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We'd Skyped with Jeremy around lunch time that day and the mood in the house was somber after that. Haley in particular had seemed agitated, despite Elijah's reassurances that she'd be kept safe, and I guess I could understand why. Dealing with an unplanned pregnancy from a one night stand was one thing. Facing the birth of a child that would be like no other before it, was something else. Now Tyler was coming for her and the child to use in his plans to destroy Klaus. The original had other enemies who would think the same way. Yeah, for a werewolf who was just looking for her family? That had to suck.

But it was hard for me to feel too sorry for her. We all had to pay for the situations we got ourselves into. I usually did.

Elijah, a little frustrated from talking with Haley, returned to the living room. "Niklaus, did you know?"

Carefully Klaus pulled his hand away from mine, a movement Elijah didn't miss. Instantly he was in his brother's face.

"So immediately we assume that I knew the child would be able to create hybrids," Klaus sneered at him. "Perhaps I've got plans for a grand hybrid army using my child."

Oh, this was going to get ugly.

Elijah glanced in my direction. "If you'll excuse us, Caroline."

I got that I was being dismissed, and honestly, as deadly calm as Klaus was in that moment, it was probably dangerous to stay. Still, I looked to Klaus before moving. Something softened in his gaze for just a split second when he realized I was making it his choice whether I stayed or not.

He turned back to his brother with a venomous glare. To me he said, "Leave us if you would, sweetheart."

The way he said sweetheart, no trace of sarcasm in his voice, let me know that with everything going on at the moment, he didn't count me among those who he was angry with. And I escaped to my room before that could change. I pulled a blood bag from the mini-fridge Klaus had bought for my dorm room, and tried to shut out the rage fest that went on below. And it went on for a while.

The knock at my door had me jumping. "Come in," I said after a moment.

Rebekah walked in, a long slender object wrapped in an ancient dirty cloth in her hand.

"Is that Kol's sword?" I asked her.

Nodding, she joined me on the bed. Unwrapping it, she showed me what Kol had described. It looked like it had seen battle, nicked and discolored from time. Intricate designs had worn away on the handle here and there. Still, it was very well preserved weapon.

"Now all we need to do is arrange for Elijah's witch to do the locator spell," she said. "Considering what Kol said, we should probably do it sooner rather than later."

"Yeah, before they kill each other," I said, jerking my thumb in the direction of the living room. "That sounded bad."

Rebekah didn't try to hide her own concern. "It was bad. But it could have been so much worse. They are both still here in the house. Klaus, for once, didn't do something he wouldn't regret later. No one was daggered."

"So a tame day for them?" I teased.

Rebekah laughed. "Guess so."

"I think you have a lot to do with Nik's behavior, Caroline," she told me. "He's trying to be better. For you."

Something in my chest tightened at her words.

"If we're able to pull this off and find Kol's witches, I hope they are able to bring Bonnie back," Rebekah's voice was kind. "And I know you probably mean to go back to Mystic Falls with her. But I hope you'll think about staying here with us. I mean, Tyler…"

I was grateful she didn't finish that sentence.

"There are colleges down here," she said with a hint of girlish excitement. "I could go with you."

I smiled back at her. "Tulane?"

Rebekah nodded, her expression growing serious. "I don't know what we'll face in the days to come. If you stay, you know Niklaus won't let anything happen you," she assured me. "And I won't either."

Tears stung the backs of my eyes at that. It was the sort of thing I'd expect Bonnie or Elena to say to me. From Rebekah, it meant a lot. It wasn't just her brother she was making a case for. I grabbed her impulsively, giving her a hug.

When she pulled back she was grinning, hope stamped on her pretty face. "Does that mean you'll think about it?"

I nodded.

"Good," she said, surprised. Wrapping up the sword, she rose from my bed. "I've got to go out right now. Can I get you anything?"

I shook my head. "Can I raid your ice cream stash?"

Rebekah winked at me. "Of course."

She headed back out, leaving me with my thoughts again. And they were a mad jumble right now. I thought about what Rebekah came to tell me. Sure, she wanted me to stay for Klaus. Hadn't he just declared to all of them the other night when I'd been vervained that he loved me? And I could have sworn that maybe she was asking me to stay for her too.

Day faded into night. I streamed some of my tv shows on my laptop, I answered some emails, mostly from Mom. I had one from Elena who was asking me how everything was with what Kol had told us through Jeremy. She told me to be safe, to let her know if we were able to make any progress in bringing Bonnie back. She apologized for Damon without asking me anything about the state of things between Klaus and I. And she had to be dying to know. It was the Elena I remembered and I was so happy to have her and her emotions back.

At one in the morning, I was still awake. The house was quiet. I wasn't sure that Rebekah had returned yet. I remembered the ice cream and I thought I'd use that as an excuse to go downstairs. Maybe on the way, I'd see what else was going on.

I didn't have to go by Klaus' room to make my way downstairs, but I did backtrack down the hall in that direction. The light was on in his room, the door opened just a sliver. I heard small rapid sounds coming from within and I just knew the moment I snuck a look to see what he might be doing in there, I'd probably regret it. He'd realize I was there. As quietly as I could, I did just that, the door opening just a little more and not making a sound. Normally, Klaus was easily able to sense my presence.

If he knew I was there, he didn't let on. His back was to me and he was standing before an easel, working furiously at coloring the canvas it held which was already alight in blue, red, black and gray. I wasn't able to make out what he was depicting there. I wished I could see it better.

Quietly, I backed away, pretty sure he'd been unaware of my visit. I dashed back in the direction of the stairs, headed down to the kitchen. I'd almost reached the freezer when I heard the voices. Haley's voice I recognized instantly. The other voice was male. Deciding it was probably Elijah, I yanked open the freezer door to pick out some ice cream. When that male voice spoke again, I recognized it. It wasn't Elijah.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked, shutting the freezer door.

Heading for the garden, Elijah had showed me the way just the other day, I followed the sounds of their voices which had risen in pitch as I got closer. When I reached the glass door, I was pretty sure they couldn't see me yet, but I saw them. Haley dressed in her regular clothes as I was.

When I saw Tyler grab Haley's arm roughly, I burst through the door knowing I had to try and save her. I placed myself between them, staring Tyler down.

"Caroline," Tyler said, his mouth twisting in his anger. "You're still here?"

"Yeah," I said bitterly. "You'd think my boyfriend would know that."

Tyler's body was tensed, ready for a fight. His weight shifted from one foot to the other as he glared at me.

"Oh, I'm still your boyfriend?" he sneered. "When you're here with him?"

"Where I am or who I'm with isn't that important right now, Tyler." I didn't deny anything. "What are you doing?"

"He took everything from me," rage flashed in his eyes along with a hint of hybrid yellow. "I'm here to make that son-of-a-bitch pay. I'm going to destroy him. And if you don't want to get hurt, get out of my way. Better yet, go home, Care. You don't belong here."

I took a cautious step back, moving closer to Haley.

"I'm not going to let you take her, Tyler," I told him. I had no idea how I could best him in a fight. At least I could hold him off long enough for Haley to get back in the house, I decided. I wouldn't have thought that Tyler could ever bring himself to hurt me. But the wild eyed young man in front of me was pretty intimidating.

"Haley? Go," I told her. "Go in the house, find Elijah."

I was balanced on the balls of my feet, waiting for her to run, ready to block Tyler when he tried to stop her.

I didn't expect her to start laughing behind me.

"Seriously, Caroline?" Haley asked and I spun around to face her. "You think he's here to steal me away?"

I stared at her in disbelief.

Walking around me, she moved to Tyler's side, linking her arm with his to add insult to injury.

"I want to go with him!" she shouted at me. "All I've ever wanted was to find my family, werewolves, not your blood-sucking kind. Do you think I want to have a baby right now? Much less a freaky hybrid thing that's going to make me the target of every crazy Klaus Mikaelson has ever pissed off? No! I want to be with my kind. I want vampires to pay for what they've done to us. And I can make them pay."

I so didn't see any of this coming. This was the same person who'd been friendly with Rebekah, flirty with Elijah? She'd acted like the child she carried mattered to her since I'd arrived in New Orleans and now this?

"You're good," I told her. "I would never have guessed you hated vampires so much, Haley, especially since you slept with Klaus and looked like you were ready to make your move to Elijah's bed at any moment."

Tyler glared at Haley, making her falter in her tirade.

"I haven't seen anyone lie that well," I admitted. "Except maybe for Katherine Pierce. Maybe you're just the same type of self-preservationist bitch, huh?"

"Yeah? And what are you doing here?" she threw back at me. "You knew you couldn't hold on to Tyler, your friends are all either dead or don't need you anymore. You had to find someone to cling to. Who better than the baddest of them all, right Caroline?"

The look of loathing that earned me from Tyler was stunning. "You're sleeping with Klaus now?"

I could tell by the look on Haley's face that she didn't know the answer to that. I grinned at him.

"What if I have?" I asked him in my most unfriendly tone. "It doesn't seem to have bothered you that she did it."

Tyler was reaching the end of his patience, I could tell. Putting up a hand to stop our verbal skirmish, he shrugged off Haley's touch.

"Care," he said as calmly as he could manage. "I never meant for you to get hurt. I'm sorry. You and I weren't meant to be."

"You were meant to be with her?" I snapped, glaring at Haley.

"If you want to blame someone, blame him," Tyler told me. "Blame Klaus. He's the biggest reason we couldn't be together, Caroline. He designed it that way. He knew the minute he told you I could return to Mystic Falls that he'd have your eternal gratitude for his generosity."

His words hurt, I couldn't deny that. And I considered for just a moment what he was telling me.

"He knows who I am, Care. He knows I could never live my life, in any way, in the confines of what he would and wouldn't allow. He knew I'd leave you and that you'd fall into his lap. And look at where you are. You're in his mansion, in his home, and all he has to do is wait. He knows eventually, you'll fall into his arms. And when you give in to him? He'll do what he does with everything and everyone, Caroline. He'll destroy you. He's a monster. That's what he does."

"Haley and me? We share the same fight," he went on. "We have to bring him down."

Taking a step closer to me, his voice lowered. "I don't want you hurt, Caroline. Go home to Elena. Yeah, the Silas situation is still going on, but the war we're about to start is going to be a lot more dangerous. You'll be safer there her, Damon and Jeremy. Get away from him."

I shook my head at him. He really believed every word he was saying. At some point, the Tyler I knew had snapped. He'd lost his damn mind.

"Was Haley getting knocked up part of your plan?" I had to ask. At this point, I honestly couldn't say I'd be surprised.

Haley looked as if I'd slapped her.

"We didn't even know that," Tyler motioned in the direction of her extended belly, "was even possible. But now that its here, it will be quite useful."

"It?" I yelled at him. "It? It's a baby, Tyler."

"A baby what?" he shot back at me.

I took a step away from him. "You're so obsessed with your revenge on Klaus that you'd use an innocent life? Really?"

"It's his child, Caroline," he growled. "It's a monster, just like he is."

The crushed look on Haley's face told me she didn't necessarily agree.

"And you can live with this?" I asked her. She couldn't meet my gaze.

In that moment, I knew what I had to do.

"You're not taking her with you, Tyler," I said carefully.

"You're siding with him?" Tyler took a menacing step in my direction. "Really?"

"I'm not going to let you harm an innocent life in your lust for revenge," I told him, planting my feet apart and readying myself for anything.

"Yeah? And what do you think he plans to do with it? Huh?" he growled back.

"It's funny to hear you go on and on about how much of a monster Klaus is," I told him, walking around him to place myself between him and Haley. "Stop and listen to yourself. How are you any better?"

"Tyler?" Haley's voice behind me held a note of fear.

"You're defending him?" Tyler was incredulous. "After everything he's done, all the people he's killed, all the lives he ruined – including mine – you're taking his side?"

"Tyler?" Her voice sounded choked now.

Tyler's gaze never left mine. "That makes you no better than he is."

The remark was meant to shame me, I knew. Tyler had always been so good at getting what he wanted from me. Mostly sex but when he wanted me as a player in his schemes, I'd done that too. He knew what buttons to push.

It just didn't have the same impact now. I'd been so stingy with Klaus. For Tyler I'd laid out a banquet of myself. Klaus? I'd barely thrown him the scraps from my table. But Klaus always been the one there when I needed him. Klaus made me feel like I was worthwhile, worth something.

"I'd rather be a monster with him than be a monster with you," I sneered at him.

Tyler's gaze shifted to a point behind me. "Let her go."

Stepping away from Tyler and turning, I saw Klaus standing in the shadows, his hand wrapped around Haley's throat. Haley looked scared. And if she could see the cold fury in the original hybrid's expression at the moment, she would have been truly terrified.

I didn't know how long Klaus had been there, listening in the shadows, but the fact that he looked ready to rip Haley's heart out told me that he'd been there long enough.

"Tyler," Klaus said with deceptive calm. "We've been expecting you apparently."

"Let her go, Klaus," Tyler warned him. "Let her go and we'll just settle this right now. You and me."

Like I was watching a vivid nightmare, Tyler stepped toward him, arms out in challenge. Klaus shoved Haley roughly away from him. She stumbled but didn't fall. The men glared at each other, facing off.

Fear hummed through my body. I couldn't let Tyler take Haley. I couldn't watch him and Klaus try to kill each other.

In the space of a heartbeat, I took one step in Haley's direction, meaning to use my vamp speed to get her back in to the mansion. I didn't see Tyler until he grabbed me by the hair and pulling me viciously to him. I saw the flash of his hybrid teeth aimed at my neck but before I could react, Klaus had reached us. Tyler's teeth sank into Klaus' arm, and he roared in pain as I was released and fell to the ground.

It wasn't until that moment, I noticed the other two men there, large men moving through the shadows in the garden. One of them grabbed Haley, using supernatural speed as I'd planned to and took off with her, jumping the fence with his companion on his heels. Just like that, they'd taken Haley.

In the next instant, Tyler was gone.

"Klaus?" I scrambled to my feet, gently grabbing his arm.

Tyler had bitten through the Henley shirt Klaus wore, leaving jagged bleeding holes in his forearm. I winced, knowing how bad such a bite hurt.

"What do we need to do?" I asked him, panicking.

Klaus was furious, realizing he'd been played. "Tyler and the little wolf arranged this," he told me.

"Klaus? Your arm?" I was trying to get his attention but he kept staring in the direction Tyler had disappeared.

"He will pay for this," Klaus promised. "He will suffer as no one has suffered before."

Finally, I grabbed his face as he had done to me before, making him look at me. "Can this bite hurt you? Did –"

Klaus laughed humorlessly. "It will heal, love."

It was slowly healing as I watching. Pulling his arm away from me, he put his hands on his hips, staring at the ground. The moon was out brightly, showing me the tense lines of his face and body.

"I'm sorry," I told him finally, not knowing what else to say.

When his gaze finally lifted to meet mine, I read his confusion. "For what?"

"You should have let him bite me," I told him. "You could have kept them from taking Haley. You could have healed me later."

His eyes glittered in the dark and he shook his head. "Out of the question," he said. "He won't get far."

"Out of the question why? Because of your promise to me?"

I knew the minute the words left my mouth, what I'd done. I wasn't supposed to have been awake when he'd promised he wouldn't let anything else happen to me.

Klaus' gaze locked with mine, the intensity in his eyes taking my breath away.