Chapter 9.

"I like your mother." The original hybrid told Caroline as she turned from the now closed door.

"Well, she doesn't like you." She replied with a haughty tone.

"Are you sure?" He inquired, tilting his head at her. "I think we go along well, all things considered."

"She's just putting up a good front for me. She'd stake you in a heartbeat if she had a chance."

"Knowing she'd hurt you, no, she wouldn't." He replied with a gentle shake of his head.

She obviously couldn't argue with that. "It's what mothers do...well, real mothers anyway."

Was that supposed to be an insult at his mother? He smiled inwardly. He was the first to think that Esther wasn't deigned to be called a mother. Caroline could prick his sister's feelings with comments on Matt but with him…she would learn that rarely anything ever really mattered enough to touch him, and when something did, he was careful never to let the outside world know it.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" He asked her, pointing towards the blood bags which he had brought out with him, as he watched her pick up the suitcase and walk towards the stairs. She sighed, dropping the case again and went back for them. He picked up the luggage in her stead.

"I can carry my own bag." She said when she turned back with the blood bags in one hand and saw him waiting for her.

"On that leg?" He asked and before she could retort he went on. "I either carry the bag or both of you."

She huffed heavily. "You are the most arrogant and high handed man I ever met!"

His mouth opened in disbelief. "Because I want to spare you pain?!"

"Your own pain is all you care about!"

Did she really just say that? Klaus felt anger start to simmer at that remark. He was being very accommodating, not to say patient, considering he would have already made her gobble up those bags to free himself of his discomfort. He shot her a glaring look, letting it talk for him.

His silence seemed to do the trick, because she lowered her eyes and mumbled. "You do nothing but give orders all the time."

"Does that mean that you'll just to do what I say from now on?' He asked her, as he started going up knowing she was one stair behind him.

"Sure...when pigs fly."

He rolled his eyes theatrically and kept climbing the stairs as she hurried her steps to reach his side. "You have the nerve to roll your eyes at me?!" She said when she reached him. "I'm the one who's being kept here, I'm the one who hates it here, hates you and your sister and everything about this whole spell rubbish..."

He sighed. "And I thought the loud music was annoying."

He saw her hand come up to slap his shoulder and he didn't try to stop her. She was slapping herself really, he thought with a smile.

"It is not funny." She growled, noticing his smile.

He twitched his lips to stop them from opening wider. "It is, if you insist on hitting yourself."

Without another word, she ran up the remaining stairs before him, got in her room and stood near her bed as he dropped the suitcase on it. She dropped the blood bags next to it and unzipped the top.

Her eyes took all the things in the luggage in one glance. "Oh my God."

"What is it?" He asked as he came nearer.

She turned to look at him, her eyes wide in her face. "This...don't you see all this stuff?" She said while motioning to the things in her bag. "This speaks of a long stay to me!...Oh my God. I knew it! I knew I saw something in my mom's eyes."

He took a good look at the items inside and then keeping his face neutral, told her. "Calm down, Caroline."

"How can I? Bonnie packed this for me! If she thought she was gonna break the spell soon she..."

"That's not what it means at all!" He argued with her.

"How would you know?!" She asked, her voice going higher.

His finger pointed straight at her as he replied, "Because this is you we're talking about…Are you telling me that you would have preferred to see one pair of jeans and two t-shirts in there? You heard your mother. Bonnie packed making sure you had everything you needed."

She went silent and just looked at him with a pout on her lips. She seemed to be thinking about what he just said and she didn't seem to like it, because a frown lowered her eye brows down in a V and her pout deepened into a heavy sigh.

Almost without knowing, his palm slipped over hers. That weird feeling of static between their skins ignited immediately. "This will be over soon, love, you'll see." He told her softly.

Still silent, she regarded him intently before giving him a small nod. Her fingers stirred against his intensifying the sparks between their skins before she reclaimed her hand.

He lowered his eyes. "I'll leave you now." He said. Nodding towards her laptop he added, "Enjoy your time with your friends...and take those," with another nod towards the blood bags. "If my leg feels better, I won't have to come back to check."

She suddenly took one of the bags and opening it, took a long sip. "Promise?" She asked.

"Cheeky little..." He whispered as a small laugh escaped through his lips. She gave him the smallest of smiles back. Then Klaus opened the door and left. He stayed where he was, an inch away from the closed door and stretched his fingers wide as he looked at his hand. The tingling feeling had stopped the moment their hands stopped touching, but he still felt like…an echo of it…

Taking the stairs back downstairs, he went to his study and called Bonnie. He hadn't let Caroline see it, but he too thought it strange that the witch had filled her luggage like that.

Bonnie answered on the second ring. "Is Caroline all right?!"

Klaus fingers tightened against his phone, "I'll ignore that stupid question to ask an important one instead…why are we still bound to each other?"

After a long silence, Bonnie softly replied, "I haven't found a counter spell yet."

His chin jutted out in anger. "How hard can it be to reverse your own spell?"

"That's the first thing I tried and nearly burned my own face off!" Bonnie defended herself, "It's this witch…her power, it's incredible and fusing it with mine to save you…"

"I don't want excuses, I want results!" Klaus interrupted her angrily.

"I'm doing the best I can…but I think it's gonna take some time…" the dark haired girl said, confirming what both him and Caroline had thought, "I'm trying to contact a friend of my grandma and other people that could help me cause nothing in my books…"

"Be careful, witch!" Klaus interrupted her once more.

Bonnie's voice raised high in his ear. "If you're gonna start threatening my mum or my friends…"

"That's not what I meant! Shut up and listen." Klaus voice got higher too. "I have a lot of enemies."

"Wow, shocker!"

"Focus!" He ordered in a hiss. "You have to be careful, who you ask for help…one whiff of my present predicament in the wrong ears and they'll descend on Mystic Falls before you can blink." He stopped to take a deep breath, "And who do you think they will try to hurt to get to me?"

"But…" Bonnie's voice broke, "She's safe with you, right? You'll protect her."

"Of course I will!" Klaus replied impatiently. "Like she was my own flesh…because right now that's what she is…but you have to do your part too."

"I already told you I'm doing my best…I want Caroline free from you as soon as possible."

"Good." He answered quietly. "I will send you a couple of my contacts, they can be trusted, ask them for whatever help you need for your research."

"Okay." The young witch finally answered after another long silence. "Keep her safe." She added before hanging up.

Klaus was lying on his bed, his head resting against the head board with a book in his hand, when suddenly his eyes went up as a small creak of a door opening reached his ears. He had heard and felt Caroline pacing in her room for quite some time but had decided to stay put, since his leg barely felt any pain, but now he left his bed and slowly opened his bedroom door. His brow marred by a small frown as he saw Caroline looking out from the window in the corridor between their rooms.

God, but she was beautiful. He thought with a small sigh, as he stared at her profile. Her face was softly illuminated by moonlight, her sad eyes, looking down in the gardens made her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheek while her blond hair hung loose, as her shoulder rested against the window pane. Suddenly he felt the urge to draw her just like that. His fingers itched to find a pencil or a piece of charcoal and just put this image in front of him on paper.

He was distracted from his appraisal of her when her hand went out to the window handle. "Don't." Klaus crossed the few steps to put his hand on hers. The static like tingles hit immediately on contact.

"You said they couldn't see me through the windows, so I can be here, right?" Caroline snatched her hand from under his.

"They can if you open it." Klaus answered while looking down from the window. "What are you looking at anyway?"

"I'm looking at the flowers if that's not a problem too." She answered flatly.

"Well, they are beautiful." Klaus replied, with an indifferent shrug.

She gave a small nod. "Yes, they are."

They stood mere inches away from each other, and his skin seemed to have come alive and wanted to brush against hers again to experience that weird feeling again. The idea made him frown, and he turned his head to look at her and see if she felt it too. She stole a side glance at him, meeting his eyes for a mere second before looking down the glass window again. She did? He almost asked aloud.

"What are those orange ones called? The ones a little to the left of the white roses." She interrupted his thoughts.

Klaus glanced down where she indicated. "Clivia, I believe."

"This sucks so bad thinking that I just can't go out there!" She suddenly yelled, hitting the window sill.

Now, they were getting somewhere. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"You mean, apart from the fact that I hate it here?"

He sighed inwardly. "Yeah. Apart from that."

"Stop it. Stop talking to me as if you know me so well. You don't." She turned furious eyes on him.

"I talked to Bonnie too." If she wasn't going to broach the subject, he would.

She turned from him again, and stared down the window once more. "Oh, so that's why you're here? You've been stalking my room, waiting for me to see if I freaked out and tried to escape?"

"You've been going up and down your room for over an hour." He answered quietly.

"My leg's feeling better." She said, frowning.

"I know." Klaus gave her an I-told-you-so look. "Isn't that's why you're out here, sighing over... outside, because of what Bonnie said." He insisted.

"I said, stop it!" Caroline told him angrily as her fingers clawed on the window sill. "How come you're so calm about it? I thought you would go all psycho."

His eye brows lifted high. "And would that help? She just said it will take a little more time than she anticipated. You don't have to be afraid she will still break this spell." No need to show her he was anxious too.

All of a sudden, her eyes left the garden below to stare in his eyes. Whatever she was thinking, it made her eyes soften, before suddenly closing them as if to banish whatever thought it was away.

When she reopened them, anger was all there was in them. "This is all your fault."

"Excuse me?" He asked surprised.

"Yeah. If she hadn't had to use such a strong spell to save your ass, this wouldn't be happening."

He took a deep breath to try to keep his anger down. "'Well, if you had been honest with me from the start about this pack, I wouldn't have been bitten."

She faltered. "You...you don't know that! And we...I...we didn't believe them."

"You did! You were worried from the first moment!" He pressed her.

"Everyone was sure that we had nothing to worry about." She insisted.

He huffed impatiently. "You still should have told me."

"I owed you nothing."

He had saved her life very recently, even after her friends had tried to dispose of him and it meant nothing to her. He ignored the pang of hurt he felt in his chest and glared at her instead.

"Well then, you have no one to blame but yourself." He told her in an indifferent tone.

"You're the one who brought me here!" She yelled in anger.

He shrugged his shoulders. "You decided to give me your blood, I didn't ask you to."

"Because I'm stupid that way!" Caroline shouted.

"Yes, you are, and so is this conversation."

Klaus turned to see his sister on the far side of the corridor, where her room was. Her hands were clenched in fists at her side.

Caroline was just as angry. "You do not want to mess with me right now."

"Woo hoo. Scary." Rebekah taunted her.

Caroline took one step towards the other vampire girl before Klaus caught her by the arm to stop her.

"Stop touching me!" She yanked her arm away from his grip with all her might.

Klaus eyes stayed attached to Caroline's face even as he talked to his sister. "Go back to sleep, Bekah."

"Lord help us. This is what it's all about." Rebekah chuckled loudly.

Her brother turned his frown on her and he could see that Caroline was looking at her too with a confused look even as she rubbed the part of her arm where his hand had held her. He understood why, the tingling feeling still lingered on his fingers as well.

Rebekah sighed dramatically at their confused looks. "You're stuck here, so get over it!"

"This..."

Before Caroline could utter another word, Rebekah interrupted her angrily. "You think we like having you here? If it was for me you'd be in one of the cells we have downstairs so don't push it! You just have to hope your stupid friend does a better job this time."

"She saved your brother's life."

His sister laughed out loud. "By attaching him to you. I think I would kill myself if I was in his place."

"Go right ahead no one is stopping you." Caroline invited her with a smug.

"Nik!"

"You are both going to drive me crazy." Klaus said, looking at neither of the girls as he rubbed his temple. He should have stayed in bed reading.

"Just shut her up...you got a lot of options on how to do that." Rebekah snapped at him before slamming her bedroom door hard.

Caroline twirled her back to face the window again. "Bitch!"

"She's right you know." Klaus quietly agreed with Rebekah.

"What?" Anger filled Caroline's voice once more.

"You have to stay here. I don't know how long, but it's here you're staying. Now you can be mad about it, and blame me or the whole world, I don't care." He shrugged and kept talking. "You can accept it and make the best of it or you can wake me up and the whole house every night with your music or whatever else you come up with."

"I hate you." She hissed.

"Yes. Yes, I know." He drawled. "Still..."

"Just shut up!" She yelled before pressing her head to the window glass.

Suddenly he was tired of watching her sad puppy face. "And stop looking at the bloody garden, if it makes you so miserable." He yelled at her while grabbing her arm and pulled her away from the window. She turned against his hold and must have put all her weight on their injured leg because suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his own leg the same moment she stumbled. His arms went immediately to her waist to hold her up while hers went to his shoulders searching for stability.

His breath caught as he felt her body quiver in his arms. They were standing so close to each other, their clothes brushed against each other's. She let out a huffed breath, hot against his cheek and his fingers, while they didn't tingle because her sweater was a barrier to their skins touching, still burned as they spanned her small waist. His arms instinctively went to hold her closer when suddenly she pushed away from him.

"Well, you know what they say...when there's something you can't have, the more you want it." She said under her breath.

His eyes stared at her lips, a sudden deep urge filled him to taste them under his but he slowly climbed his eyes up to meet hers. "Tell me about it." He said under his breath.

Her eyes became large in her face as she kept staring back into his. Both seemed glued in their place, hovering next to each other.

Klaus heard his sister very loudly fake a cough inside her room, breaking the moment.

"You know you have a room, right next to where you're standing now. Why don't you do the whole house a favour and use it." Rebekah grumbled from behind her closed door.

Klaus couldn't help smile both at his sister's remark and also at Caroline's eyes which got even wider if it was possible.

"If I can feel the sexual tension from here then..."

Klaus sighed heavily. "Shut up Bekah!"

"Why won't you listen to me for once and...?"

"I said. Shut Up." His voice broke no argument now and his sister heard it loud and clear cause she didn't answer back again.

"So what's it to be?" He asked Caroline, his eyes had never left hers through the short conversation with his sister. "Will you accept that you have to stay here for a while or…"Even as he talked his mind was still on her lips and how it would feel to kiss them.

"Like hell, I will." She said softly, even as her eyes nervously looked into his.

"Give it your best shot then, love, but believe me, you're not going anywhere."

Without another word, she marched to her room and after giving him one last angry look slammed the door in his face.

He went back to his room too and resumed the same position he had been in before he had heard the door open. He breathed out heavily. His attraction towards Caroline was no surprise to him, and he had thought about kissing her many times before but tonight the want had been almost overwhelming. And while she hated it, and would never admit it, she wasn't indifferent to him, physically speaking. A little smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, too bad he couldn't act on it, living together like this would have been fun…

He closed his eyes and her image sprang immediately behind his eyelids, looking beautiful and sad but still with fire in her eyes. He opened his eyes and got up again. He walked towards one of his drawers, took out a pocket of charcoals and some pieces of different sizes of canvas. He then moved one of the chairs next to his terrace doors and with just the light of the moon and the lamp lights by his bed started to draw.