Hello, my lovely readers. The story is almost over-can you believe it—neither can I. :O On with the show…
Chapter 18: Where Do We Go From Here?
Music raged throughout the Salvatore Boarding House and Klaus could not stop smiling. He placed another, lingering kiss to Caroline's temple. They were lying in a bubble bath, in Damon's tub. Not having to work on his father's film, for the next two hours, fifteen minutes and twenty seconds made him feel relaxed. Caroline's hand slipping up his thigh was having the opposite effect.
"Where do you want to get married?" Caroline asked him, turning her head, placing her lips under his chin, kissing him lightly and moving to nip at his earlobe. The grin that she gave him made it hard to concentrate on wedding plans. Her hand was also making it hard to concentrate. "I was thinking we could go to an undiscovered island. Make it a beach wedding. Don't you think Bonnie, Elena and Rebekah would look great in grass skirts? No one is supposed to overshadow the bride."
"Yes." Klaus nodded, closing his eyes.
"Klaus, are you listening to me," Caroline demanded, moving her hand and his smile dropped.
His little fiancée suddenly spilled bathwater and bubbles over the side of the tub as she moved to the opposite side, folding her arms over her chest and glared at him. "If you aren't going to take this seriously, how am I supposed to believe that you will take anything about our relationship seriously? Where are the kids going to go to school? What kind of property taxes will we have to pay? I am not going to be a stay-at-home mom. So, you had better have a plan for who will be taking care of the kids. And it had better not involve women like those sluts you hire, to help around your house. Speaking of—I do not want girls running around my house—half-dressed, serving us dinner."
Eyebrows rising, Klaus moved across the bathtub, moving on top of Caroline, watching her fight to look serious. "You want children?"
"Yes," Caroline said, blushing. "I thought, you know, we could adopt. As long you promise not to eat them, or to teach them to kill people, or…" Caroline stopped talking because Klaus had slipped his hand up her thigh and her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.
"And?" Klaus inquired lightly, running his lips from her temple, down her cheek, and over her neck, his free hand exploring the length of her backbone.
"What are you doing in my bathtub?" Damon Salvatore's voice demanded.
Klaus and Caroline looked to the open doorway, where Damon stood. His eyebrows stood high. His eyes were wider than Caroline had ever seen them before and his lips were spread back from his teeth. She wished she could take a picture of a horrified and disgusted Damon and remind him that is how he made most people feel, every day.
"Having sex," Caroline retorted. "Mind shutting the door. We'd like some privacy."
"You have got to be kidding me!" Damon shouted at them.
"Damon, if you value your liver: leave!" Klaus snarled, showing his hybrid features to Damon.
Shaking his head, Damon started to leave, when Kol popped in. "Did someone say sex? Oh, look at this! This truly needs to be recorded for the family album." Pulling out his phone, Kol began to snap pics until Klaus stood up and climbed out of the tub.
"I will murder you, Kol!" Klaus shouted.
"Seriously!" Damon cried, grabbing a towel, and tossing it at Klaus. "Excuse me. I have to go blind myself." Stomping out of the bathroom, Damon disappeared.
"Alone at last," Caroline said, slipping her arms around Klaus's from behind and throwing the towel on the floor. "The water's getting cold."
"Let's remedy that, shall we?" Klaus climbed back into the tub and pulled the stopper before turning the hot water back on.
"Hey, guys?" Bonnie called, stepping into the bathroom.
"Bonnie!" Caroline cried out, covering herself with bubbles. "Knock much?"
Bonnie huffed. "Klaus, do you mind? This is kind of a 'just us girls moment.'"
"And am I not to be included in the many, sordid details?" Klaus inquired, leaning back in the tub and smirking at the Bennett witch.
Caroline smacked him in the stomach. "Klaus, give us a minute."
"Or twenty," Bonnie added, offering him a big, fake smile.
Smirking back at Bonnie, Klaus stood up. Bonnie's face reddened and her eyes rolled to the ceiling. "Well, that explains Caroline's fascination with you."
"Bonnie Bennett!" Caroline shrieked, laughing.
Bonnie shrugged while Klaus bent over to grab the towel and wrapped it around his waist. "You have twenty minutes. And then I coming back," he warned Bonnie who nodded at him.
On his way out the door, he heard Bonnie add. "He also has a really nice ass." Caroline let out another shriek and they began to laugh.
Klaus could not help but smile. It looked like he might finally have the life he secretly longed for, including an extended group of family and friends.
"Now, how exactly do you upload this video to Facebook?" Finn asked Damon, who rolled his eyes.
"What video?" Klaus inquired, feeling the mood to be humored.
Finn looked up. "Oh, nothing, brother. Just something Kol e-mailed me. Sage, would you helpi me with this?"
"Hey, Evil Hybrid!" Damon snapped. "Mind putting some clothes on, before you sit down on my favorite couch?"
"No," Klaus replied, sitting down and crossing his legs.
"Ugh," Damon groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose while Elena patted him on the knee.
Katherine came into the room, her hair in its usual mass of unruly curls. Her lipstick was smeared, and her shirt not buttoned, which was nothing unusual. It was Elijah coming in, hurriedly tucking his shirt into his pants and looking flushed that made Klaus roll his eyes. If he were not in such a good mood, he would do his utmost to scare Katerina away from his poor love-struck, fool of a brother.
"I've got booze!" Jeremy Gilbert called, entering the room with Kol.
"Lay off my alcohol!" Damon snarled, glaring at Jeremy.
Jeremy smirked. "Actually, Kol and I just raided Klaus'." His eyes ticked to Klaus. "Klaus' mom's house. She just rented out the place down the street."
"You have got to be kidding me!" Damon cried, getting to his feet. "Not only do we have the full Mikaelson family in town, but Mama Mikaelson is my freakin' neighbor!"
"Good luck with that," Klaus said. Standing up, he snagged a bottle from Jeremy's arms and twisted the lid. "My, mother's tastes have improved over the centuries. I could swear I have a bottle of this, at home." Giving Kol a long look, Klaus waited for this brother's confession.
Kol ignored him. "I have a bit of mail," he told them. "Came to Nik's place. Where I was not riffling through his bins and bedroom things."
"What?" Klaus bellowed.
"And I found something quite interesting," Kol announced. He held up an envelope. "Does anyone care to guess what this is?"
"Kol!" Klaus snarled through gritted teeth.
Kol held up a hand. "No interrupting while I have the floor, brother," the brat who would soon be lacking a head replied.
"This is a DNA test, conducted by my own lab." Kol waved the envelope around. "It contains the results of all five of our paternity tests."
"And why would you have it sent to my home?" Klaus demanded.
"Early birthday present," Kol replied with a grin. "To me, of course. Honestly, I had yet to find a suitable flat of my own. Dreadful, little town, with poor housing opportunities for a clever and handsome bachelor, such as myself."
"Get on with it!" Elijah shouted at Kol.
Everyone turned to stare at Elijah who smoothed his tie.
Kol grinned at them, ripping the envelope open and pulling out several sheets of paper. "Ah. That is what I suspected all along."
"Out with it!" Klaus bellowed, feeling himself losing all of his control.
"Ha!" Finn cried out, a smile on this face, his eyes on this phone. "I have one hundred and fifty-five thousand new friend requests."
"Who would want to be your friend?" Kol demanded, moving to stand behind Finn. "Oh, I see. You took my video and made some new mates with it. That is not fair, Finn. Those chaps and birds should want to be my mates, not yours. I demand you take my video down or I will sue you, using my intellectual property rights."
"You sent it to me. I can use it in any way I want to," Finn argued.
"Kol!" Klaus shouted. "What are the bloody results!"
"The results are that Finn is the son of a wooly mammoth! Take my video down!" Kol demanded, trying to take Finn's phone from him.
"If Finn is the son of a wooly mammoth, that would explain why he's taller than the rest of you," Jeremy told them, belching. "Excuse you," he told Katherine who elbowed him and took his bottle of vodka.
"Those who can't hold their alcohol, should not join the party," Katherine told Jeremy. "And who in the hell thought that making him into a vampire was a good idea?"
"You!" Kol told her. He had now moved onto the back of the chair that Finn sat in and hung off Finn's shoulders, trying to grab the phone, while Kol's legs swung in the air, knocking over a lamp.
"Stop breaking my stuff!" Damon shouted, his hands in the air. "Break Stefan's!"
"Give me that blasted phone, Finn, or I'll tell Mother what you put on the internet!" Kol shouted, his hands going around Finn's neck, choking his older brother.
Sage took the phone. "Friend request accepted. Freak. Weirdo. Donald Trump. Ew! Hell no!"
Katherine let out a snort of laughter. "He once sent a friend request. Apparently Facebook thought we have things in common: like an interest in ruling the world and torturing people for fun."
Klaus stomped over to Kol. "Give me those blasted papers," he tried to take the papers from Kol, when they went flying away, thanks to a gust of wind. How in the hell was there a gust of wind in a closed room. Not a single window was open.
Turning, Klaus came face-to-face with Bonnie. "Leave him alone," Bonnie snapped at Klaus.
"Since when did you decide to protect Kol?" Klaus snarled into the Bennett witch's face.
"It's complicated," Caroline told him. "And you might want to put some pants on. Katherine is taking pics of you."
"What?" Klaus demanded, turning to face Katherine.
"And there it is. Hashtag: Full frontal Hybrid," Katherine crowed, laughing her head off as she began punching buttons. "And sent to all of my Facebook and Twitter friends. This day could not get any better."
"Elena, you are not John Gilbert's daughter," Bonnie said, picking up the papers.
"What?" Elena's jaw dropped and she walked over to Bonnie. "What are you talking about, Bonnie?"
"This isn't just for the Miakelsons. These tests are for all of us," Bonnie told them, holding up the test results and waving them.
"What?" Jeremy sat bolt upright. "Who's her dad?"
"Why? Are you looking for a date to prom, now that Bonnie got her first taste of a Mikaelson man?" Katherine inquired, leaning into Jeremy's back and tugging at his hair.
"Get the hell off of me!" Jeremy snapped, shoving Katherine aside and getting to his feet. He walked over to Bonnie and took the sheets, flipping through them. "Oh, wow. That does not make any sense."
"Of course it does, young Gilbert," Kol said, snagging Finn's phone from Sage. "Let me deliver the good news to the baby daddy. Wait. No. Correction. Daddy of teenage spawn. Should I write that in all caps?"
"Kol!" Klaus bellowed. "What are our results?"
"Does that say what I think it says?" Caroline demanded, her eyes on one of the pages.
"What? Let me see?" Katherine jumped from the couch and came over to stand behind Caroline. Her eyes went wide and she pinned Klaus, with a look before laughing. "Never saw that one coming."
"What?" Klaus' continued frustration was making him ready to tear the entire boarding house apart.
"Well, it looks like you have a child," Katherine said.
"What?" Klaus demanded.
"Make that two," Bonnie added.
"What?" Klaus felt annoyed. Stalking over to grab the sheets of paper, he examined them. "That is impossible!" he told them, tossing the papers back at them. "I have yet to break my curse, therefore I could not produce children."
"You thought that Mikael couldn't be your dad, because he wasn't a wolf," Caroline retorted.
"And…" Klaus rolled his eyes. "Blast my mother to a fiery hell."
"I guess you're just going to have to ask you mom what exactly she did to you," Bonnie informed him. "And you should try to contact all of your previous sexual partners, to find out how many kids you really have."
Head beginning to ache, Klaus made his way to the chair and sat down. "This is impossible. I cannot be a father. I cannot be their father. This is just not possible."
"What in the hell is he talking about?" Damon asked everyone.
Klaus continued to shake his head, barely noting Katherine taking the paper from his hand and shoving it in Damon's face. "Read it and weep, Mikaelson!"
"Huh?" Damon took the paper and then groaned. "Okay. This is not funny, guys."
When no one began to laugh, Damon became irritable. "Come on. Klaus Mikaelson is not my dad!"
"No," Katherine shook her head. "No. He's yours and Stefan's! Ha!"
"That means that Stefan married his aunt," Elena cried out. "No wonder he likes Jon Snow so much."
"Oh, my God!" Bonnie exclaimed.
Caroline let out a nervous giggle.
Kol finally let out a laugh. "All right, kids. That is a fake. I just needed a good laugh."
"I will kill you!" Damon shouted.
"Not if I don't kill him first!" Klaus shouted.
"Then you'll never know which results are real and which are fake!" Kol cried, moving toward the door.
"Then we'll get another lab to do the tests!" Klaus said and he and Damon chased Kol out of the house.
The sound of screaming and bones breaking were heard—from outside of the house—along with a loud howl.
Stefan and Rebekah entered the house. "Hey, everyone." Stefan called. "Are you all ready to shoot—what happened to my house?" he cried, looking around at the destruction.
"Who cares?" Katherine said. "Stefan, we have some bad news for you, and Rebekah." She held out the sheet that Klaus dropped in his haste to kill Kol.
Stefan took the sheet of paper and looked like someone had killed his best friend, again. "Oh, no."
"Stefan, what is it?" Rebekah inquired, she looked at the paper and then at Katherine. "You bloody bitch! I will rip out your eyeballs and feed them to you. I will skin you alive. I will—"
"Rebekah, it is a fake!" Elijah called to an enraged Rebekah.
"And you knew that, didn't you?" Rebekah screamed at Katherine, chasing her out of the room.
More screaming commenced.
"Shall we get back to the set before Father kills us all?" Finn suggested.
"If he is our father," Elijah sighed.
"We'll find out soon," Caroline told them.
"How?" Sage asked. "You want me to go a couple of rounds with some lab techs?"
"No." Caroline shook her head. "I made some calls to a friend of mom's. She's a world-renowned DNA researcher and I sent her samples of your DNA. The results should be here as we wrap shooting the film."
"What a relief," Elijah said.
The group left the house, walking past Kol, who ran from Klaus while Damon sat behind the steering wheel of his car. "I am not dealing with Demon Wolf, again," he told them.
Rebekah and Katherine rounded the house, and Katherine leapt into Damon's car, head first, falling on Elijah. "You always catch me," she told him.
Kol jumped in, on the other side, falling on top of Jeremy and Bonnie. "Hello, mates."
Damon started up the car with Rebekah and Klaus chasing them down the street. "If we don't die before the film ends, I think we should all go on a long vacation," Damon suggested.
"Separately," Elijah added.
"Ah, look, Caroline, people really like you," Kol said, shoving Finn's phone in her face. "Your tape, with Nik, has gotten over a million likes on FaceBook."
Caroline gaped at the bathtub video and then tossed Kol out of the back of the car.
Kol, being Kol, did what came naturally, he stripped naked, and began to leap from house to house on their way to the film set. "I love me!" he shouted to passers-by who stood, making videos of their own.
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Answer to guest review:
Redbudrose: Thank you! I'm looking forward to talking to you about the project…
Peace,
Jessica