Chapter Text
The dreary night cleared up and was converted into a damp morning which meant Katherine couldn't continue her routine of collecting Hope from her bedroom and making their way downstairs for breakfast. Klaus had left a timely note upon her waking up explaining that Hope was in high spirits, exhausting her aunts equally with her habit of exploring every room of the compound thrice before a snack.
An opportunity to have a slow start to the day was an unforeseen prize for Katherine. She'd taken her morning shower, applied various hair masks and oils to lose the frizz on the ends, and managed to shave her armpits without a single nick that would warrant a certain Original putting his head around the door to check on her, Katherine had even successfully managed to go through her whole routine of applying mascara, eyeliner and a smoky eyeshadow without a single jolt from her bump. It wasn't until she stood that the baby decided to wake up. But even then she was prepared now.
Sky-blue light shot out the laptop when she opened it up to check on her recent orders. Three days for the baby clothes, two for the maternity wear, today the jewellery shipped from one of her safes in Staten Island - any chain sturdy enough to contain the gem constantly worn like a collar around her neck would suffice.
Not particularly desiring a cute domestic start to her day, Katherine skipped the pleasantries of breakfast with wolf-mom and witch part-wolf part-vampire for a fresh serving of beignets off the table in the dining room, hand under her chin to catch the crumbs and not smudge her foundation.
She found the new/old addition to the Mikaelson clan on, from the glance at the white mugs stained red on the inside, his fourth drink of blood. An arm wrapped behind Davina, hand below her shoulder whilst the two were engaged in a sickly conversation pertaining to classical music and poetry.
The two were inseparable, attached by hip, shoulder, heart and soul. It was nauseating and adorable, to see the ‘sociopathic brother’ walked on a leash by his witch partner with no resistance.
What surprised Katherine most was the addition of Nadia to the quaint living room. She'd expected Klaus or Freya, perhaps even Marcel or that vampire fellow who Davina was friends with - the foolish one, not the Original who was head over heels for her.
But there her daughter was. On a separate couch naturally, predictably on her phone typing away which needed no effort to suppose. Perhaps Elijah wanted a word with her? Plane tickets and all. But what could be done? If anything happened to Nadia, Katherine didn't even need to finish that for him, he knew all too well.
With a glare at those who moved to offer assistance, Katherine lowered herself onto the couch and held her bump, already winded from taking the inside stairs that winded down to the ground floor corridor. On the other side of where the kitchen was, Elijah would have to take to searching if he wanted her to the breakfast meals he'd practised every night whilst she slumbered.
“… Have you ever heard of this spark character?” Katherine asked after a beat of silence, her words directed to Kol who she understood had a knack for witchcraft.
Kol furrowed his brows, readjusting his grip on the cup of blood in his hands. “As in a magic spark?”
“No, no…” Katherine leaned forward and shifted one leg over the other with maximum effort that was given up when the problem bump interfered, “I mean, The Spark.”
Davina broke out into a small giggle and covered her mouth in apology, waving her other hand. “I'm sorry- it's just- that's a kid's story- it's a myth!”
When neither gave her a joint look of amusement, Davina spoke in disbelief, taken aback. “Are you kidding? An omnipotent being who is reincarnated every few hundred years- a literal figurehead for the consequence of performing powerful magic? It's a fable for young witches not to misbehave and upset nature. No one actually killed any horses and no one is destined to do… something! With them as part of a stupid-sounding prophecy! It's just a myth.”
Kol ran his tongue over his teeth and had a look of consideration, moving the cup from hand to hand.
“Well… myths are created partially from truth…” He shrugged, “And I've heard my own tales of The Spark…”
“Oh really?” Katherine asked, swivelling her body on the couch so her legs stretched out and were in Nadia’s lap. Her daughter lifted her arms and then relaxed them over the legs, resuming the typing of her phone.
Skin revealing from the new position, Katherine pulled her grey shirt over her leggings and wrapped the black blazer more firmly over her troublesome bump.
“In the midst of daggers and near-close encounters with Mikael, I heard rare chattering amongst only a small amount of witches. Most of these witches specialised in divination, they could see the future before it happened and predict events long passed.”
Despite earlier dismissal, Davina looked at her lover intently without a word of disrespect. Even Nadia had put her phone down on the arm of the couch, that was not to say she did not reply to her texts, but rather took a more active role in listening.
“Few spoke the title ‘The Spark’ directly, but anyone as smart and as old as I could piece their stories together in the passing decades,” he took a sip of his drink, blood peeking down the small wrinkles of his lip before he swiped them away, “I'm sure if you are aware of what The Spark is then you know of the prophecy- at least at its simplest. Well, there are conditions to be met first. Such as the fact that the birth of The Spark is marked by the death of someone intimately close to their current parent or awoken by The Spark themself. One such occasion came from the eighteen hundreds in England-”
“-Hang on,” Nadia intercepted, “Vincent briefly touched on what you are possibly alluding to. Are you to tell me that you know the story in its entirety? Despite the record that you were daggered a hundred years prior?”
Kol breathed out his nose slowly and Davina took his right hand in hers and squeezed it, grounding those resurfaced emotions of anger. He smiled at her in adoration and brought her head close to plant a kiss on Davina’s forehead.
“A man was left heartbroken following the passing of his wife, leaving only a daughter in her stead,” Kol started again with a more pointed tone, “London was in a state of religious turmoil, brewing conflict and industrialisation put many out of jobs. The Spark went from being a manual labourer to scavenging for jobs in the city, eventually landing a job as secretary to a railroad tycoon. Unfortunately, his peers mocked his lack of station and rural dialect, and along with that, his daughter had fallen ill. One day The Spark took his daughter out to the library and on the way they passed an overgrown square of what used to be a park. She commented on the dissaray with sadness and the next day on his travels to work, The Spark walked by this travesty and reignited the verdancy of it all, flowers blooming, streams gushing with water and birds that took a sip. On the way back he received the sad news, that his daughter had passed in the presence of her nanny. Weeks passed and The Spark had turned to alcoholism, using his abilities without conscious thought, curing children, and stopping accidents. All this culminated one night when he walked past the alley just a minute away from his home. When those he upset at work cornered and backed him into a wall. They brutalized and violated The Spark, leaving him to die in a bloody pile in that alley.”
Katherine bit the inside of her cheek and looked down at the hands holding her bump, Nadia’s single hand, the other rubbing a foot.
“That’s horrible,” Davina whispered.
He rubbed her shoulder and drew her in.
“I know darling.”
“Did he get justice?” Nadia asked, her back bent over her mother’s legs desperate to know that some form of retribution had been served
Kol shrugged and looked off. It was a habit of his, to shift his eyes either side as if addressing an audience. What little time Katherine had to learn his quirks and already she felt more experienced in his inner workings than that of Freya or even Elijah.
“Many rarely do.”
Referential of his own plight.
“If The Spark is that powerful, why not make them immortal?” Katherine asked with a squint of consideration.
“They are,” Kol said lightly, “However, nature values consent in foreverness when directly involved with the creation of a being. That is where the anchor comes in, someone close to The Spark who must be mortal. If the anchor dies, then an endless life is no more.”
A glum haze settled over the group. One that dulled their faces and crushed their love of humanity. Like a wrecking ball demolishing the walls of ignorance, they upheld human error, wondering how they could better themselves and society. This struck the young witch the most. The string that tethered Kol to human life had drawn itself thin and tense threatening to snap with every neck snap, every neck drained, every mortal life taken from their family. Nadia feigned neutrality. At heart, she was still connected to her traveller roots, the gravity of nature strengthened by her hunger for reunion, her mother taking solace in such efforts.
And Katherine… Katherine saw them as first deceitful and second food and then third… company? Source for error? A burden mostly.
She groaned and rubbed circles on her bump. “God I could use some wine right now… obviously I won't have any! You think your family out of anyone could understand sarcasm!”
‘Halfway there,’ she thought to herself, moving her legs back around and steadying her hands on the couch's edge before slowly standing with an immediate hold on her lower back.
“Have any of you seen my personal chef? I'm starved for breakfast and have an ultrasound at two.”
Nadia left her seat abruptly and strode over to her mother, “We’re not waiting here. This checkup is vital to assess the baby's anatomy, we are not missing it because he spent all night practising recipes-”
“-He does what?” She asked in annoyed shock, head resting on her shoulder as she turned.
Kol and Davina laughed, foreheads touching. “I sampled some spice-free curry,” the witch remarked in amusement, “It was pretty good,” She looked to Kol with all the tell-tale traces of an inside joke, “apart from the rice…”
Vexxed by the information that Elijah’s disappearances when she stirred in the middle of the night, recovered now from his habit of slinging his arms as a starfish would when they cuddled, to find the blanket only covered her own body with the vague dent in the mattress and lingering touch on her skin to prove his presence; Katherine stormed out the small room and directed her steps to the kitchen.
Hungry and hormonal, or was the empty stomach due to her now only a few mornings a week bout of sickness? She found him behind the island peering over a cookbook, finger cutting down the seem in the middle whilst occupied with stirring a pot on the stove.
Definitely hungry. Her heart twisted at the sight of his work.
“What is more important than spooning me in the night?” She demanded without announcing herself.
Perhaps it was an unfair question. They were never much inclined to cuddle, Elijah was all limbs and Katherine couldn't appreciate the heat of their bodies pressed together unless it involved more intimate moments. There was too much domesticity involved in the action, to submit self-preservation in favour of accepting the other as protector. So, no, she wasn't one for warm summer cuddling.
“Catching up on parenting forums, blogs, books, history, all in the name of our child,” Elijah said sweetly, god she hated how attractive he was without the suit jacket, sleeves rolled up and cuffed to his elbows.
“… Neglecting to check up on your baby makes your efforts redundant,” She snarked, hand curled around the bump.
He looked up from the book with a frown, “Have I upset you?”
“Yes, you have.”
Eyes snapped to the brass grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Elijah’s eyes widened and he consulted his wristwatch for error, most items in The Compound predated the twenty-first century after all. He threw a towel over his shoulder and began unrolling each white sleeve.
“Oh no please,” Katherine put pressure on one foot and evaluated his rush, “We have all the time in the world.”
“Cease your bitterness,” he moaned, grabbing his blazer off the back of a stool and throwing it over his shoulders in one swift move, “I was prepping for our evening dinner.”
She looked at him unimpressed, “A dinner date? Or a dinner where we awkwardly manoeuvre past everyone else just to sit down? You know, I'm not a fan of your family- who mostly don't require food- snooping in on our meals.”
“I qualify as one of those not needing food Kate- Katherine.”
Snorting from the arch, Nadia rolled her eyes, tapping her foot. “Is that all?”
Elijah hummed and placed his hand on the small of Katherine’s back, turning his ear to listen to the conversations of others. It seemed only Kol and Davina had stayed today.
“Kol!” He said in the beginning of a shout, “Turn the heat down on the stove in an hour… Actually, get Davina to do it,” he muttered in distrust
*
To see those dark eyes widen and fill with tears, for the grip of a hand to tighten with thrill, heartbeat pounding through the pulse in a wrist, chin and lip to quiver, face to brighten in earnest adoration. It was a bleary sight unmatched by her own.
“Would you like to know what the sex is?”
Elijah looked to Katherine and despite past words of not caring, she saw it throughout his body crawling into his soul, there was nothing in this world that Elijah wanted to know more than what his child would be.
And yet he looked to her for permission.
“… Can you write it down…?” Katherine asked slowly, she’d wanted him to say plain and simple, ‘yes,’ this was the apparent confirmation she was looking for.
Advised to look away, the couple fixated on the other's hands, how perfectly their fingers interlocked, how he shook and she had to steady them.
They turned around and the technician was folding a seam into a crisp white square of paper. Holding it up by the tips and asking who to hand it to, Nadia looked to her mother and then retrieved the simple note that would change so much.
“You can read it, Nadia,” Katherine gently nodded to her.
She opened the slip of paper, eyes gliding across the page, and then, closed it with finality. No grand reveal of emotion on her face, no show of preference. Nadia could have been reading a receipt and shown greater excitement or disapproval.
“We offer balloons, confetti cannons. Pop or twist them,” the technician swivelled around and pulled out a box from under the desk, looking at a number on the bottom before offering it to Nadia.
Katherine didn't want to inundate her with favours but her daughter gladly accepted to confetti cannon and held it firmly in her hands.
“Don't open it!” She reached out to yelp.
An offended, “I won’t!” left Nadia’s mouth.
Elijah turned to Katherine and held her hand on top of the bump, leaning his head down to kiss them. “Beautiful,” he murmured.
“We barely saw anything at the first scan,” She recalled, “they've grown so much.”
Tears were shared between the two as they stared at the image projected onto the screen.
The scan lasted a lot longer than the first time, the baby’s organs were measured along with blood flow but based on how the technician smiled, they had a healthy baby. They weren't bothered in the slightest. To see their baby kicking around inside of her, full of life, warranted a box of tissues that was finished by the time they left, each of them with a roll of around ten pictures each, some cut out for others who were adamant to keep one.
Elijah’s eyes were still a shade of red when they returned to The Compound. Katherine wanted to kiss him all over, it took her by surprise that his parental vulnerability was what made her swoon, or maybe it was any show of weakness where she was willing witness and not the one causing him to break.
Assembled in the courtyard was the entire Mikaelson clan, Davina and Vincent.
Someone had taken it upon themself to decorate the outside area with yellow and white.
Hayley gave Katherine a sympathetic look, Hope balanced on her hip talking animatedly to her father.
“Right!” Klaus clapped his hands drawing everyone's attention to the hybrid, “I do here perceive a duty to our youngest!”
Kol bit the inside of his cheek and looked to Davina who was firmly at his side, a glass of lemonade in her hand half-drunk.
“Who said I would let all of you know before I do?” Katherine asked sharply to which Elijah tightened the grounding hold around her waist reassuringly.
The atmosphere shifted uncomfortably as Rebekah began her monologue about the unfairness of it all, the injustice to her organising and time exhaustion.
“I didn't ask you to, why can none of you give me a choice in my baby's life!” She snapped.
They were parasites, reaping what fun was deserved in a second chance of pregnancy, one where it had to be concealed for months from society to being confined to a bedroom for the final stretch. No say, no choice. What misguided impression had beset them, to persuade their mind that what the person infamous for being mistrusting, paranoid and deceitful wanted more than anything was to sit in the passenger seat whilst they drove through this experience?
She'd raise her child how she pleased, they'd had no say- uncontestably. Approval was unnecessary and unwanted much like their interference. Too long had she been dragged around the country by the hands of another. Take everything away, the reputation, the lovers, the penchant for mischief, her knack for spinning lies and false narratives, she was a mother at the root, and she’d be damned if anyone tried to take that away from her.
Never again.
Storming upstairs whilst blank stares burnt her coal-black blazer stung like the salt tears meandering down her cheeks.
Curling up in the corner, she’d never felt so... low.
*
Katerina Petrova was told she was a maniac so many times, it was hard to deny the truth in it.
Maybe she was psychotic to betray her mother and father.
Defiance had been reiterated in her brain, beating loudly the moment she had denied the drink that would rid her of her child. She would never. Despite the efforts her father had endured to secure the potion, she would not consume a drop.
The burden was hers to bear they'd said.
Awful, cold, evil, unloyal, unloved, mistake, curse, wretch, prisoner, sacrifice, bitch, target, selfish, psychotic, evil, slut, manipulative, thoughtless, heartless, apathetic, sadistic-
*
“Katherine!”
She gasped and pushed her up-drawn knees more to her chest, panting with wide eyes at the woman who knelt before her.
Daughter, her daughter, with a halo of light from the sun. Beautiful.
“What?” She drawled sliding each leg out on the floor in front of her one by one, heels knocking on the wood.
“You were…” Nadia tilted her head and gave a small smile moving to sit next to her mother, back to the wall, “angry.”
Mirroring her, Nadia hugged her knees.
“I'm frustrated. Did Elijah not want to…”
“I told him that if he values having sensation in his face he'd let me check on you.”
“And Rebekah?”
Nadia looked away in embarrassment.
In reaction, Katherine laughed an ugly but genuine laugh.
“I know of your history. Like mother like daughter.”
Her face flushed red.
“It's nothing to be ashamed of, besides, you have your own commitment now,” she smirked enjoying how her daughter had fallen head over heels like a lovestruck teenager.
“You- are going off-topic, and besides-” Nadia snapped her head to the door mid-sentence, sentiment forgotten as she lept off the floor, “We have a spy.”
“You can't tell by the heartbeat?”
Nadia rolled her eyes and left Katherine’s sight before reappearing, back bent in a crouch of a walk, hand possessed by that of a small toddler.
“Here comes the cavalry,” Katherine mused slowly crossing her legs and holding out her arms in invitation.
Hope relinquished her hold of Nadia and ran on her tiptoes, the pitter-patter of tiny feet without shoes led up to Katherine as she approached with stretched-out hands that half-wrapped around her middle like a baby koala to their mother.
Once comfortable, Katherine stroking Hope’s back with a curled thumb as she toyed with one of the woman’s curls, only then did Nadia shut the bedroom door with a considerable slam that sent a firm message.
“We still have this to consider,” Nadia performatively waved the confetti cannon in a show of her possession of it.
“Yes, well you know what they are.”
“And you don't.”
“I’ll find out…” Katherine slowly nodded her head with unfocused eyes, poorly convincing herself not to use it.
Nadia huffed and crossed her legs opposite the two. Hope reached out and struggled to grab the confetti cannon with such small hands that Katherine had to reach out to steady then. She inspected the end of the cannon where the twist mechanism was and angled it upwards, readjusting Hope’s hands. Nadia’s eyes sparkled as she rapped her palms on her legs in anticipation, eager for her mother's reaction.
It was over in a second.
After struggling to jointly twist the cannon, Katherine finally found the point at which to direct all her might.
And then…
Blue.
Blue like she'd never seen it. A bluer blue than any blue that ever blued before.
Not azure, not lapis, not the colour that sets over a dewey meadow after a shower, but blue- untampered blue.
“Katherine… are you alright?”
“Why wouldn't I be?”
A boy, she was having a boy. Her baby.
Hope twisted in her lap and attempted to stroke her face. To stroke the tears away. Katherine choked out a laugh and lightly grasped the small palm to kiss it.
“I- I need to tell Melissa.”
Hope leaned forward and scooped handfuls of confetti off of the floor. Then Nadia stood and took the child, with fists full of blue, from Katherine’s lap.
The blue, like a waterfall, a storm, a strike before lightning. A boy.
They left the bedroom and rushed down to where everyone was still gathered, Katherine holding Nadia’s arm as they managed the steps, thankfully neither had voiced the gender. Nadia placed Hope on the floor.
She took it upon herself, in all her toddler wisdom, to inform the rest of the family. Lifting her arms as high as possible with some strain, the child grinned and stomped her feet on the spot as blue confetti escaped her hand and seemingly multiplied in the air before covering the stone like a bed of leaves one would find in a forest.
Difficult to walk across, Katherine trudged her way over.
Elijah’s eyes glistened when she made eye contact. Beautiful.
A gush of wind sent the confetti flying at her legs the moment he sped towards her, immediately a hand grazing her cheek. He didn't open his mouth but it moved and spoke. Like the way his eyes brimmed with tears, she didn't need him to talk to know what he was thinking. The way his heart swelled matched her own.
So to save him from speaking, Katherine gripped the back of his neck and kissed him softly, tasting the sweetness of his lips and the collision of salt that parted them for a richer sensation.
It was hard to stop when they started. But after willing themself strongly, Elijah pulled away from her lips but not her body, tightly holding her.
Katherine laughed looking down at the carpet of confetti Hope was now making angels in, spreading her arms in fits of giggles that Hayley recorded whilst Freya stared glumly with a small smile that didn't reach the eyes.
She wanted to capture this moment in a bottle because Katherine couldn't bear the thought of it ending, this bliss utopian world where her hatred ended with the explosion of confetti. Forgetting it ever happened would destroy her and she didn't want that, she cared too deeply now and it burnt her to the core. The line between Katherine and Katerina blurred every day she spent around these people, and god how she wanted to revert to being that caricature of herself- the psychotic and devilish woman, callous and unfeeling.
Why did that vulnerable version of herself have to resurface? Before she spent every moment of her life wishing a painful end for Klaus and now… she was cutting cake with him, providing him with baby scans.
Katherine never asked for a normal life. That was boring to the point of torture.
But torture in the name of love was where she had to draw a line, or she’d lose herself forever. All those years of pain and suffering for nothing.
And she’d be damned if anything like that happened to her son.
*
“What do you think the moon says when it looks down on us?” Elijah murmured in a gravelled voice, his arm wrapped around her body post-coital.
Katherine huffed and continued to stroke his bare chest, a leg rubbing against his knee, too tired to consider an intellectual response.
“That you are far too morose considering you were smiling so greedily not that long ago.”
Elijah hummed and stared off distantly towards where the crib was, now padded in a turquoise mattress cover.
“Have you met many philosophers?”
She pursed her lips and shrugged with her face, “I slept with Descartes.”
Elijah smiled with mischief and gently took Katherine’s arm away from his side so he could lean over her, hands placed next to her head.
“I think therefore I am in love with you,” he murmured, pressing kisses onto her chin and neck.
“What?” She asked lowly, “Slept with no celebrity yourself?”
“Hm, I am my own form of celebrity in the supernatural world, and besides,” he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, “Kol already slept with Shakespeare.”