"You ask me how I feel,
And it's really no big deal . . .
. . . Union Square on Sunday morning,
Wind wakes up the trees.
I can't help but stare and wonder
How you fell for me.
It's too much to explain,
But believe me when I say,

You're only everything.
You're only everything.
You're only everything to me."

"She's gonna kill me."

"The hell she will." Kol's words were fierce, a fiery growl that he practically had to spit back at me as he leaned against my headboard, with rage burning in his eyes bright enough that I wondered if it would burn the house down.

He hadn't said much since I came to the conclusion that their mother wanted to kill them all, but it wasn't because he didn't believe it. Quite the opposite, he did believe it, easily.

"I think she wants me to break up with you and leave so she can kill all of you, and then I think she's gonna kill me when you're not there to protect me," I said.

His eyebrows furrowed, the rest of his face twisting into a scowl. "What does she think—it was all too good to be true. I knew that."

"I think that was the worst 'meet the parents' situation anyone has ever been in," I mumbled.

Despite the horrible situation we were facing, the scowl softened so the tiniest smirk could take its place. "Well, you did kill my father, so that's probably worse, right?"

"I didn't kill him," I said, and I climbed up onto the bed to sit beside him, holding on to one of the decoration pillows that were still laying on it. Usually, I took them off if I planned on staying in bed for any extended period of time, but I had just gotten back into bed after throwing up again before Kol showed up. "Your brother did."

He nodded. "Right. You met him when you were trying to carry out your plan to kill my brother, so I suppose both instances are tied for the worst situation then. It's probably best I never met your parents. Didn't they want to kill the entire vampire race?"

"My adopted parents, yes," I said. "My biological mother was one until your brother compelled her to take off her daylight ring and burn in the sun. She had been kinda awful the whole time she was in town, though, but I'm not sure if it was because she turned off her humanity or why exactly she was the way that she was."

He took a deep breath and let his head fall back into the wall on my bed. "What are we going to do, darling?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Whatever your mom tries to get you to do, even simple stuff, I guess don't. This ball seems a bit suspicious to me. Why does she want me there just to break up with you? It seems a bit much."

"She's going to do something then," he said. He rubbed his hand over his face for a moment, his eyes darkening around the edges while the very idea that his mother had come back from the dead just to kill them all rummaged through his mind.

"Yeah, but what?"

His eyes moved over to me, and they softened, like usual when he was looking at me. Even when he was pissed off, he struggled to look at me with anger, and even now, in the face of his mother trying to kill anyone he had ever loved, he still looked at me with soft eyes. "What's more important right now is that she's invited the whole town—including your sister, your brother, and the Salvatores."

"I know." The thought had occurred to me, briefly, but what stuck the most was everything Esther had said, all that she said I had to do. There were still some lingering questions about some things she said, but most of the questions I needed answers to had answers. This was as real for Kol as he said it was.

"What are you gonna do?" he asked.

There was hope in his eyes, something that Kol Mikaelson didn't like to feel. Every time he felt hope in the past, it was always ripped away from him, thrown back in his face. Hope had become a word he didn't believe in, but there it was, at the forefront of his eyes.

I was tired of lying to them, and truth be told, there wasn't a reason to anymore. Everyone knew that the Originals were out of their coffins. Rebekah and Kol had all of the daggers. There was no other reason to not tell the truth.

They were gonna hate him, no matter what I did or said. They could either learn to love and accept him or not; he wasn't going anywhere just because they didn't agree with what I had done.

"I'm gonna tell them the truth, before the ball," I said, and I took a deep breath, my eyes drifting away from him and towards the door. "I'll figure out exactly how to do it sometime between now and then."

His eyebrows rose. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure." I reached over and placed my hand on his, my fingertips rubbing a small circle on the back of his palm. "I don't wanna lose you, Kol. They'll get over it eventually. It's my life, not theirs."

His lips grabbed onto mine with a fervor I wasn't really expecting, not amidst the important conversation we were having. There was a time and place for everything, and maybe if I had seen him leaning in, I would've insisted that this wasn't the time, on top of having fresh vomit on my breath. Cherry juice can only wash down so much.

He didn't even seem to care or maybe even notice. There was determination behind his lips, and he pulled me onto him as quickly as he safely could.

"I'm sick," I breathed, somehow managing to pull my lips far enough away that I could get some words out.

"I don't care." His grip around my waist tightened, pulling me closer to him while he began kissing along my jawline. "I don't know when I'll get to see you with everything going on. Until we have the situation with my mother under control . . . ."

I nodded. "I know, Kol. We need to focus on getting us both out of this alive, okay?"

"I could kill my mother," he suggested. "We've all suffered the grief of her death once."

"You can't do that," I disagreed. "Rebekah still has a dagger. Your siblings will all use it on you if you do, and they won't take it out. They'll probably kill me, wait a couple hundred years, and then decide to let you out and suffer."

"You're right." He took a deep breath. "I just need them to realize the same thing I did—that she wants to kill us all."

As horrible as it was to talk about killing one's own mother, the fact that she wanted to kill all five of her children, along with anyone that her children cared about, kind of balanced out the act of killing his mother.

It was a horrible thought, but she came back with the intentions of killing all of her children. Sure, they had probably done some horrible things that she had to witness, but maybe they could find some sort of redemption that didn't lead to death.

Just as I leaned in to press my lips against his, something underneath me began to vibrate. It was pressed against my leg, the same place that the pockets on his jeans were, so I knew in an instant that Kol was getting a phone call.

I rolled off of him, which pulled an angry grunt out of him, and he slid his finger across the screen without even looking at who was calling.

"What?" The anger didn't really fade, but it became laced with arrogance, in a way that I had only seen Kol do before. "You have no power over me anymore, Nik, but for our mother's sake, I will come home."

He tossed his phone onto the bed, barely taking the time to hang up on his brother, and his hands reached over to grab onto my face one last time. There was a delicacy in this kiss that was unlike Kol, and all I could think about was that moment with his arms around me, the two of us dancing to the sweet song that elegantly sang the words we couldn't say. Love was inevitable, if not already upon us both, and for me, I imagined it was obvious; I was throwing caution to the wind for him, the one that my soul found in a coffin one day and whispered, "Him." It was a cliché thought, but it was real. It was the only explanation I had found that made any semblance of sense.

I knew what the Originals were, that one of the Original brothers was a blood crazed maniac, but I pulled the dagger out anyways. Because my soul knew that he was a kindred spirit, a man that I would be willing to give my heart to in less than a month. We had so many differences, in both personality and the things we liked or disliked, but something about our souls felt the same, like they were two puzzle pieces that were meant to find each other and stick together.

Maybe it would be forever, or maybe it wouldn't. If nothing else came from this whirlwind romance, my freedom would. The freedom that swept over me and gave me the desire to look for other ways, to find alternative routes to reach my goal: Kol set me free from the prison I had created within myself, that I had allowed others to guard and keep me locked up in.

He had to physically rip himself away from me, moving across the room with nothing but a blur in sight. These were the goodbyes that I hated. This was the feeling that I never wanted to feel again once this was all over.

There was an overwhelming emptiness that swept over me, like the air that pushed off the closing door. It wasn't normally like that. I always liked being around him more than I liked him being gone, but this felt different.

Was it because I loved him, or was it because I didn't know how we would ever see each other again after the ball Saturday?

A/N: The lyrics are from the beautiful song Everything by Parachute.

Sorry I've been so spotty with updates! There aren't many chapters of this story left, and I've only gotten chapter one of the sequel written. (And the prologue, of course) I've been outlining this Kai story I got an idea for, and it's taken up all of my free time because I'm so excited to write it. I've been interested in writing a Kai story for a while, so I'm eager to get started on it.

Don't worry, however. I will post it once I get it completely outlined, but I will still continue to update this story and work on it as well. I used to get three, sometimes four, chapters out in a single day, but I might only get one done, with me working on two different stories.

I think the hardest part is gonna be not putting Kol when I mean to type Kai, or vice versa. When I was typing the outline, I did it at least three times already. x3

Anyways, enough rambling. You're in for a big surprise next chapter. ;) Read, review, and enjoy!