A/N: 1x08/1x09: Because Wow (as in, on the fence about to for about 8 episodes four years ago watching it for the first time, and then WOW was i no longer on the fence suddenly). Also I wrote this in back in July/August, reworked for OG appreciation (so it might be on my tumblr - wontbepublished - but its gonna be posted a second time if it is lol)

December 2011

Rebekah meets him outside, Hayley standing a few feet behind him. All Elijah wants to do is shower, change, somehow impress upon Niklaus that he did not mean anything by the so-called accusations that were made in the bayou, but dread fills his heart when he sees Rebekah standing on the porch, her arms folded in front of her, fear in her eyes.

"I've done something, Elijah," she says, her voice low, maybe so Niklaus will not hear them, maybe because it is all she can manage.

Elijah closes the distance between them, swiftly, laying his hands on her shoulders. Hayley is only a few steps behind him. He matches her tone when he says, "What is it, Rebekah? What did you do?" It's not an accusation.

Rebekah chokes out a single sob before telling Elijah how she lured Klaus to the compound, how she and Marcel planned to bury Klaus in the home Marcel had started to build for the two of them. Elijah glances up to see Niklaus peeking out of the upstairs window, glowering down at them, the three of them.

"I'm sorry, Elijah," Rebekah chokes. "I've made it worse. I just – I couldn't take him any longer." One tear is gliding down her face, the one that will be forever young – forever eighteen and trusting of her older brothers, that wants to love Niklaus no matter what he does to her, to them.

Elijah sighs and wipes the tear from her cheek. "We will face him together," Elijah promises, his voice low enough that even hybrid ears would have trouble hearing. "Go upstairs, I'll be right behind you." He presses a kiss to her forehead, and watches her takeoff up the stairs where Klaus begins the tirade he has no doubt been planning all morning.

Elijah sighs again and turns to Hayley. "I would wait out here, if I were you," he says, trying on a smile, seeing if Hayley buys the little bit of levity he is trying to convey. "It may get ugly." Hayley grunts and throws herself onto the front step. She doesn't say anything snarky in response; she's seen too much, too closely into their lives with Niklaus to fall for it. She knows them all too well now. How dark, how grim her future must look.

When he gets to his siblings, Klaus already is poised to dagger Rebekah again, his voice desperate, the dagger pointed at her face. She cannot escape his hold, and she is too scared to even try.

"Niklaus, don't you dare," Elijah tries, approaching his brother the way he would a wild animal. He tries, tries so hard, to be firm with his brother, to guide him into making the right choices, to protect him, at all costs, always.

Klaus reacts the way Elijah expected him to, backing away from Elijah, brandishing the dagger at him, at Rebekah. "Or perhaps it should be you, brother," he says, his eyes wild, his voice rising like he's trying not to yell, to snarl. Klaus backs up towards the window, Rebekah slinks behind Elijah, terrified. Elijah can manage fear, even if Niklaus does seem to be adamant on daggering at least one of them. Let it be him. He can't bear for Hayley to be dragged into the middle of his brother's delusions. He can't bear for Klaus to suffer if he makes Rebekah suffer again. "Stealing my child away with every fawning moment of tenderness you show to Hayley."

Hayley, outside, sulking on the front step. Elijah could almost laugh, if he could find a single ounce of humor in the cornered look in his brother's eyes. As if Hayley asked for any of this. "This has nothing to do with Hayley," Elijah says. This is a warning. He will not stand by and let Niklaus harm her.

"This has everything to do with her!" he shouts, before the words have even had time to settle in the air between them. Rebekah gasps softly behind him, and the room goes deadly quiet. As it always does when Niklaus loses his grip slightly. He's still brandishing the dagger, and Elijah can feel Rebekah growing bolder behind him. He hopes she and Klaus can stop from arguing for long enough that Elijah can keep Klaus from doing anything he regrets, but Rebekah is almost as impulsive and stubborn and Niklaus – almost as likely to act out of hurt and fear as he is, almost as likely to strike where it hurts. If Klaus notices his sister gearing up to fight him, he doesn't say anything, only continues. Elijah will take it, as long as it is directed at him, and not a Rebekah. Not at Hayley. "She's adored you," he says, his voice barely more than a whine. "Since she's arrived. And now my child," he says voice rising with every word, tears welling up in his eyes. "My blood, will grow up to call you father!"

Rebekah steps out from behind Elijah, brandishing this new information – this new puzzle of Niklaus' psyche fallen into place – the way Niklaus brandishes those daggers. She learned long ago that if she cannot dagger or kill Klaus, then at least she can hurt him, at least she can make him feel a fraction of what she feels every time he drives a dagger into one of their heart. Maybe later her heart will break for the brother they once knew, the way Elijah's is now. Elijah cannot imagine what to do now, as tears begin to fall from Klaus' eyes. He's doing a good job, slinking back into the shadows so they will not see, but Elijah knows, he always knows, except how to help his brother – not really. How can he make Niklaus see the vision he has for him, a future where he loves his daughter without the millennia of baggage they carry with them everywhere. Where Niklaus learns what a father is supposed to be like – a man who loves, who protects, instead of one who singles Niklaus out as a problem and a mistake and hunts him around the globe until only paranoia and loneliness exist in a man who used to be so gentle.

"Has history taught you nothing? We don't abandon you, Nik, you drive us away," Rebekah is saying, and maybe Elijah underestimated her, a moment ago. Maybe she doesn't just want to cause Niklaus pain; perhaps she wants to knock some sense into him. At least Rebekah's words give him pause, instead of driving him further into a spiraling rage.

He lowers the dagger at last, defeated. Elijah notices that there is still blood on Niklaus' hands and his neck, where he missed it when cleaning himself up. "Is that so?" he asks, and it feels like a genuine question – not a trap, not Klaus trying to get them to rise to his bait. "What have I done lately, other than cooperate?" he continues, his voice breaking a little. "Bow down to you, brother, to make up for daggering you?" Tears begin to fall from Klaus' eyes in earnest now. After all this time, after everything Niklaus has done, it hurts Elijah to see his brother hurt, to fight against his own nature of self-preservation, against his fear and his pride, and try to apologize, in his own way. "For the greater good of our plan, to reclaim our home!" Klaus continues, and there is no point trying to stop him. All Elijah can do is wait, listen, pretend that this display doesn't gut him, that after a thousand years of Niklaus lashing out in just this way, Elijah would choose the dagger every time.

Klaus turns on Rebekah, who stiffens, letting her brother drag her through the mud, her choices, her foolish, lovesick heart. Her choice of Marcel over him has been dragging behind the both of them for over a century. "He controls the empire that we built! That he took!" he says of Marcel. He takes a deep rattling breath. His cheeks are wet with tears he doesn't know are there, or won't acknowledge. "In the one moment you could have chosen to stand by me, to believe in me, and believe that my intentions for my child were pure," he chokes out, his jaw locked in an anger the Elijah has never seen his brother contain. In his own way, Elijah figures, this is an apology and a desperate cry for one of them, maybe both of them, to tell him that he was justified in biting Elijah, for stranding them in bayou and then tearing Marcel's vampires to shreds. That he would be justified in daggering both of them, and leaving them in coffins until his child is grown. That the fact that he isn't, isn't just mercy – it's kindness, grace. Humanity.

Elijah feels something else, too. Shame. Deep, and dark, and slippery. He shouldn't have suggested, even for a moment, that Niklaus wanted anything more than family. It's all he's ever wanted, and it's all Elijah has ever wanted for him –a stranger, and an outcast even among family. It's why he made the hybrids in the first place. If Rebekah suffers now, for an accusation that two more seconds of thought would have shown him were absurd, it will be his fault, not Niklaus'.

"You decided to stand against me," Klaus continues, his voice going low, dangerous. In spite of all the shouting Niklaus has done over the centuries, Elijah knows he's at his angriest, most dangerous, most unpredictable like this, raw, exposed, quiet. "To stand with my enemies." Niklaus steps towards Elijah, gets right in his face. Elijah doesn't flinch, unwilling to give his brother that satisfaction, terrified what would happen if he showed him that he was afraid. "I wanted our home back," he breathes. "And now I have it, and I'm going to live there," he says, his voice shaking. "And the two of you can stay here together and rot."

Niklaus offers Elijah the dagger, his voice light, daring Elijah to protest. Elijah simply takes the dagger, looking away from Klaus, his tears, his fear playing so clearly on his face. If it makes Niklaus feel better, makes him feel that he's accomplished anything, Elijah will let his brother walk away. Guilt swallows him whole, as Klaus sniffs loudly, pushing past him and Rebekah, thundering down the stairs. Is he guilty for doing this to Klaus, for accusing him, for turning his back on him? For a perceived threat to his daughter, or his kingdom, or the girl, in spite of his insistence that he has no interest in pursuing Hayley?

Or is it something else, the old guilt, from a time he can barely remember. Guilt for things he knows, reasonably, he could not control. For not protecting him from Mikael, from Esther. From becoming the kind of man who sobs in hallways where his siblings cannot see him, but can very well hear him, and brandishes threats of violence in place of affection or love. There is fear there too, along with the guilt, that Elijah has finally pushed his brother too far. He is not ready to become a father, he is not in the kind of place where he can accept that responsibility of love, and it is Elijah who pushed this on him. He may very well become a worse father than Mikael ever was, and Niklaus knows this. It's why his voice trembles when he threatens Hayley outside. It's why he wipes his face of fresh tears before driving back into the city, to live in an empty home.

Rebekah breaks the suffocating silence, once they can no longer hear the sound of tires on pavement, the hum of the engine. "What are we supposed to do now?" She left her life in Mystic Falls to find Elijah, and she found both of them – and a werewolf with more fire than Niklaus knew how to handle. Whatever softening feelings towards Niklaus had appeared in the last few weeks, they were gone now, replaced with anger. "I can't believe him! Leaving us here, acting like we're the worst thing that has ever happened to this family! Like he –"

"Enough, Rebekah," Elijah sighs. He is tired. Tired from his run in with Niklaus' fangs, and almost getting daggered again, and having to stay and watch Klaus self-destruct over and over again in front of him, knowing that any assurance from either of them would only make it worse. Elijah let himself get distracted by Hayley, and Niklaus acted out, and Elijah is afraid that he will take it out on her, if either of them make a wrong move. He feels very much like he's back to walking on eggshells around his brother. He had thought, earlier this week, things were getting back to the way they were before they fled New Orleans a century ago. Klaus less explosive and more willing to follow Elijah's lead, more willing to let Elijah keep him in check instead of resisting.

Oh well, Elijah thinks. Back to the start, and not for the first time.

"Nik's insane, Elijah, I don't know why you let him speak to us like that, I don't know why you just let him take Hayley," Rebekah fumes. "He may not want to harm her now, but as soon as that baby is born, Hayley is in danger. And what if he changes his mind?"

"He won't," Elijah says, still staring at the place his car had been parked, feeling the weight of the dagger in his hands. What is he to do about his immortal little brother? He can do nothing but scold, and fear retribution. Elijah turns to face his sister and is shocked for a moment to see her crying, shaken from their encounter, or else heartbroken. Maybe she too, feels guilt for their brother's volatility, the way he's been chasing his tail for centuries, looking for something – anything – that will make him happy. Maybe they both could have done more. "For now, we must let him…cool off," he says, trying out the expression. It seems fitting for Klaus. "In a few days, maybe, he will want us. Until then, we must protect that child in any way that we can."

Rebekah heaves a dramatic sigh and Elijah smiles at her weakly. "You will do these things, brother, not I," she tells him pointedly. "I am tired of living my life for a man who only cares about me when I please him."

They both know that's an oversimplification of the problem at hand. After all, in this instance, Rebekah did try to lock him a way for the length of his child's life. Elijah squeezes her shoulders gently in comfort. "Well," he says dryly. "It is Christmas after all. I suppose I can let you have this one thing."

It's Christmastime, Klaus muses, and in spite of his feud with his siblings, it's not the worst he's ever had. He tries to pride himself on his lack of sentiment for human inventions like holidays, but Rebekah has always insisted that they try to be as human as possible. He wonders how that will change, when he is a father, if he will want to give his daughter traditions to fall back on, something to celebrate.

Although, it's likely that he won't live long enough to see his daughter's first Christmas, if Hayley has her way with him. If looks could kill. Klaus shakes his head, and puts on his most charming smile for her.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she demands, snarls. She is always a little wolf-like. Angry and snapping at the heels of anyone she thinks she can defeat. It's funny that she thinks that she can take him. She slams her fists on his chest as he tries to sidestep her. He looks away as he winces in pain. "Killing all wolves? What will that accomplish?"

Anger blazes inside of Klaus for a moment, and he struggles not to grab Hayley by the throat and drag her outside. Precious cargo and all. "What it will accomplish," he snarls back, flicking Hayley's hands off of him. "Will be the end to this rumor your friend Tyler Lockwood started about how I don't care for my child. As I already explained, no werewolves means no hybrids, and all the witches and the vampires in the quarter can rest easy knowing that all I want for my child is for her to live."

"Without a pack?" Hayley wonders scathingly.

"She'll have us," he insists, frustrated with Hayley's allegiance to wolves over her child, over him. He is trying to protect her, to protect both of them. "A family."

"Call off the vampires," she insists.

"No."

"Fine," she snaps. "I'll just go rescue them myself." Hayley whips around to leave, and Klaus moves to stop her, bracing her arms to keep her from moving.

He can hear the wild fear in his own voice when he speaks next. "You will do no such thing!" he shouts. "The vampires may not harm you, but if you go out there I cannot protect you. I cannot stop them from harming our child and making it look like an accident!" Hayley squares her shoulders and sets her jaw. She shrugs out of Klaus' death grip and glares at him, turns away, slamming up the stairs to her room.

"Niklaus," says Elijah's voice, muffled by sounds of the swamp and the static over the phone. "Come home."

"I am home," he answers automatically, still reeling from Elijah's accusations.

"Rebekah and I are in the bayou, rescuing some wolves," his brother continues, plowing ahead like he hasn't heard a word Klaus has said. It's one of Elijah's favorite moves when Klaus is being especially difficult. "It may appear you have been too hasty."

"And why is that?" Klaus asks. He's not really interested, and his laugh feels hollow even to him. "You have soft spot, suddenly, for wolves? Obviously not on my account." It's a touch more bitter than Elijah perhaps deserves, but he can't help it. A millennia denying Klaus' nature, ignore the plight of werewolves all over the world, and one pretty face later and he's undermining Klaus' rule.

"I will explain everything when we see you," Elijah gives as an answer, and he hangs up the phone. There's nothing for Klaus to do except wait around, wondering what Elijah could possibly mean or go back, face his brother and question him. The werewolves are turning out to be more trouble than they're worth, though they've never been worth much to him. And always a lot of trouble.

There is nothing to do here, since he moved all of their things into the compound with him. Only an old piano that desperately needs tuning.

It's probably a trap, he thinks, holding his mother's ring in his hand. After all, the only thing that woman ever did to him was hurt him, kill him, bind him. Elijah weaves him a story of a werewolf they rescued in the bayou, someone who is descended from the same pack as Klaus.

Elijah seems to mistake his reverie for vulnerability, a mistake he makes all too often. "I beseech you brother, please come home."

He looks up at his brother, standing over him and snarls. "What home? This pathetic substitute?" Elijah withdrawals. "In spite of all of your doubts, all of your attempts to thwart me, I have reclaimed our true home." His treacherous siblings come in speaking of true fathers, showing him a ring that belonged to a woman who hated him, a man who abandoned him and let Mikael ruin him, while he sleeps in his bed, in a home he built. He is proud of this, and his siblings still feel the need to belittle him. "I took back the entire city," he says, smiling at the ring. Every single member of his family has done nothing but get in his way, destroy whatever happiness they could, and so he has done this thing on his own. The fact that it makes Elijah bristle makes this victory even sweeter.

"You have the audacity to boast of your victory," Elijah says, toeing the line between noble indignation and personal, filthy rage. "When the mother of your child is remains your prisoner?"

"It all comes down to the pretty little wolf, doesn't it?" Klaus says, managing to not roll his eyes. His brother's affections are transparent and annoying, at least in this case. He cannot use Hayley against him, though Elijah seems to have no qualms of using her as leverage.

Rebekah is intervening before it can get ugly. A shame. He wishes to tell Elijah some lies he has demonstrated that he is all too eager to believe – that he will discard Hayley the moment his daughter is born, that he will use his daughter as a human blood bag. Maybe then Elijah will retaliate in a manner that he knows his brother thinks he deserves.

He pushes himself away from the piano. "I have had enough of family to last me a lifetime," he tells Elijah, brandishing the ring out in front of him. "Why on earth would I want anymore?" He leaves the ring on the top of the piano and stalks out of the room.

He's not sure what he'd do, without the anger. Probably break down in front of his family again, their apologetic stances and pleading words enough to make him give in. At least the anger is constant, the one thing he can always count on. Klaus stalks out the door, furious. He may as well go kill the werewolves himself, since it's them that have given him this anger. His one companion.

And regret, a little seed of it always just about to take root.

He knows Elijah is here visiting Hayley, but it does not stop the shock of seeing his brother again so soon. Annoyed at his presence, at what Klaus is sure is just another lecture coming from his brother. He bristles at the sound of Elijah stopping at the foot of the stairs.

"I accused you of having ulterior motives for your child," Elijah says. Klaus swallows, turns to look at Elijah. Something close to regret gets stuck in Klaus' throat, and he can't seem to manage to unstick it. Elijah pauses, takes a deep breath. "I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Klaus cannot think of the last time Elijah apologized. (Klaus cannot think of the last time any of Elijah's actions truly warranted an apology, either, or at least, weren't at least as bad as something that Klaus had no intention of apologizing for, but still, Elijah, deigning Klaus worthy of an apology. The miracles never cease.) He smiles a little, ignoring the stinging in his eyes. "I imagine that must have been hard for you to say," Klaus answers, not accepting or rejecting Elijah's apology outright. But still.

Elijah huffs a laugh. "You don't make it easy to love you brother," he says.

"And yet you are obstinate in your desire to do so."

Elijah doesn't say anything to that. The conversation is over. He might as well go, but as always, Elijah is standing there, waiting for him. Waiting for him to return the sentiment, waiting for him to let him go. Klaus is trying to pretend his ears aren't ringing with the sound of Elijah using that word. Love. As if he's worthy of it. As if he hasn't done everything in his power to push his siblings away. As if he knows that it's just what he needs. As if the only thing separating him from true happiness is Elijah's love.

"When you are ready, if you should be so inclined," Klaus says, tilting his head away from his brother so he will not see the tears forming in his eyes. He is not yet ready to admit, and certainly not ready to admit it to Elijah, that he has missed them, in the mere days that they have been apart. "Both you and Rebekah are welcome to join me here." He turns immediately, unwilling to know if Elijah will reject him again. If they do, he's not sure even his daughter will be able to save him.

Elijah stands, a little dumbstruck, watching his brother ascend the stairs to his bedroom, the one he lived in for nearly two centuries. It's the first moment since they've returned that he feels at home, that things may finally fall back into place.

He will move in tomorrow morning, with Rebekah. It will be good for all of them, to live under one roof again. And with Hayley, and the child when she is born.

There may be an end to his eternal quest in sight.

A/N: Traditionally, I tackle the theme of love for week two. But, uh, Elijah loves Klaus.