The first place Caroline decided to go was England. The Mikaelsons owned a townhouse in the middle of West London, and she thought it'd be a good place to settle down for a little while, get lost in the city and the people. The pilot had asked her where he wanted him to take her, and Caroline really didn't know. It was the moment she realized how little she really knew about running. But England seemed like a nice place to start, easiest enough to blend in and Caroline wondered if she spent enough time in England, Hope would develop an accent something akin to Klaus'. She wanted some part of him to be a part of her even if it seemed insignificant.

The moment she entered the townhouse, she could tell it was a place the Mikaelsons were fond of, by the decoration and pictures. Vampires didn't tend to keep pictures or proof of their existence, but this place clearly was the acception. She explored the house before settling down, taking note that each sibling had a room with their name on it. She paused at Klaus' door, running her finger across the fancy calligraphy, but didn't dare open it.

At five months old, Hope was an easy baby, but Caroline was unqualified to be raising a child when she had expected herself to be going to frat parties and falling in love with the next boy. So as time drew on, Caroline had to learn.

It took her two and a half weeks, but with her vampirism and determination, she learned each and every one of Hope's cries. So she knew when the little girl was hungry, or tried, or needed a change. She learned to keep Hope on a strict routine, when to put her to bed, when she woke up, when she ate, and how much. Caroline learned that her favorite toy was a wooden horse and soldier that Rebekah left her with. Raising a baby wasn't easy by any means, but Caroline found herself adjusting well.

She had converted one of the empty rooms into a bedroom and a nursery for her and Hope. There was already basic furniture, such as a bed, dresser, and a desk. All decorated in lavish dark hues of purple. The only thing she added was a changing table and bassinet for Hope. She thought about giving Hope her own room, but Caroline didn't know how long they were going to be there, and she honestly didn't feel safe enough to leave Hope in her own room at night.

They had ended up staying in England for over two months. And within those two months, Caroline had read every baby book she could get her hands on. She tried to do everything she was supposed to. Took Hope to the park, where admittedly the other parents would stare at her because of her young appearance, she focused on Hope's development, buying her toys and reading her books. Hope was a smart baby, just like Rebekah had said, just like her father.

In that time, the empty stoic townhouse had turned into a cozy living space for Caroline and Hope, the expensive trinkets were slowly replaced with baby toys, a board inside the hall closet had Hope's height and weight measurements, even if she was just a few months old, and Caroline had unintentionally left traces of herself behind as well.

The first two months were easy, a little too easy, and that worried Caroline. She thought there would be more threats, more to keep track of, more to learn about Hope. But she couldn't control that, so she did what Rebekah had asked, brought Hope up despite what her family had done.


The absence of his daughter was worse than any betrayal Klaus had experienced from his siblings, worse than any punishment Mikael could have ever given him.

He had listened to Elijah in the beginning, partially because Elijah was his elder brother, but he couldn't bear to face the city, not after he'd failed his daughter. So he bided his time, standing in what should've been his daughter's nursery, filled with ridiculous toys and a crib she would've slept in. He would stare out the window, imagining the streets flooded with the blood of his enemies, imagine what he'd do to misbehaving wolves and witches that threatened the safety of his daughter.

He felt as if there was no one else in the world who could understand his pain, and that's when he was reminded of the mother of his child. She was grieving just as he was, unfortunately in the same way. He took a small comfort in knowing she was out during the night in New Orleans, spilling witches blood, all the less to harm his child when it was time for her to come home.

In his darkest hours, he would sit in the rocking chair in his daughter's nursery, planning how to win the city, the war, and bring his daughter home. Francesca Guerrera was his immediate issue, but she was also the easiest to pick off. The time he spent mourning was feeding into Francesca's paranoia and she would be her own undoing. They would strike during the full moon, unexpected and ruthless. Then they needed the white oak stake back, there would be no reason to bring his daughter home if someone was still a threat.

"Still plotting, Klaus?" Hayley drawled from the doorway. She looked well kept and clean, but she'd permanently reeked of blood ever since their daughter had been taken away. The look in her eyes was the same it had been since that night as well, an insatiable rage.

"And what are you doing, Little Wolf?" Klaus responded. He wondered if he appeared as lost as she did.

"I'm tired of witches' blood." Hayley said.

"I suppose it's a good thing that tonight will be retribution for you both." Elijah interrupted, walking into the room in his pristine suit.

Klaus pushed himself out of the chair and a wicked smile graced his features. "You may have a plan, brother, but I also have one of my own."

"I have one too." Hayley smiled, it felt numb and broken. She wanted Francesca for herself, and Klaus would allow her that. Nothing would save Francesca and it didn't matter who ripped her head off her body.

Klaus nodded once in the direction of Hayley and Elijah. "The full moon's tonight, and it'll be open season on our enemies."


They moved around Europe a little while longer, from city to city, mostly because Caroline had noted Hope enjoyed the noises. Almost like she could feel the energy of those around her. In Paris, there was a couple who lived beneath them, and they had a love like the fairytales, passionate about everything they felt. Caroline was sure Hope could feel it, how much they loved each other and when their emotions were raw. In Italy, they lived next door to a family who owned a bakery and they would leave Caroline pastries every week outside their door, despite the fact that Caroline rarely spoke to them out of Hope's safety. Caroline thought Hope could feel their kindness, and she hoped Hope would grow up to do the same for someone else. It was the same in every city, people with better stories, until Caroline grew tired of them.

She had reconciled a long time ago that she had chosen this. She agreed to raise Hope knowing what it meant, but at some point, it was too much to be around people she could never make a connection with. It was the downside of immortality she supposed, becoming a forgotten mystery. It was making her miss her friends back in Mystic Falls, until she remembered that in the months she'd been gone, no one had tried to contact her, then they became an afterthought again.

On Hope's first birthday, Caroline had moved them into a villa in Barcelona. Which she was sure belonged to Kol at some point because of the grimoires that lined the shelves of the library. It was isolated and far from other people. It was the first time Hope had started walking, but it was also the first time she'd seen Hope's magic.

The morning of her birthday, Caroline was laying on her side, facing Hope's sweet face while she slept. Caroline had grown tired of setting up new cribs and bassinets and relented to having Hope in her bed, which was where the little girl often ended up anyway. It was early, around eight am and it was the time Hope usually would wake up. A few moments later, Hope's eyes begin to flutter open.

"Good morning, Sweet Girl." Caroline whispered, rubbing Hope's stomach. She babbled back, unable to form real words, she was a bit old and should've been able to say simple things, but Caroline wasn't worried. She was a quiet girl, and she hadn't had much real interaction except with Caroline. "Happy birthday."

They spent the day together, just the way Caroline's mom used to spend her birthdays with her right after her dad left, Liz had been overcompensating, but it was still nice to have her mom around. They ate breakfast together, which consisted of Caroline sipping on blood while she fed Hope fruit and yogurt, most of which ended up on Caroline rather than Hope's mouth. Their breakfast was followed by a walk around the villa.

Caroline was holding her close, rubbing Hope's back softly as she hummed. It was around Hope's nap time, and Caroline hoped the warmth of the sun would lull her to sleep. Lullabies usually worked, Caroline was all she'd known for months and her voice was a familiar comfort, but Caroline thought Hope could probably sense that it was her birthday, and birthdays were a special occasion. After three songs, she gave up and settled for a story instead.

"I used to know your father." Caroline murmured, she didn't talk about Klaus often. It wasn't that she wanted to keep him from Hope, it was that she had a hard time telling Hope stories that didn't involve murder or the plotting of murder. She wanted Hope to think well of her family, loving them like they loved each other, but it was hard when she'd only been able to see glimpses of that side of him. Then there was Hayley, who she often didn't speak about at all. She wasn't sure what she could say about Hayley. Caroline didn't like her, that was the honest truth. Eventually, somewhere along the way, Caroline had stopped speaking about both altogether, she didn't want Hope to grow up with unrealistic ideals or expectations about who her family was.

She smiled as Hope tangled her fingers in her hair and it brought her back to the story. Hope had a habit of doing that. Latching onto Caroline just to know she was there. "He loves birthdays."

"On my birthday, my seventeenth birthday, I was sad because I was never going to make it to eighteen." Caroline murmured, unable to stop herself from looking at her unmarred hands that were never going to wrinkle. "Anyway, my friends decided to have a funeral instead of a birthday party. Sure it was morbid, but by that time all my friends were supernatural and life was a morbid curiosity. At the end of the night, my boyfriend, who was a werewolf, bit me." Caroline said, conveniently leaving out that Klaus had been the one to give the order. "I was going to die, that was until your father showed up."

As if Hope could understand her, and well, Caroline believed she could, Hope babbled back, and then tucked her head against Caroline's shoulder. Caroline laughed softly and rubbed Hope's back sweetly. "He was the one that made me fall in love with my immortality, and I hate to say that, because your father hasn't exactly had the most conventional ways of living." She did that often, sugar coated the kind of man Klaus was. "He told me there were great cities and art in the world, that artistic side of him labeled it as genuine beauty. All I had to do was ask for it."

"I suppose this isn't much of a story," Caroline murmured, "but it is a side of your father that not many have seen. I think he would call you his greatest work of art, the one thing he never genuinely got to cherish. Despite what he's done, it's a shame he's missing your first birthday, afterall he does love them."

Hope had fallen asleep at that point, her breathing slowly evened out against Caroline's shoulder, but Caroline kept talking. Concocting images of what Hope's first birthday should've been, describing it in such extravagance because Klaus would spoil his daughter till she was as rotten as he was, not to mention having Rebekah as her aunt.

Hope took her first steps later that night, just before dinner while Caroline was cooking. She was making bolognese and placed a lid on the sauce so she could check in on Hope who was crawling around the enclosed living room. Despite it just being the two of them, Caroline had put her in a cute pink dress with a white sweater, while she was wearing a pastel pink sundress herself.

Upon Caroline's entrance, Hope crawled over to her and braced herself against Caroline's legs.

"I'm sorry dinner's taking so long." Caroline smiled, rubbing Hope's forehead. "Are you bored, sweet girl?"

Instead of her usual babble, she used Caroline's legs to hoist herself up. This wasn't an unusual occurrence, a month before, Hope had managed to begin standing, using other objects to balance herself. Except today was different, as soon as she was on her feet, Hope turned herself around and took a shaky step forward.

"Oh, my God!" Caroline shrieked, seizing her phone, dropping to the floor and immediately started to record Hope. "You're walking! Come on, Hope, you're doing so well!"

Hope stumbled for a few more feet before turning around and stumbling her way back to Caroline on unsteady feet. She collapsed against Caroline in a fit of giggles, holding onto her feet with the kind of flexibility that only a baby possessed. Caroline dropped her phone and picked Hope up, twirling her around which resulted in even more laughter from both.

"I'm so proud of you!" Caroline exclaimed, placing sweet kisses all over Hope's face. "You're walking!"

Unfortunately in her joy, she had failed to remember that she was cooking dinner and the smoke alarm started blaring through the villa. Caroline jumped unexpectedly and immediately used her hands to cover Hope's ears. She made her way to the kitchen where the chicken she'd been cooking was currently on fire, and swore under her breath.

Caroline rushed to grab a towel to throw over the fire hoping it would smother the flames, but before she could, the fire stopped. In less than a second, the fire had slowed almost as if frozen and then completely disappeared leaving a burnt pan and a scorched wall.

"What?" Caroline murmured, inching forward to inspect the stove, but the alarm was still going and she needed to take care of that first. "Sorry, Hope." She said, stroking Hope's hair while she looked for something to hit the alarm with. But before she could, just like the fire, it stopped abruptly. Except this time she was looking at Hope. The little girl had her eyes trained on the smoke alarm, and she had blinked once, and now that it had stopped, she had broken into a toothy smile.

"I suppose that's more efficient than a broom." Caroline let out a shaky laugh, kissing the side of Hope's forehead.

By the end of the night, as Caroline put Hope to sleep in their bed, she counted her first birthday as a success. Despite the incident, Hope was happy and they hadn't been caught by any enemies. Although, witnessing Hope's magic was a blatant reminder that she was a witch. Caroline had thought about raising Hope like Bonnie, without knowledge of her magic, but Caroline also didn't want to lie to her. Not to mention the fact that she could perform magic already.

So while Hope was learning, Caroline would too. The villa had turned into the perfect place for them to live, it had lots of open space without any neighbors to be witness to Hope's outburst which slowly became more prominent the older she got. The villa also provided Caroline with all the magical knowledge she needed from the grimoires Kol had left behind.

As time dragged on, Caroline had managed to learn a significant amount of magical knowledge, just enough to help Hope learn control and practice safe nature based magic. It wasn't technically sustainable forever, but the war wouldn't last forever either.


Kol Mikaelson was alive. Not in the sense that he was breathing and in a corporeal form, but in a way he'd lost to his vampirism. His mother may have had her faults, but she loved her children in her own way, and bringing Kol back in a witch's body was quite possibly the only thing he'd ever be grateful for, to her at least. Magic thrummed in his veins and he reveled in it, a kind of nostalgia that he'd only felt as a child casting spells his mother had warned him not too.

He always loved New Orleans as much as his siblings did. They were more free, happier, even Klaus was less on edge, less willing to punish his siblings for petty crimes. Even though he felt left out and wronged by Elijah, Klaus, and Rebekah, he much preferred them to Finn's sycophant nature. He was a Mikaelson afterall, and always and forever included him as much as the others.

His mother had briefed him on the current situation of his siblings. He was shocked to hear about Klaus' daughter, that he had a child who he fought for only for her to end up dying in the war. He wasn't heartless, he did feel for his brother, the niece he would never meet. Esther had told him Elijah was playing peacekeeper, ensuring Klaus stayed within the walls of the compound. That he was smoothing over indiscretions made by the mother of Klaus' child as she spilled the blood of anyone who came too close. That didn't shock him at all, Elijah had always played the moderator among their siblings. He was slightly put off by the fact that his sister was nowhere to be found. In a thousand years Rebekah had never left Klaus' side for more than a few months at a time unless she was desiccated in a coffin.

Kol didn't think too much of it, he even felt the slightest bit of pride thinking she'd finally left for her own sake. She'd spent a thousand years trailing after her brothers, sometimes it was a blessing because her heart was too easily swayed and broken. But an entire millennium of Klaus and Elijah would take a toll on her.

It doesn't matter so much, his siblings weren't his first priority. He needed to get out from underneath his mother's thumb first, and there was a pretty little witch in front of him that seemed like the answer to a lot of his problems.

"Davina Claire, the infamous witch." Kol smirked, leaning against a pole outside a music shop he'd watched Davina stop in front of with a large closed sign. While it was true his mother sent him to spy on her, it was the perfect cover to ensure his mother wouldn't know he was double crossing her.

"And who are you?" She deadpanned, lips pursed and eyes defiant. He liked her already.

"I'm Kaleb." He said, holding his hand out for her to shake. She stared at it for a moment and hesitantly shaked it back. She was a paranoid thing, Kol observed, but he inferred that about her already.

"Guy had the market cornered on the ancient Icelandic folk scene." Kol said, stepping back to put a bit of distance between them. He wanted to be approachable and giving her the space would lessen her paranoia.

She chuckled softly at the quip about the album in her hands. "Those weren't for me."

"Terrible taste in music." He said smoothly, nodding at the album in her hands once again. She left out a breathless laugh that intrigued him. "You obviously need me."

"I need you?" She questioned. "You were the one who called me 'the infamous witch'. How do you know my name exactly?"

"Everyone knows you, darling." He smiled, eyes peering at her from underneath his eyelashes. "You're the Harvest girl who told them all to shove it." She smiled sweetly at the genuine affection in his voice. "I believe we're kindred souls, I don't really believe in rules and authority. Your courage should be celebrated."

She licked her lips and tilted her head. "Bold of you to declare treason in the middle of the square. Actually, bold of you to approach me at all."

"A girl like you? Beautiful, brave, and powerful?" He said with mock offense. Then he leaned in close, only a breath away from her. " It would've been my greatest regret not to."


The next month, Hope had finally said her first word. They were having a picnic in the garden, Caroline had been sitting on a blanket while Hope explored the grass barefoot. She had a habit of burying her toes in the ground, then falling over in a fit of giggles. Caroline glanced up to look at the little girl to make sure she hadn't wandered out too far and then returned to the book in her lap when she was satisfied Hope wasn't going to hurt herself. She was only one year old, but she was born with magic she didn't always have control over, meaning little sprouts of flowers would grow where she fell, creating a very sporadic looking garden.

They were outside for another hour or so and Caroline decided it was about time for Hope's nap.

"Hope?" Caroline called out, closing up her book and packing up the picnic. "Sweet girl, it's time for a nap."

Hope liked to hide from Caroline, it was a game to her. Eventually she would pop up from wherever she was hiding and collapse into Caroline in a fit of laughs.

Caroline had her sense open of course, she could both smell the sweet baby shampoo and hear Hope's laughter. The little girl was hiding in the shade under the rows of trees.

"Darling, time to come out!" Caroline called, setting her things down and wandered towards the trees. "I wonder where you're hiding?"

Hope continued to giggle and Caroline watched her shadow flutter under the trees. Caroline had planned to sneak around the other side and surprise her, but instead Hope jumped out and fell into Caroline's arms.

"There you are!" Caroline laughed, swinging her into her arms and placing kisses all over her face. As she carried Hope towards the villa, the girl had shifted around and tucked herself into Caroline's neck, arms and legs wrapped around her tightly. She began to hum a sweet tune, something elegant and soft that reminded her a lot of the dance she and Klaus shared at his mansion in Mystic Falls.

She continued to hum as she placed Hope on the bed and that's when she'd uttered her first word. It was so quiet Caroline probably wouldn't have heard it if she wasn't a vampire.

"Momma."

Caroline froze in her movements, turning around sharply and stared down at Hope who'd already fallen asleep. She looked so sweet and innocent, unaware of what a simple word could mean.

Caroline had thought about it before, what she was supposed to be to Hope. It honestly wasn't a huge deal to her, it didn't have to be. Hope would grow up knowing Caroline because she raised her, that didn't have to mean she would be her mother. Although, over the months she'd had Hope, in every place they lived, it was the same backstory. That Hope was her daughter and her dad had left, new cities were new starts for the pair of them.

She had caught herself indulging every now and then, pretending like she was human and Hope really was her daughter. It was hard not to when she did everything and provided Hope with everything a mother would.

Caroline sank to the floor and buried her hands in her hair. It suddenly felt so much more real. Before it felt like a fever dream that she would eventually wake up from, because it sounded like one. There was no rational reality where Caroline had upended her life and decided to raise Klaus' daughter, it just didn't sound plausible. Except, she was here, sitting in a villa she'd never be able to afford, becoming a permanent fix in the life of a little girl who deserved much more.

There were times when Caroline's dreams would be plagued by the most beautiful little girl she'd ever seen. Her hair would be long, blond, and wavy like silk. She'd have the prettiest blue-green eyes that sparkled in the light. She was always a little thing, playing in the streets of wherever Caroline's dreams had taken them. England, Paris, Barcelona. Caroline would watch her, twirling around and let out high pitched twinkly laughs that made her heart flutter. Then the little girl would turn around and run towards Caroline, calling 'Mommy! Mommy!' urging her to look at whatever had caught the little girl's interest. They were indulgent dreams of Hope, ones where Caroline was her mother and she didn't have to worry about someone coming to take her away.


Kol's here! Who's really for Katherine next?