I do not own TVD or TO.
Just a little note for anyone reading my other stories. Shades of Blue can be considered discontinued for the time being, but I do have a relatively clear plan for Addicted.
Next on my list to update is Black Hearts followed by Strong Ageless Fearless.
The Back-up Plan will likely be updated in between chapters for my other stories, and addicted is being worked on whenever I have some extra time, but I'm also working fairly steadily for the next three weeks so updates should come every few days.
August 1359,
I have noticed a difference in my siblings. Our bond strains beneath the pressure of our life as vampires. Each day removes them further from the humanity we once possessed.
My sweet sister, Rebekah, has grown quite indifferent to brutality.
My mischievous brother, Kol, seems to delight in chaos.
However, the true problem remains Niklaus. He continues to hide his loneliness with cruelty. Still, I cling to hope that I, as their elder brother, can lead them down the correct path, a path charged with the power of a family united. For if I fail, our family's legacy will end in darkness.
Hayley paused, her finger still tracing the faded lines of ink, when the sound of voices drifted up from the foyer, inwardly wincing when a set of feet paused outside the bedroom door. Peeking up through her lashes she waited for the inevitable telling off that was sure to come.
Elena hesitated, her knuckles millimetres from the door's casing, her eyes dropping to the thick tome spread over Hayley's crossed legs. It was heavy and upside down, but despite only ever seeing his writing once she knew the book belonged to Elijah and was likely a journal. He had once mentioned keeping a journal when he saw hers on the dark wood of her nightstand. Part of her wanted to light into Hayley for what she saw as a huge invasion of privacy, but the other part, the part that still wanted to make an effort told her to keep her mouth shut.
She lowered her hand to her side and cleared her throat.
"I made some muffins," Elena waved in the general direction of the kitchen, "I thought you might like one. I'm not the best cook in the world, but I'm a decent baker."
Hayley blinked in surprise and tilted her head suspiciously, but ultimately nodded and stood up. The combined smells of apples and cinnamon had been making her mouth water for the last few minutes since the mixture had risen to the second floor.
Climbing to her feet she set the book on the bed and followed Elena down the stairs. They paused in the foyer when they were able to make out the conversation happening between the Original siblings.
Evidently Klaus had burned the bodies of the dead vampires in the night while they slept and Rebekah and Kol were not pleased about it; the younger siblings appeared to have a touch of pyromania.
"Was I supposed to leave them in the front yard?" Klaus crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow.
"You could have let us help," Kol drawled.
"I do so love to set things on fire," Rebekah perched on the edge of an antique desk.
"They were my responsibility," Klaus waved dismissively. "They attacked the helpless pregnant girl who's carrying my child."
"I'm so moved by your new-found sense of fatherly duties," Rebekah rolled her eyes, "towards the werewolf carrying your hybrid bun in her oven."
"Have you guys just been arguing over a match, or have you actually come up with a plan?" Elena leaned in the door frame.
"If there's a plan I'd like to know what it is," Hayley sighed. Her eyes flickered from one Original to the next before settling on Caroline who was jiggling her foot.
The look the blonde gave them suggested the siblings had been locked in the petty squabble for some time.
"That really depends on what plan you mean, love," Klaus smirked, "Kol's plans for general chaos, my plan for global domination, or Rebekah's plan to find love in a cruel, cruel world?" His hand came up to catch the pencil before it could sink into his face.
"Chaos is best when unplanned," Kol leaned back in his chair.
"The plan to find Elijah," Elena crossed her arms.
"The good brother," Hayley added. She rolled her eyes when Kol gasped indignantly.
"No, no," Rebekah smirked at her offended brother, "she's got that quite right. Elijah is the good one."
"Yes," Caroline's eyes narrowed, "and he's in the possession of your mortal enemy after you stabbed in him in the back."
"In the front," Klaus held up a finger, "if we're being specific."
"Is there a plan, or what?" Hayley crossed her arms. "You did say you'd get him back."
"Marcel is not my mortal enemy, he is my friend." Klaus rolled his eyes when Rebekah scoffed. "He's a friend who is unaware of my plans to sabotage his hold over the supernatural community of the French Quarter, but a friend nonetheless. As for Elijah, I daggered him to gain Marcel's trust. Had I known he would place my brother in the hands of a teenage witch I would have weighed my options differently, and the plan," he turned to Rebekah and gestured for her to finish.
"The plan is to simply ask for Marcel to return him to us," Rebekah took a seat on the arm of Kol's chair.
"That's not the whole plan, is it?"
Elena felt her eyes widen. Nothing was ever that simple; there was no way Marcel was simply going to hand Elijah back over to them. Caroline had told her the previous evening that the vampire was smart; it would be far more likely that Marcel would want to hold on to Elijah on the very real chance that Klaus were to get 'out-of-line'.
"Nik may be a miserable excuse for a brother," Rebekah scoffed, "but there is none more diabolical."
"Oi," Kol huffed.
"That's only plan A, love," Klaus smiled at the humans, "there's always plan B."
"What's plan B?" Hayley cocked an eyebrow.
A broad smile lifted the corners of Klaus' mouth.
"War."
Elena picked at the apple muffin; crystalized cinnamon clung to her fingers and littered the table top along with the larger crumbs. She glanced up when the silence was interrupted by Hayley.
"You alright?" Her eyes flickered over Elena's pale features.
"I'm fine, thanks," she didn't think about the phrase until she'd said it. Once she realized the words that had slipped from her lips she shook with silent laughs that quickly threatened to turn to sobs. She blinked away her tears and exhaled slowly before answering the incredulous question in Hayley's eyes.
"People used to ask me that every day after my parents died," she took a sip of water, "and I'd always say 'I'm fine, thanks'; I thought eventually, if I just said it enough, I would be alright."
"Are you?" Hayley cocked an eyebrow.
Elena leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. Smiling softly she met the werewolf's gaze.
"Ask me again tomorrow."
Hayley ran her finger along the top of her muffin. There were crumbs around her place at the table, but hers were much smaller than the ones surrounding Elena's hands.
Elena wiped the cinnamon from her fingers and crossed her arms over the table, feeling the crumbs brushing her skin.
"How about you," she focused on Hayley.
"What about me?" The question came off harsher than she meant it.
"Are you alright?" Elena clarified. "You've been stuck in a house with Klaus for, what I'm assuming is, months and carrying a miracle baby. I know that's a lot to process."
"How are you processing it?" Hayley countered.
"Better than I did at first. I didn't believe I was pregnant until Caroline dragged me to the doctor's office a few days before coming down here."
"You didn't believe it?" Hayley looked at her incredulously.
"I thought it was impossible," Elena sighed. "I haven't had many partners, Hayley, and in the last six months I was only with Elijah." Her eyes flickered over the werewolf slowly. The question she had wanted to ask the previous night on the tip of her tongue. "Has anyone asked you how you feel about all of this? Being a mother," she clarified.
Hayley blinked as a feeling of déjà vu took over her. What were the odds the only other person to ask about her feelings was someone connected to Elijah?
"I… I don't know how I feel about being a mother," she swallowed, "I never really had a good one… not like you."
"I had a good adoptive mother," Elena smiled, "but my birth mother was a real piece of work. She kidnapped me for Klaus and then burned alive in front of me."
"My birth parents abandoned me when I was born, and my adoptive parents kicked me out the second I turned into a wolf," Hayley bit her bottom lip.
Elena felt her eyes widen in horror. Parents were supposed to love you unconditionally, and hers had turned their backs on her for something she couldn't control. How long had Hayley been on her own?
"I'm sorry," she cringed at her choice of words, but didn't know what else to say to that. Luckily they were joined by Kol a few seconds later.
"Hello darling," he slid into a chair beside her.
"I was certain you'd be out causing chaos by now," Elena cocked an eyebrow.
"Where did you go?" Hayley eyed the black tote he had placed on the table.
"I ran to the hospital," Kol smirked. Reaching into the bag he extracted a glass tube, a tourniquet, a tube, a needle and an empty bag.
"Do I want to know?" Elena blinked at the medical supplies.
"Nik's planning for war," Kol hooked his foot around Elena's chair, swinging her around slowly, "I'm planning ways to avoid potential bloodshed."
"I thought you worshiped chaos," Hayley watched him push up Elena's sleeve.
"Chaos is all well and good," he smirked, "but I'd rather keep the two of you out the potential crossfire. Once it becomes general knowledge, and it will, that you both are carrying miracle children you'll be seen as leverage by the other side; I'd rather not see my family come to harm."
Elena held her sleeve and watched him tie off her arm. The alcohol swab made her shiver, but she refrained from asking until he had pressed the needle into her vein and the blood began to trickle through the tube into the bag.
"What are you planning?"
"Simple," he set a heavy book on the table. It was old, the pages worn and the leather supple. "I'll be placing your blood on ice and sending it to Virginia using same day shipping."
"Bonnie?" Elena blinked. She had always hated the sight of her own blood, so she focused on the pages as he flipped through them.
"Yes," he nodded, "she can use your blood to seek out Elijah."
"She can?" Hayley tilted her head.
"Yes," Kol turned a page. "The fluid around the babies would be better, but I'm not sticking a needle in her stomach and she still shares their blood. Bonnie can try another locator spell." He pulled a box from the bag and opened it revealing a smaller box inside. "Assuming that doesn't work I'll also send her this."
Elena and Hayley looked inside to see a length of silver, wickedly sharp in the kitchen light.
"Is it a good idea to be sending that across the country?" Hayley frowned.
"Against one of them it's useless on its own," Elena explained. She turned her attention back to Kol and the book that was clearly a grimoire. "Are you sending Bonnie the locator spell too?"
"No," he grinned when he found what he was looking for, "I'm certain she has more than a few spells that will work, and she'll have a couple of options to work with."
Elena picked up a length of knotted rope from the box; it was practically a ball with braided rope hanging from either end.
"It's a sanguinum knot," he explained. Tearing the page gently from the book he folded it and placed it in the box. "If Miss Bennett can successfully untie it using this spell then she will have severed the link between Hayley and the witch bound to her."
"I'll be free?" Hayley blinked suddenly. The news that she would have a chance to run warred with the knowledge that soon people would know of her condition and who had put her in her 'predicament'. The more she thought about it the more leaving New Orleans and her baby's family seemed like a bad idea.
"Thinking of running for the hills, love?" Kol cocked an eyebrow.
"Rebekah might have mentioned it being a good idea," Hayley murmured.
Kol pulled the needle from Elena's arm and gave her a tissue to staunch the small wound. He had just finished packing the box when his phone rang.
"Speak of the she-devil," he sighed with a smirk before placing the call on speaker: "Bex."
"Have you heard from him yet?" Rebekah's voice was surrounded by street traffic.
"No," he scoffed. "Were you expecting that I would?"
"Hold on," Rebekah sighed. They heard her asking Caroline how to add another call, and after a moment the line clicked on. "For the love of Mary Magdalene, Niklaus, how long does it take to ask a simple question?"
That's a new one, Elena stared at the phone; anxious for the reply. Klaus' voice came off as jovial, but she had been on the receiving end of his schemes and detected the tone of malice underneath.
"Much longer than you'd think, considering the answer was, as expected: no. Marcel's man, Thierry, is suspicious. He thinks you killed ten nightwalkers."
"That's ridiculous," Rebekah scoffed.
"Yeah," Kol chimed in, "she only killed seven, and I killed two. You're responsible for the last one."
"How goes the bleeding?" Klaus' tone turned lighter.
"I'm not doing your dirty work, Nik," Kol rolled his eyes. "You want to turn a minion then you can do it yourself, or compel your other minion to do the job."
"Why the bloody hell would I do that when you're right there in the house? Don't think I can't hear Elena and Hayley's hearts in the background. And I've already compelled young Joshua; he's in the cellar as we speak, but the process is taking too long, and you, little brother, are an expert in making people bleed."
"I have other things to do," Kol tapped the table. "You'll have to deal with your little pet on your own."
"Are you telling me you don't want to take an active role in this war?" Klaus chuckled.
"I am," Kol shook his head as if his brother could see the action.
"So it's definitely war, then?" Rebekah sighed. "Can't I just kill Thierry?"
"He's playing friendly, Rebekah, if we kill Marcel's favorite son he'll catch onto us, so yes, sister, it is war. Do you know what to do with the witch?"
Elena could hear the smile in Rebekah's voice; it sent a chill down her spine. Silently she prayed for whatever soul would be on the receiving end of the vampire's wrath.
"I believe I do."
"Excellent," Klaus exhaled. "You manage Sophie Deveraux, and I'll take care of the next step since Kol has decided to be completely useless."
"I'm still here," Kol crossed his arms and glared at the phone. "Caroline can you hear me?"
"Of course I can hear you."
Elena could practically feel her best friend's eye roll.
"Fantastic, darling, I'm going to need you to hurry back to the plantation. I need your help with something."
He hung up before anyone could ask what he wanted from the baby vampire, but that didn't stop Elena from voicing the question.
"I've come to a decision," he explained. Reaching for his phone he pressed a few buttons to make the necessary arrangements. "I'm thinking this," he nodded to the box, "would be better hand delivered."
"You want Caroline to take all of this to Mystic Falls?"
"Didn't she swear not to leave Elena alone with the oldest vampires in history?" Hayley crossed her arms.
"She can be there and back in ten hours," Kol turned to the door when the woman in question appeared.
"I can be where and back?" Caroline cocked an eyebrow.
"Mystic Falls, love," he picked up the box. "I would be very grateful if you would take this to the little witch. If you leave now you can be back before midnight."
He followed her quick gaze to Elena.
"I'll be fine, Care," Elena stood up and cleaned the mess she had made, "please take it. Bonnie might be able to find him with the contents."
Caroline pushed her hair behind her ear before nodding.
"I assume I'm taking a plane," she turned to Kol.
"Private jet," he smirked. "I'll take you to the airport and it will wait for you at the air strip in Richmond. There will also be a car lined up for you when you touch down."
"That was fast," Elena cocked an eyebrow.
"I haven't actually taken care of the car yet," he shrugged, "I'll line that up when she's on the plane."
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