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“You have a visitor.”
“Well, tell my visitor that I am on the brink of victory.”
“He said his name is Mikael.”
*
Klaus had always found himself equally as interested in men as in women. Such a thing, while not wholly illegal in their little society, was certainly not encouraged. Men and women were expected to marry and, most importantly, have children. Something one could not do with a same-sex partner.
But that’s future me’s problem, Klaus mused, borderline viciously making out with the blacksmith’s apprentice behind the shed.
He’d overheard his and many other mothers lecturing their daughters on the dangers of “being involved” with men before marriage over the years. Namely children born out of wedlock. Again, frowned upon, borderline disgraceful if the two offenders did not marry. But that really did not affect Klaus, so long as he slept only with men.
I’m doing them a favor, he thought as he let the boy who lived two houses down fuck him raw against a tree down by the water, ignoring the fact that Mikael would beat him senseless if he found out. (But Mikael would beat him senseless for looking at him the wrong way, so what did it matter?)
I’m not getting any girl pregnant doing this, and I can’t get pregnant myself. So what Mikael doesn’t know, can’t hurt him, right? Of course right.
Truly, why would he think anything of it (beyond a general worry of ‘shit, I’m sick’) when he started throwing up every morning before breakfast?
Must’ve been some bad meat, he thought early one morning, on his hands and knees retching behind his family’s home yet again. I’ll kill Kol for spoiling another kill. Such a waste.
It didn’t really occur to him that no one else in his family, who ate the same food he did, ever got sick.
“You’ve been unwell as of late, Niklaus,” his mother stated one day as he helped her lay some herbs out to dry.
“I’m all right, mother," Klaus assured her. "It was just some bad meat. I feel fine now. I’ll speak to Kol later about proper curing procedure.”
She had eyed him so suspiciously then. He had no idea why, but many people tended to look at him that was, so he didn’t think too hard on it and instead rubbed at his chest. It had been oddly sore lately.
Must’ve been training too hard... And his head, did he hit it yesterday?
He was quite surprised when, without warning, his mother snatched him by arm and dragged him into the empty house.
“Mother, what—“
“Quiet, Niklaus!” She ripped his shirt up and put her hands on the bare skin of his stomach, murmuring something -some sort of spell- under her breath.
Klaus stood perfectly still, knowing better than to interrupt her magic.
After a brief moment, she straightened up and slapped him hard enough to knock him down.
He held his smarting cheek and stared up at her, tears prickling at his eyes. “What did I do?”
She hit him again.
He flinched away with a gasp of confusion. “Mother, what did I do?!”
She backhanded him hard enough to split his lip.
“Please!" he pleaded, the sharp taste of iron filling his mouth. "Mother, tell me what I did. Let me fix it!”
He must have shouted louder than he intended to because Rebekah, who had been out back in the garden, heard and was concerned enough to investigate. (And considering the amount of shouting and smacking around that occurred on a daily basis in their home, that was truly saying something.)
“Nik?” She leaned in the doorway and, upon seeing him on the ground with tears dripping down his cheeks and blood on his mouth, stepped in. “What’s going on?”
Esther ignored her. “You cannot fix this, Niklaus. With this, you tear this family apart.”
Rebekah stepped closer. “Wait, mother, what did he do?” She turned to Klaus. “Nik, what did you do?”
Increasingly upset, Klaus answered in a strained voice, blinking away more tears. “I don’t know, she won’t tell me! Just tell me what I did and I’ll find a way to fix it!”
Esther rubbed her temples slowly and only spoke again after a long moment. “Congratulations are in order, Rebekah," she stated flatly. "Come winter, Klaus will welcome a child.”
…What?
Rebekah turned to her brother, furious. “Who did you get with child? Was it the weaver’s daughter? The fisherman’s? God, tell me it wasn’t the fisherman’s, you’ll have a fight on your hands! She may love you, but her father hates you! He’ll never let her marry you!”
Klaus stumbled over his words. “I didn’t…I didn’t sleep with her, I swear I didn’t—”
“It’s true, Rebekah. He slept with no woman.” His sister frowned, equally as perplexed as her brother. His mother continued. “Klaus is the one with child.”
Klaus and Rebekah both stared at their mother.
“That’s…not possible,” Rebekah said slowly, uncomprehendingly. “He’s a man. He cannot bear children.”
Esther took a breath. “He can...as can...many men like him."
...What was that supposed to mean?
Rebekah had precisely the same thought. "What do you mean 'men like him'?"
Their mother did not immediately answer her, was instead seemingly caught up in her own world. "You have ruined everything, Niklaus, everything!"
Klaus shuddered at her words, his head spinning as he struggled to understand how and why he had 'ruined everything' because contrary to popular belief, he didn't wish to ruin everything--
Finally, after one more indignant shout from his sister, their mother answered them. "Men of the werewolf line can bear children. Men like you."
...What?
...Werewolf?
That in and of itself was enough to knock a man clean over, never mind the next hit to his sanity.
Pregnant? Him?!
Gingerly, he rested a hand over his belly.
With...with child?
Rebekah looked back and forth between them, quickly enough to make Klaus dizzy in his dazed state. “What?!”she very nearly shouted, apprehension and fear stiffening her shoulders.
When a deeper voice echoed that sentiment a mere beat later, Klaus’s blood turned to ice.
*
Klaus tossed the pingpong ball held in his hand effortlessly into a cup.
“Then I mustn’t keep him waiting.”
*
So broke the secret of Klaus’s parentage and, by proxy, his mother’s infidelity.
Mikael had overheard what Esther had said and had taken his fury and shame out on his son.
Had...had dragged Klaus out into the middle of the town square and...beaten him half to death.
As one does.
Klaus normally prided himself in taking his father’s very public beatings and humiliations like a man. Biting his tongue, keeping quiet, and moving on (as best he could). If the bastard was going to treat him worse than a common rat, if all the spite he could cling to was to keep quite in the face of his punishments, then he would do it. But that time, shaken to the core by the news he had just received and struck by an overwhelming need to protect his unborn child because if he could bear one then by all the gods he wanted to keep it, he curled up into a ball to protect his belly from his father’s assault and screamed for him to stop. Begged, pleaded, and bargained, until Elijah came running from where he had been working down the road and somehow managed to talk their father down from killing Klaus on the spot.
(And half the town stood there watching, but not one person stepped forward to help. Not one. Not even his mother or sister. No one.)
He didn’t actually remember how Elijah had done it, having been absolutely hysterical at the time. All that mattered was that he did it, had then picked his sobbing brother (half brother) up out of the dirt and half-carried him away.
Even then, Mikael’s strangled, furious shout of “Abomination!” did not escape him.
Elijah took him deep into the woods, away from the town, away from everything, and sat him down on a log. He brushed the hair out of Klaus’s face and rubbed his back until Klaus had calmed down enough to tell him everything.
Klaus would have thought that Elijah would simply laugh at him. Tell him to stop playing such childish games. After all, why would his brother believe such an outlandish story when Klaus barely believed it himself?
But Elijah did believe it.
He would never forget --ever-- how Elijah had hugged him, uncharacteristically expressive.
“We’ll get through this, brother," he promised. "I will not abandon you.”
Klaus, still shaking like a leaf, clung tightly to his older brother.
*
Beating his pregnant son half to death in public was hardly the worst thing his father had ever done. Not even close.
Would it give you a scope of it if Klaus said he wished that was the worse thing Mikael had done?
“Move everyone out back," he growled. "I’m gonna have a little chat with my dad.”
He took a sip of whiskey to steel his nerves, to calm a worse memory brewing at the edges of his conscious mind because he wasn’t thinking about that now. He was never thinking about that again. But if he had his way, Mikael would die for what he did, for what he went on to do.
Klaus was hardly the most forgiving type, but not even the gods, if they even existed, could forgive that bastard for what he had gone on to do.
*
Word spread quickly about Klaus’s true parentage. That he was the bastard son of a werewolf. Even quicker spread the news that the bastard son of a werewolf was pregnant and that he did not know who the father was (it was true, he had no idea, and to be honest, had no real attachment to whoever it was). How disgraceful!
(But really though, how could it not have spread like wildfire after Mikael had tried to kill him in the middle of the village square? Whose fault was it, really?)
Not that it mattered.
Mikael had always treated him poorly, but now he treated Klaus like dog shit. Taking every opportunity to scream at him, humiliate and belittle him. Hit him. More than once, Mikael had tried to hit him in the stomach. Klaus fought back then, shoved his father clean through a wall at one point (to be fair, that wall had been in need of reinforcing). The worst of it was how his father berated him for choosing to keep the child and bring shame on their family instead of getting rid of it.
The thought had never even crossed Klaus’s mind. Family was the most important thing to him, and he had a chance to have one of his own, a child of his own. Like hell if he would give that up for some misplaced sense of honor.
That had earned him a black eye. He felt it was worth it.
Of his entire family, Elijah and Rebekah were the only ones who gave a damn about him. Finn was too busy with his girl, Sage, to give a damn about any of them (and maybe Klaus hadn’t blamed him (too much) for it back then. He was the oldest, had put up with Mikael’s shit the longest. He was done with all of them. But rest assured, Klaus blamed him for it now). Henrik was young and impressionable and too busy doing nothing to notice anything. Kol was just stupid and the older he got, the more his mischievous streak turned into a cruel one. Klaus could barely stand him and his snide comments on a good day, and he hadn't been having very many of those.
Their mother gave him herbs to stop him from getting sick every day, treated the bruises their father left on him with ointment, and did everything she could to make sure his child would be born healthy. But she never gave him what needed most: comfort. Love. Affection. He tried everything he could think of to get her to love him, to pay attention to him, to get her to give him some small measure of reassurance, like a mother should her son, but she ignored him. She had grown distant from him. Turned her back on him. And it was eating him alive.
Elijah and Rebekah tried to make up for it. Especially in the months where Klaus began to show more than he could hide and therefore chose not to go out in public to avoid the scrutiny (besides the fact that Mikael had ordered him stay out of sight so as not to bring further shame on their family), his two siblings went out of their way to support him.
Rebekah brought him flowers, kept him company, even took up the stitching she so loathed just to have a reason to stay in and spend time with him. She actually got excited about his baby. Fondly, he remembered her squealing as she put a hand on his belly and felt his baby’s kicks. She fussed over him. Grilled him about if he thought he was having a boy or a girl, what he would name them, and talked about how she was going to spoil them rotten.
Elijah took to going on long walks every day, and would return in the evening to tell Klaus of what he saw, kept him updating on the goings-on in the village. Normally so reserved about everything, he spoke quite excitedly (for him) about how he would teach Nik’s child everything he knew. Regardless of if it was a boy or a girl.
Klaus was so grateful to them both he felt his heart would burst. They got him through those nine bitter, miserable months. Made him feel like he still had a family. Reminded him that at least they still gave a damn about him, regardless of who his father was. But try as they might, they weren’t his parents, and they couldn’t give him the love that only parents could. And that made him so bitter, he lashed out at them both.
(Klaus could count the number of things he regretted, truly regretted, on one hand and that was one of them. Maybe one day he would apologize for the way he’d treated them when they’d done so much for him.)
*
“Hello, Niklaus.”
Klaus hated him. With every fiber of his being, he hated him.
“Hello, Mikael. Won’t you come in? Oh that’s right, I forgot. You can’t.”
“You could come outside, if you want.”
His hands itched to tear flesh from bone. “Or I could watch my hybrids tear you limb from limb.” Yes, he would like to see that.
“They can’t kill me.”
“True, but it’ll make a hell of a party game.”
I hope they drag it out. I hope it’ll hurt you as much as you’ve hurt me.
He held up a hand. “All I have to do is rub these two fingers together.”
Mikael smirked condescendingly. “The big, bad wolf. Still hiding behind your playthings. Like a coward. They may be sired by you, but they’re still part vampire. And they can be compelled by me.”
He’d brought the doppelgänger into it. He’ll kill her, he said, unless Klaus came out and faced him.
“I’ll do it. And if she dies, this lot will be the last of your abominations.”
Klaus hated that word. Hated it almost as much as he hated his father.
“Abominations.” He rolled the word around on his tongue. “Just like me, hmm? Just like my baby?”
Mikael snorted. “Your baby?”
“Yeah, you know, the one you murdered.”
*
He’d gone into labor early on cold winter morning and had woken his mother up, panic in his voice. She scoffed at him (as perhaps any woman who had borne seven children would), and told him to walk in the woods, that it would make it go faster. His father scoffed at him, too, for wincing at one of the pains. For being weak.
The last thing he wanted to do was move, but if it meant getting away from Mikael, he would walk to the other side of the world. So he wrapped himself up in his coat and blankets and started walking.
Sick of everyone and everything, he walked as far into the woods as his legs would carry him so he could scream his heart out without Mikael (or anyone else) hearing him and give birth in peace. He wondered if his family would have let him had a terrible storm not rolled in. If he’d have known what was coming, he’d have begged Elijah, who had come to bring him home, to let him give birth in the wind and rain, freezing cold and miserable.
At least maybe then he’d have gotten to hold his baby.
But Elijah did come to get him. Pulled him out of the dirt where he’d been huddled under a tree on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth and drawing in gulps of air as the pains overtook him again and again. Supported him as he dragged Nik back to their family’s home, toward the promise of safety and warmth. (Nothing but an illusion).
It was the worst pain he’d ever felt. He labored late into the night, face buried in Elijah’s chest as Rebekah rubbed his back and their mother tried to make sure he didn’t die.
“Shut up, boy,” Mikael scoffed at Klaus as he screamed his way through a particularly bad pain. Elijah held Klaus tight to his chest, an illusion of protection from their family’s ire as Rebekah screamed at Kol for laughing and Esther kicked the rest of the family out. Go visit the neighbors, play in the rain, go anywhere but here, she told them.
Klaus vaguely remembered Finn crouching down and brushing a strand of hair off Klaus’s sweaty forehead. “Godspeed, brother,” he’d whispered and then he was gone. It was one of the only times Finn had ever acted like he gave a damn. (Klaus wondered if maybe Finn could’ve stopped Mikael, if he hadn’t gone to see Sage.)
Mikael only shook his head in disgust and hissed something vile before departing.
At one point in the night, bleeding badly and half-delirious with pain, he’d looked up at Rebekah from where his head rested in her lap.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” he’d whispered. She’d been crying, but had shaken her head.
“No, Nik, you’re going to be just fine. I promise.”
Desperate for a reprieve, he believed her, panting quickly as he felt another pain start low in his back. Esther scolded him for screaming, told him to save his strength. Klaus wondered how she did this seven times.
“You’re doing marvelously, brother,” Elijah spoke as soothingly as he could muster, Klaus’s hand clasped in his own.
“Just think,” Rebekah said, voice shaking as she stroked his hair. “At the end of this, you’ll get to hold your baby.”
Klaus nodded at her. “I will.”
“Do you think it’s a boy or a girl? You never did tell me.”
“I…I dunno,” he murmured as he was shifted over to and propped up against Elijah’s chest. “Whatever it is, I’ll…I’ll be a better father than…I promise.”
Rebekah smiled tearfully. “I know you will, Nik.”
“But…I’d love a girl. A daughter. So much…”
Esther cut in. “It’s time, Niklaus.”
*
His memory of the actual birth was limited to hazy images and a vague memory of true agony, of screaming himself hoarse as Esther told him to shut up. He also remembered some far off corner of his mind being amazed that it could get that much worse.
“It hurts so bad…” he remembered sobbing, sure he would die as darkness crept in along the edges of his vision.
“Just a little bit longer, brother,” Elijah told him as reassuringly as he could.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, Niklaus. You’ve made it this far. Just a little bit more, and then it will be over.”
Nik turned his head so his ear was pressed against Elijah’s chest. His brother’s heartbeat was a calming sound.
“If I die, you’ll take care of my baby right?"
“Don’t be ridiculous, Nik!” Rebekah had shouted at him from where she was preparing something. Nik had no idea what, and he was too tired to wonder. “You’re not going to die! I won’t let you!”
“Just promise.”
Elijah promised him.
(He wished he’d have held it together better. Maybe then he could’ve stopped Mikael. But forgive him, he’d hardly been expecting his father to murder his newborn child.)
The relief he felt at the moment of his child’s birth, through all the burning agony and exhaustion, was overwhelming.
“I did it,” he whispered, sagging back into Elijah’s arms as Rebekah held his hand tightly, a radiant smile on her face.
“You did it, Nik!”
“Congratulations, brother,” Elijah said, his own smile evident in his voice.
“You have a daughter,” Esther said as she worked to get the baby to cry. When she did, the tiny child screamed bloody murder.
“She has her father’s lungs, doesn’t she?” Rebekah joked.
“Shut up.” He’d been too happy to even mind the joke. “A girl!”
Esther had been smiling, too, as she cleaned up the baby. Klaus watched, unable to stop smiling.
“Let me see her.”
“In a moment.”
(He should have insisted. He should have insisted…)
Esther had just finished swaddling the baby, had been bringing her over to him, when Mikael entered.
Klaus’s blood ran cold.
“I see congratulations are in order," the man rumbled, an odd note to his voice that made every hair on Klaus's spine stand on end.
No one spoke for a long moment. No one moved either. Perhaps they could sense it, too.
“Niklaus has borne a daughter,” Esther finally said.
“Is that so?" the older man hummed. "Let me see her, then.”
“No…” Klaus whispered, reaching out in an aborted attempt to get his mother to hand him the baby first.
Mikael plucked the baby from Esther’s arms. A sense of dread permeated the room and everyone in it save Mikael froze solid. Even Klaus’s daughter stopped crying.
“Elijah, Rebekah. Get out.” When neither of them moved a muscle, Mikael spoke again. “Did you not hear me?”
Elijah spoke very calmly, his hand rubbing Klaus’s shoulder soothingly. “I’m all right here, thank you.”
“Me too,” Rebekah added cautiously.
Mikael sighed. “I said. Get. Out.” His tone left no room for argument.
Elijah budged first. Later, he’d told Nik he’d been worried their father would escalate if he didn’t obey, as the man often had before. Ultimately, that was why Rebekah left, too. Afraid of making things worse.
Excuses. Desperate apologies. None of which made even a lick of difference.
The other children gone, Mikael turned back to the baby in his hands. “The bastard child of a bastard boy,” he said after a while, chuckling humorlessly, disgust evident on his face as his stared down at Klaus’s baby daughter. “Abominations, the lot of you wolves. Filthy curs.”
“Mikael, please!” Esther began before Mikael cut her off with a harsh glare.
Klaus was starting to panic, just a little bit.
“Please give me my baby…”
Mikael ignored him. “Niklaus has brought nothing but shame and dishonor on this family. And in this, so have you, Esther.”
Nik was getting desperate. “Please, just give me my baby,” he begged. “I’ll do whatever you want. I'll leave. You can disown me, never think of me again. Just give me my baby!”
Mikael ignored him. “I will not allow more shame to be brought on our name because of this bastard and his wretched offspring.”
Klaus was crying then. “I understand, and I'll go! I will. Just please give her to me!”
His father paid him no mind. “You should have never allowed this child to be born, Esther," he growled. "I should not have allowed it! You do not deal with abominations.”
Nik was hyperventilating as his father’s words sunk in. “Please…” he begged. “Please don’t do this, please!”
His baby began crying softly.
Mustering up the last bit of strength he had left, he dragged himself half to his feet and lunged at his father, trying to do something, anything, to get his baby away from that man. But, as utterly exhausted from the birth as he was, Mikael knocked him down easily and kicked him hard in the stomach for his trouble, knocking the wind out of him.
“Pathetic,” Mikael spat as Klaus lay on the ground gasping for breath, arms wrapped around his still cramping abdomen. “I remedy this wrong now. This is retribution, for your indiscretions, wife, and for yours, Niklaus. May this give you both cause to think twice about your actions and how they affect this family.”
The crack of his daughter’s spine snapping would haunt him to the end of time. The neighbors would whisper for weeks that Klaus’s scream had been heard clear across the lake. That they had never heard a more agonized sound. It was certainly enough to bring Elijah and Rebekah back. They stood, frozen in shock, at the sight of Mikael, breathing heavily as he looked down on his son.
“Always remember, boy, that this was your doing. Your fault.” And he turned and walked out.
Klaus, still naked from the waist down and covered in blood from the birth, was knelt over the body of his newborn daughter, forehead pressed to her tiny chest, too heartbroken to even cry.
Esther stood on the other side of the room, a hand over her mouth, silent as the grave.
“You have to do something.” Klaus didn’t even realize he had spoken until he heard his own voice. “Mother, you have to do something.” His voice was eerily calm. Esther shook her head. Klaus pressed on. “You didn’t do anything to stop this, so you have to fix it. You have to bring her back now.”
“Rebekah,” Esther whispered, “go fetch Ayana.”
It was funny, Esther never actually asked for his forgiveness for her part in what happened that night. For her inaction.
Klaus felt no remorse as he tore her heart out years later.
*
Mikael looked at him like he was crazy. “Your child was stillborn. Born of a wolf-man, malformed, and stillborn.”
Klaus was shaking. “You broke her spine,” he said slowly, so furious he could barely get the words out.
“I did no such thing. She was born dead.”
“No!” Klaus was shouting now. “No, you killed her. I know that’s what you told everyone, that she was stillborn, but you killed her. You took her from mother’s arms before I could even hold her, and you killed her in front of me.”
Mikael rolled his eyes. “You’re delusional.”
Klaus didn’t know what he’d been expecting. For his father to show some fragment of remorse? For anything?! Maybe when hell froze over. He shook his head.
“Fine. Fine, believe what you want. And in any case, I don’t need them.” He nodded towards his hybrids before looking back to his father. “I just need to be rid of you.”
“What then, Niklaus?” his father taunted. “So you will live forever, with no one at your side? Nobody cares about you anymore, boy. Who do you have? Other than those whose loyalty you forced? You have no one. No one.”
Klaus trembled with rage. “I’m calling your bluff, father. Kill her.”
“Come outside and face me, coward!”
Another tear ran down Klaus’s cheek. “My whole life you’ve underestimated me. Tormented me. If you kill her, you lose you leverage, so go ahead. Kill her.” When Mikael did nothing he pressed on. “C’mon, old man. Kill her. Kill her!”
Mikael tsked. “Your impulse, Niklaus. It has and forever will be the only thing that truly keeps you from truly being great.” (Of course he had to throw that in there. That little snippet of hope for Klaus that his father might one day think something good of him. After a thousand years of it, you’d think Klaus would have learned that it was all a trick.)
When he stabbed the doppelgänger, the weight of a world of loneliness crushed down on Klaus’s shoulders.
And then Damon fucking Salvatore stabbed him in the stomach.
Flipped onto his back, he stared death in the eye as Damon repositioned that stake at his heart. Until he just…wasn’t there anymore. Knocked off him by none other than Stefan Salvatore (he hadn’t seen that one coming).
And then the stake was beside him and Mikael was looking back at him and Klaus saw red. A thousand years of pent up rage, betrayal, loathing, and pain boiled over and before he knew it the stake was plunged straight through Mikael’s heart.
Hearing his father scream, seeing him catch fire and die was something Klaus had dreamed about for centuries. He thought he’d be ecstatic. Overjoyed. At least he thought he’d be content. But there, at the end of all things, as he wiped the tears from his face, he didn’t feel anything at all.
*
At the moment of her death, one of Ayana’s biggest regrets had been not doing anything to stop Mikael from abusing his son. Perhaps the world would have been spared a great deal of evil if someone had only stepped in and prevented it.
She had seen a great deal of evil in her lifetime, but the worst she ever saw was when she entered the house of her dear friend Esther on a cold winter night at the tearful pleading of Rebekah to please, come, we need help, please help us!
Esther’s boy, Niklaus, had just given birth. That much was plain to see from the blood he was still covered in. But the room was absent of any joy, of any baby’s cries. Niklaus held a motionless newborn in his arms, agony lining his face.
Stillborn, then. Her heart ached for him. Was there ever a more painful thing? (Oh, but there was). She had just stepped into the room, prepared to do her best to console her best friend’s family, when she was hit with a such a sense of violencedeathevil that it knocked her back.
“What has happened here?” she asked, out of breath and completely stunned. Rebekah started to cry. Stoic, measured Elijah, too, had tears dripping down his face. Esther stood, silent, across the room.
No one answered her. Slowly, she approached Niklaus and crouched down next to him. Only then did he speak.
“He killed her,” Niklaus whispered, not taking his eyes off his baby’s face.
“Who killed her?”
“Mikael.” Ayana’s heart broke into a million pieces. “You have to bring her back.”
If there was ever a person who deserved to be resurrected, it was this child in front of her then. Niklaus’s child. Who had life taken from her before she even knew she was alive (and perhaps that in and of itself was a mercy). But she did not have to ask the spirits to know that they would not grant his request.
“I cannot.”
“No, but you have to.” His voice was eerily calm. Shock, she thought. Thinly veiled shock. The entirety of it would hit him soon. “She wasn’t supposed to die. She was just born.”
“What is dead must stay dead, Niklaus. Such are the laws of nature. It is unjust, but they cannot be broken. Not even for her.”
“But she’s not supposed to be dead, she was born alive. And he killed her. She’s not supposed to be dead, you have to bring her back!”
The evil of what had occurred there was overwhelming. So was Niklaus’s grief as he looked at her, absolutely destroyed.
All she could do was say “I’m sorry” and reach out and touch his temple. He slumped against her and she gently laid him down.
“What did you do?” Rebekah asked harshly, rushing forward.
“He is only sleeping,” Ayana answered.
Rebekah gently took the baby from her brother’s arms, weeping softly.
The evil of what happened that night would never leave that house. Or that family.
*
For a blissful moment when he awoke, he didn’t remember what had happened. He thought, for just a brief second, that he was still pregnant. That everything was not broken beyond repair.
And then he remembered, at the same time feeling the toll the birth had taken on him. All for nothing.
He sat up slowly, dried blood cracking unpleasantly between his thighs as he took in the room, empty but for Rebekah, who sat by the window, sniffling softly. She held something in her arms. His baby, no doubt.
“Let me see her.”
She startled at his voice. “Nik, you’re awake.”
“Let me see her.”
“We should get you cleaned up—“
“Let. Me see her.”
She brought him his baby. Maybe, if Nik shut his eyes, he could picture that she was still alive in his arms.
“Nik—“
“Leave me be. Please.”
And she did, for a while. He had no idea how long he sat there, eyes fixed on his baby’s face, trying to take in every detail. (He’d thought to draw her many days, weeks, months, years, later, but every time he tried, his tears ruined the paper).
Maybe I can just stay here forever.
But no, eventually his sister came back.
“We should get you cleaned up, Nik, so you don’t get sick. And we have to…we have to bury her…”
“Just hand me my breeches.”
“Nik—“
“Please, Bekah.”
She did. He put them on and moved to stand, not really all there. He was thinking about where he was going to bury his daughter, by all the gods this wasn’t supposed to happen.
His baby and a shovel clutched in his arms, he made his way through town and into the forest. He must’ve been quite the sight, shirt shill covered in blood from the birth, a dead baby in his arms, and a murderous look on his face.
People actually came out of their houses to stare at him. They practically lined the street. He couldn’t take it.
“What? What?!” he roared at them. A few of them at least had the decency to shrink away. He kept going.
He vaguely heard Rebekah running after him, calling for him to wait. Elijah stopped her, told her to let him be. She did. For that, Klaus was grateful.
Esther and Ayana would’ve both thrown a fit had they known where he was going to bury her. Right under the White Oak. Home of the spirits. Because if they wouldn’t give her, an innocent newborn brutally murdered by her grandfather, a second chance at life then as far as Klaus was concerned they could all rot in hell and he would make sure they never forgot what they did. He buried her there so they would have to look at her every day and remember.
He knelt by the grave once he’d dug it, his whole body smarting, and held his child in his arms one last time. He thought over all the names he had thought to give a daughter, but found he couldn’t pick one. Because she was dead and she would never know it, never hear it. Klaus would never call it. And every time he heard it on another, he would be reminded of what happened here. It would only bring him sadness and pain, and he couldn’t take any more of that. So he buried her without one.
(For a thousand years, he would live to regret that.)
Only then, with freshly turned-over dirt covered with flowers there before him, did he finally cry.
El Fin