Summary: But God, did she dream. And in her dreams, she thought that whoever she'd been, had been in love. In which Caroline Forbes is attacked and cursed, left completely defenseless, and missing her memories. Her friends bring her to Klaus and the Mikaelsons in NOLA for protection. Features: soulmates, slow-burn-ish romance, lots of fluff, some angst, and eventually, a HEA.

Alternate Summary: Or, in which Damon Salvatore is a lazy SOB who dumps a vulnerable baby vampire at the Mikaelson home in NOLA for Caroline's protection, Caroline doesn't remember who Klaus and the Mikaelsons are (except for in her dreams) and is attracted to him, and Klaus discovers that they are soulmates.

General disclaimer: TVD/TO does not belong to me. If it did, Klaroline would have been endgame.

A/N: I've been thinking of writing a story for Caroline for a long time now. I've got this story mostly planned out and written so far, so updates should be pretty regular, maybe weekly, until the story is posted in its entirety. I'm thinking of making this a one-shot series, maybe episodic-ish with small time skips (as in, days or weeks, not years), but with some plot. Caroline will be a little AU due to her being cursed.

Also, I've taken some liberties with the timeline. Basically it'll be AU starting season 4-ish of TVD, after Klaroline hook up in the woods, and I'm skipping over MOST of the Silas/Expression/Travelers thing and making Kai Parker the Big Baddie (things will be explained, eventually). Klaus leaves Mystic Falls with his family, as he promised Caroline, and the Mikaelsons return to NOLA and reclaim it. Most importantly, NO KLALEY BABY – in this world, Klaus and Haley never slept together; instead, Hayley and Jackson are married alphas of the Cresent Wolf Pack and are allies of the Mikaelsons in NOLA. Hopefully things make sense. If not, feel free to drop me a line (or three) and I'll do my best to clarify.

A/N 2: Or, an excuse to revisit some of my favorite Klaroline scenes, and my attempt to give Caroline the story she deserved (A hill I will absolutely die on: Caroline Forbes deserved 1000% better than what she got, in both TVD and TO.). Caroline will be confronting some of her personal demons, including but not limited to: Damon's rape/abuse of her, her death and transition into a vampire, torture by various parties (the werewolves, her dad, Alaric-the-super-vampire-hunter), and her relationships with her friends. I will do my best to post trigger warnings at the beginning of each chapter, as applicable. Also note, some dialogue from the series may have been adjusted for the sake of this story, but I've kept them as true to the characters as I can. I also owe many thanks to YouTube for compilations of Klaroline scenes so I didn't have to re-watch the entirety of TVD or TO for those scenes. And last but not least, this fic will be smut-free. Sorry, it's just not my thing.

Playlist, in no particular order:
Love in a Box – The Workday Release
Sink or Swim – Tyrone Wells
Terrified – Katharine McPhee and Jason Reeves
Little Do You Know – Alex & Sierra
Kiss Me Slowly – Parachute
Endlessly – The Cab
Brave – Sara Bareilles
Something Just Like This – The Chainsmokers & Coldplay
Superman (It's Not Easy) – Five For Fighting
I Want Crazy – Hunter Hayes
A Thousand Years – Christina Perri
Marry Me – Train
Young and Beautiful – Lana Del Rey
Collide – Howie Day
You and Me – Lifehouse
Demons – Imagine Dragons
What Makes You Beautiful – One Direction

Endlessly

Warnings: None. POVs will switch mainly between Klaus and Caroline, and occasionally one of the Mikaelson siblings.

i.

His phone ringing wasn't in the middle of the night wasn't an unexpected occurrence, but the person calling was. "Damon Salvatore, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Klaus answered absentmindedly, sitting back to take a look at his latest sketch.

Damon was unusually serious as he responded bluntly, "Bonnie has the details, I don't, so here's the short story: Barbie's been cursed, and we can't worry about both her and a crazy witch from another dimension right now. We're on our way to you. We need you to look out for Blondie until Bonnie can figure out the counter-curse."

Klaus paused, setting down his brush as he slowly summarized with growing incredulity, "Caroline was cursed, and your solution is to bring her to me instead of protecting her?"

"She's in more danger in Mystic Falls than with you. I don't like you, but we all know you'll drop everything to help Caroline. And Stefan trusts you."

"When will you arrive?"

"We just pulled up to your place."

Klaus rushed downstairs and opened the door just as Damon and Caroline arrived. As soon as the older Salvatore saw Klaus, he smirked, pushed Caroline in the hybrid Original's direction, and cheekily said, "Expect a call from Bonnie Bennet or one of us at some point. Not me. Seeya!"

And then he left with a wave of his hand, leaving Caroline with a couple of suitcases and her purse.

It had been nearly a year since Klaus had last seen Caroline, and while she still looked stunning and beautiful, he could immediately tell that something was off.

For one, she wasn't looking at him with her usual expression of disdain. Instead, she was looking at him with a combination of bewilderment and confusion, her head tilted adorably as she studied him, her cheeks were faintly flushed with attraction.

He smiled at her, unable to help the warmth in his voice as he greeted her. "Hello Caroline. Care to enlighten me on your situation?"

Her eyebrows furrowed, and she nervously bit her lip. She waved a hand in a wild gesture, and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Finally, she pointed to her throat and shook her head.

Realization overcame him as he responded, "You… can't speak?"

She nodded.

The first person he called was Stefan Salvatore, and as soon as the younger Salvatore picked up, Klaus all but snarled, "Ripper, you have some explaining to do."

He could almost see Stefan's sheepish and apologetic expression over the phone. "Ah… I'm guessing that Damon didn't explain things before he left?"

"You would guess correctly."

Stefan sighed into the phone. "Care was cursed a couple days ago, and I don't understand the complexities of it since I wasn't there, but essentially she can't speak, her memories have been tampered with so she doesn't really remember anyone, but she remembers emotional connections to people. Sort of. Like, she recognizes how she feels about people. So naturally, she likes me and abhors Damon. And I guess she likes you, because when we talked to her about you and showed her your photo, she blushed."

Klaus scowled at the younger Salvatore's cheek, but mentally filed the tidbit of information away. He did, however, smirk over at Caroline, whose eyes had widened when Stefan revealed that fact.

Stefan, unaware of what was happening, continued, "Anyways, Bonnie has no idea what sort of curse this is, and we're currently trying to banish a psychotic siphoner witch – who makes both you and Silas look kinda sane, by the way – back to the dimension he was trapped in by the Gemini coven. And before you ask, yes Caroline sort of understands the supernatural, but we didn't really have time to explain who Kai Parker is and why he's so bad. I'm not sure if she fully understands what it means to be a vampire either, so you might have some explaining to do. She's pretty sensitive to… well, everything, right now. But we figured she'd be safest with you. Unless you don't want her there or don't think you can keep her safe."

Aware that Caroline was watching him and able to listen to the conversation, he tried to tamper his growing ire at the Mystic Falls gang and their incompetency.

"Believe me, Ripper," Klaus bit out, "Caroline will be far safer here with me than anywhere you can think to hide her in Mystic Falls."

Klaus was already indignant on Caroline's behalf, firm in his belief that she deserved infinitely better than these so-called friends of hers. Unfortunately, in her current state, Caroline didn't know any of this. She didn't remember how many times her friends had willingly thrown her to the wolves (mostly, him) because they didn't think of her as a priority compared to the doppelganger. How many times they had willingly thrown her at him and his family, as a distraction, aware of the potential of her becoming collateral damage. And if he hadn't found her so completely and utterly charming, she would have been dead a dozen times over. On second thought, maybe the Salvatores were a tad smarter than he gave them credit for. Not that he would ever admit it.

But before he could voice any of this, Stefan pressed onward, "That's what we figured. You might get a call from Liz sometime – she's been pretty worried about Caroline. Try to be civil if she calls. And also, Klaus? You remember you have a cell phone right? Caroline does too. She can still text."

Klaus hung up on Stefan without another word, before he succumbed to the temptation to fly to Mystic Falls to rip out the Salvatore brothers' throats for their absolute uselessness.

Klaus showed Caroline the guest room next to his bedroom, carefully placing her suitcases by the door as he stepped aside to show her in. "You might want to rest up after your travels, love."

Caroline took a tentative step into the room, but then she took a step back, cautiously reaching out and and wrapping her fingers around the hem of his shirt, nervously biting her lip.

Klaus watched Caroline with a delighted confusion, unsure of what she meant. "Sweetheart…?"

Caroline pulled out her phone and tapped on the buttons, showing him the words she typed on the screen.

Scared.

"What scares you?"

Everything. Nightmares.

Klaus carefully considered his options before he offered, "Why don't you take a nice hot shower, and I'll find you a couple warm blood bags for dinner? And then afterwards, I can stay with you until you fall asleep and make sure you have nothing but sweet dreams, if you want?"

Caroline hesitated for a moment before she let go of his shirt and nodded, offering him a small smile in gratitude.

"I'll leave you to your shower, then."

Once he heard the shower running, he made a mental list of tasks to accomplish and got to work.

The first thing he did was contact Marcel for blood bags, and his protégé assured him that an ice chest would be delivered within the next hour. (The ice chest showed up in 15 minutes.)

The next thing he did was contact his siblings – Freya, Elijah, Rebekah, and Kol – to let them know about the situation and to warn them to not upset Caroline. And to ask for their assistance with breaking the curse. He also asked Freya to look into Kai Parker and the Gemini coven.

Freya immediately responded that she would be willing to look into it, and would have information for him as soon as she returned from her trip. Kol's interest was piqued by the mention of the Bennet witch – he did like his witches, after all. Elijah's response was cordial and Rebekah's response was petulant at the mention of Caroline, but Klaus knew that he would be able to rely on them for help.

Once that was taken care of, Klaus grabbed a couple blood bags, poured them into a mug, and slowly warmed them up to the proper temperature. He listened for the sound of water being turned off and waited fifteen minutes before heading upstairs with the mug of warmed blood.

He stopped outside Caroline's door and knocked quietly. "Caroline, love? I have warmed blood if you're ready."

He heard the sound of her footsteps as she came to the door, opening it in a silent gesture of invitation.

She was wearing a set of fleece pajamas with a floral pattern, her feet silent as she padded across the floor.

Klaus gracefully stepped in, mentally noting that it looked like Caroline's friends had at least packed the things she liked. He also made a mental note to take her shopping at some point, so that she could make herself more comfortable.

He handed her the mug, and she accepted it with a small smile, sipping it as she sat down on the bed. She patted the space next to her and he sat down by her side, watching as she drank the blood.

He observed the way she tentatively sipped on the blood with an expression of unease on her face. She had initially grimaced at the first sip of blood, but seemed to accept it afterwards.

"Do you know what you are?" Klaus asked softly.

Caroline hesitated before nodded.

"Do you know what you can do?"

She shrugged and shook her head.

"And do you know who I am?"

Caroline put down her finished mug, not looking at him for a moment before she pulled out her phone and typed out her response.

Sort of? Damon tried to tell me but I don't know if I believe what he said.

Klaus smirked at her response. "That's my girl."

Caroline didn't respond, Instead, she leaned back to lay on the bed, typing on her phone again.

You said you could keep the nightmares away?

He nodded, moving to sit next to her, careful to give her some space as he said, "Sweetheart, I'm going to need to touch your arm in order to enter your mind."

When Caroline nodded, he gently touched her arm in preparation to enter her dreamscape. As he touched her arm, however, sparks of emotion surged through him and hit him in the core of his very being.

He blinked and moved his hand back, startled.

Caroline's equally wide-eyed expression confirmed that she experienced the same thing.

His mind reeled with one singularly undeniable and exhilarating conclusion of the bond that existed between them. The bond sizzled, hungry and fiery, alive and uncontained.

Caroline Forbes was his soulmate.

TBC…