Chapter Text
“Now if you would turn to page twelve of the document you’ll see…” Hayley is not listening to the notary’s droning voice, not really. Nor is she turning to page whatever of the photocopies they’d stapled and handed to her when she walked into the office.
No, she’s far too focused on the document sitting on the desk in front of the woman with the wiry glasses. It has Tyler’s handwriting on it, neater than it’s ever been on some fancy cream stationery that she would have made fun of him for buying once upon a time.
It looks like the same type of paper they had sent her wedding invitations out in, it had been such a minor thing and now it’s staring back at her like the universe is telling a joke and she's the punchline.
“Miss Marshall?” The notary calls out and Hayley is not sure if she should correct her, if there’s anything to correct at all. “If you would like to take a break, we can do that. I understand this is a lot to process.”
What Hayley needs isn't a break, she needs to break something. And she feels like screaming, but she’s felt that way since she got the call.
Dead. Dead, dead, dead, that was all that had echoed through her head on the long drive to Richmond, dead, and gone, and yours. She’d almost cried in relief when Hope had woken up mid-way and asked if she could put her music on. Somewhere between The Wheels on the Bus and Row Row Row Your Boat, she’d started feeling a little saner. Just enough to not pull over to the side of the road and sit in a ditch until the sun fell.
She decides this isn’t going to get any easier if she goes to stare at a contact list of people she would call if they weren’t as-good-as-gone, so she tries to sound, if not well, then at least confident.
“I can handle it.” So much for confident, her voice lands somewhere between shaky and shattered. And it’s not fair because she hadn’t even thought of Tyler before today.
The woman gives her the sort of smile she used to get when talking to adults after she got kicked out, and goes back to explaining what all this mess means.
The mess being Tyler’s will. His will that she’s the main beneficiary of. There’s a trust-fund left for one of Tyler’s friends, the blond who’s currently sitting in the second chair in the office, staring off into space like he wants to disappear. But otherwise it's all hers.
Tyler's friend shifts in his seat and she can hear his heartbeat. It sounds exhausted.
Matt, she thinks, his name is Matt, he and Tyler grew up together. He told me they used to go diving for treasure by the falls when they were kids. That he was the first best friend he’d ever had. They’d been sitting on the stoop of some gas station in middle-of-nowhere Kentucky and she remembers his knee pressed against hers and the bag of off-brand gummy worms they’d been sharing. Tyler was smiling like he couldn’t help himself, the way he always did when talking about home and the people he loves. Loved, she corrects herself, it’s loved now.
It’s not the first time she’s had to correct the tense on that particular verb when it comes to Tyler but it’s the first time it’s not just about her. It’s the first time she’s sure she won’t be able to change it back.
She should ask if there’s a way to say no to all of it. She’s seen the date on the paper, it’s from before everything went to shit, back when it was her and Tyler against the world and he trusted her. The Tyler that wanted her to have this wasn’t the Tyler that died. So she should say no.
She doesn’t.
Instead she takes the offered pen with its faded logo and signs on what feels like a hundred dotted lines until her hand cramps. Then she gets a talk about stock portfolios and real estate investments and five different business cards for accountants and property managers.
Human-rich apparently has a lot more paperwork than vampire-rich. Or maybe Elijah had just compelled someone to handle it all and she’d just never known. But Elijah isn’t around anymore and she really doesn’t want to read through this entire packet of photocopies again, let alone figure out what to do with them, so she’ll probably be calling the accountant at least.
When she walks out of the office to find Hope playing with some building blocks in the waiting area, she almost snaps. There’s an intern hovering nearby talking to her about her favorite color and what she likes, and for all that he looks harmless, she still has to fight the urge to crowd him against a wall with a demand to back away from her daughter.
She’s too used to everyone being a threat, too used to having to wrap Hope up in bubble wrap and keep her safely tucked away from the world.
And that’s mostly why she said yes. The part of her that took the risk to keep Hope, that has always wanted a family and a home, saw Tyler’s town and Tyler’s childhood and decided that was the life Hope deserved. Bake sales and lemonade stands, a big yard to play around in with her friends after school and a home she doesn’t have to run from.
She hears Matt come up behind her, careful and slow, like she’s a stray that will spook if he moves too fast. She’s not sure if to be offended or relieved he’s not treating her like the danger she’s become.
“Hey,” he sounds like he thinks someone should talk to her even if he would rather that someone were anyone but him, “you know I-”
This is where she should tell him she’s sorry for his loss. Because it’s more his than hers after all. The words get stuck to the roof of her mouth when she tries to spit them out.
Matt tries again, “So is this a ‘staying in town’ sort of thing or are you planning on renting out the house? Because if it’s the second one you really should know the market is pretty bad right now, at least that’s what I’ve heard.”Small town people’s skill at making small talk in the worst possible circumstances should really be studied. If Cami was alive she’d probably know if someone already had.
“No, we’re staying it just-” Hope has noticed her standing in the hallway, her smile is brighter than the goddamn, and she’s not sure she’ll ever be used to how much her daughter loves her. “It makes sense, kids need stability and all that, I don’t want her to grow up like I did.” It comes out defensive, like she’s daring him to tell her she shouldn’t.
He doesn’t say anything, not immediately, and he doesn’t ask about the Mikaelsons, which means he probably knows they’re gone. Otherwise he’d look a little more worried about the Originals coming back to town.
He opens his mouth again, as though he feels the need to fill the silence. Nothing comes out. She doesn’t feel like talking either. She’s a little worried the next thing she says will be something accusing him of letting Tyler die. Which would be hypocritical and unfair, she doesn’t have a right to be angry over Tyler anymore. Only there’s a part of her that keeps telling her Tyler would have been fine if he’d been with her and not here and it’s such bullshit because if he’d set foot in New Orleans she might have tried to kill him. And if not her then Klaus. Except maybe they wouldn’t have and then Tyler would still be alive.
“No one told me about the funeral.” It’s what she settles on and Matt looks at her like she’s just grown another head. Which, fair enough, but it’s still rude.
“Didn’t realize you two were on speaking terms.” Something sharp and bitter creeps into his tone. “Not that it was much of a funeral anyway.”
"I would have come. Tyler is-” she stumbles over the present tense again. And maybe it’s for the best because what is she supposed to say? How does she explain Tyler to the boy who knew him his whole life, when she knew him for just over a summer?
She wants to say that Tyler was hers, that he was her friend, and that he was supposed to live for her to forgive him for trying to kill Hope and then he’d forgive her for betraying him. They’d get gas station soda and off-brand gummy worms and he’d make a stupid joke and she’d laugh. He was the first family she ever found all by herself, he wasn’t supposed to leave.
She’s about to either cry or scream when Hope runs up and interrupts, “Can we leave now? I’m hungry.” Her daughter pauses. “Please.” Hope is five and taking the ‘politeness’ thing very seriously, like it’ll make her grow up faster. Hayley wants to blame Elijah but that wouldn't be fair. She's getting really sick of having to be fair these days.
Though it’s true that it’s almost dinner time. Someone should really figure out a way to read out wills and talk about what the dead leave behind that doesn’t take the whole day, the current system is a little too close to torture.
It hits her just how tired she is, a bone-deep exhaustion that is threatening to put her to sleep right then and there.
“There’s a diner about twenty minutes out from town that’s decent,” Matt’s voice snaps her out of her own head, “the house has been sitting empty for a while, and I doubt you feel like cooking right now. And they do breakfast for dinner there.”
Hayley almost says no. She doesn’t trust Matt, not with Hope, and she’s not sure why he’d even want to be helpful. It would be better, safer, to just stop by a store somewhere and buy something to throw in the microwave and call this terrible day quits. Maybe some milk and cereal for the morning if anything.
But Hope’s face is all lit up, and she’s looking at her like breakfast for dinner is the only thing she’s ever wanted. Which is a bit of lie because last week she wanted a unicorn and the week before it was a dragon. But the fact of the matter is that if either of those things were real Hayley would have found a way to give them to her.
“Why not? It’s probably better than the Grill anyway.” The Grill’s food is fine, she just would really rather leave the ‘running into people’ portion of this mess for another time. Never would be ideal but she knows she won’t be that lucky.
The diner looks like it hasn’t updated the wallpaper nor the booths since the early eighties at the latest, but it’s quiet and Hope orders an entire stack of pancakes smothered in a bright blue syrup that’s most likely going to give her a sugar crash in an hour or so. Hayley sticks to coffee.
“I’m guessing we’ll be seeing a moving truck around town soon?” Matt says, and Hayley freezes. She had thought they were avoiding the elephant in the room. Or maybe he was just waiting to get her guard down before fishing for information.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m guessing you’ve not brought all your stuff in the car I saw? I know you like to travel light but I’m sure the kid has toys and you’ve got some furniture right? Since you’re moving to town and all that.” Of course, that’s what a normal person associates with moving trucks. Not the temporarily-dead bodies of your family members
“Oh yeah, probably in the next two days or so.” Hayley is being so normal, so perfectly normal. Really, she’s going to ace this whole small town neighbor thing. “And thank you for the dinner recommendation and everything. Though I should really get this little one to the house, it’s way past her bedtime.” She’s not rushing through this conversation at all. So normal. “And I remember the way to the house,” she adds when she sees him start to speak, “so I’m all set.”
She leaves Matt sitting alone in the diner and she could swear she hears him sigh in relief when she peels off the parking lot. That’s good, at least I wasn’t the only one feeling uncomfortable.
Hope is asleep by the time they make it to the house and she really doesn’t want to wake her, so she leaves most of their stuff in the car and carries her inside.
The house is bigger and colder than she remembers. Hope stirs in her arms, and Hayley tucks her closer into the crook of her neck.
She finds a room with a day-bed that could pass as child-sized one otherwise and no fragile or sharp things laying around that could work for Hope, at least for now, after a quick inspection of the second floor. It’s right next to where she knows the family bedrooms are. Or were they used to be last time she was here.
It’s a good room, and it’s far enough from the stairs that she’s pretty sure it’s safe. No balcony either, unlike most other rooms on this floor. So she changes Hope into her strawberry-patterned pajamas, as opposed to the mermaid patterned ones which, if you asked her daughter, are now public enemy number one. And sets her down to sleep after three bedtime stories and two more songs than usual.
Then she has to decide where she’s going to sleep.
If Hayley was being a reasonable well adjusted person about this, she would take one of the six or so guest bedrooms scattered around the house and leave Mrs. Lockwood’s room and Tyler’s untouched.
But to be fair, accepting the inheritance of your estranged ex-best-friend who only left said inheritance to you because in between whatever nonsense his friends were up to he forgot to update his will, is neither reasonable nor well-adjusted. So why would she start behaving like a sane person all of a sudden?
That’s what she tells herself at least, when she tip toes into Tyler’s room and collapses on the bed. It’s fine really, she’s already going to be living in his house, this is just a little weirder and she can live with that.
She leans back onto the pillows, not even bothering to shove the covers aside, when her head hits the sharp edge of something lodged between the mattress and the headboard. It’s one of those hardcover notebooks that you find at nice stationery shops.
She promises herself she’s only going to take a peek, just to see if it’s something dangerous or the instructions to some secret scheme. And she’s sure she would have closed it the second she saw it was just a private diary of sort, she swears.
It’s just that- Well it’s addressed to her.
Right there, in the same neat writing she’d seen on the will earlier in the day, blue ink on bleached lined paper. Dear Hayley, followed by pages and pages of writing, and then starting back again with her name for every new entry.
She doesn’t really sleep that night.