I sighed annoyed for the millionth time this summer as I walked through the house. I was showing but not enough to make a large difference in what I wore. I spent some of my time planning Nikolas' birthday and even though we could really celebrate it properly I still wanted to have a small party. I heard a noise out front and pulled my gun out from its new holster and warily walked towards to the door.
"Who the hell are you?" Hayley asked the intruder when they walked through the door.
"Oh, you must be the maid." I sighed in relief at the familiar voice. "My bags are in the car – get them, will you?"
"Hello. Not the maid." Hayley told her.
"Bekah." I said smiling at the blonde Original drawing both their attention. "This is Hayley, my werewolf guard and friend. Hayley this is my sister Rebekah. What brings you to my cage?"
"Cage?" she asked confused. "Don't tell me he's forcing you to stay here until you have the baby."
"I won't be able to leave until Marcel is over thrown." I said bitterly.
"Oh, well, we'll have to fix that soon enough. I was expecting you to be showing already." She told me and I gave her a small look.
"Just because your brother got me pregnant instead of a human doesn't mean this is any different than a normal pregnancy." I told her.
"You have your brother's manners." Hayley said drawing our attention to her.
"And his temper, too, so watch it. Where's Elijah?" Bekah asked us.
"Beats me. He's long gone." Hayley told her.
"What do you mean, "long gone"?" Bekah asked her.
"One minute he was here making epic promises about protecting me, Nikolas, and this baby – he was all poetic about how we're family – and then Nik told me he was gone." I told her.
"Guess that's what you get for trusting a vampire." Hayley told me.
"Enough Hayley." I told her. "Elijah doesn't just give his word and then ditch."
"Which means Niklaus has done something dastardly and Klaus-like. Klaus! Get out here and tell me what you've done with our brother, you narcissistic, back-stabbing wanker!" She called for my husband making me roll my eyes when Nik opened a pair of doors and entered the room.
"Enough with all the shouting. Little sister, I should have known. I assume the six dead vampires were your doing?" Nik asked her.
"Only six?" I asked her. "You're losing you touch."
"That's all there were." She told me before turning back to her brother. "And they were very rude. "Trying to victimize a poor, innocent girl just trying to find her way to the Quarter. So sorry, were they friends of yours? Oh, that's right, you don't have any friends."
"Bekah." I said warningly.
"Sorry, no friends except your wife." She corrected.
"I do have other friends than my beautiful wife. I have Marcel. You remember him, don't you? Yes, of course you do. He fancies himself the 'King of the Quarter' now, and he has these rules about killing vampires. It'll be fun to see what sort of punishment he comes up with for you." Nik told her.
"I don't care about Marcel or his rules. Elijah doesn't welch on deals. What did you do to him?" she asked him.
"Perhaps he's on holiday... or taking a long autumn nap upstairs. Well, go on. Take a look around. You remember this house as well as I." he told her and Bekah, who had gotten up to leave the room, turned back to him.
"I remember everything." She said before walking through the doors he'd come through just a moment ago. "I remember how the drunken fool of a governor hid away all of our vampire sins in exchange for gold. I remember the lavish parties the governor threw, as if to impress you. I remember finding a moment of affection with the governor's son, Emil. And I remember that even Elijah was happy." She said as the three of us moved to another portion of the house. "I remember asking to turn Emil and you killed him."
"Well, he wasn't good enough for you." Nik told her plopping himself on a couch.
"No one was ever good enough for me, Nik, you made sure of that. Now where is Elijah?" Bekah asked him as his phone started buzzing. Nik checked it and stood to leave. "Where are you going?"
"Another drink with Marcel?" I asked him.
"Don't wait up." He told me.
"Never do." I said.
"Elijah told me about your plan to take apart Marcel's empire piece by piece. I don't remember it involving you two drinking New Orleans dry together." Bekah told him
"I know you don't have many friends, Rebekah, but what some friends do when they get together is they drink. And when they drink, they tell secrets. Marcel has somehow found a way to control the entirety of witches in the Quarter, and I aim to uncover the 'how' so I might take it for myself. Finding Elijah didn't make my to-do list today." He told her before going to leave the house. He paused before looking back at Bekah. "Oh, and welcome home, little sister." And with that he allowed the door to shut behind him. Bekah turned on the spot, contemplating her brother's words before she looked up at Hayley sitting on the stairs and myself.
"Nikky, wolf girl. I'm going to search this house inch by inch until I find what my evil brother has done to my good one. You're helping." She demanded before leaving the room to find Elijah.
Later in the night, we found ourselves walking down a spiral staircase.
"The governor had lots of secret rooms. I'll show you his favorite." Bekah told us before we arrived in a dusty, cobwebbed cellar room. I took a deep breath at the sight of the coffins Nik kept his siblings daggered in for the past thousand years.
"You think Klaus killed him." Hayley said.
"We can't be killed, silly girl. That doesn't stop Klaus from finding ways to torture us." Bekah told her.
"He has a set of silver daggers. One in the heart sends them into a death like sleep." I explained.
"Klaus gets his jollies from keeping us in a box, until he decides to pull the dagger out. That must be what he's done to Elijah. This one's mine." She said pointing her coffin out to us.
"He keeps your coffin on standby." Hayley said incredulously.
"He likes to be prepared for when his family members inevitably disappoint him. Elijah's isn't here – he must've stashed him elsewhere." Bekah told us.
"I feel sick." Hayley said.
"Aren't I supposed to feel that way?" I asked her.
"Why haven't you gone to see your family yet?" Bekah asked me. "Didn't you hear your brother came back to life?"
"Yeah, well, the witches have put some sort of hex on me. As long as I'm carrying this baby, I can't leave New Orleans. If I do, they kill me." I told her.
"I'm leaving as soon as I find Elijah. Being daggered in a box for decades sucks, trust me." She told us before leaving to continue her search for Elijah.
The next day while Bekah was looking for Elijah, Hayley, Nikolas and I were in the Quarter doing a small amount of shopping. She managed to ditch briefly before coming back to me.
"Hey, where were you?" I asked her.
"Just got an herb to help us sleep in the swamp that we live in." she told me and I laughed at her.
"All we have to do is tell Nik and he'll have someone fix it." I told her.
"Well, you might have issues sleeping being pregnant and have Klaus sleeping next to you." She said to me and I gave her a look.
"He's not that bad." I told her.
"Not that bad? Have you seen his resume?" she asked me.
"He's… protective. He loves his family like no other and gets heartbroken when he feels like they betray him." I told her.
"You are way too nice to be with him." She told me making me laugh.
"I'm not nice. I just understand him." I told her.
"Hey you want something to drink?" she asked me. "I could get us all something nice and hot."
"Warm for the little guy but you know what, tea sounds amazing right now." I told her with a smile on my face. "If this kid turns out more British than American I might just be upset." I joked making her laugh before leaving to get us a drink. I sat on a bench playing with Nikolas when Hayley joined us again and handed me the tea. I poured some water she'd brought me and I poured it in the sippy cup he'd been drinking out of for a while now. We talked for hours, laughing and just having a good time as the late afternoon turned to night.
"You haven't even touched your tea." She told me and I smiled.
"Nikolas wore himself out with all the fun he never took a drink either." I said showing her the sippy cup. I was about to take a drink when we suddenly we heard a branch snap nearby. The two of us stood and looked around before turning to find a vampire in front of us.
"Dumb move, coming into the Quarter. You're coming with me, wolves." The vampire told us.
"I have had it up to here with vampires telling me what to do." She told him. I quickly opened the cup and threw it on his face and he roared in pain. I unbuckled Nikolas and picked him up only to look up and see two more vampires standing in front of us. Suddenly Rebekah appeared behind them and snapped the neck of one and ripped the heart out of the back of the other.
"Now, that is no way to treat a pregnant lady." She said looking like she was talking to the heart. "I do hate bad manners." She threw the heart to the ground and I sighed in relief.
Back at the mansion we watched as Nik threw a final body onto a small pile in the front courtyard while he berated us for our behavior.
"This is why I told you never to leave the house. Werewolves are banned in the Quarter. I had a plan, and your little nighttime stroll put it all in peril! Leave him!" he shouted at Bekah who'd started walking towards the pile of bodies to kill the last vampire who was alive. "You've done enough, don't you think? Leaving a trail of bodies like a road map to my door?"
"If I hadn't overheard this lot bragging about werewolf heads, everyone here would be screwed. And don't give me that crap about having a plan. You've had all the time in the world to execute a plan, and no one's seen you do a damn thing! You and Elijah made a deal to protect your wife and children, so that they could save you from your selfish, rotten self. But you obviously don't give a damn about the children or Elijah or Nicole, because what have you done to honor it?" Bekah asked.
"Bekah. He is honoring the deal. Hayley and I shouldn't have been gone for so long." I said agreeing with Nik.
"I have done everything. Let me spell it out for you, shall I? From the day I arrived, Marcel hasn't trusted me. From Day One, he's had his vampires ingest toxic vervain which, as you know, little sister, protects them from my mind control." Nik explained to her. "I needed a spy, someone on the inside with me who Marcel would never suspect. So, I created a Day Zero and got there first. Marcel had just lost six vampires, thanks to your little murder spree, and he needed new recruits. So, I made the new one mine, before he'd had even a drop of vervain." He then grabbed the vampire that was still alive from the pile and pulled him as he walked to the house. "And this one – I'm gonna drain him of vervain, compel him to believe his mates found religion and moved to Utah, so that he can explain to Marcel why he lost three more vampires tonight." Nik told us angrily as he drug the vampire into the house with us following him. "Does anyone have any more questions? No? Good, because I have a question. Nicole, what were you doing in the bloody French Quarter in the first place? Answer me!" he ordered.
"Leave her be." Bekah told her.
"I was shopping for our sons first birthday." I told him.
"And why were you in the Quarter, Hayley? It was you they were after, not my children or wife." Nik reminded her.
"I was buying poison, so I could put your little babies out of their misery." Hayley told us.
"Why?" I asked her shocked.
"You're my friend and I wanted you safe away from everything that he's pulled you into." She told me. I gasped when Nik ran with his vampire speed at her and pinned her to the door making her gasp for air.
"Nik! NIK!" I shouted at him trying to get him off her. Bekah ran at him with her vampire speed and pushed him off my friend who coughed and spluttered while massaging her throat.
"Keep your hands off her! She is your wife's friend, for God's sake! Possibly the only female friend she's had around her for months!" Bekah reminded him.
"Hayley. Leave." I told her and she nodded before going up to her room. "Nik, calm down. Tell us, what happened to Elijah?" Nik sat down on the stairs with me in front of him and Bekah beside him.
"I gave Elijah to Marcel." He told us quietly.
"What?" Bekah asked shocked.
"Marcel was nervous. It's bad enough one Original returned to town, but two? His crew was getting antsy. He wanted Elijah gone, so... I gave him a peace offering." Nik explained.
"You bartered our brother?" Bekah asked him.
"I have a plan. Gain Marcel's trust, dismantle his empire, honor Elijah's wish that that baby be born. I am executing that plan the only way I know how. If you don't like it, there's the door. See if I care." He told her in monotone and I sighed as he left the room. Bekah leaned back on the stairs and I smiled at her before going upstairs.
Later, I found Bekah sitting on the back porch of the house and sat next to her.
"Thank you for saving Hayley. She didn't deserve it but you and I know best that fear and anger can make you do crazy things." I told her.
"Us girls have got to look out for each other." She told me with a smile.
"Nik, even when you hate him, you still love him." I sighed.
"I guess when you spend a thousand years with someone, deciding to quit them is like losing a part of yourself. But sometimes the hate is just... so powerful. Emil wasn't the only boyfriend of mine that Klaus killed. He did it again, and again, and every time I found someone to care about. He just kept doing it until, finally, I stopped falling in love. He said he was protecting me from my mistakes, that no one was ever good enough for his little sister. Until one day, someone was." She told me. "Marcel and I were in love before Klaus daggered me for 52 years and gave Marcel a choice to either turn or remain human with me."
"If you know Marcel has Elijah, why don't you just get him back yourself?" I asked her.
"Because, if I cross my brother, there's still a coffin downstairs with my name on it." She reminded me and I nodded before pulling out two daggers. "Oh, my god."
"I found them under your coffin, you know how I love to snoop. If these are all that's stopping you from getting our dear back, then here you go." I said offering the daggers to her. She took them in awe before smiling brightly at me which I returned. After my talk with Bekah I moved upstairs to Hayley.
"Where is it?" I asked her.
"Where is what?" she asked me.
"The wolfsbane. Where is it?" I asked her. She sighed before giving me the bottle. I looked at it before looking back at her. "Why?"
"I was worried about you." She told me. "I don't like that these vampires and the witches are controlling you like this."
"You think I do?" I asked her. "Nik, Bekah and Elijah will do what they can to protect us from the witches. I just wished you'd trusted me more." I then headed to bed and before Nik could even get into bed I fell asleep.
The next morning, I felt movement next to me and opened my eyes slightly to see Nik staring at the bottle on my nightstand. I turned and picked it up before giving it to him.
"I took it from Hayley last night." I told him.
"You're awake." He said.
"I could barely sleep all night. Pregnancy and the busted ac made things hard." I told him staring up at him.
"Why did she do it?" he asked me.
"She was worried about me." I told him. "But I think now that she knows how far this family is willing to go to protect me and our children. She won't do it again."
"We're a lot alike, you and I. We're both castoffs who have learned to fight when we're backed into a corner." He told me moving some of the sweaty bed hair out of my face.
"Well, we're backed into a corner now." I told him.
"Ah, that we are. It's time to fight... my beloved." He told me before gently kissing me. He got up and dressed before going to leave. I followed suit shortly after but before we left the room I stopped him. "This whole thing with Marcel – the deal you have with the witches, trying to take him down, take what's his for yourself – Bekah told me that you two once loved each other like family. That he was like a son to you. What happened to you two?" I asked him.
"I made Marcel everything that he is. I treated him like a son. And when my father chased me and my family from New Orleans a hundred years ago, we believed Marcel was killed – we each mourned him, in our own way. Yet, when I returned, I found not only had he survived, he had thrived. Instead of seeking us out, instead of sticking together as one, he made a choice to take everything my family had built and make it his own. Now, he is living in our home, he is sleeping in our beds. That 'M' he stamps everywhere... it's not for 'Marcel'. It's for 'Mikaelson'. I want it all back, and if I have to push him out to get it, then that's exactly what I'll do. I'll have someone see to the air conditioning." He told me. I walked up to him and hugged him to me tightly.
"I'm sorry." I said and he hugged me back before we parted and left for downstairs. I smiled at Bekah when she walked into the room, but her face made my smile drop. "What is it?"
"You were right." She told Nik. "The girl, Cami – she's the key. Marcel likes her, and because of that I got to see the secret weapon of his that you've been going on about."
"Well, don't stand on ceremony. What is it?" Nik told her.
"It's not a 'what', it's a 'who'. A girl, Davina. She can't be more than sixteen, and I have never felt power like that." She told us.
"Another witch?" I asked.
"She's not just any witch, she's something I've never seen before, something beyond powerful, and now because of you she has Elijah. Who knows what she could do to him." She said.
"Where is she?" Nik asked her. Bekah stopped to think before looking confounded.
"That clever bitch. I don't know." She told us.
"What's wrong?" he asked her.
"You said you saw her. How do you not know where she is?" I asked.
"She wiped my memory of the location. Marcel possesses a weapon bigger and more powerful than an Original, and you handed our brother to him! How many times will Elijah forgive you? How long until his hope for your redemption finally dies?" Bekah asked Nik.
"I did what I had to do! Marcel took our home!" he shouted at her.
"And our home is worthless without family. I am finding Elijah – whatever it takes. Are you going to help me?" she asked us.
"We're family. I'm in." I told her.
"Whatever it takes." Nik agreed.
