Part 2

Their mother did once say that her children were so close only a girl could stand between them. Who knew that an old money socialite like Esther was blessed with a prophetic tongue?

As fate would have it, an explosive argument with a one night hookup who barged into his office with pregnancy test on hand, a severely hungover Klaus Mikaelson, and that very same girl riding down the elevator that very same day with Elijah burdened with chivalry, drew them in this complex knot that would wrap around their necks like a taunting noose forever.

By the next week, Elijah had the girl on his arm on their sister's birthday ball. By the next month, Hayley Marshall—that was her full name, he was reminded by his brother—was sitting at the family table on the monthly dinner his mother hosted. By the second month, Elijah stopped showing up for fencing and bourbon. Klaus would have chalked it up to the fact that it was such ill-advised combination of recreational bonding between brothers, but the reason seemed written in the stars that he would be a stupid man not to have seen it.

Klaus was not a stupid man.

It was not three months later when Klaus was called to the boardroom to find his father seated at the head of the table, Elijah to his right hand, and three of their solicitors right around them.

Klaus saw the manila folder placed at the other end of the table. "I suppose this is for me." His father's face was emotionless. For his part, Elijah's flickered with a brief moment of what seemed to be guilt before blanking. Klaus did not bother to sit. He leaned down with his palm on the table and flipped the page open. The document was a surprise, but he did not show shock. His lip curved into a humorless smile. Klaus glanced up at Elijah, waving the paper briefly. "I never knew you took a crash course in comedy, brother."

Elijah straightened in his chair. "You and Hayley clearly want nothing to do with the other."

"Unfortunately for all of us, the child cannot sign off on the proposal, and neither can I," Klaus parried back. The irritation that rankled him a while back inflamed into fury now. A sign off on parental rights, a quitclaim as if these were benefits he was being asked to relinquish, an NDA as if this some R&D process. "It's my bloody child, and whether or not I intend anything with its mother, I am not giving anything away."

The solicitors leaned forward to make their quiet arguments. He watched the silent film play before him as Mikael stabbed the mother of pearl inlay of the boardroom table, and Elijah move to stand up in protest. Mikael placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and forcibly sit him down. When his father turned back to Klaus, the lawyers sat straight on their seats, and Elijah looked away, straight at the door.

As if eyeing it for an escape, but frozen still.

"Why not sign, Niklaus, if it's for the benefit of the child?" Mikael drawled. "Your father certainly did."

At that moment, the world slowed down. Klaus squinted, and he could swear that the air coming of the vent of the airconditioner was visible, moving around in fuzzy waves of air surrounding and speeding up around the warm bodies, slowly brushing through the otherwise polished hair on his brother's head. Outside the room, seen through the translucent glass, someone tripped and fell very slowly before hitting the carpet with a thud.

Niklaus dropped the folder on the table. He very deliberately placed his hands palms down on the surface. In the back of mind, he willed himself to turn into some savage and pounce across the long table on all fours and rip his father to shreds. He turned to his brother, willing him to look at him. "Is this how you want it to be, Elijah?" As much as it would show weakness, Klaus could not help the throb of betrayal in his voice.

"Shall we give my brother time to think it through?" Elijah finally allowed. Before Mikael could protest, Elijah placed a hand on his arm. "Klaus has all the documents." He directed to his brother, "You should have your own lawyers go through them."

Like hell he would.

With wide, exaggerated movements, Klaus opened the folder then picked up the papers. Looking straight in his brother's eyes, he tore them by half, then into strips.

"There is a copy on your desk, Klaus," Elijah said, apparently knowing him well enough to have anticipated it. And he would tear it too, Klaus thought. "I have one being delivered to your place tonight. Your lawyer has already signed the receipt of another copy this morning."

"Don't pop the champagne yet, Elijah. You and Hayley have nothing to celebrate yet. You're getting my kid over my dead body."

"Niklaus, you should know by now that Hayley can't drink champagne. If you insist that you're going to be a father, you should at least know the basics."

In frustration, Klaus moved to stride out of the room.

"Brother, why don't I meet you at the penthouse tonight? Let's sit and talk it out like gentlemen."

Klaus snarled at Elijah. His father caught his gaze. From behind the three suited solicitors, Mikael's lips curled at him. Klaus had always noticed some disdain behind their father's eyes, and he had chalked it up to the knowledge that he had not been as innocent as Henrik, as sweet as Rebekah, as interesting as Kol, as syncophantic as Finn, or as abso-fucking-lutely perfect as Elijah.

Now he knew it was plain, simple, hatred.

"Run away like he did," Mikael taunted him, his voice a knife of ice that slashed at his spine. "Best gift you can give the kid is to disappear, Niklaus."

"Father," Elijah cut in curtly.

Klaus launched at the patriarch, barreling straight through the solicitors that fell to the side. Tha rage inside him, long kept as bay despite the multitude of wrongs he suffered from the extremes he had lived under his father's thumb—from being cast aside, seeing every one of his siblings favored over him, to such open disdain and the revalation that Klaus did not belong, was baser and lower, a son whose blood was adulterated by another man. He lifted an arm—violence begot violence. Mikael's words were the most awful wrong he had done in Klaus' life, used a weapon today to humiliate him before his legal goons.

Beneath him, Mikael's eyes burned with barely restrained fury. "Are you so eager to meet your end, Niklaus?"

Flashes of a belt for wrongs any other boy would commit with a mere tap of the hand and a scolding as punishment. Memories of his father's large hand wrapping around his throat for a nighttime escapade with his siblings that damaged their father's shiny Lexus, when it was Kol and Rebekah that sought the adventure that they were much too young and drunk for, and Klaus had gone to save their asses and cover for them because they had been young and stupid but they were his siblings. And when Rebekah pleaded with him and used her pet name for her older brother, Klaus' temper flared but he never, ever let her take the fall.

"I am eager to stand over your burning corpse," Klaus spat out.

One of the solicitors immediately ran outside, stumbling in his panic. Within minutes, Klaus felt the arms that grabbed him to pull him off from his father and drag him back outside. He would not have been surprised if he was tossed out of the building. Instead, Klaus found himself dumped on the sleek leather couch inside his own office.

Elijah's doing, most possibly. If it were up to that man who he had known as his father all of his life, Klaus would have been in jail for assault, plastered across the night time news, and stripped of all the trappings of the Mikaelson name. But as Klaus himself had saved his younger siblings countless times to his own detriment, Elijah had always been burdened with the same need to save the younger Klaus.

Pity it was a one night stand that now proved to be the trigger for their first, monumental, life-altering fight.

Klaus pulled himself up from the couch and strolled towards the decanter of bourbon he kept stocked in his office, pouring out two glasses. He brought one up to his lips.

"If he thought I would betray my own brother for him, he is a fool without equal," came Elijah's voice from the doorway.

Klaus did not turn. Instead, he slid the other glass to the left of him. His brother stopped at his side and picked up the drink. "How long have you known?" he asked quietly, still unable to look at Elijah and remember the utter betrayal he felt inside that boardroom.

Elijah took a sip of the bourbon, then answered, "Since we were young boys." Klaus' lips thinned. He wondered if it was on the day that he had fallen off a tree at school and broke his arm. Their mother was off for a weekend away, and the school had informed him that their father would not be able to come. Klaus had lain in the hospital all alone, miserable with his cast. Three hours later, Elijah had arrived, gangly still in his middle school years, straight from boarding school, wielding a black felt marker to be the first to sign his name on the cast. Always and forever, he had written in block letters. "You are my brother, my blood," Elijah affirmed.

The weakness in his knees was adrenaline leaving his body from the physical altercation with Mikael, Klaus told himself. It was not simply abject relief from Elijah's assuring words.

Because Klaus could lose it all—the company, the privileges, the last name. He could build himself back stronger, if he had to lay down the bricks one by one with his own bloody hands, he would build a strong empire than any the Mikaelson name had done. But family, he could not. Having been an other all his life in this family, Klaus had found himself growing into his skin trying to prove his value, his greatness, his difference. Family he could not lose.

"Why am I still here? I should have been sleeping off the night behind bars."

"You did not make it easy," Elijah answered. "We'll have to take about your temper, Klaus. You had three simpering witnesses that I needed to manage on top of getting father to see reason." His voice fell. Klaus drew in an uneven breath when Elijah grasped his upper arm. "I am sorry, brother, that the truth came this way, wielded by Mikael to hurt you in the guise of giving me what I wanted."

Finally, Klaus turned eyes bright with tears he had held back. It was not Mikael whose actions burned inside his chest still. "Then what, brother, are we going to do?"

"Do you want to try and build a life with Ms Marshall?"

Klaus shook his head slowly. Elijah nodded, relief evident in his eyes. "Neither does she with you. She calls it her biggest fuck up," Elijah murmured. The casual, indecent words did not sit well on his tongue. "At least you are aligned on that." He took another sip of the drink, then gestured to the chair behind the desk. "Go on, Klaus. Take a seat." Once Klaus was settled in, Elijah took the ergonomic chair in front of the desk.

There was not going to be a complete win from both sides.

"You and Hayley do not wish to be together. I want to be with her. She wants to be with me. I am willing to raise the child," Elijah stated his points.

Klaus leaned back in his executive chair. When Elijah nodded to him, Klaus recognized the effort. "Your Harvard Business School is showing, brother."

Elijah shrugged. "We were going to get nowhere trying to one up each other. I am laying out my cards; you lay out yours. We'll need to find the best alternative and negotiate an agreement from there." Cool, calm, collected, and fair Elijah. "You have my cards. Now tell me, Klaus, what is non negotiable to you?"

Klaus fell silent, looking at his brother. For his part, Elijah did not avert his eyes, unlike how he refused to look at him at the boardroom when his father had him cornered, ready to pounce at the titillating secret about Niklaus' paternity. Klaus recognized the depth of Elijah's affection for Ms Marshall, and realized he could ask for pretty much anything. Then again, there was no one else in this world that proved as loyal to him as his older brother.

"After today, much as I suspected there was something different about me, the more I cannot let myself be erased. I will not be that simpering coward of a man whose name I don't even know," he stated. "Raise it, Elijah. There is no better man who can." Klaus paused. "But I can't pretend I did not father that child. Secrets have a way of digging out of the grave, especially in this family."

"No lies, then," Elijah summarized.

"No lies," Klaus agreed. His lips curved, for the first time that day genuine. "Shared calendars of junior league, alternating holidays, and letting the child do in my house everything you and Ms Marshall forbid." Klaus winked. "I'd be known as the fun dad."

The handshake of agreement sealed the negotiation.

The day after, a hurricane that destroyed it all. He had gone to bed that night filled with the prospect of the healthiest shared custody arrangement known the men. He was pulled out of bed by the flustered image of his mother and a somber Elijah pacing the room. Klaus heard the static on the tv that had not been used for months that he thought the remote control batteries had already leaked and expired. There he was his sister standing in front of CNN, watching live footage of what seemed like some vehicular accident.

Klaus strode to the television, reading the running caption and the ticker. His eyes had been trained long ago as he worked closely on the business that Elijah had long run in Mikael's name. The market was dropping. Mikaelson being private could protect it only so far if everything else that they sourced and supplied would fall. At the center of the screen, a million dollars were being spent on a crane to lift a vehicle from the river. The side of the bridge would be expensive to redo, but the structure was still sound.

His eyes widened at the sight of the black car rising from the dark depths.

"Niklaus, we have to get you out of the country. Now," Elijah stated.

Mikael was dead. Not even twelve hours ago, Niklaus Mikaelson was fuming over him with his fist raised. His words hung heavy in the air. I am eager to stand over your burning corpse.

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

He should have expected nothing less than the full attention of the staff upon arriving at the regional office in Virginia. Niklaus had never seen Elijah spare expense nor waste time when it came to Hayley, despite the roller coaster that was their relationship on and off in the last decade and a half. The moment that his own chief of staff interrupted his meeting in Berlin, Klaus knew that the request came directly from New Orleans.

In fifteen years of his exile, better known as International Business Development Vice President of Mikaelson Enteprises, Klaus had built his own empire out of what used to be the least profitable division of the company.

The position had first been created by the family patriarch to move his children around like chess pieces. Mikaelson Enterprises being a private company allowed Mikael sole discretion to install or remove anyone he pleased. Having decided that Elijah was the most levelheaded and suitable of his children to lead the family, Mikael displaced the heir apparent, his oldest son Finn, and created the position to send him to a lucrative assignment to support several dam projects in Guangzhou province. The series of projects turned into the biggest blot in Mikaelson's international reputation once a just eight month inaugurated dam burst during typhoon season.

Corruption leading to substandard materials and poor ineffective audits producing compliance issues hounded the company after the postmortem RCA was published. Very swiftly Mikael whipped out a corporate sword and executed his eldest's career, sending Finn off with a measly thirty million dollar parachute to manage one of Mikaelson Enterprises' smaller media companies. Last that Klaus heard of his brother, Finn was a small success in athletic event promotions. Best of all, if rumors were to be believed, Finn had quietly gotten hitched to a girl—Rosemary? Lavender? Sage! Klaus had once seen an Architectural Digest feature with those two in their desert mansion with just eight bedrooms in Nevada. Klaus understood why Finn would need to be near Vegas promoting boxing events to peasants, but with how cheap land was in the desert, he pitied the lows to which Finn sank that he would take a tiny eight bedroom mansion.

Since Mikael's death fifteen years ago, Klaus had seen Elijah offer Finn positions in New Orleans, eager to have him back in the family fold. Finn had repeatedly refused, eager to shed the Mikaelsons from his life and protective of the oasis that he and Sage had created in the desert. Klaus would never tell him out loud, but the decision earned him some admiration.

Still, family was family. Klaus could not support anyone turning their backs completely the way that Finn had.

Fifteen years ago, when Mikael was recovered from the river from the apparent vehicular accident, autopsy of his body revealed a clean shot right on his forehead. Elijah never faltered, not once. Swiftly getting the announcement of Klaus' promotion into the VP of BD role, clearly stating in Marketing materials that the ascension had been in the words for the better part of the fiscal year, managed to quash doubts about the sudden expatriation. In the dead of night, in front of the jet, Elijah was the lone sibling to see him off. They stood at the tarmac, entwined forearms as they pulled each other close.

"Give me a few months, Klaus. We'll ensure you have nothing to worry about. I want you home for diaper changes."

It took five years before the bullet was traced to a man with no known connection to him. Klaus refused to believe his father's death was a random execution.

The next day, Klaus stood outside the humble house. White picket fences, he registered idly, had never been on Elijah's design choices. In fact, he had thought the chauffer mistaken when the car rolled into the gravelly pathway through the cheery trees to stop in front of the home. Five years of longing, exiled and isolated, moving from country to country for Mikaelson Enterprises, must have lulled him into unrealistic expectations of home. He had half expected his daughter to come running out of the house in a frock, and then jump in his arms.

Not once in the five years he was on the agreed exile, while the Feds were investigating the muffled rumors of Klaus and his father's argument in the boardroom, did Klaus ever see Ms Marshall again when Elijah would call him on video for short conversations. Never mind that for most of the time, Hope was barely communicative, and the regular cadence quickly become status reports of Klaus' division.

"Brother," Klaus greeted once he saw Elijah carrying a cake.

Elijah was wearing a crisp white button down shirt and black slacks, bearing a candy sprinkled rainbow confection. Atop his head, a cone cardboard printout with a clown. "Perfect timing."

It was his daughter's birthday.

The day was a blur. The celebration was simple, and the mother was not there. As prominent as Elijah Mikaelson was, the discreet backyard family party seemed at odds. Klaus was certain the occasion being so somber and small had much to do with the absence. Rebekah and Kol had made their way from their respective single lives to bring a shared gift for the little girl. Klaus shook his daughter's hand, greeting her a happy birthday.

He watched the genuine glee in his brother's face as he recorded how Hope blew out the candles on her rainbow cake. Klaus noted how Hope brought a forkful of icing and stuck it in Elijah's mouth. Hope had run around and jumped up to reach the balloons, squealing when one jump found her going higher and higher, because Kol caught her by her armpits and raised her up to grab at least one red and one blue balloon. When the expected sugar crash came, the girl had walked over to where Klaus sat with Elijah. He watched the girl climb onto Elijah's lap, lay her head on his shoulder and yawn.

The next years of his exile was self-imposed.

It was not that Niklaus Mikaelson was an unwilling participant here. His legs outstretched before him, he watched his older brother as Elijah looked out the window. His brother was insufferable as he hurried Niklaus as soon as he arrived, to the point that Klaus curtly instructed for the chopper to be prepared. He was not going to be the reason that Elijah complains about getting to the school too late. The upside was not only for the speed but that the noise would be enough barrier for conversation.

He knew enough what was happening with Hope. Rebekah gave him plenty of updates. He would much rather avoid Elijah's stories disarming him with the repeated references to how his daughter looked at Elijah as the father that Klaus was not present to be.

The fifteen years away as the company's business development head was a boon. Without it, Klaus was certain that he and Elijah would careen headlong into familial destruction. Over the years as he watched his daughter grow up from snippets he had seen behind Elijah's shoulder on their infrequent video calls, to the photos in Marketing materials that almost always had to feature something about the CEO's family, to the posts that Rebekah would share with him, Klaus knew if he put up a fight, it would be a fight he would lose.

He did not raise his division from its negative revenue to being the top income earning department by allowing himself to lose.

As loyal as Elijah had been to him, Klaus knew something simmered beneath the surface. And if Elijah wanted anything, he would stop at nothing.

If he had to choose, he would choose to protect this family, his precarious relationship with his brother. His heart ached to reach for the little girl then, pained for the sound of his daughter's voice calling Elijah 'Dad.' But he had known long before the issues that Hope faced with her mother and the unstable environment that it had created.

Long, rare bouts when Hayley struggled two bring two parts of herself together, becoming more and more frequent over the years. Fifteen years, and she was still Ms Marshall despite Elijah's best efforts to build them into one solid family. Fifteen years of Elijah as a constant, but Klaus regretted not one moment of the decision to fight for his paternity. No matter what happened to Hayley, and however long it took to drive his brother away, Klaus would be Hope's constant even if his daughter was as stubborn as he, just as much as his brother was Hayley's.

If Elijah had his choice, Niklaus was going to be unnecessary in future transactions where it related to his Hope. There were subtle references to it over the years. Once, when Elijah was drafting insurance papers for the annual beneficiary update for the company, Elijah's chief of staff contacted Klaus' to get him to sign off that his minor daughter was going to be at the top of Elijah's list. The next time, on one of Hayley's longer periods of peace, his lawyer received the request for Klaus to approve that his minor daughter would be traveling cross border with Elijah.

Still, there was that pesky DNA test and those papers. Niklaus prepared himself for solicitors to again make an effort to negotiate some sort of settlement to get Elijah a permanent release for some paternal decisions.

Just the year before, he was informed that Hope was transferring to some private school in Mystic Falls, Virginia. Immediately, Klaus looked up the school and had a background check ordered on the owners. Hope had had too much instability in her life, and problems in her previous schools that the institutions were unable to handle. Klaus could not allow his brother and his fiancé of fifteen bloody years to make a decision that would come out worse for his daughter.

Delving into the school and its background proved interesting, and triggered what was nearly an obsession.

Alaric Saltzman's profile was simple and direct to the point. He was the academic of the two owners. The man had a high school teaching license, was a professor in college, and then married a doctor from the teaching hospital attached to the university. Widowed when the good doctor died in childbirth, the single father raised the two girls with help from his business partner.

And she—she was unreal.

Klaus would have thought this was one of those heavily edited Marketing campaigns if this were not the report of his private investigator, and if believed the school had enough money to pay for a scrubbed, aesthetically pleasing profile on its founders. But the report was accompanied by ID photos used for her driver's license, her passport, and her business permit applications—notoriously unflattering sources of images no matter who you asked. In every one of them, she beamed, even on those that told you to hide your teeth. It was a glow from within, so pure, so bright. One night one of the photos fell, and he was drunk enough to wonder if his fingers would burn from her sun if he picked it up.

She would be odd, would stand out, in a room full of Mikaelsons and their chosen poison of partners. Not that he was thinking of that as he researched this woman who would be his daughter's headmistress.

Headmistress was such an ill-fitting word too, he thought. She was all of twenty-six, with her bright flowy, golden hair framing her smiling face, kind eyes open and innocent. Judging by her demeanor on the photos, Klaus saw a life untouched by the darkness and pain of his, of Hope's. How she would relate to his daughter, he could only imagine. This headmistress was not the image that the title conjured, especially not for those who read The Little Princess over the phone, so his voice could reach the sleeping girl in a crib thousands of miles away. She was no Miss Minchin, that was for sure.

The historic boarding house was transferred to her name on the day of her wedding. A year later, the school was being outfitted, the curriculum under peer review. The next year, Caroline Forbes-Salvatore was on the fundraising circuit, presenting her vision on powerpoint and a collection of homemade videos.

He had played one of those conference videos on his phone. When the host called on her, Niklaus watched her climb the stage, small and golden. In the dark stage, under the glaring spotlight, Caroline Forbes-Salvatore talked about being young, being driven, knowing how big and beautiful the world around her was, and being limited by her environment. With every sentence, her voice grew strong and more passionate for her cause. She spoke about being different, being lost, being desperate to find somewhere to belong.

If only the world had more of her. If only his world had someone like her.

"At twenty years old, I lost the love of my life and my best friend on my wedding day, my body broken in that hospital bed. I held that deed to the Salvatore House, I knew my entire world had ended," her voice played in the background. "At twenty-one, I was still alive even when I desperately wished my life away. At twenty-two, I knew that if the world was stubborn enough to keep me here, then I needed to make sure life is going to be worth it, that I will touch as many children's lives as I could with one clear message." The camera zoomed in, blurred first as the cheap equipment worked to adjust to the new setting. "If you set your mind to it, there are no endings. There is only you, and all the beginnings you can create."

Within half an hour. Klaus had signed a check for three million dollars.

And now, a year after crushing hard and following whatever the internet could yield of headmistress Caroline Forbes-Mikaelson in the academic fundraising circuit, one could not blame him for the adult embarrassment. He had imagined the day clearly in his head, when he would be smooth and suave arriving to watch his daughter's graduation in a suit that could put Elijah's to shame. In his mind, he would have had time to get a shower, a clean shave, and press a change of clothes.

But Elijah does as Elijah does. When Hayley once again checked herself in—and make no mistake, the woman who was nothing more than a one night fling a decade and a half ago, proved to have balls of steel to be able to manage her symptoms well enough to know when the best time to remove herself from her daughter and Elijah was—his brother was immediately on his phone, making arrangements to take his part in bringing Hayley home as fast as he could push her recovery for.

That meant Hope.

That meant disrupting the rhythm of the teenager's life to bring her for visits to the 'spa' that housed her mother, for girl talk and chess and painting sessions.

This holding pattern could not be good for Hope. But then, for Hayley, Klaus was sure he would find himself on the opposite side of a negotiating table with his brother and his daughter on the other side.

From his arrival to the regional office, Klaus was ushered immediately to the helipad.

The helicopter was noisy, scandalous, pretty destructive as the signs on the lawn blew away, with tarpaulins shredding at the power of the propeller. Klaus narrowed his eyes as he saw one lone woman waiting for them at the top of the steps, straightening herself and fussing. His smile widened. Klaus did not care that his brother looked at him askance.

Klaus could not possibly reference his one year long distance crush that verged on stalking if he did anything about it.

His stride was even as he approached the headmistress, whose face did not hide the disapproval at how they arrived. Klaus registered the one over that she did at his outfit compared to Elijah's, and cursed his brother at the back of his head for not allowing him to freshen up before the frenzy.

The school looked respectable enough, and if Caroline Forbes-Salvatore's passion onstage was reflected in the classes, then Hope was in a good place.

In the periphery he realized that his brother was talking about installing a helipad.

Klaus stepped forward, climbing the few steps, having been eager since they arrived to breathe in close to her. She smelled like he imagined, only with more daisies. He swallowed. Did he imagine the way that her tongue darted quickly, briefly, to moisten her lips. He swore she inhaled deeply too, like she was of his same mind. He offered a hand. Every business relationship started this way, after all.

But then, when the soft skin of her hand touched his, he found himself bringing it to his lips.

Her hand smelled just like her hair.

Her breathing was uneven, deeper than usual. Klaus swore this was not one sided, even if he had been enamored for an entire year before she had ever seen him. "Niklaus Mikaelson," he managed. "I'm the younger one." And for the life of him, he did not know how to release her. Not even when she moved to pull back.

He followed the headmistress to her office like the dazed children followed the Pied Piper. As a courtesy, he helped gather her scattered documents despite her protests. Having moved from one country to another, working in many places that would instantly be on alert for having a high-powered boss whose reputation to shape up or ship out preceded him, Klaus had trained to assess reactions around him quickly.

He swore, even with his back turned, Ms Forbes—that was what she told Elijah to call her, he remembered—was not averse to his presence there. She seemed uncomfortable when he and his brother settled in front of her.

"We are here for Hope Marshall, Niklaus' daughter."

The flush that crept up the headmistress, slowly climbing up her throat and settling on her cheeks, was enough for Klaus. The guilt that struck her was not. He cursed Elijah again for the unintentional embarrassment that his brother caused. He wanted to correct the assumption as fast as he could.

"We have a family situation. Hope's mother is not well," Niklaus stated softly, trying to ease the information that Elijah seemed to magnificently try to barrel through. "We need to take Hope."

She made a call, then turned back to him. "Hope will be here in a few minutes." Good. The faster they could take Hope, the less intractable his brother would be, and the quicker Hope will realize her mother was going to be ok. He did not pretend to know the extent of Hayley's issue, but the woman seemed to be handling the diagnosis well enough, knowing when to seek help when necessary. "I am so sorry," Ms Forbes said.

"Hayley is Elijah's fiancé." Klaus swore he did not imagine the quick relief in her eyes. "My brother is positively flustered and in a complete mess."

Soon, Hope will be there. Once she was, he would have lost the chance.

But one created his own beginnings.

"Over dinner," he said in a rush, energized by the words that she had herself used in her speech. "I know a place."

Elijah, ever Elijah. "Niklaus, are you really picking up the headmistress of my daughter's school?"

"You mean to say, my daughter?" Klaus broke into a giant smile. There was no need to scare off Ms Forbes. "Inappropriate?"

"Very."

But there was a twinkle in her eye that encouraged him. Perhaps his enthusiasm could carry this through, despite the rugged unpolished look of a man who traveled the red eye from Berlin and shuffled to Louisiana, then Virginia, then chopped to Mystic Falls in an ungodly amount of time. He would be back to his prime mode in no time. With some sleep under his belt, he might be able to charm her yet.

The curt knock on the door was the only split second announcement he had to prepare, and then his heart stopped at the familiar but distant voice.

"Mrs Salvatore, Mr Saltzman asked me to see you." Her voice was so different in person. So rarely had they spoken, and it was mere casual, forced conversations on the phone. "Dad."

He looked up the same time that Elijah did, but knew very well it was not he that Hope greeted. Niklaus knew better now and remained seated. Elijah walked over and took Hope's hands in his, explaining in brief. Klaus could see the slump in his daughter's shoulders at the news, registered by the rection that this had happened several times before. Her jaw was set and resolute, by rote knowing what to do.

Klaus forced his eyes to tear away, keenly aware of the jealousy that had no place in his heart.

He stood from his chair as Hope brushed by him and walked straight to the headmistress. The cold jealousy melted at the sight of the warm embrace between them. His gaze lingered at the back of his daughter's head, then settled on Ms Forbes' closed eyes as she rested her cheek the top of Hope's head.

She was one of the rare ones whose presence on the stage was the exact same person she was in front of you. When finally, Ms Forbes turned back to them, Klaus felt the slight discomfort in his belly at the way that the headmistress seemed to study him.

Elijah and Hope walked arm in arm out of the office, resolved to make their way back to New Orleans post haste.

Klaus signed the waiver to pull Hope out of school. His fingers lingered on hers when he handed her back the pen.

"I think we're clear, Mr Mikaelson."

"Are we?"

"Crystal."

He shook his head. Her voice was a little cooler, more indifferent, as if there was a front that she had put up for protection. He took the calling card sitting on a stack at her desk. It was not as if he needed it. He spent the year on that single background check of the school that told him any information that a mere card could contain, plus a myriad more. "Caroline," he said, testing the name on his tongue. How much he enjoyed the way his tongue moved in his mouth to say her name. Suddenly, there was nothing that he needed more than to get this clear. "What you saw, what it looks like on paper, isn't great."

His daughter, cold and distant, treated him no better than a stranger. He would bet that Hope was ever more polite to actual strangers. The way she acted was with complete animosity right there. His brother more of a father than he could come close to becoming.

But Caroline Forbes-Salvatore was a rare one, and he could not let this meeting pass with whatever she had observed, and have her sit with the judgment until he had a proper chance.

Sometimes you lost what lost and no amount of effort allowed you a clawback.

"But if you can keep an open heart, I meant what I said. I'd love the chance to tell you over dinner."

Klaus did not hide the plea in his voice, would not lose the chance just because of pride. He could hear the helicopter scream at him that it was time, and was caught in the mess of the papers blowing about them in a chaotic mess. But he had always been temperamental and transparent and he always wore his heart on his sleeve.

"Please, Caroline."

And then she closed her eyes in resignation. "One dinner."

And it was better than closing a billion-dollar project. Home. He broke into an open grin. Elated. Even that rush he did not hide. "I'll call you," he said, holding up her card.

tbc