A/N- Hi Everyone, thanks for the positive reviews, I'm having fun writing this story.

Caroline hadn't entirely known what to expect when she went back to work on what should have been day three of her honeymoon.

She'd figured that there was no way she could be lucky enough for everyone to treat it like a regular day and just go about their business, but she also hoped that they wouldn't flee from her like she was carrying the plague.

Even if she was a runaway bride returning to work at an event company that had a large nuptial-based clientele.

So, like a coward, she heads into work early under the pretext of getting a head start on the day, after all, before eight am there was no line at her favourite café, the streets were pretty empty and the only one at the reception desk was the security guard.

Johnny was a great guy, a former cop injured in the line of fire, who'd known her mom, so Caroline had done him a favour and requested him specifically from the security company. Not that this fell under her purview but Johnny was attractive in a silver fox kind of way so Genevieve didn't care.

She greets him with a smile and they usually make conversation but today she doesn't want to risk it, because Johnny had just got the hang of reading newspaper on his phone and Caroline doesn't want to run the risk of having him ask about the wedding.

The outcome of which, she was sure, had been relayed tweet by tweet to the world.

She hadn't quite been able to bring herself to check yet.

Or to figure out how to respond.

But, when she reaches her desk, only a little dusty since she left it last week, she immediately begins setting up, unloading her laptop, her water bottle, her coffee, her notepad and Tiffany pen.

Sitting down at her desk chair with a sigh, she has a moment of confusion before realizing that this wasn't her desk chair.

Rolling her eyes and scoffing, she takes it in hand and wheels it over to Aurora's desk, knowing without a doubt that her bitchy co-worker had taken the opportunity to try and switch them over while she was out of the office.

Okay. False start but she sits down at her correct chair and takes a deep breath, exhaling with a smile and powers up her laptop.

For the last year, she had been arranging her work-life around her wedding commitments, not taking on too many clients whose dates would interfere with hers and as such, she had no open jobs at this time.

However, she's in work mode now, so she licks her lips, scribbles on her notepad until she's figured out what she wants to say before logging onto Facebook.

She has an insane number of messages and notifications.

She doesn't want to check any of them. Not yet anyway, this seemed like something she should do while crying over ice-cream in the bathtub.

Not that she had a bathtub but maybe the shower floor would work just as well.

She knows she should have handled this yesterday, when Genevieve replied to her email letting her know that she was expected at work on Tuesday morning, but she'd instead spent her Monday sleeping and then gone to get her hair done, filling the few remaining hours stress-cleaning.

Or- avoiding this exact situation.

At least she hadn't prematurely changed her Facebook name to Caroline Lockwood.

But she's in worker mode, so she quickly changes her relationship status to single and types out her post.

Caroline Forbes.

'After a busy weekend, Tyler and I are not married and are no longer in a relationship. I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and thank everyone for respecting our privacy. Those who would like their wedding presents returned can speak to Carol Lockwood, who picked them up from the hotel.'

Deep breath, press enter exhale and take a long sip on her coffee to try and ignore the fact that her cheeks were burning with humiliation.

Now to check her notifications.

She had two new friend requests.

One from Rebekah Mikaelson, who just said 'Hi' and one from Kol Mikaelson with the prompt, 'The Hot brother'

Rebekah, she adds immediately and Kol she adds but with the reply, 'I thought your name was Klaus?'

She then starts scanning Vogue and the other fashion magazines that she had online subscriptions for. Most of the clientele wanted the hottest events and for that, they wanted whatever was in season in terms of colour themes, catering and locations. This meant that a large part of Caroline's job was going through magazines and reading up on celebrity events to figure out what the latest trend was and build entire packages around that accordingly.

She's deep into a weird amalgamation of 'Back to Nature' and top of the line conveniences in locations that would cause irreparable damage to the environment when people start filtering into work.

She looks up with a smile, pretending not to see their surprise and goes back to work, receiving quiet hellos and fleeting but supportive touches on her shoulder before Aurora comes in.

"Oh My God!"

Her Southern drawl wakes up the entire office. And Caroline turns in her chair and takes in the woman.

Aurora came from oil money, with a daddy who'd brought her high-school diploma, university degree and then her freedom where multiple DUI's would have seen her without a licence and possibly doing jail time.

She'd tried to start her career in New York but there had apparently been an incident with the husband of a senator that had seen her hastily relocating to Richmond. To a house on Monument Ave that her brother had bought for her and which, on her first day working at Tremaine Events, she had introduced herself by bragging about it having six bedrooms when she only needed one.

The other five sat empty, even when Genevieve's house had been found to have asbestos and Caroline had offered her couch before the boss had booked herself into a hotel, Aurora had continued bemoaning loudly how hard it was to live in a house where her bedroom was so far from the kitchen.

Aurora is chewing gum, despite it not even being nine and carrying her oversized Gucci handbag on her arm as she clomps into the office in her Gucci heels and Gucci dress.

She was a walking billboard for the company apparently, even though, very few Gucci ready-to-wear outfits could be called 'work appropriate'

"Oh My God!" she repeats, coming to a stop before Caroline's desk, giving her nose a front row seat to a strong whiff of perfume Caroline would bet her life was also Gucci and stares down at her as if she's seen a ghost.

"I literally cannot believe you are here!" she announces for the office, the building and anyone passing by in the street,

"Like, after the disaster of your wedding, I assumed you'd blow your brains out. Your mom is a cop right, do you not have access to a gun?"

Through her family connections, Aurora provided a lot of business to Tremaine events, granted this business required the agency to try and source oversized chandeliers and the kind of decadence that two centuries ago would have inspired a revolution, so Caroline knows Genevieve probably won't take her side if she tackled Aurora to the ground.

"I'm not the kind of girl who dies over a broken heart," she replies, forcing a smile, "How was your weekend?"

"This is insane though…" she continues as if she hadn't heard Caroline speak,

"Like…how has Genevieve not fired you, you're obviously going to be bad luck now, no-one can hire you to organize a wedding if you can't even work yours."

Wow.

The millennial answer to moneyed-white trash.

"They can if they decide that the alternative is a barely tasteful plantation package with food so deep-fried it should come with a side of confederate flag." She snaps and Aurora reels back with a shriek, as if Caroline's insult had come out of nowhere.

She scurries off to the female bathrooms, to hog a stall as she weeps crocodile tears until somebody bit the bullet and went in to 'console' her.

Usually, the task fell to Genevieve's receptionist April but the girl only looks up from her phone, curls her lip in disgust and went back to her game.

"She's been a raging bitch since you went on leave," Melanie, another co-worker explained, "Literally, the very second you were out the door on your half-day, she announced that Genevieve should fire you because after your wedding you'd probably start having babies anyway. Then, she suggested she should be given your desk and that you were probably going to throw yourself off a bridge so we should take your name off the site."

Caroline forcibly swallowed her rage, "That's as good a reason as any to go on living well."

Melanie laughed, "Totally, eventually even Genevieve told her to shut up."

Caroline laughs and turns back to her laptop, judging she's got a few seconds to check Facebook before Genevieve came in at two minutes past nine, as she did every morning without fail.

She sees that she has another Facebook friend request, this one from Esther Mikaelson.

From Esther: 'Dear Caroline, Niklaus failed to mention that you work at Tremaine! Tell me, do you know who handled Dahlia Black's birthday party? The woman lorded the event over us all for months as being 'the very best', which it was and refused to tell us who organized it, I'd love to have the same person handle my charity balls'

Urgh, Dahlia Black.

Liz had stopped by her office one day, seen her in passing and called her the 'personification of child abduction cases'

Caroline friended Esther, 'That was Melanie Kadare, I'll send you her contact details.'

She then looks at her phone as it buzzes, seeing Klaus' name on the screen,

From: Klaus- 'Please ignore any and all Facebook requests from my family, it's how they lure in victims to their cult.'

She laughs types a quick reply just as Genevieve comes in the door, large sunglasses framing her face,

To: Klaus- 'Too late, your mom has already given me the recipe for the kool-aid'

"Good morning, everyone." Genevieve calls as she strides across the floor, straight to her office and Caroline grabs her notepad and pen, waiting five minutes before catching April's attention and jerking her head to the door. April purses her lips and glances down at her laptop, checking Genevieve's schedule before nodding and Caroline takes a breath, ignoring all eyes on her as she makes her way to the closed office.

"Enter," Genevieve calls and Caroline slips in, closing the door behind her,

"You look good, all things considered," her boss comments as she sits down, "Do yourself a favour and don't gain weight or let yourself go," she advises,

"In fact, make sure you are the best version of yourself online so your haters can't say Tyler was right to cheat on you."

Katherine was probably going to say the same thing in a few days. Caroline knows that the advice, while hurtful, was well-intended and helpful, so she nods,

"I will," she promises,

"Now, I finished my events before taking leave and need new jobs," she prompts and Genevieve makes a face as she looks to her tablet,

"You probably won't want me on weddings." She says so her boss doesn't have to and swallows the humiliation as she hums and scrolls through.

"It's April," Genevieve muses, "Which means pretty soon we'll be heading into birthday party season."

Caroline repressed a shudder and forced a smile.

Children's birthday parties were the worst. Parents always waited until the month of, to start planning and didn't understand that venues and play areas couldn't be booked at the last minute without extra costs.

And there were always the parents of one of the attending kids who decided then and there that their child suddenly had a deathly allergy to every single thing on the menu.

Still, it was work.

Genevieve does seem sympathetic as she asks Caroline to start getting packages together for children under fifteen, sweet-sixteens being a whole other ballpark, and promises her that when the philanthropists and lunching ladies came in to start organizing their charity galas, Caroline would see some of the work.

"Oh," Caroline says, half-out of her seat, "That reminds me, I think someone might be contacting Melanie for a charity ball."

Genevieve raises an eyebrow, "You referred them?"

Her tone is doubtful and Caroline doesn't exactly blame her. While Mystic Falls had given her plenty of opportunities to attend and plan balls, masquerades and luncheons, the town itself existed in a bubble, closed off from the rest of the world socially and not particularly wealthy in comparison, which meant she had left her home with no decent contacts to the kind of people Genevieve called friends.

She nods, "Yeah, I met her over the weekend, I'm friend with her son, her name is Esther and she's really nice and I'm pretty sure rich and…"

Genevieve is staring at her wide-eyed, "Not Esther Mikaelson?!"

"Yeah," Caroline pauses uncertainly, "Do you know her?"

Genevieve can't quite seem to believe her ears, "Esther Mikaelson? Widow of a Marquis, who built a huge property development company that practically rebuilt New Orleans after Katrina. Who sits on charity boards across Richmond…that Esther Mikaelson?"

Caroline bites her lip, "With a k?" she queries unsure, taking Genevieve's tablet and bringing up Facebook to see Caroline's friend list and Esther's profile comes up, showing a profile picture of her in a ballgown, standing on a staircase with a glass of champagne in hand.

"How?!" Genevieve demands, "I've been trying to meet with her for years, how did you meet her over the weekend?!"

Caroline tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, "Well, after I left my wedding, I met her son, Klaus and had lunch with the family the next day…"

She trails off and Genevieve takes off her glasses to glare at her, "I love and loathe you right now," she declares, "Go before I decide whether to kill or kiss you."

Caroline manages to hide her smile until she is out the door, but she does slide into April's space and hug the girl from behind, smothering an excited squeal just as Aurora's screech breaks all known laws of sound.

"How the hell are you friends with Klaus Mikaelson!"

"Are you kidding me?!"

Elijah smirked as Charlie backed into the change rooms, "Who the hell reschedules decompression surgery to go yachting off the coast of Florida?!"

"Nouveau-riche people with access to non-prescription morphine," Elijah answers with a sigh,

"Which means you and I have the day off, want to grab a drink?"

Charlie is still glaring at his phone, "Well, it's only eleven am but thanks to this we've been up all night. Sure, let's get drunk."

Typically, bars near hospitals were a good idea, especially when those getting off eighteen hour shifts were too tired to even consider staggering any further than necessary to get a drink.

The one near Hope Zion was called Benny's and Elijah thought he knew most of the bartenders in there, so he was slightly surprised when he and Charlie parked at the bar and found a brunette woman mixing a cocktail.

"Katherine." he blurted her name before he could help himself and she looked up, as surprised as he was, "Oh, hey man-slut," she greeted, "Come here often?"

Charlie's eyebrows go up at the nickname and Elijah releases a ragged sigh,

"Often enough to know you are new here."

Katherine smirked, "Oh I don't work here, I just got tired of waiting for the bartender to serve me."

She jerks her head and they see the emergency exit propped open, "Neckbeard has been on his smoke break for like thirty minutes now trying to convince some girls he met online to send him nudes."

She pours out the drink and sends it sliding down the bar to where a woman was waiting and took the payment,

"Cash only," she tells them, "I don't have the code for the pos system."

Charlie orders two beers and pays for them both, Katherine handing him the change before taking a shot of tequila and hoisting herself up onto the bar, swinging around and landing in the stool next to Elijah. "So, any idea where we are?" she asks, "I haven't been home yet and am still too buzzed to figure it out."

Elijah checked his watch to make sure he'd got the right time and it was noon.

He takes a sip of the beer and hands it off to Charlie, "How about I drive you home?" he offers, he thinks gallantly but she scowls,

"I don't know, your car is probably a breeding field of skanky diseases."

Still she makes an effort to stand in eight inch heels and Elijah claps Charlie on the back as she goes to find her jacket,

"You know I'm going to ask, tomorrow right?" he warns and Elijah sighs,

"Yeah, doesn't mean I have to answer though."

Katherine let him lead her to the hospital parking lot, snorting when drew out his keys and turned off the alarm to his Porsche.

"No wonder you slept with Jules," She laughed, "You are such a starter-package man-whore."

She still slides into the passenger seat and begins rifling through his glovebox, "Do you have a Brony membership card in here?" she teases and he rolls his eyes as he buckles in her seatbelt,

"I am not a men's right activist, thank-you very much."

She gives him a doubtful stare but also taps her address into the GPS and they descend the ramp,

They fall quiet as he drives and he wonders if she's falling asleep or having a rough comedown before she turns to him, "What's she like?"

He frowns in confusion, "Jules, you mean?" he clarifies and she nods,

"Aside from a homewrecker, who chooses to cheat, is she funny, sexy, a skilled magician?"

He concentrates on the traffic for a while as he tries to figure out how to answer. He knows that whatever he says, he's already ruined his chance with Katherine, so he might as well be honest.

"Manipulative." He answers, "I didn't realize it at the time of course, but she was telling me everything that I wished to hear about myself, things she only could have known if Niklaus had told her, she whispered them in my ear and the next thing I know, I'm destroying my little brother's trust in me."

"I'm not trying to resolve myself of blame," he adds, hastily, "I betrayed my brother in a way that is completely unforgivable but I've had a lot of time to try and figure out why I did it."

"And?" she prompts, causing him to sigh as the GPS beeped and he looked around for a park,

"Ego," he admits, "Ego and a pretty woman."

She hums and shrugs, "Ask any man that question and they'll say they were seduced, that she trapped them, as if they didn't have any choice."

"I did have a choice," he counters, "I made the wrong one."

He turns in his seat to face her, "Are you wondering what led Tyler to cheat?"

Katherine jerks her head and unbuckles her seat belt, "Come on up."

Elijah has always lived in wealthy areas, so he's not entirely sure if Katherine lives in a bad neighborhood or one of those trendy ones that his peers will be buying property in to gentrify and whitewash in a year or so.

Her apartment is in a converted warehouse with an old elevator that would have moved large goods back in the day and the he can hear the water pipes screaming in protest as she leads him down the hall.

She has a studio loft, but not like Niklaus' where everything was top of the line, but one where nothing matched, yet Elijah suspected it would be the height of fashion for people outside of his tax bracket.

"Tea." She says and he isn't sure it's a question because she's put a kettle on to boil and is throwing two tea bags into mismatched mugs.

"I always knew Caroline and Tyler were going to break up," she murmurs leaning on the counter and he mirrors her position,

"He looks good on paper, wealthy wasp from an old family, with a college degree working at some business in Richmond CBD."

She stops and gives him a pointed stare and he figures that most of that applies to him as well.

"But I know his father was a serial cheater on his mother, who is crazy as a barrel of rabid monkeys…"

"You know she's taking Caroline's place on their honeymoon?" he interjects, causing her eyes to go wide in surprise, "What?!"

He nods, glad to be able to reveal this piece of salacious gossip, "She announced it while Tyler was back at the hospital."

Katherine shuddered, "Well, even though I hate how Caroline figured out Tyler wasn't good for her, I'm glad she knows now instead of in ten years when she has to try and divorce him."

At least divorce would be an option for her, his own mother had had to wait until Mikael drank himself half-to-death and then fell into a Bayou swamp while wolf-hunting.

He's about to murmur something sympathetic when the pager app on his phone goes off.

"Sorry," he apologizes, "A patient Charlie and I were meant to operate on today, she changed her mind and is coming in after all."

He groaned and hoped that Charlie would still be fit to operate.

Hopefully, he hadn't drunk too much after Elijah had bailed on him.

Katherine walks him to the door, "You know, your slutty nature aside," she says conversationally and he hears his last chances with her burning to ash,

"I think you'll make a good friend, man-skank."

Elijah grins, "Well, at least until you run out of new names for me."

"Give me that bloody phone!"

Lucien scrambled to get away from Niklaus, the two of them leaving a path of chaos as they dashed around the office space. A few artists looking up from their sketching boards but otherwise not giving them any notice.

They're supposed to be working on cover designs for a new series coming out just before Christmas and the author had creative control which meant they were dealing with a very finicky young man who kept sending everything back as 'not cool enough', but that morning the two of them had been sent samples for a new energy drink and hadn't been able to concentrate on anything for a solid hour.

Which was why Lucien had climbed onto a desk and was balancing precariously as he Facebook-stalked Caroline Forbes.

"Nice!" he declares after he eventually finds her, "You know, not as hot as Freya, but…"

"Refer to my sister as hot again and I'll feed you your liver." Klaus grouses, kicking the table legs and causing his friend to wobble uncertainly before jumping down to the ground, "So, how soon before you can ask her out?"

He raises his eyebrows, "Her fiancée cheated on her not even…" he pauses and checks his watch, "Ninety-six hours ago."

"Yeah," Lucien makes a face, "I'm guessing you don't want to go the re-bound sex route."

"No," Klaus answers quickly, before Lucien can once again begin mourning the fact that Freya had slept with him after breaking up with Keelin and then never called him again.

"And in spite of what, nearly everyone is telling me, I'm going to be her friend for the foreseeable future."

"Real friend and Facebook friend." Lucien quipped, "I friended her for you, you're welcome."

He didn't.

Klaus quickly brings up his profile to see that Lucien had indeed sent Caroline a friend request on his behalf.

But…she had accepted.

Which was good.

Until he sees that half his bloody family had friended her as well.

Dammit.

A/N- Thanks for reading!