The Bayou
"Klaus..." I said, trailing behind his heated march through the woods, towards Rebekah's temporary resting place, "I know that you're angry."
"I don't need advice on healthy mourning from the girl who kept her bestie's rotting heart in a box, thank you," he snapped back.
I sighed deeply, and grumbled, "a heart that you let fall into the hands of her murderer. But that's by the by. Look, I get it. You think that if you revert to being the cruel bastard that you were before you met Cami, you can pretend like she was never there. Like she never changed you."
Klaus stopped so sharply I almost smacked into him. He spun and hit back, "you want to commiserate with me, Rosanna, but our experiences of grief are not the same. Your friend is dead. It hurts. But we both know that your Cami, the person that you share a true connection with, is still breathing and available for booty calls. So you and I are not the same."
Klaus stormed away. I took a beat to recover from the verbal slap; stunned, and a little hurt by what he'd said. A short while into his stomping later, Elijah called us with a harrowing update.
"Freya has a way to kill Lucien," Elijah said on speakerphone, and then passed the phone over to his sister.
"As long as Davina's caught between our worlds, I can use her as a conduit to channel power from the Ancestors. The same power that was used to create Lucien. Once I have it, I can make Lucien killable again. But everything comes with a price. In order to take power from the Ancestors, you have to steal it. Which means, to make Lucien killable, I'll have to draw through Davina, while she's in the Ancestral Well. And to do that, I will have to break the circle that protects her.
"That will destroy her?" I asked, uncertainly.
"Freya...you are certain this power will be enough to kill Lucien?" Klaus asked.
"Yes. But we'd be placing Davina in terrible danger. The only thing protecting her from the Ancestors is the circle. Now, if it is broken..." she lamented.
"They will rip her apart. She's just a kid," I scorned.
"What choice do we have?" Elijah countered.
"No. Find another way," Klaus demanded, "if we destroy Davina, we lose both Kol and Marcel. I won't have us all turning on each other. Keep looking, brother."
Klaus hung up immediately and stalked away, for the second time leaving me completely stunned by his words.
Klaus hauled Rebekah's coffin into the back of his car on his own. I stood back and watched; he didn't need any help from my muscles, he had this one.
"You did a nice thing today, Klaus, for Davina, who you hate," I said.
"It was a purely strategic decision. I assure you," he muttered back, and secured the coffin down.
"Maybe," I said, with a pointed shrug, "or maybe you knew that Cami cared about her, and would have wanted you to fight for her."
"You know, I thought I told Camille everything," Klaus lamented, resting his hands against the trunk, exhausted, "every moment that mattered from my past, and yet, in the mere hours since she died, I've thought of a thousand things I forgot to say."
"Yeah. I know that feeling," I replied, sadly.
"Do you?" Klaus rasped, and slammed the trunk door down, "because the prophecy is still upon us. And my brother's immortality suddenly seems quite fragile. Talk to him, Rosanna. Stop wasting your time."
"I'm not wasting mine. I'm taking it back," I whined, without thinking, and regretted it immediately.
Klaus stopped, stared back at me, looking royally confused, and muttered, "what the bloody hell are you talking about? Taking back what?"
"I was...just thinking out loud, let's go," I insisted and headed for the door.
"No," Klaus replied, simply, and grabbed my wrist.
I spun back to face him and scorned, "what do you mean, no?! Get off me!"
Klaus grabbed the side of my head and pulled me down into his memories without formality, without grace; his voice echoed over each one.
He has always cared.
Elijah leant against a balcony, and mused, "there is a clouded feeling of unrest I cannot shake, Niklaus. She was in my memories, my favourite place. Ever since, it's like she's taken up permanent residence in my mind."
Klaus rolled his eyes and groaned, "she's just a girl. Elijah. Who bloody cares?"
Elijah stood upright and he determined, "I do. I care. I want to help her."
He felt a connection beyond supernatural ties.
"She tried to save me from mother's spell," Elijah rasped, "took the glass away."
They were both dressed in their tuxedos. This was the night of the Ball at the Mikaelson Mansion, the night I had met Esther.
"Adorable. Truly," Klaus rasped, downed the remainder of his drink and scoffed, "shame her bleeding heart didn't extend to saving more than just one of us."
"You murdered her aunt in cold blood, Niklaus; consider the love permanently lost with her," Elijah hit back, and sauntered away.
I always thought jealousy was beneath him.
"No, Nik, it's not you this time!" Kol chuckled, "no, his testy mood has everything to do with Rosanna and me keeping each other warm at night. Over and over again. Let me tell you, boys, it's not just her blood that's delicious; the sheer stamina on that girl-"
Elijah launched his fist square into Kol's jawline. Kol was repelled back by the force. Klaus took a step back too, actually startled by the sudden ferocity from his calm, composed brother. Elijah leant over Kol and seethed, goading him, "speak about her in that crude manner again. Go on."
Kol looked down at the ground, and wiped away the blood from his chin, sheepishly.
Ah. Here we are. Watch how he disregards my final breaths; his own brother's final plea for help!
Klaus went for Tyler's heart, but Tyler twisted his arm around. Stefan and Damon burst into the room. I remembered this night, perfectly, though I'd never seen this bit before. Oh yes, there I was, slumped on the floor, unconscious. Stefan rammed his hand inside Klaus' chest. Klaus groaned and moaned and he began to desiccate. Damon moved away from him and flashed over to me.
"Aww, geez," Damon grumbled at the sight of Elijah bursting through the door, "great timing, buddy. We'll be with you in a sec, alright? One pain-in-the-ass at a time, please."
"BROTHER!" Klaus hissed out with what remained of the air in his lungs.
Elijah didn't look anywhere else; he was fixated on me. He didn't even look at his brother, not once. Klaus continued to become more decrepit looking. Elijah whispered something to Damon, picked me up, and flashed out of the room.
Any attempt to cause you harm? I envy them not.
We were in a church. Elijah flashed into a man and ripped his heart clean out of his chest. He launched a second man up into the air, and a third after separating them both from their hearts. He turned back to Klaus with a bloody heart in each hand, and dropped them nonchalantly to the floor. He pulled out his pocket square to wipe his hands semi-clean. Agnes stared back at him, in horror; Klaus grinned with pride.
"Now, I swore you would not die by my brother's hand. I said nothing of my own," Elijah declared and snatched up Agnes by the throat, "nobody hurts my family and lives." He quickly snapped her neck, with the flick of his wrist, and released her limp body. He turned to leave, uttering, "no one."
Klaus flashed to his side and quipped, "you know that no one can truly hurt her, right? She's immortal. Comes back every single time. Literally indestructible."
"Irrelevant," Elijah seethed.
He wants everything to be perfect for you.
Elijah considered a Christmas tree before him, scrunched up his face and determined, "I'm not seeing what I had in mind. We keep looking."
Klaus flopped his head back, like a bored child, and rubbed his face in exhaustion. He grumbled, "Ugh, let's not. Let's just buy out the entire bloody lot and turn our house into a winter wonderland. That's surely enough to impress the damn girl, and I get to go home. Win-win. Let's go! Compel someone to do it. I'm done, Elijah. You know how festive hovels like these depress me."
Elijah smiled weakly and replied, "I'm not trying to impress the girl."
"I should bloody hope you are, why else are we out here, freezing our arses off?!" Klaus shot back, incredulously, to his now silenced brother, "come on, Elijah! Who are you trying to kid here? This got old a bloody long time ago. You've fallen for her. Just admit it! May do wonders for the stick that's lodged up your enduringly-stoic arse."
"If I admit to you that it's complicated, would that suffice?" Elijah asked, "or, are you determined to torment me throughout this endeavor?"
"Throughout our cursed lifetime, brother. You know the drill," Klaus determined, and grabbed the arm of a passing salesman. He compelled him to send fifty of the finest, most symmetrical trees to their address.
He can't focus on the life or death matter at hand because you might get into a spot of bother.
We were at the Compound. Elijah pulled his brother back and asked, worriedly, "what does she mean the Other Side is "disintegrating?"
"It's actually imploding. I made a call to a rather reluctant Bennett witch in Mystic Falls who said the same thing. The dead are being torn away into nothingness. And, they're not interested in going quietly," Klaus explained, and he stopped at the spiraling look on his brother's face, and he insisted, "we don't have time for you to nip out and check on her every five minutes. She's not on the Other Side. She's alive, and fine. Get your head straight, brother. I need you here."
Losing you broke him.
Elijah launched a table against the wall. The room was smashed to smithereens. He began to hyperventilate and stopped to try to catch his breath. He fell to his knees and he cried, "she is gone..." He tried to hold back his tears, but ultimately failed. He wailed, "do you understand?! I let this person in. I let her in! I don't let people in! You knew this."
"No one saw this coming, Elijah," Rebekah tried to console him.
"You've taken her from me!" Elijah cried. He flashed into Klaus and hit him in the chest, weakly, as he huffed out, overcome with emotion, "I needed her, and you've broken me."
Klaus pulled his brother into his embrace, and looked to Rebekah for help.
"STOP!" I called out, and pushed Klaus away from me, breaking his hold over me. My mind spun out from the chaotic jumping from memory to memory. He attempted to offer a supportive arm to my dizzy mind; I slapped it away. I glared back at him, and got into the car without another word.
I just looked out the window, and watched the Bayou flash by as Klaus drove us back home. We drove along the desolate back roads in silence for the most part. But that didn't last long.
"He was always there for you, always. When your house burned down, when your brother died. Even when he tried to do the right thing and stay away, he couldn't," Klaus said, and suggested, "I'll show you more if I have to."
"Touch me again, and I will break your hand off," I uttered back, darkly.
"He loves you, and he deserves you. You are his priority," Klaus insisted.
"You are," I snapped back, and finally faced him, with glistening eyes, "and that's fine. I get it. But it's also fine that I want it to be me. And...it's fine to want my own family. I know he loves me, Klaus. I know it all. I don't need to be shown. But...sometimes, that's not enough. He was right, okay...it's complicated."
He didn't have a clever rebuttal to that, not this time; I saw him look for one. Klaus' jingling cellphone eventually shattered the stifling silence between us. Of course, Elijah was calling him. Klaus passed it over to me and delivered a public service announcement, "driver shouldn't be on the phone, hmm."
Before I even touched the phone, a black SUV ploughed into the side of our car, and send it tumbling through the air.
Abandoned Barn - The Bayou
Have you learnt Nik? I am finally your superior in every way. I can smell it, the stench of fear. Uncomfortable isn't it? Knowing your life could be snuffed out any second. Count your heartbeats Klaus.
I wasn't with it at all; I was ripped from a smashed up car and fuzzily came to. I threw something in self-defense, and then shrieked in agony. A fence post was rammed right through my middle. Klaus flashed up to his feet and saw that I was held up in a choke-hold by Lucien, terrified, gasping for air.
"Oh well, the king and the substitute queen caught out by a one-time pawn. Thus the game comes to it's inevitable end," Lucien narrated.
"What are you proving by killing her? It's me you hate," Klaus scorned.
"Was I not clear when I murdered Finn and Camille? I don't care who dies!" Lucien barked back, "but since you do, indulge me and I might just spare the fairy godmother. Kneel! Get on your knees!" Klaus did not move an inch. Lucien seethed, "her guts are falling out as we speak. I'd be doing her a kindness! Do you really want to measure your pride against my mercy?!"
Klaus wavered and then he obeyed Lucien. He got down on his knee and he bowed his head to the demon he'd created. The next thing I knew I was falling, like tumbling down in a dream I couldn't wake up from. Elijah surrounded me, and he smelled great. I was pretty sure I was dying now. I waited for Ignatius to look over me and shake his head; what a disappointment, so far off script, brought no balance to the force, only melodrama. I wasn't dying very quickly considering a fence post had been unceremoniously yanked out of my stomach; I should have been bleeding out. But I wasn't dying at all. I was feeling...okay. I was in Elijah's arms, feeding on his blood. Freya was off to our side, chanting away.
"Are you alright?" Elijah asked, a few times; his hands caressed my face, wiped the blood away, pulled my eyes up to meet his.
He looked worried, but the second I nodded, it turned to anger and he flashed away. I staggered up to my feet, marveling at the soaking stain on my shirt and the renewed vitality I felt. It was time to kick ass, climb mountains, take names and...well, I was actually surplus to requirement. They totally had him. Lucien screamed out in pain as Freya's spell stripped him of his upgraded powers. He was just an ordinary vampire now.
"You see that family drama you so joyfully deride does have its merits," Klaus said.
Elijah kicked Lucien in the back of his leg, forcing him to kneel before Klaus.
"You can kill me but the prophecy still stands, you cannot outrun it!" Lucien scorned.
"I've heard about 1000 years too much from you," Klaus seethed, "for a century you lived with my name and you never did quite recover from losing it, did you? You became a man of wealth and stature but you never could crawl from my shadow, and in the end, despite the gift of immortality, you have always known what you truly are. You are nothing."
Elijah gripped Lucien by the back of his head, and held him upright for his final moments. Klaus used a broken piece of glass to cut Lucien's mouth, then ripped out his heart.
Mikaelson Compound - Elijah's Bedroom
Freya and Elijah had not managed to find another way to strip Lucien of his powers. They had made a call to save their brother, and their sister, and me, at the high price of Davina's soul, and Marcel and Kol's allegiance.
Elijah was sat on the ottoman at the end of his bed, clutching a glass of whiskey, his head heavily nestled in his hand. He heard my approach, and snapped up to face me. I took the glass from him, finished what remained. I caressed his face and the back of his neck. He rose up into my touch and surrounded me.
"I want to walk away...be a better man," Elijah rasped, as his hands told their own story, "give you what you need, but I can't. I can't do it. It has to be you."
"Not tonight," I whispered, and let him kiss me.