Part One

Niklaus Mikaelson never thought he would be a father. Never thought he could love someone as much as he loved his daughter. Hell he never thought he could love someone at all, except maybe Caroline. With death upon him he couldn't help but feel like he wasted a thousand years. All the decisions and death that had surrounded him. He looked up in the stars a prayer on his lips. "I don't what is to become of me. I don't know if there is a higher power. All I know is that my daughter is everything. I have led a cursed life filled with violence, destruction, and death. My daughter does not deserve to pay for my past discretions. I submit myself to you. Please let her life be filled with laughter, happiness, and love. Always love."

Niklaus bowed his head a sense of peace settling upon him a few tears sliding down his cheeks.

"That was beautiful." A voice said from beside him. Startled Niklaus looked upon the person that somehow managed to sneak up on him. A woman sat beside him on the bench her gaze too directed at the stars. "It's scary sometimes." She said. Her skin glowing as if someone had dipped her in a golden shower of luminescent light.

She looked back him a gentle smile on her face, "To realize that maybe just maybe that there is something more out there. Something that we can never truly grasp."

Niklaus shifted not quite sure about the woman, "And who are you?"

She tilted her head to the side, "I go by many names, but you may call me Daria."

"Why are you here tonight? You seem quite sad." She spoke to him her glowing skin providing Klaus with a warmth he hadn't felt in many centuries.

"I am going to die tonight for my daughter. I harbor a dark spirit in my body that wishes to possess and destroy her. I worry that my family will essentially abandon her after my death. That they will be all caught up in their happily ever after's that they will forget about her. I feel guilty because she just lost her mother. In a span of less than a month, she will be an orphan. I wanted to be better than my parents as did her mother." Klaus paused looking at the woman fear in his eyes, "And I am scared to see what waits for me. I have done horrible things in my life."

Daria smiled a gentle smile at him, "I don't think you have to worry about it."

Klaus laughed self-depreciatively, "I am a monster. I always knew that my sins would catch up to me. Never thought my life would end like this. I just realized how much time I have wasted. How much time I spent running away. I never really lived. A thousand years, but I don't think I lived for any of it."

Klaus looked over at Daria and found silver teardrops falling down her face sadness painted on her face, but not pity. His heart twisted a little at the sight. For the first time in a thousand years he truly let his humanity in.

"If you had the chance to live what would you do with it?" She asked. Laying her arm across the back of the bench resting her head against her palm her head tilted curiously.

Niklaus sat a little while just thinking of all the things he would do differently. "I would be a better father, a better man. A better brother and maybe one day a husband. I want to love Caroline and for her to love me. I want to live. I want to show my daughter life without death and bloodshed. I want to remove myself from the cycle of violence I am caught in."

Daria smiled gently, "My father left my siblings and I when we were just children. I never knew him. I will admit when I heard of your situation I could careless, but then I remembered how I felt about my father leaving me. I don't want your daughter to feel like I do. I don't want her to live with the responsibility that your death means to her. You, Niklaus Mikaelson, will live. So I have declared and so mote it be." Daria stood grabbing Niklaus by his hand helping him stand. Niklaus stood in front of the woman the night breeze playing with her hair.

The glow on her skin brightened considerably. Suddenly Daria shoves her hand into Niklaus chest cavity. Niklaus gasps and tries to pull away from her trying to escape from her but he couldn't break from her.

Daria grasped onto his heart whispering underneath her breath. Daria chants louder the wind whipping around them stronger. With the sudden infusion of magic, Niklaus gasps his grip on Daria's hand loosening as positive feelings flood into his body. Niklaus opens his eyes to look around him. A glow was surrounding them a mix of gold, silver, and purple. Another surge of magic surrounds the both of them.

A blue orb flies out of Niklaus' body. "Inadu." He whispers the orb hovers between Niklaus and Daria. Niklaus looks down at the petite woman. He notices that her glowing skin is dimming. That the glow was gathering at her arm and down into her hand that currently was shoved in his chest cavity. Slowly, all the glow leaves Daria and with her last chant the blue orb flies into her body.

Daria collapses into Niklaus as she removed her hand from his heart. Niklaus catches her. "What did you do?" He whispers.

Daria looks up at Niklaus with a weak smile, "I am taking your place. I am saving you."

Niklaus shakes his head in confusion, "You shouldn't have done that. I was willing to die for my daughter. You do not have to give your life up for me."

Daria rolled her eyes at him. "I am not doing it for you."

Klaus snorts at her, "Then who are you doing it for?"

Daria looks deep into his eyes, "I am doing it for Hope."

Klaus looks down at her curiously, "Why? I don't know you and you don't know me or my family. We have no connections with you. I am a stranger to you."

Daria smiles, "Am I stranger?"

Klaus tilts his head, "If you are not a stranger then who are you?"

Daria grins, "I don't know Uncle. You tell me. The last time you saw me I was in my mother's womb almost a thousand years ago."

Niklaus recoils a little but not losing his grip on the girl, "That is impossible. You should be dead. We didn't discover we could turn people until our first century."

Daria coughs a little blood staining her hand, "I didn't get my immortality from you or my father."

Niklaus fills in the gap, "You got it from your mother. Cate wasn't human was she? If she wasn't human then what was she?"

Daria stays quiet for a little coughing up more blood, "Look that doesn't matter. When I die you need to light my body on fire so Inadu can't escape you have only twenty-four hours to do this. Or everything I did was for nothing."

Niklaus picks her up carrying her bridal style, "No. We will find another way. Let me take you to the manor."

Niklaus speeds away racing against time as his niece lay dying in his arms. Daria looked up at the brooding face of her uncle and then looked up at the glowing stars in the sky. Feeling at peace, she smiles taking a deep breath her eyes closing.

Just as she took her last breath she heard her father for the first time in her life, "Niklaus?"