Above All Else

Chapter 4

A few hours had pasted now and Klaus was halfway through a bottle of his finest scotch and was finding it utterly amusing to watch Caroline. Her blonde hair was pulled back loosely from her flawless face, he grinned as he watched her yellow gloved hand come up to push that defiant lock back behind her ear for the eighth time in the past ten minutes. After her rousing little speech she grabbed him a bottle and a glass and went to work putting things in order. He watched her over these past few hours flitting around the doppelganger's house like some sort of cleaning fairy. All that seemed to be missing was a couple helpful animals and she would look like character from the fairy tales. Klaus shook his head and could not help the laugh that escaped, he must be hallucinating. Maybe she grabbed a container of Absinthe and he was just too distraught to notice.

Caroline looked up at him from her spot on the floor where she was just finishing up scrubbing what neither one tried to think about. She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow at him, "Care to share what you find to funny?"

Klaus let out another chuckle under his breath, "Well Sweetheart, after watching you flit about scrubbing nearly every surface in sight, whether clean or not I might add, I'm waiting for you to burst into song and have your little woodland friends come to help." Now he was convinced it was the wrong liquor, how could he have possibly let that fall from his lips! He felt a damn blush lightly cross his face. He eyed the glass in his hand critically; it would be just like Kol, the eternal prankster, to switch the drinks just for a good laugh. He took a tentative sip letting the flavor reach his tongue for the first time, no it was defiantly scotch.

"Wow! You really do have some kind of Cinderella fetish don't you?" Klaus felt relief wash over him at her own soft giggle. "But this isn't some fairy tale Klaus, I mean if it was I wouldn't be cleaning..." She let out a sigh standing up realizing she did all she could to get the burnt spot off the floor where Kol's body had rested. "Look this is what I do. I stress clean. I can control this you know? Plus it keeps me busy. Don't you have stuff like this too? You know, for when you get overwhelmed or whatever? And killing and draining innocent humans doesn't count." She snapped her cleaning gloves off pointing her finger at him with her eyes squinted.

"Yes, while fresh blood does help to calm all of us vampires down, I do have other means myself." He sighed trying not to feel offended that yet again she went right to the Klaus is nothing but a monster routine. "You've seen my passion with art Love, which is what I like to lose myself in. That or a good book does the trick every now and again as well, but I have as of yet to come across any decent literature here in the doppelganger's living room." Klaus's face turned hard as stone again at the thought of being caged like some sort of animal and he sunk back into the chair to continue his drink.

Caroline walked over to the sink to wash her hands off, the down side of wearing the gloves was that powdery residue it left on her hands, Eww!, she grabbed a towel to dry her hands off, "Actually I think I have some things here that might help with that."

Klaus raised his hand pointing his glass towards her, "I'm not dusting the damn Gilbert living room Sweetheart, yellow gloves don't really go well with my complexion."

"Attitude much? Geez." Caroline came back into the living carrying a duffle bag, one that he was sure he last saw on his closet floor in his bedroom. "I come baring gifts!" Caroline said cheerily as she placed the duffle bag at his feet.

"No doubt you did quite a bit of snooping at my home after you took care of my brother then." Klaus eyed her suspiciously.

Caroline rolled her eyes and scoffed at him, "The proper response here Klaus would be, Why thank you Caroline for thinking of me in my time of need." She gave a poor attempt at his British accent. "And no, unlike some people" She continued looking at him pointedly, "I don't have stalker tendencies. I only grabbed what I thought you would need. I was in and out of your house in less than a half an hour." Caroline set the duffle bag down near his feet and rose to stand tall, "Besides I would need like way longer than that for a good snooping escapade." Klaus couldn't help the small smirk at her as a matter of a fact tone.