seen her married name printed anywhere) with a little tiara above it.

"Mommy," Victoria tried to get her attention. She turned around and handed Caroline her place card, knowing that Caroline wanted to keep it, along with her flower girl outfit, in a keepsake box for Victoria.

The twins and Hope handed theirs to Caroline as well. Caroline barely glanced at Hope's card, but Lizzie's and Josie's gave her pause.

Since Klaus and Caroline had signed the adoption forms at the same time they'd signed the marriage documents, technically, once the documents were filed and approved, the twins would be Mikaelsons. So, like Caroline, their name cards were the first time they would be referred to by their new names.

It had been the twins' idea to change their names. When they'd started school, they'd been met with confused and judgmental reactions when Hope had introduced them as her sisters because they didn't have the same last name as Hope. They'd also been instructed to not talk about the supernatural if they could avoid it, for their own protection, so they couldn't explain their family situation in a way that made sense but still omitted the details they needed to keep private. Caroline could also tell that the girls' teachers and the school's administration found it needlessly complicated that Caroline and Klaus were listed as Lizzie and Josie's parents or guardians, but neither of them had the same last name as the twins.

So when Caroline informed them that she planned to take Klaus's name after the wedding, and that Klaus were going to adopt them after the wedding, Lizzie and Josie had immediately asked if they could change their names, too.

Even though she knew that it was going to happen, seeing the cards reading, 'Miss Elizabeth Mikaelson' and 'Miss Josette Mikaelson' still made Caroline emotional.

The only other place card she'd even had to think about was Katherine's. When Caroline had asked if she wanted Katherine or Katerina on the card, Katherine had said, "I don't care. My seat is the one between Davina and Freya, so that is where I'm going to sit. If your wedding planner can't handle it, they can just put a picture of a cat for all I care."

They'd only been seated for a few minutes when servers started going around the room filling glasses with water, wine, and champagne (and sparkling apple cider for the children). Dinner was served not long after that.

Dinner was a fun, celebratory affair as the Mikaelson family talked and laughed together as they ate. Kol and Marcel told jokes and stories of what they had all done that morning before the ceremony. Katherine tried to one-up them with stories of her own, with Freya occasionally jumping in to dispute Katherine's exaggerated retellings. Rebekah kept gushing about how beautiful the ceremony was.

Even after lingering over multiple courses, servers eventually came around to clear their plates, and it was time for the toasts.

Elijah stood up and tapped his spoon against his wine glass to get everyone's attention. Once the conversation in the room came to a stop, he took a thin stack of note cards from the pocket of his suit jacket.

"Thank you," Elijah said. "As the best man and older brother of the groom, I would like to wish you all a good evening, and thank you all for coming to celebrate this joyous occasion with our family."

Caroline listened attentively to Elijah's speech, smiling and holding Klaus's hand as she did so. If there was any member of the Mikaelson family that she could count on not to embarrass her, it was Elijah, so she felt free to relax as he spoke.

"In preparing for this speech, I researched best man speeches," Elijah added.

"Of course he did," Klaus mumbled in Caroline's ear, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he pulled away.

"And I learned that I am to compliment the appearance of the wedding party," Elijah continued. "So, Caroline, you are an exceptionally beautiful bride; I have never seen you more radiant than you look today. Niklaus, despite your aversion to formalwear, I'm sure your bride appreciates the effort you made today."

Caroline laughed and nodded.

"All of the bridesmaids look quite beautiful as well, though I hope I will be forgiven for adding that my Katerina looks especially stunning."

"I would like to start my speech by saying how pleased I am to be able to witness this day, and how honored I am to have been asked to be a part of it," Elijah said. "As anyone who knows the Mikaelson family can attest, none of us would have ever thought that Niklaus would be the first among us to get married. In fact, most of us were convinced that Niklaus would never love anyone enough to want to get married at all. But I have witnessed the love between Niklaus and Caroline, and I would be willing to hazard a guess that there is very little that my brother does not love Caroline enough to do."

"It has been the preeminent goal of my life to proof to Niklaus that he is worthy of unconditional love. I have worked tirelessly to try to undo the harm that years of abuse at my father's hands did to my brother. I had tried everything I could think of, and I had nearly stopped searching for new strategies to get through to him when he was reunited with a girl I vaguely recognized from a party thrown by a family years earlier," Elijah continued. "I witnessed the most unusual behavior in my brother. For the first time, around someone other than his daughter, he was acting as if he had to prove himself worthy of her time and company. Eventually Caroline overcame her fears and admitted that she returned Niklaus's love, and since then, I have seen him become worthy of that gift, and see himself as being worthy of that gift. To be standing by my brother's side as he vows to love his wife for the rest of time, and as he hears her make the same promise in return, is the fulfillment of everything I have ever wanted for my brother, and I could not be prouder of him for achieving it."

"Caroline, it is my honor to officially welcome you to the Mikaelson family, and to offer my congratulations to my brother and his wife, who is without a doubt the best thing to ever happen to him and to this entire family. I wish you both eternal love and happiness together, always and forever. Congratulations Niklaus and Caroline!"

The guests all clapped and raised their glasses in a toast. As Elijah sat back down, Klaus and Caroline both thanked him for his lovely, touching words.

Then Bonnie stood up to make her own toast, holding colorful notecards in her hand.

"Hello everyone," she greeted, less confidently than Elijah had. "For those of you who don't know me, I'm Bonnie Bennett, I'm Caroline's maid of honor and best friend since we were as old as the small children you see sitting in front of the bride and groom."

"First, I hope all of you won't mind giving Elijah another round of applause for his wonderful speech. All of that research really did pay off," Bonnie teased, pausing for everyone to clap. "And I would also like to echo his compliments to everyone at the head table. The groomsmen all look very dapper, but don't worry Elijah, I'm sure they won't be stealing your signature look again anytime soon. My fellow bridesmaids, you all look gorgeous. Klaus, today you look especially handsome and especially besotted. And Caroline, you truly are the most beautiful bride I've ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because I did your hair."

Caroline laughed. She knew that Bonnie's speech would be more lighthearted and less formal than Elijah's had been, though hopefully her friend would not bring up any embarrassing childhood stories.

"I would like to start by thanking all of you for coming to share this special day with Klaus, Caroline, and their families," Bonnie said. "Caroline worked very hard, meticulously planning every moment of this day, so we hope that you enjoyed it. And if you didn't, we're sorry, but we didn't know you when Caroline first started planning her wedding almost twenty years ago."

"My friendship with Caroline can be summed up with one sentence she told me a few years ago: 'Your happiness is a part of my happiness, always.' After so many years, you are my family, Caroline, and you are my home. Where you go, I go. When you jump, I jump. I couldn't be completely happy if you weren't happy. There is no one on Earth who knows me better than Caroline does. And before I move on to offer my thoughts on Caroline's relationship with Klaus, I just have to say, Care, that your mom and dad would be so proud of the strong, beautiful, compassionate person, and loving mother and wife you've grown up to be."

Bonnie and Caroline were both in tears by that point in her speech.

"As a witness from the beginning of the Klaus and Caroline show, I can honestly say that even when I didn't particularly like Klaus, or didn't think that he was worthy of my best friend, I appreciated that he always worked hard to win her over, and treated her like she was important to him," Bonnie continued. "Because I remember a day, when we were sixteen, that Caroline was drunkenly complaining to me that no one she liked ever chose her; that she was shallow and always said the wrong thing, and that she tried so hard, but she was never the one anyone chose. And what made me give Klaus my blessing to marry Caroline, was that I knew that to him, you are the one, Care. The only one he'll ever love, the only person he sees when he walks into a room. And you've never even had to try at all."

"I could not be happier for you, Caroline, that you've found your Prince Charming to spend the rest of your life with. I love you, so much, and I am so grateful and thrilled that I get to be a part of your happily ever after. Cheers!"

Everyone again raised their glasses and clapped. Caroline reached out to hug Bonnie as she sat down.

"Wait!" Bonnie popped back up out of her seat. "Sorry, I forgot something."

She took out a white piece of paper and started reading.

"If Caroline gets married before I wake up, please tell her that I love her and I wish I could be there," Bonnie read tearfully.

Caroline burst into a new set of tears as she realized that Bonnie was reading a letter Elena had written and somehow magically sent to Bonnie. It was her version of the journals she'd asked them to write.

"Tell her that she looks beautiful, and I don't even need to see her to know that. Tell her that I'm so happy for her, and I can't wait to see her again. Tell her that I wish her a lifetime of love and happiness with her new husband, and tell her congratulations from me. Thanks, Bonnie. Love, Elena."

Both still weeping, Caroline hugged and thanked Bonnie again.

"You need to clean yourself up and get yourself together, it's time for your first dance," Rebekah ordered.

Caroline obligingly wiped her eyes and allowed Klaus to help her out of her seat. Klaus took her hand and led her out to the dance floor while the opening notes of their song, "Give Me Love," started playing.

"Have I told you recently how beautiful you look today, Mrs. Mikaelson?" Klaus asked with a smile.

"You aren't going to be one of those people who refer to their wife as 'Mrs." all the time, are you?" Caroline asked.

"Not if you don't want me to," Klaus replied.

"Good answer, you're really getting the hang of this husband thing," Caroline complimented.

"I aim to please," Klaus responded. "As they say, happy wife, happy life."

Caroline giggled.

"Have I told you recently how much I love you, my love?" Klaus asked.

"Not in the last ten minutes," Caroline commented.

"I love you, endlessly and eternally," Klaus said.

Caroline saw the camera flashes go off as she leaned up to kiss him in response.

Too soon, the song ended and the rest of the wedding party joined them on the dance floor. They had decided not to force them to dance with their partners from the recessional when some of them had romantic partners in the wedding party, so Katherine and Elijah were dancing together, as were Kol and Davina, Rebekah and Marcel, Freya and Finn, and Bonnie and Josh.

After the second song, the dance floor opened up to everyone for a few songs before it was time to cut the cake.

The cake they had chosen was a simple, classic, beautiful vanilla cake with white buttercream frosting, decorated with oversized sprinkles that looked like pearls and roses made out of pink and white frosting.

After Klaus and Caroline cut the cake and neatly fed each other the first pieces, they left Bonnie in charge of cake distribution and saving the cake topper, and returned to dancing, Caroline taking turns with Elijah, Marcel, Kol, and Finn, while Klaus danced with Bonnie, Rebekah, Freya, and Davina.

Soon it came time for Caroline to throw her bouquet.

As all of the unmarried women in attendance (her sisters-in-law at the front of the crowd) gathered around her, she turned so that her back was to them and tossed the bouquet behind her.

Not wanting to see the fight over the flowers, Caroline remained facing in the opposite direction until the sounds of the scuffle had stopped.

As predicted, Katherine's competitive instincts had kicked in, and she had emerged victorious, while Rebekah sat on the floor, her hair slightly disheveled; Freya was standing off to the side, her arms crossed over her chest and a wry smile on her face; Davina was sitting in the corner, looking like she had run for cover as soon as the bouquet left Caroline's hands; and Bonnie standing in the center of the front row, wanting to be a part of the tradition but not wanting to risk anyone getting hurt in the process.

Then came the part that Caroline hadn't been looking forward to, but Katherine and Bonnie had insisted that she couldn't only do half of the tradition.

Kol brought over a chair and she sat down, then Klaus knelt in front of her.

Fortunately, Klaus both was possessive and knew that she thought this tradition was crude, so he quickly removed the garter from her under her dress without revealing even a hint of her legs to anyone else.

He held up the piece of ivory and light pink fabric, then, ignoring the crowd of unmarried men, simply handed it to Elijah.

No one had the nerve to challenge him on it.

Caroline quickly got up and stood next to Klaus, watching as Katherine took her place on the chair and Elijah knelt in front of her, pushing the garter up Katherine's leg until he was satisfied with its position.

Then, for the conclusion of the tradition, the woman who caught the bouquet and the man who 'caught' the garter shared a dance while everyone else watched and cheered for the couple, who, according to tradition, would be the next ones to walk down the aisle.

Once the spectacle was over, Caroline found herself back in her husband's arms on the dance floor. They had spent most of the night together, yet every time they were separated, Caroline missed him.

"I love you so much," Caroline whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"I love you," Klaus replied, leaning down to kiss her temple.

Caroline looked around the room as they danced. Katherine and Elijah were on the dance floor with them. Kol and Davina had taken Josie with them to the open bar and had ordered a Shirley Temple for her. Lizzie was sitting in between Rebekah and Marcel at the head table, shoveling another piece of cake into her mouth. Josh was sitting with Aiden, Vincent, and Eva at their table. Hope had dragged Hayley and Jackson over to the huge pile of wedding gifts, trying to count how many there were. Freya and Finn were standing in the corner, quietly observing the festivities. Bonnie was making her way through the crowd towards the dance floor. Victoria was sitting at the kids' table facing the rest of the ballroom, their little queen holding court.

"Is everything all right?" Klaus asked softly.

Caroline smiled up at him.

"Everything's perfect."

"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence."

~Sidney Carton, A Tale of Two Cities

…and they lived happily ever after (:

That's the end!

My heart is so full of love and gratitude for everyone who has read this story; to everyone who sent me a review, whether only once or every chapter; to everyone who added this story to their list of favorite stories or stories that they followed; to everyone who recommended this story to a fellow Klaroline lover; to everyone who nominated or voted for this story for a fan award.

I'm pleased and proud of myself for finishing the first story I ever posted on this site, and still overwhelmed and overjoyed by all of the love and support that this story has received. I feel such a sense of accomplishment and gratitude, and I thank all of you lovely readers with all my heart for following along with me on this journey.

Please feel free to send me any requests you may have for the sequel, A Life You Love, and I will get started fulfilling your prompts, as well as writing my own ideas, as soon as I can! I'm so excited to continue sharing my writing with my lovely, passionate, dedicated readers!

One last time, I would love to know what you thought of this chapter and/or the story as a whole, so please leave me a review; I love reading them!

Thank you very much for reading, this chapter and every chapter. I am so sincerely thankful to everyone who has read this story. Writing it was a true labor of love, and I have loved sharing it with all of you.

All my love,

charlotte