The morning after the attack on The Crimson Club, Klaus quietly crept out of Caroline's bedroom and sighed, shutting the door behind him. She hadn't regained consciousness yet and Klaus was beginning to become restless with the need to see if she was as okay as she seemed from her outward appearances.

Klaus descended the staircase slowly as he allowed his limbs to wake up and tingles spread throughout them. He'd half fallen asleep in the chair beside Caroline's bed and quickly realized upon waking up that all of his blood circulation had turned sluggish from his position. He was walking on pins and needles and he made guttural noises of discomfort as he walked across the foyer and into the parlor.

"Oh," he said suddenly, surprised. "Stefan, what are you doing here, mate?"

Stefan sat on the love seat in front of the fire as he sipped a glass of water. His throat had been hurting since the vervain gas and he wasn't able to sleep.

"I stayed in one of your guest rooms because Rebekah asked me to. I hope you don't mind."

Klaus sighed and walked over to the small cart, pouring himself a small glass of club soda. "Not at all. Did you sleep?"

Stefan shook his head and Klaus nodded, sitting beside him. "I slept rather poorly myself."

"Klaus," Stefan started as he turned to face him. "If this isn't Mikael then it has to be someone else. Someone you might have angered."

Klaus raised an eyebrow but didn't argue. "I agree though I'm afraid the list will be quite long."

Stefan nodded grimly and licked his lips, swirling the water in his glass. "Is Caroline okay?"

Klaus drank some soda and shrugged. "She hasn't woken up. I'm sure she'll be fine once she drinks more blood but right now I think she needs rest. The vervain gas infiltrated her system at a dangerous level and her lungs are having a difficult time healing."

"Do you have any suspicions about who did this?"

Klaus shook his head and glanced at Stefan. "What about you?"

The other vampire's dark green eyes were thoughtful when he nodded. "I don't know who it was but there was a woman who ran out of the bathroom hallway just after the bomb went off. She was the only one and I'm assuming she was the only other person in the restrooms aside from Caroline. So unless this bomb was possessed and blew up on its own, this woman had something to do with it."

Klaus was surprised he hadn't noticed a woman run from the hallway when he was nearly always on alert for Caroline. "What did she look like?"

"To be honest," Stefan began, turning his entire body to face Klaus. "She looked familiar. She had this – this face that I couldn't place. Everything else looked different – like I hadn't seen her before – but her face. She had very short black hair and she might have been a slight inch or two shorter than Caroline."

Klaus nodded thoughtfully and brought his soda to his lips, draining the rest of the glass and staring in the fire. "Then we shall find her."

Klaus and Stefan didn't hear Rebekah as she tiptoed down the staircase. She had heard Stefan rise hours ago and she listened closely to Klaus leave Caroline's room. She left her own bedchambers to check on her friend when the hushed conversation of the men floated up to her from downstairs.

She had been standing just outside of the parlor and tucked into the shadows beside the door listening to the conversation. When Klaus told Stefan there was a long list of possible attackers, he wasn't kidding. Rebekah knew the extensiveness behind Klaus' enemies and couldn't begin to fathom who the attacker could be.

But the moment Stefan mentioned an average woman with short black hair and a familiar face, Rebekah immediately had a flash of the score attendant from the boutique earlier the previous morning. She could see in fine detail the way the blonde bob of hair flirted with the side of the woman's neck but didn't quite touch, as if the hair wasn't supposed to be there.

Rebekah knew in that instant that she was the woman they were looking for. She could feel it in the way her pulse sped up and the clammy feeling she developed behind her knees, telling her to scurry back upstairs and get dressed.

She threw on a short dress and heels, pulling her hair into a lavish twist and letting curls fall around her face. She snuck into Caroline's room to gently push back the soft blonde tresses from her eyes, smoothing them over her skin. She could get to the bottom of this.

Rebekah charged through the front door of the boutique and relished in the way it slammed into the wall, shaking the entire store. The head of the clerk behind the desk flew up and Rebekah was struck with immediate disappointment; it wasn't the girl from before.

"Excuse me," she said loudly and walked to the man. "I wish to speak to your attendant. I failed to catch her name but she has very short black hair and dark eyes. Does that ring a bell?"

The man, who Rebekah supposed was the manager, stared at her curiously before clearing his throat. "I apologize, miss, but no. My son and I are the only managers of this establishment and there are no other employees."

Rebekah's body froze and she went cold, swallowing hard. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," the man told her sincerely. "There is no woman by that description who works here. Not now and not before."

Rebekah nodded dumbly and took a shaky step backward, swallowing hard. "I see. I –umm – I apologize, I must have misunderstood. Thank you for your time; I'll just be going."

She turned on her heel and bolted out of the door and into the fresh air. She took deep breaths to clear her mind and set to work on thinking of other places to check. Suddenly, she was seized with the idea to go back to the club and see if anyone who worked there knew of the woman she was seeking.

Turning around the opposite direction, Rebekah ducked behind a parked car and sped off towards the building that held The Crimson Club, her step faltering at the way it looked in the daytime. The doors were shut and boarded tight against the possibility of someone breaking in. She knew there was no chance of getting in the front and so she traipsed around to the back of the club, finding service stairs.

Rebekah took two stairs at a time until stumbled on the front door of the owners apartment and nodded twice, waiting impatiently. The door swung open and Rebekah was greeted with the bouncer and a large wooden stick, presumably a weapon.

"Hello," Rebekah greeted quietly, standing her ground. "I do not mean to be a bother but I was wondering if you would help me find someone. She was here last night and I think she may know something about the accident."

The bouncer nodded and stepped aside to let her in. Rebekah ducked into the apartment and turned around to face him as he sat on the couch and gestured for her to sit opposite him.

"What did the woman look like?" he questioned as he leaned his elbows on his knees.

Rebekah sat down and folded her hands in her lap. "Short black hair, last night she was wearing a black dress with white pearls."

The bouncer nodded. "I remember her. Good lookin' thing, she was. Didn't catch a name but I got the impression she wasn't much a of a people person. She didn't say a word to no one and she flew right out the door a few seconds out of the bomb went off. Fast as lightning, she was! Like she'd gotten a head start!"

"How do you know it was her?" Rebekah asked dubiously. "If she ran right past you?"

"'Cause she stopped," he answered, shrugging. "She turned around and looked dead at me. She smiled which I thought was real weird 'cause a bomb had just gone off and everything but she did it and disappeared."

"Hmm. About the bomb. Do you know more about it?"

The man shook his head and smirked at Rebekah. "You're more'n welcome to go check it our y'rself, miss."

Rebekah shivered and rose from the chair, smoothing the length of her dress. "I'm grateful for the offer but I'm afraid I must decline on account of being absolutely disgusted by your offer. Thank you for your time; I will be on my way."

Rebekah ran from the apartment and quickly fled down the winding staircase. Hopping off the bottom rung, she sped all the way back to the mansion where she quietly slipped in the front door and up the stairs. She managed to get into her bedroom without being noticed and sighed with happiness; she hadn't been caught.

Turning around, she pulled the pins from her hair and kicked off her high heels, stopping just as soon as she opened her eyes. Stefan was sleeping on her bed with his mouth hanging slightly open and one of her pillows clutched tightly to his chest. His floppy brown hair had fallen into his face and Rebekah felt her heart swell in her chest at the sight of him.

Tiptoeing over to him, she slid onto the bed beside him and cuddled into his back, drawing in his warmth and exhaling all of her worries. She lightly put her arm over his waist and buried her nose in between his shoulder blades as she slipped into a peaceful sleep for the first time in days.

When Caroline woke up, she barely recognized her surroundings. The bed was much plusher than her shabby old bed in her apartment and the atmosphere was much more serene and comforting. She sat up slowly and was hit with the sudden burning and aching of her throat and lungs, crying out from the pain.

Her bedroom door flew open and Klaus was beside her in an instant with a glass of ice cold water and a cold compress for her forehead. She eagerly drained the water from the glass as Klaus placed the soothing cloth against her skin, soothing the heat underneath her flesh.

"Klaus?" she asked after she'd finished the water. "What happened?"

Klaus plucked the glass from her fingers and sighed as he clasped his hands on the bed beside her. "What do you remember?"

"Oh, umm, well I went to the bathroom. I was in the stall and someone came in. She – she wasn't there more than a second because when I finished and came out of the stall, she was gone. Then something hit my foot and exploded and I guess that's when I passed out."

"Did you see the woman?" Klaus probed with an urgent voice. "Anything to maybe point us in the right direction?"

Caroline shook her head but stopped suddenly, remembering. "I saw her after you saved me. I think – wait, did Stefan slap me?" she reached up to clasp her aching cheek. "It must have been after I was brutally assaulted that I opened my eyes and saw her."

"Yes, Stefan slapped you to wake you up. You saw her?"

"Yes, when I opened my eyes after Stefan slapped me, she was in the crowd of people and she was smiling at me. But – she looked different. Her hair was different. It was – it was brown and long. Curly. I only recognized her face. But – but it's like I've seen her before this. Like I know her. I guess I just thought I did, anyway."

"Where do you think you knew her from?"

Caroline sighed in thought and stared into his eyes honestly. "I think she was from the small boutique that Rebekah and I went to get my bed things. I can't be sure since I didn't see her face when she had the black hair, but there was something familiar about the way she stood."

"I see. Oh, and Caroline? You didn't truly open your eyes until – ahem," he faltered and Caroline could have sworn she saw a flush on his cheeks.

"Yes?"

He took a deep breath and smirked to himself, raising an eyebrow. "You opened your eyes after you finished feeding from me."

Caroline's eyes widened and her mouth fell open in surprise. She jerked her head back and forth, knocking blonde waves into her eyes. "That – what – I don't – I did what?"

"You needed to feed, Caroline. There were no other options! Stefan was already far too weakened by the vervain gas and I wasn't. There wasn't enough time to get you into the woods and try to find an animal and I will not risk drawing more attention to us by you feeding on a human in the middle of the parking lot. It was not a big deal and it does tie you to me in any way. I will not take advantage of my blood in your veins."

Caroline felt as if she'd been slapped and immediately wanted to apologize for how surprised she'd been. "I'm sorry," she whispered with downcast eyes. "I just – I've never fed from a vampire before. I guess I had to when I was turned but never – not since that night. I guess I was just worried that it would do something to me."

"It shall not do a thing to you, sweetheart." Klaus pushed back her hair from her cheeks and caressed her skin with his palm, loving the feeling of her soft flesh underneath his hand. "I am so sorry, Caroline."

Caroline's blue eyes snapped to Klaus' and she saw for the first time how guilty he looked. "Why?" she questioned quietly, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. "What are you sorry for?"

"For what keeps happening to you!" He tensed and Caroline ran her soft fingers down the inside of his wrist. "I never imagined that knowing me for such a short amount of time would endanger your life. I never thought – I didn't think. I should have known."

"You couldn't have," she argued resolutely. "And I'm going to stick to that answer."

Klaus sighed deeply and stared into Caroline's piercing blue eyes. They stared into his with such determination that Klaus felt sucked in. Caroline was unlike any other person he had met. He'd come across so many fascinating people in the long 1000 years he had been alive but none made him feel like Caroline did. She made him feel human.

Caroline was his humanity.

"Klaus?" she whispered, worried. "You've gone pale."

Klaus did the one thing he'd wanted to do since he'd laid eyes on Caroline Forbes. He grasped her by the back of the neck and pulled her to him as a surprised gasp flew from her lips. Her blue eyes widened as his soft, pink lips landed lightly on hers, drawing out a soft puff of air as she closed her lips over his.

Caroline was so surprised by his actions that she wasn't even aware she'd started to kiss him back. Suddenly, her hands were in his hair as he applied more pressure against her lips and the fingers of his free hand dug into the skin of her hip.

Caroline let a small groan slip from her throat as Klaus pulled her flush against him, lifting her slightly into the air. She was floating over the floor but she didn't mind the height different as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head for better access to his beautiful mouth.

Klaus twined his arms around her waist and effortlessly held her up in the air to continue kissing her. His feet carried him until he could push Caroline into one of the large posters of the bed, ripping his mouth away from hers to drag in a ragged breath. Caroline breathed harshly for a moment and stared at Klaus and his swollen pink lips, not being able to drag her gaze away from his moist mouth.

Without her consent, her hand rose to his face and her thumb stroked his plump bottom lip, pulling gently. She was unprepared for Klaus to suck her finger into his mouth and gently nibble on her skin; she was even more unprepared for such an act to feel so amazing and forbidden.

"Klaus," Caroline murmured, cupping his face between her hands. "Kiss me."

Klaus groaned and pulled her back into his arms to ravage her lips with his. His hands ran over her sides and she could feel the heat of his skin through the thin material of her satin slip. Caroline bit Klaus' lip between her teeth and pulled softly to drag it from his mouth. Klaus' eyes stared into hers, drunk from her kisses and completely struck by her.

"Caroline," Klaus whispered as his heart beat painfully hard in his chest. He was struck with the sudden fact that he had practically accosted Caroline in her bed and forced her up against the bedframe. "Oh."

The color leached from Klaus' face and he gently allowed Caroline to slide down the poster until her bare feet hit the floor. She gazed, confused, into Klaus' deep azure eyes and felt hurt bloom in her chest at the closed off look in his gaze.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, pushing away from her.

Caroline was overcome with the need to help Klaus just as quickly as she had been hurt. She knew in that instant that he wasn't pulling away from her out of disgust with her, but with disgust for himself.

"Do not apologize." Her voice was hard as she forcefully pulled her gaze back to hers with a hand on his cheek. "If I did not want you to kiss me, you wouldn't have. I had just as much a part in what happened as you did."

Klaus knew she was attempting to make him feel better but he was nearly drowning in guilt. "Caroline -"

"No," she said sternly, stomping her foot. "That's that. I wanted to kiss you and I still want to kiss you. Right now, what I really want is to bathe."

"Of course." Klaus nodded and stepped away from her as she moved about the room to gather the things she needed before heading to the bathroom door. She stopped just before reaching for the doorknob and turned back to him. Klaus cocked his head and smiled. "Yes?"

"Nothing," she grinned at him. "Just picturing you how you looked after you kissed me."

Caroline visibly shivered and Klaus felt a mirroring tremble run down his own spine. "I should have warned you; I'm rather dashing when I've been thoroughly kissed."

Caroline snorted and rolled her eyes to him. "I'll keep that in mind."

She pulled the door to the bathroom open and slipped inside, shutting the door softly behind her. Klaus stared at the wooden door, numb from shock, and fell back against the poster he'd just been holding Caroline up against. Reaching up with his hand, he ran his fingers over his bottom lip to feel the indentations from Caroline's teeth still fresh on his skin.

Klaus shook his head with an amused grin and licked his lips, exiting the room. Caroline was much more than Klaus ever imagined.

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