A/N: This is part one of a two-part holiday bit. I didn't want to write a seven thousand word one-shot, so it's in two parts (plus, the other one isn't done yet). This is pretty fluffy. You have been warned.
Enjoy!
-Angie

"Meet The Other Family (Part One)" – December 28th, 2014 – Age 2 ½ years.

"Do we honestly have to do this?" Klaus asked for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few hours as they parked next to the sidewalk in front of Caroline's old apartment building.

"Yes, Klaus," Caroline said patiently, unbuckling her seatbelt and feeling at the moment like she had ended up with two small children and not one, "Sometimes, we have to do things that we don't want to do."

Klaus just sighed dramatically and slid out of the driver's seat, letting Caroline unbuckle Hope from her car seat in the back and pick her up.

"We're going to meet grandma," Caroline said to Hope, "Can you say 'grandma'?"

Hope looked almost as excited about the situation as her father did, and stayed utterly silent. Caroline nearly laughed at the look of complete disinterest Hope was wearing.

Liz Forbes had been completely unwilling to move out of Caroline's childhood home in Mystic Falls, and since it was no problem for her and Klaus to keep Caroline's old apartment paid for, whenever she and Klaus were to come visit, they would stay there.

Klaus grabbed their suitcases out of the trunk and Caroline balanced Hope on her hip while she dug around her purse for the keys, following Klaus up to her floor and handing them to him so that he could unlock the door for her.

While Klaus put the bags in their bedroom, Caroline immediately walked to the kitchen and started to make a list of the groceries that they would need to make dinner.

Or, rather, the groceries that they would need for Klaus to make dinner.

When he wandered back in a few minutes later, she pushed the grocery list into his hand and informed him that he was to go shopping and buy everything, and could he please stop by the hospital for blood bags on his way, before immediately turning to head to their bedroom, setting Hope on the floor with a large pile of colored wooden blocks while she unpacked.

They were only staying for a week, but Caroline had, as usual, made sure that they packed every single thing that they could possibly need.

Klaus had sent Ian ahead to toddler-proof the house—thank the lord—and so she didn't have much to do besides put the clothing away. This meant that she had a lot less things to do to put off the inevitable.

She honestly was dreading this almost as much as she was looking forward to it. She had only seen her mother a few times since she moved to New Orleans—more because she was busy than anything else—and this was the first time her mother was meeting Hope, as well as the first time she was seeing Klaus since he'd left Mystic Falls before her graduation. They had stayed home for Christmas with Klaus's siblings, but had decided to come up for New Years, and the dinner with her mother was bound to be a little bit awkward. She also was going to see her friends that lived in Mystic Falls, some of whom she had only seen once since she moved, and she was nervous about that. Matt and Rebekah would be joining them the next day, and she honestly was happy that she'd have some non-Original back-up.

Once she'd finished unpacking she sat next to Hope on the floor staring at her phone and trying to work up the nerve to call her friends. They were having dinner with her mother that night, but she was planning on having dinner with her friends on New Year's Eve, and perhaps spending some time with them before that.

She decided to bite the bullet and picked up her phone, deciding to call the easiest person first.

"Care?" Bonnie said when she picked up the phone.

"Hey, Bon."

"Did you get to your apartment okay?"

"Yeah, totally. I was wondering if you might want to come over later. We can hang out."

"Will Klaus be there?"

Caroline was silent for a moment before responding. "Would that be a problem?"

She could practically see Bonnie in her mind's eye, biting her lip with her eyes to the side, considering the pros and cons. "No, probably not, but I don't think Jeremy would want to go."

"That's fine," Caroline said, secretly happy that he wouldn't be coming and feeling slightly guilty for it.

It wasn't that she and Jeremy didn't get along, but she didn't feel comfortable having him near Hope. He might have gotten over his vampire killing urges for the most part, but Hope wasn't just a vampire, and she didn't want to take any chances.

"I'll be over in an hour?"

"Yeah, sure."

Klaus should be back by then, and she'd text him just to make sure. After checking and being assured that he'd be back by then, she and Hope played with blocks for a bit before Caroline decided that it was time for lunch.

She heard the key in the lock as she was pouring Hope a plate of Cheerios and turned to see Klaus carrying a cooler under one arm and clutching two grocery bags, which he put down next to the fridge, immediately starting to put everything away.

She grinned at the image of the Original Hybrid Villain putting away their groceries. She kind of wanted to laugh, but restrained herself.

"So, this is probably going to sound weird, but since Matt is already 'Uncle Matt' I was wondering if you'd mind allowing some of my friends the title," Caroline asked, slightly nervous for Klaus's reaction.

"Which friends?"

"Bonnie and Stefan," Caroline replied promptly.

She knew she was being slightly unfair, but she had no intention of letting Elena have that kind of role in Hope's life. Bonnie and Klaus still had a lot of tension, but Bonnie was Caroline's very first friend, and she knew that Bonnie would be invested enough to get over her issues if Klaus was willing to. Unfortunately, no matter how many times Damon claimed that Bonnie was the judgy one, Caroline felt strongly that Elena was more self-righteous and judgmental than any of them.

In addition, she had no intention of ever letting Damon near Hope. She purposefully hadn't invited him to dinner—although she had a funny feeling he'd turn up anyway—partly for his own safety (as a favor to Elena) and partly because she didn't want him in Hope's life. Ever.

If Hope became too attached to Elena, Damon would be a package deal, and unlike the rest of her friends, she didn't think Elena was worth having to deal with him.

Tyler was a no-brainer, frankly. They were friends, but that didn't mean that she was going to let him have that much of a connection to Hope, especially since he probably didn't want one anyway. She was still debating whether he should come to dinner, really. She didn't want to un-invite him at the last second (because, hello, so rude), but at the same time, she wasn't sure that she could keep both him and Klaus in check at once.

She'd rather that her year didn't start with a bloodbath.

"I'm willing to allow Stefan and Bonnie a place in Hope's life."

Caroline gave him a brilliant smile, and he returned it.

There was a knock on the door, and Caroline smiled brightly at Klaus before placing the plate in front of Hope on her high chair and opening the door for Bonnie, who she immediately pulled into a hug. "Oh my gosh! It's so great to see you!"

"Yeah, I'm sorry I haven't called much," Caroline said sheepishly.

Bonnie shrugged. "You've been busy," she said, gesturing towards Hope.

Both of them looked at Klaus, who seemed to be trying to subtly leave the room. Caroline narrowed her eyes at him. "Hello, Bonnie."

Bonnie shot him a smirk. "Klaus."

"Mama!" Hope shouted, "Mama, all done!"

Caroline immediately turned around to see Hope in the process of knocking Cheerios off of her tray and immediately sped over. "Hope, don't throw."

Hope immediately dropped the Cheerios, and Caroline smiled.

"I don't understand how you get her to listen," Klaus mumbled, making Caroline laugh.

Hope mostly followed Caroline's directions, with some exceptions. However, she pointedly ignored most of Klaus's. Caroline thought it was incredibly funny that Hope refused to follow orders of the most powerful supernatural being on Earth, and yet listened to her.

Bonnie was watching Caroline scoop all of the cereal into the compost bin in the sink (if Caroline was going to live forever, she would make damned sure that she did her part to make sure that they had a world to live in), and she slowly approached Hope, who looked at her curiously, but didn't say anything.

"This is Auntie Bonnie. Can you say 'hi'?"

Hope gave Bonnie a curious look before reaching a hand out. Caroline and Klaus shot each other a look as Bonnie took it, before flinching, and then smiling.

"She wanted to read me," Bonnie explained, "It's instinctive, she probably doesn't know why she did it."

Hope seemed to feel much more comfortable now. "Auntie Bonnie," She said slowly.

Caroline gave her daughter a huge smile, which Hope returned.

"C'mon, Bon, let's go watch a movie."

XXX

By the time Caroline hugged Bonnie goodbye around five, the smells from the kitchen were mouthwatering. "That smells good," She said, walking into the kitchen, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You can set the table," He said, making her laugh at his clear attempt to make her feel useful without having her actually do anything.

She did it anyway, carefully making sure that the silverware matched and the napkins and tablecloth didn't clash or have spots. She saw Klaus smiling exasperatedly at her once or twice as she changed the napkins or re-arranged the coasters for the food.

"I'm sure it will look nice no matter what you do with it," He said as she changed the kind of wine glasses for the third time.

"Sorry, I'm just nervous."

"About me meeting your mother while you aren't in danger of being killed, you mean?"

She shrugged apologetically. "It's not that I don't want you to, I just…I want her to approve."

"Well, not that I really have any experience with mothers who actually approve of my behavior, or me in general, I don't really have much advice for you. I can, however, say that I will be on my best behavior, and that worst comes to worst, she'll most likely enjoy spending time with Hope."

"I hope so."

Klaus sighed and put the sauce-covered wooden spoon down on the paper towel resting on the counter (while Caroline was responsible for clean-up, he generally tried to make it easier on her) and pulled her into a warm hug.

"It'll be fine, I promise."

She nodded, enjoying the feeling of being in his arms.

"Can you be done worrying now? I need to finish cooking."

She scoffed and pulled back. "You ruined the moment."

He smirked. "I apologize."

"Of course you do," Caroline mumbled, disentangling herself and going over to Hope, who was sitting at the tiny table they'd bought for her to play on. She was surrounded by crayons and paper, and seemed to be doodling something. As they'd discovered early, Hope was always a few months ahead in motor skills, which meant that she was already able to draw in a circular motion. Caroline walked over to sit on the floor next to her.

"That's pretty," She complimented, looking at Hope's scribble.

"Thank."

"Thanks," Caroline corrected.

Hope shot her an annoyed look that Caroline never failed to smile at, as Klaus made the very same expression whenever he was mildly irritated, and returned to her scribbling. The doorbell rang. "Can you get that?" Klaus said at a normal speaking level from the kitchen, knowing that she'd hear it.

She sighed and opened the door to let her mother in. "Hi, Mom."

"It's good to see you," Liz said warmly, giving Caroline a hug.

Caroline felt movement next to her leg and saw that Hope had come to investigate what was going on. "Hope, this is Grandma. Can you say 'hi'?"

"Hi," Hope said shortly before toddling off to her table again.

Liz grinned. "If I didn't know better I'd say she had your genes. She is remarkably like you as a toddler."

Caroline raised her eyebrows. "Oh?"

"You weren't very nice to strangers. Once you took a liking to them though, you wouldn't stop talking."

"I'm not surprised by that at all," Klaus said, poking his head out from the kitchen and smirking at her.

"Shut up," Caroline mumbled.

"Hello, Liz."

Caroline didn't miss the underlying message, which was that Klaus considered himself to be her mother's equal, and had no doubt that her mother had also picked up on it. Honestly, Caroline wasn't surprised in the least. As far as Klaus was concerned, Liz was over nine-hundred years younger than him, and she doubted that he'd be treating her any other way.

"Can I get you anything?" Caroline asked politely, making Liz smile.

"No. I'm fine until dinner."

"It should only be another quarter of an hour," Klaus said, turning to wander back into the kitchen.

Liz immediately walked over to the table where Hope was doodling. "What are you drawing?"

Hope gave her a confused why-are-you-talking-to-me glance before answering. "Lines."

Caroline held back a laugh at Hope's answer.

"You're drawing lines?" Liz asked, also looking amused.

Hope nodded, her brow furrowed as she concentrated very hard on her drawing.

Caroline sat down beside her mother and they chatted about what had been going on in town while occasionally oo-ing and ahh-ing at Hope's scribbles.

She heard Klaus turn the oven off and the clink of plates. "Dinner's ready," She said.

Liz didn't ask how she knew, probably figuring it was 'one of her vampire things', and she stood up, rubbing her back a little bit.

"Time for dinner," Caroline said again to Hope, who gave her a disinterested look.

"No."

"Hope, you need to take a break from drawing now."

"No."

Caroline sighed and simply reached down and plucked Hope out of her chair, who immediately started flailing around in Caroline's arms. She calmly deposited Hope in her high chair without much trouble and set some food in front of her in a bowl. Hope glared at her and Caroline raised an eyebrow as she took her place at the table, spooning herself some pasta.

"So, how is everything now that Mystic Falls is inaccessible?" Klaus asked awkwardly.

"It's fine. Not much to do. How's New Orleans? I've heard a lot from Caroline about Hope, but not much about the city."

"Well, it's definitely got a lot of options for Caroline to explore in terms of things to do. Running the supernatural part of the city is a full-time job for me, really. We've tried to make the city safer, for Hope's sake, mostly, and that involved a lot of meetings and diplomacy. It's been going well."

Liz nodded. "That's good to hear."

There was an awkward silence for a moment before Liz spoke again. "Are you planning on going back to college, Caroline?"

Caroline stopped cutting up her pasta and looked up. Her mom didn't look judgmental, exactly, but Caroline knew that she wasn't particularly in favor of Caroline staying home with Hope.

She had been thinking about it, but hadn't really broached the topic with Klaus. "Umm…Well, I've thought about it. I don't know what the plan is right now," She said, rather lamely.

"Are you sure?" Liz asked, shooting Klaus a suspicious look.

Having clearly realized that Liz was implying that he was preventing Caroline from doing things she wanted to do, he jumped in. "I offered to pay for her tuition but she said that she wanted to take a break for now. I hadn't heard anything about it since we had the conversation, but I am confident that if she wants to do it, she can. I also have no objections to her not pursuing that life path. She has eternity to do whatever she wishes, and if she wishes to spend it at home with Hope to see her grow up, that is her choice."

"And what if she just doesn't want charity?" Liz asked, frowning.

Caroline realized that her mother knew her too well. In most cases she would consider it charity. She was not a fan of getting things that she hadn't earned. It felt less meaningful. However, this was not one of those times, both because she didn't feel like she was being a burden—she was almost positive that Klaus could pay for her to go to college more than a hundred times over—and because he'd made it clear that as Hope's mother she was entitled to spend his money just as everyone else in the family, and pointed out that Rebekah probably spent three times a private college's tuition in as many months on clothes and "other trivial things."

She still wasn't a huge fan of it, but she felt a lot more comfortable with it than she might have otherwise, especially after Klaus had discreetly pointed out that using her family's finances would make her mother's quality of living significantly less comfortable.

"It's not charity," He said immediately.

Liz glanced at her, as though checking whether Caroline agreed.

"I will go to college when I'm ready," Caroline assured her, "Probably in a year or so, once Hope is in pre-school."

Liz nodded slowly. "I just remember you talking non-stop about your plans when you were a kid," She said, slightly wistfully.

Caroline realized that her mom might have been more affected by her moving out than she'd initially thought. It hadn't occurred to her that her mom might miss her, especially since they had hardly ever talked other than to fight when she'd been human.

"What did she talk about?" Klaus asked curiously, a small smirk on his lips.

Caroline suddenly had a bad feeling about where this was going. She most definitely did not want to get into embarrassing childhood memory territory. She'd been lucky so far in that Liz had never cared enough nor had enough time to meet her boyfriends.

Unfortunately, she did now.

"Mom…" She said slowly, her voice a low warning.

"She had several of them, actually. My favorite was when she decided that she wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice. She was about twelve I think."

"Not the President?" Klaus joked.

"That's what I said, actually. She told me that she'd rather make sure people followed the rules than make them in the first place, because then she'd have a way to change them."

"Yeah, I was an incredibly bossy and rule-obsessed child," She mumbled, "You're really selling me."

"I think it's rather sweet," He said, giving her a sincere look, "And it makes sense, too. You had big plans when you were a child just as you do now."

Liz smiled. "Having 'big plans' is a slight understatement. When she was seven she came home with a note from her teacher that said that she got in trouble at recess for being bossy. Her father told me that if she tried she could probably rule the world."

Klaus smirked. "Well, he must have been able to see the future."

Caroline snorted. "I do not rule the world."

"The offer's still open," He said, smirking at her.

She rolled her eyes and gave her mother an exasperated look. "Do you see what I have to deal with, here?"

Liz's lips twitched. "I don't know, it sounds like he's attempting to make your childhood wish of being a princess come true."

"A Queen," Klaus corrected.

She could tell that they were both having entirely too much fun embarrassing her.

"Well, she wanted to be a princess first, I think. But then she realized that she could wear pretty dresses without being a princess and decided that she wanted to be the CEO of a bakery. I came home one day when she was about six and I found the kitchen a total mess with about six batches of cookies that varied in their edibleness."

Caroline blushed, and Klaus shot her a small smile. "Mom…"

"I think you could be a Queen and a CEO of a bakery at the same time, Caroline. I don't see the issue."

"First of all, I was six. Second of all, owning a bakery in New Orleans sounds completely undoable. There are already too many good ones, there would be too much competition. And if I did open a bakery you would not be allowed to kill my competition," She added hastily at the end, making him smile.

"See? Already successfully ordering me around," He said, looking at her fondly, "Clearly 'Queen material'."

"Did you just use air quotes?"

"Queen Mommy?" Hope piped up from her high chair.

Klaus and Liz started laughing and Caroline let her face drop in her hands.

She didn't know why she worried about her mother and Klaus getting along. It seemed that they got along way too well for her tastes.

"Yes, I do like the sound of Queen Caroline," Klaus said slyly.

She groaned.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed that. Review so I know what you think ;)
The next one will be up before New Year.
Hugs!
-Angie