March 27th 2014 - The Fall of the Mikaelsons - Out of Town Gas Station - Parking Lot
"You couldn't walk away. I couldn't. We didn't have to...in the end. Choice was made for us," I whispered, and looked up at the flickering dusty light on the roof to force the tears back.
Okay. One last look. I kissed two fingers and pressed them to Elijah's lips before closing the lid on his coffin. I closed the back of the moving truck, and rested my palms against it, taking a second to compose myself before climbing up into the cabin.
"Your mom and I were long overdue another road trip," I told Hope, as I started up the engine. Her eyes were heavy, she shouldn't have been up this late. I smiled and told the little girl, "I don't really know where we're headed, I'll be honest, but we'll start with...far away from here."
Yesterday - Mikaelson Compound - Klaus' Bedroom
Klaus had been easy to find; stood out on his balcony overlooking the city street below. He didn't turn to acknowledge my approach but he muttered, "I assume Elijah told you. So you understand why I'd prefer to be alone."
"He's hurting too, Klaus, more than you know," I told him.
More than I'd ever known. Elijah was completely broken by what he had done. He had fallen to his knees before me last night and begged for forgiveness. I'd held him as he cried. I was later shown exactly what Elijah had seen; exactly what had brought him to this point: the prophecy in all it's harrowing glory.
Voices echoed; no visible source. A painting of Klaus dripped with blood. Grimoire's flickering through their pages, all opened on one spell; I couldn't read the script. A shadowed figure hunched over: the shadow turned into Marcel as a beast, fangs elongated and dripping with blood. He spoke, in a dark voice not his own, "you will all fall, one by friend, one by foe and one by family." Marcel stood upon a lit bridge at nightfall. Elijah weakened. A bite wound on his arm. My own bloody-faced reflection in a mirror. Klaus pinned down. Marcel plunged an object into his chest. Elijah and Marcel clinked glasses. Marcel plunged a stake into Elijah's back. Several closed coffins.
It was frightening. And, it was already in motion. Vincent had extracted the serum from Aurora's comatose body, and given it to Marcel. Elijah removed Marcel's heart before he could take the serum.
"And had it been my daughter's heart would you still defend him?" Klaus scorned.
"Don't use Hope," I replied.
"Marcel was a son to me," Klaus cried out.
"Freya showed me what Elijah saw. The prophecies haven't been wrong once," I reminded him, to be met with a scoff and a dismissal. I raised my voice and implored, "Klaus after everything that you have done, all the people that you've threatened, tortured, killed, all the pain that you have put him through, he has always forgiven you! You have to forgive him."
Klaus turned around slowly and said quietly, with a glistening tear in his eye, "you sound like Camille."
This Morning - Mikaelson Compound - Elijah's Bedroom
I felt his hand playing with my hair and then caressing my naked back as I slowly woke up. I turned around in the sheets and asked him, coyly, "were you watching me sleep?"
"Hmm...possibly, a little," he whispered back, and kissed my hand, sweetly.
This wasn't like the other morning, the noise was getting in as soon as we'd woken. There was no respite, no sanctuary, no time to ourselves. It was too loud. I caressed his face and told him, "it was the only way to be sure, Elijah, and Klaus...I think part of him sees that already. But more than anything you have to forgive yourself."
"Do you?" He asked, quietly, "forgive me?"
"Yes," I assured him, "despite everything that we've done...all those we have lost...we're still here. You're not alone."
He looked into my eyes, found what he was looking for, and he kissed me.
Klaus, Kol and Elijah were strategising downstairs; the commotion outside was surely not their doing. I cloaked myself and crept towards the balcony as the front door to the compound burst open. A crowd of vampires poured through, closing in on the brothers. Marcel sauntered through the crowd, declaring, "never thought it would come to this. But as always, the Mikaelsons made my choice for me."
I had little time to process what I was seeing; I could hear Freya gasping and grunting across the landing. She fell to her knees; a woman watched over her despair in delight. I banked on this woman being a part of Marcel's posse, and rammed a summoned poker right through her chest. She coughed and spluttered up blood before collapsing in a heap.
"What did they do to you?" I asked, hurriedly, picking Freya off the floor.
"Poison..." Freya groaned out, her eyes darting around her invisible savior.
"Let's get you out of here," I suggested, as another vampire flashed into the room. I re-materialized, propped Freya up against the door frame and turned back to the intruder, squaring up to the annoyance, grumbling, "come on then! Let's go."
I snapped his leg bones the second he took one step forward and summoned the poker right out of the dead vampires chest. I launched it into his chest like a javelin, pinning him against the wall. I smirked and wiped the splattered blood from my cheek before picking up Freya once more, "come on. Let's go."
Hope toddled along beside me, holding on to one hand and Freya slumped heavily around my neck; we slipped out, down the back stairs into the alleyway. I helped Freya haul herself into the back of the car, and insisted, "lie down. Don't move."
Freya gripped onto my wrist fiercely, and groaned, "the prophecy is coming true. This is the day Lucien said would come. You heard him!"
"No," I scorned back, sharply, "there has to be another way out of this. We will think of something," I put a hand over her wound and muttered a rapid spell to momentarily relieve her pain, "okay, that's a band-aid for now. Lucien has an antidote to the poison in his penthouse. Right? We'll go there."
"Even if I was cured...the power I used to fight Lucien...it's gone. There's nothing that can stop Marcel now," Freya lamented.
"There might be one thing..." I mused and slammed the door shut on her.
Lucien's Penthouse
We searched everywhere for that damn antidote, turned the whole place upside down.
"It's not here. I can't find it!" Freya scorned.
"Calm down," I implored, "Freya, think. When you were poisoned before, Klaus stole an antidote from Lucien. It has to be here!"
"There's no other place to look. If I can't find the cure, I will die," Freya declared.
Klaus and Elijah suddenly burst into the apartment carrying Kol's floppy body between them; he was badly wounded; sweaty, pale, haggard...it looked all too familiar.
"Freya!" Klaus bellowed out.
It all happened so fast. I saw him, and saw relief itself, and then...I saw it. My heart had soared so high and then it completely stopped. Elijah's wound...just like the vision.
"Don't. Please," he begged of me, and caressed my face, pulling my horrified gaze up to his, "we deal with it later."
Kol slumped down onto the sofa and gasped for air. He cried out, "I am going to die!"
"You're not going to die!" Klaus insisted.
Kol chuckled back darkly, "now that sounds familiar. Isn't that what you said to Finn and Cami?"
"Look, Lucien engineered his venom from the seven werewolf packs, so maybe, that's the key to a cure," Klaus suggested.
"Oh great, that's the first piece in a puzzle none of us will be alive to solve," Freya whined, "I'm poisoned, Rebekah is hexed, and our brothers are bitten. We need three different cures to three different ailments, each of which could take years to find, and none of us will make it through the day."
Klaus had received a phone call from Rebekah. She'd worked her magic on her former flame. Marcel would call off the angry mob that was vying for Klaus' head, on the condition that he gave himself up, of his own volition, and stood trial before them. Elijah rejected the idea out of hand. It wasn't to be a trial. It would amount to nothing more than suicide. He insisted that Klaus take me, and Hope and get the hell out of the city. I refused point blank to leave.
After colluding with Freya, Klaus decided to face Marcel to buy enough time to save his family. Freya would link their souls, and squirrel them away inside a chambre de chasse, freezing their bodies in time, until a cure could be found for them all. Klaus was to be their tether to this world. He needed to get out of that trial, alive. So many variables, so much could go wrong, but it was their only option, their only hope.
Klaus took a moment to say goodbye to his daughter, alone. I waited outside.
"Klaus, it's too dangerous. You can't go alone. Let me come with you," I insisted when he emerged.
"No, I think not," Klaus said, calmly, "besides, I am the only one they want."
"Klaus-" I whispered.
"There is no one I trust more on this Earth with my daughter's life," he admitted, "...even after everything I have done to you, taken from you, even in the face of the insurmountable task of making just a small part of it up to you...I trust you with the most important part of me. I'm sorry, Rosanna. I was wrong. Take care of her."
I watched Klaus walk out of that penthouse, for what I thought would be the last time I ever saw him alive. Try though I did, I couldn't brush off what I felt as just being upset for Hope, now headed towards becoming an orphan. It wasn't just that. No, it was more than that. I was tangled up in this family, too far to ever hope of getting out.
Elijah was curled up on the bed, sweating, shivering...dying. I watched him from the doorway, watched the nightmare I couldn't escape from.
He finally saw me, and smiled, weakly, as he rasped, "I saw you...I had a dream...I was holding you. You seemed happy."
"It wasn't a dream," I assured him as I approached him, and pulled him into my arms, "I was happy."
Elijah shook and he caressed my face and he whispered, "if Niklaus doesn't make it-"
"-he will make it," I insisted.
"Listen to me," he implored, "now, you have grieved enough. You promise me...if not for yourself, then...for that little girl...you will get as far away from this place as you can. I want you to be happy, my love. Please. All I want...ever wanted...is for you to be happy."
He kissed me, long and hard, like it was the last time; he kissed me goodbye. You're not supposed to know when it'll be the last time, right? I couldn't escape the feeling; I knew.
"Don't cry," he whispered, and brushed the tears from my cheeks, "I've had so many lifetimes...you...you're my favourite."
I held his head against my chest and I whispered, "you always come back to me. Always."
It was done. Rebekah told us Klaus had found a way to stay alive. The plan had worked. Now, it was up to me, to make his sacrifice count. She stood in Hayley's apartment and watched the crowd destroying the compound across the street, destroying their home, everything they had built over the past two years. I told her to hang tight. I would come for her soon.
Elijah, Kol, and Freya gathered around the table, around a piece of paper with all names of the siblings scribbled on to it.
"Rebekah's dagger. It has her blood," Freya explained and placed the blade down over Rebekah's name.
She took her brother's hands, and recited an incantation. I had a hand on Elijah's shoulder. He took it into his. Freya chanted louder and louder until the spirits of the Mikaelsons left their bodies. They all flopped back in their chairs, lifeless. Elijah's hand slipped out of mine. I stood alone. Just like that...they were gone.
"Probably should've got you all to KO closer to the damn coffins," I muttered, shakily.