Part 2

Whatever that accursed blade had done to him had brought him low, every second seemed to drain more of his energy. Her blood should have given him the strength. He had certainly taken more than enough. Yet his deteriorated muscles strained from the effort. Pulling his own body to move after more than a year chained in that dank room was hard enough. Adding her dead weight to the equation was near impossible. Klaus could not stop for a second. His heightened senses heard the commotion from far above them to know that Marcel's men was hot in their heels.

Another more logical move was to lay her down and speed out of the tunnel, secure assistance from his family or Hayley that he just knew would be waiting on the other end of it. As much as he had allowed Caroline the distance she had requested, there would have been no way for her to know about his fall if his neither Hayley nor Rebekah reached out.

Klaus would sooner thrust the blade into himself again than leave her there. And so, he pulled her closer to him, and finally stumbled out. He emerged through the tunnel and out in the sun like a madman, bloodied and disheveled, his clothes torn and worn, carrying Caroline unconscious and bleeding. His relief was overwhelming when he saw the Land Cruiser waiting there.

At the sight of them, Hayley jumped out of the driver's seat and hurried over to them.

"Klaus, what the hell—" her voice trailed off. He was certain his expression must have been as devastated as he felt. That woman had over time not passed the chance to call him out on his shortcomings.

Seeing Elijah climb down from the passenger side of the vehicle, Klaus recognized safety. At the reassurance, Klaus' knees folded in half and he sank in his exhaustion on the grassy soil. Elijah knelt on one knee in front of Klaus, his eyes somber in understanding, then reached for Caroline.

"Wait."

He bit into his wrist, then pressed the wound to Caroline's mouth. The blood dribbled out the corner of her mouth. For a moment, Klaus froze, paralyzed by the notion that it had been too late, that he should have done this in the catacombs, that he should have stopped and given her the cure on the way out.

"We need to leave, Klaus," Elijah said firmly. "Marcel's men are coming. They've seen your cell is empty, found the blood bags on the floor. They know someone broke you out. You're not safe here."

She was deathly still, the pallor of her skin a grayer tint than he had ever before seen.

"She is not safe here." That, coupled with Elijah's firm and heavy hand on his shoulder, that moved him to action. "Get in the back of the car and you can continue there, Niklaus."

Klaus was reluctant to release her when Elijah took her from his arms. He was loathe to admit that it was necessary. Hayley helped him up when he seemed to struggle. She did not comment. It would wound his pride, and he was not in a state that he could be logical. He leaned his weight on her as she led him to the truck. Within moments, Elijah placed Caroline with him. Klaus lifted her head, urging her to take more of his blood to counteract the venom racing through her body.

The truck moved. Klaus could hear their conversations muffled as he fought through complete, utter exhaustion. He rested his head back, willing himself to stay alert, to be present. His mind screaming at him to wake, his body folding in on itself.

He jerked himself awake. He did not know how long he had been out, could not believe he was rendered unconscious. He was the Original Hybrid, and a year of punishment, despite the black magic of that blade, should not have enough to deplete him so.

Klaus moved Caroline's hair from her neck and saw that his blood had worked, and the wound had begun to heal. How was she here? He had held tight to the promise he had given her, stayed away from Mystic Falls to give her the space she wanted. Yet here she was, he thought, pulling her close, in New Orleans to save him when she had adamantly refused to even visit him for fear that falling in love with the city meant an end to her pretend human existence.

No matter. They were eventually to end up this way. Both of them knew down the road, they would find themselves in the same square foot piece of earth.

The road was unfamiliar now. He heard Hayley's breathing pattern shift at the driver's seat, knew they were nearing the destination.

Hope.

Too many questions raced in his head.

"How is my daughter?" was the first he could voice out loud. Klaus looked up to Hayley in the rearview mirror.

At that, Hayley gave a small, warm smile. He could see the strain in her face at having to be away for so long. "She's beautiful. And healthy." As he had expected. "She's starting to look like you."

"I can't wait to see her," he responded wistfully. Klaus' hand searched for and rested on Caroline's, twining their fingers. "Thank you for keeping her safe. You are a good mother." Caroline's color was coming back. The sallowness of her eyes was gone. By now the wound that he tore into her neck had completely healed.

"If you finished all the blood bags she brought in with her, you should find some in the cooler."

Blood bags. Of course, Caroline Forbes would have preplanned and organized the rescue to the letter. And of course, he was always going to shoot the plans to hell.

He reached for one bag from the cooler when she stirred in his lap. Her eyes flew open. Caroline sat up quickly, her hand going immediately to her neck to the wound that had healed over. Klaus handed her the blood bag and she sucked on it immediately, finishing the contents at once. When he moved to reach for another bag, she stilled his arm.

Silently she searched his face, then looked down at the fully unmarred skin below his tattoos. "I'm fine, love."

Klaus could feel Elijah watching from the front passenger seat. He did not remember Elijah having met Caroline in any meaningful manner back in Mystic Falls, and Klaus had certainly never volunteered information about her to any of his siblings. Save for Rebekah who had the closest entanglement to the Virginians, Klaus had not mentioned her name. His relationship with Elijah in the centuries before this very moment had been fraught and tenuous. Caroline would have just given Elijah another bullet at his disposal, should it come to that.

Her expression was still wild, anxious. Klaus brought her hand, caked with his dried blood, towards where she had torn a hole to extricate the blade. Gingerly, the tips of her fingers roamed the unbroken skin. "Good," she murmured. Her eyes searched his. "I'm sorry. I know it hurt."

Hurt was the understatement of the century. But he was not going to say it. She heard it loud and clear in that dungeon when he screamed.

And then she pushed her palms on his shoulders, shoving him back, catching him unaware. "You bit me! Again!" Caroline shoved him back again. "I had the best plan to save you. It was going so well too. And you bit me!"

He caught her wrists in his hands to keep her from hitting him again. Klaus drew her close, then rested his forehead on hers.

He did not want to do this here, sitting in the back of the truck, Elijah and Hayley at the front. There was not even a privacy partition, and he had too many questions still.

She closed her eyes, and he could see the quiet instructions she gave herself, watched her lips move as she drew in and out deep, calming breaths. "I know, love," he whispered, as softly and quietly as he could. But he was in a vehicle full of vampires. There was no pretense of privacy. Elijah, at least, was the model of discretion, and kept his attention forward on the road. His lips curved, gentling his tone another level if that were possible. "It would have worked too, if I weren't in such a sorry shape. You were just so out of place." In the catacombs. In this city. Hell, after all the wasting that was bound to happen now, she was too beautiful and light to be in his life. Even in his wasted stupor, he remembered the golden angel that knelt before him, looking like an angel of mercy, too beautiful not to have been the Devil Incarnate sent to lure him into temptation. "Sweetheart—"

And then she opened her eyes, meeting his in their close proximity. "You invited me here, Klaus. And I am not letting you rescind the offer."

But he wanted to show her art and beauty, to lay at her feet a kingdom that was his. She was never intended to land in the middle of a war that almost exterminated his thousand-year-old family. Angels had no place in a razed, forsaken heaven.

"There will be a reckoning."

His city had chosen Marcel. That much was defeat enough for Klaus. He could have left, and his family would have circled around the youngest Mikaelson and left the city. But Marcel Gerard was not going to live after nearly exterminating his line. Family was power, and even with the city behind Marcel, Klaus Mikaelson had more power in his family than Marcel's whole army could dream of.

"Then I'm afraid I'm here for it."

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

Upon arriving at the quaint farmhouse that she had been hiding in with her daughter, she motioned towards the house. Hayley closed a hand over Elijah's to hold him back, knowing he was as eager and anxious to reunite with the girl as his brother was.

"She should still be awake," Hayley prompted.

Klaus stepped out of the vehicle, then offered a hand to Caroline to assist her. Klaus' hand closed around hers. On the way to the house, Caroline held onto his arm with her other hand, flush by his side.

Hayley watched at the door, giving enough distance between them and the reunion before them. Caroline peeled away just as Klaus walked over to the child, motioning to the blood on her. Caroline glanced towards where Hayley stood. Elijah looked on as Klaus took Hope in his arms and breathed in his daughter's scent.

"She asked about you so many times," Hayley started. "And you will have your turn with her. I just—"

"No, no. I'm fine. This is good for him. He should have his time with her."

Hayley excused herself, knowing that the other woman was uncomfortable still and did not know her way around. The farmhouse was small, unlike the mansion, and the fit will be tight once the rest of the family make their way back from their various assignments. She approached Caroline and drew her to follow, careful not to touch her. She watched with hooded eyes as Caroline stepped gingerly into the small room.

"I'm sure we'll find more space for everyone. But tonight, you know, we just have to make do."

Caroline nodded in understanding. "I didn't expect you to have to house me, Hayley." Hayley noted the discomfort in the other woman, knew that seeing Klaus with Hope, knowing Hope was her daughter, would trigger a loss of balance that she did not have when it was only spoken of prior to tonight.

"I'm sure when you drove to New Orleans, you thought you were running to safety. And I'm sorry that I put you in more danger than you should have been. Especially now." She nodded towards the imperceptible swell of Caroline's belly, concealed by the blood-splattered peplum blouse that she wore. "How do you feel?"

Caroline's lips curved. "I'll live."

Hayley nodded. "I'll bring a change of clothes and a fresh towel. You can borrow some of mine for tonight." She turned to leave.

"Hayley—" She stopped, then looked back at Caroline. "I know we were never friends." She contained a snort at the understatement. She and Caroline abhorred each other, not for no reason at all. They had just seemed to be around the same type of dangerous hybrids, but after today, Hayley found something more valuable that they had in common. For that, Miss Mystic Falls had her respect. No one else had been able to pull off breaking into the compound, least of all breaking out Klaus Mikaelson. Caroline Forbes came out of it worse for wear, but she survived and most importantly, so would he. And now her family was back. Thanks to this girl who just drove out of nowhere, sat in the diner, then asked out loud for Klaus. Hayley was just grateful that the rumor reached her before it did Marcel. "But thank you."

Hayley shrugged. "You asked for Klaus. I told you where he was. Everything else you accomplished on your own." She gave a small, reserved smile. Maybe one day they would be better friends, especially if she was going to be staying in her daughter's father's life. "Welcome to New Orleans."

When Hayley returned to the bedroom that she had assigned to Klaus, she could hear the shower on. Caroline had obviously been eager to scrub the traces of blood on her skin. She liked that Caroline had been considerate not to interact with Hope, keeping her distance and not overly familiar, even if Klaus had been holding on to her mere seconds before taking his daughter in his arms. Caroline's excuse of all the dried blood on her notwithstanding, Hayley appreciated that Caroline seemed to know enough not to be a third party during her daughter's reunion with her father. She suspected Hope would be a subject that she would need to sit down with Caroline about.

She had seen Klaus today, and whatever confusion remained for her since Miss Mystic Falls Caroline Forbes appeared in New Orleans asking for him had vanished into thin air. He was a madman at the end of that tunnel, carrying her bloodied and torn. At the back of the truck, he had clutched at her fiercely despite rolling in and out of consciousness. She had wanted to pull Caroline away, suspecting the reason Klaus could not regain his full strength as he held her. But Hayley had known Klaus long enough that she knew his sheer strength and the power he had to spare, and seen enough of the infected wound and the torn flesh to know that Caroline needed the little siphoners to do its work to heal her. He had thought it was the mere droplets of blood that trickled from his wrist as he sat slumped in the back of the truck. But the mother in her glowed with secondhand pride at the way those little passengers knew enough to protect themselves and Caroline by latching on to the overpowered supernatural in their midst.

Knowing she would find Elijah in the study and anticipating the barrage of questions that she recognized on his face, Hayley prepared herself mentally before opening the door.

Waking them up from their magically induced slumber, letting them get their fill of blood as they rampaged about in the woods, then leading him to the end of the tunnel to meet his brother and Caroline as per the plan, she and Elijah had not been able to manage some alone time. And after all those months of throwing herself in her solitary quest to bring him back—for Hope, she insisted—she needed to find time with him for herself.

Hayley found him with his back to her, his hand moving as he swirled a glass of bourbon. She walked forward, eager to rest her cheek on his back, to relish at least a moment of peace between them. She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, then sighed.

At least she got the private reunion for this split second, walled in by the study, unlike Klaus and Caroline's open for her and his brother to see.

It did not last long until Elijah turned around, placing the glass on the window sill. He looked down at her, resting his lips on hers. His gaze was full of admiration, warming her heart.

She had worked long and hard, all the sleepless nights blended together, searching in what seemed to be futile hope.

Until the sigils began being burned onto walls like so much graffiti, portending the arrival of powers in New Orleans that had no place there, of what, she learned afterwards, was impossible. And as the mother of Hope, the miracle child, the accident that should not exist, Hayley latched onto the impossible.

Caroline Forbes arrived in New Orleans, looking for her baby's father, on the day the twelfth sigil combusted spontaneously in an alley at the French Quarter. She had been turned away. No one had seen Klaus for a year. What she was not told was where he was. And when dejectedly Caroline left, Hayley met her at her car. That was when she heard them.

Finally finding a familiar, if not fond, face, Caroline's fear pulsed in the air. The first witch to approach them caught the vampire off guard. She had not been prepared for the power and blatant openness of witchcraft in New Orleans. When Caroline dropped to her knees and clutched her head, Hayley disposed of the witch. Another approached her, wielding a black dagger in hand which Hayley recognized at once to contain a powerful hex. She alerted Caroline of the danger, then watched as Caroline caught her shoulder on the blade. Her skin glowed a warm amber and healed over. Caroline's gaze widened as she looked down at the glow that moved to her palm, which she directed at the witch in front of her, sending the witch reeling to the far end of the alley before stumbling to her feet to run away.

Her passengers, Hayley had recalled calling them. The last of one of the most powerful covens, one thought extinct even by the mighty covens of Louisiana.

And that was when she knew that the quest to save her family was no longer going to be a solitary one. All she had to do was get past the disconnect, the wall between them.

When she found Caroline the next morning, coiled in front of the toilet bowl, heaving the contents of her stomach, trembling and drenched with sweat, Hayley sighed and brought her dry crackers and some water. She wanted to ask her why she wanted to find Klaus, wondered where her friends were, confused why her boyfriend was not with her. Instead, Hayley looked her in the eye and asked, 'Are you sure you want to find him?'

Caroline did not want to wait, and neither did Hayley. All cards on the table, Hayley brought her to the attic and opened the coffin with Rebekah inside. She reached for the mark of the hex, its putrid infection frozen in time as her body lay suspended. Caroline looked up at Hayley, her brows furrowed, confused.

"Siphon the hex."

"I'm not a witch. I don't have those powers."

"Could have fooled me after you siphoned the magic off that dagger yesterday."

"I don't have them. Whether or not the babies use them, I can't control it."

Hayley's hand fisted. She would have grabbed her hand and laid it on Rebekah herself if she thought that Caroline had better control. She had been too long without her family, and this was too much delay for something so simple. "Klaus has been in that prison for more than a year, Caroline. I need to get this done, and you need to tell me if you're in or out, so I can stop wasting my time."

Caroline pursed her lips, then placed a hand on the Original.

"Who was that?" came Elijah's question, his voice calm, collected, almost casual.

Hayley knew him well enough now to know there was much more under the surface. "I am sure you ran into her once or twice in your time in Mystic Falls," Hayley answered. "She was Elena Gilbert's best friend."

Elijah's lips curved, and Hayley recognized that it was not about mirth. She hated to think that Elijah would think she was being deceptive. "Elena Gilbert's best friend. Really, Hayley, you won't even give me more than that. I gather you trust the girl, sending her for Niklaus as you worked to save the rest of us."

"Her name is Caroline Forbes," came his voice from behind her. "I put Hope to bed. You're right. She's beautiful."

Hayley stiffened. Elijah's arms tightened around her. Slowly, Hayley turned to face Klaus as he leaned against the door frame.

"As grateful as I am for managing to save us all, Hayley, would you indulge my curiosity?" Hayley's self-preservation instincts rose at the too smooth, too gentle way that Klaus spoke. And then his voice dropped sharply. "How could you send Caroline into the compound defenseless?"

Her hands came up in involuntary self-defense, even if he made no move to come at her. Hayley licked her lips. Ever the gentleman, Elijah moved discreetly, stepping out from behind her, placing himself forward, so that Klaus would reach him before he did Hayley. "As you could see, Klaus, she was hardly unprepared. She got in without problems, and she succeeded in freeing you."

"She was defenseless against me," he said, his voice strained. "I could have killed her."

Only, Caroline Forbes had more power protecting her today than she ever had in all her previous dealings with Klaus. But that was not her truth to tell.

Klaus flinched at the touch on his back, as if burned. Caroline stopped beside him, her hair wet from the shower, fresh faced, with no trace of the day's trauma on her face. Hayley wondered how she could so easily put the mask on, because nearly being ripped apart by a Hybrid was certain to cause nightmares that no number of hot showers could fix. Hayley recognized that kind of girl, was proud not to be that. She felt what she felt, and she wore it like a badge of honor. Caroline seemed more willing to put on a mask for everyone else's comfort.

Like she needed to be the light, because the light was what everyone else needed.

Being with Klaus Mikaelson, that could be destructive.

"Elijah Mikaelson," Caroline said in acknowledgment, the smile on her face reaching her eyes like the perfect mask. "Since these two seem to have lost all semblance of etiquette, I'll introduce myself. Caroline Forbes. It's good to finally meet you." She stepped into the room in Hayley's clothes, offering a handshake.

Elijah took her hand, then turned it to raise her knuckles to his lips. "Pleasure's all mine, Miss Forbes. I'm very grateful for your part in saving Niklaus today." His gaze flickered to Klaus. "And I regret the inconvenience it brought you."

When Klaus almost killed you, was the unspoken end to that statement. Hayley could almost hear it in the pause.

And so could Caroline, it seemed. She drew her hand back quickly, then interlaced her fingers with Klaus'. He looked down at their intertwined hands. "Let's get some rest. You need to get your strength back as much as I do."

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

It should have been uncomfortable, he thought, stepping into this temporary bedroom, hands clasped together. For her, not him. Not for him by far. Try as he might to think of boundaries, of promises to leave her alone, he never really ever succeeded in his mind putting distance between the two of them. The vow to stay away from Mystic Falls had simply been that, a physical parting of ways, an acceptance that this would be a short blip in time, that her insistence on it meant that even knew recognized the inevitability of the two of them.

Now here she stood in front of him, fragrant and fresh and bright, looking up at him with those liquid blue eyes, as if he had not just ripped into her. It weighed like a pit in his stomach, because beyond the two times he had caused her hurt—once through Tyler when he had barely known her, and the other through his own violent rejection of the hurt she insisted on doling out for her so called friends—he had prided himself on being the one who never raised a hand to her, the one who gave her a choice every single time he offered his hand.

The one who even in the forest left her to take the step forward, to lean into the kiss, to let him know that she allowed the hands that roamed her body in the desperate need to sear the memory in his brain.

She reached up and clasped the nape of his neck. Klaus relished the bittersweet feel of her nails scratching at her scalp as she buried her fingers in the curls that had grown too long, too unruly in the catacombs. He smelled like death, more so than any other day she had been with him. Death sinks into your skin, burrows into muscle, infiltrates your soul. She was lilac and jasmine and whatever else she had just used on her still moist skin, and he was cadaver and pulverized bone.

Typical.

But still she pulled him down for a searing kiss, and Klaus' eyes fluttered shut to brand the sensation into his mind. He lost count of the number of breaths between their lips clashing together. His one hand rested on her hip and the other reached up to palm her breast over the borrowed shirt, groaning deep in his chest at how they filled his hand, a little fuller than he remembered, brushing the tip with his thumb. She gasped at the sensation; Klaus noted the enhanced sensitivity with how easily the nipple puckered under his skin.

Just as he did in the truck, Klaus rested his forehead against hers as he gathered his bearings. She bit her lower lip and looked down. In the darkened room, the golden amber of the moon cast crescent shadows of her lashes below her eyes.

No princess he had ever met was half as beautiful, with half the light that he had seen in those blue eyes. When she looked down, he was bereft, like a ship without a sail. He reached up to cup her cheek, willing her to look back up at him so he could share with at least a small portion of that light.

Seeing the blood and the mud on him against her skin, Klaus moved to drop the touch. Instead she caught his hand in hers, turning her lips into his soiled palm for a lingering kiss.

If this was Caroline Forbes who had a full life ahead to live, the Caroline who was not ready to be with him, the Caroline who was still playing at being in love with another man, then having her when she was completely, undoubtedly, vocally his would be splendor to behold, one he wondered if he would survive.

"You saved my life."

Marcel was never going to kill him. That much Klaus had been sure. He pushed all his buttons, strategized and manipulated even in his chains. But he had been brought low by the agony of the blade, the pittance of blood that he had been allowed, and the neverending days falling into another in the hellish knowledge that he was alone.

And then the question he really needed answered, because he had given in and let her be to live her full life, but here she was. "Why are you here, Caroline?"

His wish was granted, and she raised her eyes to meet his. Blue, boundless, like he could dive in those pools and never come up again. And thrive in their depths.

Nothing he had done—nothing—in one thousand years could have led to him deserving that look.

"I was in trouble. I was scared." She licked her lips. "I got into my car, and I drove. And I ended up in New Orleans looking for you."

His chest rose, and for a moment he wondered if his heart had just burst and the warm blood in his system just spread out from his arteries and into muscle, flooding the cavities in between his organs with the life-sustaining heat. That was what it felt like, hearing those words. Even if it happened during the worst torture of his life, somewhere out in another state there was this woman who had seen him as a hero.

It was there in the way she looked at him now.

He swallowed the hard lump in his throat. Caroline Forbes would not have come to New Orleans for a simple problem. Hell, she did not even reach out to him upon his mother's illness. Human ills, part of her insistence of living her normal life, of putting together her human future. As desperately as he wanted to reach out, he was certain her companions would be able to walk her through better than he would. Klaus had spent lifetimes dancing on his mother's figurative grave, knowing he had been the one to strike her evil from his life. Her friends, who had suffered their mothers' losses more keenly than Klaus did, would have been better sanctuary. If that pain had not sent her to him, then Klaus knew this trouble was going to require his everything.

"Let's talk it through. I'll take a quick shower, then we'll figure it out."

By the time he exited the shower, Caroline was lying on her side of the bed, her eyes closed with her back to him. The regular pattern of her breathing told him that she was fast asleep, clearly drained from the day. In her sleep the mask she wore fell, and he relished the intimate vulnerability that he was privy to now. Klaus dried his hair with the towel, then tossed it towards the chair. He had pulled on the pair of pajama pants that could have been Elijah's or some random stranger. Klaus had not bothered to puzzle out how and why Hayley procured items they needed, but made a mental note to check if any of the family's belongings were accessible and how.

He slid into bed behind Caroline and pulled her flush against him, hearing the pleased murmur low in her throat even as she slept. Klaus closed his eyes, pressing his lips into the crook of her neck. Through the scent of the soap he could still feel, stuck in her skin like a nightmare, the odor of the blood that he spilled and the venom of his bite.

His arms slid around her, his hands resting possessively on her until they rested on her belly.

And that was when he felt them.

Heard them.

His eyes shot open.

Caroline had single handedly broken into the condemned compound uninvited, managed to break apart the spelled chains that shackled an Original Hybrid. And when he failed to feed her his own blood as soon as the venom set in, the wound closed, and her body worked back to its smooth perfection.

He recalled, hazily, in his manic state, feeling the warmth of the hand on his cheek before getting repelled by a power too strong, too magnified, too natural to have come from her body.

Two hearts apart from her own.

Impossible.

Klaus drew back from her, stumbling to his feet. Barefoot, Klaus stalked out of the bedroom, searching the rooms. The commotion was enough that he heard the cry from Hope's room as the child let up a piercing wail for the interruption of her sleep. A few seconds later, a door in the far end opened. Hayley walked outside, tightening the robe around her body as she made her way to their daughter's room to soothe her.

He made his way to the room that she had come from. Before he reached the door, Elijah stepped outside. At the sight of him, he said his name, "Niklaus."

"Did you know?"

Elijah gave one curt nod. "Hayley informed me when we retired." His lips thinned. "Gemini twins," he offered bitingly. "The stories about their power had not been exaggerated if they could spell the last of their bloodline from one dying womb to a dead one."

Once, in the distant path, Niklaus Mikaelson sat in the village circle, children his age surrounded the bonfire. Squeals of terrified excitement pealed through the air as the elders told the story. Elijah had surprised his little brother from behind, then listened in rapt attention to the macabre warning, imagining with Niklaus the terrifying image of portent.

The Gemini twins—one ablaze with unparalleled power, the other as natural and nurturing like a world beneath them. And then the sun would swallow the earth, and it shall be the end of all life.

Over the centuries the prophecy faded as generations of the Gemini coven practiced the Merge, only to use it to choose their leader. It was a morbid practice, but other covens had stayed back out of respect to the generational ritual. And then the Gemini was lost with their last leader, the portent of old buried with the bodies of a wedding day massacre.

This was not the kingdom that he wanted to lay at her feet as it was. Bringing in the allure of the extinct, powerful line into the picture with the power-hungry covens of New Orleans, and every coven that would hear this, would bring upon them a war that they were ill-prepared for. He knew Elijah thought the same. His brother was at his heart a tactician, had properly thought three steps ahead of Klaus since Hayley told him.

"We could send her away," Elijah began.

Immediately, Klaus stepped forward, and he swore he heard his inner wolf snarl. Elijah held up a hand and nodded in understanding. It would have been the easier solution, a smart one for the entire family. Just as it was, they could be surrounded at any moment, and this farmhouse was prime target. Hope remained as much of a prize to their enemies as she had always been.

But Caroline had been in trouble. She had been scared. She got in her car and drove to New Orleans. Of all the people she could seek, she came to him.

Like hell he would allow her out of his protection again.

"So now, apart from Hope, you are asking your family to stand with you for these budding bringers of doom?" the wry tone belied the gravity of Elijah's question.

Klaus drew close to Elijah. "Let me be clear, brother. These children are not mine. There is no reason to fight for them," he warned his brother.

"There are other options," Elijah broached. When it had been Hayley and Hope, the notion did not even pass through his brother's mind. "When Freya arrives—"

"Caroline will love them because they are souls growing in her womb. That is who she is." Elijah's jaw set, and Klaus could tell that Elijah was restraining himself from speaking.

Klaus stepped forward and patted his brother's chest. "But make no mistake, brother, that these children exist as long as I let them, as long as they serve their purpose. Right now, they can keep her safe, and their existence brought her here."

Finally, Elijah's challenge dropped. "And if said existence threatens Hope, what then?"

"We deal with it as we do with any other threat against family," came his swift, decisive response.

"And this girl," Elijah pushed, his voice soft, prompting. Klaus wondered how much Hayley could have shared with his brother. There had been no love lost between Hayley and Caroline in Mystic Falls, but their brief interaction that day speaking at least of a mutual understanding in their shared mission, left him a puzzle to put together. But this way that Elijah referred to her, Klaus knew that whatever Hayley could have shared, it was not even a fraction of enough. "This Caroline, what of her?"

"You do nothing," Klaus said softly. "I deal with Caroline Forbes. No one else but me." He allowed the slightest edge, a hint of warning.

tbc