A/N: That weird coffin plot on TVD where Klaus was carting his family around isn't a thing here, so banish that from your minds. I'm also introducing my interpretation of Gloria, who some of you may remember was yet another woefully underused black character in early S3.

"Heads up, this feels like ice."

Bonnie flinches a little as the ultrasound gel makes contact with her skin and waits for Gloria (the platinum-haired witch and obstetrician who had told her during the first appointment that despite her medical doctorate she prefers midwife because "all of this knowledge belongs to women anyway") to get the machine ready.

"So, how've you been feeling? Any strange symptoms?"

"Well the morning sickness is gone, thank God, but I've been tired lately, more than usual." She wonders if it's magic use that has her worn out, having made Monique and Klaus both amulets charged with an Energy spell, but the spells had been fairly mild. "I haven't done any major magic or anything. Should I be worried?"

"About a little tiredness? Not unless you start losing weight. I had one patient that slept twelve hours a day during her first trimester and her baby was fine." Gloria adjusts the screen a little and picks up the transducer. "And besides, there's the eclipse tomorrow, a lot of supernaturals feel those."

"I didn't know that..." She'd been focused on making Monique and Klaus their amulets - Monique so she could practice controlling her wolf when the moon was weakest, Klaus, the opposite - she hadn't considered herself in the equation. Her mind starts running a mile a minute.

"Hey," Gloria touches her shoulder. "You just worry about getting enough protein and vitamins and staying grounded. The wolves can take care of themselves."

"I-,"

"No more worrying," she insist gently. "Now, let's get our first look at the little one."

Klaus had introduced Gloria as "an old friend", the two evidently sharing the easy camaraderie of longtime drinking buddies. And although Bonnie surmised he was paying her handsomely for being her personal midwife as it were, the older witch clearly loved her chosen vocation. During Bonnie's first appointment a week ago, Gloria detailed her own unique approach to prenatal care.

"With non-supernatural pregnancies, you have to consider the biological and mental health of the mother to make sure the baby gets delivered safely," Gloria explained, "but with supernaturals, there's a whole other layer to consider: the way our abilities interplay with our emotions and our biology."

"Oh don't worry, babygirl, it's nothing too serious." she assured, no doubt seeing the fear and doubt flit across Bonnie's face. "Witches, werewolves, vampires: all our powers are heightened and sometimes even controlled by emotion. Ever had your magic get the best of you during a stressful time?"

Bonnie nodded slowly, thinking of the aftermath of Abby's disappearance and, more recently, the bridge collapsing beneath her and Klaus' feet.

"It's almost like a fugue state: reality becomes too much and so our rational minds kind of shut down. In regular humans it's called disassociation. Well, when we dissociate, our magic or our wolf or our inner Dracula takes over." She grinned wryly, "Years ago I caught an ex cheating on me and...well, let's just say when my magic was done her car was scrap metal."

Bonnie considered this and recalled the night she'd found Jeremy kissing Anna. She hadn't lost control of her magic although she had indulged in an uncharacteristic one night stand. She wondered what that said about the depth of her feelings for her ex.

She fiddled with the hem of her shirt, "Does it get easier to control as you get older?"

"You saying I'm old?" Gloria teased.

"Well, no one's as old as Klaus," Bonnie retorted and they both chuckled. She glanced at the older witch again. "Speaking of which...I'm a little curious. Why didn't Klaus ask you to help with his wolf issue? You seem to know a lot more than I do."

"And he knows better than to ask me to drop everything and help him get his shit together. Back in the 20's I helped lock his crazy daddy in a tomb and sink him in the middle of the ocean. Nik owes me his life."

Bonnie digested this information. She knew enough to guess that Klaus' father had been a less than ideal parent, but witches didn't jump to the aid of vampires or hybrids unless the case was dire. The image of Klaus' scarred back floated into her mind again.

Gloria cocked her head a little, "What's a girl like you doing saddled with his ass anyway? Needed a one way ticket out of town?"

Bonnie opened her mouth to deny that statement, to defend her reasons for leaving Mystic Falls. But the words stuck in her throat a little. "Something like that," was all she could manage.

"I see." Gloria noted, a humorous glint returning to her eyes, "You sure a little magical help is all he wants from you?"

Bonnie cleared her throat, her ears burning. "I'm not sure I-"

"I'm just saying you seem like a sweet girl. Kind too," Gloria interrupts smoothly. "And he hasn't had a lot of kindness in his life."

That's because he doesn't deserve it, she wanted to retort. But something, perhaps the memory of naked scars in firelight or the taste of overcooked porridge, stopped her. She cracked a smile. "I don't know about sweet or kind...I almost killed him once."

Gloria laughed long and heartily. "So you brave too. He's really in trouble." Then she paused before leaning forward in her chair and looking at Bonnie intently. "But to answer your other question, our emotions don't get easier with age. They get easier with practice. The more we step into our powers as magical beings, the more we need to reckon with all our emotion - the good, the bad, the ugly - all of it."

"There we go. Baby Bennett is a shy little thing."

Bonnie's eyes dart wildly all over the screen, looking for an anchor, until Gloria indicates the shape of her baby's head.

And there, inside a silver-grey ocean, inside her, her baby glimmers like the reflection of a star. Bonnie blinks, and blinks again.

Surely it's impossible. That after everything she's survived her body can still hold this numinous space, can cup itself around a small life like hands around a candleflame.

It's not hope that she feels, but something deeper and more mysterious. A humbling of sorts.

Somewhere, vaguely, she hears Gloria say, "It's a boy."

But she's in that ocean now, carried by water and light. She ducks under those silvered waves, and each one breaks with the sound of a heartbeat.

"Hey Care-"

"BONNIE OH MY GOD, where the hell are you oH MY GOD-,"

"Care I'm fine-,"

"Are you with Klaus? I've been worried SICK...we thought you were dead-"

There's a fleeting flicker of guilt before she says, "I'm sorry I left like that it...it just seemed like the safest way."

"Safest for whom, Bon?"

"Anyway, I'm fine-,"

"How can you say that when you're with him, and we can't even-," Caroline's voice softens, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell I just - We didn't think you were really going to go with him."

"It's not like I had a choice, Care." Bonnie bit her lip. That came out harsher than intended. There's a few seconds of uncomfortable silence before Caroline speaks again.

"Where are you?"

Bonnie glances out the window at the mountains trimmed with forest.

"Somewhere in Montana. But hey, listen, I need you to do me a favor."

"Bon -"

"I need you to Compel my dad."

The line goes quiet. "You're not planning to come back for a while, are you?"

Bonnie thumbs the ultrasound photo like an amulet as words rise to her throat. I'm having a baby, Care. I don't know what's that gonna look like, but I know I can't come back, not yet.

To her surprise, her voice sounds clear and resolute. "No, Care. I'm not."

Another pause, then Caroline forges crisply ahead. "I'll tell your dad you got a scholarship somewhere. I can 'talk' to Principal Wyatt too, you can finish your coursework online and still graduate."

Bonnie breathes a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Care. I knew I could count on you."

Another pause. "Do you?"

The question stings. Caroline likes to be the planner and overseer, and together they'd gotten out of situations that left the more naive Elena floundering. Bonnie looks down at the ultrasound picture in her hand and is suddenly seized with a desire to tell her everything.

"Care, there's something else-,"

The blonde sighs on the other line, "Jeremy's been losing his mind since you left. Elena thinks he might be using again."

The twinge in her chest isn't guilt, but it dampens her spirits nevertheless. She lets the moment drift off.

"Bon?" Caroline repeats. "Can I at least tell everyone else you're okay?"

"Yeah, tell them I'm okay."

When Bonnie heads downstairs around dinnertime, the living room is flooded with paintings, statues and vases. Klaus is busy unpacking some of his art while Monique watches from the couch. The witch pauses in the doorway and observes their interaction.

"That is cool."

"Ah, an old favorite: Judith Slaying Holofernes, by Artemsia Gentileschi. I nicked it from Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence."

"It's so bloody...," Monique marvels, "I've never seen a painting like that. Is she using his own sword to cut his head off?"

"I believe so, yes."

"Sick."

"Poetic justice, as it were," Klaus agrees cheerfully.

"Can you behead someone from that angle? Wouldn't you have to come higher?"

"Excellent question. In my own decidedly vast experience, beheading is actually-,"

Bonnie clears her throat and both faces turn to her.

"Maybe don't teach a kid about decapitation?" she says pointedly. But there's a smile in her voice, and the heaviness of her phone-call with Caroline is already vanished.

"Why not? I guarantee it is far more useful than anything she's learned at an American public school."

Monique nods. "I have to agree with Hogwarts on this one."

"You will refer to me by my name, wolfling," Klaus warns sternly.

Monique makes a face. "Wolfling? So now we're in Game of Thrones."

Klaus glances at Bonnie with mild annoyance. "What on earth is she talking about?"

"It's a TV show that you'd probably enjoy... lots of decapitation happening." She looks at the younger wolf, "Hey, wanna order us a pizza?"

Monique doesn't need to be told twice. "I'm getting anchovies this time," she sings, grabbing Bonnie's phone and floating out of the room. Bonnie watches her go with a wry smile.

"Someone is in a favorable mood," Klaus remarks, polishing a porcelain vase. "I take it you're enjoying Gloria's company?"

"She's pretty great...I guess I should thank you for bringing her here."

He steps back and surveys the vase, a grin spreading across his face. "I was merely honoring the terms of our agreement, but if you enjoy waxing poetic about my generosity I certainly won't stop you."

"...right." She rolls her eyes. "So, about you going out during the eclipse tomorrow..."

"Yes?"

"What about the wolves camped in the woods?"

"Is that concern for my wellbeing I hear, little witch?"

The teasing timbre of his voice causes a strange flutter in her chest. She somehow musters a cool reply, "It's concern for whether I need to do that Land Binding spell you mentioned."

"Ah, well you will be glad to know there's no need for a spell: the last of the wolves fled yesterday."

"Oh...,"

"It appears once again my reputation has preceded me."

A month ago she would've thought nothing of the flippant remark, have chalked it up to Klaus' pride in his hard earned status of 'Original Hybrid'. But now something gives her pause as she watches him continue unpacking his carefully wrapped cargo of art and antiques. Unbidden, she sees him alone in his mansion in Mystic Falls wrapping each vase and statue by hand, their inanimate loyalty perhaps the only kind he knows. Unbidden, she pictures him building a house in the mountains, a house big enough for a family he would never have.

Surely it's impossible, that after everything he's put her through a space inside her should still remain untouched, capable of sympathy and more.

As she moves to sit next to him and shyly produces the ultrasound photo, she feels both amazement and a trembling kind of fear, like the first time you learn just how big the ocean is.

"So...this isn't an Italian painting but it's still pretty cool."

He glances at her and then the photo, his expression unreadable, and she's about to pull away when he suddenly brushes a blunt fingertip across the grey surface. "May I?"

He takes the image from her and peers intently at the grainy outline, his large hand almost swallowing the square. She starts pointing out the shape of limbs and the position of the feet and head, but drifts off when she sees the flicker of a reflective smile in his eyes.

"I suppose art comes in many forms."

And she melts a little, like water into soft sand.

Klaus returns the photo and resumes unpacking. Monique joins them again and immediately pries the hybrid with more questions about Judith and Artemesia Gentileschi. Bonnie notices how he answers each question with laborious detail, even as he growls about her impertinence.

The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it.

Surely it's impossible, the way some things survived.

As more spring rain peppers the windows Bonnie tucks her feet up and settles into the couch, the picture of her baby nestled in her hand.

A/N: I was hesitant about making the following statements, but more and more I have come to realize that for me, writing (yes, even a fanfic about a witch and a hybrid!), is a political act, and that writing about family and parenting is deeply, deeply personal. As I was editing this chapter, the state of Ohio passed a law that makes abortion illegal once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is early as six weeks. Disturbingly, this piece of legislation was inserted last minute into a bill that seeks to revise laws on child abuse and neglect. Believe me I'm not trying to sway anyone's politics here, but I do wish to make an observation as the writer of a story about family, trauma and the choice to be a parent, and that is we must remain wary whenever people try to separate women's rights from those of children. Like the personal and the political, the two are in fact profoundly linked. Children are not safe in a world where women's rights are curtailed at every turn. Women are not safe in a world where motherhood is used to punish them. In the spirt of this story, I ask only that we consider what it would mean to create a world where children and the people who raise them are equally protected, equally loved, and equally valued.

As always, thank you for your readership and the many lovely comments that saw me through a dreary November.

I'm very excited to write the next chapter, so please pray that grading and finals week are kind to me!