No One's POV

It was the day before the annual Miss Mystic Falls' Pageant, the Mikaelsons had of course, been invited, Rebekah already intending to go, however, Alexis was stomping downstairs after Niklaus and Elijah grumpily, complaining rather loudly.

"I don't understand!" Alexis objects. "Why- I want to go! Why can't I go!?"

"No. You're not going, Alexis." Niklaus replies firmly, spinning to face his mate, expression set.

"Why?" Alexis challenges. "Give me one good reason, Nik. And I'll stop asking."

"Because… Because of…" Niklaus fumbles for an excuse and failing.

"Because of the new Hunter." Elijah cuts in. "You told us he's unstable. And we won't risk you, Astin."

"Well that's stupid." Alexis retorts. "I'm not a vampire. So that's ridiculous."

"NO, Alexis." Niklaus snarls, raising his voice, a growl erupting from his chest, eyes tinting gold.

Alexis falls silent, slightly taken aback, her eyes narrowing at Niklaus, before fire erupts in them.

"Did you just yell at me?" Alexis questions, as if almost not believing it.

"I-" Niklaus immediately, now seriously back tracking, looking chagrined. "I- I apologize, love."

"You don't get to yell at me, Niklaus Mikaelson." Alexis hisses, her expression nearly flat as she advances on her mate, finger pointing at Niklaus, poking him firmly in the chest, Niklaus backing up away from Alexis.

"Of- of course not. I mean, I won't, again. I apologize, Alexis. There is no excuse." Niklaus nods, expression looking more contrite than ever.

"You're damn right there isn't! I don't care how angry you get! Never yell at me. You will sit your ass down and talk to me like a civilized person, not a heathen!" Alexis growls, glaring.

"Yes, love." Niklaus nods, now reaching out for his mate's waist, attempting to nuzzle against her apologetically.

"No. I'm still mad." Alexis pushes Niklaus away.

Niklaus makes a wounded noise, his inner vampire and wolf slightly frantic at the thought of his mate rejecting him.

"Okay… Fine." Alexis caves. "Just… Don't do it again."

"I won't, love." Niklaus promises.

"Now… Back to our discussion… I'm human. Jeremy won't even think about me. I'll barely be a passing thought. He goes after his sister. And besides. I have four very handsome, very big, and strong protectors to escort me? Don't I?" Alexis asks, eyebrow quirking as she plays innocent.

This time Niklaus growls for a completely different reason, Alexis feeling the resignation in his body as it slumps against her form, Elijah simply letting out a sigh of resignation.

"You are the most dangerous creature to ever walk this Earth, Elskan." Elijah simply replies, leaning over to cup her cheek.

"I'm not hearing a no…"

Niklaus grumbles against her neck.

"Fine." Niklaus grumbles more.

"Thank you." Alexis smiles, stroking fingers through Niklaus' blond curls, making him purr slightly, and her laugh lightly.

"What do you mean you're not coming? I don't need to remind you that your Miss Mystic Falls attendance record totally sucks." Caroline talks on the phone to Stefan as she oversees preparations for the pageant. "Besides, you're a founding family member, by definition you have to be here."

"Elena and I broke up. By definition, I don't need to be anywhere." Stefan informs glumly, doing pushups in the woods as his mind also thinks about the Cure that he had found out from the Hunter Connor.

"Did that sound as depressing to you as it did to me?" Caroline questions.

"Oh, I'm not depressed. I just want to rip into someone's artery and feed until I can't breathe anymore." Stefan comments.

"Well, you can't. As your sober sponsor, I am not going to let that happen. Try and sublimate." Caroline denies.

"She said she has feelings for Damon." Stefan informs, stopping his work out and looking up at the sky instead.

"What!? She can't have feelings for Damon! He's... Damon. And you're... You. And I'm – revolted. You know, I'm gonna talk to her. I'm going to shake some sense into her clearly diseased brain." Caroline says outraged.

"Yeah, well I don't know what good that'll do. Elena's right, being a vampire really has changed her."

"All the more reason you need to cure her." Caroline offers.

"Look, I got to go. Be careful. And remember, there is sublimating and then there is insanity." Caroline reminds, watching Elena come down the stairs of the Lockwood mansion.

"I'll be fine. Bye." Stefan offers, both hanging up.

"Look, I'm your best friend and I would never pick sides, but are you sure that this is what you want? Because Stefan is your soul mate." Caroline says, siding up to Elena as she arranges a few flowers.

"Sorry. Picking sides." Caroline shrugs.

"It's not like I don't love Stefan anymore, but I can't deny that ever since I turned, my feelings for Damon have become more intense." Elena says sort of nonchalant.

"Yeah, I know. Stefan filled me in on all the gory Damon details." Caroline replies, looking a bit disappointed in her friend's reaction, or lack of one.

"He did?" Elena looks surprised that they were that close. "Is he okay?"

"No, he's heartbroken."

"Well, what was I supposed to do? Lie to him?" Elena questions.

"No, but you weren't supposed to let Damon weasel his way into your confused newbie vampire heart." Caroline answers instead.

"Well, he did and that's exactly what I am. Confused. I need to figure out what these feelings actually mean." Elena tries to reason.

Outside, Matt and Jeremy are unloading Matt's truck, Matt hauling out boxes to take into the Lockwood mansion.

"So, your sister is making me be her date. Think I'll have to do that weird dance thing?" Matt asks, looking a bit worried.

"I'm pretty sure that's just for the contestants." Jeremy assures.

"I heard that you're April's escort. How'd that happen?" Matt pesters, looking like he's about to start in with a million questions.

"Well, she needed a date and apparently you were taken." Jeremy answers, to which Matt laughs.

"Okay, let's just take these in and we'll come back for the kegs." Matt says, unable to lift the kegs.

"No, wait." Jeremy shakes his head, now jumping into the truck. "You want to see something cool?"

"How did you just do that?" Matt asks, looked both impressed and worried as Jeremy picks up a keg in each hand as easy as if he was picking up a feather and then jumps down from the truck, placing them down on the ground.

"Ever since I was awoken as a Hunter, I've had all this energy, like all the time." Jeremy shrugs.

"Jer, I think you need to talk to someone about this. I mean, look what happened to Connor, okay. A byproduct of this energy is that you're gonna want to kill vampires and you happen to live with one." Matt points out, concerned.

"Hey, I would never hurt my sister." Jeremy denies.

"I'll be fine." Jeremy assures, walking into the Lockwood manor with the cart, leaving Matt to look on concerned.

Elena having moved off to decorate somewhere else, partly because she was angry at Caroline's comment and partly to help, Jeremy and Matt still unloading and moving things, Caroline was in the front of the mansion directing when Niklaus drove up in his sleek foreign Lamborghini.

"Woah, woah, woah, stop, stop!" Caroline says, stopping a girl with a flower arrangement. "Those flowers go in the back as indicated by the floral chart that you guys had plenty of time to memorize."

"Yeah, thank you." Caroline huffs, looking at her clipboard.

"Now, how did I know I'd find you at the helm of the ship?" Niklaus comments, looking amused.

"Go away. I'm busy." Caroline rolls her eyes.

"Now, I just had a simple thing to discuss." Niklaus says, standing in front of the blonde.

"Fine." Caroline rolls her eyes.

"I was only wondering-"

"No, I will not go out with you." Caroline cuts off.

Niklaus snaps his mouth shut rather abruptly, looking surprised.

"That was… Not what I was going to ask." Niklaus says.

"Oh… Umm… Okay. Continue." Caroline says, coughing and looking embarrassed.

"The Mikaelson invitation. My sister RSVP'd. However, my family and I will need a table, six seats. I apologize for the late notice. It was a last minute decision. I thought it would be better to discuss it with you in person. I'm sure you can make it work."

"Six?" Caroline questions, mentally counting the Mikaelson family in her head and only counting five.

"I have a date." Niklaus smirks.

"A date?" Caroline echoes, looking even more lost.

"See you tomorrow, Caroline." Niklaus nods, before walking back to his car and speeding off.

Just a clarifying point... The Five DO know about the Cure... As Vampire Diaries wiki says, "They were created by a dying witch (who was a descendant of the very powerful witch Qetsiyah), who wanted them to fulfill Qetsiyah's wish, which was to cure and kill the very first immortal, Silas... The marks served a variety of purposes and lead to Silas and his means of destruction - the Cure for Immortality (Vampire Diaries Wiki, n.d.)."

So, as one of the Five, Conner WOULD know of the Cure. In TVD canon, this is how Niklaus found out about it in the first place (he tortures Conner) & it sent him on the hunt for Alexander's sword, which he roped Stefan into helping him with... Honestly guys... It's literally the ENTIRE plot of TVD season four...

In this case, however, I did alter how Stefan found out, I just had Stefan find out the info directly from Conner (I reference it in this chapter, btw, if you don't catch it, it is brief), since the Originals were gone in Paris.

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