DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN TVD OR TO
Two Months Later
Kane Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson
For two months, Klaus and Stefan had been nearly untraceable.
Damon, Elena, Alaric, and Kane had teamed up to find them, with the help of almost everyone in-the-know about the supernatural.
The two people Kane had brutally murdered the night of the ritual had been cleaned up by Damon, and he'd been helping Kane wherever he could to get over the last fifty years of no-humanity destruction.
He and Elena had gotten rather close over the summer, close enough where Kane would call her a friend. Caroline, Elena's blonde friend, wasn't sure how to feel about him, considering he'd half-lied about everything he'd said to Caroline the night of the ritual.
Kane had yet to run into the Lockwood wolf since that night, which was probably a good thing, considering Kane had been out to kill him at the time.
Kane sat at the island counter of Elena's house, talking with Alaric.
"Did she find something?" Kane heard Elena ask, and he turned to where she was coming down the stairs. Her phone was held to her ear as she came around the corner.
"And you're sure it's a vampire?" Elena asked, exchanging a look with Kane and Alaric.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean it's Klaus." Kane heard Caroline say over the phone.
"Doesn't mean it's not."
Elena smiled and pushed Alaric out of the way playfully as she went around the island counter. "I'll call her."
"Well call her on her cell." Caroline said.
"Tell her thank you. For all of her help."
Alaric walked around the counter and started folding up the blankets from the couch.
"Oh, Caroline, wait. Just, keep tonight small, please?"
"Wear something pretty." Caroline said, and the line disconnected.
Elena smiled and pulled the phone away from her ear with a scoff.
"More Stefan news?" Alaric asked.
"Could be more Klaus victims." She said, taking a sip from her coffee.
"And you're certain that Stefan is still with him?"
"Easy to be certain when the alternative is that he's dead."
Elena made up a cup of coffee for Kane and passed it across the counter.
"He's not dead." Kane said, drinking from his cup and smiling gratefully at Elena. "If Klaus made a deal for Stefan's time, you better believe he's going to use every second of it."
The three of them exchanged silent looks.
"You sure you guys are still okay in the living room?" Elena asked Kane and Alaric. Ric had spent over half the summer nights on the couch in Elena's living room, trying to decide whether or not he should be the guardian for Jeremy and Elena. Most of those nights, Kane crashed there as well, usually in the armchair. On the nights Alaric wasn't there, Kane either slept on the couch, or in his bedroom at Damon's.
Last night, he'd spent the night in the armchair, which, surprisingly, wasn't that uncomfortable.
"We're good." Alaric said, and Kane nodded.
"Alright." She said, and started to walk away.
"Hey, Elena." Alaric said, and she turned back to him. "Happy birthday."
She smiled.
"Thanks."
Almost half an hour later, Elena was driving Kane to Damon's house.
"Do you think he's searching for Stefan?"
"Even if he's not, I am." Kane assured her. "But I'm almost positive that he's searching just as hard as the rest of us."
Elena smiled at him.
"I was expecting you to be more like your father." Elena admitted to him after a moment. "But you're nearly the polar opposite."
Kane looked out of his window, still not quite over his actions from the last half a century.
"Humanity is a brilliant thing, Elena." Kane said.
"So you are like him?"
He met his own eyes in the mirror.
His eyes that were identical to his father's, minus their significantly brighter color.
"I am equally the best sides, and the worst aspects of my father." Kane said. "Which way my switch is flipped determines which one you see."
Elena nodded in understanding.
"So Klaus had nothing on humanity-less Kane." She said with a little bit of sarcasm.
He looked over at her and smiled.
"Exactly."
Elena and Kane entered Damon's living room.
"Good morning." Damon said from behind them.
"Hey," Elena started as she started to turn around. "I was gonna-"
And then she realized that Damon was naked and spun back around to Kane.
"Oh!" She said, startled. "You knew we were here!" She shouted, referencing Damon's supernatural ability to have heard them coming miles away.
"You should learn to knock." Damon said. "What if I was...indecent?" Kane laughed. Elena handed Kane a towel, and Kane threw the towel at Damon.
He rolled his eyes and put the towel around his waist, and once he had it situated, Kane gave Elena a thumbs-up.
She turned around to him again.
"Sheriff Forbes gave us another location to check out." She said, unfolding the note she'd written when she called the Sheriff. "Memphis."
"Another dead-end, you mean." Damon said.
"You don't know that." Elena said.
"You're right, this could be the one. After almost two months, this could be the one that tells us Stefan is alive and well." Kane cringed at Damon's sarcasm, though it was probably necessary in order to keep Elena off their trail. Kane and Damon both knew Klaus well enough to know he wouldn't have spent the time bargaining with Stefan if Klaus had just planned to kill him in the first few months of their deal.
"I'm telling you, he's alive." Kane said. "And I don't need any clues to know that."
Elena looked at the two of them.
"Fine, I'll go by myself."
Damon and Kane exchanged looks. They knew better than to send Elena anywhere near Klaus. It didn't matter if he liked Elena, or if he didn't: if he thought for one second that Elena was getting in the way of anything he was trying to accomplish, he would kill her again.
Damon vamped in front of her.
"And let Klaus know you're tracking him? He thinks you're dead, let's keep it that way."
"I hate to say it, but he's right." Kane said, taking the note from Elena's hands. "I'll take it. If I find anything, I'll call you."
Elena frowned.
"But-"
Kane walked away, to the staircase, headed toward Damon's room upstairs, to the closet where Damon and Kane had been tracking Klaus and Stefan for the last two months.
Damon followed after him, leaving Elena downstairs.
Kane opened Damon's closet door, and put the note up.
"They moved on to Tennessee." Damon said.
"That fluttered victim you had me look into had family there." Damon's girlfriend, Andie, said.
"Which one?" Kane asked. "Pensacola?" The only reason Kane had been okay with allowing Andie to participate in this investigation was because with her being a reporter, she had access to things that would take Damon and Kane much longer to find on their own. And, Damon could always compel her to forget anything and everything they told her.
"Yeah, that one."
"Up for a road trip?" Damon asked, intending for either of them to answer, even though he knew well enough that Kane would absolutely not stand for her going with them.
Andie smiled.
"I've got work. But I'll see if I can get you an address."
They kissed, and Kane cringed again.
"Get me that address." He said, exchanging looks with Kane.
A few hours later, Damon, Alaric, and Kane park the car in front of a Tennessee house.
Damon's phone started ringing, which he ignored.
"Elena?" Alaric asked, referencing to the phone call Damon had ignored. "Why don't you just come clean?"
"I don't want to get her hopes up. Andie said this was a half lead."
"They're all half leads." Alaric argued. "And we're practically living there." He nodded at Kane. "What are we supposed to tell her?"
"Still sleeping on the couch?" Damon asked, ignoring the question.
"I keep waiting for them to kick me out." Alaric admitted. "But they don't. I don't understand it, it's not like I'm helping."
"Because they're kids." Kane said. "Elena might be turning 18 but they lost their parents too young. Then her biological parents. And now her aunt. They still need a parent, Alaric, and you're the only one left." Sometimes he forgot how different it was for him to perceive human patterns, having been around them and experienced them for much longer than most people.
"Why not you?" Alaric asked.
Kane raised an eyebrow at him.
"Elena is now older than me, in a way, so I don't think that would go well." Plus, Kane wasn't made for parenthood. He had no desire to bring innocent children into this type of life, and he especially didn't want to be involved in the endangerment of innocent children in this life.
Alaric raised his eyebrows, probably realizing how messed up his life was.
"It's quiet." Kane noticed, changing the subject.
"Too quiet." Damon said.
"And I can smell Klaus all over the property." Kane said, looking to some shoe tracks that came down the roads.
Alaric looked at him, confused.
"Werewolf scent." Kane explained. "Very potent. Hybrid smelling, very good."
They went to the house, and Damon stepped through the threshold with no problems.
"Yeah." He nodded.
Blood trailed down the walls, handprints.
Kane turned his head away, holding his shirt over his nose for just a second to clear it of the wet-dog scent of werewolves and blood, trying to identify the scent of what would be his vampire uncle.
And then he got it, the icy scent that followed vampires; a much more subtle scent then the scent of a werewolf.
"They were both here." Kane said.
The three of them followed the trail to two bodies of women, sitting upright on a couch.
"Vampires, for sure." Alaric said, turning away.
"Stefan." Kane and Damon both said.
"How do you know?" Alaric asked.
"It's his signature." Damon said.
"There's a reason they call him the ripper." Kane said.
"He feeds so hard that he loses control and blacks out, ripping them apart. When he's done, he feels guilty."
He shook the leg of one of the bodies.
"So he puts the bodies back together." Kane finished saying for Damon as the woman's head fell onto the floor.
"What?"
"Definitely Stefan." Damon said.
He vamped out of the room and back in with the container of gasoline from the car. Then he started spreading it around the living room.
"What're you doing?" Alaric asked.
"Covering their tracks. Clearly they have no interest in staying in the dark, but I do."
Kane stood back to give Damon some more space, and the floor creaked under his foot.
He looked down, and then at Damon and Alaric. Kane flipped the corner of the rug over, and saw the trapdoor that he just stepped on.
He pulled it open. The overpowering scent of werewolf made Kane's head spin. On a normal day, he could get over this scent. Maybe not even notice it. But right now, with the full power of his nose engaged during his attempts to find Klaus, the scent was overpowering.
The walls were lined with chains, shackles, everything that werewolves could get their hands on to keep themselves down during the full moon.
"Well, what do you know?" Damon said.
"Werewolves." Alaric said.
Kane closed the door, and Damon tossed a match into the living room.
The whole place went up in flames.
Klaus Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson's Father
"You told me to tell you if I saw anything. I saw that the guys spotted Damon and two others guys at the farm house." The young woman Klaus had compelled said to him.
Klaus growled internally. Of course, his son was the one person that was better at being on the run than Klaus, and unfortunately, the one person that excelled at tracking Klaus down. But, what his stubborn son didn't realize was that he was putting himself in more danger than if he would've just stayed put. He was attracted more attention that Klaus absolutely did not want him to attract right now.
"Thank you. And keep up the good work." He told her.
"My brother's still on our trail?" Stefan asked.
"Your brother, my son. And they're getting closer. I'm going to have to deal with that." Because if he didn't give Kane some kind of relief, he wouldn't stop until he found Klaus.
"No, no. Let me handle it." Stefan said.
"Why should I let you leave?"
"Because you know I'll come back."
"Do I?" Klaus questioned.
"You saved Damon's life. I owe you."
Klaus laughed.
"Way to make it sound so indentured-like. Aren't you having fun?"
Stefan walked away. "I'll make sure they don't bother us anymore."
The minute Stefan was out of sight, Klaus called Kane.
It was the first time since he'd answered Kane's phone call two months ago and learned that Klaus hadn't really saved Damon's life.
Kane Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson
Half way back to Virginia, Kane's phone started ringing.
Alaric and Damon turned to him, and he flashed them the caller ID.
Kane answered the call from "Dad".
Klaus Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson's Father
"Where are you?" Kane asked him.
"What part of 'you'll see in time' translated in your brain to 'track me across the country?'" Klaus shot back angrily.
"I wouldn't have to track you if you'd just tell me where you are." Kane growled at him.
"Stay in Mystic Falls until I come get you." Klaus growled back. He didn't trust Stefan's "good boy" attitude even a little, and his jumping at the chance to go after Damon and Kane. But of course, he couldn't say that. "You're attracting more attention by following me. Just stop, before it gets you in trouble."
"Careful there. You almost sound like you care." Kane shot at him.
Klaus rolled his eyes.
"I'm serious, Kane, stay-"
Kane hung up on Klaus, mid sentence.
Klaus pulled the phone away from his ear in rage.
He looked up at Ray, there werewolf pinned to the dart board.
"Where were we?"
Kane Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson
Kane stood in his bedroom at Damon's house. He'd dressed up just a little for Elena's party, a short sleeve button up rather than his usual Henley. The party was booming downstairs, but Kane had yet to leave his room. He stood in the mirror, looking at himself. Looking at every trait that had been passed from his father and wondered how on Earth he was supposed to believe that Klaus cared about him.
It had been a common theme throughout his childhood.
Where is dad was, why Kane wasn't with him, letters that went unanswered, eventually phone calls that were never returned, until one day, Kane had just stopped depending on him at all.
And of course, only then had he caught Klaus's attention.
And now, Klaus had run off without telling him, without knowing about Kane's humanity switch, and expected Kane to just sit and wait for him to return.
Expected him to believe that Klaus was just trying to protect him.
He sighed. It wouldn't do him any good to dwell on it.
He left the room and joined Alaric and Damon on the porch.
"I'm every parent's worst nightmare. The chaperone teacher from hell."
"Beats miracle hybrid child with a witch glitch." Kane said.
Alaric shrugged.
"I love high school parties." Damon said.
"Isn't Andie supposed to be coming?" Alaric asked.
"Should be here in a little bit." He said.
Elena pushed through the door and took Kane's glass of whiskey from his hand. He raised an eyebrow as she downed it.
"Jeremy's smoking again." She said. "Talk to him, please. He looks up to you." She said, turning to Alaric.
She put the glass back in Kane's hand and went back inside.
"You're screwed." Damon and Kane said in unison.
Alaric groaned.
Damon's phone buzzed. He picked it up and looked at it.
"Andie wants me to pick her up."
"Your fake, compelled girlfriend wants you to be a gentlemen?"
"It's a complicated dynamic."
"Seems suspicious." Kane said, the hairs on his neck standing on end.
Damon shrugged.
"You guys hold the fort down, will ya?"
"The fort full of my drunk history students. Yeah, sure."
Kane watched Damon's back cautiously as he walked off. Something wasn't sitting right with him.
Alaric handed him a glass of bourbon, now that Elena had drank his whiskey, and Kane took it, sitting next to him and brushing off the feeling of suspicion.
Hours passed before Damon's car pulled up to the house again. The party had gone, and Kane had already started to clean up the leftover trash from the night's events. Damon walked in with a bottle of bourbon in his hand. Kane straightened up at the sight of him, but he waved Kane off, which Kane took as a sign that he needed space for now.
He listened in as Damon's entered his bedroom upstairs, knowing full well Elena was already up there and had discovered the closet full of notes they had been hiding from her.
"What are you doing here?" Damon asked Elena.
"Why didn't you tell me you were tracking Stefan?"
"I've had a really bad night, can we not do this right now?" He asked her.
"You made me feel like an idiot, every time I came to you with a lead." She kept going, pushing him even though she had no idea what his issue was.
"You were an idiot. We both were." Damon cut her off sharply.
"Tell me everything, Damon. Why didn't you tell me you were tracking Klaus' victims?"
"They're not Klaus' victims. They're Stefan's."
"What?" She breathed.
"He's left a trail of bodies up and down the Eastern seaboard. I've seen it before. He's flipped his switch. Gone full ripper."
"Stop it, Damon."
"No, Elena, you stop! Stop looking for him, stop waiting for him to come home, just stop! He's gone, and he's not coming back. At least not in your lifetime."
Kane heard Elena start to cry, and tuned out of the rest. Elena and him were something of friends at this point, and he hated that his father had ruined her whole life in a few days. He hated that Stefan had been so selfish as to trade Elena's happiness and his own time rather than make a phone call to Kane.
He looked down, throwing the trash bag across the room in frustration.
Elena came down the stairs a minute later. She met Kane's eyes and started crying again.
He looked at her sadly, and hugged her.
"We'll get him back." He assured her. "Come on, I'll drive you home."
Kane took Damon's car and pulled up to the sidewalk by Elena's house.
She got out and went up to the house, and Kane took the long way back to Damon's.
Back at the house, Kane went to his room with a bottle of Jack and sat on the edge of the bed.
He could see himself in the reflection of the window.
His eyes.
Klaus's eyes.
Kane threw the bottle at the window, shattering them both.
"What'd he say?" Kane asked Damon the next morning.
"What?" Damon asked.
"Stefan." Kane clarified. "What'd he say to you that changed your mind?" It had been very clear after Damon had come home last night, what the issue was. Kane should've caught it coming from a million miles away, that he knew.
Damon was quiet for a minute, but Kane watched him until he turned around.
"He wanted me to let him go, and he was willing to prove that he was gone if that's what it took." Damon looked down. "Andie's dead."
"What'd he say about me?" Kane pushed. There was no way Klaus had let Stefan leave his side to go dance circles around Damon and Kane without having a message for at least one of them.
Damon looked up at him.
"My father would not have sent Stefan to do his dirty work without a message."
"I thought so too, but all Stefan said was that Klaus would be here with you if he wanted to. And considering that Klaus called you, I'd say it's more than that."
Kane nodded, beginning to think that maybe he shouldn't have hung up on Klaus.
"I'm gonna go clean out the closet." Damon said. "You should probably find someone to fix that window."
Kane looked up.
"You heard that?"
"It was about the same time I destroyed Stefan's room." Damon said, headed toward the stairs.
Kane went outside onto the porch with his phone in hand.
He looked at his father's contact for a long time, trying to decide whether to call him or not.
Elena's car pulled up a little later.
"You thought you'd try again?" Kane asked.
"Stefan called me last night." She said to him. "If Damon's not going to help, I'm going by myself."
Kane sighed and didn't even bother to listen in to the conversation. Her face when she came out a few minutes later told him enough.
He stood.
"I'll go with you."
She smiled at him.
"Let's talk to Ric first."
Kane knocked on Alaric's loft door.
"Go away Damon!" Alaric shouted.
"Try again!" Kane yelled back and kicked the door in. He shot up from his spot on the couch.
"You're not who I expected." He said, seeing Elena next to Kane.
"I need you to tell me everything you know about Stefan and Tennessee." She said. "Stefan called me last night."
Alaric raised an eyebrow.
"Did you miss the part where I'm done with this?"
"Come on, Ric."
"Go talk to Damon."
"Damon won't help."
"Then talk to him." He said, gesturing to Kane.
"I filled her in on what I know." Kane said. "Are you going to help, or not?"
Alaric sighed.
"What do we got?"
Kane smiled and pulled out his phone.
Klaus Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson's Father
"You okay?" Klaus asked Stefan, who was carrying Ray over his shoulders. "Is Ray getting heavy?"
"I'm fine." Stefan said.
"You sure? Don't need a little water? Maybe a break?"
"Maybe we could skip the chit chat." Stefan shot at him.
"Alright. Let's get into the heavy stuff then. What did you do last night?" Klaus asked. He'd had a knot of anxiety in his stomach ever since Stefan had left. If Stefan had done something to ruin his relationship with Kane, Klaus didn't know how he would move forward.
Stefan glanced at him.
"What do you mean?"
"You went to get Damon off our trail. Did you succeed?"
"Damon should no longer be an issue."
"And my son?" Klaus asked.
Stefan looked at him.
"Your son, your problem."
Klaus smiled, relief flooding through him.
"I'm glad you think so."
They arrived at the site of the wolf pack, and Stefan dropped Ray on the ground, capturing everyone's attention.
A girl came running towards him.
"Who are you?" She asked Stefan.
"The important question is, who am I? Please, forgive the intrusion. My name is Klaus."
The girl stood.
"A kid I ran into when I first joined." The boy next to her said. "He spoke of you. You're-"
"The Hybrid." The girl said.
"So you've heard of me." Klaus said. "Fantastic."
Kane Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson
"They're here." Kane said as they got out of Ric's car.
"How do you know?" Elena asked him.
"I can smell it." Kane said nonchalantly.
Elena looked to Alaric, who shrugged his own shoulders.
"Must be a werewolf thing." Ric said.
"It's a hybrid thing." Kane explained quickly, knowing full well he'd told Alaric this already. "Vampire enhanced senses plus wolf sense of smell equals superhuman sniffer."
Alaric laughed at his joke, while Elena smiled as they headed up towards the mountain.
They stopped nearing the uphill climb, and Kane walked around, getting a feel for the area. Something about it was oddly familiar, though he couldn't place it.
Elena and Alaric exchanged mystical protection devices - Alaric gave her a wolfsbane grenade, Elena gave him his ring back.
And then Damon appeared out of no where and pushed her into the lake.
Kane did his best to hold back his laugh.
"Damon? How are you even here?" Elena asked. Damon turned back to Alaric and Kane.
"Thanks for the tip."
Elena looked at the two of them.
"You guys sold me out!"
"Did you really think Alaric would let you walk into a mountain range full of werewolves on a full moon without any backup?" Kane asked.
"You are the backup!" She exclaimed.
"I'm one person. There's two of you that I would have to protect. I'm outnumbered here."
Elena rolled her eyes.
"I'm not leaving without him." She said, turning back to Damon.
"What's your big plan?" Damon asked. "You're just going to walk through a campsite full of werewolves on a full moon and wait for Stefan to stop by?"
"I'm going to find him, and I'm going to help him, Damon. This is the closest we've been."
"Klaus thinks you're dead. That makes you safe. This? This is not safe."
"I hate to say it, but he's right." Kane said. "If my father thinks you're interfering with his plans, he will kill you again, Elena, and I don't know if there's another way around it."
"I'm not leaving before we find him."
"It's a full moon." Kane said.
"Then we'll find him before then. Please."
Damon looked away from her.
"Okay." He said. "But we are out of here before the moon is full."
"I promise." Elena said.
The two of them waded out of the water, and the four of them started their uphill hike.
"The sun's setting." Damon pointed out.
"I can see that, Damon." Elena said sarcastically.
"The moon doesn't reach its apex for awhile." Kane said.
"See? We have time." Elena said.
"Who's side are you on?" Damon asked Kane, who shrugged, before catching a particularly potent scent, one that he recognized maybe too well.
Kane froze, from the front of the group.
The other three froze with him.
A man stepped out from behind the trees, covered in blood.
And Kane could smell Klaus all over him. It was almost as strong as the scent of death.
He ignored Kane completely, looking right at Damon.
"Vampire." He said.
Kane stepped in front of Damon.
"I know you." Kane said. "Ray, right? I think I met you at the bar a few years ago. Stayed here with your pack. You are a werewolf, right?"
"I was, until some guy killed me." Ray said. "It's funny, actually, you look a lot like him."
"Where is he? This guy?" Kane pressed.
"Top of the hill with the rest of my pack." Ray said. "My pack." He said, freezing.
His eyes landed on Damon again, and he ran for him.
"Ray!" Kane shouted as he pushed Damon against a tree.
"Damon!" Elena hollered, throwing him a wolfsbane grenade.
Kane turned away, hoping to avoid the effects of the wolfsbane.
It blew up, and Kane could smell it briefly before it was gone.
He coughed and straightened up.
Ray laid unconscious at Damon's feet.
"Let me guess." Alaric said. "Hybrid."
"Not for long." Kane commented. "He's dying. Fast, too. It's almost stronger than Klaus' scent on him."
"Great." Damon said sarcastically. They all looked around at each other, realizing what a bad idea this had been.
Almost half an hour later, the four of them had Ray tied to a tree.
Kane looked around.
"We're not going to make it to the ridge in time." Kane said.
"Go." Damon said. "We'll take care of this."
"You sure?"
"Yes." Damon said. "Just go. Meet us back at the car."
Kane nodded, and then took off for the ridge. He didn't need directions to know where he was going. Klaus's scent was strong all across the mountain.
He arrived at the ridge just in time to see Klaus put both his hands on what seemed like the last remaining hybrid's shoulders, and Kane rushed to him, ripping the heart out of the hybrid's chest.
The body dropped, leaving Kane face to face with his father, and he almost crumbled right there.
"You shouldn't be here." Klaus said.
"Wouldn't have to, if you would've just told me your plan from the start."
"What do you care what I'm up to?" Klaus asked, arching an eyebrow.
Kane looked away from his father at that.
It had been almost two and a half months since the ritual, since he'd flipped his humanity switch, and Klaus still didn't know.
Klaus grabbed his chin, dragging him back to meet eyes. He searched Kane's face carefully.
"You flipped your switch." Klaus said.
Kane looked away from him again, but Klaus still had hold of his chin, dragging him right back to meet eyes again.
"When?" Klaus asked.
"The night of the ritual." Kane said. "Not that you care."
The blow hurt more than Kane had expected, but Kane didn't really care. There wasn't anything he could say to Klaus that could compare to the pain Kane had felt being abandoned by his father, to find him trying to create a whole new type of family.
Klaus' expression faltered.
"Kane, Elijah...I...I was a wolf, for almost two days, and-"
"And you came back, convinced Stefan to go full ripper, and didn't even bother to tell me you were alive, much less that you were leaving. And then, when I try to find you, you demand that I stay in Mystic Falls, out of your way."
"I'm trying to protect you."
"That's what you always say." Kane shot back sarcastically. "And yet, it seems an awful lot to me like you're just trying to help yourself."
Klaus frowned, and Kane nodded lightly, realizing that this conversation wasn't even worth the breath it was taking. Klaus had been distancing himself from Kane for years, this had been a long time coming.
"You know what? It was a mistake, going through all this. I was an idiot to think that this," He gestured to the space between Klaus and Kane. "Might actually mean something to you. That I might mean something to you."
"Kane-"
"Forget it." Kane said, taking off, vamp-speeding away.
Klaus Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson's Father
Klaus watched Kane go, speeding away from him. Half his body told him he should follow, while the other half advised him to give Kane space.
He cracked open a bottle of beer and sat on a log, waiting for Stefan to show up.
Kane was right, as much as it sucked. Building the hybrid army was for Klaus. It had nothing to do with Kane. And he could see where his son was upset.
He'd flipped his switch for Klaus, only to have his father disappear for months at a time with zero explanation, and then, to find him trying to create a whole new type of family. He'd been pushed out, by none other than his own father.
Klaus downed the beer faster than he thought.
That I might mean something to you.
Kane's words replayed in his head.
Kane was by far the most important thing in Klaus' life, though he'd tried so hard to suppress it that he'd actually made his son believe he meant nothing to Klaus. And Klaus didn't have the slightest clue how to fix it now.
Stefan showed up after dark, carrying the very dead Ray over his shoulders.
He laid Ray on the ground, holding tight to his forearm, where Ray had previously bitten him. He looked around at the mess of bodies.
"They went rabid." Klaus explained quietly, on his second or third beer. "Some of them I killed. The rest simply bled out." He stood, approaching Stefan carefully. He was almost confident Stefan had likely said something to Kane on his last visit, something that had pushed Kane into believing that Klaus didn't care about him. "Anyway. They're all dead." The anger burst through his gut, and Klaus threw the glass bottle at a tree with a yell. "I did everything I was told to do." Klaus said angrily. "I broke the curse. I killed the werewolf, the vampire, and the doppelgänger."
As he said it, he could almost smell her blood as if it was right in front of him.
He looked up at Stefan, reigning in his control.
"You look like hell."
"Last I checked, I was dying." Stefan shot back.
Klaus looked down at Ray. Once upon a time, his son had ran with this pack. Not in it, not united, but with them, side by side.
And Klaus had now killed them all.
"I had to." Stefan said. "I didn't have a choice, I had to take him out. I failed you. I'm sorry."
Klaus looked up at him.
"It should have worked." He said.
He turned slowly, headed towards one of his empty beer bottles.
Then, as he turned back to Stefan, he bit into his own wrist and let the blood run out into the bottle.
Even if Klaus was done with Stefan, even if he'd decided he'd had enough, even if Stefan was the reason behind Kane's current behavior, Klaus didn't want him to die from a werewolf bite.
It was too easy.
He handed Stefan the bottle.
"We're leaving."
He looked around at the group, remembering Kane's words.
"It appears you're the only comrade I have left."
Kane Mikaelson - Baby Mikaelson
Kane sat on Elena's couch, replaying the encounter with his father over in his head. Looking for some trace, some sign that Klaus cared. Looking for a sign that he wasn't bored of Kane, and looking for a new family.
But that's exactly what it was.
That's exactly what was going on out there in the woods, exactly what he'd recruited Stefan for.
Kane leaned into the couch.
He could flip his switch right now, shut all of this off, stop the thinking, stop the caring.
But if he shut it off right now, it wouldn't be 7 years, or 27 years, or 50.
It would be permanent.
Because if Kane shut his humanity off right now, he'd lose all attachment to Klaus, to Damon. And they wouldn't be able to get him back.
No one would.
Which, in retrospect, didn't seem like a horrible thing.
Except for the death.
The hundreds of thousands of people that would die.
The millions, if Kane wasn't put down in the next hundred years.
And that wasn't something he wanted to shoulder. Not now, anyways.
Kane had survived years without his father.
He'd survive if his father suddenly decided he didn't want him.
And he wouldn't try to change it, either. He'd be wasting his time.
Kane sighed, leaned back and laying down on the couch.
Elena and Damon were having some serious conversation about Stefan upstairs, but Kane didn't even listen.
He wasn't after Stefan, whether they knew it or not.
He was never after Stefan, and now he had no reason to pretend to.
And he knew, no matter how good a friendship he'd built with Elena, when she realized that he was trying to save Klaus, it would be over.
Because she had no intentions of letting Klaus walk away from this town alive.
And Kane had no intention of letting Elena live, if she was going to try to kill his father.
All bets would be off.
Their friendship would be terminated, and Kane would choose a side.
Unfortunately for her, Damon was walking a very thin line on both sides. And if Kane had to bet, Damon wouldn't pick a side at all. He'd play his own game, for the benefit of himself.
And if Kane was smart, he'd do the same damn thing.