July 18, 2012

Hope was the perfect baby.

"Here we go, my love," said Yara, placing her in a small tub for her bath. She smiled as she yawned, making her cover her mouth. "Good morning!"

Klaus offered her the bottle of baby wash. "Let's clean you up, my littlest wolf."

"You've yet to make progress," snapped Klaus as Yara laid in her bed, belly swollen to a point where it was uncomfortable for her to move. "Yara is days away from giving birth and New Orleans is no safer."

"Will you stop being such a prat?" demanded Rebekah. "We've done everything we can. Marcel has held off on rebuilding his community to avoid conflict, Hayley is managing the remaining loyal wolves as best as she can, but we have no hopes of removing that girl, Cassie, who commands the witches and those few wolves who remain with the moonlight rings. They make the Quarter a hostile environment and if you recall, the home is meant to be a fortress. We cannot both be out at the same time handling business or it arises suspicion, and we've no witches who will help us defeat Cassie. She's a bloody Harvest girl, everyone is doing her bidding!"

"Klaus," said Yara in a strained voice.

"No, I will not be less of a prat," said Klaus hotly. "It has been several months, something must have changed, at yet it has not. And Mikael is no closer to being found."

"Klaus," Yara repeated. She gestured to her belly. "It's time."

"Oh."

Yara had hired an Amazonian midwife to observe tradition, and wished for a water birth like the one her mother had. According to the midwife, Klaus was not meant to be in the room; fathers usually never were. But given that Klaus wasn't the type to observe traditions if it went against his wishes, he was present the entire time the midwife guided Yara in leaning back in a large tub of warm water, sweating profusely as she tried to breathe through the pain.

The majority of births in Brazil were via C-section, which would have been fine for Yara given her vampire nature. Klaus had suggested it to get the procedure over with sooner. She refused, insisting she would wait as long as it took for Hope to make her way out.

She was as eager to be born as they were to meet her. When at last the midwife reached in to offer the baby to them, Yara burst into tears and hugged her to her chest, body slowly beginning to heal and revert to what her normal had been before she took on the pregnancy.

"Minha menina, tão perfeita," whispered Yara as she kissed the top of her head. (T: My girl, so perfect.)

She handed her to Klaus, who seemed almost afraid to hold her, keeping her an arms length away so he could stare in wonder at the baby now looking up at him before he smiled and drew her closer, mimicking Yara by pecking the top of her head.

The Amazonian midwife did the sign of the cross over herself, beginning to clean up. "Eu sinto seu poder. Ela pode salvar o mundo ou pode destruí-lo." (T: I feel her power. She could save the world or she could destroy it.)

Yara couldn't imagine such a sweet little thing causing harm to anyone. The midwife offered her a cooler with milk from one of the city's milk banks so Yara could prop Hope up to drink. Klaus smiled, delighted when he saw Hope drinking eagerly, hungry whimpers dying down.

"Here, it is tradition for the mother's name to go first," whispered Yara. "She would be Hope Isaura Lopes-Mikaelson. It is, however, a mouthful, and I don't quite like how my surname fits with her first name. I want her to be just Hope Mikaelson. After all, I am one, I simply don't use the name."

"It's perfect," said Klaus softly. "She is perfect."

She was perfect. She was theirs.

Though Yara hadn't expected Klaus to be domestic in any way (and had fully intended to do everything around the house while he sulked or maybe painted in his corner of the room), he'd surprised her.

He could cook, he just didn't prefer to when he had servants so easily compellable. In their cottage, however, they took turns making meals; sometimes he'd make a familiar dish and sometimes she'd teach him more about Brazilian foods she enjoyed. Dishes were done by whoever didn't cook that day. Klaus handled the sweeping and scrubbing the bathroom so she didn't have to worry about bending down, but Yara cleaned other surfaces in the house and organized her items to her liking. He built her a bookshelf, growing tired of seeing her piles of books on the floor. She carved him an easel and made some paint brushes by hand, to minimize how much they went to buy in town. His paints were made by the many fruits and berries out in her garden.

She'd insisted on separate beds, mostly because she didn't trust herself. She didn't want either of them to make a rash decision only because they had no other company. Klaus didn't mind; he'd always been a light sleeper and Yara wiggled like a worm constantly, more so now that she had to accommodate a belly.

Once she'd given birth, he built a cradle, placing it between their beds so any of them could attend to Hope in the middle of the night. She was relatively quiet, mostly sleeping whenever they did (wrapped in a traditional red blanket to bring luck and ward off evil spirits) and ever so often waking up in the early hours of the morning with quiet whines rather than bawls.

They didn't have many visitors, given almost no one knew they were there. The midwife came to check often, popping in to see that Hope was still healthy and bringing them their milk bank deliveries. Some of the farmers had heard a baby crying and came to investigate. (Yara had been welcoming but Klaus was greatly put off by the lack of personal space other people offered him. He also hadn't been sure why one of the farmers gasped when he revealed he'd painted a vase of purple flowers to adorn the house.)

"Purple and black are mourning colors, thus, they are not meant to be used as gifts," said Yara. "But it's alright, I rather like purple. They see it differently than I do. I didn't find that out until I moved here. Besides, I think Hope likes purple, it's the color of royalty." She turned her body so he could see that Hope, swaddled to her chest, was staring at the painting with wide eyes.

Klaus smiled. "At least someone likes it."

"They're only trying to be friendly. They see us as being just like them. It's different here, we're nobodies. Not the royalty New Orleans thinks." She looked down at Hope. "In New Orleans, you are a princess." She said seriously, "Princess Hope of House Mikaelson. Daughter of the King Klaus and sister to the King Marcel."

"Marcel is a prince."

"You both agreed to rule as equals, this means you are both kings or both princes. Pick one."

Everyone was eager to meet Hope. Marcel, Hayley, and Cami asked for pictures constantly. Davina liked to FaceTime so she could see her, even if she was just sleeping against Yara's chest. Rebekah and Elijah would ask about her every other sentence. How Yara wished her mother could have been there to see them, to see her with her perfect little girl, whose hair was starting to grow just as curly and light as her father's.

Elijah had many things to report, though it didn't exactly bode well for their family.

Mikael wasn't the only one who'd been brought back to life. Esther had been resurrected, too, and according to their sources, Finn and Kol had followed suit. Elijah and Rebekah had discovered that Esther was inhabiting Cassie, the Harvest Girl, while Finn was inside of a man named Vincent Griffith. Kol, they'd yet to see, but they worried he had something to do with why Davina had suddenly disappeared from the attic of St. Anne's and was sparse with her communication.

Marcel had offered a loyal witch to help them track who Esther jumped into, assuming she'd be leaving Cassie's body eventually. Using the starling necklace Klaus had given him, they'd placed a spell to mark Esther wherever she went. They were still attempting to figure out what exactly her end game was, but Rebekah seemed to have her suspicions after an unpleasant conversation with Finn: Esther wanted them to take on mortal bodies.

"It's simple, isn't it?" Yara had said when Hope was about a month old. "She wants to kill you. Your vampire bodies left unguarded, she can do whatever she needs to in order to destroy them. That, or, if she really hates you as much as you all think she does, she could be baiting you into a trap where you're more easily killed. I think it's more a problem that she loathes what you are and what you do rather than who you are as people. A mother never stops loving her children, not really, but she can come to hate them as much as she loves them, I think, if she believes they're awful people."

"It certainly does sound like something my mother would do," said Elijah coldly. "She pretends she wishes to offer us rebirth to give us a chance to have children of our own, and yet, it is a veiled attempt at undoing her perceived evil in creating the vampire species."

"She could be using it to lure you back here," said Rebekah. "Davina cloaked you as you left and you were cloaked again when you arrived. She has no idea where you are but she certainly knows you're not in the Compound. And we believe she might have sensed Hope's birth. It could be what Yara said, a trap. Not only to kill us, but to extract information."

"As long as you can monitor where she is and who she jumps into using that bloody necklace, do it," muttered Klaus unhappily. "We will devise a plan to interfere with hers later."

Elijah cleared his throat. "Before you go, there is something else. Something Rebekah and I learned about that necklace, Niklaus. And the reason she gave it to you. It was spelled... not to protect you... but to suppress your strength."

Yara held Hope tighter as Klaus's jaw twitched furiously. "It made me weak," he whispered. "To hide her own transgressions because of her own fear. She ruined me, leaving me to suffer at the hands of a father who valued only strength. My whole life, I sought the approval I was denied by the man I thought was my father, but she turned me into the weakling he hated. Ha! She rants and raves about the monster I became, she uses it as a reason to kill us all, but she, our Mother, is the author of everything I am."

"You were never weak, Niklaus," noted Elijah softly. "You are– you have always been– the most fierce of us all. In a thousand years, I have never seen anyone successfully stand against you. Not even our wicked father. Not one of the countless devoted to your destruction. Remember that."

Yara had noticed Klaus was more quiet that night, sitting in his own bed pretending to read but probably rerunning the conversation in his head.

"Hey," she said, coming to sit beside him and offering Hope. "Would you mind?"

He was all too quick to set the book down and take Hope into his arms. "Come here, sweetheart."

"You're a good father, you know?" she whispered as he started rocking their little girl to sleep. "You're nothing like Esther and Mikael. All those horrible things they did and said, how worthless they made you feel... Hope will never know that because you are better than them, you treat our daughter with respect, you make her feel loved."

His smile fell slightly, as if doubting her words. "None of that matters if I cannot protect her."

"You will protect her. We'll all protect her. We will get rid of them and she will be safe. No matter how long it takes. I just want you to know you aren't your parents. You aren't destined to make their mistakes or to repeat that cycle. You broke it the minute you adopted Marcel and decided you wouldn't let your boy, your son, feel that shame you grew up with. I admired it then and I admire it now. Look at her." She tickled Hope's chin, eyes still open but lighting up more as she stared at Klaus. "How she gazes at you with such adoration. She's so little but she recognizes you as her o pai. Her papa. And she loves it. She loves you. Just as much as you love her."

"And yet I am still a monster."

"So am I. So are most vampires, including your siblings. Our hands are not clean, they have blood stains that will never go away, no matter how many times we wash them. We have hurt and maimed, many times unwarranted. We are far from perfect and we are beasts, yes. Our nature dictates it, a lot we can control but a lot we can't. What is magnified is our anger, what is used for it is our strength. But we can decide how much we show her. And I think we both agree we don't want her to witness any of it. We don't want her to think it right to cause harm. So we won't. We'll set a good example because it's the best for her. It won't change what we've done but it will change what she does. It will teach her to react with kindness. If we hadn't been fighting to survive, we might have been better at that. Our lives guided us down certain paths but we can decide to follow it indefinitely or carve a new path. To be better or to continue to be worse. It's up to us."

"You will be the best of us, my littlest wolf," whispered Klaus to Hope. "That, I promise you. I will keep you safe." He tilted his head back to look at Yara. "Are you happy here, love?"

"I am," she admitted. "There are a few people we are missing to make it perfect, but when it's just the three of us... I do like it. I knew I enjoyed raising children with you. It's one of the reasons why I accepted this. I have no regrets. I have a beautiful little girl..." she caressed Hope's face, "Who I love so very much."

"Thank you, love," whispered Klaus. "For this. For what you gave me. This chance to be a father again that I did not think I would ever have. You trusted me enough to want to raise a child with me."

For a moment, she thought he was going to lean in and kiss her. She was glad he didn't, not because she didn't want to, but because she didn't feel right. He'd only smiled before turning back to Hope, who was now comfortably asleep, cuddled up to his chest.

The situation in New Orleans was escalating quickly. Marcel had begun to rebuild his community and as predicted, had been met with backlash from the wolves, though Hayley had been able to step in and diffuse the tension by speaking with Aiden– who was first in command after Cassie and Vincent– personally. They'd gotten a handful of wolves to abandon their daylight rings and return to the Crescents, but it wasn't enough to dismantle what the witches were building, particularly once Elijah was kidnapped.

"Don't worry, we have a plan," said Marcel during their next call. "Finn was trying to recruit some of the wolf kids– force them to trigger their curses by killing his enemies, that sort of thing. We were able to put a stop to it, but that's when Elijah was taken. Rebekah's been searching on foot and though hesitant, Davina is doing some spells from wherever she's hiding. Cami is helping us distract Finn; I guess your brother has a crush on her and she's coming in handy. We're getting Elijah back today, no matter what."

Though they were both worried, there was something else that kept them occupied that day.

"Olá!" said Yara, finding a man roaming through the trees as she tended to the garden. "Bom dia." (T: Hello! Good morning.)

He waved at her. "Good morning!"

"Ah, are you a tourist?" said Yara, cleaning off her hands.

"Yeah," he said awkwardly. "Got separated on a tour and I figured I'd just keep heading North until I found something."

She smiled wryly, able to smell the wolf on him as he drew nearer. There were werewolves not too far from São Luis, but she'd never seen one this close. And this scent was familiar. Perhaps one of the Crescents? Could it be one of Esther's spies?

"I'll have a farmer take you back into the city," she offered. She called into the house, "Klaus, tem um lobo, e acho que pode vir da sua mãe." (T: Klaus, there is a wolf, and I think it may be here on behalf of your mother.)

He materialized beside her immediately, but didn't attack the man, rather, took a step back when he saw him. "You."

"Niklaus," said the man, relieved. "It is you."

"No," said Klaus immediately. "No, you're not real, you're a phantom conjured by Esther, that's all you are!"

"Wait a second," said Yara, realizing this wasn't one of Esther's lackeys. "Who–?"

"He bears the face of my true father," said Klaus darkly. "But it is not he, it is merely a trick my mother is using to find us! We must go–"

"Look at me, Niklaus," urged the man, holding up his hands to show he had no weapons and had no intention of hurting them. "I am flesh and blood. Your flesh and blood."

"You've been dead a thousand years!"

"And through that time, I lingered on the Other Side, watching you let the world fall apart, until I woke, five moons past, in the land of wolves like myself."

"No, no, no! You're just in my head, an illusion, meant by my mother to sway me to accept her bargain!"

The man was confused. "I do not speak for Esther. I know nothing of her bargains. But you are my son."

"And, if what you say is real, you are nothing to me," spat Klaus. "For all I care, you can crawl back to hell."

Yara wasn't sure whether to try and diffuse the tension or just let them handle it. "I'm sorry," she said awkwardly, "Ansel, is it? Now's really not a good time. I want to believe you are not here to cause harm, but–"

"I understand," he said, mostly to Klaus. "Yet I would be remiss if I did not make myself known."

"I used to tell myself that my real father must have had no idea I existed," muttered Klaus. "Otherwise, he'd never leave me to suffer under Mikael."

"Esther forbade me from seeing you," explained Ansel. "So, I waited, knowing that one day, you would trigger your curse and need your real father. When that happened, Mikael found me first. I fought him for you."

"Yes, well, your grand declaration is just a few years too late."

"Now, you joke, but I know you've always felt a void in your life." He drew closer. "I've watched you from beyond for centuries. You've traveled all corners of the world, seen monuments erected, feasted on the blood of history's most extraordinary men, but you've never found true peace. The only moments of joy in your life, however fleeting, have been simple pleasures. As you climbed the Himalayas, as you tended to your horses. Quiet days, teaching your adopted son Shakespeare–"

"Stop," demanded Klaus.

"I watched you paint," Ansel insisted. "I watched you teach your art to Marcel, to Yara. I watched you feel your unborn daughter's kick–"

"I said stop!" snarled Klaus, grabbing him in a chokehold as Yara leapt back. "A millennium of observing me– were your eyes closed as I slaughtered whole villages? Fed my way through thousands of innocents? Because, let's face it– I have a tendency to play with my food." He set him down, sneering in his face. "Have I made you proud, Father?"

Ansel was at a loss for words. "You were born to create, Niklaus, not destroy. Power lies in embracing your true nature. Here you are... denying the wolf within you. Only once have you turned and roamed free, only once have you truly been one. If you knew what it was like... you would know that in our animal form, we feel everything more acutely. When you were a boy, after each full moon, I would wake closer to your village, having been drawn to you in the night. Since I've been back, each month when I turn, I wake further from New Orleans. I know the call of my own blood, Klaus. It's why I'm here. Miles upon miles I've journeyed to find you and to find... your daughter."

Yara's blood ran cold, despite seeing the look on Ansel's face, the way his body was relaxed. He wasn't here to hurt Hope or Klaus. He just wanted to see them. Wanted to know them.

"I don't know much of what is happening in New Orleans," said Ansel quietly. "But I know you are here to keep her safe. I want to help you. If you need to return to defend the city, I will protect Yara and Hope."

Klaus looked over at Yara, who motioned toward the house as if to say she was giving them time to discuss this alone. He almost seemed torn, as if he didn't want her to go, as if he needed her to stay and support him. At the same time, he was grateful to have a chance alone with his father.

She held Hope by the window, listening as they spoke.

"Ansel," said Klaus quietly. "I'd be lying if I said your offer wasn't appealing. I've never known a parent to be a benevolent force. I think I would have liked to have been your son. But, a different path was chosen for me, and I have, for the past one thousand years, been the son of Mikael. Paranoid. Vengeful. And, powerful enough to protect my daughter."

"I want to help you defend her," insisted Ansel. "She is my blood. Your blood. I wish no harm to come to her."

"I believe you. But, love is what Esther twists. She will take the best of your intentions, and she will use them to get to my little girl. You waited too long before you came to rescue me. I won't make the same mistake with Hope."

Yara knew what he planned to do. She wasn't sure whether to rush out and stop him or whether she should let him do what he felt was necessary to protect their daughter.

"Klaus, wait," she said, walking out as she saw him pick up one of her gardening tools. She didn't feel as brave when she saw the anger in his eyes. "Maybe we can think about it overnight. There's another cabin not too far from here where he can stay for a bit. If he really is telling the truth... we may need him."

"I will go there," said Ansel, taking a step back. "You may come and find me when you are ready to talk again."

Yara was almost sure that Klaus would snap at her for having stepped in. Instead, he walked in silently once Ansel was but a speck in the distance, concealed by trees, and sat on the couch staring at the wall while she set Hope down for a nap.

"Forgive me," she whispered. "I know it wasn't my place. I just didn't want you to make a decision you might regret..."

She knelt down when she saw he was starting to tear up, taking his hands and bringing them together under her chin. "It's okay," she urged. "Let it out."

For the first time in a century, he leaned against her and cried.