I woke up in my bed back at the manor and turned to see Nik staring at me. I smiled at him which he returned quickly.
"Morning." He said to me.
"Hey." I replied.
"I'm glad you stayed." He told me.
"So am I." I agreed before moving towards him and kissing him deeply.
"We need to get up." He said once we parted.
"Why?" I asked him as he removed me from him and got up from the bed. He put on his clothes quickly before moving back my way.
"The Winter Wonderland charity event is today." He reminded me.
"I know," I told him. "Don't you have a painting you want to donate?"
"I still have to finish it." He told me and I nodded.
"Then I suppose we must get up." I agreed before getting up and getting dressed.
"Well, I do. You however can be my beautiful muse from here." He said wrapping his arms around me.
"I still need clothes for this." I reminded him.
"You could stay in bed and never leave it again." He offered making me laugh lightly.
"Now we both know I can't do that." I told him. He leaned in to kiss me when Nikolas started crying in his room.
"And there's reason number one why you can't." he agreed as I went to our six month old miracle child.
"There are many reasons why I can't stay in bed all day, but our son is definitely one of the most demanding reasons." I joked slightly making him laugh. I went and picked him up before I started heading out of the room. "Are you coming?"
Later that day, Nikolas and I were sitting on the parlor floor playing peek-a-boo as Nik painted on a canvas next to us as Stefan walked into the room.
"Stefan." I said with a smile on my face which he returned with a small one of his own.
"Nicole. Looks like a giant snowflake." Stefan said looking at the painting, which was supposed to be a surprise to me until I saw it at the charity event.
"I prefer to think of it as an expression of post modernism. It's my donation to the Winter Wonderland charity event." Nik told him as Adrian entered the room. Nikolas hit my hands trying to get my attention back on him.
"You said it was urgent." Adrian said to Nik.
"Yes, take this to the Mystic Grill immediately." Nik told him.
"You want me to be a delivery guy?" Adrian asked him. I narrowed my eyes slightly at his words. I'd never seen a Hybrid sired to Nik question him, other than Tyler. Nik walked forward and closed the space between himself and Adrian.
"What I want is for you to do whatever I say. Without the attitude." Nik told him. Adrian grimaced, but walked over to the painting, picked it up and started to leave the room when Nik called after him. "And be careful with that. It's still wet." Adrian said nothing to Nik's final words as he finally left.
"Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, you know." Stefan reminded him.
"What is the point of my hybrids being sired to me if I can't maximize on the benefits of free labor? What are you doing here?" Nik asked him as Stefan walked down the stairs and further into the room.
"Elena is sired to Damon." Stefan told him.
"I intuited as much." Nik told him.
"Which means I need to find the cure now more than ever and yet here you are making postmodern snowflakes." Stefan said.
"I've delivered." Nik said before walking away and grabbing a cloth to wipe the paint off his hands. "I retrieved the Hunter's sword from Italy which we'll use to decipher the map hidden in the Hunter's mark. You're the one who is supposed to deliver the Hunter and his mark."
"Well, Jeremy is the hunter, and he has to keep killing vampires to complete his mark, but we can't quite figure out how to keep him from killing us." Stefan said.
"Sounds like quite the chore. Which is why I feel perfectly justified doing a little charity work." Nik told him.
"Hmm, or maybe you're lying about having found the sword." Stefan accused.
"Why would I lie to you, Stefan?" Nik asked him before striding past him towards the other room which held a vault. "We're in this together." I picked up Nikolas and followed both men into the other room. Nikolas was making cooing noises in my arms and snuggled up to me as I moved. Nik turned the dial on the vault and opened it removing the sword from inside. "The hilt acts as a cipher which we'll use to decode the marks on Jeremy's tattoo when he's killed enough vampires to complete it." Nik placed the sword on the coffee table before taking Nikolas and sitting on the sofa with me next to him. Stefan picked up the sword and examined it as Nik propped his feet up on the table. "I heard you moved out of your house." Stefan looked between us. "Bit of a martyr move, hm?"
"I'm not here to bond, Nik." Stefan told him before placing the sword back on the table.
"Oh, on the contrary, I think right now we're the best friends you've got." Nik said as Nikolas maneuvered himself between us. He'd been wanting more attention from us since we seemed to leave him alone so often.
We made our way through the town square as the charity event was in full swing, complete with fake snow. I saw Caroline and Tyler fighting in the middle of the square but ignored them as I pushed Nikolas is his stroller, him baby talking to everyone he sees.
"He seems happy." I said.
"He has every reason to be, as do you." He said wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
"I am happy. I'm with two of the most important men in my life." I said smiling up at him.
"Should I be jealous of the others?" he asked jokingly.
"It's just Jeremy and Stefan." I told him and his eyebrows raised. "Jeremy is my brother so he's automatically one of the most important men in my life since birth. Stefan has been a good friend since we came back. He protected me when I was pregnant and even after your compulsion was gone.
"He was following orders when you were pregnant." He told me.
"That wasn't the point." I told him. "While you were off making Hybrids he and Rebekah were there for me when I needed someone."
"I was…" he started saying, but I stopped him.
"I know what you were doing, and I know why." I told him. "I'm not angry with you. I never was."
"What did I do in a thousand years to deserve you?" he asked me and I smiled at him.
"Have a curse placed on you by your mother using the blood of my doppelganger ancestor." I said making him laugh lightly before leaning down to kiss me. We made our way our way to the Mystic Grill where Nik's postmodern snowflake was residing.
"It's beautiful." I told him admiring his work.
"I had a beautiful muse." He said and I gave him a look.
"Stefan was right though, it really does look like a snowflake." I teased him.
"Is my work really that literal?" he asked me slightly annoyed.
"I'm just teasing you, Nik. I really do love it though. It reminds me of when I was looking for Katherine. I was so lonely during that time." I told him sitting in a chair next to a giggling Nikolas who was reaching for the painting. I pulled out one of his toys from the dipper bag and gave it to him and watched as he switched it from one hand to another carefully.
"Nicole." I looked up at Nik and he offered me a hand to help me stand. I took his hand and stood with his help before he pulled me into his arms. "You will never have to feel like that again. I promise." I hugged him and held him close to me.
"I know." I told him gently.
"Champagne?" he asked me making me laugh.
"No. I am still underage, remember?" I asked him.
"I remember, but no one will say anything." He said smirking at me.
"No, but it will be talked about in secret for the rest of my life." I said before we moved on.
Later on in the day, Nik had offered to get me a drink which I quickly took him up on. I was making noises with Nikolas and picking up his toy he constantly threw to the ground, knowing this was not going to be fun when he started doing this with his bottle or baby food.
"Nikky." I looked up to see Hayley walking up to me with a distressing look on her face.
"Hayley? What is it?" I asked her.
"Tyler and the other Hybrids… I tried to talk him out of it, but I couldn't." she tried telling me.
"Hayley, slow down. What is Tyler trying to do?" I asked her. She explained everything to me as Nik made his way back to us.
"Little wolf, what are you doing here?" he asked her.
"Nik, you're going to want to listen to what she has to say." I told him.
"Then I'm all ears." He said with a little smirk.
"Tyler and the other Hybrids are planning on putting you into either Tyler or Rebekah's body and burying you." She told him.
"And why are you telling me this?" he asked her appearing calm.
"Nicole is the closest thing to family I have. I didn't tell you for your sake." She told him. He glanced at me before looking back to her.
"Thank you, Hayley. We won't forget this." I told her before she left us alone as Stefan walked up to us.
"She doesn't like me much. Where have you been all day?" Nik asked him.
"I've been around." Stefan dodged the question. What did he know?"
"I'm not interested in vagary, Stefan. You've been dodgy, do you have something to share with me or should I compel it out of you?" Nik asked him again.
"I broke into your safe to look for the sword." Stefan told us.
"Why?" Nik asked.
"Because I don't trust you." Stefan answered.
"What about me?" I asked him.
"I'd trust you if you were alone, but not with him." He told me.
"I showed you the sword. I explained its value. I've been on your side the entire time. What do you want from me? A secret brotherhood handshake?" Nik asked him.
"I found the letters. You've had a few pen pals over the centuries." Stefan said thinking he could throw Nik off his game, but Nik only smiled smugly at him.
"Well, is keeping my victims' letters really so different from writing their names on a wall? Like you did, Ripper." Nik said. Stefan didn't respond and Nik's smug smile only grew. I saw Adrian over Stefan's shoulder and my face fell knowing what Nik was going to do to the Hybrid pack. "I'll return here for you soon." Nik told me before he walked past Stefan he stopped and turned back to the younger vampire. "Loneliness, Stefan." Stefan turned to face Nik as he continued to talk to him. "That's why you and I memorialize our dead. There's the briefest of moments before we kill where we literally hold their life in our hands and then we rip it away. And we're left with nothing. So, gathering other peoples' letters or writing their names on a wall is a reminder that in the end we're left infinitely and utterly alone for a majority of our lives. Until we find the one reason to continue living some semblance of a life with them." Nik explained before he turned and walked off with Adrian as we watched them go.
"How can you not trust me when I'm with him, but trust me when I'm alone?" I asked Stefan before going and looking for Caroline to take care of Nikolas and confront Tyler.
I found Caroline who was acting strange around me when I left Nikolas with her instructing her to meet me and Nik at the manor. I found Tyler in the middle of the square on his phone. I saw Hayley opposite from me and made my way to them.
"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be taking the witch to the Cellar." Tyler said to Hayley.
"There is no witch, Tyler." Hayley finally revealed to him.
"What?" he asked her.
"Hello Tyler." I said revealing myself behind him.
"What's going on?" he asked the two of us. I made my way around him to stand next to Hayley.
"I made it up." She told him.
"I never intended for you to put Klaus down. I needed him for the sacrifice." Hayley told him.
"The what?" Tyler asked again.
"I don't know how to explain it, but I made a deal with someone who can help me find my family." Hayley told him.
"What are you talking about? What kind of deal?" Tyler asked her.
"There needed to be twelve for the sacrifice, Tyler." Hayley told him.
"Twelve what?" Tyler asked her confused.
"Come on Ty. You must be smarter than that." I told him.
"I'm sorry." Hayley said.
"Hayley, what did you do?" Tyler asked her angrily.
"She did the smart thing and told us everything you hand your little wolf friends had planned." I told him, making him turn his angry gaze to me. "She warned both me and Nik so when Adrian came for him we knew what had to be done."
"If you run now, you might make it out alive." Hayley told him.
"Yes, run to your friends Tyler. They'll all be rotting corpses by the time you get there." I said before I started smiling at him. Tyler looked at us with a mixture of shock and horror before he finally backed away and ran away from us into the crowd. "You better go Hayley." I told her. "Nik will be in a bad mood tonight." I turned and left her alone before calling Caroline and telling her to take Nikolas to her house for the night. If Nik didn't find Tyler then he'd go after the one person Tyler loved more than anyone in the world: his mother.
I found Carol in the square on the phone leaving a message for her precious son.
"Tyler, honey, you're supposed to be my sober cab. I think I drank half the party." She hung up the phone and sat on the edge of the stone fountain putting her champagne glass down next to her and taking her shawl off. I went and sat next to her with a small smile on my face.
"Hi Carol." I greeted her. She looked at me startled and sadness bled into her eyes.
"Hello Nicole. How are you doing this evening?" she asked me.
"I've been better. Nik left me behind to spend some time with his Hybrids." I told her and she looked down slightly before looking back up at me. "Oh wait, here he comes now." She looked up at him to see Nik covered in the blood of the Hybrids with a bottle of champagne clutched in one hand.
"Good evening, Carol. You're looking for Tyler. I'd like to have a word with him myself." Nik told her.
"Klaus, please, don't hurt him. He's my son. He's all I have." Carol begged him.
"And you're all he has. There's a beautiful symmetry to that, don't you think?" Nik asked me.
"Yes, it is." I agreed and Carol looked at me fearfully. "Tyler tried to take part of my world from me again. It's time to return the favor." Nik grabbed Carol by the back of the neck and she screamed at him as he dunked her head into the water surrounding the fountain. She struggled to fight him off but he continued to hold her head under. Finally, we watched her take her last breath as the life left her body. Nik took his hand off her neck and offered me his blood covered hand. I took his hand and he held me to him as he used his vampire speed to take us home.
