The thing about memories is over time they can get distorted in so many ways, either you reminisce fondly airbrushing a lot of the bad or you allow pain to take out all the good. When you are the only one with these memories it makes you question its authenticity, how differently others may have seen it or felt in a different way and suddenly when you are beginning to question the percentage of truth behind your own memories you find yourself asking do you allow the truth in even if it distorts said precious memories or do you fight safety in a possible lie?
The answer would be simple, truth above all else, but what if friends you loved like family, who you have a past with that you hold so dearly to your heart, what if their memories do not add up to your own?
Or what if the only person you ever loved never gave a damn about you?
These were the questions keeping me awake at night as I endlessly thought about whether to restore Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol's memories of me, if they even mattered after all this time, or if it would just wind up causing more trouble than its worth and then I got a knock at my hotel door late one night which changed everything for me.
"Rebekah…" I said after answering the door in shock, confused as to why she would be visiting me at all, never mind so late in the night.
"My brother Niklaus is not the type to give gratitude to those who are entitled to it so I wanted to thank you in person because I doubt, he ever bloody will," Rebekah replied to me, as I knew instantly she was lying.
"That's not why you are here," I responded making her know I knew she was not being truthful to me.
"Ok," Rebekah admitted as she let herself into my hotel room, closing the door behind her afterward. "I know you spent the whole day with my brother Elijah and after several drinks and constant prying he admitted everything to me although Klaus' paranoia probably played a big part in it you see when my brother starts getting worked up, he starts murdering and Elijah would not want you murdered now would he?"
"I cannot tell if you know nothing, and you are here to threaten me or if you know everything is still here to threaten me," I told her, before going on to say. "Either way you look all worked up and that never ends well for anybody."
"See that's just bloody weird you clearly know me, in fact, according to Elijah you know all of us, and yet I do not have a single memory of you." Rebekah snapped, confessing to me that Elijah had told her everything. "For you to be so close to us that Elijah would consider you a son, for you to have a history with us all and for you to be willing to do what you did for us, and yet I cannot remember a thing about your hell I hadn't even heard of you like the rest of them have."
"I was not the one to take the memories from you Rebekah, but I think I can give you them back if you want them back that is, but I totally understand if you do not especially with the hollow and everything that has happened lately. If I, were you, I'd ignore all this recent information and get back to enjoying your own life maybe even with Marcel?" I suggested, laying the choice onto her hands instead of mine, fearing she would accept while also at the same time fearing she would decline.
"I want these bloody memories back right now because there is nothing, I loathe more than being kept in the dark and if these memories do not add up as they do with Elijah, I can just kill you and get it all over with," Rebekah replied in true Rebekah style, with a sense of strength, sarcasm, and just the right amount of diva.
And so, I had no choice really but to restore her memories, and not long after I did, Kol too came to me asking the same before leaving New Orleans to return to his wife, and I obliged to him too. Both of their reactions serving as reminders to myself that the bond we had created was true, that it was not just one-sided, that they really were my friends all those years ago and maybe just maybe they would be again.

Klaus had spent a lot of his time since having the hollow magically removed from him, spending time in Mystic Falls, reuniting with his daughter Hope and getting to know the life she had made for herself in his absence, including her girlfriend Josie Saltzman, someone who somehow managed to be the only person in this world he'd allow his daughter to date, probably because he was once in love with Josie's mother as I had learned from a drunken night catching up with Rebekah.
As I started spending more time reconnecting with Elijah, Kol, and Rebekah, as well as getting to know Freya, Keelin, Hayley, Marcel, and Davina, I found myself loving my time in New Orleans, feeling human again, and having a life I had always dreamed of but always in the back of my mind was the fear that when the day came to restore Klaus' memories of me, that everything I was building in this city, would burn to the ground by Klaus' will alone to not have some ex he grew tired of many centuries ago.
"Well." Were the only words I could mumble after restoring Klaus' memories, the two of us standing alone within the compound, as I feared what he might say next, knowing if he wanted me to leave, I was ready to fight to keep what I had just recently regained, a family.
"Well, what?" He asked in reply to my mumbled words. "Do I remember you now? Yes, I do, does it miraculously change anything? No, you were just one of too many who got caught up in my family's drama the only miraculous thing about it is the fact my siblings have decided to give you the light of day again."
"That is exactly the response I expected from you if any, but I just want to let you know Niklaus that I like it here in New Orleans and I am not going anywhere so you have to either learn to tolerate me or leave again," I warned him making my stance noticeably clear. "I am not going anywhere!"
"Like I said you are of absolutely no significance towards me and I am trying this new thing where I allow my family to be happy so I will not question your presence as long as you continue to play nice but if you are plotting something I will find out and I will kill you whether Elijah considers you a son or not, after all, he had no problem killing my son," Klaus replied making it absolutely clear I meant nothing to him.
But little did I know at the time there was more to that story than Klaus would lead me to believe…

Later that night, completely unbeknownst to me at that time, Klaus confronted Elijah over a matter of secrets he had kept from him, some that even I did not know yet and that is when things really started to get interesting.
"I know we have not had a chance to talk since the whole hollow and amnesia thing, but I am glad we're talking now, and even more glad Josh let us have the place for the night," Hayley admitted to Elijah, as the two sat at a table within the empty bar of Rousseau's. "I've lived almost a decade without you, and I do not just want to go back to the person I was around you. I've really found myself a new pack here, my daughter is happy at Salvatore Boarding School, and I am happy but that does not mean I do not still love you."
"Hayley, you know I've only ever wanted the best for you, and I would never want to take any happiness from you, in fact, that is all I ever wanted for you," Elijah replied to the hybrid he loved with all his heart.
"I cannot and will not go back to a place where you put family above all else and by that, I mean putting it above your own conscience. We have all done terrible things just to survive but the hollow is gone now, and this is our chance to start fresh." Hayley told him, ready to give things a proper shot with the only man she had ever loved, but cautious to let him all the way in again.
"I agree," Elijah responded with a sincere smile, ecstatic to learn Hayley was willing to give them both a fresh slate, another chance to get their love right, and this time he believed with all his heart that they were ready to make things work between them.
Before the two lovers had a chance to properly reconcile or talk out more of their previous problems, Klaus sped into the bar with full vampire speed, grabbed a hold of Elijah's throat, lifted him from his chair, and charged his body into the wall as he tightened his grip on his brother's throat.
"Klaus, what the hell are you doing now?" Hayley screamed at him, as she rose from her chair, then continued to use her vampire speed to run over there and pull Klaus off his brother's throat. "I am getting real sick of you always trying to kill your siblings when they are the only ones who have always been there for you."
"Have they?" Klaus screamed at Hayley, before turning his attention back to Elijah. "First you ruin any chance I had of being with Aurora before her brain completely went to mush and now, I find out you did it again with Salem. How many times did you plot against me to ensure I would be miserable for all of eternity? How many times did you play the noble brother only to stab me in the back repeatedly?"
"Must I remind you Niklaus that the only sibling who stabbed the other was you not I?" Elijah replied while somehow keeping his composure, purposely not rising to Klaus' anger towards him. "Aurora was vengeance in a split moment after learning you killed our mother…Salem was different, it was not about you, it was about him."
"Elijah…" Hayley said in shock, with a sense of disappointment in her voice.
"You convinced me to leave him that I was only putting him in danger that if I truly loved him, I should let him go and you said you would stay behind to keep an eye on him, but you had no plans of ever leaving his life, did you?" Klaus shouted furiously at his older brother. "Why the hell do you get to be the man he admires, and I have to be the one who broke his heart when you knew how much it hurt me to leave him? You knew how I had not let myself love for the longest time after Aurora, you knew how special Salem was to me, and yet you did not care!"
"I did care!" Elijah shouted back, finally standing up for himself. "I cared about the innocent young man who was so naïve and willing to love anything even a family of monsters and I continued to care as I watched you turn him into a vampire, how you continued to poison that innocence and you know you damn fine you were making him worse. He was becoming like you, and I could not stand the thought of my son becoming you…I am sorry Niklaus, but the truth is you were poisonous to everything you touched back then, and I had to save him, he may not be my blood, but he is the closest thing I have ever had to a child. You above all other people must understand that need to protect your child even from your own blood."
"I do!" Klaus admitted in a defeated sigh, not knowing until then that Elijah loved me in a way only a father could, and despite his fury, he knew that he had done the same with Marcel and Rebekah, he had sinned as much as his siblings, and he could not stay angry with his brother for doing the same.
"I totally understand trying to protect people from your brother, trust me I do." Hayley began to say. "But he's changed since then, he's a far better man, and I know you love this Salem guy like a son but if Klaus and he had something once before maybe…"
"I did not tell Salem anything other than lie I told him all those years ago because deep down I knew you were right, brother," Klaus admitted to Elijah. "I do not wish to come between you and your son, I know what it's like to lose a son and then get him back and if it were not for you, I may never have had Hope in my life…you deserve that happiness too Elijah."
"Thank you, brother!" Elijah responded with a hug, genuinely touched by Klaus' words. "If you still have feelings for him, I will not stand in the way because you have become the man, I always wanted you to be."

Completely oblivious to the happenings of that night I had receded back to the balcony of my hotel room sharing champagne with Rebekah as we both sat on chairs and watched the busy and beautiful city of New Orleans, knowing that this night Rebekah was there for gossip, to which I could not blame her because I too wanted gossip from her about her soap styled dramatic romance with the vampire turned beast Marcel Gerard.
"So, what is the deal with yourself and Marcel anyway? I mean you are clearly crazy about the man and from what I've heard he's just as crazy about you and yet you keep pulling yourself away from the only guy your brother would not kill." I questioned her before she got a chance to question.
"I doubt he is the only man in this world Klaus would not kill, speaking of which how did my brother deal with his newly restored memories?" Rebekah responded smugly while drinking her glass of champagne, swerving my question with another question, but like her, I too was no amateur at this game.
"Nothing I was not expecting which is more than I can say for you and Marcel. I never know what to expect with you two I mean you're a woman born to be a bride hence all your trial runs and now you have the chance to have everything you want you just throw it away?" I continued, knowing my words would strike a chord with her.
"He loves this city more than he will ever love me and New Orleans may be my home, but I was practically chained to Niklaus for a thousand years, and now that I am finally free to do as I please I do not want to just give it up!" Rebekah admitted as she finished off her champagne.
"I am just waiting for you that you have wanted for yourself for as long as I can remember, happiness because nobody deserves happiness more than you!" I reassured her, wanting her to listen to my words, take them in, and finally allow herself to be genuinely happy.
But happiness was far from on the agenda that night as Rebekah and I quickly learn when my biological father Van Helsing suddenly vamp sped his way onto the balcony having come from my hotel room.
"I guess you are not happy with just being a monster you have to get yourself a whole family of them too." He said furiously as Rebekah and I jumped up onto our feet, both of us stunned by his presence.
"I thought I locked you away for good?" I managed to say out loud, while remaining in complete and utter shock that Van was standing right before me, having believed I had seen the back of him for good.
"This my son is why you always go in for the kill!" He replied as he raised his right hand up in the air, in the shape of a fist, unleashing his magic onto both Rebekah and me as we fell to the ground in agonizing pain, the blood vessels in our brains bursting repeatedly by his will until we both passed out.
And just like that my short-lived happiness had once again be ruined and by the man who had brought more misery into my life than anybody else, as myself and Rebekah quickly found ourselves, prisoner, to a man who without a doubt plotted to end us both.