Chapter Three:
Little Fires and Big Fires.
I
The bathroom was clean, white tile on white inlay with glossy white porcelain, a vase beside the window the only splash of colour to be had, crimson on the sill, filled with stems of lavender and rosemary, and something musky.
Esther reached down and turned the tap off, stroking her fingers over the still waters of her reflection. She began to unlace her robe when the door clicking open and shut behind her made her scrabble to retie the knot.
"I believed I locked the door which customarily means one should not enter without invitation-"
She turned and faced Niklaus standing with his back to the wood. There was something… Unnerving about his face. A stillness of a mirroring water, contrarily calm, hiding the currents Esther knew were lurking just below the surface.
Storms.
That was her children.
Storms in human flesh, but with the force of nature in their bones. Every last one of them.
Her shoulders squared off, steadfast.
To weather a storm, one must stand resolute.
"If you have come to continue our argument, Niklaus, I must ask that you wait a moment longer until I am at least bathed and dry."
Niklaus did not bite off a barb, her boy who always had a quip or two to give, neither did he turn around and leave, instead, with sure and steady steps, he stalked closer.
"Mother."
Esther frowned; fingers still looped in the belt of her robe.
"I do not wish for anymore animo-"
"One question. Just one… If you will?"
He came to a stop before her, still, calm, ready.
When Esther remained silent, Niklaus's head cocked.
"Was there a single moment where you hesitated?"
Esther blinked, opened her mouth, closed it again, struggled to find her words, but Niklaus found his own before she could ever hope to unearth her voice.
"Between the time of dropping that Petrova blood into those flutes, and having a chance to see your children happy, for once, just once, finally together… Was there a moment where you hesitated? When you thought, perhaps, just maybe, killing your own children may not have been the best course of action? That, for once in your sorrowful life, maybe your love may have drowned out the deafening contempt you clearly have?"
A beat, two, Esther shook her head.
"Balance needed to be restored."
Niklaus winced, but then he nodded, quick, mannered, but clear and sure, as if he could possibly understand the weight of her choices.
And then he smiled.
Brilliantly.
Sadly.
"Then I will not hesitate either."
The hand was around her throat before she could move, and with a shove and a twist and a back breaking lurch, her head went plummeting into the waters below. Her arm struck out for purchase but only found the window above the clawfoot bath, the vase that fell with her knees, the sound of her scream muted by bath water.
II
Out in the hall of the kitchen, Klaus caught up to his siblings, catching Rebekah's swinging arm. If any one of his siblings was going to listen to him it would be their sister, and still more than slightly dazed from… Whatever it was Henryka had stuck him with, that flash of red light, he was in no mood to talk in circles with Elijah.
"Perhaps… Perhaps we should let her."
Rebekah searched his face, glanced down from hairline to jaw, sweeping over the steppes and the valleys of his features, and, plainly, found things she did not like.
"Let Henryka… Kill mother? Are you truly suggesting such a thing?"
Their brothers, too, stopped in their tracks, Elijah incredulous, Kol-
Kol laughing.
"Of course that's what he wants. He gets the job done without getting his own hands dirty. What else did you expect, dear sister?"
Niklaus snarled and dropped Rebekah's arm, glaring at Kol.
"Less than twenty-four hours ago, that woman tried to destroy us all! Would it really be such a tragedy that she had dug her own grave instead?"
Kol tilted forward, clever and quick, but, nevertheless, Elijah intervened before sharper words could be exchanged.
Or fists.
"Niklaus, this is not about mother."
One by one they turned to Elijah, and the eldest brother sighed.
"This is about Henryka. And it is that that I care about. I do not want her first act within this family to be murder. Murder she will have to carry on her hands for the rest of, what is appearing to be, a very, very long life. That is a burden she should not bare, and one that will breed bitterness in time. Do you really wish for our bond to start out that way? Stained with death?"
It already is. To be a Mikaelson means to be tarnished.
That, however, Klaus does not say. What he does say is what they all must know already.
"Mother has to die. She cannot be trusted. She will try to kill us again. We all know what must be done."
Rebekah shook her head.
"And she will… But not by one hand. If this is a sin we have to make, let it be made by all our hands, and not left to be held by one alone."
Klaus's tongue swept over his teeth behind pursed lips.
Forever and always.
A nod.
A deal.
A pact.
What else was family for if not sharing in the tacit intention of premeditated homicide?
Not the sort of family Niklaus wanted any part of. As the saying went, a family that murders together shared a jail cell together.
Or some other such nonsense.
III
By the time they reached the upper floors of the Mikaelson mansion in the west wing, where their mother was sure to be, it was clear Henryka had already passed through.
Finn was out cold in the hallway, sagged against the wall, head lolling on a still chest.
Elijah could smell the spark of something electric in the air, something charged and galvanic.
Magic.
Bending down, Elijah shook his brother's shoulder. Finn awoke with a jolt, spotted his siblings, and swung for Niklaus upon view.
"You jumped me!"
Niklaus caught the fist before it could make contact, the swing muddled from a still very dazed man. Finn, however, was swift, and Niklaus did not have time to catch the other fist swinging his way, clocking his cheekbone.
All the siblings felt the sting of the blow.
Henryka would too, wherever she was, and, given her contemptuous mood, it was not likely to help matters in deescalating this madness.
"It wasn't me, you bloody imbecile!"
"I saw you before you flashed that light in my face! You winked at me, you bastard!"
Finn made to dive for his brother, although Elijah caught his jacket collar and hauled him back with a thud to the hallway wall.
"Which way did-"
Finn kicked out, and Niklaus's answering curse was smothered by the sound of a vase breaking down the hall.
Pottery on tile.
The bathroom.
Rebekah was the first to rush for the noise.
IV
Rebekah's shoulder crashed against the door of the bathroom, splintering wood and plaster, her feet slipping on the spilled water on the white tile.
The spilled water coming from the overcrowded bathwater lashing up the sides of the tub. Henryka, still wearing Niklaus's face, was hunched over the bath, elbow deep in the water-
Mother's head along with her grip.
Mother who was shoved down into the blue, bent over the rim, struggling harshly, clawing at Henryka-Niklaus's face with manicured nails. It was useless. She didn't even leave a welt, no sting or bite felt by the siblings, and the assault only caused the latter to sneer and push Esther's head down harder.
"Henryka! Stop!"
The name, her name, catches like fire, and blue eyes, Niklaus's eyes, meet hers by the door, over the skirmish and the splash.
"Figured it out, then? Doesn't matter. I-… Circe, stop struggling you old bat! I didn't bloody realize how long drowning someone takes."
4 to six minutes.
That was how long drowning takes.
Rebekah knew that one personally. Had killed in such a way before. It had not been… Pretty. In fact, it had been messy, and cold, and bloated.
And now she had, perhaps, between two to three minutes to get Henryka off their mother.
"Henryka, let her go."
Blue eyes flashed, and Rebekah, too, knew that look.
It would appear she had said the wrong thing, for Niklaus and Kol got that same glint when ordered to do something.
"Let her go? She tried to kill us… Kill me. You want me to just let her go?"
A formidable laugh, brisk and cold, a blizzard on a winter's night.
"Right, yeah… Fat fuckin' chance of that, mate."
Rebekah hazarded a step closer. Mother's head went plummeting deeper, and Rebekah didn't try to move again. She didn't look down. She didn't react.
"This isn't you."
Not the girl Rebekah had seen. The girl who walked alone in the woods, followed by her ghosts, to die a lonely death so others could live. The girl who risked her life to save those people in the dark, dank dungeon. The girl-
"You don't know me very well then, Bex."
Bex.
But she did.
Rebekah did know this person.
Henryka may have been wearing Klaus's face, she may have lived a life an ocean away, centuries away, souls away, but Rebekah knew her.
The baby who called her Bex, now the stranger who was no stranger at all because of that one word.
Bex.
They knew each other, no matter the time or gap or old hurts that had separated them.
They knew.
"You don't really want to do this; you only feel like you must. But you don't. Not alone. Let mother go, 'Ryka."
A scoff, a struggle, a flail of water and spite.
"Oh, as if you lot have never done anything worse. I saw your memories too, you know. I saw every-Merlin-damned thing. This… It's one little murder and this whole affair can be forgotten. If I leave it any longer Esther won't be able to die, no blood sacrifice will be made, no blood magic will be broken, and we'll all be fucked. You'll be fucked. Don't you see?"
I do.
I do see now.
This wasn't revenge.
This wasn't because Esther tried to kill Henryka.
It was because Esther had somehow, someway, hit Henryka in a sore spot she did not know she had.
Family.
And it scared her.
The struggling became slow, weak-
"It's not a little murder, it's matricide!"
A moment, one lingering tick of the clock, and Rebekah took one final step closer. This close, she could see the shadows bruising underneath Niklaus's eyes-
Henryka's eyes.
She wore their brother's face, certainly, but those shadows were all her own, and it was easy, so very easy, to forget not forty-eight hours ago, by the glimpses Rebekah had seen through the linking spell, Henryka was a country away, alone, fighting for her life against a mad-man-with-no-nose, and here she is… Still drifting on the ebb of war.
That was it.
War.
"And you don't have to do this. You don't have to fight this war alone. Please, Henryka… Let mother go."
Henryka in Klaus's face snarled, dipped Esther's head deeper and-
Let go, staggering away from the tub with a growl and one last shove for good measure.
Esther came arching out, choking, spluttering, sodden, scrabbling across the tiled floor like a fish plucked from the river and dumped in a too shallow ditch of mud.
"Sweet Merlin. Everyone's a critic."
A flash of light, pale blue and orange and something that tasted sweet, and suddenly Niklaus was gone from the bathroom. Henryka stood by the wall, in her own skin, and her own face, and her own flaming crown of curls, rolling her shoulders and shaking the water off her hands and arms.
She was a girl hard to describe.
Feral, certainly, Rebekah first thought. She appeared to be some little sprite wrangled in from some moor or heath, the kind from old fables where fairies were not to be trusted and ate men's hearts whole. Not one of little measures despite her slight, lithe frame. There was something… Fearless of her character that was not easily missed on first glance, some deep spark that shone through ever pore and dimple and keen grin, making her look larger than she truly was, bigger than the delicate twist of her bird like bones, sleeker than the curve of her spiced lashes or gilt freckles, brighter than the green of her startling eye.
Wild, and fierce, and a little bit beautiful in the way natural disasters could be beautiful.
Dreadfully deadly.
And she hopped right over their crawling mother without so much a glance down, right passed Rebekah, and out the bathroom door, through the throng of siblings Rebekah had not noticed gathered at the entrance watching. From over a shoulder she shouted a parting response.
"This counts for all the birthday and Christmas presents I missed!"
V
"I thought I might find you out here."
Elijah said as he stepped out the back door of their home and into the garden porch.
Henryka did not turn around at his voice, not from her stoop on the steps leading onto the lawn, but kept her gaze locked dead ahead, over the grass and pasture and Rebekah's rose garden, all the way to the treeline of the forest encompassing the mansion.
"Surprise. It's not like I can storm off very far. I get to the city's boundaries and I'm bounced right back here again."
The distaste in her voice was clear and bitter, and so sharp it almost cut Elijah.
He strolled over to the steps, took the very same Henryka was perched upon, and he, too, stared over to the trees.
The woods seemed dark from so far away. Mottled and dappled in shadows and darkness.
"How are you feeling?"
From the corner of his eye, he saw a shoulder carelessly shrug.
"Two days ago I was in the middle of a war to end all wars, destined to die, only to discover my birth family is not only still very much alive but immortal vampires, I was stolen from a thousand years ago, I've been spiked with Petrova blood since I was eleven on the off chance that I die a bit too early, came back as… Something that shouldn't exist, and I went from having a mother who's love for me was so profound, so… True, that it had protected me from harm for nearly sixteen years to a mother who wants nothing more than to see me six-feet under for simply being born the way I am. And now I'm bloody hungry again."
She pulled her gaze away from the deep, dark woods, and pinned Elijah in place.
Her smile was soft and gentle and raw.
"I think I have a bit of bloody whiplash if I'm honest."
Elijah nodded; his own smile as equally soft.
"The thing with whiplash, I have heard, as with most things given time it will heal."
Henryka tore her gaze away and scoffed into the breeze.
"Time we might not have to fix this ungodly mess."
Elijah winced. What they had done was only a temporary fix. Currently, the linking was beholden to Henryka's intent, if she wished you hurt but the other's not, it could act as a barrier, but that would only last so long.
"Kol saved some of the Draught of The Living Death you brewed in the kitchen. As the caster of the spell, he gave it mother, and Niklaus has put her in a coffin until-... It should buy us some time-"
"A week at most. After that… Either we get this spell off us, or we wake her up, or we all fall under the slumber, and the-"
"The linking spell becomes irreversible."
Elijah finished, the words hanging heavy between the small space between them. And was that not funny?
Space, barely a foot, between them.
Henryka and him.
She truly was… Right there. Right there within reaching distance. Right there for the first time in over a thousand years. Right there, back to staring at the woods, fingers fiddling with the threads of her jeans, thoughts, evidently by the pucker of her brows, going a mile a minute.
Funnily enough, she had never felt so far away, even when he thought her cold and buried in the damp earth.
"Maybe if I can get my hands on that Ellie girl, the blood that caused this, I might be able to figure out a way to circumvent the linking and-"
"Is the thought of being linked to this family such a terrible idea that you would go to such lengths to avoid it?"
There's no cruelty to Elijah's voice. No hostility or accusation or anger. Just a terrible sort of vulnerable curiosity that, no matter how hard he tried, Elijah could not mask.
And like a hook, it catches Henryka by the skin, deep, Henryka, redhaired, freckled, very much alive Henryka, and that's the part Elijah cannot quite get over, glanced up to Elijah from the veranda's steps.
She was so small, and so right there, and so very everything Elijah never thought she could grow to be.
And she laughed. Bright, cheerful, confused.
Lost.
She looked lost.
"I-… You don't see it, do you? It's you who should be afraid. I-… I have a society of very powerful witches and wizards baying for my blood, and, if you haven't noticed, I have a habit of nearly dying every year and given my recent…. Feeding requirements, I'm bound to piss off more than a few nasties… I didn't do this so I would not be tied to you… I did it so you wouldn't be stuck with something rotten like me."
Again, her gaze falters, falls, breaks for the dark, the place where she can hide, and she shrugs awkwardly.
"I thought if I killed Esther, if I broke the spell, you wouldn't-… You wouldn't think…"
"We wouldn't come to think you were thrown upon us, tied like a ball and chain… A burden we had no choice to take in."
The glimpses that had come trickling through the link helped Elijah see greater than her words.
Because that is what she has felt she had always been, isn't it?
A burden to that vulture like woman and her whale of a husband and their piglet of a son.
A burden to her friends, who were put in danger by her presence in their lives alone.
A burden meant to be shoved in a under stairs cupboard and locked away from all that was proper, and normal, and good.
Henryka bristled.
"I know what I am. I'm not totally un-self-aware. I'm… I'm like a thoughtless child who has been given matches. I can't stop myself from lighting fires wherever I go. I don't know how to not be…"
Elijah slipped across the step, knocking his knee against her own, and he waited, a short while, a long while, time uncountable, for Henryka to look away from the woods and to him.
Impossibly bright green met impossibly tender hazel.
The distance didn't matter then.
"You don't know yourself when there isn't a war to fight."
A clench of jaw, and Henryka does not speak, but Elijah thought, that was answer enough.
"Perhaps you don't need to. Perhaps we can find that out together. As a family."
The chuckle was dry and unforgiving, overflowing with self-deprecation.
"You say that now, but when Unspeakables come tracking me down with their wands at the ready, or I eat the wrong supernatural and kick off another conflict, or, knowing my luck, resurrect some long forgotten Eldritch horror one day because I'm bored, you'll tweet a very different tune, and by that point if we don't break the spell now it will be too late for you."
Too late for you to get rid of me like everyone else has always done.
Reaching over, Elijah stole her hand and threaded his fingers through hers.
They were small, and thin, warm and still covered in the stains of her war, and very much real.
Her hand laid limp, unresponsive.
"You said you saw our lives in return? Then you must know by now that starting fires is not just your proclivity. If there is one thing a Mikaelson knows how to do, it is start trouble… And if there is one thing a Mikaelson does, it is drag one another from that fire."
A breath, a beat, a squeeze.
"Many years ago we made a promise over your grave. Always and forever. Though that grave was empty, though your body was not there, your name, your spirit was, and the oath holds. Always and forever, Henryka. We stick together, now and to the end, little fires or big fires. That is what being a Mikaelson is."
Little fires or big fires, and little fingers that squeezed back to big fingers.
"Did it help? That promise? Throughout all these years… Did it help? Or did my ghost feel like some sort of prison? It was the guilt over my supposed death that stuck you all together, and now I am here and-… Did you ever regret making that vow?"
Elijah does not lie. He is only gritty and candid like freshly plucked cotton.
"Sometimes it felt one way, and other times the other… And some days it felt like both."
Elijah laughed, a rumble in the chest, the ground shifting.
"Loki knows Niklaus is not an easy man to live with, and Kol is reckless and wild, and Rebekah can be spiteful and cruel, while Finn's melancholy can be infuriating and… I have my own vices too, vices that chaff at the others but… I don't think in a thousand years either one of us has ever regretted those words. Promises, I suppose, can sometimes feel like prisons, but I believe they can also be the anchors that keep us grounded. Sometimes, Henryka, it is about seeing things from the other side."
Henryka chuckled.
"Yeah… I don't think I'm so good at that. I normally only see death and doom no matter which way I look."
Elijah clasped her hand tighter, for the years he missed, for the years yet to come if only she could see.
"Then let us help you see something different for once."
Henryka shook her head, copper curls glinting in the afternoon sun, still smiling, still real, still right there.
"The honourable brother with a poet's tongue… How dangerous. Alright. Alright. I won't kidnap this Elizabeth girl."
Elijah blinked, but his smile never waned.
"I did not realize that was a card you were planning to play."
She winked, a pop of green.
"I have many cards-… Which reminds me. Kreacher!"
Her hand pulled back from his own at her shout, and-
Crack.
Elijah startled at the blast of noise, frowning, weary-
"What in the name of the All father is that."
The… Being, for it had two legs to stand upon, watery eyes blinking from a small, bold head sandwiched between two floppy large ears, wrinkled almond white and leathery, groaned and sneered at-
Well, at him.
House elf.
Elijah belatedly remembered.
The very same as that one from the beach, the one that had died being held in Henryka's arms and-
"Does Mistress want Kreacher to dispose of the filthy muggle leaches? Kreacher can stab, Mistress, and keep stabbing until-"
Henryka stood from the steps, dusting her hands off on her thighs.
"No stabbing today, Kreacher. We're moving onto plan E. Is Grimmauld Place still being watched?"
The creature-
Kreacher, a fitting name if there ever was one, bobbed, seemingly disappointed that there would, by Henryka's own mouth, be no stabbing that day.
"The Aurors left hours ago, Mistress. Like black rats fleeing the sewer. I can get you your things. They took nothing, only searched… Kreacher hid it all, and watched. They left empty handed."
Henryka clapped merrily.
"Fantastic. Bring everything. I'm going to need it… And empty out the Vaults while you're at it before the Ministry tries to confiscate it all and uses my own money to hunt me down. All of them. Potter and Black and Peverell. You have the keys. Get in, clear it all, get out. Nothing more, Kreacher. No poisoning this time, please."
Poisoning? What-
Kreacher bowed its wrinkled head.
"As the Mistress wishes."
And away with a crack, and a pop, and a scowl he went.
"You've… Had that… Kreacher here all this time?"
Henryka smiled down at him, brighter than the sun high at her back.
"As Sirius named me his Heir before his passing, and no other Black by name exists, I'm now de facto head of House, and Kreacher comes when I call, which I did when I let that Caroline go, and was lurking outside your gates. It's actually pretty nifty when one gets in a bind-… But no, I had him fetching me parts for-… Elijah, you didn't think you had ingredients for the Drought of the Living Death in your kitchen pantry, did you? Blimey, mate, I wish potions were that easy to make."
Caroline?
As in Caroline Forbes?
When was Caroline Forbes involved and-
Henryka's feet echoed up the stairs as she climbed the steps of the veranda. Elijah stood and followed.
"Plan E… Did you say plan E? What was plan A, may I ask?"
She paused by the back door, grinning over her shoulder.
"I told you, I like setting fires… I was going to force feed Esther the potion, Ward her in this pretty house, and burn it down around her head."
Elijah laughed incredulously.
"And what stopped you?"
She swung the door open.
"I spotted Niklaus's paintings as I snuck in and realized he might be a bit pissed if I let it all go up in ashes… Rebekah too. She's fond of the shoes she has. What? Don't look at me like that Elijah… I was going to drug you all too, and drag you out before I lit this place up like a fifth of November firework display."
She slipped through the door, and Elijah looked heavenward, up through the slated roof of the porch, chuckling.
"I dare say I am quite afraid to ask what plans B, C, and D were."
And he followed her back into the house.
"Ah, well, plan D involved a vacuum cleaner, a switchblade, and duct tape."
Because of course it did.
What other possible plan could there be?
"I may be well-known for being noble, as Finn is for his morals, Klaus for his fearless spirit, Kol and his wildness, and Rebekah for her vindictiveness, you however…"
She turned at this, brows furrowed, waiting-
"Are anarchy and chaos in its most unfiltered form I suspect."
She smiled at this, toothily, proudly.
"Why, Elijah… What else could I possibly be?"
The Duh was implied.
And then she was spinning again, a skip in her step, mischief clear as sunrise in her smile, and Elijah found himself shouting at her retreating back.
"What are you doing now?"
Her gate did not falter.
"A shower and then world domination, I suppose."
I suppose.
As if there was any chance at all that it would be anything else.
VI
Kol Mikaelson coasted down the hall of the East Wing, decanter of whiskey in hand, half drained tumbler in the other. No doubt Elijah, Niklaus and Rebekah would be somewhere hidden in their home, sitting around a fireplace, talking of next steps and would-be threats and whatever else crossed their minds.
They came as a package deal, those three.
Finn would be moping around somewhere in a dark corner of the room.
And that left Kol.
As it always did.
Outside.
Roaming around the mansion with the bitter taste of solitude singing through the alcohol. He could see it now, the hearth, cold and black during the day, siblings sitting on an open couch-
Henryka would be with them.
They could be laughing, perhaps sharing tears at finally being reunited, retelling jolly tales of exploits and disasters, for where else would Henryka be, and no one would think to get Kol, or remember he, too, was in the house, and-
Envy made the borrowed blood in his veins chill.
Kol had always had a problem with that, he knew. The Jealous brother. The wild brother.
The forgotten brother.
A red head popped out from the end of the hall, hair gleaming, wet, washed, wrangled into a knot at the top of the head, gnarled stick pierced through.
Along with it came a dimpled grin.
"So this is where you've been skulking."
Henryka stopped at the crosshairs of the hall, resting shoulder on plaster, one leg kicked over the other. Her jeans and bloodstained top were no where to be seen here, replaced with a dress, summer-fine and light, painted with merry little sunflowers.
Her feet were bare, wiggling white-pink in the hallway rug.
"I'm surprised you're not with the other's downstairs."
It's not much of a greeting, but it was, currently, the best Kol could muster.
What are you doing here with me, and not them? Is what he wants to ask, but doesn't. He finds he doesn't truly want to know the answer to that question. Afraid it might all be unintentional.
The answer Henryka gives anyway with a careless shrug.
"You weren't there."
You weren't there.
Three little words.
You weren't there, and so I came looking for you.
That-
That should not, Kol believed, hurt as much as it did.
You weren't there.
And Kol had not been there, either, for most of the years of her life. Three words, loaded with so much meaning.
That burned hotter, painfully.
He held his hands out, amber liquid sloshing up glass, barely refraining from falling to the carpet and oak below. Careless, and reckless, and everything Kol pretended to be, and often wasn't.
"Well, here I am."
Disappointed, yet? As everyone else always is?
Henryka pushed off from the wall, the whole stretch of the corridor away.
"Here you are… And I still don't get a suitable hello?"
Kol stashed the decanter and empty glass on the table at his side.
"Hello, fair maiden. Greetings from my low and humble heart-"
She stepped closer; footprints muffled.
"That's not how you used to say hello."
You.
Not Niklaus. Not Elijah. Not even Rebekah or Finn.
You.
You weren't there, and so I came looking.
It breaks like a wave on a shore, and Kol, finally, found himself smiling, moving.
He has her in his arms before he knew he had crossed the hall, a burst of pear and sweet pea and something delightful like honey, tickles his nose as a burning kiss is pressed to the space between brows and her feet left the ground, the white-pink toes, and he span, once, twice, thrice.
"Hello, darling."
It hits differently this time; over the unsurmountable other times he had said it to faceless men and women. It brings back the boy he used to be, moss-stained from climbing trees, apple peel sticky on his fingers, rushing for mother who handed the babe over, and he would twirl, and kiss the brow, and say hello, darling, and the rosy-cheeked babe would blow with giggles and titters.
Henryka had been the first.
Kol didn't think she would remember that, for she did, she must by the bark of laughter blistering in the air, the forgotten brother-
Remembered.
She truly remembered him.
And that hurt.
Good pain.
Soft pain.
Sweet pain.
Her arms looped around the crux of his neck, as she had as a child, and pressed into the joint of neck and shoulder. Her voice is warm against the smooth skin.
"There you are. I was half afraid you had forgotten it."
I was half afraid you had forgotten me.
It was what she wanted to say, Kol could tell, and, curiously enough, what Kol thinks too, and there was something liberating about that. A tic-tack-toe where both could block the grid.
She graced the earth with a muted thump, and Kol tore back, an inch, only and inch, and tugged at the loose scarlet curl by her ear. That used to make her chortle as a baby, and now it makes her smile almost blindingly.
"I could never forget."
And that was the truth. The awful, cruel, glorious truth. A thousand years, and Kol could never forget, no matter how hard he had tried, how much he drank or how many he killed, he remembered.
And now there was no need to try and forget.
There she was.
There you are.
"I see you haven't grown very much, if at all."
Henryka folded her arms over her chest at that.
"And I see your head has grown large enough for the both of us."
Kol chuckled, eyes rolling.
"I suppose it's a wonder that Nik managed to cram it into a coffin as he had."
The blinding smile waned.
"You know he can't do that anymore right? The whole… Dagger shebang. Won't work any longer… As long as the linking spells running, that is."
Yes, Kol knows, but three centuries locked in a box breeds a weariness.
If Nik truly wanted, Kol did not doubt he would find a way, and no one would do a thing, as none of them had before.
They would put him in the basement and forget he was there.
"I wouldn't underestimate our dagger-happy brother too much."
Words could act as seeds, and Henryka's grin bloomed all over again.
"And I wouldn't underestimate me. If Mani comes swinging about knives, I'll show him why it's silly to run with something sharp."
Kol could not help it.
He laughed.
Loudly.
"And I see, now, that you're quite sharp yourself, aren't you, darling?"
One brow, spiced auburn, lifted in quip.
"Only as sharp as your own wit."
Kol mirrored her challenge.
"Ah, quite dull then?"
It was hard to say who initiated the following embrace, or exactly when, only that it came, a close-fitting clasp, chin on crown and arms around back, and a breath that came as one wind. It was, however, Kol who broke the silence first.
"It's good to have you home."
Henryka's response was muffled in the folds of his shirt.
"It's good to be home."
As challenging as it was to tell who started the hug, it was harder yet to say how long it lasted, just them, in one hall of many, the faint tick of a clock hand spinning away a life, until Henryka pulled away, glancing up, eye to eye tinted rather mischievously.
"And talking of running with sharp things… I don't suppose you'd like to give it a go?"
Kol's head slanted to the side.
"Running away already? What was it? Elijah's OCD or Niklaus leaving his brushes all over the place? Ah, it was Rebekah leaving the wet towels on the floor, wasn't it? Or Finn's constant frown?"
Henryka, sequentially, appeared quite… Bashful.
"Hunger, actually. I'm starving. I, uh… Well, I don't really know how to… You know… Hunt."
"You haven't ate since-"
Since that stone courtyard, the men in bone masks, and the white-place.
Two days, Kol estimated.
A long time for a very recently turned vampire. The All Father knew what a Tribrid's appetite was like.
Nevertheless, Henryka shook her head, droplets of water dripping onto the pale expanse of a shoulder flecked with specks of gold.
She hadn't dried her hair properly. Must have come looking for him as soon as the shower was switched off.
That... burns differently. In a way Kol can't quite describe or name.
Or in a way he does not quite want to right then and there.
"There was one. But he sort of… Offered himself up. Pulled up in his car and bared his neck and everything so… There wasn't really much to do on my part, and you've had a thousand years of practice. Think you might show me the ropes?"
Kol should say no.
Definitely not.
Not at all.
He should, instead, tell her that she would figure it out. To go out and just… Try. Far away from him.
Far away from all their siblings, truthfully.
Hunting, particularly for a Vampire, was a… Intimate affair. The giddy combination of blood, and epinephrine, and sweat, and the high of a good feast frequently led to another thing starting with an F.
Quite visibly, by the innocent blinking, Henryka hadn't quite put those two together yet, and Kol, definitely, absolutely, positively, should tell her no.
She was clever, wily, she could and would figure it out on her own and-
But she had come to him.
Him.
Not his brothers or his sister, but to him, and when had Kol ever done anything he should do?
Never.
He saw no reason to start then and there, not when Henryka was still blinking up at him with those unbearable eyes.
It would be fine.
It would be fun.
Perhaps they both needed a bit of that right now, to ease the tension and the sudden, sharp drop into this strange life where Henryka lived and Kol was no longer in a coffin.
Grinning, Kol entwined his arm through hers, and led her down the way.
"Then let's go paint the town red."
Next Chapter: Kol and Henryka hit Mystic Falls, and finding the two rowdiest Originals missing, Klaus volunteers to find them and bring them back, which might just go as well as you expect it to go when you add gasoline to a lit match…
A.N: We haven't had much Finn or too much Rebekah yet, but don't worry, they have more involvement as the story progress, and we get a good chapter heavy on their P.O.V's in around-ish two/three chapters from now. So for Rebekah/Finn fans, they are coming, just buckle up for a bit longer lol. The next chapter will be heavy with Kol and Klaus, and with Henryka in the mix, expect pure anarchy lol.
P.S, Esther does eventually get what's coming to her. Just not quite yet. I'm drawing it out for the drama lol.
Mystic Falls scooby gang does also make an appearance or two in the next couple of chapters, and Elena and Henryka finally meet face to face, so I hope you all look forward to that too.
If any of you have any prompts for this fic, feel free to send them over!
As always, thank you so much for the follows, favourites, and reviews. I hope this chapter made you giggle once or twice, and, if you have a spare moment or two, please don't forget to drop a review. I will hopefully see you all soon! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21