A/N: Hello, internet! This chapter originally got long as hell, so I have cut it in twain to make it more manageable— for you and for me!

Thank you HCookie, hybridkingbass, LovetheKlaroline and both guests who reviewed the last chapter!

Special thanks to my friend B. who helped me make some bits more realistic! You rock, girl! That scene was a nightmare to try to write…

Enjoy!

Sweaty Summer Days

Day 1

During Klaus's incredibly long life, he had often found himself caught right in the sweet spot between "I have made a horrible decision" and "I'm going to finish what I started—I'm not about to admit defeat." Sometimes it was a morning after feeling, sometimes a sickening pit in his stomach as a battle started, and once it was even halfway into a drinking game where he realized that even though his liver would eventually heal itself, he was still going to have to suffer through the process.

But today, that feeling accompanied his third excruciating, ungainly transformation from man to wolf.

When he'd designed his house, he'd had some rooms prepared in the basement to use as a dungeon—vampire-proof, werewolf-proof, witch-proof, sound-proof, everything-he-knew-of-proof. Instead of keys, which he knew could be easily stolen, he'd had the doors spelled to only open for his hand print; it was elegant, break-out-proof, nicely advanced, and prevented anyone from successfully locking him up in his own cells—an issue he'd noticed the Salvatore brothers dealing with entirely too often.

That also meant that in wolf form, he couldn't possibly escape. No nasty chains to tangle himself up in, no need for a chaperone to ensure he didn't accidentally run around the town square—he could just walk in, strip down, close the door and go, and he wouldn't be able to leave until at least his top half was human.

Caroline had left the house early that morning to meet up with Doctor Kieran and his team, and Klaus had eaten a light breakfast, instructed the staff not to come into the basement no matter what they might hear, and then gone down and locked himself in for what he knew was going to be the first long, painful day in a string of long, painful days. But if he wanted to learn to control the power he'd worked so hard to acquire, then this was the way to do it. He didn't have a sire bond to break, but the point of the process was to turn without pain.

And he knew that if he wanted to keep Caroline close to him, he had to know that he would always be in control when she was near.

However, after four hours and two and a half turns, he found himself laying on the floor, halfway between forms, seriously reconsidering this plan. There had to be some spell. William Bloody Forbes couldn't have been the only person to ever come up with a way to do this—werewolves had existed for centuries! But hybrids hadn't, he admitted grudgingly to himself. That meant any magic having to do with them was relatively new, and the trouble with new magic was that it was untested. So the only sure fire method of controlling his werewolf side was to go through this long, excruciating nightmare.

'If a bakers' dozen puppies can do it,' he told himself firmly, 'you can do it.'

Then his spine convulsed and shattered again, and he screamed in agony.

-0-

By 10am, the late June sun had thoroughly baked the town square, heating up the bricks that composed the decorative street so that they radiated back upwards, and soaking Caroline with sweat. While her daylight ring protected her from burning, it did nothing to keep the sweltering oven from affecting her cold-shifted vampire body. She desperately wanted to take shelter inside the cool, air-conditioned darkness of The Grill, but she wasn't about to admit defeat in front of Kieran, who had made no secret of the fact that he found her presence unnecessary.

In spite of the overwhelming heat, however, she had managed to prove her management skills as she directed the construction crew and networked with the council—all of whom preferred to work remotely from the shade and comfort of their own houses. In return for her efforts, Kieran was becoming slightly less hostile, and Sean was appropriately appreciative.

Klaus wasn't answering his text messages, but she assumed he was probably up to his elbows in paint. One of the things that she'd noticed while living with him was that when he was doing art, sometimes he'd forget the rest of the world existed for hours on end. It was… kind of cute, she had to admit to herself. Those were the only times anyone could ever sneak up on him. Sometimes she'd stand in the doorway of his studio watching him wielding his brushes—or colorfully cursing at them when he couldn't get something to look the way he wanted—and often he would never realize she was there if she didn't make a noise. Later on he'd ask if there was something she'd wanted, because when he'd leave the studio he'd smell that she'd been there, but during the process, all of his sense were focused on the act of creation.

After the first few times this happened, she realized what a big deal it was that he'd let her move in with him; if that was how he normally was with painting, then he had to be certain that his studio, his home, was a place where he could feel at least 99% safe.

Of course, she wasn't that much of a threat in the grand scheme of things, she had to admit, and he hadn't told her where he'd hidden the White Oak stake. She hadn't asked, either. She saw no reason for anyone to have a magical weapon of mass destruction, but if it had to exist, someone who, for all his imbalance, was strong, paranoid and would never in a million years want to actually kill his siblings was probably the safest person to hide it. She vaguely remembered when they'd first made the stakes. Although she hadn't known at the time that they would mean the deaths of thousands, she'd felt strange just holding the wood. It had felt… almost alive. Like it had a little thrumming pulse. She'd chalked it up to psyching herself out about magical kill-an-original wood, or maybe a sentimental attachment to Old Wickery Bridge, where she'd loved to hang out as a young child, before mosquitoes and sunburns really bothered her. It was scary to think that the plain construct of wood and iron that she'd known all her life had destroyed Elena's family and had the potential to destroy her entire species…

"Caroline," Sean said for the third time, looking a little concerned.

"Y-yeah, sorry, spaced out," Caroline exclaimed. "I'll have the council office email those records to you directly.

'Heat exhaustion, or ADD?' she wondered as she pulled out her phone—still with no messages from Klaus—and dialed Mayor Lockwood's secretary.

-0-

"This was not this hard this first time," Klaus complained to himself as he lay prone on the concrete floor, panting, dripping sweat and probably blood in some places from where his bones had broken the skin. "How long did they bloody well have to do this before they got results?"

That was a pretty horrible train of thought. It still ached to think about the lengths that his hybrids had gone to in order to free themselves from him. Going through the same process himself—albeit with a better reason—just drove home how much they'd hated him. Channeling his rage, he extended his fingers, claws ripping out from under his fingernails, elbows shattering to become foreleg joints.

-0-

"Good day today," Sean commended Caroline as she packed up her laptop and files. They'd discovered, using concrete x-rays and other machinery, that the alley behind the Gilbert Building probably had some kind of dwelling underneath it. The body they'd discovered beneath the foundation itself was a child, about 10 to 12 years old, probably male, and Dr. Kieran hypothesized that it was probably a family burial—a child belonging to that household had died. Caroline felt pretty sick, thinking about that—remembering when Jeremy's death had sent Elena off the edge. They were carefully extracting the skeleton—they needed to know what tribe or group he was from so they could then contact that tribe or group and ask where he could be reburied.

"Yeah," Caroline laughed breathily. "Digging up kids and finding old buildings in 98-degree heat—so great, right?"

"Eh, it's pretty exciting stuff, from my point of view," he responded. "Based on some of the preliminary data, this could be early Europeans. Wouldn't that be incredible—an early European settlement right under your feet this whole time! Imagine if they turn out to be Vikings!"

Caroline tried really, really hard not to choke on her laughter.

"Wow—imagine that!" she said in what she thought was a passable imitation of 'wowed and impressed.'

"Hey, there have been historical rumors about them settling near here, but never anything concrete. It's gonna be an interesting summer!"

-0-

When Caroline returned to the mansion, Klaus was sprawled on one of his sofas, arm hanging off, the backs of his long fingers trailing against the ground, a half-empty water bottle nearby, clearly forgotten. Caroline closed the door quietly behind her, slipping out of her shoes on the matt. She frowned, tasting the air. Napping in the middle of the house instead of in his own bed wasn't like him at all—neither was showering in the middle of the day, rather than first thing in the morning or last thing at night, but she smelled his shower gel.

She crept into the kitchen, getting herself a tall glass of blood and an identical glass of water, double-fisting them to combat dehydration and vampiric thirst as quickly as possible. After gulping down half the blood and all the water, she headed for the stairs, but stopped when she realized that Klaus was half sitting, staring blearily at her as he came awake.

"Wha' time is it, Love?" he asked, voice slurred from sleep.

"Seven," she responded. "Rough day?" she turned her steps to sit beside him on the couch as he sat up with some effort and rubbed his face tiredly.

"Boring," he groaned. "Unbearably tedious. Yours?" Caroline raised an eyebrow.

"Hot," she responded dryly. "We made the fantastic and totally unexpected discovery that there might've been a Viking settlement near here a long time ago." He looked at her, then they both snorted with laughter.

"Really?" he said with a grin once he got ahold of himself. "Sounds like a monumental occasion. Shall I break out the champagne?"

"It's so strange," Caroline sighed, turning to face him and draping an elbow over the back of the sofa so her whole body was reclining sideways against the cushions. She rested her cheek comfortably against her arm. "It seems like such a big deal—having archaeologists come discover layers of history in the ground beneath our feet—then coming home and there's actual, living history passed out in the living room like no big deal."

"Perhaps you should appreciate me more," he said with a laugh, and then suddenly his eyes softened, and his lips stretched into the smile that always made him look half like the devil, half like a giddy child. His eyes were sparkling as he looked at her.

"What?" she asked warily, not sure if this was going to be deep or just really, really dirty.

"You said coming 'home,'" he responded with a little shrug. "You've never said it before." Caroline was speechless for a moment, trying to remember having said it aloud before, and realizing that she never had.

"In any case," he added, saving her from the awkwardness of coming up with a response to that, "you should probably appreciate me more. I am, in fact, a living, breathing, undead historical figure."

"I live with a fossil," she quipped back with a smirk. "How dazzling." He mock glared. "You do realize I'm cheating off of you with every college history… everything, right?"

"That's not cheating," he responded indignantly, "that's using original sources! I'm an original so—oh, damn it," he cursed, realizing the egregious pun he'd just walked into. "Primary sources. We're calling me the primary source."

"Original hybrid… source," Caroline mouthed, trying it out as he mock glared again.

"Primary," he growled, and she shook her head impishly.

"You're not getting out of that one so easily," she warned him. He rolled his eyes heavenward, shook his head, and then stood up, planting his hands on his knees for support. Caroline's eyes narrowed.

"Did you turn today?" she asked. "You look really under the weather."

"Like I said," he responded flippantly, "bored."

"Breaking every bone in your body, sprouting fur, four legs and a tail just to amuse yourself—that's some pretty high-level boredom," she mused, still looking a little concerned.

"Relax, Love," he assured her. "I'm perfectly fine. Just stiff. I am an Original, you remember."

"Original… source," she responded, cracking a grin and standing up as well.

"Oh, shut it," he hissed.

"Never," she murmured in his ear as she passed him, headed for the dining room where she could smell Alphonse laying out dinner.

Day 2

Klaus had been torn apart before; occupational hazard that came with being an immortal with a violent temper and a long list of enemies. He knew what his own insides looked like, and it had stopped making him sick centuries ago. But today, his stomach was really disagreeing with this plan. The feeling of bits of his bones grinding against one another was so much worse than yesterday. He knew what it was—every time a bone breaks, it grows back stronger. That was one of the reasons that older vampires were stronger and more durable; it was a natural consequence of living a vampire's lifestyle. That also meant that with each successive turn, the process got more difficult, more painful.

He roared in agony, letting each of his vertebrae shatter in turn, re-forming into a wolf's spine—which didn't like being attached to a human's ribcage. Not at all.

-0-

"Dr. Kieran is working on a research design now," Caroline concluded, turning off her power point, "but based on preliminary research, they'll be here at least twelve weeks. We won't be able to continue construction until autumn."

"Make sure they prioritize removing the body and artifacts from the Gilbert property," Mr. Hopkins instructed with a sigh. It was no secret that he would have preferred not to get archaeologists involved at all. "That way we can finish renovations while they investigate the alleyway behind."

"But of course, in keeping with our town's vision," Mayor Lockwood emphasized, "we will be happy to cooperate with the researchers in any way possible."

'Then maybe you should put on old clothes and come hold sifters in the middle of summer,' Caroline thought dryly, soaking up the A/C while she could get it—she was headed to the dig after the meeting finished.

"Absolutely, Mayor Lockwood," Caroline responded professionally, closing her laptop. Mrs. Lockwood looked down her nose at her son's ex-girlfriend, then swept out of the room without saying anything. Carol knew that Caroline's intervention had likely saved Tyler's life, but she wasn't exactly thrilled about her shacking up with the guy who had tried to kill him. Caroline was used to this sort of attitude from people, though—parents of cheerleaders she'd beat out for captain, parents of girls whose boyfriends liked her better… She had a lot of practice not letting it bother her.

What did bother her, however, was wondering what Klaus was up to. Once again, he wasn't responding to her texts—and he'd been awfully unsteady the previous night for having voluntarily turned and spent the day running around with paws for a laugh…

-0-

When the dig finished up for the day—meaning when the sun was too low in the sky to safely continue—Caroline washed her hands quickly then had to remind herself to jog at human speed until she was out of visual range. (She hadn't been driving to the dig site because parking downtown was pretty limited and she wanted to leave the spaces for the researchers.)

She arrived home moments after she got out of other people's line of sight, and took her shoes off upon entering, like she had last night. But Klaus was awake this time, lounging in an armchair in front of the TV, drink in one hand, flipping listlessly through channels with the other.

"How was your day?" he asked. He smelled like shower gel again, she realized as she approached and sat on the couch nearest him.

"It was okay," she said with a shrug. "They're working on digging up the body, and starting excavations on the dwelling. Lots of sifting through dirt. Yours? Were you a wolf again?" she guessed, noticing some persistent redness on his skin, and exhaustion to his posture. A voluntary turn shouldn't be hurting him so much, should it? Then she realized she had been comparing him to Tyler—she kept forgetting that he lacked the experience to really do a smooth turn.

"Yeah," he shrugged, and she could tell he was playing it off. She frowned, but Alphonse announced dinner before she could ask, and Klaus quickly changed the subject. After they ate, he suggested they watch a movie, so she stuck in Iron Man and curled up against him on the couch—gently, still feeling like he was probably injured.

"'I'd be prepared to lose a few with you,'" Downey said with all of his Tony Stark swagger—or Stark said with all of his Robert Downey Junior swagger, she could never decide—and as the scene cut to a sex montage, she felt Klaus's arm wrap a little more securely around her. She looked up, and he was glancing sidelong down at her, smirking, eyebrow raised.

'Oh my god, we're alone, with no possible interruptions—for once,' Caroline realized. Her pulse thundered in her neck, and her hands started to sweat. For weeks, they'd been practically acting like roommates—loving caresses and occasional attempts at sexuality hadn't yet blossomed into anything. Klaus was giving her space, she knew—space to grieve her mother, space to get well over the disaster with Tyler, space to make her own decisions, regardless of what it cost him.

In an instant, the whole world seemed to fade and dim, and all she could think about was him—his arm around her, long fingers gently curved around her shoulder. In that moment, everything holding her back, everything distracting her melted away. Almost of its own accord, her hand hit a button on the remote—pausing or muting or stopping the movie; she didn't know, but the background of sound and moving lights cut off abruptly, so it worked. Klaus looked down at her again, question in his eyes.

She leaned up to kiss him, and he responded immediately, his tongue flitting between her lips as his arm lowered to her waist, pulling her onto his lap. She straddled him, leaning into him and moving her lips to his neck, sucking and nipping at the moles that decorated his throat. His hands began to explore her body, fingers caressing her legs, exposed by the tiny pajama shorts she'd changed into after dinner. His hands were rough and calloused, with unexpected strength, and a burning heat—his touch trailed fire across her skin, but it was the good kind of fire, like sunlight and bourbon and passion.

Heat was blossoming through her, different than the stifling heat of the outdoors—better, wilder, sweeter. When his fingers went under her shirt, she pulled away long enough to pull it off, discarding it on the arm of the couch before returning her lips to his skin. In an instant, he swept her up only to lay her down and get on top of her where he could more easily trail his lips down her neck, collar bones, chest…

That was when his ribs decided to spasm.

He barely avoided biting down on Caroline as the pain erupted through his whole torso, but he was vaguely aware that his unexpected claws had shredded right through a cushion beneath her.

"Klaus!" he heard her exclaim, struggling out from under him so she could pull him upright, get the pressure off his ribcage.

"Bloody hell," he hissed as the stress fractures healed. Of all the times for his nightmare to become reality, this had to be the worst—certainly worse than he'd imagined.

"What the hell just happened?" Caroline demanded, still supporting most of his weight. He sat up, quickly getting off of her.

"Nothing—it's fine," he gasped out; a knee-jerk reaction. 'What the hell?' he wondered in confusion. He had finished turning over an hour ago, showered, done some stretches, and should be perfectly fine, if stiff and tired. Then again, he'd turned a dozen times in two days—that couldn't exactly be healthy.

"Don't insult my intelligence," Caroline snapped, bringing him back to the present. "What's wrong?"

"Aftershocks," he responded with a shrug—but that hurt too—why was this happening? He should've recovered by now; he was an Original for god's sake…

"How many times did you turn?" she exclaimed, drawing back a little now that he was sitting up on his own, but her hand remained on his shoulder, like she was still trying to offer some physical comfort.

"A few," he said off-handedly. "As we noticed on prom night, I'm not exactly skilled at controlling my form. This is, after all, a power I worked for centuries to attain," he reminded her, trying to play it off as nothing more than a little practice. He knew that if he told her what he was really doing, she'd probably just worry more. Besides, he hadn't even liked admitting to himself that he had to go through the same training as those upstart puppies—he certainly didn't want to admit it to her if he could help it…

"Right," she murmured, unconvinced, but not pressing the issue quite yet. "Are you… going to be okay?"

"Of course," he scoffed, trying to hide the way his back was starting to twist again. "But," he added regretfully, "we might need to… postpone our more strenuous activities for the moment."

He kept up a casual front, but inside he was drowning in shame. Of all the moments that this sort of thing could have interrupted—this? After they'd already waited so long? But as Caroline nodded, put her shirt back on, and they settled back in for the movie—which neither of them really saw, after that—he was at least a little comforted by the fact that he knew he could be confident in her; when he finished this ordeal and was back to being his proper self, he was certain that she'd still be there.

It wasn't much consolation, but it was something.

-0-

Elena's lungs burned, her weak fists pounding uselessly against the slick metal in front of her. Terror constricted her chest, and water filled it. It burned inside her lungs… was water supposed to burn? That couldn't be right, she thought with a sort of sick horror as darkness claimed her and she succumbed to drowning…

Elena's sudden waking was silent—she grew stiff and her eyes flew open, her lungs frozen, not letting her gasp. She exhaled what little stale air she had, and then made a concentrated effort to relax into the planes of Damon's chest as he held her close to him in his sleep. She snuggled into him, trying not to think too hard about the dream.

The thing was… it hadn't been her, in the dream, drowning. Well, it was—it was from her perspective, after all—but she hadn't been herself.

She'd been Stefan.

Why was she dreaming about Stefan drowning?

It was probably a metaphor for something unpleasant in her subconscious, she told herself morosely, and settled in to get back to sleep.

-0-

Prague was the third stop on Rebekah and Matt's "Celebrate Matt's New Immortality Round the World Trip," but so far, it was Matt's favorite. Paris had been beautiful but too touristy, the Alps were fantastic for skiing but awfully quiet, but Prague… Prague was just sensually rich. The architecture was lovely and full of history, the food was utterly fantastic, and the company…

One of the best things about being a vampire, Matt thought, was that his senses could really take in everything around him. He'd always known Rebekah was fantastically beautiful, but now she took his breath away. He could take in and remember all sorts of tiny details—the shape of her lips, the way she showed her teeth when she smiled, the little pheromones wafting from her skin when she moved.

He appreciated Rebekah everywhere they'd been, of course, but here, here in Prague, she'd really seemed to come alive. In Paris she'd had to wear a hat and sunglasses most of the time, because too many older vampires lived in the city and might have recognized her, and in Switzerland they'd been in the mountains and she'd had to bundle up to keep up appearances. But here in Prague, she'd opted for a little black dress that barely deserved the title, and had her feathery blonde hair loose around her shoulders.

Even though the sight of her was—as usual—visually arousing, when he could really see her body, he was always struck by how strong she looked. Not in a bulked-up muscle kind of way, but lean and perfectly built—like she'd been designed by an expert. That was one trait that he'd learned was quite the aphrodisiac to most vampires, and he was no exception. He sat at the bar, rubbing his still unfamiliar daylight ring between his fingers as she made conversation in fluent Czech with a couple of other people, trying not to look to any observant bystanders like she was compelling them dinner.

"So," a heavily accented voice greeted him, and he turned to see an olive-skinned brunette woman sitting at his other side. "New in town?"

"How can you tell?" Matt laughed a little awkwardly, taking a long draught of his third beer.

"I know all the vampires around here," she responded in a low voice, smiling disarmingly and winking at him. He felt Rebekah tune into the conversation.

"I'm Nadia," the vampire introduced herself cordially.

"Matt," Matt responded, holding out his hand to shake.

"Rebekah," Rebekah added, leaning around him. Nadia's dimples deepened when she took Rebekah's hand.

"Nice to meet you, Rebekah," she murmured.

"I don't suppose you know of anywhere nearby with a good honeymoon suite," Rebekah asked a little passive-aggressively. Matt had to work hard to restrain his laughter. She was exactly as possessive over him as she had been when he was human.

"I know of a lovely little place for a party of three, if you're interested," Nadia responded, arching an eyebrow and smirking, clearly mentally undressing both of them.

Rebekah's eyebrows went up, but her eyes gleamed with interest. Matt could feel his face getting hot. What was this—candid camera porn? But his enhanced vampire brain told him within a second that both were completely serious.

"New experiences," Rebekah mouthed at him with a smirk as Nadia got up and sauntered away towards the front entrance.

"Tell me about it," he laughed, downing his beer before following her out.

A/N: Poor Klaus… even Matt is getting more than him! :-( XD XD XD lol. Well, there's the first half of what was originally supposed to be a single chapter… It would have been 7-8 thousand words by the end or something insane like that. Way too long to read!

Random head-canon: Klaus actually hates champagne. He thinks it's really gross. Whenever he brings it up or deals with drinking it, it's because he's being boss-level sarcastic. "Oh, wow, something totally not celebration-worthy is being celebrated; time for champagne." "Oh, wow, we're making a treaty with these people who will definitely, absolutely, probably immediately betray us, and if they don't, I probably will; time for champagne." He put up with it at his mother's party and it was a part of an elaborate plan to kill his entire family. "Oh, of course it had to be in the bloody champagne; why did I even bother…" I find this head-canon unexpectedly entertaining, especially cause he's always so cultured. Most people outside of his family have no idea. This had been a random head-canon with Beth Nottingham.

Haha, so, funny story… I'm working on this in class, and this guy is sitting right next to me—normally no one takes the seat directly next to me, but he moved there for a discussion thingy, and then just never moved back once the lecture started. Anyhow, I open up my laptop to my outline, and Days 2-4 are on the visible screen (from when both chapters were outlined together). The key words that repeat and stand out are "sex," "pain," "basement" and "screaming."

Then I see the guy next to me staring at my screen and slowly losing his shit… I try to close my laptop but then I realize that makes it obvious that I wasn't doing classwork with it, so I have it half closed, he's trying not to burst out laughing, my teacher looks over and asks what's going on, he says he's mesmerized by my touch screen (I have a 2-in-1, so it doesn't look like it should have a touch screen, but it does) the teacher moves on, but now we can't say anything else about anything because then she'll know we weren't paying attention… Poor little corn-fed dude probably thought I was writing some 50-Shades style nastiness! Those terms didn't all correlate with each other! It was multiple scenes cut together to create a TV-show splicing effect!

So, while some people graduate college with hilarious awkward drunk stories, I am apparently such a boss-level of awkward by my final university semester that I can acquire such stories without consuming any alcohol at all… Hehehe…

Kill me now, though. Seriously.

Until next time!