A/N: Sorry this took so long. I'm in the process of moving, so finding time to write has been difficult.

Nonetheless, I am still loving this story, and I hope you are all still enjoying it too. Thank you for the continued support! And let me assure you, all of the little secrets (and the big ones) will be revealed soon enough. Keep up with the theories; I'm loving them!

Also, thank you so much to those complimenting the way Caroline is written. I am putting a lot of work into her, and it's really nice to know you guys are empathising with her struggles.

Enjoy!

Wednesday | Smile Like You Mean It

She paused outside the classroom, ignoring the dramatic groans of her fellow students as they were forced to move around her, and contemplated whether or not she actually wanted to step through the doorway. Speaking as someone who really was not a fan of both her arrogant project partner and her sleazy teacher, the prospect of skiving off—just this class, of course—was somewhat appealing. But speaking as someone who had never, ever missed a class outside of an unavoidable emergency or scheduled appointment, the idea was terrifying. What sort of trouble did people who skipped suffer?

Caroline, evidently, was in no mood to find out.

Sucking up the dread polluting her body, willing away the disturbing, terrifying look that had taken over Tyler's face last night, she reminded herself how lovely she looked in her brand new vintage pink blouse, how perfectly her waves were falling over her shoulders, and pushed through the door.

Unlike on Monday, she was five minutes early. Nobody turned their head when the hinges warbled in protest—half of the seats were still empty. To her left, Tanner was on his knees in front of a television. In any other class, she would be happy to relax and watch a video, but this was health. Whatever film they were going to see could not be very enjoyable. She remembered in seventh grade health when her class was forced to watch a video on puberty. All boys and girls together learning about periods and wet dreams, and it was the most uncomfortable forty-five minutes of her life at the time.

Today's video could be no better based on the subject matter they were covering. She imagined a DVD filled with teen pregnancy horror stories that ended in bloody deaths. Or maybe Tanner would go the simpler route and just force them to watch 16 and Pregnant for the duration of the class period.

Written on the board was a message: Sit with your project partner. Annoyance, though debatably less annoyance than was typical, seeped inside Caroline. She scanned the room and found Klaus sitting where he had been on Monday. Right at the back, the hood of his navy blue jacket covering his eyes, his head crooked to imply he was napping. They were all tired, but who actually slept in class?

Caroline took the seat to Klaus's right and loudly dropped her books on the desk. Beside her, Klaus jerked awake. He sat rigid in his desk. Frantically scanning the room, his wide, smoky blue eyes caught Caroline off guard. He actually looked scared. But in a blink of her eyes his face had resumed its normal arrogant front.

"Are you always so noisy in the morning?" he asked, that damned smirk on full display. He folded his arms on top of the desk like a pillow just in case he couldn't bare to keep his eyes open for too much longer.

"Are you always so narcoleptic in the morning?" she countered.

Klaus sat up straighter. Unfolding his arms, he placed a hand on his chest. "I didn't know you had such foul words in your vocabulary, Miss Forbes."

"What?" Caroline frowned, an unwelcome smile beginning to tug up the corners of her mouth. "Do you even know what narcoleptic means?"

Klaus paused. His smirk fell away. "Is it not the weird and gross sexual attraction to dead bodies?"

"Nope. No, no, no. no," Caroline said, bunching her face in revulsion. "That's necrophilia. Completely different."

"Oh. Then what's it mean to be narcoleptic?" Klaus asked. He sounded somewhat disappointed, though she didn't detect any embarrassment.

Caroline smiled at his ignorance. She wasn't even upset that he had been asleep when she came into the room anymore. His look of pure huh? somehow managed to melt away her automatic emotional response to Klaus's irritating habits. "It's a medical condition. Basically, you can't help falling asleep whenever you're relaxed."

"And you think I've got that?" He was leaning closer to her, his chin resting in the palm of his hand.

Caroline stayed where she was, body turned towards Klaus. Her fingers fussed with the clicker on her pen. "No, I was joking. I was just pointing out that you always seem to be asleep when I get to first period. Even in gym class."

"Can't help noticing, can you, love? Your eyes automatically find me in a crowded room," he said in a low, satisfied hum.

She had not meant that at all. Her eyes did not automatically find him in any room. But that same excitement from the Grill took ahold of her, urging her to play along with his silly game. She found herself warming to this side of Klaus. The playfulness in his eyes was new to her. Matt's were always too kind. Tyler's too menacing.

Caroline's mind blanked on how to respond.

As if sensing her struggle, the final bell clanged. Mr. Tanner clapped his hands and the room instantly stilled. Relieved, Caroline twisted in her chair away from Klaus. A few seconds later, she felt his stare abandon her face; her body relaxed as he did so, which made her wonder why she had been so tense in the first place.

"Movie day, kids," Tanner said, waving the remote control for the television in the air. Caroline looked around the room and saw that the seats were now all filled. "Anyone care to guess what we're watching?"

Half of the room's hands shot up. Tanner picked on them one by one.

"Rosemary's Baby!"

"Three Men and a Baby!"

"A marathon of The Secret Life of the American Teenager?"

"No, no, and definitely not," Tanner said. He raised a DVD case in the air. Wait, it wasn't a DVD—it was a VHS tape. "My Labour and Delivery. You guys are going to get a front row seat to a teenager's painful and lengthy delivery." Several disgruntled students began to protest, but Tanner cut them all off. "No whining. The film's forty-five minutes long. When it's finished, you will all spend the remaining time writing out your own birthing plans. Okay—let's get started."

The movie was disgusting. The poor girl made noises Caroline had only ever heard on nature documentaries. At one point, when the baby began crowning, Caroline thought she might pass out. To see the vagina split like that, and to see a giant head pushing out, and to hear the mother's cries of agony. . .it was enough to make her never want children.

Everyone else was in the same boat. Several people had taken to simply covering their eyes. Others squinted through the gross bits. Tanner sat at his desk, flipping through a magazine.

Caroline's eyes wandered to Klaus whenever the television screen showed something too vile. She noticed he had his journal out again. Charcoal pencils of varying hardness littered his desk. His fingers were covered in black as he sketched wildly, his focus wholly on the page. She couldn't quite see what he was drawing, but she thought she caught a glimpse of a nose at one point.

The video finished with the girl exclaiming she would never have sex again. They cut away before she got to hold her baby, a moment Caroline believed would have made the excruciating labour worthwhile, but the school couldn't have them seeing the love between mother and child. It went against the message they were trying desperately to send.

Tanner switched the lights on and turned off the television. "Your blank birthing plan is in your booklet," he said, collapsing back in his chair. "Work with your partner to write one out based on the information shared in the video. You have forty minutes. Don't waste a single second."

Flipping through the booklet to find the pages covering the birthing plan, Caroline watched Klaus turn to a blank page in his journal. He put away his charcoal pencils in favour of a pen. Glancing up at her, he smirked.

"What did I say, love. You always find me," he said.

Caroline's eyes spun. "Right. It has nothing to do with the fact that we're partners and I sort of have to look at you." She gripped her pen and stared at the template. "Let's get this birthing plan over with."

Digging around in his backpack, Klaus lifted Ginger carefully out and placed her on his desk. "I thought we'd already given birth," he said. "What's the point of writing a birthing plan now? This all seems very out of order."

She tried not to, but she couldn't help herself—Caroline smiled and breathed through a strong urge to laugh. "I'm sure in some cultures it's normal to get your birthing plan written after giving birth," she said, taking the lid off of Ginger's container. Their egg—baby—looked perfectly fine. She had been concerned last night that Klaus would damage it. Returning to the booklet, she said, "Okay, the first things we need to do are fill out our information."

When she had found the birthing plan page, Caroline had not thought it would suck up the remaining half of class. But she had managed to forget that working with Klaus Mikaelson meant everything took longer. He was full of ridiculous questions, most of which had her suppressing the urge to smack him. Some of which, though, had her suppressing more laughter.

They argued over whether or not the delivery would be vaginal or planned caesarean section. She quickly got tired of hearing Klaus say the word vaginal and decided on a C-section just to shut him up about it. The choice of C-section meant Caroline had to check off the Pain Relievers Allowed box. She couldn't imagine someone slicing open her stomach without drugs running through her.

By the time the bell went off, signalling the end of another gruelling health class, Caroline and Klaus cleared their desks and departed the classroom side by side. It felt weird leaving with him next to her. Usually, when he would bump into her during dodgeball or volleyball, she would get this prickly flame up her back. She'd have to stop herself from tackling him. But each time his shoulder brushed hers on the way out the door, those hot pinpricks were a no-show.

In their place was a similar sensation, but much more pleasant. Warm tingles tapped her spine steadily, creeping up to her neck. She wiggled when they were out of the room in an attempt to rid herself of the feeling.

"Are you having some sort of fit?" Klaus asked, watching her shake.

She stopped immediately and straightened. "Nope. No, I'm fine. Just stretching out."

"Okay. . ." He didn't sound entirely sure, but he dropped the subject. "We're still on for your house this afternoon?"

Right. She had forgotten about that. "Of course," she said, starting to walk towards her next class. "4:30. Don't be late."

"You're the one who was late last time, love!" he cried, causing their fellow students to turn their heads and stare at them.

Their faces were alive with fascination. Why was Klaus Mikaelson calling Caroline Forbes love?

Caroline frowned at him across the hall. "Don't call me that," she hissed loudly.

They both turned around at the same time and headed in opposite directions. That warmth was gone, quickly replaced by a chilled resignation that Klaus was always going to be a bit of an ass even if they were getting on better now than on Monday. And practically every day before Monday since they met.

But Klaus Mikaelson in her home? She would have to skip a shower after practice and run home to clean. Prepare snacks.

She was almost excited about the prospect. Mostly she was terrified, but she would focus on the excitement instead. It was probably better for the health of her heart.

—

Caroline marvelled at the layout in the kitchen—hummus and warmed pita bread, water with lemon slices, two bowls of different types of crisps—and smiled. It looked alright. It looked better than alright actually, but she had been told from a young age to not be so self-satisfied. There was space on the island for them to sit and spread out their things without having to be too close. She had even set up a spot for Ginger in a little nest.

Damn good work for only twenty minutes.

"Are you even listening?"

Startling, Caroline remembered the phone pressed to her ear. "Um. . .yes?" she said. Bonnie hated it when people didn't pay attention during a call.

"I said, the grill is weird without you," Bonnie repeated.

"Are they there?" Caroline asked, knowing she shouldn't have. But curiosity was in her nature.

"Yes. And they're disgusting," Bonnie said. "We're refusing to sit with the footballers. We're on your side, Care."

"How many are actually not sitting with them?"

Bonnie took a moment to respond. "Three," she said quietly.

It didn't surprise Caroline. No one knew the story—even Bonnie knew only part of it—and it wasn't shocking that a football star like Tyler would bounce back from a breakup so soon.

She couldn't blame her fellow cheerleaders for not wanting to go on strike with Bonnie. Tyler wasn't the only player on the team after all. Lots of the girls either had crushes on the other guys or were dating them.

Caroline checked the clock hanging in the kitchen. It was almost 4:30. "Bon, I gotta go. Klaus is coming by soon."

"How's that going by the way?" Bonnie asked in a hushed voice, as if she was scared of the crowd hearing Klaus's name. "Someone said they saw you guys laughing in the hall this morning. Someone else said you guys were professing your love for each other."

Had she been laughing with Klaus in the hall that morning? She remembered leaving class with him. She remembered that eerie warmth. "That's ridiculous. Neither of us professed anything. It's going fine. We're getting along."

"Getting along?"

"Yeah. When he's not being a dick, he's actually kind of funny. And he's a good distraction from all of the Tyler stuff."

"Care, you don't. . .like him, do you?"

Caroline blanched. The pita bread she had just been about to eat fell out of her hand. "What? No," she said quickly. "No. He's. . .he's Klaus."

"Okay, okay. I only ask because you've got that—what's that word? Timbre?—in your voice. I recognise it from when you and Tyler first started hanging out."

"Well, there is no timbre to my voice. We're partners for this stupid project and the second it's over, we'll go back to pretending the other doesn't exist," Caroline said.

"Just be careful, Caroline," Bonnie whispered.

She had a good best friend. "I will be," she promised. "I gotta go, Bon. Enjoy the Grill."

The two hung up, and in the silence Caroline started going over what Bonnie had said.

Timbre? What did having a timbre in her voice even mean?

Apparently it meant that she was drooling over Klaus, which she wasn't. At all. No way in hell was that happening.

Klaus was. . .well, he was Klaus. The weird loner nobody quite understood, and whose aloofness led others to be afraid of him. And it was that fear that led to all of those rumours spreading about him, some of which had to be true. He was their very own John Bender.

But she was not Claire Standish.

Minutes into her internal meltdown over Bonnie's comments, the doorbell rang. Caroline pushed aside what her friend had said—she was so good at pushing things aside—and welcomed Klaus to her home.

"Very nice place," he said upon entering. "Very tidy."

"Thanks," she said, surprised by the compliment. "I love to clean."

He scoffed, but not unkindly. "Of course you do."

They stared at each other a moment, eyes locked, neither one moving. Caroline took in the grey-green shadows under his eyes. The frown lines between his eyebrows.

"We're, uh, we're in the kitchen," she said, catching herself before things got too awkward. Push, push, push, she reminded herself.

Klaus followed her into the kitchen and sat where she told him to. He immediately went for the salt and vinegar crisps. "They taste almost as good as back home," he said.

Sitting beside him with her books laid out in front of her, Caroline took some crisps for herself. "You've got better ones at home? Which ones are they? Salt and vinegar are my favourite."

Klaus turned his face towards her. "I meant England," he said. Then he frowned. "Caroline Forbes likes salt and vinegar crisps? I thought cheerleaders weren't allowed to eat this crap?"

"We are. Everything's okay in moderation," she said, swallowing the last of her handful. Caroline pointed to his bag. "Get your things out. I'd like to get this over with."

"Yes, sir." Klaus unzipped his backpack and retrieved his notebooks. Lastly, he pulled out Ginger and they placed her gently on the bed Caroline had made. "How long did you work on this?"

"Not too long. Five minutes," she said, avoiding Klaus's stare. Those tingles started returning and she wasn't happy. "Come on, we really do need to start. Today's stuff is all about birth complications and how to spot and/or avoid them."

Caroline took none of Klaus's antics that evening. He soon gave up trying to distract her. Somehow, they finished with fifteen minutes to spare.

"Do you miss England?" Caroline asked as she tidied up the crumbs on the island.

Klaus tilted his head, as if he was surprised she had asked such a personal question. "Yeah. A lot, actually. Out of all of us, I was the one most reluctant to move here."

Wait. "All of us?" Caroline said as she walked to the bin. She stared at him across the counter. "You have siblings?"

"Just one. A younger sister, Rebekah. She was only four when we left London, so she had no say in the matter anyway. She was just excited to get on an airplane."

Klaus Mikaelson had a younger sister ten years his junior. Caroline wondered if she was the only person at Mystic Falls High to learn this information.

"Do you like her?" she asked, returning to her seat. She had swivelled the stool around, as had Klaus. Their knees almost touched.

"Sometimes. When she isn't being a little brat."

"Learning from the best, is she?"

And then it happened. Klaus—hardened Klaus, the freak of the school—smiled. His lips stretched wide, revealing perfectly straight and white teeth. His head went down a fraction, like he was embarrassed to have such a reaction. She had seen the smirk a thousand and one times, but this was definitely something special.

God, he looked so different. Happiness suited him.

When he lifted his head, remnants of the smile were still there. His eyes were crinkled. His cheeks were slightly strained.

Checking the time on his phone, he began gathering his things. "I'd love to sit and chat more about my quirky family, but I actually have to pick up Rebekah from a friend's house." He hopped down from the stool.

Caroline followed his lead. She stepped ahead of him when he had zipped his bag and headed for the front door, swearing she could feel Klaus's eyes on the back of her head.

"You know, we can meet at my place tomorrow," Klaus said, stepping aside to allow Caroline to open the door.

The invitation shocked her. "Um, yeah. That sounds good," she said airily, the corners of her mouth lifting as Klaus exited her house. Timbre, said a voice in her head.

He bid her farewell, his mouth still poised for another smile, and Caroline waited, watching him climb inside his car and set up his music. He drove off into the lowering sun that set the turning leaves on fire.

Caroline remembered last night. Looking after Tyler as he sped away from her, her blood curdling. This felt so different to then. So much nicer.

Returning to her house, Caroline locked the door and pressed her back against the wood. She felt her cheeks. Warm.

Oh, Christ, what if Bonnie was right?

A/N 2: Uh oh. Things are not turning out the way Caroline thought they would. . .

Sorry for not including more of the Mikaelsons. I find them very hard to deal with, and sticking to just Rebekah is easier for me.