Hey guys! So this fic is really writing itself and I am really enjoying writing it and reading your reviews and comments. You guys are so amazing, and I am glad that people are enjoying this who aren't Shakespeare nerds like me and know the premise. This chapter hopefully will provide some background on why Damon is so darn brooding and Caroline has to face Klaus face to face!
Caroline woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache and an upset stomach, her blue ball gown discarded onto the floor in a heap. Rubbing her eyes she tried to shield herself from the bright sun. Stepping out of the covers and onto the floor she hurried across her room to the window and quickly shut the blinds before hopping back into the bed. The clock on her nightstand read 10:05 and she could hear noise coming from the main part of the apartment, but nothing was going to get her out of bed this early when she was hungover.
"Do you think she's okay in there?" Stefan asked as he stood over the stove making eggs.
Elena grabbed the orange juice from the fridge and a bottle of vodka from the cabinet. She had told Caroline numerous times that hair of the dog was not a proper hangover cure but her friend swore by it. Pouring a glass of orange juice and adding a shot Elena looked over at Stefan. "She's fine. Hungover Caroline refuses to see the light of day until at least one. Put some of those eggs on a piece of toast and I'll go bring it into her."
Stefan did as he was told and handed the small plate to Elena, who was just wearing an oversized sweatshirt. Even in just a sweatshirt he found her captivating and he couldn't help but smile as he watched her walk away from the kitchen to her roommates bedroom.
Elena pushed open the door and she walked over to the mass of blankets. Under a duvet she found her best friend with smudged makeup and curls a mess on top of her head. "Hey, made your favorite…." Elena said nudging Caroline.
"A screwdriver and eggy toast?" Caroline said like a child. She peeked out from under her covers and grabbed the glass, finishing it in one attempt. Placing the glass down she then sat up and grabbed the plate. "Can you get me a bottle of water and a Tylenol? My head is killing me. I don't know how I'm this hungover, I wasn't even that drunk."
"So you remember leaving the ball with a man in a white suit? Whatever happened to him?"
Caroline thought of the stranger that she had danced with the night before. She remembered the alley, the way that he refused to take off his mask and the way his lips felt on hers. "Yes, I do. He kissed me and then walked away, and I got into the car we ordered and came home."
"He kissed you? Who was he?"
"That's the thing, I don't know who he was. He wouldn't take off his mask!" Caroline said as she was eating her toast. She tilted her head as she realized that there was someone still in the kitchen. "Is Jeremy here? I thought I saw him leave with that cute redhead…"
"He did, and I am going to have to talk to him about one night stands again… no, he's not here. Stefan is."
Caroline's eyes went wide and she broke out a large grin. "Stefan is here? As in he spent the night? As in the two of you?" Caroline asked making a crude gesture with her hips.
"Caroline! Shush, he can hear you! Yes, he spent the night but we didn't… yeah we didn't get that far."
Taking the last piece of her toast, Caroline's smile remained on her face. She handed the plate to her friend as she shook her head. "Elena, this is totally unlike you!"
"I know, I know. But with him things are just different. I can't explain it, it's like I was just waiting for him," Elena told her friend.
Caroline tried her best not to let out a laugh as she could see the seriousness in her best friend's voice. It wasn't Elena's fault that she sounded like a lovesick idiot all the time.
"I know you think I sound stupid, but that's just the best way to explain it. Plus, just a few minutes ago you were talking about your masked man with a sparkle in your eye."
"I have no idea what you are talking about. Go out and spend time with your destiny or whatever you want to call him, don't wake me until it's the afternoon."
Elena left the room with the plate and glass and returned only to bring her friend a bottle of water and some Tylenol. She then sat down with Stefan on the couch and enjoyed her own breakfast, not minding the fact that he was only wearing his briefs and white undershirt. As she stabbed her eggs with a fork she looked over at the man and smiled. "Hey."
"Hey," he said back. He took a bite of his own food before he placed his plate on the table. For some reason Damon's words were bothering him. Even though he had come home with Elena, he couldn't help but wonder what she wanted from him. If she was looking for a relationship or if she was just playing with him. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah, of course," Elena replied, looking over to see the discouraging look on Stefan's face.
Stefan took a deep breath before he started to speak. "I saw you dancing with Elijah last night and I couldn't help but wonder. What is this? What are we? I mean I did just sleep in your bed but I like you, Elena. And I need to know what you think of me."
Elena shook her head, confused. "Elijah? All Elijah did last night was tell me all about you. He kept telling me stories about you and how great and caring you are. It was nothing other than that."
A sigh of relief left Stefan. It wasn't that he didn't trust Elijah, they had been working together for nearly a year now and the two were very close but he just wasn't sure after everything that Damon had said to him. "Really? And what do you think of me now?"
"I think I like you a lot too," she said with a smile leaning over to him. She placed a brief kiss on his lips before returning to her seat. "We are whatever we want to be. I like you and you like me, so that's a good place to start."
Caroline managed to roll over and pick up her phone as she heard it ring for the fourth time that morning. "Hello?" she managed to ask, still in a sleepy daze.
"Caroline?" Elijah asked from the other end of the line. It wasn't like him to make business calls on Sundays, but once an idea came to him he had to act on it. One of the assistants to his PR consultant had a family emergency and couldn't leave New York, leaving Elijah with a employment gap. "This is Elijah Mikaelson."
"Yes?" Caroline asked sitting up, curious. She didn't know how the man got her number or why he would bother to call her on a Sunday afternoon. Her head still hurt a bit but other than that she was feeling better than she was a few hours ago.
"I'm sorry to call you on a Sunday afternoon," Elijah started. "I hope you enjoyed yourself last night."
"I did, actually," Caroline said honestly. "I hope that it presented your corporation in the right light."
"That's actually part of what I wanted to talk to you about. The presentation of our firm to the public. Consulting firms are often seen as rather ruthless and are known for taking large sums of money from their clients. This leads for a strong team of individuals working behind the scenes to make sure that our company is portrayed in a good light."
Caroline could not figure out where this was going. The only thing she could think of was that she had behaved inappropriately in some way and was going to be told to avoid the company for the duration of their stay. Thinking of the night before she couldn't think of anything that she had done that would have been of that nature. "I understand."
"Basically, Caroline, we have a job opening in our Public Relations department. One of our regulars is unable to travel away from New York and we have need for someone with that skill set here. I was wondering if you would be interested in taking the job as a sort of internship as I remember you are studying marketing and communications," Elijah explained to Caroline.
Caroline was glad this was a phone conversation as she knew that she would not have been able to contain herself if she was in front of Mr. Mikaelson. She started to dance a bit in her bed as she answered. "I would love to! A firm like yours is a dream job for me," she told him.
"Good, can you come in tomorrow or do you have classes?"
"I can be in after lunch," she told him. They exchanged goodbyes and Caroline ran out of her room to tell Elena about the news. Stefan had left and Elena was alone, watching Say Yes to the Dress reruns on the television. The two celebrated with a short dance party and Caroline ran back to her room to figure out what she would wear to her first day as a real publicist.
Caroline walked into the office in a black pencil skirt and silk green top. She was rather nervous and her trip to starbucks hadn't really helped calm her down. 'Maybe I should have gotten decaf,' she thought to herself as she entered the Gilbert office tower. She had been there so many times before, but this was the first time that she would enter as an employee.
"Good Morning Caroline," Stacy, the head receptionist said with a smile.
"Morning, Stace!"
"Heard about the internship, good luck," the woman told her as Caroline waited for the elevator. She smiled and waved as she ducked into the elevator and took it up to the floor that housed the temporary offices of Mikealson and Salvatore.
When the doors opened the office was swarming with various business men in suits and more casual business clothes. Caroline realized that this job might be more fun than she thought as she looked around at the male to female ratio. She walked up to one of the few women in the office, a temp named Meredith.
"Welcome to Mikaelson and Salvatore Consulting, how can I help you today?"
"I am supposed to be starting an internship here today? I'm Caroline Forbes. Elijah Mikaelson called me about it yesterday?" Caroline said, flashing her best smile.
Meredith didn't look amused as she dialed the phone, requesting Mr. Mikaelson to come down to reception. Elijah appeared within a minute and pulled Caroline down the hall and into his office.
"Caroline, here is the situation," he said placing a couple of photos onto her leather portfolio that she had brought to look professional. Glancing through the photos she saw Klaus with various women and various stages of drunkenness and undress. "This is your first task. It's a lot to throw at an intern, I know, but without Jamie we are just a little overwhelmed when it comes to this kind of stuff. You will have to call the paper that sent the photos over with some kind of rational explanation that will end with it not being newsworthy. If you fail with that, pay them. Ask them for an amount and cut it in half, haggle till you reach a medium. Considering it's Klaus, I will write the check myself. Klaus is probably a good starting point on this one, I would bet he's sitting in his office with a hangover right now."
Caroline took it all in and nodded. This was just the kind of thing that she always wanted to do, and she wasn't worried by the task that was put in front of her. She could talk the papers out of publishing this story, but the main thing would be convincing Klaus not to get himself into these kinds of situations in the near future. She wandered her way down the hall, trying to remember the short tour that Damon had given her and Elena before he kicked her out.
A few moments later she reached the double office of Klaus and Stefan. Both of the men were at their desks and Stefan turned to face her. "Caroline, I heard that you were going to be working here," Stefan said with a smile. "I'm sure you remember my colleague and good friend, Niklaus."
"Yes, I believe that I do, he's the reason I stopped by actually," Caroline told Stefan with a smile before turning her focus on the british man. She walked over to his desk and placed the photos on it. "My first job as a company PR rep is to make sure that these don't ever see the light of day."
Klaus looked down from his computer at the photos and grimaced. "And that would be my problem, how?"
"It is you in these photos, is it not?"
Klaus shrugged and went back to typing something on his computer. "That's what we have PR people for. So off you go, love."
Caroline sighed. "Do not call me love, love," she said with a fake british accent. "Before I go try to bribe the paper not to publish these I want to know what the hell you think you were doing that got these photos taken of you. This is not LA, Klaus, these kinds of things don't go unnoticed here. So the next time you want to go drinking your way through this city, get some friends that aren't going to sell your photos to the press."
"Just call the damn paper and take care of it," he snapped. Klaus couldn't forget the things that she had said about him at the dance. She might not have been able to tell who he was but by the end of the night he knew who she was. Seeing her in the office just reinforced his belief that it was her in the blue ball gown.
"Lighten up, Klaus," Stefan said as he stood up from his desk. "She's just trying to help. I have to go bring this upstairs to John, so play nice, please."
Caroline wanted to stop Stefan from leaving her alone with Klaus, she was actually becoming a little frightened of the man. Whereas before they had always had a playful banter, a witty back and forth, today he was just being mean. "Who put a stick up your ass this weekend? Was it this brunette or was it the Indian girl?"
"Why do you care?"
"Because it's my job now. Not to care but to figure out how to keep you out of trouble and you are treating me like crap," Caroline told him as she grabbed the pictures off his desk.
"That's going to be rather difficult, since I seem to attract trouble," he told her. He thought of her words on the dance floor, what she had said about him. "I am just that guy. The guy that woos women with every trick in the book to get them into bed and then throws them in the bin. You really shouldn't be so surprised. At one point I thought you might be one of those girls, but I can see now I dodged a bullet with that one."
Caroline's face turned red with anger. She wasn't going to let him see her like that, angry and upset with him. Walking out of the office she headed to the one that was marked for PR and advertising and took a seat at one of the desks. The room was unoccupied as the firm hadn't needed to hire advertisers as the Gilbert Trust had their own. Sitting down at the desk she ran through the conversation in her head. There was something about what he had said to her before she left that gave her a bad feeling. It was almost identical to what she had said about him the night of the ball, to the man in the white suit. Caroline still hadn't figured out who he might have been and now she was even more curious if the man had connections to Klaus. She tried to remember how tall Klaus was, what his build was like and if it matched the man in the suit. She shook her head, trying to convince herself that it would be pure coincidence, that the man she had spent the evening with was American, and that there was no way it was Klaus.
Elena walked into the offices to bring Caroline a coffee on her first day and was met by stares and mean glares from some of the men in the office, particularly by a tall dark featured man. Trying to brush it off she brought her friend her latte, but Caroline was frantically talking to someone on the phone and didn't have any time to chat with Elena. Elena decided to venture a little further down the hall to the office of her boyfriend, where she waited in an empty office for him to return.
The tall man from the reception area walked in with a file in his hands and stared at Elena. "You must be the girl, Elena."
"Yes, that's me. And you are?" Elena asked, trying to remain friendly.
"Tyler Lockwood, Damon Salvatore's assistant," he told her sternly as he placed the file on Klaus's desk. "Stefan should be back any minute, his meeting with your uncle should be finishing up soon."
"Okay, thanks," Elena said with a smile. As the man turned to leave the office Elena felt compelled to ask a question. "Um, Tyler?"
Tyler turned around and looked at the small brunette. He couldn't see what Damon saw in her, she looked fragile and boring. "Yeah?"
"Why don't Stefan and Damon get along?" Elena asked.
Tyler shook his head. "That's a story that I don't even know. But it goes back to when they were children, that's all I know about it. I have to go."
Tyler left the office and Elena found herself spinning around in Stefan's chair, and looking at the photos on his desk. She saw photos that were obviously Stefan and their father, and some of him and his friends, but not a full family photo. This made Elena even more curious about what could have happened between the two brothers that led to their strained relationship. She was holding a photo of Stefan, Klaus and Rebekah, her next door neighbor, when Stefan entered the room. "You know Rebekah?" she said showing him the photo.
"Oh yeah, definitely. She and Klaus were childhood friends. Their parents were both British businessmen in New York so they were pretty close, basically siblings. How do you know her?" Stefan asked as he placed a kiss on the top of her head.
Elena gave a little laugh. "You know that neighbor I was telling you about? The one that doesn't realize how thin the walls between our apartments are? That's Rebekah."
Stefan's eyes went wide at the revelation and he gave a laugh. "I knew she was living here now, I know that she and Klaus went for drinks together last week but I haven't been able to meet up with her. What a small world."
"Yeah it is," Elena agreed. "I have to ask you something personal, so don't be offended."
"You can ask me anything, Elena."
"Why don't you and Damon get along? Why is he not in any photos on your desk? You two are brothers."
Stefan scratched his forehead. This was generally a very sensitive subject and not a story that the brothers liked people to know. "It's a few things really," Stefan started. "But the main thing is this. We had a little sister, Camila. She meant the world to my father, but she was very reckless, like Damon."
"What happened to her?"
"She died," Stefan said simply. He grabbed one of the photos on the desk, this one of a younger version of himself with a girl with dark blonde hair and striking blue eyes.
Elena's eyes widened. "I'm sorry."
"We had a place in the summer in upstate New York, on a lake. It was gorgeous. And Cami and Damon loved to swim, race each other and see who could go the farthest, stuff like that. One summer Cami and Damon took the boat out in the middle of the night and when the morning came we found Damon passed out on the boat and Cami no where to be found. She was thirteen. Thing is, I was supposed to go out and meet her at the dock, but I fell asleep. Her body was found a few days later by a rescue team. We never really got over it. My dad blames Damon for whatever happened on that boat. I don't know the specifics, Damon refuses to say, but since then my dad basically ignores him. Damon never told him that I was supposed to meet Cami at the dock, to help her if she got too tired. I became the favorite child, and I always did well in school and in my social life, and after that Damon, well became Damon. A mean drunk that can't take anything seriously. He won't tell me what happened to him, and so things are just tense."
"I had no idea, I'm so sorry Stefan," Elena said standing up and giving him a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
"It's okay really, but that's why people don't talk about it. Everyone just assumes that we don't like each other because of business, or because I did better at school than he did but it runs deeper than that. I don't think Damon will ever forgive himself for what he did, so he just makes his own life and the lives of people around him more miserable."
Elena was in shock; she didn't really know what to say. Her family had suffered tragedy, but didn't make hearing about other peoples any easier. All she could do was let Stefan hold her and try to move past it.
Caroline walked into the office and saw the two in an embrace. "Should I come back at another time? I can tell you from personal experience that desk sex is really fantastic."
Elena blushed and stepped back from Stefan. "Caroline! No, I was just about to leave anyway, are you done for the day?"
Caroline nodded. "First crisis as a PR mogul averted, so let's get out of here."
Weird ending, I know! I just didn't know how to close it after such angst. Hope that puts Damon in perspective for you guys. The match making starts soon, as Stefan and Elena realize the chemistry between their best friends. Stay tuned.