After dinner I was in my room, having narrowly avoided my brothers and their usual jokes. They had followed me, as I expected, but I had swiftly kicked them out so I could do some homework. However, despite getting rid of those two distractions, there was still something stopping me from getting things done. And that thing was Klaus. 

His question from earlier still lingered in my mind. Why did he need to know if I was home tonight? The obvious answer was that he was going to turn up here, but even the thought made my stomach churn slightly. Yes, my mother was more accepting of him and our whole relationship, but I couldn't imagine her reaction if he turned up at the door without warning. Of course I wanted them to meet, but I wasn't sure if I was ready for that to happen tonight. And surely Klaus should've asked me first.

As I thought it over, it became clearer to me that Klaus must've been planning something else. He knew how worried I was about him meeting my parents, especially my mum, so I knew he wouldn't just do something like this without discussing it with me first. Unless, he had planned it with my brothers behind my back or something?

I shook my head slightly, annoyed with myself for even still thinking about it. Why would Klaus do that? The point was, he wouldn't. So I needed to just forget the whole thing and stop overthinking everything.

I turned back to my homework and tried to get Klaus out of my head completely and, after a long hour or so, it was finished. I put my stuff away and then fell back on my bed. Despite telling myself to forget it, my mind was still ticking so I decided to text Lily and ask her to tell me some marine facts, just to distract me.

However, as I pulled our messages up, I heard a rustling from outside and froze. It was probably just the neighbours, or a stray animal travelling through our garden, but even so, I stayed still and listened, trying to ignore the part of my brain that said it was a burglar. But the rustling was followed by silence and, after sitting for a few quiet moments, I decided to ignore it and go back to messaging Lily.

She answered almost instantly, and we sent a few texts back and forth until I heard it; a soft knocking on the glass next to me.

I jumped from the sound and wheeled around, staring at my closed curtains with wide eyes. But then, in a moment of courage, I slowly reached forward and pulled the fabric to the side, only to be met by a familiar face.

"Klaus?" I exclaimed, rushing to open my window.

He smiled cheerfully from the top of a ladder, acting as if it was completely normal for him to be there, in the dark, when my family could easily still be awake to catch him.

"Hey," he said simply as soon as I pushed the window up.

"What the hell are you doing?"I whisper shouted, although I couldn't help the smile that worked its way onto my face. His happiness was contagious. 

Klaus shrugged. "Just wanted to see you."

"So you carried a ladder all the way down the street and used it to climb up to my window?"

"Actually it was out here already." 

Of course, I thought to myself. We often left one out on the back porch so we could get rid of the leaves that fell into our gutters.

"So what you're saying is, you stole our ladder?"

"I didn't steal it, I borrowed it," he said matter-of-factly,  "It's still on your property, is it not?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Just come in, before someone sees you."

He clambered through the window quietly, which I appreciated, before turning to me and giving me a quick peck on the cheek.

"So this is what your room looks like," Klaus said, glancing around.

I suddenly felt self conscious and did a quick survey of the room to make sure I hadn't left anything embarrassing in view. If I knew he was coming I would've cleaned, but that didn't matter now. At least I had tidied up the place a couple days ago, so it was just about presentable.

"You should've told me you were coming," I said.

"Have you ever heard of a surprise?"

I playfully hit him on the arm, to which he pretended to be hurt, before gesturing for him to sit down. Then for a bit we just talked, quietly as to not alert anyone else that he was here. It was weird that even though we saw each other everyday, we still always had plenty to talk about. Klaus often told me about books he had read recently, and talked about his sisters, whereas I usually complained about my brothers and told Klaus about the poetry I had written a while ago and the fact that sometimes I got the urge to write more. I never would've thought I would be into it, but ever since I wrote some with Lily to set up my whole master plan to pretend I wasn't in detention, it just felt right; as if there were some things that I could only express through writing poems.

All of a sudden, when he was halfway through telling me about all the things Sunny had managed to bite through, he spied something on my desk and paused his story so he could investigate.

"What is it?" I said, curious about his sudden interest. Then he picked up something and showed it to me, a small smile on his face.

"You kept it," Klaus murmured, turning the object over in his hands.

I realised it was the pen he had given me months ago, back when we were barely acquaintances. Thinking back to that time, I had been so confused. Especially when I told him it wasn't mine and he just let me keep it anyway, and even more so when I realised it was actually his. I had never asked him about that. Now seemed like the perfect time.

"Why did you give me that?"

Klaus was silent for a moment and when he looked back up at me I noticed he almost looked shy again. "You could never find yours," he said quietly, "In detention, you spent half of your time searching for a pen and you would never stop muttering under your breath as you looked. And..." he trailed off, looking away awkwardly, "At the time it annoyed me that you'd be rustling around in your bag for ages. So I wanted to give you one. I just didn't know how to give it to you."

"So you pretended I had dropped it?"

Klaus laughed slightly, looking embarrassed. "And you just tried to give it back. Almost ruined my whole plan." He fell silent, thinking about the memory, before putting his pen back on the desk. "For the record, I didn't actually find you annoying, it's just I was trying to read and you wouldn't stop trying to find a pen..."

"It's fine," I cut him off seeing as he was rambling. He didn't have to explain himself to me. It was only natural that he used to find me irritating. I knew I would be irritated too if the roles were reversed. "It took me an embarrassingly long time to work out it was yours, by the way."

"Really?" Klaus said, taking his seat next to me again on the bed. 

"Duncan and Quigley noticed it before I did," I admitted.

"I'm surprised they're okay with this."

I smiled. "They joke around a lot but otherwise they're pretty chill. And to be honest, they might as well be the presidents of your fan club. When they found out we were hanging out, they would literally ask me about you everyday."

Klaus and I shared a quiet laugh before just talking about other random things. On a normal day, I would've been asleep by then, but having Klaus there kept me awake and we ended up talking until the early hours. After a while we switched off the light and just watching the stars out of the window. It was so peaceful that I didn't even notice when I drifted off, head resting on his shoulder, our hands softly clasped together.

A/N: I actually have a bonus scene for this chapter that I've wanted to include for ages but because I'm mean I'm going to save it for when I do my deleted scenes chapter at the end of the book. Speaking of the end... I think we only have like one or two chapters left of this story ;-;

I actually might cry when it's over because it's been so much fun writing this and I feel like I've interacted with so many really nice readers, both new to my account and veterans alike. 

Also, unrelated, but can you believe it's christmas next week? Since it's so close I might drop a couple festive, short Kladora stories if you guys are interested. I was originally going to do the 12 days of ficmas but I'm already late hahah so I might just post some of the better ideas I had instead. Let me know if you would want to read some christmas-themed Kladora stories!

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! Stay safe and healthy and I'll see you next time <3