AN: I truly appreciate your thoughts. Thank you so much!

Part 4

CAROLINE

The words were ridiculous, and summoned to her head immediately visions—dreams?—of Klaus Mikaelson, the big bad villain that she had more than once referred to as being such a terrible creature, morphing into the World's Greatest Dad—which in her head was really a soccer uniform-wearing spatula wielding handyman, complete with a utility belt equipped with a baby bottle strapped around his waist. Caroline giggle at the thought, preposterous as it was. But Elijah's face was grim, and he regarded her with his straight, somber gaze as she worked the laughter out of her system. Her mirth faded, and as she chuckled the last few remaining threads, slow, seeping realization dawned on her.

"You've got to be kidding me," Caroline said tonelessly.

Still Elijah was silent, and she tamped down the urge to reach for him and shake him.

"You're not kidding me," she concluded.

It was like everything was louder in the silence. She was frozen on the spot. On one hand Daniel was asleep, and Elijah was a thousand time more powerful than her. And her brain restlessly flitted here and there processing the information.

Like she really needed to protect Daniel from his own uncle.

And the dread that came—the same dread that kept her these two months of being Daniel's only real caretaker from thinking of him as her own. She absolutely dreaded the thought that one day his real parents would show up—his mother that abandoned him—and take him back. And now, just after he called her mom, just after she verbalized the acceptance of his importance to her, his family knows.

And most selfishly, Caroline was paralyzed by pieces of her heart fracturing and falling down the pit of her stomach. She could run down the impossibilities in order to prolong this.

Finn was dead; so was Kol. Dead long before they could have produced any spawn this young and this mortal. And like them all, Rebekah was as infertile was salted earth.

Klaus procreated. All the while professing he fancied her, that he would show her everything the world had to offer. That child sleeping in her bed, the one she bathed and kissed and loved now admittedly and loudly with her entire being—

She watched as time slowed down in her world, as Elijah stepped into her bedroom and she remained by the doorway. As he leaned down by the bed, and reached a steady hand to brush the boy's now too-long hair from his face, Caroline stayed away. She watched as Elijah studied the child, and then tentatively touched the nape of Daniel's neck, where his birthmark was.

He looked up at her, and Caroline felt the knot in her throat when he told her, "You've been taking care of him." She nodded, telling herself not to give much more than she was asked. Not in this. But she was always going to lose. "Thank you."

And then, Caroline sat down on the edge of her bed. She could pack everything that she had bought for him. It would fit in a baby bag, but maybe if she boxed the rest someone could pick them up. Daniel liked the elephant that they picked up in the park. Abruptly she stood and checked the laundry basket in case he had mistakenly deposited it there.

He found her in the living room rooting under the couch. Caroline saw the small stuffed elephant underneath and she reached for it and held it up. She pulled the baby bag from the back of the closet and carried it back to the sofa.

"Caroline, we should talk," he told her quietly.

And she was breathless when she responded, "Talk away. If you don't mind, I'm going to make sure everything's in order. I mean, you probably have nothing for a kid in your house."

"Caroline," he repeated. She looked towards him, and he gestured to the sofa. "Sit down."

And so slowly she sank to the seat. Caroline licked her lips. And then she could not help the anger and the tears bubbling inside her. "What the hell, Elijah?" she snapped. Elijah frowned, then shook his head as if he did not understand. "I said, what the hell! We were supposed to be partners. You never told me this."

"I told you to be ready for sudden changes," he said quietly. When Caroline rolled her eyes, Elijah held up a hand. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Will you believe me if I told you I didn't know?"

"No."

"I did not know," he said again. "I had my suspicions of course. Klaus was nowhere until it was over. I was the one that gathered what remains could have been the child's, but the werewolves had done their damage and there was nothing but blood and cloth and bones and flesh." He sighed. "I was the one who buried everything, because my brother has come down a long road to lose himself again."

Sometimes she wondered if Elijah did not realize how much he took away with what he gave. "You can't manipulate Klaus into redemption. You could have told him that there was a possibility that his baby survived. He could have searched."

"He was nowhere to be found," Elijah insisted firmly. "Nowhere. And I would not allow a green girl like you to tell me where I made a mistake. I was the one that stayed around for the safety of that child, Caroline, while Niklaus vanished for days on end." Caroline drew her fingers through her hair. "But I knew Marcel from the stories of the witches who work with me. He would have found out. I would not have been surprised if he orchestrated that attack on—" Abruptly, he cut himself off.

And then, just because it did not hurt enough, she had to ask. "Who's the mother, Elijah?"

And then for the first time since his discovery, Elijah looked at her with some sympathy. "You know it doesn't matter, don't you, in the grand scheme of things, in what my brother wants with you?"

But her eyes were filled to the brim now, and she almost begged him to compel away the hurt. There was a way to do that, but she had seen the havoc it wrought, so today she swore she was going to be brave and bear it. "And you know that telling me that doesn't matter either."

"Then I want Niklaus to tell you."

And God, she wanted that, if only she could glare at him and release this tension building up on her shoulders, so she could throw some hurtful words at him that could crack away at a tiny bit of the numbing pain that had since taken the space of her heart. "You know I can't do that."

His eyes narrowed. "Caroline, no matter what we had agreed to do, we already have the best out of what we needed from Marcel. You don't need to take this further."

"I want to talk to Klaus," she decided. "But Marcel has the stake. I want to meet Klaus when I know there is nothing that I need to be afraid of." Caroline shrugged. "I had no way of getting to the stake since they moved it from the library to Marcel's bedroom. I couldn't really snatch it up and expect no one to suspect me when I return."

Elijah leaned back on the sofa and eyed her. "So what's the plan, Caroline? You go to his bedroom and grab the stake?"

She stood up, and started pacing as she thought aloud. When she glanced at Elijah, she could not help but swell at the admiration he saw in his eyes. She may be young and green, like he said, but she would show him she was far more impressive than anyone thought at first glance. Caroline loved being a vampire. She would never have been this courageous before she turned. "I always hesitated at the thought of never being able to go back," she confessed.

"I never suspected. What is it that these modern psychologists call it?" Elijah murmured. "Stockholm syndrome."

Caroline gasped in surprise. "No, are you kidding! I mean, I didn't want to cut off all ties with Marcel by stealing the stake and knowing I couldn't go back. None of you could have penetrated into his inner circle, could have heard his plans, could have kept tabs on him like I did. I always knew I was more valuable in there than out here."

"That is ridiculous!" was his quick reply.

And that warmed her, that quick denial. "And then Daniel arrived, and I didn't want Marcel coming after us and taking him away."

"That, Caroline, is impossible now." He stood and spoke resolutely, "Marcel will put his hands on a Mikaelson over my dead, burning body." His lips curved. "And then he would need to deal with Rebekah and Klaus."

Caroline nodded. "I'm not afraid anymore. I don't need to go back." She walked over to the drawer and then produced a stake.

At the sight of it, Elijah's brows arched. "That is not a white oak stake."

"Close enough," she said to him, "I mean you and your family would recognize it on sight, but many of the vampires who are not you can make the initial mistake. I'll pull a bait and switch on Marcel, and buy enough time to leave that house intact."

"So you'll waltz in and pull this—" Elijah's face curled a bit in the effort to use the term, "—bait and switch."

"You have to understand, Elijah, as awesome as I am, those guys are badass—ranging from fifty to a hundred fifty years older than me."

"I'm coming with you," he decided.

Caroline grinned. "You'll be our third wheel?" She shook her head. "Everyone has an understandable wariness of your family, Elijah. And I need to make my way safely to Marcel's bedside table. You're only going to make that impossible." She glanced back towards the bedroom. "But I'm going to need your sister to babysit tonight. This ends tonight."

"I do not see Rebekah babysitting so you can go out on a date." He shook his head emphatically. "No, Caroline, not even for a long lost nephew."

Caroline crossed her arms in front of her, then pushed, "Not even if I tell you that today more than a dozen werewolves surrounded us in the park, trying to get Daniel's attention? I think Klaus would find that five hundred years of sleep would not be enough to make up for losing his son twice, Elijah."

There was a flicker in Elijah's expression, one that immediately intrigued her. Caroline reached forward and grabbed the other vampire's arm.

"What you fail to realize, Caroline, is that there is a reason that Niklaus hasn't burned down Louisiana this last year and a half."

Caroline shook her head. Her mother had been gone just about that long, and Mystic Falls needed to be extraordinarily thankful to Matt, Bonnie and Elena for keeping her from killing every last human there in her grief. She had always known that Mystic Falls would be the death of her mother, and merely agreed to leave her there because there was no talking the sheriff out of her responsibility to the town. The petty thief that managed to off Liz—and it was ridiculous even to her because Liz that survived the most evil supernatural creatures in Mystic Falls—Caroline had dispatched with a swift, vicious snap of his neck while Taylor Swift blasted from her car stereo.

What more of a father losing a son?

"Niklaus has no love for his child."

KLAUS

"Nik."

At the sound of the voice, tremulous and whisper-soft, Klaus grasped the phone to his ear in a viselike grip. "Bekah," he answered. When his phone rang with her name flashing on the screen, he had debated over whether to even answer. Still, there were only the three of them left, and remembering the last words they hurled at each other, Klaus knew Rebekah would not have contacted him voluntarily for at least fifty years due to the hurt he caused.

"Do you remember when you told me not to beg for your help when I am sick and dying?"

Her voice was faint, growing fainter. Klaus sat up straight and demanded, "Where are you, Bekah?"

There was silence, and a sobbing moan in the background. "I'm not calling to beg you, Nik, not for me. I know you'll laugh in my face."

"What the hell happened?" Klaus sped out of the house as he waited for his sister. "Where, Bekah?"

Klaus had expected her to be in Mystic Falls, or in Chicago, or in New York. His sister quickly rambled off an address close by, and within seconds Klaus stood at the front door of a small house. His gaze flickered to the broken doorknob, and pushed open the door to find the blood streaks on the walls. The living room had turned over into itself, with the couch pushed to the corridor as if to bar away an intruder. At the foot of the stairs was an immobile man. Klaus sniffed the air and recognized the putrid scent of a werewolf.

"Good girl," he whispered.

His sister appeared in the landing, grasping at the wall, her face bloodied with what Klaus knew now to be blood from the home invader. Rebekah clutched at her arm, and finally the frantic, weak call made sense to him. "Calm down, Bekah. All the werewolf bite will do is harm you for a few hours. You are hardly dying."

He caught sight of another fallen man at the top of the steps.

"I've killed six of them, Nik. The werewolf bite has not taken me down," was his sister's response. Rebekah unsteadily rushed down the steps.

Klaus caught his sister in his arms when she reached the bottom. "I would ask you what you're doing in New Orleans, sister, if I did not know you were utterly dependent on me and cannot live a separate life."

"Shut up, Nik," Rebekah said softly. She leaned forward, and whispered into his ear, "It was a werewolf attack, clean, organized like a pack. They may still be here. Go to the bedroom, Nik. I'll keep any stragglers at bay."

Klaus frowned at the words. He turned and looked around him with a discerning assessment. And that was when he noticed the cropped jacket hanging on the back of the sofa, the heels abandoned by the corridor near the kitchen as if the owner had kicked off the shoes to pad comfortably barefoot in her home. He saw the knocked down photo frame with its broken glass sitting on the floor.

A mother and daughter beaming at the camera on the day of high school graduation.

Klaus sped to the bedroom and found her on the foot of the bed. "Caroline," he said gently. She pushed him away, weakly grasping the coverlet from the bed to pull herself up only to pull it away. He checked the state she was in, and his gut clenched at the sight of the festering open wound, worse still than Tyler's bite, more horrific than the site of the wound he himself had given her. "You are very prone to this, sweetheart. I think I might have to stock up some of my blood in your fridge."

The morbid humor was not lost on her, and she groaned at the pain that was caused by even trying to smile. "I need to go," she pleaded.

"First you need my blood. You know how this works, Caroline," he told her, pressing his wrist to her lips.

She turned her head. "You can't fix everything like this."

He pulled her up against him, "It's how I start." Like it was his fault. He certainly was not the one who waltzed into town and started with his enemy, not the one who sought him out to send him on a tailspin of love and loss and longing. But this was not the time to argue, not when all he wanted was to save her.

And later to hunt down every last one of the wolves who dared to hurt her in her own home.

Caroline tried to bite, but she was too far gone to break skin. Klaus brought his wet wrist to his mouth and tore in, then offered the blood to her. He was concerned he was too late when she merely allowed the blood to dribble down her throat. "Is that what you call feeding now, love? Put some life behind it. You have so much to live for."

She started to push away once again, successfully making it to her feet and she staggered towards the door.

"You have not nearly had enough," Klaus advised.

She pulled to door open and Klaus caught her by the waist. "I need to find him," she gasped. Klaus glared down at the steps, where her sister looked up at them. "Rebekah, did Elijah make it back?"

Klaus watched the emotions war on his sister's face, and he cursed under his breath. Once again, the acquaintances that they were, his own siblings were embroiled in his life without keeping him apprised. When Rebekah shook her head. Caroline struggled in his arms. Klaus tightened his grip on her. "Elijah has it under control," he assured her firmly.

And then she slowed, weakened. "I need to find Daniel," she murmured. He did not even recognize the name, wondered if she truly did and what it meant to him. "Klaus, please."

Klaus took her up into his arms and laid her down on the bed, sitting beside her. Caroline looked up at him. She drifted off to sleep as her body struggled to heal from the toxic bite with the little of his blood in her. As her eyelids pulled down, Klaus brought his newly healed wrist up to his mouth and reopened the wound, then held it over her mouth where, like a sleeping child, she grasped at his limb and suckled. He watched as the wound on her neck slowly healed itself.

When Klaus was certain that she was on her way back to health, he made his way down the steps again, ignoring the fallen werewolves littering the floor.

"I'll compel for a clean up before she wakes up," Rebekah muttered as she paced.

Klaus looked at his sister, a little worse of wear, her clothes stained red with blood, her hair in disarray, walking back and forth, never far from the space between the door and the stairs leading up to Caroline's room. "Sister," he called her. Rebekah looked up at him with a hint of fear in her eyes. Klaus licked his lips. "For most of my life I tolerated you, Bekah, because you were there." Rebekah paused in her pacing and stared at him. "Tonight out of nowhere, after I took from you what you wanted most in the world, you were right where I did not know I needed you." And then she caught her breath when Klaus strode towards her and wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you."

Tears filled her eyes. "Don't thank me," she whispered brokenly. "I've failed you more than you know, Nik."

He took her shoulders by his hands and then held her within arm's length, his gaze avidly searching her face. "You kept her alive. You called me to keep her alive. Any falling out between us is forgotten, Bekah."

Rebekah burst into tears. She covered her face with her hands. Klaus smiled grimly, waited for the youngest to spill. There was nothing that broke Rebekah's will more than genuine appreciation from her brothers.

Finally, Rebekah dropped her hands and sniffled. "Elijah brought me here to protect them, Nik."

Them.

"But there were too many of them. I'd let Caroline in and we were celebrating, drinking champage," Rebekah narrated. Klaus' eyes scanned the room and eyed the kitchen island, putting together the images of Caroline coming home, kicking off her heels and pouring flutes of champagne. Two glasses of champage were shattered on the floor. "She finally got the stake from Marcel, the one that could kill us. She was going to give you a call, Nik."

The phone he found crushed, possibly under a boot, right in the living room close to the fireplace.

"We threw the stake into the fire." Rebekah's pause gave him a chill. "That was when they came for him."

"Him," he finally whispered.

Rebekah's big gaze turned to him. "The werewolves came for your son, Nik," Rebekah filled in, stunning him into silence. "Caroline's been taking care of your son." Rebakah smiled gently. "He calls her ma."

The ringing phone interrupted them, and Rebekah made a move to answer the call. Klaus stopped her, and waited for the call to go into voicemail.

There was that chuckle. Klaus knew that chuckle. "So no more pretensions then? I see you've taken something from me, Caroline, right after I gave you Daniel. Well, I hope you enjoy the visit from the grandparents. They certainly don't appreciate a heathen vampire raising the next alpha of the Original pack." A pause. "Try running, Caroline. There is no corner of the earth where they cannot smell you and hunt you down like the natural prey that you are."

The call dropped after the message was saved. Klaus looked at Rebekah in confusion.

"That cannot be," Rebekah gasped. "Your son cannot be part of the Original pack, Nik. Not unless-" Rebekah's eyes widened. "That family is legendary for their fortitude and their savageness in the face of the enemy, their possessive familial bonds. Even if Elijah tracks down that child, they will never leave us alone, Nik."

Klaus heard the tiny howling sound from outside the house. He held up a finger to silence Rebekah. He strode to the door and pulled it open. Before he stepped outside, he glanced at her. Immediately Rebekah nodded to communicate what she already understood.

"Ba careful," she called out to him.

Klaus stepped out into the cool night air and looked around. The moon shone bright outside, and the howling grew louder. He looked up and noted the crescent shape of the moon, and knew immediately that if this was a werewolf it would be part of the legendary pack. No other werewolves could turn outside the full moon.

And then he saw it, running across the lawn, creating a perimeter around the house. It was a white gold wolf, and despite its size Klaus recognized it for a pup. The wolf, with its glowing coat, was menacing under the moonlight. Klaus looked out towards the street and found four young men circling the house, reluctant to come closer as the wolf guarded the property.

Klaus allowed his Hybrid to emerge, transitioning easily to a yellow-eyed vampire and baring his fangs. He sped towards one and brought him down by snapping his neck. Klaus flashed to another and bit, drawing the blood until his heart stopped. He saw the golden wolf pup pause in his rounds, then start chasing after one. Klaus took on the fourth and dispensed of him as easily.

While the wolf pup chased the werewolf in its human form, Klaus watched with pride. He watched as the wolf leapt into the air beautifully and land on the back of the intruder, then bring the man down to the ground. Klaus stopped before the wolf and stroked the golden fur. "Good boy," he murmured gently. "Now go home."

The golden wolf sprinted away from Klaus. "You didn't really think I would let an innocent kid have such a worthless first kill, did you?" Klaus knelt down on the street and, amidst the screams of the man, buried his fangs into his neck.

Klaus walked back towards the house and found the wolf sitting on the welcome mat. He stopped and stared at the wolf, then studied him. He held out his hand, and the wolf tentatively walked towards him and sniffed his hand. With his free hand, Klaus took a picture of the wolf and sent Elijah a message. 'Come back. Daniel is here.'

The wolf, seemingly satisfied that Klaus was harmless to who he cared for, climbed on Klaus' lap. He stroked the thick white-golden fur until the wolf drifted to sleep. Klaus wiped his mouth of his sleeve.

"It's good to see you, Daniel," Klaus said softly as the wolf changed form, and he sat on the lawn cradling a naked blonde child. He grunted as he stood, taking Daniel with him as the baby shifted and laid a heavy head on his shoulder. Daniel's breath was fast and steady against his neck, a sign of the boy's exertion. The last time he felt any sign of life from his son, he was nothing but a heartbeat against his palm. "It's been a while."

tbc