A/N: *GASP* What?! An update already? I know, right? Anyway, I know I said there was going to be some heart-to-heart in this chapter, but I honestly didn't think it was all going to be heart-to-hearts! Let this be a warning, for those of you who hate 'talkies' and the like.

Chapter 5

Once when they were much younger, before they had been turned into monsters, Elijah and he had gotten into a fight over something so trivial, he can't even remember what it had been now. What he remembers is screaming at the top of his lungs, fists clenched at his sides, face red with anger, and Elijah much the same. You wouldn't think it now, composed and elegant as he always appears, but Elijah had once been known to lose his temper, too. He remembers first mother, and then father, entering the room after some time, the former looking shocked, the latter much more furious than either of his sons. He hadn't asked for an explanation—he never did, father—before he wordlessly took each of their ears in each hand and dragged them outside. Their neighbors didn't even bother to stop what they were doing, by now used to seeing how Mikael handled his children, especially Niklaus.

"You want to fight, you fight like men," he roared, pushing them both so that they stood facing each other. Rebekah had come skipping out of the nearby forest, thinking Elijah and Nik were about to practice their sword fighting again. The smile on her face had disappeared as soon as she had seen father's face. They had watched as their father stormed back into the house, only to return moments later with a sword in each hand, which he had thrown to each boy.

"Whoever draws first blood gets whatever it is you two are fighting over."

"Mikael–" Esther had started, but one look from her husband had silenced her.

"We don't want to fight, father," Elijah had reasoned, lowering his sword just as Niklaus had done. "It wasn't anything of importance."

"Nonsense! You draw your swords and fight like men. I will not have my sons screeching like women with their fists to their sides when there are swords to be drawn!"

Klaus remembers looking to mother for help, to Bekah for comfort, and to Elijah for guidance. The sword had felt all too heavy in his hand that night, much heavier than it had during their practices, and looking at Elijah's face, he had known his brother felt it, too.

"If you do not draw your swords, you will each fight me in turn, and we all know how that will turn out," Mikael warned, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes cold as they appraised his children.

And so they had fought, and father had been furious when Niklaus, after having managed to nick Elijah's left arm, had thrown down his sword in front of Mikael's feet and refused to go any further. He was given twenty lashings on his back for his disrespect, and sent to bed without any supper. That night, as Bekah's tears dripped on his back while she spread a soothing balm over his lashings, Elijah had crept next to his bed and given him a piece of bread and some meat he had managed to steal from the kitchen.

He'd apologized then, but Nik had merely shrugged his shoulders. They were, after all, Viking children, and they were to grow up as Viking men. They didn't fight with their words, only their swords.

So it feels utterly unfamiliar, this talk he is about to have with Caroline over breakfast, having never discussed his feelings without a sword or a fist or his fangs out. Yet, there she is, sitting across from him, lips pursed so thin, and eyes round with expectation, and he doesn't have the strength to refuse her.

And so he talks.

"Don't worry, love," he starts, taking a whiff of his coffee before bringing the cup to his lips. "I'm pretty sure I didn't drain them."

"Good," she answers curtly, but her eyes soften underneath her furrowed brows.

"Although, I might regret not compelling them," he admits, setting his cup down and watching Caroline's expression turn furious again.

"You didn't compel them?" she asks through gritted teeth. "You mean to tell me three tourists are now in some hospital, talking about being turned into a human juice box by some homicidal maniac?"

"Relax, Caroline," he says, in what he thinks is a soothing tone—he's wrong, of course.

"Telling someone to relax doesn't make them relax, you know that right?" she snaps at him.

"They were all heavily intoxicated. I highly doubt they'll remember it was a man who attacked them. And even if they did, everyone will chalk it up to a drug binge gone awry."

"Fine," she finally concedes, uncrossing her arms and unfurrowing her brows. "Now talk about what you said—to Elijah."

He runs a hand over the stubble growing around his jaw, watching Caroline's face turn from angry to hurt, and he sighs in resignation. "I'm sure I don't have to explain why I feel the way I do, love. You've known me a long time; I'd venture to say you're the only one who's really tried to understand me. Should it really still come as a shock to you that I would be…"

"What?" she asks, not unkindly.

"Frustrated," he finishes lamely.

"Oh is that what that was? Frustration? Because it really sounded a lot more than frustration."

"All right, I was angry," he admits. "I'm angry, I'm furious!"

He watches Caroline bite her lip and drop her gaze to her coffee cup, and he almost reaches across the table for her hand. He doesn't, though. He has a right to these feelings.

"What did you expect, coming here with this curse on your back, and telling me not to do anything about it?" he fumes, straining not to raise his voice. "That I would be fine just watching you rip your own heart out? After all the years I've waited, only to have you turn to dust in my own arms? You didn't even tell me!"

"It's not like I wasn't ever going to tell you," she argues, her voice getting louder now, too. "I was planning on telling you as soon as I got here. I had a whole speech prepared. I was going to say how I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, but I'm here now and I only have a few more months and could I please just spend them with you. And then maybe you could take me to Rome, Paris, Tokyo, like you said. But then I got here, and you'd painted those places and hung them around your house, and there I was on that very same night you told me you fancied me, hanging on top of your fireplace, and I just felt so stupid for fighting against this for so long, and I was so aware of how short a time we had, and I just really wanted you to hold me."

"But see, there's the thing," he insists, now reaching for her hand and looking intently into her eyes. "You've just accepted this, and I haven't. I would never accept that we are here now, but only for a few short months. There will always be a way, there will always be a loophole to wriggle out of."

"Yeah, and at what expense? I don't want to risk the lives of my friends, nor do I ever want to risk yours."

"You risk it anyway, not fighting like this," he mutters, looking down at their clasped hands. He feels her other hand on his cheek, and he closes his eyes as he leans into her touch. "Do you understand me, Caroline?"

He opens his eyes, and she's looking at him like she's never looked at him before, such tenderness in her green eyes, a sad smile on her lips. She leans over and kisses his cheek, and he pulls her onto his lap. She curls into him, resting her head against his neck.

"I understand," she whispers.

Sophie's witches come by the mansion that afternoon, for a meet-and-greet, Caroline jokes, and it's met with such stony silence by everyone present—save for one male witch who chuckles under his breath—that she sits next to Klaus for a whole hour without saying another word. Caroline decides she likes the copper-haired guy with the actual sense of humor.

The new recruits, as she involuntarily starts referring to them in her head, are scattered around the sitting room, some lounging on sofas, others sitting cross-legged on the floor. A few of them stay standing, arms crossed over their chests, and she knows they are the ones who are on the fence about all this. And, really, who can blame them? Sophie's basically asking them to risk their lives, to dive headfirst into the unknown, for some random vampire they have only just met.

As Sophie is giving them a summary of everything they know so far, Caroline leans closer to Klaus, about to ask him why these people are even willing to listen to any of this, when Bonnie walks into the room, barefoot and carrying several grimoires. Immediately, the atmosphere in the room shifts. Those who had been sitting back on sofas, sit up straighter, resting their elbows on their knees. Those standing uncross their arms, stuffing their hands inside their pockets and looking at Bonnie expectantly. Sophie's reaction to meeting Bonnie makes a lot more sense to Caroline now that she's seen these other witches around her best friend. Her chest swells like a proud mother.

Bonnie flops down unceremoniously next to Caroline, placing the books on the coffee table, crossing her legs by the ankles and smiling at Sophie, encouraging her to go on.

"Right," Sophie continues. "As I said, all we know for now is that this guy has a god riding piggyback on his brain, and what we are looking for is a way to defeat him. From what Elijah and Klaus have told us, gods plus human vessels equal indestructible beings with unknown power."

"Oh, great! Sounds like a fun excursion—to hell," a witch with short magenta hair mutters from where she stands by the sitting room's entrance. The copper-haired guy sitting in front of her turns to give her a look, which she returns with a roll of her eyes.

"What are you even doing here, Magda?" Sophie snaps, her voice steely. "I told you I'm not forcing any of you to join us."

Magda shrugs her shoulders noncommittally, but her eyes stray to where Bonnie is sitting, leafing through a thick grimoire on her lap.

"Coop, did you tell everyone that Bonnie Bennett is here?" Sophie asks exasperatedly, turning to the guy in front of Magda. He shrugs his shoulders apologetically before stealing a glance at Bonnie, who is still keeping herself busy with the book, though the crease on her forehead suggests she's uncomfortable with the direction this conversation is going.

"Shall we get on, then?" Klaus interrupts, and the look he gives the witches would have sent Caroline running for cover once upon a time. "Or am I going to have to start throwing people out of my house."

Magda stands up straighter, and Cooper's back turns rigid against the back of his armchair, but neither of them says anything. Magda purses her lips and stares at the floor, as if determined not to participate any further in the discussion.

"Alright, I won't even pretend that the majority of you guys didn't come here to see a Bennett witch in person," Sophie continues, looking at Bonnie apologetically. "So I'm just gonna' ask Bonnie to take over for me now."

Bonnie's head snaps up from her book, a look not unlike a deer in headlights on her face, and she glares at Sophie. She closes her book, however, and looks at the witches gathered around her. Caroline knows their expectant faces are making her uncomfortable—Bonnie has never liked being the center of attention.

"Okay, so," Bonnie starts uncomfortably. "How many of you know how to suck the life out of a person and then bring them back to life?"

After half an hour of Bonnie assessing everyone's abilities and theorizing what each of them could do to help, Elijah slips into the room and catches Klaus' eye. After squeezing Caroline's hand gently, Klaus leaves the room with his brother without saying a word. They walk into his study, Elijah closing the door as Klaus sits behind his desk.

"What news, brother?" he asks casually, like asking the weatherman if he would be needing an umbrella when he leaves the house tomorrow.

"Nothing," Elijah answers shortly. "No chatter among the usual circles. It seems they've all really gone and left."

"Have you reached out to Maurice's people, then?" He refuses to accept that they'd spent years building alliances only to come up short when they needed help the most. "Surely, they'd know of someone."

Elijah shakes his head, fingers needlessly straightening his cuffs. "I talked to some far-off descendant, so far-off that he seems to know nothing about his ancestors' penchant for summoning long-forgotten deities."

"How unfortunate," Klaus mutters through clenched teeth. If he had still been human, he would have taken deep breaths and counted to a hundred. He doesn't quite fancy destroying his furniture as much as Elijah's.

"We'll find something," Elijah assures him. He sounds a lot more confident than his brother. "The Bennett witch already has a plan of sorts, after all. It wouldn't be the first time we've relied upon a witch to commandeer our ship."

They return to a much more relaxed sitting room moments later, Bonnie having stood in the middle like a lecturing professor for the past hour. Perhaps hearing that she's the one who will be bearing the brunt of their attack had helped calm their minds some. Whether because they trusted her abilities that much, or because they were glad someone was risking more than they would be, Klaus finds he doesn't much care.

Elijah sits on the arm of Sophie's chair, the witch's elbow automatically coming to rest on his knee, and Klaus finds Caroline sitting alone by the fire, legs tucked underneath her as she nurses a drink in her hand. She smiles when he approaches, offers the glass to him wordlessly, and bites her lip.

"What's wrong, love?" he asks, returning her glass and watching her drink the rest of the whiskey in one gulp.

"Nothing," she whispers, smiling up at him weakly. "It's just…I don't even know these people. I'd say you compelled them all to come, but witches can't be compelled."

"No, they cannot. Threatened, however…"

"You did not!" she hissed under her breath, and swats his arm when he starts laughing at her expression.

"No, I did not," he admits. "Sophie is their leader, they do as she says. And even when she gives them a choice, like she did with this, not many of them will turn their backs."

"And Sophie's helping why, exactly? Just because she's with Elijah?"

He chuckles at this, taking the glass from her hand to place it on the fireplace mantelpiece and pulling her up from her seat. They walk out of the room and head for the back garden.

"When I first came back here—"

"When you left Mystic Falls without saying goodbye," she corrects him, and he laughs lightheartedly as he pulls her into his arms and they continue walking.

"Yes, when I made the very rash decision to leave one of my most favorite places in the world without so much as a by-your-leave to the beautiful baby vampire in her borrowed prom dress," he starts, kissing the top of her head. "I found this place under the rule of my old protégé, Marcel. He had managed acquire enough power to strangle this city so much that the witches couldn't even practice any kind of magic without alerting him somehow. And when they did, he killed them."

"Your protégé, for sure," she mutters, rolling her eyes. "Sounds about right."

"Learned from the best, what can I say?" He stops in front of a beautiful fountain flanked by two ancient-looking oak trees, and sits on the bench in front of it, pulling Caroline down with him. "Suffice it to say, Sophie and her coven found allies in my siblings and myself, and we overthrew Marcel."

"Sharing credit now, are we?" she jokes, looking at him incredulously. "Who are you and what have you done to the Original Hybrid, Niklaus Mikaelson?"

"Well, I never claimed I didn't do all the hard work, love."

She rolls her eyes yet again, and shakes her head. "Well, why did you take Sophie's side? If he was your old protégé, didn't you have a personal relationship with him?"

"Once upon a time, I did. But time had turned Marcel into a different man, and I didn't quite like what it turned him into all that much."

"And what was that?"

"Someone who opposed me," he answers matter-of-factly.

"Now that sounds like the Original Hybrid."

"I am what I am, love, I make no apologies for it," he answers seriously. He turns to her then, suddenly apprehensive. "Would you have me any other way?"

Caroline starts to open her mouth, about to say something jokingly, but as if seeing something in his eyes, she stops, considers him a moment, and smiles kindly. It reminds him of that smile she'd given him a lifetime ago, when he'd asked her if they were friends.

"I'm here, aren't I?" is all she says.

When the witches have taken their leave, Elijah in his study upstairs, Bonnie and Sophie in the kitchen still talking about spells and rituals as they start cooking dinner, Caroline and Klaus sit in the sitting room, looking at all the opened grimoires and notes scattered about. He picks up a yellow sticky note tacked over a crude illustration of a bird on a dog-eared page of a thick book, and reads Bonnie's messy scrawl that simply says, "Look into him."

"Klaus?" Caroline mumbles tentatively.

"Yes, love?" He sticks the note back where he found it, and closes the book.

"Why didn't you say goodbye?" And she doesn't have to elaborate, he understands what she means.

"I meant to," he admits, keeping his hands busy with the books and avoiding her eyes. "The night of your prom, when you'd found me to complain about Elena swiping your dress, I was actually turning the idea of leaving over and over in my head. I'd gotten some disconcerting news, see, about witches in New Orleans plotting something against me, though that had turned out to be a bogus lead. Anyway, you managed to get my mind off the subject. I went to the Lockwood mansion where you said the afterparty was being held to tell you I'd be leaving for a couple of days—I never meant to stay away for long, you know—but then I ran into Tyler outside."

He looks at her then, watches her mouth form a loose 'o' and shrugs his shoulders.

"I almost killed him right then and there, but I never really could do anything to him, knowing you'd never forgive me. So I let him go, and instead of saying goodbye, I sneaked a peek inside and saw you, looking both beautiful and lonely as ever, and then I left for New Orleans. Straight from that doorstep, I left and I fought with myself all the way, about not even leaving you a message. As you know, I lasted about a day in the city before I gave in and called you anyway."

"Right," she says quietly, tucking her legs underneath her. "But you stayed anyway, even after finding out the lead was bogus?"

"Yes, well, Elijah had followed me to the city, found Sophie and her witches." Used my unborn child to point me at Marcel like a loaded gun, he doesn't add. "Then Rebekah showed up soon after."

"And then you—" she cuts herself short, shakes her head and sighs. "Never mind."

"What is it?" He knows what it is, knows he will regret pushing it.

"Then you met her." It wasn't so much a question, but an uncertain statement. "The mother of your child. Was she a witch?"

He takes a moment, watches her face and understands that she's been sitting on this question since he'd shown her the nursery. She hadn't pushed him to tell her about it then, probably didn't want to upset him, thinking he had cared for the mother more than he actually did. There's something in his chest now, and it's threatening to claw its way out, and he decides he must rip it out himself.

"No, love, I didn't," he answers finally. "I met her in Mystic Falls."

He takes a deep breath, his eyes taking in the confusion on her face.

"We conceived the child when I was still in Mystic Falls, but I only found out about it when I got here."

He thinks he may be imagining it, but she seems to be shrinking away from him as he continues, each word feeling much like a confession of sins.

"Uh…" Caroline blows a forced breath out of her mouth, eyes wide and he knows she's searching for the right words. "Who?" It's all she manages to say.

"Hayley."

He swallows the lump in his throat as his eyes meet hers, sees the feeling of betrayal in them, hates the tears that appear in them, and he almost reaches for her, but his arms suddenly feel too heavy.

"Caroline," he rasps, and she scrunches up her face, closes her eyes and a tear escapes. "I'm sor–"

"Don't," she implores, shaking her head slowly. She doesn't look at him as she says, "I need a moment."

He can only watch her as she stands up, fists clenched at her sides, and he doesn't even hear Bonnie enter the room.

"Dinner's ready!" she calls, and Caroline turns to her with a forced smile. Klaus looks at Bonnie as if for help, sees her eyebrows furrow in concern at Caroline's state, and she looks at him accusatorily. "Are you okay?" she asks, turning back to Caroline.

"I'm fine," Caroline answers dismissively, voice a little too high. She keeps nodding her head as she says, "We'll be right there, Bon."

Bonnie gives him one more look of contempt before leaving the room without another word. He finds his strength then, and finally gets on his feet. He touches her shoulder tentatively, draws his hand back when she flinches at his touch.

"Dinner's ready," she says, echoing Bonnie.

"Caroline," he starts, taking a step closer to her.

"Let's just have dinner first, okay?" She sighs, finally looking at him again. "Then we'll talk."

It is the longest, most tiresome dinner of his life. He sits at the head of the long table in the actual dining room, Caroline on his right, sitting just as quietly as he does. Sophie keeps chattering on, and he doesn't know if she is covering up for the palpable tension that seems to have draped over all of them, but he's thankful to her nonetheless. Elijah helps keep the conversation flowing, turning to Bonnie and including her every now and then. For her part, Bonnie seems to be observing her best friend more than usual. From time to time, Klaus catches her observing him as well.

Caroline doesn't seem to have much of an appetite, poking her jambalaya and rearranging the prawns on her plate like a child trying to convince her mother that she'd eaten all her veggies. It would have driven him mad if she hadn't looked at him every once in a while and forced herself to smile. He couldn't quite return it, feeling nervous and dreading every second that ticked by that allowed her to imagine the worst of him, but at least she's able to look at him without stabbing him with her fork.

After the dishes are cleared away, Klaus' and Caroline's plates competing for most food left untouched, servers sweep in to place plates of Bananas Foster in front of each of them. Klaus sighs as if eating dessert was the most tedious task he'd ever had to complete.

"Wow," Caroline mutters, forcing as much enthusiasm as she can muster in her voice. "This looks amazing, Sophie."

"Thanks," Sophie smiles, then adds, "Bonnie helped."

"Yeah, well, you know how much I like setting things on fire," Bonnie jokes, smiling at Caroline encouragingly. "Try it."

He watches Caroline taste the dessert, sees her actually try to be convincing as she licks her lips and says, "that's so good."

Sophie smiles and lets her get away with the less than stellar review.

And then the dessert plates are being cleared, and Klaus' palms would have actually perspired had he been human. He watches Caroline get up from her seat, and makes to follow her, but then she turns to Bonnie with another forced smile on her face.

"Hey Bon, didn't you have something you wanted to show me?"

And with that, the two girls excuse themselves from the table and proceed upstairs to Bonnie's room, leaving Klaus in his seat. He barely even looks at Elijah and Sophie as they leave the room, only registers the sound of the front doors closing as they depart.

He retires to his studio, bottle of whiskey in hand.

It's half past midnight when he turns in for the night, knowing full well that he won't be falling asleep any time soon—not with Caroline's absence by his side, not with the pit in his stomach that no amount of alcohol and O negative had been able to fill. After having sat in front of a blank canvas in his studio for hours and having no inclination to even pick up a brush, he'd given up and decided to just drink his alcohol and call in their human blood bag.

He lays in bed, fully clothed and strains his ears to see if he can hear Caroline sleeping in Bonnie's room, to no avail. Kicking off his shoes, he turns on the lamp by his side of the bed and grabs the book he's been reading for the past few days. He's reading the same paragraph for the third time when he hears the creak of his bedroom door.

Looking up, he sees Caroline peek in, obviously checking to see if he'd fallen asleep, and he puts his book down on his lap.

"Hi," he says nervously.

"Hey," Caroline answers, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth as she walks to the bed, and her eyes look softer than they had during dinner. Somewhere between the door and the bed, she seems to change her mind and she changes direction.

He watches her enter the bathroom instead and emerge fifteen minutes later with her hair up in a loose bun on top of her head, face newly washed, teeth brushed. She'd changed into what is fast becoming his favorite ensemble of hers: one of his singlet shirts, a pair of his boxer shorts, and a pair of socks. She slips under the covers quietly and smiles up at him. Her smile looks sad, he notes.

"Do you want to sleep now?" he asks.

She bites her lips again, and sits up. Taking a deep breath, she turns to face him.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

He's not quite sure he heard her right. Is she apologizing to him?

"I'm sorry, love, what?" He's aware how stupid he sounds, but he asks anyway.

"I had no right to be mad at you," she shrugs her shoulders, as if it's the simplest of things. "I was with Tyler, or…I wasn't. I don't know, but I was definitely still in denial about us." She gestures between them as she says this. "And it's not like I ever thought you never got together with anyone else. It's just that…the Hayley-ness of it all took me by surprise."

She wrinkles her nose as she looks at him, and he leans over and kisses it.

"It's stupid, I know," she chuckles before sighing again.

"It isn't," he assures her, holding her hand against his chest. "I know you and Hayley always had this…animosity. I know I should have told you earlier, but I told myself it wasn't lying as long as I didn't deny anything. And you never asked, so I never offered the information. I wasn't lying when I said it was a one-time dalliance. There was alcohol, and both our frustrations over you and Tyler led to one thing, and then another, and–"

"Okay, okay," she interrupts. "I don't need to hear any of that. There is no need for you to explain anything between you two, just like there is no need for you to explain anything about Katherine, or Tatia, or the hundred other girls you were with before me."

He nods his head wordlessly, holds his breath as he sees her struggling to say something else.

"But I'm not going to deny that this feels like a punch in the stomach. And I'm aware that it shouldn't, that it had nothing to do with me, but I can't help the way I feel."

He starts to say something again, but she puts up a finger to stop him.

"It'll pass, though. I promise."

And then she leans over and kisses him, his grip on her hand tightening as he sits there rigidly. She pulls back and there's a hint of amusement in her eyes.

"What, now you're suddenly the worst kisser in history?"

He lets go of her hand then, his hands cupping her cheeks as he pulls her in for a real kiss, and he feels like the huge weight that's been looming over him since he'd shown her that nursery has been lifted from his shoulders.

Less than half an hour later, he turns off the bedside lamp, kisses the top of Caroline's head that's resting on his chest, and drifts off to sleep.

A/N: And so, that's it! Another short chapter done. I actually never thought I'd be addressing the whole Hayley thing again after the nursery scene, but I feel like if Klaus had that looming over him the entire time, he probably feels like he's carrying a ticking time bomb in his pocket. So that's that. I still can't wrap my head around how they even got pregnant to begin with, so I'm not even going to attempt to have Klaus explain that to Caroline. As always, comments/reviews/suggestions and what-have-you are always appreciated. :)