"I'm beyond sorry Kol, I had no notion that she wasn't aware of your injury…" Rose whispered by the door while she glanced over to the woman frantically speaking on the phone.

"No one knew but now she is calling everyone." Kol knew exactly how this would pan out and he hated being rude but the doctor had been everything but subtle so he didn't restrain either. "Rose, I need to handle a family crisis at the moment."

She nodded leaving the house at once. "I really had no intention of causing such trouble."

"I'll call you tomorrow if I survive the family trial."

She smiled. "I'll offer you coffee so I can redeem myself..." she quickly left to her car and Kol stood there waiting for the first ones to arrive at the crime scene.

Nik met Rose's car on the way up to the driveway and gave Kol a scold as he held Caroline's door.

The blonde took Nik's arm and smiled warmly at Kol. "Why didn't tell you anyone?" she asked sweetly trying to ease what she knew was coming.

"It's not as bad as mother has pictured it." he kept his cool but Nik was still scolding him and they all turned to the other car arriving.

Elijah opened his arms appalled. "You were shot and the family wasn't informed? I'm filing a lawsuit against the United States Armed Forces!"

Kol didn't bother answering and turned his back on them going inside, he sat at the couch waiting for his public dispute.

Esther ended her call nervously facing her sons. "Finn is on his way."

They all sat down looking at Kol and he knew he had no easy way out of this one, honesty was required above all.

"My unit was ambushed and we were all caught by the rebels, when we got away I was shot because I was the one driving the vehicle that we used to escape. I woke up in a helicopter on the way to the nearest hospital and asked my Lieutenant to keep it a secret from home because chances were that I wouldn't make it alive..." he slowly looked at his mother that closed her eyes in sheer agony.

"How did you convince him to keep quiet after that?" Nik asked and Kol looked at him taken by the warmth in his voice, it was so rare to catch a glimpse of this side of Nik.

"He had been nagging me for months to join a special team he was assembling for a few missions under the radar so I agreed to be part of his team with one condition, what happened in there was to stay there."

There was movement by the front door and everyone looked at Finn and Sage that came in.

"How could you hide this from the family?" Finn asked at once and austerely while helping Sage with her coat.

"If this family wasn't so overbearing…" he started but went quiet fast because every one of his siblings started protesting and speaking at the same time.

Esther left the living room, she needed time to ease her tight chest and a little alcohol was always welcomed so she opened a bottle of wine.
Caroline smiled at her coming inside the kitchen.

"Wine dear?"

Caroline nodded taking her white long coat of, she sat by the infamous family place and approached the older woman warmly. "Kol really knows how to cause a good commotion."

"He has always been the one that plays with my heart." Esther rubbed her forehead tired.

"I think he was mostly worried of how you would all react to the news and he was trying to protect everyone."

"My reckless baby that spent his Sundays watching baseball was shot in the chest. This is the call that no mother wants to receive but I still should have known, he should have at least told me when he got back." Esther was sad and she sighed with sorrow into her deep red wine.

Caroline played with her bracelet. "I don't know how I would react if I got a call saying that Nik got hurt, I would have lost my North."

"That is why Finn and I are forbidding this one to go even near any career in the army, police or fire-fighter. If it depends on her parents she will become a nun." Sage said with her hands over her tummy, it made the other two women laugh.

"Have you chosen a name for the baby already?" Caroline asked with a big smile.

Sage dropped her head back. "We can't agree on any name." she looked at Esther who started cutting the perfect chocolate cake. "Finn is obsessed with names of flowers."

The information made Esther smile but her eyes went to Kol when he came into the kitchen and then out the door obviously on a mission.
Elijah followed him and Finn grabbed a couple of bottles smiling at his wife on the way out, Nik was in charge of the glasses and kissed Caroline before leaving the kitchen.

None of the women followed them, not even Esther.

The Mikaelsons had epic fights that in any other family would end with siblings not speaking to each other for days but the Mikaelson siblings always worked their issues over a bottle of wine and in the same place.
The tree house that Elijah and Finn built for Nik to cure his aversion for heights.

Over the years it became the family sacred place, where Finn had told the siblings he was proposing to Sage or where Elijah had opened all of his college applications and chosen Oxford with a tight heart for having to leave the family.
But through it all one thing remained, they always encouraged each other and the individual choices each one made.

Even when Kol gathered them at the tree house and informed them that he was now a soldier and leaving on tour to Afghanistan, everyone had been supportive.
Exactly why it was a big crime that he had hidden his near death experience from them, they weren't happy and he had some explaining to do.

Kol took his place dangling his legs from the wooden structure that had a view to the big garden.
He could see Rebekah arriving home from college and rushing to the tree, Nik helped her up to the house that meant little to her, as the youngest all she had been doing in here was giving her brothers the detailed description of her boyfriends and beg them not to scare them away, it rarely worked until Matt came along.

"Don't they teach you how to use the bullet proof vest at the army?" she asked Kol in that sassy upset tone of hers.

"They didn't have pictures and you know that I can't read." he joked while she pushed his shirt up to expose his scar.

"That looks nasty..." Finn said with a repulsed face.

"Are you all right there mate? You look a bit pale." Nik teased him, everyone knew how blood made Finn queasy.

"Did it hurt?" Rebekah asked enthralled with the healed wound.

"Not at all, I highly recommend it to those into the radical sports, it's a lot like paintball but with real bullets."

Rebekah rolled her eyes at him and trailed the scar from the operation with her finger, then she pursed her lips and punched his chest hard.

"Bekah!" he protested loudly.

She pushed the shirt down and faced him mad. "You almost died. Who would nag me to eternity and call me pathetic because I like reality shows if you were gone prick?"

"Don't be angry brat, I'm still here and I have already erased every Kardashian trace I could find, we are entertainment enough for you sister." he smiled sweetly which slowly relaxed her a bit.

Nik poured wine for her, Elijah took Nik's side and Finn took Kol's.
They all faced the garden quietly for a bit, it was like going back to a childhood that had been wonderful as soon as Mikael disappeared from their lives.

It was hard to explain how such a big family grew tight and close as they did and everyone had a quiet smile as they sipped on the family's income in appreciation for everything that bonded them throughout the years.

"I should have sent word of what happened." Kol admitted calmly.

"There are no secrets between us." Elijah reminded him as a father gently addressing a son's fault.

"If you had been honest from the start I would be having dinner with my sizzling girlfriend and her new amazing white dress." Nik pouted into his wine.

There was a joined chuckled as his priorities surfaced but it took everyone by surprise that Elijah joined his brother's pout.

"I was going to have dinner with April tonight." he had his wine ignoring all the heads that turned to face him.

"You finally asked her out?" Kol asked stunned that he actually took action.

Elijah smiled. "We had a bit of a celebration to do so I asked for her company and she said yes."

Nik was impressed and raised his glass. "Cheers to that."

They all raised their glasses but Kol was himself. "Tomorrow morning just grab the girl and kiss her already, skip dinner and all those trivial things that women fancy."

Rebekah grinned. "Yeah Elijah, show her how manly and rough you are under that outrageously expensive suit."

"Release the beast in you." Nik joined the mockery looking at Elijah with a defying smile.

If a look was enough to set them all on fire, they would all be in high flames under Elijah's disapproving glare.

"Can we not talk about sex?" The voice by the other end of the line complained.

They all laughed and this time even Elijah joined in.

Finn refilled his glass generously. "Sage won't even let me near her, I'm seriously losing it."

The laughter was bigger because of the doomed look on his face.

"Have you told Bonnie yet about the new Frankenstein look going on in your chest?" Nik asked Kol in a cheery way.

"Subtle Nik…" Kol frowned and touched his chest in disapproval for the harsh banter. "But yes, I told her before we got on the plane to LA."

They all threw their hands in the air in perfect sync.

"What?" he asked slowly.

"Of course she would find out before us." Rebekah said with a grudge.

"I kissed her." he told his siblings that looked at him expectant for the rest, he looked at the ground and then shrugged. "And then she rejected me and said she was going to marry Detective Loser anyway."

Elijah stared into his wine, he wished he could tell Kol about the new case storming ahead and that involved Martin's name but he couldn't yet.

"At least you kissed her." Finn said without excitement.

"You need help Finn…" Kol raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"Are you going to give up?" Rebekah asked taking the bottle from Nik.

"Bite your tongue Bekah, it's rude to point out things that I'm incapable of."

"It was probably a startle for sweet Bonnie to find out that you were looking at her with a fresh new set of eyes." Elijah smiled encouragingly at Kol. "But us the Mikaelsons don't ever give up."

They all raised their glasses and cheered, that was the true family way.

"She said that she loved me so I know that she is only frightened that I'm not serious about her."

"Are you capable of being serious?" Finn asked like he was just now arriving to the conversation.

"Yes I am… oh horny one."

"I'm not horny… I'm just deeply frustrated." Finn corrected him.

Kol smiled and looked at the rest of the people he couldn't live without. "Am I forgiven?"

Rebekah shook her head fiercely. "You are guilty and charged with treason, your sentence is to stay in this house forever and never leave the family again."

He gave her a big adorable smile, so exclusive to him and laced an arm around her. "All right."

She rested her head on his shoulder and playfully kicked Nik's shoes.


Bonnie wrapped ice around a towel and gently pressed it against his bleeding eyebrow. "I still don't understand how someone just assaulted you outside my building and you haven't called it in."

"It was just some punk mad that he got a warning over his parking in a restricted area." Luka said taking the ice from her hand.

"So you have his license number..." she insisted on it which ticked him off.

"Just let it go Bonnie." he snapped.

"I just don't understand why you are not doing anything about this."

He could read the suspicion in her, he had arrived shortly after the cocky Mikaelson left but he wasn't about to play victim to the other one, he would personally handle him and demand blood for the little stunt. "Drop it Bonnie, everything is ok." he said looking at her as he stood up. "No, actually not everything is ok."

She looked puzzled and slightly pulled her cardigan closer to her body.

"We need to set a date, I'm tired of waiting to get married to you." he said determined and refusing to back down.

"I thought we agreed on waiting until I had Haven back on track." she instantly went to the same excuse she kept giving him.

He chuckled pressing his wound with the ice. "It's obvious that that place will take a while to get any kind of stability and I'm tired of being taken for a fool."

She nervously touched the collar of her jacket. "No one is playing you Luka."

"The guys at the precinct say that you're just stringing me along because you like having someone warming your feet at night…" he smiled and came near her to cup her fragile features. "… but I know that's not true, I know that you love me." he stroked her soft almond skin. "Right?"

His voice was sweet like when she first met him.
On the day that an angry husband caused havoc on the shelter, Luka was called to the scene and instantly flirted with her.

That she had a type, took a long time to admit but that she always fell for the protective ones took her longer to admit.
It wasn't easy coming clean with herself knowing that Luka was right on that thin line of protective and passively abusive and that all the instability in her life in the end pushed her to the same path of the women she dedicate her life helping.

His hold on her cheek was strong and his body was closer to hers now, Bonnie smiled weakly at him, he wasn't actually hurting her but he was silently planting that seed of doubt in her, would he flip that switch soon and hurt her?
Bonnie was scared for the first time or at least she admitted that to herself.

"Of course I love you." she said sweetly because she knew what to tell him, what he wanted to hear.

And it worked, his smile became softer and he stroked her long hair, leaving her face. "Then let's set a date."

She nodded unable to speak, her voice would come out heavy on her pain, Luka was everything that Kol wasn't and that's why she had chosen him but with Kol's kiss it all changed and shifted inside of her, his words had left the cruelest mark on her.
They gave her hope.


Rebekah chewed on her finger leisurely, her eyes were admiring the perfect curves that moved under the shirt as he wrote some stuff on the board that she was definitely not paying attention to.

"God, he is so hot, right?" some girl asked next to the blonde.

She casually shrugged. "He's all right."

"I mean, figures you would say that because of that hot boyfriend you have but Vaughn is giving me nightmares with all that hotness." the girl insisted.

Rebekah faced her annoyed. "I recommend a cold shower, it does wonders for the hair as well." she nastily looked at the lousy excuse of curls that lived on top of the head in front of her eyes.

The girl accused the foul move and turned to another girl on the other side, carrying on with the nonsense talk about the professor with the hot ass.


Elijah knocked on the door of the small office that April took for herself and the girl looked away from the files she was organizing surprised.

"I like what you have done with the confine space."

She smiled proud with the compliment. "I'm very resourceful."

He smiled and stepped into the small room, immediately it seemed to become somehow smaller as his powerful presence took most of the space. "I feel terrible for cancelling our dinner last night on such short notice but my family needed me."

"There will be other nights." she ventured hoping he would go along with it.

Elijah motioned and he seemed to take the air with him, her mouth was dry and she felt dizzy when his strong arm became visibly outlined under the grey shirt.

"I am family free tonight."

She leaned against her desk because he took a step closer to her. "That sounds… good." she stumbled because Elijah cupped her cheek.

He could read the panic in her face but the constant mocking from his siblings had left him unwavering on his decision and he stroked her cheek. "I shall take you out for dinner tonight then."

Her blue eyes sparkled as she smiled timidly. "Okay…"

Elijah released her cheek and left the office fast before his sudden determination disappeared, she tried to breathe straight and pressed her chest but the files that she had been handling before he came in all fell to the floor.


Rebekah rolled her eyes as the girls in front of her giggled all fretfully on the way to receive their exams.
Vaughn handed the papers as they stepped down from the stairs of the big auditorium and Rebekah waited for her turn.

When he handed the exam to her she looked baffled. "How is this possible?"

Vaughn handed the last exam to another student and then faced the blonde. "Is there a problem?"

"You made a mistake, it says F."

She was appalled but he smiled and sat on the desk. "I thought that I was a good teacher but maybe I'm wrong and you wish to get a review on the grade I just gave you?"

She wasn't pleased. "I never have bad grades, so this is gruesome mistake." she handed him the paper back.

Vaughn took it and she expected him to scribble a better grade as he wrote something on the test but when he handed it back to her she was beyond upset.

"What's this now?"

Vaughn packed his bag and left the auditorium. "My phone number and email. You need tutoring if you want to pass this class because your knowledge in History is unforgiving Rebekah."

She crumbled the paper mad in her hand but didn't toss it away, she waited a few seconds before looking again at the number and email he left her with.


Bonnie peeled the top of her coffee cup without paying attention around her, not even to the children that usually made her smile with their happy giggles and constant joy, nothing was able to cheer her up today.
Two black boots stopped in front of her but she didn't look up to the owner so he took the swing next to her.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked refusing to look at him.

"You come here every morning, everyday no matter the weather. I know you better than you give me credit for B." he had his coffee looking at the kids near them running around chasing each other.

"I know you too Kol." she simply replied.

"I refuse to believe it's too late for us." he looked at her.

"It's not the right time at least." she slowly faced him, her speech was different this morning.

"You have been crying."

She smiled without much sparkle. "You left Kol. You were the one thing keeping me afloat in all the mess that was my life and you gave up on me as well and left."

"Don't be silly love, I will never give up on you. Even if I had died out there I would be back to greet you from the dead." he said with a forming smile.

She shook her head perturbed by the image. "Kol..."

He laughed shamelessly but dropped his hand between the swings.
Bonnie smiled and took it.

Kol kept her hand in his and that soothed her so much that she felt guilt over it, his touch was strong like she was familiar with but unlike Luka she knew he would never hurt her.
Kol just had that effect on her, no matter how much everything was crumbling around her, he was always the steady rock that never wavered and didn't show fear.

It honestly broke her heart a bit having to do this but his friendship was something she couldn't lose, she would never make it without it and something more between them at this point would destroy that perfection that she had with him.

"I'm getting married in two weeks Kol." she said in a low voice.

He hesitated before having his coffee but she entwined her fingers with his wanting to show him that she wasn't briskly sending him away either.

"I have two weeks to make you change your mind." he faced her.

"I want my best friend there, helping to tame Caroline's plans to turn this into the wedding of the century."

"I've seen this film, I think it was on a Sunday and you forced me to sit through this dreadful hour where two beautiful women fought over a really unattractive man and in the end he chose the one that couldn't sing."

Bonnie laughed and rested her head against the swing chains. "He didn't choose the best friend because he was in love with the other girl and he couldn't stand the idea of losing the two of them."

"I loathed the movie then, I'm determined to change it now."

"You can't sing to save your life Kol." she teased him without mercy.

He smirked. "Darling… there's nothing I can't do."

There was a small twinkle in her eyes, that light that he couldn't quite explain that made her eyes greener and then she flashed that smile that hurt more than a thousand bullets.

"I know…" she whispered certain that he would always be there for her, even when she chose the other man over him.

"I'm choosing my wedding dress tomorrow." she informed him starting to move her feet to sway the swing, slowly leaving the warmth of his hand.

"Fantastic, a chance to see you naked." he beamed.

Bonnie laughed loudly and with will, something that she deemed impossible before he arrived.

"I'm excited. I'm a big fan of corsets." his swing went ahead of hers toying her to catch up to him.

"You are a bit too thrilled about this." she easily went ahead of him buckling her knees to make the swing go faster.

He laughed going higher than her. "I have two weeks to show you that I'm the best choice darling, what's not to be thrilled about?"

Bonnie smiled, if only her life was as easy as Kol always made it sound.


Soundtrack:

I won't let you go - James Morrison