"Hang on…" began Elena "not to burst this bubble or anything, but who the hell are you going to have as your date to the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant?"

Ah. Caroline hadn't thought of that.

"Well could I just, not go with anyone?" she asked, but, yeah, she already knew the answer to that.

"No! You're Miss Mystic Falls! You have to have a date!" Well my dear Elena, I hate to say this, but way to burst the frickin' bubble.

Chapter 4: Bitchy Revelations

In the back of her mind Caroline could vaguely register an annoying sound. Like really irritating. Forcing an eyelid open she saw her alarm clock buzzing away on the table next to her bed. It took a moment for her to get used to the bright red glare of the display screen to see what time it was. Seriously? Why the hell did they make them so bright?

The alarm clock, still buzzing, told Caroline that it was apparently 7 in the morning.

What? Why the hell was her alarm clock waking her up so freaking early? What could she possibly have to get up for at seven o'clock on a Monday morning?

Oh, yeah, School.

Dragging herself out of bed she pulled her limbs to the bathroom. After Saturday's brunch she had forcefully ejected all thoughts of the fact that she had no date for the Miss Mystic Pageant out of her brain for the whole weekend whilst she was being neurotic and stressy over the arrangements for said Pageant. But now, surprise surprise, said thoughts were back to haunt her.

Who the hell was she going to go with?

She had planned on going with Tyler but that was now obviously out of the question. She could go with Matt as a friend but that would put her in danger of having her kidneys ripped out by Rebekah. She couldn't go without a date. It wasn't exactly like the embarrassing school dances she had had to attend when she and Elena were still single and naïve freshmen and so went with each other as friends, because who the hell was going to notice if they did. Trouble was, everyone would notice if Caroline was at the Pageant without a date, because she was the star of the show, she had arranged the whole damn thing; she would be announcing it all and crowning the winner. She was Miss Mystic Falls, and well, not to be obnoxious and snobby or anything but who the hell had a chance with men if she didn't. No scratch that. She was absolutely not the prime example for how to start and stay in successful relationships with men.

Caroline was being what she hated most. A waffly twat. An internally waffly twat, but still a waffly twat.

All this waffling was, of course, purely to distract her brain from the one place she did not want it to go. The 'Klaus' route. Caroline knew that her only real option was to go with Klaus. Because come on, who the hell else was going to go with her? But there was no way Caroline was going to ask him. Nuh-Uh. She had way too much pride for that.

Which left her, yet again, at square one.

And half an hour late for school. Crap.

Caroline spent the majority of school ignoring school and continuing to stress. The tiny matter of her being an entire hour late for school (oops) was quickly cleared up with a spot of compulsion.

She only had one class with Tyler today, Chemistry. And he was sat two seats away from her. Unfortunately, there was nothing Caroline could do, Chemistry had set places, and should their very bald, very short and very Scottish Chemistry teacher notice that anyone had swapped places hell would be unleashed. She knew he would try to talk to her, whether it be a half-hearted apology or a dickish remark, she really didn't care, she just didn't want to hear a word out of his cheating little mouth. He seemed to be about to say something to her when Bonnie wedged herself between them and saved the day by giving him her best 'I will not hesitate to kill you slowly and painfully without even getting off the stool' glare, which seemed highly successful as Tyler swallowed any words he was about to regurgitate all over Caroline and stared at the work set him for the rest of the lesson.

The tricky thing about chemistry is it sometimes requires the use of highly concentrated acids.

This presented a problem for Caroline when she had to employ every ounce of self-control she had not to throw the entire bottle of concentrated sulphuric acid in Tyler's Face. She knew it wouldn't kill him, or melt his skin of his face like it would a normal human, but it would hurt like hell, and, with a bit of luck, might even cause a bit of permanent facial disfigurement, which would definitely be a bonus. Tyler had always been laughably vain, even more so than Caroline, his greatest pride and joy being his perfect face, which Caroline now had the opportunity to ruin for at least a few months before his hybrid healing fully brought it back to all of its sickening glory. But Caroline resisted the temptation, an achievement she felt proud of.

She was, yet again, stressing over her date, or lack thereof, dilemma, when Damon called her. Brilliant.

Should she ignore it? Maybe if she didn't pick up he would leave her the fudge alone.

Yeah, like that was going to happen. She jabbed the answer button with her finger, with far more force than was needed.

"What?" She snapped into the phone.

"Wonderful to speak to you too Blondie, it's always a pleasure to hear the golden ray of sunshine that is your voice." The narcissistic voice coming through her speaker was enough to make her want to punch him, let alone if he was in the room.

"What do you want, Damon?"

"Jeesh, someone's touchy"

Caroline growled into the phone

"Alright, we need you to be Klaus bait" Damon conceded. It was laughable to think that he was the more uncontrollable of the two brothers, and that once upon a time Caroline had been the one at his every beck and call, because now, all she needed to do was growl at him and she had her way. She supposed it helped that both Elena and Klaus would rip his kidneys out through his ears if he so much as touched her, but Caroline preferred to think that it was because she had him well trained.

"No, absolutely not. No way"

"Caroline, seriously, he has Elena locked up in his big original mansion, she's hallucinating, and is in danger of killing herself, we need to get her out of there"

Caroline sighed. How many more times could she risk pissing off Klaus, he wasn't exactly pleased the last time he found out she had just been distracting him. But Elena's life was in danger, and as much as she loved her best friend, she was yet again called upon to throw all of her needs and wants out of the window to save Elena.

Lately that seemed like all anyone had been doing for the last year. SaveElenaSaveElenaSaveElena. Caroline knew she was being a massive bitch, but come on; she couldn't be the only one who was getting just a little bit tired of it all. She knew she was verging on being the old, pre-vampire, shallow, self-absorbed bimbo Caroline, but for once, couldn't everyone be running around trying to save her? Why couldn't she be the one everyone bent over backwards to please? Even the times when she had been kidnapped and tortured, it had still been about Elena. Christ, even when it was her own father locking her up in a dungeon and constantly burning her with sunlight, hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second, with the most unimaginably agonising pain, everyone was too busy running around doing what Elena wanted, getting Elena to Stefan.

Okay, stop now Caroline, you need to stop with the bitchy rants about Elena, she is your friend, and is going through a hard time, she may always be going through a hard time, but you're still being mean.

Her Mother and Tyler had eventually come to rescue her. That was back when she had been in love with Ty, and he with her. Or so she thought.

And another thing, why was she always the one who got kidnapped and tortured, it was ridiculous!

"Blondie," Damon's impatient voice snapped her back to the real world "Will you help us or not?"

"Ugh… fine! But you owe me, big time!"

Caroline was driving to the Grill. Damon so owed her, she couldn't believe she was even doing this. How many times could she betray Klaus' trust in her and live to tell the tale. She knew he had some strange, yet sort of endearing crush on her, but there were only so many times she could take advantage of his feelings for her. Sooner or later he would snap, and do something unspeakable, he was Klaus after all, and his anger management wasn't exactly brilliant.

All Klaus had ever been to her was kind. Admittedly, not in any normal, conventional way, this was Klaus. But Caroline didn't think he knew how to 'woo' a woman. (Did you really just say 'woo', Christ, Caroline) She was delving into deep, most likely unchartered territory, but perhaps he had shut out the majority of his positive emotions for the past century because it just hurt too much. Both of his parents hated him, from what she had heard through her friends from Rebekah, his father had abused him for the entirety of his human life and then spent his whole creepy Vampiric life trying to kill him, and Caroline thought she had Daddy issues. His mother had tried to kill him off as well, so, when the two people who are supposed to love you the most in the world make it their (unnaturally long) life's mission to kill you off, you can't exactly blame a man for having some slight personality defects. As she had rather harshly said to him at the ball, his parents hadn't loved him, so he assumed that nobody else would either. That was why he had daggered his siblings, it was not in cruelty, but because, in his own way, he loved them. They were the only people he had ever loved, and who had ever loved him back, and so, when they had their disagreements, he daggered them, because he was afraid they would run away, and leave him forever.

That was his life's secret. His one great fear was loneliness.

He was afraid of living an eternity with nobody by his side, so he tried his best to get people to stay with him, but having arguably the worst parents in existence didn't exactly help him on the social front. He didn't know how to connect with people. And from his murderous reputation, most people were understandably too terrified to try to help him, and god forbid should his siblings even bother, they were just as flawed and as messed up as he was, in their own complex ways.

He didn't know how to form positive relationships conventionally, so he collected hybrids and daggered siblings and killed those who threatened the few people he still held precious, because what was the alternative? Being left alone for all eternity? Anything was better than that, and so he would take anything.

And for that Caroline could forgive him, almost entirely.

And as for his murderous reputation, what had he done to them that was worse than what her messed up circle of friends had done. Nothing. The wrongs that Damon had done to her when she was human were atrocious; he had compelled her, raped her, and used her as a blood bag. She could still remember countless nights of sobbing herself to sleep with his arm locked around her waist, unrelenting. They had all killed, Stefan was the ripper, Damon had killed countless people, including Vicki and Lexi (And Jeremy and Ric, but they had been revived by the ring). Jesus, even she had murdered a man.

So what exactly made them any more virtuous than him, how were they better?

The answer to that was that they were not. They just had people they could trust, and people who gave them their trust in return.

And if she could be friends with Damon, why couldn't she be friends with Klaus?

So, as she parked her car, and walked up to the doorway of the mystic grill, she told herself that, even thought she was supposed to be deceiving him, she should enjoy herself and… bond with him. Even if that word made it sound like she was spending quality time with her pet cat.

And, well, maybe she should give him a chance. He was hot, though she would never let him hear that, his ego already filled up the entire room, and adjoining rooms, and neighbouring buildings. He didn't need any more encouragement thank you very much. Although he didn't know much about tact, his previous advances and omissions about his feelings towards her were sweet, and well, she did need a date for the Mystic falls pageant.

Hullo

I did intend to put the date in this chapter, but it just got longer and longer and later and later and it's already 2 in the morning here, and I've taken my time with this chapter already, for which I apologise, Exams and the like a tricksy things, so is the flu, and so is an overabundance of complete laziness in your body that you can't be arsed to do anything but sleep and tumblr.

But anyway, sorry, and I hope you enjoyed! This is a slow burn fic, so bear with me! I hope that the deep psychological analysis of Klaus made up for the lack of Klaroline interaction in this chapter

I will have a beta'd copy of this chapter replacing this one in a few days, but any grammar, continuity, or OOC you can spot and point out I would be eternally grateful. I am a ruthless Grammar Nazi with everything except my own work, which is both irritating and pointless.

But I digress, please leave a review, because they make me happy, review always make me happy.

Coming up in OAO: As if it wasn't completely unnecessary for me to point this out, date night at mystic grill, and the MMFP.

Love and Fruit Pastilles

A very sleepy penguin

(PS for those who are still interested, who else is looking forward to badass Elena replacing the whiny, why the hell won't you do us all a favour and drop dead Elena?)

(PPS. Speaking of penguins, English people, have you been watching the penguins? Its on BBC one on a Monday night. They're brilliant! And if that wasn't good enough, it's narrated by David Tennant, and the cameras are disguised as hilarious penguins and eggs and rocks on wheels… go watch it!)