For ages and grade levels please read the endnote. The end of the end note.

Hello, readers. We're a little over the halfway point of this story and there are already over 300 reviews. And you can begin the mini-countdown to when Caroline officially returns to the story in chapter 30. But don't worry Klaus always carries her in his heart, soul and all that jazz. Without further ado…

Chapter 26: Near Death Experience

It was one of those really hot days. Those days that you can barely move a muscle. I was dragging my body around the house when someone rang the doorbell. I looked around expecting someone else to answer the door and then I remembered that Father and Mother were not at home. Elijah and Finn were hanging out with their girlfriends. I walked to the door and opened it.

"Hey, Klaus," Tyler greeted me with a wide grin. "I'm having a pool party at my house and I thought you might want to come by."

I looked around the house. "Yes," I replied because I was bored out of my mind with no one around. Henrick was in some kind of baby get together thing I had no idea what my Mother had been ranting about. Bekah was spending time with Elena and Bonnie today. Kol was off somewhere with Jeremy.

Walking out the door, I was pleased to see Damon hanging by the sidewalk looking like he expected my Father to come out and yell at him. Of course, my Father being the brilliant investigator he is had figured out that the papers and clothing that were destroyed had led back to the source of his new frustration.

Now, Damon was not allowed anywhere near our home and Father had said I would be attending private school out of state come Fall. We knew we had a limited amount of time before we would be separated like we had been separated from Caroline. If we did one more thing to displease Father he would probably have me sent back to England for school.

"Hey, Nik," Damon greeted me cheerfully but I could see how hurt he was by how little time we had left.

"Hey, Damon, It's hot out here," I murmured staring ahead of us. I did not want to get mushy. That was for girls like Bekah and Caroline and especially Elena. She may want to be a boy but she cried way too much. What made me angry was when she said I cried, too. That wasn't true.

"So, Lexi and Anna are at my party but its boys only." Tyler was telling me. "So, we need to come up with some great dares because it's like everyone forgot dare club since they heard you are leaving."

Damon turned to glare at Tyler. "He's not leaving. We'll find a way to keep him here. So, just keep your big mouth shut, Lockwood."

Tyler rolled his eyes. "That's why everyone says you're a bully," he muttered.

"I'll show you a bully," Damon snapped and turned around. I grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him back around.

"Chill, Damon," I told him and Damon shook his head as Tyler jumped on my back. I surprise. This was the year I had a growth spurt and now I was the pony ride for all the younger children. "Tyler, you need to lay off the food," I cried but carried him toward his house anyway.

"I have to bulk up to make the little league team. My dad was on it and Mason. And my granddad and like all the guys in my family," Tyler informed me.

"So what?" Damon replied, shaking his head. "If every guy in your family jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?"

"I don't know," Tyler replied and Damon grunted as he looked at me with a "what in hell is wrong with him" expression.

When we got to the Lockwood's, Tyler made me carry him back to the pool attached to the back of the house. Lexi and Anna were sunbathing which was funny since they were vampires but who knows? Maybe they just liked lying in the sun knowing they wouldn't get fried.

"Klaus," Matt yelled from the pool and was hit in the head with an inflatable ball. "Hey, that wasn't fair," he shouted and turned to Kol.

"Kol," I shouted. "You're supposed to be at the Gilbert's."

Kol stuck his tongue out at me and then splashed water all over my clothes. "I can be wherever I want," he yelled back.

"I dare you to get out of the pool and stay out until I say you can go back in," I ordered my brother who pouted as he got out of the pool.

"I dare you to get in the pool naked," Kol told me and then smiled.

I looked around me feeling weird. In spite of the fact that this was a boy's only party there were still two girls here and I did not want to take off my clothes in front of them. "Strip, dude," Tyler told me. "A dare is a dare."

I shook my head before peeling my clothes off and then I looked up to see Lexi staring at me. "Klaus, honey, you know you're supposed to wear something in the pool, right?"

"Kol dared me. And a dare is a dare," I told her before leaping into the pool.

Once I got over the oddity of being the only kid in the pool without something covering some part of his body I started to have fun. "I dare you to do a backflip into the deep end!" Matt shouted to Tyler who shrugged and got out. He ran over to the deep end of the pool and flipped in backwards. It took him a little longer to rise and we started to become worried when he surfaced and began to laugh. "You should see your faces."

"I dare you to hold your breath under water for three minutes," Tyler shouted to Matt.

Matt obeyed and sunk down into the water. He came up after thirty seconds later. "Can someone dare Klaus to put something on and we'll do it again? No offense."

I smiled. If I had to stay underwater I wouldn't want to be looking at him like that either. "It's cool," I told Matt.

"I dare you to put some damn clothes on," Damon shouted; he then laughed at how quickly I got out of the pool and pulled on my shorts.

"Matt, under water now," I ordered and Matt dove under the water once more.

When Matt resurfaced Damon decided to give me a dare. "I dare you to lay down at the bottom of the pool for no less than a full minute." I nodded and then swam to the bottom. Flattening my back to the bottom of the pool. I watched my friends watching me. My thoughts as always moved to Caroline. She would be coming home soon. It was only a couple of weeks but I wished it were days, hours, minutes. I was nine. She was seven. We were babies and at the beginning of our lives and I missed her every minute of every day.

Staring up at the bright sky, I wondered if life would always be like this summer day in which we were just goofing off. I couldn't imagine being an adult. Except for the part where Caroline and I were married and had our own home and kids. That I could see. I could see her happy. I would make her happy.

"Nik," Damon shouted to me and I was startled out of my thoughts and opened my mouth. That's when the water filled my mouth and my lungs. It hurt like no other pain I had ever experienced. The chlorine burned my nostrils as my body suddenly started to struggle and I felt the water filling me up. My head started to feel fuzzy and then I was shooting upward so very fast.

The first thing I remember was the feeling of Lexi laying me down beside the pool. "Stupid," she muttered. "Damon, come here. You nearly killed him. Now, you're going to save him."

"No, I can't," Damon told her and I heard the panic in his voice.

"Yeah, you can," Anna told him. "We can't. You have to. Okay?"

"But I can't," Damon told them and I thought I heard him sniffle.

"Damon, you can do this. Klaus needs you to do this for him," Anna was telling him and I felt her place Damon's hands on my chest. "Push down like this. Be careful. You don't want to break his ribs. Now, open his mouth and blow in. There," I felt Damon's mouth pressed to mine and I oddly thought that Caroline would be jealous as my friend poured air into my lungs.

Feeling the water wanting to come back up again I rolled over onto my stomach and poured the water out. Gasping, I stared at the concrete. "Nik?" Damon called, crouching down beside me. I turned to look back at him.

"I'm okay," I whispered, nodding and laying down on my stomach, breathing slowly. Damon laid down next to me and pressed his forehead to mine.

"Don't you ever die on me, Nik," Damon whispered to me.

Of course, that couldn't be it for the excitement of the day. Kol had to add to the fun. "Where is Kol?" Tyler asked and we looked around.

I lifted my head to find that my brother was missing in all the excitement. I had told him he couldn't get in the pool. I didn't say he couldn't move. Feeling nervous, I got up with Damon. The group decided to split up and look for my brother. "Kol! Kol! KOL!" I shouted, feeling the desire to strangle my brother as we walked around looking for him.

"Kol!" Damon shouted, turning around in circles to look for the escapee.

"Come on, Kol," I shouted angrily. "You are not funny." I was waiting for him to appear with whip cream to spray on us. Or for him to come out and hit us with something. When I heard nothing in response, I felt fear beginning to fill my veins. "KOL," I screamed.

When we could not find him anywhere in the house, we went outside and looked around. There was no one and nothing in sight. I even checked in Tyler's Mother's car in case he had gotten inside. He was five and thought he was funny. Anna called the Gilberts' and Kol was not there.

Finally, I decided to go home. Damon came with me despite his being unwelcome in our home. I opened the front door with my key and walked upstairs and found Kol asleep in his bed. His face was wet and I wondered what was going on with the little monster.

Kol never cried about anything, even getting shots. Sitting down on the floor beside his bed, I sighed. "I should have known he would go home," I told Damon.

"Why?" Damon asked me.

"Because when Kol is upset he runs home," I told him. "He drives us nuts but when he's upset he wants to be near his family."

I placed my hand on my little brother's cheek and one of his eyelids popped open. "You're not dead," Kol whispered, looking surprised.

I chuckled. "Nope. I'm still here."

"I was bad, Nik," Kol told me, curling up under his comforter.

"Why?" I asked him.

"Because I wanted you to be hurt because you told me I couldn't stay in the pool. But I didn't mean it. I swear I didn't," Kol told me, looking scared.

"It's okay," I told him. "I'm okay."

"My stomach hurts, Nik," Kol told me and then he groaned, loudly clutching at his stomach.

"You're not supposed to eat before you get in the pool, kid," Damon sighed as he shook his head.

"I didn't," Kol protested. "I didn't eat a thing."

"Then what's wrong?" I asked Kol, confused. "You had to have eaten something but you don't remember."

"I didn't, Nik," Kol insisted. "I only ate some candy after you got hurt. I found it in Tyler's Mom's bathroom. In this." Kol pulled out an orange vial and I turned to Damon.

"Shit," Damon muttered, running out of the room.

I sat down beside my brother as Damon ran back with the cordless phone. "Yes, he thought they were candy. I don't know how many were in the bottle. Do I need to know? No, our parents aren't at home. No. I don't know. Help us. Please!" Damon yelled into the phone as Kol looked paler and paler on the bed. "They say the paramedics are coming," Damon told me.

Picking up my brother, I began to hurry down the stairs to find my father walking through the door. "Niklaus, what happened?" Then he saw Damon and his expression darkened. "What did you do this time?" He shouted at Damon.

"He didn't do anything," I shouted back, feeling tears fill my eyes. Father took Kol out of my arms as the phone began to ring again. Damon answered.

"The ambulance is almost here," Damon announced as we heard the siren and he ran to open the door. Running out onto the lawn, he began to wave frantically. "We're over here," he shouted.

Then there were two men in blue paramedics' outfits taking my brother and putting him on a stretcher. "Sir, do you know what your son ingested?" One of the paramedics asked Father.

"No," Father told him, shaking his head as he headed toward the ambulance.

"He took some pills he found," Damon told them and then he pointed to me. "You took the bottle, right, Nik?"

I found that I was still clutching the plastic container and gave it to the paramedic who frowned. "We need to go now."

Before he got into the ambulance my Father looked down at Damon. "Thank you," he muttered and then they were gone.

"Thank you," Damon shouted after the ambulance was gone. "Thank you. Your dad is a big, fat jackass," he shouted before sitting down on the ground and glaring at the street.

"It'll be okay, Damon," I reassured him.

"Yeah, everything is always okay." Damon told me. "I'm going to go home and you enjoy how okay things are." I could only stand and watch as my friend left. Walking back into my house, I leaned against the door and thought about how not okay everything really was.

Reviews = happiness.

So, that chapter was bit dramatic but I wanted to keep you interested until Care returns and she will. Just take deep calming breathes until then and think of happy thoughts that involve a crossover with Caroline appearing of TO (crossing my own fingers and toes).

Thank you for reading faving, following and reviewing: Ferrylis (I am going to try to work in a letter sometime before chapter thirty), xXAncientXx (I didn't want to make Mikael into the villain of this fic but I did want to make him have faults), MysteryGirl3 (thank you, they do like to get into trouble, I really like the idea of Damon being good with other people's siblings while tormenting his own and don't worry Elena's hair will grow back), elijahlover (epic ), myloverforklaus (thanks a bunch), klaroline4everlove (I don't think anything bad will happen and I'll let you know if that changes because I haven't written the next chapter yet let alone their reunion), klaroline-lovegames (thank for the love ) and Serlina (Okay, every ten chapters just imagine that they would going forward a year in school.)

At the beginning of the story Klaus and Damon are 6. Elijah, Katherine, Andie (as in Damon's girlfriend in season three i.e. reporter lady) Jenna, Rose and Hayley are eleven. Alaric, Finn Mason are ten. Sage is nine. Caroline, Stefan, Elena, Matt, Tyler and Bonnie are four. Kol is three. Rebekah and Jeremy are two. Now, they're three years older.

As for grades. Klaus and Damon will be entering third grade. Caroline and co. will be in first grade. Kol will be in kindergarten. Bekah will be in pre-school. Elijah and co. will be freshman in high school. Sage will be in seven grade and Alaric and Finn will be in their last year of middle school (eighth grade). I know it's confusing. I can't keep track of them either.

Peace,

LL