AFTER WHAT TURNED OUT to be a lovely dinner I found myself sitting by one of the fire pits with Hayley.

"I didn't mean to offend you earlier…" Hayley finally spoke after a long silence.

"Oh, no worries. You didn't offend me."

"I'm just a… Nosey person," she confessed with a half-smile.

I chuckled. "I think we all are every now and then."

"I noticed you don't wear a daylight ring like Elijah. How come?"

I looked down at my hands mindlessly. "Oh... I'm like Klaus. The werewolf in me protects me from the sun and the vampire in me protects me from the moon."

"How so?" Hayley posed.

"Well, being part werewolf keeps me from burning in the sun and being a vampire keeps me from phasing into a wolf every full moon."

Hayley nodded impressed. "Do you phase at all?"

"I can... I'm in total control of my phasing though. I can phase whenever I want to and for however long I wish," I explained.

"That must be so nice," she commented almost wistfully. " So… How did you get sucked into this crazy family?" she continued quickly.

This was a conversation I really didn't want to have but I knew it was inevitable. Hayley was a curious person, I could tell that before her confession. I knew she had no malicious intent with her question, so I swallowed my pride and decided to answer her.

"Well… I knew the Mikaelson's since we were all still human. We grew up together. My village butted up against their village. My mother was a witch and my father was a werewolf. My parents had a hard time conceiving, so when my mother finally got pregnant with me, my father was sure I was a boy. He had so many plans for me. He was going to teach his son how to hunt, how to build, how to survive, how to provide… Everything. He was sure his son was going to become the alpha. Imagine his disappointment when I was born and he learned I was a girl."

Hayley nodded, taking everything in.

"He hated me. He resented me with every fiber of his being. He told our entire community and pack that I wasn't his child. He made sure I was ostracized… Not only by him but by our entire community. My mother decided she didn't want me to know about my heritage. She wanted me to live a 'normal' life. She didn't want me to know that she was a witch and my father was a werewolf let alone to tell me I was also. She felt as though she was protecting me. As I grew, my father's hate for me grew and I became the subject of his rage. I would go and disappear in the woods to escape him. That's how I met them. Klaus and Elijah were playing in the woods one day and we ran into each other. We just clicked. The more time we spent together the more protective Elijah and Klaus grew of me, more so Klaus."

"I see."

"Elijah was like my big brother from the first day," I continued. "I think Klaus knew how broken I was and I knew how broken he was and that created a strong bond between us. We knew each other's pain, we just didn't speak of it. Anyways, our houses were so close that I could see Klaus' room from my bedroom window. We would put a candle in our windows to signal to the other to meet in the woods. One day, when we were older; I think I might have been twenty-one; I had gone missing. Klaus burned a candle in his window for two days straight and I had not showed up. On the third day of my disappearance, he finally decided he was going to go find out where I was. He and Elijah made their way through the woods to my house. They examined around the house carefully, and found nothing. Klaus finally decided to peer in the window, and that's when he found me…"

Klaus and Elijah had made their way back to us and they were listening to me recall my painful story. He sat down next to me and sild his arm around me, pulling me close to him. He reached across his body with his other hand and rubbed my leg softly. Elijah took a seat next to Hayley silently. He hated the retelling of our story as much as I did.

"I was nearly dead… My father had beaten me almost to death and left me for dead. He and my mother took off. I had been lying there in a pool of my own blood for days. Klaus and Elijah kicked in the door to get me. Klaus scooped me up and carried me back to their mother. Luckily for me, she took me in and nursed me back to health."

"He stayed at her bedside for nearly three weeks. He wouldn't leave her," Elijah added.

Klaus remained silent, staring down at his hand on my leg as he continued to stroke my leg soothingly.

I nodded in agreement with Elijah. "After I had recovered, that's when Esther decided to tell me about my heritage… Minus the werewolf part. She begun to work with me… Teach me things… How to work with my powers… A few months later and I was doing advanced spells with ease. Esther would gush how proud of me she was… For the first time in my life someone was proud of me… After Henrik died… That's when everything fell apart. When Esther changed them into vampires, she didn't change me. She told me she would change me after them; that she wanted to wait until after my twenty-second birthday to change me… She said it would be my birthday present."

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in preparation of the next chapter. Klaus squeezed me gently, silently reassuring me to continue.

"After Klaus' change and after his triggering of his werewolf curse… That's when everything came unhinged. He begged and pleaded with me to go with them when they left but I didn't want to leave. That was the only semblance of home I'd ever had and I didn't want to give it up even though I knew I couldn't stay there. He kept telling me he wanted me to stay with him… With my family… So we could keep each other safe, so he could keep me safe, but I refused. It was then he saw the necklace around my neck. It was the same one his mother had given him to suppress his werewolf curse. He ripped it from my neck and explained to me what I really was and how his mother had given him the same necklace. Mine had been given to me by my mother. I assume my father had gone to Esther because he knew of Klaus being the son of a fellow pack member and had her fashion me one when she made his to ensure I would never make the change. I backed Klaus into a corner. He knew they were leaving and had to but he didn't want to leave me behind. He had to know I'd be safe so he did the only thing he knew to do and he turned me. He saw me through the transition into a vampire and thus triggering of my werewolf curse before they left… Albeit begrudgingly."

"So you're not a hybrid, you're really a tribrid," Hayley asked as she connected the dots to my life.

I nodded. "Technically yes…"

"Wow… Please continue," Hayley urged.

"After a few years Klaus came back to get me. He told me he was taking me with him and there wasn't anything I could do about it and it wasn't negotiable. Naturally I refused, but he would have none of it. That night I pretended to concede. I waited patiently for my opportunity and the first chance I got when his back was turned, I bolted, thus beginning our grandiose game of immortal and eternal hide-and-seek."

Klaus and Elijah both chuckled at my last comment.

I turned my head slightly to look at him. "I'll give him credit, he's a persistent bastard."

He shrugged and grinned. "What can I say? When I want something, I want it."

"I went through a long phase of resentment. I resented my mother for never sticking up for me… For abandoning me when I needed her the most… My father for never accepting me… For resenting me so much… For never loving me… I resented Esther for turning them… I resented Klaus for turning me. It took me awhile to come to terms with everything and accept that this was my life now." I paused for a moment to gather myself. "So anyway, back to our game of hide-and-seek; he came close to catching me quite a few times. More than I'd like to admit and more than he knows especially after I'd made my way back to the states and stayed here. It was our pattern though. I'd go for a stretch where he couldn't find me and then bam, there he was. Sometimes he'd bring me back kicking and screaming, other times I'd go easily. Sometimes I think I wanted him to find me. It was easier to stay with them. It always felt like home with them but I'm so damn stubborn… So I'd stay with him for a while, until one of us pissed the other off and then we'd end up in an all-out war with each other. Other times I'd just run away when I was given a moment of no supervision. This last time, I remember as clear as a bell. It was only maybe five years ago; I was in Texas at the time. By this time my practicing witch skills were rusty? Yeah, we'll go with rusty. Being part vampire and part werewolf kind of negates the need for magic… I had stopped caring at that time in my life as well. I'd become reckless. I stopped trying to hide from Freya's locater spells… I was tired of running… Tired of never having anywhere to call home, not having any family, and I knew I had two to three years in any given place until he'd find me. I had only been in Texas for a year and there was this huge four day fair. I'd made myself some friends, human friends who didn't know my secret, and we decided to attend the event. I was sitting there and he'd caught my eye. I thought he was hot," I recalled with a chuckle. "His back was to me… I was going to go introduce myself but something made me decide to wait. Then he turned around… I remember the panic."

"Are you serious?" Klaus demanded.

I nodded. "I quickly explained to my friends I had seen a recent ex and wanted to get away, that I just couldn't face him yet. We immersed ourselves into the crowd and made a break for the front gates. Once we got to the gates, low and behold, there was Klaus scanning faces. Luckily for me he'd gotten a phone call and whoever called him decided to get into an argument with him. He got so engrossed in his argument I was able to slip out the gates undetected."

"I knew you were close! I knew it! I thought I saw you that day, I remember! I searched that entire dreadful fairgrounds for you, and when I couldn't find you inside, I figured you had to leave sometime so I'd catch you there."

"It was probably Aurora you were arguing with," Elijah poked with a mischievous grin.

Klaus glared at him.

"I was out of Texas in an hour," I continued with a laugh. "Eventually I ended up in Arkansas. There I made a few friends of the vampire variety and one of them knew of Lucian and his plan. He told me what Lucian was trying to concoct and that he was coming for Klaus… I decided I was getting the hell out of there. I didn't want any parts of whatever's coming. The plan was to head somewhere north… Maybe New York or something but somehow I ended up here…"

"Wow… That's quite the story…" Hayley remarked, blinking slowly as she processed everything. "I'm so sorry you had to endure all that when you were a child… No one should ever have to go through that… As a child or as an adult. That is really just terrible… How a parent could ever treat their own that way… I could never…"

I nodded. For some strange reason I felt lighter, like a weight has been lifted off my chest. Telling Hayley my story… My whole story… It was almost therapeutic.

"Yes well on a lighter note, I would love for you to dance with me," Klaus offered, his eyes gleamed with hope.

I chuckled softly.

"No laughing. Come," he ordered as he stood up, extending his hand to me.

Oh well… Screw it… I'm tired… I'm tired of running… I'm tired of fighting… Whatever happens happens…

I smiled up at him as I placed my hand in his. He gently pulled me up to my feet before leading me away from Hayley and Elijah. When he found a suitable spot, he spun me around before pulling me into him. He slid his left arm around my waist and I wrapped my right arm around his neck. Our free hands found each other and we interlaced our fingers. He pulled our interlaced hands up to rest on his chest as we swayed back and forth to the soft music. I rested my head on his shoulder, enjoying the freedom I finally felt after far too long.

"I expected you to put up a fight," he half joked.

I shrugged as I lifted my head to look at him. "I thought I'd try something different this time."

"I like it," he answered with a laugh. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Where do we go from here?" he asked softly.

I tilted my head up to look at him. "Do we have to do this right now?"

He shrugged. "Is there a better time to do this?"

"Any night other than tonight. Why don't we just enjoy tonight and worry about everything else tomorrow?"

He nodded and smiled a warm smile down at me. "Tomorrow then."

I put my head back down on his shoulder, smiling softly to myself. We swayed to the music together in a comfortable silence. Maybe being home isn't so bad after all, I thought to myself.


** Disclaimer: I do not own the Originals**

Author's Note:

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