Chapter Text
Hope Andrea Mikaelson finds out that on the day she was born, her mother died.
She's going through some old family boxes that store things that belonged to both her father and her Uncle Elijah. (As her ex-boyfriend Landon once said, there's that past-tense again.)
She doesn't even refer to Elijah as her uncle anymore, it hurts too much. But there's a box of his journals that are calling out to her. She opens one.
May 2nd, 2012.
"Hey, that's my birthday," she murmurs to herself. This seems like a great place to start, at least this would be a happy story. Or so she thinks.
I keep telling myself that I could have saved her. Entering that church to see her in Niklaus' arms, how dare he let her die.
Hope has to sit down for this, but she can't bring herself to move or tear her eyes away. With a graceful movement of her hand, the bean bag chair in the corner of her dorm room appears behind her. She lets herself fall onto it.
Continuing on, she reads:
The woman I had finally allowed myself to feel something for, dead. The sight of seeing her lifeless in his arms with one hand on where their child once was is etched into my mind. I wish for nothing more than to have it erased.
The comfort I receive of finding out she had survived is short-lived as I find out that she, too, is a hybrid. She deserves more than a life as one of us. A monster. A Mikaelson. I knew I could have saved her from this life, if only I had been there and not preoccupied by a wolf bite.
Hope quickly shuts the journal. She had no idea. She knew her mother was a hybrid sired by herself, but no one had ever told her how. Hope then realizes that maybe her family would have told her these stories when she was older, but they never had the chance.
In true Mikaelson fashion, she makes her way to the decanter of bourbon older than herself and pours a glass. (It's cloaked to look like an ice tea pitcher.)
After taking a sip, she takes her phone out of her pocket and says, "Siri, remind me to ask Marcel more about Mom when he comes in next week".
It's April 25, 2031. Hope's 19th birthday is coming up, and even though she doesn't like to celebrate it anymore, her pseudo-brother Marcel always finds a way to spend some time with her on this day.
To Hope, May had represented happiness. No matter what part of the country she was in, she always got presents from her mother and step-Grandma Mary. Then when she was finally able to meet her father and his siblings at 7, it got even better. Even when they had to move away, they called and sent presents. (Even her estranged father sent gifts for a while, but that's another story for another time.)
May was a month for family. Which would make this the happiest month ever, right? Except she's one of the sole surviving Mikaelsons.
The last day of this month would make 4 years since her mother died. Ever since that day, May has only represented grief.
What she learned from Elijah's journal tells her that even though Hope was born, it was still a time for grief. It's been almost 20 years, and that observation still rings true to this day.
It's been about 10 minutes, and Hope still hasn't moved from where she poured her glass. She stands there weighing whether or not continuing on in Elijah's writings will sate her curiosity or make the room spin even faster. She throws the drink back in hopes that it will help. It doesn't.
*sigh* That's enough for now .
Information, that is.
She pours herself another glass and sits at her desk to at least try to get some homework done.
Six weeks til graduation.
I'm a Mikaelson. I got this.