Caroline was not a stranger to nights spent alone at her own house. Liz was always busy, and Caroline used to resent it so much when she was a teenager, having to come back to the silence and darkness of her odd existence after the parties and social events with which she tried to stuff her life full, but never quite succeeded.

But today Liz was busy for a very different reason, and Caroline was actually relieved to have some alone time not just because of the crazy day she'd had, but also the craziness still lying ahead tomorrow.

She was going to get married in less than 24 hours.

With an evil hybrid as the groom, and some surely pissed-off vampires alongside the begrudging Gilberts as guests.

That would go well.

After fussing over Caroline for the better half of the day, Liz had confirmed once and again with her daughter that it was okay for her to go have a little scheming session with Carol. "I hate to leave you sweetie, but after what happened today we thought some precautions needed to be taken." And Caroline totally agreed with that. She was just surprised Carol was involved. It turned out Mrs. Lockwood was her life-saver today, having messaged both Tyler and Liz while Grayson and Miranda were busy body-jumping Caroline. It was so hard to imagine the older woman playing double agents when she was the one who used to give Caroline some major passive-aggressive jabs for dating her son.

Guess people did have different sides to them. Caroline was learning fast about that.

But the expected flash of shadow beyond her window frame proved something else.

Some people just didn't change.

"If you don't go knock on the front door like a normal person, I'm not talking to you."

As soon as Tyler left her alone she knew Klaus would come. But she refused to let him enact another Romeo and Juliet scene, especially considering how infuriated he must be at the moment. She'd rather do this in the neutral environment of the living room.

"Do not test me, Caroline."

Wow, not "love" or "sweetheart", her real name. He was indeed angry, which somehow made Caroline want to push him even more.

"Uh-uh, no knocking, no talking."

She left her bedroom without giving him a second look, hearing the dangerous growl in her wake. She wondered how long it would take for Klaus to give in.

The answer was four minutes and a half.

When the loud banging came from the front door, Caroline was comfortably lounging in the living room sofa, browsing through the bridal magazines she bought in a fit of rage over a week ago. "Come in, it's unlocked," she idly answered, her finger brushing past a blue-white flower arrangement with hyacinth and lily of the valley.

Moments later the page flared, blues and whites crinkling with the whooshing wind that always came with a vampire. Caroline lifted her eyes to see a very enraged Klaus towering over her, his face dark and jaw clenched. She flipped another page.

"Oh, so you can have some manners."

She could basically see him grinding his teeth, which would make quite a comical sight if not for the dark veins swimming under his eyes and the fangs around his words, "what were you thinking?"

"Well, I thought even though I didn't get to plan my own wedding, it didn't hurt to look." She shrugged, "some of these ideas are actually not bad."

"My patience is already wearing thin, sweetheart," there was a sinister vibrance to his voice, like something raw and rustling. "I wouldn't aggravate me if I were you."

"Oh really? Because I totally would," Caroline challenged him with the most innocent expression she could manage.

Klaus snatched the magazine in her hand and sent it flying to the other side of the room, the thud thunderous in her ears. Caroline glared at him, "just when I thought you were showing some manners, you go and dent my wall."

"Why are you trying so hard to pick a fight with me?" Klaus narrowed his eyes, "you should know by now, that kind of behavior never ends well."

"Because I'm so sick of people like you trying to walk all over me!" Caroline jumped to her feet, frustration built up for a whole day booming in her veins. "Do you even hear yourself? Threats, threats, and oh wait – more threats! If you want to put me in my place so bad then why don't you follow through?" In a bout of blinding recklessness she bared her neck at him, her jugular only breaths away from his sharp teeth, "go on, show me how it doesn't 'end well', I dare you."

She was so close to him she could see the sudden dilation of his pupils, the darkness swallowing his golden irises like black holes of magnified gravity. She couldn't help but be drawn to them, something so undoubtedly dangerous, yet so surprisingly beautiful. She licked her lips involuntarily, and saw those pools of darkness following her movement. Her heart was beating loud like it was out of her chest, the sound echoing in the small, charged space between them, probably audible even without Klaus's vampire hearing.

In the rhythm of those heartbeats, she heard Klaus's raspy voice, "for the sake of both of us, love, that's one dare I cannot take on at the moment." He leaned down inch by inch, his eyes never losing their hold on hers until she could feel his breath, hot and scorching on the spot just under her jaw line, "however much I want to." He straightened up, agonizingly slow, the phantom of his lips on her neck only enhanced by the raspberry color so vivid in front of her eyes.

Caroline thought she'd never find her breath again.

Thankfully Klaus turned around to face the windows, granting her a moment of reprieve. But even standing with his back to her Klaus managed to loom over her consciousness with a presence she couldn't shake, her eyes still glued to the flexing of his muscles and the ebbs and flows of his breathing.

When he spoke again Klaus's voice was much calmer, though the dark embers of rage were still simmering below, "I should drag the Gilberts and everyone in that room through the most painful death for what they did."

"Don't get overdramatic," Caroline exhaled, glad they were now onto subjects she could handle. "I know you're mad at them, believe me I am too, but I'm fine. So no harm done."

"No harm done?" Klaus turned around to glare at her, "if Tyler and your mother weren't there in time, who would I be talking to right now? Miranda Gilbert?"

The notion sent a shiver down Caroline's spine. Back in the Gilberts' living room, she was too caught up in the moment to fully comprehend what the spell entailed, but the more she thought about it afterwards, the more it scared her. To lose total control of her body, her mind trapped in a shell that wasn't hers, or worse, forced into a sleep and wither away in unconsciousness. Just picturing it unsettled her magic so much the light in the room flashed eerily.

"My point exactly," Klaus looked at her knowingly.

Shaking herself out of the dreadful scenario, Caroline went into the kitchen in search of some chamomile tea. That usually calmed her nerves. "Even so, the wedding's tomorrow. You can't do anything to them before that."

"I would love to prove you wrong," Klaus snorted. "In fact, on the grounds of dishonoring the truce, I should simply call off the wedding. Let's see if they can still stir trouble when my army burns their houses to the ground with them inside."

"Klaus, be reasonable," Caroline threw a scoff his way while rummaging through her tea drawer. "What's that going to achieve?"

"For one, it would make me feel so much better," he flashed her a wicked smirk, but she heard the truth in the seemingly joking words.

"Seriously? You were not the one they wanted to body jump. Why are you throwing a fit in the first place?"

"They betrayed me! After I so graciously accepted their proposal of a truce. I have every right to make them suffer, the bloody wedding be damned."

"That bloody wedding –" Caroline sighed in frustration at the open drawer. Apparently she was out of any chamomile tea. Just her luck. "– is going to happen. It's been ten freaking years! Do you even know how tired everyone is of this on-again off-again war of yours?" She pointed a finger at him, effectively stopping him from uttering any protest, "and don't say they started it. I don't care. We are going to stop it, so that everyone in my coven and your precious little army can finally have a life! And I know you want it too, so stop bluffing. It doesn't work on me."

"Well it should," Klaus barked at her. "Considering you have such a low sense of self-preservation you walked into the lion's den without company."

"Don't turn this around on me. You are throwing a tantrum, which is super counter-productive not to mention unflattering on you, so you need to stop."

"You do not tell me what to do!" Klaus stalked into the kitchen, stopping just on the other side of the drawer, his fingers clutching the countertop.

"I'm not telling you what to do!" Caroline threw up her hands. He was so damned frustrating she wanted to bang his head against the cabinets. "I'm trying to remind you that you're over a thousand years old in the hope that you'll realize how ridiculous you're being. And don't you dare break that countertop. I already have a dent on the wall to deal with."

Klaus rolled his eyes at her, "we're not even married yet and you're already nagging me. How insufferable this marriage will be I cannot even imagine."

"Good. At least I get something out of this deal – I can just annoy you to death!"

In an instant the fire burning in Klaus's eyes froze to ice, "if this deal is so inconvenient for you then all the more reason to call it off." And just like that he was closed off again, flaring nostrils and biting teeth turning into a clenched jaw and pursed lips, his person unreachable even when he was just a tiny drawer away.

She couldn't believe they were back here at square one.

"Goddamn it Klaus!" Caroline slapped her hand on the counter, her barely-kept composure blowing up in grandiose fashion. The slap itself left nothing but an aching palm on her end, but the accompanying burst of magic sent all the tea bags in the drawer charging towards Klaus like an army of flying paper squares. Even in surprise, the hybrid managed to dodge most of his colorful attackers, save for one single bag of valiant Earl Grey which sliced across his face with its sharp edge.

Eyes wide and hands still buzzing with powers, Caroline watched helplessly as a thin line of blood appeared on Klaus's prominent cheekbone. She should panic. She should at least feel a modicum of regret. Instead, she stared transfixed at the tiny red drop forming at the end of the wound, her body filled with an inexplicable hunger, quiet, tentative. She felt almost triumphant after the long day of being tyrannized by someone else's power, every minute on a precipice, every minute out of control. Now look at her. She broke the skin of the man who was supposed to be invincible.

Said man was staring intensely back at her, as if she were more important than the proof of his momentary vulnerability. Without moving his eyes, he wiped the blood clean with a thumb, before putting it between his lips to lick the hint of rust away. There was a subtle curl to the lines of his eyes, which seemed to have thawed beyond a trace just like the wound now invisible on his face.

"Speaking of tantrums," he raised his eyebrows, though his voice was surprisingly soft, like he wasn't the injured party out of the two of them. "Has its perks, wouldn't you say?"

Caroline sighed, her shoulders sagging, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." She leaned back against the counter and hung her head, running a hand through her curls messy from the outburst, "as you're well aware, my magic is not the most reliable. It's been like this since I was a child. So maybe you're not getting a lot out of this deal after all."

"I'm getting more than you'll believe."

His tone was full of wonders, yet at the same time wistful, one that Caroline didn't quite recognize. Taken aback, her head snapped up only to catch a glimpse of his profile, his eyes hovering over her like moonlight over a running stream. He turned around before she could see further, hand aimlessly traveling the counter until he picked up the bag of Earl Grey that got his blood.

"What were you looking for, love?"

"What?"

"You were looking for something in the drawer. What was it?"

"Oh," Caroline gasped. Between arguing with Klaus and initiating magic attacks, her search had completely slipped her mind. "Um, I was trying to find some chamomile tea to calm my nerves, but apparently I'm all out. You saw how well that went."

Shaking the Earl Grey in his hand, Klaus flashed her a teasing smile, "then we mustn't ignore those nerves any longer."


Never in a million years would Caroline believe Klaus cooked. Even now, seeing him stirring the dark-colored liquid on the stove with the tea bag secured in a small sifter, she could still not fully believe her eyes.

"You're not going to poison me with that, are you?"

"You saw every step of the preparation, gasping all the way," Klaus quipped. "When would I have the time to put the poison in? You're the one with magic, not me."

Caroline smiled sheepishly, "I know. It's just...weird, seeing you with pots and pans and stuff."

"It's just milk tea, not a nine-course dinner. I have a chef on call for that."

"I bet you do," Caroline huffed. "But I mean, milk tea? I would probably be less surprised if you rolled up your sleeves and did barbecue. Thought you'd be better at grilling stuff. They had invented fire when you were born, right?"

"Ha-ha, very funny," Klaus rolled his eyes, the edge of his smile softly blending into the rising steam. "You don't seem to mind my old age that much. Fantasizing about me rolling up my sleeves are we, bride-to-be?"

"Rhyming is lame."

"Ouch," Klaus stopped his stirring momentarily and gestured at his fake broken heart. "I see the art of poetry is effectively ruined by modern education."

"I'm fine with Shakespeare doing it."

"You know –"

"For your information, name dropping your celebrity acquaintances that may or may not be true is also lame."

Klaus made a zipping motion across his lips, and went back to stirring.

"But seriously," Caroline's curiosity was bubbling more than the simmering tea by this point. "How do you know how to do this?"

"I'd tell you the story, but I don't want to risk committing the crime of name dropping."

"Oh just out with it."

Chuckling, Klaus poured the whole milk he'd put aside into the pot, the steaming liquid turning a rich caramel color. "I learned it in Hongkong. It was only a short while ago, back in the 70s I believe. My family lived there for a few years. If I remember correctly, my sister still owns an old café there, locally called a 'tea restaurant'. It's a big part of their culture."

"I can't even imagine you in the 70s," Caroline said quietly. To be honest it was more of a shock when he referred to the decade as "a short while ago". It was then that the length of his history really hit her. He had existed all those years before her, long before she was even a concept, and yet here he was, right in front of her, making genuine Hong Kong-style milk tea. The revelation made her heart beat faster, as if blindly trying to catch up on the whole millennium that it had missed.

Funny how big hair and bell bottoms had that effect on her rather than Shakespeare.

"I'll admit, it was not my favorite decade," Klaus made a face.

Caroline was tempted to ask him which one was, but stopped herself at the last minute. The warm steams, the soothing smell of milk and tea, their proximity – it was all too intimate already. But Klaus was the enemy. It was dangerous to humanize him, no matter how incredibly human he looked with – yes, his sleeves rolled up and his fingers wrapped around a ladle. She couldn't afford to ask another personal question when she was already picturing him in colorful suits and aviators, when one more drop of him could very well tip everything over. But to what? What exactly would happen when it tipped over?

Her racing thoughts were interrupted by Klaus's sudden movement. He was half bent-down in front of her fridge, looking through the shelves where they put eggs and dairy. His face lit up by the fridge, the hybrid looked every bit as normal as any guy whipping up a quick midnight snack, barring the fact that the only proper snack for him in the room was probably her.

Caroline shook her head, "um...What are you looking for?"

Klaus emerged with the leftover can of condensed milk that she put in there a few days ago after a stress baking session, "not quite what I was looking for, but I guess this will have to do." Shrugging, he added a small spoonful into the pot, "after all, it's only bagged Earl Grey."

"Hey, it's the fancy kind!"

"I know, love," he laughed at her indignation. "Didn't mean that as an insult. But tea bags, even the fancy kind," he raised an eyebrow, "are generally not as flavorful as one would hope." He resumed his stirring, "a lot of restaurants in Hong Kong keep a secret recipe of the 'base' for their signature milk tea. They often mix different dairies to get the perfect silky texture."

The word "silky" curled around his tongue like actual silk, smooth and lingering. Caroline swallowed.

Pouring the content of the pot into Caroline's pink heart-print mug, Klaus gestured for her to try, "just a sample." He lowered his eyes, looking bashful all of a sudden, "hopefully one day I'll take you to try the real thing."

One day.

How long ahead was he planning? More importantly, how was he so sure that she'd be in those plans?

The mug burned her hands a little, sending her heart into a small anxious flip. But then the wonderful rich scent of the milk tea enveloped her senses in a gentle hug, and the anxiety was subdued to a light gnawing, still unsettling, but also sweet, layered with expectations.

She took a small sip and sighed, her whole body relaxing as the warmth traveled down her throat, "this is so good."

Klaus grinned, a bit smug, "I'm glad you like it."

"You should quit your day job and do this for a living."

"And what is my day job, pray tell?"

"Murdering and maiming, mostly."

"Right."

She slowly sipped the tea with her eyes half closed, letting herself be lured into the simple comfort, if just for a few short moments. But even in these deceiving moments everything was too clear to be overlooked, the tastes on her tongue a mixture of the richness of the milk, the earthy freshness of the tea leaves, and the tart uncertainty of tomorrow.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Making you milk tea?" Klaus's face was a perfect mask of confusion that she couldn't believe. Not completely.

"No. Why did you agree to this marriage?"

"I thought you knew why."

Caroline fixed him with a sharp look, "I know the excuses you fed the Elders."

"And how do you know those are excuses?"

"I know my reasons for going along with it. My coven needs this. But you? You could have kept the war going on for another ten years and wouldn't even break a nail. You have no reason to stop."

"Maybe I just cherish my nails," Klaus flexed his fingers midair. "They are very important to me."

"Don't try to bullshit your way out of this one, it's not cute." Caroline swished the liquid in her mug, "and I will throw this in your face."

Klaus huffed, "and I'm the one accused of making threats all the time."

"You can dish it out, but you can't take it?" Caroline jumped up to sit on the counter, swinging her legs, "now come on. With this much stalling, your reasons better be good."

Klaus sighed, leaning against the counter beside her, "I'm not sure they meet your standards, love. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain why I agreed either."

"You're telling me you decided to marry me on a whim?"

"If you have to reduce it to that."

"You just told me you don't know why you agreed to this! What am I supposed to think?" She didn't know why she was so annoyed with his answer. It should make no difference to her. They were going to get married even if he flipped a coin on it. But for some reason the fact that his choice of her was probably born out of a "might as well", the randomness of it all – it aggravated her.

"I said I was not sure about the reasons behind it," Klaus held her eyes, looking anything but unsure. "Doesn't mean I don't stand by my decision."

"And what does that mean?" She knew she sounded petulant. Some part of her wanted something – what she didn't know, but the craving was clawing at her incessantly.

Klaus didn't answer her right away. Instead he nudged the mug that she set on the counter towards her, the milk tea inside no longer steaming, and wordlessly Caroline took the mug back into her hands and resumed sipping. Klaus propped his arms on the counter behind him, looking out the window.

"When Tyler first joined us, there was a secret bet going on in my pack. The hybrids were wondering when his persistent girlfriend would stop calling or texting him. There was a pool going on for months, until he finally discontinued the number. Nobody won of course, so everybody was talking about the girl who didn't know when to give up."

He turned to her then, eyes searching, like he was trying to recognize her from an old photo that he secretly kept for years, "at first I paid no mind to it. I knew how time could wash away any fondness of the heart. But month upon month I continued to hear the whispers, the mysterious Caroline. I got curious. I remember thinking," he frowned like the question still perplexed him. "How could someone try so hard when they were getting nothing in return? Just putting herself out there for the world to see, to disappoint, again and again?"

Caroline was speechless. She was expecting a story, but she wasn't expecting this one. It felt so long ago, and told from his perspective it almost felt like it didn't really happen to her. The heartache and despair were but a vague distant memory, buried under the fresh earth upon which she had long since rebuilt herself. She was not that Caroline anymore. But Klaus's questions and his keen eyes seemed to be calling to her, the Caroline that she herself had renounced. Or – was she there all along?

"Over the years Tyler had mentioned you countless times, how you helped him and defended him against the town, even after he got involved with Haley."

Caroline nodded. Tyler had showed her pictures of the beautiful brunette hybrid. She thought she would suffer from at least a tiny bit of jealousy, but all she felt was happiness for an old friend.

"My curiosity only grew," Klaus lowered his head, a hint of embarrassment in the pursed line of his lips. "So when the Elders came to me with that proposal of theirs, I couldn't say no." He smiled a little, peeking at her from the corner of his eyes, "I couldn't resist the possibility of you, Caroline."

Caroline bit her lips, nameless feelings churning in her heart. She could feel the powers inside her, lulled into steady waves, surge after surge shaking her to her core.

"But why marriage? You could have just accepted the truce, and asked Tyler to introduce us or something. With the right persuasion, I wouldn't mind befriending even someone like you."

"Why not marriage?"

"How could you just say that?" Caroline glared at him, "does the word mean nothing to you?"

Klaus shrugged, "I believe in the institution just fine. It keeps the machine rolling, so to speak."

"If you have so little respect for the institution," Caroline bit back. "Why go through with it at all?"

"What is marriage really?" Klaus leveled her with his annoyingly calm eyes, an elusive smile hanging on his lips, "you are a millennial, sweetheart – granted a different type of millennial than I am – you know how divorces work. It's oaths that can be broken, deals that you can go back on, pipe dreams and illusions painted by the strong to deceive others, and the weak to deceive themselves. A blind trust that there would be a constant in this ever-changing world."

"Glad we're on the same page," Caroline retorted dryly, her knuckles turning white on the handle of her mug. "This marriage means nothing, just like the bunch of other marriages that you must have spit on in the past. Did you drain all of your wives?" She was not stupid. She knew this couldn't have been the first time for him, having lived for a thousand years, through times when marriage was considered an essential part of anyone's life.

"Do you really think that low of me?"

"Have you given me a reason not to?"

"Vilify me all you want, love, but I don't need to marry someone to drink from them," he licked his lips suggestively and Caroline couldn't help her eyes from following.

"You think that's going to make you look better?"

"Judging by your reaction it certainly didn't make me look worse." The quip hung in the air for a few seconds before he continued, his face now clean of any tease or joke, "you're clever to assume that I have been married before."

"Doesn't take a genius."

"It was mostly to keep up the appearances. My siblings and I were all married at certain points in the past, sometimes to compelled humans, sometimes willing ones."

"Why not vampires?" Despite her discomfort toward the subject, his confession did pique her interest.

"Humans' lives are limited, and so are our ties with them."

"Oh." Caroline breathed. Was this how he thought about her? A temporary distraction?

"But from time to time, there would be one or two humans that leave a mark on us. Those that we carry even when they are no longer," Klaus straightened up and turned around to fully face her, and Caroline was suddenly made aware of how close they were, her mug-holding fingers just a brush away from his chest.

"In the early 1900s, I was briefly married to a Russian Princess. Maria Sergeyevna was her name. She had the most interesting view on marriage. She obeyed her father's arrangement and got betrothed to me, even when she loved another. When I asked her why, she told me that marriage was like jigsaw puzzles – it was all the rage back then, a new fascination for the aristocracy. Maria said that two people in love were like two neighboring puzzle pieces. Fit perfectly at first, but with the daily wear and tear came the discrepancies, and even damages. While people joined in marriage were corner pieces – they knew they belonged in the same picture, and life would fill in the rest."

Caroline carefully studied his face, seeing the fondness underneath the somewhat distant look. She tried to picture Maria Sergeyevna, a real Russian princess, whose words Klaus had remembered with such details after an entire century. She wondered if Klaus had painted his wife at one point – if he had kept the painting after all these years. She must have been breath-taking. "What happened to her?"

"Not long after we got married, her lover died in the revolution. I brought her with me to the States, and helped her get a new identity. Heard she got married again, lived a long happy life. Well, as happy as life could be in those times."

"So she used you?" Caroline frowned. It didn't sound like Klaus to offer such kindness to anyone, the very idea unsettling her beyond her comprehension.

Klaus chuckled, "I'd rather think that any journey would require decent company such as hers. And as she said, life did fill in the rest. Smart lady, that one."

Caroline set her now empty mug down in the sink, the clinking sound startling her slightly. There was a strange stirring heavy and murky in her chest, a fog that she didn't dare reach into – fearing that it would morph into a storm. She ran a hand through her hair again, mind racing as she tried to dismiss whatever Klaus's words had evoked in her, "so what are you saying? That marriage is just a means to an end?"

"What I'm saying, sweetheart," Klaus lifted a hand to smooth away a stray curl from her face, fingers pausing as he heard Caroline's breath hitch before they came back to rest on the counter, just beside her leg, "is that no matter how frivolous it sounds, and how ugly it might end, sometimes we simply can't quell the desire for an unequivocal bond that makes us part of something."

He smiled then, somewhat shyly, but with all the conviction that a skeptic like him couldn't, shouldn't have, "I'm also saying that I want us to belong in the same picture, however long it may last."

It might be the darkness of the night, or the lingering smell of milk and Earl Grey, or the hope in his eyes that spelled out long verses which she convinced herself she didn't understand. Or maybe it was just the closeness of his hands to her body, his face to hers, the warmth, the electrifying charges, something growing rampant, devouring her whole.

Like a storm.

As if possessed, Caroline closed the distance between them, her lips touching his, the sweet scent of the milk tea still on her tongue. She traced the lines of those soft lips which tasted even more delicious than they looked, feeling his hands coming up to cup the back of her head, fingers weaving into her hair, finding their way in the tangling mess so smoothly like they had done this a thousand times. Her body burning, she deepened the kiss, chasing, wanting, until a soft moan leaked out of her parting lips.

She broke away from him with a jerk, mind cloudy, lips sizzling. She opened her mouth to explain, to protest, to say anything, but nothing came out.

Klaus smirked, his eyes still dark and raging, like he wanted to grip her mere image just to satiate the beast growling in the deep caverns of his soul. Seconds or maybe eons passed while he reined it in, just barely. With a tip of his head and an edge to his voice, he ended the thick silence, saving or maybe damning her, "I think this is my cue. Goodnight, sweetheart. I will see you tomorrow at the wedding."

Caroline sat there quietly, the sound of whooshing air and then the house door clicking reaching her ears, but not quite registering. In a daze, she touched where the kiss was burning seconds ago, her own fingers somehow feeling foreign, like the whole world had just shifted on the fulcrum of her traitor lips.

Out of nowhere, a thought popped into her foggy mind: she forgot to yell at him about the perfect wedding dress he sent her.