"Are you sure you don't need anything?" Klaus asks for the umpteenth time, watching Caroline carefully, which, what is with the wary looks, anyway? It's not like he's never stolen a phone before. Probably. She knows she's been acting suspicious and this thing with Tyler was just icing, but she'd appreciate if he laid off those looks for a while. At least while she's still freezing.

Her hair has finally stopped feeling damp, and her skin in warm enough, but there's still a chill in her bones—coming out of a lake will do that to you, even more so in the emotional she's been all day. "I'm sure," she tells him, and he searches her eyes some more. She sighs and looks down at her knees.

"You told me to come over," he says. It's an explanation; it doesn't sound accusing at all, and sometimes Caroline wonders where Klaus gets all this patience. It's like it starts wearing thin for a while and then when she needs him, it's not an issue anymore. It's kind of annoying.

It's not really that annoying. Whatever. She's not in the best of moods.

She reaches a hand over his knee and he takes it before it gets there, his thumb stroking softly over her knuckles. She looks up straight ahead, not ready to look at him again yet. The light in the living room comes from an end table lamp, just enough to see without hurting her eyes or drawing attention. She's kind of doing the sneaking around her own house thing. A clock on the mantelpiece says it's a few minutes past midnight.

Caroline breathes in deep and turns to face him. "Hey, it's your birthday," she says softly, with just an edge of self-deprecating amusement. It's not really her fault his party turned to crap, but it kind of is, but it's not like he's really that into birthday parties anyway. Or, maybe he is. She hasn't known him that long. But in retrospect, she can admit she seized the chance to distract himself from what was going on with Silas. She did consider what he'd like when she picked out food and music and all that, but she didn't that much when she decided it would be great to throw him a surprise party at Bonnie's lake house with a bunch of people from school as guests. "Sorry about the crappy start."

"It would be less crappy if you told me the truth," he says, but it's offhand, not like he's going to push it, at least not tonight, "but it's not that bad. Come here." He wraps an arm around her shoulders, and snuggles against his side, leaning back in the couch. He's warmer than she is. She can hear herself breath against his chest, trying to think of anything but Tyler and if it's really possible he'd turn on her like that. She knows love makes people do crazy things and all that, but whatever Tyler had against Katherine wasn't about Caroline, and she finds it hard to believe he was actually ever in love with her, let alone that he'd had waited this long for an opportunity to get back at her. It's not like he held back the resentment with all those pointed comments when Caroline tried to be his friend.

And that's exactly what she doesn't want to think about. "I wish you could stay over," she says, sniffing a little from the lake dip. She really hopes this isn't the beginning of an actual cold. He strokes her side over the blanket she's wrapped in. "I've had a traumatic experience. You make exceptions for people when they've had a traumatic experience."

"And you want to wake your mom up and tell her that?"

"I don't even want to talk about it," she sighs.

His body goes rigid against her, his hand stilling. "You've made that pretty clear, yeah," he says, his voice clipped.

"Please don't start with that." She doesn't even care that it sounds like whining. She sits up so she can look at him. "Just—Just tonight, okay? You can bring it up again tomorrow. I'd like it better if you didn't, but—"

"Just tonight," he asks, and she nods. "How long are we talking about here?"

She hums through her nose and presses in close to him again. "Seven more minutes. Wake me up if I fall asleep."