Bar In New Orleans

Hayley and I were hanging out at a largely deserted bar, at midday, enjoying yet another bowl of the house gumbo.

"You know, I'm starting to forget what literally any other food tastes like." I mused.

Hayley sat back in her chair, with a smirk, and noted, "Your sister's emotions are back on. Your brother's reappeared in the land of the living. You're supposedly all put back together again, and you officially have no more excuses to be avoiding your life and following me around every swampy corner of the South."

She had a point. Every single event that had pushed me out of Mystic Falls had somehow found itself right side up. Jeremy was back. Elena was back. The band was back together, for all intents and purposes...just, minus me. Our work down here wasn't done, it was nowhere near done. Okay, we'd had a blast this summer, exploring new towns, following flimsy leads, and dancing until we hit the deck, but there was a point to us being here, and we weren't any closer to finding Hayley's family. I couldn't leave, not mid-game.

"Hmm. Right." I sighed, lightly, and reminded her, "You don't get gumbo like this in Virginia though."

"Right." Hayley chuckled.

Jane-Anne, our favourite snoopy bartender, made her way over to us, and noted, "Third time in here this week."

"I'm obsessed with the gumbo, Jane-Anne." Hayley replied, and I snorted at her.

"You know, ladies in the 9th ward say my sister, Sophie, bleeds a piece of her soul into every dish." Jane-Anne informed us, gesturing over to her sister, who was busy working away on the other side of the restaurant.

I nodded, looked intently for some glimmer of a joke there, and eventually rasped, "Huh. Gnarly."

"I asked around the Quarter about my family." Hayley informed her.

"And?" She asked.

"Nothing. Zero." Hayley sighed, and told her, "I can't find a single person who remembers them."

"Because, Hayley, people like you were run out of here years ago." Jane-Anne replied, matter-of-factly.

Hayley's ears prickled, and she asked, "What do you mean, people like me?"

Jane-Anne walked out from behind the bar to join us, and speak to us more discretely. Her manoeuvre caught her sister's attention, she stopped chopping and watched her closely. Jane-Anne set down an old road map on the bar and she explained, "In the bayou, they call the werewolves 'Roux-Ga-Roux'." She circled a point on the map with the Biro stowed away in her apron, and she warned us, "You head out there, you'll find what you're looking for. But, be careful. It's the last place you'd ever want to go."

"Smashing." I muttered under my breath.


The Bayou - The Arse End Of Nowhere

I stopped the car bang in the middle of the boggy dirt track just as Hayley had insisted and joined her in surveying the crumpled map.

"You said right at the mouldy tree stump." I reminded her.

Hayley groaned in frustration, and shot back, "I thought that was the right right. It isn't exactly clear, this all looks the same to me!"

"There's like one road, if you can even call this a road." I replied, "It can't be that hard to just...stay on it."

"There should have been a fork! Look. The fork is early on. Look at this." Hayley insisted, "Maybe we came in the wrong way?"

Just as Hayley motioned to hand over the map, it began to smoulder and then suddenly, burst into flames.

"What the...?" Hayley uttered and then screamed, "OH! JESUS!"

She tossed the flaming paper out of the window, and it splatted into the swampy trail beside the road. Her scowling face snapped back to look at mine.

"Was that you?!" She barked.

"Are you serious?!" I shot back, "You think I want to be lost in Alligator Soup all night?"

Hayley huffed, a little in frustration and uncertainty, but mostly in exhaustion, and then she shook her head and suggested, "Let's just go. We're losing the light. We'll come back tomorrow. This was a stupid idea."

"Not your finest." I muttered, and then checked myself, and told her, "I get it. It's the best lead we've had in weeks. We'll hit it hard tomorrow."

I went to put the car into reverse, and trundle down all the way back to a better spot to turn. However, the car did not respond kindly, and then began producing smoke in a similar fashion to our crummy map. I side-eyed Hayley, and for the first time that night, in the swampy horror-movie-set surroundings of the Bayou, I began to feel a little afraid.

"Are you kidding me?" Hayley muttered, and got out of the car first.

I followed her lead and popped the smoking hood. I covered my mouth and coughed a little at the sudden rush of fumes.

"You know, I'm starting to think that Creepy Gumbo Lady isn't the Good Samaritan she's making herself out to be." I determined, after assessing the damage and poking around the busted car.

"Is there nothing you can do?" Hayley asked.

I stood up straight, and declared, "Oh wait. Let me just tap into all of that repressed mechanic knowledge I have." I closed my eyes and pressed my temples, imploring my friend, "One moment, please."

"I will call for a tow." Hayley uttered and got out her cell.

I glared back at her, as she dialled the number and requested a tow service. Right on trend, Hayley's phone suddenly produced an ear-piercing shrieking noise. She threw her phone away, and she crumpled up and slammed her hands on to her head, screaming out in agony.

"HAYLEY?" I bellowed and tried to get over to her but I was sharply smacked with the same pain. I screamed out, "AHHH!"

My legs gave way, and I couldn't keep my eyes open for more than a second. Shadowy figures emerged from the trees. A lot of them. Chanting, I think, over the piercing ringing. Someone caught Hayley as she passed out. I don't know if any of our attackers were kind enough to do the same for me. It was lights out before I hit the deck.


Lafayette Cemetery - 3 Days Later

One of the witches had roughly seized my arm, yanked me up to my feet and shoved me down another creepy ass corridor. He said there was someone who wished to see me. He told me to wait inside one of the burial vaults. It was lit by numerous candles, spread out across the walls and along the floors; it was quite weirdly beautiful. Oh, in case you were wondering, judging by the dried mud splattered all down my side when I awoke, no, I had not been caught before I KO-ed back there.

The door opened abruptly, and the witch returned with my mystery guest.

My heart just about leapt out of my chest and I collided with him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into me. He asked me if I was hurt, and I shook my head inside his embrace.

Elijah turned to the witch as we parted, and he requested, "Give us a moment, please."

The witch obliged and Elijah beckoned me over to the bench. Oh, okay, this wasn't an 'I'm busting you out of here' chat.

"Forgive my candour, but, why do you remain here?" Elijah asked, simply, "How are they holding you against your will?"

"Neither of us can leave the cemetery gates without slamming into an invisible wall AND they have a little no-magic filter going on here too, so...I'm completely useless. Hence, thinking happy thoughts of you." I told him.

Elijah smirked, and explained, "It was the sudden radio silence that concerned me."

I smiled back at him, and kind of liked the fact that he was using my terms for our weird connection now. I sighed, and asked, "Now it's your turn to forgive me shooting straight to the point. Why aren't we busting out of here?"

"It's complex. Sophie tells me that the witches have a vampire problem, and they require help. I saw it firsthand. Marcel has an army backing him." He explained, "They want Klaus and I to aid them."

"And, we're the bait? To get you to help them?" I asked him.

Elijah nodded, and said, "Allegedly, Klaus is the father of your friend's unborn child. Do you believe that?"

"Hayley hasn't always been forthright with the truth, but she has never lied to me." I replied, "I don't understand how it happened, my skin is still crawling at the thought, but I do believe her. Do you think that it's possible?"

"Come here." Elijah rasped, and he moved closer to me along the stone bench. He held his hands up to my temple, and said, "If I may?"

"May? May what?" I asked, and recoiled, looking at his hands.

"Relax." He rasped and explained, "If you open your mind to me, I can show you my brother's story. It might explain better how this is all possible."

He waited for my nod of consent and then he placed his hands on me. He told me to close my eyes and to not engage with my base instinct to fight him off, to block him out. Something of a smart reply got caught in my throat; I could probably do no such thing, even if I wanted to.

In the beginning, our family was human... A thousand years ago, now. I saw Elijah and Klaus sword-fighting, dressed in real old-timey clothes. They joked around. They laughed. They were so happy. Elijah's hair was long, and braided. I almost didn't recognise him at first. Rebekah laughed and hurried a smaller boy along with her.

Although our mother dabbled in the dark arts, we were actually just a family trying to survive in a time when it was quite difficult to do so. And, for better or worse, we were happy. That is, however, until one night, our youngest brother was killed by our village's greatest threat. Klaus materialised again, this time carrying the ravaged body of young boy. It was horrifying to see, first-hand. He cried out for his mother.

Men that could transform themselves into wolves during the full moon. Our family was devastated, none more than Niklaus. Desperate to protect the rest of us, our father forced our mother to call upon her black magic in order to make us stronger. Mikael, their father, held the bleeding arm of a human out in front of Rebekah. She was completely broken, terrified, and sobbing her heart out. Mikael barked in her face, and forced the woman's arm into her mouth.

Thus, the first vampires were born. But with this speed, this strength, this immortality, came a terrible hunger. No one felt this hunger more than Niklaus. I saw Klaus attack a human, drain their blood and toss their body down, dead; a scene I was all too familiar with.

When he killed for the first time, we knew what he truly was. Klaus turned into a wolf right before my eyes. He screamed out as his bones started cracking. Mikael and Elijah came running through the forest, calling out his name. Klaus screamed out in agony, in sheer terror of what was happening to him. Elijah tried to run to his brother, but he couldn't; his father held him back, fiercely. Klaus cried out in pain. Mikael condemned the boy as a beast, an abomination.

He wasn't just a vampire. Elijah released his hold over me, and we came back into the vault. I wondered at first whether it was draining for him to perform this trick, but he didn't look any different, only perplexed; that couldn't be the end of his tale, he was second-guessing his decision to show me all of these private memories.

"He was also a werewolf." I said, finishing his sentiment, urging him to continue, "That's how the werewolf curse works. It isn't activated until you take a life."

"Niklaus was the result of an indiscretion our mother had hidden from us all." Elijah explained, "An affair, with a werewolf like your friend, Hayley. Infuriated by this betrayal, my father forced our mother to cast a spell that would suppress Klaus's werewolf side, denying him any connection with his true self."

Elijah's voice had grown more monotonous as he proceeded, lacking his usual flair; he didn't want to show me the next part. I took his hands in mine, and I brought them back to me. He relented, and he showed me. I saw Esther, standing in front of a fire, in the dead of night, casting a spell. I saw Mikael bind Klaus to a wooden cross, urging Elijah to hold his brother down. Klaus begged Elijah to help him. Elijah pulled away, bringing us back to the vault once more, and then looked away. His gaze returned to me after he regained his composure; he was still clearly harbouring a deep regret for his actions, a thousand years later.

"Your dad was a dick." I huffed out.

Elijah chuckled, and he said, "I cannot excuse Klaus' behaviour, but you must understand, when our father hunted him, hunted us, for centuries, every time we found a moment of happiness, we were forced to flee." Elijah rose from the bench as he spoke and gestured around, emphatically, "Even here, in New Orleans, where we were happiest of all. Not long after Niklaus broke the spell which prevented him from becoming a hybrid, he defeated our father. I thought this would make him happy." Elijah paused, and realised that I turned away from him a little. Of course, I was familiar with his endeavour, at great cost to my own family. He shook his head, and he admitted, "He was angrier than ever. I wonder if perhaps this baby might be a way for my brother to find happiness. A way to save him from himself."

Sophie suddenly entered the vault, and said, "I'm glad you feel that way, because we need your help."

Elijah asked as he sauntered over to Sophie, placing himself between us, "What, precisely, is it that you want and what does it have to do with these young women?"

"We want to run Marcel and his vampires out of town. Klaus is the key." Sophie explained, "Everything Marcel knows about being a vampire, he learned from Klaus. Marcel trusts him, looks up to him, and he won't see the betrayal coming."

"Yes, well, as I'm sure you're aware, my brother Niklaus doesn't like to be told what to do." Elijah said.

"That's why I brought you here. Marcel drove the werewolves out of town decades ago. Do you really think he's going to welcome a hybrid baby to the neighborhood? Convince Klaus to help us, and no one has to know about the newest member of the Original family." Sophie declared.

"That sounds remarkably like blackmail." Elijah noted.

"Like I said, I'm desperate." Sophie said.

"Well, then, I have my work cut out for me, don't I?" Elijah said, charmingly. He whispered to Sophie as he left the vault, "Touch a hair on that girl's head and the punishment I dole out shall be so grave, Marcel will comparatively look like the Easter Bunny."