I do not own The Vampire Diaries or it's characters. If I did, the Originals would never have happened, Kol would be alive and happily causing mayhem somewhere, and Klaus and Caroline would be travelling the world sexing it up.
She's spring cleaning her apartment, air drumming to the latest song by The Originals when the phone rings. She freezes, turning towards the offending object warily.
She keeps a house line for conveniences sake only, barely using it in favour of racking up her cell phone bill every month. In hindsight, probably not the smartest move, but everyone she knows always rings her on her cell anyway so you know, whatever.
The house phone is purely for emergency purposes, say when her phone battery dies and she needs to order in a pizza, or there's a crazy axe murderer running through her house. Whatever comes first really.
With a sigh, she kills the music and picks up the phone.
"So I need your help." Elena says straight away, in lieu of any sort of traditional greeting or 'how are you, how's life?' Caroline sighs instead, propping the phone against her shoulder as she reaches for a cloth and starts wiping down the counter, because that's always been Elena's style, straight to the point and no nonsense.
She loves her for it, but sometimes it drives her just that little bit insane.
"I'm great thanks Elena, how are you?" She replies amusedly, as her best friend huffs out a breath in irritation. It's always like this, the sarcastic back and forth before they finally get to the point of their conversation.
Elena chooses to ignore her in favour of continuing on with her train of thought.
"So I've got this client right? I didn't ask for him, he was sort of pushed upon me without me having any idea. And he's super gorgeous, and super talented, and really really famous right now."
Caroline shakes her head in confusion but waits for the other shoe to drop and for Elena to continue with her tangent. Because she knows that there'll be one, and it will either be spectacular or spell trouble for her. Possibly both. What was the saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions or something along those lines.
"Except he's a total mess. Got out of a relationship with this girl, and can't seem to pull himself together sort of mess. Drinking, thankfully not hard drugs, but still a nightmare for me to deal with. And he's expected to produce a new album by the end of the year." Elena continues. There's a clinking of a glass in the background and Caroline suspects that Elena's gotten into the bottle of whisky that she bequeathed Elena for Christmas. It was for emergencies only, so she knows that this is sort of serious, because Elena drinking at work is like Father Christmas coming in July.
It's like a light bulb clicking on over her head as she realises who exactly Elena is referring too.
"Klaus Mikaelson right?" She asks suddenly, interrupting Elena mid sentence. There's a long pause, the sound of breathing the only thing that could be heard as her best friend stops to gather her thoughts.
"How did you know that? I only picked him up last week!" Elena exclaimed, the slightest hint of horror leaking through her voice.
Caroline shrugs as she scrubs harder at a particularly stubborn coffee stain on her counter.
"Honey this is how this town works. People talk. A lot. It's all anyone can ever talk about actually. What did you need my help for anyway? As much as I love talking about Klaus Mikaelson with you I really should be you know, working on my next book or something?"
"How is that going by the way?" Elena replies curiously. "Right, not the point. It seems I've completely forgotten that I rang for an actual reason other than to bitch about what a nightmare my job has just become."
Caroline doesn't stop herself from laughing then, because it's such an Elena thing to say. Elena works in Public Relations, or PR as it's more commonly known in Hollywood. And she's the best of the best. People clamour for her to represent them. She's a fixer, she makes things disappear. Caroline doesn't really want to know what Elena has to do to bury some of the stuff she's had to in the past, but she's learnt not to ask too many questions.
"So we sort of need to clean up his image a little bit. His approval is slipping in the public eye, and people are losing interest in him. I'd normally put him in front of a camera with a litter of puppies like I did with Stefan Salvatore in 2011, but I don't think I can get away with doing the same thing twice."
Caroline sighs as Elena continues. This is generally the norm with conversations between her and Elena. The girl seriously is unstoppable, could probably talk for hours if no one bothered to rein her in.
"I need you to date Klaus Mikaelson." Elena finishes, and she gapes into the phone at those words. This is it; her best friend has officially lost her mind.
"Oh my god you're actually being serious about this. First of all, Niklaus Mikaelson is seriously out of my league and we both know it. Second, as you just said he just got out of a relationship and he's an absolute mess. I highly doubt he'll receive your idea with a great amount of enthusiasm. And I honestly cannot just put my life on hold and date Klaus Mikaelson." She finishes, ticking each of the points off on her fingers.
"Come back to the light Elena." She pleads. "You know you don't want to do this. I have cookies!" She adds, like that's magically going to make it all better.
"I can see that you're going to be stubborn about this." Elena replies after a long silence. "Never mind, we'll discuss this tomorrow. Bruch at Miguel's at 11?"
"I hate you." Caroline tells her as the phone clicks and all she hears is a dial tone. Not saying goodbye is an endearing Elena thing as well apparently. And she never has been able to say no to Elena.
The thing is, she sort of owes Elena big time. When she'd first come out here with the intention of writing, it had been Elena that had let her crash on her couch rent free, demanding only cooked meals and contribution to the upkeep of the apartment in return until she had found her feet.
And found her feet she had.
Elena is in a committed relationship with Damon Salvatore, a big time record company owner/producer who Caroline sort of loves and sort of hates at the same time.
Damon assures her repeatedly that the feeling is mutual. Their relationship works. That and she promised to creatively murder Damon if he ever hurt Elena in any way, shape, or form. She's waiting for Damon to actually get around to asking Elena to marry him, because they've been together for almost 5 years now and she's sort of itching to plan a wedding.
Her first book stayed on the best sellers list for almost 3 months, and the amount of copies sold basically meant that she'd never have to work a day in her life again if she didn't want to. But she'd never been the type to sit around and do nothing, so she does a bit of column writing on the side for some of the teen magazines when she's not working on her follow up novel.
So yeah, her life is sort of great at the moment. She has Bonnie Bennett, a top model on her speed dial, she has a kickass apartment in downtown LA, and she's best friends with a rock star.
Kol Mikaelson is the front man of The Originals, the biggest band around at the moment. He's a big partier, really enjoying the rock and roll lifestyle and the fast cars and the women and the money. He's a bad influence but he's also possibly her favourite person in the world.
Of course, the first time they'd met Kol had tried to get her into his bed, but she'd turned him down pretty quickly. A part of her thinks that Kol had been mildly impressed, because they'd kept bumping into each other at parties and events, and they'd gotten to know a little more about each other each time.
Soon they'd been hanging out outside of any official events. She's not quite sure when Kol became her best friend, but he seemingly ingratiated himself into her life without her even realising. And honestly, she wouldn't have it any other way.
Beneath the polished veneer that he presents to the media, Kol is a natural charmer, incredibly mischievous and in possession of a self depreciating sense of humour that always gets her laughing and forgetting about her worries.
The sound of someone hammering on her door interrupts her train of thought. She resigns herself to the fact that her spring cleaning time is over, and steps carefully around her furniture to wrench the door open.
Think of the devil and he doth appear.
Kol Mikaelson is leaning up against the door jamb, arm braced against the frame. He's carrying a bottle of vodka (of course he is), and shoots her a lazy grin as he bounces into her apartment.
"Hello darling." He presses a quick kiss to her cheek, moving further into her apartment and making a beeline for the kitchen.
"By all means step into my apartment Kol. And should I even ask why you're carrying around a bottle of vodka at one o'clock in the afternoon?"
Kol rolls his eyes, choosing to ignore her as he rummages around in her cupboards for two glasses. He splashes some vodka into both, topping it up with pineapple juice from her fridge.
She steps up to the island, picking up one of the glasses and giving it an experimental swirl.
"We're celebrating!" Kol declares with a cheer as he knocks back his drink.
"You know it's usually standard protocol to inform the other person of what we're celebrating before you start drinking." She points out as Kol wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.
"Right yes. So my older brother has dropped that awful girlfriend of his. The media might tell you otherwise, but Tatia Petrova is an absolute bitch." Kol replies as she very quickly puts two and two together.
Kol is one of six children, with three brothers being older than him. The eldest, Finn Mikaelson reportedly doesn't have a lot to do with the family, choosing to settle in England with his wife and child and away from the bright lights of this city.
The second eldest, Elijah Mikaelson is a high profile news anchor on Channel 4. He's also sort of terrifying in real life. She'd met him only once, and found his demeanour to be highly intimidating. Considering he'd been in a long term relationship and was engaged to Katherine Pierce, she figured there was definitely more to Elijah than met the eye.
So of course, after her conversation with Elena, Kol could only be talking about Niklaus Mikaelson.
Niklaus Mikaelson was an incredibly successful solo musician. He'd only released two albums, his debut going straight to number one, and his second matching that effort. He'd won a whole bunch of awards and accolades, and from all reports was still actually a decent fucking human being which was extremely rare in this industry.
It was part of the reason why she had both of his albums and probably every acoustic version of his songs in existence. It amused Kol to no end to see just how big a fan of his brother's music she was.
"I was going to see if he wanted to come out with us tonight, but it would be such a drag having to make sure that he's not going to fall face first into the nearest glass of bourbon. He seems to be favouring alcohol over actual human interaction at the moment." Kol remarks dryly as she sighs.
"A normal coping mechanism given the circumstances." She tells Kol who rolls his eyes.
"I heard your best friend is his PR person as well. She's going to need some hard liquor very soon." Kol continues conversationally as he pours himself another drink. She tries not to notice just how much vodka goes into it.
"Yeah well if anyone can get your brother back on track it's Elena." Caroline remarks, because it's definitely true.
"Elena is a very scary person. I don't doubt it even a bit. Are you going to be boring and stay inside tonight, or are you going to come out on the town with me?"
It's a stock standard Kol Mikaelson question every Friday night, and she usually turns him down. Tonight is no different.
"Oh Christ you're so boring sometimes." Kol scolds her as she punches him in the arm.
"I'm sorry, but some of us actually have to work for our money." She replies teasingly. "I really need to get another chapter to my editor." She clarifies as Kol nods in understanding.
"I'll accept that excuse." Kol pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks it. "Duty calls it would seem. Sunday debrief?" He asks, referring to their usual Sunday catchup, in which Kol attempts to detox through the consumption of smoothies and pancakes over breakfast after sleeping away his Saturday.
"I'll be there." She promises, as Kol swipes the bottle of vodka from the counter, tucking it under her arm and giving her a jaunty salute.
And really, she has to wonder sometimes how this is even her life.
Its hours later after she sends her completed chapter off to her editor that Caroline casts her mind back to her conversation with Elena.
It only takes a few seconds to pull up Google. Caroline pauses as she flexes her fingers, wondering if she's really going to go down this particular rabbit hole before she types in the name 'Niklaus Mikaelson' into the search bar and hits enter.
Thousands of hits come in almost instantly, and she scrolls past the first few ones. There's a Wikipedia entry on him, a couple of fan sites, but she's not looking for that. She clicks on a few news articles, and she's met instantly with a picture of Klaus and a gorgeous brunette, a brunette that she recognises almost instantly.
If she didn't know better she would say that she's Elena down to the very last curled piece of hair. But as she looks closer she can see that there are differences. The cheekbones are sharper; the eyes are colder, the curl of her lips when she smiles is different.
Tatia Petrova. The caption proclaims.
Looking at Klaus, you can't deny that he loves her. Or he loved her. A quick scan of the article tells her that it was distance that drove them apart, and her highly publicised fling with her co-star, Mason Lockwood was the final nail in the coffin so to speak.
The articles that follow paint a tragic sort of story, the once relevant musician with songs almost like poetry now fading into obscurity, while Tatia's star burns almost as bright as a supernova. Apparently cheating on someone is the prime way to elevate your status in Hollywood, because she's been flooded with work in the past couple of weeks.
She would feel sorry for Niklaus, but she doesn't even know him.
Although if Elena has her way she'll no doubt get to know him very soon.
AN: Hello all. This is a rewrite of my previous story, Bright Lights.
A note on the Kol/Caroline relationship: The two are best friends, a totally platonic relationship with zero feelings and sex involved.
I'll continue with this when I have the time!
New title comes from the song 'City of Angels' by 30 Seconds to Mars.