Prequel to 'Stuck on You'.
Caroline is a light sleeper.
It's a result of years upon years of cramming her study sessions well into the night in order to have the time to oversee all the committees she had been head of throughout high school during the day, needing a keen ear when the alarm would go off barely two or three hours after she had gone to bed. It's also a direct consequence of being a sheriff's daughter, constantly waiting up for her mother to come home after hours of exhausting overtime, constantly fearing that some other officer would show up on their doorstep, instead.
Even now, far away from the suffocating clutches of Mystic Falls and with her own event-planning company allowing her free reign over her work hours, she's always alert at the faintest of sounds.
A sudden crash right outside of her apartment's door at 1 AM, therefore, has her up and about in seconds.
She has pepper spray and a bat in hand—'preparation' is basically her middle name, thank you very much—by the time she's standing in the middle of her living area.
There's a second crash.
Caroline glares at the door as if it's object's very fault for being just a shade too dark of mahogany.
Something clinks outside, like metal being passed from one hand to the other, then—
"Oh, bloody hell!"
Caroline freezes at the deep, distinctly male voice.
She's not sure what she was expecting to go up against, but she's so not equipped to take on an actual burglar-slash-potential serial killer.
Taking a few steps back, she thumbs through the contacts list on her phone until she finds the name she was looking for.
"Care," Tyler picks up at the first ring, his voice immediately worried on the other side of the line. "Is everything okay?"
"Hi. Yes. I'm sorry to call you so late—"
"It's fine. You know I'm on call," he chuckles, "but you scared me."
She would feel bad about exploiting the fact that her ex-boyfriend is a police officer and she still remembers his night shifts schedule by heart if the two of them hadn't absolutely aced the whole 'let's remain friends' thing.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Well," she clears her throat, briefly hesitates with eyes never straying from the door, "there miiiiight be a kidnapper trying to break into my apartment."
"What?!"
She hears sudden noises in the background: a tap-tap-tapping of feet sprinting across linoleum, doors opening and closing hastily, an engine coming to life.
"It's probably nothing," she tries to convince herself more than him, "but I'd feel better if you could come check it out."
"I'm already on my way."
"Thank you, Ty."
"In the meantime, don't hang—"
Too late.
Tyler must be having a heart attack. But he knows her better than believing she would simply sit idly by, waiting for him to show up and rescue her.
More swearing comes from the other side of her door.
Whoever is trying to make his way in to kill her in the dead of night is doing a tragically terrible job at being subtle.
"Just fucking open!" A nice accent. A shoulder against wood. A dull thump. "Stupid American locks."
Her sense of self-preservation is the only thing that keeps Caroline from giggling out loud. Especially when the wanna-be perp starts whining like a toddler.
"This is ridiculous. I'm not even that drunk!"
She frowns.
'Drunk'?
But her confusion is short-lived, replaced by relief when she hears the siren of Tyler's cruiser nearing the complex, then switching off altogether.
"Hands up!"
Outside, something tumbles to the ground.
Caroline throws the door open wide.
Someone has tumbled to the ground.
"Caroline! Wait inside."
She shoots Tyler a furrowed-brows look—a silent 'as if!'—then steps closer to the person lying in a heap on the hallway floor.
Heap-person groans.
"I want to go hooome."
"I think you got the wrong home, buddy," Caroline replies, somewhat amused.
Tyler pulls heap-person up to his feet by the forearm. He's tall and lean, with sandy blond hair in a mess of curls and deep blue eyes that are slightly glazed over. She has missed beauty sleep for worse-looking individuals, in all fairness.
"I promise I'm not a serial killer."
Caroline snorts. "Because a serial killer would totally introduce himself as one."
He turns his head in her direction, cocks it to the side, watches her curiously for a long moment.
"He wouldn't introduce himself at all, if he were a good one."
"And he wouldn't be drunk off his ass."
(Former heap-person actually has a nice ass. She has checked—sue her! She had needed to thoroughly inspect him, after all, what with how he might have been there with ill intentions.)
He smirks like he knows exactly what she's thinking about, lop-sided and presumptuous, not to mention causing an adorable dimple to cut into his left cheek.
"So you agree, Sweetheart, that I cannot be a serial killer."
Her answering glare could be, though.
"I'm gonna need a name," Tyler interrupts them in his no-nonsense, police officer tone.
"Ah. Yes," the stranger diverts his attention from her, blinks a couple of times. "Klaus."
"Klaus... ?"
"Mikaelson. Niklaus, actually."
"And what is the reason behind the commotion you've been causing at such a late hour of the night, Mr. Mikaelson?"
"I was simply getting home."
"I think I'd remember having a roommate," Caroline deadpans, arms folded over her chest.
Klaus' gaze is lured back to her, and he regards her in a manner that is appreciative yet not vulgar, considering the fact that she has literally just met the guy. Any trace of inebriation is gone from his features, now.
"I assure you that you would most certainly remember me, Sweetheart."
She gasps.
What! a! jerk!
"Okay," Tyler snaps, "that's enough. You're under arrest for breach of the peace plus attempted breaking and entering."
"I live here!"
"No, you don't!" Caroline half screeches.
"Yes, I do! I might have had the wrong apartment, but I have just moved here. Mr. Saltzman will vouch for me."
"He'll have to do so at the station."
A pair of cuffs clicks shut around Klaus' wrists.
He studies them with an appalled expression, too taken aback to fight Tyler's tight grip, again on his forearm, as the latter guides him down the hallway and towards the complex's exit.
Caroline follows their figures until the two of them are all but completely out of her line of sight, then curses desperately under her breath.
Klaus Mikaelson better not be her new neighbor!
She has no intention of being stuck with him.