I don't own TVD or any of the characters

Notes: So I requested prompts on Tumblr the other day (and I'd love to get more! I'm lalainajanes over there) and one of them, from an anon, was for "Caroline is a few years younger and follows Klaus around as kids until she grows up and notices other guys then he starts following her around asking for a date!" I strayed a bit from that so I hope they still like it! I'm a failure at writing short stuff and I don't know that I'll have time to do a good edit on something so long until next week so I've broken it up into smaller parts. Title is from the Paolo Nutini song.

Growing Up Beside You

Part One - Ages 9 and 16 (February)

Klaus threw himself down on the window seat and closed his eyes to enjoy the blessed silence. Granted, 'silence' was stretching it a bit. He could still hear the sounds of the movie he'd started up blare out from the entertainment centre. But it wasn't the sounds of children rampaging and screaming throughout the house. A marked improvement from earlier, in Klaus' opinion.

'It'll be fine, Niklaus,' his mother had said. 'It's only for three hours and I'll speak to Bekah and Kol about minding you,' she'd promised. 'Caroline's an angel,' she'd lied, 'you'll hardly notice she's there And her mother will pick her up right after she's finished at the station.'

He should have held out for more money.

It had not been fine and though it had only been 1 hour and 47 minutes, since the kids had entered the house, it had felt like an eternity. Kol and Rebekah had minded him for approximately as long as it had taken them to wolf down the after school snacks that the housekeeper had prepared. The lucky housekeeper who got to leave for the weekend. Once the food had been nothing but crumbs and peels on the table his siblings had become their usual selves, squabbling and ignoring his authority. And Caroline Forbes was a particularly energetic hell beast, wearing the guise of a tiny blonde girl, though she was definitely tidier than either Rebekah or Kol.

Not that he hadn't known that about their little guest, though he rarely had much to do with her personally. When they'd moved to Mystic Falls it had been halfway through the school year. Caroline had taken a shine to Rebekah immediately and had invited her to join a game of hopscotch on her first day. Two years later and they remained joined at the hip. Caroline, being an only child of two working parents, was commonly found at the Mikaelson house.

Caroline's presence had both its upsides and downsides. It was great for Rebekah to have another girl around, his little sister was the exact opposite of a tomboy. With Caroline around Kol and Henrik weren't forced to play dress up or tea party (though Henrik was much too young to know the difference and had been more of a prop than a participant). But, Kol and Rebekah, being so close in age, tended to fight quite a lot. Adding Caroline to the equation was often like adding accelerant to a fire. Kol picked on her just as mercilessly as he did Bekah, and had earned himself more than one bruised shin when Caroline's temper had gotten the best of her. And while Rebekah and Caroline were the best of friends they were both naturally bossy and each one wanted to be the leader. Power struggles were not uncommon, though usually short-lived, as they ended up agreeing more often than not.

Today, the three kids had run through the house playing some form of hide and go seek/tag mash up game that Klaus did not understand. Luckily, nothing had broken, but there had been a couple of close calls and Klaus had cursed the dreary, cold weather that kept them corralled indoors several times.

He felt exhausted. He'd never felt like such an old man in all his sixteen odd years. And it wasn't even 6pm.

Klaus felt the cushion beside him shift and he fought the urge to groan. He brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, "Do you need something, Caroline?"

"Nope."

Klaus let his hand fall away and opened his eyes enough to look at her, "Do you not like the movie we agreed upon?"

That had been a trial in and of itself. Rebekah and Caroline had lobbied hard for something with princesses. Twelve year old Kol had wanted something with swordfights. A compromise had been reached with Kung Fu Panda. Kol liked Kung Fu, the two girls enjoyed pandas. Everybody won. Except for Klaus, it seemed.

Caroline sat cross legged facing him, playing with the sleeve of her pink sweater, "I've seen it a billion times. I like Tigeress."

Klaus sighed, resigned to his fate, "That doesn't surprise me, love." In the space of an afternoon Caroline had proven to be both a remarkably intractable nine year old and an unrepentant chatterbox. Bekah could talk his ear off too, but he had plenty of practice at distracting and redirecting his little sister. Caroline was more difficult and he had yet to be able to shake her for longer than 3 minutes.

"I want to get a dog but my mom says dogs are too much work so she said I could maybe get a cat instead. I have to wait until I'm 10 though and that won't be for forever."

"Forever is a long time."

"Forever is until October 10. It's only February, Klaus!"

"But it'll be summer soon and then the time will fly by."

Caroline tilted her head as she watched him and Klaus could tell she didn't quite believe him, but was just polite enough not to all him a liar. "Forever," she intoned solemnly before she perked up, as she often did, when a brand new thought occurred to her. "Did you know you're Bekah's favorite brother?"

"I did."

"Kol's too noisy and always messing up her room. Finn's so boring and old. Elijah's old too, and even though I think he's nice, Bekah says he always nags her about putting her elbows on the table and Hen's still a baby so you're her favourite. I don't have any brothers."

"Would you like one? We'd be happy to lend you Kol."

Caroline's little nose scrunched up at that, "No thank you. I do not like it when people touch my things."

Klaus couldn't help but chuckle at that, "I'm sorry to tell you but if you had a brother or a sister they would touch your things all the time."

"Ick."

"Agreed."

The doorbell rang before Caroline could land on another topic to ramble on about. Klaus dragged himself to his feet, "That'll be your mum, then. Go on and grab your backpack," he nudged her down from the window seat and turned to the two kids glued to the television, "Bekah! Come and say goodbye to Caroline."

The girls darted off into the kitchen and Klaus went towards the front door. He opened it and found Sherriff Forbes, in full uniform, waiting. He couldn't help but be a little nervous. Though Klaus had never met the sheriff before, he had just managed to avoid a deputy or two that came to break up parties at The Falls last summer. He tried to look like the most responsible 16 year old boy on the planet, like he'd never even considered ingesting a drop of alcohol, in his entire life.

But the sheriff merely gave him a small smile, "You must be one of Rebekah's brothers? Esther left me a message that you'd be babysitting while she had that PTA meeting."

"Yes. I'm Klaus," he shook the offered hand, "Caroline is just gathering her belongings."

"Klaus? I don't think Rebekah's ever mentioned you."

"It's Niklaus actually, but American's tend to find that a bit much. Bekah calls me Nik."

Recognition lit the Sheriff's face, "Ah. That makes more sense. Then I've heard quite a bit about you. Caroline didn't give you too much trouble? She can be a handful, I know."

Klaus shrugged, "She was fine."

Caroline came barreling out of the house and into her mother's legs, "Mom! Hi!"

Sherriff Forbes smoothed down Caroline's blonde curls, "Hi sweetie, you're ready to go?"

Caroline hefted a bright yellow backpack, "Yup! I can't find my other mitten but Bekah said she'll bring it to school if she finds it and I have two more pairs but I'll need you to get my other jacket out of the big closet 'cause they won't match this one."

Klaus watched, amused. Apparently spitting out sentences without concern for silly things like breathing was just how she always talked.

"Your dad's picking up dinner so we had better head home so you can wash up and set the table."

"Chicken fingers?"

"Of course."

"And fries?"

"And salad. And then maybe fries."

Caroline huffed, but thought better of arguing, "Okay," she turned back towards him and chirped, "Bye Klaus! Thanks for having me."

"Yes, Klaus, thank you so much. Tell your mother I'll call her tomorrow and we'll firm up plans for Rebekah spending the night on Saturday."

"I'll tell her. Good-bye, Caroline."

Sheriff Forbes ushered Caroline down the steps and into the back of her car, Caroline waved at him through the window and he waved back.

Alright fine, maybe 'hell beast' was a bit harsh.