The Abattoir - Foyer

"From what I hear, you saved the day!" Klaus exclaimed, and I wondered whether it were possible for him to say anything positive without that air of sarcasm suffocating it.

"I wouldn't say that," I scoffed back.

"Ah, I see," he mused, more seriously, "so, you ventured inside my brother's shattered mind, and it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows. Was it the Red Door?"

"No. I meant...I didn't fully save the day. I wasted a lot of time in there, and we managed to find him, and somewhere to ride out the storm, but it's just a Band-Aid. He can't stay there forever. He always feels a pull to leave," I explained, and couldn't take another second of his squirrely demeanor and asked, "what the hell is going on with your face and what the hell is behind the Red Door?"

"I'm just surprised, that's all. I'm re-evaluating a lot of things, this is my thinking face, and I'm pleasantly surprised you found him in a good place. He didn't choose the darkest part of himself."

"That's...what's behind there?"

"You know what we are, Rosanna. We're, all of us, monsters. We've committed countless atrocities over the years. But Elijah...has only ever done those things for family. And that is why he's the very best of us. He always has been," Klaus said, and walked away, but he didn't get far. He stopped and he said, "I'm sorry."

"For?" I asked.

"For ever coming between you two. Every time," he said, solemnly, and then left.


The Abattoir – Elijah's coffin

We needed to find a way to resurrect Elijah that night, or we risked losing him forever. The pendant couldn't hold Elijah's soul much longer, it was growing unstable and causing unknown damage internally. Obstacle one: resurrecting an Original Vampire required a butt-load of power.

"Let me guess, a grand sacrifice," Klaus groaned, sarcastically.

"I say we kill our enemy and sacrifice her, then I can channel the power from the Hollow's death, raise Elijah's body, and place him back where he belongs," Freya suggested.

"We've tried everything already," I reminded her.

"And we've come close every time," Freya hit back.

"You taking on the optimist role is kind of weirding me out," I told her, frankly.

"Then take it back for God's sake, and listen up. Labonair blood is her Achilles' heel. Hope's blood weakened her-"

"We don't want Hope involved," Klaus spoke for the both of us.

"You're about one trip into Memory-land too late," Freya said, flatly.

"Huh?"

"To get you into that pendant, and let you wonder around as long as you did, I needed to channel another witch. A very powerful one," she explained.

"Then you channel the powerful sort-of Bennett Witch before you!" I scorned.

"No. I needed a witch born of my family's bloodline."

"You want to use my child as a battery pack, you ask first," Klaus scorned.

Freya scoffed, indignantly, "to save our brother, yes? To save the love of your life? When there is literally no time to spare? Sure thing, I'll remember that for next time as long as you both remember that yes, she's young, but she's also incredibly strong, much stronger than I was at her age. And most important of all, I would never hurt my niece, and I would never put her in danger, ever."


After our dress down from Freya, she moved on to outlining her master plan, inspired by Hope's obsessive drawings: the serpent consuming itself. The Hollow was one end of the Labonair bloodline; Hope was the other. We needed to close that loop, and the best way to do that was to wield a weapon that wasn't just dipped in Hope's blood, but forged with it. Freya traced The Hollow's magic to a derelict house in the Garden District and another concentrated power source across town, most likely a totem of some sort. As soon as Rebekah destroyed said totem, it was stabbing time.

But Rebekah was suddenly taking her sweet time about it. Elijah's pendant was cracking more and more; we were out of time. Klaus went to check on her. Freya followed me on the potentially suicidal mission to face The Hollow. We tiptoed around a pile of dead bodies in the foyer of the La Forge House, all with blood dripping from their eye sockets.

"Are you okay?" I asked the squirmy woman supposedly backing me up.

"Yeah. I just never thought twice about fighting or dying for family before. But now, with Keelin..." Freya muttered.

"Now you have someone you're afraid you're not gonna make it home to," I finished her thought.

"I wasn't expecting what I saw in Elijah's subconscious to affect me this much. I never thought about...having more."

"You will make it home, Freya. I got your back.

"Hey. I know we haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but...well, I suppose family rarely does," Freya said, and drew her blade.

I had approximately a millisecond to digest what was possibly the nicest thing to ever come out of her mouth; the doors surrounding us all slammed shut haunted mansion style. I recovered from the jump-scare, and muttered, "okay, I guess she knows we're here."

Those doors then all burst open simultaneously with such force it slammed us both backwards; I slammed into the wall so hard I woke up in the Bayou.


The breeze was warm and muggy and thick; the sun was beating down hard. I picked my face off the wooden floor, and realised it was the dock; the water was calm, still like the glazing on a doughnut. The door to the cabin creaked open and a familiar voice chuckled, "there you are!"

My neck snapped back in shock, good shock, the best shock, and I pushed myself up with all the grace of newborn foal.

"Hayley?!" I barely managed to huff out before colliding with her.

"I've been waiting for you," she grinned, and passed over one of the beer bottles in her hand.

"How am I here? How are you here?" I asked her incessantly, gesticulating with my bottle, "oh God, am I dead? Is that what happened? I really thought I'd see Ignatius one more time, and he'd rip me a new one, for old time's sake, you know? It's been a while. He'd be all: You suck. You had one job. You were the worst Phoenix of all time, probably the shortest serving one, ever, as well, you know, he went on about once in generations, so, I have to have set a record or something-"

"Hey, no. No. Cool it. You are not dead," Hayley spoke over my rambling, "I mean, I'm no expert, but I'm guessing you're going through some kind of psychological break right now. You've been through Hell. So, your mind took you someplace peaceful. Honestly, I'm flattered you thought of me. I figured your happy place would be somewhere with Elijah."

I mused on it and said, "so…this isn't real...and if I'm unconscious, then I just need to wake up."

"Right. You are right and I'm on your side. We'll get you back in the fight, before The Hollow finishes whatever she started."

"I need to snap out of this, like right now," I thought out loud, and patted my face, "if I don't, we could lose Elijah forever."

"Is he good to you?" Hayley asked, "hey, come on, talk to me. What are dead best friends for?"

I cringed a little at her turn of phrase, and told her, "yes. He has been good to me, I guess, and there for me, and he made me feel safe when-"

"Hahaha!" Hayley burst out laughing, clapping a hand to her chest, and eventually chuckled out, "no, honey. No, if you wanted safety, you wouldn't have fallen in love with every damn vampire that crossed your path. You even married one!"

"Enzo was different," I seethed.

"No, you may have married him, but you were in love with Elijah the entire time. It wasn't different. It was the same old, sad story, and I know it myself, all too well, who am I to preach? You don't have to lie to me, Rosanna Gilbert. I'm your best friend. I know you better than anyone. And you knew it, dancing in Paris, by the river, you knew he wasn't the one, but you married him anyway. You settled. Because...you love monsters. You love being treated like disposable crap, and you can't get enough."

"You're not helping me. You're stalling me," I scorned and pushed her back. She chuckled darkly and stood up straight, readying herself. I shook my head and grumbled, "no. Oh, you're not you. You're The Hollow."

I slammed a magically-enhanced fist through her chest, killing her, fast. I fell out of the vision and found myself tied to a chair in a suitably creepy room, littered with candles. I cast a spell to burn the ropes and struggled to get out of the room. He wasn't there to begin with, but then that malevolent tone rattled out, "you are wasting your energy, Rosie Pie."

I turned to face a devilish smirk I hadn't seen in years. Damon Salvatore's brows did a little delighted dance at his reception.

"You're a vision. You can't hurt me," I seethed back.

"All I do is hurt you. Man, you still don't get it, do you?" Damon said as he selected the biggest, nastiest knife on the table. He looked at me, maniacally, his eyes darkened beyond recognition, "The Hollow is more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

He plunged the blade into my torso and hauled it up. I screamed out in agony, as the very real pain seared through my body.

"Why are you doing this?" I cried out.

Damon Salvatore morphed into Tyler Lockwood, and seethed, "all I ever wanted was to protect you, to help you! It got me killed, Ro. And for what? So you can abandon my kid and go lust after your ex? Lorenzo is barely cold in the ground!"

"No..." I groaned out but he slammed me back into the racking by magic.

"ROSANNA!" Freya hollered out, through the nightmare.

"You're no mother. You can't take care of anyone. You can't do anything right!" He chuckled, "it's sad. Pathetic. Your big epic love story? You fell for the suit, Ro, that's all it was. You were blinded by his charade. You are still the same stupid little girl, way out of her depth."

I struggled to my feet, and scorned, "you're not Tyler, and you don't deserve to wear his face!"

I shoved him back but he gripped me by the throat and slammed me into the wall.

"You are so right. Tyler was good. And me..." Tyler Lockwood chuckled as he morphed into Elijah, right before my eyes, "...well, I was never good."

I desperately clawed at his vice-like grip; my vision started to cloud over. Elijah disappeared into a blink and I tumbled to the ground.

"Rosanna! Hey!" Freya cried out and fell down beside me. She patted my stunned face and asked, fervently, "are you all right?"

"Did Klaus break the totem?" I asked her, desperately.

"I hope so. But we can't wait. It's now or never."

I stabbed her with the imbued blade. I stabbed The Hollow again, and again; my arms ached, my hands turned slippery with her blood.

"That's enough! That's enough!" Freya demanded over my hoarse screams, and pulled me off the corpse. She pried the blade away and held on to me, uttering, "she's gone. She's gone."


In such a short amount of time, The Hollow had clawed at my oldest wounds and made them all brand new again. I couldn't be there, when Elijah woke, not that night. There was something else I needed to do. I sat by the dock in the Bayou, alone, and cracked open a beer, and I spent the night speaking to the dead.

"Hayley, I love Hope. I love Hope like she was my own flesh and blood...Tyler, I see so much of you in Austin already...Enzo...you saw me monologue before, and I really hope that somehow, you hear me now. You are who I wanted, who I prayed I'd find, the man I always dreamed I'd marry. You were my happy ever after. But happy ever after…is over now. I wish The Hollow picked you as the psycho illusion sent to straight up kill me, okay, because then at least I could see you one last time...and I know that's messed up. I'm all messed up, and my taped-up heart is broken all over again. It doesn't seem to take much. She didn't show me you...because you could never hurt me. I told you I wouldn't survive losing you. You were like coming up for air, and now...I can't...it feels like I haven't been able to breathe since. You told me to live my life. All of it. I'm gonna try. I don't want to do any of this alone, but I know what I have to do. I just have to be brave enough to do it. I really wish you were here."


You won one battle. But you were not home free.

We were not.

The Hollow had used the power of her own death to link herself to Hope; she took over our little girl. Even with the last-minute Hail-Mary ritual of splitting The Hollow between Elijah, Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol...Inadu had tasted Hope's power. And she would want that power back. She would reach out, through them, and try to regain access to her. We couldn't let that happen. We all had to go our separate ways. Forever.

You had just got him back.

I don't know what you want me to say.

That must've felt unfair.

It wasn't great.

You chose your goddaughter over him. He chose his brother over you.

It was an impossible situation.

You were the one who suggested he erase his memories?

No. I wasn't. I told him...we didn't have a choice. We needed to move on...by whatever means necessary.