Rebekah drove us all the way to a place in Arkansas, to a safe house that she and her brothers had used in the past after escaping Mikael. I immediately put up protective and cloaking spells, making sure the place was completely airtight before then settling Hope in. We had kept the car packed with essentials in case of emergencies like this, so we had a travel cot, clothes, supplies and everything that she would need to be comfortable. Most important of all, was of course her favourite little wooden knight toy, which she always held whilst sleeping. Elijah had since awoken from having his neck broken by his sister, who had then proceeded to tell him what had happened. We were cautious around him, and several times I made him drink herbal tonics to try and help heal his mind from whatever damage it had undergone from Esther's meddling, but he was stubborn, and the magic would only take if he allowed it to.
He was tense and confused, but he was still very much our Elijah. We sat on the porch together with Hope in my arms, though when I offered her to Elijah, he had hesitated and looked with worry at his own hands. "It's alright, Elijah. She won't break." Rebekah called up from where she was gathering wood, though for what purpose I had no idea. "Everything you did was in the name of protecting her. I'm not worried." At his sister's words, Elijah finally accepted Hope and held her with a smile.
"Hi, sweetheart." She gurgled cutely as I picked up my feet and curled up on the bench with a blanket over me, smiling as I rested my eyes for a moment. "Is that what I think it is?"
"It's bonfire season! And I am reviving a family tradition! Especially since we're all going to be together." Bekah cheered brightly, and I chuckled at her enthusiasm.
"Only because we're fleeing from one of our deranged parents. Another Mikaelson tradition. It's a peculiar thing, never to be tired, yet forever exhausted by the sameness of things. Why is our family always at war?" Since things had taken a rather quick turn to the dark side, I rubbed Elijah's shoulder to reassure him.
"Isn't there a saying, the sins of a parent shouldn't be put on the child? Just because both your parents are absolute nutters doesn't mean it's your fault. They fractured your family first, and you guys have merely been trying to fix it ever since. Considering how you've all lasted for nearly a thousand years together, I'd say it just goes to show how much you love one another." In agreement, Bekah hummed thoughtfully as she came closer, having collected all of her firewood.
"Being away with her made me see things differently. We're not so bad. We're not the monsters that our parents think we are." Any further discussion was ended at the arrival of a black SUV which pelted up the driveway towards the house. It had barely even stopped before Hayley was leaping out of the car and running towards us where she could already see Hope in Elijah's arms. Then she stopped, tears gathering as Nik then caught up, staring at Hope as if they could not believe that she was truly before them. Smiling warmly, I lifted Hope from Elijah and brought her over to Hayley, whereby I placed their daughter in her arms so that they could hold her again, already memorising the moment in my head so that I could sketch it later.
For a while no one spoke, merely watched as Hayley and Nik kissed their daughter over and over again, Hayley eventually giving her to Nik so that he could hold her as well, passing her back and forth in order to share the wonderful feeling of having her back in their arms. I'll admit, I cried at the touching scene where Elijah placed his arm around me and gave me his silk handkerchief so that I could dry the tears. After they had all reunited, Nik and Hayley came to us in order to reunite with myself and Rebekah, Hayley barely able to say thank you to us her voice was so dry and course from emotion. Nik embraced Bekah, then held me in his arms for a long while before his lips kissed my cheek. "Thank you for protecting her."
"Anytime." He paused for a moment then, and knowing him as I did, I could see that he wanted to ask me about his father. His real father. "He's safe, but asleep. I sent him into a deep sleep and hid him where no one will find him. When you're ready, I'll wake him up again. I just hope next time you won't try and kill the only decent grandparent that Hope has. Honestly Nik, what am I going to do with you?" He sighed shakily, and after processing my words, nodded his head in acceptance. He pulled me back into his arms, held me again for a few moments more then let me go so that we could discuss what was to be done, Nik also revealing what he had learned from his brother Finn about why Esther had been so adamant to kill Hope.
According to him, there was a curse on every first born Mikaelson baby of each generation. "Curse on the first-born? What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?" Bekah demanded as she continued to build up the bonfire she had gathered the wood for.
"Well, according to Finn, our sister Freya didn't die of plague. She was taken as payment by our aunt Dahlia, who then cursed all Mikaelson first-borns for eternity." Now that was hard core, and more than a little worrying. Was there really such a thing? Surely this Dahlia witch would be dead by now.
"Is any of this true?"
"It is if we are to believe Finn, who learned it from the bastion of truth, our mother." Elijah's dry remark did nothing to improve our spirits.
"Well, no wonder Finn hates us. He lost the sister he adored, and instead got a judgy pack of siblings who found him unbearably dull." I tossed Rebekah a look and reminded her that Finn, despite the past, was still her brother and perhaps he deserved a little benefit of the doubt.
"Great. So, is there any chance of us running into your loony aunt Dahlia any time soon?" Both Elijah and I agreed that it had to be impossible since Dahlia lived a thousand years ago, meaning that she as well as their sister Freya would be dead by now, though Hayley was not so convinced. "Like Esther?" She had a point, come to think of it. How many times has Esther died now?
"No one's going to hurt Hope, because no one's going to find her." Nik determined firmly before looking at Rebekah, who was still piling on the wood for their bonfire. "There's enough wood, Rebekah. You'll burn down the whole bloody state of Arkansas."
"Well, we're just missing a key ingredient!"
"No, we're not." Since Nik was so quick to argue, I found myself arching an eyebrow out of curiosity, watching Nik shift uncomfortably as Rebekah argued then turned to her older brother Elijah for support who laughed at her giddiness.
"I suspect Niklaus would rather choke on the ashes."
"Now this seems like an interesting story. Are you going to tell us newcomers what's going on here?" I asked as I stood beside Hayley who was just as confused as I was.
"Well, before we light it, we write down our wishes for each other to burn for luck! It was Kol's favourite part when we were kids." To this Nik used the point as a means to reason that this was why we should ignore the tradition, however I quite liked the idea of offering wishes to the flames. Being a druid, making offerings and wishes was kind of one of my things, and Hayley seemed to agree.
"Hope's first bonfire season. I like it! We're doing it!" Passing Hope over to me, Hayley then ran into the house in order to hunt down pen and paper as I jostled Hope slightly, getting her comfortable again and making sure that her blanket covered her warmly as I smiled.
"Hello princess, aren't you just so cute in your little hat?" Cooing at her, Hope gurgled and even smiled at me as she reached out and gripped onto my cheek with her hand, making me laugh. Nik moved closer, smiling at Hope so I passed her over to him, seeing as I had already had four months' worth of time to cuddle and fuss over Hope, which meant he was definitely more than due a turn. Nik was less than enthusiastic about this whole tradition thing, but with a little gentle encouragement after Hayley failed to get him to participate, I basically forced him to write something sincere on a piece of paper to throw it onto the bonfire later.
"You could at least pretend to be animated, Nik. Hayley just wants to make some memories with Hope whilst she has the chance, and you should too." I reasoned with him as we each wrote our wishes down, though he was grimacing whilst he did so and the little pout made me laugh lightly. "You're such a child sometimes."
"It is simply a matter of pointlessness. Wishes do not come true by simply standing around a fire and burning scraps of paper with nonsense scribbled on them." He protested, finishing his wish with a rather indignant flourish before folding it up.
"I'm pretty sure wishes do come true. Isn't that the entire point of magic?" I reasoned as I held my folded wish in my hand, having turned it into a paper crane and with a flow of magic to my palm, the paper crane shuddered before then taking off with tiny flaps of its wings to fly around our heads in several circuits. "For Hope's sake, I hope you get better at telling fairy tales, stories and encouraging her to believe in wishes, dreams and magic. She is a miracle baby herself, after all." Nik watched the paper crane with a silent contemplation as it came to land back in my hand so that I could withdraw the magic, rendering it completely immobile once more. "Just have some fun with your daughter, Nik. Trust me. It's moments like these that she's going to remember if you carry on with traditions like this. It's what builds up a family's closeness."
"Always ready with your words of wisdom, sweet Ophelia."
"Hey, it comes with the territory. Now come on, let's get this show on the road." Pulling at Nik's arm, I giggled as he refused to budge no matter how much I tried, and gradually he began to smile whilst teasing me about how weak I was. At this I hit him playfully, affronted he would be so rude and next thing I knew, we were roughhousing with one another, playfully fighting until Nik had me pinned up against a wall with my wrists locked beside my head, the both of us breathing a little heavily. With a huff a frizzy curl puffed out of my face so that I could glare and pout at Nik, who smirked as he leaned in close to me.
"Who's the childish one now?"
"You jerk. Do you have to be so mean?" At this Nik laughed softly, loosening his grip on my wrists as his eyes wandered over my face in a way that felt rather intimate and rather intense. My pulse began to quicken and I flushed from embarrassment as I knew that with his hearing, there was no way Nik wouldn't be able to notice it. Surely he must know, right? He must know how I felt, however in the moment where I hoped for some kind of progress to be made, he suddenly let me go and moved away from me so quickly that a cold flush followed the empty space he had suddenly vacated, leaving me alone in the room.
Disappointed, I sighed deeply but chose not to pick at it. Nik was just…an idiot. There was no other way to say it. He was either being wilfully ignorant, or stubborn, or both. Maybe he just doesn't want to get into anything too deep just now considering everything that was going on, and part of me didn't blame him for that. When this is over, I swear I am going to lock him in a room with a boundary spell and refuse to let him leave until we had cleared the air between us, because all this tension was really starting to tick me off. I had a lot of pent up energy that needed to be addressed, and unless he was going to face me and tell me the truth of how he felt, I was going to explode if I didn't deal with it in some way.
Outside at the bonfire, I held my paper crane in my hand as Nik lit a match and started the fire to catch the wood, however I snapped my fingers just before he lit the bonfire to light it myself, and the burst of fire caught Nik's fingers which made him yelp and snatch his hand back. As he shot me a glare, I smiled to him sweetly. "Hey! Look what I found!" Hearing Bekah call out with excitement, we all turned to see her approaching us whilst holding a Polaroid camera. "I wonder if it'll work." Nik, however, was less than impressed.
"Oh, bloody hell."
"Come on, let's try it! Hey, Nik, do you think you can cram us all into a selfie?" Inspecting the Polaroid, Rebekah then held it out to Nik for him to take but he just glowered at the thing whilst Elijah spoke with an unusual amount of dark sarcasm.
"Oh, Niklaus is a virtuoso at cramming his siblings into confined spaces."
"Well, I'm just glad I travelled hundreds of miles to visit my mentally ill brother, only to have him insult me to my face!"
"Oh, come on, just take the picture!" Sighing in defeat, Nik took the camera and held it up as we all moved in together. I stood next to Rebekah with Elijah placing a hand on our shoulders, and with Hayley holding up Hope as Nik took the photo. We waited as the photo developed, and once it had finished we all crowded in so that we could see the result. A family all gathered together and for once everyone, with the exception of Nik's poker face, was happy. "Aw, see? I wish that it could always be like this."
"If wishes were horses…"
"Beggars would ride." Nik finished Elijah's line as we all continued to admire the photo. "You realize we'll have to burn it." The sad truth of the fact made my heart sink as Nik then turned to his sister. "You want me to make a wish for the family, Rebekah? I wish it didn't have to be like this. But, it does. We can't risk it falling into the wrong hands." Speaking as he handed Hayley the photo, I saw them both agonising over the fact that the photo needed to be destroyed because of the fact that it showed both me and Hope alive and well, so instead I reached out and plucked it from Hayley's fingers.
"Maybe not." Waving my hand over the photo, a pulse of magic moved from my palm to cast a glamour over the photo, giving it a metallic sheen before it settled and instead, showed a photograph of only Hayley, Nik, Elijah and Rebekah together. "I'll remove the glamour when the time's right. Until then, I can keep a hold of it." Hayley smiled peacefully, satisfied with the compromise as I tucked the photo into my back pocket as Bekah clenched her jaw, visibly angry and upset over the fact that because of the situation, we couldn't even keep one simple photo of little Hope.
"No. This isn't right. We deserve this. We've earned this. I won't let it slip away." Surprised by her little outburst, each of us looked to Bekah as she took a deep breath, and knowing that look, made her mind up once and for all. "I know what to do to stop Esther." Elijah immediately began to protest, seemingly understanding much sooner than the rest of us what Bekah had in mind. "I'm going to take her deal. And, when I do, I'm taking her down with me." This quickly brought on a torrent of protests and pleading for Bekah to not be so quick to decide something that could very well go extremely wrong and plant her soul in some complete stranger's body. With the mood now lost and Hope beginning to fuss, we each made our way inside where I awkwardly hid myself away somewhere private in order to feed the little one. I'd only ever fed in front of Bekah before, so with everyone else here…I just felt weird about it and I felt guilty feeding Hope in front of Hayley.
In the end she came in search of me anyway, and judging from the look on her face, she had something she wanted to talk to me about. "Hey, can I sit with you for a bit?"
"Sure, no need to ask Hayles, so long as you don't me flashing myself around a little." Completely at ease with my partial nudity, Hayley came inside and sat down all the while gazing at Hope. I cleared my throat uncertainly, feeling odd to be feeding her baby in front of her but pushed aside for the time being to ask what was going on with her. "Something on your mind?"
"My pack. They're completely fractured back there and under the control of the witches for as long as they have those stupid moonlight rings." She told me, seemingly tense about the whole thing.
"Well you know I'm more than happy to make those rings myself. All I need is the black hyanite then you can have all the rings you want." I told her simply, and although this allowed Hayley a small smile, I could tell that this wasn't enough of a solution to solve the main issue at hand. "Tell me what's going on Hayles. I can practically feel the tension coming off you, and I don't have super senses like the rest of you." She fiddled for a while, struggling to put the words out as Hayley tried to figure out the best way to tell me before seemingly deciding to just come out with it.
"I did consider asking you for rings, but I'm not sure it's going to be enough. The pack will become dependent on those things, and there's always the risk that they'll get taken from us or destroyed. The witches hold over them is too strong, so I figured that the only way to unite the pack again was…was to marry Jackson." This made me sit up quickly, shifting Hope in my arms so that I could pay full and undivided attention to Hayley as she continued. "Jackson heard about this kind of ritual ceremony from Ansel, a bonding ritual between alphas like a marriage, and when they marry they share attributes with each other. If I marry Jackson, then the wolves will be able to control when they turn, just like I can. They won't be subject to anyone else, not witches or moonlight rings, and we'll be united again." Her eyes were now boring into mine. "So…what do you think?"
"I'm not familiar with the ritual, but I could always ask my ancestors about it if you want confirmation that this will work, Hayley, but…you're talking about making a huge sacrifice for your people. Have you talked about this to Elijah?" Judging from the look on her face, I guessed she hadn't. "Alright look, as a druid, I would say that the most important thing you have to consider is what's best for your people, your daughter, and for your future. A werewolf pack is only as strong as it is united, and right now it's so fractured that you guys don't have any strength left. However, the friend in me says that no matter what you do, you have to factor in your own happiness. I can make those rings for you, and I would never use them against you, Hayles, or your pack, but like you said, being able to control their own transformations will give them power and strength unlike anything else, a reason to come back to you and Jackson rather than stay with the witches. There's so many variables to weigh…but I think you need to talk to Elijah, and make your decision after hearing what he has to say, and be totally upfront with both him and Jackson about your feelings. You can't hide anything from either of them. At the very least, they both deserve your honesty."
Having finished with Hope's feed, I covered myself up then gave her to Hayley so that she could do the whole burping thing, and after passing her over, I took hold of Hayley's hand in order to give it a firm squeeze. "But I hope you know, no matter what, I'll support your decision Hayles. I'm behind you all the way." Hayley nodded her head in appreciation, returning the hand squeeze before then getting up with Hope in order to walk her around for a bit. We put her to bed and watched her as she slept for a while before Hayley then went to talk to Elijah. Nik and Rebekah had already left, but only Bekah had stopped to say goodbye. I couldn't help but Nik was being distant with me, and that just made me pissed off. Hot one moment then cold the next, I can't keep up with that idiot and to be honest, I was tired of trying. So instead of moping around, I made myself some hot cocoa then went to bed with a book and tried desperately to ignore the fact that I could hear Hayley and Elijah downstairs getting very…heated…together. About damn time.