Author's note: We're finally here! We've reached the end of this story, and I'm so grateful to you all for the wonderful support. I hope you enjoyed the journey this one took us on; it's gotten such an amazing reaction from readers and definitely has motivated me to keep writing. Thank you for all of your lovely reviews and I hope you'll continue to follow my other Klaroline multi-chaps in progress, The Traitor and the Coward and A Good Bet, along with my ongoing one-shot series, A Beautiful Symmetry.

Everyone in this room was obsessed with her vagina. What was it doing? How did it look? How did it feel? The questions became progressively stupider the longer Caroline was stuck in the hospital bed. And everything felt too hot and too loud and just too everything. The sheets clung to her sweaty skin and she didn't care that the thread count was higher than a small country's GDP; they still felt like scratchy burlap twisted around her legs.

Caroline was ready to put her teeth into the throat of the next staffer who decided to shout out her cervical centimeters. How many centimeters her cervix was dilated had been given with the same grating, cheerful frequency of a weather report, and no one seemed terribly concerned that after 15 hours, she'd only reached five fucking centimeters. "About the size of a chocolate chip cookie," a nurse chirped at her, only to shrink away when Caroline gave him a vicious smile.

With a delighted grin, Kol said, "Fascinating. I once knew an adventurous bird who could fit a baguette —"

"No," came the stern warning from his siblings.

With a sly wink, he replied, "Relax — I wasn't going to tell the sourdough story again." He sighed nostalgically, "Ah, Toasty Tessa, we had some times."

Earlier, there had been a tense interaction between Elijah and his staff in which they took Caroline's measurements in centimeters and he kept interrupting to tell Caroline the equivalent in inches because he thought that as an American it would make her feel more comfortable.

She let out a guttural screech at the deep-rooted pinch of another contraction, clenching her fists until her knuckles went white.

"Perhaps we could go over your labor and post-labor lists," Klaus hastily suggested, wincing slightly when she latched onto his hand, nails digging into the meat of his wrist as she sought out something familiar to ground her.

Right. Her lists. Squeezing her eyes shut in concentration, she began rattling off the soothing reminders. "Receiving blanket, baby socks, car seat, breastfeeding pillow, nursing bras and breast pads — and I packed the cotton ones because the waterproof ones you bought will irritate my nipples," she grumbled.

"That one wasn't my fault," Klaus argued, pointing at Elijah who fussily began straightening his tie to avoid meeting his brother's amused gaze. "That one inadvertently started a row when he told a woman that if she wanted to aid her digestion, she should try prunes rather than a faux healing crystal." Shaking his curly head, he smirked, "Once the indignant shrieking began, I thought it prudent to grab whatever supplies I could from your list and escort my socially inept brother to safety."

Elijah harrumphed, "It seems quite superfluous, these trappings of modern child-rearing. Back in our village long ago, a woman suckled an infant while churning butter or performing other domestic duties until two summers had passed and then it was customary for it to be fostered by another family. Of course, the agreement remained firm only if the sire line had been blessed with multiple live births. It was a way to foster community and build alliances, which was quite handy during raids."

Sucking in a breath, Caroline wildly glanced around the room at the nurses who were checking her vitals and making notes in the charts. When they didn't seem particularly freaked out by the bizarre time-traveler talk, she eyed Klaus and his siblings suspiciously. Blue eyes widening as the realization set in, she shrieked, "Seriously?! You did the eye thing, didn't you? I told you NO COMPELLING THE STAFF! It's morally wrong and gross and free will is important, DAMN IT, and I WILL NOT have this baby delivered by a bunch of zombies soyoufixit RIGHT NOW orsohelpme I'm marching out of this bed and will go outside and SQUAT IN A BUSH!"

Elijah muttered petulantly, "They're not bushes; they're New England asters."

She was certain the unhinged gleam in her gaze is what spurred Klaus and Rebekah to leap to their feet, hastily catching the hazy stares of the staff in the room to mumble whatever words they needed to undo their compulsion. Klaus quickly returned to her side, brows drawn up in worry as Caroline groaned, shifting in vain to try to find a comfortable position.

"Oh goody! You're up to eight centimeters," one of the nurses cheerfully announced, and Klaus immediately went pale at the news. He rushed out of the room without another word, but the loud crash in the hallway followed by scuffling noises already had Caroline rolling her eyes.

Klaus was triumphant as he returned, dragging a terrified man in a white lab coat that flapped around him. "Medical human, she's eight centimeters!" When the man gaped at him dumbly, Klaus huffed, gesturing wildly with his arms as he commanded, "Do something about it!"

Gulping loudly, the man glanced at Caroline's enormous belly and said helplessly, "I'm a urologist."

Caroline rubbed her temples, breathing deeply to keep from eating the far-too-helpful-and-also-completely-unhelpful Klaus. Fuck, she must really love that overbearing asshat.

Kol chuckled, "That's a willy medical human, Nik — fairly useless for Caroline's nethers."

The hapless doctor seemed to have decent survival instincts and managed to slip back out of her hospital suite while Klaus growled at his brother. Rebekah clapped her hands and excitedly held up an orange slice, reminding everyone in a tone that she probably thought was helpful, "Caroline's only at this size now and we need this size," she explained, picking up a bagel to wave around.

It was the biggest damn bagel she'd ever seen. Caroline glared, rage bubbling to the surface again as she recalled how her friend had been holding up food that correlated with her dilation every time it was announced. So far, Caroline's vagina had been compared to a blueberry, a cherry, a cookie, and now an orange. She was DONE. Hoisting herself into an upright position with a grunt, she shrilling screamed, "No! Goddamn it, my innards are my innards! It is NOT an orange or a fucking bagel! Do you hear me?! NO MORE CITRUS VAGINA!"

They all looked at her with startled expressions, eyes wide and mouths slightly agape, remaining perfectly still as though she was a wild animal and the slightest movement would set her off. Rebekah held up her hands in a gesture of surrender, her voice maddeningly calm as she said, "Agreed. No more citrus vagina."

Kol stage-whispered worriedly, "Maybe she's possessed?" Cocking his head in her direction, he asked Caroline, "Tell me, pet, have you been stalked by any starlings?"

Klaus waved off her incredulous expression, clearing trying to reassure her. "It's just a showy, unnecessarily dramatic bit of magic our dead mother has a penchant for using. Not to worry, love — possession by Esther and Mikael only has happened once before."

"Twice."

"Three times for Esther. Wait — are we counting each of their possessions separately or together?"

Actually, Mikael only did a rubbish dreamwalk before he was resurrected — not sure that's considered possession."

"Doesn't matter — we stopped them with a clever little banishment to the other side and then it was destroyed, so it shouldn't be an issue again."

"Probably."

As she listed to Klaus and his siblings argue about something completely ridiculous in such a matter-of-fact way, Caroline started giggling. Possession. Dreamwalk. The other side. They were talking about the afterlife or heaven or hell or something in between. The place that they'd all casually thrown around when she first met Kol and thought it was a euphemism for a rough stint in rehab. Her deranged giggling became donkey brays of laughter, the embarrassing noises making her guffaw even harder.

And then she burst into tears. Again. She felt the sweat-soaked tangles and impatiently ripped away the damp headband, violently wringing it through her hands until she heard the satisfying pop of several stitches. In one hiccupping, gasping breath she cried, "My innards are being attacked by an ice cream scoop and I have to shove a watermelonthroughabagel, which is a horrifying image burned into my brain now and I may never be able toeatanotherbagel again and Ilovebagelsdamnit and I smell like I haven't bathed in days and my hair is a sweatygrossmess and seriously isittoomuchtoask for my hair to at least not look like soggy straw?!"

Klaus gently squeezed her hand, but it was Rebekah's affectionate-yet-judgy voice that soothed her the most in that moment. "Finally. Thank you for saying what everyone has been thinking for hours. You look like the peasant the rest of the rabble intended to burn but decided whatever demons had cursed you was punishment enough."

She began patiently sectioning off Caroline's sweaty clumps of hair, and then massaged some dry shampoo into her scalp. As the peach pie fragrance washed over her, Caroline sniffled, looking up at Rebekah with watery eyes as she rambled, "You picked this out because you know I like my beauty products to smell like dessert and you're a terrifying, judgy bitch and my best friend and Iloveyousosomuch and I'm so glad I shared my cake with you that day."

Rebekah looked flustered by her words, swallowing hard. Her voice was a bit croaky as she replied, "Yes, well, you were quite bossy and practically shoved the cake down my gullet. I was just being polite." A traitorous tear rolled down her cheek as she hoarsely whispered, "And you're my best friend as well. No cake required."

Caroline suddenly felt like her heart was going to burst, and she impulsively leaned forward to plant a kiss on Klaus that left her gasping for breath. That possessive golden gleam flared up in his gaze, and they pressed their foreheads together, lost in a moment where their words weren't important. They knew what they had.

Caroline had stopped questioning how Kol managed to be so Kol all the time. It must be exhausting. She was so used to his antics that it barely even registered that he was standing at the door to her hospital suite with a pair of oxen. "What are you...How did you even..." Caroline trailed off helplessly, panting through another gruesome contraction. They had grown so close together they were nearly indistinguishable from each other. Apparently, she'd reached full bagel. "I told you...no sacrifices," she gasped, giving a short push that used up most of her energy.

"Out," Klaus swiftly commanded his brother, sheepishly apologizing to Caroline, "Sorry, love. It was one of our people's rituals. At least I managed to hide the traditional horn pipes and pan flutes from him."

She grunted, "I think I preferred it when Kol followed me around, spritzing me with a water bottle while lecturing me about proper hydration."

"Medical humans," Elijah said, clapping his hands to capture the staff's attention. "It's almost time and the bjargrýgr hasn't announced herself. She readies the runes, sacred herbs and acts as the official witness."

Caroline grit her teeth through the pain, bearing down while Rebekah hastily told Elijah, "Caroline didn't want a midwife, remember, brother? And let's not bore your staff with our um...holistic treatments." There was a bite to her tone that Caroline thoroughly appreciated in that moment, and she would've said so, but it was time to push again and her innards had turned to lava.

Kol came racing into the room (Caroline did her best not to wonder where he stashed the oxen), worry etched across his face as she let out another scream and gripped Klaus' hand until even he gasped in pain. Kol brandished an enormous, squishy black worm thing, and she shrieked in horror once the realization set in. "Get that leech away from me!"

"Don't worry, pet, it's a fresh one! After all, nothing but the best for my godson!"

Another stabbing pain overtook her, and Klaus tenderly caressed her cheek, asking earnestly, "Sweetheart, your Lamaze breathing doesn't seem to be alleviating your pain. Rebekah was once quite adept at the Gjallarhorn; perhaps she could sound it and then lead the group in the ritual chanting?"

Hysterical giggles bubbled up as soon as the contractions briefly paused, and she surveyed the suite packed full of Klaus and his siblings along with what she was sure was Elijah's most qualified medical team. "You guys," she croaked out through her tears, "you're all such weirdo murder fluffs, but you're my weirdo murder fluffs and I love you so much!"

Another hard push brought her to the brink, and she felt every inch of that narrow fucking uterus as the baby finally made its way through with a squalling screech that rivaled her own. Her suite came alive in that moment, bustling with activity as everyone shouted at once. Caroline tuned out most of it, unable to take her eyes off of her baby. The doctor gently placed him on her belly while performing a quick examination. Her son was here.

One of her secret, foolish fears she never spoke out loud was the constant worry that her baby might not have the right number of fingers or hands or feet. Feet were really important, right? And then there were the other parts. Werewolfy parts. Was her son ok? She didn't know the first thing about raising a werewolf — what if she screwed him up?

However, as the cord was cut between the clamps and the nurses dried him, Caroline's fears melted away once he was swaddled in a blanket and placed in her arms. She rubbed her cheek against the soft material, moving aside the blanket to place a gentle kiss on his head. "Don't freak out kid, but I'm your mom," she chuckled, tears still streaming down her face. "And I have no idea what I'm doing, but don't worry — I have reminder Post-Its all over the house and you don't know it yet but you've been born into such a crazy family of fun weirdos that I can't wait to tell you all about."

Klaus placed a trembling hand to the baby's chest, as though reassuring himself he was real. When he finally spoke, it was in a tone of quiet awe as he shakily announced, "He's perfect. Just like his mother."

Rebekah was softly sobbing, while Elijah kept clearing his throat unnecessarily, and Kol's voice was unusually strained as he observed, "He still looks a bit like a sea monkey. Medical humans — put him back in there so he can finish cooking."

With a tired giggle, Caroline looked fondly at her son, a comforting certainty settling over her. "His name is August," she informed them. She glanced at Klaus, her voice a velvet promise as she revealed, "And his middle name is Niklaus...I'm naming him after his father." "Oh, sweetheart," Klaus gruffly began, seemingly at a loss for words as he shook his curly head. His eyes were shining with tears as he kissed her soundly, pulling a contented hum from them both.

As Rebekah, Elijah and Kol rushed forward, laughing and talking excitedly with her and Klaus about all of their plans for their family's future, Caroline knew that her son would learn a great many things about the human world and the supernatural world and how to successfully navigate between the two.

Looking happily around the room at her family of weirdo murder fluffs, Caroline knew that the most important lesson she could teach her son was to always share your cake.