Final follow-up to 'Dear Cupid' & 'The Cupid Dilemma'.
Caroline breaks up with Stefan five months into the relationship.
She would have done so way sooner, in all honesty, but didn't want to give Klaus the satisfaction of saying "I told you so." looking all should-I-punch-you-square-in-the-eye-or-kiss-you-smack-on-the-lips-smug and had postponed the inevitable for as long as possible.
To her utmost surprise, however, Klaus makes no comment whatsoever on the matter, simply re-trades his grumpiness for his initial cockiness.
"I have introduced countless people to Love. I'm sure, Sweetheart, that I will manage to best your aversion to healthy relationships, one day."
She glares. He grins.
"You're still Satan."
"You should be nicer to me," he suggests, "or I might never steer you in the right direction." There's a brief, hesitant pause. "You would be stuck with me forever."
An odd intensity seems to be swirling in his eyes, there and, then, not there a moment later. It gives her the impression that he's holding something back. It makes his words sound more like a promise than a warning.
She finds herself thinking that that's not such a terrible possibility.
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"It's never taken you this long before, Nik," Kol taunts, a rare family dinner bringing all of the Mikaelsons together to celebrate the Royal Wedding. "My, my, might you be losing your touch?"
Klaus has always been deft at answering his brother in kind, but, this time, Kol's wiggling eyebrows and crooked smirk are merely met by the ghost of a scowl.
Kol and Rebekah share a look of bemusement.
Esther, all the while, observes his son knowingly.
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It's a particularly awful night out with Bonnie and Katherine to act, at long last, as catalyst.
"Are you drunk?"
Caroline giggles, the notes even more high-pitched than usual in the otherwise quiet night. "Yep! And you are perceptive." A frown. Her features twist inwards into an adorably vexed expression, pout in place, as if she feels personally wronged by the very universe. "When you want to be, at least."
Klaus sighs, guides her away from the door she has just slammed shut, through the dorm room and towards her bed with warm, gentle hands holding her bare shoulders.
She plops herself straight onto it without the slightest intention of pulling down any of the blankets. He chooses the farthest possible spot to sit.
Minutes go by without either of them uttering a single word.
"What happened?" he asks, when, inevitably, his need to make sure that she's all right eclipses everything else.
Her answer is muffled against the dip between two pillows. "Aikentfainfeniuanelf."
"I'm not sure I got that, Sweetheart."
"I can't find anyone else," she repeats, lifting her head to articulate each word, clearly irritated by his lack of understanding.
"Anyone else... to do what?"
"To date."
Klaus' whole body goes rigid. "I see."
"No, you don't!" Caroline whines, attempting a poor throw of one pillow after the other in his general direction. "It's your fault!"
The worst part is: Klaus knows it is.
Over half a year later, and he hasn't, not once, strained to search for Caroline's Soulmate. To his defense, in most cases, he doesn't have to put in any effort at all, Soulmates being bound to find each other on their own, one way or another; but, every so often, there is something—be it a physical or emotional obstacle—that stands in their way, and he has to step up his game.
He has, long ago, already, supposed that Caroline's Soulmate must found himself somewhere far away, for her not to have come across him yet.
Under different circumstances, he would have worked his magic and brought the two of them together in a heartbeat. He finds he's not in a hurry to leave her, though.
"Is it? I do not recall you being very collaborative, so far."
"Oh, I've been plenty collaborative! But how am I supposed to fall for some random guy just because, when you are right there!"
Klaus' eyes widen to saucers. "What do you mean?"
Caroline lets her head fall back down onto the now pillow-less bed with a groan. "Nothing."
"No," Klaus insists, taking hold of one of her arms to demand her full attention. His heart is soaring at the possibility that she might mean what he thinks she means, what he, too, feels, and he refuses to let the subject go, to dally in denial any longer. "Caroline."
Her neck whips up.
Klaus only ever uses her actual name when he's upset, after all, so this must be important. Only, he looks the furthest thing from 'upset', right now. He looks... in awe, almost, in awe of her, more precisely, and it makes Caroline's head spin from something that is, most definitely, not alcohol.
"Sweetheart," he starts, wetting his lips with a purposeful sweep of his tongue that Caroline's eyes follow greedily, "what do you mean?"
"I... I just—I like you," she admits, tired of pretending, of being afraid to lose him when she doesn't really have him, to begin with. Her head ducks and blond tendrils shift to cover the blushing sides of her face. "I like you the way I should have liked Stefan, or Enzo, or any of the guys who have made a pass at me tonight but I rejected because they weren't you. I like you the way I believed didn't even exist. I like you the way I shouldn't like you at all."
"I—"
"You don't have to say anything," Caroline adds when Klaus falters. "Actually," she squeezes her eyes shut, "please, don't say anything."
"I like you too."
Except that.
Her head snaps back up so quickly that the movement causes a throbbing ache to spear down the line of her spine.
"What?"
As much as Caroline hopes for him to, if only to ensure that she hasn't completely lost her mind and imagined his admission of reciprocation, Klaus doesn't repeat himself, his gaze glazed-over, all of a sudden, his expression pinched into a frown.
Somehow, he looks even more confused than she feels.
"Klaus... are you—are you okay?"
"I really want to kiss you."
Caroline's breath hitches.
Just like that, there is not one ounce of her that is the slightest bit drunk anymore. She's intoxicated quite all right, but it has all to do with a certain dimpled Cupid.
"Then do it."
"I... have never wanted to kiss anyone before."
His frown deepens with each word leaving his mouth, as if he's trying to put the pieces of an impossible puzzle together in his mind, and he so genuinely looks at a loss that even Caroline—reigning monarch of my back-up plans have back-up plans with back-up plans land—doesn't know what to say.
She doesn't have the time to think about it, anyway, because, the next instant, Klaus has already disappeared in a shower of golden particles.
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"Mother! Mother!" Klaus bellows, striding into the Golden Room without bothering for properness.
Poor April, Esther's assistant, is running behind him with no little difficulty, panting all the way.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Mrs. Mikaelson, he just—"
"It's fine, Dear," Esther reassures her, benevolently motioning for April to leave the two of them alone. "I was expecting him."
Klaus steps forward, a strange look on his face, millions of questions piling up in his brain.
Heavy doors close to allow them privacy.
"You were?"
But, as if she hasn't even heard him, Esther doesn't answer, favoring, instead, a different kind of explanation.
"Whenever someone is born, I can see the exact moment they will encounter their Soulmate. It can be quite sad, truth be told, because, far too many times, for one reason or another, such moment does not exist," she pauses, briefly battling with the weight of her knowledge, no easier to bear now than it was at the very beginning of the universe. "Needless to say, I was convinced I had seen it all. Until I had you."
Klaus futilely attempts to swallow down his nerves. "What are you talking about?"
"You are different, Niklaus, you have always been." A smile. "You were never meant to be a Cupid forever."
"Why?"
Esther's smile spills over into a wholehearted laugh. "Isn't it obvious? You, too, my Son, have a Soulmate."
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"Hello, Sweetheart."
Caroline locks her jaw, doing her best not to react to his presence. She has her back turned to him, a wet washcloth gripped in one of her hands, busy dusting off every single surface in sight despite her dorm room already being beyond clean and tidy.
Someone literally vanishing after a romantic declaration can bring a girl to the worst level of stress-cleaning.
"What do you want, Klaus?" she spats. "Come to gloat over my atrocious taste in men again? Believe me, at this point, I am more than self-aware."
Amusement is clear in the tone of his answer. "I'd say you are getting better, actually."
A scoff. "Obviously. I went from 'losers' straight to 'unrequited'."
"As I recall it," he's closer, now, the warmth of his body seeping into hers in waves, "I said that I like you back, didn't I?"
Caroline whirls around, stare a dangerous blue flame. "Yes!" she drops the washcloth to the ground and jabs a finger into his chest. "And, then, poof, you left! For two days, Klaus. You were just... gone. What am I supposed to think?"
"That I was terrified?"
Klaus' whole demeanor softens, but she stands her ground.
"Of what? Of me?"
"Of the emotions that you have awakened within me."
Despite herself, Caroline blushes. "I'm... sorry?"
"I'm not."
Her finger on his chest is joined by the others, her hand flattening against the smooth material of his henley, a pleasant change from his usual white button-down-shirts. He looks... different, somehow. More human.
"You said that you 'were' terrified?"
He chuckles. "So you caught that."
"One has to grasp at straws, with you."
One of his hands rises to cover hers, both of them perfectly attuned to the frantic beating of his heart.
"No more," he promises. "I have officially been demoted from being a Cupid."
"What?"
"Mmhmh. I'm an ordinary man, now. Well," he dimples down at her, "an ordinary man with a Soulmate."
Caroline has to bite down on her bottom lip to keep from grinning. "Are you?"
"Indeed. Care to help me find her, Sweetheart?"
Twinkling laughter bubbles up her chest and past the seam of her lips, her arms throwing themselves around Klaus' shoulders, effectively prompting him to bend his neck, to lower it until their noses are touching.
"I'm sure I'll be able to think of someone."