I sat in the nursery looking over the French Quarter when I suddenly heard the screams of our witch guest. I joined Hayley in the hallway as we went towards the room Nik and I shared to see my husband wiping the blood off his hands while his shirt and face were covered.

"Oh. So, I see your interrogation went well?" Hayley asked him. He looked up into the mirror as he washed up looking at us.

"Eh, it turns out these witches are delicate creatures. No matter! I suspected my mother had Elijah captive." He said going towards his closet.

"Great. Let's go find them!" Hayley said.

"You know I'm always ready to kick a little witch ass." I said before Nik turned to us, shaking his head.

"Esther is too powerful. She won't be easily found. I need to draw her out." He told us before going past the sliding doors and going to close them when I stopped him.

"Then where are you going?" I asked him.

"I'm going to change my shirt, and then I'm going to find my brother." He told me about to shut the doors once more.

"Klaus, let me come with you!" Hayley ordered annoyed. He sighed deeply and walked towards us.

"I know you want to help, both of you, but you can't. My mother is wretched. She will target the two of you in order to thwart me, and I can't very well save Elijah if I'm busy saving you, can I?" he asked us.

"No you can't. Go save Elijah." I said kissing his cheek. Behind me Hayley rolled her eyes, but remained silent. Nik finally shut the doors and prepared his plans leaving Hayley and I alone to make our own.


I enlisted Marcel and his new vampire's help and even waited at his loft as they both looked around and asked their contacts.

"I did like you said—" Gia said walking into the loft as Marcel poured the two of us a drink. "I kept a low profile, went all over the city. There's no sign of Elijah anywhere."

"Yeah, the humans I know said the same thing. Maybe Klaus is having better luck?" he asked looking at me.

"No. All we know is that Esther has him, which isn't new information." I said sipping my drink when Hayley walked inside.

"Listen, you three up for a rescue mission?" Hayley asked.

"Are we going after Elijah?" Gia asked excitedly.

"Nope. That's all Klaus. I'm talking about Oliver. Now, he and Elijah were fighting the werewolves together. I've heard that Oliver's been captured and is about to be executed. Now, look- if we can save Oliver, then we might be able to find out where Elijah is." Hayley said.

"It's not that far a stretch." I said.

"'Kay, so what do you want from us?" Marcel asked.

"Just a little distraction." Hayley told him.

"Finn controls the werewolves. If you can keep him out of the way, Hayley and I can go get Ollie out." I told him. Hayley nodded at my idea and we went to leave, but Marcel sped around us and blocked our way.

"You can't take on all those wolves yourselves. You'll get killed, and then I'll get killed for letting it happen." Marcel told us smiling.

"Then we won't go in alone." Hayley told him. "The werewolves may be answering to the witches, but they still have an Alpha. I just have to find him."

"Needle meet haystack." I muttered before following her out.


We'd been wandering through the Bayou for what felt like hours in this heat. The area was remote so it was the best bet to finding her betrothed. We finally came across a beat-up trailer in the middle of the wooded area. Suddenly, we heard a creaking sound and quickly turned, catching two arrows in midair that had been shot by an unidentified man.

"First witches now Robin Hood." I said tossing the arrow I caught to the ground. I stared at the man who looked very familiar.

"Is that your best shot? You're gonna have to do a lot better than that if you're gonna kill a hybrid." Hayley told him. The man started towards us, pulling a short sword out of its sheath with his free hand. He still held his bow in the other, and he had his quiver of arrows strapped on his back. He stopped when we heard a gruff voice call out.

"Stop!" we all immediately turned at the sound of the voice to see Jackson walking out of the trailer and towards us.

"Jackson?" Hayley asked him.

"Hayley. Nicole. I see you met my friend Ansel." I turned to the familiar man and narrowed my eyes at him.

"You know her?" Ansel asked him motioning to Hayley. Her? Does he know me?

"Yeah, actually. I do. She was supposed to be my wife." Jackson answered him. "This is her friend Nicole Mikaelson, the Original Hybrid's wife."


Jackson and Hayley were sitting in chairs around the fire pit, while Ansel and I sat on a log across from them with him sharpening his knife.

"After Francesca Guerrera took over the wolves, she offered me a moonlight ring as long as I'd call her Alpha. I declined. So, a couple of her brothers dragged me out here and left me for dead. By the time I healed up, word had spread about what happened to you, and to your children." Jackson told us and I looked at the ground unhappy about the reminder of my children's absence from my life. "So, I knew it was over, and I just drifted. And that's when I met Ansel. See, he's been teaching me the old ways, the traditions. What it means to be a wolf."

"You mean by living out in the ass-end of nowhere?" Hayley laughed loudly. I looked to Ansel to see him looking at her unamused.

"Careful, Hayley. Looks like Papa Wolf doesn't like that." I joked making us share a smile.

"Hey, easy. Your kind makes him ornery." Jackson told us and I raised an eyebrow at the familiar stranger.

"My kind?" Hayley asked frowning at the two men. "Jack, whatever you and your friend think of me, my kind is the wolves. Even if they did pledge allegiance to a witch. All that means is they need an Alpha. Ollie needs one, too."

"Yeah, I heard about that. The thing is, Ollie betrayed me. He plotted with the Guerreras. He spilled his own people's blood." Jackson told us.

"He was trying to make up for that." Hayley sighed.

"It doesn't matter. Witches have him- he's dead. Not that I care." Jackson told her and I glared at him.

"He's been risking his life for his pack while you've been here becoming one with nature or whatever. If you wanna turn your back on him, fine. But Hayley and I won't leave family behind." I said standing with Hayley.

"You don't want to be the Alpha? Fine. I'll bring Ollie back here so you can tell him yourself." She told him. We started to leave when Ansel started to pack up and walk towards us. "Hey, you got a problem, old man?"

"I have no love of vampires, but I will not allow a wolf to be killed by witches." He told us.

"Welcome to the team." I said sarcastically before the two of us made our way for the Quarter. Hayley turned back towards Jackson and shot him a look.

"At least someone is interested."


By the time we arrived in the cemetery it was night. We slowly made our way slowly through the foggy paths as we tried to find Oliver. We made it to the lycée and walked up the steps to enter. Inside, we found a bloodied Oliver suspended by his wrists in the greenhouse. Hayley quickly made her way to him as Ansel and I kept guard.

"Ollie! Ollie, wake up!" she told him.

"The hell are you doing?" Oliver asked her weakly before looking to me and Ansel. "Who the hell is that?"

"This is Ansel." I introduced to him.

"We're here to save your ass. Please tell me you know where Elijah is?" Hayley asked him. Oliver shook his head in answer as Ansel went to the window to look outside.

"They know we're here." Ansel told us. I focused my hearing to hear the sounds of werewolves jumping down from the crypts as they made their way to us. Hayley looked at Oliver for a moment and studied the chains that bound him

"Sorry. No time to be gentle." She told him before yanking on the chains until they broke. When he fell over she quickly picked him up.

"We have who we came for. Let's go." I ordered, but it was too late. We were surrounded. Ansel prepared his quiver as Oliver, who was still weak and exhausted, looked at Hayley anxiously.

"Just leave me here. Go!" he told us.

"To hell with that! They want a fight, I'll give them a fight." Hayley said.

"No." Ansel ordered before he approached Hayley. "I came with you to save one of my own, not watch as you kill scores of them." Hayley rolled her eyes at him. "Take your friend out the back, move as fast as you can. I'll hold them off here." Hayley sighed before rushing out with Oliver.

"Come on. Quickly." She told me.

"Go." I told her getting ready for a fight.

"You better leave Hybrid." Ansel told me.

"You're going to need help." I told him. "You may not want me to kill the wolves, but you dying while giving Hayley and Oliver time to escape isn't all that smart."

"I won't die. I still have someone I have to see." He told me.

"You aren't the only one." I told him before the two of us made our way onto the steps. He brandished his sword at the incoming werewolves and together we cut them down. Together we killed all who came to kill us when one of the werewolves had his neck snapped and fell for us to see Nik.

"Nik." I said smiling at him. Ansel held his sword up before seeing who it was and lowering it.

"You." Nik said shocked.

"Niklaus?" Ansel said just as shocked.

"You two know each other?" I asked looking over Ansel and Nik.

"No, no! You're not real!" Nik panicked.

"Niklaus!" Ansel shouted once more.

"NO! You're a phantom, conjured by Esther, that's all that you are!" Nik told him before grabbing my hand and brushing past Ansel and stomping towards the lycée. "Mother! Stop this charade! I know that thing is not real!" I looked at Ansel and I remembered where I'd seen him before.

"I saw you on the Other Side when I was dead." I said quietly to Ansel as he approached us carefully the confusion and happiness on his face. Nik had told me everything that had happened to him during his long life in the time we'd been together.

"Look at me, Niklaus." Ansel ordered. Nik, frightened, slowly turned towards his biological father. "I am flesh and blood. Your flesh and blood."

"You've been dead a thousand years!" Nik reminded him.

"And through that time, I lingered on the Other Side, watching you let the world fall apart, until you found her." He said pointing to me. Nik made sure I was behind him slightly. "I woke, four moons past, in the land of wolves like myself."

"No. No! No, you're just in my head. You're an illusion, meant by my mother to sway me to accept her bargain!" Nik shouted at him.

"Nik, he's not an illusion." I told him. "He helped me and Hayley save Oliver."

"I do not speak for Esther. I know nothing of her bargains." Ansel told him confused before walking towards Nik. "But you are my son." He reached to caress Nik's face, but Nik grabbed his arm before he could so he could see the crescent moon tattoo on his forearm. Ansel looked at Nik curiously.

"Nik?" I asked him seeing his expression.

"And, if what you say is real, you are nothing to me. For all I care, you can crawl back to hell." Nik told him before wrapping his arms around me and using his vampire speed to take us away from a hurt Ansel. When Nik stopped we were in front of the lycée Ansel and I had moved away from during our fight. We walked in to see Elijah chained up and unconscious. I tried breaking the chains, but they wouldn't come loose. Nik spotted a poppet and quickly ripped it down and I broke the chains. Elijah fell into our arms, so we set him down on the floor so we could try to wake him.

"Wake up, brother. Elijah." Nik tried before Esther suddenly appeared behind him.

"He won't wake. Not yet. Which gives you and I one last chance to discuss my offer." She told him. Nik handed Elijah to me gently before breaking the cuffs on his wrists.

"You promised me Elijah's safe return. Or, was that a lie, just like that ghoulish atrocity outside claiming to be my father, back from the dead?" Nik asked her.

"Your father's return is real. I pulled him from the Other Side before it collapsed, left him in the Bayou to join the wolves. And, I used the execution of one of his own to draw him here, where I knew he'd find you." She told him.

"To what end? Besides my torment?" Nik asked her enraged.

"I brought him here to be the father you never had. To teach you to be the man you always longed to be. Once you are remade as a werewolf, you can join him." Esther explained. Nik furiously got to his feet and walked towards us.

"His return changes nothing." Nik scowled.

"It changes everything. It is my gift to you, Niklaus. This offer is your last chance at salvation. Reject me now, and you will live out your endless days unloved and alone." She told him looking to me.

"He could never be alone or unloved." I told her. "His siblings and I will be by his side always and forever."

"Do not refuse me out of some ancient spite—" she told him ignoring me.

"Not spite." Nik interrupted her. "Hatred. A pure and perfect hatred that's greater now than the day I first took your life!"

"Why," she asked him frustrated. "After all I've done to explain to you, why must you persist—" Nik completely lost his temper and grabbed her in a choke-hold, slamming her head against the stone all as he pinned her down.

"BECAUSE YOU CAME FOR OUR CHILDREN! OUR SON AND DAUGHTER! Your own blood!" he shouted at her.

"You... don't... understand!" she told him struggling to breath.

"OUR. CHILDREN!" he shouted once more.

"Niklaus! I had to!" she told him. She lifted up two fingers, causing Nik to experience a nosebleed.

"Nik!" I called out going to him. She caused severe pain to pour through my head making me fall to my knees screaming in pain. I watched him grip her throat even harder.

"You declared war when you came after my family. And, for that, I will make you suffer as only I can." He said smirking at her through the blood pouring from his nose.

"After all, I am my mother's son." He threw her onto to floor and her spell on me stopped. Nik helped me up before rushing to Elijah, picked him and carried him out of the crypt with me close behind him.