"Do you think our parents ever loved us, Elijah?"
They are standing on the north balcony of the compound, looking over their little corner of New Orleans. Vivid colors reflect from string lights, a breeze flutters through the swampy air, and the sound of raucous laughter and drunken arguments leak out of every open bar. A couple kisses under a flickering streetlight at the end of an alley.
Elijah does not look away from the view, forces his hand steady around his glass of bourbon with the nonchalance and ease of a thousand years of practice and allows himself a slight scoff.
Rebekah notices. His sister is far more perceptive than he or his other siblings give her credit for.
"So no, then," She says, softly. Her tone is almost amused. "I suppose that's a fair assumption."
He nearly laughs outright.
"They have both, individually, and on multiple occasions, demonstrated how very much they hate the abominations they have created. I would say," Elijah says, lets his own tone turn somewhat bitter (no doubt a result of the relatively excessive alcohol from that night). "that that qualifies as a significant lack of love, Rebekah. And I'm certain you're already aware of that."
He hears her sigh, but still doesn't look up.
"I'd like to dream, maybe," She says. Her voice turns hard, blatantly taunting. It surprises him."What's so wrong about that? Wouldn't you dream, if you still could?"
There's a pause.
A quiet in the Louisiana heat – even the drunken partygoers seem to soften for that millisecond.
Her taunt feels personal, and it is personal, for his sister knows he has not had pleasant dreams in years, and so his anger (behind the Red Door, locked up, a fury and self-loathing once contained but one that this damned city has torn out of him) leaks into his own voice. He feels the veins darken around his eyes, his fangs grow sharp.
He decides to let his anger hurt someone other than himself, for once.
"Don't play games, sister," Elijah counters. He feels a sneer twist its way onto his face. "It doesn't become you."
When Elijah looks up at her, finally, he is surprised to see her eyes glistening with unshed tears. But then something shifts, and he feels it rather than sees it as it happens. He has the overwhelming feeling of utter helplessness.
He watches in mute horror as Rebekah's tearful face morphs into his mother's, one of unrestrained rage.
"Your sickening anger, dear son," Esther says, coldly, threateningly. "Is not becoming of you."
Esther steps towards him and lifts her arms, and they're not arms any longer, no, they're extensions of wings, because charred black feathers now hang from her limbs and glisten with dark red bloodstains under the moonlight, and when she opens her mouth she screeches in fury, a sound that echoes across the terrace and through the streets of New Orleans and cause a ringing in Elijah's ears. He drops his drink, lets the glass shatter as he crouches down, truly afraid for the first time since that godforsaken night when he awoke with a thirst for blood, and looks up at the night sky as hundreds, no, thousands, of black ravens flock across his field of view and envelope him with their sharp beaks and pointed talons, biting and clawing and suffocating.
When Elijah awakes, dawn is just breaking through the window. Pale light streams through the open balcony, and the remnants of late-night partygoers – clattering beer bottles; slurred, tired conversations; faint acoustic blues – seem to be frozen in time.
The disorientation of having a dream (a nightmare?) for the first time in years is difficult to ignore.
He stills, suddenly, sensing another presence in the grand room, and when he turns his gaze to the open doorway, he sees his younger sister leaning against an ornate column and half-grinning at him.
He sits up on the loveseat. "Rebekah," He says, voice hoarse from sleep, and it makes him sound vulnerable in a way that he hates. He clears his throat.
" 'Lijah," She responds, playful. "We've been looking for you for hours; Niklaus needed some help getting something for...handling Esther."
Her tone has sobered considerably.
Elijah shakes off his discomfort from his sleep and stands, walks to the hall where Rebekah is and reaches for her hand. When she folds her fingers into his he kisses her palm, softly, smiles grimly.
"We'll be back in a few hours," He says.
She nods. "Alright," She answers, the same forced lightness in her tone, and she adds, jokingly: "I'll just entertain myself, then."
Her blonde waves brush their lifted hands, and the feeling is almost surreal in the fondness and comfort it brings him.
He's reaching up to wind a curl around his finger when he realizes the surrealism is not just an abstract thought.
When he looks back at Rebekah's face, it is his mother. Her hair is deadened instead of soft and light; her eyes empty instead of warm; her hand freezing to the touch rather than gentle.
He freezes, cannot move, cannot speak, cannot fight.
"While you plot to kill me," His mother says, her voice echoing like a thousand clones speaking at once. "I will simply entertain myself."
Over her shoulder, Elijah watches Rebekah (the real Rebekah, his sibling, his little sister whom he must desperately protect but always fails to actually do so) materialize out of thin air and be immediately crushed by the decorative marble column they were just leaning against, and though no white oak drove through her heart he knows, for some reason, in his heart, that she is dead, his little Rebekah is dead and she killed her, Esther killed her and so now he must kill Esther.
His fangs sharpen and his eyes darken, and Elijah lunges for Esther's throat, but she is gone as quick as she appeared.
"Elijah," Her voice echoes from behind him.
He feels faint, the anger coursing through him now ebbing away suddenly, and when he turns to face his mother she smiles sadly at him as he collapses to his knees.
"You always were the noble one," She says. "And that is your weakness. You cannot reconcile the sin that you are with your false virtues. But you will, my love, if only you repent."
Elijah finds himself gasping for breath, a burn familiar to the one stake that can hurt him spreading through his body like wildfire.
"You," He chokes out, desperate. "You are the only sinful abomination I face today. And I will face you and kill you."
The words, spoken between gasps, are as close to a vow as he has ever gotten since Always and Forever.
Esther's (false) smile transforms into a sneer.
"My son," She says. Cold, unforgiving, and cruel. "You will repent."
The burn courses through his blood and the last thing Elijah feels is the seams of his skin searing off in burns, his eyes clouding over into darkness and the following quiet a welcome respite from the pain.
Elijah opens his eyes. His arms tingle with a lack of feeling and an overwhelming hunger is his only thought for what feels like an eternity before he composes himself.
The room is dimly lit. He is contained by chains, weaker than expected.
He is confused. He had welcomed death. Embraced the reprieve from the pain.
He waits for hours, or seconds. Time, the construct, feels unreal.
A door opens, and Esther walks in. Coarse blonde hair, empty blue eyes. He is too hungry and too tired to scream in horror.
She stands in front of him, smiles.
"Do you repent?"
His thoughts return. He feels himself come back to his body, feels his exhaustion part, just barely, for the thought of Hayley and the baby and Niklaus and Rebekah.
He slams the Red Door closed even as Esther's face contorts.
He breathes.
He says,
"I am not a sin."