Sweet Mercy

She was dead.

That's what they kept telling him. As if he didn't know. As if he had not been there. He had seen it- the resignation in her eyes, the determination. The love. He had seen it all in the moment before she went through the door and burst into flame.

Yet he could not quite believe that she was gone- that he had lost her. He had been devastated the night of Hope's birth. Watching helplessly as Monique Deveraux's knife had spilled Hayley's blood onto the church altar. He had felt a part of himself- the part that could still feel human emotion-shatter. She had deserved more. She had deserved everything that the nursery he fashioned had promised. A home, a family, love- he had wanted that for her. Even if he could not say the words.

But this... It destroyed the parts of his heart not occupied by his daughter. And even the thought of Hope had almost not been enough. Because for the second time he had watched helplessly as Hayley died before him. Yet this time, he knew that there was no chance for her to return to him- to any of them. Hope, his brave girl, would be without her mother. Freya, Kol, and Rebekah would be without a sister. And he... He would have to learn to live without the woman he loved most dearly in this world.

He could almost call it amusing. Niklaus Mikaelson- the most feared creature for a thousand years. The Original Hybrid, the hated one- unloving and unloved. Yet within fifteen years he had held three women within the highest esteem. In fifteen years he had learned what it meant to truly love someone- not for what they could be to him, but what he became with them. First through Camille, and the light she offered. Then with Hayley, for everything she was and all that she was not.

It was not amusing, however. It was nothing more than pain and emptiness and a fear he had not known since the Hollow possessed his daughter. Fear that his grief would crush him and those he loved would suffer for it. And it was that fear that had him returning each night to the place where she had died. It was that fear that kept him from being able to let her go fully as he should.

Because he truly did not know what to do without her.

-

He dreamed of her- his Little Wolf.

She came to him at night when his mind was vulnerable. He would see her as she was, hair flowing in rich waves, eyes bright with mischief. She would tease him as she always had. There was no relief from her smile. There was no escape from the fire of her spirit. Even in his dreams she was so very real. As if he could open his eyes and she would remain.

It was a torture he sought willingly.

Hope had begged to stay with him, had begged not to go back to school. Refusing her had left him with bloody hands and crumbled brick. Freya had not so much as blinked when he destroyed an entire wall of the compound. She had simply held his hand, voice soft as she whispered, 'I miss her, too.' He had only been able to meet her eyes for a moment before retreating to the confines of his room and the warm embrace of his dreams.

When he next woke, he swore he could hear her voice calling his name.

-

Elijah's memory returned. Hope harnessed the power of the Hollow within herself. Suddenly Klaus felt that his world was collapsing around him. The brother he had loved and hated with equal measure was back. Yet every time Klaus looked at him, he saw the monster that chose Greta over Hayley. He saw her body as it burned; he heard the abrupt end to her screams. The hollowness in Elijah's eyes did nothing to ease Klaus' anger or grief.

And Hope... She was struggling- more than she should have ever had to. 'She deserves something better than what we had.' Those words had always haunted him, but now they took on a new meaning. The bloodlust and anger that controlled Hope was unlike anything he had seen in his thousand years. And he did not know how to fight it- how to carry the burden for his child.