Simple Secrets || N. Mikaelson

~28~

All Events Of The Originals That Haven't Been Written Into the Story Do Not Occur (i.e. witches at Hope's birth never happens, Marcel v Klaus war never happens, Dahlia never comes, Freya later joins family though, Keelin + Freya meet but not b/c of werewolf toxin w/ Marcel, Lucien never comes, De Martel twins never come, etc etc etc - KLAUS + ELIJAH DON'T DIE)

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It didn't take long for New Orleans to run red with blood. It didn't take long for Klaus Mikaelson to track down Daniel Sheehan and all of his coworkers and wrangle them up, torturing them for as long as he could manage. 

It didn't take long for the Hybrid to enact his revenge. 

He proceeded to drag Talia's corpse to every powerful coven in the country, demanding that they bring her back. But, it was impossible. So, he moved onto covens around the world, they stated the same thing. 

With each passing day without his anchor, Niklaus only grew angrier. His siblings were wary, protective of the increasingly pregnant werewolf, Hayley Marshall. So, with the dead body of his soulmate, Klaus searched high-and-low for some sort of spell. A trail of blood followed after him. 

He had a witch keep her body from rotting, so it looked almost like Talia was asleep. He made himself believe she was asleep as he kept her body in the beautiful mahogany casket that he dragged along. 

He opened the wooden frame, looking down at her perfect features. The upturn of her lip, the slope of her cheeks, her nose and caramel skin. Her dark curls that framed her face, her sharp collar bones and thin shoulders. She looked peaceful. She looked like Talia. 

He wanted her back and he wanted her back now. 

Klaus slowly lifted the body up, resting his nose in her hair. Her scent had faded, but there was no smell of death. There was no smell of anything. He felt tears rush down his cheeks in a waterfall and he let himself break. Talia was dead and gone and he had no clue how to let go. 

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Hayley cradled young Hope against her chest, looking down at the baby's large eyes and button nose, her apple cheeks and rosebud lips. The baby was stunning, and her Mikaelson genes showed prominently. But the baby didn't have a father to care for her. 

Klaus didn't intend to be an absentee father, Hayley knew this as she looked down at the infant swaddled in her arms. He was on a rampage to bring back his one true love and she understood this. But she hated it, she hated that there was a chance that Hope would grow up without her father. Like Hayley had done. 

So, the mother rested her forehead gently against her daughter's, closing her dark eyes. "I will never leave you, Hope. I will never hurt you. I love you. Your Uncle Elijah loves you. Your father loves you. Your Aunt Rebekah loves you. Your Uncle Kol and Uncle Finn love you in Heaven. Aunt Talia loved you, more than you'll ever know, she adored you and she had never even met you. You are loved, little one. You will always be loved." 

The baby didn't understand the promise her mother was making. She just babbled, her hands grabbing at Hayley's dark hair, her eyes a black that would soon lighten into blue. 

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Klaus stared down at the two year old girl sitting at his feet, playing with her dolls. Red curls and ivory skin, pudgy baby hands and pudgy baby legs. The little girl made him smile. He adored her. He loved her. She was his daughter and he would do anything to protect her. 

"Hope, my love, come here." He leaned forward in his chair, opening his hands and she stood up and moved towards him, a wide smile on her little mouth. 

"Dada!" 

He picked her up, cradling her against his chest with his nose in her curls. Her hair would straighten out with age, but for the moment it reminded him so much of who he had lost. Hope even smelled like Talia used to. Sweet and warm, filled with bubbling kindness but a pinch of sass. 

Hope Andrea Mikaelson would be the family's savior, even if she didn't know it yet. He rubbed her back and let her sit on his lap as he watched her with pure adoration. His fingers slowly combing through her hair and a soft smile placed on his maybelline lips. 

Klaus Mikaelson was at peace for the first time in a long time. But that didn't excuse the mahogany coffin sitting in the garage with the dead, sleeping-like corpse of his soulmate resting inside. She would become something that Hope would wonder about in her future. Why the family was so protective of a block of wood holding a dead body. Why they were so anxious whenever the T-word was brought up around her father. 

But those were questions for another time. Right now, Hope's bright blue eyes were focused on her dolls. One was made of dark fabric with dark curly hair and the other one was customized to look like Hope. 

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Seven year old Hope wandered into the garage without her parents guidance. She was looking for her bike, but she found something else. The little girl had never been allowed in the garage before, and while she was curious she knew better than to ask. But she wanted her bike, it had pink and silver tassels and she loved riding it up and down the driveway that lead to the large cabin in the woods that housed the Mikaelson family. 

She also never asked why she didn't go to school or never saw other children or even never went out in public. More questions that she knew better than to ask about. But that didn't stop the questions from forming. When she was smaller she asked questions like those but her parents either ignored them or outright told her to stop asking them. 

Her Aunts and Uncle would look at her with pity and give vague replies, but nothing exact. Nothing to help sate her curious mind. So, Hope did something she knew would get her into lots and lots of trouble: she went into the garage. 

Really, all she wanted was her bike. She never meant to find the large thing covered in a gray tarp. But she couldn't stop her curiosity getting the better of her as she lifted up the tarp and pulled it back, revealing the wooden casket. 

Hope had never seen a casket, she didn't know what they looked like and she had never even heard the word. It wasn't something that existed in her young and small vocabulary (though it blossomed every day). However, when she stared at it, she somehow just knew that it had something to do with Death (with a capital D, according to Aunt Freya). 

So, scared and curious, Hope slowly lifted up the wooden cover, and stared down at the silk plush inside and the beautiful woman that lay there. Hope honestly thought she was sleeping, so she prodded her cheek but yanked her hand away at how cold it was. 

"Hello? Are you awake? It must be stuffy in this thing," the little girl whispered, wide eyes peering down at the sleeping woman. "Come on, wake up, I don't think my Dad would like someone sleeping in our garage and my Dad can get pretty scary when he's mad." 

Hope didn't know from experience but she had heard the stories they told at Adult Time, where she would hide on the stairs and eavesdrop on her family when they drank and laughed late at night. 

The woman didn't stir, so Hope tried the next best thing. She gathered up a little tiny bit of magic in her fingertips and poked the woman's cheek. Just a shock. But no, the woman still didn't wake up, That usually woke her Dad up. 

The woman became Hope's fixation over the years. She didn't know she was dead, but she knew something was wrong. Hope was intent on waking her up. 

Even if it was the last thing she did, the Mikaelson witch would wake up the mystery woman sleeping in the wooden box.