Elijah was taken aback when Rebekah stormed into the room and threw something at his chest. After catching the object, he saw that it was her phone.
"What- "
"You need to toughen up and stop avoiding talking to Kol. Or Bea, she might be slightly more reasonable, though I can't guarantee it. The teenagers in this town are frantic about the two of them – actually, three - being here and Nik probably has something up his sleeve, since they touched his precious Caroline last night and interfered with the doppelgänger blood bag."
Elijah stared at her, but acknowledged that everything she had said was most likely correct. Bekah and Kol were now on seemingly good terms and she'd spent a day with Kol's wife, but Elijah had been putting off reaching out to his brother.
He hadn't killed Beatrix. But with his compulsion, he had known that he was destroying Kol's chance at happiness. In truth, he found himself just as guilty of her death as Niklaus. Bekah left the room, most likely to give him the illusion of privacy, and Elijah scrolled through her phone until he found the woman's contact information. Admittedly with a pit of anxiety, he called her. After only a few rings, she picked up.
"Hi, lovely. You missed out last night, though I wouldn't wish this hangover on you."
There was a very real fondness in her voice and a cheerful friendliness that Elijah hadn't heard addressed to his sister often. It was almost a pity that he had to abolish it for the sake of their conversation.
"This is Elijah."
There was a harsh intake of breath, and he waited a moment before she answered in a somewhat fearful but threatening tone.
"Why do you have her phone? What did you do to her?"
And that – that made him a bit sick. In another life this woman would have been a member of their family. As humans in their village, she would have been a cherished part of the household, her honor protected by all of the Mikaelsons. And instead Kol's wife thought him capable of seriously harming his younger sister, because Beatrix's only memory of him was the night she was murdered by her brother-in-laws.
"She's completely unharmed and gave me her phone willingly."
Her response was almost immediate and spoken in a flat voice when she said, "Kol isn't here right now. He'll be back soon and I can tell him you called."
"I wanted to speak to you, actually."
On the other end of the call he could hear things being moved around – likely pots or pans based on the metallic 'cling' that sounded out. The woman's breathing was deep and even, but labored. Elijah realized that she was most likely doing it intentionally, trying to calm herself.
"I don't know if I want to talk to you. I don't – I didn't plan what to say yet."
Before he could respond, she huffed and added on in an annoyed voice, "Tell Rebekah she's a meddling bitch."
Elijah laughed lightly and remained dry when he responded, "I'd prefer to keep all of my limbs, so I'll refrain."
His words got an amused snort from the other end of the line and it felt like a small victory. However, he knew he would have to quell the humor momentarily.
"Your plans are what I wanted to discuss. Whatever it is that you've planned against Niklaus – "
He was cut off when Beatrix spoke over him in a tight voice, firm but wavering slightly at the end of her sentence.
"Is none of your concern."
A sense of urgency came over Elijah at hearing that. It was a confirmation of his every fear – his family reduced to vengeful individuals at odds with one another.
"If you go against Klaus, you will die. Kol will be daggered yet again. I wanted to warn you- "
A rush of air sounded out from the other line before he heard Kol speak on the other end. It was the first time he was truly speaking to his brother since Kol had been told that Beatrix was dead. They had avoided each other at the ball, and now he was faced with an angry Kol, something that never ended well.
"That's enough, Elijah. If you threaten my wife again, I'll destroy you."
Exasperation and frustration were at war with each other. He needed the two on the phone to understand what he was saying, but he didn't know how to express his fears without sounding disingenuous. Trying once more to be reasonable he addressed them both.
"I wasn't threatening her, merely stating facts. I don't want any more plotting."
Kol laughed harshly with derision, but he heard a faint click which he identified a second later as a phone being put down when he heard the fragments of a conversation between Kol and Beatrix quietly happening in the background.
"–face him sooner or later, better on our terms – "
"-alright seeing him? You don't have – "
"– scared, but okay."
Elijah was slightly startled when the phone was picked up again and Kol spoke to him in an even voice that gave nothing away.
"We can meet for dinner this evening, if you truly want to speak. Use your own cellular phone, Bea will message you the details. If you speak to Bea again with-"
A scuffling sound once more broke out on the end of the line, and Beatrix seemingly gained the upper hand when she said, "Meet us there tonight."
When the dial tone rang out and he realized they had hung up, he slowly put down the phone. Rebekah, who had evidently been standing right outside and eavesdropping, pushed open the door and sat beside him on the couch, snatching her phone back.
"So that didn't go entirely poorly. Bea sounds terrified of you, though."
Elijah let out a sigh. Rebekah had an expression on her face that he didn't immediately recognize. It was apprehension. He realized why a moment later when she began slowly speaking, in a quiet voice.
"What exactly happened the night Kol was daggered?"
Elijah had known that she would ask at some point. When Rebekah had come home from school a week ago and almost attacked Niklaus, he'd been baffled. However, a moment later she'd revealed that she knew about Beatrix's murder. Elijah, having just been told himself, had been somewhat surprised by the vehemence of her reaction. But it made sense now that he had seen that the two women got along and were growing closer. So with reluctance, he began speaking.
"Kol had been killing witches that were under Niklaus's protection. He was convinced that they were trying to raise Silas, who would end the world. He had to be stopped, so we tracked him down. Neither of us knew he was married, but Beatrix saw us use the dagger on him."
Rebekah interrupted with a strained tone, but was clearly holding back a worse reaction when she said, "She watched you dagger Kol?"
Elijah nodded, but continued speaking.
"She was… harmed when we sought answers as to who she was. So when Niklaus left to store Kol's body, I healed her and then compelled her to forget about Kol. That was all that I was present for."
Rebekah kept a straight face, though her tone gave away her anger and disgust when she responded to him.
"She told me about what followed. Nik went back that night. He didn't realize you healed her, and he snapped her neck. He deposited her body in a river. When she awoke she swallowed blood that had been in her mouth after biting her tongue as a human and caught on fire. Kol had been part of her life for five years, so you had erased almost all of that time."
Elijah didn't know how to respond to that. Hearing it spelled out so point blank made him feel sick with regret. This was his sister-in-law. And he and Niklaus had condemned her to this existence in the most brutal of ways.
When Rebekah let out a long breath and slumped back against the couch while texting, he knew that she had gotten out most of her anger. She began talking again without making eye contact, but this time in an entirely amused tone of voice, a complete contrast to before.
"I think she and Nik would get along, that's the strangest part. If he hadn't killed her, of course."
Elijah let himself relax a fraction as well. After contemplating the dinner plans he had in store, he turned to his sister and began asking her about what he could expect.
"What is Beatrix like? If I'm to see the two this evening what should my approach be?"
Bekah snorted in response to his question but met his eyes when she answered, "I can't coach you on how to act. Kol and I are getting along oddly well because I didn't contribute to Bea's death. That's one, actually – she goes by Be a, not Beatrix. As far as personality goes – well. Hm. Imagine Kol, but nicer and sentimental towards a few people."
Elijah tried to think that over, but couldn't picture it.
"That seems contradictory."
Bekah waved off his words and sounded a little annoyed when she said, "Oh, do shut up. You know as well as I do that Kol can be good to the people he loves. And the two of them are absurdly in love. It makes me a bit jealous, actually."
To hear his sister admit that was surprising. However, her next words caught him equally off-guard. Holding up her phone, she spoke in a blasé tone.
"I asked Bea if I could crash your dinner plans and she agreed. She gave me the restaurant and reservation time."
This would be a very, very interesting evening.
Klaus wasn't stupid. He might be arguably a bit hubristic, but not to the point of stupidity. So of course he'd been spying on his siblings. Installing an application on Rebekah's phone so he received her texts was simple, especially when she was still struggling a bit with modern technology and didn't recognize what it was.
For the most part, her conversations with Beatrix were inane and about very superficial topics. On a single occasion she'd expressed her desire to murder Kol and asked for help hiding his dessicated body, but the woman had clearly been facetious when two hours later she'd said in a message that made him absolutely cringe, "Never mind. We're very good. I can't feel my legs."
Bekah's disgusted reply echoed his own feelings. He did not need to know about Kol's sex life.
Klaus was a bad man. It wasn't an opinion or subjective - he knew that his actions defined him in such a manner but any and all standards. Because of that, he didn't often feel regret. But although his feelings were convoluted, he could honestly say that he regretted the manner in which he murdered Kol's wife. However, it wasn't as straightforward as that. It was because of him that she was still alive. He'd been the one to make her into a vampire in a way.
He didn't regret killing her, seeing as it had made her immortal. But he did regret how it had played out.
Being a vampire didn't cement one's personality. They were capable of change, and as loathe as he was to admit it, Klaus had changed the way he viewed romantic love and affection in the last century. So although he didn't understand what Kol's rage must be, he understood the concept of it. After all, his vision had gone red when he had heard that Kol and his wife had nearly harmed Caroline. He fancied Caroline. Perhaps it could turn in to something more.
But Kol had evidently truly loved Beatrix for years.
So he had stayed away from them. It had taken half a day to track down where Beatrix lived and to find out who the woman she lived with was. Klaus wasn't ignorant to the fact that Kol was likely apoplectic and planning to exact revenge. But he would give them a few more days before he made his move and confronted Kol.
