A.N.: Another chappie for you! I had a rubbish day at work; please send some positivity my way!

Eternity in an Hour

03

The Mikaelson Family Values

"Do whatever it takes, just stay alive," he said fervently. "I promise, I'll get you out of there."

"I've never seen him like this before," Rebekah said, her voice crackly over the spotty bayou reception. "He's out of his mind with rage, up all night howling one obscenity-laced tirade after the next… He's gonna kill me."

"Come on, Rebekah, we both know he's had tantrums before – only difference is, this time he's locked up where he can't leave a trail of bodies," Marcel said. "Remember when I was ten? He and Kol ripped through the city on a bender just 'cuz Elijah was giving me lessons… You always forget how bad they are 'til he has another one. Just stay as far away from him as you can."

"That's a brilliant strategy," Rebekah quipped, with her usual tartness. "But, given that the dead bitch Céleste has trapped us in here 'til moonrise, my options are somewhat limited."

"You're not in there alone, Bekah," Marcel said plaintively. "Elijah's with you, he won't let Klaus hurt you."

"He'll get himself killed in the process, which would hurt me far more than my own death," Rebekah said gently.

"Listen, I'm not leaving you in there," Marcel said fiercely. He frowned. "When'd Céleste get killed?"

"A few hours ago, Elijah was there; one of the Harvest girls named Anise Lavalière executed her. Lavalière's a name that brings back a lot of memories…"

"I'll say," Marcel chuckled despite himself. He knew the Lavalière family. Good people. Eccentric, but great-hearted, strong. Uncompromising when it came to their values.

"Elijah said it was gorgeous magic, very old-school terrifying. Like something Mother would have done," Rebekah said, with a hint of wistfulness and sorrow in her voice. She didn't have to say it, but a thousand years without her and a couple of assassination-attempts from her, she still missed the mother she remembered from her human life. "You texted and said Davina had woken, why are you surprised?"

"Just wondered if maybe T had gotten to Genevieve," Marcel sighed.

"No. Céleste hijacked the Harvest magic; she was one of the four witches we need to kill. I suppose the other girl woke when you beheaded Bastianna. Genevieve will be the last to die. If I ever get out of this godsforsaken cemetery."

"Look, Davina will find a loophole, get you out early. Then we can all go together," Marcel promised her. "If Klaus comes after us, we take him on one hell of a ride."

"I lived for centuries looking over my shoulder, ready to run at a moment's notice. Am I to go back to that?" Rebekah asked sorrowfully.

"Worry about that later," Marcel said. "Right now, just buy me some time. I promise you, I'll get you out of there." He hung up, wondering how long Rebekah's cell battery would last – how long she would last against her psychotic brother. He made his way up to the attic, delivering the breakfast takeout he had ordered for Davina. Her first resurrection meal, and her favourite. She sat, smaller than he remembered, curled up on the bed, tears streaming silently down her face. He murmured a gentle, coaxing, "Hey, D" but she didn't look up. After she had woken from the dead, she had slept for a little, lulled by him, he liked to think, safe and relaxed in his presence. That felt damn good, that she still trusted him, that he was still her hero.

"How do you feel?" he asked gently, setting the bag of food down on the bed. "There's donuts in there. Got you some stuff, too. Organic soap and scented candles, that jasmine incense you like, some of those artists' pens you were itching to try. Figured you wouldn't mind coming back here, someplace you know…there's been some…things that've happened we gotta talk about… Davina?"

A wash of tears stained her face, her wan skin and chapped lips; she hugged her knees to her chest, her lip quivering, her hands shaking, knuckles white as she clutched at the fabric of her dress. "So, another of the Harvest girls is awake, too. Anise Lavalière, Rebekah says her name is. D'you know her?" Davina finally responded, gasping a breath, tears spilling uncontrollably down her cheeks. She shook her head.

"N-no," she whispered hoarsely. "Sh-she's older than m-me… She hangs out w-with w-witches from other covens."

"Sounds like a Lavalière," Marcel smiled, remembering significant witches in his life who had come from that family. Clever, creative and eccentric, with an old-school elegance and charm. They did things on their own terms. Great diplomats, funky inventors, sharp businesswomen, gorgeous, talented, brave men who stood up for what they believed in. He remembered crying at Posy Lavalière's funeral – and she had married into that family, she didn't even have the excuse of genetic inclination toward eccentricity.

He perched on the bed beside Davina, trying to draw her into his arms, to unfold, let him comfort her. He had carried her to her death, grief-stricken but accepting that she would return. Davina hadn't, for weeks. And he'd been spiralling ever since. "Come on, D," he coaxed gently. "Gimme a hug. Tell me what's going on… Three out of the four of you sacrificed in the Harvest ritual have come back. First it was your friend, Monique, then Anise Lavalière, now you. Monique's been sayin' the Ancestors were with her while she was…y'know, dead – talkin' to them, teachin' 'em. Was it like that with you?"

Davina let out a choked sigh, shaking her head so her dank brunette hair swayed in curtains around her face, more tears leaking. "There was nothing. It was cold. Empty and dark. And it went on forever."

Marcel sighed softly. "It's over now, honey," he assured her, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. More tears spilled. She choked on them, sniffling, and turned huge brown bloodshot eyes on him.

"I can't feel it!" she blurted, shuddering a breath as more tears spilled.

"Feel what, honey?"

"M-my magic. It's gone," she choked a whisper, sniffling. "I can't f-feel it anymore." Thoughts of Rebekah disappeared; she could handle herself. And Elijah was there with her and their psychotic brother, the monster who had raised him. He truly would be made in Klaus' own image if he ignored this child's pain and confusion, got blustery and angry that Davina was 'useless' now that she couldn't do anything to help Rebekah. He'd been looking out for Davina since before Rebekah had sauntered back into his life; and long after Davina was dead for real, after a long and full life, Rebekah would continue to twist him in knots. For that split second, he didn't care about Rebekah's life being threatened because of what they had done a couple lifetimes ago. He cared that something was very wrong with his friend, the kid he had been protecting, bonded with, loved.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know – I can't feel it!" Davina whimpered angrily in frustration, choking on her tears.

"Maybe it's your body getting used to only having your own power again," Marcel murmured, drawing Davina in close as she hiccoughed. "You know, you were a nuclear power-station for a long time there. It's gonna take a while to get used to needing to charge up the battery every night."

"That's not it," Davina whispered, sniffling. "I don't have any powers, Marcel. I can't feel it anymore. I can't feel anything."

"When you described being connected to everything… That's gone?" Marcel asked, and Davina whimpered, sniffling, and burst into tears. He tucked her against him, holding her close, while she bawled. The rumblings through the Quarter, her death, coming back to life, this new lack of connection to her magic, to Nature, it had to have gotten to her.

"It feels like I'm still dead," she whispered, dissolving into tears again. Marcel's heart seized, he held his breath.

"You're not," he said fervently. "You're not dead, Davina. Not for a very long time."

"I've lost my powers… The Ancestors…they punished me. They stripped me of my magic," Davina hiccoughed.

"They're dead – how can they do that?" Marcel asked. Witches were an enigma to him, still, after centuries of life at the top of the supernatural food-chain. Their skills and knowledge were fiercely guarded, passed down through the generations, no outsider could ever hope to understand magic if they were not innate witches themselves.

"I don't know!" Davina wailed.

Marcel sighed, and tucked Davina close. Thoughts of Rebekah's early-release dwindled, but he knew Elijah had gotten his siblings out of way tougher spots than this. Elijah was different from what he remembered – no longer indulgent, and less forgiving. Still fair, with that inimitable aura of elegant malice and a moral code warped by growing up in medieval times and fighting in the supernatural world for centuries. Elijah had evolved with the world around him, but fundamentally he was still influenced by his first, human, brutal life. He was still charming and timeless and elegant, but he no longer…pulled punches, let Klaus get away with doing whatever the hell he wanted.

Discovering the werewolf girl Hayley's pregnancy had triggered something in him. Elijah was determined not to let Klaus get in the way – of his ambition, of his desire to build something his niece or nephew could be a part of, could be proud of. He was no longer determined to sacrifice everything for one petulant, abusive sibling. He no longer went out of his way to forgive Klaus' volatile tantrums, or pretend to have forgotten the thousand years of abuse and manipulation and emotional conditioning Klaus had imposed on them all – Marcel included.

This Elijah was the man Marcel remembered from his lessons. Patient and ruthless, kind, deadly, talented and musical and clever, calm, compassionate, diplomatic, fierce, and a man who had the potential to be a leader. Elijah didn't care about power; he cared about his family. He cared about that baby.

He'd heard whisperings, more than rumour. The city had imploded. The chain of events triggered by his interference in the Harvest ritual had finally had lasting repercussions on his own community. Klaus stealing the crown from him wasn't what had finally toppled the empire he had built. Being ousted as the second – third, counting Elijah – in command to Klaus wasn't what triggered it. He'd told his men to kiss the ring and bide their time, Klaus would get bored. But Marcel had built his community as an extended family – and none of his family were going to follow a monster who murmured his own sister during a temper-tantrum.

His friends were dividing the city between them, anarchy as they fought for territory and power, strong-armed alliances – or simply left. Some had finally reached their breaking-point, like Elijah. Klaus as king with Marcel as his adviser was one thing, a tough pill to swallow but one they had to for their own survival, to continue to enjoy the lives they had carved for themselves out of the city's very foundations. But if Klaus found nothing wrong in hunting down his sister intent on murdering her, was there anything he held sacred?

The only people who would follow a monster like that were the bloodthirsty, ignorant types – and Marcel had always made a point not to invite anyone like that into his family.

What he and Rebekah had done in 1919 was no worse than what Kol had been attempting just half a decade before. They had daggered the unpredictable youngest brother on the grand staircase at the Christmas ball in 1914, Marcel had been so smug in helping Klaus ensnare Kol's two pretty witch-friends in that creepy old house. He still had the diamond, big as a baseball, stashed in his safe, even Klaus hadn't found that yet. And Marcel had wondered about showing it to Davina, back when he'd asked her to find a way to kill an Original. Elijah had never been the problem; and Marcel would always have a complicated history with Rebekah.

Should he have given Davina the diamond, told her what Rebekah had whispered to him about what Kol had been planning? A dagger that could put Klaus down, the way he had put Rebekah down for fifty-two years, like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White – only the handsome prince was a slave and he was too frightened to fight through the magical forest of thorns to rescue her; he'd taken the evil witch's gift instead.

A dagger that could desiccate Klaus like death. Could it be done? Papa Tunde's blade was something else, he'd felt its effects first-hand and Cami had stopped the witch from killing him, but it was worse than what Klaus had done to his siblings over the centuries. Kol had wanted to pay him back in kind… Should Marcel have helped him?

Helped the monster who compelled innocent people to enact Hamlet in front of him, terrified, unable to look away, Kol's vampire-blood seeping through his body like a drug?

He had never liked Kol – in his mind, Kol was forever associated with his first taste of true terror, the first glimpse into the true life of the Originals beyond Rebekah's shining wheat-gold hair and pretty gowns, Elijah's concertos and Klaus' horses and endless carousel of pretty women, the groaning dining-table, the immaculate manners, the little luxuries and careless opulence. The security of wealth, concealing the truth.

Marcel couldn't pinpoint exactly when he had decided he wanted to be turned. Even to this day, he couldn't remember.

And he had learned too late that there was a cost to being in the Original family, even once-removed as the adopted slave-boy turned surrogate-son, favourite plaything, chosen target, a mirror-image intended to flatter his father.

He had made a deal with the devil, without even realising it. But then, as a slave-boy he'd never gone to church; how was he supposed to know what the devil looked like? A wealthy European landowner with a vivacious sister and an elegant, patient older-brother, none of whom had looked at or treated him like he was anything but their equal.

Pets were cuter when they were little, though. He'd grown up far too quickly for Klaus' taste, and they had all butted heads. He rebelled against Klaus, sought Elijah's approval, hoped to earn Rebekah's forgiveness for choosing immortality over her.

He had known she would always be in his life, regardless of what he chose. And he knew that, still.

No matter how angry he was, Klaus could never kill his sister.

"Are you really going to stand against me? And not with that pathetic blade, you just have to pull it out some day," Klaus crowed, eyeing him disdainfully, smug in his assessment of Elijah's choices. The only paths he had forwards. One or the other, the stake or the blade. Klaus or Rebekah.

Elijah had no intention of losing either. If one or the other had to suffer temporary discomfort to teach a lesson, so be it. Truth be told, he was wholly set on his siblings learning the new order of things.

In a moment of foolishness and forgetfulness, a shining moment of hope Rebekah had drawn Mikael the Destroyer to their home.

He could not blame Rebekah for calling their father to their city, the sanctuary they had built for themselves over centuries, all his meticulous efforts to conceal their whereabouts undone in a moment driven by fear and heartbreak and resentment. Rebekah had desired freedom – the freedom to indulge in her own whims and pay the consequences herself, not have every opportunity snatched from her – to love, to know peace, to grow. People grew from grief, and they grew from joy; he and Rebekah were both pieced together by fragments of broken hearts and shattered souls – a modern concept, the soul, rooted in Christianity and other such religions. As a devout pagan Elijah had had no concept, no education in souls until they had fled Mikael to medieval Europe. But soul fit perfectly, his concept of self and everything that made up who he was, distilled into one tiny, enormous word.

Until a few days ago – hours, really – he had thought back upon his time with Celeste and grieved the same way Rebekah grieved for her lost lovers, the ones Elijah had never stepped in and saved. Because she was his sister, and he adored her, and should have valued her happiness over placating his brother's volatile temper.

He had believed breaking Mother's spell binding his werewolf side dormant within him would release Klaus from…himself. His paranoia, his brutality, his manipulation – all skills he had acquired and finessed over the centuries. Murdering Mikael had only made Niklaus more himself than he had ever been – tyrannical, paranoid, vicious. To an extreme even Elijah marvelled at – and he had seen all Niklaus' worse tantrums.

Somewhere along the way, he could not say when it had started, Elijah had started enabling Niklaus' behaviour. Tiny things, little moments, had forged who Niklaus was, as much as any vicious war against their enemies. Little things, over centuries, had created the monster before him. Paranoid, vicious, self-loathing, and entrenched in the ways and behaviour of a world long eclipsed by something more elegant. Every time he bit his tongue and did not reprimand Niklaus his behaviour, tell his siblings that enough was enough, that they were vampires, they were not monsters…

He remembered telling Rebekah that Esther had made them into vampires. She had not made them into monsters; they had done that to themselves.

They were each responsible for the greatest faults in each other. Niklaus' pathological need to be the centre of attention and in control; Rebekah's desperation to be loved, never forsaken; Elijah's ingrained sense of responsibility to set his own desires aside for others. For Niklaus. He had been conditioned to think of Niklaus first, always; just as Rebekah had been conditioned to fear the deaths of any lover she took, forever bound to the whims of a brother who brutalised her, and another who merely cuddled her as she wept after the fact, never stood in Niklaus' path protecting her.

No more.

Tiny moments had accumulated over centuries to create a warped version of his brother. A shell of his former self, unrecognisable as his brother. They had lost themselves a millennium ago. Elijah struggled to remember who he had been – struggled to remember his human life beyond the exhaustion and the slog of endless perseverance to fight against Nature and the Native clans and reap from the farm he and his family had built from nothing on land they had bought with blood.

One great event would shape the next millennium.

He was determined that after this night, Rebekah need never fear she did not have the freedom to make her own mistakes; Elijah…had resolved to consider himself more. There was unselfish, and there was giving so much that there was no self left to him. He dedicated himself to everyone but himself.

Elijah had hoped the child would trigger a reaction in Niklaus, a change in his behaviour, his priorities. He had tried to be gentle. Now he accepted that brutality was the only language Niklaus understood – and Elijah would no longer pull his punches. He refused.

For that child, he was willing to do whatever it took to ensure its life was a healthy, happy one, full of joy, and potential. To live, and grow, to be whoever they wished to be, to experience things without fear, to love. To live in a state of unfettered joy.

To grow up with an appreciation that people were not innately vicious, selfish, brutal, unforgiving, tyrannical. That people were what circumstance made them; he desired Hayley's child to grow up untainted by his family's cynicism.

And none of them was more cynical than Niklaus.

He saw the world as a reflection of himself. Small wonder he lashed out at it so viciously.

Elijah sighed and eyed his brother, meticulously cataloguing Niklaus' stance, determining every move he could make, a chess match neither of them could win.

"Then I'd hate you as I do her, no…if you want to protect Rebekah, you'll need to use the white-oak stake," Niklaus smirked. "Don't pretend you haven't thought about it."

Elijah tossed the stake aside, out of sight, exhaling softly. "Two years ago I held your heart in my hand, Niklaus. Rumours of our siblings being cast into the oceans where they could never be found, lovers taken by you to punish me, Rebekah's heart endlessly devastated by your cruelty, of course, Niklaus, I have considered it," he murmured, never looking away from his brother's eye. "But I am not so cowardly that I must kill you. Nor do I believe you are worth an immediate death. Your endless tormented existence is our revenge; and no longer shall I allow you to punish us for your own shortcomings, everything you loathe about yourself, everything you fear, everything you cannot acquire through manipulation or force – no longer shall I allow you to take from us our joy, our love. Our family. Finn and Kol are gone. I shall never see my father again. Esther is gone. You will not destroy my sister."

"Well, she's always been your favourite, hasn't she?" Niklaus wheedled nastily. "Your darling Rebekah. Yes, the two of you, cuddled away with your music and your bourbon and your secrets."

"Your greatest, constant champion has abandoned you. Your cruelty has pushed Rebekah away forever," Elijah said smugly. "Sometimes our sister acts without thinking. She's short of temper, quick to fall in love. And your ceaseless malice has broken her heart more times than I can count. Coaxing Mikael here was centuries in the making – and of your making, Niklaus. I do not blame her."

"I do."

"I would never kill you, Niklaus. Do not twist this my defence of our sister into an attack upon you, that you may nurture your rage and justify you cruelty toward us," Elijah warned quietly. "I do not wish you dead, however, if you must suffer that I may protect this family, brother…then so be it."

"You have shown your cards too early, brother. I knew you had always allied to conspire against me; and here it is, you show yourself to be complicit in Rebekah's machinations against me, conspiring my death," Klaus growled, his eyes bulging madly with his self-righteous, delusional anger.

"I do wish you could hear yourself, brother," Elijah sighed, tired of Niklaus' inability to listen – to truly hear uncomfortable truths he rejected out of paranoia, self-loathing and loneliness – all self-imposed, he would add. "Rebekah alone has stood by your side for a millennium, despite everything you have inflicted upon her – you take delight in punishing us for our loyalty. Is it small wonder she decided to take action to prevent you doing so again? She wished for the freedom you constantly denied her – she still wishes for her freedom. A life of her own. I will not allow you to overlook the fact you bartered her one opportunity for a family, for love, because you were frightened of a little witch. Silas' cure was Rebekah's hope – you destroyed it. And for what – a human doppelgänger whose blood was ruined for use to turn hybrids!"

"I may not be able to turn hybrids," Niklaus said silkily, dangerously, a smirk on his lips, "but I can create them."

"And after tonight do you believe Hayley would allow you to have the slightest involvement with her child?" Elijah asked tartly, and Niklaus' jaw bulged in a petulant glower. "Your vile schemes brought about the creation of that baby by accident; your continued behaviour denies you any chance of knowing your child. I will not step aside and allow you to ruin that baby the way you treat our sister. I will not see you destroy Hayley to get to the child."

"And there it is – the truth of all things. You would conspire with Rebekah to be rid of me. To take my city, my kingdom, to take my place by Hayley's side, have my child call you father –"

"Niklaus, you do not stand anywhere near Hayley's side, and her child shall call me Uncle," Elijah sighed, shaking his head. "Nor do I conspire against you. Mikael is dead. Here we are, in the city we love, a city you set to destroy the moment you saw another had built what you could never dream of. We are alive; Marcel is as good a man as I had always dared hope he might become; the city has been rebuilt; our family, which I had once feared would continue to be hunted, shall expand. The rest does not interest me. I do not condone our sister's drawing Mikael to us. But neither can I condemn her for it."

"I can," Niklaus smirked. "She betrayed us."

"Now you know how it feels," a voice said, and Elijah sighed at the intrusion. He knew she had been listening to every word, she was too well-trained to listen in should she need a head-start, and flee to safety until the danger passed. Rebekah evaded the storm; Elijah withstood it. They rebuilt what they could after the fact, together, and though they knew they grieved, were struck with inconsolable pain, neither mentioned it. It was mutual, accepted, ignored. Until now. Now a thousand years of abuse resurfaced; how dare Niklaus point the finger of betrayal when he had acted selfishly and with calculated cruelty toward them? Alexandre, Émile, Katerina, and Céleste – barely a handful of the lovers Niklaus had destroyed out of pure spite over the centuries. Elijah did not have many other lovers or friends he had allowed himself to become close to, in the knowledge Niklaus would engineer their destruction had he ever become threatened by their importance in his life; but Rebekah had. Her life was a rich tapestry woven of great joy – and crippling heartbreak, devastation. Great stretches of it were woven plain, where she had spent so much time daggered in a box at Klaus' whim.

He did not forget that Niklaus had lied about Esther's fate, binding them to a promise based on his treachery. He did not forgive that Niklaus denied Katerina her freedom, and his freedom to love her. He did not forget that Niklaus went out of his way to deny Rebekah her chance at true joy, when he gained nothing but a respite from torment for it. He had endured far worse than Silas over the centuries. Niklaus refused Rebekah her joy; and now he had fathered a child he had no wish to acknowledge, with a woman he sneered at and remained impassive about.

"Come to finish what you started a century ago?" Klaus quipped snidely. Rebekah stood, the silvery remnants of Alaric Saltzman's ring glinting in the moonlight, behind their brother, her features calm, almost gentle. But the threat was there in her hands, and Elijah held Papa Tunde's Dark blade, ready to sink it into Niklaus' chest should he make a move to remove the stake from Rebekah's hands.

"I started? I!" Rebekah's eyes flared with indignation. "You have twisted truths to suit your own ends for a thousand years, brother, but even you cannot rewrite history. I did not systematically murder anyone who brought you a speck of joy in an interminable lifetime of terror and isolation. It was not I who callously destroyed everything his family ever built – everyone they adored."

"So you admit it - you invited Mikael to destroy me."

"Listen to yourself! You drove me to betray you. And now you want to twist it and make it worse to justify killing me instead of accepting your own fault. All I did was love your friend. You could've been happy for us," Rebekah said softly, almost tearful, but there was a bite, her innate stubbornness, foolish strength. "But instead, in your paranoia, you feared losing us both. And because of that, you did… There is no-one else to blame, Nik. Only you. And look. Look at you. Threatening our brother, his only insurance against your cruelty the blade forged by enemies who waited centuries to exact their revenge on you. Celeste – the woman Elijah loved. You told the humans she had been sacrificing children to Satan. Papa Tunde – you butchered his sons, made certain their severed heads were the last thing he ever saw before you gouged out his eyes. You destroyed a wonderful thing Marcel had built in our home, something we could never have dreamed of creating – and you knew that, and you were jealous, and you ruined it." Tears of frustration glittered in Rebekah's eyes. "I hope you've realised by now, brother. He has already won. You tried to raise Marcellus in your image and he shines so brightly he casts you into shadow. And you punish Elijah, and keep him from taking anything for himself, because you know he could, too, with ease. And you resent and envy them for it. I don't know why you punish me for seeking joy, Niklaus. And I refused to let Marcel pay the price for our happiness."

"It was your cruelty that led Rebekah to do what she did," Elijah said quietly, glancing past Niklaus to their sister, hair glimmering in the moonlight. He had seen the same expression on her face a thousand times – more. Grief and frustration and devastation and loneliness and rage and betrayal, all mixed together in a torrent she had no way of shirking, or avoiding; they had both learned to endure the pain, with no hope of fighting or deflecting it, no opportunity to unleash it, make it right, take their revenge.

"Do you not see, Elijah? She didn't mean to chase em off. She wanted me dead."

"You're wrong."

"She has always hated me. You know that's true."

"You are raving. And rewriting history to justify your cruelty – as you have always done," Elijah said, bored with his brother's insane ramblings.

"Are you hurt, brother?" Rebekah asked, her eyes flitting to Elijah, to the blood soaking his white shirt, but only for a split-second; she did not dare take her eyes of Niklaus, eyeing him warily like a snake poised to strike. And he would use any distraction to launch his attack. They knew his methods.

"The Dark magic in this blade has weakened me," Elijah admitted, "however the pain is nothing more than what I have experienced in the past." He did not admit the entire truth; that though the physical agony was comparable to any torture he had endured throughout the centuries, it was the emotional torment that would have broken him. The blade used Dark magic to turn every black moment of his life against him – his own dark thoughts, his worst memories, his fears and flaws, compounded by his helplessness, his bitter desire for revenge and unable to take it, reliving the worst things he had ever done to another, sometimes as himself, sometimes through the eyes of his victims – it was a glorious weapon, he had to admit. To force the victim to reassess from different angles their own failings, and their behaviour toward others. The memories that shaped who they were, and the actions they had taken against others to mould their characters too. He had had the blade embedded in his chest for mere hours, but it had felt like a lifetime.

"I shall decide who lives and dies this night," Rebekah said coolly. "I should kill you, for forcing Elijah to suffer. You have not taken enough from him already?"

"You against me?" Klaus crowed. "It's hardly a fair fight, is it?" He smirked disdainfully, condescendingly. "I mean, perhaps if Marcel were here, you'd stand a chance, but I expect he's already found another girl, no doubt younger and prettier."

"You take joy in other people's pain, and then you wonder why I hate you!" Rebekah hissed.

"Yes, and that hatred led you to do what you did. Admit the truth! Admit you wanted me dead!"

"You're insane!"

"Yes! Yes!" Klaus shouted, and he did truly sound as if he had lost his mind – the same way he sounded every time he had one of his little tantrums. Elijah would never tolerate another after tonight. "I am a vicious, heartless monster, and so you summoned Mikael to kill me. Admit it!"

"It's not true!"

"You know what you did! Admit it!"

"I did not wish you dead, Nik, only gone!" Rebekah shouted, her eyes sparkling. "I wanted you gone that I could enjoy my life without you threatening me, looming over me as you do now, vicious and cruel and unrepentant, refusing to acknowledge that the worst man, the worst villain I would ever have to endure is you! You stuck me in a box for fifty-two years because I fell in love with Marcel – not three years after we fled this city you stuck a dagger in my heart and erased me from Stefan's memory – you erased me, you erased our past, our future, you stole his love. I awakened and it was you who abandoned me in Mystic Falls when Damon Salvatore told you Mikael had found us! Left me, after punishing me for choosing to leave you behind. And when they conspired to kill you, I had that little bitch Elena dagger me in the back because she knew I could never be relied upon to let you die. Even when Mikael was dead you kept us in boxes – you feared I would learn your secret about Mother. You daggered me so you could chase after Silas' cure, you let that bitch murder our brothers for your own selfish need to possess the Cure you didn't even want, you denied me a family! All I had ever wanted for a thousand years! You denied my right to mourn our brother; you stole my right to a family of my own. You betrayed us, let us believe you dead only so you could survive Alaric Saltzman. You cared more about a bloody doppelgänger and your hybrids than you have ever cared about your own family, it's no wonder they would rather have turned a thousand times than be enslaved in unquestioning loyalty to you!" Rebekah was shrieking now, her eyes sparkling with tears, and Elijah subtly moved closer, aware this was the moment Klaus would use to his advantage; when Rebekah let emotion overcome her. "You murdered Tyler's mother – a mother who loved her son unconditionally, just as Mother once loved you – before you ripped the beating heart from her chest! My mother – everything she did to harm us on her return was your doing. You murdered Mother and she was forced to watch you abuse us for a millennium, turning us against our own father, turning us into shells of the people we were. And we were good people, once. A thousand years with you…look at us. Look what you've done. Calling Mikael to this city was nothing to what you have done to us over the centuries. You feared Mikael. We live in constant dread of you. Mikael was my father for nineteen years. You have been my brother for well over a thousand. Mikael did not ruin us; you did. You cannot blame him for something that happened a thousand years ago, in another life; everything you have done the last thousand years has made you who you are. And in the thousand years since we were free of him, you have become more villain than Father ever was."

Klaus roared.

The white-oak stake sank into Rebekah's heart, cutting her scream short.

Elijah watched, horrified, unable to move, as Rebekah's desiccating body fell heavily to the ground. The silvered stake glinted in the moonlight, and a sudden silence rang through the cemetery, unbearable, absolute. Klaus panted with rage, looming over Rebekah, the seconds ticking by as Elijah noted that flames did not envelope his sister, as they had Finn, as they had Kol. A breath startled from his lips, as if being doused with cold-water and waking from a gripping nightmare. He stared down at Rebekah with growing realisation.

His eyes darted up to Elijah's face. "Brother – I did not – "

Papa Tunde's blade sank into Klaus' heart before his brother could finish.

Rebekah had not burst into flames. His eyes burning, Elijah clambered over his brother's prone form to grasp the white-oak stake and pull it from Rebekah's heart. Stained with her blood, and his brother's blood, Elijah swallowed the nausea churning in his stomach, bubbling in his throat, burning his eyes, and jostled Rebekah, trying to wake her. He bit his wrist, squeezed a spray of blood into her wound, and knelt beside her, panting with terror.

With a relief more tangible than Rebekah cuddled in his arms, he watched the dark veins in Rebekah's skin disappear as she plumped, a natural glow returning to her fair skin. He groaned in relief, bit his wrist again, and forced it into her mouth, sighing with relief when she latched on to him, feebly at first, then greedily. He held her tight as she suckled him, her fangs keeping his wound open as she drew fiercely, the heady sensation turning his world off-kilter, pure ecstasy. Connection. He would gladly sacrifice vitality to give her strength. And he held her close, shuddering from how close he had come to losing her forever. And Rebekah writhed against him, against the grown strewn with offerings, panting, as she sat, and slowly licked his wrist of every last drop of his blood as his skin knitted itself back together. She panted, hugged his arm between her breasts, dropped her brow against his, so their breath mingled and something stung his cheeks.

Rebekah.

"He killed me."

Elijah started to cry, and Rebekah's lower-lip trembled at the sight of him, and she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. Panting, shuddering with grief – with the potential for such devastating loss – he sat in the moonlit cemetery and wept, hugging his sister to him so tightly anyone but a thousand-year-old vampire would have been crushed. His sister, his Rebekah… Rebekah shook in his arms, but she held him as he wept, whispering sweetness and comfort to him, as he had every time she came to him in her devastation and grief.

"Ssshh…'Lijah," she breathed a sigh of relief as he quieted, face buried in her shoulder. She stroked his hair, and he could taste her tears on the sultry air. "Shhh… The stake did not kill me… He has not killed me, brother…" He took a shuddering breath and pulled himself together, slowly, though, releasing his vicelike grip on her, exhausted by that sudden, inconsolable, all-encompassing terror and grief and love that hit him harder than a freight-train. Seeing that stake pierce Rebekah's heart hurt worse than any blade of Papa Tunde's. He shuddered an exhausted breath, depleted, and sat back, Rebekah's blue eyes glowing in the moonlight, tears staining her cheeks. She cradled his face in her hands, her lower lip trembling, and whispered, "Sshh…" before giving him a tender kiss. He saw remorse in her eyes, the most easily-read of them all. "I am so sorry, Elijah." Tears dripped down her cheeks, from her chin, splattering the top she wore, now ruined with a bloody tear, her undergarments beneath ruined.

He shook his head.

"When I brought Mikael here, I never for a second thought to hurt you," she whispered, and her relief was palpable when he smiled, shrugging it off. He had wondered how Mikael had found them. But now Father was dead. They were free from every tyrant but the very worst; their brother. He gave a watery smile, brushing off any physical harm he had endured; he would heal. And fleeing from New Orleans – from Rebekah and Niklaus – had been…freeing. In the last century he had had the freedom denied Rebekah; the freedom to love, and grow. To re-examine who he was outside the warped co-dependency of his family. He would not give back the last century for the world. In smoking them out of their foxhole, Mikael had given Elijah an opportunity.

Now he would give Rebekah that same chance she deserved, had more than earned.

"I know," he smiled, and relief softened her features. A gasping shudder drew her glistening eyes away, and Elijah glanced to his side; Klaus lay on the ground, senseless to anything but his own torment, Papa Tunde's blade embedded in his heart, Dark magic turning his own memories, his own soul, into a weapon against him. The white oak stake glittered silver in the moonlight, stained by Kol and Rebekah's blood. Rebekah's eyes lingered on it.

"It didn't work… The white-oak stake. Why didn't it work, Elijah?" She glanced at him, and Elijah caught her eye; her lips parted. "You knew it would not?"

"I wished to give Niklaus the option, of suffusing his own absurd rage rather than channelling it all into what he does best; punishing his family," Elijah said dully. "He must learn, Rebekah. His actions have consequences; I will no longer tolerate his behaviour. I will not stand aside and allow him to continue as he has… We each have needed to be broken of our old habits. Niklaus' rage and paranoia and cruelty; my indulging him it, taking nothing for myself for fear of his consequences…"

"My misplaced trust," Rebekah said softly. "Being such a fool!"

"You make foolish choices sometimes, Rebekah," he said softly. "You are not a fool. Sometimes I believe you are the strongest of us. Forever unafraid to seek joy in spite of the consequences."

"I am not unafraid, Elijah," Rebekah said softly, giving Klaus an angry look as he shuddered. "I refuse to let him win. I fight… Every waking day I fight…and I lose."

"No more," Elijah said, delicately lifting her chin with his curled finger. "Too long have I disappointed you, sister."

"You could never disappoint me, Elijah," Rebekah said, smiling, and the smile was sweet and sad at the same time. "My lovely brother… I don't know where I'd be without you." She cast the white-oak stake a scornful look, and it gentled as she turned her blue eyes on him, her expression deflating, sad, glittering, aghast. She had almost died. Been condemned to a life lingering on the Other Side, alone, endless.

"I will no longer tolerate Niklaus' behaviour toward us, or any other," Elijah vowed, his expression drawing Rebekah's gaze, and she took his word for what it was. His oath. His new promise. Overriding the one manipulated from them out of Niklaus' falsehood, stripping them of their lives, their freedom, their dignity, the very stuff of which they had once been made: fierce loyalty, determination, resourcefulness, kindness, strong family ties. "Tonight was the last night, this the last attempt he ever makes to harm one of us. Always and forever I will put our family before our brother's needs."

"You, me, the baby," Rebekah smiled softly. "Hayley, if she'll allow it."

"Marcel," Elijah said softly. Angry as he was, he ignored the niggling voice inside his head – Niklaus' – whispering poison about Marcel's motives and intentions. He would not start this new chapter of their lives by emulating Klaus' behaviour. He was not his brother.

Rebekah's eyes flitted to his face. "He was our family, once, before he was ever your lover, dear sister."

"I know you regretted not allowing yourself a greater influence on his upbringing," Rebekah sighed. "He often spoke of it, angry you abandoned your role as tutor. Left him to our brother."

"I did it, to protect him from our brother," Elijah mumbled, his heart squeezing painfully.

"I know," Rebekah smiled sweetly. "One day I think Marcel will accept that truth, too. He's still too hurt you abandoned him, even though it was for his own good… And speaking of that… You wanted Niklaus to try and kill me with the stake. But you knew he couldn't kill me."

The most exhausting part of Niklaus' personality was his being so utterly predictable. He had intended to and did kill Rebekah with the white-oak stake. And, because he was the big-brother, and he loved his sister more than he yearned for Niklaus' happiness, he had thought twelve steps ahead, intending to protect Rebekah at the cost of his own life. Then perhaps Niklaus might learn his lesson.

But Anise Lavalière had ensured that in spite of Niklaus' intentions, none of had ended up on their funeral pyre tonight. Intending to ensure their safety, she had unknowingly levelled the playing-field for the first time in centuries.

"Niklaus refuses to amend his behaviour; as I said, we each had to be brutally broken of our old habits," Elijah said. Watching Niklaus finally sink that white-oak stake into his beloved sister's heart, though he had known it was coming and had gladly accepted the help of a young witch to ensure Rebekah would come to no harm, was the final straw. It was the last weakened, frayed link tying him to whatever warped co-dependence, blind brotherly loyalty he had to Klaus.

Rebekah's death was the only thing that could ever have ensured Elijah turned his back utterly on his vow.

The idea that Klaus could do such a thing to their sister, who had stood by his side for a thousand years…his stomach churned at the idea of what he could do to the child tucked safely in Hayley's womb.

Elijah had a new vow, now, and he made it only to himself. No-one but he himself could ever hold himself to it, and if he ever failed, his shame would ensure it never happened a second time. He would not turn his back on Niklaus entirely; he was their brother. But no longer would Niklaus be the only one who benefited from their vow.

He would ensure the safety and happiness of his family. Rebekah, Hayley, the baby. And himself.

Elijah planned to follow his baby-sister's example, and chase joy. Whatever form it took, he wished to luxuriate in it. Selfish as it was, he wished to indulge in unfettered rapture. To strive for things, to build, to create something worthy of what he knew he was capable of, had held himself back from pursuing out of the deference that had been trained into him over the centuries by Niklaus' cruelty.

He wished to shed that ingrained habit of…holding himself back. Not striving for things, not living as the man he knew he could be. Allowing Niklaus to override every attempt he made to create something for himself. He was to be an uncle soon, and Hayley had set a precedent for their involvement. He wished to be…worthy of that child. He wanted to be the example they looked up to, the uncle they loved, confided in, admired. He wished to set an example.

With a wry smile, he hoped Marcel could teach him how. Even as a boy, even as a brutalised slave, he had had such a natural rapport with people, even complete strangers; he built strong friendships very quickly, and they lasted. He had almost envied the boy's natural camaraderie, his…earnest friendship, his integrity.

Small wonder Rebekah had fallen in love with the man Marcel had grown into. Everything good they wished to be themselves, denied them by circumstance and by Niklaus' constant cruelty. They had taken the clay and formed something marvellous; and that creature had developed a mind of his own, and bested them.

"How did you know the stake wouldn't kill me?"

Elijah exhaled a sigh. "Anise Lavalière's sense of decency."

"That Harvest witch who killed Céleste?" Rebekah blinked. "Why would she murder a witch and help the Originals?"

"Perhaps Miss Lavalière believes in balance, over power and vengeance?" Elijah pondered, troubled that Anise said she had been watching them, but impressed she had taken the initiative to spy without consequence from the Other Side. "She executed a traitor, and protected us from a tyrant."

"Why would she do that?"

"Kindness."

A.N.: I just love Elijah. I really do. And I love his and Rebekah's relationship, though I wish they would've explored it outside of their connection with Klaus. They're the only two siblings who genuinely adore each other! Oh, also, didja like that bit about Davina?