I Hate That I Love You

Chapter 13

Two years ago.

"Nik, you can't be serious," Rebekah said. "Tell me you're not being serious!"

"Do you think I want to do this?" the Original Hybrid shouted back, tears glistening in his eyes. "It's what's best for her."

"Don't let Elijah's sacrifice have been for nothing! He took the Hollow into his body so that you could return home. Return to Hope. Don't abandon her!"

"What else am I supposed to do?" Klaus yelled. "Everyone around me dies. First Finn, then Hayley, then Elijah... I can't do this to my family anymore."

"She's immortal, Niklaus! Your miracle daughter cannot die!"

"That was what history said about the Original Vampires, but how many of us are left, Rebekah?"

"You can protect her! Stay here and protect her from all the evils in the world!"

"It's not..." Klaus let out a shaky breath. "It's not just that my presence puts her in danger. It's... How am I supposed to protect her from evil, when I am the most wicked thing to have ever walked the earth?"

"This again?"

"Look at what a millennium with me did to you, Rebekah. A sweet girl who wanted nothing more than love has turned into a she-devil who kills without a second thought. And Kol? Thank goodness for Davina, but before her, you know how much fun he found in tearing out innocents' throats. Hayley only knew me for a little over a decade, but by the time she was killed, she had taken dozens of lives! Not to mention how I affected Marcel!"

"Hope's powers are far too much for this world," he continued. "She will grow up to do great things, but whether that greatness is terrible or good depends on whether or not she will have a monster like me to influence her!"

"She needs you!"

"One year with me, and she will be grieving for the dozens of people she has killed. Two years, and the 'dozens' will have piled up into hundreds. Three years, and she won't be grieving anymore, she'll be basking in the bloodshed. But if I'm gone, and if you and Freya are there to lead her to a better path, she won't turn into someone like that."

"Nik-"

"Please, Rebekah," Klaus said. "Take care of my daughter for me. Raise her to become a loving person like you. To become loyal and trustworthy like Marcel. To become wise and brave like Freya. Do this for me."

"She will never forgive you, Nik. Don't leave," Rebekah begged.

But her brother let go of her hands, and used his supernatural speed to leave the building, to leave the city. With each step that he took, the ache in his heart worsened. Yet he would learn to live with it. No pain was too much for the good of his daughter.

And Rebekah was right; Hope would probably never forgive him for this. But he would rather have her hate him than have her become someone the rest of the world hated and feared. He wouldn't let the darkness inside of him bleed into Hope's veins. Without him, she would be safe. She would be someone worthy of love and respect. She would be better off.

*****

Present Day

"I'd forgotten how big this place was," Kol said to Hope, sitting in front of her in the cafeteria. "Freya told me you missed out on all your classes this morning. Why?"

"I wasn't feeling well," Hope replied coldly.

"And now?"

"Can't you just leave me alone, Uncle Kol?" Hope muttered. "When are you leaving town?" Her eyes had swollen up from all the crying, and it was only thanks to a bit of magic on her part that she was looking normal right now.