#i literally never know how to end these things so i just stop writing jifwelaksdf

[cursedbcrn]

HAYLEY MARSHALL ( @fightforbetter ) asked for ﹟  recovering together﹕ sender  &  receiver  recover  from  a  bad  experience 

The thing they don't tell you about immortality is how... long it lasts. Maybe such a thing shouldn't have been so surprising to Hope but she supposes it's different because she's never thought she would have to live without her mother.

She's never thought she would have to do it twice.

Both times were brought about by her own hand too, and maybe this is just the universe's way of telling her that she never deserved the goodness that was in Hayley Marshall-Kenner. That no matter what, her father's monstrous temper that people always believed was inherent in her, could never be fully tempered by the fiery pragmatism of her mother even though it was Hayley who raised her and left her indelible mark on Hope.

So she gives Hayley the space she asks for, watching from afar with the occasional comment from Marcel or other members of their family. No one comforts Hope or tries to reassure her, not that she would have listened to them had they tried in the first place. She doesn't know what they tell Hayley, if Hayley even asks about her eldest daughter.

Because that's a new thing she's heard about through the grapevine. Hayley had taken in another child, a werewolf orphan. A replacement. She disappears for three years after hearing about that, and when she re-emerges to the public life, Freya makes her swear that she'll never do that again, not without telling someone. Hope wants to ask whether it was because they were afraid she had died or whether they were afraid she flipped her humanity again, but the question sticks in her throat. She never does know for certain, but she imagines it's a little bit of both. She doesn't have the heart to tell them she spent most of it in a self-imposed dessicated state because Hope still hasn't quite learned how not to run away from the things that hurt her.

She settles in California, letting the salt and sand act as a balm to her wounds. It's easy enough to buy a house on the beach, secluded enough that no one bothers her (or worries about her immortal age), but close enough to a major metropolitan area so she can hunt easily. Hope spends her days walking along the beach or setting up her easel to paint another sunset. She finds a new life, one completely divorced from her former one, with no ties to her family, other than Kol and Davina halfway across the state. And no one understands better than her Uncle Kol the need for some distance.

Immortality both drags on and goes by in a flash, one of those paradoxes that doesn't make sense, probably spurred on by the imbalance of nature that it occupies. Thirty years go by in the blink of an eye and Hope realizes she's not had a mother in her life longer than she had one. It's a brief moment of selfishness that has her sending the letter to Hayley, the first she actually puts stamps on and drops into the mailbox, but not the first she's written. There's a room in her spartan house, dedicated to the letters she has written to Hayley, to Klaus, to Freya, Josie, MG, Cleo, and the handful of others who have remained important over the years. It's equal parts therapy and catharsis, and she understands why her father kept journals. A few have been sent back and forth over the years, but never once to Hayley.

She doesn't expect Hayley to answer and she doesn't know what compels her to keep sending her letters after she doesn't hear back from the first one, but she does. Nothing heavy, but small updates on her life, trying to let her know that despite everything, she's somewhat okay. In case she was curious. When a month goes by without hearing back, Hope is ready to give up again, the rejection searing enough to make her walls fly back up sturdier than ever. If her own mother can't love her, then what hope, no pun intended, did she have for anyone else managing to do that?

Two days later, a letter arrives. A week later, she's flying back to New Orleans for the first time in decades.