AN: This oneshot is forever long and now that I've finally finished it I promise to update LoaLDR.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.
An Endless Ending
"So it goes like this: there's a girl and a boy," she begins. "No wait, a man and a woman. But even then it doesn't have to be, you know? Traditional gender roles and whatever. I don't want to put that on you-"
"Care," Elena sighs from her spot on the couch, sounding far too melancholy for someone whose boyfriend just returned from the dead. The word is a reproach, but also a plea. Caroline's been talking in stops and starts all evening. There's just no right thing to say to this little being in her arms, this baby with her enigmatic dark eyes, her all too familiar grin.
"Her brain is like a sponge right now, Elena," Caroline points out. The baby's eyes are dropping, her face gone slack. She's pressed herself as close to Caroline as she can. Her head rests just above Caroline's heart, her finger knotted in the fabric of Caroline's blouse. "She's absorbing everything we tell her. Do we really want to go the fairytale route?"
"She can't even sit up yet," Elena answers with a vigorous eye roll. "She has no idea what you're saying. Just tell the story."
"Fine. So there was this man and this woman-"
"Once upon a time, Care," Elena interrupts yet again. This time she's just being bitchy. "You can't start a fairy tale without the 'Once Upon a Time' part."
"How about you just tell the story, Elena?"
"Fine," her best friend shrugs.
"FINE," Caroline hisses back as loud as she can without disturbing the infant.
Elena clears her throat and this dewy, disgusting expression appears on her face as she begins, "Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl, and they were madly in love…"
Caroline looks down at the tiny thing bundled in her arms, presses her lips to the baby's ear and whispers, "Bleh."
He hears her long before she crawls onto the covers. Her small feet pad across the hotel rug, her little fingers glide along the wallpaper. She pauses at the windowsill, stands up on her toes so she can peak over the sill at the courtyard below. The ocean is in the distance, but she's seen such things many times before.
She fists her hands in the comforter and pulls herself onto the foot of the bed. From there she crawls up to his side. He knows what's next, isn't surprised at all when he feels her forehead press against his. So close it nearly hurts.
"Dad," she whispers. "Are you awake?" She lisps her R's in this way that makes him grin but causes Hayley's brow to furrow. It's been two years since she came home, and everything she brought with her is something they were not there to see form. Rebekah told them her first word, described her first steps, first smile, first time she ever caught a snowflake on her tongue. So many moments that can never be regained. Even he understands this loss. The man who has gained nearly everything he's pursued.
"I am now," he answers, rubbing at his bleary eyes. His hand reaches up unconsciously to tuck her hair behind her ears. It falls nearly to her waist in thick blonde ropes. A bloody pain in the ass to manage if you asked him. Of course none of the women in his life ever do.
"Mama and 'Lijah are still sleeping," Hope whispers in his ear as she settles beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. "Mummy's awake, though. She's nervous. Mattie's friends are here. Mummy says I used to know them when I was a baby. Before I knew you and Mama and 'Lijah."
"You've always known Elijah, Mama, and I," he reminds her. But still he winces slightly at the implication, the truth of it.
"We just weren't together," she parrots back. She's been home long enough to know her line, the words that will smooth the worried lines that form on Hayley's face whenever she's forced to remember the missing three years. "Mama says we always will be now. That she'll never be away from me again."
"Your Mama has a nasty habit of usually being right," he agrees.
Hope grins, "'Lijah doesn't think Mama's nasty. He thinks she's beautiful. He tells her so all the time. Mattie tells Mummy too, and his friends. One of them has hair just like me. She didn't seem to like me very much though."
He blinks, has to look away for a moment before he can answer. So she'd shown up after all? Brought the whole bloody crew apparently. Bright, blonde, and smiling amongst all those wary brunettes. She's always did stick out like a sore thumb.
Hayley appears in the open doorway before he can regain his train of thought. Her hair is mussed, her lips sleep swollen, her silk robe hangs loosely off of her thin shoulders. "There you are," she exclaims as spots her daughter curled up under the covers. A smile forms on her lips at the sight and it's a blinding thing, brighter than the sunlight streaking through his window. He's always envied how easy motherhood came to her. "Hungry, sweetheart?" she asks, swallowing a yawn.
Hope sits up, regards her mother with a wolfish smirk, "Yes, Mama."
Hayley holds out her hand, and Hope scrambles from the bed. When Hope reaches her Hayley uses her outstretched hand to stroke her daughter's hair, run a thumb over the curve of her nose and chin. He's known the little wolf for many years now, knows that tenderness does not come naturally to her. It's something they have in common. And yet Hayley can easily make exceptions.
"Can you go get Mama's slippers from our room before we go?" she asks Hope, her smile never faltering.
Hope nods and runs off. Her long hair streaks behind her, glimmering like a comet's tail. As soon as she's disappeared the light goes off in Hayley's eyes and she crosses her arms over her chest, looking at Klaus exasperatedly, "Elijah's making nice with our guests, maybe you'd like to do the same?"
He raises his brows, "I've attempted to kill the majority of the Matthew's guest list. I doubt they're eagerly awaiting my presence."
"Yeah it wasn't a suggestion," Hayley replies, a nasty little half smile appearing on her lips as she walks towards him. In one motion she grabs his comforter and pulls it onto the floor, exposing his bare chest and his navy blue pajama pants. Nothing she hasn't seen before. "And don't try and pretend you're not going down there because of the bad blood between you and the Salvatores."
Her eyes glint knowingly and she could go in for the kill, but instead she shrugs, chooses commiseration, "She's as haughty and holy as ever. None of us stand a chance."
If possible his eyebrows rise even further, his hands come to rest behind his head, "I find the disdain in your voice rather amusing, given you've spent the last half decade with my exceedingly noble brother."
"Elijah isn't afraid to get his hands dirty," Haley replies, her eyes sparking with understanding, with ownership. On her very worst days it was only Elijah who was able to rouse her from her bed, from her anger, from her self-destruction. On his very worst days there was no one who could dissuade him from the bottle.
"Caroline's hands are far from clean, I can assure you," he counters. She's impetuous, willing to do anything to protect those she loves. She's killed to protect them. She'd do it again. It's one of the few things about her he knows for sure.
"Wow," Hayley observes. "I think that's the first time I've heard you say her name since we left Mystic Falls."
He grins. It still strikes Hayley sometimes, at the oddest moments, how similar Hope's smile is to her father's. When she was pregnant she spent many a daydream wondering how she would feel when she saw their features merged on a human canvas. She has never been very good at sharing. And yet there is something to be said for accepting the things she cannot change. It's the moral of her story thus far. And without wanting to this angry, sad man has given her the two best things about her life. A baby girl with his Cheshire grin. A man with his brooding eyes and none of his darkness. She wouldn't change any of that for the world.
So now his smile, which used to make her want to scratch his eyes out, makes something warm flare within her. Recognition. Acceptance. Gratitude. Maybe motherhood has made her just a little bit soft.
"I left. You fled," he corrects, avoiding the observation.
"And look where it got me." she sighs, swatting at his bare feet. "Up. You sister's getting married. After all she's done for us, we have to play our part."
He ignores her swipes, as feeble as a fly's fragile beat of its wings, "Oh, how I long for the days of war and bloodshed. There was no time for weddings then."
"No time for Hope either," Hayley replies sharply. Her voice goes soft at the end and he knows that tone. It's days like these, sentimental, with memories just waiting to be made, when the strength can be sapped from Hayley in an instant.
"Plenty of time for her today though, sweetheart," he replies, sitting up in a flash, catching one of her hands between both of his. Her dark, inscrutable eyes look back at him evenly. Her tone may give her away but her eyes never will. "Crack another smile, why don't you? I'd rather not deal with Elijah's fussing this morning."
Hope returns, holding Hayle's slippers in one hand and her Mummy's neatly buffed and polished fingers in the other. In her cream colored robe Rebekah could be mistaken for an angel. Certainly no one would believe how demonic her actions have become as her wedding day drew ever closer. Not for the first time he wonders how much it hurts Hayley that Hope favors Bekah more than any of her other relatives. Side by side they could easily be mistaken for mother and daughter. They were for years.
"Here they are, Mama," Hope announces, dropping the shoes to the floor.
At the same time Bekah screeches, "Nik what in the bloody hell are you still doing in bed?"
"Don't hold her like that," Caroline orders, barely glancing up from her psychology textbook. She can practically feel his bad form and wonders fleetingly if incompetent men were a major contributing factor to the many infant deaths of the 1800s.
Stefan is attempting to juggle the baby and a paperback. The baby doesn't seem to mind, her eyes are beginning to grow heavy actually, but Caroline doesn't like how precarious it appears. The child is draped over one leg, her back pressed to his chest. The only thing holding her in place is Stefan's arm, which he raises every time he has to turn the page.
Stefan doesn't miss a beat in his reading when he sighs back, "Caroline-"
She gives him her full attention now, since he's dared to question her authority. She's head babysitter. She'd just asked him along because she could tell that he was in desperate need of best friend bonding time. The boarding house is crowded now with Damon and his two best friends conveniently back from the dead and Stefan had been all too happy to have an excuse to escape the booze-fueled madness. "Her neck can't support her head yet, Stefan. She's not strong enough."
"That's only for newborns," Stefan replies, once again lifting his arm to flip a page. The baby is patting Stefan's legs absently. When he puts his arm back across her she bends his pinkie finger backwards to try and stick it her mouth.
"How do you know she's not a newborn?" Caroline asks with a quirked eyebrow, pursing her unglossed lips. She'd just been going on that assumption. Rebekah hadn't been big on extoling details. They don't even know the baby's name. She looks really little though, like one of those porcelain dolls Caroline's grandmother would give her that were meant for show, not for play.
"Because my knowledge of babies doesn't come solely from bad medical dramas," Stefan replies and now he looks up, smiles teasingly at her, before glancing down at the baby and brushing a swatch of fine blonde hair out of her eyes. "She's a lot studier than you think."
Caroline blinks, looks back at her textbook with a sour expression, "I don't think about her anymore than I have to."
"Is that why you volunteered for babysitting duty?" he asks. And he's got that tone. That knowing tone, that lording it over her tone.
"Not for her," Caroline quickly denies, but it sounds strained even to her own ears. "For Matt. Maybe now he'll stop yawning in my face all the time."
"And Rebekah?"
Caroline snorts, "She doesn't factor in at all." So what if Matt wants to play happy family? So what if Rebekah Mikaelson looks almost like a real person when she's holding the baby?
"She trusts you," Stefan observes. His tone has softened. It sounds like he might be proud of her, like all of this is something to be proud of and not some huge cosmic joke. She screws Klaus, someone else gets pregnant, and somehow she still ends up watching his freaking kid on a Friday night.
Caroline makes a face at him, at his unchecked sentimentality, "Only because she knows I would never hurt a baby. Apparently that kind of loyalty is in short supply these days."
"And that loyalty has nothing to do with-"
"Don't," her gaze shoots upward, and she silences him immediately. "She's just a girl we knew in high school who got herself into trouble. We're helping her out." She takes a deep breath to get rid of the hitch in her voice as she finishes, "We can never say it out loud again."
They look at each other. Not challenging. Not angry. Never any of that. Stefan doesn't push. And after a moment Caroline grins and sets her book down. She gets out of the leather recliner she'd been lounging on. One of Rebekah's random purchases of gratitude for Matt.
Or at least that's her cover story. Caroline suspects Rebekah is just slowly refurnishing the entire Lockwood mansion. The only room left untouched is Tyler's. No one goes in there anymore. On the increasingly frequent nights she stays over she sleeps in the guest room as far down the hall as she can get from Rebekah and Matt. She will not read into the fact that there are always freshly washed, pale pink sheets on the bed that smell like lavender and feel like butter. That the framed pictures of old men with their dogs have been replaced by vintage pictures of Paris and Rome, that ships in bottles have been exchanged for scented candles and an expensive looking silver hair brush. Rebekah Mikaelson is not thoughtful. Rebekah Mikaelson is not her friend.
Caroline comes to the couch and takes a seat next to Stefan. She pulls the baby off of his lap and into her arms. "She's sleepy," Caroline observes. The baby buries her face in Caroline's neck and lets out a sigh. She promised herself it wouldn't be like this. She promised herself she wouldn't grow attached. "Know any good stories, Stefan?"
"Sure," Stefan easily replies. But then he gets that tone again when he begins, "Once upon a time-"
"Oh God, not you too," she cries, using her free hand to cover one of her ears.
"Elena said you would be like this" he smirks. "You know, if your standards for storytelling are so high then it should probably be you that's doing the talking."
"Fine," she sighs, acting put upon but truly relishing the opportunity to get back at him. "So it goes like this: A girl met a boy on the first day of her junior year of high school. And at first she thought he and his mopey eyes were the most interesting things to ever happen to her. She thought she had to have him. And both of those thoughts turned out to be true, except the girl needed the boy in a much different way than she'd originally assumed. They would have made a terrible couple anyway, especially since he likes to start out his stories with 'Once Upon a Time'-"
"I'm glad you're teaching the baby to be passive aggressive," Stefan smiles wryly. "It's really very maternal of you."
"If that's the only kind of aggressive she ends up being, Stefan, I think we'll all consider it a win," Caroline counters, rubbing circles across the baby's back. "Now shut your mopey mouth and let me tell our story."
He watches her from his window. He can't help that it offers him a perfect vantage of the courtyard below, where the Salvatores and the Gilberts and the lone Forbes are holding court, where his brother actually seems to be engrossed in genuine conversation, where she sits and exists, as if it is of no consequence, as if people like her happen everyday.
She's wearing a red dress and her hair is curly chaos. She's squinting into the lenses of Stefan's sunglasses and running her fingers through it, trying to tame it into order. After another moment of this futile attempt though she smiles at her reflection, into Stefan's eyes, and shrugs. She leans back in her chair and drains the rest of her wine glass. "We just had to have the convertible," she observes, quirking her eyebrow at Stefan as a waiter crosses the room to refill her glass.
"What other way is there to see the Italian countryside?" he asks, raising his glass to her.
Elena, who is seated on the other side of the table between her brother and boyfriend, glances away from the conversation she's having with a standing Elijah. She rolls her eyes dramatically at Stefan and Klaus notices that her hair has also a bit untidy, pieces falling out of the tight chignon assembled at the nape of her neck "I would have seen everything just fine from a window."
"No sense of adventure," Damon needles, smirking at his brother. Stefan nods in commiseration.
"Say the guys who had to spend five minutes fixing their hair in the rearview mirror before they would even walk into the hotel," Caroline replies, rolling her eyes. She raises her feet, which are wrapped in perilous looking heels, and sets them in Stefan's lap. Klaus has always detested how the two of them look like a habit, how easy it is for them to blur into a single unit. The touching, the smiling, the sharing, all effortless, all given away as if that kind of intimacy is the most natural thing in the world.
And to her maybe it is. She certainly has adopted enough strays, his sister being one of them. Rebekah and Caroline talk on the phone now. Rebekah sends Caroline pictures of Hope on the first day of every other month like clockwork, the seals on the envelopes warded by his own witches. Rebekah and Matt holiday with Caroline, the Salvatores, and their girlfriend. Rebekah, who frequently wished the girl dead just years ago, now knows Caroline much better than he.
And his usually gabby sister just refused to explain why. How.
"I owe her a debt, Nik," is all that Rebekah can come up with for an explanation as she contemplates her glass of dark red wine, her steaming cup of tea, the curve of Matt's fingers as they lace through her own. She can never meet his eyes when they talk about the three years she spent hiding his daughter. It's an uncomfortable subject for the entire family, this period of time when it was Rebekah who was Hope's entire world, who she learned to love in the absolute, unconditional way a child does a parent.
He knows it nearly drove Hayley back to her bed, when her daughter was finally returned and she didn't come running into her arms. Instead Hope had clung to Rebekah's shirt, buried her face in her neck. Asked her Mummy and Mattie where they were, who these people were.
Caroline and Stefan are speaking quietly to one another. Their smiles are easy and sweet. When she rolls her eyes at him he pinches her calf and she kicks at him with the point of a stiletto. Damon distracts his brother with a question. Stefan looks away and Caroline's eyes scan the room. Her lipstick is slightly smudged. Her fingers drum the handle of her chair. She's looking for someone. Maybe her new best friend. Maybe his daughter. Maybe him.
"Guys," Matt's voice booms from the second floor balcony. The spring in his step is undeniable as he strolls down the steps to the courtyard.
Immediately Caroline springs to life, as if remembering her purpose for being in this place, at the time. She flies from the chair, and her heels click across the cobble stone floor as she walks towards him. He opens his arms and she practically falls into them, holding onto the lapels of his suit for support. Her hair is curly chaos, but when Matthew runs his hand through it his fingers easily find a path.
"So what's this I hear about you hating fairytales?" Rebekah asks as she twists a corkscrew into a new bottle of Pinot Noir.
Caroline's sprawled out on a beach chair, hair drying in the setting sun. The newest addition to the house is a pool Matt and Rebekah constructed. Caroline had spent most of the afternoon in there with the baby, whose flotation device Rebekah had checked endlessly before going to run her errands.
The baby's sleeping now, and the girls are enjoying a nightcap on the deck as Matt grills them dinner. Caroline's eyes flit to his back as soon as Rebekah's finished her question.
"Who told you that?" Caroline replies, fidgeting with the hem of her borrowed cover up. It had gotten to the point that Rebekah has stopped remarking on all the borrowed clothes. When your wardrobe is so extensive it has its own bedroom you're just asking for things to get pilfered. Besides Caroline has been missing a few of her favorite tops and is nearly certain she saw a one of them thrown over the top of Rebekah's dressing table. That's another thing. The girl is a straight up slob. A slob who hums some old lullaby as she pours two glasses of wine nearly to the rim.
Matt glances back, catches Caroline's glare. "As a joke," he shrugs. "The girl who spent elementary school telling anyone who would listen that she was going to be a princess when she grew up now cringes whenever she hears the words 'Happily Ever After'."
"A few things have happened since then," Caroline answers, accepting the offered glass and immediately taking a long gulp.
"What stories do you tell her instead?" Rebekah asks, taking a seat next to Caroline. She also takes an unladylike mouthful of her drink. Errands stress Rebekah. It's why Caroline or Matt usually head to the grocery store for her, pick up all the dry cleaning, get the oil changed in the truck. But today Matt had a shift and Caroline was burned out from midterms so Rebekah had had to put on her thousand year old big girl pants and pick up pull ups and bread and milk and wine, to get the car tires rotated, and, Caroline had observed immediately upon her return, to get her hair cut and colored.
"Real ones," Caroline replies, staring up at the sky. A sliver of the moon is beginning to show.
"That sounds spectacularly boring," Rebekah sighs, running her fingers through her new fringe. Matt's a fan. Caroline is not. Because she's jealous, obviously.
Caroline sneers, "Maybe she shouldn't want to be a princess when she grows up. And maybe she should know that happiness isn't a perpetual state of being just because she happened to meet a cute boy."
"And maybe you shouldn't subject the baby to your angst, Care," Matt calls from his spot over the grill. He's wearing one of his old football T-shirts that has the sleeves cut off, showcasing two admittedly impressive biceps. One hand is holding a spatula while the other clutches the neck of a beer.
Rebeakah grins, turns towards Caroline, "No actually this is the most interesting I've ever found you. Better bitter than boringly uptight." She quirks an eyebrow, "So last night when you put her to bed, you said what?"
"Um," Caroline sputters. She has to look back up at the sky when she begins, "It went like this: A much, much older woman once met a man with blue eyes and a good heart. She didn't trust it though, because everything she'd ever experienced up until that point told her not to trust anything or anyone. And he didn't trust her either. Couldn't. They had different loyalties, played for opposing teams. So they spent the next couple of years hurting each other, but they fell a little bit in love too. They couldn't help it. Sometimes you just can't. And even though she left him and went far away, the woman knew that she could come back to the man when she needed him, that she could trust him with her most important and loved possession. She knew that he would help her. And over time they fell into a bigger, surer kind of love. They started to trust each other, to help each other. She learned how to do her own laundry and make a great grilled cheese. He developed into an expert diaper changer and built her a white picket fence in the backyard. They became their own team. And sometimes they fought, sometimes they were scared, but they also knew absolutely that this time wouldn't last forever and that they had to appreciate everyday they had together." When she finishes Matt has turned around even though the grill is crackling and smoking. Rebekah's lost that bitchy expression that sometimes seems permanently affixed to her face.
There's a beat and then Bekah straightens, looks away. "Well," she clears her throat, tosses her hair. "I certainly like that story more than any fairytale I've ever heard."
"Yeah," Matt agrees, his lips curling into a big, unguarded grin. "Me too." He pauses, weighs the pros and cons of making a joke, and then adds, "Although saying that the older woman makes a great grilled cheese is pushing it."
"I'll show you old," Bekah threatens, blurring from her chair. Caroline tries not to laugh. Fails.
He puts himself in her way. That's always been the game hasn't it? One of them wants something, one of them needs something, and so they collide.
He wants to hear her voice. See her smile at him, for him, because of him. He wants to hear how she'd loved his daughter. He's only ever heard the stories second hand, looked at pictures that carried no explanation.
She's walking down the hallway towards the bridal suite, typing something on her phone so fast her fingers blur. She's probably communicating with his sister. Rebekah has a special ringtone for Caroline. It's the sound of a bird squawking. Lovingly, Rebekah always defends with a wicked grin. It's the sound of a bird squawking lovingly. He steps out of his bedroom as he's straightening his tie. They nearly collide. He has to put his hand on her shoulder to steady her. And she hesitates for a moment too long before she steps back and out of his grip. Or perhaps he imagines it.
"Good morning, love," he greets.
She crosses her arms over her chest, grins at him in that hard, false way she does when she's annoyed. "I was wondering if you'd show up. Last time I talked to Bekah she said you were less than enthused about this whole thing."
So it was Bekah now, was it? "You put a lot of thought into my attendance, did you?" he smirks.
"Actually for once you were not the sole cause of my anxiety," she answers caustically. She raises her chin, can't seem to meet his eyes when she explains, "This day was pretty much designed to break my heart, but you show up for family."
"My sister?"
"Matt mostly." It's a lie and they can both taste it on her tongue. So she shrugs, "Her too."
The door at the end of the hallway slams open. His sister is wrapped in the same silk robe, but since she so rudely roused him she's had her hair done. It falls in thick waves down her back. A crown of baby's breath, white roses, and pale silver ribbon is perched atop her head. Backlit by the bay windows on the opposite side of the room her skin seems to glow. An angel with the devil's tongue.
"There you are," is all she says in greeting to Caroline. Then she squints, "Really? Red? Don't you think that's a little obvious?"
Caroline doesn't miss a beat, "Don't you think a flower crown is a little juvenile for someone your age?"
Caroline starts walking again, steps around him with barely a passing glance. When she reaches Bekah she wraps the girl in a hug, careful not to disturb a single curl.
"Is that any way to talk to a fragile bride on her wedding day?" Bekah asks as her hands slip around Caroline's shoulders. It is such a natural motion for the two. As if they've been doing it since the day they met. Rebekah catches his eye over Caroline's shoulder. Glances away just as quickly.
"Oh please, as if you're going anywhere," Caroline replies. "Matt's the best man you've found in a thousand years."
Klaus snorts, "A twenty-four year old bartender. A right catch."
Nearly in unison the two retort:
"No one asked you, Nik."
"A lot of women have done a lot worse."
"They certainly have," answers a voice behind them. Hayley and Hope walk up the hotel steps holding hands. Hayley wears a wry expression, her lips smirking, her eyes knowing. "We're reporting for dress up duty," she announces, looking past Klaus to the women standing in the doorway, bathed in sunlight.
"Hello Caroline," Hayley greets, voice placid.
She does not toss her hair, throw her reply over her shoulder, Caroline turns all the way around. "Hello Hayley," she answers. She is not smiling, but neither does she wear a sour expression. Rebekah's expression tells him that it's progress.
Hope reaches out to wrap an arm around his knee as they pass him by. She holds on even as Hayley passes, slipping out of her mother's grip, "Daddy you should have come to breakfast. Mama and I had pancakes." She notices Rebekah's headpiece, gets a glint in her eye, "Mummy, do I get a crown?"
"Do you want one, darling?" Rebekah asks absently. She's too busy looking at Caroline, who is staring at Hope unabashedly. She's lost her chubby toddler body, become all elbows and knees. It's still a shock too see, two dozen pictures and introductions this morning still haven't acclimated her to the change. The missing time feels like a physical weight on her chest.
"Is she going wear one?" Hope asks by way of an answer. She looks up at Caroline, "You've hair just like me and Mummy."
"And isn't that a frightening observation," Hayley mutters under her breath.
Caroline looks at Rebekah, Hayley, and for a split second even at Klaus before she responds, "I think only the most specialist of wedding guests get to wear crowns."
"You're special to Mummy and Mattie though," Hope lets go of Klaus' leg, walks over to stand toe to toe with Caroline. She looks up at her with squinting eyes, as if trying to place her face. It's his fault she does that. Too many mothers and fathers. Too many homes. Because of him Hope has never known anything for sure. "And me too. You're in our pictures. But I can't remember very well."
"You were just a baby." Caroline reaches out as if to touch Hope's cheek. She lets her hand fall away at the last second.
"I think you should get to wear a crown," Hope replies, blissfully oblivious of the tension, the very adult anguish.
"Then she will," Rebekah agrees, refusing to let the moment fester. She wraps one arm around Caroline, the other around Hope, and steers them into the dressing room.
"Of course she will," Hayley sighs, following after. The door shuts resolutely behind them.
One her first night back in New Orleans Hope had cried as they tucked her in. He had been utterly, ragingly useless. Hayley sung her a song. And when her tears persisted Elijah began a bedtime story, which had only added to her distress. Those weren't the right kind, Hope had wailed. Care didn't need to read from a book. Care told stories with her mouth. Those were the best kind. The only stories that would do.
That was the first time Rebekah refused to look him in the eye. She'd stood her position at the foot of the bed and walked out into the hallway. The effort to conceal the conversation was laughable. The only person who couldn't hear every word was Rebekah's oaf boyfriend.
She answered on the first ring, calling 'one second' over shouts and loud music. She must have been out. Of course she was. A pretty college girl doesn't spend her Friday nights at home.
"Are you guys okay?" Caroline had asked, and there was no mistaking the sincerity of her voice, the genuine worry. And he thought about the last time he had missed her. There hadn't been a lot of time for such luxuries, especially when his limited free time was mostly spent missing his daughter. Yet he was struck then, as he experienced them both, that the way he missed Hope and Caroline was similar. He had never had time to truly know either, much as he'd wanted to. Yet apparently as he'd been missing them, thinking of them, agonizing over them, they'd been learning about one another. His daughter called out for her, and she knew what Hope wanted when he, her own father, didn't. Caroline apparently knew the girl so well that the situation barely had to be explained before she's agreeing to be put on speakerphone.
"Someone wants to speak to you," Rebekah had returned with a false smile and downcast eyes, clutching the phone out in front of her like a shield.
"Care?" Hope sniffled.
"Hey baby," Caroline exclaimed, and there was just a hint of melancholy hidden underneath the ardent enthusiasm. She took a deep breath, paused, and he still wonders what the expression on her face was when she asked, "Do you want to hear a story?"
"What does it go like?" Hope had asked immediately, like a game, like a habit. And he had known instantly that this was his penance, that this was his price. It was a little glimpse of a life that taken place independently of him, a bond formed between the only two girls he ever loved. These fleeting minutes were all he would ever know of it.
"It goes like this," Caroline had begun.
It started like this:
There is a girl lying in her childhood bedroom. She's tossing and turning from the heat, kicking off the blankets as she tries to will herself to sleep. She used to be a sound sleeper, a happy dreamer, but it doesn't work that way anymore.
There's a phone call, and it's almost a relief. Something else to obsess about for a little while. Matt's voice is hoarse and there's whispering in the background. Someone is singing a song underneath their breath in a language she doesn't recognize. Over and over the same six lines.
He asks her to come to the house. He says it's urgent. That there's no time to explain. Then he tells her not to worry.
Maybe you shouldn't have made the request sound so fucking creepy if you didn't want me to worry, Matt.
At least she's pretty sure she said something like that.
When she pulls up to Tyler's house- Matt's house now really since Tyler's off soul searching and not answering anyone's calls- all the lights are off, all the windows closed and shuttered. Still though there's that whisper of a song, and something else being spoken even softer. Not spoken actually, chanted.
Matt meets her at the door, and the look on his face quiets whatever snarky comment was about to fall out of her mouth. When she tries to step into the house she's blocked. A brick wall newly erected. This house doesn't recognize her anymore.
She looks at Matt, sees a flutter of a smile, a twinge of relief. He holds out his hand, wraps his fingers around her wrist. "Come in, Caroline," he invites. It leaves a mark, this new invitation. But she gets used to it.
In the living room, the living room where she spent countless lazy hours with Tyler, where she's planned parties, lived her life, sits Rebekah Mikaelson, a baby carrier, and a chanting witch. And it sounds like the beginning of a joke…but then again her life so often does.
Rebekah looks up, opens her mouth, but then shut it slowly. Matt grips her shoulder. "We need your help, Care," he begins.
She slips from his grip, walks past the witch to the couch where Rebekah sits with one hand absently rubbing her forehead and the other gripping the handle of the baby carrier so tight she must be leaving indents in the plastic. The song slips from her lips again. The baby wrapped in the pink blanket isn't listening. Her eyes are closed. Her face peaceful, breathes even. She has a wooden toy gripped loosely in her hands. And Caroline shouldn't know. Has no way to know. But it's so clear on the little thing's face, even in the dark it's so obvious it nearly hurts.
The chanting stops. Rebekah is gone in a flash. There is the snapping sound, the thud of a body collapsing onto the hardwood. Caroline doesn't look up from the baby. Matt doesn't look away from her.
She nearly smiles at herself. It's refreshing. This is simple. This is easy. Because this is a baby, which transcends dickish behavior, murdered friends, being an obsessive freak. It certainly transcends all the things they did together up against that tree. This has nothing to do with her weaknesses and everything to do with her strength.
"How can I help?" she asks.
They walk to the little church, the sun shining high above. Lake Como glitters in the distance, and the ribbons woven into the flower crowns dance in the breeze. Elena is the only female in their little group who isn't sporting one. Caroline attempts to wear hers as confidently as possible, but he sees her reaching up to adjust it, touch it doubtfully.
Stefan keeps glancing at her, appraising her. He'd asked her if she was okay, when they'd finished, when she'd appeared amongst the Mikaelson family only to immediately return to her own adopted relatives. Stefan had taken in her quiet demeanor, pale face, forced smile, and known what Klaus had suspected, that this was a struggle for her, that this was more painful than she'd ever let on. Stefan puts his arm around her, gives her shoulder a squeeze, keeps it around her nearly the entire walk over.
Rebekah cries during the whole event, from the moment Matt reaches for her at the hotel until they gratuitously kiss in the church. They cling to each other, all tears and promises, lips and hands and perfect blonde hair. It's a bloody spectacle, and if Hayley weren't getting weepy and using him for support Klaus is certain Elijah would be swooning at the impropriety. The minister is wearing a pained expression though. The rest of them vacillate between amusement and embarrassment. Or maybe it's just him.
Elena and Jeremy look bored, Damon hung-over, Stefan might be moved, Caroline definitely is. She has her arm hooked in the crook of Stefan's, her free hand is linked with Elena, and she looks alternatively at the happy couple, the placid, glittering lake, and the little girl who dances around the sparse assembly, wanders off to pick wildflowers, wraps her arm around Matt's leg and reaches out to run her fingers along the fabric of Rebekah's dress. He can feel her struggle, how hard she tries to keep her gaze steady, her goal in view, but eventually it always comes back to Hope. He knows the feeling.
It ended nearly the same:
There is a call in the middle of the night and she has to dress in a hurry. This time in a shirt that doesn't belong to her because she can't find her own in this stranger's bedroom. She yanks on her tight pants and her high heeled boots and then pulls her leather jacket over an oversized Whitmore college T-shirt. She doesn't say goodbye to the boy sleeping soundly in his bed.
When she gets to the house all the lights are on and the front door is open. There are trunks lining the front porch, Matt's strapping pieces of luggage into the bed of the truck. He looks up when sees the flash of her headlights on the driveway. He's got this expression, when he catches her eye through the windshield, and it's different from that first night but also totally the same. Apprehension and annoyance.
But acceptance most of all.
A man in a suit walks onto the front porch and she knows his name even though they've never been introduced. She wonders if he knows her, knows that she matters. She wonders why she cares.
He's got the baby in his arms, although she's actually not much of a baby anymore. He's watching her, at her tired, chubby face and droopy eyes, likes she's the most interesting science experiment he's ever seen.
The baby looks up when Caroline starts up the steps. Her fingers reach out. "Care," she calls in her quiet, lisping voice. The man holding her doesn't step forward, doesn't offer her up even though the baby is now holding out both hands. She knows Caroline a lot better then she knows the man holding her. To the person in his arms he's the intruder. She sees the knowledge flit across his face. Senses the sting and savors it in a brief moment of pettiness.
Rebekah walks down the stairs with an arm full of clothing. She stops when she sees the scene in front of her, her eldest brother and Caroline Forbes in a staring contest. Caroline glances up at her and Rebekah opens her mouth. Shuts it slowly. She concedes defeat, looks away first. She won't apologize, but she feels sorry all the same.
"It's okay," Caroline whispers, and it is. Isn't she the one who said it? Who is always saying it? Who has had it beaten into her hopeful head over and over?
She reaches out her hand and cups the baby's face. She touches her hair, runs her finger down that perfect little button nose. The baby flashes her dimples, the ones that are just a bit too familiar. Caroline hopes she remembers, she hopes all those bed times stories stick.
She touches Matt for a lot longer. He meets her at the foot of the stairs and she's already crying. She wraps her arms around him and he hugs her back so tightly she is lifted off her feet. She has known him forever, loved him just as long, and it won't end she knows. They'll be together again. But still she so often feels as if he life is a handful of sand and that everything she loves ends up slipping through the cracks in her fingers. That's why there's only ever one moral to a story. That's why it always goes like this:
No happiness lasts forever, baby girl. Don't let anyone tell you different.
"I've never really liked kids," she whispers, almost to herself, as Rebekah methodically dissembles her crown in the dressing room. The wind had caused her curls to tangle even further, strand upon strand now seemingly woven in between stems and petals as if it's honey blonde ribbon. "I think it might be the one of the few things my mother and I have in common. Neither of us is very maternal."
"You think I was ever fond of them?" Rebekah snorts as she frees another chunk. "And need I remind you that my mother ended up trying to murder my siblings and I? You could have worse issues."
"I didn't expect to like her that much," Caroline replies. They're facing the dressing table and she can't help but stare at her own reflection in the mirror, Rebekah's too. Their thick, eternally blond hair, their firm and supple skin, their bright eyes. Rebekah's are red rimmed, but it's the only discernable flaw. There will be no sagging, no greying, no wasting away. She will erode imperceptibly, internally, piece by tiny piece. She only needs to look in the mirror to see her future. It took Rebekah a thousand years to finally let someone love her back.
"I'm very lucky you did. Loath as I am to admit it," Rebekah sighs. She finally frees the crown and moves around Caroline to set it on a nearby table. She shouldn't have made the girl wear it, knows the implications made her bristle. It's why she'd stayed away after all, why she forced herself to be contented with photos and stories relayed hurriedly through a cell phone. Such a stubborn girl. So willing to be miserable in the name of her principles.
She drums her fingers on the table, can't turn around as she demands, "Tell me that we'll last. Tell me we'll stay this way forever. Tell me I deserve it."
Caroline turns around in her chair, "Why do you care what I think?"
"All those stories you told her-" Rebekah swallows, whirls around suddenly. Caroline observes that she looks so much like Hope when she lets that bitchy façade drop. "I should know better than anyone that it all falls apart eventually." She sucks in a breath, "We'll outlive her. You know that, don't you? If she chooses to remain human someday even my niece will be a story I have to strain to remember."
Rebekah pauses, considers, and then adds, "Maybe my husband too." She and Matt have made each other many promises. That has yet to be one of them.
"Come on, Bekah," Caroline whispers. "Some of it stays. Otherwise what would be the point?" She hopes she sounds like she believes it.
Matt interrupts whatever Rebekah had been about to say back. He throws the door open, bounds right in, his eyes immediately coming to rest on his new wife. His tie is missing, the top few buttons of his shirt have been undone. He has lipstick in the corners of his mouth, and he can't stop grinning. For the first time Caroline notices the fine lines that are beginning to form around his eyes. "Hey," he calls to his wife, holding out his hand, "You owe me a dance."
They disappear. Back to bliss. However long they can make it last. And she stands alone in the room, willing herself to go back downstairs and dance with her friends and the strangers gathered in the hotel courtyard. She knows she should at least pretend to have fun.
Her fingers are running over the flower crown when she hears it. The voice, low and mischievous, carries down the hall. He probably knows she's listening. She doesn't care.
She follows it, peaks through the open door. She was wrong. He doesn't know. He's not paying attention at all. He and his daughter, the baby, are sitting up against the headboard of her bed. He has his arm around her and she leans into his chest as she listens to his story. No machinations and evil laughs here. Nope, just a father telling his daughter a bedtime story. She wonders if the sight of the two of them will ever not be weird.
It's Hope that spots her, this interloper intruding on a mundane yet insanely intimate family moment. Hope glances up, smiles sleepily, and holds out her hand, "Come listen, Care."
She's sitting on the curb outside of the bar holding the phone so tightly she might splinter it into pieces. She's not thinking about it though. Her world has shrunk in size, containing now only the voice on the other end of line, the last time she might ever hear it.
"It goes like this: Three years ago a little girl was born in New Orleans, to a family that loved her. Her parents wanted her to be happy, to feel loved, but most of all they wanted to make sure she was safe-"
"From scary monsters?"
The question makes her laugh. She's sure everyone in the room who isn't well acquainted with the little girl is looking grim. They have no idea what kind of monsters scare the baby. Things with bug eyes and green skin, bolts on their temples and sandpaper voices. She doesn't know yet that bad things can be beautiful. "Exactly," Caroline agrees.
"Mattie already checked in all the closets and under the bed," the baby assures her.
"Mattie's the expert monster spotter," Caroline remembers. That was their routine. Rebekah doled out the kisses, Caroline told the stories, and Matt, comically enough given the company, promised to battle the monsters.
"I know," the baby yawns, the big shuddering kind that means the story's about to be over. Sure enough, she asks, "Care?"
"Yes?"
"Can you tell me the rest tomorrow?"
"Sure," Caroline nods to herself, biting her bottom lip. "Have um- Have good dreams, baby."
The phone gets passed around. There's a bit of whispering. Then someone takes a breath into the receiver, about to speak.
She hangs up, sits out there until Stefan and Elena come out to ask her what's wrong.
What isn't?
This is the problem with getting attached to the sister and daughter and the now brother-in-law of your never-boyfriend/sometimes-kind-of-friend/definite-one-tree-stand: it makes things even more complicated, even messier then they were that last/first time. And messy is not Caroline's strong suit.
It also means that maybe, someday you will be standing in a doorway. And you will know you shouldn't walk through. You have staid away specifically so that this choice would never be in front of you. Because it's too easy to make. Because from this vantage point there is no right or wrong. There is only a hopeful little girl, a slightly less hopeful man, and an empty spot on the bed.
She walks inside. She crosses the room. She slips out of her heels, adjusts her dress, and takes a seat. He's looking at her over Hope's head and she looks back blankly. And she won't lie, she's thought about it. Of course she has. This man and this little girl and this life she could have. It would have been so much easier than finishing college, than figuring out she had exactly zero career ambition after receiving her diploma, than figuring out she didn't enjoy traveling alone, than figuring out she and Stefan work much better as friends.
This man and this little girl and this room, they have always been in the back of her mind. No matter how much distance she put between her and them. No matter how hard she tried to rid herself of the haunting specter of their love. It is eternity. Maybe longing is the only thing that stays.
There are no words to describe this feeling. No freaking way to pin down her traitorous emotions. But it's okay. She doesn't have to. There's a very convenient distraction that leans her head on Caroline's shoulder and Caroline rests her chin on top of the girl's hair in return as Klaus begins to speak again. It's a story about him and his brothers. They're wading into a stream on a fishing expedition. Elijah and Finn are naturals. Kol and Klaus scare the fish away by cannonballing and catcalling.
She looses the thread of the story as she tries to imagine him as a little boy, carefree and enjoying the sun on his face, the mud between his toes. She wonders if he's editing out the hard parts. The violent father waiting for all of them at home, lashing out when they return empty handed. There are things that Hope never needs to know, that Caroline wishes she didn't know herself. Hope yawns, Caroline yawns back, and a few moments later she stops wondering anything at all.
But it's fleeting, because the next thing she knows his hand is on her shoulder, the other outstretched to help her stand. She lets him lead her out of the room with one arm wrapped around the small of her back, holding her steady. It's the last thing she wants. This man, that little girl, and their moment together already becoming a memory. She wants to prolong it. Make it last forever, so that the idea of 'what if' can stop following her around.
Her mind is still groggy when her body makes the decision for her. They're in the hallway and it's an imperceptible pivot of her chin, the very slightest giving in. He doesn't expect it at all. In fact he looked very much like he'd been about to say something scathing or rude or bitter before she'd distracted him by pressing all of her against all of him, by knotting her fingers in the fabric of his jacket, and stepping up unto the tippy toes of her bare feet.
Or maybe it's just that he's forgotten about her. Maybe he's stopped hoping, like she has been trying to for most of her adult life, because if you can avoid hope you can also avoid disappointment.
That's not true, though. She knows it's not. And he proves it the next moment, with his hands and his lips and his wide-open eyes. And how can you hate a man who looks at you like you are a surprise? A relief? A gift? How can you hate the part of you that answers back?
And if all else fails she's planning on blaming all that wine and champagne. It went right to her head. Just like the memory of how good he is with his hands. And his mouth. And the way he looks at her sometimes-
It's like nothing she's ever felt in this world.
And it only gets worse later, after, when they're lying in his bed after shedding shoes and belts and shirts on their way to his room. She's draped across him like a blanket and his fingers are in her hair and her cheek is pressed to his chest and a girl could get used to this. She really could. And Stefan will get over it. Elena will come around.
Which is why she makes herself speak, why she tries to ruin it. "I didn't know her name until after you took her away," she whispers into his chest, not looking up. "Hope is the thing with feathers. That perches in the soul. And sings a tune without words. And never stops at all."
"There wasn't much time to consider Dickinson after she was born," Klaus reminds her. His eyes are closed. He refuses to be ruined. "It's an apt comparison nevertheless."
"And has she wiggled her way into your tortured soul?" she grins, laughing at the very idea. She peaks up at him through her hair, he looks at he through half lidded eyes, and if he had thought her curls were messy before- "Left you soft and ineffectual?"
"She influences me in the most unexpected of ways," he pushes her hair off her face with her thumb. He smirks when he adds, "Although if you need further proof that I've not gone soft-"
She loses her smile after a moment, and therefore so does he. "Caroline-"
"This place really is beautiful," she whispers, setting her cheek back against his chest and looking out the window, at the little tea lights glinting outside, envisioning the people no doubt dancing below them. She has probably never been less alone, practically everyone she loves is downstairs, and yet she can already feel this ending, spot the plane and the goodbyes and the angry words just on the horizon.
She wishes that her past hadn't conditioned her to think this way. She wishes that this man didn't make himself so hard to hold onto. She wishes his daughter was someone she could lay claim to, someone she could keep with her. She wishes that life had been kinder to all of them. "I probably shouldn't have come."
"I'm sorry," he answers, his fingers come to brush across her cheek, rub away the bit of moisture underneath her eye. He is sorry, although he's not sure for what. All of it, he supposes. Any of it and yet none of it at all too. Mostly he's sorry that she clings to him like a fog while all the others have slipped away as easily as candle smoke, that he will never be able to explain exactly why, but he feels it and sees it and understands it perfectly.
He's sorry that she had to lose his daughter so that he could regain her. But she could have come along. She knows that. She could stay now. She knows that too. There will never be a time when she cannot stay.
"No you're not," she sighs. "And maybe you shouldn't have to be. I just can't help it. Because I never expected it, you know?"
"I do," he smiles to himself.
She passes right over that bit of sweetness in favor of reaching her melancholy conclusion, "I think I'm finally getting around to accepting that we're the only things that will be lasting forever." And still she is looking out the window when she finishes, "Everything else fades."
He is opening his mouth to answer, to tell her exactly how wrong she is, when the door is nearly thrown from its hinges. "Oh bloody hell," his sister snips, "How did I know?"
"Oh my god how did you not lock the door?" Caroline hisses and rolls off of him, landing on the floor and taking the comforter with her.
"Christ, Bekah-" he begins, pulling at the sheets.
"Oh don't you yell at me, Nik," Bekah interrupts. "This is my night. And if I don't see you two traitorous asses sitting on the veranda smiling your faces off in ten minutes I will throw a tantrum that exceeds even your wildest expectations." With that the bride turns on her heel and walks back to the hell dimension she came from.
Caroline, now back in her dress, walks to the door and calls at Rebekah's retreating form, "So glad you're my best friend's new wife."
"So glad you're screwing with my brother again," Rebekah volleys back before Caroline can get the door shut.
She turns around and catches sight of him on the bed, the sheets hanging low around his waist, a completely harassed look on his face. She can't help it. She bursts out laughing. This big, amazing laugh that shakes her whole body, that makes her bend at the waist and hug her stomach. She hasn't laughed like this in forever.
By the time she's stopped, by the time she can straighten and wipe the tears from her eyes, he's walking towards her. His shirt is unbuttoned, his pants wrinkled from their time spent in a heap at the foot of the bed. "I suppose I'll have to let you know, love," he says as he circles her, reaching for the zipper at the small of her back.
"Hmm," she asks as the zipper and his fingers tick up her spine.
"If it fades," he reminds her. "The thing with the feathers." He presses a kiss to the spot at the back of her neck where her spine meets her skull, "Or any of the rest of it."
He takes a step back.
And then he holds out his hand.
"So it goes like this-" she starts.
And then she sighs, "It went like this-"
She shakes her head, relaxes into the blanket next to Hope. Klaus is snoring softly on the other side of the little girl, one arm over his eyes, the other lost in the heaps of sand they'd poured over him as he slept. The sun is setting over the ocean. They should have left the beach hours ago. But she's been bending the rules a lot lately.
She turns her sun kissed, never aging body toward the yawning little girl and whispers, "Here's the thing, baby girl. The last thing, I promise. And only because I think I got it wrong the first time. Because no matter how bad it hurts, no matter how sad you are, no matter who comes and who leaves-It keeps going." She grins, "And that means there's always another chance. To be happy. To be whatever you want."