[I] Freedom {Klaus Mikaelson}

IV. Alone

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Faith's mother returned after the hospital called her. She wasn't able to convince her doctor to not call her.

She had her blue eyes cast down on her lap where her hands laid. She studied the pulse oximetry on her finger and the IV needle in her wrist as she felt the harsh glare of her mother. Her doctor was oblivious to the glare, thinking Circe Everly was actually worried about her daughter and not because Faith had interrupted her trip to Louisiana and was going to leave the minute the doctor did.

"She had to get five stitches on her head and she had bruising on her back, but we gave her some pain medication to reduce the pain," her doctor told her mother, keeping her eyes on her chart. "When they brought her in, she was also malnourished and had scars and other bruises that didn't happen from the accident. Do you know where they would come from?"

Circe faked a worried look. "I don't know. Faith always seemed to get hurt in weird places. Sometimes she would wake up and tell me, she got a bruise on her leg, but she wouldn't know where it came from."

The doctor nodded, marking something on Faith's chart. "Okay. Well, she can leave today once you discharge her, and she'll need plenty of bed rest and to eat properly."

"Thank you," Circe told the doctor before she left. Once the door closed, her true colors appeared. Her emerald green eyes darkened as she glared at her daughter sitting in the hospital bed. "Can't you do anything right? You were put in here and for what? Saving that Donovan girl? The least you could've done was die before they had to call me."

"I'm sorry, Mother," Faith mumbled, keeping her head down. She knew from experience that locking eyes with her, she will receive a beating no matter how hurt Faith was at the moment. "It won't happen again."

Circe scoffed. "The same excuse every time. I'm going to discharge you and you're going to find some way to get yourself home. I'm going back to Louisiana."

Not waiting for a response, she left the hospital room. At the sound of the door clicking shut, Faith clenched her hand into a fist. Her fist trembled as anger flooded her thoughts. If only she wasn't so scared of her mother, she would cut her lifeline in a snap.

The lights in the room flickered at her anger and Faith tried relaxing. She didn't want to cause another problem where Circe would beat her before she left.

A few minutes later, a nurse came into the room and told her she could leave now and to pick up her medication on the way out.

"What do you want, Stefan?" Faith questioned with her back to the door as she threw away her bloody clothes. She turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. "I can practically feel your self-loathing from here."

She waited for a moment for his response and when she got none, she turned around to pocket her phone and placed her necklace around her neck before walking past the vampire. Annoyance grew inside of her as Stefan continued to follow her outside the hospital.