Caroline POV
Mystic Falls

Klaus arrived in record time. I told myself it was because of the threat of the white oak arrow, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking of all the other times he had come to save me.

I think he would have opened the car door for me had I given him the chance. Now was not the time, and I really wanted to get off the street. I felt like easy pickings.

"Are you alright?" That is the first thing he asks. The jump my heart does, doesn't let me speak, so I just nod. The connection we've had since I've met him is working overtime today. It usually does when he plays the hero to my distressing damsel. I could feel him study me through the mirrors, our eyes meet, and I can feel him inspecting me.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little freaked out. I wasn't expecting to be anyone's target today." I joke, but there's no laugh from either of us. In fact, Klaus's whole energy screams, not funny Caroline. I look over at him, and I can see his toned arms are tense as if restraining himself. When Klaus is mad, he can be deadly. Heads roll easy, hearts get ripped out, and lives end. Knowing all of that to be true, my stupid brain still tells the rest of me that I am safe. I'm with Klaus. Who's going to hurt me? No-got-damn-body.

I lean back into the seat of his car and allow myself to destress. I fight the urge to hold his hand. It isn't something I would do. He and I had one time together. Klaus wasn't here to see me with my humanity off, but he heard stories. He was here to get me to turn it back on after Stefan failed. Since then, I had felt something change between us, a thaw.

Klaus was still studying me, but I'm used to it by now. I've gotten pretty good at telling what each narrow-eyed look and glare means. He was making sure I was okay, and he's a little suspicious. It would bother me more, but he was like this with his own family too. Rebekah once joked that it was a right of passage. It meant you meant something if he worried about you even when he didn't trust you.

"Take me to where it all happened. They might have left something behind." It wasn't a suggestion; he wasn't asking. Klaus was an alpha male, strong and fearless. In all confrontations, Klaus always chose offense. So, of course he wanted to go back to the danger I narrowly escaped.

"What if they're still out there?" I ask him. He takes his eyes off the road long enough to give me a look that says, that's the point. "Then this will be over before it even starts." He says with a smug smirk confirming my earlier interpretation. I tell Klaus where to go, but I stress in my voice that I disapprove of the idea. A younger me would have complained the whole time that he wasn't helping me the way I wanted. Hell, she wouldn't have called him at all. She would have called her friends-my friends.

Wait, why didn't I? Seriously, why didn't I call my friends? I knew Klaus was there; he probably would have come anyway. I answered my own thought in my head. Because I liked being alone with him, I knew I shouldn't want to. I can only imagine the judgment I would endure. What would my mom think? Klaus was unapologetically dangerous and sinfully hot. She would disapprove. Guilt started to spike up in my throat. Even though he wasn't the villain in my story, he was the villain in everyone else. People I knew and I cared about.

'Just give yourself today.' I tell myself. A Klaus cheat day before I had to go back on my diet. 'I need him today.' the thought comes through light in volume but deep in emotion. It was so reckless but let's be honest. I decided all this the second I messaged him first.

"There's my car, or what's left of it," I tell him pointing at what was left of my ride. RIP. Klaus pulled over and inspected it. "It's scrap now," he tells me, I kind of knew that. "Alright, love, start from the beginning, don't leave anything out." He tells me, not a question. Do I tell him about Katherine? I'm just going to make him mad. No, I should tell him because if I don't, he'll have a reason not to trust me. I don't want that. I want to prove this paranoid crazy man wrong.

He reaches out his hand, wordlessly asking for the white oak arrow. We walk, and he studies it.

Me? My stupid heart races because of the proximity to him and the smell of his cologne are giving me a contact high.

"I felt off all day today. I was running errands, but coming out here wasn't at all planned. I missed my mom, so I came out here when it got to be too much." He nods, his eyes soften. This is the Klaus I wish my mom would have met. Hell, if they could all meet him, maybe they would be okay with me seeing where this goes. That's all I want.

"Is that why you've been crying?" He asks; of course, he noticed. "Were you alone?" He asks it so casually, but I can feel it in my gut. He's testing me. "When I got here, yeah. I reached this nice little area with a log." I tell him. "Hmm, then what?" He asks. I know how to pass his test, but I don't want to put out Katherine.

"Katherine showed up." His face scrunched but because he could say anything I spoke. "Don't Klaus, please!" I put my hand on his arm. He's not as mad as I thought he would be. Oh, he's strongly annoyed but not murderous rage angry. Which is good." I don't know why you insist on befriending her, she's using you." Klaus huffs with great indignation. I fold my arms over my chest. "Using me for what?" I huff back. I had nothing she needed or wanted.

"Why do you think?" Klaus gets really close to me; I can feel his breath. Not good and, at the same time, very very good. "Why do you think she would want to get close to you." I look at him, trying to work past what I was feeling. The flutters and the high. "She knows I fancy you, and she'll use you to obtain mercy." He doesn't say if it would work, but he doesn't say it wouldn't.

"She could be behind all of this." He adds, but I shake my head no. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I don't think so. In the beginning, Katherine was chaotic sure, so were you, but not so much to me. Since then, she had been there for me, a lot. If you haven't noticed, I kind of operate in a morally gray area when it comes to the company I keep. Full disclosure, she did ask me if I can put in a good word for her." He rolled his eyes and I threw my hands up. "I'm not going to. I'm just going to say that it's been 500 years, and you did massacre her entire family. And in the end, you still unlocked your werewolf side. You don't have to be nice okay, just don't kill her." I conceded what I think is a good compromise.

Klaus's face shifts into massive annoyance. He looks at me, gauging something but I don't always know what he's thinking. "No promises, love." I smile, and I swear he's pouting. "It's all I ask." Klaus goes over to the tree where the arrow landed and runs a finger over it. He heads in the direction it came from. I follow both of us, moving at super speed. "Were you testing me earlier?" I couldn't hold back the question when it dawned on me that he didn't seem surprised Katherine was here.

"I could smell her on you and at the site." He tells me but doesn't confirm or deny. "Did I pass?" I ask with a little humor in my voice.

"You didn't fail." Is all he's willing to concede. Probably still pouty over the Katherine thing. "Hey, there was one more thing about these hunters." Klaus looks at me intently as if to say; I'm listening.

"When they called out my name to get my attention, they called me Caroline Mikaelson." I watch him like a hawk. I meant when I said I wanted to see his reaction. He looked confused and not pleased. I don't know why he would be pleased, but he wasn't. "They called you a Mikaelson and tried to shoot you with a white oak stake?" He sums it up perfectly.

"Maybe they think I'm an Original," I say, rather happy that I could pass for an Original. Klaus shakes his head. "Love, I don't think we have to worry about these me. They clearly don't know what they're doing." I think he's joking, but it's still rude.

"Hey! Don't be mean! I obviously exude power and age." I talk myself up, and he scoffs. "You exude guidable and amateur. This arrow has a spell on it, to make it stoppable by human magic. It's overkill. They didn't do their own research, so someone sent them. Which means someone told them you were one of us. We need to find out who told them to get to me through you." He was pretty calm, and I would be more scared, but he was Klaus, and he had a plan. I do better with chaos when there is a plan.

"How do you know they weren't after me?" I ask. He scoffs. "I have more enemies than you, Caroline; you don't have any." He states matter of factly. Well, he had me there.

"Should I tell the others?" I don't know why I asked but maybe it was good because he shakes his head no. "They're useless besides; I need them using the one brain cell they're sharing to find the cure."

"Katherine is also investigating, I swear Klaus, she was as shocked as I was." He doesn't pout or get mad. Klaus nods. I can see the gears turning in his head, trying to figure this all out. "If she stays out of my sight and is useful to you, I won't kill her till this is over." This was Klaus not giving in but also not telling me no. I knew I didn't have him wrapped around my finger, I hated the idea anyway. But I did love the way he showed he cared about me.

"Thank you," I tell him, and I mean it more than he could know. "You don't have to thank me, love." We stare at each other for seconds too long, and no, I don't want this day to end.

"Can you give me a ride home?" And he does, he takes me home and stays, we talk. He tells me about his life, and we talk about art. I tell him about my life. I tell him I'm adopted; I even added suspense. Klaus already knew. He could smell it, he says—his damn nose.

When I get tired enough to sleep, he walks me to my room. We linger at the doorway, and he caresses my cheek with his thumb. Today was my cheat day, and I really wanted more.

So when he kissed me, I didn't pull away. We had been together before, but this felt different. Then when he pinned me up against the wall, I let the hunger take over.

Klaus stayed.

And for the first time since my mom died, I felt like I was home.

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Sorry if you were expecting a slow-burn romance, I have other plans.