A/N: Hey guys! New chapter! I am very proud of this one! I didn't get as many reviews for the last chapter so I hope you al liked it! Big thank you to everyone who has ever reviewed this story! It really motivates writers to write and of course it shows our Klaroline support! This is the ship! The one we will fight for until the very end! So keep the faith guys!
Summary: 'Snapshots of Klaus and Caroline's life as they grow up together.'
Rating: T
/
Caroline was 7 when she first met Klaus. She can still remember it like its yesterday. His dimpled smile and eyes shining with curiosity. That day started a friendship that would change her life.
The Mikaelson's were new in town and had just moved in next door to the Forbes' home. Caroline's mother, the Sheriff, said they came from England and made a rather noisy bunch. Caroline caught sight of them as they were moving in, their family was large compared to her own. It was only her and her mother now, Caroline's father had left a few months ago, after a night of raised voices and words Caroline didn't understand.
The Mikaelson family seemed to be full of children. Caroline noticed the two older boys helping their mother lift boxes out of the van while two younger boys ran about the front yard partaking in some kind of game. There was a little girl, around Caroline's age, who had tears in her eyes by the porch with her little arms folded over her chest.
It was a few days later when Caroline actually met them in person. It was a warm day and she was playing in the garden while her mother got some work done in the house. Caroline had always been a curious girl by nature and couldn't help but notice the small hole in the fence between her garden and the Mikaelson's.
She walked over to it slowly, her hands curled into her blue dress as she knelt down to inspect it. It was definitely a new addition to the fence, she couldn't remember seeing it there a few days previously as she helped her mother water the plants.
Caroline gasped as the face of a boy appeared in the gap, his blue eyes staring at her with confusion.
"Who are you?" he asked cocking his head to the side. He was kneeling down on the other side of the hole in the fence, his clothes streaked with mud.
"Caroline." She smiled, "Who are you?"
The boy moved a hand to his head, moving a piece of dark blond hair that was on his forehead, "Nik." He introduced.
"Why is there a hole in the fence?" Caroline asked shyly.
"That was my brother, Kol. We were playing hide and seek and Elijah said he needed to find a better hiding place so he cut the fence and hid in your garden." Nik explained, "Finn was furious when he found out. Kol is only 8, he didn't really know what he was doing."
Caroline guessed from all the names that he was talking about his other brothers, "How old are you?"
"I'll be 10 in October." He smiled proudly, dimples appearing as he smiled.
"Niklaus, are you playing or not?" They heard a voice yell and Caroline frowned.
"Niklaus?"
"That's me. It's my full name." he explained, "People call me Klaus or Nik for short."
"Come on Klaus! We are all waiting!" A different voice called out.
Klaus sighed, "I'm talking to a girl!"
"What girl?" a few seconds later another face appeared at Klaus' shoulder, his lips curving into a smile.
"This is Caroline. Caroline, meet Kol." Klaus said.
"Hi. We are playing tag, do you want to play?" Kol asked.
"I'm not fast at running."
Klaus smiled, "It's easy. I'll teach you. Crawl through the gap."
Caroline bit her bit for a moment, her mother wouldn't like it if she came back dirty but tag did sound fun.
"Okay." She smiled as she got down on all fours, Klaus and Kol moved so she could crawl through the gap that Kol had made in the fence.
/
Over the next few years Caroline got closer to the Mikaelson children, she spent many days in their garden playing with them but all too soon things changed. Finn was the first to stop playing saying he was too old, Elijah was next saying Mikael deemed it to be a waste of his time. Caroline still caught him looking out the window from his bedroom sometimes as he watched them play.
She was closest to Klaus out of all of them. He was mischievous and they always ended up in trouble but he was nice (to her at least and his siblings. Not so much to other people). He teased her constantly which Caroline hated, he would sneak up behind her and pull on one of her pigtails gently and Caroline would chase him relentlessly.
Caroline smiled at the memory as she laid in bed, it was dark out and she really should be sleeping but she couldn't. She could hear the shouts from the Mikaelson household echoing next door. This was nothing new, Mikael was an angry man. She asked Klaus about it once but he told her not to worry.
She didn't know how much time had passed as the voices stopped and silence fell across her room again. She closed her eyes and turned on her side, hoping to get some sleep when she heard the sound of her window opening.
Caroline shot up in bed, her hand reaching for her lamp beside the bed to turn it on. She gasped as she saw Klaus' head poking through her bedroom window, his hands gripping onto the ledge.
"Shh, it's me, you're safe." He tried to calm her. Caroline took a deep breath, slipping out of the bed and padding over to him.
"What are you doing here, Nik? It's the middle of the night." Caroline said with her hands on her hips. Even at 12 years old she was a force to be reckoned with.
Klaus didn't meet her eyes, "My father is drunk again. I can't stay there, Caroline."
Caroline understood, her face softening. She went over to him, helping to haul him through the window without making a noise. It wasn't until he was safely in her room that Caroline really looked at him.
"What happened to you?" She asked softly, one hand reaching for his face. There was a dark bruise forming on his cheek and a cut on his forehead with blood smeared across it.
Klaus moved out of her grasp sharply, "Nothing, sweetheart. I'm fine."
"You're bleeding." Caroline replied pushing him to sit on the bed gently, "Stay here."
Caroline gave him a stern look before rushing to the bathroom to grab a towel. She raced back to her room to find Klaus in the same spot she left him looking tired.
Caroline didn't say a word as she dabbed the towel over the cut on his forehead, the other hand on his shoulder to keep him still.
"Ouch!" Klaus growled as she pressed down.
"Don't be silly, it doesn't hurt." Caroline insisted.
Klaus' eyes narrowed, "You try having someone poking at you and see how you like it."
"Well if you tell me what happened I might be able to help."
"I don't need your help."
Caroline scoffed, Klaus had two years on her but she knew when he was putting on a front, "You snuck into my room not the other way around."
Klaus sighed, one of his hands taking the towel from her gently, "I don't want to fight. Let's just go to sleep." He suggested as he flopped onto her bed heavily. Caroline worried it would wake her mother up so she quickly turned off her light and climbed into bed beside him.
"How did you get up here anyway?" she asked softly.
"I climbed the fence then went up the trellis on the side of your house." Klaus shrugged, "It's like climbing a tree."
It was a few moments before Klaus spoke again.
"What do you think will happen to us in the future?" his voice was barely a whisper.
"We will still be friends, of course. I'll be your friend forever."
Klaus chuckled, "Forever sounds good to me."
"Do you think we will live in Mystic Falls?" Caroline asked gently.
"Where would you like to live?" he asked, "I'll take you wherever you want to go."
"I'll tell you when we're older."
Klaus wrapped a lazily arm around her and the duvet, "Night Caroline."
Caroline nodded, a smile on her face, "Goodnight Nik."
/
Klaus can remember the first time he looked at Caroline and saw her, really saw her. This woman she had become right under his nose.
Had he really been so blind not to see her change from the girl he loved to the woman who stole his heart?
It was a warm day in the middle of summer and Rebekah had insisted her and Caroline celebrate before heading back to school for their final year. Caroline relented after a lot of pleading, Klaus smirked at that, Rebekah always knew how to get what she wanted.
He was expecting Caroline to walk down the stairs in her normal jeans and shirt combination, grumbling under her breath that she didn't want to go to a club. Klaus knew she would be texting him within the hour to pick her up.
He wasn't expecting the sight that greeted him when he peeled his eyes away from the sketchbook in his lap at the sound of heels on the stairs.
Caroline stood before him looking like she had just stepped off the cover of a magazine. Her hair was perfectly curled and her make-up was flawless. Smoky eye shadow brought out the blue eyes he knew so well. She wore a deep red dress and Klaus swallowed thickly seeing all her curves on display; her breasts pulling the material taunt before it smoothed out to hug her hips. Klaus subtly shifted in his seat, making sure the sketchbook was firmly covering his lap as he took in her legs that seemed to go on for miles, her creamy skin looking so soft.
What he wouldn't give to trail his mouth up those legs? His tongue tasting her as his hands reached for her panties…
"Klaus?"
Her voice brought him back in the room, his hands fisted over the armrests. God, she was beautiful.
"How do I look?" she asked innocently as she gave him a twirl.
His response was a gruff grumble in his chest, "Ravishing, sweetheart. You look ravishing."
As soon as she left he was watching the clock, waiting for her to text him to pick her up. Clubbing wasn't her thing, it wasn't his either but Caroline always liked to make other people happy.
The text came 1 hour and 12 minutes later.
She was drunk and Klaus knew he would kill Rebekah for it but managed to drag them both out of the club. He had driven Caroline home with a tight grip on the steering wheel, her eyes watching him the whole way.
Klaus walked her to her door, one hand on her back. Caroline kissed his cheek sloppily and Klaus bit back a moan as she brushed against him, his pants becoming uncomfortable.
He definitely did not spend the rest of the night thinking about all the things he wanted to do to his best friend that most certainly weren't platonic.
/
Klaus learned to accept that he was in love with Caroline. He also accepted that he could never tell her. That didn't mean it wasn't damn near impossible at times.
She showed up at his door one night, tears trailing down her cheeks as she tried to hold herself together.
It took one look from Klaus and one heart wrenching sob from Caroline before she was falling into his arms. Klaus tried to ignore every part of his mind for loving the way she felt there.
"He…He was cheating on me!"
Klaus held her tighter, hoping that if he could hold her tight enough he could stop her pain. He carried her into his living room, settling on the couch with Caroline in his lap as she cried into his shirt.
Klaus didn't ask for the details about the idiot who got her heart and broke it. His anger boiling in his veins at the thought of Caroline being hurt.
He made himself a vow then and there that he would be her last love, her greatest love. However long it takes.
Caroline stayed curled in his arms all night, burrowing deeper every time Klaus tried to let her go. In the end he stopped trying. She wasn't going anywhere and that suited him just fine. Caroline cried and Klaus whispered sweet words in her ear about her strength, her beauty, her light.
When she fell asleep in the early hours he couldn't stop himself from curling up with her on the couch, enjoying this simple piece of heaven she was giving him.
The next day her ex-boyfriend turned up with a black eye and Klaus smirked knowingly as he admired his handiwork.
/
The first time they kiss is one of those natural moments you never see coming. Klaus guessed he should have realised sooner, the way the boundaries in their relationship had shifted around them.
It started in a simple morning of teasing, one of their favourite pastimes. It was a nice day and they were in the Forbes' back yard. Caroline was sitting on the grass in her pink sundress with her nose in a book, it was a classic Klaus had recommended to her a few days earlier. Klaus was standing a few feet away, standing in front of an easel as he painted her.
"Can I move yet?" she asked impatiently and Klaus chuckled.
"Always in a hurry, love."
"Perhaps I want to see your latest masterpiece, Nik." She smiled brightly as she stood up and stretched out her limbs, the book abandoned on the blanket.
"It's beautiful." She whispered as she took in the image on the canvas, Klaus beamed a dimpled smile at her.
"Well that is all thanks to the subject."
Caroline gave him a playful poke in the ribs and Klaus laughed. That was when Klaus attacked, the paintbrush in his hand smearing her cheek in green paint.
Caroline squealed, "Okay, Mikaelson, you brought this on yourself."
She picked up one of the paint pots Klaus had brought out with him, yellow paint staining his Henley as Caroline splattered his chest.
It wasn't long before a full scale war had broken out. Klaus streaked Caroline with green, pink and blue paint while Caroline made sure the yellow, purple and red were on every part of Klaus she could reach.
She ran from him as she saw the yellow staining his hands with a smirk on his face. Klaus followed her, trapping her on the back porch. Caroline's back was against the brick while they were pressed together, their noses brushing with every breath.
"You know I hear love is a better pastime than war." She smiled as she leaned on her tiptoes, pressing her lips to his.
Klaus responded quickly because she was actually kissing him and it felt better, tasted better than any dream. His hands cupped her face softly while Caroline gripped his arms.
It was only when they pulled away they noticed the hand prints they left on each other, staining their skin with more paint like a declaration that they belonged to each other.
"I think is this the best work I've ever created." Klaus smirked as he brushed his fingers along the yellow staining her cheek.
Caroline smiled, "I'm more than happy to be your canvas, Klaus."
He kissed her hard then, thanking whatever miracle brought her into his life when he was 10.
/
Klaus said 'I love you' first. Except he didn't exactly say it, Klaus was the artistic type after all.
Caroline woke up one morning to Klaus with a paintbrush in his hand, working on a canvas. This wasn't a new occurrence, he loved painting as the sun rose. She gave him a lazily smile as Klaus moved over to kiss her.
They had been dating for months now and although it wasn't always smooth sailing it was everything they always wanted.
Caroline let out a gasp as she felt the paintbrush against her shoulder, black paint marking her skin.
"Klaus, what?" She started but her sentence trailed off as Klaus gave her a smirk, brush moving against her skin.
He pulls back after a moment and Caroline knelt on the bed to stare in the mirror at the words on her body.
I love you.
It was written in his messy handwriting, capital letters boldly on her skin. She looked at him with wide eyes and Klaus returned it with a shy smile.
"Do you mean it?" She asked him softly.
Klaus tucked a curl behind her ear, "I've always loved you, Caroline."
They kissed softly, enjoying the latest development in their relationship.
"I love you too."
It's wasn't as creative as his declaration but she meant every word.
/
The rain hammered hard against the window outside their small apartment in the city. They were in the middle of a power cut as the storm outside raged on. Klaus and Caroline was laid together in bed, sharing their warmth as they enjoyed the moment of peace. Caroline had her head on his chest, her fingers wandering along her skin. Klaus had her wrapped up tightly against him, his own fingers brushing her arm.
"Do you remember when we were kids and you snuck into my room?" Caroline asked into the darkness of the room.
She felt him shift beneath her, "Which time?"
Caroline laughed, "The first time. You asked me about what I thought would happen in the future."
"I remember, love."
"I never would have predicted this." She smiled softly.
"That's the best thing about our relationship, Caroline. No one saw it coming, not even us." Klaus responded, "But now I have you, I can't imagine life with anyone else."
"You also promised to take me wherever I wanted." She reminded him.
"I did." He confirmed, "I would lay the world at your feet if that's what you wanted, sweetheart."
Caroline kissed his chest, "Can we start with Paris?"
Klaus brought his head down, his lips searching for hers in the dark.
"I'll book the tickets when the power comes back on." He smiled as they pulled away.
/
"Do you, Niklaus Mikaelson take Caroline Forbes to be your lawfully wedded wife? In sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, as long as you both shall live?"
Klaus gave her a heart stopping smile in his tux, "I do."
"Do you, Caroline Forbes take Niklaus Mikaelson to be your lawfully wedded husband? In sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, as long as you both shall live?"
Her eyes sparkled and Klaus had never seen her look more radiant, "I do."
Because she was sure of nothing except the fact she wanted to bind herself to that man for as long as possible.
/
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