Mikaelson Compound - Den
Freya and Klaus whispered harshly between themselves near the doorway. Cami sat on the sofa with a million yard stare. She looked terrible; pale, haggard, sweaty. I could hardly believe this was the same woman from yesterday's triumphant ass-kicking. Even 'blood spurting out of her face' Camille looked a damned sight better than this. I squatted down beside her and said her name. Nothing. I tried again.
"Cami? Cami, hey. Are you alright?" I asked her.
Her brow scrunched and she looked at me, wearily. She rasped, "yeah. Considering."
Klaus took a cloth and an open jar from Freya and sat down beside Cami, requesting, "hold still. This is going to burn."
He took her arm and pressed the dampened cloth to Lucien's bite. Cami gasped in pain immediately and she whined, "ow, ow, what is that?"
"It's a healing salve," Freya explained, "mother-wort, white willow bark, the recipe's over a thousand years old."
"So, the good stuff, huh?" Cami rasped.
Freya breathed in really slowly and then reluctantly admitted that her pain would be eased, her symptoms dulled...but it wasn't going to stop the infection. Her response hung in the air as the room shuffled around a little, awkwardly.
"So...I'm screwed?" Cami grumbled back.
"We're gonna do everything that we can, Cami," I assured her.
Elijah walked into the room followed by Vincent, and proclaimed, "to that end, a little assistance."
"Cami, I'm so sorry," Vincent said.
"You should be, this is your fault. It was you who turned Lucien into a beast," Klaus seethed. Elijah stopped his heated advance on Vincent with a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Klaus, stop. It's not his fault," Cami groaned out.
"Camille is right. We all need to work together to fix this," Elijah placated his brother.
"Yeah, yeah I think I know how to fix it. Lucien has always been obsessed with me, he made himself like me, my bite is cured by my blood," Klaus posed.
"You think his blood can save her?" I asked him, thoughtfully.
It made perfect sense that Lucien would want that power, to lord himself over his victims. We had a working theory, it was time to test it. Lucien's blood was splattered all around Cami's apartment; she'd sliced him to hell before she escaped.
"Okay, I got this one. Lucien's got no reason to be on the lookout for me," Vincent said, and left immediately.
"Maybe we hedge our bets," I suggested, reluctantly, "Hope is a Mikaelson Witch who carries the wolf gene, and we already know that she's got healing powers."
I looked to Klaus, who in turn looked to his sister for her opinion.
"It's worth a try," Freya said, with a shrug.
I waited for Klaus to give me his blessing with a pointed look and then left in Vincent's wake, "I'll tell Mary that I'm coming."
"I'll go with you," Elijah said, and followed me out.
The Bayou - Track to Mary's Cabin
I placed a gentle hand on Elijah's chest, and said, "um...Mary doesn't want vampires near her cabin. It's probably better if you just stay here by the car."
"She is aware that you and Hope are under my protection?" Elijah said, rhetorically, narrowing his eyes.
"Unfortunately that didn't do much for her grandson, did it?" I grumbled back, unintentionally tersely, and headed down the trail towards the cabin. I wasn't trying to be spiteful; I was just...scared; I wasn't entirely certain that I was doing the right thing here, and it was my bright idea.
Elijah suddenly flashed before me, stopping me dead in my tracks, and he scorned, "you know I couldn't have prevented that."
"Yes. I do," I sighed, and ranted, "but here we are, again, with someone else's life on the line. And...this time I'm taking an innocent baby girl into a war-zone on the off-chance that it might save our friend from dying. Do you see how insane our lives have become?"
"What do you want me to do?" Elijah implored, through gritted teeth.
I stared back at his intense, pained look, and I wavered. I told him, honestly, "...take me back to that perfect, fleeting moment this morning, when it was just you and me, and the whole world wasn't on fire? When something was easy, and made sense."
I watched his face soften, and he lost himself in those words, and in the memory itself; nothing but you and me, the sunlight trickling through the shutters, the quiet stillness of the house, the quiet in our minds, the warmth of the sheets, of one another, the banter back and forth, talking about nothing important with all the passion and heart of something mountainous. And then holding on til the very last second, until a frightened, bellowing voice shattered the illusion, and reality seeped back in. This morning was a one-off. It wasn't the norm. It was time to get up, put our armor back on, and go to war. I sighed and shrugged off my crisis of confidence. I told him, "I just can't keep losing people. First Jackson and Hayley, now we might lose Cami, who's next? Klaus? Me? You?"
"I'm not afraid to die. Neither are you," Elijah said, "we fight for those we love."
I thought about his words for a moment before bypassing him and walking away towards Mary's property. He was not afraid to die; he'd lived; he'd escaped death for centuries, but I was afraid. Not of actually dying, I guess...but...I was afraid of my choice; afraid that I wasn't going to fall in love like this again; afraid that I was throwing away one epic love for some vague possibility of another, of some idealized cookie-cutter human life; afraid that yes, this was a war, with very real stakes, and I could die, for whatever reason, brave and noble or not...and forcing us apart would have been for nothing. I stopped and looked over my shoulder, but before I could tell him anything, he simply nodded, and said, "I know."
Mikaelson Compound - Courtyard
We fight. We don't always win. Looking back, I don't know if I ever was truly hopeful; maybe keeping out hope was going to soften the blow somehow. There are some certainties in this crazy life, and sure, there are instances where they chop and change about but...we simply didn't have enough time to come up with a miracle. We went down swinging. But...we lost Cami that night. She went with Klaus by her side, in her mind, just the two of them. We all waited downstairs, waiting for Klaus to come down and tell us that she had gone.
Hope fell asleep against my chest, and I held her tight, rocking her gently. Davina burst through the gate and hurried through to the darkened, quiet courtyard. She froze inside the solemn atmosphere almost instantly. Freya and I sat by a candle-lit table with Vincent pacing behind us. Marcel sat at the bar, his hands pressed to his face. Davina, with tears in her eyes, turned to Marcel. He made his way over to the girl, and hugged her tightly. He cried. She cried. Freya excused herself.
I sat down beside Cami's desiccated body as the last person that night to say goodbye. She looked...peaceful.
"I've uh...I've harped on a time or two about not getting to say goodbye to the people I love, about the millions of things I'd say if I had the chance. And, okay, we weren't super close, or anything, but I'm clearly a huge fan of rhetoric, because...I've got nothing," I told her.
My face did a weird grimace thing and I thought about losing people in an instant, and losing them in slow motion; feeling that helpless inevitability and getting completely blind-sided. I had tales for each, and everything in between.
"I'm sorry that this happened to you. You deserved better," I said, "this family owes you, big time, considering everything you did for Klaus. And it's really not fair that Hope isn't going to get to know the woman that made her father a better man. I mean, I still can't stand him, can't ever forgive him...but I figured if he liked you, if he liked someone so very human, then he couldn't be 100% bad. He was...trying. So...I was trying...and I'm making this all about me. Wow. You'd definitely have something to say about that."
I huffed out a small laugh and sniffed quietly, and then wiped away a stray tear. I stood up, and lifted the bed sheet to cover her face. I didn't think I was that emotional, or primed to fall apart, but I suddenly felt the ground move and shudder beneath my feet. The wind whipped up outside and burst open the shutters. I staggered about. Elijah flashed into the room and pulled me against the wall, shielding me with his own body. It sounded like a chandelier dropped and smashed downstairs.
Mikaelson Compound - Klaus' Bedroom
Cami's corpse was still resting on the bed where she had died, though her body was completely covered with a sheet. Klaus was contemplatively looking outside the window. I knocked on the open door to announce my presence.
"Did you bring it?" he asked, without moving.
I walked further in, cradling a book, and told him, "yes. Mary said Jack wrote down everything your father told him about the ancient werewolves. I've read it. I don't think there's anything in there that's gonna help us kill Lucien, though."
"I'll see for myself. You can go," Klaus said, plainly, and took the book from me.
I couldn't go without bringing up the dead girl in the room, "Klaus, I think that we should do something about the body, about Cami. I know that she wanted an Irish wake. I can...I can make the arrangements."
"It doesn't matter what she wanted!" Klaus shot back, heatedly, "she's gone. There's no time to sing dirges. We're at war."
"Yeah...okay," I said, and left him to his...staring out the window.
I looked over the balcony, down to the courtyard below and saw that Marcel Gerard and...Kol Mikaelson had arrived at the compound, and they were beseeching something of Elijah. Kol had blood splattered down his front; his eyes were wide and wild. I hadn't seen Kol Mikaelson since he...was on fire...dying in the kitchen of my childhood home. Well, this was to be sufficiently awkward.
"No, that's the wrong answer!" Kol barked back, stepping towards Elijah threateningly, until his gaze shot up to the newcomer. His expression scrunched up and he looked tickled as he exclaimed, "ah! Just the person!"
"Kol...long time," I muttered as I descended the stairs.
"Bygones, truly, all of it," he replied, shortly, "if you help us!"
"What the hell are your bygones?" Marcel asked him, clearly at the end of his tether.
"She murdered me, Marcel, after seducing me first," Kol sang back, and then scoffed to Elijah, "do watch your back, brother."
"You were about to hack my brother's arms off!" I reminded him, heatedly.
"For the good of literally everyone on the planet," Kol retorted, sarcastically, "but no, Jeremy Gilbert is such a gem, he definitely takes precedence."
"What was this about you needing my help? You have such a charming way of asking for it," I scorned back at him.
"I'm spoken for these days, love, I can't ask you the other way," Kol sneered back and stepped back at Elijah's response to that. He threw up his hands and said, "alright. Alright! Cool your jets. Just some old friends catching up, and now that we are sufficiently caught...I hear you're a second-rate Bennett Witch these days."
"More or less."
"I need more. Davina's dead. The Ancestors cursed me, used me as a pawn to do their dirty work," Kol explained and I glanced down at his blood-stained shirt.
I put a pin in my loathing for one second, and I uttered, "you...killed her?"
"He did," Marcel answered for him.
"I want to help you, Marcel, I do, but I have no idea how to bring people back from the dead," I told him, and then Kol, "and no offense, but if I did have an idea, there's a bunch of people ahead of Davina on that list."
"I'm not asking you to do that," Marcel said, "I know that's a tall order, and we'll get to that, in time. Right now, I just need y'all to figure out a way to protect her from the Ancestors."
"This is a war, gentleman. We don't have time to dispense in trail and error. Please understand, I despise the situation," Elijah replied, tersely.
Marcel put a hand to Kol's chest to stop him, and he stared down Elijah. He shook his head and implored, "no, no, no, I know this is a war but I've lost a lot of friends, too. Today I need your help."
"Then you shall have it," Klaus said, suddenly appearing from his room, and descending the stairs to join us. He gave Elijah a pointed look and then took his younger brother by the arm, "come on, Kol. Let's get you cleaned up."
"Thank you," Marcel told Elijah and I, sarcastically, and followed them out.
Freya had the solution they sought: she would draw Davina's spirit into a mystical circle of...soot? As long as Davina was there, the Ancestors wouldn't be able to torment her, and they'd have time to find a way to resurrect her. Freya needed to channel an Original to sustain the spell. Kol was keen, but his repeated run-ins with the Ancestors took him out of the running. Klaus and Elijah prepared for a half-hearted round of rock, paper, scissors, when all of the candles on the table suddenly flared up in aptly dramatic fashion.
"That can't be good..." I muttered.
"My early warning system," Freya gasped, "I think a New Orleans witch is trying to meddle with one of you."
"Lucien has the new Regent at his beck and call. It's me he's coming after," Klaus grumbled.
Rebekah's portrait suddenly burst into flames dissuading that notion. Cami's death was supposed to kick-start Klaus on a suicide mission right into Lucien's tiny grabby hands. It didn't work, so he was going after Rebekah; she was supposed to be chilling at the bottom of the ocean, as far as Lucien was aware.
"I cloaked all of you, but with the Ancestors working for Lucien, it may take awhile, but if he wants to find Rebekah, he will," Freya explained.
"I'll go get her," Klaus said.
"It's not safe out there!" Freya argued.
"What then?!" Klaus barked back, impatiently, "are we to sit here and play cards until Lucien slides Rebekah's bitten corpse down the hall?"
"Let me go," Elijah insisted, and went to leave the room, but Klaus grabbed his arm to stop him.
"I moved her," Klaus admitted, "what, don't look so surprised. I never did like you two sharing secrets."
"Tell me where she is, unless you expect me to stay here and leave our sister entirely defenseless," Elijah insisted.
"I expect you to prevent Kol from suffering the same loss that I did. And yourself. Lucien deserves our collective ire. Today, your grievances are tabled," Klaus determined, and disappeared out the door.
The invisibility spell was becoming a fast favourite of mine. A quick cloaking and a shortcut out the back got me to Klaus' car way before he did. He opened the front door and frowned deeply at the occupied driver's seat.
"Hey, chum," I smiled back at him.
"Seriously?" He grumbled.
"Look, we both know how this is gonna go down. You're going to tell me that I can't come, and then I'm going to tell you that I love Rebekah, I wanna save her, too. Then you're going to say, I'm going to slow you down, and I'm going to remind you that I followed Hayley around every inch of the bayou, all summer long, just me and my bestie, and I'll definitely get super sad and start crying on you. So, hey, let's skip all that, and move right on down to the end: unless you want to be delayed by an angry werewolf grandma with a shotgun, who happens to owe me a huge debt of gratitude for saving their pack from burning alive that one time, you should just admit that you need me."
Klaus glared back at me, the entire time, and eventually grumbled, "I'm driving."
"Yeah, you're not though...so..." I gestured over to the passenger seat, and patted it.
Klaus ignored my smirk, and slammed the door shut, sauntering around to the passenger side, and reluctantly taking his place.