Not even going to pretend I know why it's been two years...but here's chapter three! It's been written for a while, I'm not super thrilled with it, but I hope you guys enjoy it!

Anika felt like she spent the next few days on the phone. Alaric was cured, Damon was pining over Elena, they had Tripp tied up, Caroline's mom was a hostage for a bit, Damon crashed a party Elena was attending to end the aforementioned pining, and Tripp was killed by Enzo but the Sheriff was rescued. The boys then went on a road trip, quizzed her all about prison worlds, and Damon tried to convince her that she should really give chili a try for Thanksgiving. She had politely declined, but had been intrigued when they started talking about freeing Bonnie from a prison world now that their first attempt with Liv had failed. She'd been checking in with Liz, Caroline's mom, every few days, and felt the need to go back when the woman described the further drama that had unfolded from Thanksgiving to the start of February. Then a week later, Damon called to share the news: Liz Forbes was dead.

They were across the country, but Anika had to go back.

Rebekah, of course, thought she was crazy. "We just left Mystic Falls six weeks ago, and you want to go back? Won't that piss Matt off?"

Anika shrugged, "Only if he finds out."

"You two are in a weird place for a supposedly happy couple." Rebekah growled, but turned the car around, "Hope, your Auntie Ani is crazy."

Anika was relieved when they made the drive back to Mystic Falls less than a week later, a few days after Liz's funeral. In those few days, a lunatic witch named Kai had been released from the prison world, Bonnie had managed to free herself, and Caroline had flipped her humanity switch. Rebekah had done her best to keep them far apart, sequestering her at the Salvatore Manor where Damon spent some time making crude jokes about her being so pregnant. And then Bonnie and Kai ended up in the Salvatore living room.

Kai was staring at Hope, "She's a cutie, much cuter than any of my younger siblings were."

Anika didn't even look up from the poultice she was making, "You even think about touching her, and her lunatic murderer of a father won't even register on your list of problems."

Rebekah snorted, "At least you admit he's a lunatic."

Anika stilled her hands and threw a smile at her sister, "Of course he is, aren't we all?"

Rebekah shrugged in agreement, "Nik takes the cake though." She eyed Kai, "It would be kind of fun to see him tear in to this little boy though."

Kai looked between them and Damon in horror, "Where the hell did you find these two freaks?"

Damon slung an arm around Anika's shoulders, "Not sure it's a case of who found who, but, besides Bonnie, Anika here is the only woman who likes this beautiful face and charming personality and hasn't slept with it. She likes blondes. Total bummer." He sniffed dramatically, "We would have made beautiful babies."

Anika rolled her eyes, gesturing to her extended stomach, "You're impossible. And a few months too late, obviously."

Bonnie stalked in with a large knife in her hands, followed closely by Elena. Anika held out the bowl she'd been working with to Bonnie, "Here, this should help your magics work together with less friction, reduce the load on you both."

Bonnie smiled tightly, "Thanks."

A few minutes later, Rebekah and Anika were alone with their niece. Rebekah sighed heavily, "Well, while you sit and wait, I'm going to take this pitstop on our sisterly road trip to partake in some of the Salvatore brother's fabulous alcohol collection."

They'd settled in to watch a movie with Hope gnawing on a toy block between them when the room suddenly seemed way too full.

Anika's eyes flicked from person to person:

Bonnie.

Elena.

Damon.

Damon's mother.

And…another male.

Rebekah had Hope in Anika's arms in a split second, and had whisked them to the far side of the room. She had the strange man pinned against the wall, eyes cut to Damon, "Who the bloody hell is this?"

"Who the hell knows, he just jumped our ride out!" Damon yelled, looking to his distraught and confused mother, "Is this pshyco one of yours?"

Lily Salvatore shook her head, "No, I've never seen him before. He's not one of my family."

A drop of blood dripped slowly from Bonnie's nose. Veins popped out beside Lily's eyes, and the man being held by Rebekah had the same response. Rebekah started adding pressure on his throat, hissing, "Who are you?"

Rebekah froze when Anika's voice croaked out, "Stop, Beka."

The vampire was staring at Anika, not her, not Bonnie and her bleeding nose, and tears were in Anika's eyes as she tucked Hope into her carseat with shaking hands. The vampire dropped to his knees, effectively breaking Rebekah's hold on him as he whispered hoarsely, "Nika? Kak?"

Anika nodded, flinging herself across the room at the man, "Ambi!" Rebekah watched in horror as Anika peppered kisses on his face before pulling his head to her chest while they both sobbed.

The man was positively clutching at Anika's cardigan, just like a little boy would. Anika soothed him the same way she did Hope, stroking her fingers through his tangled dark hair and speaking softly in their native tongue. "Oh, love, I'm here."

"Nika." He whispered into her shoulder, over and over again.

"You're okay. You'll never be alone again. I'll see to that." Anika said firmly

"Anika, who the bloody hell is this?" Rebekah snapped, grabbing Anika's arm and tugging her back.

Anika refused to take her eyes off the man, reaching towards him, "Beka, it's okay. You know him too, from a long, long time ago. Look at him. Really look."

"What?" Rebekah said, aghast, staring at him, her grip on Anika slipping as her vague human memories tugged at her, trying to place the face in front of her.

Anika threw her arms around his neck again, "Oh, Ambi, I thought you were dead and gone, sweet, sweet boy." He babbled in Russian, and she shook her head, pulling back, "I don't understand, Ambrose, please, English or uh... Norvezhskiy." She looked at her sister, panicked, "Beka, I don't know what he's saying. It's Russian, right? What is he saying?"

Rebekah blinked a couple of times, "He's telling you he loves you. I don't understand... Wait…" The memories and the name her sister was uttering clicked into place, "Ambrose?" She took a step back, "That's impossible."

"Okay, Blonde Power Twins, who is he? And how did he end up escaping a prison world with my damn mother?" Damon snapped.

"Everyone, this is Ambrose, son of Tatia." Anika hesitated, grimacing at her sister, "Truthfully, Elijah's son. Our nephew."

"What?" Those gathered shrieked, Rebekah's voice by far the loudest.

Anika sighed anxiously, rubbing her stomach where her son stirred, thrusting a limb into one of her ribs, "I didn't know until about ten months before I died. I'd confided in my brothers that I thought I was pregnant, and I'd gone to see Tatia as well. I surprised them. Ayana was there, and Ambrose was doing a spell."

"Trylleformular." He said, his deeply colored eyes blinking as he tried to follow the conversation in a language he'd only heard off and on for the last few years of his human life and the short months he'd been free as a vampire. The young witch he'd startled before he'd been tossed into the prison world had repeated the word 'spell' over and over enough times for him to make the connection.

Bonnie's eyes were latched on him, "He was a witch?"

Anika nodded, watching Damon steer his mother out of the room and Elena follow close behind, giving the witches space to air their family drama no doubt, "That's what gave him away as Elijah's son. We were the only family with magic besides your ancestor. Ayana and I barely spoke about it. Just that he needed the magic of others to work magic on his own."

Ambrose's eyes flicked down to Anika's rounded belly as if he was just now noticing the heartbeat within, and a look of amazement came to his face, "Unge?" (Young?)

Anika smiled, "Yes, Ambi."

"Rose." He replied, the 'r' rolling off his tongue.

Anika giggled, and Rebekah glared at her, "What?"

"Guess he's too old to be called Ambi any longer, or it was Ayana's doing to shroud his identity better." The witch replied. She stroked his cheek like a mother would a child, "I've grown out of Nika too, Rose."

Bonnie stared at Ambrose, "He still has magic."

Again, the blonde witch nodded, "He's a first born witch, he was incredibly powerful even as a child, more than I've ever been, more than any witch I've known." She turned to him again, "Kan jeg se?" (May I look?) He stared for a few seconds before nodding once. She looked over at Bonnie and explained, "I've been practicing my mind reading with Rebekah these last few weeks. Only works with physical contact and permission now, but that's more than the nothing I thought I'd been left with."

Anika settled onto the floor next to him where he'd truly yet to stand from, and gestured for him to come closer to her, simultaneously reaching out to take Rebekah's hand when her younger sister drew nearer. "May I?" Bonnie asked.

"You'll need to bring your own magic to help me carry the two of you, myself, and my baby into his mind." Anika told her. "Are you up for that?"

"I can do that. The spell took a lot out of me, but this should be fine." Bonnie replied, intent on figuring out how Anika used her magic so organically, like it was an extension of herself and only rarely using actual spells.

"Here it goes then." Anika said, placing a dainty hand on Ambrose's stubbled cheek an instant before everything around them faded away:

"Ambrose!" Tatia shrieked, desperately searching for her newborn son. She entered the tent of the old witch Ayana and froze, speaking in Old Norse with a sharp voice that sounded wrong coming out of her lovely mouth, "What are you doing with my son, you old hag?"

Ayana smiled down at the infant boy, "He's strong, Tatia, like his father. But Danil was never this gentle and he never had even a hint of magic."

"What do you know of my dead husband?" Tatia snapped, fingers trembling as she reached towards her child, her beautiful face pale.

The little boy seemed unconcerned, reaching his tiny hands blindly out to grasp the ends of one of Ayana's long thick braids. Ayana laughed softly, pulling her hair out of his grip, "Careful, child. Your life is in my hands. You'd do best not to anger me." Her words were meant for both mother and child, but she drew her old eyes up to Tatia, "Danil is not this child's father, pretty little whore. You bed one of Esther's sons. No one can blame you for lusting after any of those boys, carrying a child of theirs to term, but in doing so, you damned your child. If you speak of his parentage to anyone, you will lose him, Tatia."

"You would harm my son?" Tatia asked, voice trembling.

Ayana shook her head, looking back down at him, "No, I would like to teach him, to keep the secret and protect his life. No one else here must ever know he has magic, it betrays that he is not Danil's son, and that will bring about the end of his life. He must never call one of Esther Mikaelson's sons 'father'."

Tatia froze, a look of resigned horror on her face, "You mean I can never tell Elijah that my son is his?"

Ayana's eyes were cold as she looked at the young woman, "Never, Tatia. That boy can never know he is this child's father, no one can, not even our dear Anika."

"Ani wouldn't tell anyone." Tatia protested.

Ayana shook her head again, "Grief contorts us to the depths of our souls, Tatia, and Anika will know much grief through her life. She would not mean to, but she would tell your secret eventually, after so many years of secret keeping that you trusted her implicitly. This is a secret we must keep, the two of us alone. The child is best thinking that your role as a doppelgänger is the reason for his magic and that his father is dead."

"You wish me to lie to my son for his entire life. Is there no alternative?"

"No, the only other alternative is that you lose your son forever. We both know you would die before you saw harm come to him. You may have forsaken your marriage bed to create him, but your love for this child outshines all sins." Ayana told her, brushing a finger over Ambrose's pale cheek as he began to drift to sleep.

Tatia nodded, "I would die for him." She locked eyes with the witch, "I will die for him, won't I?"

A tight smile graced Ayana's face, "That's your choice, but the spirits indicate that your time is coming. Like the others of your kind who have come before you, you will not live to see your child become a man."

Tatia eased her son back into her arms, "Then I will do all I can to protect him while I'm living because he is my life. You will help me?"

"Yes, child, I've already started. I've cast a spell on him, for protection. So long as the secret holds, none who wish to harm him will be able to find him, and until he takes his last breath, his magic will be purely his own. Do as you're told, and your son will be safe from the evil that seeks his blood." Ayana told her gently, one hand on the young mother's arm, "Go, Anika will be looking for you soon, and she cannot find you here."

The scene faded into another one, again with Tatia's face panicked:

"Ambrose, my love, stay right here." Tatia told her child, now a boy of four or five.

"Mama!" He cried, reaching for her skirts.

Tatia pulled him off, "No, darling, you must stay here. Wait until I return. Please, be a good boy."

"Nika!" He screamed, and Tatia's face contorted in grief.

"She's gone, my love, she and Mathias are both gone. Ayana was right, grief destroyed your Auntie. She's gone and she won't come back to us." Tatia pulled the boy into her arms, breathing in his boyish scent, holding something close to his mouth and nose that made his vision swim as his mother whispered, "Darkness is coming, Ambrose. I must protect you from it."

"Tatia." Came a voice from outside the little house, the voice of Esther Mikaelson.

"I love you so much." Tatia whispered to her son, setting him down on the cot he slept upon, revealing that she'd used a bundle of herbs to put him to sleep, herbs from Anika's home. She composed herself and opened the door, "I just put Ambrose down for the night, what can I help you with, Esther?"

The vision faded again as Tatia left and Ambrose slipped completely out of consciousness, but when sight returned, it appeared to only be days later:

"Come, boy, bid your mother safe travels, we must be gone soon." Ayana snapped at the child who stood holding his mother's limp hand behind the Red Door.

"You will care for him?" Tatia whispered, her voice weak, wounds at her throat bleeding sluggishly.

"Yes." Ayana whispered, "As if he were my own. We will leave this place. Esther will not harm him. The evil will not find him. You can rest."

"I'm dying." Tatia said, her eyes unfocused.

"Yes." The witch whispered again, "Between your child's father and Esther, you have very little blood left." Indifference settled onto her face, "You will die shortly. There's nothing that can be done."

A delirious smile sat on Tatia's ashen face, "I shall see Anika again and Ambrose will be safe from those monsters, I shall take death with honor."

"The man you love still exists behind the monster, Tatia. I was wrong before. One day, he will know his son as you wished, Anika will make sure of that. The secret will be kept for a long time still though." Ayana spoke gently.

Tatia's smile grew even more mad, her face impossibly pale, "Two can keep a secret if one is dead."

The boy sniffled at her side, confused and too young for the words to make any sense to him. Ayana urged him closer with a non-too gentle hand, "Kiss your mother, boy. Your face should be the last she sees, one she loves will all her fickle heart."

Ambrose crawled to his mother's side and lay there until Tatia stopped breathing, her last gasped words, "I love you, Ambrose Elijahson, forever."

Ayana ignored his cries as she pulled him away from his mother's corpse. "Your grandmother will return soon, we must be far away. Should she find you, young master, she will wish to kill you, as she's already killed your mother and your aunt."

The next vision showed a much older Ambrose, a teenager rolling a ball of water between his long fingers idly, looking out a window that reflected his face for the voyeurs to see. Even then his resemblance to Elijah was unmistakable, and when he spoke, his voice held nearly the same timber as his father's:

"I want to go out, Ayana." He said in Russian, watching the snow fall, runes of power etched into the flesh of his arms, applied by Ayana to let him share in her magic now that her body was too old to sustain even the most simple of spells.

The witch, white haired and wrinkled, scowled at him from across the table, "No, Ambrose. We were not made for this kind of cold, you know that. I have not raised you for the last thirteen odd years to let you take a cold and die now."

He let the water slip through his fingers, the liquid pooling at the bottom of the bowl beneath his hands. "I could do a spell to keep warm, Ayana, as I always do. Why can I not go out today?" He asked, his tone petulant before he added softly, "Natalia relies on me to bring her and the others food. They could die if I don't help them."

"They won't die from one day without food, boy. You feed them well enough." Ayana told him, holding out a package out to him. "Happy birthday, Ambrose."

He stared at the package, obviously mystified at it's existence, "You've never given me a gift on my birthday before."

Ayana shrugged, "I'll be dead before the next one comes around. Open it, boy."

He opened the package with the flick of one finger, and pulled out a bundle of black leather, metal glinting in the light. "What is it?" He asked softly.

"It was your mothers. I spelled it larger for you, so you'll have to be careful not to put too much stress on it. You're a gentle boy though, just be mindful." Ayana explained, grimacing at a pain in her hip as she stood from their table.

Ambrose threw his arms around her neck, "Thank you, Ayana, thank you so much."

"Your father gave it to her as a courting gift, she wore it everyday until the day she died." She continued.

Ambrose visibly froze for a beat before pulling back, "You never talk about my father."

"If the secret dies with me it can't protect you. You are eighteen years old now, and I'm will not be around much longer. You've heard his name before, the last words on your mother's lips, in fact. Search your memories, boy." Ayana spoke the last as a command, and for several minutes Ambrose stood still, his eyes glazed over until tears started to fill them.

He blinked the tears away, "Elijah. My father's name is Elijah."

Ayana's features were tight, but she smiled at him, "There you have it. Go feed the girl child and her friends if you wish, but be back by dark. You really will catch your death if you stay out past then."

The vision skipped what appeared to be just a couple of months, water dripped sluggishly outside the window as Ambrose covered Ayana's body with a sheet, sobbing as he performed the traditional spells done after death for a witch of her standing.

It moved quickly, and Anika could feel that they were all becoming weary. Bonnie had already put herself through a lot for a single evening. They had to see it though, how Ambrose had become a vampire:

"I rather like this one, he's handsome." A female voice drawled in Old Norse. The blindfold was taken off his eyes, and a young woman looked back at him, an evil grin on her face, which had the dark lines around her face that denoted her as a vampire, "Oh, look, brother. They've marked him as a witch. That should be fun. He might make the whole room shake while we tear him apart."

Anika threw them out of the visions moments later when the unknown young woman and her brother started tearing into Ambrose. She stood quickly, muttering in Norse before rushing to the nearest trash can and vomiting.

I'd like to think all of this made sense...if it didn't, feel free to ask questions!

-Jenn