Hello, my lovely readers. I am sorry about the long, long wait. I hope you enjoy the new chapter. On with the show…

Chapter 14: A Day Off?

Yawning, Mikael woke up in the middle of the Gilbert's front lawn. He had no idea how exactly he had gotten there. Or maybe he did. It had something to do with attempting to bond with Niklaus, soccer balls and then drinking with the older Salvatore brother. Lots and lots of drinking. Then there was the strange American who came to see Elena. His name was odd and Mikael could not recall it or the last twelve hours.

"Good morning, Mikael," Liz Forbes greeted him with a smile that radiated from her and Mikael sat up in the grass.

"Liz, how lovely to see you again. I would have called but I've been rather preoccupied at the moment." Mikael's explanation sounded slow and plodding to his own ears, like Stefan Salvatore's script. He could do better. He would do better. "You see, I have been trying to mentor the at-risk youths in the area such as…"

"Jeremy Gilbert?" Liz ventured and Mikael smiled.

"Yes, young Jeremy. He's not very good, but he keeps my… well, the boy who might be my son, Kol, from doing too much damage during the filming," Mikael said.

Liz frowned. "Kol? I have had several reports of vandalism linked to a man called Kol. As well as drunk and unruly behavior. Suspected robbery of an alcohol store. Assault with a deadly weapon. Murder. Attempted murder. And Bonnie Bennett came in to fill a sexual harassment claim against him just yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that." Liz pulled out a notebook, flipping through it. "Yup. That covers most of it."

"Would you like to go to dinner with me?" Mikael asked the Sheriff.

Liz' eyebrows rose. "Aren't you married?" she inquired.

Mikael looked down at his wedding ring and pulled it off, dropping it in the grass. "Separated. I think that a thousand years is a long enough separation to finally begin to date again, don't you?" he asked the Sherriff.

"Well, my husband did turn out to be gay and I haven't been out too often because I'm really busy with work and my daughter says you're trying to change, aside from the hostile work environment you subject your employees to every day…"

"Is that a yes?" Mikael inquired, getting to his feet.

"Okay. I don't really have anything else to do. I mean, I agreed to spend the night with Caroline, but I'm sure she'll understand," Liz beamed at Mikael who could not be more pleased.

"Wait just a minute!" Damon Salvatore called, walking out of the Gilbert house, buttoning up another, infernal black button down shirt. Did he produce the things from thin air? "You're not going out with this guy, are you, Liz? You have better taste than that."

"Damon, you don't get to judge who I date. You're having sex with your brother's girlfriend," Liz reminded Damon who narrowed his eyes at her as Elena came out the front door.

"Good morning, Sheriff. Mikael," Elena's smile dimmed when she saw her boss, who was still on her lawn, for some reason.

"Good morning, Elena," Liz greeted the girl.

"Don't start in with that 'Good morning, Elena' and everything is just peachy crap!" Damon yelled. "We haven't had sex, yet, and I resent the implication. I am waiting for a reasonable period of grieving for her relationship with Stefan to end so that Elena and I can make sweet, sweet love!"

Elena looked confused. "But, Damon, what we did last night, that was sex, remember?"

"But they don't know that," Damon whispered to her.

"I can hear you," Mikael pointed out with a bored look. "And no one cares what the two of you do. This isn't the Delena show. This is about me and my child, Niklaus, his girlfriend, Caroline, and her lovely mother."

"You're so sweet," Liz said with a fond smile.

"Trust me, he is not," Klaus grumbled, climbing out from inside a bush. "He threw me in there, just last night."

"It was for your own good!" Mikael yelled at Klaus who glowered at him.

"It was because of a bet," the American piped up with a yawn as he sat up on the porch.

"Ric!" Damon cried. "Where the hell you been, man?"

"Busy. And you should have noticed me earlier since you stepped on my head on your way out the door." Ric rubbed his face where there was a Damon-sized footprint.

"Are you okay?" Elena asked.

"What do you care?" Alaric snapped. "You stepped on me, too, when you came out."

"I thought you were Kol!" Elena protested.

"Not it!" Kol cried and jumped down from the Gilbert's roof. "Catch me if you can!" he shouted as Jeremy jumped down and then screamed in pain when his leg broke. "Oh, mate, that looks like it hurt!" Kol cried and then began to laugh. "Here. Have some blood and do it again," he bit his wrist and offered it to Jeremy.

"Aren't we going to be late to the set?" Elena asked, checking her watch.

"I'm giving everyone the day off," Mikael announced.

"Really?" Klaus seemed pleased as he picked leaves out of his hair. "Then I shall be off to find Caroline and give her the good news." Sprinting away, he stopped in front of Caroline's door after ripping a rose bush out from in front of the Lockwood's manor. Knocking on the door, his grin dropped when Bonnie answered the door. "Bonnie, where is Caroline?"

"Getting checked for rabies," Bonnie replied icily.

"Is that Klaus?" Caroline called from inside the tiny house.

"Yes," Bonnie sighed. "I guess you can come inside," she relented, bitterly.

Klaus smirked at the witch as he walked inside and then he wished he hadn't. "Oh. What is all of this?" he asked Caroline, who looked up with a wide grin.

"I'm planning Sage's wedding," she told him gleefully. Inside the house were tables set up with, what must be, a hundred cake samples. There were three boards with pieces of fabric hanging from them. Bridal magazines littered almost every square foot of the floor. And there were flowers and candles, everywhere. "I can see that, love, but did Sage ask you to plan the wedding?" he asked hesitantly.

"Not is so many words. But I know that once I find the exact right theme, she'll be so happy, she'll have to go with it," Caroline enthused.

"Has she been like this all morning?" Klaus whispered to Bonnie who had unscrewed a bottle of Jack Daniel's and sucked down half the contents. Bonnie scoffed before she walked away, stumbling over bridal magazines and muttering to herself about crazy-ass vampires and being in hell before she collapsed on Caroline's bed.

"Do you think she'll be angry if I dress her up in a gown? I always thought Bonnie would make a beautiful June bride," Caroline picked up a dress and moved toward the bedroom when Klaus grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Caroline, I need for you to stop this. Now!" Klaus demanded of the blonde who pouted up at him.

"Why? Are you a wedding-hater? Because then we couldn't get married and I am going to get married. I don't care if I have to marry Damon, I'm getting married! I've always been engaged to the idea of marriage and if you won't marry me, then someone will have to!" Caroline folded her arms over her chest, giving Klaus a look of defiance.

"Of course, Caroline, nothing would please me more than to marry you tomorrow," Klaus told her sincerely.

"Really?" Caroline shrieked leaping into his arms. "I think Sage might be angry that we're going to steal her wedding thunder and I don't have nearly enough time to get the invitations out, but if we hurry, we can get it done," she cried.

"What's going on?" Bonnie moaned from the bedroom.

"Klaus proposed! We're getting married tomorrow!" Caroline yelled to her friend who stared back at her with a blurry-eyed look of resentment before taking another swig and passing out again.

"Caroline," Klaus began slowly. He had no idea how Caroline could have misconstrued his intent in this manner. Yes, he did intend on marrying her. Someday. Not tomorrow. There were things he intended on accomplishing first. "Caroline—"

"Oh, my God. We're so not ready?" Caroline exclaimed, hopping back down and looking around her in dismay. Klaus let out a sigh of relief but her next words made him groan, inwardly. "We need a caterer. And a band. How do you get a band in a day? Like a great band! Who am kidding? I'm marrying Niklaus freakin' Mikaelson! You can get anything you want done quickly. So, this time. And this is a one-time deal. Got it, mister?" Caroline waved a finger at Klaus. "You can compel as many people as you need to make our wedding the most perfect wedding that Mystic Falls will ever see! But no killing people. Unless they ruin my dress. That's the one exception. Okay?"

Klaus nodded, feeling numb. Why were all of these things happening to him right now? He had been happy when he found out that Mikael was his father in spite of his misgivings and he was happy that he was marrying Caroline, but it all seemed too much, too quickly, like the universe was playing some sort of joke on him. "Right. I will make some calls," he muttered to himself and then left the house.

Walking down the street, Klaus removed his phone and began to make some phone calls, when he felt something sharp pierce the side of his neck and he groaned. "What the bloody hell?" he muttered, looking at the dart that someone had spat at him. Peering around, Klaus tried to identify his assailant but he did not get the chance when another dart hit him in the forehead. He let out a growl when another hit him between the legs and he went down, cursing.

Across town, Finn and Sage were walking into the county clerk's office. Sage heard her phone ping and she withdrew it to find that Caroline had texted her, again. Expecting some crap about whether she wanted lilies or roses in her bouquet, her eyebrows shot up when she read the message. "Something wrong?" Finn asked.

"Nope. Looks like Klaus is getting married, too," Sage told Finn who looked shocked.

"Really? How do you think Caroline managed that?" Finn asked.

"Who cares? Let's get this formality out of the way, shall we?" Sage asked and Finn nodded smiling. He stopped smiling when he noticed a happy couple coming out from the mayor's office. "Rebekah?"

"Oh!" Rebekah looked surprised to see Finn.

Finn could not believe his eyes as he looked down at his little sister in her white suit with bouquet in hand. "Rebekah? What is going on?" he asked her slowly.

"I…" Rebekah trailed off with a smile, laying her head on Stefan Salvatore's shoulder who looked equally content.

"We caught the wedding fever," Stefan explained. "I proposed last night and we got up this morning and headed down here."

"How romantic," Sage quipped with a smirk. "How long do you plan on staying that way? And don't you have a girlfriend?"

"I did," Stefan shrugged. "But I figure that once Elena stops mourning our relationship, I'll come one day to find her and Damon humping on the couch, so I thought I'd cut my losses and marry Bekah."

"Is that the only reason you married me?" Rebekah demanded, her cheeks flaming pink before she began to beat Stefan with her bouquet. "This was the happiest day of my entire thousand years of life and you ruined it. You ruined it! No wonder you were friends with Nik, you vile, cruel, heartless man!" Sobbing, Rebekah fled the building before stealing Stefan's Porsche and driving away, tossing her veil out the window.

Rebekah did not stop driving until she saw a group of men dragging Klaus' prone body into a black van and driving away with him. Wiping away her tears, she decided to follow them. She had seen this episode of Buffy and was determined she would get her brother away from whichever vile military members were taking off to probe him and stick him in a tiny room where he could not dagger her again.

Thinking on the subject of the injustices that her brother had put her through, Rebekah turned the car around. Let the government take Nik and make an army of hybrids to take over the world with for all she cared. She was done with him and men in general. She did not stop driving until she ran into Matt Donavon. Literally. "Oh, Matt, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there!" she cried, getting out and rounding the car to check that he was okay. That was when she realized that it was not Matt but a blonde dummy, made up to look like Matt in his Mystic Grill outfit.

Something was off and Rebekah backed toward the car when she felt a pain in her head that made her scream. Dropping to the ground, the last thing she saw were a pair of black boots and then nothing.

Thank you for reading, faving, following and reviewing.

Redbudrose: I love that chapter, too! Re-read the entire story up to this point to refresh my memory and I was laughing so hard it hurt. Sorry about the long wait for this chap.

Guest: I love Kol, too. Sorry it took so long to update and that there isn't more Kol in it.

Peace,

Jessica