I do not own TVD or TO
"Okay, I assume you've got some questions," Elena sighed, weariness creeping over her limbs. She sank down, releasing her weight to one of the overstuffed sofa's decorating the mansions family room.
Who could have guessed that months of sleepless nights coupled with days of intense magics not touched in a millennia would take such a toll on her body?
She felt, at once, ready to take on the world and sink into a soft mattress, stretching out for a well-earned massage that would transition into lovemaking with a stray kiss here and there.
"I should like to revisit Rebekah's first question." Her heart skipped a beat, shocked into action by Klaus' voice uttering the first words; he hadn't managed a syllable in her direction since she broke his mother's neck. "How has your face returned?"
"Does it matter?" Kol asked.
He claimed the corner on her left, reaching for her hand as Rebekah occupied her right side. Elijah and Klaus faced the trio from a set of club chairs, separate but close. Finn leaned back on a love seat, seemingly uninterested in the proceedings.
"It matters," his eyes narrowed, glaring at his younger brother. "A glamour has clearly come into play."
"If you know the how then why are you asking?" Elena tilted her head. She caught a glimpse of Rebekah's expression and smiled, knowing the blonde would get a kick out of the actual explanation.
"I want to know why you have done this to yourself now." His knuckled turned white, gripping his glass to the point of breaking.
"I didn't do this now," she shook her head. "The glamour was placed before I was reborn."
"Wait a second," Elijah shifted, leaning closer to the coffee table that separated them. "Are you saying the doppelgänger was the glamour?"
"This is clearly the glamour," Klaus snapped, "because the ritual worked."
Elena glanced at Kol in time to catch his smirk. She gave an imperceptible nod for him to explain, letting her voice rest a bit after giving the same answers to her family and the Salvatores; Damon hadn't taken it well.
"You didn't actually need a doppelgänger to break mother's curse."
"Excuse me?" Klaus' voice went deadly quiet. His eyes flashed gold. "You were the one to examine mother's spell and offer up a solution. You said I needed the blood of Tatia."
"The blood of Tatia," glee warmed him as he unveiled his greatest deception, "not blood from Tatia."
Klaus' face fell, mind rushing back to a slaughtered household.
"You…"
"Had a pregnant Petrova bride, and a brother so desperate he might have tried anything," Elijah interjected, understanding his little brother's actions in the matter.
"Tatia's blood would have been better because you wouldn't have needed Petrova blood to make hybrids," Elena hummed, "but any Petrova would have removed her binding spell."
"Why the bloody hell didn't you say something when Katerina ran off?"
"Aside from the fact that we only learned of her existence two years after the fact?" Kol raised an eyebrow.
"We were in Asia, it's not like we could have stopped you," Elena rolled her eyes.
"Why use a glamour at all, love?" Rebekah hung an arm across the back of the couch as she turned to face them.
"I needed something to bring you all to me," she shrugged, "and everyone believed it had to be a doppelgänger."
"You planned to lure us here?" Rebekah's breath caught. "Why? You had to know what Nik would do."
"Of course I knew, but none of you were meant to get here for another month or longer." She thought of her plan, so well prepared, and then the bitch who ruined everything. "I was supposed to know everything by the time word reached you. I would have remembered and had everything in place for the ritual, and I would have had time to track down Mikael."
"You planned to kill me." Klaus eyes widened, filling with hurt but shockingly no betrayal.
"Don't be so melodramatic," her eyes focused on him, "I planned for you to kill me. I didn't plan on staying dead. I needed Mikael because he hid a spell a thousand years ago from everyone, including Esther; turns out she still wanted to use it on me. The doppelgänger facade was supposed to melt away after the ritual."
"If you planned on dying why are you angry with me?" His tone reminded her of the lost man hours after a part of him was locked away.
"I'm angry because you got here to soon. I'm angry because the vampire in the ritual was supposed to be Katherine. I'm angry because you killed my aunt. I'm angry because my uncle died too. And I'm angry because for the last few months I thought I was going crazy."
Her eyes widened at the end of her tirade. The breath stilled in her lungs as realization rose and her fury shifted.
"Actually, in hindsight, I think I might be more upset with Katherine," she sucked a deep breath and squared her shoulders, "but I'm still mad at you too. You killed Jenna and John and turned Tyler, who you sent to bite Caroline on her birthday."
"I did what I had to in order to break my curse; a curse that by all accounts you were ready to help me with." Klaus swallowed. "Why so angry about them?"
"They were my family," she licked her lips and shook her head. "I lived before, and that life is still apart of me, but it doesn't change the fact that this life happened. I've lived a life here, and these people are still my friends and family. My circle's just gotten a little bigger, is all."
She lowered her eyes to where Kol still held her hand, watching as his thumb smoothed over her knuckles.
"I don't want to lose anyone else."
"And is this the family reunion you were imagining all those years on the other side sister?" Elijah broke the silence following her admission.
"No," she smiled slowly, speaking around the lump in her chest.
In the heart of town, deep within the earth, magic swelled, seeking cohesion with the multitude of energy so recently released. Distance nullified the magnetic effect.
Above ground a woman strolled the length of Main Street arm in arm with a man, unaware of the number of times they circled the clock tower.
To the denizens of Mystic Falls the young couple remained unknown and unknowable. Humans heard rumours of the glamorous Mikaelson clan, only someone recently awoken from a coma would have missed the news. Small towns loved gossip. Teenage girls whispered about the duo, theorizing that the tall man not much older than them had to be a Mikaelson; they wished fervently for the girl on his arm to be the sister they'd heard about, blissfully ignoring the fact that brothers were not supposed to look at sisters like that.
She had to be the sister. No other families had moved to town.
After the final bell released the high school she became the instant subject of gossip. She walked into the school with her head held high, spoke to Caroline Forbes and Bonnie Bennett and the new girl, and attended classes. In each class she took the recently vacated seat belonging to one of their own, blending into the sea of students without once being singled out by a teacher.
"Do you think she'll go out for cheerleading?" Sarah Matheson leaned a little closer, bumping shoulders with Adrianne Jessup.
"Why else would she walk right up to Caroline Forbes?" Adrianne sipped her peanut butter milkshake. "She's got some confidence," she carried on in a whisper, "approaching the captain of the cheerleading squad on day one."
"They do have an open spot now that Elena's gone."
"Didn't she quit last year?" Adrianne frowned.
"Yeah, but everyone knows Caroline was holding the spot for her; waiting for Elena to come to her senses."
"Only now she's gone and run off with Stefan's brother," she breathed, giggling around her straw.
"Exactly," Sarah grinned, holding out her arms, "open spot." She zipped her lips together as they approached the Mikaelson duo again on their fourth pass of the square.
"How was school?" He covered her fingers with his palm, ignoring entirely the girls ogling them, or rather him.
"Good," she tilted her head. A coy smirk played at the edge of her mouth. "Except for the fact that I'm a weak behind because someone wouldn't let me out of bed."
Adrianne glanced at Sarah and then back to the pair as they paused beneath the clock tower. The break in action made complete sense to them since by her own admission the girl had been sick in bed for a week.
"I hope you're not insinuating that you were bored, darling," he smirked, spinning in front of her to lay both hands low on her hips; effectively chipping away at the delusions of their unknown audience.
Her eyes fell to his chest as she took a small step in and fisted his jacket. "It was far more enjoyable then the time I couldn't get out of bed."
"I worked very hard to keep you entertained," he teased.
"You don't have to tell me," her smirk melted into a happy grin, "by the time you let me get up I could hardly walk."
"I shall endeavour to stop you from walking altogether in the future," he winked, "in order to dissuade you from leaving our bed in the mornings."
Adrianne coughed, choking on a mouthful of peanut butter blast. Brown slush spewed from her mouth, hitting Sarah in the face until a large hand came down twice on her back.
"Alright, love?"
She looked up into ridiculously gorgeous eyes and noted that being that attractive and unavailable should have been illegal.
"Fine," she coughed, gesturing to her chest, "went down the wrong pipe."
He left her when he seemed sure she was out of danger, returning to his girlfriend.
"What was that about?" Elena cocked an eyebrow.
"Your school mates were under the impression that you were Rebekah," he smirked. "I wanted to see their faces when they realized otherwise."
"They were listening in on that conversation and only figured it out at the end?" She shook her head, calling into question their observational skills. "We've been walking arm in arm for…" she trailed off as she checked her watch, finally realizing how long they'd been strolling. An in exorbitant amount of time considering all of the things they could have been doing instead… in their bed.
"It has been a while, hasn't it?" He agreed. "They must be blind. Shall we return home where I'll cook you dinner?"
"I have been looking forward to a home cooked meal…" she smiled.
Neither of them moved.
Elena's eyes flickered to the clock tower, drawn to the building by a sense of familiarity she couldn't quite place but knew to be magic. She wracked her mind, searching for any spells they might have cast their a thousand years before because Kol could clearly feel it too.
"There's something here."
"What?" He reached for her hand, threading their fingers together. "It feels familiar and foreign. Something I should know, but don't."
"It doesn't feel foreign to me," she shook her head. "It feels like it's part of me… mine."
Kol squeezed her hand, smiling encouragingly.
"Then lets follow the feeling."
Follow the feeling they did. It lead them through the door at the base of the clock and deeper still into the building until they came upon a set of spiral stairs she never knew existed.
Kol used his free hand, flipped the switch for the overhead lights and resorted to the flashlight on his phone when they flickered and died.
Her grip tightened.
He led the way, moving round and round. A chill seeped into her skin the farther they went, indicating the moment they moved underground.
Their shoes touched concrete at the bottom of the steps.
They paused to let the feeling redirect, breathing in decades of dust. A basement surrounded them, not nearly as large as it should have been for the size of the building.
The closest comparison Elena could draw was to a string. An invisible string tied around her heart. The tugs grew stronger the further they ventured.
"Over there," she whispered, following the beam of light Kol had already directed; it shone on the right wall.
Elena laid her palms on the wall and frowned. Magic thrummed up her arms.
"There's something behind it."
She nodded a silent agreement. The wall felt more figment than construct. A single step forward confirmed it. She slid through the wall at first under resistance, but then like a knife through butter, coming out in total darkness.
"Elena?"
"I'm here." She reached blindly into her bag, sifting through notebooks and textbooks in search of her cell phone.
"Where exactly is here, darling?"
"Here is here," she smirked. "I've only gone a single step." Her fingers brushed over pencils and a calculator.
"Well, when I tried to take a single step I hit solid wall."
"Try where I was standing." She grinned, having located her cell phone. The screen lit up at her command, but she dropped it on the floor when Kol walked into her back.
The wind knocked out of her lungs.
Two phones hit the floor, giving her a brief glimpse of wood before cracking.
"For someone who just hit concrete that was a pretty confident step," she held the arms around her waist, rubbing her back against his front as she lowered herself to the floor for the phones.
"Your suggestion implied you had moved out of the way."
"I thought I would have time." She turned his ruined iPhone around, catching him in the beam of the still functioning flashlight. "Figured you'd take a few seconds to find it, affording me a minute to gain some light so I didn't do something like trip and impale myself on something sharp."
"I'd rather keep you away from anything remotely sharp," he chuckled.
"You sure about that?" Elena's gaze flickered to his mouth.
"I can't have you impaled, darling," he smirked.
"And here I thought you enjoyed impaling me." She wiggled her eyebrows.
"That's not the term I'd use…"
"It fits the definition." A giggle burst out, prompting him to join in laughing.
Her arm lowered, revealing a door that hadn't been there a moment ago. At least not from the opposite side.
"I think we might have broken somebody's spell work," she sighed.
"I think I saw a few candles." He murmured an incantation, flooding the space in flickering light.
Elena took a small step back, but held his arms rather than turn, nervous suddenly of what lay behind. His slack expression did nothing to lessen her tension.
After a beat she did spin around because something in that room belonged to them, and that something sat in the smaller box.
She took first one step and then another, closing the distance with Kol at her side. They ignored the shelves and tables that held the candles, walked around the larger box and placed their hands on the lid of the small one.
Intricate spells sealed it, but each melted away beneath their joint magic. The energy extended from within and without, meeting in the middle.
The lid dissolved.
Her hands flew to her mouth, stifling a small shriek.
Kol froze, wanting to reach inside and feeling he should take a step back because what he was seeing couldn't possibly be real.
Could it?
"Elena?" He breathed, coaxing his muscles into action. The tip of his finger glided over a tiny cheek, smooth as down.
The sight of his hand making contact snapped Elena out of her shock. She reached inside and carefully brought the infant out, cradling the babe against her breast.
An emptiness had resided inside of her for a long time, but holding the little girl filled it.
She laid perfectly still. The only sign of life being the steady rise and fall of her frail chest.
Kol's hand cradled the back of her head, unsure, and she remembered the last time he truly held an infant at the tender age of seven. Henrik squirmed and wailed until Esther reclaimed him.
Elena had held her all of a minute, perhaps two, but it was two more than he had ever had.
"Do you want to hold her?" She whispered. A tear dripped off the edge of her nose, staining the off-white blanket.
"I…" his voice sounded choked. "What if I break her?"
"You won't," she sniffled. Her hands moved, shifting their child into his arms.
She appeared so tiny in his hold: delicate. But she would grow to be a powerful witch; one that could have given her grandmother a run for her money.
"She's so small." Hands that had dealt out death and destruction curled protectively around her body. "How long until Freya awakens?"
Elena reached up, gently swiping her thumbs under his eyes. She kissed his cheek and bent to lay another on the baby's head.
"I don't Freya to wake her up."
"But I thought…"
"Freya needed us," she turned reluctantly, scrubbing her hands over the glass she realized was the top of his sister's coffin, "but we're both here, and she showed me the spell. We can wake her now."
"Take her home today," he breathed.
She grinned, bouncing on her feet.
"You know we're completely unprepared for this," he murmured, laughter in his tone.
"So are most of the people in the world."
She lifted candles, still burning, and made a small circle on the table. She crouched near the door for a shard of glass from his phone and moved back, waving to the centre of the circle.
He laid her down gently as if she were the porcelain doll she resembled.
Elena stabbed the tip of her finger and offered up the makeshift blade to him.
"Two drops on each candle, and one on her forehead."
He nodded.
Elena went clockwise as he moved counterclockwise, meeting and overlapping in the middle. Their blood sizzled on contact with the flames. She chanted the words that had been on her mind for a week, watching as the flames rose three inches and curved, arching inward. The protective instinct screamed at her to stop before her child could be burned but she carried on, letting a single drop of blood rest on her forehead. As she continued to chant the flames created a cage of fire, burning bright and violent before retreating. The blood on her brow sank down, absorbing into her skin as the candles extinguished completely.
A moment passed in complete silence; then two. And just when Elena thought she might lose her mind the blanket shifted.
A piercing cry drowned out the whisper of cloth.
What did you think?
Can anyone guess the baby's name? I've had it picked out for forever and it'll be revealed next chapter along with a small dose of Viking history.
