Hey everyone!
This is the first thing that I've posted, let alone completely written in what feels like forever...but is really only just since April. This is an idea that popped into my head and I just had to write it. I think it's a good story idea for my journey back into writing after so long. I'm thinking it'll be either three or four chapters long at this point. That may change later but for now, three or four.
I hope you all enjoy reading it!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything associated with The Originals...I just like to play around with the characters. I only own the plot.
It's hard to pretend to love someone you don't. It's even harder to pretend not to love someone you do. Sometimes, though, you have to make sacrifices. But after all those sacrifices are made, what would you do if you got the chance to get back all that you sacrificed. Do you take that chance? Or do you not? Well, Hayley's about to find out which one she'll choose. Hayley/?
Chapter 1 - A Chance To Change Everything
Hayley and Davina had officially been friends for a few weeks now. That fact being why Hayley didn't think anything of it when Davina called her and asked her to lunch. Hayley agreed to meet up with her once Hope woke up from her late morning nap and she hopefully found someone to watch her for a bit. Hayley didn't even think anything of it when Davina wouldn't tell her what the lunch was about. Hayley could tell by the sound of Davina's voice that lunch wasn't just going to be about two friends hanging out, but she still didn't think anything of it.
It wasn't until she asked where to meet Davina for lunch that Hayley started to wonder what was going on. The restaurant that Davina named was one that Hayley was pretty sure was all the way across town. Hayley was then both curious and confused as to what Davina could possibly want that required going all the way across town to meet up with each other. Hayley had questioned her some more about it but still got nothing out of her. If Hayley hadn't already wanted to meet Davina for lunch, she definitely did after that phone call. Which is what lead to this very moment.
After not being able to find anyone to watch Hope, which wasn't surprising given how crazy everyone's lives were lately with everything going on, Hayley found herself in a cute little diner like restaurant with Hope on one hip and a diaper bag on the other one. Hayley entered the diner and looked around for Davina. She found her sitting by herself in a back corner of the restaurant. Hayley made her way over there and greeted Davina with a small smile and a simple hello, which Davina returned.
"Here, can you hold Hope for a second?" Hayley asked as Davina stood up and took Hope from her arms. "I'm going to go get a high chair." Hayley turned and walked away, returning moments later with a high chair in her hand. "Thank you," she said with a smile as she took Hope back from Davina who promptly sat back down.
Hayley placed Hope in the high chair at the end of the booth and slid Hope's diaper bag against the wall before sliding into the booth across from Davina. Hope wiggled in her chair, desperately wanting free of the constricting seat before Hayley finally settled her by handing her a couple of sugar packets to keep her occupied. What real trouble was possibly cleaning up a little mess if it meant Hope was happy and content long enough for Hayley and Davina to talk about whatever was on Davina's mind?
"What's so important that I had to meet you all the way across town?" Hayley asked curiously once the waitress who had come over had left to go retrieve their drinks.
"There's something that I need to talk to you about," Davina answered, not revealing much of anything.
Hayley raised an eyebrow. "Something that constitutes damn near leaving the city to talk about?" she wondered out loud.
Davina nodded her head. "I figured this was probably going to be something you wouldn't want anyone we know hearing anything about just yet."
Now Hayley's interest was even more piqued than before. "You've got my attention," Hayley told her just as the waitress arrived with their drinks.
After setting their drinks down and taking their orders, the waitress walked away again.
After pouring milk into Hope's sippy cup and handing it to her, Hayley unwrapped a straw and put it into her drink before pushing it to the side. She leaned forward on her elbows with her hands clasped in front of her. "Alright, I'm all ears."
Davina took a sip of her drink before leaning forward towards her as well. "Well, I've been doing a bit of researching lately."
"What kind of research?" Hayley questioned, curiously.
"I've been searching for some spells that could help break certain bonds while also keeping what the bond was meant for in tact," Davina answered without hesitation.
At first, Hayley wasn't sure what Davina meant. But after giving it some more thought, it finally dawned on her what certain bond Davina was talking about. There was no way it could be true. Had Davina found a spell to break the bond and also maintain what it was meant for? No matter how much Hayley tried to think of any way that such a spell could exist let alone work, she couldn't come up with anything that made sense.
"How?" Hayley wondered. "Is there really a spell that could actually do both? This all sounds way too good to be true."
Davina shrugged a shoulder. "That is what I thought as well," Davina admitted. "At first," she added as an afterthought as she took another sip of her drink.
"What do you mean by you thought that at first?" Hayley asked, confused because none of this was making any sense at all.
"After finding out more about the bonding ritual, I realized that there was a loophole in it."
This was really sounding too good to be true, Hayley wasn't sure she wanted to get her hopes up.
"What kind of loophole?"
"The ritual was only supposed to work if the feelings between you and Jackson were real. But at the time, you didn't feel anything and I'm willing to bet on a romantic level you still don't feel anything for him. Yet the ritual still took, which means that what you were told about the ritual wasn't completely true," Davina explained, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
Hayley tried to wrap her head around what Davina was telling her. It did all make sense now that Davina was explaining it to her. Jackson told her that in order for the ritual to take and continue working afterwards that the feelings between them had to be real and that they had to act like a real married couple.
And Davina was right, what Hayley felt for Jackson was not on a romantic level. She had once thought it was but after Jackson had left her because he got mad that she was constantly helping out the Mikaelson's, she'd realized she didn't love him romantically...only platonically. Had she loved him romantically, him leaving her would have made her feel pain in her heart. But she didn't. Honestly, she didn't even really miss him that much...not as much as she constantly missed Elijah, who she knew she loved.
"How did it work at all then?" Hayley asked, hoping Davina had an answer to her question.
"From what I found out, the ritual only needed one of you to feel something for the other," Davina answered honestly.
"How does that change anything? The bond is still needed for the wolves to have free will to change whenever they want to," Hayley reminded her.
"That's where the spell I found comes in," Davina replied. "The spell allows for the bond to change to a link."
Hayley was confused. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Davina sensed her confusion and went on to explain, "Since the ritual only needed one of you feeling romantic feelings for the other, the spell I found will allow the bond to be transferred to a link. The link in this case being Jackson's feelings for you. As long as he feels what he feels for you, the link would allow what the bond was for to stay in tact."
Hayley couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was she just hearing things? Or was this actually happening?
"I couldn't possibly do that to Jackson," Hayley said after a while. "I may not truly love him in a romantic sense but I do love him as a friend."
Davina sighed. "I figured that much. But it's not fair to either of you to continue on this charade. Jackson will always in some way feel something for you, so the link slash bond will stay in tact until his death. And since it's his feelings really keeping the bond alive no matter what happens it was always going to end as soon as he dies. So there's really no reason to stay with him now."
Hayley shook her head. "I don't know if..."
Davina held up a hand to cut her off. "Hayley, you don't truly love him and you never will. You owe it to yourself to let yourself be free again so you can find your true happiness and your true love," Davina told her.
"That would be selfish of me to do, Davina," Hayley argued. "I'm many things, but selfish isn't one of them."
"It's okay to be selfish every once in a while. Not only that, doing this would not be selfish at all. You owe it to Jackson to give him a chance to find true love on his own. He deserves more than to be in a one sided relationship for the rest of his life. He deserves a choice at true happiness that wasn't constantly pushed into his head for his entire upbringing. That's not selfish," Davina informed her. "That's something that a true friend would do."
Davina was making a lot of sense with what she was saying.
"Don't you want to be with Elijah?" Davina asked her, suddenly taking Hayley off guard.
Hayley was too shocked by the question in that moment that she couldn't find it in her to answer just yet.
"You love Elijah, everybody with two working eyes can see it. You are madly in love with Elijah, always have been and always will be," Davina said with a smile.
Hayley wasn't sure exactly how to respond to that.
"How..." Hayley trailed off, not being able to form a full question.
Davina understood what Hayley was trying to ask even when she couldn't herself. "How do I know you're in love with Elijah?"
Hayley nodded, confirming that that was pretty much the question she had in mind but couldn't ask herself.
"The one good thing about only being acknowledged mainly when I'm needed for something is that I have more time to observe things going on around me," Davina answered. "I see the way you look at him when he's not looking and when Jackson isn't around. You still look at Elijah now like you looked at him before. If being married to someone that isn't Elijah can't change how deeply you feel for him then most likely nothing ever will change how you feel about him."
Hayley pulled her drink in front of her and took a few sips, using the drink cup to act as a cover up so that she could look down and wipe the tears from her eyes. Davina was right, she was absolutely right. Hayley's feelings for Elijah never went away throughout her marriage to Jackson. If anything, they grew stronger. After all the saying goes "absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"You look at Elijah like I used to look at Kol."
The words Davina spoke were so quiet that if she hadn't had super hearing, she wouldn't have heard them at all.
Hayley quickly dried up her tears and looked up at Davina, noticing a few tears in the corner of her own eyes. She now understood without even having to ask Davina why Davina went looking for such a spell in the first place. They were friends now, and friends always wanted what was best for their friends. Even more so if they had lost someone or something and could help their friend who could still have a chance with what or who they lost.
"Oh, Davina," Hayley said quietly, reaching across the table to place one of her hands on Davina's.
Davina smiled briefly as she wiped her tears away and blinked her eyes a couple of times.
"Now that I've found a spell to make this work out well for everyone involved, please think about it," Davina said to Hayley. "With the new threat lurking, and Rebekah already immobilized proving that even Originals are able to have a downfall..." Davina trailed off for a short moment to get her thoughts together. "Just don't waste anymore time pretending to love someone you don't. Don't waste anymore time pretending you don't love someone that you do. Make the right choice."
Hayley opened her mouth to reply but before she could the waitress appeared at the table with their food.
~TheRightChoice~
After eating their lunch in complete silence, Hayley and Davina both agreed to split the bill. Once Hayley gathered up Hope and the diaper bag, the three of them made their way out of the diner. Before going to their separate cars, Davina turned to face Hayley.
"Think about it, okay," she told her. "Make the right choice."
Hayley nodded. "I will."
"Call me when you've decided what you want to do and we'll take it from there," Davina said, turning to Hope to give her a quick smile and shake of her adorable little hand. "I will talk to you sometime later, Hayley."
With that, Davina turned and walked away.
Hayley sighed as she walked to her car, heading for the passenger's side back door. She opened the door and placed Hope in her car seat, strapping her securely in. Hayley threw the diaper bag into the seat next to her and shut the door, making her way to the drivers seat. Hayley got in, locked all the doors, and then sat there.
She smiled into the rearview mirror at her daughter who happily smiled back. Hayley couldn't possibly ever imagine a life without Hope. But could she imagine a life without Jackson or Elijah? That was the key question in deciding what the right choice for her to make was.
"Mommy doesn't know what choice to make," Hayley said to her daughter. That was actually a lie, she knew exactly what choice was the right choice. She was just afraid that despite what Davina said, the right choice would surely make someone hate her. Normally, she wouldn't care whether someone liked her or hated her but it was different when that someone was someone she cared for.
"Who of the two can we live without if we have to, Hope?" Hayley asked, this decision wasn't just hers to make, it was Hope's as well.
Hope may have only been about a year and a half old, but she wasn't like most kids her age. She was much wiser. She didn't know what was going on exactly but she knew both Elijah and Jackson enough to be able to help her mother make a decision.
"Should we choose Jackson?"
Hayley watched her daughters reaction to hearing her say his name.
"Or should we choose Elijah?"
Hayley once again watched her daughter's reaction to hearing her say his name this time.
It wasn't surprising that Hope had a slightly different reaction to Hayley saying both of their names.
Hayley nodded her head in agreeance with Hope. "That's the choice that I was thinking to," she informed her.
After thinking everything over more, Hayley decided that she should go ahead and get the hard part out of the way, which actually was not that hard at all considering what had been going on with the two of them lately.
"I should call him now," she said, receiving a coo from Hope as her way of agreeing with her, as she pulled out her cellphone and dialed his number.
He picked up after just two rings.
"Hayley."
"We need to talk."
Alright, so there it is! Chapter 1! I wonder who Hayley called? Any guesses? Please be sure to leave me a review and let me know what you all thought of the chapter! I hope to have the next chapter posted ASAP for you all!
