I do not own The originals

"So?" Hope asked from across the Kitchen sitting on a barstool swiveling back and forth.

"So." Tesla responded with a smirk. She had been answering Hope's questions all morning. She didn't mind the girl as she was direct and brash; two characteristics Tesla thought were qualities.

"No boyfriend?" She asked but it wasn't a question more like an accusation.

Tesla stopped stirring her pancake batter to add more buttermilk. She looked across the kitchen at the girl pointedly raising an eyebrow at her. Both of them Knew Klaus was most likely listening to their conversation. He was overprotective of Hope and seemed to want to keep close tabs on Tesla as well. He was noticeably nervous that the two had hit it off and started spending more time together.

"Not currently" Tesla answered shortly but had to give the girl credit.

"Not currently of not for the last ten years?" Hope asked and Tesla opened her mouth in a mixture of shock horror and being impressed.

"No, nosy one. I have not had a steady boyfriend in ten years. What do you take on your pancakes" She changed the subject pouring batter onto the preheated griddle.

"Butter and strawberry syrup." The girl said "Ten years is a long time."

"Ten years is nothing in the face of eternity."

"It still seems like a long time not to have a boyfriend."

"listen Little one, I am one hundred and twenty years old ten years is nothing and I didn't even notice not being in a relationship all those years because ten years goes by like this. " Tesla said snapping her fingers.

"Or you were spending those ten years missing my dad." The girl said and Tesla shook her head at her. She was doing on purpose knowing full well who would hear her. Judging from the smile on Hope's face she thought it was rather funny.

"Well what without you?" Tesla asked "boyfriend?"

Hope opened her mouth to speak but Tesla didn't give her the chance.

"I can see by those flushing cheeks that you do have a special someone." She said and hope narrowed her eyes. Tesla took the grocery shopping list and pencil text to it and scribbled on the back while she was talking "Are you sexually active? What am I saying? Of course you are."

Hope grin split her face and she held back a giggle.

"Just be sure to use protection now, especially with those bad boys."

Tesla held up the piece of paper with the message she had written: Two can play this game.

Hope burst into a fit of laughter and the door to the kitchen swung open and Klaus walked in rather casually. Tesla crumpled the paper she was holding and stuffed it into the pocket of one of her jeans. Hope stifled her laughter when Klaus came in.

"Just in time for breakfast. " Tesla said flipping a slightly overbrowned pancake. He raised an eyebrow at her and looked from hope to her a few times before sitting on the bar stool next to Hope's.

With Kol and Davina on their month long honeymoon to Bora Bora and Marcel and Rebekah only coming by during the day the house was rather quiet. Elijah kept to himself and spent most of the days away making the Mikealson family fortune as he always did. Finn was also not a bother as he was daggered in the upstairs room.

"When do you go back to school sweetness?" Tesla asked her plating the pancake after several seconds of silence.

"Caroline gave me two weeks off for Kol and Davina's wedding."

"Sounds like an understanding teacher."

"She knows my family from a long time ago." Hope said looking at Klaus "though she won't tell me how."

Klaus' eyes met Tesla's and she smiled reading his gaze and the way his eyes shifted away from Hope's

"Lots of people know your family." Tesla dismissed "they've been around for a while, no doubt the Mikealson's had their fun tormenting the town of mystic falls before you were born. In fact." She said handing the girl a buttered and syruped pancake. "Your mother told me lots of stories about Mystic falls, it's where she first met your father and Elijah."

"Really?" Hope asked suddenly very interested "What did she used to say?"

Tesla bit the inside of her cheek trying to think of something from her and Hayley's conversations that she could use. From what she could gather Hayley had been involved with a werewolf Tyler who was also involved with the Woman Caroline who ran the school. Klaus had been there for murdering purposes as he often was and had many run in's with Caroline's previous husband and his previous girlfriend. Tesla had always been quite confused by the tales of Mystic Falls and wished they would have written a book so she could keep track.

"Well, your dad and your Mom had sort of an angry chemistry." She said smiling at Hope "That's never stopped, it was always like that between them, always at each other's throats."

"But they had me." Hope said smiling. She looked as if she were soaking all the information in. Tesla understood why the Mikealson's kept some of the past a secret but the girl seemed deprived and Tesla had little to offer her.

"Oh yes, you were well loved much before you were born." She smiled She looked to Klaus whoes gaze held a low warning.

"Your uncle Elijah thought you would be the savior of your family and in many ways you were."

"What was my mom like when you met her?" Hope asked and Tesla saddened at the tears in the girls eyes.

"Oh she was so lovely, you look just like her" Tesla remembered meeting Hayley for the first time "I actually broke into her room on accident the first time I met her. Pregnant with you and everything she looked ready to kill me."

"She was strong" Hope said proudly

"and patient' Tesla said sliding two pancakes onto a plate for Klaus "to put up with your Uncle and Dad. She slid two pancakes covered in butter and drizzled with honey over to Klaus and flipped two more on the griddle.

"She always said that you were really good friends." Hope said polishing her pancakes off by licking some syrup off her thumb.

"We were." Tesla said

"I remember going on trips with you.' Hope said a little quieter now "When I was little, to Paris"

"We had fun in Paris." Tesla said remembering the trip with five year old Hope 'We went to Venice too and the Grand Canyon."

"I have pictures in my room at school." Hope smiled walking her plate to the sink

"Take these to your uncle" She said handing Hope a plate of two pancakes with just butter and a black cup of coffee. "Then hurry back or we will miss our appointment. "

Hope took them silently and left the kitchen up the stairs to Elijah's room.

"Hope has generously allowed me to commandeer her hair appointment." Tesla explained though she doubt Klaus even cared. "Would you care to join us?"

Freya had made it so that their tether was broke within the house. They could roam as they pleased and Tesla could even leave and Klaus could remain in the house without her.

"It seems I have to stay with you to keep her head out of the past." He said and she was genuinely surprised to hear a fair amount of anger in his voice. She turned with brows knit together.

"You don't want me to talk about Hayley?" She asked curious

"The past serves no purpose." He said dismissively

"Maybe not to an all-powerful immortal with his head in the sand." She said taking a bite of her stack of pancakes how god intended them to be eaten, with maple syrup

"She doesn't need to hear how Hayley's life was before her because all that matters is now." He said aggressively.

Tesla didn't respond but instead just looked at Klaus unflinchingly chewing slowly.

"You miss her." She stated "you're grieving its normal.'

He frowned

"Hayley was the mother of your child and Elijah's love for years Klaus of course you are going to miss her."

"It isn't about her." He said standing up abruptly "it's about you coming into our lives and acting as if you belong"

She realized that what she had struck a nerve and she braced herself for the onslaught of backlash that brought.

"You are not a part of this family. You don't belong her and it's better that Hope realizes it now than when it's too late." His voice dipped low and she felt the sting of accusation.

"When you leave her without so much as a word and disappear for years." He said turning from her "When she feels the special sort of betrayal that you offer." And without another word he walked out of the kitchen.

"I'm guessing that's a no on the salon then." She said but there was no real heart to the joke.


The hair salon was always a stressful place for Tesla to be. She always wanted to do one hundred different things and never had any idea what she wanted to do. She still hadn't decided while the woman was washing her hair with Shampoo that smelled like pink grapefruit. The smell surrounded her as she thought of the possibilities.

"What did your hair look like in the fifties?" Hope asked her from the chair over. Tesla glanced around quickly but none of the girls were even paying attention to them.

"I had my natural hair color and I had Bettie bangs. Audrey Hepburn wore her hair in a ponytail with short bangs and I just loved her so that's mostly how I kept my hair for years." She smiled remembering.

"I just love the fifties, it seemed like everyone tried harder." Hope said flipping some of her hair up to mimic short bangs.

"Each generation had had their pros and cons." Tesla laughed.

Her stylist came back with a book of hair colors and Tesla flipped through it casually as Hope leaved over to look.

"Like this?" Hope pointed to a pecan brown color

"Just like that." Tesla said fingering the lock of synthetic hair. She got nostalgic all of the sudden and held the book up to the woman pointing to the brown.

"Really?" Hope asked excited

"It's time the fifties made a comeback." Tesla decided "I'm also going to make you go to a diner for lunch, to bad I got rid of all my circle skirts."

"Oh there a great fifties diner in the middle of town with the black and white floor and the rockabilly music and everything." Hope said sitting back in her chair excitedly.

"It's a date little sister"

"We could go get dad before we go and make it a dinner thing?" Hope asked hopefully.

"Okay okay don't get ahead of yourself, your father is currently very irritated with me and I don't he will want to go."

"He won't say no if I ask him." Hope said confidently

"Damn." Tesla said again impressed with the girl "Alright you get him to go and we can do it."


She had gotten Klaus to do it of course and now Tesla was scrounging around for her diamond stud earrings in the bottom of her bag. With her newly dyed hair and short fringe bangs she had snatched up a black retro aline swing dress at a second hand store that Hope had known about. When she looked in the mirror with red lips and black eyeliner she was taken back to her years in the fifties.

"I love it" Hope exclaimed when she saw her.

"I don't look a day over forty" Tesla joined and winked at Klaus whose mouth flicked into small smile. Hope was wearing a letterman jacket and had done victory rolls in her hair.

"Those aren't easy." Tesla pointed out

"I'm a little obsessed with the era." Hope admitted. She had gotten a single strip of her hair bleached out to almost white right in the front. She had said that it was after a comic book character that she loved from the x-men comics. Tesla thought she remembered something like it from the movies but she had never been a comic book fan. Her white blond streak wound its way through one of her victory rolls.

When they got to the diner Hope immediately got up with five dollars in change to pick the songs for the foreseeable future. Tesla looked over her menu and glanced up to find Klaus staring at her.

"What?" She asked defensively

"You look…" He said faltering "Human"

"I didn't look human before?" She asked

"You've always looked like there is something different about you." She sat back and eyed her "like a bit otherworldly"

"Like and alien?" She chuckled "Brown hair has taken me back down to human"

"I can see what you looked like when you were human." He said leaning forward "I have never been able to see it before quite like this. You look innocent and beautiful."

"Maybe I'll use it as a ploy for my enemies" She smiled looking back down at her menu. Though what he said bothered her and it was probably why he had said it. The way that he pulled her apart and put her back together was unbearable. Just when she thought she was glad she hadn't seen him in ten years he said something like this. He was like an emotional bouncing ball one minute he was upset and the next he was calling her beautiful.

"You're heart just started beating a little faster." He pointed out

"You're like a terrible drug." She said behind the menu. "I just got my ten year sobriety chip."

"Do you really want to live your life sober, love?" He asked with a smile in his voice