A/N Welcome to my latest adventure! Once again, this will be a mini-multichap updated daily for Klaroline AU Season, 2021, because I cannot be succinct to save my life. Speaking of saving lives, this story is ultimately a question of morality. While it's not a religious story, there is a chapter in which Caroline finds herself on the doorstep of a Catholic Priest hours before Klaus' execution. If you're one of those "I hate religion" people, please sit this one out. If you do read it, I'd really love to hear your thoughts as we go along for the next nine chapters. This story straddles the line between the weeks for Enemies to Lovers and All Human, so I'll be posting it during both weeks. Check the event out on tumblr at klaroline-event and don't forget to follow me at eliliyah!

Chapter One – Incredulity

"Good and evil. Right and wrong. Those are two fundamental opposing concepts that define the nature of humankind." – Wayne LaPierre

3:03 AM – Twenty Hours, Fifty Seven Minutes to Execution

Considering Caroline slept with a gun on her nightstand, people really should have known better than to wake her up at 3:00 AM. Groaning at the sound of her ringtone pulling her from a peaceful slumber, she reached over and saw that it was the Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation calling. As a Supervisory Special Agent in the Violent Crimes Unit in Manhattan, her sleeping habits were dynamic at best, nonexistent at worst. Still, her boss was generally respectful and wouldn't be waking her if it wasn't an emergency. Tapping the button to accept the call, she croaked, "Forbes."

"Caroline, it's Fell," he began and she could hear that he was a little bit breathless, a sure sign that something had him under immense pressure.

"Yep, saw the caller ID," she replied grumpily. "What happened?"

"You're going to want to come to the office for this."

Sitting up and throwing her legs off the side of the bed, she wiped the sleep from her eyes, cradling the phone against her shoulder. "Logan, if you expect me to drag my ass out of bed at three in the morning in the dead of winter, you're gonna have to give me something here. What's going on?"

A low grumble emitted from the back of his throat audible enough that she could hear it over the phone. "It's about Niklaus Mikaelson."

"Klaus Mikaelson!?" she spat, suddenly wide awake. "His execution is in 24 hours."

"Twenty one, actually."

"Whatever," she snorted, rolling her eyes. "What in the hell can his defense possibly have now that they haven't already presented in the last fifteen years?"

"New evidence," Logan told her darkly, "and it's not something we can ignore."

Caroline scoffed. "Let me guess. He had a silent partner and wants to give up the name in exchange for having his sentence commuted to life without parole. Probably had that brother of his find someone desperate enough to confess for a big enough payout."

"No," the director denied, "he still maintains he acted alone and the evidence didn't come from Elijah."

"Well, then, that's it," she said definitively. "There is nothing left he has to offer us. When he found out Stefan Salvatore was dating his little sister, he killed him in cold blood, chopped up the body, drove across the river to New Jersey and was caught trying to dump it in the Hudson. He's guilty. Give him the damn injection already and let me go back to sleep, for the-"

"Caroline," Logan cut her off sternly enough that her lips clamped shut, a sense of foreboding filling her chest at the gravity of his tone. "He was caught with the body – no one is saying otherwise – but this new evidence suggests he had an alibi at the time of the murder."

The pink pastel walls of her bedroom were closing in around her, the air in her lungs suddenly thick as she blinked a few times in shock. "What?" she asked in a voice a breath above a whisper.

"An anonymous source mailed in a printed photograph of him driving through a toll booth in Massachusetts, hours away from the scene of the crime."

"No way." The blonde shook her head, telling herself it couldn't possibly be true. The Mikaelson case was the first she'd ever worked for the FBI that led to a death sentence. Throughout every appeal, Klaus had never once recanted his original confession and she'd had no doubt as to his guilt. "It has to be doctored. If he had an alibi, he'd have come forward years ago. Why wait until the eleventh hour?"

"Well, that's what I need you to find out." They'd worked together for so long that she could just see him tugging at his hair and imagine the way his eyebrows were pulled together. "I don't need to remind you how difficult it was getting a New York jury to recommend the death penalty after all the times the state has flip flopped on the issue of capital punishment. You and I both know we pulled it off only because of the grisly nature of the crime and the fact that the victim was the kid brother of a United States Congressman. But if it turns out we were wrong and execute an innocent man…" He inhaled a deep breath, shaking his head. "The political ramifications would be enough to repeal the law and every man on death row would have his sentence commuted. We can't afford to make a mistake."

Caroline looked over at the bright red numbers on her digital alarm clock. She had twenty hours and fifty three minutes to figure out if she'd sent a man to death row for a crime he didn't commit. The mere thought of it had bile rising in the back of her throat. She had no doubt that he'd been involved, but if he hadn't been the one to pull the trigger and she sat back and did nothing with the new evidence… No. It was unthinkable. There was a difference between right and wrong and while she doubted the photograph's authenticity, failing to investigate was definitely wrong.

Running her fingers through her tangled curls, she nodded her head and pushed off the covers. "I'm on my way."

4:23 AM – Nineteen Hours, Thirty-Seven Minutes to Execution

"Tell me it's bullshit." Caroline slammed a piece of paper with two black and white photographs printed on one side down on the desk of her best lab tech just over an hour later, the sun still hours away from rising over the Manhattan skyline.

Josh Rosza eyed her up and down, a sassy expression on his face. "Somebody's barista shorted her macchiato that extra shot of espresso."

"Ok, first off," the agent snapped, holding up her pointy finger at the younger gay man, "I drink lattes."

He rolled his chocolate eyes. "Care, they are the exact same thing."

"They invert the ingredients in a macchiato," she countered defensively, irritation clear in her tone at the old argument they'd had a thousand times. "They are not the same. And two, I didn't even stop at Starbucks on my way here."

"Well, that explains it," Josh muttered under his breath, picking up the plain printer paper and looking it over. It had MassDOT Violations Processing System printed on the top line, the bottom reading Toll Booth Violation. There were two small dots in the upper left hand corner, as if it had been stapled to something. In the top picture was a man driving a BMW that definitely looked like Klaus Mikaelson and on the bottom was a photo of his license plate. In the bottom left-hand corner of each photo was a time and date stamp for the day of Stefan Salvatore's murder.

Caroline narrowed her eyes and glared at him, one hand on her hip just shy of her firearm. "Just tell me it's bullshit so we can both go home."

Huffing in irritation, he rolled his eyes and scanned the paper into his computer as she hovered over his shoulder. Glaring up at her as her breath tickled his cheek, he lightly pushed on her chest to get her to take a step back. "Okay, you standing over me like a crazy person isn't helping."

"I'm not crazy; I'm irritated."

"Well, go be irritated somewhere else," Josh snipped, gesturing her for her to shoo with a flick of his wrist. "This paper has to be, like, at least ten years old and it's been folded over and over. It's degraded so much that I can't even tell where it was taken. Give me a couple of hours to work." He looked her over and added, "Maybe go get that latte."

"Ugh," she groaned, rolling her eyes. "Fine. I will give you one hour," she stated firmly, holding up a single finger. "Just find me some proof that it was photoshopped so we can both go home."

"Whatever, Elvira." He flicked his gaze judgmentally up and down her slim figure clad in utilitarian black cargo pants and a long-sleeved black cotton shirt, gold badge and gun on her hip. "What's the matter? Didn't feel like breaking out the pencil skirt for me? Am I not pretty enough for a suit?"

Caroline smacked Josh upside the head and he swatted her hand away, laughing. "It's four in the morning. Be glad I got dressed at all."

"Aiden and I appreciate your lack of nudity," he replied sarcastically, referencing his husband. "Now, go get some caffeine and maybe do something with your hair."

"Attitude will get you nowhere," she replied, suppressing a grin at their banter. She could always count on Josh to brighten her mood. Feeling slightly less pissed off at the world, she retreated to her cubical to review the facts of the case.

Stefan Salvatore, age 19, was murdered on May 26, 2006 at roughly 3:00 PM. The younger brother of Congressman Damon Salvatore, he'd been shot seven times and there were eight shots embedded in the wall of his home in Chelsea. A forensics firearms investigation suggested all fifteen shots were likely fired from an unregistered Glock 19 that was never recovered. No fingerprints or DNA were recovered from the bullets and the only DNA in his apartment belonged to the vitcim, Klaus and Rebekah Mikaelson, the latter of whom he was dating at the time. Police in New Jersey received a call at 9:57 PM the same night from a man concerned about illegal garbage disposal who reported that a man was parked on the side of the Hudson River with several trash bags in the back of his BMW. When officers arrived, they found Klaus disposing of Stefan's dismembered body parts. They dragged the river, but his left forearm and right hand were never recovered. When asked what he was doing, he responded flippantly, "Well, it appears as though I've killed someone, doesn't it?"

Klaus Mikaelson was a pain in the ass. Charming and charismatic, he was the middle of seven children born to Esther Deveraux, a textile heiress who rocked the New York social scene when she married Mikael Mikaelson, a hedgefund manager who came from London with nothing but the shoes on his feet and the clothes on his back. An angry and violent man, he reeked of new money and dressed like fake royalty. Ten years into their marriage, his wife had an affair. When he learned that Klaus was actually the son of Ansel Wolfe, a Wall Street Executive from very old money, things started to go downhill and his bastard son took the brunt of his abuse.

Desperate to climb above his station, Mikael got involved with some illegitimate business partners and was eventually indicted on RICO charges and served several years in federal prison. When news spread of his arrest, the Deveraux's cut all ties with their daughter, leaving them with nothing but the few paltry millions Esther had been wise enough to hide in offshore accounts. Fortunately, Elijah Mikaelson, their third child, was a brilliant banker and was able to bring the family back to the spotlight. However, it was widely believed that he'd picked up where his father left off and many considered their fortunes tainted.

What was also generally considered true among law enforcement officials was that Klaus Mikaelson was a very, very bad man. He was rumored to have his hands in everything from gun running to drug trafficking. Prominent members from rival organizations tended to go missing when Klaus got involved, but nothing had ever been proven and he wasn't charged until the murder of Stefan Salvatore. When it became apparent that he'd crossed state lines with the body, the case was moved to federal jurisdiction and landed right on Caroline's desk. A newly recruited agent, she was tasked with taking his confession.

Klaus had a tendency to speak in hypotheticals and his witty retorts were seldom answers to her questions. She'd spent weeks trying to wrangle a full statement out of him, but he always managed to redirect their conversations to topics of his choosing. She was convinced he enjoyed toying with her solely for his own amusement and while she resented him for it, she frequently indulged him in the hopes of handing him just enough rope to hang himself. After years of appeals and more interviews than she cared to count, they'd gotten to know each other far more than she had ever intended, and the thought of having to see him for one more damn interview did not sit well with her.

The initial case dragged on for years, but after two mistrials due to unproven jury tampering, he was convicted on all charges and sentenced to death. Logan had been right when he'd reminded her how difficult it had been to get a New York jury to recommend capital punishment, but the case was sensationalized in the media due to both the Mikaleson family name and Stefan's connection to his brother the congressman. Elijah hired the best legal team money could buy, but Klaus' initial confession the night of his arrest was the nail in his coffin. After filing motion after motion, he had exhausted all his appeals and the date of execution had been set.

If the two photos were to be believed, Klaus was at least three hours away at the time of the murder for which he was soon to receive a lethal injection. Closing the case file with a sigh, Caroline tossed it on her utilitarian desk and dragged herself over to the coffee machine. If there was anything she'd learned in her 15 years in law enforcement, it was that cops were crappy baristas. She poured lukewarm brown liquid into a paper cup and chugged it as fast as she could to avoid the taste, foregoing cream and sugar in her haste to get back to work. At thirty-eight and single, she was married to her career.

"Well?" she asked with a hand on her hip as she stood over Josh's shoulder. "Can we go home now?"

The lab tech grimaced and braced himself before he turned around in his rolling chair. "So, you know that whole going home thing we talked about? Yeah, that's a no from me."

"What?"

Josh handed over a copy of the paper she'd given him and began to explain why he was ruining her day. "The paper is old and as shitty as that nasty ass coffee I can smell on your breath," – she flicked up her middle finger at that – "but it does appear to be authentic."

Caroline flashed him her best beauty queen smile. "Now, when you say appear…."

"It's not photoshopped," he replied blankly. "There's no evidence that it's been altered or doctored in any way. What I can tell you is that it's from the I-93 tollbooth outside Boston. I'm guessing there was a piece of paper stapled to the top, which was probably a bill for the toll violation. About a decade ago, they started printing everything on one sheet of paper. Uh, not that I know from personal experience or anything." She raised her eyebrow dubiously at that. "But everything about the letterhead and formatting of the document is consistent with how things were done fifteen years ago when he was arrested."

"Are you seriously telling me this motherfucker might be innocent?" she asked wearily, pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off a migraine.

"Don't kill the messenger, but yes." Turning back to his wall of monitors, he began tapping away at his mechanical keyboard, the sound of the blue caps on his keys almost enough to soothe her growing irritation. "I tried to pull the original document, but Massachusetts for some very stupid reason doesn't have all of their archives uploaded to any central database that I can find."

"What about DMV records?" Caroline asked tersely, leaning her palm against the back of his chair and watching him work over his shoulder. "The guy was is jail before he would have gotten this. Wouldn't his license have been suspended if he didn't pay?"

Josh groaned, very unhappy to be the bearer of more bad news. "I pulled his MVR from the NYDMV, but his driver's license was never suspended before it expired."

"So, it's a fake?" Her tone was hopeful even if her mind new better.

"Mass doesn't share information with New York the way the other states do. It's possible it's legit but never got reported to the DMV here. You need to track down the original document. If it really was sent from a government agency, they'll have a record of it somewhere."

"So, what the fuck do I do to get my hands on the original?" she snapped bitterly. "I can't ask a federal judge to grant a stay of execution based off half a traffic ticket from fifteen years ago."

"MassDOT Violations Processing System," he replied simply, still tapping away in his hopes of finding a copy of the records. "If they weren't uploaded to a database and you get really lucky, they might have it on a hard drive somewhere in storage." The frustrated agent threw her hands up in the air and screeched. "Okay, my hearing is a thing, you know, Wednesday."

"Okay, what is it with you and the Addams Family references today?" Caroline demanded haughtily.

"Aiden and I are on this whole retro marathon thing," he replied lightly, seemingly oblivious to her growing ire. "You should come over and hang out with us after you get back from Boston."

"What do you mean after I get back from Boston?" she asked warily, already not liking where this was going.

Josh just looked at his friend like she was very slow. "Care, you have a day. Do you honestly think anyone from MassDOT is going to drop what they're doing if all you do is pick up the phone?"

"Well, they'd better! It's a fucking emergency."

"Yeah, to you." She glared at him and he tsked at her, rolling his eyes. "You're gonna have to go knock some heads together if you want that document today. Leave now and you might beat morning rush hour." Rubbing her temples, Caroline groaned in unhappy agreement. Taking in the sight of one very pissed off agent, he cheekily suggested, "And if you want to get rid of those bags under your eyes, maybe get that macchiato on the way."

"It's a latte!"

A/N Well, what do you think? I had a lot of fun writing Josh. Please leave me a review! (No concrit, please.)