Title: Family Ties
Ships: klaroline, elejah (hints in the next chapter)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up until s3 to be safe.
Warnings: uh...real world problems?
Author's Note: I would like to take a moment to say that although I have read the adoption laws of Virginia, Ireland and Florida, I have no real knowledge of what it takes to adopt a child. This was originally posted on my tumblr, thecunningclock, but I decided - what the hell? Why not upload it here?

They had been trying to get a baby for ten years.

After half a century of marriage everything had settled down for Klaus and Caroline. Damon had finally stopped calling to scream about how stupid she was and that Klaus was evil and didn't have the capacity for love and had finally, grudgingly gone to dinner with them a few times. Kol was still a prick, but as the years went by Caroline learned that he wasn't coming onto her as much as he was just overprotective. Like really, really ridiculously overprotective…of Klaus. Kol had Klaus daggered him in order to throw Mikael off their trail. Or maybe it was the harem of angry girl vamps he'd pissed off in Scotland. Whatever, point was he loved his big brother and Caroline took every opportunity to make fun of him for it.

The most stubborn person that Klaus and Caroline had to convince was Rebekah, who refused to believe they were the real deal. It had taken twenty five years, three close calls with vampire hunters, one werewolf bite and Caroline pulling a batman on a warlock in Prague after he had tried to barbecue Rebekah with a bedazzled flamethrower. After that, Rebekah was almost as big a fan of her as Klaus was.

Bonnie was a different story altogether. When Caroline and Klaus first started dating, Bonnie had fallen off the face of the planet, going the Damon route and telling Caroline that Klaus was the biggest mistake she would have ever made. It had hurt, not just Caroline, but Klaus too. It was one thing to insult him, but it was another thing entirely to insult Caroline. Forty years later and just the mention of Bonnie's name sent Caroline spiraling into guilt and a depression that lasted for weeks.

So when Elijah answered the phone one Tuesday afternoon and recognized the voice on the other end asking for Caroline, it came as quite a shock to everyone. Bonnie had become a mother, and a grandmother. She was older and graying and when she saw Caroline walking up her driveway her hard, cold expression - the one she had worn ever since she had left Mystic Falls on her 21st birthday - crumbled. It was during Bonnie and Caroline's reconciliation that Caroline and Klaus had their fourth epiphany as a couple.

They wanted a baby.

It was a long, extensive process. When they told the family that they were planning to adopt Kol threw a fit, Elijah stayed quiet and Rebekah was completely supportive. Kol's argument (a.k.a. the whiny, pouty, screaming match) consisted of mostly inane question and thinly veiled insults, but he did have a few points. Like what they would do with a human child, or if they were going to just compel someone to give them a kid and what if something tried to eat the thing? They were vampires, duh, it wasn't out of the question.

Rebekah had rolled her eyes and shoved Kol over the back of the couch, planting her hands on her hips and glaring down at him where he laid sprawled across the sofa. "We're not going to eat the baby."

Kol snarled, for the first time looking genuinely angry. "How do you know?" he hissed, sitting up, propping his forearms on his knees and ignoring Elijah's 'shoes off the couch, Kol'. "How do you know one of us wont slip up one day? He could-"

"Or she."

"-could fall and scrape his knee. Blood, Bekah. We're vampire's. We survive off blood, and sometimes you can't control those urges-"

Caroline interrupted with a snort, her eyes narrowing on Kol from across the room. "I knew you read Twilight." Kol swung his head around to fix her with a blank stare.

"I'm serious, little sister," said Kol quietly. He dropped his head back, looking upside down at Elijah, his eyes pleading despite the awkward angel. "Back me up, Eli. You know this is a bad idea."

Elijah had been standing near the fireplace, a swirling a glass of wine slowly in his hand as he stared at the floor without expression. He looked up after a moment, swinging his eyes from Kol to Caroline to Rebekah and finally settling on Klaus.

"You want this, brother?" asked Elijah softly, lowering his eyes slightly, unfocused. "Even after Zahari?"

Rebekah pressed her fingers to her mouth, fighting the grimace off her face and not really succeeding. Kol didn't even bother to hide the disgusted curl of his lip.

Caroline was the one who broke the silence, fixing Rebekah with a nasty look. She had a feeling about what Elijah was talking about… "Who?"

"Tatia's son," spat Rebekah. "Nik dotted on the boy. He was devastated when-"

Klaus' interrupted Rebekah with a growl, his eyes flashing yellow. She immediately shut her mouth with an audible click, turning her nose up and away petulantly. Elijah hadn't taken his eyes off of Klaus and he stepped forward with purpose, drawing the eyes of his family back to him.

"Nik?"

Caroline frowned. Elijah never called Klaus 'Nik'. It was his younger siblings name for him, and her's when the moment suited her.

Klaus' had met his brother's eyes and nodded once. And just like that, Kol was as on board with the plan as Rebekah was. Elijah even pulled his brother into a hug and congratulated them both.

If only it had been so easy.

Caroline had wanted to do the adoption thing the right way. No compelling some random family into giving them their child. It would have been too messy, too many people would know about the child and it would just cause a scandal. Elijah had agreed and started making arrangements for legal documents they could pass off as their own.

The therapist the adoption agency had sent to their home had been immediately suspicious of them.

"Aren't the two of you a little young to be starting a family?" she had asked, adjusting her block glasses on the bridge of her nose, giving Caroline a scrupulous once over before flashing her eyes over to Klaus.

The interview had only gone downhill after that. Caroline had ended up compelling the bitch into tolerating them (she didn't want to go overboard, they were supposed to be human after all) and sent her on her way. Klaus had leaned against the sofa with his arms folded over his chest, smirking at her after she had finished seeing Dr. Bitch-Face off.

"That could have gone better."

Caroline sneered back at him, a habit she had picked up from Kol and Rebekah when it came to Nik and his sass. "Forgive me for not tolerating judgy female-types who hit on my husband."

That got her an eyebrow raise. "Is that what she was doing?"

Caroline snorted. "Please, like you didn't notice her eyes glued to your crotch for last forty-five minutes."

Klaus shrugged at the same moment Rebekah walked in, shoving her brother in the shoulder in passing, scoffing. "Please. I wasn't even in the room and I could tell. She smelt like a bitch in heat."

Kol's laughter echoed around the house for half an hour after that comment.

Turned out that Dr. Bitch-Face had been right. Caroline and Klaus looked young and virile and in love. They had to lie on their application. Instead of forty years of marriage it was four. Instead of the 17 years Caroline had aged when she was alive, she was 21 to Klaus' 26 (the same age he had been for over a thousand years). They wanted a family though, that much they didn't have to fib. And the longer it took for them to be approved by the agency the more desperate they became. It took two years.

"Why couldn't we have just compelled an orphanage or something?" grumbled Kol after one very long day of discussing the adoption agency with Caroline (much to his chagrin). The fact that he had said we was not lost on either Caroline or Elijah, who was flipping through an Ikea magazine and nursing a glass of wine. They both sent him the same blank look.

Obviously the conversation was dropped.

Three months after, Klaus and Caroline had been introduced to Maria Douglas. At six months pregnant, Maria had been one of the sweetest fifteen year olds Caroline had met in her life. She had run away from home and her abusive boyfriend and she wasn't ready to be a mother. The Mikaelson's were more than happy to provide refuge for her. And they did, for two hopeful months, just before Maria's boyfriend somehow managed to track her down.

The crime scene had been horrific, even Klaus had to admit. Which said something about humanity.

They didn't even get a chance to shed blood before the police took him away. They would have to wait for retribution.

The 26 year old they only had a chance to meet once in a law office in New York had a miscarriage before anyone had a chance to breathe. That was just unfortunate; it had been absolutely no one's fault. There had been nothing Caroline or Klaus could have done to change that outcome.

But it didn't stop either of them for blaming themselves.

"I am this close to kidnapping a girl," murmured Klaus one night as they laid together in bed. Caroline turned her face up to look at her husband, noting the haunted look in his eyes.

"This is going to happen, Nik," whispered Caroline, reaching up to trace his bottom lip with her fingertips, drawing his face down to her. His teeth snapped at her fingers, making Caroline squeal as he rolled her over onto her back.

His solemn attitude returned after a moment. His body weight pressed against hers, her knees locked against his hips. "I know it will," he said against her cheek. Caroline felt him smirk against her skin and couldn't help smiling back into the darkness. "Patience is everything."

"Please. Have you met yourself?"

They had been so close only last year.

Everything had gone so smoothly. Jody had been nice, friendly even, if a little put off by the two of them. She had signed the papers; they had paid for her care. They had been with her for eight months; Caroline was in the devilry room with her when she went into labor. Rebekah had cried a little when she held the baby boy in her arms, Klaus had propped his chin on his wife's shoulder while she held their son.

Fifteen days. They had gotten to keep their son for fifteen days before a lawyer knocked on their door and told him that their child's real mother had changed her mind and wanted her baby back. They could have fought it. They had wanted to fight it…but they couldn't.

This time wasn't any different. They put in the time, the money, the bonds necessary to have Jaylen like and trust them with her unborn child, but in the end the grandmother of their child had found out about the baby and decided she was going to raise her herself.

They were in the hospital when they found out, with Elijah just down the hall, watching everything, listening with his vampire superpowers. Caroline had started crying before Jaylen's older sister had finished talking, burying her head into Klaus' neck. He held her, but didn't try to sooth her sobs. He was too tired.

They switched roles soon enough, Klaus' fingers digging into Caroline's back as he fought back the emotions from the whole fucking ordeal. Deep down he knew this was fair, karmic justice for his sins.

"It's not on purpose, Nik," Caroline murmured into Klaus' neck, running her figures through his hair soothingly while he clung to her. "It's not about us at all."

"I can't take much more of this, Caroline," said Klaus, pulled out of his wife's arms and looking down at her seriously. Caroline's mouth opened partway, not quite sure what he was trying to say to her. Klaus' eyes scanned her face, reaching up to brush her bangs out of her face. "Can't I just compel her?"

If he was trying to be funny it wasn't working. Caroline could hear the truth in his voice. At this point it might be their only option. She slid her hand across his neck, pressing her palm against his collarbone. To anyone else it might have looked like she was being supportive. Klaus knew she was going to break his neck if he so much as said one wrong word.

But he was so tired of being disappointed. And for a man that didn't tolerate disappointment he thought he had taken the last few years extremely well. But his patience was wearing dangerously thin, and he hadn't been lying when he had said he couldn't take much more.

"Excuse me," down at the end of the hall, where neither Caroline nor Klaus had noticed him, Elijah had spotted Jaylen's mother and the identical strawberry colored hair she shared with her daughter. Wide brown eyes turned to look at him as Elijah jogged up to her.

"Yes?"

"My name is Elijah Mikaelson," he introduced himself as pleasantly as he could to the woman who had just crushed his brother and sister-in-law. Her eyes hardened in recognition and he talked fast before she could interrupt him. "My brother and his wife had arranged to adopt Jaylen's daughter."

The woman huffed, crossing her arms tightly and glared. Elijah clenched his teeth. "I'm sorry that they have to be disappointed, but I'm going to raise my granddaughter until Jaylen comes to her senses and decides to be the mother she was intended to be."

A small voice in the back of Elijah's head mentioned how swell it was that vampires didn't burn when faced with religion. Instead of snarling at the woman he sighed. "I know you think you're doing what's right for your daughter, but I've met Jaylen. She's been to my home. I feel like I've gotten to know her over these last nine months, as well as the rest of my family. She's 17 years old, Ms. Lancaster. She knows what she wants."

"How dare you," she hissed, stepping closer to Elijah. He held his ground, not even pretending she intimidated him. As if sensing the superior being in front of her, Ms. Lancaster rethought her strategy and stepped back again, but continued glaring. "Now I am sorry your brother has to go through something like this, but he's young enough. They'll get another chance."

"This has been their fourth," said Elijah quietly. She at least had the decency to look surprised. "My brother…he wasn't always the man he is now. But if there's anyone who deserves to have a family it's him. He and Caroline are going to make amazing parents. They just need the chance."

Caroline adjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder slowly, biding her time while Klaus said one last goodbye to Jaylen while her mother was nowhere to be found. She glanced down the hall where she knew the nursery was located, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Would anyone really notice if she picked up a baby and boogied out of there at vampire speed?

She was saved from wondering long as Elijah rounded the corner, sporting a smile that nearly split his face in two. Caroline's eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "What the hell are you so happy about-?"

She squeaked as Elijah wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground, spinning her around a dozen times until she was laughing breathlessly along with him. He set her back down, placing his hands on her shoulders, grinning like a maniac. "Jaylen's mother reconsidered."

Caroline felt like she was falling. She stared at him, blinking quickly. "What?"

"She's waving her parental rights over Jaylen. You get to keep your baby."

"We…" Caroline's mouth moved wordlessly as she processed Elijah's words.

"Caroline?" their heads turned to Klaus, frowning curiously at the both of them. Elijah smiling like a jackass, and Caroline looking like she'd just been hit by a bus.

"We get to keep her," breathed Caroline, finding her voice. The confusion on Klaus' face vanished, and he became very serious.

"What did you just say?"

"Jaylen's mom changed her mind," said Caroline, her voice getting slightly pitchy. She pulled away from Elijah and reached for Klaus, touching his arm tentatively. "We get to keep her."

"We…" Klaus may have adopted Caroline's impeccable vocabulary, or at least the lack of it. He looked to Elijah for confirmation, for the rejection he knew was coming. Elijah could see it in his face, that this was too good to be true.

"Go see your daughter, brother."

The smiles on their faces could have powered a city block, and before Elijah could even blink they were gone. Elijah looked down, still smirking but trying desperately to control himself. There was so much to do…they were prepared, of course, but this time it was real. Digging into his pocket, Elijah pulled out his phone, dialing home to tell Rebekah and Kol the very good news.

They were whole at last.