A/N : Despite Just being published now, this was written just after the first episode of The Originals S2 aired. It's based between 1x22 and 2x01. This is my first time writing Hayley so be gentle haha
Five weeks, four days, twelve hours and ten minutes since Hayley had seen her daughter last. She could practically hear each tick of the clock on a loop. Since she had kissed her daughters forehead, wrapped her in a blanket, packed a bag complete with the letter she'd written, put a hat on Hope to keep her warm, then handed her over to her father to be given away to Rebekah. To the woman that would see all that Hayley couldn't. Who would see her daughter smile and laugh, who would see her sleep and eat and play. Who would feed and clothe and comfort... who would mother her daughter.
Hayley hadn't said goodbye. She couldn't. Goodbye was too final. She didn't want the last words she ever said to her baby girl to be 'goodbye'. She'd said 'see you soon' instead. But she wasn't sure if that was any better. If she never saw her again then her last words to her daughter would've been a lie.
And she couldn't stop thinking about it. Would she see her soon? Would she see her ever again? Klaus had promised Hope would return to them. She didn't trust Klaus' promises. She didn't speak much to him, didn't speak much to anyone. Nobody could understand just how much it hurt. Nobody could understand the gaping hole that was in her chest, consuming every minute of every single day, the longing she felt simply to be in her daughters presence. And as a result of her pain mixed with the emptiness and her new vampire appetite, Hayley began to comfort eat like a depressed human would. Though Hayley's comfort food was not chocolate or popcorn or chips. It was people. She was one of them once. She was a mother once too. But how can you call yourself a mother when another woman is raising your child? She walked past babies and children and mothers on a daily basis in the quarter. It almost made her feel sick to watch these mothers chatter and ignore their screaming infants in prams. She couldn't escape children. They were everywhere. Everywhere Hope was not.
Hayley moved away from the nursery door and closed her eyes as she let out a shaky breath, unable to look at the pristine room any longer. She'd stare for minutes, hours at a time without realising what she was doing and when she glanced up at the clock in her own adjoining room she realised that she'd been staring into the room for three hours now. She'd risen from her bed at the crack of dawn and walked to the door frame in her pyjamas to watch the sun rise over her daughters room. Sometimes Klaus would join her. Sometimes she'd be the one joining him. But today she was alone. Sometimes she would fantasize about all the things she should be doing in that room. She would imagine dressing her baby, feeding her whilst smoothing down the hair on her head. Playing with her and hearing her laugh. The room shouldn't be so perfect. As untouched as the day Klaus had presented it to her, save for a precious few moments when Hope had lay in the crib. Otherwise she'd spent the entire time in her parents arms. Hayley had eventually changed the sheet in the crib, only so she could wrap the one Hope used up around her own pillow to sleep with at night.
There were clothes in the drawers that would never be worn. Clothes Hayley had spent so much effort in choosing. She'd wanted her baby to know that Hayley had spent so much time preparing for her because that's how special she was to her. But now those clothes were gathering dust and Hope would never see them. Hayley couldn't bear to empty them, despite suggestions that she should donate them to others more needing of them. They were Hope's, and they would stay there until they were replaced by new clothes that her daughter would actually wear.
The room should show signs of disorganisation, Hayley thought. Diapers strewn on the changing table and dirty bibs in the laundry basket, baby powder sprinkled on the floor and the scent of formula mixed in with her baby's own. The soft noise of her daughters breathing should've been audible. The room shouldn't be so quiet. The crib shouldn't be empty. Hope should be in there. Instead she was a million miles away. Or that's what it felt like. Hope may as well have been a million miles away. Hayley didn't know where her daughter was, for her own protection of course. But that was the worse thing.
The not knowing. Not knowing where she was. How she was. What time she woke up this morning, how many times did she wake in the night for a feed, what clothes she was wearing, what was the tune she fell asleep to at night? Did peekaboo make her laugh or cry? What does she look like? Have her eyes changed colour yet?Were they blue like her fathers or green like her own? Klaus said Rebekah commented that Hope had her Hayley's looks. Was that true? Was her daughter like her? Or did she look like her father? Was she a mix? Hayley couldn't even ask for Rebekah to send photos. There was to be no proof at all that their little girl was alive and breathing. There was to be nothing that could let the world know she was alive. There would be no baby book commemorating every single second of her daughters life like she'd wanted to do, provide Hope with yet another thing she never had herself.
Hayley didn't know all the things good mothers were supposed to know. The basic but so precious details of her daughters life that every good mother could recite backwards. She didn't even know her favourite teddy.
(It was times like this that brought back all the thoughts Hayley had regarding her birth parents when she first found out she was adopted. How she'd sat and imagined for hours that her birth parents gave her up because it was the best thing for her, and they regretted it constantly and beat themselves up about it all the time, just waiting for the day their daughter would return to them. Now she knew that wasn't true at all. Because her parents never gave her away.)
There was the other burning question Hayley didn't know the answer to, but so desperately needed to know; When will Hope return home? and then... Will she ever return home? Would she ever see her again?
Hayley let out a sob and sat on the floor by the crib, picking up a teddy Eve had bought for the baby girl she never got to lay eyes on, clutching it to her chest before dampening the fur on it's head with her tears. The teddy was a wolf. Eve had thought it was hilarious. Hayley had rolled her eyes. And now that teddy was the one thing she latched onto every time she walked into the room. Being in this room felt like the closest she'd ever get to her daughter.
Would she ever hear her daughter laugh? See her smile? Hear her cry? Hear her snore? Would she ever hear Hope call out 'mommy!' as she ran over with flowers in her hand and mud on her knees? Would she ever sit up at night reading her stories, or paint her nails or watch her paint? Would she ever teach her how to tie her shoes? Braid her hair or ride a bike? Comfort her as her first boyfriend broke her heart (whilst simultaneously pleading with Klaus not to murder the lad as it would almost certainly traumatise her more)
Would she ever get to tell her baby girl in person that she loved her more than life itself? Would she ever hold her baby in her arms again and hear her heartbeat? Would she ever get to hold on so tight and never have to let go? With every passing day, Hayley doubted it all, despite her little girls name she was beginning to lose all hope that the void in her heart would ever be filled.
Hayley imagined Eve and Hope meeting. Though previously she always thought Eve would be the one to deliver Hope into the world. But that was another fantasy life where Hope was born in the bayou surrounded by her pack and family, instead of being ripped from her mother in a church of all places. She imagined Jack seeing her little girl. The man who was the first person other than Hayley herself to feel her daughter kick in the womb. She imagined showing Hope the squirrels in the tree's and the rabbits on the ground. She imagined Hope's first Christmas, the extravagant gifts Klaus would lavish upon their little princess, the mounds upon mounds of clothes Rebekah would deliver, insisting her niece be the best dressed little girl in New Orleans. And not just her first Christmas, or her first birthday. Always. Another luxury she'd never experienced but wanted her daughter to have so much. There was a piano in the plantation house, Hayley remembered. She could almost see her daughter sat at it with Elijah, both of them in awe as the Original's fingers danced across the keys in an effort to impress them both. She imagined it all. Halloween, Christmas, birthdays, Easter. Taking Hope out to see the many events that happened in the French Quarter once she was old enough.
Hayley imagined that she was still a wolf. And for once there would be a reason to keep on going during the turn. Hayley had always wished for death. Every single time. She'd turned over fifty times into a wolf and every single time during the transition she'd had wishes of death on her lips. But she knew that it wouldn't have been the case had she had Hope to return home to. She knew that the pain of shifting would become like the pain of childbirth, it would disappear the moment she saw her baby girls face.
Hayley didn't know how long she'd been there, drowning in her own misery and grief when she looked up from the stuffed wolf to notice Elijah watching her from the doorway. He'd probably been there a while. He had a habit of checking in on her, though he remained forever silent. He didn't know what to say, and when he did seem to know, Hayley didn't want to hear any of it. Everything had changed and she couldn't talk about that with him just yet. She couldn't quite form the words to speak to him. But she knew he didn't see her as he once did. She was the saviour of his family. Or rather she carried what he perceived to be the saviour of his brother's humanity. She'd also made the choice to send away that saviour. And Elijah no longer looked at her the way he once did.
"I apologise if I'm intruding." Elijah said quietly, sounding earnest as he always did. "I - " he began to speak, stopping when Hayley abruptly cut him off.
"I'm done here." Hayley mumbled in return as she got to her feet, wiped furiously at her eyes and placed the little wolf in the cradle before walking past Elijah to leave the room. "Klaus!" she yelled as she headed to his suite of rooms. "We need to discuss going after the bastards that went after our daughter!"