Rue | Klaus Mikaelson

Chapter 10

Luna giggled. "I like the bathtubs here. We'd never had a bathtub before."

Ibeth kissed the top of their head. "Bathtubs are nice. All done with the braids."

They hopped off the bed, twirling in front of Nick to show off. "Heading to bed now. Night!"

"Goodnight, Luna," said Ibeth kindly as they skipped out of the room. "Brush your teeth!"

"I will!"

Nick crossed his arms. "Yeah, sure, it's nice having our own rooms and all that but I still don't like it here."

"It's temporary," said Ibeth quietly. "We're trying to fix things, I promise."

She wasn't sure how to help him. He was grieving, and refused to go to therapy. She couldn't exactly force him into an office with a psychologist. The best she could do was ask Cami for advice and continue driving him to school, bringing him back every day and doing her best to help him with his homework (all of which she didn't understand).

Luna's homework was a tad easier for her. But they were involved in dance and wrestling, which meant Ibeth had to drive them around quite often. Angel was in a similar situation, participating in soccer and piano lessons. He struggled in school, which meant Ibeth had to sit down with him the longest to try and explain the homework step by step.

The twins weren't attending classes yet, but she still assigned them pages from a Pre-K handbook every day so they could earn their play time. The girls were taciturn, but very mischievous. Whenever Freya was home, they liked to follow her around to get their hands on her spell ingredients. Hope and Henry were together most of the time, given how close they were in age, but it did not always go smoothly, especially when Hope started smacking Henry to get his attention.

Dinners were strange. Klaus never knew what to talk about with the children. Ibeth usually brought something up and had him respond to her. More often than not she'd get him in a story-telling mood and he'd explain something from a time period his family lived through, keeping it as PG as possible. Nick would always tune out and glare at him from across the table. Luna and Angel listened with the most interest. Ibeth normally didn't catch most of it because the twins and the babies were making messes.

"And why did you do that?" Luna would often ask. They were naturally curious about history; it was one of their best subjects. Klaus was a walking and talking encyclopedia that they could get answers out of in the most interesting way. Ibeth knew the constant questions frustrated Klaus, but she was thankful he answered them in the best way he knew how.

"Er— it was a custom at the time," Klaus would say most times. "Best if someone explains it to you when you're older."

"I'm eleven, that's old enough."

"When you reach adulthood and can understand more than you do at this age."

"I'll be an adult soon enough."

"You are not yet a pre-teen. This is not even content I ought to say to a teenager."

Nick would usually roll his eyes at that point, assuming everything culminated in murder where Klaus was concerned. Usually he was right. But Ibeth noticed that sometimes, when recalling these memories, Klaus's expression was very soft. Nostalgic, even. Not all of it was marred by murder. Some of these time periods held a special place in his heart.

After dinner was typically when Angel would follow Klaus around like a lost puppy. While Nick and Luna had homework to finish up, Angel was typically done by then and could skip around the Compound, always wondering what he was doing. Ibeth often tried to pull him aside so he wouldn't overwhelm Klaus, but Angel always found a way to sneak back over, pretending he wanted to hang out with Hope and Henry.