/you better shut your mouth/hold your breath/kiss me now/you'll catch your death

"Kill her," Klaus says finally, and Hayley's heartbeat increases so fast she's sure she's going to pass out. "And the baby. What do I care?"

Her hand instinctively leaps to her flat stomach, as if she's trying to make sure Klaus hasn't already killed the thing growing inside of her. She makes sure that her feet remain planted on the ground as he shoves past her and walks away. I don't care, she tells herself firmly as she watches him walk away. This baby is mine, not his.

She shoots Elijah a soft smile as he leaves to go after his brother, trying to convey that she will most probably be gone when he comes back.

"Stay," Elijah says to her as he brushes past, hand reaching out to squeeze her palm as he walks in the same direction as Klaus does. "Please."

Hayley doesn't know why she stays, but she does. She should be hightailing it out of there, what with the witches promising to kill her the minute Klaus stepped a toe out of line, but she can't bring herself to leave.

It's mostly to do with the way Elijah's eyes filled with tears when she told him what had happened. Something to do with the family she's always wanted.

X

She curls up in the unfamiliar house, and finds she cannot sleep, not matter how hard she tries. She makes her way downstairs with the intention of grabbing a drink and finds she wants to cry instead. I need to leave, she tells herself, but knows that there is no chance; she's in a house with three originals where she has the only beating heart.

Hayley's imagined pregnancy before- whenever her adoptive parents did it wrong, she'd think about how she'd treat her child right. This is no family to bring a child into, she thinks, curling her hand over her stomach and imagining what kind of life her child will live. In her mind's eye, it is not a good one.

A faint gust of air shifting behind her alerts her to Elijah's presence, and she snaps out of her thoughts, turning to face him.

"Why are you up at this hour?" He asks gently, and she notes with amusement that he's still wearing a suit.

"Why are you still dressed like that?"

"I was about to go out," He starts, and the faint bleep of the microwave alerts her to the fact that her tea is ready. Hayley studies his face, examining the crease of his brows, furrowed in concern. "Just wanted a drink," She says, holding up her mug with a faint smile. "Not planning on hightailing it."

Yet.

He oozes sincerity- it's in his every move as he comes towards her, so ready to give up everything for the thing growing inside of her that may not survive. Hayley refuses give herself false hope, even though Elijah is full to the brim with it, all too ready to welcome another little Mikaelson with a face like his that can bring his family together again. It's moments like this which let her believe it would not be so bad, to bring a child into this world with at least one family member that will love it forever.

Then reality slides into her, cold as a sharp stone, and she knows that he's had blood spattered all over his hands- he's far from innocent, far from good, whatever he may chose to believe about himself. He values human life, a little lingering thought that wanders around her brain and Hayley wonders whether it's true, whether there really are vampires which value human life and refuse to take it. Try as she might, she cannot bring herself to believe it.

Elijah looks at her curiously and she grips her mug tighter and disappears back up the stairs to her room.

Hayley cannot deal with the reality of her situation, so she opts instead to flop into bed and pull the covers over her and try-try- to forget.

X

"He's gone," Klaus says shortly, and she glances up from her book, startled that he is finally acknowledging that she actually exists.

Hayley slams the book shut and winces at the volume of dust rising from it, wondering what the hell he's talking about and wondering why she should bother listening to him. "Who?"

"Elijah." Klaus turns and slams the door, rattling its hinges and Hayley takes in a deep breath, forcing herself to inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale. But he promised- she thinks for a second, before her lips curl into a bitter snarl and she wonders why she believed him. He might be the most eloquent of the Originals, sure, but when it boils down to it, he's a vampire and she knows she can't trust them.

It's probably the one thing that Hayley has always been sure of; the fact that she can't trust anyone but herself.

X

The swing rocks gently by itself, probably enchanted by the witches, when Hayley takes a seat on it and crosses her legs, trying to force her thoughts out of the chaotic cycle that they have been caught up in. She remembers sitting here with Elijah, the cold weight of indecision ever present, and the feel of his cool breath floating over her face as he leaned forward and whispered- I'll protect you- as if he meant it, as if he really could.

Rebekah sits next to her; blonde and bubbling with thinly disguised excitement that upsets the balance of the swing and sends it rocking wildly, upsetting the calm rhythm she has going on. "Are you okay?" The blonde asks, and Rebekah looks at her with wide blue eyes and one strand of hair stuck to pink lipglossed lips, so eager to hear about her niece or nephew or whatever demon will come out of her body.

Hayley exhales, placing a hand over her stomach and looking down. "I could be carrying a monster worse than Klaus," She says, and it's a very real fear she's been unable to articulate so far.

The blonde takes Hayley's free hand and gives her a reassuring smile, trying to convince her that she is strong, she can do this. The question: does she want to?

"Monsters are not born." Is all the advice Rebekah gives.

Hayley knows this: she would put her neck on the line, go through any amount of pain and torture, in order to ensure that her child does not come to any harm. And she can't understand yet, whether the child is better off dead than born into this family.

X

Kill them both, she remembers Klaus saying, the words circling round and round in her brain, adding fuel to the fire of indecision burning within her, little moths that she can't bat away.

"I'm going insane," She says to herself in the shower, fingers circling in her mass of sopping hair, warm water running down her body. She can't keep it up like this- she's so plagued with worry that she can't go on without some panic attack of some sort. Hayley's hands grip her belly and she makes her decision, turning the shower off abruptly and wrapping a towel around herself.

Klaus' firm dismissal of her child and him ignoring her- everyday, all the time, is the final straw that makes her grab her purse and steal out of the house like a ghost. She knows someone that knows someone, and her feet take her to the French Quarter where she finds herself paying for a little glass vial filled to the brim with poison.

She makes her way home with the vial clinking in the depths of her bag, mind racing even faster. She doesn't know what to do- has no idea at all because she's just Hayley, just trying to muddle through this like she's done her whole life.

"Where were you?" Klaus shouts, and she winces, flinching back into the wall for the tiniest split second before she draws herself up as high as she can get and steps out in front of Rebekah.

Hayley feels the indecision boil up into rage, and cold, calculating, bitchy Hayley does something she regrets the minute the words leave her mouth and snaps right back at him. She barely has time to register the movement as his lips curl into a snarl and he pushes her up against the wall, hard enough to send it falling down around her and she can't breathe but she can register Rebekah's shrill, piercing voice as she screams at Klaus to let go but still does nothing about it. Hayley forces herself to stop trying to suck in air and hangs limp in his grip until he finally lets her fall.

This is what her life will become, if she stays. She looks at the little vial of poison, the brilliant purple shining out at her and lays it on her desk, kneeling on the floor until she is eye level with the liquid.

"What do I do?" She asks aloud, aware that Klaus and Rebekah may full well hear her, but also aware that they will not come. Hayley stays like that for the night, thinking of her own mothers-both of them- until the sky bleeds pink with the promise of dawn and she crawls into bed.

Her last thought before she sleeps is Elijah's voice, telling her that she will remain safe as long as he is there, and the reassurance that he will always be there for her. Fool, she thinks sleepily as the dark tendrils of sleep curl over her.

X

It takes him a few more days to show up, to stride in as if nothing has fucking happened, as if he hasn't already broken every single promise he made to her and Rebekah falls easily into his arms. Hayley walks away from the little family bonding thing they have going on, a little part feeling as if she is intruding but a larger part wondering whether he will follow her.

She grips the railing outside as hard as she can without breaking it, tells herself to get a grip. The appearance of a shadow in the corner of her eye has her sucking in a breath and her hearbeat skittering. Hayley turns to face him as he walks towards her, not yet sure on what she will say to him. You betrayed me- she wants of shriek- or maybe: fuck you- she settles for a slap, in the end, one which cracks through the air with the force of a whip and holds all the emotion of the past few days behind it.

"Welcome home," Hayley says, and walks back upstairs to glare at the vial laid out on her desk once more.

It doesn't seem as inviting as it once did.

X

He seems to have taken her words to heart; Elijah makes a point of being near her almost every day, seemingly showing her that he will not leave her again. "I won't trust you again," She remarks one day when he has insisted on taking her shopping.

"It was out of my control."

Sure, Hayley thinks bitterly even though she knows that it's true and she's being irritating to the original vampire who probably has better things to do than to follow around the woman carrying his niece or nephew. She swallows and thinks about the stories of him and Katherine Pierce and how he left her for Klaus, something she herself finds utterly stupid.

"Hayley." His touch on her wrist is gentle and barely there, a little butterfly wing flutter that should not change her pulse as much as it does.

She shrugs him off and selects a bracelet from the rack in front of her, fingering the cold steel dragonfly on it. "It's fine." But her voice is flecked with steel, and he finds himself wanting to reassure her, because he's seen her vulnerable, with no clue which way to go and completely lost. She deserves to have at least one persons' unwavering loyalty.

Elijah moves her hand gently of the bracelet and turns her to face him, handling her as if she is a china doll. "It's not. I gave you my word. This time I will keep it."

"You would make a good father." It slips out before she can stop it, and a light blush covers her cheeks as she drops her gaze to the floor, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. When she looks up again, he's looking at her with something unreadable in his eyes, but a smile on his face, and she can't help but hesitantly return it.

X

Elijah enters her room with a mug of tea and a book; completely startling her from where she is gazing at the vial of poison like she does whenever she is unsure of anything in her life, which is always. Hayley's head snaps towards him and she feels the urge to cover up the vial, to crush it as if it never existed, as if she is ashamed under his piercing gaze.

"What," he starts as she jumps to her feet, "What is that?"

Hayley's mouth opens slightly but she finds she has no words to give him, nothing to reassure him. Her eyes cannot shift from his face as he drops the things onto her table and makes his way to her, rage written in every crease of his face. She gulps and takes a step back and watches his eyes flicker from her face back to the vial with a rising sense of fear. "Tell me that is not what I think it is."

"I can't." She clenches her fingers into fists, digging her nails into the soft flesh of her palms as he strides so close to her that if she steps a millimetre forward she will step straight into the line of his body, wound tight with anger. There is a difference between him and Klaus and their anger- his is quiet, calm and ever more lethal, but Hayley's almost certain that Elijah will not hurt her.

"How could you do this?" His voice rises and she steps back again, snaking her fingers around him and clutching the vial in her sweaty palms. Hayley thinks she is going to cry and then she remembers the feel of Klaus' large hand on her throat and the anger rises up again, the signature hot temper of a werewolf.

"How could I?" She shrieks, voice shrill with disbelief, bitter laugh slipping from her lips. "You weren't here- you don't know what happened or what I was feeling and you weren't there when Klaus was trying to kill me, so you have no right to ask me that."

Elijah's face contorts and she realizes that she's shattered the vial in her anger and the little shards of glass are slicing in her hand. He moves forward, looking torn as he grasps her hand and she wrenches it out of his hand with a gasp and a choked cry as the tears she's been suppressing have finally let loose. He changes instantly- hands coming out to clutch her shoulders and calm her down, but Hayley can't stand it- can't stand him at the moment- so she runs.

She makes it to the edge of the woods before she has to stop and she slides down the trunk of a tree, wrapping her arms loosely around herself and crying. Her fingers are purple tipped and dripping- a mixture of blood and poison and Hayley knows that she all she has to do is lick her fingers and she'll never see another sunrise again.

She can't do it.

Elijah arrives moments after that, no doubt ready to yell at her some more, she thinks, but takes one look at the soft expression on his face and knows that he is feeling bad. He takes a seat on the ground next to her and doesn't do anything but offer her a handkerchief and allows her the time to pull herself together. "I'm sorry," He lets the apology slip from his tongue and Hayley lets him slip his arm around her shoulders and leans into him, hiccuping slightly.

Already she's feeling embarrassed at completely going to pieces; he kisses her gently on the forehead, lips lingering for a beat longer than is proper and she leans into his chest a little more.

"Don't run," He whispers into her hair, "Or I will chase you even if the rest of my family don't." Hayley thinks he has just given her the perfect incentive to run- she would be more than happy to raise the baby with him instead of Klaus.

X

She's four months along and he's sitting with her in front of the fire, glass of wine in one hand and the other eye fixed on her. She's only just begun to show, and Hayley can't help but notice Elijah's eyes on her bump, all the time. Rebekah tells her she's being intentionally dense and completely ignoring Klaus, but Hayley has pretty much erased Klaus from her mind at the this point.

"I think it's a girl," She says to him, and he looks up from his book in surprise. She watches the smile cross his face as he looks down at her bump, and Hayley can't help but blush at the intensity of his gaze.

"She'll be beautiful," Elijah says, and reaches for her hand. She allows him to draw tiny slow circles over the back of her hand with a smile and finds herself wishing for the umpteenth time that the baby was his. "I know," She says honestly, and then she feels a queer sensation in her stomach- a little flurry of butterflies moving about, and then, it comes, the sharp feeling that she can identify as a kick.

Elijah's by her feet at an instant when her hand jumps to her stomach and her face changes, concern stamped all over his features. "What is it?"

Hayley doesn't say anything, only moves his hand to her stomach and wills her little baby to kick one more time. She does, and Hayley's surprised because his arms are around her in the next instant, crushing her to him as gently as he can. She laughs a little, a quiet giggle escaping her lips as she looks at the joy written all over his face, the elated grin his mouth has curved into.

The next thing she knows is that is lips are on hers, moving slowly and gently and sweetly, the perfect kiss. They break apart and she gasps for air as he slowly moves away from her, and she knows he's second guessing what he has done. "I shouldn't have-" he starts, but she presses a finger to his lips and shakes her head.

Hayley moves her hand back down to her stomach and waits for him to join her, intertwining both of their fingers. This baby, she promises herself, looking down at their connected fingers over her stomach, will know Elijah as her father.

a/n: okay so basically I have never watched an episode of the originals, this is just pieced together from gifs and youtube videos but this pairing makes me feel things. Imagining Elijah as a father does things to me...R&R please!