(3/3) See these. They're gonna tell you how many chapters have been posted on this update and which chapter you're currently viewing. (getting organized)
Chapter 40
Hope and Sebastian passed out in the back seat of Marcel's car, both sitting close enough together to share a seat belt. They were exhausted, especially Hope. It had been the longest day of her young life but the moment she saw Marcel standing safely in the hall with their father and uncle, she knew she could finally go to sleep in peace. Sebastian followed her example only because he didn't want to be trapped in a car with Klaus glaring angrily at him every few minutes.
"There won't be much room in the back seat," said Elijah, awkwardly carrying Finn's stiff body in his arms. "It might be easier for me to carry him across the bridge."
Marcel paused as he threw Hope's bag into the backseat beside her, a realization hitting him. "Wait. I'll take him across."
"You," Elijah questioned. "I didn't know you were so concerned about Finn."
"I want to get back to the Compound as fast as I can," Marcel corrected. "I wouldn't care if he stayed like this forever."
Klaus couldn't help but smirk at Marcel's reaction. "Give him to him, Elijah. He wants to be there when Davina wakes."
Understanding Marcel's long-awaited desire to see Davina again, Elijah handed Finn over to Marcel and without another word. As soon as the man's heavy body was situated in his arms, Marcel sped off towards the bridge.
As Niklaus slipped into the passenger's seat, Elijah got behind the wheel of the car. "You should call the Dupeauxs," Elijah began as he started driving. "They are probably unaware that their son has snuck out with Hope, yet again."
Klaus glanced into the back seat at his daughter sleeping soundly, her head resting against Sebastian's narrow shoulder.
"Hope has quite the brave heart," he stated, seemingly unrelated.
"You call it brave," Elijah disagreed. "I'm sure Hayley will have a different word for it."
"It has been a long day, brother." Klaus sighed. "Hope has been through enough today as is. Perhaps...you could talk Hayley into laying off of her tonight."
"Excuse me," Elijah stated flatly. "She nearly runs to her death and you think Hayley should take it easy on her."
"I'm not saying that she should go easy on her, I'm just saying that this is probably the longest birthday she's had since the day she was born and we would not be doing her any favors by making it any longer. I am still going to punish her for this but...she was only trying to help. Her heart was in the right place."
"Her heart is always in the right place, Niklaus, but that doesn't excuse her actions. She intended to challenge Mikael. She could have died."
"I told you I will punish her but Hayley will not be lenient about this. When she found out Hope put herself in danger again..."
"Whatever she does, Hope will have deserved."
"It's her birthday, Elijah," Klaus pleaded as a last resort. "And Marcel was missing. Certainly, you can sympathize with her fear. We all do impulsive things to protect the ones we love."
"And what of Marcel," Elijah asked heatedly. "I suppose you intend to pardon his impulsiveness as well."
"I'm not pardoning anything. Marcel and Hope will both be punished when I feel the time is right but not tonight. And weren't you the one who has been urging me to not overreact about Marcel's disappearance all day?"
"Because I thought all he was doing was taking time to grieve over his fallen friend. But, apparently, he had been planning his attack on Mikael in his disappearance and had we not thwarted his plans, we may well have spent the night traveling across the globe to retrieve his dead body. If Mikael was generous enough to leave a body to bury."
Niklaus let out a breathy sigh. "You may think me a pushover, brother, but I am actually being quite practical. We still have Finn's body to deal with, plus Freya and Kol. Not to mention Davina. If we add Marcel and Hope to the mix, the night will never end. I promise, if I haven't punished them by tomorrow evening, I will turn over Hope's discipline to Hayley and Marcel's to you. Just, please, let's not drag this night on. It is her birthday after all."
Elijah stared straight ahead, contemplating Niklaus's plea, but as hardhearted as he wanted to be on the subject, he and Niklaus both knew that he could never say no to Niklaus when if he begged.
"Fine," he relented. "You have until dinner tomorrow night but that is as long as I can restrain Hayley for."
Niklaus smiled triumphantly at Elijah.
"Don't smirk," Elijah scolded, catching a glimpse of Klaus's face in the corner of his eye. "You need to reign in your children before they get themselves killed."
"My children," Klaus chided. "And who's responsibility is Kol? And Freya's lab is right down the hall from your bedroom but I suppose you were too busy in there with Hayley to notice our sister reviving the wickedest members of our family."
"Had she revived them down the hall from my bedroom I'm sure I would have noticed, Niklaus," Elijah bit, irritated by Klaus's implication that he was to blame for not keeping an eye on Freya. "She obviously did it in some other location. Probably that secret apartment she was keeping for them. But don't you worry about Kol or Freya. I will handle them."
"You will handle Freya," Klaus corrected. "Kol is mine."
"No, brother," Elijah firmly objected. "I will handle Kol. He is terrified of you enough already. I think he still fears you will dagger him for his misbehaviors."
"Trust me, Elijah, it is not the dagger he should fear from me right now. He lied to me. To my face. He knew Mikael was alive and he convinced us to not search for Marcel as if he could have possibly known he'd be safe out there. If anything would've happened to Marcel..." Klaus dreaded the thought. "No, Elijah. Kol is mine."
Elijah glanced over at Klaus and saw how serious he was about the matter. "If you really intend to punish Kol for this," he complied with Klaus's decree. "You must handle it with tact. Treat him no different than you would Marcel or Hope."
Klaus scoffed. "I think he can handle a little more than Marcel or Hope."
"No he cannot, Niklaus," Elijah stated firmly. His sudden intensity peeked Klaus's interest. "I know that he comes across as indifferent when it comes to matters of loyalty and disappointing his family but Kol is just as emotionally vulnerable as Marcel. As any of us. He shared the same father we did and he has been at the mercy of your pitiless daggers for a thousand years. If you really intend to punish him, you must be cognizant of his sensitivity."
Klaus sighed. Had he known that punishing Kol would require a lecture prior he would not have so eagerly volunteered. "Fine, Elijah. I will handle Kol's emotions with sensitivity but I will not relate that same sensitivity to his backside. He has been begging for this thrashing for weeks and I will oblige him."
When Elijah parked in front of the Dupeaux's home, he and Klaus weren't surprised to see lights on through the windows. Klaus climbed out of the car and grabbed Sebastian from the back seat, carefully laying Hope's head over on the car seat. Then he carried the boy to the door and gave it a firm knock.
Mr. and Mrs. Dupeaux opened the door almost immediately, Kol by their side.
"Well, well, well," Klaus sang as he stared Kol down. "I was not expecting to find you here. It's funny, I sent you to protect my daughter and yet here you are, where she isn't, while she was across the river attempting to face down Mikael."
"What," Kol exclaimed, for the moment electing to ignore Klaus's anger. "I-I mean, I knew that she had run away but Freya said Mikael was somewhere across the Atlantic so I didn't think she was in any real danger. I've searched the entire Quarter for her and when I didn't find her, I just assumed she'd come back here. Is she okay?"
"Of course she is," Klaus bit. "You wouldn't be standing here if she wasn't." Klaus passed Sebastian's sleeping body over to his father and said, "Let's go, Kol. The night isn't over yet."
Cautious of his brother's anger, but too embarrassed to cause a scene in front of the Dupeauxs, Kol dragged his feet behind Klaus to the car. He slid into the back seat, a sense of relief filling him at seeing Hope sleeping so soundly but also a bit of jealously nagging at him because he knew he was not going to get as sound a sleep that night.
"Was Marcel okay," Kol dared speak after driving in awkward silence with his brothers for a while.
"Marcel is fine," Elijah answered. "He was a bit distraught about losing his vampire but he is finally starting to grieve. That's a step in the right direction. I think having Davina back will help to ease his grief."
Kol's heart fluttered at the thought of Davina being back. He wanted to beg Elijah to drive faster but his brothers seemed tense enough without him making demands.
"I can't believe she's really coming back," Kol murmured to himself, a soft smile plastered across his face. "Do you think she's already there waiting for me?"
"Can't be sure," Klaus uttered. "How long did it take Freya to bring Mikael and Finn back to life?"
Kol went flush. He didn't know how to respond. He begged Elijah not to tell Klaus that he knew about Mikael and Finn but obviously he did. Kol feared that his end was near and just when he was getting everything he wanted.
"'L-Lijah...I asked you not to tell him," Kol mumbled.
"He did," Klaus bit before Elijah could explain the reason why he felt it was necessary to show Klaus the memories Kol showed him. "Because he is more loyal to this family than you."
"I just wanted my girl back," Kol mumbled lowly, as ashamed of his actions as Klaus wanted him to be. "I just wanted to see her again. I thought that maybe I could try to stop Freya before she brought Mikael back but she tricked me. And then...I was just too afraid to tell you. I waited too long to tell anyone and I was afraid you would..." Kol could see the emotionless look on Klaus's face through the rearview mirror. He thought that his defense was falling on deaf ears and feared that Klaus had already made up his mind on how he was going to punish him. With tears falling down his cheeks, he begged, "Just let me see her, please. B-before you put the dagger in me...let me just see that she's okay, that this all wasn't for nothing. P-please, Niklaus."
"Enough," Klaus snapped. "You're not getting the dagger, how many times do I have to tell you that."
"Swear it. Swear it on Hope and Marcel's life."
"I will not." Klaus turned around in his seat to face Kol, his intense eyes burning into his brother. "I will not because you can trust that I'm being honest with you, because since our return, all I've been is honest with you. Which is far more than I can say for you."
"I can't help it." Kol stammered, his tears falling heavier. "I don't mean to be so deceitful all the time, Niklaus, I swear. I'm just...I'm always so afraid that the truth will make you angry enough to put me back in a box. A-and I know that we all promised to change this go-round but if that's true then why do you still have those daggers? Why haven't you destroyed them if you don't ever plan on using them?"
Elijah waited as patiently as Kol for Klaus's answer. That is a question he'd been wondering himself. Prior to Finn's resurrection, there should have been no reason for Klaus to need the daggers and yet, he kept them.
Klaus said nothing. They rode in silence for the rest of the ride. Only the sound of Kol's sniffling and Hope's deep breathing could be heard until Klaus's text alert sounded. He looked down at his phone to see Freya's message typed across the screen.
"Well," he muttered as Elijah parked the car in front of the Compound. "Looks like we made it just in time. You're girlfriend's awake."
Kol's heart skipped a beat. He wanted to burst out of the door and vamp through the Compound to Davina but he restrained himself, waiting for Klaus to make the first move.
"Go see your girlfriend," Klaus said. "Tell her how much you love her and how you would do anything for her. Enjoy the next hour with her because afterward, she is going back across the river with Joshua and you will not be allowed to see her for at least the next week."
Kol couldn't believe it. He had gone twelve years without Davina and now that she was back, Klaus expected him to go another week without her. "Please, don't do this Klaus. Beat me if you must. Put me under the same restrictions you had Marcel under when he returned. Anything but this. Please don't keep her away from me."
"You're wasting time," Klaus coldly muttered. "You only have an hour."
Realizing that he wasn't going to change Klaus's mind at the moment, Kol quickly jumped out of the car and vamped into the Compound.
"That was very sinister of you, brother," Elijah said. "He did all of this just to have Davina back."
"And that is the reason I allowed Freya to bring her back. Because he and Marcel seem so attached to her. But humans have an average lifespan of about eighty years. Davina wasn't even nineteen when she died so he still has at least sixty years to spend with her. One week won't kill him."
"Clever," Elijah gave a small smirk. "Although I'm sure he'd beg to differ. Does this mean you've decided against spanking him?"
Klaus cut his eyes at Elijah. "His restriction from Davina is his punishment for keeping Freya's plans a secret from me. The spanking he will most certainly still receive will be because of his lies that kept me from searching for my son when his life was in danger."
Elijah sighed. "Just remember what we talked about. He's obviously contrite about it, there's no need to make him feel worse."
Klaus rolled his eyes at Elijah and opened the car door. "I've given spankings before, Elijah. I know what I'm doing."
-M-
Flashback:
Finn entered his family's hut to see Mikael kneeling on the floor wrapping the remainder of the cooked chickens Esther had made for his hunting excursion with his sons. Elijah and Niklaus stood quietly by his side, their quivers fixed to their backs and their bows in hand. Esther sat across from them mending a pair of Mikael's leather pants with another scrap of leather, baby Koll in her lap chewing innocently on the loose scraps of material.
Surprised by the sight, Finn asked, "We're going hunting? Wh-why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Because you're not going," Mikael stated plainly.
Finn looked at Elijah and little Niklaus, barely big enough to hold a bow, and said, "But...Elijah and Klaus are going."
"Because they need to learn," Mikael continued giving Finn curt answers.
Finn was no fan of hunting, especially with their father. It was tiresome and if Mikael was in a mood, the one-day excursions could seem to last forever. But it was what the men in their village did and even when he had to contend with Mikael's temperament, it felt good to be a man. But Mikael rarely took him out on the hunt. Most boys in their village had been hunting since they were six or seven but Mikael didn't take Finn on his first hunt until he was nine and in the three years since Finn could count on one hand the number of times he'd been hunting.
"B-but, father, I want to learn too," Finn pleaded.
"I said no," Mikael bit.
All of the boys could tell that their father was getting irritated and it was usually then that they would stop talking to him but Finn persisted.
"Why can Elijah and Niklaus go on the hunt but not I," Finn asked, a sudden bravery coming over him. "This is Elijah's twelfth hunt and Klaus's sixth. They've both been hunting more than me. I'm the only boy over ten without a hunting scar to show off."
When Mikael's eyes cut at him, Finn felt a sudden overwhelming regret. He realized that he might have overspoken. If Mikael thought that he wanted a scar to show off, he might have been inclined to give him one.
Glowering at Finn's tender cheeks, Mikael considered running his knife over the boy's face and giving him the scar he so angrily demanded, but at looking at his face, Mikael was reminded of Freya. He was always reminded of Freya when he looked at Finn. The two of them were inseparable the last he saw of her and now whenever he looked at the boy he was only reminded of the daughter he lost. That was why he was always so hesitant to take him on the hunt or spend any time with him. He couldn't bare the reminder constant reminder.
Standing up with the sack of chickens in his hand, Mikael walked over to Finn and the boy dropped his chin down to his chest, preparing for a strike that never came.
"Klaus, Elijah," Mikael called as he walked past Finn to the door. "Let's go."
Elijah and Niklaus ran behind Mikael, both giving their big brother sorrowful looks as they left.
As tears began to fall down Finn's cheeks, Esther sat Kol down on his pallet on the floor and went over to her son. She pulled Finn into her embrace, squeezing his shoulders as he cried.
"Why does he hate me, mother," he sobbed.
"He doesn't hate you," was all the words of comfort she could give the boy. She knew not why Mikael so adamantly refused to acknowledge their eldest son's existence but she knew how to help Finn take his mind off of it. "Would you like to learn a new spell today," she asked smiling down at him.
Finn wiped his cheeks clean and nodded fervently. There was a benefit to never being invited to the hunt; when his brothers were gone, he had his mother's attention all to himself. Thanks to their father's attentiveness, Elijah and Klaus may become better hunters than him, but Finn was determined to be a better witch.
End Flashback
Kol burst through the doors of Freya's workshop as if he was afraid that Davina was a phantom that would disappear if he didn't come fast enough to see her.
Davina stood surrounded by the Mikaelsons and Joshua, soaking wet with a thick blanket wrapped around her body. The tub of water she was 'reborn' in sat on the floor behind her, still slightly bubbling from the fresh spell. When Kol cam bursting through the doors, she wanted to run over to him and hug him like it was the last time she would ever see him again but regard for her modesty kept her from doing anything that could cause her blanket to drop. So in response, Klaus sped over to Davina, past Marcel and Josh, and kissed her. She kissed him back, their bodies pressed so tightly together one would think they were trying to fuse into one body. Their passionate embrace didn't end until Davina needed a break for air.
"I'm sorry," Kol pronounced instantly. "I'm so, so sorry, love. I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I-I'm sorry-" Davina's lips back on his ended Kol's apologies.
"I love you," she said after ending the kiss once more. Then with a sincere laugh, she said, "I just came back from the dead...again," Looking over to Marcel and Josh, she continued, "To the people that I love most in the whole world. I have to be...the luckiest girl in the whole world."
Kol wrapped his arms around Davina's shoulders, a smile on his face as he stared down at the girl that he was to have for only an hour. "No, Davina Claire. I'm the one who's lucky...because it could have only been by a sheer stroke of luck that a no-good scoundrel like me could ever have a girl like you love me." Tears of joy breeched his eyes. "I...I've been waiting twelve years to say that."
As the two began kissing again like two lovestruck teenagers, Rebekah stood beside Marcel with an armful of clothes. She made a scene of clearing her throat to get Davina's attention.
"Freya said you might need these," Rebekah smiled as Davina blushed deeply, forgetting that she was completely naked under the blanket while she was so passionately making out with Kol.
"Thank you," she mumbled shyly as she took the clothes from Rebekah. "I'll just...go put these on." She chanced another loving look at Kol as she made her way to the door. Kol moved to follow behind her but a wide hand pressed firmly across his chest paused him.
"Don't play with me," Marcel said coldly.
Kol pushed Marcel's hand away and bit, "She's a big girl. She knows when to say 'no' on her own."
A deep, aggressive growl rumbled through Marcel's chest.
Realizing that he wasn't going to be able to get past 'Daddy Marcel' without a good excuse, Kol said, "C'mon, mate. I only have an hour with her and I don't want to waste even a minute of it."
"What," Marcel and Josh exclaimed in unison, both fearing that there was some sort of stipulation to the resurrection spell that they had missed.
"Niklaus is punishing me," Kol explained further. He cut his eyes at Freya and said, "Because I didn't tell him about your plan to bring Finn and Mikael back. So he's only giving me an hour to spend with Davina and then I'm not to see her again for a week."
Guilt rested like a stone in the pit of Freya's belly. Her eyes drifted over to the sofa where Finn's unconscious body laid. Following her sight, Kol looked over to the sofa and saw Finn for the first time. He didn't know why he was there or why he was unconscious but he didn't want to waste any of his time that was supposed to be spent with Davina asking questions about Finn.
"She should be at least partly dressed by now," Kol stated, waiting for Marcel to give him a nod of approval.
Although Marcel didn't like the idea of Kol attempting to make a move on Davina so soon after she was brought back to life, he knew that if Klaus were to give him the same punishment regarding Rebekah, he would be devastated if someone were to interfere with their hour together.
"Go," Marcel relented. "But if you ask me, Klaus is letting you off easy."
As Kol left the workshop, Freya started putting together the spell she needed to wake Finn.
"What are you doing," Rebekah asked curiously.
"I'm setting up the de-aging spell to shock Finn awake," Freya answered plainly. "And then, I'll just need to-"
"Wait," Hayley interrupted. "You're not serious, right? Finn tried to come after Hope. He's better the way he is. No, scratch that. He was better the way he was before you brought him back to life."
Freya looked around the room at the other two Mikaelsons, expecting them to be on her side but Rebekah and Marcel both seemed just as against Finn's revival as Hayley.
"He paid the price for his crimes against this family," Freya defended. "He died...he spent nine hundred years in a box...he has suffered more than any of you, so how can you say he doesn't deserve to live."
"We can't trust him, Freya," Marcel insisted. "If he came after Hope once, what's to say he wouldn't do it again."
The workshop doors opened and in walked Klaus and Elijah, both with stern looks on their face as they'd heard the argument on their way from Hope's bedroom. Elijah carried Hope's backpack in his hands, deciding that just in case Niklaus failed to punish Hope as he promised, he would take a preemptive approach and keep Hope's grimoire until he and Hayley decided she was ready to get it back.
"Marcel is right," Klaus said. "Finn can't be trusted. We might as well put his body back in a coffin the way it is."
"No," Freya crossed the room and stood in front of Finn's body, ready to attack anyone who dared to come near him. "You all are judging him based on past mistakes, mistakes that he has already faced the consequences for. That's not fair. None of us are blameless enough to pass judgment on him. You forgave Marcel. He attempted to kill us and you forgave him." Klaus gritted his teeth at Freya's mentioning Marcel's culpable mistake. "But that's okay because he is your family. Well, so is Finn. He is our brother. He deserves another chance."
Rebekah unconsciously slipped her hand into Marcel's. When he returned to the Compound with Finn in his arms, she nearly knocked her unconscious brother's body to the ground trying to hug her lover. She worried about him enough in those past twelve hours to last a lifetime. Freya reminding them of Marcel's past injustice to their family reminded her how easy it was for their family to commit ostensibly inhumane crimes against each other and yet still they always found a way to forgive themselves. She thought maybe Freya was right. Maybe they were being unfair to Finn.
Elijah, Klaus, and Rebekah all shared silent looks. After a thousand years together they had developed a language of facial expressions all their own. It was Rebekah's compassionate eyes that convinced her brothers to give Finn his second shot.
"Alright," Elijah finally said. "Wake him. We will give him a chance. One chance. That's all he gets, Freya. If he does anything to betray this family, anything to hurt Hope, despite my previous promise of 'no daggers', Finn will find one situated in his heart permanently."
Freya was too relieved that her speech had worked to ease her siblings' hearts to argue with Elijah.
Marcel watched heatedly as Freya began setting up the de-aging spell. He didn't care that they had given him another chance, he didn't think Finn deserved one. He felt his rebellion against his family was justified but Finn was just selfish and looking out for his own self-interest, like Kol, except Kol had his limits and it started with Hope. Finn didn't seem to have any limits. When he returned to the mansion, he compelled Davina's father to leave town and to never return because he didn't want the man anywhere near his family but now everyone was allowing Finn to return as if Davina or Hope would be safe anywhere near the man.
"Alright," Freya said as she placed the last candle on the floor. "Put him in the circle."
No one was eager to move Finn's body but eventually, Elijah did. After he laid Finn in the circle, he held onto Freya's hands and worked as the anchor for her magic. As she began chanting, Finn's body began to change. Everyone watched in amazement as body changed. He shrunk into his clothing, disappearing beneath a pile of heavy denim and leather.
When the last candle lit, Freya stopped chanting. She looked down at the pile of clothes, waiting for it to move. She refused to let go of Elijah's hands until it did.
Finn's head popped out of the neck hole of his shirt, long, wavy brown hair framing his young face.
Elijah knew that Finn had to be no more than fourteen years old because it was in his brother's fifteenth year that Finn had his growth spurt and shot up nearly two feet what seemed like overnight.
"Wh-what happened," Finn asked, looking down to his thin fingers poking out under his shirt. "What did you all do to me?"
Confusion set in around the room. When Marcel was brought back as a child, he didn't remember anything about his adult life but Finn seemed to be aware that something was wrong.
"F-Finn," Freya started softly. Finn turned his wide brown eyes up to her. "Do you know who I am," she asked.
"Of course, y-you're Freya," he answered cautiously, confused as to why she would think he wouldn't know who she was. "Wh...What happened to me?"
Ignoring Finn's question, Elijah turned to Freya and said, "What is this? Why does he still remember everything? Marcel remembered nothing of his adult life when he reverted."
"I...I don't know. Hope must have...done something different with the spell this time." Deciding it was best to turn Finn back into an adult immediately before anything else new happened, Freya began setting up the second spell. Since the Dupeauxs last trip to Asia, she had more than enough Ancient Ginseng to complete the second spell. "Lie back down, Finn," she instructed as she placed the mixture of ingredients back down at the head of the circle. "You'll be back to normal in a second."
Trusting his sister, Finn laid back down and waited for her to start the spell. Once again anchoring Elijah, Freya began chanting. She chanted for much longer than she did the first time, and even as she chanted, Finn's eyes did not close. After ten minutes of failed chanting, she stopped.
"I don't understand," she muttered. "It should've worked. It's the same spell as last time. What could be different?"
"That girl did this to me, didn't she," Finn bit angrily, struggling to hold his pants up as he staggered to his feet, his once fitting t-shirt now a baggy blouse on him. "She turned me into this...child."
Finn felt an insatiable hunger come over him. A hunger he knew well. A hunger that he hated more than anything.
"I'm still a vampire," he mumbled, turning a pleading eye to Freya, hoping that she would tell him different.
Freya didn't want to answer him because she was afraid to break his heart. She knew that he hated being a vampire and if she could cure him of his ailment she would have done so the moment she brought him back to life but there was no cure, and she dreaded telling Finn that.
Turning her attention to Klaus, Freya said, "I need to know what Hope did to that spell."
Remembering the girl's bag in his hands, Elijah opened it and dug out Hope's grimoire. Freya ecstatically snatched the book from Elijah's hand and looked for the 'Time Freezing' spell. When she found it, the first thing she noticed was the purple ink standing out amongst the black, crossing out 'Callum root' and re-writing 'Oleander root' above it.
"Oleander," Freya muttered."Oleander?"
"Is there a problem," asked Rebekah."
"Y-yes, there's a problem. This spell was already nonsensical to begin with and now she's changed it again."
"So," Klaus uttered. "Start back from the drawing board like you did before."
"You don't understand, Niklaus," Freya barked. "That the Oleander adjusted the spell enough to allow him to keep his memories is absurd all its own. His old spirit is not supposed to be able to tether to this body. Plus, it's a mystery why my de-aging spell worked on him but my second spell didn't. I don't even know where to start from here. Not to mention that anything could happen to his body at any moment. He is supposed to have a child's spirit in this body. What if that spirit tried to break through? Anything could happen!"
"W-wait," Finn's small voice peeked over Freya's yelling. "A-are you saying...that I could die at any moment?" Freya's desolate eyes answered the question for him. Tears began down his cheeks as he remembered all of his past deaths. "Why do you people keep bringing me back just so I can die again," he yelled.
Freya slammed the grimoire shut and hurried over to Finn, pulling his head onto her shoulder as he cried. "You're not going to die, brother," she whispered calmingly into his ear. "I'm not going to stop until I fix this."
"It's not fair," Finn continued to yell. "That stupid girl...this is all her fault. She did this to me."
Freya's arm tightened around Finn, holding him protectively away from her other siblings. "Hush," she warned him, hoping he wouldn't say anything to threaten Hope in front of the rest of their family.
"N-no," Finn pushed against Freya's abdomen, angrily wiping the fallen tears from his cheeks. "I-I don't care. It doesn't matter if I die. Better dead than an abomination!"
No one expected it when he kicked the bowl of ingredients on the floor across the room. Josh had to duck just to dodge the straying Ginseng.
"Better dead than a Mikaelson!" Finn lifted the sofa off the floor and chunked it with all his might toward the others. Klaus caught the flying furniture before it could hit anyone and Elijah sped over to Finn, clasping both of his wrists tightly in his hand before he could throw anything else. As Finn's pants began to fall, Freya used her magic to keep them up and give her brother a semblance of pride in his madness.
"Let me go," Finn screamed, fighting futilely against Elijah.
The other Mikaelsons were surprised by Finn's reaction. Though he was often regarded as the most dramatic of their siblings, he was never one to cause a scene so his tantrum then had them all at a loss for words.
"Let me go, Elijah!" Finn kicked Elijah's shin with enough force to shatter it and Elijah finally released him.
The boy quickly vamped out of Elijah's reach and over to Freya's shelf of ancient grimoires.
"I hate this family," he screamed as he picked up one of the grimoires and opened it to a random page. "It's not fair that I'm always the one who has to die!" He ripped a handful of pages from the book.
Freya ran over to him, screaming for him to stop, but as soon as she made it to him, Finn vamped to the other side of the room and continued ripping pages from the book.
"You care about these, do you," Finn asked, waving the torn pages in the air. "Well, I don't!" Finn dropped the grimoire so he could tear the pages into tiny, shreds of paper. "Magic is useless! It can't do anything! All it's ever done is hurt me!"
Fed up with Finn's tantrum, Elijah ignored the pain of his still healing leg and vamped over to Finn, wrapping his arms around him and lifting the boy into the air, pinning his arms to his sides so he had no way of attack.
"Joshua," Elijah stated calmly as if he wasn't struggling to keep a thrashing Original in his hold. "I think it's almost time for you and Davina to leave. Go find her and take her home with you tonight. We will find more permanent accommodations for her in the morning."
Josh couldn't have been more relieved to be dismissed from the scene. As much as he cared about Marcel, he hated being around the Originals, especially when they were in a violent mood.
"I'm going to escort Davina back to Algiers," Marcel said as Josh left but he didn't move.
Klaus eyed him for a while in silence, and then he said, "Be home by morning, we still have things to discuss."
Marcel nodded, assuming he knew how his discussion with Klaus would go, and then he left, Rebekah following close behind him.
Once the room was clear of everyone except for Freya, Klaus, and Hayley, Elijah sat Finn back down on the floor and released him.
Finn's first instinct was to hit Elijah again but as he wrenched his arm back to strike him, something stopped him. He felt like his body was being held still by an invisible force.
Freya hated that she had to resort to using magic to keep her brother from destroying anything else in her workshop but Finn was being absolutely reckless and should not let it go on any further.
Elijah walked over to the wooden chair sitting behind Freya's workshop table. "Y'know, brother," he began as he picked the chair up and started walking slowly back over to where Finn stood. "I am truly sorry that you are in this predicament. I would never wish this on you. But alas, this is your reality for now. And I know that you're angry," Elijah set the chair down in front of Finn and sat in it. "So let me help you alleviate some of that anger."
Elijah gave Freya a slight nod and she released the spells she had on him. Finn's pants fell to the floor as his hand came flying back towards Elijah. In one swift move, Elijah caught Finn's fist and flipped him over his lap, trapping Finn's flailing legs between his as he began raining down slow, methodical smacks to Finn's bare backside. The tail of Finn's baggy shirt fell to the center of his back as Elijah lifted his knee to get better aim at his reddening behind.
"Stop," Finn screamed, humiliated by the very idea of being punished by his younger brother. "Let me go, Elijah!"
Elijah's hand came down heavier. "I will when you've released some of this rage you're harboring."
"I deserve to be angry! I'm going to die!"
"No," Elijah's wide hand moved down to the undercurve of Finn's behind, lacing him with a series of quick, painful smacks to his sit-spot. "You're not because we are not going to let you. Trust your family, brother. We. Protect. Each other." Elijah emphasized each word with another powerful smack to Finn's bright red behind.
Finn's body fell limp on Elijah's lap. With each falling smack, he lost more and more of a will to fight until he had finally just resigned to his brother's discipline.
When he felt as if Finn had had enough, Elijah ended the spanking and placed his hand gently on Finn's back, rubbing calming circles against his shuddering body.
"You don't care," Finn mumbled quietly to himself but Elijah still heard him. "You all want me to die. You always have."
Elijah lifted Finn from his horizontal position and sat him on his lap, his chest still heaving with sobs. Then he pulled his brother into a hug and held him even when Finn tried to pull away.
"We do care," Elijah muttered. "You are our brother and we would do anything to keep you from dying, brother. I promise."
"L-let me go," Finn struggled halfheartedly against Elijah's hug. "You can't just treat me like you do Kol and Rebekah and expect me to be okay with it. I am your older brother."
Klaus scoffed. "One never would have guessed by that little show you just put on."
Finn felt another swell of emotions come over him and he began crying even harder. "Shut up, Klaus," he yelled as he buried his face further into Elijah's lapel. He didn't know where all of these strange emotions were coming from but he hated them. He hated not being in charge of how angry he would get or how much he would cry, and that hatred only made him angrier and more tearful.
Elijah stood with Finn still in his arms and carried him over to Freya's workshop table. He sat his young-older brother on the table and Finn's eyes caught Klaus. A deep frown crossed the boy's face, a look of pure hatred in his eyes. Noticing the animosity growing within him, Elijah stood between Finn and Klaus."
"Freya," Elijah called out. "The spell that you used to trap Marcel's young spirit in his body, can you still do it?"
"I could," Freya sighed. "But there's no telling if it'll work. So much is different now."
"It's worth a try," Elijah said. "Until we can find a way to fix this, that is our best option."
Freya was exhausted from all of the spells she'd done that day but she would've given up all of her magic forever to protect Finn. Without another word, she began setting up the spell she needed and ordered Elijah to put Finn back in the circle.
As Freya entered the circle with a pestle and mortar in her hand, a knife tucked into the back of her pants, Elijah stepped out.
"Lie back," she muttered calmingly to Finn as she knelt down beside him. Finn obeyed, trusting Freya far more than he did his other siblings. "This will hurt," she told him. "A lot. But it'll be over soon, I promise."
Nervous of the impending pain, Finn nodded his agreement.
Freya started the spell just as she'd done with Marcel. She painted the symbol on Finn's forehead with the paste in the mortar and when she pulled the knife from behind her, Finn closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. He wasn't sure what she was going to do with it but he knew from experience that spells that involved knives very rarely ended pleasantly. He screamed out when the knife pierced his skin but then he quickly shut his mouth, determined to make it through the rest of the ordeal with as much pride as he could. But as Freya lifted the knife and cut it into another part of his forehead, he screamed again, heartfelt sobs immediately following.
When the spell was finished, Freya's body felt ten times heavier. She could barely stand but she managed. Finn had passed out while she was carving the symbol on his forehead and she was grateful that he didn't fight it so he could stop feeling the pain.
"Let's hope this works," she said with a heavy sigh.
"What are we going to do with him in the meantime," Klaus grunted. "I suppose he'll have to stay here since he's a possible ticking time bomb. For himself and others."
"I don't understand his outburst," said Elijah. "That was so...unlike him."
"It was childish," Klaus bit. "I wouldn't expect as much even from Kol."
"I'll run some more spells on him," Freya said, dragging her feet back over to her shelf of grimoires. "I'll figure out what's wrong with him."
"You need to rest," Elijah directed. "You're exhausted."
"I'll rest when Finn's safe."
"Freya-"
"I mean it, Elijah," she snapped, her eyes cutting deeply at him. He knew that she was determined to save Finn even if it killed her.
Looking to Niklaus and Hayley, Elijah said, "Could you two give us a moment?"
Niklaus nodded, knowing why Elijah wanted a moment alone with their sister and Hayley suspected the truth too. Neither of them could help the concerned looks they laced Freya with on their faces as they watched her searching tirelessly through the grimoires on their way out.
Elijah walked calming into the circle where Finn's body laid and lifted his brother into his arms. He laid him on the displaced sofa as gently as he would've done any child and then turned his attention to Freya.
"What were you thinking," he dropped immediately into the meat of their conversation. "You brought back Mikael. Finn, I can understand but there's nothing good about Mikael. There's never been any good in Mikael."
Slamming close another grimoire, Freya said, "He was once good to me."
"What, when you were five? He was rarely so violent with us when we were that age. It wasn't until we became old enough to take a punch and live that he became the true monster of our nightmares."
"It was a mistake," Freya bit. "I know that now. If I could take it back I would but I can't. The best I can do now is make sure that he can never get to Niklaus, or anyone in this family, ever again."
"There's only one way to do that." Elijah felt the side of his jacket where the White Oak stake still rested beside the silver dagger. He took it out and held it in his hands as if it were the last object of any value in the world. "We have to put him back down."
"He's across the ocean," Freya said matter-of-factly. "I'm not letting you go chasing after him."
"You're not letting me go," Elijah repeated in surprise.
Flipping speedily through another grimoire, Freya said, "I said what I said. Despite what you might think, Elijah, I am still your big sister and it is my job to protect you. To protect everyone in this family." She stopped flipping through the pages so she could focus her attention on Elijah. "I thought that I was doing the right thing. I thought that he could change. I was wrong, I admit it. But I'm not going to let you or anyone else sacrifice themselves for my mistake. I will figure out a way to get rid of Mikael after I figure out a way to save Finn." As she began flipping back through the grimoire, she added, "And you can forget about any ideas to 'punish' me for this."
Elijah's eyes widened at Freya's quick dissection of his obvious intentions.
"I let you get away with it once because you took me by surprise," she said, shutting the grimoire and placing it back on the shelf and immediately reaching for another one. "But, little brother...there will not be a second time. Do I make myself clear?"
Elijah's jaw slacked in surprise. He spent two thousand years being the patriarch of his family, he was not used to someone giving him commands. He made sure that even Niklaus relented to his power when he needed him to. But here was Freya, his older sister, taking command all her own. He was not so much surprised by her taking command, however, as he was by the sudden relief he felt at hearing her do so. For a thousand years he had played judge and juror for his family, doing everything in his power to make sure his siblings stayed together, and for the first time someone else was taking on that mantle. And he didn't want to stop her.
He waited patiently for Freya to finish her scan of the third book and finally look back up to him. "The safety of this family comes first," Elijah stated, firmly planting his foot on the ground. "Before your love of Mikael, your loyalty to us comes first. Always."
Freya laid the grimoire on the shelf and stared Elijah in his eyes. "Always," she promised.
In an instant, Elijah felt a thousand years of Mikaelson weight lift from his chest. He was so happy he wanted to cry, but he restrained himself. He slipped the White Oak stake back into his jacket and left Freya to her studies, a small smile fighting it's way to his lips.
