Flames | Klaus and Hayley One-Shot

Flames

Sorry if there are some editing mistakes. I am way to lazy to fix right now. - Lai

Klaus couldn't place his finger on the moment.

Perhaps, it had been when he saw the life leave her eyes the first time she'd given herself up for someone else. Or, maybe it had been later than that. It was a conundrum, but one that irked him more than any.

That moment, whenever it was, told him that he'd follow her anywhere she foolishly ventured. Not because of his excuses either. And trust he had many. No, it was because she had foolishly followed him for nearly fifteen years.

Klaus, even with all of his centuries of knowledge, couldn't for the little life left within him fathom how she still called every week. It didn't matter what he'd say, she still sent letters and pictures, texted him countlessly throughout the week telling him that she missed him.

Hayley wasn't giving up, and he should've accepted it, but he couldn't for the simple fact he didn't want her anywhere near him. Every single time she got hurt, and maybe it was enough to endure at one point when he wasn't so... sympathetic towards her.

"I'm not giving up on you, Klaus."

Those were the last words he'd clearly remembered. They were strange and wasted on him. She didn't think so. Hayley made a promise to herself not to let him forget she and her daughter cared.

She would lay awake, or be sitting at a bar writing meaningless, trivial things about her day to him. About Hope, and New Orleans. Anything, really.

Now, as she burned on concrete, he knew that he had lost something inside of him. And, something made him do it. He ran towards her body and held her like he did fifteen years ago.

The flames felt foreign, but they also felt completely right next to her, next to the woman he'd known that he couldn't live without.

Her flesh was burning him, but he didn't notice. All he could feel was his heart shattering and whatever strength she had left withering away.

It could've been hours for all he knew when Freya had placed her hand on his shoulder. The wrenching wails, and awful screams that he had been emitting ceased after he could no longer hold her. Ash covered him, and tears felt sticky and dry on his cheeks.

"It should've been me, Freya." He finally choked out.

"She never would've let you die, we both know she would yank you back from hell herself," Freya said.

"It should've been me," Klaus repeated and bent his down to stare at what was left of Hayley.

Freya took her hand away from his shoulder and walked in front of him, bending down to meet his eyes. She would probably tell him it was time to let go, or that Hope needed him and that he had a duty to her and not to ash.

"Hayley loved you." She said and he was sure she was just trying anything to make him snap back to reality.

"Don't." He shook his head and still refused to meet her gaze.

"She did," Freya said. "She told me once."

Klaus thought he could've killed his sister in that second of silence that passed. It wasn't right to say such a thing to him. Not now.

"She came to me after you left with an art piece she wanted me to keep preserved." Freya continued. "I didn't understand why until she told me."

He could kill her right there and tell everyone it was one of their foes. Yes, that would do. It would be simple enough.

"Hayley laughed and smiled more in those two hours with me, talking about you, than she has in the entire time I've known her," Freya said.

"Stop," Klaus said, it was much too painful for him.

"She told me that she was in love with you at one point," Freya smile. "But, she was convinced that you only saw her as a wrench in Klaus Mikaelson's vast toolbox."

Klaus didn't realize the tears had started soundlessly down his face. He did realize how much the time he had wasted being nasty and distant from her, though. It felt like a stake, swift and unrelenting.

"She was more than that, she was- she was the entire toolbox." He mumbled as it hit him.

Freya and he didn't speak much after that. The ride back into the city was quiet as he hadn't had anything else to say. It didn't need to be spoken.

Klaus Mikaelson loved Hayley Marshall and he missed his timing. He missed her. The bullet that was Hayley Marshall flew right into him, leaving a wound where she was in his heart, and he didn't register it until that wound had rotted and she was gone.

Many things were unspoken from there.

But, not everything was hollow in him.

Because every time he looked at his daughter he saw Hayley, and that brought some sort of buried warmth out. He felt her flames once again.

The glorious flames of what it was like to love Hayley Marshall.