Takes place around late season5.
Ever since Elena told her about her dreams ('pass-outs' would be the word she'd use), about her and Stefan's parallel life, Caroline had been having vague dreams herself. In those hazy visions, she was always accompanied by a man who she never managed to have a glimpse of his face, but the sense of security filled her whenever her dreaming self was in his presence.
She blamed this more on her imagination than on the universal balance Bonnie claimed to be collapsing, unwilling to believe either her or her best friend's dreams were true.
When things were finally settled- all those nonsense, insane, shitty, never-stopping misfortune seemed to come to a pause-Liz asked if Caroline wanted to join a mother-daughter beachside getaway during her miraculous week-off, and, needless to say, the daughter had no problem jumping at the offer.
That was the reason why Caroline Forbes was now lying on the warm beach under a colorful, giant umbrella while her mother took time enjoying a short-term surfing course.
"Care you still there?" Liz lifted the opened book perching on her daughter's face to check for her consciousness.
She blinked to the sudden amount of daylight, brows knotting, "barely. I was almost asleep."
"Sorry to interrupt," the elder covered the younger blonde's face with the book once again playfully, "just to inform you that the tide's rising so the coach's taking me further into the blue. Didn't want you wake up panicking for my absence or anything."
Caroline stretched as she yawned under the pages and eventually gave her mom a lazy hand wave, "that's fine. I'll be able to doze off again in 30 seconds. Too tired. God knows how many of my brain neurons the Augustine had killed."
Liz sighed at her daughter's figure before returning to the water, unsure whether she should worry about the complicated life she was having instead of a normal college girl's one, or simply feel happy for the leisure time she finally got.
On the other hand, Caroline's mind was just too foggy to proceed the complexity her mother was pondering on, the gentle refrain of the waves rolling in and fading away calming her, leading her to the verge of sleep…
When Caroline woke up, her mother had already helped tidied up all their stuff, leaving her the only unpacked Forbes object on the sand.
"Mom, why didn't you wake me?" Caroline whined as she pulled on her raggy T-shirt hastily.
Drops of salty water fell from Liz's hair as she shrugged, "you were sleeping soundly and seemed like having nice dreams, so I thought I could maybe wait for another few minutes before I part you away from them."
"Mom, have I told you how amazing this hotel is?" Caroline praised as she literally took a twirl to take in the scenery around them on their way back to the buildings.
Yes, buildings.
The hotel, more like a resort it is, created a very exotic surrounding by planting palm and coconut trees wherever you could lie your eyes on. The guests were able to reach a hay-top hut with loads of cocktail and tropical juice every 3 steps. Not to mention the private beach with shiny white, soft sand it was providing its customers.
Liz pulled her girl in with her free hand and gave her a slight squeeze, "oh, thank Jim back in Mystic Falls. He pulled strings to help me book it when he heard I was going on a vacation with you. 'I'll do anything to kick the sheriff out of town, even just for a week', he said. I guess I was pushing my subordinates too hard these days."
The other girl burst in to laughter and took a few steps forward towards the liquor hut along the resort alley between the hotel buildings, "since the sheriff's off duty now, I believe it's okay for her to take a few shots-"
Before she could finish her sentence, a full bucket of colored water fell from nowhere (well, from ABOVE apparently) and drenched her from head to toes in ridiculous shades, the container landing a few steps away from them.
The Forbes looked up in search of the source but all they found was a string of verbal venom, male and female voices fighting, coming out from some room in the building.
Still in shock, Liz quickly grabbed her daughter's wrist, "let's just go get you washed and changed. Don't wanna get more into the middle of a couple's fight."
"Ugh, the universe just keeps on keeping me from even the tiniest portion of peace." Caroline sighed as she agreed, but their action of leaving was interrupted by the voice from above, "I'm so sorry for that, are you okay?"
That unique intonation, trademark smugness in the inquirer's voice was so familiar that it reminded her of someone, someone who should be miles away around NOLA but here, someone who she hadn't see for months but had secretly been meeting in her nightly visions—and when she held her head, her assumption was confirmed, "Klaus?"
"Oh, I'm sorry for being an idiot. You can't be okay in all that… paint water, I am, we are, extremely sorry for that," ever the old-fashioned gentleman, he kept on apologizing, "what I mean was, are you hurt?"
It was beyond weird that he not only seemed unable to recognize her but also failed to capture her whispering his name, which was very unlike him, unlike a thousand-year-old vampire to do.
Not receiving any response from her, he simply came to the conclusion that she was raged, "you know what, why don't you wait there and I'll go down stairs and check on you myself and see how I can make amends. Just stay there, I'll be right down!"
Liz frowned at her daughter, apparently aware of her unnatural reaction to the supposed stranger, "do you know this guy?"
Okay, so now Mom can't remember Klaus, too.
Watching Klaus disappear from that balcony at human speed- at human speed! This was so not the man who'd volunteered to be her last love would behave when he was concerned about her- Caroline had to admit something, well, the whole situation, was wrong and she had no idea if she could handle this, so all she could do, was drag her mother away and disappear into thin air before this not-so-normal Klaus could get to her. After all, Klaus was already impossible under normal condition, hell knows how he's like when he's abnormal?
The next day, Caroline once again woke up to the constant singing sounds of the tides, this time on her giant, soft hotel bed, with a note from her mother by the pillow, saying 'went off to surfing course early. Didn't want to wake you up. Booked a fancy Japanese restaurant down the street outside the resort at 12:30 already, make sure to make it there!'
She let out a moan and pressed her face into that puffy pillow once more before jumping out of bed to get herself washed and dressed. She wandered through the limited collection she'd brought in the suitcase and settled with her favorite white lace skater sundress. After adding some final touches of makeup she decided to complete her look with a pair of khaki ankle strap stilettos, matching the fancy restaurant she was heading to.
Caroline had almost forgotten the drama yesterday when she was walking in the street, feeling so carefree for once in ages, until one of her spikey, thin heels got stuck in the manhole plate.
"Ugh, the universe!" She threw her hands high in the air as she growled to the sky, "just wouldn't let me enjoy any, bit, of, leisure!"
She tried tugging her foot with her shoe on, knowing how awkward and clumsy she must be to other pedestrians, but the shoe remained still on the ground and just refused to leave the cover plate like there was a black hole sucking it on the other side.
"God!" Just as she contemplated that the situation she was in was too bad to become worse, thus making a scene of her taking of both shoes and going on all the way pulling the stuck one with her barefoot on the ground wouldn't do her more harm, she spotted that feeling of falling. She hadn't been able to acquaint that feeling since she'd become a vampire with all those advanced abilities and sense of equilibrium, yet now she was tripping backwards, with her heel hilariously rooted in a sewer cover hole.
She closed her eyes, expecting the impact of slamming into the solid brick ground.
But she never felt it. Instead, she felt a warm, big palm on her back supporting, preventing her from falling on the back of her head in public.
"Getting yourself into trouble again so soon?"
She opened her eyes and saw him, holding her back-bent torso close to his with a firm arm around her waist, sunlight shining through his sand blond curls into her upwards sight.
She cleared her throat and quickly stood upright with his aid, "what, so now you suddenly remember me again?"
"It would be quite hard to forget such a gorgeous face, truth be told, especially how you left me wondering where the damped beauty went yesterday." He claimed as he bent down to uproot her heel for her, his hand brushing her calf bringing shivers up her spine.
Caroline rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her chest once she retrieved her shoe, "listen, I don't know what you're up to or what scheme you're planning on again, but I'm on vacation with my mom so don't even think about dragging me in. Just stop playing games with me and literally Leave. Me. Alone, Klaus."
He seemed astonished at once and when he finally came to sense, the first thing he asked drove her crazy, "not that I don't like the spectacular way you pronounce my name but, how do you know my name when I don't get a chance to acquire yours?"
"Seriously? You're just gonna going on acting like you don't know me? This is ridiculous!" She snarled to the air, hands bracing her head.
It wasn't until a few minutes later did the curious expression on Klaus' face and the silence between them dawned on her, "wait, so you really don't know me?"
He simply shrugged, "would be glad if you'd inform me of your name now."
"Ugh this must be another of that stupid Elena dream again!" Caroline squinted her eyes in frustration and started pinching herself, but nothing was happening, neither the whole supposed illusion nor the dream itself was falling apart, she wasn't waking up.
"We're blocking the way, love." He reminded politely, "mind if we move to the side of the way before we continue this not-very-efficient self-introduction?"
She sighed as she gave up coming to conscious, holding out a hand to this so-not-Klaus Klaus, "okay I know I must seem like a lunatic in the past 10 minutes but I promise you I'm not. Caroline Forbes."
"Beautiful name, nice to meet you then, Caroline." Klaus smiled and looked at her through those exquisite eyelashes, making her heart skipping like back in Mystic Falls, "I'd like to introduce myself to you as well but since you already-"
"Let me guess, Niklaus Mikaelson," she interrupted him, rambling, "born to a family of 5 children, 3 brothers and one sister."
He laughed at her with an interested look on his face, "is this some lame reality show or are you a creepy stalker? How come you know these personal details about me but I barely know you?"
This was the kind of situation that would usually piss him off, a random stranger girl in the streets proving her accurate knowledge of his beloved, protected family, but somehow it didn't bother him at all. In fact, the mixed look of confidence and confusion on the alien blonde beside him actually amused him.
"Born in Britain, takes interest in painting, and now living in New Orleans-"She kept on ranting, lifting her leg to take a step forward before the once stuck heel land the ground and revealed its damage.
"Watch out!" he held her by the arm and once again collected her from collapsing, "That heel's broken. The shoes are wasted, you can't walk on that."
Caroline took the tragedy off her feet and huffed sarcastically, "bare feet on the earth, sooner or later, just the matter of time."
"Where are you going?" Klaus queried as he kept on holding to her creamy arm, not wanting to let her fall again.
She pointed at the far edge of the street, "see that Japanese restaurant there? I actually have a lunch date with my mom at half past twelve and I have no clue how late it is already."
He nodded, "okay. Why don't you wait here when I go back to my room and get you a pair of the heels we got there? And don't ever think about running away again this time. It's not like you can walk all the way down this street in half a pair of those heels without hurting your ankle."
"I appreciate your offer, I really do. But you don't have to do this. You barely know me." She stared at him, surprised how this version of Klaus could be so trusting and willing to help, "plus, I'd rather stay outside of that couple fight this time."
He chuckled, partly at her answer, mostly at how unlike himself he was when near this eccentric girl he'd just met. He never was the type of guy who gives a hand to spontaneous pretty faces on the road. He was quite otherwise, who didn't hesitate a bit to pass by those in need without helping. Aside from his siblings, he rarely cared about the lives and deaths, not even his parents, let alone strangers. Yet now here he was, offering one hand after another to this angelic girl with baked-honey-colored hair and baby-blue eyes. He tried to convince himself that he was just doing so out of guilt, he was just trying to make amends for spilling that bucket of paint water on her accidentally yesterday, but who was he to fool? Niklaus Mikaelson don't do guilt. He was the arrogant, insolent lone wolf who hardly ever laid his eye on those who weren't related to him.
"Says the girl who knows my everything? Come on, we're more than strangers. And I'm more than glad to do this for you." He finally admitted, to both her and himself, "and, the girl who I had a quarrel with yesterday was my sister, not a partner. She threw out my paint bucket when I was painting. Fortunately I believe she could barely notice a missing pair of heels among the ocean of shoes she owns in that resort room."
Of course it was Rebekah. Caroline leaned onto the bench of the street, captivating smile gracing her glowing face, "you've run me out of excuses."
"Fabulous." He grinned as he turned on his heels, leaving for his hotel room, "wait right here, don't move a step, I'll be right back."
"I won't. Be quick, and please don't mess up! I don't wanna deal with a shoe-missing Rebekah!" She giggled as she yelled to him from some distance.
He paused half way in the street, turning to face her, wearing that amazed look, "I really need to find out where the camreas are hidden, it's starting to freak me out you know."
"I just happened to know it all! Call me encyclopedia if you want to!" She yelled, lips tugging from ear to ear.
His laughter streamed through the warm air and he suddenly took a halt again, "there's something you were wrong about, Miss Know-it-all. I'm not living in New Orleans. It was where I lived. My siblings and I are moving to a small town in Virginia now."
Klaus woke up smiling in his bed, a head of blonde curls taking his chest as its pillow. He made sure to be quiet and soft as he pressed a kiss on the top of it, wondering how lucky he was to keep such company in bed thus waking up beside her. His life had been a miserable mess 2 months ago, until he met this girl. This strange girl, first drenched in his paint water, then told things she knew about him at their second sight. He could still remember the way those golden locks flap her rosy cheeks like a halo surrounding an angel in the breeze when they first met. He could recall that scene, so vivid, she was standing there waiting for him by the street, the glistening water behind the bench she was leaning on only making her look even more heavenly.
Just like that, she entered his life, knowing everything about him and suddenly everything went right.
She stirred beside him and let out a lazy moan, her naked breast brushing his bare chest, "hi, you."
"Hi." He kissed her forehead, "sorry for waking you up."
"Don't mind. I should probably get up and do some study. Midterm's next week." She smiled into his lips then pulled away to put her clothes on, ready to jump out of bed and head to the shower.
Klaus griped her ankle and pulled her into his arms before she could leave, "stay for a few more minutes so I can interrogate you."
She giggled under his tickle and he finally asked, for the hundredth time since they started dating, "are you going to tell me how you know all those things about me at the beach or not?"
And that was when, like every other time that question had emerged, the atmosphere froze.
Caroline sighed, frustrated, "why do you have to know? We're happy, I thought that's enough, at least for me it is."
"It is enough for me, too." He cupped her fallen face as he joked, "just want to make sure this too good to be true dream isn't some well-planned gold-digging trap. If it was, you're free to go now, you know there's no way anyone will be able to extract a single Mikaelson pence from me."
Her lips tugged to give him the reassurance needed, gesturing a finger pointing back and forth between the two of them, "hey, you know this, this has nothing to do with your royal, wealthy, proud, conceited family and the whole unimaginable gold mountain under your family name. Whether you got cut and eliminated from the inheritance or not, I'd stand by your side either way."
"And I might be a college student dating a functioning member of the society," she added, "but it doesn't mean you can suggest that I am a girl looking for a sugar daddy."
Her last word made them both burst into laughter, which didn't last long.
"Seriously, tell me." He pulled her on his lap, so she was straddling on him.
Then there was that silence. She looked at him, so close yet distanced. That was the look he captured on her every now and then, as if she was looking at him but actually staring at someone else.
She paused, wondering if he could take it, that she was originally dreaming then somehow got herself stuck in this parallel space-time where they were both human, and shook her head, "trust me, you wouldn't want to know."
"Of course I do." He stroked his palm against her cheek as she pressed hers above it, "I want to know everything about you."
"Do you believe in destiny, Klaus?" She lied down, her stomach prone to his, conducting every tiny vibration her body made when talking to his chest. He never thought such trivial, intimate thing could warm his heart up like this, not until now.
"No. But there were times when I caught myself expressing personal gratitude to it for how lucky I am recently." He replied, looking carefully and closely into her blue orbs, quietly waiting for his answer.
Placing a chaste kiss on his skin linking the edge of his collar bone and his shoulder, she closed her eyes, "then how come we met at that seaside resort instead of meeting each other here, when you were bound to move to Mystic Falls? We could've met here."
He patted her soothingly on her back while picking up that loose strand of curls tickling his chest, "well, either way I'd fall for this beautiful woman lying on me now. For we were destined to meet."
"Oh listen to those honeyed lips," She narrowed her eyes as she held back the flattered blush and smile.
"Well, apparently, those lips can do," he arched one side of those messy, sexy brows as his hands cruised their naughty way south on her back, "a lot more than just sweet talking."
"I'll tell you." She eventually whispered during their later activities, "you'll have the answer you wanted when I'm ready."
Understanding fully what she was referring to without further explanation, he simply chuckled, "I guess I'll just have to stick around long enough see that happen then."
AN/
Okay so that is part 1 of this two-shot-story.
I hoped you enjoyed it, at least I did when writing it. The idea came to me when watching season5 recently (yeah I catch up slow). You might notice there isn't much about Klaus' POV, I'd like to say it's because this story was set to be Caroline's dream or story or whatever telling but the truth is I just suck at writing in a man's tone haha.
Again I'll have to apologize for any misuse you find in this story for English isn't my first language. Feel free to point them out!
If you like this story, please go check out my multi-chapter Klaroline fic, And Beauty Remains, and one-shot Happened to Be Insane. You might happen to like them! For those who've already read Beauty, I know you're all waiting for the couple to find Henrik but I'm afraid this has already milked all my writer's energy out so there might or might not be an update for Beauty this week. Even if there is it'll be late. It depends. I know I promised double update but writer's block is a bitch and I'm still learning how to fxxx it. Sorry!
Two weeks until school starts, won't be long til we go back on one update per week routine!
Have a nice week. Hope to see you soon!