"Mother, when is Nik arriving?" Rebekah asked her mother from her seat in the dining room between Freya and Kol. The youngest Mikaelson sister waited for their father to go fetch the wine so she could bring up Niklaus at the table.

"He isn't. Niklaus decided to spend the holidays at school." Esther said, her face completely expressionless.

Nik went to boarding school since he was a child. After their father had learned that Nik was not his biological son, that Esther had had an affair with a former colleague more than a decade earlier, their mother had decided to send their brother to a boarding school in England, and Niklaus did not resisted, knowing it might be his only chance to escape Mikael's abuse, and his siblings knew it. They all wrote and called each other daily, and none of them felt that the distance was a problem. Until now, Nik had come home every holiday to be with his family, despite the constant fear of Mikael's presence. He was supposed to arrive in just a few hours, so the sudden announcement that he wasn't coming came as quite a surprise to the Mikaelsons, but Mikael returned to the table, the bottle of wine already uncorked in one hand, so Rebekah couldn't ask any more questions.

"Klaus" Marcel Gerard tried to get his roommate's attention, but it was almost impossible considering the blond was painting at the moment, and when he was painting there might as well be an avalanche, but Klaus still wouldn't have realized. Marcel jumped in front of him, the only legal way to make the young artist acknowledge his presence in the room.

"Where's Stefan?" Marcel asked, looking at his best friend's new painting.

"I don't know, probably with Elena Petrova behind some wall. I am almost done, shall we go to lunch?"

"Nik, are you okay?" Marcel asked, looking at his friend with pitying eyes.

"Yeah, just a little tired..."

Before he could say another word, the door to the boys' room opened and Hayley Labonair-Marshall and Katherine Petrova walked in. Katherine had the phone to her ear and didn't even glance at the boys before sitting by the window and continuing to yell into the phone.

"What is she doing?" Klaus asked in a whisper.

"She's arguing with her mom in Bulgarian to let her stay here during the holidays." Hayley replied.

"I can't believe your parents let you stay without any questions, Hayley. Or should I call you Andrea?"

Hayley laughed. As soon as her biological parents had found her 5 years ago they had put her in boarding school without saying anything else, but Hayley said it was better than her adoptive parents, so she had nothing to complain about. Katherine stood up and hung up the phone with a satisfied look on her face.

"Did you manage to convince her?" Marcel asked.

"Did you have any doubts? Come on, I'm hungry. Oh, and Elena, Amara, and Tatia are probably very pissed right now, so I'd watch my back if I were you." Katherine said, taking Nik's arm and walking out of the room.

The day went by faster than they thought and the night came like a storm among the stars, so now Klaus, Caroline, Hayley, Katherine, Marcel, and Stefan were gathered in the boys room trying to do a project for the holiday, Damon standying bored in one courner and looking at them funny. But, when Klaus's phone rang, they all froze. It was Mikael.

"Don't answer it." Katherine said. It was an order.

But he did answer, more afraid of what Mikael would do to him if he doesn't answer than of what he will do to him because he chose to spend the vacation at school. And Katherine was right, as always, because not even teen minutes later, Klaus was pale, crying his heart out in Caroline's arms.

"I-I'm afraid." there were too few words with such a big impact. Nik pulled his knees closer to his chest and buried his chin in them. "I'm afraid of what Mikael will do to me on the next vacation, when I have to go back home...when..."

Caroline kissed him.

"Then we'll make sure you don't have to go back home while he's there."

"Love..."

"It's us against the world, Nik, we can protect you from him." Hayley said, then Caroline added:

"We can collect enough evidence of his abuse of you every holiday to turn him in to the police, you know that, Nik."

"He has...he has relationships...you can't hand him over to the police, love, it won't solve anything...they can't convict him..." Nik's eyes were filled with tears. The trauma was still there, despite only being around Mikael for about two months a year. He trembled, and the boarders hugged him.

"Do you want us to call Professor Beckett? Ansel would know how to make you feel better, Klaus." Marcel said soft.

"N~no..I'm here for the moment, where I feel safe, I'm with you, so I'm fine."

There was something in Klaus' eyes, something that shouldn't even be in the nightmares of adults, something that certainly shouldn't be in the eyes of any boy this young. But it was. It was in the eyes of all the people in this room. Pieces of mirror kept falling and taking their humanity with them. Niklaus looked around the room, feeling a bout of depression coming if he didn't do something soon.

Caroline was clinging to him, Stefan had brought snacks to what he called "fun night", because he thought a group project was fun, and he had forced his brother to attend. But now Klaus was crying cold tears and couldn't stop it, the loving looks of the people in the room making him to feel even more...desperate, lonely...he loved his siblings more than the sky, but as bad as he felt for thinking it, these people in this room were more of a family to him than his half-siblings ever were. Katherine looked at him protectively, Caroline looked at him lovingly, Stefan looked at him with admiration, Hayley looked at him with confidence, Marcel looked at him with courage, Damon looked at him with acceptance and Klaus knew he was strong, despite of what he was doing now or of all the things Mikael told him. By morning he was feeling much better, Marcel holding him until he fell asleep last night, the wooden knight made for his sister clenched in his right fist.

Klaus remembered perfectly the day she gave it to him, the day before he had to leave for boarding school for good...she told him that he needed protection, courage, more than she did now.