A/N: New AU i'm working on as I finally watch the back end of S4. I'm not sure if I'll follow the plot of S4 or start from scratch after this. Not sure if I'll continue this at all anyways, not much responses to fanfics on tumblr lately... I wanted to try out a new writing style for this one, le tme know what you think.

Elijah was dead.

Elijah died and the pendant was empty.

Freya had tried a dozen times, still going. The sound of her voice was mere background noise as Hayley and Klaus stared into each other's eyes, stuck in a loop of pain-empty-dead-can't be-make it stop. Her eyes were filled with tears that wouldn't fall, while Klaus' had started falling after the fifth encore.

He was breaking to pieces in front of her, she could see him suddenly, Niklaus, Elijah's little brother. The hollowness in his eyes echoed the cold creeping up her hand, freezing every part of her that had ever been touched by Elijah.

Klaus was breaking, shattered, the hurricane was imminent.

She snapped his neck. Placed him gently in the car, locked his seatbelt. She was in a hurry, a tornado that couldn't stop lest their daughter saw their true faces, the raw bleeding loneliness that echoed between them.

The oldest Mikaelson, the last human one was henched over the pieces of a broken maybe, trying to conjure up a miracle. A pen, a piece of paper and a text later, Hayley and not-dead Klaus were on their way to the bayou. Keelin would be there for Freya and they would both be there for Hope until Rebekah and Kol arrived. She remembered there were other people in this family.

The wheel squeaked under her hands, strength unchecked. The car fading into the night. Their daughter would be safe. Safer without them. Happier if she never saw Klaus break and rage and unleash. There were things she wished her daughter had never seen. And things she could prevent her daughter from seeing.

Hurricanes were meant to stay out of cities, cointained to the wilderness where they belonged.

Klaus and her, they dealt in absolute, broken to pieces that could only glue themselves back up with blood and anger and hatred.

One of the only people who had ever loved you dead? Fight it out. Break your leg, rip out your skin, shed your fur, break your teeth, break his teeth — until every piece of you was brand new. Until every piece of you had never been touched by his hand.

Let Klaus tear the bayou to the ground. He would not be alone. If Elijah was gone. Scratch that. Now that Elijah was gone, it was just them, her and Klaus and Hope; and the rest of the Mikaelsons.

She would watch over Klaus, for Hope and now for Elijah. A new burden to carry, to forget the weight of his love, to forget the dead weight. To forget.