a piece

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'take my hand and my heart races
flames illuminate our faces
and we're on fire
blow a kiss to the crowd
they're our only hope now
and now i know my place
we're all just pieces in their games'
-'just a game', birdy

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Flowers.

So many flowers.

He could recognize Caroline's touch everywhere. He knew then that Bonnie must have handed over the reins for this whole event and stayed the hell out of it. He heard about that idiotic show 'Bridezilla' and well, this was 'Wedding Plannerzilla'.

He stands at the end of the aisle, nearly suffocating in the tuxedo he is wearing. The last time he was this dressed up, it was at that ridiculous doomed ball more than a year ago. That had all worked out so well.

"Relax, little brother," comes Klaus's voice. "You are practically twitching."

Kol rolls his eyes, his fingers raking at his hideous tie. "I can't help it."

Klaus snickers softly. "Just like a nervous bridegroom."

"Oh, shut it."

The wedding march begins.

He watches as Caroline marches down the aisle like she owns the place. She takes her place at the other end of the alter, sharing a wink with Klaus just as the bridal chorus starts and the rest of the congregation rises to their feet.

Briefly, Kol realizes he doesn't recognize a face in the crowd.

But then Bonnie appears and he doesn't really care about anything else.

All he sees is Bonnie.

She looks absolutely magnificent. She wears a form hugging white Chantilly lace gown, which shows off every beautiful and luscious curve of her body. Her hair is down, held back by one single pearl pin.

That's peculiar. Bonnie always told him that she hated pearls.

Her throat is bare as well as her arms, displaying her perfectly toned and tanned skin. And in her hands she carries a bouquet of blood red roses.

Which is even more strange.

She reaches him and he takes her hand, twining their fingers together.

"You look ..." his voice trails off but the eyes say it all.

Bonnie smiles, a light blush flushing her cheeks. "You too."

For those brief moments, everything is okay.

They turn to the front, flanked by Caroline and Klaus. Caroline is beaming happily, Klaus smiling proudly.

Mikael presiding over the ceremony.

"Dearly beloved -"

"Wait a minute -" Kol cut in, gazing bewildered at his long dead father. "What are you doing here?"

"Marrying you and this lovely young woman, my son," Mikael says with a surprised look. "Is there a problem?"

"Of course there is," Kol snaps. He quickly turns to his right, waiting to see that horrified expression that he knows his brother would be wearing.

And finds his brother standing beside him, fangs fully bared, eyes as golden as the sun. Blood trickles down his chin and drips steadily onto his white shirtfront. A low, guttural growl rips from his belly but he does nothing. He only smiles.

Caroline sidles up beside Klaus, her eyes black with blood. Scarlet veins protrude underneath her normally blue eyes and a single drop of blood slides from the corner of her mouth, dribbling to her chin.

"Is there a problem, Kol?" Caroline asks pleasantly. "I only thought that it would be a family affair."

"Yes, there's a problem," Kol says with a snarl. He advances with a step but the tiniest of hands touches the small of his back.

Bonnie.

"Bonnie, my love -"

And Bonnie looks normal. At first.

She smiles at him, her face so young and so perfect. There are really no other words to describe her.

And then the red appears.

It starts as just a spot, right in the center of her abdomen. He watches with horrified eyes as the crimson stain gets bigger and bigger, spreading across her stomach like one of Klaus's spilled paints on a canvas.

Bonnie continues to smile at him, one hand sliding up to her stomach like there is nothing there at all.

"You're not my Bonnie," Kol chokes, backing away. "Leave."

"Oh, but Kol," Faux Bonnie whispers calmly. "We could be so happy together."

"No!"

He nearly backs into Klaus and Caroline but manages to pull away just in time. Caroline's fingers reach out, long and bony. Her fingernails drive into his arm, ripping into his skin.

"Kol, it's okay," Caroline purrs. She makes a grab for him again and he darts back.

"Kol!"

He watches as the unknown congregation begins to rise to their feet and swarm around their tight little group. He can hear Mikael laughing, Caroline and Klaus cackling.

"Kol, listen to me! Kol, listen!"

Bonnie.

The real Bonnie.

The wind is starting to pick up. The lights flicker around them but no one else be he seems to notice.

"Bonnie?"

Faux Bonnie is gone, almost like she was never there in the first place. He can hear that distant voice from some faraway place in his head. He reaches out with his mind, latching onto it like a beacon of light.

"Kol, you have to listen. He's ready. Silas is ready. He is just waiting for you to make the first move."

The scene around him blackens and fades.

"You are ready too. You can beat him."

"Bonnie!"

Her voice is all around him. He can almost feel her.

"I love you."

"Bonnie! BONNIE!"

Rebekah had awoken to her brother's screaming ten minutes before but she hadn't moved from her bed. She could feel Matt's steady breathing beside her, listening to and finding comfort in the sound of his beating heart. But she could feel her brother's pain. And it was driving her crazy.

"Go."

She jumps nearly a foot in the air, glancing to her right where Matt gazed back at her with those freaking blue eyes that could get her to do anything.

"What?" she asks, already knowing the answer.

Matt gives the tiniest of smiles, nodding towards the door. "Go to him. He needs you."

"He needs Bonnie," Rebekah mutters.

"Yes," Matt agrees, scooting up against the pillows so they are eye to eye. "But he also needs his family."

Rebekah sighed softly. She and Kol had never been too close growing up and after choosing Nik over him, that closeness seemed impossible to reach ever again.

"All right. But if he hexes me into oblivion, it will be your fault."

Matt cracks a weak smile before settling back down under the covers. "I'm sure."

Rebekah grabs one of Matt's hoodies that is laying over the back of the chair and pulls it on over her clothes. She wraps her arms around herself and pads out of the bedroom in her sock feet, walking down the short hallway to Kol's room.

The screaming has stopped several minutes before. Her ears are greeted with the sounds of drawers being opened and slammed shut.

Rebekah quickly opens the door to see her twin stuffing clothing into a suitcase, already dressed in jeans and a heavy jacket.

"Kol?"

The muscles in his back tense at her voice but he continues to pack.

"Kol, what in the bloody hell are you doing?"

"What does it look like, sister?" he replies.

Rebekah can't help but stare. She had never heard her brother's voice so cold, so lifeless.

"It looks like you're going after Silas by yourself," she says, finally getting her wits about her. "And that means you are the world's biggest idiot."

"Then I am the world's biggest idiot," Kol says, zipping up the suitcase and throwing the long strap over his shoulder. He turns to face her and Rebekah nearly staggers backwards.

"Don't be an ass, Kol," Rebekah growls, using her speed to snatch the suitcase away from her brother, quickly throwing it back into the closet with a loud thump.

Kol gives her a withering look as he goes for the suitcase. She can see the frustration in his eyes, not being a physical match for her anymore. But there's more.

"You cannot face him yourself," she says, soundly blocking his way when he gives up and tries for the door.

Kol tries once again to push past her. When she doesn't budge, he lets out a growl of exasperation.

"Bekah, you know I can get past you. Now cut it out!"

Rebekah winces slightly, having been on the receiving end of a couple of Kol's aneurisms. But she holds her ground.

"You cannot do this," she says again. "You are not strong enough and this is a death sentence."

"I'm pretty sure I don't care."

The words hang in the air like lead.

"You don't mean that."

"I don't?" Kol replies. "What point do I have? What exact purpose?"

"You have a purpose to your family!"

"Oh really? To Nik, who let me rot in a box for over a hundred years? To Elijah who didn't even bother to try and get me out. To you, whom I begged to come with me to Italy and you blatantly chose the brother who had daggered you half of a dozen times already?"

Rebekah cringes just a bit, the weight of Kol's words smacking her right in the face almost like he had raised a hand to her.

"Need I remind you that I wouldn't even be here now if it wasn't for -"

"I know!" Rebekah cuts in. "Oh, for the love of God, I know!" She knows she's being cruel but the words continue to fall out of her mouth. "Kol, if you do this, if you go off like this, then you will waste Bonnie's gift. You are here, you are human, all for a reason. And it wasn't to eliminate Silas."

"And what reason is that, Bekah?" Kol approaches his twin, his brown eyes finding her blue ones in the very early morning dim.

The sun is coming up, it's blissful rays casting themselves through the sliding glass door that led to the tiny balcony right outside. The light pools on the carpeted floor, inching it's way towards the two siblings.

Rebekah eyes the light, feels it's warmth.

The pain is almost too great and she wonders what she would do if she ever lost Matt.

She already knew.

She hadn't said these words before. Oh, she know how she felt about her brother and how he felt about her. They were twins. They shared a bond that not even Nik could break. Even though he was only a few minutes older than her, she had always felt like the baby sister.

Rebekah looks at the pain on her brother's face, the sheer agony in those once playful, mischievous eyes and finds her own tears beginning to well up. She makes a promise then. A promise to herself and to Kol that she will do whatever she can to find a way to bring back a certain little witch.

Because she cannot bear to see this pain. This pain that is just not in Kol's heart but in the hearts of all those that she loves.

Before she even really knows what she is doing, she wraps her arms around her brother's middle, burying her nose in his shoulder. His arms hang slack at his sides for a few short moments before she feels them rise up and rest on her back.

It isn't that he hugs her back that makes her want to cry. It's the silent sobs that she feels that shake his whole frame.

"I love you," she whispers. "It's okay."

"How's Kol?"

When she gets back to her shared room with Matt, she is greeted by not him but Elijah and Klaus.

"He's devastated and grieving. What did you expect?"

Klaus sighs gently, slipping down onto the cushioned window seat with his legs stretched out in front of him. He rubs a tired hand through his unruly curls, glancing back up at her with blue eyes so like her own.

"What do we do now?"

"There is nothing we can do, Niklaus," Elijah cuts in.

"So we are going to sit on our duffs and wait?" Klaus replies.

"Right now, yes," Elijah says. "With Kol in his condition -"

"In his condition?" Rebekah repeats. "He's not a mental patient, brother. He's grieving! And we are going to let him grieve and try to be there for him when he lets us. We are not going to try to get him back in a somewhat stable frame of mind just so he can duke it out with Silas."

"Rebekah, that is not what I meant," Elijah says.

"We have already used our brother as ammunition once," Klaus agrees. "And I am not going to watch him burn again."

Elijah shifts back a bit onto the balls of his feet, a little taken aback at being ganged up on by the both of them. He holds up a hand towards Rebekah, his eyes darting back at Klaus for a quick second.

"That is not what I meant," he says again.

"Then what?!" Rebekah barks.

"I agree with you, sister," Elijah says, choosing his words carefully in the effect of damage control. "We win this war. The final battle is looming. And then we track down Magdalene and find a way to bring Bonnie Bennett back."

"You can't."

The three siblings all freeze, having been so engrossed in their conversation that they didn't even hear the human footsteps or the beating heart just outside the bedroom door.

Rebekah turns, seeing Kol. He's older than ever in spirit and mind, his handsome face lined with an age that was unnatural.

"What do you mean?" Klaus asks.

"With the death of Silas, comes the destruction of the Other side," Kol says softly, his eyes trained on a very interesting thread in the carpet. "With that, the souls on the Other side move on. They go to either Heaven or Hell. No more purgatory."

"Oh my god," Elijah mutters.

And now Rebekah's frightened. She's frightened because she has never heard Elijah sound frightened.

"Nice huh?" Kol says, his eyes still on the thread in the carpet.

"After that then ..." Klaus murmurs.

"If one of us dies, we go straight to hell," Kol says. "No in between trip to purgatory."

With the weight of those words hovering in the air, the youngest brother turns on his heel and exit's the bedroom, allowing the heavy wooden door to slam shut behind him with a resounding thud.

He waits until he hears the steady and even breathing of all of his siblings before he rises off of the chair.

His eyes dart to the ticking clock that hangs from it's perch on the wall, reading the numbers.

One o'clock in the morning.

He slips across the carpeted floor to the closet, his hand clutching the knob of the door for just a moment before allowing it to click open. He reaches inside, pulling out his still packed duffel bag and slinging it over his shoulder as quietly as he could.

He's leaving.

As much as he wanted to believe Rebekah's words, he couldn't. He just couldn't.

The painful truth was, if he was still a vampire, his humanity would be off right now.

But he couldn't do that. He couldn't flip the switch and make it all go away.

Being here in this house, being near Caroline and Matt, he couldn't.

He just couldn't.

Kol pads down the stairs as silently as he could, arriving at the front door in three large strides.

For just a moment, he stands there. He stands there and he listens to the stillness of the night. The absolute peace that so many others are feeling.

Because Bonnie Bennett is dead, the world doesn't stop. The world continues on. Life goes on.

His world has stopped.

He thinks about his brothers and sister. About Matt and Caroline.

He gets it. He had picked on and chided Finn for almost a year after Sage had disappeared, never really understanding the pain that his big brother was going through. He wasn't used to death then. He had already taken eternity for granted and now -

Kol lets out the smallest of breaths. He doesn't really relish breathing anymore.

Not while his reason to breathe was gone.

And then he opens the door, passing through the magical barrier and into the chilly January night air.

He raises a hand to the doorway once he's outside, allowing the power to quietly pulse through his veins. The home would remain hidden from all eyes, including Silas's.

Kol stays on the porch for a brief moment, listening to the wind as it lazily dances around him.

"Goodbye," he whispers.

He steps off the stairs and begins to walk straight into the woods, disappearing into the night.

She had hoped she was wrong.

When Caroline woke up that following morning, the first person she had thought about was Kol.

She didn't know why and frankly, she didn't want to know. Something was telling her to check on him. To make sure he was okay.

"What's the matter?" Klaus asks her when she gets out of bed much earlier than the norm. He sits up on his elbow, peering at her in the early morning light as she pulls a sweatshirt on over her tank top and shoves her feet into her slippers.

Caroline looks back at her boyfriend, still curled up on his side in their shared bed. If they weren't vampires, she would have figured he was down with some bug or something. He didn't look well.

None of them did.

"I don't know," she says softly. "I just - I want to check on Kol."

Klaus gazes at her for just a moment before he rises out of bed too. "I'll go with you."

Caroline doesn't question it.

Despite the final safe house being a two story, it is still frightfully small. Not much privacy at all, especially with seven - er, six people living there.

Kol's room is right down the hall. Caroline reaches it first, raising a fist and letting it hover in mid air for a few moments before rapping on the mahogony barrier.

No answer.

"Perhaps he is still asleep?" Klaus offers even though she can tell he doesn't believe it. "Knock again."

Caroline does. "Kol! Kol, are you in there?"

Still nothing.

"Okay, get out of the way."

Klaus pushes past her and tries the doorknob. Locked. With one turn, the lock gives way and he enters, sticking his head around the side of the panel before walking in.

Caroline follows, hoping like hell that they will find an agitated and tired warlock inside.

Instead, they find an empty room and a folded piece of paper on the desk.

"He didn't," Rebekah moans softly.

"He did," Elijah says.

Klaus holds the letter in his hands, his eyes scanning over the words before he wordlessly hands it over to Caroline and flopping down into a nearby chair.

Caroline eyes him for a moment before taking the letter. She swallows back the sudden onslaught of tears but she reads.

"Dear Family,

I know this is a rotten thing for me to do but it is the only way.

Silas accomplished what he had been setting out to do from the beginning. He got me alone and vulnerable. Killing Elena didn't fix any of this. She was only a piece in his games. And now he is making me one.

Well, I am not going to hide anymore. He is NOT going to win this. He wants me and he wants me to come to him. Well, he's going to get me. But he is going to get a big surprise along with it.

I'm sorry for doing it this way. The protection spell is still up around the house. Please wait until this is over before you try to leave so you all will safe. Please try to understand.

Your brother, Kol"

Caroline looks up from the letter to see identical stunned expressions on the faces of Elijah, Rebekah, and Matt.

Rebekah is the first to speak.

"He's out of his mind."

"It's what I would do," Matt supplies.

"Then you are out of your mind too," Rebekah snaps.

"I'm going after him," Elijah says. He's already heading for the doorway when the words register.

That's when Klaus finally speaks.

"No," he says, rising to his feet.

Elijah turns to his younger brother. "What?"

Klaus looks right back at him, without blinking or missing a single beat.

"I'll go."

When Elijah sees that look, that hard blazing look, he doesn't argue.

"All right."

She follows him as he exits the small sitting room, using her full speed to catch up.

"If you think you are going anywhere without me, you are out of your freaking mind."

Klaus turns, his blue eyes finding hers.

"Caroline –"

"No," Caroline cuts across him, her tone firm and final. "I care about Kol. And seriously, Bonnie would come back to haunt my ass if I let him do anything this stupid. It's –" Her voice cracks slightly.

Klaus reaches down, taking one of her hands in his. The pads of his fingers knead the back of her hand for a brief moment, their eyes never looking away from each other.

"This is not your responsibility," he finally says.

Caroline gently pulls her hand out of his. "I know that."

"Caroline, you can walk away. You can walk away from all of this."

"I know that too." Caroline walks over to the front door, grabbing her coat which lays discarded over the lone chair beside the entrance way. "But this is my home. Kol was Bonnie's home."

Her hand reaches out, gripping the doorknob.

"I am doing this for her."

Klaus searches for another rebuttal, another hope to talk her out of this. Because he knows one thing right now.

Chances are ...

But as he gazes into her determined face, her grief filled eyes, seeing her outstretched hand…he can't.

He won't.

"Okay."

His hand slips through hers and they are outside, out of the cover of the spell that Kol had cast.

As they reach the border, Klaus breathes in, allowing his wolf senses to take over.

"I know which way he went," he mutters softly. He brings Caroline's hand closer to him, twining their fingers together. "Hold on tight."

And they run.

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We are nearing the end of the road, my lovelies. Hold on tight.