A/N: Here's the next chapter and I'm working hard on 23 right now. I want to do something special for the upcoming holiday in the story. And there's a character or two waiting in the wings to make their appearance - and they are losing patience with me. =) Thank you so much for the great reviews. All of them. Thanks to PerfectlyGoodHeart, , Teamvampirebarbie22, Ellavm18, lanibapt, jessnicole, Iansarmy, SarahCullen4, DevilJolie, chibichibi98, Bumblebey, KM, Hopelessromanticatheart26, An Amber Pen, spongee09, laurenroxbrough, secile, tvdandtoaddiction - all my guests! Thank you for the favorites and follows, always!

lateVMlover - I was scratching my head over that one too, why she was acting like that on TVD. Unless of course she's going to eat those words when Klaus comes to town lol

To the guest about Haley and Elijah and the baby - I do understand. Promise.

Well, seems that any URL here is scripted out so. My tumblr is at my username lok1sgrl then tumblr then dot com. lol See if they let me by with this. =)

Klaus was gone when I woke the next morning. Early the next morning with Rebekah pounding on the door of his bedroom, calling for me to get ready for our trip to Virginia. She knew I'd spent the night in his room and we were going off on a trip together. I'd be hearing about this. I shook my head as I stretched.

"Okay!" I called to her.

"Did you not let her sleep at all, Nik?" I heard her ask in the hallway.

His low chuckle was the only answer before he opened the door and walked in, closing it softly behind him. I yawned and stretched and he stood there smiling at me. He'd already showered, gotten dressed.

Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I shook my head. "So you're letting her think that we…"

"Why not? I'll have you soon enough," he assured me.

His words combined with the devilish grin he wore as he approached the bed had every inch of my body on red alert.

"You think so, huh?" I teased him, about to stand.

Grabbing my hands, he pushed me back on the bed, the strong length of his body lowering onto mine.

"I do think so." Klaus lower his lips to mine, kissing me with a finesse I'd never experienced. His lips were gentle, his tongue coaxing mine to explore him as he was exploring me. The heat of him pressing into me made me quickly light-headed. The firm grip he had on my wrists on either side of my head let me know I wasn't going anywhere until he released me.

And I was fine with that. My body was melting beneath his, shaping itself around the hardness of him. When I pushed my hips up against him, rolling them, he moaned into my mouth. When he pulled back to glance down at me, I could barely breathe. The raw desire in his blue eyes was intense.

"Keep doing that and not only will Rebekah being going alone," he warned, "she'll find you still here beneath me when she gets back with my witches." His lips scorched down over my jaw to my neck, biting me playfully with his human teeth before his mouth blazed a trail down to my chest. Nuzzling against one tight peak that he found, and not well concealed by my pj's, he seemed to be breathing me in. My hips pushed up against him in response, my body feeling like it was going up in flames.

"Nik, get off Caroline!" Rebekah called, back at the door. "We need to get going."

Klaus sighed, releasing my hands and pulling me up with him until we stood next to the bed. My legs were struggling to cooperate. His smirk told me he could tell too. Damn him.

Leaning in close, he whispered. "Go get ready, love, while I'm still able to let you."

Struggling to breathe, I nodded, walking around him and heading to my room. To my relief, Rebekah wasn't out there in the hallway waiting for me.

I showered and got myself together, put together what I'd need for a couple of days. I assumed it would only be a couple of days anyway. I tucked everything into my smallest suitcase and headed downstairs.

Rebekah was there talking to her brothers by the door when I reached her. Klaus' expression was particularly mischievous when I caught his gaze.

"There she is," he said. "All ready to go with you, sister."

"It took you long enough," Rebekah grumbled.

"It's only like six in the morning," I told her. "My brain usually doesn't engage until at least eight."

"Today it might even take a bit longer," Klaus added.

"Shut up," I told him, embarrassed by the insinuation. A little miffed because he was right. He could kiss like no one else I'd ever met and it was messing with my head. I'd be lucky if I'd packed what I needed with the thoughts of what had happened in his bedroom running through my mind.

"Well, let's see you off then," Elijah told us. Ever the gentleman, he picked up my suitcase as we walked out to the waiting car.

A nice BMW sedan. Rebekah had the keys, was already climbing into the driver's seat. Elijah placed my suitcase in the trunk. Klaus followed me to the passenger side of the car.

"One last thing," he told me. Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a phone. It was the latest version of the one I'd had. He'd even got a cover for it, one in swirls of pink and gold glitter. "For you."

Impulsively, I hugged him. "Thank you! I've missed my phone."

"I've taken the liberty of programming some things on it for you," he said, brushing a kiss on my cheek. "I expect you to use it. I want to hear from you."

"I will," I promised.

Pulling open the passenger door for me, he watched as I climbed into the front seat with Rebekah. He leaned down so we could both see him.

"Rebekah, you will keep her safe."

Rebekah nodded, starting the car.

"Stay with Rebekah," he said to me in the same commanding tone. "If anything should happen, call me immediately."

Smiling at him, I nodded.

Klaus shut the car door and we pulled out, heading for Virginia.

Rebekah glanced at me briefly as I began to play with my new phone. "That's going to come in handy, Caroline. We know the town where we are going. I need you to find someone named Clarice in that town. The faster you do that, the faster we can get back home."

I nodded. The faster we found the witches, the faster we could maybe get Bonnie back.

And then back to New Orleans? Back to Klaus? My head told me that it was time for me to get back home, back to my normal life. I had college, my mother and friends. Tyler was out of my life now. Mom always had the demands of her job. But there was still Elena. Who had Damon. And Bonnie, who I hoped with everything I had that we could get back. Then she could be with Jeremy. Stefan? Poor Stefan. He was finally back, Silas had done who knew what with him. He, out of all of them, might need me.

My heart squeezed in my chest at those thoughts. Because I knew someone else who needed me and his blue eyes haunted me as we headed down the highway.

Rebekah let me sleep for a few hours. We stopped and got some food. She'd packed a cooler with some blood bags too. When we got back on the road, I was driving and I was hoping that Rebekah would sleep for a while and I could listen to the radio. No such luck.

"So Nik finally won you over?" Rebekah asked, regarding me curiously. "At the very least, he got you in his bed. Of course, you might be compelled."

"You'd think that. But no, he didn't compel me. " I snorted. "And I've slept in his bed but that's all. So far."

Rebekah cocked a brow at me.

"So how is this going to work, Caroline? You and Nik?" Her sincere tone, no trace of sarcasm at all, surprised me.

I blew out an exhale. "I have no idea. I'm not even sure what I'm doing."

"You're playing a dangerous game from the sound of it, Caroline." Rebekah pulled out her phone in the seat next to me, scanning the screen. "It's not a wise choice to continue to string my brother along."

"I know, but that's not my intention," I admitted. "And Elijah's already been talking to me about making decisions where Klaus is concerned. He said I needed to make up my mind before your brother decided I was his."

"Elijah would say that," she told me. "But having spent quite a bit more time with Nik than Elijah has, I'm telling you to be careful, Caroline. If you hurt him, he'll hurt you. And his retaliation can be quite brutal."

"I know," I said quietly.

I could feel her staring at me as I drove.

"I'll be honest with you, I've never seen Nik like this, like he is with you. Well, not since…"

"Since?" Look at me digging for information.

"Since, Tatia. But we were human then," she explained.

"Tatia? Wasn't she a Petrova, like Elena?" Did I remember that right?

"Yes, Katherine and Elena are her doppelgangers." Rebekah looked up from her phone, staring out the window. "Klaus and Elijah were both crazy about her. Never understood the appeal myself. I think Elijah had it worse. He fell for Katherine too. He has a thing for the Petrovas. Klaus? I think he fancied himself in love with her because every other single man was. But I've never seen him act that way since… until now."

And didn't my eternal teen girl heart love hearing that?

"Since you've been with us, he's happier. A happier Nik makes life easier for me," Rebekah mused.

"So you want me and your brother to work to make your life easier?" I asked, laughing.

"Perhaps." She grinned back at me. "It's just…"

"Just?"

"It's different seeing him happy," Rebekah said. "Really happy. And I realize I want him to be happy. It's unbelievable for me to even think that after all the happiness he's stolen from me. But there it is."

Oh, I sensed there were some stories there.

"And just maybe, if he's found happiness with you, he'll allow the rest of us to be happy as well."

She sounded so sad when she said that. What had Klaus done to rob her of her happiness? I remember how he'd acted towards her when she came home last night. He had to know she was seeing someone. Was he unhappy about that? Did he know who she was seeing?

"So who's the guy?" I asked her.

"What?" she asked, caught off guard.

"Who is the guy?" I said slowly. "He was the reason you wanted to stay in New Orleans instead of coming on this trip. Right? Who is it?"

Rebekah blew out an exhale. "If you say a word, I'll rip your heart out."

Oh, this was going to be a good story.

"You have my word," I told her.

"It's Marcel."

Whoa. I knew that name. He was the vampire Klaus claimed had stolen everything from him, the reason the Mikaelsons had returned to New Orleans.

"Wow."

"So Klaus has told you about him?" she asked.

"Not much." It was the truth. "Just about the power struggle. Does Klaus know?"

Rebekah's eyes were a swirl of emotions. She nodded.

"So, spill. Tell me everything," I told her.

"Caroline, I'm actually starting to like you," Rebekah admitted. "I had a lot of fun on our shopping day and for once, I didn't feel that someone was spending time with me only because they wanted something."

"I know how that feels." Boy did I. "And for the record, I had fun too."

Still she was so hesitant.

"You're close to my brother, Caroline. If I give you the story, I don't want to put you in a situation where…"

"Or maybe, knowing the story, I can be of help to you?" I offered.

"I don't want you on the bad side of Nik on my account," she explained.

Rebekah continued to surprise me. Telling me she'd enjoyed our day out. Not wanting to put me in a position with Klaus by telling me about her relationship with Marcel. It sounded like she cared.

"Let me worry about that," I told her.

For a moment, I didn't think she'd say anything.

And then she launched into a tale of her, Elijah and Klaus in New Orleans nearly two centuries before. Marcel had been a slave boy who Klaus had rescued, given a name to. Rebekah didn't have to explain to me why he did it. Klaus would identify with the beaten, discarded boy because he'd lived that life as a human. As the boy grew to be a man, he and Rebekah had fallen in love. And that's where the tale got ugly. Klaus rejected the idea of Marcel with his sister. He'd offered him, in terrible but typical Klaus fashion, a terrible choice. Rebekah had ended up in a box for years, Marcel had become a vampire. Eventually, Mikael had chased his children out of New Orleans together.

Rebekah had only just learned, now in this time, that Marcel still loved her. He'd shown her the blueprints for the home he'd planned for them all those years ago. After all this time, he loved her still. And apparently she loved him. Enough to defy her brother and considering what Klaus was capable of, that was saying a lot.

I blinked back tears as I drove along, moved by their story. "So what are you going to do?"

"What can I do?" She shook her head. "Marcel won't leave the city any more thank Niklaus will. And it's not that I expect either of them to put my needs above theirs. I'd be perfectly happy to settle for any situation where I wasn't forced to choose between love and my family."

"Elijah wouldn't make you choose."

"No, he wouldn't. But Nik…"

"Needs to understand that you deserve to be happy too," I finished for her.

Rebekah looked alarmed. "Please remember your promise to me."

"I do. But if your brother steps over the line with you over this, don't expect me to silently watch," I told her.

Something in her expression softened.

"Caroline, if he daggers me, I'll survive," she said.

"I know but I don't think he'd go that far." Not with me, I added silently. I didn't think he'd hurt me.

I hated the concerned etched in her face.

"Besides, Klaus and Marcel may have to put their pissing contest off to deal with Tyler. If he is able to use Hayley to make hybrids, there might be trouble."

A long moment passed and I thought maybe Rebekah was thinking of getting some sleep.

"So Tyler," she said. "That's over?"

"That's over," I confirmed, finding it hurt a little less each time I thought about.

"Do you feel anything at all for my brother?" she asked. "Tell me the truth."

I cut my gaze to her and quickly back to the road. We'd just crossed the state line into Virginia on I77.

"You do," she realized.

I couldn't deny it.

"But there's so much more to it than that," I told her. The life I'd put on hold, the other people in my life. At the moment, I had no idea how those two worlds could collide and even begin to make sense.

"Caroline, you know as well as I what my brother is capable of. But at heart, he's a good man. He doesn't show that side of himself to the world, but it's there."

I loved her for saying that, for willing me to believe it.

"I know," I told her. "It's that side of him I'm falling in love with."

"Thank you, Caroline," she said in a serious tone.

"For what?"

"Just thank you."

After a few miles went by, I had to ask something.

"Did he tell you what to do with me if I decided to stay in Mystic Falls?" I asked her.

"No, he didn't." Rebekah yawned, stretching in the passenger seat. "But for once he didn't have to. I'll snap your neck myself if you decide to betray my brother."

She didn't say it with her normal menace. I smiled at that. I bet she would. As for Klaus, he was really trying to give me the trust I'd asked for.

"Oh, I saw a Baskin Robbins on the sign for the next exit," she pointed out. "We could stop and see if we can find this witch on the net."

Ice cream? I was all in favor of that.

I grinned at her. "Good idea."

And then maybe, we could see if there could was anything she could do for Bonnie.

We still had about three hours to go and a break would be nice. I pulled off at the next exit.