CHAPTER 2

"Marcel!" Nope. It was too early for this shit. "MARCEL GERARD, wake up now!" With a growl of frustration, Marcel the former king of New Orleans and veritable son of Klaus Mikaelson rose from slumber. Rebekah wasn't in the bed, but it wasn't her who was calling him. That's strange.

He moved quicker than the human eye could catch into the kitchen of his and Rebekah's penthouse suite, overlooking Central Park NYC.

Rebekah was there, but it was doubtful she'd be the one who yelled at him since she was holding a beautiful baby girl. Freya and Keelin's baby girl. Which meant…ah shit.

"Hey Auntie, what's good?" he drawled as he turned to face the other two heartbeats he could feel. Sure enough, Freya and Keelin were there too, lunging on the luxurious leather sofa.

"Don't call her that, it makes me feel old," Rebekah mumbled, sparking a snickering fit from Freya and Keelin. Freya was more successfully covering her mirth than her wife.

"You know I like older women," Marcel teased as he lifted his young niece from Rebekah's arms and placing a chaste kiss on his wife's upturned lips. The cooing noises he made at the tender grabby hands of the 18 month-old immediately silenced whatever threatening presence he brought into the room. Not that he would've gotten past Freya, even if violence were on his mind.

After a moment he addressed the reason for his interrupted slumber. "I heard your dulcet tones?"

Freya nodded and traded him her daughter, handing him a steaming cup of coffee. She began without prelude, "Only telepathically, but yeah." Marcel rolled his eyes as he parted from Freya and started gathering ingredients from the fridge. Freya continued, "Something is wrong in Mystic Falls."

Keelin nudged her wife gently before adding, "Hope is fine, but some of the detection spells that Freya set up were bypassed. No known creature can do that."

"Then how do we know anything's wrong if your proximity alerts are dormant?" Marcel asked as he went about prepping breakfast. It was 6:30am, why the hell was everyone awake right now?

"Because of this," Freya intoned as she produced a blood-spattered dagger from her purse. It had a nice pommel, with a detailed wooden hilt, but the blade itself was painfully broad and only sharp on one edge. Sharp, surely, but a little dull to Marcel's aesthetic tastes.

"I feel like I've seen that knife before," Rebekah mused.

Keelin took a single look at it and muttered, "It kind of looks like Commander Lexa's dagger." Nobody commented further along that path, they all remembered how inconsolable Keelin was when she belatedly got around to watching that show. That was a terrifying transformation and subsequent full moon.

Freya shook her head, "It has the blood of several different creatures on it. One trace is human, probably Alaric's man, but there are at least three others I've never encountered before. What's more is that Hope has held this blade. Her magic signature is all over the hilt."

Marcel looked at it for a moment but Rebekah beat him to the punch, "And how pray tell did you acquire it?"

"Davina sensed it since she was close to it, and Kol tore apart the monster who carried it. Some mummy looking thing," Keelin supplied. "He kept the knife at all because he thought 'it looked smashing'."

Marcel nodded, that sounded exactly like the most volatile son of Mikael. "So what do we do with it now? And where are those two?"

"Oh they went to Montreal. Kol was insistent about keeping Davina away from 'unnecessary danger'. But they're a short flight away if things get ugly," Keelin said. Kol may be a hot-headed murderer, but he also officiated her wedding to Freya, so Keelin was willing to forgive his rather brusque disposition.

Freya continued where her wife left off, "Tell Alaric we have it? It obviously involves Hope somehow, but it probably has to do with the Salvatore school as well,"

Rebekah twitches uncomfortably about the potential return to Mystic Falls. Freya realizes what probably crossed Rebekah's mind with a wicked smirk, "So Rebekah, I hear that Matt is a sheriff now." Marcel fixed Rebekah with a curious raised eyebrow.

"How the fuck did you find out about that, it was way before we even knew you existed!" the blonde Original burst out indignantly, much to the laughter of everybody else. Well, Marcel wasn't laughing per say, but he was definitely restraining a grin. He knew where Rebekah's heart lay.

"Kol. And Elijah, and Klaus. They each had some sordid stories about the family's most recent stay in Mystic Falls," Freya replied as she went to help Marcel with breakfast.

It was almost strange to see the two of them making eggs, roasting potatoes, and cooking artisan ham like there was never a blood feud. Like they had never been poised to murder each other.

Keelin and Rebekah shared a smile at their spouses working so well together. Hope really had brought the family together in a way that not even the profound loss of three brothers could seem to spoil. Keelin just wished Hope could really see and understand the aggressively positive impact her very existence had on the Mikaelson family…even if it took a while for that positivity to manifest.

"I don't see why we should all have to go to Mystic Falls," Rebekah argued, clearly still a bit peeved about Freya trolling her earlier with her failed romance with Sheriff Matt Donovan. Marcel pressed a placating kiss to the top of her head as he placed her breakfast in front of her.

"Oh sure, be a gentleman to Rebekah, and leave me with the rest," Freya rolled her eyes as she levitated the other plates laden with food to the table with a fluidity that made the others in the room experience a shadow of envy.

Freya retrieved her daughter with a haughty look on her face she directed at everyone else. Marcel spoke up before Freya could through more shade at him, "I think some of us should go to Mystic Falls."

Freya was poised to argue with him on principle, but quickly realised the intelligence behind Marcel's words. "I concur. It should be the two of us. " Everyone looked shocked for a moment with how easily Freya agreed with Marcel.

Keelin looked a little glum, but also wasn't a fool, she knew it was smartest too. Freya was always the one to dirty her hands for her family, and this time would be no different.

Rebekah peered between her eldest sibling and her new husband. "And you're so quick to agree with this why?"

"Freya is the strongest witch on the planet, and Marcel the strongest vampire. They'll watch each other's backs," Keelin shrugged. Marcel nodded, and Freya rolled her eyes, but it was good enough for Keelin. "But our daughter is staying here." Freya quickly agreed with that. "You're just checking it out, making sure our Hope is safe, and then coming back before Rebekah drives me insane, got it?" Keelin said as Rebekah huffed and lightly flicked a potato at her werewolf sister-in-law.

Breakfast went pretty quickly after that. After their goodbyes, Rebekah was holding her youngest niece, who had since been fed and bathed, rocking her to sleep as Regina Spektor lightly played from the speakers. "They'll be alright Keelin, won't they?" She hated herself for asking, but she needed the reassurance.

Keelin put a solid hand on Rebekah's shoulder and gave a light squeeze. "They'll be fine, and so will Hope." Keelin briefly looked into the deep-seated fear present in the elder vampire's gleaming eyes, and decided some humour was in order. "Got anymore stories about Freya learning how to adult in the 21st century for me?"

Rebekah smiled. Yeah, everything would be fine.