Needed to write this after 3x22, Rebekah and Elijah's hug was so sad, Elijah looked like he was going to cry.
I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.
Rebekah and Elijah were sitting together in the living room of the Mikaelson mansion, neither of them liked it. The house seemed empty now, their brother's artwork still decorated the walls, but now it seemed…. Wrong. Like a reminder that he had once existed rather than a display of his talent.
It had been the night before that Niklaus had been murdered by Alaric Saltzman, or what had become of Alaric Saltzman anyway. He and Rebekah had already been though the arguments of her having killed Elena and tried to kill Matt, although Elijah had to admit that his chastising of his sister was half-hearted. He had cared for Elena, he knew that but he had only met the girl a handful of times, she had killed him, he had betrayed her, she had lied to him, and he had used her. It was not exactly a perfect relationship, not that he and Niklaus' relationship had been perfect either but Niklaus had been his brother, for better or worse, for a thousand years. All he could think about right now was Klaus, and how he could not lose Kol and Rebekah the way he had lost Henrich, Finn and now Niklaus.
He wrapped his arm around Rebekah, she was still crying, since returning to the house the night before she had been unable to stop. Elijah was becoming concerned, she had Klaus had been together for nearly a millennium, if the loss of his brother was difficult for him, he knew it would be even worse for Rebekah.
"We'll be leaving here as soon as Kol arrives," he informed her gently.
"Where will we go?" She wept, wiping at her eyes roughly.
"I'm not sure yet, we can go anywhere, England, France, Russia."
"It won't be the same without him." She spoke the truth they both knew.
"No but…" we can't just lay down and die because he has. He did not say those words but she glared up at him as though he had.
The tense silence was broken by the door swinging open and loudly smacking into the plaster, Kol strode into the room and stared at them both with a mixture of desperation and disbelief.
"Is it true?" He demanded, his intense gaze flickering between the two of them.
"I'm afraid it is." Elijah replied calmly, refusing to acknowledge the stinging behind his eyes.
Kol sank down onto the sofa, on his other side, and turned his face away from them. It did not make much of a difference, Elijah and Rebekah could both still hear his muffled sobs. Elijah put his other arm around his shaking brother and pulled him closer to him, Kol resisted at first, but then Rebekah clasped his hand in hers, and he broke. He turned and faced his siblings, the tears pouring from his large brown eyes, making him seem so much younger.
They sat there all night, they all cried, although they wouldn't admit to it later, they occasionally talked about Klaus, their favourite memories of him, and the past in general.
They had planned to leave the following day, and they were going to, Rebekah had packed everything she needed, they had taken their hybrid brother's sketch books, and their favourites of his paintings and loaded them into the car, when the door burst open more dramatically than Elijah felt was necessary and Bonnie walked in, Tyler Lockwood behind her.
"What are you doing here?" Rebekah rasped, coughing to try and clear her throat.
"Don't worry, I have better things to do than spend my day with you." She snapped.
"I thought you were dead." Elijah addressed the young hybrid. Tyler did not answer, instead he shot Elijah a bright beam, that lit up his whole face. Elijah felt his eyes widen in shocked recognition as he watched Tyler's mouth and saw where the dimples should have been.
"Niklaus." He breathed.
"Hello, Elijah, Kol, Rebekah." He inclined his head arrogantly at each of them, apparently finding the whole situation hilarious.
There was complete silence for a few moments, until Rebekah flew forwards and threw her arms around Nik's neck almost violently. He chuckled and returned her tight embrace. "Missed me?"
She detached herself from him before punching him in the arm furiously, "why are you only telling us this now? We spent all night thinking you were dead." She cried incredulously.
"I had some things to take care of." He replied mysteriously.
"Will somebody tell me what happened? Before I have to kill the pretty little witch." Kol threatened, before Bekah could attack Klaus again, gazing from one member of the room to the next.
He suddenly moaned noisily and clutched his throbbing head, as he realised where the source of pain was coming from, he glowered up at the little witch who smirked in response. He only contemplated killing her for a second or so before deciding that she was probably the only one who knew what was going on and after all, she was very pretty.
"Sorry, I'll hold back on the death threats in future," he promised with mock sincerity.
She rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored him, her best friend had just been turned into a vampire, she had other priorities, one of which being that Caroline was possibly going to kill her for what she'd done to Tyler.
"I knew that Alaric was going to try and kill Klaus, and that we wouldn't be able to stop him. If Klaus was telling the truth about siring Damon, Stefan and Caroline's bloodline then they all would have died, along with my mother, I couldn't let that happen. I switched Klaus into Tyler's body, he's still alive even though his body's dead, and all of my friends get to live."
Elijah nodded once, Rebekah was hugging Klaus again, and she was almost certain that Kol had stopped listening after a certain point and begun staring at her breasts.
Once the witch was gone, the Mikaelsons sat together in the living room, in an almost awkward silence. Nobody knew what to say to anybody else, what was there to say? Niklaus was now in Tyler Lockwood's body, but at least he wasn't dead, the family was back together again, and they were most likely going to be leaving Mystic Falls.
"I'll be the first to say it," Kol ended the silence, "this is strange, even for us."
"For once, you're right." Klaus agreed.
"It's not that strange." Rebekah argued, although she herself did not believe it.
"Yes it is. Our older brother is now a teenage high school student. A really short, teenage high school student. A really short, teenage high school student who you once had a crush on."
"Shut up, Kol!" She hissed.
"Well, this is awkward." Nik pointed out. To prevent the silence from descending again, he carried on speaking. "It's not all that strange. I must point out that I'm still your older brother, and was short before. As for your last point, I really can't think of anything to say, but that's probably for the best."
A burst of laughter suddenly came from Kol, and he practically doubled over, his loud guffaws the only sound in the room.
Elijah raised an eyebrow and stared at him quizzically, but then was distracted by the hysterical giggling coming from Rebekah, before he knew it Kol, Rebekah, Klaus, and eventually he himself had all erupted into laughter, none of them having any idea as to what was so funny.
Unfortunately the good mood could not last forever. Six or so hours later, Klaus sighed and got up from his place on the sofa and headed towards the front door.
"Where are you going?" Elijah asked casually.
"I feel like a drink. Anyone care to join me?" He invited.
"You cannot go outside, Niklaus?" Elijah told him, as though it were obvious. "You no longer have your original strength. Or at least we don't know whether you do or not." He amended.
"I can't think of a better way to find out."
"I can think of several. It's too much of a risk."
"I sired their bloodline, nobody's going to kill me." He disagreed mildly.
Elijah glared at him in exasperation.
"You're forgetting, everybody thinks you're dead. I admit this will be a hell of a funny surprise to spring on them, but everybody is going to think you're Tyler." Kol stated, he grinned, "are you planning on using that to get that Caroline girl into-"
"Kol!" Rebekah objected.
"No, Kol, some of us don't need to trick women into our beds." He quipped.
Kol was reluctantly amused, that was until Klaus pulled the door open. He rushed forwards, shoved him out of the way and slammed the door closed again.
"Kol, what are you doing?" He glared at him disbelievingly, looking surprisingly like a rebellious teenager who had just been grounded.
"You can't go out there." He insisted, for once being completely serious.
"Is there something the matter with him?" Klaus moved his head around Kol to glance at Elijah with a raised eyebrow.
"No, he's perfectly fine." Kol snapped.
Nik glowered resentfully at Kol's arm, still leaning against the door. "Move your arm, Kol, unless you want to risk losing it." He warned. They could probably re-attach it.
Kol growled, baring his teeth, Klaus retaliated, his hybrid fangs descending, his eyes flashing yellow.
"Move, Kol." He snarled around his longer teeth.
Kol's hand shot out and, before anyone could react, quickly snapped Klaus' neck.
"Kol!" Elijah admonished as their brother's body, new body, collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Kol did not appear as abashed as he should have done ,in Rebekah's opinion, the solid punch she delivered to his ribs fixed that.
The next day was an uncomfortable day for everybody. Klaus and Kol were still not talking, however insisted on sitting in the same room as Elijah and Rebekah. Therefore, generously making life awkward for them too.
Rebekah had eventually settled on a programme about people who only ate unusual combinations of food and how difficult it made life for their families. They had only chosen this because every time either Niklaus or Kol said they wanted to watch a particular show, the other would obnoxiously object.
They were about twenty minutes into the programme when Klaus spoke, "it's her own bloody fault, she just has to stop eating hotdogs, that's all she has to do. It's not all that difficult." He exclaimed with frustration.
"Well, you wouldn't know, hotdogs weren't around when you were human. Not that you were ever really human, bastard." They all knew what he meant by that. "It's hard for her, if she could stop eating hotdogs, then she would." Kol defended her.
"Of course, she could stop, all she has to do is stop. Like stopping yourself from being an idiot before you break somebody's neck." He hissed.
"You are such a dick!" Kol cried, glaring furiously at his older/younger ,depending on how you chose to look at it, brother.
"I'm a dick? If I remember correctly, I didn't break your neck."
"You've done it before." Kol reminded him in his extremely annoying younger brother fashion.
"Yes, but I had good reason."
"Which was?" He challenged.
"You're a total arse." He informed him snidely.
"For God's sake, stop it!" Rebekah finally interrupted them." Your constant bickering stopped being amusing hours ago. This is the most pointless argument I've ever heard. Kol, you acted like a moron, nothing new there, Klaus you're overreacting, again, nothing new there."
"I was not acting like an idiot, I was trying to keep him alive." After Kol's outburst there was silence in the room, for the second time in two days, nobody knew what to say.
They were family, they loved each other but they did not talk about it. They never told each other, it was an unspoken truth. They were not like the Salvatores, publicly hating each other but fooling no one, however they were not often open about feelings of affection for each other.
Klaus stared at Kol in disbelief, under other circumstances Rebekah and Elijah would have laughed at how ridiculous he looked. Kol on the other hand, was looking anywhere but at Klaus.
Klaus walked towards him and rested one hand on his shoulder in a manly display of affection. He was stunned when Kol unexpectedly dragged him into a hug. He was too shocked to do anything for a moment, but then wrapped his arms around Kol and patted his back.
Kol flushed when they broke apart and stared seriously at each of his siblings, "if any of you ever tell anybody abut this, I will kill you all." He swore, pointing his finger at them all in turn.
Rebekah was going to reply with a witty comeback but the door bell rang, surprising everyone. It rang again, and again, with an irritated sigh, Rebekah opened it, only for Bonnie to barge in again, towing a large black box behind her.
"What the hell is that?" Kol wondered, walking around the thing and inspecting it.
"Your body." She addressed Klaus.
"What? I thought it was destroyed. I thought I had to live in this body now." He stated with confusion.
"You thought I'd leave Tyler, a guy I've know my whole life, trapped inside his own body with no way of getting it back? No. The witches preserved your mother's body, I did the same with yours. Well, almost the same, it took me a while to restore it, and I had other things to deal with, " she glared pointedly at Rebekah.
The spell did not take long, only a matter of minutes, and Klaus was back in his own, perfectly healthy, body. He admired himself in the mirror, while the others waited for Tyler to wake up. He was extremely bewildered, and very annoyed with Bonnie, until she reminded everyone that she had saved at least a quarter of the vampire race, including all of the vampires in Mystic Falls.
It was a pleasant evening, Klaus and Kol stopped arguing like a pair of old ladies at the hair dressers', Rebekah finally found something interesting to watch and Elijah got some peace.
"You've had the audacity to call me vain in the past?" Kol laughed as he observed that Niklaus was still staring at himself, clearly enjoying the view.
"I'm not vain, I'm just happy to be myself again."
"What you missed your blonde curls and dimples?" Kol mocked.
Klaus grinned, highlighting said dimples, "those too, mainly, I missed my height, I'm finally tall enough to do this." He smacked Kol across the back of the head, not using his full strength, but still enough to hurt. "If you ever break my neck again, I'll spend the rest of our lives embarrassing you every time you ever see an attractive girl. And that includes Bonnie." He smirked knowingly at his brother, who laughed despite himself.
Elijah sighed in satisfaction, if his family had the capability to be normal, he would say that everything was back to it. He supposed he preferred them this way, at least he was rarely bored.
The end.
Had to write this after 3x22, what an episode. Loved that even after everything, Elijah, Kol and Rebekah still wanted their brother back, I'm so relieved that Klaus didn't die, although I'd like for us to have Joseph Morgan back, no offence to Michael Trevino, but I prefer him as Tyler. I'm also surprised to find that I quite like Bonnie after this episode, although it probably won't last.
I'm not sure whether or not I like this, but I decided to put it up anyway.
Please review.