"Alright, you've got everything?" Elena wrung her red hands together.
Hope ran her hand along the rail of the portable crib and nodded to the large, arguably enormous, bag. The supplies would have lasted a week.
"You gave me the key for upstairs in case I need anything else," she patted her pocket, "but I think you've brought plenty down."
A deep purple skirt flared and swayed around her knees as she half turned to smooth a hand through Serena's tousled curls. The dark hair had fallen out months ago, paving the way for ginger locks; inherited from granny Flemming according to the old photograph Alaric located in a dust covered box that once belonged to Isobel.
"You remember how to warm the milk?" Elijah bounced the baby gently.
"Put the bottle in a lukewarm bowl of water for a couple of minutes and test is on my wrist," Hope sighed, just resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Caroline had gotten Elijah to agree to covering the history classes until she could find a replacement, so when he and Elena were otherwise occupied she stepped in for the hour; it saved Elena needing to locate an outside sitter, and Hope loved staying with Serena. "I've watched her before."
"Never overnight though," Elena's fingers fluttered around her neck.
Serena curled a hand around Elijah's purple tie and grinned at the feel of the material.
"You're not gonna be far away, and then you'll be right upstairs," Hope pointed out.
"What if she starts drying out?" Her eyes widened.
"Then she'll take a bath. You gave her one this morning, right?"
Two dips in the water a day, every twelve hours or so, kept Serena from developing so much as a scaly patch of skin.
Elena nodded.
"She'll be fine." Hope smiled.
"You have our numbers?" Elijah shifted.
"And the school phone," Hope nodded.
"Okay, so you're all set," he nodded, turning to address Elena. "We can go and she'll be fine."
"I just need one more thing before you go," Hope held out her hands.
"Right," Elena nodded, chewing her bottom lip. "Bye-bye, baby girl," she kissed Serena's cheek and saw Elijah do the same on her other side.
"You be good for Hope, sweetheart; we'll be back before you know it," he kissed the top of her head, but made no move to hand her over.
"Uncle Elijah," Hope tilted her head, nose wrinkling around a quiet laugh.
Her foot jiggled, bouncing up and down with nervous energy and causing the zipper on her boot to hit her leg every few seconds.
He watched her eyes flick between the cockpit and the windows from beneath his lashes, certain she would have compelled the pilot to fly faster if she could have. After a moment he reached out, laying a hand on her knee.
"Would telling you to relax have any effect?"
A single shoulder rose in a shrug.
"It might make me smack you." She pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder. "Maybe coffee…"
"Because more energy is what you need," he chuckled.
"What I need is for this plane to land," she drummed her fingers on the armrest. The most recent dead end unnerved her. "How did you come up with this coven anyway?"
"Hope gave me the idea," the corner of his mouth quirked up. "When I went into her room to surprise her on her birthday there were half a dozen sketches on the nightstand with notes."
"What was she sketching?" Caroline tilted her head.
"The creatures that were coming after the knife; from before they moved it out of the school." He fingered the pages of his book. "She said she had been cataloguing them. You remember the gargoyle and the dragon."
"It's hard to forget a creature who gave my daughter grey scale, and if I ever forget about slaying a dragon I want you to take me and get my head examined." She rolled her eyes. "What else?"
"Well, there was a wolpertinger, strange looking thing," his eyes narrowed. "Had the head of a rabbit, body of a squirrel, wings, antlers and fangs. Apparently it was rather docile until it saw the knife. Then there was the Tikoloshe, from Zulu mythology."
"Evil, dwarf-like water sprite," Caroline nodded, "caused mischief around the school and made anyone it touched sick."
"There was the goblin that took a chunk out of a few townsfolk before Jeremy Gilbert put an arrow in it's hat."
Caroline nodded, remembering how they had needed to dry out the cap to kill it. There were too many monsters in her head to keep them straight though.
"What was the last one?"
"The one that gave me the idea," he smirked. "The Arachne." It had drained the life from one of the high school girls. "How is Matt explaining all of this?"
"Tried and true excuse," she shrugged, eyes dancing with a hint of mirth: "animal attacks."
"It has worked in the past." He chuckled. "The Arachne comes from Greek mythology. She was a woman who challenged Athena and lost. The goddess turned her into a spider as punishment."
"I don't see the connection to the twins."
"Hope had a mythology textbook. Across from the Arachne was a note on Castor and Pollux: the original gemini twins." He tapped his book. "In mythology Pollux was the son of Zeus and Castor or a mortal. When his brother died Pollux begged his father to give him immortality, so Zeus joined them together in the constellation Gemini."
"Yeah, but that's a myth," she caught a nail under his leather bracelet.
"So were dragons," he turned his hand over so they were palm to palm.
"I think knowing more about the coven might help, but all we ever found out about the Gemini was that it was there duty to keep the Travellers from breaking their curse. I wouldn't be surprised if they put it there in the first place."
"If that's the case, could it be possible that the Travellers cursed the Gemini?"
"Like… in retaliation?" She frowned.
"The gemini could have cursed them, and they retaliated by placing a curse meant to weaken the coven on their leaders."
"That would make this curse over 2000 years old, and curses like that need to be bound to something that can last." She tipped her head back, listening to the steady thrum of the engines.
"Doppelgänger?" He rubbed her knuckles.
"Could you imagine the look on Elena's face if I went to her and said 'you're the key to breaking another ancient curse'?" She snorted.
"No, but I can hear her scream," he chuckled. "This coven is one of the oldest in Greece, maybe they'll know nothing, or perhaps we'll get lucky."
Bonnie flipped the knife, watching as it turned end over end before landing in her palm at the hilt.
"That's a quick way to lose a finger." Kol flipped the page of his book, skimming words.
"You're right here, and you've got killer reflexes," she twirled it. An otherworldly blue light glinted off the blade. "Did you find anything yet?"
"I don't need research to figure that one out, love," he nodded to the jar. It sat a small distance away on the wax coated shelf, acting as a prison for the latest creature that was little more than an insubstantial ball of light. He thought it looked more like fog, constantly pulsing and folding in on itself.
"It doesn't look malevolent," she frowned. The knife clattered against the floor.
"Neither does Nik."
"Depends on the day," she rolled her eyes and shifted closer. Kol moved his arm back, circling around her waist. A perfectly good couch sat not ten feet away, beckoning her with soft cushions, but he swore the floor gave more room to spread out the half dozen grimoires and folklore collections.
"So far nothing on how to kill a wil'o the wisp," he tilted the page so she could see the engraving. Blue light washed over the page.
"Do we have to kill it?" She settled into his side, enjoying the feeling of his arm around her and his fingers drawing random patterns on the soft skin on her inner elbow. "The whole point of the trap was to entrap. They only come one at a time."
"This whole situation has peaked my interest," he admitted, eyes alight with curiosity. "I want to know where all of these creatures are coming from. I want to know why they all desire that knife. I want to know how I went a thousand years without ever encountering one."
He moved his book to the floor, replacing the grimoire with Bonnie, lifting her bodily so she sat sideways in his lap. His right arm curled around her waist, left hand raising to tuck a curl behind her ear.
"I can't exactly interrogate a wisp," he dragged his knuckles along her jaw.
"Is there anything you don't want to know?" She looped her arms around his neck and smoothed her fingers through his hair, straightening the mess he had made while reading.
"No," he held her throat, gently stroking her collarbone. "I want to know everything, including whatever you've been hiding from me."
"I'm not hiding anything," she denied, suspecting her heart had skipped a beat.
"I know you're holding back, darling," he slid his hand up, tapping a long finger against her temple. "Something has been weighing on your mind."
"I'm entitled to a few secrets," she teased, smile not quite reaching her eyes. She mused over the date, knowing D-day approached; it was innocuously marked on her calendar. With every passing day she put it off, and it got a little harder to broach the topic.
She could see it in his eyes, the words he couldn't say yet, and knew reality would set in soon. Eventually she had to tell him.
Her head settled into the hollow space between his shoulder and neck.
"Not yet."
He hesitated a beat before running his hand up and down her spine with a murmured 'fine'.
"So what did you find?" She glanced at the Gaelic, written in flowing cursive.
"It's a ghost light seen by travellers," he watched the jar. "They're often seen at dusk or night before leading people astray. The witch claims one led her brother over the side of a cliff."
"Ever seen in the day?" She lifted her head.
"Not according to these." He twisted her hair around his finger.
"Maybe they can't survive in the day," she suggested. "There's an hour or so of sunlight left, and it's not like it can escape from the jar."
"Apparently I'm getting a roommate tonight." Landon leaned back on his hands.
"I bet that's my dad's doing," Hope rolled her eyes and plopped Serena on the carpet, upsetting a handful of stacking cups. "He probably found out about the nights I slept in here and wants to deter it."
"All we did was sleep," he sputtered. "He knows that right."
"If he didn't I'd have a very dead boyfriend." She turned over the biggest cup, stacking the second on top.
"Seriously?"
"Nah," she grinned. Serena stacked the cups slowly. "He'd be less subtle about bringing in roommates though."
She eyed the second bed, bare of the character Landon had added to his.
"Do you know who it is yet?"
"No idea," he shook his head, moving forward to accept the cup Serena face him: "thank you. It's got to be a witch though, right?"
"I would think so. New vampires room with vampires, or alone, and wolves can be volatile." A timer went off in her pocket. She puled out the school phone and checked the time. "Can you watch her a few minutes while I get her bottle?"
"Yeah."
"Be good," she kissed Serena's cheek. "Keep Landon out of trouble."
"I don't get into trouble." He picked the baby up under her arms and perched her on her feet. "Do I Serena?"
She hummed and shoved three fingers in her mouth, hardly noticing when Hope left.
"You know," he bounced her gently, "you and I have something in common. Nobody knows what I am either. Of course, I don't have glowing eyes when I'm in water."
Her eyes lit up, glowing bright and casting shadows across her button nose.
"Just like that," he nodded. She had begun reacting to the word and presence of water a few weeks earlier, so he wasn't overly concerned. "Those are your glowing eyes," he pulled her close and gently tapped her cheek.
A shadow loomed over them.
"That was fast," he glanced up, expecting Hope. Instead he found six feet of rippling muscle carrying an armful of cloth, each article resembled the last in some way and bore the school's insignia.
"Didn't know I was being timed," came the gruff reply, muffled by the clothes.
"Sorry," he got to his feet. "I thought you were someone else. You must be my new roommate." He held Serena to his chest, noticing her eyes had stopped glowing a second before she hid in his neck. "I'm…"
He trailed off, eyes going round when the other boy put down his uniforms and turned. He knew those dark brown eyes, and how his entire being lit up when he smiled. The last time he looked in those eyes he hadn't had to look up.
"Raf?" He felt a smile threaten, beckoned by the bubble of excitement in his heart.
"Landon?" His mouth fell open. The last time they had seen each other was nearly a year ago when they were both fostered in the same family. Rafael had begged to go with him when the system bumped him to Mystic Falls just like he had begged to stay.
"What are you doing here?" Serena responded to the emotion in his voice, peeking out to find the cause of his smile.
"What am I doing here?" Raf pointed to himself. "What are you doing here?"
"I asked first," Landon smiled, tilting his head.
Rafael froze, hesitant, and at first he didn't know what. Then he swallowed and spoke. "I'm a werewolf."
"And you're nervous about that?" He frowned, eyes narrowing.
"Aren't you?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe if it was a full moon, or if you were anything like Jed, or a stereotypical jock, but you're still you right?"
"Still me," he nodded.
"Was it an accident?" At Rafael's confused look he went on. "My girlfriend's a werewolf; she told me you have to t… take a human life to trigger the curse. So… accident?"
The last of Rafael's happiness bled from his eyes as he nodded.
"Okay," Landon crouched and scooped up a purple cup, offering it to the baby.
"You're not gonna ask?"
"You'll tell me when you're ready if you want to," he shrugged.
"My girlfriend, in a car accident," Rafael stared at the baby's red curls, "the roads were wet and I took the turn too fast." His voice sounded gruff with unshed tears.
Landon blinked, digesting the information. He offered up the only thing he could.
"I'm sorry, man. I'm here now if you want to talk more about it. And I'd offer to let you hold the baby, because the world seems so much brighter that way, but her mom might kill me if I let someone she doesn't know hold her."
"That's fine," his brow wrinkled. "Why are you here Landon? What have you been doing?"
"I go to the school, and, before you can ask, nobody knows what I am," he grimaced. "We're working on figuring that out."
"And what have you been doing?"
"What are you getting at?" Landon frowned at the probing.
"Bro," he gave a pointed look to his arms.
Landon clued in as Hope hurried in the room, purple receiving blanket draped across her left shoulder.
"Sorry that took so long," she took the baby and offered the warmed bottle. "I got bombarded with texts. Who are you?"
"Hope Mikaelson, meet Rafael Waith." Landon introduced. "Raf, this is my girlfriend Hope."
"Rafael?" Hope angled the bottle. "Your friend from before Mystic Falls?"
"Yup," Landon noted the way Rafael's eyes darted from Hope to the baby and up to him. "No," he pointed.
"She's not yours?" Rafael relaxed.
"Oh no," Hope looked down. "I'm babysitting. Serena's our science teacher's daughter; she's out on a date."
"So, how'd you get the babysitting gig?"
"The date's with my uncle," she balanced the bottle against her shoulder, where Serena did a decent job of holding it, and reached for the phone in her pocket to pull up a picture for the girl to look at. "He's practically her dad."
"Practically?" Rafael sat on his bed.
"He's a vampire, and vampires can't have kids." Hope sat and tapped the phone with her thumb. "Who's that? Is that dada?"
"Hope has made it her mission to make that her first word," Landon sat, "in secret."
"Dada, dada," she looked up. "I want to see the look on his face because he'll be wearing it for a long time, and — dada — he'll never presume to ask or refer to himself as her daddy — dada, yes, dada — despite being over the moon in epic love with her mother, and despite his adoration of Serena, because he's got these crazy old world manners."
Serena let go of the empty bottle and reached for the screen.
"Is that dada?"
She nodded, blue eyes stuck on the picture. Her voice came out quiet and high at the same time.
"Da."
Dorian came up on the pair silently with no doubt at least one of them recognized his presence; maintaining stealth around an Original vampire was damn near impossible.
"Something interesting about that jar?" He called from the hill.
Bonnie lifted her gaze from the empty glass.
"Not anymore," Kol spun the jar between his fingers. "The wil'o the wisp has been destroyed; burned up in the sun."
"The whole thing was a little anti-climactic." She tangled a creeping vine around her fingers and leaned against the pillar. The energy of her ancestors and their coven thrummed in the air. The power in terms of volume paled to the magical charge of New Orleans and yet it was more. These were her ancestors and hers alone.
No other witch would ever draw on their power as she could. With so many involved Bonnie's traps proved inescapable to most.
"You had one caged and you killed it?" Dorian hoisted his bag higher and sipped his coffee.
"It didn't speak," Kol shrugged.
"And now the next one will come on the human's watch."
"You don't know that," Bonnie murmured, breaking the vine in her hand. "Sometimes they take a few days to show."
"And other times they spawn in a number of hours. Have you got the knife?" He held out his hand when Bonnie offered up the prize hilt first.
"I fixed up a new trap too. There's a can inside with flowers and herbs; all you've got to do is catch the next one in a circle of it."
"Got it," he nodded. "Have you got big plans for the evening?"
"Lesson planning since Caroline still hasn't replaced her magical history and chemistry of magic teachers." Kol shrugged, rolling his eyes.
"I've got a new spell I want to tweak that might bring back Elena's lost memory," Bonnie crossed her arms to hold her sweater closed. A dozen spells in five months after Davina's failed to yield results and not one of them had been effective.
"Didn't the last one give her a three day migraine?"
Not positively effective.
"That's why I'm tweaking this one until it's perfect."
"Do I need to confiscate your phone?"
His voice broke the spell being gaze on the three dots dancing across the screen. She looked at him and snorted a laugh.
"We both know if you have my phone the messages will go just as fast if not faster." The corner of her mouth quirked up. "I wouldn't be surprised if every too quick movement I've seen from the corner of my eye has been you with your phone."
"Are you accusing me of texting and driving?" Amusement danced in his eyes. "There are laws against that sort of thing."
"When has law ever stopped you?" Her lashes fluttered.
"I'll have you know I followed the letter of the law as a human."
"So it's only been a thousand years," she poked his arm with her phone.
"I've lost track of how many I've broken," he hummed. "What's a few traffic laws on top?"
He loved fast, snatching her phone.
"Hey," she cried, scrambling across the console.
He held her phone just out of reach. His eyes flickered from the road to her pout inches from his cheek. It would have been nothing to turn his head and capture her full lips, but his faith in his supernatural reflexes only extended so far. She had, after all, crippled his senses more than once without effort.
"You are going to overwhelm Hope with messages," he nudged her cheek.
"I've only sent four." She dropped her hand to his thigh for balance. "How many have you sent?"
"Only two." He slipped her phone in his jacket pocket.
"And were they longer or shorter than the Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire?" She settled back as he took a turn.
"I was merely reminding her of the bedtime routine, and letting her know that she's started trying to dunk her head under water."
"You said she knew the routine. Do I need to send her the schedule?" She worried her bottom lip. "No, I wrote everything down. You watched me laminate it and give it to her."
She slapped at his arm lightly.
He took one hand off the wheel to hold her palm, lifting her fingers to lay a kiss on her knuckles. He gave her a half smile, acknowledging her right to call him a hypocrite.
"I wanted to make sure she had a backup, in case."
"At least I have the excuse of hormones," she shook her head. "Give me the phone, now please. I wanna say goodnight."
"I will give you the phone to say goodnight at 6:45, when it's near bedtime."
"What if she forgets what our voices sound like?" Ten years ago she would have been embarrassed at the whine in her voice, but after more than one midnight meltdown and half a year of what could only be considered co-parenting a very sweet, if grey hair inducing, baby girl she found mortification exhausting and not worth her time.
"She's not going to forget us in two hours, Elena." His thumb smoothed over the fine lines of her palm. "She's spent longer with Hope while you've been teaching."
"What if we call before dinner? Where are we going anyway? I feel underdressed." She fingered the skirt of her dress.
"Before dinner," he agreed, "which is at Del Mar, and you look perfect."
"You said that last week when I was wearing ragged sweatpants and a stained t-shirt," she arched an eyebrow.
"You looked perfect the too," he smirked.
"I had spit up in my hair," she laughed, rolling her eyes.
"I stand by my assessment."
Long vines crept over the neglected lawn, feather soft, twisting through the dirt. They rose, swaying snakelike, and wrapped around the doorknob. A second vine pushed into the keyhole, picking the lock.
Cool spring air scattered dry twigs through the entry. The woman that entered avoided them all. Floorboards creaked under her feet, muffled by her shinning tree cloak.
A beam of moonlight cut through the darkness, glinting on a sharp knife atop a stack of old books.
She went for it, crossing the room and reaching out; her hand stopped at a barrier and her spine stiffened. She turned slowly, assessing her situation; a line of flowers and herbs trapped her in a wide circle.
She lowered her hood to glare, revealing red hair and pale skin.
The man watched her closely, warily, and pressed a black box to his ear.
She swept the folds of her foliage crafted skirt closed. Rage pulsed through her body, making dark vines glow across her cheeks; they grew and flared beneath her skin.
"You deceived me," she snarled. Surprise flickered in the man's wide eyes.
It had felt like a blink in the dark, and an eternity in solitude; a second since her imprisonment and centuries without open air.
And here she stood, trapped again.
By a clueless man.
"Ric?" He breathed, a slight tremor in his voice. "I got one that talks."