"Good morning!" Caroline greeted her team as she entered the outer office. "I have a surprise for you guys!"
They all looked up at her excitedly but their expressions quickly turned suspicious when they saw that all she was holding was medical files. Medical mysteries never excited them as much as they did her.
"Fifteen year old girl, cardiogenic shock with no heart attack," she chimed, refusing to let them dampen her excitement.
The team all rolled their eyes but reached out for their individual folders.
"Fine, if that doesn't intrigue you guys, maybe the first page will," Caroline started as she took a seat at the glass table. "She doesn't have any heart problems, save for the whole shock thing. No infarctions, no infections, tox screen is clean, no Wolffe-Parkinson-White syndrome. Nothing,"
That got their attention. They all snapped their heads up to stare at her with wide eyes.
"That's what I thought," she grinned satisfactorly. "I should also mention that the patient is the daughter of an old personal friend. He requested my care specifically. Because of this and the patient's odd combination of symptoms, I suggest we start over. Scrap the medical history and rule everything out ourselves."
"Good idea. I'll go get an echo and a chest X-Ray," Jorgan offered. All three of them double took when Caroline shook her head.
"I'll be overseeing her care personally. I'll do the tests and let you guys know what I find out. Unfortunately, it will all come back negative. When it does, I'm going to suspect that the problem is playing hide and seek,"
"An arrhythmia?" Jorgan stated for her, nodding his head. "It makes sense,"
"Only one way to find out," Caroline smiled.
"You can't induce an arrhythmia in someone with an already weak heart," Valerie contested. Caroline couldn't help but roll her eyes; that girl was always trying to compete with her.
"If she walks out of here and has one on the street rather than in a hospital, she will probably die. You okay with that?"
Valerie simply looked down at the table.
"I'm going to go get consent for the procedure," Caroline informed, already headed for the door.
They stared at her with wide eyes for a moment before Thomas finally spoke with an impish grin, "Must be one hell of an old friend,"
Caroline smiled but didn't respond. He definitely was.
She slowed down as she walked down the hallway. Her heart was thumping in her throat as she mentally prepared herself. I'm about to meet Klaus' daughter she thought incredulously to herself. Her mind was racing with a hundred horrible scenarios yet she had no idea what to expect.
She took a deep breath when she finally reached the glass door to their room and slid it open before she could worry any further. Klaus' eyes snapped up to meet hers as she entered the room and his smile shot the now familiar tightness through her chest as she thought about the last time he'd smiled at her like that.
"Hi," she breathed.
"Hi," he smirked in return. Then he turned towards the girl lying in bed. "Hope, this is Caroline,"
Caroline's first thought when she finally tore her eyes away from Klaus to look at his daughter was that she looked freakishly like Hayley. Except for her eyes.
For fifteen, she was already willowy and beautiful. Her hair was dark and full. It contrasted incredibly with the bright blue orbs she'd inherited from her father. She was thin but Caroline could see the telltale werewolf sinew underneath her creamy skin.
"Hello, Hope," Caroline smiled hesitantly. "You look a lot like your mom,"
"That's what everyone says," Hope smiled sweetly and Caroline breathed a little easier. "It's nice to meet you,"
"It's nice to meet you too!" she exclaimed a little enthusiastically as she headed towards the bed. Hope's smile faded a little, as if just remembering who she was meeting.
"Do you know what's wrong with me?" she asked meekly.
"Not yet," Caroline assured. "We've decided to start over. Get brand new X-rays, heart tests, everything. We want to make sure the other doctors didn't miss anything,"
Hope nodded. "That sounds good,"
"Great," Caroline grinned. She snuck a glance towards Klaus who was watching her with amusement.
"Unfortunately, we don't really expect to find anything. It's highly unlikely that four other doctors missed something so simple. I think that it's an arrhythmia," Caroline began, turning towards Klaus to gauge his reaction. When she found that both he and Hope were lost, she took a deep breath to explain.
"It's when the electrical impulses that coordinate your heartbeats don't work right. It would explain your symptoms," Caroline drew another breath and directed her attention towards Klaus. "To test for it, we'd need to map the electrical pathways of her heart. We'd basically send electricity through each pathway until one fails. That would tell us where the arrhythmia is,"
Klaus' eyes bore into hers for a moment and she did her best to hold his gaze. "It sounds dangerous," he whispered.
Caroline nodded and glanced back at Hope, who gave her a timid smile. "It is," she nodded. "But if she has another cardiac episode, we have the means to help her. If it happens in an uncontrolled environment, it could kill her,"
Klaus breath was ragged and he crossed his arms tightly, as if trying to shield the pain that was to tearing it's way into his chest. Caroline's heart softened watching him become so tortured for his daughter. She wanted to promise him it would be okay, but she couldn't; so she simply waited.
Finally, Klaus sat at the edge of the bed and ran his hand over Hope's dark hair. "Okay," he nodded and reached for the clipboard that Caroline held.
After he'd signed it Caroline found gloves and a needle.
"I'd like to draw some blood, just to run some other tests," she explained. Mostly she was dying to see the properties of the girl's unique blood, but she could also use it to rule out a few other things. She sat down on the edge of Hope's bed and tried not to pay attention to Klaus' eyes that followed her every movement.
"So, Hope do you go to school?" Caroline asked cheerfully as she rubbed the inside of the girl's elbow with an alcohol pad. She assumed she'd become accustomed to needles over the past few weeks but it was still nice to be distracted. It seemingly worked when Hope nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah, I just started high school,"
"Wow, that's exciting," Caroline grinned. "Do you like it?"
Hope's eyes widened in excitement, reminding Caroline of herself at that age. "I love it, especially cheerleading. Hey, daddy said you were a cheerleader!"
Thankfully Caroline had just been taking the safety lid of the needle when she said that or she would've missed the girl's vein entirely.
"Did he now?" she asked, laughing with wide eyes as she tried to recover. "Well, it's true. I was captain. It was kind of my life back then," she laughed. She snuck an incredulous glance at Klaus and was shocked to find him both grinning and blushing.
She had just finished the blood culture when there was a knock on the door and Valerie walked in.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt. Dr. Howard requested a consult, room 205,"
"That's alright, I'll head over there really fast. Dr. Malloy, this is Klaus Mikaelson and his daughter, Hope. Will you take them to get her chest X-ray? Then wait in the procedure area, I'd like to do the mapping myself,"
Valerie nodded and Caroline turned towards Klaus again. "She's a member on my team, she'll take good care of you guys. I'll be back in a bit," she smiled and Klaus' answering smirk and "okay," was enough to send shivers down her spine.
She heard Valerie say "excuse me a moment" as she was leaving the room but she didn't get away fast enough before Valerie was grabbing her arm after sliding the glass door closed.
"Wait a minute! That is your old "personal" friend?! You have some serious explaining to do!" Valerie exclaimed in an excited whisper.
Caroline's cheeks burned at the thought of Klaus listening from the other side of the not so thick glass. She took a step away and whispered a much lower response.
"I don't know what you mean," she answered as melancholy as possible.
"Oh bullshit," Valerie snorted. "For one, no one who exchanges that much eye sex is just "friends" and you kind of forgot to mention that he's insanely hot!"
Caroline couldn't help the smile that crept across her face. She looked down, blushing.
"You little sleaze, I knew it!" Valerie grinned.
"Shhh!" Caroline begged urgently. "It's not a big deal. It was all a very long time ago,"
"Mhmm," Valerie nodded skeptically. "Apparently you didn't notice how you guys looked at each other. I'd be willing to bet you could go 1,000 years without seeing each other and it wouldn't matter,"
Caroline's heart did backflips but before she could respond Valerie's expression grew more solemn. Making a serious effort to keep her voice down she said, "I couldn't help but notice he's pretty young to have a 15 year old daughter. Is he..?"
"Yes," Caroline answered quickly when her voice trailed off. "I can explain more later but if anyone asks, it's an adoption. That's another reason I don't want anyone else handling the blood work,"
Valerie nodded and then gave her another wicked smile. "Yeah, I'm sure that's just one of many reasons,"
Caroline laughed and rolled her eyes as Valerie headed back to the room. She was just turning away when she caught Klaus' eye through the glass. He was grinning hugely at her, his expression smug as ever.
She knew he'd heard everything.