Klaus and Elijah find Hayley, but not before her werewolf side gets bound. Hayley and Elijah talk, but a misunderstanding on Elijah's part drives a wedge between them that he's not ready to deal with just yet.

~The Path To Forever~

Time stopped having any meaning for him. He had no idea how long he spent wandering the city, hoping that something would stand out to him, trigger something that might give him a clue as to where Hayley could be. At one point, Niklaus called to tell him that they had found Hope's phone, on the side of the road. Apparently, she had realized that when scrying didn't work, they would try tracing the phone. And she didn't want to be found. He scoffed. The girl was certainly a Mikaelson. That could not be denied. It was a few hours later when the call he was waiting for came.

"Caroline just got a call from the school. The cloaking spell on Hayley just broke. I'm texting you the coordinates. Meet me there. We found her, brother. We found her."

A minute later, his phone beeped, telling him he had a text message. He looked at it and then started running. It was an old abandoned farmhouse far outside of the city. There was nothing there to set it apart from any other farmhouse in the world. Except for just how remote it was.

He met Niklaus and Caroline on the porch. "Miss Forbes."

"It's Mrs Salvatore, actually." She smiled. "Though, you can just call me Caroline. Welcome back, Elijah."

"Do we know why and how the cloaking spell broke?"

"No idea. I'm not sure I like it, to be honest. Hope didn't break it. Because the one on her and Roman is still up."

Niklaus shook his head. "Well, plenty of time for speculation after we get Hayley back. Caroline, I want you to stay out here, for now." When she looked ready to protest, he cut her off. "Don't make me compel you. I need somebody watching our backs, and somebody I can trust to look after Hope once I get her out of there. Please, Caroline?" She nodded and he looked at Elijah. "Are you ready for this, brother?"

Elijah nodded at his brother, and they walked into the house together. The sight in front of him chilled Elijah to the bone. Hope was passed out in Roman's arms, and Hayley… his beautiful Hayley was pinned to the wall.

"Elijah…"

Unfortunately, Greta took advantage of Hayley's moment of distraction to plunge her hand into her chest. This just got a lot more complicated.

Elijah didn't think. He just vamp-sped to them, and snapped Greta's neck. Then immediately wrapped one arm around her waist and grabbed the wrist that had been plunged into Hayley's chest with his other hand. Holding her still to keep Hayley safe. "A little help here, Niklaus!"

"I'm supposed to be the one who acts without thinking. You are supposed to be our voice of reason."

"Can the brotherly banter wait until after this bitch's hand is out of my chest, please?"

Elijah had to smile at that. He had always loved Hayley's snark. Even when it was directed at him. She fit in with the rest of the family so well.

Then Niklaus was there, his hands on Hayley's shoulders. Elijah locked eyes with Hayley. "I'm going to need you to move forward a bit, give him room behind you. We're going to go slow, because we need to stay in sync. If her hand moves…" He tried not to think of what could still happen. "You ready?" When she nodded, he lifted a foot. "And step. Step." One agonizingly tiny step at a time. It seemed to take forever before Niklaus finally slipped behind Hayley and put his arms around her waist.

Elijah shifted his focus from Hayley's eyes to his brother's. "We can't do this with them standing. Help me lower them to the floor." Niklaus nodded. And then, eyes locked on each other, they slowly lowered themselves until they were kneeling on the floor, taking the women with them. And then just as slowly lowered them sideways until they were laying on the floor, with Hayley on her back, and Greta on her side. Elijah holding her in position.

Niklaus took a shuddering breath. "Now for the hard part. I'm sorry love. This is going to hurt. Elijah. Are you ready?"

Elijah nodded and locked his wrist, elbow, and shoulder, holding Greta's arm so that it wouldn't shift. And watched as his brother stuck his hand in Hayley's chest. It was nerve-wracking, watching this, hearing Hayley's cries of pain. He didn't even have a free hand to hold Hayley's hand with, because he had to keep Greta still. And it had to be slow going. Niklaus could only move one finger at a time, or risk damaging Hayley's heart more.

Finally, Niklaus nodded at him. "Now."

Elijah pulled and separated the women. He looked at Hayley and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her nod. And then he looked down at the unconscious woman in his arms. Ripping her heart out was too good for her, it was too quick. He grabbed her other hand and ripped her finger sporting her daylight ring off.

"Wait. Let me get Hayley to safety first."

Elijah didn't know what his brother meant by that, but he nodded at him and watched as Niklaus carried Hayley into the other room. And then he opened the front door and tossed Greta onto the porch. And watched in satisfaction as she burst into flames.

"Jesus, Elijah! Warn a girl before you do that!"

"Sorry, Caroline. Not exactly thinking clearly, right now. You can come in, now."

He walked into the other room where Roman was still cradling Hope. And Niklaus was holding onto Hayley. "Are they okay?"

"I think Hope will be okay. My mother had some kind of sleeping powder that she knocked her out with. But, it'll wear off."

"And Hayley is a vampire. Her heart is intact. The rest will heal. Mostly." Elijah wanted to ask what that meant, but Niklaus's attention had already turned to Caroline. "Caroline, can you please take Hope and Roman both back to school? Keep them separate until somebody can find out just how much Roman was actually involved in this."

"Of course." She took Hope from Roman and ran out of the house. Roman followed her, leaving the Mikaelsons alone with Hayley.

Who gave Elijah a sad smile, before turning to Niklaus. "I guess you figured it out, huh? It looks like I'm not your little wolf, anymore."

And then it clicked. Hayley's werewolf side had been bound. She wasn't a hybrid, anymore. And he couldn't help but wonder. If he had gotten to New Orleans sooner, if all it had taken to get him home was a phone call. If his brother didn't have to waste an entire day, flying to France and then arguing with him. If he hadn't had his memories erased, would they have found her sooner? Would she still be a wolf?

"You'll always be my little wolf, Hayley. Always and forever."

Elijah's heart clenched at that. But, before he could say or do anything, Niklaus kissed Hayley's temple and then stood up. He walked back into the front room, and bent down to pick up Greta's daylight ring. "I'm going to take this to Freya, to see if she can get it respelled for Hayley. Which will give the two of you a chance to talk. Hayley, I won't leave town without seeing you again. And Elijah… call me, okay? Don't leave us again. I… we all need you too much." And then he was gone.

Which left Elijah alone with Hayley. Who he had no idea what he was supposed to say to. He had no idea where to even begin to apologize for all the ways he had hurt her. What he wanted to do was put his arms around her and kiss her. But, he didn't have that right. Not anymore. He had left her. And she wasn't his, anymore.

Because three phrases kept chasing themselves around in circles inside his head. "Your little wolf". "My little wolf". "Always and forever". He had abandoned them. Abandoned both of them. And it wasn't fair to them to try to make everything go back to the way it used to be.

"Are you going to talk to me, or just sit there and stare until your sister gets here?"

"I'm sorry. I've had a very rough couple of days."

She laughed at that. "I can imagine. Elijah, I…"

"Shh… You don't need to say anything. It's okay. I understand." Because he wasn't ready to hear the words. He wasn't ready to have Hayley tell him that he was too late. That he had broken her heart one too many times.

"I don't know what it is you think you understand, but okay. We can talk later. Hope is going back to school, so once I finish talking to Klaus and send him home, there's no reason you can't come to New Orleans. We can talk then."

He didn't say anything. But, he knew that he wouldn't be going back to New Orleans. It was over, and he needed to accept that. But, the last thing he wanted was to have to listen to her saying the words.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, he decided that while there were things he wasn't ready to hear—things they weren't ready to say to each other—there were other things that they could talk about. "Hope is beautiful. She looks so much like you."

Hayley smiled. "Oh, there is definitely quite a bit of Klaus in her, too. But, yeah. Caroline jokes around sometimes about never mind putting the fear of God in boys' heads, she's going to have to start putting the fear of Klaus Mikaelson in their heads."

He laughed at that. "Yes, I don't know that even God Himself is more terrifying than my little brother when he's on a rampage. God! She's what? Fifteen? That seems so strange to me."

"Honestly, it's a little strange to me, too, and I watched it happen. But, sometimes, I look at her, and I still see my baby. I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that my baby isn't really a baby, anymore. I can only imagine what it must be like for you and Klaus."

"Well, obviously it's different for him. But, for me it's like I blinked, and that little girl I once…" He trailed off, not wanting to remind Hayley of the plans they had once made together, his dream of becoming Hope's stepfather and helping to raise her. "She's a young woman, now. I mean, not completely grown up, not by today's standards. But close enough that it hardly matters. And I missed all of it." He brushed at the tears escaping from his eyes. "I didn't even get to watch her grow up in phone calls, and pictures. Because I threw everything away. And I don't think I realized…"

She stood up and walked over to him, taking him into her arms. He clung to her while he cried over everything he had lost. "Shh… It's okay. You're here, now. You're here now, and it's going to be okay."

Except it wasn't going to be okay, not really. He could get the rest of his family back, assuming they ever forgave him for abandoning them. But, Hayley was gone. And he could hardly blame her. He had been selfish, so caught up in his own pain, that he didn't stop to consider that he would be hurting them. He couldn't imagine what it had been like for Marcel to tell his baby sister that he had left them. That there weren't going to be any phone calls, or letters from him, because he didn't know who they were.

Much less what it had been like for whoever drew the short straw and had to tell Hayley. "I can't ask you to forgive me. What I did was unforgivable. But, I am sorry for hurting you. I…" He needed to change the subject. And get her back to her own side of the room before he did something he would regret. "I'm okay. Or at least I will be." He reached up and unwrapped her arms from around him. "Really, Hayley, I'm fine."

She looked hurt, but she moved back over to where she had been sitting before, and sat back down. "But, yeah. She's fifteen. Learning how to drive, which is the scariest thing in the world, to me. Caroline laughs at me about it. Hope could control the damn car from the backseat if she wanted to. So, why her learning how to drive should scare me is anybody's guess."

He shrugged. "Because it's normal. She's an extremely powerful witch. She's going to be a werewolf, someday. Eventually she'll be a vampire. And any one of those things is objectively a lot more frightening than letting her behind the wheel of a car. But, learning to drive is such a normal thing, that when you think about it, you get to be a normal mother of a teenager, with normal concerns. It makes a kind of sense. Add in that you can't control any of the rest of it, but you have some control over that, and of course that's going to be the thing you let yourself get worried about."

"I've missed this. Talking to you. I've missed you."

"I'm sorry. There really are no words for how sorry I am." But, he wasn't really ready for that conversation, either. "So, I know what Niklaus has been up to while I was gone." She started at that, and opened her mouth to say something. But he still wasn't ready to hear it. He didn't want her explanations. Not yet. Maybe not ever. "But, what about the others? Have Marcel, Keelin, and Davina made honest men and women out of them, yet?"

"Kol and Davina are married. Got married shortly after you all scattered. Marcel was there. Marcel and Rebekah were together for a while. Until he proposed. Told her not to answer him right away, but if her answer was yes to meet him at the courthouse on a certain day and time."

"And she didn't go."

"Oh. She went. She at least gave him the courtesy of turning him down to his face and not just standing him up."

He closed his eyes. "I am definitely going to have to have a talk with that girl, soon. Find out what the heck she was thinking. I would say that I hope that he can forgive her, but… it's Marcel and Rebekah. They've been on and off for two hundred years, and somehow keep finding their way back to each other. They'll get through this, too."

"I hope so. I really do. I so want them to be happy. She won't tell me what her problem is. Won't even tell Freya. But, maybe she'll tell you. After all, you were the one who was there for her and with her for a thousand years. She might be more willing to talk to you than to the rest of us."

"And Freya?"

She shrugged. "Freya is… a Mikaelson. And an oldest child. Weight of the world on her shoulders. Between doing her part to keep New Orleans from imploding, and trying to figure out a way to get her family back, she hasn't really given herself a chance to even think about what she might want for herself. I think she loves Keelin. I think they'd be very happy together, if she would just… stop being a firstborn Mikaelson for five minutes and let herself just be a person in her own right."

"So, you're saying that I need to have a little chat with both of my sisters about their love lives, huh? I guess it's far past time that I took the mantle of Mikaelson family patriarch back up. I've shirked my duties to all of them long enough."

She looked down for a minute, and when she lifted her head to look at him again, she was looking very pensive. "Elijah, there's something I need to tell you."

He shook his head. "Don't. Please, Hayley. Just don't. It's okay. Really. I understand. You don't… you don't have to say anything."

"You know, I can't help thinking that you and I are having two different conversations, here."

Before Elijah could get up the courage to ask her what she meant by that, the outside door opened and he heard Freya calling them from the other room. "Elijah? Hayley? I have Hayley's Daylight Ring, here."

He stuck his head through the doorway. "We're in here, Freya. Keeping Hayley out of the way of the windows, and the door."

Freya walked over to Hayley and handed her the ring. "Here. This one is temporary. We'll get you a setting that's more your style to put the stone in later. But, this will get you home, and keep you safe until then."

"Thanks, Freya." She put the ring on and just stared at it.

Elijah's heart clenched. That was the other thing they avoided talking about. Just what they were sitting here waiting for, and why it was necessary. The fact that Hayley was no longer a hybrid. She had hated being turned into a hybrid because she had missed the 'nobility of being a wolf'. But, at least then, she had still been a wolf. And once she had learned to reconcile both sides of herself she had been formidable. And now she had lost that. Because of him. Because it took so long to get him.

He stood up and walked over to her, bent down, and kissed her on the cheek. "I guess I should get going. Be happy, Hayley. Be happy, and have the life you deserve." He turned to Freya and took her into his arms. "I'm sorry for what I did. For just walking away like that. It won't happen again. I'll call you once I get back to France, let you know how to contact me. And I'll do the same for the others. I love you."

He had to get out of there before being so close to Hayley and not having her in his arms made him go mad. Made him say something he shouldn't, something she didn't want to hear. She had moved on, and he had to let her. So, one more glance at Hayley to make sure her new ring was firmly on her finger, and then he opened the door and walked out.

Once the door was closed behind him, he ran at full vamp-speed. He wasn't even sure what direction he was going. He just needed to get far away. He eventually stopped, crumpled to the ground, and cried. She was gone. If it had been anyone but Niklaus, he might have stayed, fought for her. But his brother deserved to finally have someone choose him. But, damn was it hard. Knowing that the thing that made the two people he loved the most happy was the very thing that shattered his own heart into a million pieces. But, he had done this to himself. If he hadn't left her the way he did… He had done this to himself.

~The Path To Forever~

Hayley watched Elijah walk out the door, and then slid to the ground. It was over. It was really over. She had lost him. Until this moment, she had been able to fool herself. Been able to convince herself that once Freya and Hope figured out a way to deal with the Hollow and Marcel brought Elijah home, they would be able to fix things. They would be able to sit down and have the talk they hadn't had time for. She would have a chance to apologize for hurting him. They would find their way back to each other. It had been a beautiful fairy tale.

But, now she knew. It was just a fairy tale. She looked up at Freya. "That was Elijah. That wasn't some stranger wearing Elijah's skin. That was Elijah. He's back."

Freya nodded. "Klaus went into a panic and went and got him. Marcel and I undid the compulsion. He's back."

"That was really him. And he just walked away from me like I… Like I'm nothing to him."

"Hayley…"

"No. Not nothing. I'm his niece's mother. A member of his family. But, everything else we used to be to each other is gone. He chose her. He remembers me, remembers how he used to love me. And he's going back to her. He's gone, Freya. I've lost him." She put her face in her hands and cried.