An Oak Tree

"How the hell do we deal with them? We have no weapons, not to mention freaky witchy over there is sure as hell not gonna let us take them out. She's too powerful, I could literally see her magic, just flooding like an open dam." Complained Damon throwing his arms around dramatically.

"Damon it's okay, Hope is a lot easier to convince than the rest of them. If we can get Hope to leave then Klaus will leave town, and needless to say the rest follow him." Elena said, attempting to placate Damon, but it had the opposite effect.

"Yeah, because she's gonna listen to the girl who pissed her off enough to literally explode in anger just yesterday." He said in rebuttal.

"Damon relax, we'll figure something out, we always do. They're not gonna kill us because they would've already tried by now. I'm willing to bet they don't even care enough about us to try and kill us, this gives us an advantage, don't screw that up." Said Stefan standing up to look Damon in the eyes. 

He didn't get the response he wanted though since Damon scoffed and left the room.

*SCENE BREAK*

"I was informed that you attacked Elena, what happened? Is that why you told me about Marcel? So I wouldn't find out?" Asked Klaus when he felt Hope enter the room. While he would've been mad if it were anyone else, he trusted Hope. He knew if she attacked Elena it must've been because of something they did. Not because she was trying to ruin the good he had.

Although it was suspicious that she didn't tell him about it. He couldn't help that he was suspicious, he'd spent a thousand years learning not to trust people. That's not gonna change in the short time he's learned to grant Hope the benefit of the doubt.

"She brought up something that no one ever did. It was mainly because everyone who knew about it, also knew how I would respond if they talked about it." Said Hope, bracing herself for whatever feelings she was gonna have talking about Landon. She hasn't gotten a chance to let her feelings out since he died. So she hoped that talking about it with her father would help her.

"Would you mind elaborating, sweetheart?" Now Klaus was no longer concerned about Elena. Now he was concerned about Hope. What could have happened in her life that was so terrible even the memory of it causes her to lash out? Another thing was, how could he even let it happen? Wasn't he her father? He's supposed to protect her, she's only 18. How could the him of the future already let things like that happen?

"I had a friend, and there was someone whose purpose seemed like it was just to cause trouble for me. I wasn't as powerful as I am back then and... He took over my friend's body... So, to protect everyone I love I killed them both. I loved him so much but, now he's gone and it's because of me. Because I wasn't strong enough to find the loophole..." Hope choked out, tears streaming down her face, as she fell to her knees hugging herself. She shook violently as she breathed out the last sentence heavily.

Klaus' felt his heart sink. He felt helpless, a rare occurrence, it was so rare he still didn't know how to deal with it. All he could do was get down on his knees and embrace her as she sobbed. Holding her tightly as if she was the last painting he'd ever make...

*SCENE BREAK*

"Alright, let's try another scenario" 

"You know, we have got to stop meeting like this," Hope said snapping her fingers as she appeared visible. Instantly, everyone went on guard.

"Aw come on, how the hell do you conveniently show up to ruin our damn plans every time!?" Yelled Damon in anger, then it clicked for not just him, but everyone there. Matt wasn't here, which means Hope must've done something to him to find out.

"So here's what's gonna happen, you guys are gonna give me those stakes, and I walk away." This was the only deal they'd get, the only reason they were even getting this chance is because Hope didn't want to hurt any of them.

"And how do we know you'd walk away peacefully?" Asked Stefan, at this point, he just wanted to stall Hope to try and think of any solution.

"Well the thing is, you guys don't really get to call me out, and you don't have enough people here to threaten me back. All you can do is what I say and pray for the best outcome." She responded, hands still in her pockets as she leaned against a tree nonchalantly. 

"Hope, please, let me make a deal." Started Elena, there was no way Hope was gonna let them kill any Mikaelsons, besides, why go through the effort when she can persuade Hope?

"Me and the people I love just want to live in peace. We just don't want to have to constantly stay on edge, you can't blame us for that. I know that if the same happened to you, then you'd do the same to protect your family, in fact you are doing the same. We'll give you the stakes, just promise us protection." This was it, she had tried to appeal to the better nature she knew Hope had and get her to tell her family to leave them alone.

"Okay, we'll leave Mystic Falls, just give me the stakes and I'll tell my father I want to leave." She was also tired of monitoring these people making sure they didn't hurt her family. It was incredibly tiring, and also incredibly hard to avoid her thoughts of simply getting rid of them. Errmm, she may need to work on that as well.

*SCENE BREAK*

*knock* *knock*

"What is it?"

"Dad, it's me, can I come in?" Asked Hope, she wanted to make sure she didn't just intrude on whatever her father was doing.

"Yes, sweetheart. You may." Answered Klaus. 

As she entered and Klaus turned to face her, she proceeded to throw the bag of white oak on the floor. This time Klaus' face scrunched in confusion.

"What is that?" He asked, slowly standing up to meet her gaze.

"It's the white oak I confiscated from our dear Mystic Falls residents in an elaborate scheme to kill us." She answered looking up at him to gauge his reaction, and as expected, he didn't react favorably.

His jaw clenched, eyes narrowed as his head slightly tilted down, hands balling into fists, as he said in a low growl:

"Where are they?"

"Well, I can't say because I promised them we wouldn't hurt them if they gave me all the white oak." Hope sighed, she figured her father would want to punish them. It might be difficult to get out of this one.

"Why? I'm sure you could have forced them to do as you said without making a deal. Why did you needlessly provide them protection they have not earned?" Klaus was confused, he knew Hope was powerful, although he hadn't seen anything he'd heard of what she could do. So he knew she could have taken the white oak from them forcefully even if she didn't want to kill them.

"I just didn't want to fight them because I'm bored. This little town is so boring, I want to go to New Orleans. Don't you want to rule your old city again? Can we go there? I can help you take it back if you say we can go." Said Hope in a whiny tone. For this, she mixed in some half-truths to make it sound like she just didn't want to live in Mystic Falls rather than the fact that she wanted to protect the Scooby Gang.

"Fine, we will set off tomorrow. Truth be told, I do want to see how far my city has come."