Chapter 5

Marcel knelt on the roof of an old hotel, staring down at the Mikaelson Compound. Hope laid still unconscious on the roof beside him. He tried everything he knew to wake her but nothing worked. It had been hours since she passed out and she showed no sign of recovery. He was beginning to fear for her health so he decided to go to the next most powerful witch he knew – Freya Mikaelson.

He moved from roof to roof, peeking through the windows of the Compound, hoping to spot Freya alone in the mansion. He constantly came up short but his roof hopping did not go unnoticed.

"Marcel!" Kol sang tauntingly.

Marcel flinched at the cutting tone of the familiar voice. He spun around cautiously to see Kol walking across the roof towards him.

Kol's eyes held an impish glint. He'd been patiently hoping for Marcel's return so he could seek his revenge for being bitten all those years ago and he felt lucky to be the first Mikaelson to get to him before his brothers. But as his eyes fell to the young girl lying next to Marcel's feet, his face hardened. His feet froze as he listened for her heartbeat and found it soft and faint.

"What did you do to her?"

"Nothing. She did this to herself."

Kol refused to listen. He had already drawn conclusions of his own. The Mikaelsons killed Davina and so he concluded, to get back at them, Marcel was going to kill Hope.

Kol's nails dug deeply into the palm of his clenched fist. "You bastard!" he screamed as he lunged at Marcel, tackling the man over the edge of the roof. The two hit the pavement below with a great thud. They had both broken bones but Kol's raged fueled him on. He picked Marcel up by the collar of his shirt and punched him hard enough to send his body flying across the street.

Marcel quickly jumped to his feet but in the same moment Kol came charging him again. He tackled the younger vampire through the doors of the Mikaelson Compound.

"Wait, wait!" Marcel stood fretfully in the middle of the courtyard, praying that neither Niklaus nor Elijah wouldn't show up. "It's not what it looked like. I was trying to help her. She's in bad shape."

"Oh yeah, mate, and who's fault is that?"

"That's what I was trying to tell you. She did it herself."

"I just bet she did."

Kol sped over to Marcel and hit him with an uppercut that sent him flying through the balcony into Elijah's rigid arms. Niklaus appearing next by his side.

Elijah wrapped his arms around Marcel, preventing the man from fleeing.

"What is the meaning of this?" Niklaus seethed through clenched teeth while staring Marcel down.

Kol jumped up to the balcony and growled, "It's Hope. He's done something to her."

Klaus's emotions began to raise uncontrollably, the strongest of which being fear.

Elijah swiftly snapped Marcel's neck rendering the man unconscious before turning to Klaus and saying, "Go see to your daughter. I'll handle Marcel."

-M-

When Marcel came through he was again in shackles. This time restrained to a staircase looking on as Freya performed a spell over Hope's still comatose body with Hayley holding the girl's head in her lap. His vision of them was soon blocked by Niklaus's surly mug.

"Tell me what you did to her and I'll make sure your death is swift and nearly painless."

"I never touched her." Marcel bit. Then he proceeded to tell them everything, omitting the part where he was the stranger in the hotel room Hope snuck off to see.

Freya let out a heavy sigh at the end of Marcel's story and asked, "Is that all that happened?"

"Yes. I didn't poison her or curse her or," Staring daggers at Kol he said, "Drain her dry. She just collapsed."

Klaus walked over to Freya feeling somewhat at ease by her sudden relief. "Is she going to be alright?"

"Yes. She simply released more power than her body was used to. She probably released more power than a girl her age should have. She's going to be unconscious for the next 24 hours but she'll be plenty replenished when she wakes up."

"Marcellus," Elijah swung in front of Marcel with his arms crossed enquiringly over his chest. "What exactly did you say to her to put her in such an uncontrolled state?"

Marcel considered keeping the truth to himself but he knew it would cause Niklaus to suffer as much as he had the past month he spent in the bayou.

He stared his maker in the eyes and said, "I told her the truth. That you were a monster. Seems it was just too much for her to take, knowing her precious Saint daddy wasn't the kindhearted soul she made you out to be."

Niklaus's fear for his daughter was soon replaced by sheer anger. He'd always known that Hope would find out the truth about his past but he thought it would be when she was much older. He wanted to protect her from the horrors of her linage for as long as he could so that she would not grow up with a monster for a father as he did.

"I was going to change for her." Niklaus muttered furiously. "I wasn't going to fail her the same way I failed you; by not protecting you from the one thing I should have most: The Mikaelson Bloodlust."

"You weren't going to change, Klaus. You can't. You've been a monster for a thousand years and you'll be a monster for a thousand more."

"Perhaps you're right." Niklaus rolled up the sleeve of his shirt so as not to get blood on it as he shoved his hand in Marcel's chest to rip out his heart. "I should just accept who I am. And who I am is the King of New Orleans and as King I must now carry out a sentence as promised. Marcel Gerard – For the crime of treason and trespassing, I sentence you-"

"Brother, I do beg your pardon." Elijah interrupted with aplomb. "May I have a word with you in the foyer?"

Niklaus was aggravated but curious as to what his brother had to say that was so important. He quietly followed behind Elijah to the foyer.

"Brother, I cannot permit you to kill Marcellus just yet."

Niklaus stood stunned. "Excuse me. He disobeyed my decree. He deserves to be punished. I must be a ruler of my word."

"And you shall. I wouldn't dream of making you break your word but I do believe in this case you should consider altering Marcel's punishment. After all, is there not a decree against harboring a fugitive? And Hope has been harboring one for the better part of a month now, hasn't she?"

Niklaus' eyes widen at the realization.

"If you kill Marcel, you will have to think of a punishment as equally harsh for Hope because 'no one is above your laws', right? But you wouldn't want that, no one would. We would all sooner die than allow harm to come to that child. So in the sake of fairness, I advise you to choose a different punishment for the man you once called son."

"What did you have in mind?"

Elijah reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved Papa Tunde's blade. "A dozen or so years with this stuck in him should be more than just."

Niklaus took the blade from Elijah's hand and he could almost feel the pain of the years he lost with it rush through his body. He dismissed those feelings with a heavy shrug.

"Okay." As Elijah started to walk away, Klaus added, "But Hope will always be above my laws."

Every muscle in Marcel's body tensed when he spotted the blade in Niklaus's hand.

"As I was saying." Klaus started again. "Marcel Gerard, for the crime of treason and trespassing, I sentence you to 12 years in the garden with Papa Tunde's blade."

Marcel shut his eyes as Niklaus advanced with the blade in hand. He didn't contest his sentence because although he feared it, he felt it was well-deserved.

Staring at Marcel's fear cringed face brought back memories Niklaus had been trying to suppress since he woke.

Flashback:

Marcel's small body laid quivering under a pile of blanket. His temperature was sky high and his stomach ached from his constant vomiting mixed with unbearable hunger. Only his terrible body aches were enough to draw his mind away from the pain in his stomach.

Niklaus and Elijah stood just outside the boy's door with a grave faced doctor.

"I'm afraid the boy has the Fever." The doctor announced solemnly.

"And what is the cure for that?" Klaus asked confidently. "Come now, doctor, don't be bashful. Money is no issue. Tell me what I have to do to cure my boy."

"Mr. Mikaelson…there is no cure. The disease is quite advanced and…it doesn't look like the child will make it through the night."

Klaus chanced a glance into the boy's room and made eye contact with Marcel, the boy's face drenched with sweat and tears.

"I don't see how the illness could've progressed so suddenly." Elijah protested. "He only just complained of feeling badly this morning."

Confused, the doctor said, "This isn't an overnight disease, Mr. Mikaelson. For it to have gotten this bad, he would've had to been sick for at least a week."

"We had the hunting trip this weekend." Niklaus muttered. "He's been looking forward to it all month. He didn't tell us he was sick because he knew he wouldn't be able to go if he was."

Elijah watched Niklaus as he stared at the frightened boy in the bed. He decided to see the doctor out so the two could be alone.

Klaus went into Marcel's room and sat on the bed next to the boy's head. He used a damp washcloth to cool Marcel's hot forehead.

"Poppa," Marcel murmured hoarsely. "What did the doctor say?"

"He said…it's just a little food poisoning. You'll be fine by the morning, you just have to sweat it out."

A small smile came across Marcel's face. It faded as he said, "I've been sick since before the trip. I just didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you wouldn't let me go."

"I wouldn't, Marcellus. When you're sick you need to rest. You must always tell me when you're not well, Marcellus. I will always find a way to make you better. "

"I know, poppa. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, my son. Sleep. Everything will be fine in the morning."

Marcellus closed his tired eyes and began to drift off. Right before he fell asleep, he muttered, "Poppa…I'm cold."

Klaus knew that couldn't be true since the boy was wrapped in enough blankets to warm a small town so that only meant Marcel was getting worse.

Once he was sure the boy was sleep, Klaus bit into his wrist and dripped a few drops of his blood into Marcel's slightly parted lips. He hated himself for it. In the past he only fed his blood to an unwilling person only as punishment, to turn them into the monster he was so they could suffer eternally as he had but that was never his intention for Marcel. He saw the boy as all that was pure and good in the world and he wanted him to stay that way so Niklaus had made up his mind. If his blood didn't help to save his son from his illness, if Marcel were to pass away in his sleep and turn, Klaus would compel him to continue to sleep to prevent the boy from ever tasting blood and finishing his transition, keeping the memory of him untainted.

Klaus stayed in the room with Marcel all night, constantly checking his temperature and placing more blankets on him whenever the boy got a chill. At some point he nodded off and when he woke, Marcel's body was gone.

"Marcellus," He screamed as he ran from the room.

Marcel stood at the end of the hall with a cup of water in his hands and a wide smile on his face.

"Poppa, you were right. I'm all better now, see."

Klaus ran to the boy and wrapped his arms around him. His joy was soon replaced with fear.

"How do you feel, Marcellus? Do you feel…a hunger?"

Marcel nodded solemnly. "I'm real hungry, poppa. I could hardly keep nothing down all week. Can we have breakfast soon?"

Klaus feared his worst nightmares were coming true. He called for a servant and whispered to them to bring him a cup filled with their blood. When the servant returned, Klaus held the mug in front of Marcel's nose while being sure not to get too close to keep the boy from tasting it. If the boy was in the mist of transitioning he would be able to smell the blood from a mile away and he wouldn't be able to resist partaking it.

Marcel stared at the thick red substance in the glass with an upturned nose.

"Is that more medicine, poppa? I'm better now, I swear. Please don't make me take anymore. I don't think I could keep it down on an empty stomach."

Niklaus dropped the mug on the floor, spilling blood all across the hardwood as he fell to his knees and pulled Marcel into a tight hug.

"Oh, Marcellus," He exclaimed with joyful tears in his eyes. "Don't ever get sick again. I'll catch my death with worry."

Marcel wrapped both arms around his father, being careful not to spill his water. "I'm sorry, poppa." As the hug continued on, Marcel's stomach growled loudly.

Niklaus chuckled as he ended the hug and rose to his feet. He held a hand out to be taken by Marcel and said, "Come now, Marcellus. Let's go have breakfast."

End Flashback

Marcel waited with his eyes closed for the longest moments of his life to pass but when no blade came piercing through his chest, he opened his eyes to see Klaus standing in front of him – knuckles white from his tight grip on the blade and tense eyes flashing a speck of unease.

When Klaus rose his other hand Marcel prepared for a strike but his hand continued past his face to his shackled wrists hanging above him.

Releasing him yet again, Klaus said, "Get out of here."

"Wait. You're banishing me again?"

Walking over to Hope, Klaus dryly replied, "Leave New Orleans, don't leave New Orleans, I don't care anymore. Just keep my daughter out of it."

"So you're just letting me leave. Just like that? After everything I did."

"I turned you into everything you are. Whatever you did was my fault. I take responsibility for turning you into the monster you are today. I made you in my image."

Marcel took a look around at the other Mikaelsons. Kol looked as if he wanted to tear through his brothers to get another shot at him but no one dared move.

He teetered slowly over to the exit and just as he was about to take his final step out of the Compound, he looked back to see Klaus kneeling in front of Hope, softly rubbing his thumb across her pink cheek. There was once a time he used to touch him so lovingly.

He took a step back in and turned to them as confident as ever. "No."

All eyes turned to him.

"I'm not leaving. This place is my home and I'm going to die in it one way or another so let's go Klaus. You and me, right here, right now."

Klaus simply shrugged off Marcel's challenge, focusing his attention back on his daughter before him.

Angered by Niklaus's disregard of him, Marcel prepared to charge him but Elijah sped over to the young vampire and picked him up by his throat. He threw Marcel out of the Compound with a flick of his wrist, sending him flying over to the storefront across the street.

By the time Marcel picked himself up off the ground, Elijah was back in front of him.

"Leave," Elijah bit. "And don't come back."

Overcome with frustration, Marcel stood firmly in front of Elijah and growled, "You wanna hit me, Elijah? Huh?! Then do it! Come on! Do it! Hit me!"

Marcel wasn't sure if he would fight back if Elijah hit him. But he needed the release. He needed to feel that someone in his family still cared about what happened to him, even if it was the uncle he spent so many years resenting. That he care if he was hurting. That he would do what was necessary to bring him back in line like he'd done a thousand times before, so many decades ago. Back when he was sure Elijah, like the man that he used to call father, cared for him like blood.

Elijah knew all of this. He could see the pain in Marcel's eyes as clearly as he saw it two hundred years ago. And still, he ignored his taunts and left Marcel standing in the middle of the public street, angrily yelling obscenities at him.