Nothing Without You

Not falling asleep while sitting at my desk at work was torture. I kept nodding off, only to be woken by the sound of the bell when a customer enters the building. "Welcome! Checking in?" I'd say in my most awake and chipper voice, not letting on I'd been half asleep 30 seconds prior.

I had been nodding off again when I heard his voice. It snapped me out of my almost slumber and scared me. "What the hell Klaus?" I said, looking around to make sure no one else was there.

"Sorry, love, didn't assume you'd be sleeping on the job." He teased as he leaned on the desk.

"What's up? Any news?" I asked, hoping he'd heard from one of the Salvatore brothers.

"Not yet. Give it time, I'm sure they're wasting their time trying to find some alternative cure that doesn't exist." He shrugged, nonchalant. He didn't seem very worried about it at all. His confidence made me more confident. "But that's not why I came."

His tone didn't seem dark by any means, but I was slightly worried he bore bad news. "What are you here for then?" I asked, paranoid.

"I actually wanted to see if you were up to leaving work a bit early. You see, my daughter was hoping I'd take her to the lake today to go swimming. Her mother, Hayley, is a bit preoccupied today. I thought maybe you'd accompany me." I was surprised at the offer. It seemed like such a.. Normal.. thing to do. It was easy to forget that he was a father, that he had an actual child that did normal child things. With how much supernatural drama surrounded him, finding time to take his daughter swimming or to the park must have been a struggle. I was also pleasantly surprised he wanted me to meet his daughter. He'd talked about her a little bit in the time I'd known him, but he generally kept her out of things, likely to protect her. It was nice, knowing he trusted me enough to meet her.

"I'd love to. Do you think you could, uh, convince my boss to let me leave?" I asked, feeling a little bad about asking him to compel people. I found it innocent, because he wasn't altering anyone's lives or making them make big decisions. It was only a few hours off work.

"Of course. Go wait in the car for me, I'll meet you in a moment." He wandered off into my boss' office and I knew I was golden. I hopped in his running car and waited. He had the radio on and was listening to classic jazz.

I smiled and turned it up a bit. "Of course." I thought, remembering the day we met. We'd danced to a jazz band and had a great time, I wanted to relive that day, and I had a feeling that I was about to make memories that I'd want to relive in the future. I looked in the back seat and noticed a booster seat sitting behind the driver's side for his daughter. It was so ironic to me, sitting in the car of the most dangerous man to exist, heading out to take his little girl swimming. What a world I lived in..

He came back and turned the music down, as if slightly embarrassed. "Sorry about that, I suppose I was revisiting better days." He chuckled, though I could see part of him didn't mean it as a joke. I couldn't imagine how hard it would be to live forever, watching everyone you love eventually die, watching the world change, missing "better days."

We stopped by my place and I picked up my bikini and a towel, then quickly rushed out as to not be noticed by Emily or Jared. I hopped back in the car and we head off to the compound. Upon walking in, I wasn't bombarded with questions like I was last time. A few people I recognized, and others I didn't, were in the large open area, talking and relaxing it seemed like. A tall, brunette woman approached us with a picnic basket and a beach blanket. "Hey, I went ahead and packed lunch for you guys." She was absolutely gorgeous and a huge part of me wished I could have been half as beautiful as she was.

"How kind of you." Klaus said, maybe a bit sarcastic? It was hard telling with him. "Hayley, this is Molly." He said, almost sounding like he had to think about my name. It was still weird hearing that name instead of Cat, but I had to accept and adjust to the fact that my name wasn't what I thought it was.

"Hi, how are you?" She asked as she shook my hand. She looked very suspicious of me but she was kind nonetheless.

"Good, yourself?" I asked as she dropped my hand. I felt uncomfortable, not knowing what she was thinking.

"Great. Klaus, can I talk to you for a second?" I figured something like that would happen. Klaus excused himself and wondered off with Hayley, I could see she looked concerned and it looked like he was explaining. I was sure she was just as careful with her daughter as Klaus was, she was probably just making sure I could be trusted, which of course I admired about the both of them. At first glance they seemed like great parents.

While they talked, a little girl walked in, wearing a dress over her bathing suit. She had a little sun hat and flip flops on, she was a beautiful little girl. She looked quite a bit like her mom, but she absolutely had her father's eyes. She bravely approached me and introduced herself. "Hi, I'm Hope. Who are you?"

I looked over to Klaus and Hayley, who had stopped their conversation to watch. I bent down to her level and smiled at her. "My name is Molly. I'm a friend of your dad's. Do you mind if I come with you today?"

She looked over to Klaus, maybe for approval or just a nod from him, then back to me. "Do you like ice cream?"

"Strawberry is my favorite." I said, making her smile.

"Okay, I guess you can come then." She had a very clear speaking voice and advanced grammar for a 5 year old. I was sure that had a lot to do with how well educated her family was.

Klaus came back to us, leaving Hayley looking slightly concerned, but seemingly accepting. "We're off then." We all climbed into his car without another word. I knew everyone in that house was suspicious of me, and I don't think anyone there liked that I would be hanging around Hope, but what could they really say? Klaus was her dad and he trusted me, and I think they all knew he'd never let anything bad happen to her.

I shook off the weird feeling of being an "intruder" and tried to reset to enjoy the day ahead. When we got to the beach, I noticed it was pretty vacant. There were a few families there, but it wasn't at all crowded. I set out the beach blanket on the sand and set up our little area. I went and changed into swimwear and sat on the blanket while Hope cautiously approached the water. She was a shy girl, and a careful one, it was like she struggled to do normal kid things, even though I could see she really wanted to.

"Aren't you getting in the water?" I asked, noticing Klaus hadn't changed.

"I'm not much of a swimmer." He said, resting back on his elbows.

"And I wasn't much of a dancer." I said, forcing him to remember when he'd shown me how to dance. He gave me a looked of defeat but didn't move. "Come on, look at your daughter. She's afraid."

He looked out to his little girl where she was standing with her feet in the water, not daring to move much further, even though she was wearing a life jacket. She looked nervously around at some of the other kids, looking unsure of what to do. "Daddy?" She called as she turned on her heel. "Will you come with me?"

I watched him melt in front of me, he couldn't say no. "Just a moment, sweetheart." He said, getting up to go change. After a short while he came back in swim shorts and lacking a shirt. I sat back and quietly admired him from afar. His muscles and near perfect body structure almost distracted me from noticing the tattoo that draped from his shoulder onto his chest. I watched them as he helped Hope into the water, just by holding her hand and giving her enough confidence to get in. She loosened up and started laughing and learning to swim. She seemed much more at ease now, and it really made me feel happy. This was one of those moments I knew I'd look back on and wish I could come back to it.

"Are you coming Molly?" Klaus asked from the water. I got up and wandered out to them, I couldn't even remember the last time I'd done something like this. We started out by teaching Hope how to swim. She practiced swimming back and forth between the two of us, and then at some point a splashing war started, giving all of us a case of the giggles. It was such a surreal moment, playing with them. I knew there wasn't a lot of play time in this family, and I wanted to make it a point in the future to make play just as important as other daily necessities.

After a long while of goofing around, we came to shore and had lunch. Hayley had packed enough food and snacks to feed an army. As we ate, Hope took the opportunity to strike up conversation. "Me and Daddy like to paint in the garden. Do you like to paint too?" She asked me while she ate.

"I do, but I'm not very good to be honest." I admitted, wondering what else I'd learn about her.

"Me either. But Daddy's really good, he has a big room with paintings in it." I could see that she had a ride in her father, she was very close to him.

"I'd love to see it one day." I said, looking a Klaus who was smiling. "Besides painting, what else do you like to do?" I asked her.

"I make spells. But mommy doesn't know." I hadn't expected anything like that, because for some reason I didn't expect her to be anything but a regular child. It made no sense for her to be normal, I should have known that, but I really didn't expect her to be a witch.

"Oh, what kind of spells?" I asked, wanting to know how much she could actually do.

"I bring plants back to life mostly." I was intrigued by this. If she could bring plants back to life, could she, one day, learn to bring a person back to life?

"Wow, that's wonderful. I bet you could keep a beautiful garden." I didn't want to bring up any adult topics with her, I worried about how fragile she seemed to be. I knew she was far more involved in the world of the supernatural than she ever should have been, but that was inescapable.

"Yeah. Maybe." She shrugged, giving me a modest face.

"I think I'm going to grab ice cream for everyone. I'll be right back." I said as I got up and walked up to the little order window. I could hear the conversation continuing behind me, though I don't think Hope knew that.

"Is she your girlfriend?" She asked, and even though I didn't have to answer her, I could feel my cheeks flush red.

"Oh, what makes you ask?" Klaus was pretty smooth about things, but I wasn't sure how he intended to get out of this one.

"Because you're lonely." She said, and it made her sound far wiser than a 5 year old. "You need a girlfriend."

"And who told you I need a girlfriend?" He asked, though I could hear a chuckle behind it.

"Aunt Freya told that to Aunt Bex." She laughed, knowing that she was making her father uncomfortable.

I approached the window and ordered 2 ice creams. I missed part of the conversation, but when I focused back in on it, it seemed to have gotten a bit serious. "Mommy doesn't have time anymore. She's always with Uncle Elijah." That made me sad. As good of a person as Hayley seemed to be, I assumed she hadn't realized that her daughter felt this way.

"Well, it isn't so simple." He started to explain. "I think your mother just wants to make sure you're safe, and she spends a large amount of time ensuring that."

"I just get bored. There's no one else to play with." I hadn't thought about the fact that she was the only child around, and likely the only one that would ever be around. She must have felt a sense of loneliness too.

"I know sweetheart, I'm sorry, but there's not much I can do to fix that." I grabbed the ice cream and came back.

"Here you go." I handed them out and sat down. We chatted a little until we were done eating, and then I decided to do something bold. "Hope, why don't you go play with those two girls over there? I think they need some help building a sand castle."

The look on Klaus' face was exactly what I expected. He wasn't happy about this, but I was sure he'd be fine. Hope looked at Klaus' disapproving face and then back to me. "I don't know.."

"I know those girls, and I know they're parents." I said, more toward Klaus. "They're very sweet, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind the help."

"Can I?" She asked Klaus, who still didn't look happy about it. "I suppose." He said, unable to refuse her the joys of childhood. He waited until she walked away before lecturing me. "What on earth are you thinking?"

"Hey, I heard what she said about having no one to play with. She could really use the interaction with kids her age. And like I said, I know that family. It's perfectly safe. Regular kids do this all the time." I assured him, knowing it wasn't going to be easy to appease him.

"She's no regular kid, Molly. She's a Mikaelson witch, there is a target on her back the size of-"

"And you're an original hybrid. Who would possibly be able to get away with harming her while you're so close?" This quieted him. He still didn't look thrilled, but he looked like he was starting to accept this. "Relax. You have to let her breathe, you have to let her be a kid, socialize. It's obviously really bothering her."

He watched her a moment while she played with the girls. "I suppose you're right." He said, much more calm.

I didn't respond, not wanting to ruin what I'd been able to accomplish. We sat in a comfortable silence for a long time, listening to the waves gently crashing against the sand, watching the sun set, knowing that his lonely, troubled, little girl was having a great day. It was wonderful bliss. But of course, it couldn't last forever.

I had been spacing off a bit, just relaxing and enjoying the day, I didn't even notice anything was wrong until I felt Klaus' hand land protectively on my back. I looked over and noticed Stefan was walking toward us. Bad timing. "Now's not the time Stefan." Klaus warned, thought trying to be quiet and not alarm Hope.

"My brother is dying and-"

"Quiet down, would you? No need to cause a scene." He said this to protect his daughter, but Stefan must have taken this as as taunting.

"Quiet down? I'll quiet down when you fix this!" Stefan was angry, and probably understandably. Damon was all he had of his former life, I was sure it was hard seeing something like this unfold.

"Hey, if Damon would have just complied like I asked him to, he wouldn't be in this mess." I butted in, not in the mod to deal with this. "And you do need to quiet down, kids are here." I had a feeling he'd be far more hushed if he realized little kids were around. I was right.

"Wait, it actually happened? I thought this kid of yours was just a rumor. How the hell did that happen?" He seemed a little flabbergasted by this, I'd guessed Klaus had done great job of keeping this secret.

"Take a sex ed class Stefan, apparently you need one." Klaus jested, irritating Stefan. I thought it was funny, but I didn't want to laugh.

"Whatever, can we just get this over with?" He asked, looking nervously back at the car he'd arrived in.

"No. You'll wait until I contact you. Go back to wherever you're staying. You'll hear from me." And just like that, he'd been dismissed. It was times like this Klaus reminded me of what true royalty and superiority looked like.

"Don't do this, you have to save him. He'll do what you're asking." He begged, although he didn't realize no amount of begging was going to make him do any business in front of his daughter.

"Oh I'm sure of that. He made us wait, now he can wait on me. Better hope he has a good will to live." He stood and gathered out things, oddly he was as cool as a cucumber. He wasn't even angry, and I think that upset Stefan quite bit.

"Hope, honey, time to go." I called, trying to relieve the tension and get her as close as possible. I didn't want her to be used as leverage somehow. She ran over and I took her hand. She looked a little confused until she saw Stefan, she must have noticed that he wasn't a friend. She gripped my hand and stayed very close to me, never taking her eyes off of him.

"We'll be in touch." Klaus taunted as he lead us back to his car, leaving Stefan in an angry and hopeless state.

We left, and didn't say a word. I didn't know what to say, and I don't think it would have at all been a chatty car ride had Hope not spoken up. "Who was that man?"

"An old friend, little one. He was just in need of a favor, that's all. Not to worry." He reassured her, and I was glad he said that. I didn't want him to lie to her, but I felt that it wasn't okay that she know the full story. It was too much to put on her, it would only heavy her heart knowing her dad was in a not so great situation.

We took Hope home and changed our clothes. After which, we got back in the car. I didn't know where we were headed, but I could only assume it was toward the Salvatores. It was time, and I would finally get my life back. I could only hope that it would all be worth it in the end..