She truly couldn't believe it.
Elijah had tried to kill her.
That's all Hayley could find within herself to think about in the hours that followed her trip into the pendant. A trip, she was sure, would result in her successfully bringing Elijah back from the furthest reaches of his mind, and them being reunited in a whirlwind of torrid romance and joyful emotion.
She had truly believed that although Klaus and his brother shared a millennial existence that went far beyond the understanding and bonds of a simple brotherly love, she had managed to breach his bounds like no other. Hayley truly felt as though she knew him in a way that nobody else could.
Why would she not feel this way? After all, Elijah had never given her reason to think otherwise, had he?
He made her feel like she knew him to his deepest core, and despite her knowing the truth about her deepest self, she allowed him to paint a lily-white, petal-like image of her in his mind where she was a flawless statuette, braced upon a marble, perfectly crafted pedestal. She knew that she was not half the person that Elijah made her out to be, but if the truest, most noble of all the Mikaelsons had found it within himself to see her of all people in such a light, then perhaps she was deserving of that kind of love and admiration after all.
That's what drew her to him in the first place.
It wasn't just his James Bond appearance or the prideful place of nobility that he'd taken beside his brother, whom the world believed to be a lesser being for the last thousand years that made her love him with such unnerving and inexplicable ferocity.
No.
It was the emotive way with which he cared for her, made her feel for the first time in her life that, just perhaps, she mattered to somebody. Somebody who had far bigger fish to fry actually gave her five minutes of their time, saw her not just as a monster, but as a person with a place in the world. Ever since Hayley met Elijah, her entire precipice was based on the fact that if such a noble creature could see the good in her, then perhaps she could find it within herself to forgive and forget some of the horrible, selfish things she'd done in her life.
Oh, how wrong she'd been.
Elijah wasn't the 'Noble' man he made himself out to be, and if he himself could pretend to be good for the sake of his own pride, then he was hardly qualified to make out that she was any less of a monster. Hayley already hated herself for a lot of the things she'd done, that much was true. But the minute that the marble pedestal she held Elijah upon began to crumble so did the pretence that she was a superior monster to the rest of them. The illusion of both Elijah and herself came crashing down in one painful, destructive swoop and now she was left swimming in the rubble of a terrible, obstinate truth. The man she fell in love with, was not all he made out to be and therefore who she thought she'd become, and who she really was were no longer separated by his illusions.
If that hadn't been bad enough, Elijah had also attempted to kill her. He would've managed it, too, had it not been for the timely arrival of Hope. That thought alone was enough to disturb her in every sense of the word.
The moment Hayley realised that he, this man she loved so ferociously, was hunting her down like an animal, she'd never felt so utterly betrayed, dehumanised and violated in all her life.
Neither had she felt so vulnerable and terrified.
How could she have been so utterly blind towards him? After all, Elijah and Klaus were so alike, and she had no trouble thinking of all the beautifully animalistic flaws that made Klaus... Klaus. So why was it so hard for her to accept that Elijah had such a dark side? It's not like she didn't know about his Red Door.
Elijah had done terrible things in the past, she knew that, and she accepted it, too. You wouldn't be a Mikaelson unless you had, after all; it's probably the one thing they all had in common. But, Freya had said that Elijah would be hidden away in the part of his mind that resembled his truest self and that, she knew, was the thing that unsettled her the most.
She had truly expected him to be tucked away in a nice little niche, a glorious little cornerstone of love, life and happiness where she, Hope and the rest of the Mikaelsons were able to exist as one, big, happy yet slightly troubled family. The happiest of happy memories, one that wholeheartedly encompassed the principle that she believed Elijah's whole noble character was built upon: 'Family above all.'
Again, she'd been wrong.
So, so wrong.
Hayley had found him revelling behind a door that housed his most shameful atrocities; his deepest, most terrible secrets. The person he was at his core, it seemed, was a deeply depraved soul with dark, gruesome desires that gave full form to the instincts of a gloriously horrid monster. Elijah had chosen to hide that part of himself away from the world, from her, just so he could seem the better when compared with Klaus, the brother that she knew he so relied upon for his own survival, even if Elijah himself wasn't aware of it.
Hayley is sure that she could've come to love him in time, even if she had known about his truest self in the first place. Hell, maybe she knew all along and loved him in spite of it. But Elijah, unlike Klaus, had chosen to be something entirely different on the outer surface, and that is what bothered her. She felt so betrayed because he had sworn to her on multiple occasions that he would never do anything to cause her harm, and she had believed him with all her heart. She really believed that in no circumstances ever, would Elijah hurt her, intentionally or otherwise. And it was because she believed that, that she also believed that she would be the only person capable of reaching out to him without being harmed.
But he had. Elijah had hurt her, tried to kill her. And even though she'd tried, she'd also failed in her attempts to reach out to him, to get him to recognise her as his Hayley. That thought left her feeling so utterly hurt and betrayed more than anything.
The one person who she'd thought would always protect, love and care for her, no matter the cost, had been the one to betray her the most and it completely sucked.
Klaus had tried his best to make her feel better when he came by earlier, and she admired him for even trying at all when he undoubtedly knew the kinds of things she'd seen inside Elijah's mind, she really did. But without her making him privy to the full extent of what had happened, there was only so much he could do to comfort her; and telling her that Elijah was the best of all the Mikaelsons when she'd had hours to think otherwise, certainly wasn't one of them.
It was in that moment, too, that she realised how grateful she was that Klaus was Hope's father and nobody else. He may have been a terrible person, and he may have always seemed the lesser brother when standing in the ominous shadow cast by his elder brother, but one thing Hayley couldn't deny was that he couldn't have been a better father. The way he was with Hope, that's all she'd ever wanted for her daughter.
For them.
She partially hated herself for even saying it, but Klaus was being the better man just by telling her what he thought she wanted to hear, comforting her without hesitation or even attempting to see the true depths of the situation. He understood that she didn't appreciate being pressed for information that she was not so willing to give because he was like it himself. Hayley appreciated the comfort that the lingering touch to her shoulder offered, for in her mind, actions spoke louder than words.
Klaus may have been a man of few words at times like this, for it was when his ability to always know the right thing to say seemingly slipped out of his reach. But it was always in times like these that even his simplest of actions managed to speak in deafening volumes. His touch, that lingering gaze and his small proffered smile; all of them said what his mouth could not, and Hayley couldn't pretend that she wasn't affected by his presence.
There were times when he seemed to be the only person left in the world that really knew her, the real Hayley Marshall and he cared about her in spite of it. She'd always thought it, but after the day she'd had, she knew that was unequivocally true.
Nobody, not even Elijah, knew and accepted the true her quite like Klaus. For that, she couldn't be more eternally grateful.
Hayley's not sure how long she sat in the dim glow of the courtyard for, just replaying her thoughts over and over again in her mind like a broken record, but just as she was about to relive the feeling of Elijah's hand around her throat for the millionth time that night, she was shaken from her thoughts by the sound of quiet footfalls plodding down the stairs on the far side of the compound.
"Still here, Little Wolf?"
Hayley turned at the sound of Klaus' concerned tone and ignored the way her stomach flipped when he used her nickname in such a gentle, fluid way. It was only a simple thing, but for whatever reason, that name always had a similar effect on her. It always had.
"Yeah," she replied quietly, not quite being able to meet the hybrid's gaze, lest he see right through her I'm so fine facade. "How's Hope?"
"Fast asleep, with not a care in the world," Klaus told her from his place at the bottom of the stairs, one hand draped casually over the baluster. After a moment of comfortable silence passed through the room, Klaus made his way over to Hayley, a delicate frown of concern colouring his perfect features. "What about you, Hayley? I know that today wasn't easy on you."
Hayley let out an unintentional scoff. "You don't know the half of it," she muttered.
Klaus' frown deepened. "What exactly happened to you in there today?" He asked, coming to sit across from her with a grimly curious expression.
"Nothing a good night's sleep and several stiff bourbons couldn't fix," Hayley replied with a heavy sigh, finally looking up to meet Klaus' searching gaze. If he was trying to hide his concern for her, then he certainly wasn't doing a very good job of it- it was written all over his face. "Why are you out here anyway... isn't it like, past your curfew or something?"
Sass. Her default setting. She'd turned to that, and now she was going to run with it. It was better than having to face the serious, turbulent worry that swirled behind the stormy blue eyes of the man before her.
Klaus rolled his eyes and gave a little laugh that brought out his dimples. "I couldn't sleep, so I decided to come down here for a little snack, but then, i found you sitting here alone and troubled in the dark, and I realised; that's what was keeping me awake."
Hayley remained silent for a moment, the hybrid's words hitting her in a way that made her stomach clench with some kind of foreign emotion. Had he sensed her distress? Klaus was a werewolf at heart, just like her, was he not?
"I'm sorry, Klaus. If I'd known I was going to keep you awake, I would've gone to bed hours ago," Hayley said eventually, her tone uneven and unintentionally sarcastic. "What's the time anyway?"
"Just after midnight," he said with a simple little shrug. Klaus opened his mouth as though he was going to say something else, but then his eyes connected with hers, and his mouth snapped shut again, instead, allowing his lips to fall into the curve of a small smile.
Hayley's stomach flipped again. God, why did he have to do that? Why did he always look at her in a tiny simple little way and cause her heart to leap instantly from her chest? In that moment, a question formed on her tongue, and she was unable to stop herself before the words slipped so innocently from her tired lips.
"Can I ask you a question?" She began, not giving Klaus time to answer before she continued, "In your thousand years of memories if you had to choose one or two to take solace in... what would it be?" Hayley bit her lip and met his exuberant blue gaze, hoping that he wouldn't get mad at her for asking such a personal question.
To her great surprise, Klaus' careful gaze travelled over her for a few seconds as though trying to measure her intentions, before his gaze dropped, and his head dipped towards the floor.
"There have been many vibrant moments throughout my lifetime, Hayley, but in all my thousand years, none have been as vibrant as the ones I've shared with Hope." Klaus looked up at her, his eyes shining as they always did whenever he spoke about his daughter. "I would find solace in any memory that she inhabited; from the time she was still being carried by you, to the very newest of days. So much of my happiness relies on her, and if I was condemned to my mind for eternity, I couldn't think of a better place to spend it, than locked away with our daughter and if I could tolerate them for more than five seconds, the rest of the family too."
Hayley couldn't help the warm prick of tears that formed in the corner of her eyes at his words. That's all she'd wanted for Elijah. For him to find his happiness and peace in his family, in Hope. In her. She opened her mouth to say something, but Klaus, who hadn't finished speaking, continued on.
"But if I had to choose a memory to live in, I would pick the twenty-four hour period after you all came to save me. I'd wished so long to see Hope again and wondered countless times over my five-year imprisonment whether she was okay, but then I remembered that she was with you and she'd be okay. Then you came for me. You kept your promise to save our family, even though it would've been so much simpler to let the once great Mikaelsons rot for eternity. You didn't stop fighting for us all, and you saved every single one of us; that means more to me than you know. That night, you trusted me enough to let me watch over Hope as she slept, and for me, it was a dream come true. Our family was whole again. After that, I thought nothing could be better than my dreams being realised, but there was something better."
Klaus paused to take a deep breath as he looked back into Hayley's tearful green orbs. "When I met Hope the following day, part of me expected her to think me a monster, and the other half knew that you wouldn't allow her to view me like that. But when she and I spent that afternoon together, I realised just how much you'd done to ensure that she saw me not as a monster, but as a father who loved his daughter with such ferocity that he was willing to do anything, to go to any lengths to keep her safe. Seeing the love in Hope's eyes, that's what I'd choose to remember, finally being reunited with my Littlest Wolf after all this time, knowing that you had done so much for her and for me; I just... thank you."
Hayley knew he'd wanted to say more, but like her, when it came to the pointy end, he was unable to find enough words to verbalise his thoughts. That's why she wasn't even mildly surprised when he covered her hand with his own and offered her another comforting smile, making her heart drop right through the floor of her stomach. She searched for words of her own, before finally settling on a sentence that she knew he wouldn't be expecting.
"Everything I told her was the truth, Klaus. All of it. How much you loved her, how far you were willing to go to save the family that you loved so fiercely and how you would one day return to us. I'm just sorry that it took me so long to bring you back to your daughter. I really, truly am."
Klaus just stared at Hayley, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly, an expression on his face that told her just how much he couldn't believe that anyone saw the good in him. It was just like the one he had worn on that night she'd told him everything Mikael had told her about him hadn't been true, all those years ago.
"Our daughter," he corrected eventually, seemingly at a loss for anything better to say.
Hayley managed a warm smile at that. "Our Hope," she agreed with a small nod. When Klaus didn't say anything else, she gently pulled her hand out from beneath his and sighed heavily, immediately missing the comforting warmth that his grip had fostered.
Not that she noticed, or anything.
"Well, I think I'm going to have myself a drink," Klaus announced as he got to his feet, sensing that their little 'moment' had passed. "Would you care for a nightcap, Little Wolf?"
The offer was tempting, it really was; but Hayley was afraid that if she had anything to drink, she would end up letting Klaus in on what happened to her inside the pendant, and she cared about him too much to let him see the brother he loved so much hurting her like that. She didn't know why, but she had the sneaking suspicion that if Klaus ever saw Elijah hunting her down like that, he would never forgive him. And she couldn't let that happen. Not now. Not when they were all finally in a good place with each other, and the Hollow needed to be defeated.
"Ah, I think I'll pass actually," she said as she too rose to her feet for the first time in hours, doing her best to ignore the disappointment that she saw flash across the hybrid's face. "I've had a long day, I should really crash."
Klaus gave a little dip of his head in acknowledgement of her words, trying to hide his disappointment in the process. "You're right. It has been a terribly long day. I wouldn't blame anyone for needing a rest after what happened, especially you." Klaus offered Hayley another little smile, silently telling her that it was okay. He understood that she needed to spend some much needed time beneath the comforting covers of her bed, and he was not about to make her feel bad for doing so.
"Thank you," Hayley breathed as she placed her hand lightly on his forearm. She didn't know why she was thanking him, but she was. Maybe it was because she was grateful for his comforting presence, or maybe it was because he had allowed her to see a different side of him. Whatever it was, she felt like she needed to say it.
Klaus looked from her hand on his arm, back up to her giant eyes in pure bewilderment, utterly confused as to what she could possibly have to thank him for. All he'd ever done was push her away and cause her immeasurable amounts of pain, so why the hell was she thanking him? Honestly, this woman never ceased to amaze him.
Hayley met his silently stunned expression with a small, yet genuine smile that lit up her own forest-like orbs. "Goodnight Klaus," she said quietly, giving his arm a light squeeze before brushing past him in her move towards the stairs.
Still in shock, Klaus remained facing the opposite direction to Hayley's retreating form, listening to the sounds of her evenly paced footsteps and light breaths as she walked away from him. A light creak echoed through the courtyard, right as her foot made contact with the bottom step, and before he could stop himself, Klaus turned around, torn between calling her back and bidding her goodnight.
"Goodnight, Hayley," he whispered, watching her as she froze on the step, one hand clinging to the railing. As much as he would've loved for her to stay there with him, he knew that stopping her from going to bed was nothing but selfish.
Hayley's heart gave an involuntary skip when she heard the whisper of her name pass over Klaus' lips. With a microscopic smile and a gentle glance over her shoulder that didn't escape the older hybrid's notice, Hayley let out a deep sigh and continued on up the stairs.
She knew she had to keep walking and she knew she wouldn't get there if she turned around. She had to ignore the fiery feeling that was suddenly burning up the pit of her stomach, and carry on.
She had to.
But the pull to stay with Klaus was real.
Nevertheless, Hayley didn't stop walking until she reached the safe confines of her bedroom, and after quickly checking on the soundly sleeping Hope, she leaned up against the back of her door and allowed the torrential flood of her emotions to wash over her.
In her gregarious fatigue, the facade that Hayley had been holding up all night finally snapped; and just like that, she was reliving her worst nightmare all over again. The feeling of being so helpless; hunted and attacked by the man that she loved. The snap of her bones against rough bark as her body was thrown into a tree. The feel of his tight grip closing around her throat, his fangs hovering precariously above her jugular. The feeling of his body lording over hers as he held her to the ground and attempted to go in for the kill.
She let the tears she'd been holding back rain down her face in warm, salty tracks as she reminded herself that Elijah, the man she thought she knew, the man she loved, had almost killed her in cold blood. Hayley internally chided herself for being so weak, but really, she didn't know what else she could do to prevent the tears from flowing. It just seemed the natural reaction to being so wrongfully betrayed, traumatised and deeply, deeply hurt. After all, these tears were merely the tip of the iceberg that was her trauma; the rest of the icy boulder of pain was rooted far and wide for hundreds of miles beneath the surface in the most treacherous place of all: her heart.
Her reaction made her almost human.
But Hayley knew she was a monster; something quite far strayed off the path of humanity, and she accepted it.
She accepted it wholly and tried to do better, be a better person not just for her own sanity and to regain whatever shred of humanity she was capable of claiming, but for the sake of her daughter. For Hope. Even Klaus Mikaelson, the most fearsome of all the monsters was willing to try and break his thousand year old habits for his little girl, because he saw that she was worth being better for.
Not Elijah though.
His lack of thought for Hope's innocence and purity, for her future, truly broke Hayley's heart. That was the worst betrayal of all.
Hope was part of Elijah's family too; she should of been part of his Always and Forever.
Feeling overwhelmed by both the events of the day and her raging emotions, Hayley climbed into bed with a tearful sigh and resigned herself to sleep, allowing the comforting thoughts of a certain Hybrid's plan for their daughter's future to lull her into a restful state. Not that she would ever admit it though; God, that man's ego did not need to be fed any more. And it was with that final thought and a brief little smile that Hayley finally drifted off into the peaceful void of nothingness, allowing the allure of sleep to claim her as its own.
She stayed there for a while, at least, and then; the nightmares started.
