Present Day

"What are you looking at?" Nik asked.

"I don't-" Freya begun, twirling around. "Nothing, I guess."

"Someone's outside. I sense them too."

Freya studied his face. "Aren't you worried?"

"People are always spying on us. There's nothing for them here tonight, unless they wish their heads to be ripped off."

Today he wasn't in a mood for attack. If anyone wanted to fight him today they'd have to get inside the house.

"What I don't understand," Nik begun, changing the topic, "how could you even waste that much power for a spell that shouldn't have worked in the first place?"

"What?" Freya asked bemused.

She was still looking into the garden, where the silhouette had been before.

"How could you even waste that much power for a spell that shouldn't have worked in the first place?" Nik repeated, less patiently than before.

"Are you trying to remind me of all the mistakes I made?" Freya asked with annoyance.

"No, that's not what I meant," he said. "The spell couldn't have worked because I didn't kill Esther. The way you described the spell nothing should have happened. Meaning, no big waste of power. Power is only used when the spell actually runs its course."

Why did he have to explain this to a witch? He began to think they overestimated Freya's skills.

"I suppose that has to do with my weak phrasing of the spell," Freya murmured. "We never specifically asked for Esther. Just for the most powerful witch that had died by your hands. And even if there was someone powerful enough to resurrect that you killed," she glanced at him, "and I take it there were plenty, we would have known by now."

Nik stared at her in disbelief.

Elijah appeared in the door, but Nik barely registered him. His mind raced through the information that Freya had just given him.

"There's a group of people approaching the house," Elijah said.

"Yes, we know," Nik waved him down, trying to keep his thoughts straight.

Elijah ignored the blasé tone. "They're walking to the entrance door as we speak."

Freya looked to Elijah nervously. He gestured them to follow him into the hallway.

"But-" Nik begun.

"Now!" Elijah interrupted him.

Reluctantly, Nik followed him. This better be important.

A second later the front door flew open and broke into several pieces. The brothers watched the hole were the door used to be and waited in their spot until the dust settled again.

"In the case of werewolves, I would hide behind him and not me, Freya" Elijah said and gestured to his brother, keeping his eyes locked on the door.

With quick leap, Freya swept over and hid behind Nik instead. Nik wasn't too worried about werewolves, but didn't wanted Elijah to be bitten again so soon. A few moments later two werewolves stepped in, followed by Celine Blanchard. Nik had the suspicion that this was getting personal.

"You need to pay for what you did to my brother!" Celine growled.

"It looks like your brother paid for what he did to mine. We're even," Niklaus said, and took a step towards her.

"He executed my brother in front of the whole town. You risked exposure for witches, vampires and werewolves alike!"

"That again." Nik grumbled to himself, and then turned to Celine again: "If exposure is that much of a worry to you, I wouldn't live in a big town like New Orleans."

He didn't had the nerves to speak about trivial hostilities right now. His mind swept back to what Freya had just told him before. Celine opened her mouth to say something, but Nik interrupted her before she could speak.

"Hold on, I'm sure you have more insults ready, but there's something more important I need to talk about first."

He turned to Freya behind him.

"You said you were just trying to resurrect the most powerful witch that died at my hands?"

Freya looked at him in confusion.

"Niklaus, what are you doing?" Elijah asked annoyed.

Why was everyone so slow to see the real issue in the room?

"Freya said in the spell they performed, they didn't try to resurrect Esther in particular, but the most powerful witch that died in New Orleans," Nik repeated to him. His brother didn't seem to catch on. "By my hands."

"Excuse me?" Celine interrupted them. "We are not done here?!"

Nik ignored her. Neither Celine nor any of the two werewolves looked like they were about to attack any time soon. Instead he focused on Freya again.

"Did you or did you not say that?"

Elijah was about to interrupt him again, but then he contemplated on Niklaus' words.

"It doesn't matter. It didn't work," Freya said, intimidated by everyone in the room.

"But you said, it looked like it worked. You think it didn't," Nik said.

"Yes?" Freya replied unsure. "Isn't that the same?"

"No!" Nik replied, somewhat surprised by her slow understanding.

His mind raced. He turned to Elijah who looked like he went through the same train of thought.

"It did work," Elijah said with an unsteady voice.

"Okay, this has gone on for long enough. I don't care what other problems your family has. I'm here to get retribution and I won't leave until I have it!" Celine shouted.

"You need to leave this town," Celine said, when nobody replied to her demands.

"Or what? We have established that you can't kill us, haven't we?" Elijah said.

Nik had actually been thinking about leaving town, now that Rebekah was gone. But this was a matter of principle. They could never give in to a demand like this. His earlier sympathies for the werewolves had long been gone. He doubted that he could ever reason with this pack. Celine wanted to give another retort but then stopped. She suddenly became very calm, almost zen-like. If anything, this was what made Nik stop for a second and put his attention on her. He knew that kind of calmness. Only someone who was absolutely sure they had the upper hand behaved like that.

"I might not be able to hurt you, but I brought someone who can," Celine said, gestured behind her.

The brothers braced themselves for whatever came to the hole where their front door used to be.

A second later a woman stepped through the door. She didn't seem very dangerous. Nik thought it was a bit of a let down.

"No," he heard Freya gasp behind him.

He heard her heart beat getting faster and faster.

"Oh no," she said again with a mouse-ish voice, and clambered to his arm.

"Who is she?" he asked confused, not turning his eyes away from the woman.

The tense and shivering person behind him told him that something was very wrong. Freya was scared. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to as well.

"Are you telling me that you superior creatures don't know something about yourself that I do?" Celine sniggered.

"Freya?" Nik asked again, this time a bit more pressing.

"It's…" Freya stammered.

"Your manners seem to have waned since you're mixing with this pack, Freya," the woman spoke, as she took a few steps closer. Then she addressed the brothers. "Let me introduce myself then. I'm Dahlia."

Nik and Elijah exchanged looks.

"Our aunt?" Elijah asked her bewildered, and quickly glanced at Freya to confirm it.

"That is correct," Dahlia replied with a smile that could freeze an ocean.

"What do you want?" Elijah asked briskly.

He seemed too confused to know what exactly they were supposed to do.

"You have something that belongs to me," she said.

Her eyes wandered from one brother to the other and then stopped on Freya. Nik felt her grip on his arm growing tighter.

"No!" Freya shrieked. "I'm not going with you!"

"I'm not giving you a choice," Dahlia replied, with a much harder tone now.

"If you want her so much, why don't you come try and get her?" Nik said.

Dahlia smiled. "I was expecting you said something like that."

"That won't be a problem."

In a blink of an eye, the room turned so bright that it was impossible to see anything. Nik knew he had to act fast. The ground began to tremble. Freya was still clutched to his arm. Instinctively he reached for Elijah. He seemed to have had the same idea and they stumbled into each other. Freya began to scream. Nik could tell someone was trying to pull her away from him. He pulled back and bit whoever was dragging at her. From another side Elijah pushed him backwards to the kitchen. He knew what his brother's plan was. They had no chance for a fight in here with a complete loss of vision. They needed to get out. He punched someone else out of the way, he was pretty sure it was a werewolf, and they managed to get into the kitchen. Nik heard a door crash, which sounded like the kitchen door that led outside. Instinctively he leapt towards it, still dragging Freya with him. Not a second later, he heard another large crash behind them, and the ceiling in the kitchen fell down. They stumbled out of the door, while the kitchen seemed to implode behind them. Before they could react to any of this, the outside wall too began to break and smashed over their heads. All he could do in this short time was turn around and protect himself, and as a result to that Freya, from the large pieces of rocks flying their way. When the wreckaging stopped, he tried to get up on his feet again. As fast as possible, he crawled out of the debris, pulling Freya with him. He was relieved to find Elijah immediately beside him.

"Run," Elijah said.

Nik understood. Dahlia was walking towards them. Her hand raised. He didn't want to know what she was trying to do next. He lifted up Freya, who was still too shaken from the crash to register what was happening, and sprinted into the opposite direction.

After several minutes where they were sure nobody was following them anymore, they stopped.

"Thanks for telling us about your aunt's powers beforehand," Nik said drily, after he had set Freya on the ground

Elijah seemed exhausted, but to Nik's relief he couldn't see any werewolf bites or scratches on him.

"Our aunt," Freya corrected him, warily looking back into the direction they just came from. "And you never asked about her."

Then she turned back to him, her face softened with a mixture of confusion and gratitude. "Still, it was nice of you to not leave me behind. I know you didn't need to do it. Thank you."

"Sure," Nik replied, not sure what else to say.

He didn't know why he decided to drag her along even though it would have been much easier to just leave her there. Part of him acted out of principle. You could certainly not give your enemy what they want. But another part also felt pity for her. She had been completely terrified of their aunt. It would have been very cruel to leave her behind.

"We should go back," Elijah said, scanning the street. "We need to know what they're up to."

"Wait," Nik held him back. "We need to find Rebekah first."

"What?" Elijah surprised. "How is that-?"

He paused, then he had put together what Nik was after. "You want to go after Briony. Even if she's alive, which is very unlikely, we don't know where she is or has been in the last few weeks. What we know right now is that somebody destroyed half of our house and is running that way!"

"So what? They were only there to scare us away. There's a whole lot of other problems we have now!"

"Aren't you always talking about the bigger picture? Thinking about consequences and that kinda stuff?" Nik added, when Elijah didn't reply.

"Yes," Elijah replied relentingly. "I'm surprised you remember that."

"This is definitely the bigger picture!"

Freya looked back and forth between the brothers. Elijah hesitated and considered the street that led to the house again.

"Fine," he consented.

"Thank you," Nik said impatiently.

He realized that now that they had Freya stuck with them they were going to be much slower than he hoped they would. He assumed she didn't want to be carried around from now on.

"Now then, let's get going," he said. They couldn't lose any more time. "Chop chop."

"Don't you chop chop me, Niklaus," Elijah replied.

As they walked off, a bad feeling crept up Nik's spine. He knew they had to find Rebekah to find out the truth. He was not looking forward to it. He had the feeling that it wasn't going to be pretty.


1809, New Orleans

In the following weeks Elijah and Kol had not spent as much time trying to change Nik's mind as Rebekah would have hoped. Rebekah had noticed as well that the decision to bring Katherine with them was a powder keg. As a result Elijah had made sure to get her and himself out of Nik's or Rosa's way whenever possible. Rebekah already put together that once again it was her task to bring everyone together and save everyone from disaster. But something held her back to confront Niklaus. This time she wanted to make sure he got her point, that only acted out of his best interest, before he had the chance to stake her. The best way to do that, she thought, was talking to him in small doses. That'd also keep her from snapping at him.

The only comfort she had during those weeks were her sporadical visits to her mother when no one else was home. Esther had been getting worse. They had been seriously underfeeding her, but that must have been her brother's plan all along. Rebekah hadn't dared to bring her any food while anyone else was in the house, but she brought down something to eat whenever she had the chance. Within the cell her memory of her mother of the earlier days, back when they were still human, became much more vivid. She had almost forgotten the things that had happened nine years before. The longer she had talked to her mother the more she understood her. She didn't want to die, but she began to understand the guilt that her mother was feeling. And more importantly, she realized how similar they were.

One later afternoon, she was about to descend the stairs to the cellar again, as she heard steps behind her. She whirled around. Niklaus closed the front door behind him.

"What are you up to?" he asked.

"Not much," Rebekah blurted out, being caught off guard.

"Hm", Nik replied.

"I thought you already left," Rebekah said hastily.

"I was about to," he replied.

But then seemed to let it go, and passed by her with a smirk.

"You're in a good mood," Rebekah said, irritated.

"Even happens to me occasionally," he replied.

His relaxed and jolly attitude somehow irritated her. How could you even be in a good mood when someone below your feet was starving?

"There's not much to be jolly about. That's all," Rebekah said drily.

"Sure there is. We're almost good to go with the spell. As soon as Esther talks-"

"You have not achieved anything!" Rebekah interrupted him loudly. "Stop pretending that you're close to a solution!"

The words came out without her having any agency over them. But she didn't care. Sometimes his face made her so angry.

He looked at her in surprise. His eyes narrowed. Rebekah took a deep breath and didn't avert her eyes. She was ready for confrontation. It didn't come.

After a long pause his face loosened again.

"I get that you're upset about the situation. We all are. But you have to trust me on this," he said, taking her hands into his.

He did sound persuasive. That was one of her brother's strongest qualities. And she would have fallen for it if not every strain of reason inside her brain had balked all hopes. She eyed him skeptically, but didn't reply.

"Okay, I'll let you in on a secret," Nik eventually said.

He looked behind her as if to check that no one else was there. Then he considered her expression.

"Can I trust you?" Nik asked.

"Of course," Rebekah said, more curious than anything else.

"I wasn't lying when I said we pretty much have the spell. For the spell we need a doppelganger. At first, I was pretty annoyed with Elijah that he brought Katherine along. But now it's quite ideal that she's here actually."

"When you say you need her, you mean…"

"Yeah, she has to die."

He took her hand. "You can't tell Elijah. Not until we got everything together. He won't understand."

Rebekah realized that this was one of those moments again where she had to be very careful on what to say without ending up in a coffin. She had nothing against Katherine, except her being an annoyance that kept pushing between her brothers. But she could tell that Elijah was attached to her. And he wouldn't forgive Nik too quickly when he found out about this. She hesitated. Speaking up now would only destroy this new gained trust she just established.

"And you're sure that this will work?" she asked instead.

Somehow she needed to delay this plan of his. She couldn't tell Elijah just yet, or else Niklaus would know she was the one who had told their brother.

"Yes, it will. Rosa has everything figured out."

Of course it was the witch would have given him that idea. And because the torture of someone he didn't like was involved, Niklaus must have been igenously delighted by the idea.

"And you think she's really up for that?" Rebekah asked. When she saw Nik frowning, she quickly added: "Not that I doubt her… extraordinary abilities. It's just - do you remember what happened to those other witches that helped Briony with the resurrection spell? They died. Even though they tried really hard. It would make sense to get some backup."

His face loosened again.

"What do you suggest?" he asked.

"Maybe at this point it would make sense to ask Briony to help out?" she said.

"She's never going to help with this! All she does is parasiting of our wealth and entertaining Kol."

"Still," Rebekah replied. "Consider how important this is you might wanna ask her."

He eyed her with skepticism. She feared that she had already crossed a line.

"You know it's the most sensible thing to do," she added.

After a pause he said: "You're right. I'll ask."

"See," he added with a lighter mood, "there's something to look forward to. Everything will be fine."

Rebekah heavily doubted it.

"I knew I can trust you," he said, and left for the door.

Rebekah stayed in the hallway for a while. The second she'd tell Elijah about Niklaus' plan, she was sure, he'd be gone. And she would be back at the start again without Elijah. No, she couldn't tell Elijah. Not yet. Instead she'd try to postpone Niklaus' plan as much as possible. If Briony heard about she could deal with it. She certainly wouldn't have difficulty to tell her brother off. Something told Rebekah it was better to wait until she had more people on her side.

When she was sure that neither Niklaus nor anyone else was coming back into the house, Rebekah descended the stairs to the cellar. With the habit of having it done many times before she unlocked the heavy cellar door. She pushed the door open and stepped into the dimly lit room. Esther was sitting on a small bench in one corner, her back resting on the humid stone wall. Seeing her like that gave Rebekah a pinch in her heart every time. By now Esther looked like she was only skin and bones. Yet when she saw Rebekah she smiled.

"You're back," she said with an airy voice.

"How are you?" Rebekah asked, but then quickly replied to herself: "Stupid question. Not good. Nobody would be fine in a cell like this."

"I'm fine," Esther replied with an airy voice. "Don't worry about me."

Rebekah told her mother what she had been doing in the last couple of days. She couldn't imagine that this was in any way interesting for Esther, but then again, it might have been a welcome distraction of the bleakness of the cell. Esther listened tentatively to everything Rebekah said. Rebekah had to admit, it was nice to have someone listen to her. It was an interest that only a mother could have.

When she was done with her relatively mundane tales, Esther's eyes swept away looking at the wall behind Rebekah. They didn't seem lost though, but trying to focus on a thought. There was something on Esther's mind, Rebekah was sure of it. She waited for her mother to speak.

"When you weren't coming back a few weeks ago, I assumed it wasn't out of your free will," Esther began.

"Which was correct," Rebekah added.

"But it made me think. I wouldn't have minded if you didn't want to come back. You don't have to come back to me for my sake. It's fine if you wanna spend it outside, anywhere else than here."

"What are you saying?" Rebekah asked.

"There's one more year left and you don't have to spend it in a cellar."

"Neither should you."

"I fear I don't have much say in this," Esther replied with a weak smile. "Besides, I don't think I'll survive another year in here."

Rebekah took a deep breath. That just wasn't alright.

"Well, I'm not leaving without you. Nik will have to give up eventually, and has to let you go."

"You must know he'll only give up when I'm dead. Luckily for everyone involved that shouldn't take that long anymore."

"Don't say that," Rebekah replied angrily.

It was hard to enough to hear any of her siblings talk about their mother's death like it was no big deal. Esther couldn't do that as well. But Rebekah saw what she meant. Esther was very weak. Ill. Even if Rebekah began to smuggle in lots of food and water, it might not be enough to bring her back to her old healthy self.

Her gut told Rebekah what to do. She got up and bit her wrist open.

"Here," Rebekah said decisively.

Esther looked at her in surprise.

"You can't die now," Rebekah replied. "Not now. Not that everyone's here. I can convince them to help us. Then we're 5 against 1, and I'm sure I can get you out. And we can leave together."

Esther still watched her in astonishment.

"You know what, I'm not even giving you a choice here. Drink and get better. Then, in a few weeks, when everyone's back I'll get you out of here."


Oh well, it took me a bit longer to finish this one than expected! It's not that I wasn't writing - somehow I just felt more inspired to write other chapters first (on a positive note, I've already finished Chapter 32! All kinds of stuff is going to happen, I'm telling you!).The updates should come more regular from now on, so stay put!

Let me know what you think in the comments!