A/N God, I have had such writer's block the last couple of months. A lot of what follows is part of why. This actually isn't based on my career, but on a server I volunteer on doing Android Support (and a bajillion other things). I just want to qualify that there's no sexual tension within that workplace, nor has there been with anyone I've worked with in the field, but I mean, it's Klaroline, so we'll just have to pretend. Writing is how I sublimate my pain by turning it into romantic comedy. :)


The Great Internet War of 2020

March, 2020

By the time they'd arrived in New Orleans, the tension had lifted, and they were back to business as usual. Well, at least they were back to next to normal. "Normal" in their world was a relative term that changed from day to day with dizzying fluidity.

"Seriously?!" Caroline shrieked when they arrived for orientation only to find a giant sign on the conference room door. "What the fuck do they mean they cancelled the training due to the coronavirus?!"

Klaus bit back a grin as his dimples came out to play beneath his harsh stubble. "I think they mean the convention is cancelled due to the coronavirus."

"You're not funny," she snapped, glaring at him and crossing her arms over her chest angrily. "It's not the goddamn Spanish flu. This thing isn't ripping through a tiny town in Monterrey and leaving the entire village dead."

The doctor couldn't help but smirk at her ire as he walked behind her while she stomped up the stairs to their penthouse suite. "It's not exactly the Zaire ebolavirus. I'll give you that."

The Director of Operations opened their door with an app on her phone and petulantly kicked it shut behind them. "No, it isn't. The minute somebody says, 'hemorrhagic fever,' I'll head for the hills."

"I'll join you. We can go to Tibet. It's supposed to be very peaceful." Bleeding out and dying from hypovolemic shock was not how the middle Mikaelson child wanted to go.

"Don't start with me with the hippie dippie bullshit. You sound just like Bonnie when you get all 'Mother Earth' on me. If I have to hear about the power of channeling the spirits one more time, I'll puke." She flipped off her shoes and flopped down on the giant plush sofa. He sat down beside her so closely that the warmth from his muscular frame seeped into her skin. Throwing her head back against the cushions, she stared up at the crystal chandelier. "Now what are we supposed to do?"

Klaus turned to face her, tucking one leg beneath him, the tips of his fingers grazing the back of her neck beneath her messy bun. She opened one lid to look at him and the heated glance he was sending her way gave her chills. "I'm sure we can think of something."

The blonde woman gulped, the tightness in her lower belly usually present in his company morphing into butterflies she could feel flitting to her fingers and toes. "I need a drink."

That wasn't what he had in mind, but it was a good start.

July, 2020

Four months later, Caroline rued the day she'd ever gotten in that car. At the time, they'd had no way of knowing that the governor was going to shut down the state border before their week in New Orleans ended. In retrospect, she should have seen it coming. Leave it to Florida to actually object to wearing masks. Fucking morons. True, she and Klaus were probably better off in Louisiana, but that did little to curb her ire at her boss-turned-roommate. After a month in the hotel, the psychologist rented them a two-bedroom penthouse in the French Quarter. It made sense to share a space since she didn't share his financial resources, but it didn't help the growing temptation to give in to their magnetic sexual attraction.

Of course, it was easier to resist his advances when she wanted to wring his neck. With nowhere to go but their living room, Klaus had gotten himself involved in a war. On the internet. With his former best friend and Vice President. As soon as it became apparent that the owner of White Oak Treatment Center wouldn't be going back to most humiliating county in America anytime soon, Marcel Gerard had made a grab for power. Being the dominant alpha male that he was, Klaus hadn't taken kindly to the other man's attempts to take the empire he had built. He'd fired him via group chat and banned him from the property.

That should have been the end of it, and it would have been, if not for Camille O'Connell. She wasn't just Klaus' close friend: she was his lead therapist. She also suffered from incredibly low self-esteem and sought approval from any man who flashed her a smile, and Marcel was nothing if not a charismatic manipulator. He allegedly had PTSD, but Caroline cared very little about his past; it wasn't an excuse to be an asshole. Despite knowing better, he had Cami firmly spun in a web of utter nonsense.

Klaus and Marcel had been going back and forth for months. The former VP bought out a treatment center, albeit a comically unsuccessful one with the ridiculously pretentious name The Neighborhood, for the sole purpose of annoying his former boss. Unfortunately for the doctor, he had none of his protégé's people skills. He was taciturn and unsociable, but loyal to the small few who generally stood aside and let him run things as he saw fit. Caroline also had a very dominant personality, although she'd had that role forced upon her by life. Her boss was born to be a leader, and a successful one. His downfall was that he had no tolerance for insubordination, and while he was brilliant with the patients, he'd been known to stoop to their level of passive aggressive immaturity. It had earned him the nickname The Hybrid: smart enough to be the owner; crazy enough to be the patient.

Despite her own alpha tendencies, Caroline found that she was alright with Klaus' calling the shots. She'd learned to trust him when his instincts proved correct time and time again. However, she was still bossy and neurotic, and she was never one to keep her mouth shut when she didn't agree with him. Which was often. At the end of the day, he took her opinions into consideration, but ultimately did whatever he wanted to do. She would grit her teeth, flash her beauty queen smile, and force herself to remember that there was far more good about her job than bad.

Caroline loved what she did. Human behavior was a puzzle she loved to solve. After spending years in Operations, she'd finally accepted Klaus' long-standing offer to put her clinical license to use and took over the trauma department when Marcel left, although she'd turned down the role of VP and firmly suggested he never have one of those again. Cami had been in charge of the family program, but since Marcel got fired, she'd been pawning more and more of her responsibilities off on Caroline. There were days she deeply regretted attending their EMDR conference via Zoom. Dealing with Finn was a pain in the ass, but at least then she wasn't privy to all the drama of upper management.

Klaus had a tendency to play it pretty close to the vest. His favorite employee had risen through the ranks fairly quickly, but it wasn't until she became an executive that she realized how much of a disaster the hierarchy really was under Marcel's reign. She was immensely grateful that most of what had gone down was before her time, but dealing with the fallout was driving her to madness. The former VP was as petty as he was underqualified.

Caroline walked into their living room and flopped down beside her boss on the couch, immediately draping her arm over her eyes as her head fell back against the plush cushions. "What asinine stunt has he pulled today?" she asked tiredly, already exhausted even though it was only 10:00am. She'd been up all night tossing and turning after Marcel posted a meme suggesting their marketing director go kill herself on Instagram. It wasn't funny anymore, if it ever had been.

Klaus gazed at her in his peripheral vision. It bothered him how she treated the entire thing like it was a ridiculous joke. She was of the opinion that he should just let the whole thing go, but that was hard to do when his face had become a meme plastered all over The Neighborhood's social media. Not only had Marcel left as petulantly as possible, but he'd taken half the staff with him. Why Cami hadn't gone along was anybody's guess; it was clear she was still seeing him behind her boss's back. He turned a blind eye because they had history and she had been instrumental in building the business, but Caroline was quickly running out of patience as to why that was a good enough reason to keep her around.

"Did they litter the parking lot with memes of us again?" she asked nervously, worrying her lower lip. After Klaus signed up The Neighborhood's entire subdomain for several dozen mailing lists for male enhancement products, their former employees had taken to spamming everyone's cars with photoshopped images of Klaus and Caroline making out all over the office. She was livid, but his sole regret was that the photos were doctored. Marcel was the ringleader, but his little minions were far worse than he was, at least until last night. Diego, a former nurse, had spiked all the chocolate cakes with laxatives on his way out the door. Caroline wasn't sorry she'd missed that.

Of course, Klaus could never just leave well enough alone. He'd changed his writing style and written some horrible fanfiction under Marcel's name and "accidentally" uploaded it to The Neighborhood's shared drive. Fifty Shades of Treatment Plans had quickly gone viral, much to it's fake author's dismay as it was literal shit. After that, Thierry, a former IT lead, had hacked Caroline's Galaxy and planted a very active Tinder profile, knowing Klaus would inevitably find it. He'd been livid; she'd rolled her eyes and rooted a Xiaomi. With a custom OS, it wasn't hard to keep her digital world hidden. From there, it had devolved into a world of fuckery that had the blonde in a downward spiral. Her mother had spent the better part of Caroline's childhood trying to kill herself. That meme had taken it too far. Sure, the victim of the meme had laughed it off, but the blonde had spent the night questioning her life decisions that led her to that moment.

Long minutes passed in tense silence as she waited for his latest revelation. His voice was icy, expression stone, when he finally filled her in. "Adrian's company phone pinged last night at O'Shae's."

"Fuck." It was a single word, but it spoke volumes. Adrian was a team lead in her old department, hired by Cami. Caroline had never trusted him, but that wasn't enough for Klaus to go against his old friend. She'd been waiting for his treachery to be revealed, and the day had come. The Irish bar in downtown West Palm Beach was Marcel's domain. There was only one reason Adrian could possibly have been there. "How much did he get out of the shared drives?"

"Not a lot," Klaus informed her with a dejected sigh as he furiously tapped away at his keyboard. "I had android support pull his messages. He actually went there to ask Marcel not to do anything for a few days." The smartest executive among them was Josh, the new head of IT. He was a valuable asset because he knew how to fly under the radar. He was the only one among them who'd successfully managed to avoid all the drama. He mostly just wanted to tinker with bots and spend time with his family. He got the information and got out.

"Why would he do that?" she asked, confused as she curled her legs beneath her to finally face him, although his topaz eyes remained locked on the screen.

"Apparently, he was trying to coerce Jules into doing the marketing for his Twitch." When his employee burst out laughing, he rolled his eyes in annoyance. The uppity director of marketing was a bitch with a sugar obsession, but she was brilliant and loyal. "As you can imagine, she didn't appreciate his attempts to poach her."

Caroline could barely contain the mirth dancing behind her sparkling sapphire eyes, her words tinged in amusement. "Did you already send a cheesecake, or should I do it?"

"I sent three," he replied distractedly. "Other than that, he got a couple of treatment plans, but nothing crucial."

"But more than he would have if you'd listened to me when I said not to promote him in the first place," she spat back, irritation clear in her tone as she glared at him, the levity of Adrian's ridiculous scheme gone. "For somebody who's been stabbed in the back as much as you have, I'd think you'd be more careful."

"It's a fine line between caution and paranoia, sweetheart." Caroline narrowed her eyes at him but didn't say anything. Between an evil ex and a mother who was batshit insane, she personally felt she'd hit her lifetime quota of drama by the time she finished grad school. There were times she really didn't know why she stayed at White Oak. When he finally closed the laptop and turned to her, taking her hand in his and rubbing gentle circles on her palm, she remembered. He leaned forward and tucked a messy tendril behind her ear. "The squirrel will find the nut if you leave it on the tree," he said sagely. She briefly closed her eyes as he caressed her cheek with his thumb. "Not everything is in our control, and not even you can predict the future."

Caroline pulled back, forcing herself not to meet his gaze; she knew the disappointment she would see reflected there. They'd been fighting off their attraction for months, and had been close to giving in on several occasions, but now was not the time to be weak. A king was only as strong as his queen, and she had to either make him see reason, or she had to go. It was a heavy realization, but this latest betrayal was the tipping point. "I can't keep doing this," she whispered softly, gazing down at her hands fiddling in her lap.

Klaus groaned and dragged his palms down his gruff stubble. Company morale was at an all time low, and it didn't help that he was slowly losing the trust of the few executives remaining at his side after everything. It had started out as some what of a game, but it had slowly been devolving to all out war. On the internet. After the suicide meme, he'd gotten a call from Bonnie. Caroline had called her in tears. For the first time in years, she'd broken down and taken a prescription for an anxiolytic.

Times were getting desperate, and emergency does not read the law. "We have the upper hand, sweetheart." Her face fell when she looked up and saw his trademark smirk. A sense of dread filled her with foreboding. "I have a plan."

"Do I even want to know?"

With a smug smile, he informed her, "Marcel will be returning to White Oak on Monday."

"What?!" She was on her feet in an instant, fists clenched at her sides as her eyes bugged out of her head in utter disbelief. "What the actual fuck, Klaus! Have you completely lost your mind?"

The smile immediately fell off his handsome face; the temperature of the room dropped when he got to his feet, his sweet breath puffing against her cheek. "You'd do well to remember who is the boss here, love." His eyes bore into hers, but she pulled her gaze away and just shook her head in shock. Seeing her crestfallen expression, he reached out to stroke her arm, bristling when she recoiled and took a step back. "Do you trust me?"

Caroline looked over and saw the steel behind his eyes and knew it was a lost cause. "I always have."

"That's not an answer," he pointed out shrewdly. "Do you trust me now?"

Dodging the question, she shot back, "What do you hope to gain here?"

"I expect this war to stop."

"By making a deal with the devil?"

Klaus rolled his eyes at her theatrics. "Marcel is hardly the devil, sweetheart. He may have been the ringleader, but his minions were far worse."

"You sound just like Cami," she spat in disgust. "Is that who you were on the phone with all last night?" The doctor gritted his teeth, patience waning at the accusation in her tone. "It was, wasn't it?"

"And what of it?" he asked defensively. "She's been with me since the beginning. We wouldn't be where we are if not for her."

"Oh, that's for damn sure."

"What's that supposed to mean, Caroline?" He took a step forward; she took one back, crossing her arms over her chest as the New Orleans sunshine warmed her back as it streamed in through the sliding glass doors of their balcony.

"It means you lose your rationality when it comes to her." Long moments passed at they stood there staring at each other, each waiting for the other to make a move. "Look, Klaus, Cami is a good person, ok? No one is doubting that. But she's an idiot. The reality is that she goes back to him despite how many people he's hurt, and she justifies it by saying he has PTSD. Well, so do a lot of people, but they don't go around taking it out on others."

"You want me to get rid of her." It wasn't a question, just a truth they both knew. He'd known it for a while, but she'd never voiced it aloud. "Admit it."

The therapist scoffed and tossed her arms out at her side, shrugging. "Having her here hasn't worked. Our team is falling apart. Look how many we've already lost. Jackson was the best of all of us, but he left the last time you let Marcel back on the property."

"I asked him to come back."

"Yeah, and he said no. And why wouldn't he? He was targeted as much as any of us. He was tired of it. If you'd listened to him, maybe things would be different, but you don't listen to anyone, do you? Except for her."

Klaus smirked and took another step forward. "So, that's what this is about? Surely, you must know the way I feel for her and the way I feel, and have felt, for you are entirely different."

Dodging his hand as he moved to tuck a curl behind her ear, she crossed the apartment, heading towards her bedroom. "No, Klaus, this isn't me being jealous. This is about a pointless war on the internet that we have been losing."

"And this is our chance to win!" he shouted, beginning to lose his cool. "If I'm our leader, why do you question me? Don't you trust me?" He gulped when she didn't answer. "Marcel is not the enemy. He was once my friend. The worst of them, Diego, Thierry, they will stay away if he tells them to. Sometimes, you just have to play the game."

"That's the problem. White Oak is not a game. You've been treating it like one, and it has gotten us to this point." He glared at her, hands on hips, but said nothing. Caroline closed her eyes, inhaling a deep breath. He was her boss, but he was also a person, and she knew a thing or two about human behavior. Klaus was a dominant alpha male. Shouting back at him would do her no good; it would just widen the rift between them. "We are not on a battlefield with men coming at us with guns. These are cowardly people on the internet coming into our server and emails. Their weapons are nothing more than words and memes. They can be shut down entirely by ignoring them, and by not engaging. If they escalate to the point of genuine threats and harassment, we can take legal action. If they show up on property, we can have them arrested."

"And you believe that will solve anything? Really, Caroline? You don't think having him arrested will just make things worse?"

"My belief as a professional who has helped thousands of people deal with similar situations of far greater magnitude is that they will grow weary of being ignored and move on to a new target that will continue the games we have played for months. They want attention, and by giving them that, we are losing, and we will continue to lose until we change our behavior." When his glare intensified, she felt tears spring to her eyes. Spinning on her heel, she retreated to her bedroom and locked the door.

As soon as her sobs subsided, she pulled out her phone and started a group chat with the rest of the executive team. It broke her heart, but after talking with Bonnie, Jules and Stefan, she knew she needed to make a decision. If it didn't stop, they would all have to leave. They were all in agreement that Cami needed to go. It was a horrible thing to do, asking her to leave, but there was no other way. As long as she stayed, she would continue trying to fix what was broken.

To her surprise, her phone pinged. Klaus had created a group chat to discuss the situation. They all went back and forth, but the doctor kept insisting he was right and they shouldn't question them. Finally, all three women gave him their ultimatum. Stefan was the first to respond.

"I agree everything has come too far. And I understand personal lives/jobs/work are being affected, which to me is unacceptable. It's been a rough couple of months with people making threats/stupid moves/insults and it's high time it's stopped. I'm willing to do whatever I have to in order to ensure all of you feel safe here, whether that means making a stand against Cami, blocking whoever, or anything else you guys need. I fully understand the dilemma you're all facing and also understand telling someone to commit suicide is never, ever something that should be done. I'm sorry this has happened to you, Jules, and I'm sorry we didn't take care of the demons the first time around. I'd like to offer you all a chance to fix this. Without the three of you, there is no staff. Klaus knows that if we have to scramble to find more people right now, we would NEVER find three people as dedicated and as qualified as the three of you. Again, from the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry this has happened. I'm willing not to one line, not to back down, not to walk away, but to help you guys fix what has been broken since you all arrived. I know it wasn't apparent when you guys all took your positions, but it's slowly become more and more of a problem. I, as much as anyone else here, would love to solve it. I'm willing to cut ties with everyone, no second chances, no looking back. Let's make this right."

Caroline's eyes watered, and she knew better than to think she was the only one. Stefan and Klaus had been close for years. He was also there from day one. Caroline hadn't come until months after everything was up and running. Jules had been around, but it was only recently that she'd gotten dragged into the fire. Bonnie was an overachiever with a heart as big as her brain, but she wasn't built for this kind of drama. Having Stefan take a stand was a huge step in the right direction. For the first time since she'd heard Marcel was coming back, she had hope. Klaus didn't respond, so she spent the better part of the night writing out her response.

"Klaus, you are, and have always been, our leader. Our final course of action falls to you. You have our support, but we need yours as well. We need you to be strong enough to tell them no. Yes, those of us who will leave can be replaced, but the reality is that no one will stay under these conditions. The people in this chat have been, and will continue to be, loyal to you to the end, but that means there needs to be an end. How we proceed on behalf of not only ourselves, but our patients, is your decision. The situation is not what it was when Marcel was in charge. No one is questioning your leadership or trying to take control of your empire. You are the king, but heavy is the head that wears the crown. I ask you not only as your Executive, but as your friend, to take into consideration all that we, your family, have said before you make that decision. Proverbs 24:6 - 'For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors, there is safety.'"

Caroline immediately got several individual texts from Jules, Bonnie and Stefan, but Klaus didn't respond. His response didn't come until the next afternoon, by which time, she was a total wreck. She hadn't slept, and when she did, she dreamed of monsters who couldn't be vanquished. She didn't talk about it a lot, but she'd been through hell herself. Between a crazy mother and an abusive ex, she just wanted it to stop, because maybe, just maybe, if she could get rid of Marcel, her own personal lambs would stop screaming.

Jules, in pure Jules fashion, made a meme of a cat hiding behind a chair that made it look like Hannibal Lecter, over scored with the words, "Well Caroline, have the lambs stopped screaming?" Despite the horror of the situation, she burst out laughing. Jules had a dark sense of humor, but it worked to her advantage. After years in mental health, they'd all learned the only way to survive was to laugh... even when it was entirely inappropriate. Especially when it was entirely inappropriate.

True to form, Stefan wrote back that his kids had filled his bathtub with Orbeez. He tried pouring a pound of salt in the tub to shrink them, but it hadn't helped. She demanded a picture, which he of course refused, to which she responded that it was fake news. After he finished feeding his baby, he sent them a picture of the most hilarious bathtub any of them had ever seen. He suggested opening the drain to just take his chances, but Jules immediately sent an OOF emoji and strongly advised him not to do that. Minutes later, he sent a picture of a large trash bag sagging under the weight of the colorful tiny liquid-filled balls. Leave it to her friends to make her laugh when the world was on fire.

Klaus finally responded to the group text by asking if someone wanted to write a termination letter to Cami. They all knew it would fall to Caroline, but she tried very hard to pawn it off on Bonnie. It didn't work. Instead, a dark thought occurred to her. Picking up her phone, she responded to the group text.

"What about Marcel? Will you get rid of him?"

Klaus' response came back seconds later. "I can't yet."

Caroline immediately wrote back, "Why not?"

Klaus hung his head. He knew what he was doing. Why didn't they trust him? "He closed The Neighborhood, and he's given me access to his email. I need the intel to know who we can and cannot trust."

Caroline groaned. Why was it so hard for him to see what was right in front of him? She loved him, she did, and she'd always respected his leadership, but he was asking too much. With a resigned sigh, she wrote back, "Firing Cami solves nothing if none of us feel safe going to work. Please, I am begging you, end this. Tell Marcel to never come back. If he really is your friend, he will. I'll write the letter. Cami isn't a bad person. She can use her influence to stop this once and for all. If you want us to trust you, then you need to trust us. Please."

Hours later, the sun was falling over the Louisiana sky. Caroline idly wondered if it was the last time she'd ever see it. She waited with bated breath for the phone to ping. When it finally did, a rush of emotions overwhelmed her and she burst into heaving sobs.

Klaus: "Marcel has agreed to go quietly. He won't be reopening The Neighborhood. Get me the letter and I'll send it, if we're all in agreement."

Within seconds, all four of them responded that they agreed. Tears ran down her cheeks as she drafted a goodbye letter to a very good person. She'd never gotten close to Cami as she'd never completely trusted her. Caroline's greatest asset wasn't her dedication or intelligence; it was her intuition. Not a person had turned on them that she hadn't predicted well in advance. It was with a heavy heart that she wrote the letter and they all agreed on the content. They were angry, but Cami hurt herself enough on her own without them adding to it.

"Cami,

You have been an important part of this business, and of our lives. Unfortunately, the time has come for us to go our separate ways. The Neighborhood has closed. Marcel will not be returning. We parted as friends and I would like for us to do the same. You have been pulling back for months and have chosen to align yourself with people who have been cruel to you. It's a pattern in your life we hope you break. The fact is that we have a team who needs to feel safe, and they won't as long as we have any remaining ties to the past. We have decided, together, that this war is over. We will no longer be engaging or maintaining contact with those who have attacked what we have built. You are a good, kind, compassionate person. We have faith that you will do well in life and wish you nothing but the best. As your friends, we ask that you respect our decision and go with peace.

With love and respect,

The Complete Staff of White Oak Treatment Center"

It took the psychologist hours to finally send it, during which Caroline chewed her nails and seriously debating taking another Valium. Finally, Klaus sent a simple text. "It's done." The blonde's hands shook as she logged into their server and checked to see if Cami's email and access had really been shut down. It was true. Klaus had fired his close friend. He'd chosen his team. It meant more to her than she could possibly vocalize in a text. She curled her knees up to her chin as she thought about all that had happened. It was a lot to process. After a few minutes passed, her phone pinged again. It was yet another meme from Jules. A flag with the White Oak logo was held up by the soldiers of Iwo Gima. She couldn't help but laugh. Leave it to Jules.

And thus the Great Internet War of 2020 ended. It was over. They had won.


A/N That whole situation was such a clusterfuck, but I feel better getting it out. The next chapter will have smut. I separated it so as not to frighten away the friends on whom this story was based. Please let me know what you thought!