Mistletoe

Chapter 2: (The Weatherman Says Its) Best to Stay Inside Tonight

"Well that's just great." Caroline muttered as she made her way over to the TV and turned on the news.

"I don't think the TV will help any, love." Klaus commented as he closed the front door and watched Caroline move about the room.

"We should have some shovels somewhere, maybe it's not as bad as we think, and we'll be able to clear the snow away." Caroline commented, not really hearing Klaus as she focused in on what the weatherman was saying.

What the weatherman had to say didn't help, and Caroline shut the TV off before throwing the remote at the wall. Usually, Klaus would have found Caroline's outburst to be adorable, and might have even teased her a bit, but at this point in time, he was right there with her. Instead, Klaus moved to Caroline's side, lightly placed his hands on her shoulders to steer her towards the barstools and got her to sit down before starting the coffee. As the coffee pot came to life, the duo remained silent, with Klaus watching Caroline closely, and Caroline silently seething. She had just started to be okay with the idea that they would be alone for the week last night before sneaking into his room, but that had been when they would be able to actually leave the cabin if they got annoyed with each other.

"You said your family has a bunch of games, right? We could play a game, or we could decorate the cabin like you suggested." Klaus offered, breaking the silence, Caroline barely moved or acknowledged that he had spoken. "Or I could walk around the cabin completely naked." He suggested, trying a get a reaction from her.

"You will do no such thing. It's freezing in here." Caroline responded, making brief eye contact and then turning her attention to the coffee pot when it stopped making noise.

"I only would have done it if you hadn't responded to anything else, love." Klaus said as he pinned her between his body and the counter when he reached for a mug for himself.

"Would you have really walked around the cabin naked if I hadn't responded?" Caroline asked, her breath hitching at Klaus' closeness.

"I guess we'll never know, will we love?" Klaus replied as he pulled away.

Caroline wanted to protest the loss of contact, but kept her mouth shut. She didn't want to inflate Klaus' ego any. But while she didn't say anything, her body betrayed her, and she moved backwards in an attempt to get the contact back. Klaus let out a chuckle from behind her, and Caroline's face heated up as a blush rose from her neck to her cheeks. Clearing her throat to clear away the embarrassment, Caroline poured herself a cup of coffee before making her escape from the kitchen. Klaus watched her leave with a smirk and a raised eyebrow but didn't say a word.

By the time that Caroline had closed her door upstairs, Klaus had started making breakfast for them. When she got back downstairs, Klaus was plating their food for them. As she stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Caroline took in the sight of Klaus working in the kitchen. The fact that he was taking everything that was going wrong in stride and doing little things to make sure she was okay made Caroline reevaluate her perception of him. It was yet another thing about him that made her like him just a little bit more. When he noticed that Caroline was standing at the bottom of the stairs, Klaus looked up and gave her a smile.

"Liking the view, love?" He asked.

"You are an ass, you know that, right?" Caroline retorted.

"It's okay to confess how you really feel about me, Caroline. No one else is around to hear it." Klaus said, his smile turning to a smirk.

"Except, you're here, and it would be extremely awkward to have to tell you that you're positively delusional." Caroline retorted.

"Didn't sound like it was all that awkward for you, love." Klaus commented.

Caroline's only response was to roll her eyes as she took a seat at the bar and started eating. When the first mouthful hit her tongue, however, Caroline had to internally groan. Of course Klaus was an exceptional cook. As Klaus took the spot next to Caroline, the blonde moved marginally further away from Klaus, concerned about how she would react if they were to touch again, but Klaus wasn't having that. Grabbing Caroline's stool, Klaus pulled it back towards him before lifting Caroline out of her chair and onto his lap, making sure to wrap his arms around her so that she couldn't squirm away. However, Caroline let out an undignified squeal when Klaus placed her in his lap and glared at him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Mikaelson!?" Caroline exclaimed.

"You said it's freezing in here. I'm making sure we stay warm. We would never live it down from our friends if we let the other freeze to death while being snowed into the cabin." Klaus replied innocently, all while subtly rubbing circles on Caroline's hip.

"I'm not a child Klaus. I don't need to sit on your lap while we eat." Caroline said, her glare deepening, but her tone lacking any real anger.

"So you're saying you'll sit on my lap for other activities? That'll make this week entertaining." Klaus replied with a grin.

"That's not what I meant." Caroline said while starting to hit his arm. "Let me go." She demanded.

"Don't think so, love. You crawled into my bed last night and didn't want either of us to leave it this morning, all in the name of staying warm. I am playing the same card. I'm cold, so you're going to keep me warm." Klaus said, pulling her against his chest.

"Klaus..." Caroline said, a hint of warning in her tone.

"Yes, Caroline?" He asked.

"Please let me go." She said, her voice small.

"You had no problem with being near me last night and this morning, what's changed Caroline?" Klaus asked.

"I..." Caroline started, but the words stuck in her throat. What had changed? She really had no idea. "I don't know." She admitted.

"Do you really want me to let you go? You were disappointed when I moved away from you when we were getting coffee, and you didn't want me to leave the bed this morning." Klaus inquired, lightly turning Caroline's face to look at him.

"I don't know what I want, Klaus, other then I need you to please let me go." Caroline said.

Klaus didn't know what else he could say, so he did what Caroline asked. He was surprised when she didn't make an escape back upstairs, like she had twice now, but simply moved back to her own stool, finishing her food without another sound. Once they had both finished eating, Klaus took their plates to the sink while Caroline made her way up to the attic to get the boxes of decorations. By the time that Caroline was bringing the first stack downstairs, Klaus was ready to ask her where she had gone to but seeing the boxes, the question died on his lips.

"Need any help?" Klaus asked instead as he moved towards her.

"Yes please." Caroline replied, letting Klaus take some of the boxes from her.

"Where would you like them?" He asked.

"Over by the fireplace. We'll figure out where everything goes once all of the boxes are down here and we open all of them." Caroline instructed, as she went to place the remaining boxes on the floor. "There's a few more stacks up there, if you wanted to help me bring them down." She added.

Before she could full step around him, Klaus lightly grabbed Caroline by the elbow and pulled her around to face him before pressing his lips to hers. Caroline didn't react at first, but Klaus wasn't pulling away, and soon enough she melted into the kiss and kissed him back. When they pulled away, Caroline slowly opened her eyes to look up at Klaus who was giving her an imploring look in return, gauging her reaction. When she didn't pull away or slap him, or even say anything, Klaus took that as an invitation to lean in for another kiss. This time, Caroline responded to the kiss a lot faster, and wrapped her arms around his neck. But when Klaus lightly ran his hands up her sides, Caroline pulled away.

"Stop pushing me away, Caroline." Klaus said with a sigh. "These mixed signals are getting old."

"I'm not pushing you away... at least not like that. We just need to finish getting the decorations down from the attic." Caroline said. She didn't want to give him the knowledge that she was ticklish on her sides.

"So you don't want to keep up the pretense of staying in separate bedrooms?" Klaus asked.

"Where did..." Caroline started, but let out a huff and started over. "That's a conversation for later, Klaus." She said instead and moved around him.

"Caroline, avoidance isn't going to help the situation. We need to talk about this- about us- and you consistently walking away from me isn't doing either of us any good." Klaus insisted as he followed very closely behind her.

"I'm not avoiding anything, Klaus. I just want to get one task done before we move on to something else." Caroline snapped.

"Then why won't you even look at me?" Klaus asked.

"Because I can't right now!" She replied as she ran her fingers through her hair.

When her hands fell to her sides, Klaus grabbed one and spun Caroline around to face him. Since she was in the middle of stepping up to the next stair, the backwards turn made her lose her footing and she fell into Klaus' arms. Glaring up at him she shoved him back and regained her footing before pushing him against the wall.

"Just give me time to wrap my head around what happened downstairs. I have no idea what the hell I feel towards you, and I need a chance to think. You being a persistent little pain in the ass is only going to succeed in getting me pissed off, and not receptive to anything else. So. Back. Off." Caroline said, punctuating the last three words with a hard poke to Klaus' chest.

Klaus didn't say anything in response, but simply held his hands up in surrender. He had seen Caroline truly pissed off before, and while this was nowhere near the worst that it could get, he could see that he was quickly approaching that level. Klaus also knew how unbearable Caroline could make the rest of the week for him if he truly pissed her off, and he didn't want that. Not wanting her to walk away from the close proximity that she had put them in, Klaus lightly pulled Caroline into a hug.

"I'm sorry Caroline. You're right, it's not fair of me to jump ahead when you need time to process everything. If you want space to think, I'll try to shovel out the porch. Or at least a pathway through the snow so that we can get out of the cabin." Klaus said before pulling away.

"From what the weatherman said on TV, it's still pretty bad out there. It's probably wait until it's meant to clear up. The back porch doesn't seem to be as blocked by the snow, so we can keep an eye on the weather through the kitchen windows." Caroline replied, stepping back to give Klaus, and herself, some space.

"Are you sure, love?" Klaus asked.

"I'm sure." Caroline said with a nod.

The rest of the day was spent in a lightly tense silence, with them only talking when they asked the other to hand them a decoration or an ornament when they were decorating the tree. By mid-afternoon, Caroline was exhausted and had told Klaus that she was going to take a nap before dinner. Once she was upstairs in the safety of her room, Caroline made sure to close and lock the door and made her way over to the bathroom. Choosing to take a quick shower before taking her nap. She hoped that the hot water would ease her tense muscles and would help clear her mind. Unfortunately her plan didn't work out the way she wanted it to. Because instead of clearing her mind, she was left even more confused by how she truly felt about Klaus due to the heat causing some arousing images of the man in question to pop into Caroline's head.

With a groan as she stepped out of the shower, Caroline dried off, wrapped her hair into a towel and slipped into her pajamas. But as the material slipped over her head, she caught a whiff of Klaus' cologne and Caroline groaned again before allowing her body to fall forward onto her bed. Grabbing her pillow, she let out a frustrated scream before flopping over onto her back and staring at the ceiling. After laying like that for a few minutes, Caroline unwrapped the towel from her hair and curled up under the covers, closing her eyes and willing sleep to claim her body and mind. When all that happened was a bunch of tossing and turning, Caroline gave up even trying. Clearly she wasn't going to get a reprieve from her confusing thoughts and she threw the covers off of her bed and placed her hand on her forehead. Getting up, Caroline headed towards the door, fully intending on going downstairs and seeing if there was anything she could do to help get dinner started, but when she pulled the door open, Klaus was standing there, hand raised in a fist as if he was about to knock.

"You're awake." Klaus commented.

"I couldn't fall asleep." Caroline admitted.

"Would you like some company? Strictly platonic, of course. You under the covers on one side of the bed; me on top of the covers, drawing, on the other side of the bed." Klaus inquired.

"We can try it." Caroline said after thinking it over for a few minutes.

"Which room?" Klaus asked.

"Mine." Caroline replied, turning around and leaving the door open as she made her way back to bed.

"I'll just grab my sketchbook." Klaus commented, more to himself than to Caroline.

By the time that Caroline had gotten into a comfortable position, Klaus was back and was setting up the extra pillows behind his back so that he could comfortably sit up and sketch as Caroline slowly closed her eyes to the sound of the pencil scratching across the paper. She didn't know how long she slept for, but by the time that Caroline woke up, her stomach was growling at her, and Klaus had started on a new sketch. From the quick glimpse she got of it before Klaus realized she was awake, Caroline could have sworn that it was of her.

"Let's get some dinner in you, love. I can hear your stomach growling." Klaus said softly as he stood up.

"So you're not going to try and shovel out the front porch like a crazy person?" Caroline asked.

"You said that you would prefer that I not do that until we see that the weather has cleared up. And I agreed." Klaus said. "I, unlike our beloved friends, don't want to piss you off this week." He added with a smirk.

"I don't think they purposefully were trying to piss me off." Caroline quickly defended their friends.

"Every single one of our friends, aside from Stefan and Damon, had said that they would be coming. And then in the week and half leading up to this trip, capping it off with Elena and Jeremy calling as we were driving here yesterday, backed out. If that's not purposefully trying to piss you off, when everyone in our group knows how much you hate it when people do that, then I don't know what is." Klaus said.

"They could have had another reason other than just to spite me for backing out."

"Do I need to remind you that you said yesterday that if Elena and Elijah had something to do with that other reason, that you would kill them?"

"No."

"Okay, then the only reason left is that our friends wanted to piss you off. Now that we have that settled, let's go make dinner."