Will Klaus and Caroline finally get their moment, or is Hayley standing in the way?

When "The Vampire Diaries" launched its spin-off series, "The Originals," with a backdoor pilot, fans were floored to learn that the new show hinged upon Klaus's discovery that he and Hayley, his werewolf one-night-stand, were expecting a child. Though we'd previously thought vampires couldn't conceive, as the Original hybrid, Klaus is an exception to a lot of rules -- so it shouldn't surprise us that he stumbled upon "nature's loophole" when he slept with Hayley.

The reaction to the baby news was certainly mixed. The backdoor pilot fared well enough to merit a green light for the series from The CW, but many "Vampire Diaries" fans found the parenthood story troubling. In particular, fans rooting for Klaus and Caroline to get together were pretty vocal about their dissatisfaction, worried that Klaus having a child with another woman was the death knell for "Klaroline."

But in actuality, the baby isn't as relevant to the Klaus/Caroline romance as one might initially assume. In fact, the pregnancy is such a non-factor, it may not even be addressed with Caroline, as she's far more concerned with Klaus's behavior toward the people she cares about than she is with his sexual dalliances and ties to New Orleans.

Julie Plec, executive producer of both "The Vampire Diaries" and "The Originals," understands the concerns of the "Klaroline" fandom, but also makes the point that there's a much larger story to tell about Klaus outside of his romance.

"To be fair, there are plenty of people who hate the idea that she would ever look sideways at the guy that murdered her boyfriend's mother and sent him running from town like a chicken -- there's definitely plenty of those people rooting against that twosome," Plec tells us. "It's our second-most controversial love triangle, I suppose. But on behalf of those who love Klaus and Caroline together, they look at this pregnancy storyline and think that means 'Oh, Klaus is going to go away and be a good dad and fall for the baby-mama and forget all about Caroline.' No. Hell no."

For Klaus, the hybrid baby -- whatever sort of supernatural creature it may turn out to be -- is just a means to getting the French Quarter back under his thumb, and a means of leverage with Elijah. It's not about Hayley, for him, and there's not some grand "Klayley" endgame romance brewing in Louisiana. In fact, while Klaus and Hayley both have a degree of investment in the pregnancy, they don't particularly care about each other at all.

"The bottom line is that this baby, as we move forward in 'The Originals,' is just a power pawn for him," Plec says. "Klaus's journey will be to live up to Elijah's hope, which is that this is going to be the thing that can bring their family back together. This is absolutely not Papa Klaus nursing and changing diapers and suddenly being a good guy, nor will it ever be."

In some ways, the baby drawing Klaus to New Orleans is one step toward building him into a man who might be suitable for Caroline to legitimately consider in the future. "This is part of a big picture of taking someone who has been terribly villainous and filled with rage, and hurt as a result of being colossally disappointed by his family, repeatedly -- this is another layer onto the evolution of trying to bring him some sort of inner peace," she says.

In the meantime, look for Klaus and Caroline to share at least one significant moment in the finale, which airs this Thursday, May 16 at 8 p.m. EST on The CW. "We haven't seen the last of Klaus's affection for Caroline, and we certainly haven't seen the last of Caroline's confusion about Klaus," Plec assures us. "That'll take us past the finale and into both series, in small and subtle ways, certainly, and then possibly with crossover opportunity moving forward."

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