Present Day

There was a system in the chaos that was Niklaus' head. He keep looking for a solution. If he did that and only that, he wouldn't have to feel pain or grief. That was the easy part. Although he'd like to run off in any possible direction to find a way to save Rebekah, he needed a system. There must be a way to get her back. The problem was he didn't know where he'd find the solution. So he'd approach the problem as if it was something he had lost. At first they searched the mansion, any notes, remnants that might help him. Then he expanded his search circle over the town, to any place they had ever been. If that wouldn't help he'd widen the circle more and more, until he covered the whole world. And even if he had to search on the bottom of the Atlantic, at least he had a plan.

Right now they were searching through Davina's apartment. If Elijah were here he'd tell him that this was a dead end for sure. Why would Davina have any knowledge that could save Rebekah? He had his arguments ready if Briony would ask the same questions. She didn't. In fact she hadn't disagreed with anything he suggested. Maybe she actually thought it was a good idea. Or maybe she felt pity for him. He hoped it wasn't the latter.

The curtain in Davina's bedroom was half drawn, hiding the gaping hole in the window glass. From time to time the wind blew the curtain open. It was about to rain.

The apartment looked abandoned. Nobody had been here in a while. But luckily, Davina had left all her things in the apartment. Many of her possessions were family heirlooms, old books, and some things she had stolen from Briony while she had been in the mansion. This wasn't even the most hopeless place they had been until now.

"Have you checked this pile yet?" he asked, without looking up.

No matter what her reply was going to be, he'd look through it again. He had to.

"Hey," he said, when no reply came.

He turned around.

Briony was asleep on Davina's bed. For a second he considered throwing the book at her that he was holding in his hands. It wasn't fair that she could escape into this comatose state where any kind of pain disappeared. He despised her for it. But that wasn't worth waking her up. If he woke her up he'd have to talk to her, and he didn't feel like talking to anyone ever again.

A vague feeling told him that a lot of time had already passed. Or had it? He looked outside the window. The sky was a dark blue. It was almost night. Or was it? Perhaps it was dark because of the rain. He couldn't tell. Seconds, hours, years, they all felt the same now.

A car engine outside came to a halt. It could be Elijah. If it was him and he had followed him here, did that mean he had good news? Maybe he and Freya had figured out a way to get Rebekah back? Or maybe Briony had been wrong all along and she was fine? Niklaus got up and looked outside the broken window. His heart made a leap when he indeed saw Davina first and then Elijah getting out of the car.

He tried to remind himself that it was very unlikely that they had good news. But he couldn't keep himself from feeling excited, as he rushed down the stairs.

"Elijah," he exclaimed, as he caught up with his brother at the front door.

Any excitement or hope vanished when he saw Elijah's face. Somehow he even looked worse since the last time he had seen him. His motions were heavy and dragging and it seemed he had trouble looking into his brother's eyes. He didn't look like he wanted to be here at all.

Why then was he here?

"What is it?" Nik asked.

"Niklaus, I…" Elijah began.

He trailed off and stared at the floor.

"You shouldn't have left," he said with a low voice.

Niklaus looked at him confused. He didn't understand and waited.

After a very long pause, Elijah said: "Marcel is dead."

"What?" Niklaus said.

Elijah looked at him dead serious. He turned to Davina. She had her arms crossed, sobbing quietly, while her eyes faced the ground.

No, that couldn't be. Things were not allowed to get worse while he had been trying so hard to fix them. He had been trying so hard. This is not how the world was supposed to work.

They had been sitting in silence in Davina's apartment for a long time. The only sound the roaring rain coming from outside. Niklaus had his head buried in his hands. He didn't want to see the others.

He couldn't even remember the last time he had talked to Marcel. He had treated him terribly. He hadn't cared about him at all. That something could happen to him would have never crossed his mind. Why didn't he? He thought he had been thinking of everything. That's what he kept telling himself. But somewhere along the way he must have lost that skill. Or did he ever have it? Perhaps they just had been very lucky their whole lives and that luck had finally come to an end. Might as well be that he had never contributed anything to their survival.

Everything was breaking apart so quickly and Niklaus didn't know how to stop it.

After a while he looked up again. Briony and Davina still sat on the bed, barely moving. Elijah was sunk in the armchair across from the stool he was sitting on. Had they given up?

They couldn't give up. They were not allowed to when he already felt this terrible. It must have been their lack of agency that brought Niklaus back to reality.

Find a solution, he told himself. Then he and everyone else in this room would feel better.

"So far we've found a solution for any problem we've ever had. And this will be the same," he said.

Nobody replied.

"We just have to keep looking," he added, more pressing.

Elijah looked up, annoyed.

"You're not doing anything useful, Niklaus!" Elijah exclaimed angrily. "This means nothing! Do you really think we find anything to resurrect dead vampires in a room of a sixteen year old girl?! You're keeping yourself busy, because you cannot face the truth on who is actually to blame here!"

"What do you mean?" Nik asked, scared of the answer.

Elijah rolled his eyes. "We wouldn't be in this mess if one of us would not keep staking our siblings, and keep making everything worse. If just once in your life you managed to deal with your problems like any other normal human being, our sister would not be dead right now! And this is not even the first time! If you hadn't sliced her throat open," he pointed to Briony, "Kol would be fine too! You're killing all of us! This is all on you, Niklaus!"

It felt like his brother had punched him in his throat. Nik had nothing to reply to that. He knew it was true.

"Elijah!" Briony said with a thin but reproachful voice.

Then the room had fallen completely silent.

Elijah looked like he was ready to fight, like he waited for anyone to disagree with him. There was so much anger inside him, Niklaus could see it, waiting to come to the surface. But nothing came.

Elijah glared at him coldly. His brother had never felt so distant.

Niklaus' mind was blank. The insult had frozen him terrified. He wanted to say something, anything to make that glare stop. He'd rather have his brother punch him. But there was nothing he could say, nothing that could make this right.

Then, without taking his eyes off his brother, Elijah walked over to the door with slow and calculated steps and opened it. A second later he was gone. Niklaus kept staring at the spot where his brother had disappeared, barely registering the rain dropping on the window and Davina's quiet sobs.

1895, Savannah, Georgia

It was against any sense of instinct that Niklaus had, but he, Kol and Finn had gone back to the house they had barely escaped from. It hadn't taken very long to find out that Mikael had left in the mean time. Even worse than before, the ground floor of the house was completely trashed. From the debris they couldn't conclude if Elijah had actually got into a fight with Mikael or escaped. The thought of the former gave Niklaus a stomach ache. They still had no idea where he was. But Elijah was smart, he told himself. He was certainly smart enough to avoid an attack on Mikael. Had he got away and found Rebekah somewhere along the way, and now they were looking for the rest themselves? The longer they didn't hear from Elijah or Rebekah the less likely that scenario was.

Waiting for Mikael would be unreasonable. They needed to find him before he could find them, or they had no chance from the start.

"I have a suspicion where he could be," Finn said.

He motioned them to come outside with him, then he nodded to a house further down the street, just before the road made a turn.

"Until a month or so the house over there had been abandoned. It looked rather shabby. But then somebody moved in. We could tell because there were builders around for a few weeks. But after they had left it still seemed empty. We have never seen anyone leaving or entering the house ever since. I always thought it's a bit fishy. I say it's our best bet."

With absolute precaution they approached the newly refurbished house. It looked common and inconspicuous. After they had drawn as close as they dared to be still safe, they listened. Niklaus focused on any sound or movement in the house. Nothing moved on the ground floor. The first floor was very quiet too. But then, a noise. He heard something. A heart beat. Someone breathing.

"The attic," he said.

"It's definitely her," Kol concluded, and got up.

Niklaus held him back.

"Plan," he reminded him.

With lots of defiance Kol moved back again.

Niklaus couldn't tell if anyone else in the house. But he was sure Mikael was there. Everything about this smelled like a trap.

"He'll be expecting us," Finn said who came to the same conclusion.

"From a strategic point of view it does make sense to get her out first. She'll be able to find the others or already knows where they are," Nik said hesitantly.

Kol nodded.

"You're right," Finn said. "Kol will get to her, while we distract Mikael."

Niklaus wanted to object but he couldn't think of any arguments for his case. Confronting Mikael was the last thing he wanted to do. And he'll be very likely to be killed first. But then, he didn't want anything to happen to Elijah, Rebekah, Kol or Finn either. Hell, he'd even feel bad sacrificing Briony for this.

No, he had to admit to his own dislike, that this was their safest bet.

"It will be fine," Finn said in a reassuring tone. "We'll distract him for a bit, and then get out. Simple as that."

If only it was that simple.

"Kol, listen," Nik said to his brother intently, "when you got her, run away as far as you can. And don't come back."

"Not until I got a bullet proof plan to save the rest of you. Got it."

"No, don-"

Kol interrupted him. "I'm not going to let you rot in there if something goes wrong. Forget it. But I'll make sure I'll have a plan that works."

There was no use in arguing about that now. He didn't want Kol to throw himself into danger again. Niklaus just had to make sure that everything worked out the first time.

He followed Finn around the house until they reached the front door.

"I suppose there is no use to have any hesitations now," Niklaus said regrettingly, braced himself for whatever was coming and kicked the front door open.

After the noise and the dust of the crashed door had settled, it was quiet again. Nobody had been waiting for them in the hallway. Niklaus and Finn made their way through the dark corridor. It looked surprisingly similar to Finn's house. But there was this smell of paint and wood in here. At the end of the corridor a door stood half open, throwing a thin golden light onto the ground. Whatever was behind it, Niklaus was sure, was a trap. But that was the point. Activating the trap so Kol had a chance to get in unnoticed.

With one slow but swift movement he pushed the door wide open.

In one corner sat Mikael in a big leather chair. The light that had been shining into the corridor came from a candle on a small stool next to him. He had been waiting for them. Niklaus tried not to twitch when he saw him.

"It took you long enough," Mikael said.

"Where's Rebekah?" Finn asked.

"You're about to join her," he replied without moving a muscle.

Mikael's eyes were fixed on Niklaus who didn't dare to move. Niklaus was bracing himself for an attack, his last hope that they'd avoid a fight vanishing.

The only thing Niklaus remembered for sure was Mikael getting up from his chair. What followed was too convoluted that Niklaus would ever manage to put it in order. Something had swept him off his feet and thrown him up to the ceiling. It had been such an unimaginable force he couldn't tell if someone had hit him or if it had been magic. It had hurt his chest, but that might as well been the thrust against the ceiling. The weak golden light from before was gone now and he had trouble seeing anything. Before he had reached the ground someone or something smashed against him. He kicked and punched anything that touched him continuously. He must have hit Finn a few times as well, but there was no way to tell who he was hitting.

Then the ground and the walls around them started to shake. He dearly hoped that it was Briony's doing. There was no time to look for the source of that power in the midst of the fight. Suddenly he felt a cold searing pain in his chest. For a second he had the terrifying thought that he was staked, but when he looked down at his chest it was still intact. The pain came from the inside. Whatever magic was at work, it certainly wasn't Briony's. The pain paralysed him and something swept him from his feet again. He had no strength to pull against it. The pain was numbing his senses which impaired his vision even more.

He crashed on the ground again, unable to get up. Something or someone pulled him at his shoulders. He tried to fight against it, but his muscles had given up. He was too weak.

Then, he fell. He couldn't explain it. Had he been thrown up in the air again? A second later he smashed onto the cold hard ground. That alone almost made him pass out. He tried to get up, but his arms gave in the second he put pressure on them.

This was it. He was sure this was his last moment on earth. He pressed his eyes together.

Nothing came.

"Nik," he heard Rebekah say, "are you okay?"

His head turned, and he slowly came back to his senses. Rebekah. Had they been saved?

It was darker than before. After his eyes adapted, he saw Rebekah hovering over him, concerned. Then he recognized Finn next to her. His face was bleeding and there were scrapes and scratch marks all over him. Nik assumed that he looked about the same.

They were at a cool, damp place. His eyes followed the high stone walls towering around them.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Some sort of vault I think. Underneath the house," Rebekah said.

Niklaus followed the walls around him. No door, no window. It seemed like a prison.

"How do we get out?" Finn asked.

Finn got up to his feet. From his wavering Nik could tell he was still shaken from the fight.

Rebekah pointed to the ceiling. There was a small iron sealed hatch, about 5 metres above them.

"That's the way you came in. It's the only way out. I have been checking every corner of this place for hours."

It shouldn't be too hard to break it open, Nik thought.

As soon as he thought about the practicalities of opening it, he realized how impossible it was. A simple strong kick would probably suffice, somewhat depending on what was on the other side. But the hatch was 5 metres above them. There was nothing up there to hold on to. They'd have to jump to even reach it. And in order to reach it with enough force to break it open, he'd have to go head first. And that would easily break his skull or his neck. And then he wouldn't be ready for whatever was awaiting him on the other side. The hatch was so simple, yet ingenious in its effectiveness. Mikael had thought this through. They were trapped.

"Why is he putting us in here? Why is he not killing us?" Finn asked confused.

"He told me," Rebekah said disgusted. "He's collecting us until we're all here. He knows we're stupid enough that we'd come back for each other in case one of us escapes."

Niklaus scanned the room.

"Is it just the three of us?" he asked.

Rebekah nodded. "I don't know what happened to the others."

"I'm sure it's a good sign," Finn said quickly.

Despite Rebekah's reassurance that she had already checked every possible means of escape, Niklaus and Finn scanned every corner and angle of the place again. After another few frustrating hours, Nik had to accept that there was indeed no way to get out. A thin light came from two small cracks above them. Nik had inspected them, trying to find any clues for escape. But all he could tell was that there were several metres of concrete wall behind it.

During all that time they never heard a sound from above them. Was Mikael there? Was he waiting for the others to show up and put them in here?

Huddled together they sat in a corner, leaning on one of the damp walls. Much time must have had already passed. A day maybe? The light from cracks did not give any indication of changing daylight.

Rebekah rested on his shoulder. He could tell she was terrified.

"We're going to be fine," Nik said.

Timidly he looked over to Finn, who sat on his other side.

"Yes, you're right," Finn said. "It's only a matter of time until that hatch opens again and we'll be out in no time. The waiting is the worst part."

He seemed worried, but something about his presence calmed Niklaus. It felt like Finn would know what to do when hatch opened again. He could trust his older brother.

Niklaus figured that Finn was trying to calm him and Rebekah down, but somehow it worked. All they needed to do now is wait.

Their wait for the hatch to open felt like an eternity. Nothing happened. If Mikael had caught Kol he would have brought him here as well. It probably meant he got away. And Elijah too. That meant they were safe. Yes, they were okay. They must be okay. Perhaps they were planning on how to get them out of here. Niklaus remembered how he told Kol to do the opposite, but now he hoped that Kol didn't follow his advice.

"The other day I had this weird feeling," Rebekah said. "I knew something bad was going to happen."

"How?" Nik asked.

"I just knew," Rebekah replied. "I can't explain it. I had never felt it before. But there was this thought I couldn't get rid off that something bad was going to happen and I would't be able to stop it. I tried to tell myself that it was nothing and brushed it off. But now we're here and in a kind of danger that we haven't been in for a very long time."

He could tell that this wasn't part of her imagination resulting from her fear. She was serious about it.

But he didn't know what to do with it.

He took her hand in his.

"After this is over, we should go somewhere else. Maybe a place warm," Nik suggested, trying to change the mood.

"I don't care how warm it would to be," Rebekah replied. "We can go to bloody Antarctica if you like. Anything as long as it's far away from here."

"It would be nice if you postpone your trip to Antarctica until you've helped cleaning up my house," Finn added.

Nik smiled. "Cleaning up and snow storms. The future does sound promising."

Suddenly the hatch above them opened.

Thank you for reading! As always, let me know what you think!