WARNINGS: small scene where a character smokes a cigarette, and if a mention of genital herpes is too much for you, there's that, too.
This chapter introduces Freya and Finn, and their families.
1.1 - a week later
Freya steps out from the chaos of the daycare, into the dingy alleyway that separates it and the funeral home next door.
She needs a smoke, desperately. Outside is the only place she can do it - the kids are exposed to it enough in their homes, she doesn't need to add onto that.
Radley complains about it enough that she's finally starting to take his concerns into mind. She grateful that Radley is so uptight, honestly - it makes him better than his father, better than the man he looks like the most, her father.
He is her son, though - he expresses his dislike for children just like his father, but he's helped raise his younger siblings more than she ever wanted for him.
As she's thinking, she lights up, and takes a puff.
She only has five minutes, so she needs to make the butt last. With Leah's asthma, she's also not really allowed to smoke at home - plus the kids cry when she's gone for too long.
She takes a few more puffs, then scrapes it out and puts the butt back in the box. She puts the box back in her purse, in the place her kids swear is the hardest to get to. She steps inside, intending to put her purse back into her cubby, but she stops dead when she hears her name.
"...Freya Mikaelson, Finn Mikaelson, Elijah Mikaelson, Niklaus Mikaelson, Kol Mikaelson, Rebekah Mikaelson, and Henrik Mikaelson. Please, please help me find them. If you have any information, call me at…."
She stopped listening. Jesus. She hasn't heard any of her siblings' names since she was 17 years old.
Talk about a shock to the system.
A sharp cry pierces the air, and she's sucked back into her job. She promises herself, though - she will look into that guy on the TV, saying her family members' names.
1.2 - a few hours later
"Radley?" Freya sets her keys in the bowl by the door, and takes the ponytail out of her hair. The only baby around here was likely out with his dad.
"Mom?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm in the kitchen!"
"I'm here, too," Nina shouts.
Freya laughs, and pretends to ignore Radley's scolding.
When she enters the kitchen, she sees that Brooke is laying face down on the table, snoring lightly. Her homework, along with Radley's and Leah's, is laid out on the table. Leah isn't in the kitchen, and Radley is sitting next to Nina, on the opposite side of the table from Brooke. "Radley, can I ask for a favor?"
He looks at her cautiously - before Graham, the love of her life, had been in the picture, Freya had moved him across the state for her boyfriends, and she always asked him for favors, usually ones that wouldn't fly anymore - but nods.
She smiles. "Thanks, honey. Can you look up some guy named Leif Trulsson?"
Immediately, his face clears. "Mom, are you serious? Don't you have a phone you can search things on?"
"I do, but I'd rather you do it. You're better at it than me."
He snorts, and pulls out his phone. As he types, he teases, "googling things?"
She doesn't respond, waiting for her answer. Nina takes that moment to tell her about what they did at school - first graders don't have much homework, she mentions, and laughs about it while pointing at Radley. (He pretends to be sad, and she frantically apologizes. Freya suddenly remembers Nik doing that to Bekah, and she has to blink several times for the tears to go away.)
Once Nina is done apologizing, Freya cuts in with a, "what does it say?"
"Well, it says here that he's some Norse dude looking for his grandchildren, apparently they're out in the wind and their father just died…." He reads for a moment, then says, "there's a picture...lemme just…. Oh, my god. Mom, is that you?"
He extends his phone out towards her. He's not wrong - the last picture of the Mikaelson siblings is showing on the screen, showing her sullen, seventeen year old face. Finn is next to her, Henrik in his arms. Elijah is on his other side, with Niklaus at his shoulder. Kol and Rebekah sit at their feet.
Overcome, she just stares at her siblings' faces. She nods mutely, and grabs the phone. Under the picture it says, This is the only picture in the Mikaelsons' belongings that does not have Niklaus' face scratched out. It is also the only photo of all seven children together. Go through this slideshow to see a summary of each Mikaelson, with picture identification, as well.
She swiped, and saw a red circle around her face in the picture. Freya Riley Mikaelson, the caption read. The oldest of the siblings, she was born around 1979 in Mystic Falls, Virginia. In 1996, when Esther (their mother) died and Mikael (their father) went to jail, she was either 16 or 17 years old. She aged out of the foster system without getting adopted or placed in a permanent foster home. Her last known location, in 1999, was in Georgia, USA. If you have any information on her, please come forward.
The next few slides have similar summaries. She doesn't look at all of them - Radley asks for his phone back. He can only stand to see the look in her eyes for so long, she guesses.
"Is that actually you, Mom? In that picture?" She nods. "Who were the other kids?"
She swallows around a lump in her throat. She's never told her children about their aunt and uncles - she never thought she'd see them again, so what was the point?
"Those are my siblings, honey." Her voice cracks; he wisely ignores it.
"I thought you were an orphan, though." His brow creases, and she sees Mikael in him. She sees it more and more every day. The thought of him knowing about his grandfather is terrifying - she can't stand that she has his eyes, so how will Radley feel when he finds out that he's nearly a carbon copy?
"Only since I was seventeen. Before that, I had six siblings - Finn, Elijah, Nik, Kol, Rebekah, and Henrik."
Radley, thankfully, doesn't ask what happened - instead, he asks, "do I have any cousins?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. I haven't spoken to any of them since 1996."
"Wow! Really? Then you have to contact this guy, Mom. You have to."
Freya really, really wants to. But she's scared - what if her supposed grandfather is just as bad as Mikael? What if her siblings don't want to see her?
Radley sees her hesitation. He opens his mouth to speak, but Brooke' snorts in her sleep. He gives her a funny look, then says, "fine, tell Graham. I'm sure he'll tell you the same thing. Just...don't give up this opportunity, Mom. This could be the only chance you'll get to be reunited with them." He looks down at the picture on his phone screen. "Graham won't be home for a little while. Can you tell me stories about them while we wait?"
He gives her the Niklaus Puppy Dog Eyes that she's never been immune to. Sighing, she sits in Nina's vacated seat, and starts talking.
2.1
Spongebob's giggle is replaced by a man talking about genital herpes, and Finn has never been more grateful.
He's already got a headache - hearing three of his six children fight over Dora, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and iCarly, only to agree on Spongebob has not helped at all. The baby is crying somewhere, too, not responding to Sage's cooing hushes, and god knows where the eldest is. Christine, the second to last, is sitting in his lap, watching as he types in more information.
"Who are you looking for, Daddy?" She pokes him on the cheek, and giggles madly.
Lacey, from the living room, screeches, "shut up, Christine!"
Christine's eyes water, and she starts sobbing. Finn sighs and picks her up. He hushes her as he walks to the living room. The eldest, Philip, is passed out on the couch. How, Finn has no idea. Sage swears the boy could sleep through a tornado.
Lacey is sitting three inches from the TV. Grant and Zach have followed her lead and are even closer.
Finn's headache is going full force.
He sets Christine on the couch, and turns to the kids on the floor. "Why are you sitting so close to the TV?" Lacey smirks live she's gotten out of trouble, so he adds, "Lacey, you're definitely not off the hook."
She pouts, so Grant says, "we-llllllll, Phil is on the couch, so we had to sit on the floor, and LAcey thought we should sit close so we can see better." Zach nods his head so hard, he gets visibly dizzy.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. "You can't sit that close to the TV. You could do bad, bad things to your eyes, alright, kids? Boys, come sit over here by the couch. Lacey…." She crosses her arms and rolls her eyes as the boys do as they're told. They're barely out of the terrible two's and three's that all Mikaelsons have, and yet they're much more obedient than their older sister.
She's eight. She already acts just like Freya did when she was that age.
"Lacey, you are not allowed to say shut up. Also, please, do not influence your siblings to do things you know you aren't allowed to do. Now, apologize to your sister."
Lacey huffs, but says, "sorry." She says it like he's forced her with threat of death. She said it, though, he thinks, and that's a win in my book.
He moves to pick Christine up again, and take her back to the kitchen where he was trying to research Sage's family tree. Christine likes to help, so he'll let her sit on his lap while he goes through the hints and such.
However, he's stopped when he hears what must be the final commercial - and commercials have always been a bad thing, until he had to listen to Squidward contemplate suicide all day that is.
An older man's voice says, "I'm looking for my grandchildren. I've never met them, and I'm hoping to find them. They were separated in 1996 - they haven't seen each other in 17 years. Recently, my son, their father, died, and none of them can be found to be told the bad news. Their names are Freya Mikaelson, Finn Mikaelson, Elijah Mikaelson, Niklaus Mikaelson, Kol Mikaelson, Rebekah Mikaelson, and Henrik Mikaelson. Please, please help me find them. If you have any information, call me at…." He says the number, and Finn whips out his phone to dial it.
Sage comes downstairs to hear the tail end of the commercial, and see the picture of Finn and his siblings that he'd thought lost. He wasn't thinking about the picture, though, nor how all of his kids except Adam, who was sleeping in Sage's arms, and Phil, who was still asleep on the couch, were suddenly looking a little frightened.
No, it was none of that. As soon as he heard Freya's name, his thoughts had gone to two places - one, now he could potentially expand his side of the family tree, and two, he was really sick of waiting to see his siblings again.
The phone rang once, twice, before - "Hello?" It's a woman's voice, not the old man's. It's accented the same, Scandinavian if he had to guess. Finn doesn't care though; man, woman, adult, child, he might be about to reunite with his family. Whoever is on the line doesn't matter.
Breathlessly, he answers, "hi. I'm calling about the commercial?"
The woman on the other side of the line gives a shocked sounding laugh. "Wow. Alright, I'll go get my father. He'll be very happy to hear someone has answered his calls."
The line goes quiet, so Finn takes a moment to reassure his family. 'It's fine,' he mouths, and moves to the kitchen. He sits heavily in his chair, pulls up himself on his family tree, and waits.
After another moment, the old man's voice sounds, "my daughter says you're calling because of the commercial?"
"Yes, I am. I - "
"Oh, I forgot to say, my name is Leif Trulsson. What's your name?"
Finn grins, happier than he's been since little Adam was born. "It's Finn. Finn Mikaelson."
0.2
Leif drops the phone. Torunn, his youngest, scrambles to pick it up. Her hovering has one good thing about it - he doesn't have to bend over to get it.
She hands him her cellphone for the second time, and he chokes out, "Finn Mikaelson?"
Torunn's eyes go wide, and she claps a hand over her mouth. Aerona, sitting on one of the beds, stands quickly and makes her way to them.
The man on the other line - with an unassuming southern-American/diluted-British accent, and a noticeable hitch in his breath - responds, "yeah. And you're Leif Trulsson. You said you were my grandfather?"
"I-I, yes, I am." A thought occurs to him, and he says, "I don't mean to be rude, son, but is there any way you could send proof?"
Thankfully, Finn seems to understand. "I could text you a picture, or something?"
"Hold on," he says. To Torunn, he asks, "can your phone get pictures?" She nods, so he tells Finn, "that sounds fine. But how will I know it's you?"
"I'll uh...I'll write down my birthday, and your name. Is that okay?"
"Yes," Leif says, feeling overjoyed.
"Alright, well, I'm going to hang up to take the picture, but I'll call right back. Okay?"
Leif nods before he realizes Finn can't see him and says, "okay."
The line goes dead.
As one, Torunn and Aerona demand, "well?"
"He's sending proof. Will one of you get the picture, please, so we can compare it?"
Torunn fetches it quickly, just in time for Finn to send the picture.
The man in the picture is holding up a paper under his chin, that says, Leif Trulsson, my birthday is October 28th, 1981!
He holds the framed picture in his hands, and Torunn holds the phone next to the picture.
He is, unmistakably, Finn Mikaelson. He looks older, of course, and he's thinned out some, but it's him.
Finn is calling within seconds of their revelation, and Torunn answers the phone, as it's still in her hand. She squeals into the device, "you're Finn Mikaelson!"
He says something, and Torunn laughs.
Aerona and Leif share an excited look - this is just the beginning, and they both know it.
1.3
Graham, when he comes back, doesn't have an answer. "Sweetie, you should do whatever feels right." That's his first response. His second is, "if you want to, then you should, even if you're nervous."
Then, when she demands his true feelings on the matter, he says, "I think it's up to you. Of course, I have an opinion. But it's still up to you."
So Freya forces herself to look at the situation at different angles, and only ends up confusing herself.
She doesn't have an answer after two days have gone by - that is, until Radley says, "look, they found one of them."
Freya lunges towards his phone, which makes Nina cry with laughter. Leah rolls her eyes, and Brooke snorts. Radley smirks, and hands his phone over. Yeah yeah, she thinks, yuck it up.
When she looks at the phone, she sees that under Finn Caspar Mikaelson, there's an "updated summary" above the original one.
It says, Finn Caspar Mikaelson, born 28th of October, 1981, called in on 17/09/13. He said, "I'm Finn Mikaelson." We compared his likeness (from the picture you see below) to the picture you see above, and he was a match. He is 32 years old, the father to six wonderful children, and is a professional genetics/family-lines researcher. It is great to meet you, Finn!
She scrolls, wanting to see that picture. She gasps when she sees it - Finn has grown. He's grown a lot. He's not the 15 year old she remembers anymore. He's a dad, the summary says. He's an adult. Her little brother is an adult.
"I've made up my mind," she says, and dials the number.