Caroline Forbes, ever since the tender age of nine, had stopped believing in true love. It was at that age she heard her parents have their first big fight, the kind that made her heart hurt so much she hid under the covers, listening to the sound of her own breathing for what felt like endless minutes until the house was nothing but quiet, and she felt nothing but empty. Her forays into teenage romance had not dissuaded her from her stance, only demonstrated that most guys were jerks who couldn't -and didn't want to- see past her blonde hair and Miss Mystic tiara. College was better, but not by much, and Caroline was all in all glad that she was done with education. Her career in Broadcast Journalism looked ever-more promising, and she even had an interview lined up at the start of the fall. So, yes, life had been cruel to her, but she was determined to put all that behind her, the same way she'd abandoned Mystic Falls and it's small-mindedness and it's crazy obsession with living in the past; Caroline Forbes was a woman of the future, and she intended for hers to be exceptionally bright...next week.

Right now was the time for her to rage, and wallow, and grieve, and eat lots of ice cream, which was why she was having this little getaway of hers. Her best friend since kindergarten, Elena Gilbert, had recently got an exciting new job in New Orleans as an assistant at one of their fanciest history museums, uncovering rooms and forgotten documents that had previously been sealed off due to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. With a History teacher step-father who the girl adored, Elena was in her own version as heaven, and Caroline couldn't be happier for her. Which was why, of course, she decided to darken her friend's door after dumping Tyler Lockwood, again, when she caught him cheating on her, again. With the same fricking woman! Seriously, talk about not keeping it on the down low. Jerk.

They'd crossed paths when on her first day as an intern at one of the smaller New York news outlets, completely taken back by the serendipitous occurrence. They'd both been reaching for the coffee pot, hands grazing, eyes locking onto each other...Suffice to say, it had been the perfect moment for a The Notebook loving gal like her. And, on the outside, Tyler himself had seemed perfect, so very different from their youth: perfect manners, perfect hair, a little rough and jock-like but also really kind and caring underneath his sports-reporting exterior. For a while, things had been really great between them, and she'd even thought about introducing him to her mom, who she was still incredibly close with, especially after her dad passed away two years ago with cancer. But then he'd revealed his darker side. The anger issues, the laziness. The drinking. And the cheating.

Caroline needed some time away, needed a new atmosphere and new people and new things to see. Plus a new wardrobe, just to cheer herself up. Just because Tyler Lockwood had decided she wasn't beautiful enough for him didn't mean she didn't appreciate herself or her looks. What did he know, anyway? The guy had owned, like, two suits, neither worth more than the amount of money he spent on potato chips a month, probably. And, from what she'd seen of it so far, New Orleans was exactly the kind of place she needed. Bars on almost every street, music pouring from every corner, colours so bright they seemed to pop off the canvases and street hangings and wrap around you in a lively embrace. It was all perfect.

That was, of course, until she found out that the waitressing job she'd had lined up had been filled already, and she had no idea how she was going to get by financially. Then Elena swooped in and saved the day when she told Caroline the museum was looking for a 'files assistant' -basically a secretary who went up and down the stairs all day- but at least she'd be hanging with her best friend.

It was her second week, and she's just endured another round of Caroline's Stiletto's Vs Stairs From Hell when she noticed one of the doors down the hall was ajar. Curiosity piqued, she walked to the open door and pushed it open, noticing it was full of artefacts covered in dust, as was the floor. Cinderella had obviously been slacking on this room. Glancing at her watch, she realized that Elena should have been back from her meeting about an hour ago, and Caroline knew she'd be pissed if she wasn't around with this file she'd requested...but wouldn't she be more pissed if Caroline denied herself the chance to live out her life-long female Indiana Jones dream?

Definitely.

Pulling up the flashlight on her phone, Caroline began having a snoop, looking around at all the objects on display. Suddenly, her foot caught on a hidden tarp covering some old painting, and she was falling, arms pinwheeling to slow her descent, phone crashing to the floor...

...and then her lips were crashing with something, hard and yet soft. Pulling back like she'd been electrocuted, Caroline felt her heart jack-hammering in her chest as she gazed at...a statute? A statute that was now...breathing? And was now swinging a leg over what looked to be some kind of glass-lidded coffin and stretching like a cat after a long nap?

"Good evening."

Caroline blinked.

"Ah, it seems I've startled you, my apologies. I'm Niklaus Mikaelson, but I prefer to go by Klaus these days," he said mildly, seemingly unphased by her silence as he continued to stretch his arms above his head in one long, languid motion. Holy frick, he was gorgeous. Insanely gorgeous. Magically gorgeous. Magically...

Finding her brain completely and utterly fried, Caroline blinked again.

"I know, I know, my gorgeous physique is a lot to take in at first, but can attest, these chiseled muscles are all quite authentic."

Wait...what?

"So, who should I be thanking for awakening me with such a glorious kiss?"

Before she knew what she was really saying, Caroline was blurting angrily, "It was an accident, okay? The door was open and I was curious and Elena was gone and I came in and I tripped and BAM! Accidental kiss!"

"Really, that's what you're going with?" the not-statute drawled, voice dripping with skepticism. "You just happened to walk in here, on a night of the full moon no less, and *trip onto my face? My, how unflattering. I'd always expected the woman who broke my curse to have at least *some degree of affection, or at the very least a passing interest, in me and my irresistible physique."

"Irresistible? Seriously?" Caroline scoffed. "Your ego is so big I'm surprised they could fit you in that coffin, pal. The only thing I couldn't resist was the allure of gravity, okay, and it therefore had absolutely nothing to do with you and your looks." She shrugged, unflappable. "I'd say you're pretty average, in fact."

Klaus smirked, sweet and wickedly dangerous. "I can assure you, I'm far above average, love."

"Listen, matey," the blonde marched up to him, jabbing a finger into the sepia fabric of his white shirt, "I'm not your love, I'm Caroline. Caroline Forbes, future Broadcast Journalist and current unamused, weirded-out files assistant. Now that you're awake, I think I'm gonna call like, I don't know? Security? A wizard, maybe, to see if you don't have any weird sleeping-curse side effects or whatever."

"Concerned for my well-being, are we?" he mocked with a raised brow.

"No, I just don't want to get sued; I'm sure princes have pretty good lawyers on retainer."

"Oh, there's no need for that," Klaus remarked, waving her concerns away like they were bothersome mosquitoes. "I'm sure my brother will be down here any minute. And while we may act like it, our family is far from royal."

Caroline took a step back. "'Brother'? You have a brother? So there's more of you?" She couldn't imagine anything worse.

"He's not quiet as breathtaking as me," he drawled narcissistically, "but yes, I do have a brother. And two more, actually, not that I'm fond of talking to either when it can be avoided, especially Finn: he is the definition of a wet blanket. Plus, there was this whole thing where I put him in a box for a century...or nine. It is the 21st century, isn't it?" Klaus inquired curiously. "I don't remember the women wearing such little clothing when I was last up and about. I must say, I am not opposed in the slightest." He shot her a wolfish grin that simultaneously repulsed her and sent butterflies surging in a swarm in her stomach.

She blamed it on his dimples.

"You try walking around in this heat all day, pal: you'd be lacking in the clothing department, too," Caroline said, crossing her arms over her chest protectively and sparing a glance at her watch. Where the heck was Elena? She could totally do with some best-friend backup right about now.

"As tempting as your offer is, Caroline, I'm not usually so quick to disrobe in front of such a new acquaintance. Perhaps after dinner..." he trailed off pointedly.

The blonde felt like she'd just drunk a whole bottle of lemon water and stepped in the world's ickiest pile of garbage. "Ew! What! No! Listen, I'm glad you're not lying in some creepy coffin Snow-White style and all, but as soon as I figure out what to do with you, I am out of here, you got that?"

She blinked, it was only just a blink, but Klaus was somehow taking up all her available vision, pushing into her personal space. "Come on, Caroline, aren't you just the tiniest bit curious? Surely it's not every day a woman kisses a man and has him wake from a supernatural curse?" he teased, eyes glittering with delighted amusement. No wonder someone had put him in a coffin; he broke the Richter scale of annoying.

"How do I know this is even anything to do with magic?" Caroline argued heatedly, restraining him with a hand planted firmly on his chest. "You could have just been in a coma or something! Heck, you could have just been faking!"

His eyes, so dark and blue and stormy, were sympathetic as he urged her, "But you're not trying to convince me of that, are you? You're a smart woman, you wouldn't be here otherwise, so you must see that my clothes are out of date and that this room is covered in so much dust it's like a grey storm cloud threw up in here. Don't you want to believe that magic is real, is out there in the world? And, more importantly, you're meant to be a part of it?"

"No, I don't!" Flopping into some antique chair that creaked ominously under her weight, Caroline put her head in her hands, groaning when she felt a growing pressure weighing at her temples, warnings of a serious migraine on the horizon. "Yeah, my life hasn't always been easy," she grumbled through her protective curtain of hair, "especially recently after my boyfriend cheated on me again and all-"

"Your boyfriend cheated on you? Repeatedly?" Klaus parroted, seemingly outraged. "What kind of idiot would do that? You seem like such a lovely, spirited young woman. Who would ever want to throw something such as that away?"

"Where was this kinda pep talk six weeks ago?" Caroline murmured under her breath, but his resultant smile was a clear indicator he'd heard her anyway. "I've been feeling a little...lost. God, why am I even telling you all this?" She straightened, wiping at the tears pooling under her lashes.

"Perhaps because I've been asleep for a very long time, and therefore won't judge you," he offered, not unkindly, pulling up a matching chair and setting it some feet away, straddling it like cops did while interrogating people in TV shows. With his white shirt, black jacket and matching slacks and shoes, he certainly pulled it off. "This man who hurt you, did you love him?" Klaus wondered, reaching into his pocket and offering her a handkerchief with the initials E.M on them. Why was that familiar? She brushed it aside just as she brushed away the streaks of mascara she could feel on her cheeks. "Thanks. And to answer your question, I thought I did. We had that whole picture-perfect romance thing going on. We've know each other our whole lives, and I'd been dating his best friend during high school but we broke up and I moved away and then I got a new job and then my dad died suddenly and...he was really there for me, just like I'd been when his dad passed away. I'd always thought he was such a hot-headed jerk, and he'd always thought that I was some dumb, neurotic mean-girl who tried to hard too impress everyone, and then we just clicked. I guess he proved I was all those things in the end, minus the mean thing, since I actually thought we were gonna make it."

Perhaps she was being indelicate, or perhaps she just wanted to turn the spotlight off herself for a moment and onto someone else, but she couldn't help but ask him, "Have you ever been in love, Mr Sleeping Curse Guy?"

He chuckled, either at her audacity, or her nickname, she wasn't sure. "No," Klaus told her as he crossed his arms over the headrest of the chair. "No, Caroline, I've never been in love. I've felt affection and love for my siblings, have had brief flings over the centuries, but none of them have ever worked out well, for me or for them. That soul-deep, yearning, burning connection, is one of the few things I have yet to experience."

That gave her pause. "Wait, so how old are you then?"

"Well, I was born just before the brink of the eleventh century, and was turned into a vampire in my early twenties," Klaus explained with an air of inherent laziness, as if they were discussing the weather and not the fact that he was almost older than dirt.

"Vampires are real?" Caroline croaked out in a squeaky voice, needing to him say it, to hear the words aloud to cement them in her mind.

"We are. My family are the Originals, of which every vampire can be traced back to. Its rather impressive, how the species has survived and thrived and adapted over the course of history, but we're still the ultimate predators, always and forever."

"Then how did you end up here in New Orleans?" Her fear and frustration and annoyance were ebbing away, leaving behind only the remnants of a endless curiosity to get to hear a tale that no one else in the whole world knew.

Klaus frowned, mouth pinched. "It's a long story," he hedged evasively, but Caroline plowed on.

"And I've got nothing but time and a packet of M&Ms if I get hungry. It's the least you could do after I broke your curse and all," Caroline pointed out, lathering the sweetness on thick like jam on toast.

The vampire huffed dramatically. "Fine, very well, I suppose gentlemanly etiquette calls for it and all. First, what year is it now?"

"2014," she told him.

"Alright. So, ninety five years ago, then, me and my family ruled this city as kings, had built New Orleans from the ground up into a thing of grandeur and daring beauty, and all the supernatural factions were getting along -yes, Caroline, to answer before you even ask, there isn't just vampires roaming these fair streets, but witches and werewolves, too- but every great empire has to fall. Every tale has its villain, and mine just happened to be my father..."

There was blood everywhere. Staining the stage where Mikael had posed his victims, coating his hands and dripping from his fingers like the paint he loved so much, Niklaus stared at his father in abject terror, feeling like that helpless little boy in the woods as he beat him mercilessly once again. And yet, somehow, he and his siblings made it out of there alive.

Biting into the delicate skin of his wrist, Klaus offered his blood to his little sister until she could stand on her own, watching as the ashes of their beloved city rained down on them, coating everything in a bitter greyness that had little to do with smoke. Mikael had ruined everything yet again, had taken everything from them just because he could, just to spite him. He'd fought and bled for this city, their home, and he would no stop just because his father wanted to kill him; there was nothing new there.

"I'm so sorry," Rebekah cried, heartbroken beyond repair. "This is all my fault."

"It's not, little sister," Klaus fervently assured her. "The fault lays entirely with me."

It was true. Mikael was here for him. And who was he to deny his father the pleasure of exacting the pain he'd been desperate to inflict for over nine hundred years?

So he pushed Rebekah into Elijah's arms, holding tight to them both. "I won't let him take this from us," Klaus vowed solemnly, looking at the two most important people in his life with a burning intensity that almost matched the flames at his back. "I won't let Mikael destroy one more good thing in this world. I'm asking you to go. Get somewhere safe. I'll send Marcellus to you if I can, and if I don't come out of there alive...know that I love you both, and I'm so sorry, for this, and every other misery I've brought into your lives. Look after each other."

"Niklaus, please. Brother, you don't have to do this," Elijah begged him, as vulnerable as he'd ever seen him.

Klaus shook his head, buttoning up his coat over his ruined jacket. "Yes, I do, brother. No more running, not for me. I treasure you both, always and forever."

His sister's wrenching sobs followed him as he made his way through the burning foyer, joining with the sound of crashing wood, a symphony of grief. Still on the stage, like he been waiting for him, like he'd known, Mikael offered him a gloating, victoriously vindicated smile.

"Ah, so you've returned, boy. Have you done back into the pit of hell for your little pet, Marcellus. I must say, such loyalty on your part is admirable, given the fact that I'm only here because of him."

Klaus denied his father's words. "You're lying."

"Am I?" Mikael wondered savagely before untying the ropes holding Marcel with a flick of the knife in his hand. "Why don't you ask him yourself?" he said, and hauled his best friend off the stage, his body landing with a grotesque thump amid the broken seats.

The Original was at his side in an instant, biting into his wrist yet again. Marcel tried to shove him away, but Klaus forced the bleeding cut into his mouth, watching grimly as he drank.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing the boy he'd raised said to him, coughing slightly as the smoke began to coalesce in the room.

"It seems to be a theme of the evening," Klaus noted wryly before helping him to his feet. "If what my father says is true, Marcellus, if you have really betrayed me and mine...I'll worry about it tomorrow. Tonight, you go with Bekah and get as far away from here as possible."

Marcel shook his head, stubborn as always. "I'm not leaving you, Klaus. Not today or tomorrow. Not ever."

"Who says I'll give you a choice?"

Before Marcel could raise a counter-argument, Mikael boomer from the front of the fiery stage, "If your protegé is going to run, he better do it now, Niklaus. Otherwise, he'll have a front row seat for your timely demise."

Turning to him, Klaus used all his considerable strength to shove Marcel in the direction of the exit. "Go, Marcel. Go before you die here with me."

"No! I can't leave you; you don't leave family."

"You're right," Klaus agreed solemnly, "they leave you." Pulling him in by his singed shirt front, tears spilling down both their cheeks, he compelled him to walk away and not come back for him, soul shattering into a million pieces as he watched him walk away with an automaton-like blankness.

"It's just you and me now, boy. As it should be. You, me...and a few of my new friends."

That was when Klaus noticed a host of unfamiliar heartbeats, previously hidden by the roar of the fire, holding their hands out in his direction. Witches.

"It's time for you to sleep, Niklaus. I'd wish you pleasant dreams, but that would mean I'd have to care. I hope you enjoy the next hundred years in hell..."

"So that's it," Klaus said to her now, no doubt expecting her to scream or turn away or display some sort of negative reaction to the story he'd just told her. "My father hired a group of witches to shackle me with some idiotic curse and left me here, a torture all of its own, to reside in the city I adored so much, only to be kept apart from it, resigned to hearing it all from behind glass, which I have no doubt was Elijah's doing; he did always have a certain flair for dramatics and-"

And she did none of those things. No, what Caroline did, in purely Caroline Forbes fashion, was throw her arms around him and hug him within an inch of his life. He was as stiff as an ironing board beneath her arms, but he eventually settled into her embrace. "I'm so sorry," she whispered into the side of his face, his stubble tickling her cheek in the faintest caress that she found she rather -guiltily, even though she wasn't doing anything wrong- enjoyed. "I'm so sorry your dad did that to you."

"It's alright, sweetheart," he assured her softly. "My days of affection for my father are far in the past, if they were ever there at all. It's not like I exactly made it easy for him to care for me; I'm a bit of a wild one, or so I'm told. Impetuous. Quick to anger. Incredibly violent. Over-protective of my family. Not qualities highly praised when looking for an obedient son."

"But you weren't always a vampire, right? I'm sure you were a perfectly nice kid."

Klaus quirked a brow. "What makes you say that, love?"

Caroline twirled a bracelet around her wrist, avoiding his gaze as she replied, "I know my um, spiel about my ex Tyler might suggest otherwise, but I'm usually a good judge of character, and since you woke up you haven't done anything particularly evil or anything, and I'm taking that as a good sign." Finally, her eyes locked with his, and she plucked up the courage to ask the question that had been spinning about at the forefront of her mind ever since he'd regaled her with his story, "Why was I able to break your curse?"

Frowning slightly, he backed away a step, leaning against the open coffin behind him. "That's a tad complicated, Caroline."

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Seriously? I'm not dumb: I had like four majors in college. Use small words if you have to."

Sighing heavily, Klaus had just opened his mouth when the door swung open, crashing into the opposite wall so hard it made her jump. Standing in the doorway, eyes wide with shock was... Elena's boss?

"Hello, brother. It's been a while," Klaus smirked, striding over and clapping him on the back.

Caroline gaped, all the rules of social etiquette she'd had drilled into her flying from her head. Brother.

"It's good to see you awake, brother," Mr Mikaelson replied, pulling away to shoot an inquiring glance in her direction, although his question was posed to his sibling, "I take it she's the one that broke your curse?"

Klaus smiled at her fondly. "Indeed she is. She's not what I expected, but that's hardly a bad thing."

"Quite. You taste in women had often been a tad... unpredictable."

Caroline crossed her arms, tapping her door impatiently. "Hello, I'm standing right here!"

Klaus' brother inclined his head apologetically. "Apologies, Miss Forbes. It's probably time I explain myself..."

"Elijah!" Elena burst into the room, hands on her hips. "I can't believe you did that! You do not just walk away from a conversation just because your brother finally wakes up after nearly a hundred years! You could have at least said where you were going. If I wasn't your girlfriend, we'd be having some serious words."

Elijah smiled at her lovingly. "I consider myself incredibly fortunate," he said while Elena offered her a wave. "Hi, Caroline. I take it you're having a weird day, right?"

She nodded. "You can say that, yeah. Also, you two are dating? Thanks for telling me...not. Wait, so you're dating a vampire, with means you've known about this freaky supernatural stuff the entire time? Seriously?"

"I'm sorry, I really didn't know this was going to happen, Care. I only offered you the job because I missed you and wanted you to stay in New Orleans and be away from all the Tyler drama, I swear. I didn't know that..." The brunette trailed off, looking at Elijah helplessly.

"What?" Caroline demanded heatedly. "You didn't know that I'm what, Elena?"

Klaus jumped in with, "The only way my sleeping curse could be broken, Caroline, was from a kiss from my one true love."

One.

True.

Love.

What?

Storming down the steps of the museum, Caroline focused on breathing normally, on not tripping in her heels, on not stepping on a sticky patch of gum on the curb, anything but Klaus' final words to her. One true love. She snorted disbelievingly. It was absurd. It was ridiculous. It was something right out of a fairy tale, and she'd long stopped believing in those. It had to be a trick, or a joke, or just something, anything but this. She couldn't be someone's true love, to a vampire no less. It was crazy! She was going crazy. It had to be the only explanation.

But if she was crazy, then so was Klaus, because as she crossed the street, he walked right into traffic after her, not even blinking at the cars that blared in his wake.

"Caroline! Caroline! Bloody hell, woman, slow down and listen to me-"

She whirled around, hair flying, jabbing a finger in his general direction. "Stay the heck away from me, okay! I'm not your one true love! I don't know how I woke you up and, frankly, I don't care! I just want to go home, crawl into bed, eat some more ice cream and forget that this day ever happened."

"Are you sure?" Klaus questioned her, something unfathomably certain solidifying in his crystalline eyes. "Are you so sure this is something you want to just walk away from? To forget?"

Caroline commented back, "Don't you?" surprised when he shook his head and said, "No, I don't."

Tough.

Spinning on her heel, she stalked away from him, banishing the image of him standing there with that forlorn expression like some puppy dog she'd just ruthlessly kicked. What kind of life had Klaus had, to live for a thousand years knowing that the man who raised him hated him enough to kill him, and to hurt innocent people in the process? What did that kind of emotional trauma do to a person? He must be super closed-off, never getting close to anybody, and yet...she was his true love, and he was hers. Out of all the people in all the world, they were the ones that fit together, were meant for each other. Which, yeah, sounded pretty ridiculous but...also not. He was blond; she was blonde. She had blue eyes, he had blue eyes. He had a past, and so did she. He was lonely, Caroline could tell, could read it in the slope of his shoulders and the angle of his smile, something dark and butter abd waiting for the next blow, the next person to decide he wasn't worth the effort and abandon him.

And by doing this, right now, she was putting her name at the top of his list.

So she stopped. Turned. Found him there. Waiting. Still waiting. Still waiting for someone to choose him, to love him. She didn't know him, didn't know the first thing about being someone's true love, but...maybe she'd give it a go. She was Caroline fricking Forbes, after all: she never turned down a challenge, and she knew that going down this road with him would have nothing but obstacles and potholes and skeletons jumping out of closet's -possibly real ones; it could be worth it, though.

Tentatively, Caroline bridged the distance between them, holding out her hand. "If we're going to do this, we're going to do this right," she declared authoratively before letting a slight smile bloom across her face. "Hi, I'm Caroline Forbes, future Broadcast Journalist and your apparent true love."

He took her hand, giving it a surprisingly gentle, almost reverent, shake. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Caroline Forbes. I'm Klaus Mikaelson, thousand year-old Original vampire, avid painter and your apparent true love."

Satisfied, Caroline looped her arm through his, steering them back in the direction of the museum. "So, I hope you don't mind, but I've got like a million questions I want to ask you, one of which is: can I call you Sleeping Beasty? 'Cause it totally fits, and if you're my true love, you've got to have a Caroline Forbes approved nickname."

Klaus shook his head amusedly. "You're a little more on the nose than you think, love. You see, I'm actually part werewolf, but I was cursed almost a thousand years ago by my mother so that my werewolf side would stay dormant."

Her eyes shone with interest. "Really? That sucks. Your parents suck. If I ever met them, I'd give them a piece of my mind, and my fist."

"I have no doubt about it, sweet Caroline." He held the door open as they made their way back in, something none of her other boyfriend's had ever done for her. Maybe this whole true love thing wouldn't be so bad, after all, maybe she shouldn't have been so quick to discard magic and the possibility of the fantastical from her life...but then she tuned back in to what Klaus was saying...

"Which is why I'm sorry to tell you, love, but I'm going to have to sacrifice your best friend, Elena, so that I can break my other curse. But don't worry, I'm sure Elijah's got some fail-safes in place -he seems particularly attached to her, I must say, it's unusual for him to be so soft, especially in regards to a human, but I suppose it's not a great shock, what with her being a doppelgänger and all..."

Or maybe not.

Author's Note: Hi, everyone! Welcome to my second Klaroline fic. I've had this sitting around for months, but finally finished it today. To those of you that follow my work, I just wanted to let you know that I'm participating in this year's season of The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition so I might not post as regularly for my other fandoms, but I will try my best.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this and, if you did, please leave a review.

All my love, Temperance Cain.