Summary: After his mother is institutionalized for going off her medication again, the care of his five younger siblings is placed into Elijah's capable hands. He struggles to balance family with work and hopes his mother will make a quick recovery. But the longer he stays, he begins to notice that his family has changed a great deal since he left for a higher education and this is his one chance to reconnect with them.

Elijah Mikaelson had just got back from a long, tedious appointment with a Mrs. Gilbert who was filing for divorce. He had always found that divorce cases were always drawn out longer than necessary, but they made good money. Although he enjoyed his work as a lawyer, he always found that it could be rather frustrating. But he was always capable of handling frustrating situations.

Elijah seated himself in his office chair and sighed heavily. The day was only half over, and he still had two more appointments to deal with; a battle for custody, and a dispute over matrimonial property. It was going to be another wearisome day. He had just settled down into some paperwork when his assistant, Alaric Saltzmann came in.
"Was there something you wanted, Alaric?"
"It's a good thing you're back; I would have called you, but I didn't want to interrupt your case. Someone named Henrik phoned your office about half an hour ago.
He said you needed to come home immediately."

At the mention of his youngest brother's name, he froze. Whenever he heard from my family, it was never good news. Besides holidays and birthdays, Elijah rarely spoke to or saw his family; work always kept him busy. But this sudden phone call from Henrik didn't sound good. Elijah got out of his chair and headed towards the door.
"Cancel the rest of my appointments for the day, Alaric," Elijah said, grabbing his briefcase and coat. "I'll probably be gone the rest of the day."
As he got in his car and began the two hour drive towards his house, he could only wonder and worry about what had happened. If they needed him there, then whatever was going on was something beyond his siblings could manage. Whatever it was, he hoped that nobody was injured; medical bills were the last thing his family needed. His family, although they had medical insurance, had a long record of broken bones and lacerations that required stitching; their father Mikael was to thank for that.

No one had phoned him on his cell phone, so whatever the situation was, it wasn't getting out of hand too quickly. But things could get out of hand unusually fast. The sudden worry that he felt in his stomach made him increase his speed in an eagerness to get to his mother's house.
When Elijah pulled up in front of his childhood home, immediately he could tell that there was something wrong. His youngest brother, Henrik, and his sister, Rebekah, were out on the lawn, both of them looking very worried. He turned the engine off and got out of the car, slamming the door. His siblings jumped at the sudden noise and turned towards the sound. At the sight of him both cried his name and raced towards him, embracing him tightly. As they pulled out of the hug, both of them began to talk, their words overlapping each other's.

"One at a time," he said calmly, silencing them both. He turned to his brother and asked, "What's the matter? Why did you call, Henrik?"
Henrik pointed towards the house and turned back to Elijah.
"Mum's gone off her medication again and she's locked herself in her room. Finn and Nik have been trying to coax her out of there for nearly an hour."
"She just went off her medications," he asked, waiting for clarification. The last time his mother had went off her medications, none of them had found out until a week after she stopped taking them; her hallucinations hadn't returned that time. But if her hallucinations were back, she had probably been off them longer than before and they had just noticed mother's strange behaviour.

"We don't know how long she's been off them," Henrik declared, "We think maybe a few weeks, but none of us are sure."
"We didn't want to call the police," Rebekah exclaimed, "That's why we called you first. Mum's been hallucinating monsters and she has Kol locked in her room with her. Earlier on, she sounded very hostile and we…" Rebekah petered off in her sentence as she turned to glance back at the house worriedly. She glanced back him, her eyes pleading with him. "You should try and talk to her, Elijah; she always listens to you." Henrik nodded encouragingly and began to drag Elijah by the hand towards the house.

The three of them paraded up the staircase and down the hall to the very last door on the right hand side. Niklaus and Finn stood in front of the door, both of them looking perplexed. At the sight of Elijah, both of them drew back from the door and straightened up.
"You came," Niklaus said, sounding surprised.
"Is the door locked?" he asked, deciding to get down to the heart of the matter.
Finn shook his head. "She's got something barricading the door. We've tried to push our way in, but whatever's against the door seems pretty heavy." Elijah knocked on the door, waiting for a response. When none came, he knocked again.
"Mother," he called out, waiting for a response. He heard some scuffling on the other side of the door, but no words. "Mother, it's Elijah, may I come in."

"Elijah," she repeated, "Is it really you, darling?"
"Yes, may I come in?"
There was a loud scraping against the floor as they heard her move the furniture out of the way. The bedroom door opened up a crack and Elijah saw his mother, Esther, peek outside suspiciously. She glanced up at him and he could see her physically relax.
"Come in, come in," she said, opening the door wide enough for him to slide in. Once he was in, she locked the door and barricaded it with the vanity stool. Esther turned back to him and smiled brightly.
"I missed you," she exclaimed, wrapping her arms tightly around him. Elijah welcomed his mother's embrace and returned the gesture.
"I've missed you too," he replied softly, "I know that I haven't visited much."

"You should visit more, the others miss you." Since that she was bringing up the topic of his siblings, he decided to ask, "Where's Kol?"
"He's in a safe place," Esther muttered, "A safe place where those evil things cannot harm my baby boy." Glancing around the room, Elijah assumed she meant that Kol was in the bathroom; it had a lock on the door. He started towards the bathroom door, intent on knocking to make sure he was alright.
"What are you doing," his mother asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I'm just making sure that he's not hurt-"
"Hurt," Esther gasped, seeming rather offended. "I would never hurt my own children. I put him in there for his own safety-so those monsters can't get to him." He quickly devised some way to ease her nerves that none of them were going to be harmed.
"Let me take Kol and the others out of the house-that way none of the monsters can hurt them," he suggested. His mother eyed him suspiciously and wrapped her arms around herself. Elijah could see that she was debating with herself as she began to mutter incoherently.

"Mother, you said that these monsters were trying to hurt Kol and the others. If I take them away from here, the monsters can't hurt them. You want them to be safe, don't you?" Esther twined her hair anxiously around her finger and hesitantly nodded. She clutched his hands tightly, her eyes silently pleading with him.
"You'll take good care of them, won't you?" Elijah nodded, clasping his mother's hands tightly, her eyes wet with tears.

"I'll do my absolute best to look after them, I promise." Seeming satisfied with his answer, Esther released his hands and headed over to the master bathroom door. She pulled a key out from the bathrobe she wore and unlocked the door. Kol was seated on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Noticing that the door was opened, he jumped to his feet and exited the bathroom.
"Go with your brother," she stated, ushering Kol towards him. Kol looked confused at Elijah's presence but didn't say anything. Elijah grabbed Kol by the upper arm and propelled him towards the bedroom door. Esther hesitated by the door and pulled Kol into a tight embrace before reluctantly removing the vanity stool that held the door closed.

Elijah pushed Kol through the door and followed, pulling the door closed behind him. His siblings all had looks of surprise.
"Come on," he said, addressing them all, "Get away from the door." He made his way downstairs and outside onto the lawn. He breathed in the crisp autumn air and pinched the bridge of his nose, deciding what to do. He loved his mother, but she was ill and he knew that she needed help; a hospital was the best place for her. Reluctantly, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency," the operator asked.
"I need an ambulance to 44 West Meadow Street. My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic and she's gone off her medication again and she's been hallucinating. I think that she may be a danger to herself."
"May I have your name, sir?"
 "Elijah Mikaelson," he replied curtly.
"The ambulance should be there within fifteen to twenty minutes."

The ambulance came within the time that the emergency response had specified. The ambulance pulled up in front of the house and two men dressed in gray paramedic uniforms hoped down from the back. Elijah directed them into the house and to his mother's room, where they cautiously entered, shutting the door behind them. His siblings had been lingering in the upstairs hall, and were all staring at him, silent.
"What are you doing," Finn demanded, breaking the silence, "You're going to let them take her to a hospital?"

"It's what she needs, Finn," he explained firmly, "She's not well; this is the third time she's gone off her medication in the last year." Elijah really didn't want to send his mother away to a hospital, but schizophrenia could be a hard thing to manage and a hospital seemed like one of safest places for her. It could help her recover from her relapse.
A shriek of fear came from their mother's bedroom and all of them visibly flinched. Elijah knew that this couldn't be easy for any of his siblings; it wasn't easy for him. One by one, his siblings departed to another part of the house as the shrieks of fear and protest became more frequent. Elijah was the only one that stayed, waiting.

It took a good fifteen minutes for the paramedics to pull her out of the room. It was obvious that she had been drugged and sagged in the paramedics grip. Guilt crept up behind him as Elijah watched the paramedics load his mother into the back of the ambulance. He pushed the guilt back though and reassured himself that he was doing the right thing.
After the ambulance had driven away, he turned back to the house and sighed. Sensing that he was being watched, he glanced up. His siblings were all huddled together, glancing out the hall window together. They all had mixed expressions on their faces. Elijah sighed again and headed back into the house. Now he had to decide what he was going to do about his siblings.

A/N: So this is the first chapter. What do you think; should I continue?