Season Two, Episode Twelve: Together on an Empty Stage

A tall stack of folded laundry in her hands, Hope weaves her way carefully through the compound, dodging their houseguests as they mill about the halls. Two young kids chase each other around the second-floor balconies, and Hope nearly drops the clothes as she jumps out of their way.

"Whoa!" Half of the stack suddenly disappears, and Rebekah is smiling down at her. "Careful!" She takes her pile of clothes and starts to walk beside her niece. "Where are you taking these?"

"The wolves showed up in their pajamas, so these are all the spare clothes I could find." She stops outside a bedroom door and knocks. When the door swings open, a young Crescent woman is on the other side, wrapped in a towel with wet hair. Hope digs out a shirt and pair of sweatpants from her pile. "Here you go, fresh out of the laundry!"

The woman takes the clothes gratefully. "Thank you so much. You and your family have been so kind to us."

"Your home was invaded by people with guns," Hope says wryly. "The least we could do was open up ours to you."

She smiles, and closes the door to change.

Hope heads down to the next room. Still in step with her, Rebekah gives her a sideways glance and says, "You're good at this."

Hope wrinkles her nose. "It's my job. And I care about these people. As long as there is a threat to them in my city, I'm going to keep them safe."

"You couldn't have kept them safe elsewhere?"

The two women turn to see Klaus, leaned into a corner of the hall, glass of scotch in hand. Hope frowns. "This compound is a fortress, Dad. We have, like, a stupid number of rooms, and a lot of people in need of a safe place to stay. Where else should they go?"

"Not here," Klaus groans, "in my house."

With a shrug, Hope lilts, "Well, your opinion was heard, and you were massively outvoted by the rest of this family, so here they stay. Besides, a lot of the wolves are finding places to stay with the Crescents who have already relocated into the city proper, so things are starting to settle."

Before Klaus can argue further, there's a commotion at the front gate. Hope peers over the rail as a small band of people pile into the compound.

"Not more refugees," Rebekah says, dejected.

"No, look!" Hope calls down, "Vincent?"

From the front of the group, Vincent looks up at her. "Hey there, Hope."

"What're you doing here?" She surveys the witches around him. "Are they coming after you, too?"

Vincent smiles, and offers a half-shrug. "The way I see it, you come after one of us, you come after all of us. They came for the vampires, they came for the wolves, and now the witches are here to help."

A bright, surprised smiles spreads across Hope's face. From his spot in the corner, Klaus grumbles to himself, "Alright, but we're not feeding them, too."

Amaya and Freya lead Hayley, Elijah, and Hope into a small room, tucked away from all of the noise and commotion of the compound now housing the bulk of New Orleans's supernatural population. Freya starts with a deep breath. "Amaya's spent the past few hours writing down everything she can remember about the hunters and their camp."

"Really I only interacted with Sebastian," Amaya supplies. "He seems to be the leader. At least, everyone answered to him. He was…not kind to me about Joel." Freya rubs a hand up and down her back. "He has a plan for ridding New Orleans of vampires, that much is for sure."

"Do you know what this plan is?" Hayley asks.

"Well, we know it involves Marcel's venom, right?" Hope offers. "Otherwise, why take him?"

Amaya nods. "I don't know what this…this venom is supposed to do, but I know that he wants to use it on the Original family of vampires."

"Lovely," Elijah says, a dry smile on his face.

"Who are they?" Amaya asks, and Hope snorts.

"That would be us," Elijah answers.

"Oh."

"Amaya overheard Sebastian say that there are more hunters coming in from all corners of the continent," Freya tells them. "We have no way of knowing what their total numbers will be."

Making a face, Hayley says, "Maybe this is my hybrid arrogance, but aren't we taking this threat a little too seriously? Sure, there may be a lot of them, but they're humans. They can't be that hard to defeat."

"They killed the Crescent alpha right in front of my girlfriend," Hope responds. "I'm not underestimating them. Besides, this house is currently packed to the rafters with people fleeing these hunters. Clearly they're a pretty big threat."

"Fair."

"What was the organizational structure besides Sebastian?" Hope asks Amaya. "Were there other people who seemed to be in charge?"

Amaya hums in thought. "There was one guy, Jordan, who seemed to be, like, his right-hand sort of guy. But other than that, all things ran through Sebastian."

Nodding, Hope's gaze turns meditative. Elijah prompts, "What are you thinking about?"

"I think…" The barest hint of a smile appears on her face. "I think I have an idea."

A couple dozen Crescents gather in the grand staircase, all of them looking curiously at River, who stands between the two flights of stairs. She beckons them all forward. "It's okay guys. I just want to talk."

The wolves look unsure. Leading the pack, Cody puffs out his chest and demands, "Why should we listen to anything you have to say? It's your fault our alpha was killed."

River takes a deep breath. "That may be true, but I'm just trying to offer some help. In the short time that I've been in New Orleans, I've seen that the Crescents are a real pack, a community of wolves devoted to each other. I don't want to see that fall apart because of these assholes."

"You think this is the first time we've lost an alpha?" someone pipes up. "We know how to adapt."

"Fair enough," River says. "But this time you don't have to move on by yourselves. You have the entire supernatural community of New Orleans behind you."

Cody's eyes narrow. "We don't need the witches, and we certainly don't need the vampires," he snaps. "We were doing just fine on our own until Rose decided to get all kumbaya with the enemy."

"The vampires and the witches are not our enemies!" River insists.

"Our enemies?" Cody scoffs. "You aren't one of us, either."

River works her jaw, trying to disguise how much that stings. She takes another deep breath. "Look. I'm here to make sure that the Crescent pack has the support it needs to rebuild after a terrible loss. Whoever…whatever choice you make regarding your next alpha, that's entirely up to y'all. But while we're all…stuck here, we might as well get some actual work done. Not just posturing for posturing's sake." Her eyes flash dangerously at Cody, whose lip curls in reply.

From the back of the crowd, hidden behind the heads of a mass of Crescents, Mary leans against the frame of the entryway, watching her great-granddaughter's girlfriend address the wolves, a contemplative expression on her face.

It's hard to find a quiet spot in a compound filled with vampires, witches, and werewolves, but Amaya finds a tiny half-bath tucked into the corner to steal away in. She locks the door behind her, and turns on the sink faucet to create some white noise.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket, and scrolls quickly through her contacts to find a familiar number. She presses the phone to her ear and waits. "Sebastian? It's Amaya." She pauses to listen. "No, I know you're probably really busy but…I'm in the house of the Original vampire family right now. You won't believe what they have planned."

Hayley's walking down a hall on the third floor when all of a sudden she's being tugged sideways into a room. "What the hell?"

She fights off her attacker only to see Mary, who shoves the door closed behind them. "We need to talk."

"And you needed to kidnap me to make that happen?"

Ignoring her, Mary states, "The Crescents need a new alpha."

"I know," Hayley says, confused. "Why are you telling me about it?"

"Those wolves need someone who can lead them, someone with a good head on their shoulders."

Hayley shrugs. "So why don't you do it?"

Mary scoffs. "Nah, too old. Need someone younger, someone with a lot of good ideas."

Eyes widening, Hayley starts to shake her head. "Not me, Mary, I couldn't do that again—"

"No, not you, neither." Mary smiles. "I got someone else in mind."

There's a knock at her apartment door, and Amaya opens it with a relieved sigh. "Thanks for coming out."

Sebastian pushes his way inside, irritated. "I don't have a lot of time, so this information better be good." He faces Amaya with suspicion on his face. "How did you manage to get into the Original family's home, anyway?"

Amaya shakes her head. "It's sort of a long story. Not really important. What's important is their plan to slaughter you and everyone else you've got out in the bayou."

With a scoff, Sebastian replies, "I'm not that scared of a couple of ancient vampires. Our plan is pretty foolproof."

"I'm sure that it is, but they've got information, too. They know about that vampire, the one you have locked up? And that you want to use his venom again them. They're working on an antidote as we speak."

Gritting his teeth, he hisses, "How in the hell do they know that?"

"Apparently they've got someone on the inside feeding them information."

Sebastian's brows furrow. "Who?"

A slow, smug smile spreads across Amaya's face. "Me."

Then there's a loud thud, and Sebastian crumples to the floor, unconscious. Elijah stands over him with a faint smile of his own. He straightens the cuffs of his suit jacket. "Nothing like a little petty revenge to start the day off right."

When River enters her bedroom, she's surprised to find Hayley and Mary waiting for you. "Um. Hi."

Hayley nods toward the bed. "Why don't you take a seat? We need to talk."

River closes the door and nervously steps over to the bed. "That sounds nice and ominous." She sits down. "What's up?"

Mary begins. "Heard you talkin' to the Crescents earlier. Did a good job of makin' 'em feel heard."

River shrugs. "It's my fault they're without an alpha. The least I could do is help them get back on their feet."

"Okay, well, first of all?" Hayley perches on the edge of the bed. "It's not your fault that Rose was killed. It's the fault of the people who shot her. And second of all…" She takes a deep breath. "The Crescents do need a new alpha. They need someone smart, and strong, and dedicated to building the community in New Orleans that Rose felt so strongly about."

River nods. "Right."

"We think that person should be you," Mary says bluntly.

River's eyes flick blankly between the two women, her face unreadable. Hayley tilts her head, concerned. "River?"

Shaking her head to clear it, River says, "Sorry! I was hallucinating. What were we talking about?"

"River—"

"No way I can be the alpha of that pack. Of any pack! I can't even handle being the alpha of the Malraux pack, and that's a pack of one!"

"You know just as well as I do that that Cody fellow's aimin' to get himself as the new alpha," Mary asserts. "You 'n' I both know too that he'd be no good at it. Too hot-headed, too superior. He'd start a new war with the vampires that we ain't in no position to win."

"What about you?" River suggests desperately. "They respect you, you're one of their elders!"

Mary waves her off. "Exactly. I'm an elder. Can't be an elder and an alpha. Besides, I'm too old for that mess."

"And don't you think I'm too young for it?"

"What about Hope?" Hayley says.

River furrows her brow in confusion. "What about her?"

"Well she signed up to be queen of a city on her eighteenth birthday."

River's face blooms into something akin to surprise. "Well for starters, Hope makes decisions for Hope, and I make decisions for myself. And then there's the fact that Hope was asked to lead New Orleans because she is the only person who can represent all three communities. I can't represent the Crescents because I'm not a Crescent! And honestly, I don't really appreciate you using my girlfriend to guilt me into taking on a responsibility that I don't want. I mean, Jesus, I'm trying to make it out of my first semester of undergrad alive. I don't know if I'm really interested in putting myself in a position to lead a bunch of wolves when I'm trying to, you know, not flunk out of school."

Mary and Hayley listen to her outburst in stunned silence. Once she's finished, they exchange a significant look. Then Hayley says carefully, "I'm sorry. You're right. You're not Hope, and I shouldn't try to use her against you. But the fact of the matter is, you'd be good at this. You're a natural-born leader, and Rose trusted you. She didn't trust many people, but she trusted you."

"And look where that got her." River pushes herself off of the bed and starts to pace a little circle. "Look, I'm not saying no, okay? I'm just saying I don't think it's a good idea."

"Think on it," Mary says quickly. "They don't need an answer today."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." River shakes her head. "I'm gonna…I'm gonna go." And then she tugs open the door and leaves.

Mary and Hayley exchange another look. "That could have gone worse," Hayley sighs.

Mary harrumphs. "Barely."

When Sebastian comes to, his head is throbbing. His hand reaches back, and he feels a massive bump right at the base of his neck. Groggy, he sits up; he's on a bed, in a dark room. He gropes around, hand colliding painfully with a bedside lamp. He flicks it on, and once his eyes adjust to the sudden wash of light, he sees he's in a dingy motel room, with water stains on the ceilings and peeling wallpaper.

"The hell…" He sits up, dizzy, and flinches when he hears a loud rapping at the door. He manages to push himself off of the bed and stumble to the door, where the rapping continues. He wrenches the door open angrily. "What the hell?"

He's surprised to see two people on the other side, a tall man with massive grin on his face, and a young woman with flaming red hair.

"Hello!" the young woman says cheerfully. "My name is Hope Mikaelson, and this is my father, Klaus. I hear you're trying to kill my family."

Jordan walks through the hunters' campsite, staring at his phone with a frown. He approaches Sebastian's camper and knocks, but no one comes to the door. He looks around and spies Lorena walking across the central area. "Lorena!"

She turns as he jogs up to her. "What's up?"

"Have you heard from Sebastian? He went into the city hours ago and I haven't heard from him since."

Lorena shakes her head. "No, sorry. I haven't heard from him, either, not for a while."

Just then, Jordan's phone beeps with a text. He looks at the screen. "Oh, it's him. He sent me a picture. That's weird." Jordan unlocks the phone to see a picture of Sebastian, unconscious on a bed. "What the hell?"

Lorena moves to peer over his shoulder. "Is he okay?"

Before Jordan can answer, a new text comes in. Remove yourselves from New Orleans within twelve hours, or your leader will be returned to you in pieces.

The compound is large, but with the setting sun, even more vampires pour into the Mikaelsons' home for protection. The tension in the air grows impossibly thicker as vampire and werewolves trip over each other in the halls, with each moment passing engendering more annoyance than before.

Josh tries to keep the peace the best he can. When a nightwalker jumps threateningly toward a young Crescent man, Josh quickly steps in to deescalate the situation. "Hey!" he snaps, shoving the nightwalker away. "We're all in this together. We have to keep our heads."

The nightwalker huffs, but then nods. Then he's being thrown against a wall himself, his face colliding with the brick. He bounces off easily, and whips around to see Cody stalking toward him angrily. "What the hell?"

Cody swings again, and Josh ducks easily, pinning his arm against his back and pushing him against the balcony rail. "What're you doing, man?"

"I don't have to answer to you, pansy," he snarls. "None of us do."

Josh rolls his eyes. "Looks like all that time out in the sticks didn't make you any more creative with your insults."

Cody bucks against Josh's hold and spins around, fangs bared. Josh's eyes go wide, but then they're both distracted by a shout. "HEY!"

They turn to see River stalking toward them, eyes flashing. She shoves Cody backward. "You wanna pick a fight? Huh?" She shoves him again. "You wanna pick a fight? Prove you're the biggest douche in New Orleans?"

Cody shoves her back. "Stay out of this. This is between the Crescents and the vampires."

"The hell it is!" River grabs his arm and twists around so that Cody's body bounces off of the brick. He slaps against the ground like a sack of flour, and is slow to move. "You're a coward," she spits down at him. "You're scared of what's out there, so you're taking it out on the people in here. You're pissed about Rose? Well guess what—me too. But if you think that this is what she'd want, you starting shit you don't need to be starting because you're bored, because you're scared? She'd be ashamed of you. Hell, you're not even in my pack and I'm ashamed of you.

She crouches down to get right in his face. "Do you think we don't see right through you? If you want to assert yourself as alpha, then you're going to have to be a hell of a lot smarter than this. Because right now, the only thing you're showing your pack, your scared, hurt, grieving pack, is that the loudest, boldest one among them is an absolute moron. So pull your shit together, before you tear this pack apart."

She shoves on his shoulder to get herself back on her feet, and when she turns around, there are dozens of eyes on her. From all around the compound, vampires, witches, and werewolves alike stare at her with a myriad of emotions: surprise, anger, confusion, intrigue. And from down below, by the fountain in the courtyard, Hayley and Mary smile up at her, a twinkle of knowing in their eyes.

Jordan climbs up to the top of Sebastian's camper and lets out an ear-splitting whistle. Slowly, the hunters at the camp gather around, staring up at him. He calls out, "Listen up! The enemy has taken Sebastian." Murmurs and shouts ripple through the crowd. "We don't know where he is, but we are going to tear New Orleans brick from brick until we find him." Jeers ring out. "They made a mistake, picking a fight with the most formidable group of vampire hunters this world has ever seen! Let's make 'em pay for it."

Once the crowd calms down, Jordan gives them their instructions. "Go out to our other encampments throughout the bayou. Ask Lorena for a map. By now, the hundreds of hunters that make up our ranks should have arrived to help us in our fight. Go let them know that we need them now more than ever. We have a war to win."

Season two, episode thirteen, "Hell to the Rest of Us," is already available on the Tumblr blog peopleandrhythm at this time.