Elijah followed Damon through the foyer and toward the front parlor.
When he reached the threshold, he saw Damon standing just inside the doorway, looking down at his phone again.
"Damn it…" he muttered before putting the device back in his pocket and looking up to Elijah, "We've got a problem. Bonnie and Abby haven't gotten the lock-box open yet and I don't think they are going to anytime soon."
"Well, let's not panic. We've still got until dessert…" Elijah said, trailing off, his face suddenly going placid and his eyes focusing on something behind Damon.
"Elijah, I hate to burst your bubble, but if things keep going the way they are going, Klaus is going to kill Stefan and he's going to be our dessert. It looks like we are going to need a Plan B. I was thinking—"
But, suddenly, Damon realized that Elijah seemed to no longer be following the conversation.
"Elijah?" Damon asked as he narrowed his eyes and waved a hand in front of Elijah's face. He then snapped his fingers, but the original quickly grabbed hold of Damon's arm and lowered it.
"I'm one step ahead of you, Mr. Salvatore," Elijah said
And it was then that Damon followed Elijah's gaze and turned around.
When he did, he immediately saw two figures—men dressed in two different styles of period clothing—each standing at the head of their empty coffins like soldiers waiting for their orders.
"Damon, I would like you to meet my younger brothers," Elijah said with a smile, stepping forward and gesturing from what Damon would describe as a 15th century pirate, "Finn…" then to a young man in his early twenties dressed in casual clothing from the Victorian Era, "and Kol."
Damon studied two men for a moment, paying particular attention to the large blood stains on their shirts.
They had been daggered.
"Oh," Damon smirked, looking to Elijah as he slowly began to realize what the Original had done, "I like thisPlan B."
"I thought you might." Elijah replied then turned to his brothers, "Finn Rebekka ... hun vil forklare alt."
Finn stepped forward, placing a hand on Elijah's shoulder, then nodded back to Kol and they took off with vampire speed.
"What do you say Klaus?" Damon asked as he re-entered the room, a few minutes later, Elijah behind him, "It's time you put something on the table. We've made our offer and now you counter."
Elijah stood beside Niklaus as his brother took a seat in a chair at the dining room table, deep in thought.
After a moment, he spoke.
"I offer Elena's future happiness. You see, what she needs right now is to be rid of you lot and to fall in love with a human," he smirked, turning to Elijah, "maybe that nice football player?"
"Matt Donavan?" Damon asked, sharing a look with Stefan, before turning back to Klaus, "Really?"
"Yeah, why not? They'll marry, live a long and fruitful life and pop out a perfect family."
"And continue the Petrova bloodline," Stefan smiled, catching on to the rouse, "Every few hundred years, you'll have a new doppelganger to drain and never run out of hybrids, right Klaus?"
Klaus sat back in his chair, "Consider it a small return on my investment in her well-being. See after you hand me back the coffin, I'll ensure her safety for the rest of her natural life—you know it's what's best for her. So what do you say, Stefan? Do we have a deal?"
Elijah watched as Klaus removed himself from his chair and crossed the room to meet Stefan near the fireplace.
"What are you doing?" Damon asked his brother in a low voice as Stefan passed behind him.
Elijah knew his own brother thought he was playing the smart card, making the deal with the brother who currently had the least amount of investment in Elena's future.
But, he was wrong.
Stefan stepped forward and smiled as he took Klaus' hand.
And when Klaus smiled back, Stefan leaned forward.
"Nice try, Klaus," Stefan said, "but no deal."
Then it happened.
Before Elijah could move forward and stop him, Niklaus had broken Stefan's arm, then snapped his knee, forcing him to the ground. He then leaned him forward placing Stefan's hand in the flames of the fireplace.
Damon moved forward to help his brother, but Elijah stopped him.
Grabbing him with vampire speed and throwing him up against a nearby wall.
"What are you doing?" Damon asked under Elijah's grasp.
Saving your life, you idiot, Elijah thought, and showing loyalty to my own brother so that he doesn't find out our plan.
Stefan screamed louder as the flames burned his flesh, the smell causing Elijah and Damon to turn back.
Elijah released his grip and Damon stepped forward.
"Stop!" he yelled
"Now bring me my coffin before I burn him alive." Klaus said sternly to Damon, still holding Stefan in his grasp.
"I'll get it." Damon replied angrily, eyeing his younger brother, still writhing in pain on his knees near the fireplace.
Then, he knocked Elijah's shoulder as he passed and left the room—it was almost a signal to follow, but Elijah stayed still, his eyes focused on his own brother.
Damon had been right. Whatever was in that coffin had to be an extremely powerful weapon or something Niklaus feared greatly if he was willing to go to such lengths to get it back.
"Go with him brother," Niklaus suddenly said, "You keep him honest. When you return, I will make good on my promise and I will hand over our family."
Elijah continued staring at his brother for a moment.
He had seen that look on Niklaus' face before.
Not likely… he thought to himself
Then he turned and followed Damon out of the room, again.
Damon grabbed his jacket and made like he was heading for the front door, but after a turn over his shoulder confirmed that Klaus was still occupied with torturing his brother, he quickly moved back and with a nod, Elijah moved up the main staircase at vampire speed and Damon followed.
When they reached the second floor, Elijah made immediately for Rebekah's room and opened the door.
The sight hit him like a ton of bricks—something he hadn't seen in over four hundred years—his three younger sibling all together in the same room.
He smirked as Rebekah, Kol and Finn stood from where they were sitting and walked toward him, leaving a large quantity of blood bags on Rebekah's bed.
Rebekah and Finn watched as Kol stepped forward first and looped his upper arm in his brother's, giving him the traditional Nordic handshake.
"styrke og ære" Kol said with a nod
"mot og tapperhet" Elijah said with a smile, then pulled his brother in for a hug, "There's no need to stand on formality, little brother. I've missed you. I'm glad you're here."
Kol pulled back and returned the smile.
Finn stepped forward next and embraced Elijah.
"Elijah…it's been a long time," he said into his older brother's shoulder.
"Yes, it has. You need a shave my friend," Elijah teased as he took in his brother's appearance when Finn stepped back.
"Well, I see your style hasn't changed…much." Finn replied in good humor and they all laughed.
"I hate to break up this little family reunion," Damon interjected from the doorway, "But if we don't get down there in the next five minutes, my brother's going to be a 'Smore."
"He's right." Elijah said, looking to his brothers, "Now, I assume Rebekah has filled you in on the plan?"
Kol and Finn both nodded and Finn stepped forward again, pulling both of their silver daggers out from the back of his belt and handed them to Elijah.
Elijah took them then his eyes shifted to Rebekah.
"If it's all the same to you, Elijah," she said, brandishing her dagger with a mischievous smirk, "I'd like to hang on to mine."
Elijah smiled and looked back to Damon.
"Mr. Salvatore, would you be so kind as to ask one of the lovely ladies downstairs to come up? We are going to need an assistant."
As Elijah and Damon came down the stairs and crossed the foyer with a beautiful, compelled blonde bombshell in tow, they could hear Stefan still struggling under Klaus' grip.
"Kill me. I know you'll do it when he brings the coffin," Stefan said through gritted teeth, his hand still in the flames.
Damon and Elijah stop in the foyer and watch as Klaus pulls Stefan from the fireplace and roughly stands him up.
"You really have given up, haven't you, eh? Where's the fight?" he asked, studying Stefan with menacing eyes then pushes him, "Where's The Ripper?"
Stefan grunts and pushes back.
Elijah knows that he should move now, before a fight breaks out.
He signals to Damon to enter and then follows him.
Immediately, he has Niklaus' attention.
"Elijah," Niklaus said, studying his brother in confusion, his eyes shifting to Damon as Stefan steps aside, "Why haven't you left?"
"Well, where are your manners brother?" Elijah said, raising his arms in mocked confusion, the tall compelled blonde with a cloth covered silver platter coming to his side. He reached over and pulled the cloth.
"We forgot dessert," he said with a smirk as the cloth moved away and revealed two silver daggers—one from each of his brothers.
Niklaus recoiled immediately, stepping back.
"What have you done?" he asked
"What have you done?" Elijah countered, "You see, I've learned not to trust your vulgar promises Klaus. We're doing this on my terms now."
Suddenly, Elijah watched as Niklaus stepped back in horror as their youngest brother stepped through the threshold between Elijah and Damon, b-lining straight for him.
"Kol!—" Niklaus said, raising his hands and backing away
"Long time brother," Kol said with stormy eyes as he stopped in the center of the room.
Just as Elijah had predicted, Niklaus made for the daggers without hesitation, ready to re-dagger Kol, but he was quickly stopped when Finn arrived at Elijah's side with vampire speed and grabbed his Niklaus' right arm to stop him as he took the dagger for his own.
"Finn…don't..." Niklaus said in a trembled voice, somehow knowing what his brother was capable of, before Finn raised the dagger and stabbed his brother through the palm of his right hand.
Niklaus cried out in pain and when Finn pulled out blade, he immediately made for closest exit with vampire speed, but the doorway was blocked by someone moving quickly toward him.
"Rebekah…" Niklaus said in recognition
Rebekah's eyes flashed in anger and a smile crossed her face as she moved straight for him and stabbed Niklaus through the lower abdomen as he doubled over in pain.
"This is for our mother…" she said in a low voice next to his ear before pushing him off the dagger and back into the center of the room where Kol took him in a vice grip, pulling his arms behind his back.
Elijah didn't like violence, especially among his own family, in fact he abhorred it, but this wasn't just violence.
After a thousand years, hundreds of broken promises, divided loyalties, missing and daggered siblings and two dead parents and a dead fiancée, this was something else…it was justice.
Elijah was a noble man and didn't like to think of it as vengeance, justice was a better word, he thought of himself too honorable for revenge—it was what had steadied his hand from killing Niklaus for over nine centuries.
But, suddenly, his mind flashed to his father with him in the cave all those centuries ago after Niklaus killed their mother.
"Sometimes, Elijah, there is honor in revenge."
Elijah face hardened at the memory and he spoke directly to Damon without taking his eyes off of his siblings.
"You're free to go…" he said, walking past the Salvatore brothers and watching out of the corner of his eye as Damon led Stefan out of room.
Elijah came to Rebekah's side and faced Niklaus, who was still struggling in Kol's grasp.
"This is family business," he smirked.