A/N: Abridged summaries:
1. Klaus and Caroline work in the reptile house.
2. Elijah performs the Ritual of Redemption on Klaus, and the results weren't exactly what he expected. Slightly crack. Not TO friendly.
3. Mystic Falls holds a town meeting about Klaroline. Crack. Heavily inspired/lots of dialogue from the Lorelai/Luke town hall scene in Gilmore Girls.

Hi Angie :) I don't know if you still accept prompts but if you do, could you write a drabble with Klaus and Caroline as zookeepers ? Thanks !

So, she could admit that she was the new kid on the block, and so it made sense that she'd get the assignment no one else wanted (she'd signed up for wolves and got the snake room).

This did not mean that she was pleased about it.

The only thing even remotely good about the assignment was her boss.

Klaus was fair, attentive to her and Marcel's safety, and he didn't tolerate slacking. Those were all qualities that she appreciated and even admired. However, he was also incredibly blunt, bordering on rude quite a bit of the time, and seemed to think that he was always right, which she did not appreciate.

She sighed as she carefully poured the right combination of food into the snake's enclosure, glad that this was the only poisonous snake she had to feed that morning (though more would eat in the afternoon).

"Caroline."

She heard Klaus walked up behind her, and she could practically see his smirk in her mind's eye before she even looked at him. Pasting a smile on her face, she turned to face him. "Yes?"

"The school trip is running about half an hour late, and I'm going to need you to take care of them."

This did not surprise her. Klaus was terrible with people, preferring the non-speaking and highly poisonous animals. He often pushed the group tours, especially the ones with children, onto her and Marcel, her coworker.

"All right," she said agreeably, knowing that he'd rather poke out his own eyeballs than supervise her working with children, and checking the clock.

"Take forty-five minutes for lunch."

"Okay," she said, happy to get away for a break.

"And Caroline?"

"Yes?" she asked, pulling her thick protective gloves off.

"Don't feed the poisonous snakes without back-up in case you get bitten."

"I had back-up."

"Marcel hasn't come in yet."

"I had you," she said, giving him a confused look.

He smiled slightly, clearly about to say something, but seemed to change his mind at the last second. "That's true," he said simply. "But I was in my office. At least do me the courtesy of letting me know if you're about to put your life in danger."

"I was fine," she said irritably.

"Still. Humor me."

She nodded. "Can I take my lunch now?"

"Of course, love."

She huffed at the endearment, though she knew that he used it for most of the women who worked at the zoo (granted, there were only five or six), and caught his smirk in the reflection of the glass as she stalked out.

XXX

Two hours later, she bid the children on their field trip goodbye and turned to find Klaus getting ready to shut down the reptile house. She helped him in silence, and he told her that he was going to feed the rest of the snakes and she was free to go.

"Do you need me to spot you in case you get bitten?"

He scoffed. "I'll be fine, love."

She nodded, changing into her street clothes in the bathroom and grabbing her purse, and waving goodbye to Klaus when she walked past him to the door. He turned to look at her, his eyes darkening as he took her in. She'd worn a rather short skirt that day, figuring that her work uniform was a uniform and her street-clothes didn't have to be professional (it was hot in the summer), and she knew it made her legs look good.

She wasn't all that opposed to his gaze raking over her body until he lost his balance and made too sudden of a movement, the snake in the enclosure a few feet away rearing back in surprise and moving to sink its fangs into Klaus's arm.

She swore as she dropped her bag, rushing over to help and pulling the emergency phone from the wall, listening to it ring.

"Emergency?"

"Reptile house, San Diego Zoo. Employee bitten by tiger snake," she said quickly as she bent over Klaus, who was evening his breathing, both of them trying to remain calm.

"Put the phone down and stay on the line."

She did so, her heart beating fast, and Klaus looked up at her, smiling slightly. "Breathe, love. I'll be fine. Emergency services are close."

"You were bitten by a snake. A poisonous snake."

"I'm very aware of that," he said through gritted teeth.

She stripped her blouse off and ripped it, very aware of Klaus's eyes on her, but not in any mood to care. She wrapped his arm in the cloth, tightening it securely trying to immobilize the bite.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried about me."

"Of course I'm worried about you. You're poisoned."

"I thought you hated me."

"I don't hate you," Caroline said, frowning. "You just annoy me. A lot."

With your unreasonable amount of attractiveness, her mind finished for her, nearly making her huff out loud.

"Dinner Friday after next?" he asked abruptly.

"How did we go from 'I don't hate you' to you asking me out?"

"It seemed like a reasonable jump to me," he said slowly, his eyes fixed on her face despite her shirtless status.

Was he attractive? Yes. Funny? When he felt like it. Nice? Reasonably, at least to her.

Did she like him? More than she wanted to.

But what if it didn't work out? What if they broke up and it got awkward? Zookeeper jobs were very hard to come by, and she was lucky she'd managed to get this one.

"You're my boss," she said, trying to dodge the question, biting her lip and looking away.

"You're getting transferred this Friday. Or they're offering you one, anyway. I thought you knew."

"Nope."

"Well, surprise," he said dryly, shifting uncomfortably.

"Don't move," she reprimanded softly, pressing her hand lightly against his chest.

She heard sirens approaching, and was glad since Klaus seemed to be tiring fast.

"I've been waiting for them to move you. You never wanted to work with reptiles anyway, and you're not bad at following directions when you set your mind to it."

She snorted. "Maybe I just don't like the directions you give me."

"And perhaps I enjoy the way you flush when you think I'm being unreasonable."

"Well, you're a hypocrite. What happened to having a spotter?"

"It would have been fine if you hadn't distracted me. That skirt does look lovely on you."

She pressed her lips together and looked away, trying to fight down the blush staining her cheeks, and he gave her a dimpled smile.

"See? Beautiful."

"You're an ass."

"So, dinner Friday?"

She bit her lip, not answering.

"I'm dying, love. Don't you feel the least bit responsible?"

She snorted. "It's your own fault. I didn't ask you to look at my legs."

"I'd be satisfied with a pity date," he said, his voice teasing.

"Fine," she said, sighing long-sufferingly and trying to fight down a smile. "One pity date. One."

"Of course, love. If you'd like another afterwards, however, all you'd have to do is ask."

That Friday, when they were tangled in the sheets of her bed in her apartment, sweaty and sated, she asked.

kc + accidentally summoned a demon

Elijah Mikaelson was desperate.

He was not proud to admit it, but it was true. Desperation drove people to do terrible things, and this was no exception.

He stood at the ritual site, noting that all the ingredients were present. Katerina stood at his side, inspecting her nails.

"And you're sure that this will work?"

"Yes. We have everything necessary."

He nodded and watched the girl in the center of the pentagram as the witches chanted around her.

The spell required a woman as a sacrifice with a positive connection to the person that was supposed to be affected, and after Elijah found out that there was a girl in Mystic Falls that had been associated with Tyler Lockwood who his brother had taken a fancy to, he had her taken.

The loss of her life would be unfortunate, but it was for the greater good.

The spell they were casting was known as the Ritual of Redemption. Theoretically, it was supposed to take the spirit of the sacrifice and create a force of good for the recipient.

If it went wrong, however, it was supposed to create a force of great evil.

He watched the girl scream as a blinding light burst out of her body before she crumpled to the ground.

After receiving a nod from the coven leader that the ritual was complete, Elijah rushed over to inspect her, and was surprised to find that she was still breathing. In fact, her heartbeat was strong. He frowned before stiffening, realization dawning on him as he heard a second heartbeat, almost unrecognizable, but nonetheless present.

Of course. The force of good was a child.

Hayley Marshall was carrying his brother's child.

XXX

Fools, the lot of them.

She tried to express this, but could only manage to make an odd babbling sound.

There was a reason that the Ritual of Redemption was almost never practiced, and it was because it nearly always failed to follow through on the advertised result unless the target was in love with the sacrifice.

In fact, since the feeling of love was so uncommon among those who generally required such extreme intervention in their life choices, the so-called "Ritual of Redemption" was actually originally used in order to give demons an easy one-way ticket to the land of the living (and she had no interest in using the ticket).

This truth had been lost over time, and apparently the thousand year old vampire hadn't figured out, even now, that he'd picked the wrong girl.

Yes, "Hope" was quite aware of Klaus's infatuation with Caroline Forbes, mostly because she'd heard her incubator complain about the unfairness of it all multiple times, and she was honestly completely baffled as to how Elijah had managed to fuck up so badly.

So, here she was, stuck on the mortal plane in the body of an infant with a ridiculously inappropriate name.

She was as old as the universe itself, and wasn't exactly impatient, but so far, being a baby was incredibly boring. Her "mother" was an incompetent twit in love with the fool who did the ritual, her "father" was, quite frankly, not exactly the type that was redeemable, especially if the tool of redemption was a baby.

It was incredibly frustrating, really.

After three years, seventeen death threats, and a lot of inward facepalming at the entire family's handling of said threats, she was finally able to talk coherently enough to put her plan into action.

The faster it worked, the faster she could leave. She missed alcohol, and she had a lot of television to catch up on.

"Who that?" she asked, pointing at the canvas.

"Her name is Caroline."

"Where?"

"Not here," Klaus said shortly.

"Where?"

"Mystic Falls," he said grumpily.

"Go?"

"I can't do that, sweetheart."

She huffed to herself, sitting down on the hardwood floor. The girl was her only chance, really. There were two ways to go back home: Die before birth in her human vessel, or find Klaus's actual tool of redemption (which she was 99% sure was Caroline Forbes).

Unfortunately, all of her attempts to put herself in enough danger to kick the baby bucket had been thwarted by those around her. She even tried to throw a car and kill her incubator, but when she couldn't actually see said car she tended to have bad aim.

So, finding Caroline Forbes was her only option.

Her magic wasn't limitless, and there was no way to teleport the girl, so until she could communicate with anyone well enough that they wouldn't think she was repeating baby talk, she had to wait another two years.

Admittedly, as she grew older her life got a bit more entertaining, and once she could speak well enough to communicate in complete sentences, she went into Klaus's office, figuring that he was the most likely to listen to her.

"Not now, love. Daddy's busy."

"Daddy" was unceremoniously flung against the wall, courtesy of magic.

"Hope, no magic in the house."

"Have you ever heard of the Ritual of Redemption?" She asked calmly, sitting on Klaus's office chair.

Klaus looked like he was about to reprimand her, but she narrowed her eyes and all of the furniture floated a few inches off of the ground.

"No," he said, after clearly considering his options.

"The Ritual of Redemption is based on the idea of love being redemption. Elijah heard that the ritual existed, mixed up Hayley and Caroline, and sacrificed Hayley to summon a force of redemption. However, since you didn't love Hayley, you ended up with demon spawn, i.e. me."

"Beg pardon?"

"To summarize: Your idiot brother summoned me, a demon, by accident when he was trying to cause your redemption."

"Hope, love, are you su–"

"My name is not Hope, you are not my father, and I'd like you to find Caroline Forbes and convince her to declare her love with you so that I can go back home."

"I can't–"

"Why do you give a shit? You're Klaus Mikaelson. Get it together."

"I was about to say that I can't believe Elijah would be that stupid."

"Yeah, neither could I. You'd think that after four hundred years of experience, he would have learned not to trust Katherine Pierce."

"Katerina...of course…"

"No time for brooding. You've done enough of that. Let's get your daggers, put your fuckwit of a brother down for a nice nap, and get the fuck out of here, please and thank you."

Carol Lockwood objects to KC relationship and holds a town hall meeting about it. Heavily inspired by Gilmore Girls. I'm not even sorry.

Caroline sighed, re-crossing her legs and smoothing her sundress over them, resisting the urge to lean back in her chair.

The reigning Miss Mystic Falls does not slump, after all.

She glanced at Klaus out of the corner of her eye, who was a few benches away on his phone (why had he even come?), and he looked up when he felt her eyes on him, giving her a dimpled smirk before turning back to whatever he was doing.

Carol Lockwood had been talking for what felt like hours, although when she checked the clock it had only been forty-eight minutes. It was a town meeting, which in towns like Mystic Falls meant that pretty much everyone went. They discussed "important" subjects, like the current progress of the Mystic Falls Beautification Committee on achieving their goals, an item-by-item inventory of the donations for this season's town auction, and whether the wild animals that kept attacking the town's population had actually been dealt with.

It sounded like Carol was finally about to close up the meeting when she announced that there was a final order of business.

"I'd like to bring to the floor a discussion about the possible negative influence of the Chair of the–" she checked her sheet briefly, "-Mystic Falls Beautification Committee–"

Caroline's head whipped up so hard it almost hurt as she stared at Carol Lockwood.

"-and the Director of the Policeman's Yearly Raffle, the High School Senior Prom for the last three years running–"

Caroline felt her eyes growing wider as the mayor spoke.

"-the Student Council President, Captain of our Cheer Squad, which has won the championship for both years under her leadership and is well on its way to earning a third–"

What could Carol Lockwood want to talk about concerning her?

"-and the previous Miss Mystic Falls, a highly regarded position with a long history in the town, among other titles, starting a relationship with someone who not only does not value the history of our town, but might distract her from her prior commitments, which almost assuredly would derail the progress of any and all organizations she belongs to while also throwing the calendar of our beloved town into a disorganized chaos."

"Excuse me?" Caroline screeched, but everyone seemed to ignore her as Carol Lockwood kept talking, shuffling her notes.

Who could they be talking about, anyway? Unless…

She turned to look at Klaus, who looked almost as confused as she did, though not nearly as annoyed.

"The relationship that we have all feared for some time has emerged, as was seen three days ago at the Miss Mystic Pageant, an event organized by the girl in question-"

"What are you talking about?" Caroline asked, trying to talk over Carol. "I'm not dating anyone!"

Carol still ignored her.

"-and we need to carefully consider whether or not we can support this as a community–"

"Um, we're sitting right here," Caroline said, gesturing to her and Klaus.

"Yes, we see you, and you just admitted you were seeing each other with that statement. Now, as a member of the town, you are welcome to voice your opinion-"

"My opinion?"

"I open the floor for discussion," Carol Lockwood said, and hands immediately flew up all over the room, including Elena's and Damon's, who were sitting a few seats away.

"Okay, I'll start," Carol said, waving everyone to put their hands down, but Elena interrupted, refusing to hold back her thoughts (as usual).

"What are you talking about? Caroline hates Klaus."

There was some scattered laughter from around the room, and Damon sighed, patting Elena's knee as though a bit embarrassed by her behavior. "No, she doesn't."

"Um, yeah she does. She's told me."

"Nonetheless," Carol said, speaking over Elena's protests (helped by the microphone attached to the podium), "I must implore all of you to think of the consequences when this relationship inevitably sours, as most of Caroline's relationships do–"

"What?"

"We're all going to inevitably have to choose between Caroline and Klaus, and while almost the entire town's position would have been perfectly clear merely days ago, just the fact that evidence her questionable taste level has arisen–"

"Um, I dated your son," Caroline pointed out.

"Exactly," Carol said with a cold smile. "This, combined with Klaus Mikaelson's tendency to murder everyone that disagrees with him would lead to him being an acceptable choice to side with for fear of him targeting our loved ones–"

"If I may interject my opinion," Klaus said sarcastically. "I would advise that you all do stay on Caroline's side, as when our relationship 'inevitably' goes sour, it will most likely be my fault anyway."

"You aren't a member of this town, as previously stated, so you don't get a vote," Carol said briskly. "Now, after considering these consequences, we must bring the subject to a vote."

"Um, seriously? Exactly none of you get a say in my love life," Caroline snapped before catching Klaus's smirk at her accidental admission. "Or lack thereof," she hastily added.

"Now, Caroline, this could have serious consequences–"

"Mrs. Lockwood, I think you may be overreacting," Stefan said, and Caroline whipped around, frowning at the entrance of her friend, who she hadn't noticed had entered. "Caroline and Klaus's relationship wouldn't be a concern for the town."

"I strongly disagree," Carol said. "If they broke up, Klaus would have the ability to chase Caroline out of town, and–"

"I told you all, you're supposed to be on Caroline's side," Klaus reiterated, and Carol Lockwood sighed long-sufferingly.

"Either way, if Caroline moved, the town would fall into chaos."

"We're not even dating!" Caroline shouted, and everyone turned to look at her. "Well, we're not," she repeated a bit lamely, shooting Klaus a sideways glance.

"This is ridiculous, Carol. We shouldn't get a vote in Blondie's personal life, no matter how much of a train wreck it'll be," Damon said, and Caroline groaned.

"I have a powerpoint presentation queued up in case you all need more evidence–"

"A chart?"

"This is ridiculous," Klaus said, and despite his normal volume, everyone fell silent. "This is not your relationship. This is our relationship, and you do not have a say in anything that Caroline may or may not do, and you most definitely do not have a say in my life. If you attempt to interfere again, I will murder anyone and everyone you have ever spoken to. The only reason you're alive at the moment is because Caroline would object to your inner organs framed as artwork on the city's walls. Do you understand?"

"It's not even a relationship," Caroline said again, and again there were scattered snickers and scoffs around the room. "This is bullshit. I am so done," she said, turning and stalking out of the hall, slamming the front doors behind her.

She was only halfway home when Klaus caught up to her, and she froze.

"What do you want?"

"I didn't organize that," he said quickly, and Caroline snorted.

"I know. You don't really do tacky small town events."

"That's true. However, once you left, most of the town was quite vocal about you being responsible enough to make your own decisions. Well, except the doppelganger, but she's not exactly an expert on decision-making."

Caroline tried to restrain a snort. Elena was her friend, after all, and it would be rude to talk shit about her, especially to Klaus.

"Well, I'm glad that someone was on my side."

"Yes, I'll have complimentary Team Caroline ribbons sent to all of them by tomorrow morning."

"I really hope you're joking."

He shrugged. "Perhaps, perhaps not."

"We're not dating," she said again.

"I'm not sure about that, love. We did have a date, and if I'm not mistaken you had quite a bit of fun."

"True," she said, trying to remember why she was pretending that Tyler hadn't totally fucked Hayley off in the mountains.

"So, perhaps you'd be open to another?" he asked hopefully, his hands in his pockets as he walked beside her.

"Maybe," she said. "I'll think about it."

He gave her a dimpled smile. "Well, that's progress, I suppose."

She gave him a small smile back. "Yeah. I guess it is."

A/N: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought.
Hugs!
-Angie