Synopsis: For the last five years, the Originals were able to live their lives without any large interferences. Rebekah and Finn learnt what life is like as humans, while Elijah, Nikolaus and Freya learnt to be less dependent on their family. All of this changes when they receive a threatening letter that brings them back together, and they realize no crime is ever truly forgotten.
Thanks for checking out my story! Technically, this is a sequel to the other story I wrote (1002 years), but I don't think it's necessary to have read that one. Everything should be pretty self-explanatory. This is a mystery/romance story. And it's a bit different from the first one I wrote. I'm aiming at ca. 20 chapters. Feel free to tell me if there's one part you really like and I should write more about :-)
New York, Present Day
"Please tell me you're not here because you want something," Rebekah sighed, wondering if she should smash the door into her brother's face.
"Nice to see you, too, Rebekah," Elijah said, smiling. "And before you throw me out, I'm only here to see how you are doing."
She considered him drily, as if his appearance gave away any clues.
"No hidden agenda. I promise," he assured her.
"Alright," she said, first with some hesitation, but then she beamed "you may come in!"
Elijah had only taken two steps over the door frame until he stopped abruptly.
With judging eyes, he gazed over her belongings in the small kitchen slash living room.
"Don't start," she said.
She knew what was coming.
"I know I've said this before, but I or Niklaus can give you money to live in a nicer place. Nobody's forcing you to live like this."
"I don't need your money," she waved him down. "I work and I get paid for it. It's an integral part of the human experience. And I want to experience everything like a human."
There had been some days where Rebekah missed the heightened senses of being a vampire. Hearing more than what was happening right next to her, being fast, things like that. But there were other things that she noticed instead, that had returned ever since she returned human. She felt hot and cold sometimes, or the wind or rain on her skin. In general, she had become much more aware of herself, on her body, and less of her surroundings. It must have to do with not being undead, she assumed.
Despite what her brother had been claiming before, Rebekah had the feeling he came to her with something specific. It had been many months since she had seen any of her brothers, and barely anyone in their family ever reached out only to see how their siblings were doing. So she waited for him to reveal his intentions.
Sure enough, Elijah continued: "There is one reason I came here."
He pulled out a glossy magazine out of his jacket and let it fall on the kitchen table between them.
"Your travel literature?" Rebekah asked with a fake disinterest.
Elijah glared at her with frustration. "You're telling me that you have never seen this before?"
Rebekah knew she wasn't getting out of this one.
When she didn't reply, Elijah opened the magazine to a specific page and began reading out loud.
"The tales of a 19th century woman in New Orleans. A story praised by critics for its excellent eye to historical detail." He looked up again, judging.
Rebekah bit her lip and waited for the blow.
"You wrote this!" he said, reproachingly. "How could you do something like that?"
Rebekah shrugged. "What's wrong with it?"
"You can't write down your life story and sell it to a lousy magazine, Rebekah!"
"Why not? I happen to have great intel into the happenings of the last thousand years. Might as well make some money out of it!"
"If you need money you could talk to me," he said reproachfully. "No need to sell your past to make a living."
Rebekah wavered uncomfortably. "I mean, it's not like I could make a living out of these stories. Publishing stories is not a very lucrative business, you know. I still need to work in the coffeeshop."
"All of this just so that people can find out who you are?" he sighed.
"They won't!" she snapped back. "I left out anything that would connect the story to me or you, or anything about vampires or magic for that matter. It's just some historical fiction that people happen to enjoy."
Frustrated, Elijah shook his head.
"What have you been up to these days?" Rebekah asked, hoping to change the subject.
"Oh, this and that," Elijah said quickly.
She couldn't tell if he was avoiding a reply because he was still upset about the magazine, or because he didn't want her to know.
There was no chance to go further into the subject, when Elijah asked: "Have you heard anything from our brothers recently?"
"Finn is still in Indonesia, travelling. I think. He sends me pictures from time to time," Rebekah replied.
"Same. A while ago he asked if I wanna join him to hike through southeast Asia. I declined. The whole travelling with a backpack in a humid climate is not for me."
"Yeah, nobody irons their shirts while backpacking, Elijah," Rebekah laughed.
"I would like to see him more often, of course, but at least he tries to stay in contact," Rebekah said, gritting her teeth.
Elijah took a moment until he caught on her meaning.
"What has Niklaus done now?" Elijah asked.
"Nothing! That's the point. He never writes or calls. I only hear from him when I contact him first. I mean it's nice that he's not as pushy and overprotective as he used to be."
Rebekah stopped to think about what she was saying, and shook her head. "I don't know why I'm complaining."
"Do you talk to him often?" she asked.
Elijah shook his head. "Sometimes. I saw him at Christmas last. But if I know anything about him and who he is with, he's up to something."
"World domination?" Rebekah suggested with a smiled.
"Very likely," Elijah replied.
Rebekah shrugged. "As long that doesn't involve me, he can do whatever he likes."
"So," she straightened herself up, "if you don't mind. I'll have to get to work. It's important. Earning money, making a living, and such."
Elijah opened his mouth, ready for another reminder that she in fact had money, but then rolled his eyes with a frustrated sigh.
Only after she had promised to meet him again after her shift, he had left. She was glad she had a few hours now to think. No matter what her brothers' intentions were whenever they had shown up in New York, in the end they always wanted her to come with them. Finn had done the same several times in the last five years. He usually wanted her to come travel with him. At least with Finn, she didn't have to worry that he wanted to turn her into a vampire as well. With Elijah she never quite knew.
And Nik. He had never visited her in New York in all that time. Fair enough, she had never asked him. In fact she had asked all her brothers to leave her alone for a while. But why did Nik take that so seriously? It wasn't like him at all. She couldn't but feel annoyed and also a little bit hurt by it.
No, she said to herself and shook those thoughts off. If she was left out of whatever drama Niklaus created in London, that was a good thing. She didn't want drama. She needed to remember that.
As she passed down the steep stairway of her large and old apartment complex that had seen better days a long time ago, she passed the mailboxes. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a bright and shiny corner of a letter reaching out of her mailbox. Curiously, she stopped. The envelope was much nicer than the ones she usually received. It couldn't be an invoice.
Rebekah opened the letter carefully. In a slender and clear writing she read:
What you did was a crime against nature. You are going to pay for it.
With shaking hands she put the letter down in front of her. She picked up her phone and dialled.
After a few seconds, Elijah picked up.
"Elijah, you have to come back. Right now."
London, 3 months earlier, Christmas
Freya remembered how she had introduced her new boyfriend Peter to Finn a few months before. Finn had been in Copenhagen for a few nights so they went to eat dinner together. At first she had been nervous if they liked each other, but everything had gone very well. They had talked about travelling and work and other banal things, and she had a truly enjoyable time. It felt like a conversation normal people would have. That evening had been one of Freya's happiest nights in her whole life.
When she had first met Peter, it seemed too good to be true. Only after she made sure that he wasn't a vampire, witch or werewolf, she truly trusted him. He worked as an analyst in a bank. Freya happily listened to whatever he told her about his work, because it didn't include any sacrifices or resurrections, only numbers, deadlines and gossip about colleagues.
Freya truly hoped that the introduction to the rest of her brothers would go just as smoothly. But she knew that this would be harder. For Finn it must have been easier to appear normal, being a human. Her other brothers were still vampires. However, Freya had to admit that both of them had become very good at minding their own business in the last few years.
And then there was the issue that Peter had to meet the whole gang at the same time. Next to Elijah and Niklaus, Briony, Davina and Marcel would be there as well. If their magical oddnesses didn't scare him off, those five exhausting personalities would.
If only Finn was here too. But her presently favourite brother had announced a while back that he'd be staying in Nepal for the remaining winter. And from what Freya had heard from her brothers, Rebekah wouldn't be in London, either. Without the humans present it would be much harder.
"Are you alright?" Peter asked, as they had walked up the house her siblings had called home these days.
"Yeah," Freya said who realized she had been playing the fuzzy ends of her scarf. "Just a bit nervous. My family has never celebrated Christmas before. And with them being maybe even more chaotic than usual, I am afraid they might not make the best first impression on you."
Peter laughed. "I'm sure they'll be fine. You should see my family at holidays, full of reserved awkwardness. I doubt your family can top that."
"We'll see about that," Freya replied. She doubted anything about her family was going to be reserved.
"Your brother's and sister-in-law's house is beautiful," Peter said impressed.
"She's not my sister-in-law. They're not a couple. I think. It's complicated. Maybe don't bring it up," Freya said.
Freya had tried to explain the family relations to her boyfriend before. Her brothers and her sister were easy enough. Explaining who Marcel, Davina and Briony were, and what they had been doing there was trickier. Marcel she had called an "old family friend". But how do you explain a random teenage girl who lives in the same house as them? She had settled calling Davina her brother's ward. Despite the oldtimey word, Peter hadn't asked anything further.
Briony was a whole different issue. Freya had wondered what Peter would say if she had told him the truth: "Oh you know, Niklaus once accidentally killed his brother Kol and his witch girlfriend, but the girlfriend survived somehow and befriended Nik afterwards." It was easier to keep that relationship a bit vague, hoping that Peter was too polite to ask any uncomfortable questions.
They had arrived last. Elijah, Niklaus, Briony, Marcel and Davina had already been gathered in the living room. After the greetings, Freya could immediately tell whose idea the party was. Davina had ushered her and Peter inside and offered them drinks and appetizers and told them to marvel at the Christmas tree.
"I'm still not sure why we're doing this. We have never celebrated Christmas. It's not a thing we do," Elijah told her somewhat bemused.
"I don't care too much for it either, but here we are," Nik replied.
Davina glared at both of them. "So much for festival spirits."
Marcel who was the most interested in the festivities, for Davina's sake probably, helped her setting up more snacks.
"Why didn't Rebekah wanna come?" Freya asked, watching Davina's and Marcel's doings.
"She said she didn't have the money right now to travel over the holidays," Niklaus said.
"Please tell me you offered to pay for it," Elijah weighed in.
Niklaus shrugged. "She already has access to the family bank account. If she wants our help, she already has it. I'm not going to force her to come here."
Elijah gave him a bewildered look.
"She can decide for herself," Niklaus added.
Freya was relieved to see that her family had accepted Peter well enough. Especially Niklaus had been irritated that she was bringing an ignorant human to the party, which meant that they had to behave much more than usual. But these previous worries must have been gone. With delight, Freya watched how Davina and Briony showed him pictures of Davina's last term at university. It was a boring topic, sure, but very normal. Normal was good.
"It's so nice that you offered to pay her tuition. A girl like her would have never had the means to get in there on her own," she said to Nik, who had been sitting next to her on the sofa.
"Very true," Marcel said with light snort.
Freya looked at him inquisitively.
"Let's just say giving the school money wasn't the only thing they did so that Davina could go to Oxford."
Freya raised an eyebrow.
Nik explained: "Obviously they weren't going to take some girl that didn't even finish her highschool in another country. Which I personally find a stupid rule - they can't measure her knowledge based on that fact. So we made sure that she was accepted, and sired the committee board."
"But that was basically the only thing we did. We told her that she needed to work for her grades after that and that we can't help her anymore. We're not that irresponsible." Nik was very pleased with himself.
Freya took a deep breath. By now she knew her brother well enough to see that he thought he had done a good deed. It was to early to start a fight and she decided to let it go.
"Here's your present," Niklaus said and held out wrapped box.
"You got me a present?" Freya asked surprised.
He was literally the last person she had expected a present from.
"Sure," he said. "I had to get something for these two," he nodded to Davina and Marcel, "so it seemed rude to not get something for everyone else as well."
He handed out two gifts two Davina and Marcel. Davina grabbed hers with gleaming excitement.
Briony leaned over him to talk to Freya. "I didn't get you anything. I'm not supporting this weird 21st century consumerism that makes you spend money in the name of Pagan gods that don't get anything out of it."
"This holiday has nothing to do with Pagan gods anymore, Briony," Davina said exhausted.
Without a comment and untouched by the conversation, Niklaus handed Briony a gift.
"You got me something?" she said, touched.
Silently, Peter was watching the events with polite interest. Every now and then, he looked over to Elijah with anticipation.
Elijah, who had probably made the most approachable impression of the bunch, sat there just as quietly. Freya had assumed he might have made the best conversationalist in their family, but right now he only sporadically glanced over with an almost neutral gleam.
Freya knew that look. It was a "why bother even starting a conversation when I will never see this guy again" look.
In passing, she gave Elijah a nudge.
"So what else do you do, Peter?" he asked.
"I'm a photographer," Peter explained.
"That does sound interesting," Elijah said, with a bit too much surprise.
"Yes," Peter said, "my main focus lies on iron doors and gates."
"You take pictures of doors," Elijah summarized drily.
To Freya's relief, Peter didn't catch the undertone, and happily elaborated on his work.
Freya observed all of them. It was going well enough.
She had almost allowed herself relax until Davina went to check on the dinner.
Shortly after, the door flew open and Davina marched into the room.
"Why is there a living goat in the supply room?" she said, repressing some anger.
"Oh, I got it this morning, for the holiday spirit" Briony weighed in.
With a new thought, her face turned excited: "In a way, that means I did support 21st century consumerism! Look at me, all fitting in with the holidays suddenly!"
"What are you going to do with it?" Davina asked, unsure.
"Slice its throat open and sacrifice it to the old gods, obviously," Briony replied seriously.
Nik's face had lit up. "Oh, we haven't done that in a while!"
"You have completely lost your mind," Davina shook her head in disbelief and left the living room again.
"Don't be upset, Davina," Briony shouted after her. "We can eat the goat afterwards."
Peter leaned over to Freya and whispered: "Your sister-in-law is kidding, right?"
Freya smiled uncomfortably.
"Shall we talk about this after dinner, maybe?" Marcel quickly said and stood up.
The rest of the evening passed without any further mishaps or supernatural oddities. Marcel and Davina talked about Oxford again, which made her forget her previous annoyance with the goat and brought the conversation back into the realm of human.
Around midnight, the festivities were decided to be over and group split up over the house, into the various rooms. Relieved and relatively happy, Freya watched everyone go to bed.
Elijah had stayed back in the living room, taking down the various decorations that Davina had put up earlier and placing them, somewhat carelessly, into a box.
"What did you think?" Freya asked.
"Well, I'm disappointed that we left out the goat sacrifice. That would have promised some action."
Freya gave a sad laugh. "Give me another few months and I might be able to laugh about that, too."
"Don't worry about Peter, I don't think he grasped that the goat was in actual danger there."
Freya smiled. "Yeah, I think he was having a good time. And thank you. You know, for keeping it together and having a relatively normal Christmas so I could bring him as well."
She helped him taking down elaborate garlands that were stuck on the ceiling.
"Sure. To be honest, it might not be the worst idea to bring an outsider to these kind of events to keep them from becoming complete disasters."
Freya rolled up the long garland into a nice ball, and glanced over the room that was now almost back to normal. "You know, minus the extensive decoration, this house is actually really nice. I can see why you all consider it as a home now."
"No thanks to me. I'm barely here. But I see what you mean."
"And Davina is in Oxford most of the year, I assume. What about Marcel?"
"Also in Oxford from what I heard. Not to study, but it seems like he is there as well."
Freya counted in her head who was left. "So Nik and Briony are here by themselves?"
After a pause she added: "What do they do here?"
Elijah smiled. "I honestly don't know. But I haven't heard any complaints from the outside world, so I have no intention in getting involved."
"So," Freya asked hesitantly but with curiosity, "what's the deal with those two anyway?"
"Still the same as before, I think," Elijah said. "A weird symbiotic friendship, where they are either completely ignorant of their own feelings or just don't want to admit to them."
"I didn't take Nik for somebody who has trouble to admit his feelings," Freya said.
"He usually doesn't," Elijah said, hesitating. Then he added: "This is different. He has trouble admitting his feelings for his dead brother's girlfriend."
As Freya walked up to the bedroom that had been assigned to her - she appreciated that there had been a room named "Freya's room" in the house ever since her family had moved in here - she thought about the evening. Five years ago she had left her siblings alone to figure out what she wanted for herself. She had to admit it had gone well. None of them had fallen off the map and yet didn't pester her. It seemed like a very healthy family relationship. Of course, she didn't quite believe that Nikolaus had been living a peaceful life here in London. But Elijah was right. If Nik had done anything too terrible, they would have heard about it.
For a long time she had wondered if there would be repercussions for the many bad things they had done to nature, those many intricate spells that misbalanced nature, spells of vampirism, death or resurrections. But nothing bad had ever happened to them ever since. Perhaps the world had truly forgotten their crimes. That would be good, Freya thought, then she could forget, too.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments!