The last chapter of my story, it has gotten a lot longer than I had originally planned. Enjoy and tell me, how you liked it!

Thank you to Senema for her beta and her time. Without her, the story would have much more difficult to read.

I want to thank everyone for their comments and their feedback and everyone, who viewed this story.

I'm already outlining the fifth part but first I want to write in my other crossover with Lucifer. I changed a few things afterwards so any remaining mistakes are my own.

Chapter 21

After a long drive, Elijah finally arrived in New Orleans. Shana had texted him that the departure of his guests had gone smoothly. She had also written that she would remove all traces that the Avengers were ever hiding with them.

He was quite disappointed that he had missed their departure, but Freya's call had been too urgent. Apparently, after a brief respite, the Sireline crisis had intensified again.

When Elijah entered the compound, it was way too quiet for his taste. He frowned worried and listened intently with his vampire senses; only then did he hear loud voices arguing fiercely with each other. He recognized Kol's, Klaus's, and Rebekah's voices and sighed dejectedly.

When he entered the library, the argument continued unabated as no one noticed his arrival. He stood next to Freya, who was staring angrily at her younger siblings, arms crossed. He nudged her lightly and when she turned to him, startled, he grinned sympathetically at her. She rolled her eyes.

Elijah listened to the discussion and since it was all about old arguments, he decided to get involved. "Children, quiet please, your bickering is giving me a headache."

The argument died down and everyone spun around to face him.

Naturally, it was Klaus, who spoke first. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I needed a break from the prophecy", Elijah replied. 'And in case it does come true, I wanted to get my affairs in order', he added mentally. Unknown to Shana he had willed the property to her in case of his death.

Freya glared at Klaus. "And it was a good idea too; Elijah looks a lot more relaxed."

"And what if we needed him?" demanded Klaus imperiously. "And that doesn't answer my question. What have you been up to?"

"I am not accountable to you about my whereabouts or my actions, Niklaus", said Elijah coolly and not very thrilled about his younger brother's tone. "I was also in contact with Freya. She would have let me know immediately if my presence would have been necessary."

"And it wasn't", took Freya his side. "Why don't you tell Elijah why he had to abort his vacation?"

Klaus avoided Elijah's gaze. "I have to leave New Orleans and Hayley and Hope are coming with me."

"And why do you have to leave New Orleans?" prodded Elijah, now deeply suspicious.

"It looks like many of my offspring are making their way to New Orleans." Klaus looked at Elijah. "Now that my sireline has been broken, they seem bent on revenge."

Elijah rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Of course they want revenge. What do you expect, Niklaus, after what you have done to most of them? If you had listened to me, none of this would happen."

"Yes, yes, I know." Klaus waved his hand disinterestedly. "In any case, you must stay here with Freya and Kol and hold the position for our family."

"Keep me out of this, Nik", Kol snapped. "I'll spend my time with Davina. After all, I've been dead and separated from her long enough."

"And why don't you mention my name?" Rebekah pouted offended.

"I thought you wanted to prolong your absence from our family, so I left you out", Klaus replied impishly.

"Oh, so she gets to enjoy herself while I'm supposed to stay here and deal with family drama?" Kol roared indignantly.

"Did I mention already that this family makes me want to murder people?" Klaus asked through gritted teeth.

"You always want to murder people, Niklaus. Please don't blame your family for your lack of impulse control", Elijah said dryly.

Freya laughed softly when she saw Klaus's dismayed expression at Elijah's casual putdown. "God, I missed you, brother."

"I wouldn't go as far as saying I missed you, but like Nik I'd like to know what you've been up to for the past week", Kol picked up Klaus' last question about Elijah's whereabouts.

With years of practice Elijah masked the pain Kol's snide comment caused him. "And you get the same answer as him: It's none of your business!"

"Well, we've all noticed that, contrary to your usual habits, you seem very interested in the coverage about the Avengers." Klaus looked at Elijah slyly, so as not to miss any reaction.

"Well, a repelled alien invasion by only six superheroes piques my interest," Elijah replied calmly, his poker face perfectly in place.

"Yes, but your interest seems to be limited to the Archer and since Lagos to that little witch as well", Kol added just as cunningly as Klaus.

"And how should I have met them?" Elijah asked, seemingly disinterested. He knew Klaus and Kol's tactics too well and didn't let them throw him off course. As much as the two always argued and were at each other's throats, they were too similar in personality and when it went against him, they were always on the same side anyway.

"Well, you were in New York a few months before the invasion and it seemed to me like you were living there." Klaus's revelation provoked surprised reactions from Rebekah and Kol, who were daggered in their coffins at the time.

Elijah wasn't surprised that Klaus brought this up, since he knew his methods of avoiding a topic. "Maybe, but even then, New York is a very big city." He shrugged. "Even if I had been in New York, when the Chitauri attacked, the odds of meeting one of the Avengers, or even being involved in their fighting, are more than slim."

Klaus narrowed his eyes as if trying to remember something and then he seemed to recall it and he started to grin in his usual sly way. "The people who were with you, those SHIELD agents. Among them were this Archer and Black Widow. However, I assumed that you compelled them to forget everything related to the supernatural."

Elijah winced internally as Klaus mentioned SHIELD. He'd forgotten that Masters overheard quite a bit of his conversation with Clint, Phil, and Natasha. He changed his strategy. "Yes, you are right, I met two of them before the invasion and yes I compelled them to forget about vampires." He shrugged again. "By the end of the night, none of them remembered you and that unfortunate incident with Kevin Masters." Which was completely true, after all, Klaus didn't need to know that he had given Clint his memories back.

"Ah yes Masters." Klaus grinned wolfishly. "He was very chatty after we spent some quality time together and couldn't stop telling me everything."

Freya rolled her eyes. "Yes, I can vividly imagine why."

Klaus ignored her and looks at Elijah. "You told those SHIELD Agents some very interesting and mostly negative things about me."

Elijah smiled icily. "What? Did you expect me to speak well of you after what you did?" He looked satisfied, as it was now Niklaus' turn to make a blank face to hide his hurt.

Freya looked a little worried, but Kol and Rebekah looked nervous too. They all felt that Klaus and Elijah were about to get into a real fight, which was not in the family's interest under the current circumstances.

Freya had to avert the argument and she saw only one way to do it, although she didn't like supporting her younger siblings in their plot against Elijah. Quite apart from that, the question really interested her. She had been sleeping when the invasion took place. "Elijah, were you in New York during the invasion?"

All of the siblings stared at Elijah, their expressions ranging from pure curiosity to genuine concern. He sighed and decided to satisfy at least part of their curiosity and answer Freya's question. "Yes, I was in New York during the invasion. I own a company there and I was at work as the invasion happened. The building where my company is located was in the middle of the fight. I took command, cleared the building and helped the humans escape safely through the basement."

Rebekah looked thoughtful but not surprised, that sounded like Elijah. "And what about you? Did you flee through the basement too?"

Elijah hesitated, but then shook his head. "The smell of fear was just too strong, and there were too many injured humans. I wasn't in control of my emotions and I didn't want to risk killing those people I had previously saved."

"Understandable that you weren't in control under these circumstances", Freya said, putting her hand on Elijah's arm.

"And what happened next?" Kol continued to ask.

Elijah sighed. His siblings would never believe that he had stayed out of everything. "I've had a few run-ins with the Chitauri that didn't end well for them." He grinned maliciously. "However, I had to be careful not to be filmed by surveillance cameras during my dealings with them."

Klaus made a face. Surveillance cameras were the bane of vampires who wanted to go unnoticed.

"And what is killing aliens like?" Kol asked curiously.

Freya rolled her eyes. This kind of question could only come from Kol.

Elijah frowned as he considered the best way to answer the question. "Different! Not the physical aspect, although I had to first dig into their guts to find the heart." He grimaced. "It was really messy and the smell of the blood was foreign and provocative. I even lost control to the point that I vamped out."

His siblings exchanged troubled looks at the confession, knowing how unusual and rare this kind of loss of self-control was for Elijah.

"But you got a grip on yourself again?" Freya asked worried.

"After getting used to the smell and being aware of my reactions to it I could keep my control", Elijah answered and smiled at Freya.

"And did you meet the Archer?" Klaus asked stubbornly.

Elijah groaned. "I saw him, yes, as he made his way through town but he didn't see me. I took it upon myself to clear the way for him und removed some obstacles that might have otherwise killed him. I admired his fighting spirit, and I have never in my thousand years seen anyone fight, shoot and hit his intended targets like that with a bow."

"So that's why you're interested in him", Rebekah said pensively. She knew that when Elijah found a human fascinating, they became a kind of hobby for him. This Archer definitely sounded like someone who fell into that category and so became worthy of Elijah's respect and interest.

Elijah shrugged. "A normal human being able to defend himself against aliens like this deserves my curiosity, so I followed his progression in the following years. He seems to have this special relationship with the witch, so I became interested in her too."

He had been keeping an eye on his siblings unobtrusively and saw with satisfaction that Klaus and Rebekah seemed finally mollified with his answers. Only Kol seemed to remain sceptical.

"But where have you been?" Kol asked suspiciously.

Elijah sighed in resignation. "This prophecy troubles me and I have taken it as an opportunity to put my affairs in order. I didn't want to discourage or scare you, so I kept it to myself. As a result, I had to travel quite a bit and I had the opportunity to compel me a flight on a military aircraft, which is far faster than a civilian aircraft." He glared at Kol. "After your call I then had the dubious pleasure of compelling all the passengers within earshot to forget this conversation again."

Kol laughed, happy as always when he got his ever so controlled brother to lose his temper. "Yes, I'm sure the mentioning of ripping out guts and strangling us with them must have provoked some interesting reactions."

"Well, now that that's settled, let's get back to my problems", said Klaus condescendingly.

Elijah scowled at Niklaus's attitude, but inside he was mostly pleased. Klaus, Kol and Rebekah had gotten their answers; the puzzle solved to their satisfaction. They would now revert to their normal behaviour towards him and ignore him as long as they didn't need him.

Nonetheless that he could so easily fool them, pained a part of him. He sometimes wondered if his siblings knew him as well as they seemed to think.

Klaus resumed his argument with Kol and Rebekah about their division of responsibilities, so Elijah withdrew from the conversation until they would got back to Klaus's departure. However, he was aware that Freya looked at him sideways from time to time. Apparently, at least one of his siblings was observant enough to know he was hiding more from them.

However, Elijah also knew that she wouldn't say anything because she respected his right to secrets. Sometimes he wished he had had Freya as his eldest sister from the start. Would he still have been as lonely as the sole solid rock between three erratic and boisterous siblings and an older brother, who loathed him and wasn't the least bit interested in helping him with them?

Elijah shook off these idle and unhelpful thoughts, it was time to focus on his family and getting them through this nest crisis.

After three weeks of an arduous and ultimately unsuccessful search, Ryan Bender could finally return to base. His colleagues nodded in greeting and he nodded back before checking in with Coulson's deputy Melinda May.

"Agent Ryan Bender, I'm back." Ryan handed her the report he had written on the way back.

"Sit down, Agent Bender." May picked up his report and scanned it quickly. "No clues as to where the Avengers could have been hiding?"

"None, we couldn't find out anything", Ryan replied. "I'm surprised to hear that the search has been called off."

"We have reports that all the Avengers and other missing persons have turned up in Wakanda and King T'Challa has granted them asylum, he is refusing any extradition." May's expression was neutral and Ryan couldn't tell how she felt about this.

"I see", Ryan murmured, hiding his relief that the Avengers had gotten away safely.

"You have the next three days off." May stared at him blankly. "That means you don't have to change your shifts as you usually do, so that you can have the full moon off."

Ryan blinked but didn't respond to May's comment, his quirk too well known to his superiors. "What about my oral report?"

"I'll read the written one first before we meet for your debriefing," May replied calmly.

"Thank you." Ryan was already considering the best way to get in touch with Coulson.

May seemed to notice his hesitation. "Is there anything else, agent?"

"No, thank you." Ryan got up. It wasn't a good idea to mention Elijah Mikaelson to third parties. He would just have to rely on his luck to run into Coulson.

Ryan had completed his monthly transformation and had even figured out a good way to meet Coulson. In the evening after the full moon, he visited a bar regularly frequented by SHIELD agents. Since the bar was directly above the base and used as an access point too, agents often came here after work to have a drink and chat.

Ryan was hoping to find Coulson here and it looked like he was lucky. Coulson sat with May in the booth the senior agents always used. Ryan knew it was bug-proofed with sophisticated technology, which suited him very well. And he knew too that May would be leaving soon and that Coulson would then be available for any agents who had something on their mind. It was the perfect time to approach Coulson and give him Clint's and Natasha's phone numbers.

May left, and one by one agents sought out Coulson to speak with him privately. Ryan waited until he was sure he was the last before sitting down with Coulson.

Coulson blinked when he saw him. "Agent Bender, May said you were off duty. Aren't there better places to spend your free time than the bar where all your colleagues go?"

"Normally yes, Director, but I wanted to speak to you privately and off the record", Ryan said respectfully.

Coulson raised an eyebrow before slipping his right hand under the table. Ryan heard with his werewolf ears, how a switch was flipped and he knew that now no one could hear what was being discussed in the corner.

"You can talk freely now, Ryan", Coulson said calmly.

"I have to admit I left something out of my report", Ryan confessed nervously. This admission could pretty much backfire on him and get him massively in trouble but it had to be done.

Coulson frowned and sat back. "That's a surprising admission from an agent as experienced as you. Tell me more!"

"During one of our house searches, I bumped into two old and dear friends of yours and they gave me their phone numbers, asking me to give them to you," Ryan said softly. Even here, shielded, he would never say the names aloud.

"Interesting. I know Collins and I can't imagine him leaving you alone during a house search long enough for that to be possible." Coulson looked genuinely confused.

"He had no choice. Our friends have made a very powerful ally who has interesting abilities. Collins can't remember anything anymore, even though he saw our friends", Ryan pointed out cautiously.

Coulson's mouth twisted at the implications. "Does this powerful ally have a name?"

"Yes, he has. You know him as Elijah Smith", Ryan replied, waiting for Coulson's reaction. And he wasn't disappointed because Coulson gulped visibly and paled a little.

"I haven't thought about him for a long time", Coulson whispered.

"So you do remember him?" Ryan asked uneasily. That was the worst-case scenario.

Coulson looked bleakly. "Yes, I remember everything about Elijah and his abilities." Suddenly he looked pensive. "Was it by any chance him who brought Laura Barton and her children to safety?"

"I don't know", answered Ryan frowning. "Nobody mentioned Laura Barton or the children to me."

"The scene we found at the Barton Farm was extremely gory. Snapped necks, not to mention torn out hearts and severed heads." Coulson grimaced as he apparently remembered the mission video.

"Yes, that definitely sounds like Elijah Mikaelson", Ryan said dryly.

"Are my friends safe with him?" Coulson looked visibly worried.

"Honestly, if they weren't they would be dead already and nobody would ever find their bodies", Ryan answered softly, he knew how callous his answer sounded. "Do you have questions? Elijah allowed me to answer a few questions you might have."

"Like I said, I remember everything. What I would be more interested in, why did he allow you to keep your memories? And why can you speak for him?" Coulson asked smiling.

Ryan knew that this smile wasn't a good sign and he would better answer openly, honestly and quickly. "He can't compel me, I'm immune to it."

"Elijah told me that as an Original he can compel other vampires. If you are immune then what are you?" Coulson looked at him shrewdly.

"I'm a werewolf, Director", Bender answered honestly.

"Huh, are there perhaps even more supernatural species?" Coulson asked rhetorically.

"There exist quite a few, Director", Bender replied uncomfortably.

"Call me Phil." Coulson looked thoughtful. "If you're immune, why did you still keep your mouth shut?"

"Firstly, the Sokovia Accords are a bunch of shit, which affect me directly as well. I get nightmares at the thought of someone finding out what I am. Secondly, they are still colleagues of mine whom I have always held in high esteem. And thirdly, Elijah is really scary." Ryan grinned, slightly embarrassed. "As a SHIELD agent, I'm supposed to be fearless, but Elijah Mikaelson is in a class of his own in terms of being terrifying. And in my world, you don't mess with an Original if you love your life."

"Having seen him in action, I can only agree." Coulson hesitated. "Why was I able to remember everything again?"

"I don't know if the rumours about you are true, but it is known that if someone compelled by a vampire dies and is reanimated, any compulsion will be negated." Ryan was serious. "Since when do you remember?"

"For about two years, but there were always more important things to do or should I say survive." Coulson looked blank as he recalled the past two years.

"I know what you mean." Ryan took the note from his pocket and pushed it across the table. "By the way, they already knew that you were alive."

"Yes I know. Fury has already warned me." Coulson made a pained face. "I suppose I'll hear at length how they think about this deception."

"Sorry, Phil." Ryan looked now slightly concerned. "Am I going to be in trouble regarding my omission, sir?"

"No, that's between us. You won't mention it to anyone." Coulson smiled sardonically. "Consider it an order from your director."

"Thanks sir." Ryan was relieved. He stood up. "And thank you for your time. I'll be back on duty in two days."

"See you then Ryan." Coulson looked preoccupied.

Ryan wasn't surprised, after all, he'd dumped a lot of surprises on Coulson. There weren't many people who could have taken it so calmly. He left the booth but stayed in the bar because otherwise it would have been too suspicious. He watched Coulson leave the bar shortly afterwards and breathed a sigh of relief. With any luck, that thing would be over for him. He had really no interest in getting further involved in the affairs of the Originals.

Epilogue

After Klaus's departure, Marcel came by to inform Elijah that from now on he would have two Strix bodyguards with him at all times.

Elijah groaned. "This is completely unnecessary. They're after Klaus, not me."

"Sorry, Elijah." Marcel didn't look the least bit sorry and even smirked. "But as leader of the Strix, I insist. After all, we don't want you kidnapped and used as leverage against Klaus."

Elijah looked at Marcel and wondered which plans Marcel hatched now against his family. He knew how much Marcel hated and loathed him but it had long since been a mutual feeling. He couldn't help but remember how many times Marcel had played with Rebekah's feelings and used them to achieve his goals. He had repeatedly taken advantage of the love Klaus and Rebekah felt for him and gotten away with betrayals, where everyone else would have paid with their life for them. It was time to teach Marcel that his past and wrongdoings could catch up to him at any time too.

Elijah smiled and Marcel visibly stiffened, fully recognizing the underlying threat and spite and involuntarily took a step back from him. Elijah admitted it felt good to see that Marcel still feared him and knew that he no longer had the same advantage and protection with Elijah that he had with Klaus and Rebekah.

"By the way, on my journey I met one of your victims who managed to escape you brainwashing him, using him as cannon fodder for your machinations and then making a murderer of him. We had a lively conversation about you and he asked me to give you a message and a promise from him.

He lets you know that you are a bastard and that one day he will take his revenge on you for ruining his life. It may take a few decades, but he wants to make sure that you never destroy anyone else's life ever again as you did his. Moreover, that you better start looking over your shoulder."

Elijah smirked at Marcel's reaction to this message. "Incidentally, I am very impressed by the young man and I have no doubts that he will keep his promise to you. I took the liberty of giving him a few tips on how best to deal with older vampires and defeat them despite their physical superiority.

I'm sure you'll get to know him at some point. Oh, and I asked him if I could be there to watch it, when he gets his justice. I think I will enjoy it very much when you finally get your comeuppance. Have a nice day, Marcellus!"

Elijah turned and left, he's had enough of Marcel's hypocrisy and scheming for today.