It Hurts to Breathe Sometimes

2

New Orleans

31st April

Just three hours ago, they had set light to the boat carrying her mother's ashes, and watched it burn in the middle of the bayou lake. Just two hours and fifty minutes ago, her father had fled New Orleans once again, leaving her in the care of her Aunt Freya. With part of the Hollow still contained within Klaus' body, he had been left with no choice. Technically, Hope wasn't alone, and so she couldn't quite work out why it was that every fibre of her being screamed at her that she was.

She punched her pillow, hard, hoping for the kind of stinging pain she could use to ground herself. It didn't materialise and so she instead let out a grunt of frustration that was teetering on the precipice of becoming a sob. The guilt was weighing on her heavily, along with the loss; if only she hadn't been stupid enough to throw her childish tantrum, her mother would still be alive. Whilst she may not have been to blame for the hatred in the hearts of those that had abducted Hayley, Hope had certainly made it easier for them to achieve their aims. A sleeping spell and a coffin in an abandoned church. How could she have been so dumb? How could she have been so callous to the woman who had sacrificed literally everything to bring her into the world, raise her, make her feel loved?

Hope bit her tongue and felt just the slightest sense of relief when she tasted blood. She deserved to be punished. She wished her father and Aunt Freya would stop tiptoeing around her and treating her as though she were a victim in everything. If anything, Hope knew that she was a murderer, or at the very least an accomplice to it. Her mom was dead, and it was partly her fault.

Realising that sleep would not come easily to her, and perhaps dreading the nightmares that so frequently materialised when slumber did find her, Hope threw back the bed covers and padded to the door of her bedroom.

Glancing down the hall, she saw that the lights were still on in her aunt's room, bright shafts peeking out from the crack beneath the door. But it was a different kind of comfort Hope thought she sought. Knowing her father's liquor cabinet would be well stocked, she cast a cautious eye up and down the hall before walking slowly across the floorboards, careful to avoid the spots that would give her away with a creak or sigh. She had learned every one of them as a child. It had been necessary to attempt to steal cookies and candy in the middle of the night, although her mother usually caught her.

However, the sound of voices stopped her suddenly in her tracks and, as she neared Freya's door, she realised that it was her father's unmistakable tones that she could hear. No doubt he was engaged with his older sister in one of their frequent Skype conversations.

Finding herself eaves-dropping on a conversation that seemed to be mid-way through, Hope strained to make sense of their back and forth. Yet it was the grief and desperation in her father's voice that seized her rapt attention.

"You're one of the most formidable witches who ever lived… our mother bestowed great gifts upon you, sister. And yet you tell me you are powerless to help? To… to bring her back to me?"

Hope slapped her hand over her mouth, feeling the now familiar burn of tears in the back of her throat, and her eyes began to water as she listened to her own palpable grief echoed in her father's voice.

Her aunt's reply was low, as if she were afraid of waking her supposedly slumbering niece.

"You think if I had that power that I wouldn't have already done it? You think I'd leave my niece motherless? I can't work a spell like that alone, Klaus, and Hope's powers haven't matured yet, I…"

Klaus sounded characteristically irritated by the counter argument. "New Orleans is full of powerful witches, Freya. You can't shake a bloody broomstick without hitting one."

Hope took a step back, leaning against the wall and hugging her arms around herself, every cell in her body just aching to feel her mother's embrace.

"It's not as simple as that," she heard Freya sigh, half out of frustration and perhaps half out of resignation. "I have only ever known one other witch who was anywhere near strong enough to work a spell of that magnitude."

"So what are you waiting for, then? Go and find the witch. And if she won't help us, tell her I shall pay her a visit myself." The threat was obvious in his inference, and Freya tsked at her sibling's willingness to resort to violence when so much blood had already been shed.

Still, the existence of such a witch piqued Hope's curiosity, and so she listed on in earnest, all thoughts of downing a tumbler of her father's bourbon momentarily abandoned. It was probably for the best given the fact that, unbeknown to Hope, her mother had still been watering down her wine at meal times.

"I can't, Klaus," Freya replied, every word sounding like an apology, "she's… gone."

There was a long, drawn out silence that would have made anyone else sorely uncomfortable, but was quite familiar to those bearing the surname 'Mikaelson' by now.

"By 'gone' I assume you mean 'no longer breathing'?" Klaus finally demanded, his tone verging on desperate.

Hope could almost hear the gulp of breath Freya swallowed down before she answered, sounding pained for reasons that Hope assumed were unknown to even Klaus.

"In a manner of speaking," was all Freya offered, before she actually did finish with a whispered 'sorry' that caused Hope's heart to stutter. It was true then; her mother's loss was permanent, her fate sealed, and Hope had been robbed of her very best friend for good. She prepared to push away from the wall, fresh tears running down her already swollen cheeks, when her dad's voice froze her in her tracks again.

"I can't do this without her, Freya. I don't know how to." he said, such raw honesty to his words that Hope could imagine the utterly broken look upon his face as he spoke.

"I know it's hard, Klaus," answered Freya, not missing a beat. Hope assumed that she was so accustomed now to offering her family comfort and platitudes that they came to her automatically.

"But I'll be here to help you with Hope every step of the way, just like I helped Hayley," she added, a tremble to her tone that betrayed her unsteady emotions somewhat, "I miss her too, you know."

Another few moments of silence passed before Klaus said – almost too quietly for Hope to hear – "I just… I should have told her… I… never told her… what she meant to me."

It would be useless for Freya to try to assuage him with words of kindness. Klaus Mikaelson was immune to such things, and certainly all who knew him were privy to the knowledge that feelings and emotions outside of rage were a thing rarely expressed by the hybrid. The only exception was Hope, on whom he had doted since her infancy, and it was with his daughter that his concern again lay.

"Please tell Hope… I… Tell her that her father loves her and thinks about her every moment of every day. I could not bear for her to feel that she has lost both parents. Please, tell…"

Freya interrupted him, "She knows, Klaus. But… I'll tell her anyway. Every day, I swear."

Hope had heard more than she could stand to, and she scurried back to her bedroom without bothering to measure her footfalls. Perhaps Freya would tell herself that old buildings were prone to making noises or perhaps she would bust Hope, but the girl didn't much care either way anymore.

She closed the door to her room and leaned back against the oak, breathing heavily as though she had just run up several flights of stairs. Her lungs burned with the effort of drawing breath, and she so wished that she could just lie down and make it all stop. Make every last stab of pain just stop.

When her heart had calmed somewhat, Hope wandered over to her dresser, a picture of her parents and her infant self catching her eye. She lifted the frame and raised it to face level, unable to thwart a smile as she took in the image of her parents, who were untouched by time and age, young and beautiful as she remembered them both. Hayley wore a brown sundress and had her barely year-old daughter clutched tight to her chest. Hope herself held onto a fistful of Hayley's dark hair, which she was in the process of cramming into her wide open maw whilst Klaus looked on with a grin that was possibly the very definition of the word proud. The photograph was so normal and even blissfully happy that it almost shattered something inside of Hope, although there was precious little left within the tribid to break in the wake of such loss.

"I'm so sorry, Mom," she found herself mumbling as she stroked her index finger over Hayley's features. "I wish… I wish I'd been a better daughter… the daughter you deserved."

There was no response, of course. Just the quiet ticking of the clock in the corner of her bedroom, and the sound of late night revellers spilling out of bars in the quarter- their own joy a painful reminder to Hope of all that had been snatched from her.

And so once more, since the day her mother had died, Hope Mikaelson cried herself to sleep.

x-x-x

Freya peered into the coffee mug before her, listlessly poking at the now cold beverage with a silver tea spoon as she sat in the courtyard of the compound. Hope had cried long into the morning and so she slept on still despite the fact it was a little before eleven. Freya hoped her dreams offered her some respite from her mourning, but she knew that the opposite was probably true. She recalled her own grief conjured nightmares when she had lost her lover and child so long ago; a loss that struck at her heart even centuries later. There were some things that could not be recovered from.

Glancing up sharply as she heard the almost militant footfalls of one of the guards Klaus had imposed on the compound, Freya met the steely eyed gaze of Andrew - a day walker entrusted with her and Hope's protection, despite their unanimous protests.

"What is it?" she asked dismissively, growing irritated by the over-zealous stance that Klaus' minions seemed to have adopted as of late. Although, given recent events, she could understand why her brother was more concerned with keeping his daughter safe.

Andrew cleared his throat, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Whilst he had been more than willing to accept a role in the Mikaelson household, since they paid predictably well, Andrew was no fool, and he did so knowing just what kind of fate might befall someone who failed the infamous ancient hybrid and his kin.

"We've had a report from Rochelle at Roussea's," he declared, hands clasping behind his back. He stood like a soldier awaiting inspection, shoulders back and head up, gaze fixed respectfully front and centre. It almost had Freya rolling her eyes but she managed just about to contain her disdain.

"Is there a new breakfast menu or something?" Freya finally demanded, frustrated by the stilted explanation that Andrew was offering her. "Come on, Andy, some of us aren't immortal. I don't have all century."

Clearing his throat almost in embarrassment, Andrew nodded his head as he offered, "A guy has been asking around after you. Some native dude with a weird looking wolf tatt. Ring any bells or should we kill him?"

"What?" demanded Freya, leaning forwards with haste and setting her mug down on the table at her side. "God, no. Nobody is killing anybody… yet… probably."

Her mind racing, Freya pressed, "Did he say anything about why he was looking for me? Where he came from?"

Andrew stared straight ahead, his shoulders tight, unable to lose the air of a marine on parade. "No, ma'am. Just that he was here to speak to the Mikaelson witch."

Freya nodded, her fingertips circling the rim of the mug as she pondered her options. "Then let him find me."

"Your brother has us under strict instructions to…"

Freya waved her hand dismissively as though Klaus was of about as much concern to her as a hang nail, "My brother's not here, and you work for me. When this guy finds the compound, and I'm guessing he will, you bring him to me. Alive. You understand me, Andrew?"

Nodding with clear reluctance, the vampire folded his arms behind his back. He offered Freya a thin parting smile before he strode off towards his colleagues, hoping that they hadn't found and potentially disembowelled the stranger before he'd had a chance to relay the oldest Mikaelson's instructions.

Waiting until retreating footsteps could only be heard off in the distance, Freya sat back in her seat and pondered this new turn of events. Fate generally didn't smile down on the Mikaelson family that often but perhaps just this once things might be turning in their favour.

She swallowed down a glug of icy coffee, mostly to ground herself and temper the hope rising in her chest. It wouldn't do at all to allow herself false optimism, especially when she had a grieving niece to care for, and a mourning brother to satiate.

But if this mysterious newcomer was bringing the sort of news that Freya suspected then she just might prove to be the saviour her family so sorely needed after all. If he was not, then Freya would be forced to accept the fact that the Mikaelsons had lost for once, and always and forever had as good as died along with Hayley Marshall.

x-x-x

"So tell me about the wolf."

His fingers twitched around the cigarette dangling from his lips but it remained unlit. He thought that he might give up now, especially considering the gruesome pictures of decaying innards that these new-fangled packets seemed to be adorned with.

Their eyes locked across the small, shabbily decorated motel room, and she sat back in her chair, which she had positioned by the window to allow herself to look out across the back of the motel. Their new Indian friend had informed them that it was known as a 'parking lot', and was the patch of land designated for the enormous metal beasts that roared around the roads in place of horse drawn carriages. Everything was so very different.

Without so much as flinching, the raven haired woman turned her eyes upwards, and the man's smile widened as he beheld the deep blue orbs that transfixed him.

Shaking her head, she replied in crisp, exacting tones that were a stark contrast to the native accents of the locals they found themselves immersed in.

"There is a moon - a crescent moon I think, hanging low in the sky. She steps forward into the light, for a moment our eyes lock, and then I feel… immeasurable grief. I think perhaps it is her grief… then she is gone. Sometimes there are others, I can sense them hidden in the woodland around us, but she is alone… lost, I believe."

Nodding his head, he removed the cigarette from between his lips and placed it down onto the table laden with a breakfast neither had had much appetite to eat. Reaching out, he teased the tips of her fingers with his own until she returned his smile and slid her hand against his.

"How are you so sure she's a wolf?" he enquired, brown eyes narrowed to slits as he regarded her.

Smiling enigmatically, she rose from her seat and moved to stand behind his chair. He followed her movement closely, sliding his hand up her arm as she dangled hers around his neck and pressed her cheek to his.

"I believe I am somewhat intimately acquainted with her kind, am I not?"

Ethan's chuckle rumbled in his chest and he shook his head at Vanessa's taunting. He liked this previously unseen mischievous side of her, which he did not doubt had been buried in their time by her fear of the supernatural forces that had hunted her.

"Indeed," he countered, and he dipped his head low in order to claim her lips. One thing he had learned quickly about the 21st century was that public displays of affection were no longer regarded as unseemly, and that was a development that he most looked forward to exploring.

When Vanessa drew away, her hand moved automatically to the waistband of the fitted jeans their guide had provided her with. She was largely uncomfortable in the modern dress, Ethan could tell, but she had awoken in this new world with a hungry curiosity and an apparent determination to embrace whatever was thrown at her. Thus she did not complain. Vanessa knew precisely what Ethan had forsaken to remain at her side; one hundred and twenty years to be exact. And so she was determined to make this work, whatever 'this' entailed, since their reawakening was most definitely a second chance at a happy life for them both.

Although Vanessa had regained consciousness afraid and wary, she had sensed within mere moments that the threat was removed. She could not know exactly how it had come to pass or even when, but she did know beyond all certainty that Dracula was gone from the earth, and along with him any danger that had been posed to her. Freya, it seemed, had been as good as her word.

"The twenty first century looks good on you, Van," Ethan grinned, leaning forward and then catching her off balance before pulling the shrieking, giggling woman onto his knee.

Humming in disapproval, Vanessa Ives wrinkled her nose and cast a disdainful eye down onto the clothes she found herself wearing. Whilst they were certainly less restrictive than the attire she had been used to, there was no elegance or grace to be found in their design. She missed the lace and intricate detail of her dresses, the refined lines and pinched waists that were seemingly absent from fashion. Though they had only been in this time for a little over a week, Vanessa knew that modern clothing was not going to be her favourite aspect of living in the new century.

"Happiness… happiness looks good on you," he added, lifting his palm to her face and brushing his thumb over the delicate angle of her cheekbone.

Content to bask in his affections, Vanessa leaned her head on his shoulder and allowed her arm to drape around his waist. Her thoughts still frequently ran to more melancholy subjects, but mostly about their lost friends - the ones they had left behind over a hundred years ago.

"Are you happy, Ethan?" her brow creased as she regarded him, wondering if any part of him perhaps regretted leaving behind all he knew and loved to follow her into a future that was so very different to the world they had been accustomed to.

Ethan smiled in bemusement, leaning in to kiss her once, twice, three times, as if to prove his proceeding point.

"Well, let's see now… I'm with you, that Dracula asshole is long gone, and… I can kiss you any time I want to. So yeah… I'd say I'm pretty damn happy."

Vanessa's smile was immediate but it failed to illuminate her eyes, which burned into Ethan's face as though there was something else on her mind entirely. She stood, brushing down the legs of her pants as though she had expected to find long skirts in their place.

"Do you think we are doing the right thing?" she pressed, gnawing on her bottom lip as she regarded the man, who was to all intents and purposes all that she had left in the world.

"What do you mean?" asked Ethan, his brow furrowed in confusion as he wasted no time in dragging Vanessa back onto his lap. She settled there after a few moments, looking rather uncomfortable to say the least since she was hardly used to such displays of affection. Ethan seemed to be adapting to that far more quickly than she, although she suspected that the reason for such was the fact that he had not grown up within strict English society as she had.

"Looking for Freya," Vanessa continued, stilling Ethan with one palm pressed to his chest, "when perhaps she does not wish to be found. We have no way of knowing what happened with Dahlia. I can sense her energy close by but…"

"But what?" Ethan demanded, striving to iron out the lines of concern he felt etched into his own face. "Is there something you're not telling me, Van?"

Seeing Ethan's concern for her, she shook her head to calm his fears. "No, no my love, nothing like that. I… I can feel her presence, her energy… but there is darkness there, somehow."

Ethan sat up straighter, his arms tightening around her body on impulse, "Darkness? How, so?"

Having waited more than a lifetime to be with the woman he loved, there was no way he'd allow them both to go striding headfirst into trouble; not when his experience told him that trouble usually found them just fine, without encouraging its arrival.

Vanessa frowned, shaking her head as she replied distractedly, "I do not know. But there is loss… and pain. I think… I think perhaps she needs our help, but I cannot be sure. After so many years of slumber, I warrant that my abilities are a little… rusty."

She smiled softly as she felt his fingertips slip beneath the hem of her blouse and begin to gently caress the bare skin of her back. Leaning forward she pressed her forehead to his, almost mirroring the pose he had held her in for peaceful decades.

"She has given us so much, Ethan. I must help her if I can."

Reassured by the warmth of her skin beneath his touch and the slow, measured beat of her heart against his chest, Ethan nodded in agreement. "We'll help her. We're in this thing together, remember?"

Nodding at the recollection, Vanessa smiled, and this time her eyes shone with affection and something he was rapidly beginning to recognise as happiness. "How could I forget? You gave up your life for me."

"No," he countered, inclining his neck to seek out her lips. Her breath was warm against his cheek, and he found himself once again rejoicing at the newly established intimacy they had entered in to. No longer afraid of the demon possessing her mind, Vanessa was free to love and be loved – and the desire they had once been forced to dampen was free to burn with a passion that was all consuming. "I wanted a life with you."

"You have me, Mr. Chandler," she replied, caressing his jaw before slanting her lips against his in a hungry kiss that left them both pleasantly breathless. Lost to everything but each other, they didn't hear the unfamiliar sound of the key card being slid into the lock outside the door, and their appointed guardian had strode into the room before Vanessa had had a chance to extricate herself from her lover's knee.

"Reggie…" Ethan growled, sighing resolutely as the great-great grandson of his late friend, Kateanay, merely rolled his eyes and kicked the door closed with the back of his boot.

"Relax, you ain't doing nothin' I haven't seen before," he replied flatly, digging his hand into the pockets of his jacket as he watched Vanessa slip wordlessly from Ethan's lap and deposit herself more demurely into the adjacent chair.

"Well, we're not from around these parts," Ethan deadpanned, causing Reggie to guffaw his amusement. He swiped a large, browned hand in Ethan's direction, his grin so wide that it split his face almost in two.

"Like I could forget it," he retorted, "you two love birds are the reason my people have been standing guard outside some cave in the dessert for over a hundred years."

"Your help has been greatly appreciated, Reggie," Vanessa spoke up quickly to assure the man, who seemed to blush under her attention, as usual.

"I know, I'm just joking around with you," he promised them both, shrugging out of his leather jacket and tossing it on the pull out couch that had served as his makeshift bed for the last several nights.

"Are you any closer at all to finding our friend?" pressed Vanessa almost immediately, unable to quell the sense of unease and even sorrow that coursed through her veins whenever she thought long enough about Freya. She assumed that the sensations were a side effect of whatever the witch was going through at present, which Vanessa could only assume was some sort of situation that was causing her the utmost distress.

"I asked around a little in the French quarter," Reggie stated, straightening up a little as he added, "but I hightailed it out of there when I caught the attention of some undead folks."

"Vampires?" Ethan's expression fell, and he had reached for Vanessa's hand before he even realised he had moved. It appeared that even in the next century, their lives would be over-shadowed by the supernatural creatures of darkness.

"Yeah, yeah. But nothing for you to worry about. New Orleans? It's not just a melting pot of peoples, the whole city's been the playground of every witch, vampire, and werewolf for over two hundred years… right about the time your friend's family settled here. That big old 'M' stamped everywhere?" Reggie laughed in evident amusement, "that's for Mikaelson. Seems like your witchy friend comes from supernatural royalty. But uh… wherever she is now, she ain't in this city."

Reggie threw himself down onto the worn cushions of the couch with evident boredom. "And that's fine by me because I fuckin' hate vampires."

Vanessa nodded, standing up and walking over towards the double doors that led out onto a small balcony. "I cannot say I am especially fond of them myself but… Freya is here. I can feel her."

Reggie smirked, digging in his pocket and retrieving his cell phone, which he began to examine for messages. Arching a dark eyebrow, he was about to reply with a suitably sardonic retort regarding the rather intimate situation he'd walked in on, when Vanessa turned on her heel, her expression thunderous.

"There will be time for your endlessly charming display of wit later on, Reggie… I must insist that you find Freya Mikaelson at once. Time is of the essence." Though she had no real evidence to base that assumption on, Vanessa's sixth sense had never betrayed her before, and there was no reason to assume her powers would fail her this time.

"I'm telling you…" Reggie began, his attention suddenly seized by the sound of a message being received on his phone. "I asked around, and she ain't here."

Growing more irritated by the second, Ethan stood up and snatched the phone from his new friend's hand like a father chastising his child. He answered Reggie's indignant yelp with a glare that sent the man shrinking back into his seat.

"If Van says she's here, she's here alright."

Taking a few further steps out onto the balcony, Vanessa gripped the edge of the wooden rail, her fingers curling around the weather worn barrier as she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Almost at once she felt the presence of others like her, perhaps low level witches or voodoo practitioners, or the psychics who preyed upon tourists in the old quarter. And there, above the din and chaos, she felt the swelling power of another; another whose gifts more closely resembled her own. A natural witch - a practitioner of the oldest of arts.

Turning to face the two men, Vanessa Ives smiled serenely and her eyelids flickered open.

"She's not only here… she's waiting for us."