Warning: Some knowledge of The Vampire Diaries would probably be useful in reading this.

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries and The Originals do not, unfortunately, belong to me. I own a very large nothing.

Numbered Eternity

"You're never going to leave, right?" Finn asked abruptly, suddenly and inexplicably worried.

"Of course not," his older sister, Freya, answered immediately, confused.

"Promise?" Finn found himself asking, his voice small and scared, his lower lip beginning to tremble.

"I swear it," five year old Freya said solemnly, reaching among the gently rustling leaves of the tree they were perched in to grip the younger's hands. "I will never leave without you, brother. I will stay with you always and forever."

Finn smiled tremulously and though a little anxiety remained, most of the uneasiness and dread that had curled in his belly dissipated at his sister's assurances.

"Her name is Rebekah," Esther said, gently placing the infant in her eldest son's arms.

"A girl," Finn remarked and he couldn't help the resentment, though he kept his face blank as he studied the baby cradled against his chest.

"Your sister," Esther murmured. "She has blond hair."

"And now you have a replacement," Finn sneered, unable to help himself from voicing the thoughts he knew logically were unfair.

Quickly he thrust the babe back at his mother and, not meeting her eyes, left the room.

Pain, as searing and vivid as it was unexpected.

Gasping, he stared at the sword protruding from his chest.

"Father," he managed, blood gurgling up his throat and out onto his lips, a bright crimson smear, and the barn floor rushed up to meet him.

Dimly he was aware of his father leaving.

The agony is a bright living thing and Finn dies.

When he next wakes a goblet is pressed into his hands and he drinks without thought.

Inside him the hunger grows, tearing and clawing, utterly and horribly ravenous.

"Are you certain about this?" Finn asked right before he ended her life (as though asking one final time would take away the sin of his actions).

"I want to be with you forever," Sage told him, her eyes shining with love and conviction.

Overcome, Finn gathered her into his arms and kissed her. "Forever, my love," he murmured and snapped her neck.

"Are you certain about this?" he asked again when she woke.

In response she lowered her head to the unconscious villager between them and drank.

The transformation was complete and, though he knew it sealed his place in Hell, when her eyes met his he couldn't bring himself to regret it.

"Forever," Sage murmured, leaning forward and capturing his lips in a kiss that tasted of blood and eternity.

For a long time there was nothing.

Then, gradually, a pinprick of awareness in his mind and without conscious thought he struggled sluggishly toward it.

Clarity came slowly.

The human - hunter - had stuck a dagger in him.

The knowledge of his predicament coalesced by unhurried degrees.

He drifted.

Eventually the passage of time dawned on him.

Voices.

His siblings; nearby. Free, undaggered.

Was he the only one entombed in darkness?

Resentment burned and time crept ever onward.

"It can end," Mother tells him. "It can all end."

A hundred years roaming the Earth, nine hundred years forgotten in a box and it could all be over. No more suffering. Peace. Finn can hardly comprehend the word. What would it even be like? To not be in torment? An end to his wretched existence.

"I just need your cooperation, my darling, and then you can rest," Mother says.

Finn doesn't even have to think about it.

"What must I do?"

"Brother. Please," Finn whispers, his head lolling onto Elijah's shoulder. "Please."

"Calm yourself, Finn," Elijah murmurs and there was a restraining arm over his chest keeping him from tearing through his seatbelt.

"Don't leave me alone," Finn begs, desperate and fearful. "Don't leave me!"

"I won't. Not this time." Elijah's voice is thick with unaccustomed guilt but Finn, feverish and beyond reason, barely hears him.

"Don't leave me," he pleads. "Please, not again!"

"I will not leave you, brother," Elijah swears.

At the very end there is Freya.

Freya, holding his hand, looking into his eyes in the end as she had in the beginning.

In his final seconds the thought comforts him. Freya's is the first face he ever remembers seeing so it is fitting that now it will be the last.

Freya...

His last thoughts are filled with her.

And he drifts away.

-End.