Alayne Xavier sat at the kitchen table, the reclaimed oak smooth beneath her hands, half-obscured by the neat stacks of her paper drawers on the far end. To her left was the black pen, stained at the nib from countless letters, and in front of her was her half-finished latest missive, with the curlicues of R. MIKAELSON, NEW YORK already printed on the propped up empty envelope. With her heavy black hair held draped away from her neck, she could feel the still air cooling on her skin, the Nordic wind dipping through the green hills outside and raising the damp, heavy timbre of a rainstorm on the way. She scratched out a word, started the next paragraph. A pile of photographs, with the glue ready at its side, shivered gently as the first cloud cracked outside; turning her head on the hand upon which it leant, Lana watched with a steady, pensive gaze as the heavens slowly opened outside their wooden home.

This was Lana's spot, the table, where she sorted records, finished chapters of books and organized her correspondence. They were too far out for reliable internet, even with Klaus installing a dish on the roof, so this was also where she sorted through the posted mail from the preschool where Gus and Carrie were enrolled. They were upstairs now, and with the door open she could hear occasionally the bubbles of laughter and urgent dialogue of their game, muffled on the top floor. When she was here, she could also see the open space in front of the hearth where the family congregated, the antechamber off the main room, and was attuned through time - and supernatural sense - to the movement through the kitchen wall, where soon after the door would sweep open and in would come Klaus, or the children, or Klaus and the children, and she would know what to expect from their meandering stroll past or quick, intent stride. A smile flickered over her face at the thought. It made her proud, in a way, that this was the adult she knew she would become, attenuated to the rhythms of her family, capable and competent. It was so much more than she'd ever dreamed, and she lived with an aching gratitude, one that throbbed like a bird about to soar. As if on cue, her stomach fluttered.

The Klausson home was decorated by its patriarch's art, and through its warrens the walls held testament to his talented, impressionistic style. Other tokens of luxury were scattered through, but otherwise it held the character of its two most senior occupants - pragmatic, every item in place, favouring open, wood-panelled spaces designed for utility. A single-minded network of rooms made for purposeful people; but with an ease of access that suggested a focus on family, and a liberal, thorough outlook on activities. The main room off the kitchen sank into a den space where the hearth warmed the carpet and the baroque chairs around it, and cast orange shadows over the luxuriant bookshelves lining the walls above the mantel. It was here they horsed around when all were home; or lingered by the fire when the children had been carried, heavy with dinner, up to their beds, and talk until the light had dimmed, and then Klaus would often lift her to their own wide bed, gently closing the bedroom door behind.

The storm rattled the windows again, and Lana felt a passing concern for the animals penned outside. Their kitchen garden would hold out, rooted in the hardy Scandinavian grounds circling their home. She imagined the view of the livestock huddled in the barn; their homestead, a little boat in a green sea, with the path a white line cutting past the fence and down the slope to the treeline, and further from that the road to the town. They were not remote, as they had worried before, when Magnus had first kicked against her belly and they had stood in the parlour of their new home, but they were private; screened from view by the dark green swathes at the foothills, and no visitor came up the white path, past the fence gate that protected those inside, and warned silently others, the posts like stakes driven in the ground. Peacetime often required the measures of war; but it had been many years since anything but light had trespassed over the Klausson threshold, warming the stoop in the temperate weather.

Abruptly, the telephone leapt to life, from where it was mounted on one of the pillar-beams in the main room; upstairs, she heard the children go quiet. Standing, she swiftly crossed the room on long legs and lifted the receiver. The line crackled; even though knowing who it was, her palm prickled with anticipation.

"Alayne?"

Elijah's soft, cultured voice relaxed her reflexively risen hackles, as always. Lana smiled and pressed the handset tighter, as if she could feel his broad hand. "Elijah."

The warmth of their communion thrummed over the line. Even though he had written ahead of his call, she had still felt a pleasurable unsurety about whether he'd make it, despite his characteristic punctuality; so long had passed since the Mikaelsons had slipped into uncompromised familiarity with each other again she knew there'd be another reason for his call, and even so her mind raced as they went through the small talk. But Elijah was Elijah, and not even her underlying apprehension could mask the pleasure of the sound of his voice.

"...Leo's been asking about you all now, especially Uncle Eli, who sent Gus such a nice train last Christmas."

She could feel Elijah smile through the phone. There was a beat.

"There is another reason I've called." She sighed, the looseness in her chest belying the old tightness that drew her breath a little short. She waited again, realising he was gathering his words, and suppressed a swallow. From where he was napping belly-down on the sofa, Leo murmured in his sleep and rolled over.

"I had hoped to leave you all in peace. Let Niklaus and you tend to your lives." It had only been a few seconds, but in the interim it had seemed longer. Time was dragging.

"Eiijah, I don't know what you mean." He made a noise in his throat - she passed the receiver into her other hand, her dark eyes bloomed black at her in the hallway mirror. She softened her voice. "What's wrong?"

The gentle entreaty broke his reticence. She heard him say those three words quietly. Her heart lifted, and sank. The price of peacetime. Already she was thinking of Klaus - his face swam in her mind, and then another, softer, younger, with masses of auburn hair. The baby nudged inside her again when she eventually replaced the receiver.

Is this not what she wanted? The missing piece to their puzzle; the unspoken word in the reams and reams of conversation that stored between her and her husband, supported the walls of their marriage?

Alayne cast a glance at her desk, and the creamy sheaves of paper. The photos this week she'd taken to send to Rebekah, and those copied alongside, for Freya and Kol and Elijah, the flat images of the nephews and niece they'd never met. It was always a compromise, but it was also a hard-won peace, a peace she had earned with her own two hands, with the force of her enduring and faithful love. I know you are the only one that can reach him.

She felt younger, and older again. Suddenly she was wearing a leather jacket seventeen years younger, chuckling into Klaus's neck the morning of a month ago, pulling Carrie's first tiny boots on so she could splash along in the rain. Time was unzipping past, and it was only one name that had unleashed the deluge. Riding shotgun with Hayley, whilst a little voice piped along to Bob Dylan in the backseat. Starlings in a park, and her heart seizing. The nursery, and prisms of light shooting off the crystal mobile. The first time a tiny face had nuzzled into her, her hold unsteady but increasingly firm.

The tart and coppery smell of blood, on her hands, and his.

A presence moved past the wall, past her vacated seat at the table, and her unfinished letter flapped with the force of the wind as the outermost door swang in, and Klaus entered, looking to her with a smile.

"Good evening -". He stopped, one step in. She gazed at his porcelain face, the cheekbones, the beloved features. The old instincts roared inside her; perhaps their child growing there made it more. He saw her properly, her still face, her hand still on the receiver, the other curled against her stomach. His dark blue eyes widened, and then furrowed with concern. "Lee, what's wrong?"

Alayne did what she had done for fifteen years; she stepped towards Klaus, and gathered his gaze to hers. Pledging herself. Always and forever. This was not an ending, and most certainly this would not end him - she would not allow it. She cupped his face in her hands, and felt his own drift to her elbows, anchoring. She felt her calm gentle him. He was ready, even if he didn't know it.

"It's time." Klaus's wife stroked his cheek softly, hoping her touch would do what her words may not. "It's time for you to go back for Hope."