A/N: Part one of two.

Enjoy!

Hideaway | Part One

Caroline Forbes angrily lifted a wayward branch out of her face, stepping past it and listening with satisfaction as it smacked against its tree once released. She couldn't believe the way Tyler had embarrassed her. Breaking up with her in the middle of the cafeteria in front of all of their friends the week before prom? What an utter asshole. Hopefully he liked ice cream in his hair.

She was going to get in trouble for leaving while school was still in session, but at this point, she didn't give a damn. Tyler had utterly humiliated her. On purpose, she might add. He broke up with her like that out of spite. Sure, they were having trouble. He flirted with too many girls that weren't Caroline, she focused too much on getting votes for prom queen. Yes, they were 100% going to break up as soon as they graduated high school due to the small fact that she was going to Stanford and he was...well, staying in Mystic Falls because he hadn't even bothered applying for university, but all of that was completely besides the point.

He broke up with her before it was time. Before she was ready. And she was fucking pissed.

A scream was building at the back of her throat as she continued her trek through the woods towards her favourite spot, swatting flies and mosquitos and stray branches set on poking her beautiful blue eyes out, but she held it in. Screaming wouldn't help her. Getting revenge, on the other hand, would.

Just as she reached the final row of trees before reaching her spot, Caroline nearly rolled her ankle, making her regret, but only slightly, wearing high heels to school that day. At least she had looked nice when Tyler ripped her heart out in front of their classmates.

Pushing through a few more branches, a quiet, warm serenity washed over the blond. She had come to the creek, a small, insignificant portion of the famous woods inside of her town. It wasn't all that special to look at, but Caroline knew of the hidden portion of the creek buried deep in the trees where nobody dared to go. Here, the sun shone like nowhere else. The water looked crisp instead of stagnant. Fish of all sizes swam up the stream, jumping out of the water every now and again. It was green here, lush and beautiful. Like nowhere else in the entirety of Mystic Falls. And it was all hers.

Caroline, careful not to twist her ankle as she walked over the big stones to reach the edge of the creek, breathed in a calming breath, closing her eyes and letting the sunshine wash over her. She was still angry. Bitter as anything. But this place had healing powers. She didn't feel so alone here, even if she was without company.

"Hey."

Caroline's eyes snapped open. She rotated her head around quickly, searching for the source of the noise, stumbling on the rocks. Her stomach rolled as she started to fall backwards, knowing her head would surely smack directly on the stones, leading to either being brain dead, or dead dead. She braced herself for impact, her breath lodging sharply in her throat, but the head-splitting pang never came.

Somebody big and quite strong had their arms wrapped tightly around her, stopping her from falling to her death.

"Careful there," that same voice said, only it was much louder now.

Caroline cracked one eye, then the other.

"Now, then, what exactly are you doing at my spot?"

He was English. Stubbled. Bronze curls sat atop his head.

Klaus Mikaelson.

Great.

Righting herself, Caroline tore away from her not-so-knightly knight in shining armour and staggered into the grass at the edge of the creek, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of her heels sinking into the mud. They would be hell to clean off later.

"Your spot?" she asked, incredulous, waving her hands around wildly. All of that anger and hurt from before came rushing back at full force.

Klaus, a member of one of the most affluent families in the whole of Virginia, frowned at her, his bulging forehead somehow bulging even more than usual. Caroline couldn't help but equate him to a large, wild primate.

"Yes," he said sternly. "My spot. What are you doing here?"

Caroline crossed her arms. "This is my spot, you ass."

"Ass? I just saved your life, sweetheart. If you like, I can shove you back against the rocks. You can rescue yourself."

"You'll murder me? Is that what you're saying? You'll murder me if I don't leave 'your spot.' What a fucking gentleman!" she screeched, hot and bewildered and angry tears building.

Sucking in a deep breath, Caroline tried to calm herself before freaking Klaus Mikaelson caught her crying.

"Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I'll murder you if you don't go away."

"I could have you arrested for saying that, you know."

Klaus's frown suddenly disappeared, replaced by his infamous smirk that made all of the ladies swoon. Well, all of the ladies except her. "Do you really think that'd stick?"

He was referring to his status, the bastard. He could kill her right there and then and never go to jail for it, even if everybody in the United States and the bloody United Kingdom knew it was him.

"Relax, sweetheart. I'm not gonna murder you," he insisted, holding his hands up. "But, I'll ask again, what are you doing here?"

Caroline thought about simply refusing to answer him. He had no right to question why she was there. It wasn't his business to know. But she was never very good at keeping her mouth shut.

"I'll have you know, Mikaelson, this is my special spot. Not yours," she said proudly, lifting her own lips in a smirk.

"And I'll have you know," he said, breezing by her to sit on one of the large rocks, "that this is public property, available to anyone, anytime."

Caroline turned as he moved past her. "That's not true," she corrected. He blinked at her, waiting for further explanation. Idiot. "Woods close at dark. Sheriff's law."

Rolling his eyes, Klaus huffed a laugh and looked over the water. The sun was shining bright that day, filtering through the sparse trees by the clearing. Glistening gorgeously against the wavering stream. From afar, he didn't look too bad. Attractive, almost, in his dark jeans and even darker Henley.

Caroline shook her head, taking one step away from the demon before her.

Attractive? she thought, mentally chiding herself. Ew.

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Klaus was facing her again, his eyes looking almost teal in the sunlight. Clearly, that was meant to be a dig at her as her mother was the town's sheriff. Whatever. She wasn't fazed. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I was here first."

Caroline let out an indignant huff. "I don't care that you were here first! This isn't a first come, first serve sort of situation."

Klaus stroked his stubble-ridden chin for a few moments, looking at her like he was mulling her words over. She could punch his smug face.

"Let's do this," he said, "whichever person found this place first gets to stay. How old were you when you discovered this little sanctuary?"

She could win this. Klaus had only been in the States for six years.

"I was ten," she proclaimed, sticking her nose in the air.

"Nine."

Caroline's eyes widened in disbelief. She grabbed ahold of her hips. "Nine? You weren't living here when you were nine!"

Shaking his head, Klaus stood and came over to her. "So? My father needed to scope this place out before we packed our things and moved. He told me not to bother him, so I went to the woods and ended up here," he said, waving his hands about the place.

Tears bubbled in Caroline's eyes, blurring her special spot from view. Of course he had found this damned hideaway first. He was Klaus Mikaelson. He got everything he wanted without even needing Daddy's help. He was just that amazing.

Well, fuck him.

"Fuck you," Caroline mumbled, blinking away the tears. She scratched at her face, hoping he hadn't seen the droplets rolling down her cheeks.

"Hey, don't get mad at me. It's the tru"—

He stopped mid-word. Caroline looked at him, her lips trembling. She couldn't help it—she was sad and pissed off, and now she couldn't even wallow in self pity at her favourite place.

"What's wrong?" he asked, voice gentler than she'd ever heard it.

Caroline shook her head, knowing if she spoke, her throat would waver and she'd never manage to finish explaining how shitty everything had gone that day. Besides, he didn't need to know why she was upset. It wasn't his business.

"Nothing." Simple, usually effective. Most boys wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole the moment she said that word. Apparently, Klaus Mikaelson was not "most boys."

He sighed. "Obviously it's not 'nothing.' Otherwise we'd still be arguing about who gets to stay."

"You already won that game," she said shakily, cursing herself for sounding so weak and pathetic.

"Come on. You're Caroline Forbes. You never back down from a fight."

Anger surged in her veins, electrifying her bones. "Yeah," she spat, "well I'm fucking sick of fighting. With you, with Tyler . . . You can have this place, I don't care."

Score one for Mikaelson. He managed to ruin her favourite place in the whole wide world and humiliate her further at the same time. Scratch that, two points for Mikaelson. She didn't think she could be more upset after the way Tyler had treated her earlier, but she was proven wrong.

It was time to leave, she decided as she felt her face burn with a toxic mixture of embarrassment and vexation, and she turned around abruptly, fully prepared to stomp all the way home. A hand gently brushing her elbow stopped her in her tracks. Rotating her head, just as another tear rolled haphazardly down her cheek, Caroline frowned at Klaus who had moved from his perch and was currently standing directly behind her, far too close for comfort.

"What?" she spat, watching her saliva fly from her mouth and smack him directly on the upper lip. "I said you could have this place. I don't want it anymore."

That was a lie. She did want it. She needed it. How else was she going to feel better? Her mother would be no help. This spot, her special spot, was the only space where she could completely clear her mind. Without it, she would only bathe in her shame and hostility until it took over her life.

But she could live with that. Her grandmother had always told her she would grow up to a bitter old maid, so it wasn't as if she was completely unprepared.

"You're lying," Klaus deduced, shocking Caroline out of her own mind.

Was she that easy to read?

"What makes you say that?" she asked petulantly.

"Well, for one, you've never given up this easily," he said, and it sounded to Caroline like an almost-compliment. "I mean, you managed to get everybody in English, including Mr. Richards, behind banning guns during Debate Week last month. You, the daughter of the sheriff, managed that."

Okay, it was definitely a compliment. The idea of Klaus Mikaelson praising her argumentation skills sent an odd thrill down her spine, but she decided not to think too much about it.

"Obviously this place means a lot to you," he said as she fully turned herself back around. Their eyes met, and for the first time since Tyler dumped her in front of their friends and random classmates, she didn't feel like crying. "So, I'll ask again, what's wrong?"

Maybe the stress of the day had finally gotten to her. Or maybe the way the sunlight was hitting Klaus Mikaelson's brutish face, highlighting the golden streaks in his tangled mess of hair, was steadily hypnotising her. Either way, she found herself opening her mouth. Before she knew it, the events of earlier in the day were spilling out of her lungs, falling in angry, broken pieces on the overgrown grass.

Klaus remained silent throughout her story, keeping his eyes directly on her as she moved about the small patch of land, arms waving about her head.

"…And then I poured my ice cream on his head and left," she finished, exhaling. She placed her hands on her hips and frowned. "I just can't believe it happened like that. It wasn't supposed to happen like that."

"How was it supposed to happen?"

Caroline startled. She had almost forgotten Klaus was there, he hadn't said a word since she began her tale. Looking at him then, she decided he really wasn't that ape-ish. Only a little. There was a slight softness to his face she hadn't ever noticed before.

"Well," she huffed, brushing her sweaty hands on her pristine trousers. She never thought she'd be telling anybody these things. It was difficult to find the right words. "Well, he was supposed to take me to the dance," she explained, "to prom. I would wear this gorgeous blue dress I've had my eye on for ages, he would wear his dad's old tuxedo. There would be a limo, some champagne. We'd win king and queen, have a dance or two…"

—"This is a fascinating story of how you would have hoped your prom night would go, but I think you're straying from the story," Klaus interrupted, reminding Caroline that the fantasy she was replaying wasn't going to happen.

"Right," she said sharply. "I guess I'm still digesting the breakup."

The sun suddenly felt a little bit too hot as Caroline's blood reached her cheeks. Stumbling in her heels, she decided it was time to sit down, her trousers be damned. She chose the rock on Klaus's left. His eyes immediately found her.

"So," she began again, "I'm going to Stanford in the fall. It's always been my dream to study political science there, and I love California so much that it's just the perfect place for me. Tyler wants to stay here, in Mystic Falls, which is so not cool with me. I've known we were just going to be together during high school since we got together three years ago, but when he told me he didn't even want to attend college, not even freaking Whitmore, the worst school in all of Virginia, it really hit me that we were horrible for each other." Caroline paused, remembering the moment she broke up with Tyler in her mind after he explained his plans to stay in their hometown and follow in his father's mayoral footsteps. She sighed, picking up a strand of tall grass and plucking at its fraying ends. "We were supposed to stay together all the way through until graduation, just to keep up appearances, then I would dump him the next day and give this big speech about how I needed to find myself in California and how badly he's been dragging me down since we started dating."

Her story finished, Caroline finally allowed herself to sneak a peak at the silent Mikaelson boy. His face was scrunched, as if he was trying desperately not to laugh. He'd never looked so carefree in front of her—or probably anyone—before. It suited him.

"What?" Caroline snapped, a soft giggle building in her throat. "I know it's crazy, but it was my plan. I like my plans."

Klaus shook his head. "No, no, your plan sounded wonderful. Wonderful and absolutely psychotic."

"What was psychotic about it?"

"The simple fact that you've been planning this breakup for a year isn't exactly what I'd call 'normal,'" Klaus explained, his laugh running like a wild burst of wind through his sentence. "It's mad. You're mad."

Indignant, Caroline shoved Klaus with her shoulder even as she found herself laughing right alongside him.

"I know, I know. I'm the crazy person who plans her breakups in advance. To be fair, it was a good plan. Both of our reputations would have stayed crystal clear if he hadn't decided to ruin everything."

"What did make him breakup with you today?"

Caroline wasn't sure she wanted to share that piece of information. She couldn't believe she'd spilled all of this anyway, let alone to Klaus Mikaelson, the town's very own rich, sought-after rebel.

"I promise I won't laugh again," he said, and strangely Caroline believed him.

Rolling her neck, she tried to ignore the burning sensation in her belly every time her eyes flicked to Klaus's. He was staring so intently at her, like he could see something nobody else could.

"He said it was because I was too controlling and manipulative. He's now going to prom with one of the Fell's."

There was a great silence that passed over the patch of land, the only noises coming from the buzzing insects and the spitting creek. It was good, Caroline decided, that she got all of that off of her chest. Otherwise, the stress of the situation would have probably taken at least ten years off her life.

Who cared the person she shared her secrets with was Klaus Mikaelson. He obviously didn't mind.

"I'm sorry."

Caroline looked at him again, finding genuine sympathy in his sparkling eyes.

"Thank you. It's just annoying, because now I don't have a date to prom."

Then, like a freight train, an idea hit her. She gasped, grabbing Klaus's arm. Ignoring the strong feel of his bicep, she looked excitedly at him, her heart thumping loudly against her ribcage.

"Oh, no," Klaus said, backing away from Caroline. "I'm not doing that."

Frowning, Caroline scooted in his direction. "Why not? It'll be perfect. You know, not with a fizzle, but with a bang!" she exclaimed, getting increasingly riled up. "Nobody would see it coming, Klaus. I could laugh in everybody's faces one last time before leaving. It's the perfect plan!"

"I'm not going to prom with you," Klaus said sternly. "It's not my scene, and I don't want to be your puppet."

"No, no," Caroline protested. "You wouldn't be my puppet. You'd be my date."

"Yeah, you're date who is only there to shock everyone."

Batting her eyelashes, Caroline stood in front of Klaus's perch. She pouted her lips. "Please? I know we don't know each other very well, and I know it's completely outrageous, but it would be fun. For both of us, I promise. Besides, I need someone to stand up there with me when I win prom queen."

Klaus exhaled a long, exhausted breath. When his eyes met Caroline's, she knew she'd won. She always won.

"Fine," he said. Caroline squealed, stopping abruptly when Klaus put his hand up. "But only if you can swear we won't dance."

Caroline laughed. "Not a chance in hell, buddy."

To Be Continued . . .