A/N: This fic is a series of one-shots in the universe of my fic The Safehouse. Though I'd recommend reading that first, these one-shots could probably technically be read separately. These won't be in chronological order. In other words, there might be a one-shot of Hope at age eight right before a one-shot of Hope when she's three. I'll have Hope's age and the date of the story at the top for reference. If the system is too confusing, let me know in a review and I'll try to figure out how to make it easier.
Unlike my chaptered stories (where each chapter is around 5k-7k words), these one-shots will vary in length. Some will be rather long and some will be short. This one is on the shorter side.
I hope you guys enjoy these as much as I will writing them :)
Enjoy!
-Angie
"Daycare" - August 2nd, 2013 - 16 months
"Hope, you need to let go."
Hope shook her head, her face still stubbornly resting against Caroline's knee, with her arms wrapped around her leg.
Caroline gently untangled Hope's arms and kneeled down next to her, looking Hope straight in the eye. Hope grabbed Caroline's wrists for balance. "Don't you want to make friends?"
Hope just glared at her, which made Caroline have to fight down a smile. "It'll be really fun."
Hope continued to stare at her stonily, her face arranged in such a similar expression to Klaus's that Caroline lost the battle and smiled. Her daycare teacher came over and bent down.
"Hi, Hope. My name is Melissa."
Hope immediately took a shaky step towards Caroline and gripped her arms harder, causing Caroline to wince. The nature spirit or whatever that decided that baby hybrids should be gifted with super strength should be shot. Or banished. Or something.
"Hope, don't you want to say 'hi' to Melissa?" Caroline asked, gently turning Hope around in her arms to face the teacher.
Hope half-heartedly jerked her hand towards the teacher, even though Caroline knew that she was perfectly capable of waving. Caroline shot Melissa an apologetic look. "I'll be back soon, okay?" She told Hope, disentangling herself so that Hope sat down.
As soon as Caroline took a step in the direction of the door Hope began to wail. Caroline squeezed her eyes shut tightly before turning around again. "Hope, I'll be back, okay? I promise."
Hope continued to cry, and now it was Melissa shooting Caroline a sympathetic glance. "She just has separation anxiety. She'll most likely be fine a little bit after you leave."
Caroline resisted the urge to snort. Hope would probably be throwing a fit for quite a while after she left.
The reason Hope had been taken to daycare by Caroline instead of by Klaus, Elijah, or Rebekah was because Caroline knew that this would happen. It seemed to her that in any situation where Hope let out so much as a hiccup, the preferred solution by the Original Siblings was to do exactly what Hope wanted, no matter what it entailed.
None of them would have gotten two feet away from her without picking her up and taking her back home.
Unfortunately, this also meant that Hope was very used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it, and as a result she often didn't understand why Caroline wouldn't give in.
She took another step towards the door, and Hope cried louder.
"Just go, she'll be fine in a minute," Melissa said reassuringly.
"I'll be back this afternoon, Hope," Caroline said, before briskly walking outside, slumping down on the curb and starting to cry.
Though she tried to be fair, she hated watching Hope cry when she could fix whatever it was her daughter was upset about, and even besides that, it was difficult to drop her off at a school with a bunch of strangers.
She felt another person sit beside her. "I'll be here the entire time, Miss Caroline. She'll be safe."
She turned to look at Ian, one of the hybrids that were stationed to watch over Hope at all times, and cracked a small smile, still sniffling. "Call me if anything happens."
"Of course, Miss Caroline."
"Stop calling me Miss Caroline," She said with a tired watery laugh, resurrecting the argument that had been going on for as long as she'd been in New Orleans.
"Blame the King," Ian said, winking at her, "If he had his way you'd be Queen Caroline."
She made a face. There was a difference between being respectful and being ridiculous. She didn't feel very queenly at the moment, and she doubted she would in the near future. "Yeah, well, I might just take him up on that so I can order you to call me by my name like a normal person."
He shrugged, an impish smile on his face. "If that's what you wish, Miss Caroline."
She laughed. She's always liked Ian, which was one of the reasons that he was the one stationed with her and Hope. Technically, Ian had been assigned to shadow Caroline directly, but for Hope's first day at Daycare it had been decided that she'd have Ian and another hybrid named Theo stationed near the building all day.
"I'm going to Starbucks."
"All right, Miss Caroline."
"Call me if anything happens."
"I will, Miss Caroline."
"If you're going to call me Miss Caroline all the time, can you at least not tack it on at the end of every single sentence?"
"Miss Caroline, I think I can do that."
She snorted at his deliberate misinterpretation of her request and called a goodbye to him over her shoulder before starting off to the coffee shop.
After a few hours of attempting to do productive things on her computer and failing miserably while she worried about Hope, Caroline arrived back at the Daycare about ten minutes before the pickup time. She peeked in the window and saw Hope sitting in the corner frowning in concentration as she built a complicated-looking lego structure.
The teacher seemed to be gathering the children for circle time to say goodbye, and Hope followed the directions, pouting at having to leave her lego blocks behind.
The second the clock hand hit two-thirty, Caroline walked in. Hope's face lit up for a moment before she schooled it back into a poker face—a habit she'd picked up from both Elijah and Klaus—and she took some shaky steps over before falling down again.
Caroline crossed the room towards her, and Hope reached up her arms for Caroline to pick her up.
"Did you have fun today?" Caroline asked.
"No." Hope said sullenly.
Hope generally didn't speak all that much, but besides some names, she could form all the words she had learned perfectly; she was just quiet.
"Why wasn't it fun, sweetie?"
"Mama," She said simply, glaring at Caroline accusingly.
Caroline sighed. "I'm sorry that I had to leave, but I wanted you to be able to make friends yourself."
"No."
Caroline sighed slightly, shifting Hope in her arms and walking towards Melissa.
"How'd she do?"
"Pretty normally for a first day. She's pretty shy, and she liked the blocks."
Caroline nodded, Melissa's response pretty much matching what she'd expected.
"Thanks."
"Of course. Bye, Hope."
Hope again flapped her arm unenthusiastically towards Melissa.
"Bye," She repeated dully, causing Caroline and Melissa to smile.
Caroline carried Hope outside to the car, where Ian was waiting with Theo at the wheel.
"Een!" Hope squealed, reaching an arm out. Ian sent a quick glance towards Caroline, silently asking permission. When Caroline nodded, he took Hope in his arms.
"Hello, Princess."
"Hi," Hope said, grabbing the fabric of his shirt.
"Miss Caroline, are you ready to leave?" Ian asked, turning to her.
Caroline sighed and nodded, stepping into the car and taking Hope from Ian's arms before he went to sit in the passenger seat in the front.
They drove back to the mansion, Hope sitting in her car seat looking out the window.
When Caroline finally got back and opened the front door, Rebekah immediately skidded to the foyer to greet them.
"Aunt Reba."
"Hello," Rebekah said, taking Hope out of Caroline's arms immediately, "How was it?"
"No."
"Hope, I believe that you meant to use the word, 'bad'." Elijah said, entering the room.
"She's one, she doesn't know all that many words yet," Rebekah said.
"Bad." Hope repeated.
Elijah shot Rebekah a triumphant smirk.
"Why was it bad, sweetie?"
Hope jutted out her lower lip. "Mama."
Caroline sighed. "I had to leave her there, and she didn't like that."
Rebekah looked scandalized. "You left her in a room with strangers and other children by herself?"
"Um. Yeah. Kids go to daycare all the time. And she had Ian and Theo right there."
"Did Nik know about this?"
Caroline nodded slowly.
"What was he thinking? Was he thinking?" Rebekah said loudly, looking angry.
Caroline hurriedly took Hope from Rebekah so the other girl could make full use of hand gestures as she ranted, and she and Elijah exchanged a look.
"Niklaus is occupied at the moment, but he shall return in a little while," Elijah said quietly.
She nodded to show that she understood, and slipped out of the room towards the study, allowing Elijah to calm down Rebekah.
A/N: So there's the first one shot :) Please let me know if you enjoyed it! I'll take requests too, if you have any suggestions of what snapshots from Hope's life you want to see. I'm gradually getting more comfortable with writing smut, and one of the next one-shots I'm planning is rather smutty, so we'll see where that goes.
Review please, the only way a writer improves is through feedback ;)
Thanks for reading.
Hugs!
-Angie