Caroline was beyond frustrated with herself. After all these year how could he still have this annoying power over her? Every time he was near, she remembered all too well, she had straightened her already perfect posture so as to stand taller. She annunciated her words more for emphasis. Her brow was always more concentrated. It was as if she were ready to battle him for who was the better human being, or better vampire. It was impossible not to get worked up at the thought of seeing him again. He was a father now, Caroline a mother of two beautiful girls. She had heard through some of her connections that he had lost a woman he had cared for, maybe even loved. Caroline had been slightly jealous at the thought of him and another, but she had had Stephan at the time. And when she heard of his loss, her heart was with him and she grieved for the woman and the place she had held in his heart. But now here they both were, missing their other halves, being the only vampire parents in the world, and dreading (at least on Caroline's end) the face to face meeting that had been put off for some time.

Caroline buttoned the last button on her white lace blouse. She looked beautiful and she knew it, but her anxiety of seeing Klaus betrayed her stunning appearance by shining in her eyes, deep blue with flecks of panic. She adjusted her daylight ring in frustration and turned away from her mirror, just in time for her daughters to run into her room.

"Mommy!" They cried out, not quiet in unison.

"Babies!" She hugged them both, picking up the two seven year olds with ease.

"Is your fiend here today?" asked Josie.

"Can we meet your friend mommy?" Lizzie asked pulling slightly on Caroline's blonde curls.

"No I think today mommy is going to just spend some time with her friend, but you know what?" Caroline carried them into the deck of their small house on the Salvatore property. "Mommy's friend has a beautiful, smart, gifted daughter, just like you two and I think you will be very good friends at school." She set her girls down on the deck.

Lizzie took her mother's hand as Josie walked ahead of them to the railing overlooking the garden.

"Can she do this?" Josie asked as she raised her right hand and made the cherry blossom tree in front of them bloom before their eyes.

"I don't know yet, baby, but that's why she's coming to school here. And I need you two to promise to help her feel safe and happy here." Caroline was on her knees now looking adoringly at her daughters. "Can you do that for me?"

The girls nodded and ran back inside the house at the sound of Alaric calling out that the waffles were done.

The engine to the private jet he had compelled for himself, his daughter, and his daughter's mother had finally become unnoticeable white noise. Hope lay asleep across her seat holding her mother's hand. Though this sight brought him joy at the peacefulness of her face and the easiness of her slumber, he couldn't shake the loud anxiety ridden thoughts from his head that told him he shouldn't be on his way back to Mystic Falls. Though he loved it there, he would miss New Orleans and though he would miss New Orleans he had missed Caroline more. He had missed her spirit and her argumentative stigma towards him. He had missed her smile, especially the few she had granted for him. He missed her eyes and the way he could read everything she was thinking, until she was thinking about him.

When he had heard she was a mother a part of him felt a joy for her, but also a loss for what they might have had knowing she would never leave her children for him, but when he realized she was with Stephan he felt only anger and frustration. Once again she had forgiven a monster for all his crimes and gave him love when he had harmed her spirit and once again this man was not him. After hearing of Stephan's death he had resolved to go to see her when Hope was older, but soon after he heard of the school and then Alaric had made an offer to him that at the time fed into his fear of not seeing Hope grow up. But when fate had been as unkind to his family as to banish them from New Orleans and from each other for some time he was reminded of the offer and looked on it now with softer eyes and a more grateful temperament.

Klaus worried about what state he would find Caroline in. Perhaps she was indifferent to him now after all these years, or maybe she was so broken from her loss of Stephan that she could never move on, or his worst fear. That she would remain to see him as a monster as she did so long ago and that his daughter would see what someone as good and pure as Caroline really thought of him.

Hope stirred and looked at her father, eyes bright and wide open.

"What's wrong daddy." He looked down at his littlest wolf. "I can feel you're sad."

"Daddy is just nervous about seeing his old friend."

"Why? She's your friend isn't she? Friends love you no matter how long you're apart." He heard his daughter relay a similar speech he had received from his sister on family after disappearing with some Italian man to the Caribbean for a year. She had told him it did not matter how long they were apart that they were family always and forever and that no matter how much time passed nothing would change that. Hope had been in the room for that discussion and Klaus laughed slightly at his daughter's quotations from her aunt.

"Yes, my dear, but this is a very important friend to daddy. That's why I'm so nervous."

"Mommy said Miss Caroline is your special friend from the past."

Klaus eyed his daughter, and then glared slightly at the unconscious Haylee.

"Yes, Miss Caroline is very special indeed."