AN: Whoo! This show's gotten depressing! Holy crap... Well, fair warning, this is a depressing chapter, cause damn. That's what they're giving me to work with. So, I'm uploading this one now and the second I promised will be up much later tonight. Let me know what you think and as always, enjoy!

Chapter Ten

K had just gotten off the phone with Caroline. She was checking on the boys and was glad to hear that they were thriving in the school. She was scared to send them off for more than a few reasons, but to hear they were adjusting wonderfully and having fun in school was both the best and worst thing she could hope for. Them adjusting like that meant they were that much closer to growing up. Heartbreaking thought for any mother.

She walked down the hall towards Hope's room. With her home, it was hard for K not to watch her. It was strange being able to be around her again, strange but wonderful, too.

Rounding the corner, K glanced into Hope's room and saw her sitting at an easel painting. Her heart swelled and a smile graced her lips as she looked in at her.

Hope suddenly sighed loudly and let her arm drop. "Dad, you don't have to-" when she turned, she noticed it wasn't Klaus in the doorway and smiled sheepishly because of it. "Sorry, I thought you were dad."

"He's been hovering, I take it?" K asked with a grin as she entered the room.

"Yeah," she sighed again. Hope set her paintbrush down. "He's worried, I guess."

"He should be." She said. "We all are."

Hope groaned and rolled her eyes like every average teenaged girl when their parents said something they considered ridiculous.

"I'm fine." She declared, sounding like she'd been repeating the statement a thousand times over. "Honestly, it's… everything's fine."

K narrowed her eyes. She stepped closer and examined Hope closely. She could tell something was wrong with her, even if the teen said she was alright.

"You can be honest, sweetheart." K told her. "If something doesn't feel right, you can tell us."

"Why? So dad can say I told you so?" she asked a bit agitated.

"No," K replied with her brows creased. "So we can help you if we need to. Sweetheart, I know what that thing feels like, and that was just the smallest fraction. You have all of that evil shoved inside you. If something feels off, tell us. Please."

Hope didn't look as though she wanted to talk about it, but in her attempts to shield her face from K, the hybrid woman could see it. Words didn't need to be spoken to know what was happening. Just by the sheepish way Hope tried to avoid her eye, K knew the witch was inside there, crawling and scratching, probably whispering to her, too.

By that evening, Hope was becoming erratic. The bracelet that once held her power at bay now burned her skin like a hot poker. She couldn't drown out the voices, either. They grew louder and more persistent. They may have been only a whisper, but a thousand at once were deafening.

K heard the commotion downstairs and rushed towards it. Klaus had crumpled to the ground unconscious while Hope held her head, screaming at an unseen force to leave her alone. K rushed forward. She instantly wrapped her arms tightly around the girl she helped raised and held tight.

"They won't stop!" Hope screamed, squirming and twisting in K's arms.

"Look at me," K put space between them and took hold of Hope's face. She tried to force her to meet her eye. "Look at me, okay." Hope did as she asked. K could see the torment, the pain and ache racing through Hope and it frightened her. "Breathe slowly for me, okay?"

"I don't need to meditate!"

She tried to shove K away, but Kali wouldn't let her. She held on as tightly as she could without hurting Hope. "Just try it." She said. "Please, Hope."

Hope did as best she could, taking in one shaking breath after another, but she either had no patience for it, or simply couldn't manage the task.

"I can't!"

A wave of magic pulsed from Hope sending K flying through the air. She hit the wall hard, sliding down the broken stone until she hit the unforgiving floor. K's body ached. The force with which she hit the wall was enough to break some of the bones in her back, bones that were barely starting to heal before the world went black.

When she rose again sometime later, K found herself alone in the parlor. Klaus and Hope were both gone, leaving her and the destruction Hope had caused behind. K got to her feet as quickly as she could and grabbed her cell phone. The only person she knew to call was Klaus.

He didn't answer. She tried again, and again, until she finally got an answer.

"It's alright." Klaus said. K spun to see him walking up behind her as casual as ever. "Everything's alright."

Angry, K charged him and went so far as to slap her husband. Klaus's face snapped to the side under the force and for a moment, a satisfying handprint glowed against his skin. It healed within seconds, however, disappearing as though it'd never existed by the time he turned to look at her again.

"If I call you, answer." She growled through her teeth.

"Understood." He said with a twist of surprise at her reaction. "But everything alright now. Hope's asleep in her bed."

K's brows came together, furrowing tightly. "How long was I out?"

"A couple of hours." He admitted. "I'd come down here to tend to you, but I wanted to deal with Hope, first."

K breathed deeply. She ran her fingers through her hair, fisting it tightly at the crown before letting out her breath in a long, heavy sigh.

"What's happening to her?" she asked, almost rhetorically.

"I don't know." He replied. "That thing is getting to her, though, gnawing at her."

K's expression fell and her eyes began to sting with the promise of tears. She turned her gaze to Klaus again.

"You don't know what it was like having that thing crawling inside you." She told him with a shaking voice. "It was always there, just beneath the surface, like not-so-distant feeling that never truly left. It was worse when we were near one another, but now… she has all that inside her." K pulled her bottom lip through her teeth as she stared mournfully at him. "It's too much for her, Nik. She can't hold onto that forever."

"I know." He said in an equally fearful voice. "But I don't know how to protect her from this."

Her heart broke for him, for Hope… for herself. The oppressive air in the house was only growing worse by the moment, added to by new, horrible revelations each day. How were they supposed to overcome this? Enemies of the past were flesh and blood. This? This was something ethereal, something not entirely real, and existing in a child they all cared about.

K stepped forward and hugged Klaus. He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly to him. They cradled one another as best they could, both lost and both internally thinking that if Hayley were there, she'd somehow know what to do.

When morning came, K learned the full devastation of the night before. While she'd been unconscious, the werewolves were bombed and half the witch population killed. The fanatics had taken their plans to the next level, which made them even more dangerous than before. And, to her horror, Klaus was letting Hope unleash her anger on him in hopes of quelling the rage inside her.

Everyone had gone mad.

"Are you insane?" she hissed, grasping Klaus by the arm and yanking him back before he had the chance to leave the manor.

He gave her an un-amused glare. "What would you have me do, hm? She needs to get this thing under control and the only way to do it is with violence."

"Do you hear yourself? You're willing to destroy who she is, Nik. You realize that, don't you?"

"I am helping her!" He bellowed. "What else is there? Perhaps if we placate the creature for now, it'll give Hope some bloody peace."

"At the cost of what?" K dared. "You're asking her to kill someone."

"I'm not asking anything. She requested it, and I'm only too happy to give her the chance."

"You do this, and you're killing Hope." She told him, pointing a stern, angry finger at him in the process. "You're killing her humanity, turning her into us."

"So long as she doesn't kill a human being, I don't see the issue." He said casually.

K shook her head disappointedly at him. "Of course you don't."

He flinched at her response. With a scoff, K stormed away. She was too furious to deal with him at the moment, especially when he clearly didn't understand what he was doing.

If that was his idea of helping, if that was all the brute inside him would allow, K would have to search for something else. She'd have to look for something better to help Hope, something that wouldn't turn her soul as black as the rest of them.

For hours, K poured over Esther's old grimoires, Hope's, and Freya's. Any book in the house that had the slightest bit of magic within its pages was laid out before her on the floor, opened and bare for her to read through.

But there was nothing. No matter what she read, no matter how many different languages some of them were written in, K honestly didn't know what they were. Some were labeled, but that truly didn't matter. She'd seen witches take bits and pieces from a dozen different spells and mold them into one that suited their purpose. But her brain didn't work like that. Kali didn't have magic, or the ability to understand it in those depths, despite the time she spent around witches.

K crossed her legs and propped her elbows on her knees. She buried her face in her hands and felt everything within her break. The tears came shortly after.

She felt like she was in a hurricane, being thrown from one direction to another, like her body was being torn apart. There was nothing steady to hold onto, no anchor to help her weather the storm. The world was crumbling into chaos and she had no idea how to stop it.

"Kali,"

Her name softly spoken brought K back to the world. She sniffed and wiped her hands across her cheeks to try and rid them of tears, but the evidence was still clear when she looked up and saw Hope standing only a few feet beyond the sea of books surrounding her. She tried to force a smile, but it was weighed down by tear-stained cheeks.

"Hey," she said on a breath. "What are you doing down here?"

"I wanted to say I'm sorry." She said as she approached, stepping carefully through the texts. "I didn't mean to hurt you yesterday."

"Oh, I know." K smiled heavily. "I know you didn't, sweetheart. It's okay."

Hope glanced around at the evidence that K was looking for something. She finally stopped beside the hybrid and sat down next to her.

"Is this because of me?" she asked despite knowing full well.

"I was wondering if there was anything to help, but I'll be honest, it's all a bunch of squiggles in my mind."

Hope laughed lightly. She looked at K and saw the remnants of tears. It was then K noticed her eyes tinting pink, too.

"And that's because of me, too, isn't it?" she asked, remarking on K's obvious crying.

"No," K said softly. She reached out and tenderly held Hope's cheek. "It's everything, sweetie. It's not you."

Hope's brows came together and it was clear she was about to cry. "I don't know how to stop this."

K reached for her. She pulled Hope into her lap, an action that the young girl fell into easily. K cradled her to her chest, tenderly stroking her hair as Hope began to cry. The tears returned to her eyes, too.

"We'll find something." K replied. "We always find something."

"I'm just so scared, mama." And she broke, clutching desperately at K's arms.

K buried her face in Hope's hair while she cried unashamedly into K's chest. The hybrid held her tight, rocking her back and forth like she did when Hope was young. She wanted so badly to take away her pain, but didn't know how.

Still, for those few minutes, K found something to hold onto. She found her anchor.