Hope sees the way her teacher, Ms. Forbes, looks at her dad when he comes to visit at school. She sees the way that her dad looks at Ms. Forbes when she is playing with Hope. They do it when the other one isn't watching.

But Hope is always watching. Growing up in her family, it was just a part of life- the only way to survive. Just because she's no longer being threatened on a daily basis by mystical creatures who want to hurt her family doesn't mean that she'll ever stop.

Watching is useful for more than just preventing imminent death. Take, for example, helping two people who are in love, but won't admit it, get together.

There was a time when she wanted her mom and dad to get married and be together. At the time, she'd thought that being a family of three was the only way to be happy.

Then she saw her mom with Elijah and how happy he made her, and Hope thought that maybe there was more than one way to be a family.

Aunt Freya, Uncle Elijah, Aunt Rebekah... they all made up one much bigger family. Hope wouldn't mind it one bit if Ms. Forbes joined that family. And maybe Alaric too. She liked him and she'd never had cousins before. Josie and Lizzie were the closest she'd ever get to having sisters.

And by now she'd learned that alternative families weren't worse. Sometimes, different was so much better.

Hope didn't start the task of getting the two adults together immediately, instead taking a week to just observe and plan. She knew from her observations that they were hesitant people when it came to love. Hope didn't know what tragedies Ms. Forbes had seen in her life, but she knew that her dad had lost too many loved ones too many times, therefore he wasn't so willing to open his heart again.

Except to Hope. He'd accepted Hope almost immediately. So maybe she could use that to her advantage.

"Dad, why do you look so sad?"

Klaus Michaelson, not one to be caught off guard often, looked up in surprise. He paused, fork midway to his mouth, and glanced over at his daughter's mother as if she would be able to explain what was going on.

Instead, Hayley continued to eat, smiling around the bite of rare steak that she placed in her mouth. She gave a slight shrug to Klaus's questioning look and picked up her glass of wine.

Seeing that he would get no help from Hayley, Klaus slowly turned back to face Hope. A long time ago, he would have had his emotionless mask back in place, but it stood to show how much he'd changed that the confusion, with just a tinge of fear, was still there.

Hope continued to eat her supper of fish sticks, not wanting to scare her dad off from answering. He was a bit like a skittish, baby bird that way when it came to discussions of feelings.

Plus, she liked the weekly dinners they'd started having with just the three of them and didn't want to risk stopping them. Hope loved all of her aunts and uncles without a doubt, but it was nice to sit with just her mom and dad and tell them about her day at school. Today, Friday, they had practiced cursive in the morning, and after lunch, they had started learning about how to ward off unwanted spirits who were lurking under your bed.

When Klaus finally answered, a full minute had passed. He cleared his throat. "Why would you say that, love?"

Motioning a fish stick at his face, Hope frowned. "Because you look sad. I want you to be happy. What makes you happy?"

His answer was immediate. "You make me happy, Hope."

Hope smiled and took a sip of milk. "You make me happy too, but I'm not sad. You're still sad." There was a long silence after this, with Hayley having abandoned her food in understanding of what Hope was trying to do here. She shot her an amused, if somewhat warning, smile.

"Why don't we paint tonight after dinner?" Hope suggested. "Painting always makes things better." Plus, her dad hadn't made any art in months. It was just another observation that Hope had made leading her to the conclusion that something had to change.

"I think that's a wonderful idea," her dad replied with a grin, and Hope nodded, letting the topic drop as she asked if she could have the salt shaker after supper to put protection wards on the windows of the house.

The painting session went very well. She hadn't seen her dad laugh and smile so freely in a very long time. Plus, at the end of the night, he'd handled Hope his painting, telling her to keep it.

"To do with however I wish?" she'd asked in excitement. He'd chuckled in response and agreed, probably assuming she meant to put it on the wall of her bedroom or hang it on the fridge. It wasn't her fault that her dad hadn't contemplated all of its purposes.

Two mornings later, a sleepy Hope got into the car and her dad drove her back to school. She stayed at school during the week with the other children, but on the weekends, she went home to spend time with her family.

When they pulled up to the school, Ms. Forbes was out front as always to greet them and the other families that were dropping off children for the start of a new week. She smiled when she saw them, and Hope thought, not for the first time, how alike Ms. Forbes and her father were. For while they smiled, they weren't entirely happy. It also just so happened to be that the key to their happiness was each other.

"Good morning, Hope," Ms. Forbes said, as Hope rushed up to give her teacher a big hug. As Hope swung off her backpack and set it on the ground to rummage around, Ms. Forbes turned to Klaus.

"Ms. Forbes." There. That was a genuine smile, no darkness or hidden sadness there.

The returning smile was equally genuine and wide. "Klaus." Caroline Forbes tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear and glanced down at the youngest Michaelson. "And what do you have there?"

"Paintings!" Hope exclaimed, presenting them to Ms. Forbes with a giggle. "They're for you!"

"For me? Well, thank you so much. Your flowers are beautiful." Caroline flipped through the sheets of paper before pausing at the last one, her mouth dropping open in surprise. "I think you included this one on accident," her teacher said, turning around the paper to reveal a picture of a horse that Hope had obviously not painted.

Her father's reaction was immediate, eyes widening in surprise, but he didn't say anything.

"No, my dad gave it to me." She snuck a glance at her father and he was looking quite alarmed, realization suddenly dawning. "And I want you to have it."

Now Klaus did open to his mouth to interject. To excuse Hope's behavior... to take back the picture? They would never know, because Caroline spoke first. "Is this... your horse?"

Hope's head jerked to the left to look at her dad as he nodded. She didn't know that he'd had a horse. Because from the sad look on his face, it was obviously "had" and not "has." Plus, Hope was sure that if he owned a horse now, her dad would have introduced her.

Suddenly, she was wondering if this wasn't such a good idea. After all, it wasn't her goal to dredge up bad memories and make sure dad even sadder than before.

A mix of emotions passed over Caroline Forbe's face at the admission, and she stared down at the picture for a long moment. When she looked back up at Klaus and saw the sadness as well, she bit her lip and turned to Hope. Leaning down, she gave a secretive smile and whispered just loud enough for the two of them to hear. "Did you know that horses are nothing like people?" Hope shook her head, confused as to how that question was going to solve anything.

However, Ms. Forbes obviously knew what she was doing, because, at her question, Klaus's whole face transformed. It was literally like night and day and Hope knew that she had missed something in the last few seconds. There had to be some hidden meaning to the posed question that caused her dad's face to light up so completely. Something deeper than just the topic of horses.

However, Hope found herself, for once, not caring that she was out of the loop. She zipped up her backpack quietly, saying "I'm going inside. Come say goodbye before you leave, okay Dad?"

She barely received a nod in acknowledgment from her dad, although Ms. Forbes gave her a small, knowing smile as she skipped away.

The two lonely hearts weren't all fixed in a day, though, that Monday morning certainly jumpstarted things. At first, it was more frequent visits of her dad to Hope's school. He always came and saw his daughter first, but the visits always ended with him somehow running into Caroline Forbes and chatting for hours.

Then it evolved into Hope's teacher being invited over for the Fourth of July, bringing Alaric and their daughters along. It turned out that both of Hope's teachers have a history with every single member of Hope's family and she was endlessly fascinated by their interactions.

Everyone loved Caroline, of course. Even though they hadn't always been on the best of terms with the woman, they all seemed to realize how good she is for Klaus. He's just plain happier, lighter, when she's around.

Even Rebekah, who apparently had never been Caroline's biggest fan, started visiting the school on occasion to see Hope and lend her expertise to tactical strategy. Last time she even greeted Caroline with a hug, to the immense surprise of both Caroline and Klaus. Hope, ever watchful, caught her dad looking on with almost a tearful expression, and that was when she knew her work there was done.

Now to convince Davina and Kol that she was the best flower girl for the job.

Plus, Aunt Rebekah had been looking a little lonely these days. Hope thought Marcel was a good person deep down, and he always made Aunt Rebekah smile the largest. That is... when he wasn't making her cry the loudest. Ms. Forbes had a friend, Matt, that Hope liked quite a bit, and he seemed to like her aunt a great deal as well. So she had multiple options with that one.

There was also the matter of Alaric and his horrible, bad luck when it came to women. He did have two really cute daughters, though, so Hope could recruit them to help.

And not to mention her mom and Elijah who were impossibly even more complicated than her dad and Caroline... Really, Hope felt like she had whiplash from all of the times they'd broken up and gotten back together.

All in all, it seemed that she was not going to be lacking in things to keep her busy over the next few months. A Mikaelson's life was definitely never boring.

This is what comes from a quick writing session after the season finale of The Originals. It's mostly canon-compliant/post-canon of season 4, but I've taken some liberties with geographical location and the proximity of Beacon Hills to New Orleans. Mostly for brevity sake as I only wanted this to be a short, one-shot.

This was written quickly and was un-beta'd. All mistakes both regarding TVD/TO universe and grammar are completely my own.

Please share your thoughts, both regarding the story and the season finale! Klaroline shippers are especially welcome to fangirl with me over the possibility (edited: now a REALITY!) of seeing Caroline in the next season.