Seriously? she looked at the arms encircling her, looking for a way out of this without waking him. Finding there was no way she´d get off the bed without him noticing, he lunged for the nearest pillow and just hit him. Might as well.

He slowly and smilingly opened his eyes, humming an inappropriate "Morning , love.", which caused her to hit him more. And more. "What the hell, Klaus?" she spat, hitting him more, causing him to laugh like a child. After a few more hits, he had her pinned to the bed in a flash.

"Stop!" he growled with a tiny note of teasing as his face etched closer to hers.

"What the heck am I doing in your bed?"

"Well," he explained, his smile all teeth and dimples. "for one it is OUR bed, as we both inhabit this room, then I figured the window would be less comfortable than this and finally it got a tad bit cold, love."

"I might be your damn assistant, but I am not a stupid cuddle blanket."

"Sweetheart, I thought your nickname was Carebear for a reason", he smirked.

"Let me go", she hissed in response.

"Will you stop hitting me with pillows?" he asked in amusement, noting her glances towards the fluffy weapon.

"Don´t you own a shirt? It would have done wonders against that mysterious cold." she asked in contempt.

"Well, it suddenly got warmer." he teased.

"Seriously?" she looked up at him in disbelief. "Get off me. Now."

"No more pillows?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Fine." she huffed.

There´s this odd thing about the perception of time, where Caroline is sure he lingered a tad bit too long on her while Klaus could have spent a few more minutes without moving an inch.

When she was finally free, Caroline lunged for the clothes she had worn the other day and went to the bath room door, pointedly locking the door behind her. She took her time showering, she took her time getting dressed. When she was done, she just took her notebook, her two phones and left, not even uttering a word a bemused Klaus.

"Remember love, meet me at the car at six sharp."

"How could I ever forget" she muttered, and through the door that she slammed shut behind her, she could still her him cooing "Enjoy your day, sweetheart."

She spent the day mostly in a Museum on police history, writing an apologetic postcard to her mother. Buying her a fridge magnet out of the guilt of having gotten herself into that mess to begin with. She had lunch in china town, enjoying the anonymity of the place. While she opened her zillionth fortune cookie, her own phone rang with a call from Elena.

"Hey". Caroline said, not knowing how to greet a friend whom she just witnessed being forcefully drained for blood.

"Hey." Elena answered. Not sure how to deal with the fact that her best friend was now at her mortal enemy´s back-and-call.

"I am so so sorry, Elena, are you okay?" Caroline said, breaking the silence between them.

"I hope so. How are you? And where? Tyler told us that you went to Seattle?"

"Yeah."

"Look, Damon said you´re compelled to not give us anything on Klaus. So I won´t bother asking, but please tell me that you are okay? Did he harm you? What are you doing in Seattle?"

"Well, I ... " she struggled for the words, as the compulsion kept on blocking her phrasing for a while until she finally found the right combination of words. "I literally cannot tell you why we´re here. I am unharmed, but he´s ... not easy to deal with. He´s creepy, if you ask me. I am answering my new phone 24/7, there´s like a bunch of strangers that are all eager to tell me whatever they think I need to hear about. I never hated phones so much. "

"So he´s literally letting you answer his phone?" Elena asked, catching onto Caroline´s odd phrasing.

"I´ll be off to Las Vegas. I should be there tomorrow." Caroline chose to say instead, since a simple yes apparently violated the rules of her compulsion.

"So you´re free to talk about yourself?"

"So it seems."

"But how did you get to tell me about Rebekah, then? Thank you, by the way, for the headsup."

"I got permission."

"He just permitted you to discuss Rebekah with me?"

"He´s Klaus. What do you think?" Caroline snorted.

"Care, what did he make you do in return?"

"I had Dinner at the Space Needle." was all Caroline managed to choke out, tears pooling in her eyes. "How´s Tyler?" she asked with a sob.

"Tyler´s fine. He´s just really worried about you. You should call him."

"I want to, I just hate that I can´t talk to him like a normal person anymore. I don´t even know how to explain the Space Needle thing to him."

"Caroline, he gets it. Trust me. He gets it."

At that, she heard the beep of an incoming message on her Klaus phone.

"Look, I got to go. Be save and tell my mom and Tyler and everyone that I miss them, okay?"

"Okay."

Caroline spent a few more second after Elena had already hung up, listening for the sound of her familiar voice, missing home more and more with each second, before looking at the other cell phone.

"We´ll need camping gear, love."

"Great" Caroline sighed.

She bought some equipment and had it delivered to the hotel. By the time she was supposed to meet up with Klaus she had her things, her blood cooler and the camping gear stationed by the car, ready to put it in the trunk, once he´d show up with the keys.

He spotted her, before she saw him. He took in her annoyed expression as she typed emails on both of her phones at seemingly the same time. Her curls caught the light of the sun within their own gold and a smile formed on his lips as he compared her to all the great paintings of angels he had seen over the centuries. Her scent was still fresh in his nose, and he had a mind to just press her up against the hood of his car until she had memorized his scent as well. Another time, he thought with a look at his watch.

"Seems we´re all set to go." he called out as he marched up to the car. As soon as she heard the sound of the car being unlocked she deposited everything in the trunk, not even bothering to look at him. He didn´t like that, somehow it made him feel impatient.

They´d been driving for an hour, when she finally addressed him with her report.

"There´s a seemingly legit pack in Montpellier, but I guess I should hold off on booking anything until I know when you´re done with Vegas. I also arranged for your witch friend Silvie to fly out to meet us in Las Vegas, since even though whatever other crap you´re cooking up is might be on the back burner now, you can´t hunt down werewolves all day either, so she can just show you her new grimoire and go back to Pittsburgh. " And hopefully, I get to spend even less time with you that way. She sighed, taking out a few documents she had printed out at the hotel before he had come for her and the car. "I browsed some real estate sites, and called some agencies. The turn-out of available properties that are directly in Mystic Falls is pretty low. We´re seemingly out on almost-castles. Unless you changed your mind about the tomb, which I would still totally recommend for you..." he smirked at that comment. "You should focus on the papers with the blue sticker, because those three are the only one with an actual Mystic Falls postal code, all the others are nicer and more like a castle and more NormanBatsey... some of those totally scream you, but they´re a bit further out." Like at the border of Virginia.

"Which one you´d recommend, love?" he asked, referencing his secret observation that his pet had an instinct for him.

After another sigh, she pulled out a paper with a blue sticker. "This one, it´s within Mystic Falls, as that apparently is your preference, it has a dozen bed rooms as well as a lot of other big rooms. It even as enough space to host a ball or something there. At least, if the realtor did not lie to me on the phone. However, on the downside, it does require some more work and comes unfurnished. It would probably need a few more paintjobs, decorators, I bet a plumber or two and well... furniture. But that´s just how it looks on paper, you´d actually have to check out the place in person or something, in order to know for sure."

When he didn´t respond, she placed the papers back into her bag "I´ll probably get more offers tomorrow. Your turn, tell me where we´re headed."

"Sweetheart, that´s not how the arrangement works."

In annoyance, Caroline fell back into her seat, staring blankly out of the window. After twenty more minutes they arrived at a bar in the middle of nowhere between Seattle and the woods.

"So you´re going in there and march out with a bunch of new hybrids?" Caroline asked, looking up at the bar.

"No, we´re going in there, and you´ll help me get the final location of the pack", he said motioning for her to get out of the car.

As they walked in, Caroline noticed a crowd of hobby hunters, rednecks and mechanics, a lot of which were eyeing her in a not so gentlemanly manner.

"Alright," she hissed, holding her arms protectively in front of her. "Just tell me what you need me to do, so we can head back to the car."

"We´re going to do a little exercise in vampire 101." he joked, causing her to look up at him in confusion.

"Well, I´ll be casually strolling up to the bar, and I´ll order us two drinks, by the time the cute guy at the bar has served them, I expect you to have compelled the entire bar except for our target of course."

In panic, Caroline took in the crowd. Those are a lot of people. "How am I supposed to know who the hell you´re targeting this time?"

"You´ll figure it out." And she did, as she looked up at the young, red-headed werewolf boy busting tables in a manner which reminded her of Matt. A busboy, just like Matt.

"Compel them to do what?"

"To mind their own business. And hurry, sweetheart, your clock is ticking." he said, walking up to the counter.

Looking back at it, Caroline had no idea how she had managed to super-speed-compel an entire bar without the werewolf in question noticing, but she supposed the thought of failing Klaus on this one, was inspiration enough. She met up with him at the counter, just as the bartender, whom she had seen getting compelled by the allmighty hybrid himself, set down their drinks. Whiskeys for both of them.

She quickly gulped down hers and smacked the glass down. "Can I leave now, everyone is compelled, my job is done."

"I am afraid not" he smiled cruelly, as his hand found its way onto her lower back. "I still need you to talk to that werewolf."

"Turn him and I am sure he´ll tell you already." she hissed.

"Consider it yet another experiment." he smiled, leaning in to whisper into her ear. "I know I said that your job is to clean up my messes, but just for once I really want to know what it´d be like if you were to cause them first."

Her head shot up so quickly due to the shock, that she found her head way too close to Klaus´. "That was not part of the agreement." She said flatly.

"Well, let´s see. I might come across some other supernatural being that I cannot just turn into a hybrid, and without my Ripper around, you might be my only option without getting my hands dirty, so consider this a test in case of an actual emergency." he said, while getting up to move even closer to her. A fragile survivor. The thought just never managed to leave his head. He wondered if she´d survive him, too.

"What the hell do you need from the poor kid, that you can´t go up and ask him yourself?"

"His pack." he said, briefly caressing her cheek, before making way for her to move.

Caroline gulped, before she defiantly snatched Klaus´glass from his hand and sipped up his whiskey as well, before slowly walking up to the poor busboy. She felt Klaus´ unwavering gaze on her during every single step. He smirked as he finally felt like he was truly punishing her for her infraction against him.

When she was just across from the kid, she just said "hi."

"Hey, can I help you?"

"Ähm, yes, you see, I know you´re a werewolf and that jackass watching us from the bar would like to know where to find your pack, and I thought if I asked nicely, you´d make this go down much easier for both of us." she let out innocently and fast, feeling Klaus´smile widen behind her back.

The boy tried to speed out of the bar, but since he was not yet a hybrid, Caroline had him on the floor in a second. "I am so sorry." Caroline whispered as she effectively broke both of his ankles. "Please don´t run again."

"You know, the Ripper usually puts them onto the pool table, it´s quite entertaining, having compelled humans move around you, while you break your opponent." Klaus said, suddenly standing next to her with a bottle of what Caroline immediately identified as wolfsbane.

Snatching the bottle from him, she growled. "Look, if you want to play sadistic torture bar games, then call your precious Ripper and have at it, I am not going to fake a Bahory-complex just because you are sick like that, got that?"

Slightly impressed by her Bahory reference, he stepped back, commenting casually "Fine, but Ripper always delivered results. Keep that in mind, sweetheart."

Caroline took a deep breath, before lowering herself down to face the werewolf boy. "Okay,..." she looked at his name tag "Drew. This is going to hurt, but I promise you the second you answer my one and only question truthfully and in detail, I will stop. Where is your pack?". With that, she placed some wolfsbane onto his neck, causing him to writhe beneath her in agony.

When the boy could finally breath again, he started to phrase a sentence, causing Caroline to carefully lower her ear towards him. "Stake yourself, bitch." She swore she could hear Klaus chuckle.

"I am sorry" was all she said, before she grabbed the bottle in a flash and dowsed her own hands in the poisonous water. "I really don´t want to keep hurting you all night." Then she plunged her hands into his chest, and engulfed his heart firmly in her wolfsbane-soaked hands. Aware of how lethal one wrong move could be for the boy, she put all her weight into holding him still, lowering herself gently but firmly onto him, just like she did when Tyler first turned. She held him still, she held him safe, she kept him in pain, until his writhing and screaming turned into a broken sob. All the while, single tears kept streaming down Caroline´s face as she kept on noticing more and more similarities between him and Matt.

Klaus looked at the girl in wonder. Ruthless, lethal, yet compassionate. She was even more fragile as a killer than she was as a survivor. Her radiance leaving him unable to look at her. The thought of ravishing her right there, crossed his mind. The thought of calming her, was even more prominent.

Finally the kid uttered a few coherent words again. "In the forest, about 20 miles east from here".

Klaus watched her as she gently lowered herself further onto the boy, feeling slightly envious. He wondered if that was how she helped Tyler through his first transformation, as he watched her place a gentle kiss onto his forehead while whispering an apologetic "thank you."

Her back froze, when she heard him clap his hands in mock applause. "Well done, sweetheart." The next thing he knew, she had flashed herself into the ladies' room, to scrub the blood off her cold hands as he turned the broken boy into a hybrid.

He heard the faucet, he heard her scrubbing. He briefly shot a look at the bath room when he heard the sound of an angry punch followed by the breaking of a lot of glass. He settled for waiting with his newest hybrid, when he finally heard her sobs.

His world felt finally back in peace again, when he knew for sure that though she was a fragile survivor, his pet and an insolent girl with breathtaking beauty, he could still get under her skin. He could still punish her. All was good now, all was well. And she was still far better than he ever thought she´d be.