A/N- Hello. So this is the shortest story I have ever written but the idea came to me during the trailer for TO Season 2. Klaus and Hayley are clearly mourning Hope after she's been sent away but nobody is considering Marcel and how he feels being accused of her murder and compelled to forget what happened to her. So I wrote this on a fifteen minute whim,

Sister.

My little sister.

I don't suppose you'll ever read this letter…or any letter, after all you're...dead.

Or maybe you're with your grandparents on the Other Side- your maternal grandparents that is- and they're watching me write now and will whisper these words into your ear.

If there is some kindness in the universe, just the tiniest bit I hope you will somehow know…

Just how sorry I truly am.

I never meant you any harm. I never really ever considered you as a living being until you were in my arms so small and frail that I was terrified that I would accidentally crush you.

You're the first baby I ever held. Isn't that strange? Two hundred years on this earth and you were the first new born I ever cradled.

I didn't have a clue what I was doing but damn…it felt good to sit there and watch you sleep, it healed me of some of the grief I was feeling.

I don't think I'm supposed to remember that. Klaus compelled most of my memories of you and your fate from my mind but somehow….someway the image I have of holding you in my arms is so burned into my brain that I have to believe it is real.

I have to believe that you and I had one moment together in your too short life, one moment when you weren't afraid or being hurt.

People are saying that I murdered you, I want you to know that's not true. I can't remember how you died but I know from that one memory I have of us together that I would have given my life to see you safe and I would have crawled across broken glass in Hell for eternity if it meant that you could have lived.

But I don't care what people think, let the rest of the world condemn me as long as you and I know the truth.

I would never have hurt you.

I wish you hadn't died. I would have liked to have known you, to watch you grow up, I think you would have saved Klaus in a way I couldn't. I think you would have belonged to him in a way I never did and he would have loved you more than anything else in existence.

I found your mother two nights ago.

I know you died innocent with no knowledge of the evil of our world or of hatred and revenge but if it means anything wherever you are- your mother mourns you every single day and is hunting those who killed you. I walked her home, after all, she was is your mother, I have to love her for that and she told me your name.

Hope.

Fitting I suppose, because with you gone our lives are hopeless.

I don't know if it's any comfort to you but for the six hours you lived in this world, your passing has caused such grief to those who loved and would have loved you that we can't breathe unless we're mourning you.

And I don't even really remember you.

But you were special and you were are loved.

And I'm sorry that I couldn't save you.

Your brother, for I suppose that's not something I'll ever not be, even if I never get the chance to be.

Marcellus Gerard.

There was a single candle in Marcel's apartment across the Mississippi. A converted warehouse that had been decorated with the theme of rustic elegance in mind, it had perfectly adequate electricity and heating.

Still, there was a single candle standing in the largest window. It was two feet high and several centimeters thick, a plain white candle with a firm wick.

And every night, no matter what, from sundown to sunup it burned strong and true.

"Why do you do that?" Camille asked one night as he took out the box of matches she'd bought him, "I've seen you do it a hundred times now but you've never explained why"

He held the match to the wick and waited for it to catch aflame before turning back to her,

"For Hope" he answered shortly, not knowing if she understood.

He lit it every night so that if his sister was on the Other Side, she'd know he remembered her and if Hope ever returned to the world…perhaps she would follow the light back home.

He stared into the flame until it hurt his eyes,

"Pardonnez-moi Hope"

A/N- Pardonnez-moi (French) Forgive me