AN: Thank you so much for the reviews! Please continue to let me know what you think. It helps me process my plot and my thoughts, which is why I think the parts for this are coming in more quickly than my usual.
Part 3
KLAUS
The old house reeked of loss, and so even in the dark, muggy evening it was easy to find his way. Klaus turned the collar of his jacket up. He passed by the short stretch of wooden dock and noticed the small flat boat strapped to one leg. The last user had been careless, not minding to use the metal hook nailed to the wood, and so the rope had been dunked under the brackish water.
At least he knew she was in there, even though the place was pitch black and there was barely any light on.
Klaus reached the pebble path leading to the porch. He looked down and listened intently, heard quiet enough that he knew he had come alone. Not even Elijah knew this existed. For more than a year this was his one secret in Louisiana. There was no place for anyone else in here.
If only she would switch on a light, this would not be so horrid. Then again, light in his life was entirely a different matter altogether.
Klaus easily pushed open the door, and it was testament to her state of mind that she never even bothered to lock herself in. He looked towards the winding staircase and expected what he found. It was how he always found her.
The moonlight streamed into the room, and she sat on the bottom step almost translucent in the dim light. Half in the shadows, half in the silver moonbeam, Hayley raised her head and met his gaze with her own vacant ones.
"So tonight you bothered to show up," she stated.
But he owed her nothing and owed her everything. His head could not wrap itself around the irony. He tossed the bag he had been holding onto the floor, then rested his boot at the corner of it and pushed. Klaus turned around and switched on a light. "There's enough there to last you a week. I'll see about compelling some poor sap to get you a couple weeks' ration tomorrow."
"This is it," she said, and her voice was filled with accusation.
"I see no reason to come back here, Hayley."
And it was not the first time he said it, not the first time he realized it. From that very day she scampered into the wetlands against his wishes, heavy with a miracle child that the Roux Ga Roux fought over-
It was the night when that flimsy connection between them was severed.
"You are the reason he's dead," was the quiet declaration. "That is why you can't bear to look at me."
"I heard that before," Klaus responded. He turned to the young girl on that bottom step, small and bitter in the shadows, tightly holding her legs against her chest. She had run off to this—remnants of a grand life, of a family of Werewolves so controlled and powerful they reigned over the Bayou.
And for his immortal life he could not even care to stand by her, see to the protection of a woman who carried his child.
Once they had been allies. More times they had been enemies.
And one hour in his thousand years he had spread her on a tabletop and fucked her.
She blamed him, of course. When the wild things came and no one could tell vampire from werewolf in the pitch black, and she found herself stranded and giving birth, rising to consciousness to the bloodied rags and mangles remains in place of a child that had been meant for a grand destiny, cut off from life before it could even breathe.
"You couldn't even find who killed your own son!"
He had been raised by a mother who for the longest time showed him what a woman was capable of doing to ensure that her children lived. So when he watched Hayley the last year, he held his anger in check. Yet in the past year he listened to her, understood her, there was one indisputable fact that rose.
Her grief was not for her loss of a child.
It was for the loss of a dream she had held dearly and powerfully enough that the desire had called out to Silas.
"Get yourself out of this house, Hayley," he advised her, because this was it. This was the end. Where the last year he could spend this time patronizing her and letting her guilt him into a corner, the last few days Klaus saw there was still life and light to be had in the world. "None of them will come back."
"They came once," she tearfully reminded him. "My family, they came then, Klaus. I can't leave here. They need to know where to find me."
Klaus had seen enough of families in the last century to take a sliver of pity on the girl. He sighed and walked over to Hayley, knelt down in front of her. "Your family came to you when you were bringing something to the table," he said softly, horrible, horrible words that she needed to hear. "You were bringing my child, and everyone in the supernatural world heard the prophecy of my son." Tears filled her eyes as she looked at him. "They wanted him, Hayley, not you."
Hayley gasped, then pushed him away. "Tyler was right. You're the devil!" Klaus smirked, then pulled himself up. At the very least, the push of his hurtful words brought her to her feet. She stank—smelled of a wet dog that had not bathed in a while, and Klaus imagined how she turned into her true self and ran in the night, then crumbled in her own misery of being abandoned. "I thought at the very least that having that child between us would make us friends, Klaus."
He had only ever wanted to be friends with one woman. This was not her.
Klaus had wasted enough time.
"The child was a joke that the universe played on us both," Klaus said lightly. "I humoured fate by entertaining that twist into my life, Hayley. Elijah wanted a child in the family, thinking it would redeem me, believing it was our chance to become the family we had always wanted to be."
Not once, Klaus realized, had Elijah mentioned how this girl fit into that picture.
Fortunately or not, they were never meant to figure that out.
"One thing I learned, Hayley, in the months you carried that child and I had to play protector to ease Elijah, is how very much I am incapable of love." Klaus sighed. For once, he was saddened. If there was one thing in the world that Elijah had counted on turning him, it was this child; it was fatherhood.
Yet Hayley's belly swelled, and Klaus had felt the child move under her taut skin. His days had filled with the music of a tiny heartbeat inside that girl.
But the child was nameless, faceless. And he knew how truly incapable he was of being saved—because he could not love his son.
Could not help but wonder what if—
Klaus turned his back on Hayley and walked back towards the door. He turned the knob and heard her from behind him, whispering, "You let him die. You never loved him, so you couldn't be bothered to save us."
"Let it rest, Hayley, and pick up where you left off."
He stepped back out into the night, stopping at the porch and looking off to the uneven shoreline of the wetlands. There was a small white makeshift cross towards the rocky clearing leading to the edges of the shrubbery. He closed his eyes, momentarily remembering Elijah putting the marker together.
"So it's over."
Klaus clasped his hands behind him. He felt Hayley touch his arms, then rub up and down. "I never once lied to you that it was more than what it was."
"I wish—just once," Hayley said, "that you loved me. Maybe if you did we wouldn't be in this mess. We would have that child, Klaus, because you wouldn't have ever let us out of your sight."
Klaus desperately wished in his heart that he never died, because if the supernatural purgatory was ever brought down and there was truly hell, he knew there would be a special place reserved for him because even as Hayley spoke about love and a lost child all he could imagine was a vibrant image of a blue eyed golden-haired baby that shone as light and bright as—
"Pull your life together and move on, Hayley," he advised, pulling away. "I will."
CAROLINE
Caroline brought up her phone and snapped away, capturing images of the little boy running—no, bouncing—in the park. First, he would run away from Caroline and then, just when Caroline thought he was far enough, the boy turned around and would bend forward, then run towards her like a fast approaching capsule. And then he slowed when he was closer. Then, with a dimpled grin, he would launch himself towards her again and jump towards her.
She dropped her phone several times with surprise, but she swore she had never laughed harder in her life.
As Caroline scanned through the dozens of pictures she had taken, she frowned. She noticed a couple of faces first. They were in the background when she took Daniel to a restaurant for takeout. And then there were some watching them from the crowd of onlookers in the carousel.
She froze when she saw similar faces sitting on the bench around them in the park. One waved towards Daniel. Caroline rushed to her feet and ran after Daniel, taking him up into her arms. Wolves. She knew the scent of them, spent far too long with Tyler and his friends not to recognize. Caroline looked around her, remembered the faces of everyone in the crowd and knew. Wolves. She was surrounded by werewolves.
Caroline noted one stood and stepped towards her. Thoughtlessly enough, Caroline revealed her vampire face and snarled at the stranger, neglecting the fact that as a pack they could just as easily rip her apart.
She bent down and picked up her bag, then felt her entire body trembling as she walked briskly back to the car. Caroline strapped Daniel into his baby seat and climbed into the driver seat, racing to Marcel.
When Elijah first walked into her dorm room and proposed to her this ridiculous plan, Caroline could not have predicted the turn of events in her life. After a delirious chant of "Oh my god" in her head at the sight of Elijah Mikaelson whom she had not laid eyes on for two whole years, all Caroline could think of was how much she wanted to see Klaus again.
Because didn't he say in graduation that as much as he could he would reach out to her, that he would visit her, that he would call her on the best festivals so she could come by and see his kingdom?
And really she wanted to see Klaus to kiss him and kick him at the same time because save for a cryptic, silent call a year and a half ago he never reached out to her again.
Then Elijah told Caroline about this other king that was constantly putting Klaus in danger, who thought he had become greater than his teacher, and Caroline dropped college, packed her bags, and was settling into the stretch limousine that Elijah conjured for them—by compulsion or actual money, it was still magical enough to Caroline to think of it as a product of powers she still did not have. But she knew what she needed to do, and Caroline believed within the week she would either be dead or celebrating with Klaus.
She never thought she would have responsibility over the most beautiful angel she had ever seen in her life.
It was almost sacrilege that she continued to bring him—Daniel, Marcel educated her in the car—to Marcel's creepy, vampire-infested house. Once in her frantic search in the house while Marcel was away, she had glimpsed that stake in Marcel's bedroom, sitting inside the drawer of the bedside table, ready to be wielded should he be attacked in his sleep.
Caroline shuddered to think of what she needed to do in order to make her way back there without raising suspicion.
Fortunately, Marcel seemed to be fond of the baby, despite some of his less than perfect references to Daniel's heritage. She chalked it up to the bad blood between all other vampires and werewolves, because she had seen enough evidence that Marcel had cared for Daniel for a long time.
"Hello Danny boy!" Marcel greeted warmly, taking the baby from Caroline's arms and lifting him high up in the air, with the child exploding in giggles.
Caroline bit back a complaint, but when Marcel jiggled the kid, she cried out, "That's unsafe!"
Marcel raised an eyebrow at her. "And mommy."
Caroline's eyes widened and her voice dropped. "I'm not his mom," she whispered.
"I know." He winked at her. "But you've carrying Daniel around for almost two months. No one's raised a kidnapping alert. The kid's abandoned. I think we can safely say you're his mommy. It would really make him feel better than if he grew up thinking you're some stranger."
She sighed. It was a supernatural baby, and she had forever to live for to be alone. It was not as if she was ever going to have a baby of her own. "I insist we search the missing children database, in case someone's looking for him."
The boy reached down and touched Marcel's head. "Ruff!"
Marcel grinned and turned to Caroline. "Did that werewolf kid just bark at me?" He chuckled. "You're supposed to howl, kid, not bark like a puppy."
There was a surge of protectiveness over her. Caroline reached for Daniel and took him from Marcel's arms. "We're learning really simple words, so don't be crass," she lectured. Caroline reached forward and rubbed Marcel's head, "Your head is rough." And then Daniel's hands cupped both of her cheeks, a gesture the child liked and Caroline adored. With a thrill, she declared, "My face is smooth."
Caroline saw Marcel's face from the corner of her eye. She turned to him and he nodded with a smile, "So it is."
It could be so simple to get into that bedroom, she thought. Caroline shook the thought out of her brain. She focused back on the boy, who gave her a gummy grin. How could Marcel repeat over and over that he was a werewolf, when he barely had three teeth all in all. "Daniel has cute dimples," she said to the baby.
"I'm here to drop him off," Caroline told Marcel. "We're running out of supplies, and I don't trust anyone else with him."
He grinned. "You trust me?"
Caroline reached forward and touched his arm. "Like you would ever hurt an innocent little boy." Really, what had Marcel hurt? He had killed a witch out in the open in front of hundreds of people, if she heard correctly. And he had drained an old human woman.
"I killed his nanny. I remember how pissed off you were at that."
Caroline shrugged. "Just keep violence around him at a minimum, or I'm not going to be happy."
Marcel took Daniel from her, and Caroline kept her instincts at bay because she immediately wanted to snatch him back up. "Caroline fuming red with fury—maybe it's worth it to kill someone in front of the kid just to see what that looks like."
"Don't even try," Caroline warned, jabbing her finger into his chest. "Keep him in one piece. I'm growing really fond of that boy," she reminded him with a smile.
Marcel closed a hand over her wrist, then grinned down at her. "That was the plan," he said teasingly.
At those words, Caroline's smile vanished. She looked towards Daniel. "You know, maybe I should take him with me on that grocery trip."
But Marcel had handed over the boy to one of the female vampires that worked for him. "That's ridiculous. You're going to have a difficult time balancing your cart if he demands to be carried. Just go off to your chores and swing by when you're done. He'll be ready for you."
She was going to need to find a daycare. She was going to need to look for a nanny.
But it was not like there was a daycare in New Orleans that Marcel could not storm if he wanted, or a nanny that he could not compel.
Except—
No, that was crazy. And Marcel would know immediately the one thing that she needed to avoid. But there were coincidences in the world. And there was a way to hide the truth.
Two months before she was fulfilling every dream she had for the last few years by making love to Klaus in the alleyway within range of the St Louis Cathedral.
"I think I'm going to look for a babysitter."
"Nonsense. We can always do it for you," Marcel offered.
She shrugged. "I'll feel better if I can leave Daniel at home sometimes, with a really good babysitter." Caroline smiled. "I mean, you told me you'd take me out to a nice dinner at Arnaud's, remember?"
Marcel's grin grew. "So you're accepting."
"The moment I have my babysitter," she promised.
"Smoked pompano bourgeois, oysters Bienville, spicy gulf shrimp in Creole vegetables and then followed by veal Chantal, crab cake and crawfish O'Connor," Marcel enumerated. "I'll send a list of sitters for you to interview."
"It so happens I have a list I made up myself too," Caroline told him. She was going to need to pull the discreet messaging process that Elijah had given her, but it would be worth it if she never had to leave Daniel here again. "I'll be right back for him."
After Caroline did her grocery shopping, she pushed her cart across the parking space until she reached her rental car. Caroline parked the cart beside her car and grabbed the box of the disposable phone. She climbed into the back of the car and tore open the box, then texted the number that she had been made to memorize. S4C, she typed. Afterwards, Caroline got off the car and popped open the trunk, one by one loading her bags in.
Formula, diapers, even a few outfits for the kid. It was going to break the bank had Elijah not loaded her account up nicely before she even came here. She was not going to touch anything that Marcel had been trying to give her for Daniel.
It was going to be easier to keep him when this whole thing crumbles around them.
"I remember when this used to be a church."
Caroline immediately recognized the voice, even before she turned around. She closed her eyes, took in deep breaths.
"In fact, this entire stretch of a parking lot were the church grounds. There were quite impressive statues here, and a lot of greens," he continued.
"Then it must have been beautiful," she said softly.
Of course Elijah was right. No matter how awful they were to each other during Marcel's party, he was going to come back for her.
"Everything was far more beautiful then," he answered. "But I would not trade that with this concrete gray block of earth."
It was Klaus.
And she was Caroline.
Of course he was coming back for her.
But that was his same promise on graduation day, before he left for New Orleans again and seemingly forget she existed.
She slammed the trunk shut and turned around, and he was beautiful. Caroline drank in the sight of him like she had not just fought with him and drove him away. For his part, he slid his hands into his pants pockets as if he was insecure. But he had always been grand and possessive and so sure of himself.
Until she remembered that night he had likened what they to a schoolboy's crush.
And she had reduced their night together as a drunken girl falling too quickly in and out of love.
Wow. They were repulsive both of them.
She smiled sadly at him. Caroline walked towards him and then realized that they were out in the open. She stopped in her tracks and held his gaze. And then, conscious of whether anyone could see them in that parking lot, her awareness heightened of the CCTV cameras that were recognizing the area, Caroline turned around and stepped into the driver seat.
She started the car, and turned the vehicle to speed away. Caroline did not turn her head to look, but as she stepped on the gas pedal she allowed her sight to jump to the rearview mirror to see him standing still, exactly where she left him, watching her go.
It was two hours later when Caroline settled back into the house. She sat Daniel down on the carpet in the living room as she organized the groceries. Caroline washed the bottles and fixed some milk for the baby. And then she turned around to find Daniel jumping down from the sofa and onto the floor. Her squeal caught in her throat and he made a perfect landing. The boy scampered back up on the sofa and repeated the action.
She released a breath and calmed her nerves.
Caroline picked him up and took him to the bedroom. She placed Daniel on his back and removed his diaper. Caroline removed the cap of the wet wipes and cleaned him up. The boy watched her with his calm, blue eyes. "You are adorable," she told him. "Seriously. When your evil uncle Marcel says mean things about you, just let it come in through one ear and out the other, okay?" She leaned forward as she powdered Daniel's butt and fastened the change of diapers. "Besides," she said in a stage whisper, "you're going to see him less and less."
And then that gummy, dimpled grin. "Ma!"
Caroline blinked. It was like cold water was thrown over her.
Daniel reached up and wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her down. She closed her eyes when all of a sudden warmth rushed through her veins. Caroline wrapped her arms around the boy and buried her nose in the crook of his neck. "Ma!" he cooed again, and Caroline had no doubt regarding what the boy called her.
She took him up in her arms as he yawned. Caroline picked up the dirty diaper and tossed it into the sink. She would clean up in the morning. She grabbed the bottle of milk from the kitchen and returned to the bedroom. Caroline climbed into bed and let Daniel lie down resting on her arm. She handed him the bottle of milk and he clutched it tightly to him and starting feeding.
She took the book on the nightstand and read, "Mama, do you love me? Yes I do, Dear One. How much? I love you more than the raven loves his treasure, more than the dog loves his tail, more than the whale loves his spout—"
She drifted off to sleep.
The noise penetrated through her subconscious, when she heard the sound of an all too familiar voice clearing his throat. Immediately she was alert, and she sat up in bed while leaning forward and to the side to shield the baby.
"Elijah!" she exclaimed. "You scared me."
Elijah leaned against the doorframe. "You should be scared," he agreed. ""My brother is driving himself to the edge, and here I find you in bed with another man."
Caroline took deep breaths as she allowed her adrenaline to pump through her bloodstream. She allowed her body to relax.
"I received your message," he told her. "Unfortunately by the time I arrived at your parking slot, I merely saw the carnage you left behind."
Klaus.
Caroline climbed out of bed and walked to Elijah. She pulled him into the living room and away from Daniel. She took a seat on the sofa and gestured for Elijah to do the same.
"I assume you reached out to me because you needed my help." Caroline nodded. Elijah added, "And as promised, I will glad to lend a hand. But perhaps we should start with the stranger in your bed."
Caroline glanced towards the bedroom. "I know I promised to get rid of the stake and get out of there, and you hate distractions. And that is a distraction in my room."
Elijah shook his head. "It will be a boring immortal life without distractions, Caroline." His voice took on a harder edge, and he leaned forward, involved, intense.
"I haven't had any success destroying that stake," Caroline confessed. "And I'm ready to admit that I need protection, Elijah." Before he opened his mouth to respond, she added, "Pulling out is not an option. I'm close to the stake. I can get my hands on it. That isn't why I need you."
"Go on," Elijah said. His gaze moved towards the bedroom.
"I need your sister, because I think my son is in danger."
"Your son," Elijah repeated. He stood up and stepped forward. "What does Marcel have to do with this?" Caroline rushed and placed herself between the bedroom door and Elijah. "What are you talking about?"
Caroline placed a hand on Elijah's chest. She was stupid. Again. This was an Original and she was nothing. But Daniel was her son now, and she dared anyone to deny that.
"Elijah, stop," Caroline pressed. "Please."
"Let me see the boy, Caroline," he told her.
And suddenly she was afraid. For the first time since he showed up in her room to take her inside all this, where everything she had first been afraid of roamed free and powerful. Even standing with Marcel in a room of his cronies, unsure of whether or not he knew more about he allowed.
"Don't hurt him, Elijah."
And she was begging.
"Step away from the door, Caroline."
She shook her head. "Over my dead body. Let's see how you spend the rest of your life once Klaus finds out you killed me," she dared him.
He frowned in confusion. His face softened. "I think I'm safe," he told her, "because I don't have plans of hurting the child." Elijah placed his hands on her shoulders. "You have accomplished far more than I imagined, Caroline, when I brought you here. But come," he said, gently moving her to the side, "let me see my nephew."
tbc