Damage Control

Chapter Fourteen

Hope sat across from Caroline Forbes Salvatore, locked in a staring contest. This was their fourth meeting since she made therapy mandatory for all the upper class, and this was the fourth meeting Hope sat in silence, waiting for her hour to be up. She had fifteen more minutes before her time was up. Caroline sat forward, elbows on the desk and sighed very loudly. "Are you really going to let another session go by in silence, Hope?" She sounded defeated.

Hope felt bad, but not enough to spill her secrets. "No offense Mrs. Salvatore but I never really opened up to Emma either, or Dr. Saltzman."

Caroline pursed her lips. "I did hear from Ric that in my absence you two have grown closer, I am glad you warmed up to someone." Hope wondered if that was a jab at her, Caroline on occasion tried to get close to Hope but like everyone else, she shut her out.

Hope shrugged. "He is an ex vampire hunter and I needed training." She felt tension rising within her. "I needed the outlet." After her father's death she was very angry and liked to hit things, Dr. Salzman offered to be that thing, and help her learn to defend herself.

"An outlet for your anger, is that how you are still managing it?" She was trying, and her nonchalant tone made Hope fight to keep her lips closed.

Another shrug. "I guess."

Clearly Caroline was not going to let her go this session in silence. "How has your temper been lately, I heard there was an incident the other day in the gym?"

"That was an accident, and Jed was fine." She tackled him a little too hard in football, he is a werewolf, he handled it well.

"But you have been on edge lately." She flipped through a series of papers. "All your teachers are reporting a short attitude with them and other students."

Hope felt the rage flooding her, she had to keep calm. "Well that happens when your boyfriend of almost two years just up and disappears...again." A tight smile. "In the last four weeks, I've moved from sadness to anger, I am dealing with it." Badly she might add, but handling non the less. She felt the surge of magic tingling on her arms. It happened often. Hope was powerful, she knew that, all that Mikealson first born magic running through her veins. Ever since the Hollow she learned to suppress her magic, and she had tried to keep that image up at the school, especially when they learned her real last name was not Marshall. Every eye always watched for the moment the daughter of the psycho killer Klaus would lose control, it was better if they thought she was less powerful than she actually was.

Caroline nodded. "Your boyfriend Landon Kirby."

The magic surged, and so did the lights. Breath Hope, Breath. She told herself. "Ex..." She gritted through her teeth. A light bulb shattered next to her. "Boyfriend." There goes that control.

"You need a better outlet Hope, or you might accidentally hurt someone." She knew that, it had happened before, of course it was mainly the Hollow but it was the event that triggered her curse, she did accidentally kill someone, and hurt someone she cared about, and a bunch of vampires she meant to kill. "And considering how close you are to my daughters I don't want them to be the thing you hurt."

"What," Hope raised an eyebrow. "Just like my father, that killing gene." She scoffed. "I guess all of my family really, all of us have hurt people, it might just be in my DNA." Except she had been spending her whole life trying not to carry that part of her legacy with her.

Caroline's face softened. "I knew a different Klaus." She almost whispered. "Of course I saw that side of him too, but I've seen a lot of things from people I consider my closest friends, seen some of the things I have done myself." A single tear left her eye. "I knew his gentler side, and I see that in you Hope, you are the good parts of both of your parents. They wanted you to be that, to learn from their mistakes and be a force for good in this world." Hope could not help the tears falling from her own eyes. "But you need to learn to deal with your emotions in a healthy way, or the magic and anger will consume you." She knew that prophecy of the first borns in her family, but her aunt Freya beat it, so she could.

Hope took a shuddering breath as she finally managed to regain control of her magic. "What do you have in mind?"

"First why don't you tell me how you are managing your magic?"

Hope's eyes flickered to the clock on the wall. "My time was up five minutes ago."

She started to stand. "Humor me." Hope paused. "I can't fully help if I don't understand what is going on." Hope gently sat back down. "I know you have a lot more magic than you appear, your parents told me a lot of stories, to help prepare me." Her brow creased. "And yet since the moment I met you, you seemed to have just slightly more power than your average witch."

Hope debated this internally for a while, was she ready to spill her one of her biggest secrets to Caroline? Well she felt the pull of it more and more every day, if she didn't start trying to manage it better, what Josie did with her black magic will look like child's play to what she could do. Hope's finger touched her necklace, the one of her family. "When I was young I had to wear a bracelet to restrict my magic." She swallowed. "After my father died, after the Hollow was syphoned from me, I still felt the anger I had before, only the voices left me and the power of the Hollow." She cleared her throat, tears still running from her eyes occasionally. "I was so sad and so angry I could have burned this whole town with just one thought, I almost was close to burning my house to the ground. "My aunt Freya helped me through a lot of it, and she helped put a spell on this." She fingered her Mikaelson necklace. "Not exactly like my bracelet, it is almost like Josie temporarily taking her powers away, the necklace helps me contain the magic for the most part. It is made to give me back a little bit of the magic at a time, like a slow stream instead of a tsunami, until I am capable of controlling it." Caroline looked like she wasn hanging on her every word. "Only when my emotions get out of hand, it is like I force the magic from wherever the necklace has hidden it, and then things like this happen." She waved to the lamp.

"That is very responsible of you." Caroline remarked. "Most kids your age wouldn't have tried that."

"Well I am not most kids." Caroline nodded in agreement. "So, how are you going to help me?" She knew Caroline was the main reason Lizzie got herself under control, so perhaps she really could help her.

Caroline smiled. "I am going to help you deal with your emotions in a healthy way, without magic."

"And what is that?"

"A series of mental tasks, but for now how about some old fashion physical exercise?"