Enchanted to meet you
Synopsis: Hope and Klaus. Two still unnamed children on their first day, a thousand years apart.
Part one: Klaus and Elijah share a few moments with Klaus' daughter before she's sent away. Set during 1x22.
New Orleans, 2012
His daughter is perfect.
Granted, Klaus doesn't actually know that many babies, but that hardly matters. He's pretty sure as a father he's allowed to be biased, and his daughter is clearly perfect.
She's small, and delicate, and wholly alive. Her heartbeat is a soft, rapid thumping to his ears. He carefully traces the curve of her ear, his touch little more than a brush of air as he strokes her pink cheek. His daughter doesn't stir, mercifully quiet as she sleeps in his arms.
He looks up as familiar footsteps climb the stairs and Elijah walks in, slipping his phone inside his jacket.
"Well?" Klaus asks, trying to keep his voice low.
Elijah nods, a glimmer of a smile on his face and Klaus lets out a breath he almost didn't know he was holding.
"Rebekah has agreed to meet you outside of town," Elijah elaborates. "She can be there around two."
"Good," Klaus says, more than a little relieved.
His brother seats himself on the sofa, eyes flickering back to the baby in Klaus' arms. "Where is Hayley?"
"In the shower," Klaus replies. "I convinced her to at least clean up a little."
It had only been after serious cajoling that Hayley had finally agreed to leave her daughter in Klaus' arms so that she could take a shower. She didn't want to be parted from her child when they had so little time left together, a sentiment Klaus can understand completely.
He's not sure he can bear to be parted from his daughter either.
The baby squirms a little in his arms, letting out a soft whine before settling down again. He is amazed once again at how red her skin is. It should fade in a few days or weeks, he remembers that much from when Henrik was born.
His youngest brother is all Klaus has to go on when it comes to this. With both Kol and Rebekah he had been too young to remember very much of their early days.
Sometimes, if he casts his mind back far enough, he thinks he remembers the heat of the summer day when he first held his sister, but it's only a vague memory. Only sense impressions—the cool air inside the room and the surprising weight of the warm body in his arms.
Mother had told him once that Rebekah had gone quiet the moment someone had put her in his arms.
He sees Elijah watching, a slight smile playing at his lips. Suddenly another thought occurs to him.
"Would you like to hold her?" he asks.
His brother looks surprised for a brief moment, before he hides it.
"I wouldn't wish to deprive you of your remaining time with your daughter," Elijah says, which isn't exactly a denial.
"Nonsense," Klaus replies, keeping his voice quiet lest he wakes the child. "She's your niece. It wouldn't do to go without holding her even once."
He gets up, staving off further protests. Elijah sits up straighter, and holds out his arms as Klaus carefully lowers her into his hands.
"Make sure you support her head," Klaus warns, somehow irrationally concerned.
"I remember," Elijah just says when Klaus trails off.
He walks back to his chair, even as every instinct in him is screaming for him to stay close by, to grab back his child. She's strong, he knows that, yet she seems so vulnerable, so small in his brother's arms. He settles into his armchair, watching his brother shift the baby—his daughter—in his arms as if he has done so a thousand times before.
Which he had of course, if not with Hope then with their younger siblings. Elijah handles his daughter with a confidence Klaus wishes he possessed himself. His brother would have made a good father.
Better than you, some treacherous part of his mind whispers. Klaus pushes the thought away, focusing instead on the present moment.
Elijah seems almost as mesmerised by the child as Klaus is, his eyes taking in every feature.
"She has your nose," Elijah finally says.
"Does she?"
"You don't think so?" Elijah asks, tracing a thumb over the baby's soft cheek. She stirs a little in her sleep, opening her mouth as if to yawn, before settling down again.
She's a surprisingly calm baby. Klaus can't claim much first-hand experience with babies, but he remembers those first few weeks after Henrik was born, how the cries would wake them all up.
Then again he supposes his daughter might be tired from a rather eventful first day on this earth.
"She reminds me a little of Rebekah," Klaus admits.
"You and Rebekah did look rather alike when you were first born," Elijah tells him.
Klaus hums. It's always strange when he's faced with a reminder that his brother's memory stretches back further than his own, to days before Klaus was even born.
"She looks more like Hayley, I'd say," he tells his brother.
Elijah hums. "I suppose it would—oh."
He pauses, and Klaus sees his daughter's eyes are now open and she's staring up at Elijah.
"Hello," his brother says softly, meeting her eyes. "It's very good to meet you, little one."
Klaus watches with rapt attention as his daughter blinks up at her uncle. Elijah smiles. His brother is a natural at this. The two of them make a fine picture, and part of Klaus feels like smiling himself, like he might find a wide grin already on his face with no idea of when it appeared.
Another part of him wants desperately to take back the baby. He may have said he wanted Elijah to hold his daughter, but Klaus is also a creature of selfish desires, and he wants to have every moment with his child until he will have to send her away.
"Would you like to hold her again?" Elijah asks, just as Klaus is about to.
"Please," he says, and Elijah gets up carefully, trying not to startle the baby.
His daughter is warm and small against his chest, wriggling around a little as Elijah carefully places her in his arms. Will it ever stop amazing him, the way she is so wonderfully alive? He doubts it, but then he may never get the chance to find out anyway.
He feels Elijah coming to stand at his shoulder, the both of them looking down at his daughter as she looks up curiously.
"She'll need a name," Elijah says.
"I suppose she does."
"Have you thought about it?"
Not enough, if he's being honest. It had been easier at first, to simply think of her as the child and only in relation to his brother's wishes for her to be born. Afterwards my daughter had sufficed, and the birth always still seemed so far off.
He always thought they'd have more time to decide.
But no, that's not quite true. There is a name, isn't there? Elijah's words that morning had made him think, and—
It doesn't matter. There is Hayley to consider as well. It isn't even really up to him anyway.
"Hayley had a few names she was considering," Klaus says, evading the question.
"And if the choice were yours?" Elijah asks.
Klaus looks at his daughter for a long moment. It's not a hard choice, there is only really one name which fits, yet somehow it's hard to say it out loud, as if saying it would mean acknowledging all that this child means to him already.
"Hope," he whispers, and Elijah goes still behind him. "I would name her Hope. It seems—fitting."
"Yes," his brother says after a moment, resting a hand on Klaus' shoulder. His voice sounds strangely gruff. "It's a very good name."
He looks back at Elijah, meeting his brother's eyes. Something passes between them then, an understanding which could not be put into words. Elijah doesn't need to ask why he would pick this name for his child. They both remember full well the words spoken in the cemetery earlier this morning.
"You should speak with Hayley about it," Elijah says, gently squeezing his shoulder.
"I will."
On the other side of the compound, a sudden absence of sound indicates that Hayley is done with her shower. She'll be back soon, and will no doubt want to hold her child again for those few hours they have left.
The thought of being parted from his daughter already hurts.
"Rebekah will protect her," Elijah says quietly.
"I know."
"It won't be forever."
Klaus looks at his daughter's face, tries to imagine what she might look like in a year, five years, a decade. "It will still be too long."
Elijah doesn't have anything to offer to that.
A/N: So I wrote this before that flashback scene of Klaus and Hayley naming Hope aired in s5, so you can either consider it non-canon compliant or say Klaus and Hayley came up with the same name independently or something. Either way, hope you liked it!
Part two (Klaus' first day) will be up tomorrow.