Present Day
These last few days had been most peculiar for Rebekah. And now that she had seen two of her brothers being thrown on of the city, being swept off their feet and carried away, Rebekah had no idea on whose side she was supposed to be on. Even though the situation had been very serious, and Briony seemed upset, and Elijah and Nik very worried, the whole thing looked rather funny.
There it was again. It felt like she had experienced a very similar situation with Elijah and Nik before. Or had she heard about this before? And the last time it had happened she had found it very funny.
Now Finn, Freya and she were stomping through a swampy forest looking for her brothers. Rebekah would have preferred to be alone with Finn. Something about Freya was still bothering her. But she had to admit it was good to have someone around who knew the area. By now their house and a few corners close-by felt familiar, but they had no time to do memory catch-up now. Instead Freya had driven them to the closest border of the town, a small road through a swampy forest. From there, they had continued their search on foot.
Flora had also disappeared. As a vampire, she must have been affected by the spell. Poor girl, Rebekah thought. She doubted Briony had even noticed Flora. Briony had marched away after her stunt, and disappeared before anyone could stop her. Were they supposed to stop her? The others had been too surprised to react, too. Eventually, Davina said she was going to look for her and had taken Marcel with her. She hoped that these two would find a way to talk some sense into her.
Rebekah assumed that it was most likely that her brothers would find them first and not the other way around. And she was not mistaken.
It didn't take long until one of them had caught up with her group.
"Elijah," Rebekah said, relieved.
Next to him, Flora appeared, dripping wet.
"Are you alright?" Rebekah asked.
Elijah nodded. "Nothing hurt, except my pride."
He looked a bit disheveled, but in full spirits.
"Niklaus is not with you yet?" he asked when he had glanced through their ranks.
Rebekah shook her head. "No. Why do you mean?"
"We have been looking for him. Usually we'd find each other pretty quickly in a situation like this. When he didn't show up anywhere I assumed he was with you."
"Should we be worried?" she asked.
"Not yet. He's either run off or is stuck somewhere. We'll find out soon."
"Did you try to call him?" Freya asked.
"Yes, I did try to call him," Elijah said shortly.
His tone implied this was an obsolete question.
"He didn't pick up," he added. "So I take it he doesn't want to be found."
"We should still be looking for him," Rebekah countered.
"Agreed. We don't have the time for him to pout somewhere. If that's what he's doing."
"What happened to you?" Finn asked Flora who had been pulling her wet hair into a pony tail.
"I landed in a lake," Flora said drily. "This has been truly a successful day for me. Just splendid."
"Wait," Rebekah said and took off her woollen jacket.
Nik had suggested that she should always wear several layers of clothing because she might get cold. But from running around in these warm noon hours, Rebekah felt way too hot.
"There you go," she handed the dry jacket to Flora.
"Thanks," Flora said, softer now.
"Wait," Finn said, "that has happened before, hasn't it?"
"Elijah and Nik being uninvited and literally thrown out of a place?" Rebekah laughed. "Yeah, I remember it, too."
Finn shook his head and turned to Flora. "That's not what I mean. Flora falling into a lake, because of something we did."
"Yeah, happened before. I usually get the short stick in your family matters," Flora said, relieved that Finn had a memory of her now.
Now that Finn had mentioned it, Rebekah had a vague memory of Flora in a lake, too. That was when she had died, wasn't it? They had to pull her out of the lake, and Elijah had given her blood. Rebekah had been very angry with her brothers, because these kind of things only happened when they were around. Rebekah also remembered how Flora had been jealous when her brothers and Briony had shown up, because Rebekah suddenly had spent much less time with her. Afterwards, Rebekah had felt very sorry for her. Not so much about her becoming a vampire, but the way she had treated her. She should have spent more time with Flora. Because Rebekah had the impression that Flora never had many friends before she had met Rebekah.
"So, let's get going then?" Rebekah said.
Elijah hesitated. "If possible, I'd rather have one of you go back and look for Briony."
"Maybe give her a break for once?" Rebekah said.
Elijah shook his head. "It's not about a spell. We can't let her run off by herself. It's not right. She is our friend after all. At least someone find her so we can apologize before everyone goes to hell again."
"Oh," Rebekah said, somewhat relieved. "In that case, it's taken care of. Davina and Marcel have gone after her."
Pleased enough by this reply, Elijah then returned to their initial task.
"We should split up to cover more ground. I'll check the areas farther away in case he is running away. And you check around here. Maybe he really is just stuck somewhere, maybe spiked by a tree."
Rebekah glared at him for the unnecessary visualisation.
Elijah ignored her. "Okay, I'll get going and you two human siblings split up and each go with someone more useful."
Rebekah didn't like this plan at all. Flora had already snatched Finn. Which left her with Freya.
"Elijah, a word," she said and pulled her brother a few feet away.
"You really want me to go with this stranger woman that you don't even like or trust?" she asked him in a whisper.
"Freya has helped saving you. She deserves some gratitude," he told her.
"That's why you have treated her so warmly this whole time?" Rebekah said with a raised eyebrow. "You have an issue with her, don't deny it."
Elijah hesitated."The only issue I have with her is that she never wants to help on her own."
"She didn't want to help when saving me?" Rebekah asked.
Elijah shook his head. "No, we had to blackmail her into doing it."
Before Rebekah could reply, he quickly added: "Still, she helped, and we couldn't have done it without her. I don't hate her. She just doesn't make the impression that she wants to be with us. So I'm not intrigued in getting to know her, either. But that doesn't mean she won't be useful. And she'll protect you in case something happens. I'm sure of it."
Rebekah wasn't happy about this arrangement, but Flora had already ushered Finn into one direction, and Elijah had gestured her and Freya to go the other way.
When they were alone, Freya said: "I don't know if you remember. But before you died, you had come to my apartment once and told me that I can come to you whenever I needed anything. After I lost my apartment, my friends and my whole livelihood in New Orleans, I decided to take you up on that offer and came to see you in the mansion. But you had already been gone."
This reminded Rebekah of something. It was not a memory she connected to Freya. She had always wanted a sister, she had known that already as a human. And she remembered how much anticipation she had felt when Kol had brought home the witch. She had wanted to keep her and groom her into a sister. Elijah had teased her about her weird sister fantasies. But it had worked, at least to some extent. She had liked Briony. She remembered now. For a moment, she considered Freya again. Did she have the same sister-bond feelings for her? Perhaps. She had no memories of that. But at least, she could imagine herself act the way Freya had just described.
"What were you hoping to find when you came looking for me?" she asked.
Freya hesitated. "A friend? Somebody I can trust?"
She seemed genuine. But something was bothering Rebekah. It sounded like any effort to bond with the family had stopped after she had died. Did Freya try to bond with her brothers at all in the meantime? From what she had heard, keeping Freya on board had been a constant struggle.
After a pause she said. "I know that my brothers can be very difficult. But they have accepted you and entrusted you with everything they were doing in the last months. It shows a great deal of trust on their side."
"Really? It felt like they just needed me as a blood vessel or another witch." Freya shrugged. "I helped out with so much already, and I feel like no matter what I do I will never become one of you."
"Is that what you want? Become one of us?"
Freya hesitated. Somewhat ashamed, she faced ground. Freya didn't seem ready to admit it to herself, but Rebekah figured the answer was yes.
"Have you ever shown any initiative? About anything they like?" Rebekah asked. "Helping out is one thing. But it's not the same when they have to shame you into doing it. I believe that you were genuine when you came looking for me, but my brothers might not see your true intentions."
"You… they are asking for a lot. I have to admit, I would like to get to know you better but I can't throw out all of my principles," Freya said.
"See it like this," Rebekah added. "Briony has thrown them out of the city. And they still run after her, not because they need her, because she's one of us. That's because we never forced her to do anything, but she did it anyway. You can be one of us to, but you have to show it."
Some Viking village, ca. 996
If his brothers got caught, Finn would loudly proclaim that he had no idea what they were doing. That they had never behaved like this before. That this was the first time that they had just run off like that, in the middle of the night. Finn wished this had been the first time that he had to run after them. But it wasn't. He had been saving his brothers from getting busted so many times before. Why was he even doing it?
At least this time, only two of them decided to revolt. Kol and Niklaus had disappeared from their cottage when everyone was asleep. After Finn had noticed their absence, he knew who to ask in order to find them. Elijah had been unusually grumpy, which meant he knew something. After some pressure on his brother, Elijah had admitted that Kol and Niklaus had gone to the small lake nearby to meet two girls from the neighbouring village. Under other circumstances, Elijah might have even been included in these plans, but he had been busy helping their parents fixing the roof that day.
Now it was up to Finn to get them back, and avoid any kind of trouble. He didn't like trouble in the family. Even if it was only Niklaus and Kol that would get a punishment, the bad mood of their parents would spread throughout the whole house. And then everyone would suffer. Also, Finn doubted that his brothers even responded to the punishments, usually in the form of hard manual labor. It had never stopped them before to do stupid things again.
As he walked along the dark uneven path through the forest that led to the lake, he heard steps running up behind him. He already knew who it was.
"Elijah, I told you not to follow me! I'm taking care of this!" he said, as he stopped and snapped around.
"Who knows where Nik and Kol went. The two of us will find them faster," Elijah said with some insolence.
The wasn't the whole truth. Finn was sure that Elijah was still jealous because he hadn't been included. Behind him, his youngest siblings, Rebekah and Henrik peaked out. Rebekah had an excited gleam in her eyes, ready for adventure. Henrik seemed nervous, but curious about this unusual hike in the middle of the night.
"Why then did you bring them?" Finn said with a raised eyebrow.
He certainly didn't want to get Rebekah and Henrik into this. Until now they had been the good kids. Their older brothers shouldn't give them bad ideas.
"Well, I couldn't leave them at home by themselves, could I?" Elijah replied.
"I can take care of myself, thank you very much," Rebekah said, rolling her eyes. "Also, there was no way I was going to miss out on this."
Finn sighed in frustration.
"Please go back, all of you!" he said pleadingly.
The three of them broke into a loud protest.
Loudly, he tried to speak over them: "I need to find Nik and Kol before mom and dad notice that they're gone. But if they notice that not only they are missing, but you three as well, they'll rip their heads off first, then yours, and then mine. And I'm not very fond of this course of events."
"Then we should find Nik and Kol as quickly as possible, and head back, shouldn't we?" Rebekah said decidedly.
With that, she took Henrik by the hand, and led the way. "This way, then?"
In the last year or so, Rebekah had become much more defiant than she used to be as a kid. Finn had credited this to her hitting puberty. He fondly remembered the time when all of his siblings were still children. They had been so much easier to handle than now when they were all teenagers. At least that's what he tried to tell himself. But if he was honest, it had always been impossible to look after his siblings, to make them listen to him. And the older they got the more difficult it had become.
With quick steps he followed Rebekah and Henrik. At least Elijah had the sense to put them in warm clothes. It was unusually cold for an autumn night.
"Why are you not with the Lily girl?" Rebekah asked, as they walked on.
"What?" Finn asked, not eager to start a conversation.
"Who's the Lily girl?" Henrik asked.
"The girl from the family living at the riverside. Finn fancies her. He has spent an awful lot time there in the last few weeks," Rebekah replied with delight.
"It's not like that," Finn said. "I helped them out around the house because her father died. I was helping them."
"Sure," Rebekah said knowingly.
She and Elijah exchanged a look and laughed.
"Shhh!" Finn said.
Not far from them there was a rustling in the leaves, foot steps rushing away from them.
Elijah and Rebekah turned quiet and listened as well.
Intuitively, they followed the source of the noise, faster and faster, getting into a run.
Suddenly they heard a loud splash. Finn sighed. One of his brothers had fallen into the lake for sure.
They ran until they had reached the small dark lake amongst the trees. Not far from them, Finn spotted Niklaus, cursing and climbing out of the water, dripping wet.
"What happened?" Finn asked him when they caught up with him.
"I tripped," Nik said.
"Where's-" Finn began to ask, but then saw the small fireside on the other side of the lake with a dark figure next to it.
"Kol, get over here! We're going home!" he shouted.
"Sorry, can't hear you!" Kol shouted back.
"What were you doing, running through the forest, Nik?" Elijah asked.
"We heard voices and thought it was mom and dad. I went to check. Then I saw it was only you."
On the other side of the lake Kol was watching them. He was too far away to hear them. Next to him, a small fire was burning, probably set up as a meeting point. Whoever they wanted to meet hadn't shown up yet. Finn doubted they ever would. None of the girls in their neighbouring village would be as stupid as to meet with his brothers in the middle of the night.
"Should we go over there?" Rebekah said, a bit too eager.
Finn ignored her. Instead he took off his jacket and handed it to Nik.
"You're gonna get ill," Finn said.
"No, I won't," Nik said annoyed but took the jacket.
It would not be the first time. Finn had once overheard his parents speak about his brother's sickly constitution. His father had said that Niklaus had always been the least likely of their children to reach adulthood. Although his mother had strongly protested about the choice of words, she hadn't disagreed. Finn had never noticed it before, but had then realized it too. Nik was usually feeling alright, and surely sharp in the head, but from all of his siblings, he was always the first to catch a cold or a fever. And he wasn't exactly careful when it came to avoiding things that weakened him. Like now, when he had landed in this pond in the middle of the freezing cold of an autumn night.
"Kol! Get your butt over here! Your brother is freezing to death!" Elijah shouted over the water.
"I'm not freezing to death. I'm fine," Nik protested, shivering.
"It's not my fault he's too stupid to follow the path without falling into ice water," they heard Kol shout from the other side.
"If Kol doesn't come over right now, we're all getting into trouble," Elijah said through gritting teeth.
Not waiting for anybody's reply, he decidedly picked up the way again leading around the lake.
"Elijah, wait!" Finn tried to shout after him.
Finn doubted that Elijah was too worried about being caught by their parents. Right now his greatest annoyance still stemmed from being excluded, and he was ready to let it out on Kol. He would make sure that Kol would get back to the village, no matter what strength it took. But Finn had no desire to fight Kol all the way back to the village.
He turned back to his other siblings. Nik was still shivering, and expected his decision.
"How about you already head back?" Finn said.
Nik bit his lip, then said: "Alright."
Finn was surprised to hear no further protest. His brother must have been very cold.
"And take these two with you?" he nodded at Rebekah and Henrik.
"No way," Rebekah said.
Rebekah usually followed wherever Nik was going, but tonight she seemed to hope for more action. Finn gave Nik a nod that he should go.
"Come on then," Nik said to Henrik, and they headed back to the village.
With quick steps Finn and Rebekah followed his path around the lake, but Elijah was long gone.
When they had reached the fireside, Kol and Elijah had already been wrestling. In an extremely stupid attempt, Elijah tried to pull Kol away by his legs while Kol laboriously clambered himself to a root.
"Let go off me!" Kol shouted, trying to kick and push his brother off.
Despite being a few years younger, he managed to fight off Elijah with almost equal strength. Still grabbing at the root, he kicked Elijah in his face.
"Stop it, Elijah," Finn tried to sound calming, "this won't lead to anything. Do you really want to wrestle Kol all the way back to the village?"
"If that's the only way to get him back, yeah," Elijah replied, still tearing at Kol with all his strength.
With great reluctance Finn tried to get between them and pulled Elijah away by his shoulder. He fell to the ground across from Kol who looked at him with a grimace.
"Nobody is forcing you to come back, Kol! Either you come with us and nothing bad will happen, except that you might have missed the chance to meet some girl that probably won't show up anyway. Or you stay here and we go back without you. Which means that mom and dad will find out that you have gone out in the middle of the night by yourself, and you probably won't see anything but the insides of the stables and big piles of horse manure for a very long time."
Kol glared at him. "This is only going to happen if you two traitors rat me out to them."
"I won't tell them, I promise," Finn said.
"I might," Elijah glared at Kol, while rubbing his cheek.
"We won't tell them," Finn said, "but still consider if staying here is worth it. Because no matter if we tell them or not, the chance that our parents will notice your absence is very high."
Mutinously, Kol sat on the ground with crossed arms, not budging.
For a while they stared at each other, Kol sceptically glancing from Finn to Elijah. Finn had the impression that Kol was waiting for them to attack him again. When after a full minute Kol still didn't show any sign of giving in, Finn said: "Don't say we didn't try. Have fun in the stables for the next year."
He held out his arm to Elijah, who hesitantly took it and got up.
Elijah opened his mouth to protest. Then he seemingly changed his mind, and angrily strode away from the fire.
"Come on," Finn said to Rebekah, who had watched the spectacle with great interest.
He took her by the hand and pulled her away from the fireside.
When they were out of Kol's sight, Rebekah said: "We could get Elijah back. I can talk to him. The two of you could easily carry him, you know."
"I know," Finn said.
"But? You rather wanna see him getting busted?" Rebekah said unsure.
Finn slowed down his steps.
"No."
Rebekah stopped as well and observed at him inquisitively.
"Carrying him home is still the backup plan," Finn said. "But I hope we don't have to resort to it."
Shortly after they heard steps coming from the fireside.
A second later, Kol passed them with crossed arms, decidedly ignoring them.
With relief Finn watched him following same path Elijah had gone. "It's easier to convince people when they have a choice to do so. Force doesn't exactly remind people like Kol that they could act sensibly."
Yay new update! I hope you like it! I don't have anything to add right now, so just let me know what you think!
