Time kept passing, and I grew closer and closer to Hayley, taking part in her pregnancy with little bits of magic here and there to ease the pain.
One day she came closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder.
"Why do I trust you so much?" she asked curiously. "You know, you were just a pretty boy in Mystic Falls and you're Klaus's son."
"Well, you just put the pros and cons in the same sentence," I laughed, stroking her hair.
"That doesn't answer my question." Hayley pouted. "You're everything I dislike most. I'm an outspoken feminist, and you have two women."
"Well, they're not submissive to me. They're with me because they want to be," I made my relationship with the two of them clear. "The day they want to leave, they're free."
"But that's wrong," Hayley muttered. "And even so, I feel like I should trust and protect you."
"Maybe because in a different reality you were my mother and the child in your belly was my twin," I joked with a dry laugh.
"Don't make jokes." She punched my shoulder lightly.
"Don't make jokes." She punched my shoulder lightly.
I caught her hand before she could pull away and looked at her with a crooked smile.
"My bad. Questionable humor is a hereditary flaw."
"From Klaus?"
"No, from my mother," I answered, looking up at the ceiling. "I haven't seen her in a few months."
"Why don't you stay near her?" she asked curiously. "You don't have to stay here with Klaus."
I know, but it's not like that, Little Wolf. My mother is a very busy goddess ruling the Other Side and handling diplomacy between the three factions and other supernatural groups. Besides, I'm "alive," so if I stay too long in the Other Side it isn't healthy, even if it is my mother's domain and the Other Side recognizes me as a prince.
"It's complicated. My mother is very busy," I sighed, not revealing too much. "She has a lot to manage, and she can't always spend time with me, but she tries."
Hayley watched me in silence for a few seconds, with that direct way she had, as if she could see everything I wasn't saying.
"You always defend her."
"She deserves it."
"Maybe." Hayley tilted her head. "But that doesn't answer the rest."
"The rest?"
"The boy who clearly misses his mother and pretends he's fine."
I rolled my eyes.
"You've become unbearably perceptive."
"Pregnancy gave me powers."
"How terrible."
She smirked and squeezed my hand still trapped between hers.
"Listen... understanding someone's reasons doesn't erase what absence causes."
I stayed quiet.
"She may have a thousand responsibilities," Hayley continued. "She may be saving worlds, judging souls, or whatever your family considers a Tuesday."
I snorted.
"But you still have the right to miss her."
"I do."
"And to be angry."
"Sometimes I am."
"And to want more."
That caught me off guard.
I looked away toward the window.
"Wanting more feels selfish."
"No," Hayley answered firmly. "It feels like being a son."
The words stayed between us, heavy and simple.
I had no answer.
Hayley sighed and rested her head on my shoulder again.
"Know why I tease you so much?"
"Because you secretly love me."
"Because you hide behind stupid jokes."
"Ah, so love then."
She punched my arm again.
"Idiot."
"Little Wolf."
"Stop calling me that."
"Never."
She huffed but didn't move away.
After a few minutes, she spoke more softly.
"When this baby is born... do you think you'll stay here?"
The question sounded far too calm to be casual.
"Do you want me gone?"
"That's not what I asked."
I looked at her. For the first time there was real insecurity on Hayley's face.
The woman who faced hybrids, witches, and Originals was afraid of one simple answer.
"I'm here now," I said.
"You always dodge when things get serious."
"And you growl when you get vulnerable."
"Answer properly."
I took a deep breath.
"Yes. If you want me here... I'll stay."
Hayley blinked slowly, as if she hadn't expected honesty so quickly.
"I do," she murmured, almost not realizing she said it aloud.
I raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You said you want me."
"I said I want help with the baby."
"Convenient."
"Shut up."
I smiled victoriously.
She tried to look annoyed, but a smile slipped at the corner of her mouth.
Then the baby kicked hard again.
Hayley cursed under her breath.
Instinctively, I placed a hand on her stomach, using a light touch of magic to ease the pressure.
She relaxed immediately.
"See?" I murmured. "That's why you want me."
Hayley closed her eyes, exhausted and comfortable.
"Don't ruin the moment."
--++--
Time kept passing, and finally the day of the birth arrived. Hayley had just gone into labor when the witches attacked.
They were fast enough to take Hayley from the hospital, catching the Originals off guard.
They brought Hayley to the church, and there the labor continued.
Hayley began to scream, and with a crash Klaus appeared in the room.
He moved so fast the witches didn't even see him. In a single second, five witches were headless.
The witches panicked when Klaus appeared in front of the last survivors.
But he was thrown backward and slammed into a wall.
"How?" one of the witches gasped, feeling enormous power inside herself.
"I will kill all of you, your descendants, your friends, all of them!" Klaus began cursing every witch there.
But they were too stunned by the great power now inside them.
Soon Hayley gave birth, and both she and Klaus were completely mesmerized by the daughter. Using that moment, the witches slit Hayley's throat and snapped Klaus's neck.
When the witches tried to leave, Nik appeared.
Nik entered the room with Caroline and Amara behind him.
"Give back my sister, and I'll grant you a quick death," Nik snarled, showing his pale face full of dark veins, Caroline in the same state, and Amara behind them staring directly at the witches.
The witches looked at one another, seized by almost delirious confidence.
The leader held the newborn in her arms and smiled at Nik.
"You demand surrender... not realizing you arrived too late."
Nik attacked first.
In a blur of speed, he crossed the church to rip the child from her arms—but he was hit in the chest by an explosion of magic so brutal it launched him into the stone wall, cracking the entire nave.
Caroline came right after, golden eyes shining.
She reached two witches before they could react, snapping one's neck and tearing the heart from another. But the rest of the circle was already chanting ancient spells.
Invisible chains held her in the air.
Another blast hurled her into the altar, splintering wood and marble.
Amara stepped forward silently.
The air around her darkened. The candles went out. The shadows seemed to come alive and crawl along the floor.
For a moment, even the witches hesitated.
Then the leader shouted a single word.
Runes lit beneath Amara's feet.
A surge of energy exploded upward, engulfing her completely. She was thrown through the pews, disappearing into debris and dust.
Nik roared and rose again.
His pale face covered in dark veins, eyes shining with hunger and fury.
He tore through three witches like a storm, breaking bones and ripping heads free.
But their new power was too great.
The survivors joined hands.
Nik's skin began to crack.
Blood ran from his eyes and mouth.
Even so, he kept walking toward the leader.
She touched his chest.
A white flash filled the church.
When the light vanished, Nik was on his knees.
He tried to rise one more time.
Then he fell motionless onto the stone floor.
Caroline let out a furious scream and tried to reach him, but spectral flames engulfed her entire body. She burned too fast to regenerate.
Within seconds, all that remained was a charred corpse.
From the rubble, Amara rose staggering, her blank expression transformed into pure fury.
She raised a hand and half the roof collapsed, crushing two witches.
The leader smiled coldly.
"Kill her."
They all cast magic at once.
Fire struck Amara and reduced her to ash.
Silence fell.
Hayley, pale and weakened on the floor, stared in shock.
Klaus remained unconscious where he had fallen, neck still twisted as it slowly healed.
He saw nothing.
He heard nothing.
The witch leader looked at the fallen hybrid with contempt.
"The great Niklaus Mikaelson... sleeping while he loses everything."
She adjusted the blanket around the child in her arms.
"Let's go."
The witches left the church carrying the baby.
Behind them remained Hayley bleeding, Klaus unconscious, Nik dead on the floor, Caroline's ashes, and Amara's dark dust scattered among the broken pews.
And a terrible stillness before the storm.
---++---
When the witches left, the bodies of Nik, Caroline, and Amara slowly turned to dust.
--++--
The witches were nearly finishing the ritual when Elijah and Klaus arrived at the cemetery.
They fought through some dead witches and managed to get inside.
"Release my daughter!" Klaus shouted at the witch, but some strange energy would not let him pass.
"No, you cannot stop us, Klaus," the witch laughed and pointed the knife at him. "We killed your brat who thought he was more powerful than you."
The witches were in the final seconds of the ritual when the cemetery gates burst open violently.
Klaus entered first.
Behind him came Elijah, calm and deadly as always.
Around the altar, black candles burned in concentric circles. The ancestors whispered through the wind, and at the center of it all the newborn lay wrapped in blankets on the ritual stone.
The witch leader smiled when she saw them.
"You're too late."
Klaus ran.
But an invisible barrier struck his chest and hurled him backward violently. He rolled through the dirt and got up instantly, roaring.
"Nooooo!"
He tried again.
The barrier burned his skin and dropped him to his knees.
Elijah fought the witches at the edges, snapping necks and ripping hearts free to clear a path, but new dead witches kept rising from the earth every second.
"Elijah!" Klaus roared. "Break this!"
"I'm trying!"
The leader raised the ritual knife above the baby.
"With the child's blood, we seal the power of the ancestors!"
Klaus froze for one second.
Something rare appeared on his face.
Fear.
Not for his own end.
For his daughter.
"No..." he whispered, rising unsteadily. "Don't touch her."
He punched the barrier until the skin split from his knuckles.
He struck it again.
And again.
The barrier did not yield.
"Please..." his voice broke for the first time in centuries. "Don't."
The knife came down.
Klaus let out a raw, animalistic, devastated scream.
A sound so full of pain that even Elijah froze for an instant.
The hybrid dropped to his knees, staring at the altar as though the world had ended.
"Nooo..."
The leader began laughing through hysterical tears.
"It's over! It's over!"
Then a spinning metal star sliced through the air.
Marcel appeared running between the graves and hurled the weapon with deadly precision.
The many-bladed star tore through the leader's throat, ripping flesh and bone before embedding itself in a tree behind her.
She collapsed dead.
The others screamed and recoiled.
But the body on the altar... changed.
The crying stopped.
The blankets sank inward.
Small arms twisted, fingers lengthened, the face deformed.
Within seconds, where a baby had been, there was only the stabbed corpse of a baby monkey on the stone.
Silence.
One witch dropped her knife.
Another began trembling.
"No..." one whispered. "No, no, no..."
"The ancestors said—"
"It was the child! I saw the child!"
The circle of candles went out at once.
The runes on the ground failed.
The magic collapsed.
Pure panic took hold of them.
"Congratulations, you completed the ritual," said a voice from behind the altar. "Congratulations."
They all turned.
At the base of the cemetery, Nik stood holding the real baby in his arms, alive and calm, wrapped in clean blankets.
Caroline stood beside him, unharmed, arms crossed.
Amara stood on the other side, expression cold, eyes glowing with power.
Nik smiled slowly.
"You sacrificed a monkey."
The horror on the witches' faces was absolute.
"Impossible... we killed you!"
Caroline laughed.
"Clearly not."
Amara tilted her head.
"You never touched the child."
Nik began with an amused smile.
"But you have something much more serious to worry about now."
He pointed at Klaus.
Klaus was still kneeling, breathing in shock.
His eyes went from the dead monkey... to his real daughter in Nik's arms.
For a moment, he could not move.
Then he rose in a blur and appeared before his son, snatching Hope from his arms with trembling hands.
He held her against his chest as though he feared letting go and the universe stealing her again.
His eyes wet, breathing broken.
Elijah stopped beside him in silence.
Marcel only smiled, retrieving the bloody star.
Klaus raised his eyes to the witches.
All the pain on his face became something far worse.
Fury.
"Run," Elijah advised calmly.
Klaus handed the baby to Elijah, and what happened there became one of the greatest massacres ever seen in New Orleans, all at the base of the witches' power.
They lost to one very angry hybrid.