you'll be safe in my arms, just sleeping

by abbyli

He hates just how young he sounds when he turns towards his big brother. "You don't think they would just go to heaven and forget about us, do you?" au

entitled: you'll be safe in my arms, just sleeping

summary: He hates just how young he sounds when he turns towards his big brother. "You don't think they would just go to heaven and forget about us, do you?" au

characters: klaus, elijah, rebekah, finn, kol, and henrik. slight finn/sage

rating: t

disclaimer: I do not own The Originals/The Vampire Diaries or it's characters.

notes: Okay, so I apologize in advance for this. After hearing about the spoilers that we are finally going to see Tatia, this idea popped into my head. All human - tissue alert!

For the amazing Sahar (alostheart)

ps. I have written blind!Klaus before and...well I don't know why...again, this idea just came to me.

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Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don't say: 'We have come now to the end'
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

-into the west, annie lennox

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Life really is about moments and about how you hold onto them.

Sometimes, those moments that you don't think are too important become the most treasured of all.

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Elijah is twenty five years old when his parents leave. They just leave.

He had always had the sense that Mikael and Esther had never really wanted to have children or be married in the first place. During that time period, especially if you were a person of high class, it was expected of you to marry young, to have a family.

Well, they did.

Elijah is the oldest, followed closely by Finn and then Klaus. The twins Kol and Rebekah came along a few years later followed by surprise package Henrick, loving nicknamed 'Henry' by his siblings.

With his parents walking away, Elijah is now left with the custody of the still underage Kol and Rebekah and thirteen year old Henry.

How is he supposed to do this? How is he supposed to suddenly be a father figure to three teenagers when he was barely an adult himself?

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"'Lijah, you shouldn't worry about that," Niklaus says one late afternoon after he has finally owned up, confessing his fears to his younger brother.

"Why do you say that?" Elijah asks, his voice cracking with strain. "I can barely take care of myself. How am I supposed to do this? How do I get Kol and Rebekah ready for college? How do I help Henry prepare for high school?"

"You keep doing what you're doing," Nik says with a smile, his blue eyes soft and warm. "Because you have been our father for all of our lives."

Nik knows that it's a lot to say to his big brother, the weight of the words - but it's the truth.

The five of them wouldn't be as happy, as ready for the world as they are right now without Elijah.

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"Elijah...Elijah, wake up!"

He startles slightly, gazing up at his brother who stands over him with the biggest of smiles on his face. His blue eyes, although slightly unfocused, they gleam with a love that is so precious and pure that it almost hurts.

He rises to his feet, both of his hands resting on his younger brother's shoulders.

"It's a girl," Nik says, returning the gentle pressure of his hands on his. "Sophie Rebekah."

He fights back the sudden tears that burn behind his own eyes, clamping a hand on the back of Nik's neck and pulling him in for a tight hug.

"I am so happy for you."

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He stands proud at Finn's wedding, his heart finally at peace when he watches his brother marry the woman of his dreams.

Almost directly after the 'I do's', he feels Finn's hand on his elbow, pulling him in.

"What is this?" he whispers into his younger brother's sun streaked hair.

"Thank you," Finn whispers. "Thank you so much."

And that's it. There's really nothing more that can be said because in that moment, life is so damn perfect.

He hugs his brother back, giving him a playful scuff upside the back of his head before pushing him towards a waiting Sage.

"Go be happy," he says before fading back into the waiting throng of guests, smiling at the joy.

Maybe things were okay.

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But would they be?

Kol is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder just before he is due to take his SATS.

Elijah finds himself sitting in the high school guidance counselor's office, hardly listening to the school psychologist and the principal's voices as they throw words at him that he barely understands.

"...Perhaps you have stretched yourself too thin, Mr. Mikaelson. Possibly Kol and Rebekah should stay with other family until they graduate -"

That gets his attention.

"Excuse me?" he murmurs, leaning forward in his seat. "Are you suggesting that we are all to blame for this?"

"That's not what I said, Mr. Mikaelson," says the counselor. "You are not Kol's father, you are his brother. And it is not really in your best interests or his to be doing this right now and it's understandable that Kol's disorder has gone undiagnosed for so long."

"Actually," Elijah says, raising a hand. "For the past four years, you have sent home notes telling our parents that Kol was lazy and not trying. And suddenly, you realize that he has a problem? Where the hell were you these last four years, hmm?"

"Mr. Mikaelson," the principal begins, rising to his feet. Elijah gets his feet too and he stands a good six inches over the suited man.

"Or is it something to the fact that our parents are no longer around and now it's 'poor little Kol'? Let me tell you something, if you were such trained professionals, you would have realized all of this ages ago!"

Without another word, Elijah turns on his heel and exit's the office, slamming the door behind him so violently that the glass rattles and shakes.

But he isn't too surprised to find Kol sitting in the chair by the secretary's desk, his eyes downcast, having heard every word.

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"Do you think I'm stupid, 'Lijah?"

Those words - Kol doesn't even need to say anything else. Elijah immediately pulls the long Lincoln off of the road and parks it, turning to his right.

Kol is staring out the side window, his normally perfectly gelled hair practically wilted and falling in his eyes. His shoulders are slumped, his back tight with tension.

"No, Kol. You are very smart," Elijah says softly.

Kol turns honeyed eyes back towards him, his gaze exhausted and worn out. "But they said -"

"Who cares what they said!" Elijah rebuts, causing Kol to raise his eyebrows in alarm. He leans forward, his face just inches away from his young brother's. "If this is true, if you do have ADD, then we will deal with it. Together. As a family. How does that sound?"

Kol finally smiles, lightly patting Elijah's shoulder before settling down into the seat.

"Sounds good."

Elijah smirks, turning towards the front and kicking the car back into gear.

"Good."

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Kol receives a 2100 on his SATS. A near perfect score.

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He is very out of sorts when Rebekah has her heart broken for the first time.

His young sister comes home from the last week of school quite abruptly one afternoon, slamming the front door heavily behind her. He is in the living room rummaging through the dozens of moving boxes that still litter the floor.

After their parents left, they sadly took their money with them, leaving the six siblings to fend for themselves in the finance department. He now worked two jobs, in the morning as a sales clerk for a marketing firm that barely paid enough money to support himself rather than a family of six. In the afternoon he worked a few hours into the evening tutoring two kids at the civics center. That job was more of a moonlighting position, being called in whenever he was needed.

So they had to move out of the large house that had been their home for all their lives. Elijah had found a house that was in their price range with four bedrooms and one solitary bathroom. Oh, that was hell in the mornings. It was easier now that Finn had married Sage and moved in with her but still, it was tight.

Elijah manages to pull his head out of one box of books in time to avoid being smacked in the head with Rebekah's flying bookbag.

"Hey, watch it!" he snaps, settling the quite heavy bag on the second hand sofa with one hand with closing the box with the other.

"Oh, sorry," Rebekah says. "Didn't see you there."

He smirks, rising to his feet. "Yeah, I'm sure," he says, dusting off his pant legs. It's then when he sees the tears in his sister's eyes. "Bekah, are you all right?"

Rebekah shakes her head, brushing the back of her hand across her eyes. "It's nothing, 'Lijah. Nothing you would be concerned with."

"Well, you're crying," Elijah murmurs. "And I'm concerned about that. Was it something at school?"

Rebekah lowers herself down onto the sofa, narrowing missing sitting on a few other thick volumes of books. One copy topples to the floor, the title facing upward. She sighs, leaning over and scooping it up.

"The Great Gatsby," she says with sniffle. "That's how we met."

And then it clicks for her brother.

"...Oh...A boy..."

He actually shouldn't have said a word.

But he sits there, listening as she pours her heart out to him - about how scared she was for the future, about her heartbreak over her first serious boyfriend dumping her, over college, over the whole world, it seemed like.

And he doesn't move a muscle to leave. He stays right there, holding her while she cried and cracking weak jokes in an attempt to see a smile.

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Henry turns fourteen the night that Kol and Rebekah graduate from high school.

Elijah took to keeping an eye on his youngest brother in the days leading up to that night. He immediately picked up that Henry wasn't expecting anything - that he was sure they had forgotten about his birthday. And what hurt Elijah's heart the most is that the boy didn't say a word.

Despite being the youngest, Henry was often lost in the shuffle. With so many siblings and so many problems in his mere fourteen years of life, he took everything in stride. He was already forgetting about their mother and father, looking up to his siblings more as parental figures than just siblings. And he was okay with that.

Henry had been lucky while his brothers hadn't when it came to their father. Being young, he had been spared. And maybe that's how he got lost.

Elijah would make sure that Henry would never know that kind of sadness that the rest of them faced.

So Henry doesn't notice when Finn and Niklaus sneak out of the long boring commencement ceremony for about thirty minutes, dashing home to put together the big surprise that the whole family had been planning for the last couple of weeks.

The boy is none the wiser when Kol and Rebekah suddenly insist on leaving the after party only twenty minutes in, the twins citing that they were tired and just wanted to get some sleep.

And the boy nearly faints when he sees their living room, chocked full of blue and green balloons and a huge cake that says 'Happy Birthday Henry!' sitting on the coffee table.

"I thought..." Henry stutters, gazing down at the monster truck style cake before looking back his siblings. "I thought you guys forgot..."

"And why would we forget?" Finn smiles, his arm around Sage. "It is your birthday."

"But Kol and Bex's graduation -"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Kol says with a laugh. "Bekah and I will be riding the high for at least a week. This is your night, little bro."

The small boy, who wasn't really a boy anymore, glances around at his siblings, at his sister in law who he had grown very attached too over the last few months. He flicks a dark lock of hair out of his eyes before wrapping his arms around Elijah's waist in a quick hug.

Elijah's arms hang at his sides for a moment before he hugs him back.

"What's that for?"

Henry pulls away, smiling a bit bashfully. "Just because."

"...Hey! Are we going to dig into this cake or what?!" Nik suddenly demands, interrupting the moment.

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Why isn't he surprised when that night ends in a cake fight and a mountain of blue and green icing embedded into the carpet?

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Nik gets into the art school that he has been trying to get into the for the past two years.

The school is in California, over three thousand miles away.

"You have to go, Nik."

They are all there, gathered in the living room. The blue-green icing stain is still there, having had the couch moved forward a couple of inches to cover it. But they know it's there. There's a good memory attached to that stupid stain.

Right now, Rebekah is seated on the floor nearly right over that stain, her head leaning back onto the couch, resting against Finn's knee. Finn is seated wedged in between Kol and Henry while Elijah paces around the back like a caged cat.

Nik glances down at his sister before his eyes dart up to Elijah.

"I can't just leave like that," he says quietly.

"Finn left," Kol says, pointing at the quietest brother.

"Yeah, down the block. He still comes over for lunch every day," Henry chuckles. He ducks just in time to avoid the slap that Finn aims at the back of his head.

"Nik, how many other schools have you been accepted too, full scholarship, and you have deferred?" Elijah asks suddenly. "All in the name of getting into this one school?"

The twenty-two year old's gaze suddenly goes down to his shoes and his shoulders slump.

"Nine."

"Need I say more, brother?" Elijah chuckles. "Go."

"You deserve to be happy, Nikky," Rebekah smiles. "Go to school."

"...but I am happy here," Nik says softly. "I don't want to leave -"

Kol gets to his feet, reaching over and clapping Nik on the shoulder. "Please, brother. It's not like we're going anywhere. We're family. We've supported each other since Mother and Father hit the road. Do you really think that we will just forget?"

Finn rises up too, leaving Rebekah to steal his spot on the sofa beside Henry. He rests his hand on Nik's other shoulder.

"Get out of this town, Nik," he says gently. "Get the bloody hell out of here. We will always be here if you need to come home. But you have a chance to get out of here now. Do not waste it."

Elijah watches Nik closely. He can see the change already, the apprehension slowly fading from his tightly wound form. The indecision, the fear -

That was gone.

Elijah knows that his brother's mind is already made up. And he couldn't be happier for him.

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It happens on a surprisingly chilly August night.

The following morning, Nik is going to leave for California and that will be it for quite some time.

Elijah isn't really sure how he feels about the family being truly separated for the first time since the day that their parents left but - all he knows is that also, for the first time, everyone is happy. Truly happy.

Kol and Rebekah are starting school at the local university in a week. Kol is already making plans to transfer out in one year to a wonderful school only forty miles away to major in speech therapy. He would be home on the weekends. Rebekah wanted to receive her associates degree first and then she was going to decide where to go from there.

And that was okay with Elijah because - because they were all near. And Nik was only a phone call away.

But a different phone call comes that late August night.

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Everyone else had gone out to dinner to celebrate the upcoming brand new chapters in their lives. Elijah chose to stay behind to catch up on some lovely homework for his job. He later wishes he had gone to that dinner. He wishes that so much.

The phone rings around eleven, waking him out of a light doze. He nearly falls off the couch in alarm, one hand reaching out of for the receiver while the other tries to steady himself.

"Hwello?"

"Hello, is this Elijah Mikaelson?"

Elijah clears his throat, rubbing a hand into his eyes. "W-Who's this?" he manages, blinking away sleep.

"This is Sergeant Brinmer. I'm afraid there's been an accident."

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The last time that Elijah had seen his siblings, they were all packed into Finn's caravan, laughing and joking and loving.

And now he was gazing at his brother, laying unconscious in a hospital bed with bandages wrapped around his head.

"Will he be permanently blind?" he whispers, not even chancing a glance at the doctor.

The doctor shakes his head. "I am not sure. We will have to see when the bandages come off. He was very lucky though."

Elijah scoffs, heaving his shoulders before nearly staggering forward. "Lucky. Right."

It hadn't sunk in. None of had even made a dent in his brain.

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Nik is home from the hospital, the bandages having come off with the horrible realization that he is now blind. He hasn't spoken a word since the accident.

Elijah sits on the couch. And stares. He's stopped going to work. He's stopping doing much of anything at all.

The phone rings and rings. He ignores it.

Nik barely comes out of his room except to eat and use the bathroom. Elijah sometimes sees him and sometimes he doesn't. And right now, he just doesn't care.

He doesn't care about anything at all.

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The smell of smoke pulls him out his haze for the first time in weeks.

"Elijah! Elijah, help!"

That does it.

He's off the sofa and into the kitchen where the stove top is now ablaze, the rancid smell of burned bacon hitting his nostrils. He dives for the fire extinguisher and quickly pulls the pin, pointing it towards the stove. The cold foam coats the stove stop, quickly patting out the flames.

With s heavy breath of relief, Elijah turns towards the doorway where Nik is standing, his good arm clutching at the doorframe, blank eyes downcast.

"What the hell, Niklaus?!" he snaps. "You tried cooking?!"

"Someone's got too!" Nik replies scathingly. "You haven't moved off of the bloody sofa in weeks. What was I supposed to do?"

Elijah sighs, letting the now empty extinguisher fall from his fingers and roll to the floor.

"I'll try to do better," he says without even looking his brother's way. Not that it matters since he can't see him.

"I lost them too, Elijah."

With great effort, Elijah pulls his gaze up. He sees the redness in his little brother's blue eyes, the light burn on his cheek. The way his good arm wraps around his waist, like he is trying to hold himself together.

Not that he can blame him because - because he is trying to do the same thing too.

"I can't see them."

Those four words, those horrible little words.

Oh, god...oh, god...

"I can't even see them anymore," Nik whispers, his voice almost a whimper. "I mean, I can't get a picture of them in my head. It's like ..."

"It's like they're fading too soon," Elijah murmurs, a sharp pain settling right in the center of his chest.

Nik nods.

And then ...

And then...

"I was sitting in the very back next to Henry," he whispers. "Bekah and Kol were in the seat in front of us while Finn drove. Bekah and Kol were arguing over something and laughing about something else. I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. I wish I had."

Elijah doesn't move and he doesn't dare to not listen. He can't.

"Finn then told Bekah and Kol to knock it off because they were being distracting and then - it just happened, Elijah. In that one split second of time, it happened."

A choked sob. Who did it come from?

"And the next thing I remember was Henry crying. I was trying to tell him that it was okay, that everything was going to be okay but I could tell that he was having a hard time breathing or even talking," Nik whispers, his blank eyes suddenly glassy and moist. "I couldn't see anything. Nothing at all. But I could feel it. I could feel Henry taking every breath like it was the hardest thing in the world. I could hear Kol trying to move in front of us but he didn't make it very far. And Rebekah was calling Finn's name and -" Another sob.

Elijah suddenly realizes that he too has tears slipping down his cheeks. Huh. He wasn't sure if he even remembered how to cry.

Nik's whole frame is shaking almost violently and Elijah can't help but reach out. Nik sinks his head into his shoulder, his own body wracked with horrid sobs that hurt. Elijah is pretty sure that they will hurt for a while. But this kind of hurt was different - almost like the first step towards healing.

"...And then I couldn't feel Henry breathing."

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He finally cancels Kol and Rebekah's scholarships, asking for the school to give them to the next deserving candidates.

A good three months pass before Nik even attempts to pick up a paint brush again. His first works are shaky but they're there. He's trying. And that's the most important thing.

"You have to stop blaming yourself. Why would the accident be your fault? You weren't even there."

"That's just it, Sage," he snaps, glaring at his sister in law for just a moment before sighing. "I should have been there."

"So you could have died with them?" Sage says quickly, tears suddenly springing to her eyes.

He's silent for a moment. "Maybe that would be better."

"That's bullshit," the young woman snaps. "What good would come out of that?"

"I would have been with them," he replies almost angrily.

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Sage gives birth to a son that autumn. A boy with Finn's sandy hair and her green eyes to which she tenderly names Jakob Finnigan Mikaelson.

He is second to hold the baby after Sage and all he can see is his brother gazing up at him.

Nik, who has gotten better control of his blindness, doesn't hold the baby but he does see. His long fingers gently brush against baby Jak's cheek and he smiles.

"He is going to be the picture of Finn," he whispers.

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He finds the first portrait almost six months after the accident.

He knows he's being nosey but he can't really care because - well, because it's finally all right, you know? He can handle seeing this.

He sees their faces smiling up at him from the canvas. Finn, ever so serious but allowing himself just the hint of a grin. Rebekah with her arms wrapped around Kol's neck, her fist pressed into his scalp mussing up his perfectly coifed hair. Henry standing off to the side rolling his eyes but laughing at the same time. He even sees himself in the picture, along with Nik. All of them together, happy, at peace.

"Through this, I can see them again," comes a small voice from behind him.

Elijah's fingers slide against the thick paper, the tip of his finger just touching the gentle paint strokes that form Henry's face.

"It's..." No words can really leave his tongue. And he knows Nik understands.

Very gently, and very unwillingly, he turns away from the portrait and passes Nik in the doorway. Before he goes, his hand rests on Nik's shoulder, his palm applying the lightest of pressure that Nik leans into.

And then he walks down the hallway and stops just before he reaches the stairs. His hand closes around the doorknob and he twists, pushing it in.

Kol's room stands unchanged, with a fine layer of dust over every object. He steps to the center of the black carpet (Kol always insisted on black carpet, for some strange reason), floor, twisting around. The warm autumn sunshine from the slightly open window hits his skin, reminding him that he is still very alive.

His eyes close and he remembers. He remembers when they were little, Kol and Rebekah would share a bedroom and they would always be ripping and tearing. He can also remember several times having to come up there and break up the fights and the scuffles and sometimes just the horseplay. And when it came to that, he would just join in.

I'm here...we're all right here...

For just a moment, Elijah is sure he hears Kol laughing.

This was the first step. He would soon go into Rebekah's room and Henry's. He would go through their clothes and keep the few sweaters that he would want to keep and he would donate the rest to goodwill. He would take all the photographs out and bring them downstairs.

He would spend time with Finn's son and check in on Sage and make sure she was doing all right.

He would allow himself to actually look at Nik and see his brother and a not a visual reminder of everything he had lost. He would sit with Nik at night and they would talk and laugh and remember.

They would be happy.

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"You don't think they would just go to heaven and forget about us, do you?"

Nik hates how young he sounds when those words leave his lips but he can't help it.

Elijah is silent, his hand cradling the snifter of brandy before letting it slide down onto the table. He turns towards his little brother and he sighs, shaking his head.

"No," he whispers. "Absolutely not. You know why?"

Nik is quiet now, his blank eyes downcast and somewhat gazing towards his booted toes.

"They live on in your paintings. They live on in you that way," Elijah murmurs. "In every painting that you make, whether it be of them or of a freaking rabbit, they are there."

He has to stop for a moment. He has to breathe.

But he's forgotten how.

"Finn is in his little boy. Jak is a living part of him," Elijah says. "I see Finn every time Jak allows himself to smile with just a little bit of dignity. That's all Finn."

Nik chuckles. "Finn hated to smile. He thought that it would break his face."

Elijah chuckles too, turning forward to the blazing sunset that casts through the finally open bay window.

It's nearly Thanksgiving and the remaining Mikaelsons aren't sure how they are going to do this holiday, or even if they are. Sage has invited them to spend it with her and Jak and the rest of her family but Elijah isn't sure if that is exactly right.

But Thanksgiving...it is a time for hope. For their family's hope.

"I'm sorry, Nik," Elijah murmurs.

"For what?" Nik asks.

"For not being there for you. I got so caught up in my grief that I forgot about you," Elijah says. "I forgot that you were still here, and - and I am so sorry."

Those tears are finally brimming in his eyes, fighting their way to drip down his face. Those tears that he hadn't let himself cry since that horrible afternoon in the kitchen.

Thin, cool fingers find his and hold on.

"We live through them," Nik whispers.

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Six years have passed.

Three children run by the front porch, each carrying two sets of colorful balloons that fly behind them in the spring breeze.

"Jak, you turd!"

"Sophia, it's not nice to call your cousin names!"

"Sorry Daddy!"

Elijah laughs, leaning back on the step that he is currently sitting on, his head bumping against his wife's knees.

"Where's Hope?" his wife asks.

"There she is," he whispers, pointing.

His daughter is smaller than her siblings and she has a harder time keeping up on such tiny little legs. But she has a personality that could fill a room with laughter and joy.

That's her name - Hope Joy Mikaelson.

She was born on August 22nd, in the early morning hours.

And on that day, he doesn't have to remember the pain - he remembers the joy.

Hope runs with her balloons and then nearly trips. Elijah feels his wife beginning to move but he stops her.

"Hold on, she's got it," he whispers.

The tiny girl clampers to her feet, pushing her dark braid behind her and then she's off and running against, catching up with Jak and leaping onto his back, knocking him to the ground. All three children laugh and giggle over nothing in particular and that -

That is the sweetest sound.

"It's time!" Jake suddenly yells and the three kids freeze, still holding on tightly to their balloons.

Elijah's heart begins to beat quicker as he watches his daughter detangle the balloons from around her wrists. One pink and one black. Jak's are both green while Sophia's are purple.

The balloons are released into the sky, taking flight together. They dance their beautiful music in the air, heading for their new home in the heavens above.

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Okay, I shouldn't be allowed to write anymore. I heavily apologize for this. It gave me some intense feels and just...grrr...again, I'm sorry.

I have to say, I always felt like Klaus naming his daughter 'Hope' was not more of what he wanted to name her but of his way to honor his big brother. I had the feeling that the name was more of something that Elijah wanted to give his own child.

I'm shutting up now. Review?