"He feels it as soon as she is born, that tug at his heartstrings that says his mate has finally come into the world. It's beautiful and terrifying all at once, but, most importantly, what he has been unknowingly waiting for all along."

A/N: Hello!

Here I am with my new story about Klaus and Caroline, since I can't seem to help myself. It's set in an alternative universe where Klaus has already broken his curse and become a hybrid by the time that Caroline is born. All the Mikaelson siblings but Finn are undaggered, and none of the other main characters, such as Stefan and Damon, will be vampires though Bonnie will still be a witch and Tyler will still be a potential werewolf. This story is based on the 'mates' trope, which is something that I've been wanting to try my hand at for quite a while. Every chapter is going to narrate a different time-period/year.

Hope you enjoy,

Giulia.

The first time it happens, it's the 10th of October 1992.

Of course, Klaus ignores it. It's not even because he doesn't understand the meaning behind it, but precisely because he does. It takes a lot of strength—more than he would like to admit, more than he has ever had to employ before—but he is used to running away from anything that might require him to feel, to be pathetically weak, and so he tries to go on with his existence as if nothing has changed when everything had.

Just because he has finally managed to break his curse and become a hybrid after centuries of pain and suffering and of having to feel like half a being–

–and is he not still just a half, this way?–

–doesn't mean that he can afford to waste time after all; he has an army to build and a world to conquer that are waiting, and he won't let himself ponder–

–but he does–

–over what else out there is literally meant for him.

He's the King of New Orleans and the most powerful creature alive, and he tells himself that that's all the happiness and satisfaction he needs, even when he is all too aware that there is nothing which could ever surpass what he felt that one day, that one, small, fleeting instant.

But, perhaps luckily, his siblings have always been annoyingly perceptive and, somehow, they immediately know.

"It finally happened, didn't it?" his sister assaults him with questions only a few days later, a frantic smile stretching wide across her lit up, hopeful face.

He wonders how exactly she could tell; if it's because, after so long, his family can recognize the telltales of a werewolf's behavior, or if because the void that he feels settled so heavy on his chest and all around him is simply that painfully evident to others too.

He loathes the knowledge that it's the latter.

"Shut up, Rebekah," he growls, marching towards his studio without sparing the blonde a single glance.

Unconcerned, the sensitive vampire hurriedly trails behind him, dismissing her brother's attitude.

"Why are you still here? Why are you not looking for her? Surely, any witch could find her in a heartbeat," she even snaps her fingers once for emphasis, right in front of his eyes.

Klaus' jaw clenches, his nostrils flaring in clear irritation as he briefly closes his eyes.

"Have you ever thought that maybe I do not wish to find her?"

Rebekah blinks—once, twice; and then blatantly starts laughing.

"You're incredible," she bellows in a loud, mocking tone, making him grind his teeth together even more harshly.

"She is just a few weeks old now, defenseless," his voice cracks on the words, his whole being hating just how true they are, just how out of his control the whole situation is. "Do you really want to bring her into our world?"

His sister's disappointed scowl immediately mellows then, turning into a soft smile, and a knowing glint brightens her usually icy blue eyes.

"So it's because you already care?"

He looks away abruptly, a bitter taste spreading on his tongue. He's aware that lying would be pointless, but he decides to try nonetheless.

We do not feel, and we do not care.

"I have no idea what you mean."

Rebekah cannot help but sigh in response, slightly shaking her head at the hybrid's innate stubbornness. It's not like she was expecting him to be honest for once anyway, to admit what she already knows he's feeling.

"She is not going to be any safer away from us, Nik," the blonde shamelessly plays on his newly-found protective instincts; she has spent enough time throughout her life around werewolves, for one reason or the other, to know how they think, how they act and react. "If our enemies find out about her..." she trails off.

And there is no need for her to finish that sentence, they both know it.

"What do you suggest, then?" Klaus snarls angrily, his head snapping back into place, his eyes fiercely set on his sister as they flicker with dangerous, golden streaks that show the beast hidden just beneath the surface.

He knows that Rebekah is simply trying to help, but the reminder of how easily destroyed the rest of his forever–

–his everything, as much as he wishes he could deny it–

–is has him on edge and feeling more scared than he has ever been before. Caring means having something—someone—to lose, and he's not quite sure if he is ready to accept that kind of liability in his life.

"If we get close to her, if we make contact... they will know anyway."

"Yes, but you will have made a serious statement against anyone who might try to harm her," the younger Original notes wisely, her eyes pleading. "And we'll be able to protect her ourselves."

Taking everything in, Klaus remains quiet for many minutes, a tense silence hanging heavily around the two siblings as the hybrid reflects on the situation—on what he already knew and especially on what the blonde has just pointed out to him, completely despising how right the latter is in her assessments.

Eventually, curtly and with a clenched jaw, he nods.

They make arrangements—blackmail a few witches into helping them, tie some loose ends, make sure that their city will be cared for until they return—and, not even three full days later, all the Originals are finally landing in Mystic Falls.

It's somewhat ironically fitting, Klaus thinks, that his mate has been born in that same place that once hosted his very own village, that same place that he has always kept on considering home no matter the memories of sorrow and tragedy but never happiness that plague him whenever he recalls those far back times.

He grins. Fate doesn't seem to be taking that 'meant to be' of his lightly.

But, when the umpteenth locator spell points them even further in the right direction, he also learns that Fate doesn't particularly want to make things easy for him, something which he probably deserves.

His mate is human, he finds out, and part of a completely human family at that.

It's a fact that could arguably hinder his plans and intentions, and he immediately curses his luck. How is he supposed to explain his need to look after their daughter, to cherish her and always make sure that she is safe and happy, to two people who have no chance of ever understanding what he means? How is he supposed to make them see the innumerable threats and dangers that would be constantly posed against her, without him and his family by her side?

Compulsion is of course his best option—

—"She'll find out one day, Nik, and she will come to hate you because of it," Rebekah warned him as soon as the idea had spilled out of his mouth, Elijah's rueful gaze saying that his older brother unfortunately agreed.

He scoffed then, refusing their reality.—

—but, in all honesty, little can he bring himself to care about all that—he knows that he will eventually find a way; he has to—when he finally has a name.

Caroline Margaret Forbes.

Caroline.

His Caroline.

The elegant syllables curl around his tongue and past his lips like the most beautiful and finest of melodies, the single word making him feel more alive than he had ever thought possible before.

Like a broken record, he replays the eight letters over and over again in the privacy of his mind, and they have his whole body buzz, inexplicable emotions impatiently bubbling up inside of him and something much more powerful than blood or magic suddenly coursing through his veins, because–

–it's all finally real.

He is now looking forward to experience that very same thing that he has been working so hard to avoid for over a thousand years, and, if the moment didn't feel so monumental, he would probably be laughing at himself.

However, it's not until he finally sees her for the first time that he knows, with deep and complete and utter certainty and finality, that he loves her. Truly. And that he always will, under any capacity in which she will be willing to allow him into her life.

He takes a tentative step forward into the yellow-painted nursery, holding a breath that he does not even need, eyes widening in awe when they at last fall on her.

Caroline is nothing more than a tiny bundle wrapped up in large, pastel pink blankets deposited right at the center of a tasteful maple crib, and Klaus immediately feels that same tug in his chest—the one that first told him that his mate had finally come into the world—as his gaze sweeps delicately over the baby girl's pale, sleeping features.

He exhales a shaky breath, fisting his trembling hands. The whole ordeal–

–feeling; love–

–feels so completely foreign to him, and yet so right at the same time.

Taking another, small step forward, he decides to momentarily forfeit the use of his heightened hearing, which was trained on her parents downstairs. His siblings are waiting for him just outside of the Forbes' white, two-story house after all, giving him the privacy that such an event deserves but also making sure that the two of them are not disturbed. The hybrid wants to be able to fully enjoy the moment, suddenly utterly caught up in the sight of his mate finally right there in front of him, so small and so vulnerable and so beautiful all at once.

When, after a little while, Caroline lazily begins to blink her eyes open right into his, he just cannot subside a gasp of wonder.

Time seems to stop all around them, and Klaus feels himself freeze on the spot and unable to move. He fights with himself on whether that's because he's afraid that she might eventually start crying, or because her light blue orbs have him undeniably trapped in their magnetic hold; his heart beats almost desperately to answer that it's the latter.

But the tears that he was half expecting never come, and he would curse her apparent lack of sense of preservation if it weren't for the fact that she looks so trusting, comfortably snuggled there under a heap of cloths, that it's almost as if she knows who he is–

–who he will be, for her and to her–

–even without really knowing it yet.

Before he can even realize what he's doing, before he can even process if that's taking it too far, the Original's feet are stealthily moving towards the crib, right until he is peeking down at a very small Caroline, his eyes incredibly gentle.

She appears completely calm, blinking up at him almost curiously, asking questions that he's afraid he's not able to answer quite yet; nonetheless, he still doesn't want to run the risk of spooking her, and so he's slow and careful with his movements, almost hesitant, something that he doesn't remember having ever been before in his whole, long life.

His right forefinger is barely grazing the soft side of her very tiny, fisted hand, when she suddenly emits a short string of weird babbling noises, her mouth opening toothlessly in what the hybrid can only gather is supposed to be the baby equivalent of a smile.

His chest aches oddly in reaction to the small, maybe insignificant but genuine gesture, a somewhat soothing kind of warmth surging throughout his whole body. He half frowns down at the tiny parcel of blankets, his mind reeling, trying to figure out the many mysteries already hidden beneath those endless pools of sky blue that seem to be piercing into his very soul.

He is over a thousand years old, while she has been alive for less than a month.

He is tall, powerful and dangerous, while she's not even two feet long.

And yet, he's the helpless one, completely at her mercy and glad to be there.

Swallowing thickly to attempt to keep at least part of his feelings at bay, Klaus slowly reciprocates the smile, his lips tugging up fondly at the corners, his dimples now on display. Caroline's fingers slowly stretch open as if in reaction and to notice that, even spread at its full width, her hand is so extremely small compared to his makes the Original's heart thrum agitatedly underneath his ribcage, a mixture of fear and rage suddenly gripping at him.

His mate is currently so terribly fragile, and it's a thought that he cannot bear to have, a circumstance that he will not allow to stand any longer.

Right there, in that very defining moment of time, he pledges to become even more ruthless, in order to ensure that she gets to live out her own eternity in happiness. And, every time that his gaze lingers on her, it becomes more intent somehow.

He gulps, and it's then that he finally fully lets himself admit what a coward he has been, thinking that he could simply stay away from her and that his distance would be enough to keep her safe from his too many enemies. There is nothing or nobody in the world now that matters to him more than Caroline does, with her lively eyes and her breathtaking smiles–

–with his dead, rotten heart held in her sweet grasp; and maybe he should be feeling the organ in his chest soften, but it seems to harden instead, now knowing that it—she—needs to be protected above all else–

–because she might be his mate, but he's the one who belongs and has all along belonged to her and her only.

The way in which her short, slightly chubby fingers suddenly close around his long, index one and pull at him just as those thoughts take definite root in his mind almost seems to want to convey that she agrees with him—he's irrevocably hers, and there is no letting go nor any going back.

A low chuckle bubbles up his throat then, a clear sign of the affection that he feels towards the tiny blonde who has him completely wrapped around her little finger after just a few, simple moments together.

And it's only hours later—after having patiently waited for her to fall asleep once again and when his whole being has already become perfectly attuned to the soft and peaceful beating of her precious heart—that he eventually manages to tear himself away and rejoin his siblings, resolute on planning the best way to integrate his family as a permanent, trusted feature of the Forbes' household and remain close to Caroline.

Their existences are forever intertwined now–

–they always have been, everything he has soldiered through all those centuries only leading him up to this very moment–

–and what a feeling it is, to know that his life has finally truly started.