Much longer chapter here. Warnings: small anxiety/panic attack, and a minor mention of child abuse.

5.1

Kol steps off the plane and wants to melt. Dammit, why is L.A. so hot?

It's the price you pay for seeing them, he reminds himself. And it's a good enough reason, he supposes. He starts walking to baggage claims, and tries to ignore the looks people are giving him for his coat and jeans. It was cold when he got on the plane, alright, people? He isn't crazy.

He picks up his bag, buys a piece of candy to tide over his caffeine addiction, and sets off towards the front doors. His parents should be there, waiting for him. His thoughts stray to the paps; god, he hopes they aren't there. Or if they are, there aren't many. He's already gotten in trouble for shielding himself from them; if his parents are having any trouble at all, he'll -

His publicist calls as he's ranting to himself. He attempts to balance his bag and his candy in one hand - it's difficult, but he's got it. "Hello, dearest. How are we today?" He jokes.

Taylor is silent.

"Fine, be that way. What can I do for you?"

"I need you to tweet something about the Mikaelson Manhunt." Kol stops dead, and coughs harshly at hearing his true last name. He ignores the glares of the people who bump into him, and steps off to the side. Taylor takes it as him disagreeing. "Listen, Cole, it will make you look good. Lots of celebs are doing it. Helping some little old man find his grandkids makes you seem compassionate and - "

"What in the hell are you talking about, love?" He rasps out. He drops his bag to the ground, and stuffs his candy in his pocket. It's his weird way of making sure he's giving his full attention - he can't do that if he has things in his hands.

"The Mikaelson Manhunt? Leif Trulsson, little old guy from Norway, looking for his estranged grandchildren…? How do you not know any of this?"

"I've been on a plane - "

"This has been a thing for at least two weeks, Cole. Don't give me that 'I've been on a plane' BS."

Kol sighs heavily, and rubs a hand over his face. "Why is it called 'The Mikaelson Manhunt', exactly?"

"Because that's the last name of the grandchildren. Their names are Freya, Finn, Elijah, Niklaus, Kol, Rebekah, and Henrik Mikaelson. He's - "

"Dammit, Taylor. Does this guy have a website, or something? I'll do it, I just don't have time right this second." More like, I don't want to deal with the repercussions of this right now.

"Yeah, I'll send the details to you. Sound good?"

Kol lies, "sounds good."

5.2

James and Kathy Henderson had taken Kol in when he was a scared little 5 year old. They'd renamed him Cole Nathan Henderson (not much of a stretch from Kol Nathaniel Mikaelson), and they'd fed, clothed, and comforted him.

They were his parents, even though he didn't call them Mom and Dad. After what had happened, he'd vowed three things - he didn't have a Mom, he didn't have a Dad, and he would never have children.

James and Kathy were cool with it, thank god. They'd been so kind to him since they met him that he'd tried his best to be as good-behaviored and easy to take care of as possible. (He hadn't done that with Mikael; no, he would break shit around the house and scream as loud as he could about the littlest things just to piss him off. If Mikael was going to ignore his existence, Kol was going to make it hell on earth for him.)

So when Kol sees that there isn't any paps around their car, he is eternally thankful. He doesn't have the brainpower to deal with them right now.

He throws his stuff in the trunk, and slides into the backseat. Hailie is already there, smiling widely at him. He hugs her, happy to see his adoptive sister, but he doesn't put his best effort into it.

"Hey bro. You okay?" She frowns at him, and her freckles show adorably.

He ruffles her natural hair. "Just jetlagged, you know how it is."

She nods, accepting his fib. James and Kathy don't, though.

"So, Cole," Kathy says, turning around partially as James drives off to their house. "How's the season going?"

"Oh, it's great. Getting to act side-by-side with the likes of Tina Fey, Bruce Wills, etc, is awesome. And Bill Hader is fuc- freaking hilarious."

Kathy gives him a look at his almost slip, but doesn't comment on it. "I saw that you broke character on the last episode."

"Ah, yeah. Miley Cyrus really got to me, you know? That accent she did…." He blows out a breath. "Man, I got so much shit for that."

"Cole." James reprimands.

"Sorry, sorry, I got so much shite for that."

He cackles at the unimpressed looks James and Kathy give him. Hailie smiles, clearly amused.

After a moment's pause, Kathy asks bluntly, "then what's the problem?"

Kol's face drops. "What? There's no problem."

"Yes, there is. You came out of the terminal looking like you were about to keel over. So what's wrong?"

Kol blurts, "do you know anything about the Mikaelson Manhunt?"

James shakes his head, "I've heard of it. What about it?"

He says, "well, Taylor wants me to tweet about it, to help my image. I don't know anything about it."

Kathy shrugs, "sorry kid."

"It's cool," he waves it off.

Hailie, on the other hand, says, "well, Leif Trulsson got a call about a month ago, it was some guy saying his son, Mikael, had died in prison. Their daughter-in-law was dead, that's why he was in prison in the first place, so their kids were put in the system, but they'd all aged out or been adopted. He's looking for them, so he can reunite them. He's already found two - Freya and Finn, I think. The eldest two."

The thought of his siblings does something to him - instantly, his heart starts pounding. He loses his breath, and his awareness of the people in the car with him lessens to almost zero.

Kol pushes himself forward, so his head rests on the back of the passenger seat. It doesn't help like he wants it to, but he can't think of anything that will help, so he doesn't move again after that.

Hailie immediately starts rubbing his back - his anxiety is old news by now, and she knows well how to deal with this.

He barely notices as tears start to fall, and his chest gets tighter. He's just thinking about his siblings, about being ripped away from them like they all meant nothing, like it was perfectly okay to separate them.

God, Nik's screaming and Bekah's sobs were the worst sounds he'd ever heard, even more than Mother's -

"Cole, look, there's a red car. Oh, and there's another one. That's two. Can you help me count, baby? There's a third, and a fourth…."

Kathy's voice cuts off his bad thoughts. He drags his head up, and looks out the window. There's a red rust bucket next to them, so he chokes out, "five."

Kathy nods encouragingly. He says, "six," when he sees a red SUV, and "seven," when a fire truck passes by them.

Hailie keeps rubbing his back the whole ride home.

Ugh.

3.2

Matthew goes down for his nap roughly - that is to say, he cried, demanded Elijah read him Cat in the Hat, and then pouted. Elijah just left, trusting him to eventually fall asleep.

His baby monitor says he does just that after about ten minutes of whimpering passes by. (And it's not like Elijah wants to leave him alone, crying, but Matthew has to take a nap. He won't be getting out of it that easy.)

Elijah takes the time to check the news - for some reason, E! News wants him to know that Cole Henderson has arrived safely back home. Elijah doesn't follow the lives of celebrities, especially not SNL ones, so he isn't sure why it comes up.

He shakes his head, exasperated, and moves on.

Under that, the headline says, "Freya Mikaelson FOUND!" That's definitely not a coincidence, he thinks, and clicks on the link.

The first thing he sees is a picture of a woman that he knows is Freya without having to consult the caption. She's older than she was when he last saw her, he thinks.

And that's stupid, because of course she is. It's been, what, 18 years? No, 17. But he can't help his stupid thoughts, not when he sees her face and is reminded of tea parties with her and Rebekah, and threatening Finn with Kol's diaper while Nik and Freya laughed until they cried.

He looks at the article, not really reading it. He finds a link to a website, and clicks on it. It takes him to a page that says "MIKAELSON MANHUNT" at the top. There's a row of links at the top, so he chooses the first one at random.

A picture of Elijah and his siblings shows up. He swallows, and looks at the little caption. When it says something about Niklaus' face being scratched out, he scowls. He remembers Father going through the baby books and purposefully removing Niklaus from their history. He'd been so angry, he scratched out Father in one picture. He'd received his first real beating, and he'd never done it again. (Now that time has passed, he's angry at himself for giving up after one punch. Niklaus had gone through so much more. He has to remind himself that he was just a little kid, barely 11 years old. It wasn't his fault.)

He has to force himself to power through the rest of the caption. When he swipes, he finds that there's an "updated summary" of Freya Riley Mikaelson.

He reads it several times. His big sister is a mother of five, now, living a state over from where they'd last all lived together.

Shell shocked, he goes onto the next one. It's Finn. He's got six kids himself, a job in genealogy, and was the first one found.

He moves onto the next one. It's his, he realizes. There's a circle around his face on the picture denoting which of the boys he is. The summary tells him they know nothing of him, just that he'd traveled from Virginia to Portland after Mother's death.

The summary ends with a plea for information. At the bottom of the page, a phone number is listed, followed by, "please help me reunite these kids."

His throat closes up. He scrolls back up to the picture, and swipes until he gets back to the first page, with no circles around any faces.

Feeling more emotional than he has in a while, he stares at the picture.

God, his siblings. He misses them terribly.

He picks up the baby monitor, glad for Matthew's snores. Katherine had left a few hours before, for the cemetery, so he's all alone.

He dials.

4.2

Going to Wal-Mart is not something Klaus enjoys. His Wal-Mart is full of "witches" who do "voodoo" and proclaim him to a have "a long life line" and "great sorrow". Wal-Mart is awful, basically. He can't stand going there, but the food his pets eat is sold exclusively there.

Marcel's eyes have kept him from getting the generic kind. Damn you, Marcel.

He has to go all the way to back of the store, first. Davina, the teenager who works at the store, gives him a wolf whistle as he passes her by.

"Maybe in seven years," he calls out to her, as per their routine.

"I'm 19, loser," she responds, just like always.

"In dog years?" He grins at her, always enjoying being a dickhead to her. She covers her own smile with an air of being unimpressed.

"Ha ha," she says dryly. Her many necklaces jingle as she walks away.

He smiles to himself as he continues on his path. He dodges the improv-death, and the witch who always tells him, free of charge, that his future wife will match her description to the tee.

The shit he goes through for his damn pets.

The food they like - the cat food and dog food version of the same thing, from the same expensive ass brand - is front and center. He grabs a bag of each, and runs.

Okay, he doesn't run. But it only takes him five minutes to get from the back of the store to the self-checkout. He thanks his past self for buying two of those blue bags that you don't just hoard or throw out when he's walking home not three minutes later.

These handles won't break, and he won't be stuck carrying the actual bags the ten blocks from the store to his place.

His thoughts wander as he walks. Maybe Camille will have her kittens today, he thinks. He doubts it, though. She's fit to burst, but she's not due yet. His thoughts, as they so often do now, stray to Rebekah. She'd wanted to be a veterinarian when she was four, so maybe she would know now.

If she even turned out to be a vet, that is. She'd be 21, now. He'd wanted to be a firefighter/astronaut when he was four. Now, he deals drugs after he gets done serving people their drinks all day. It's not a stretch to think she isn't a vet/princess hybrid.

He shuts the thoughts out as he steps up to his door. The lock jams like always, and he grunts out a cuss word at it, like clockwork.

Hayley barks at him, causing Tyler to wake up in a mad dash for a supposed intruder. He rams right into Klaus' legs.

"I don't know why I even keep you around, mutt," he mutters. Tyler just gives him a look like he thinks Klaus is the stupid one.

Marcel meows from the kitchen.

"You better not be on the counter, Marcel!" There's a thumping noise. Dammit, Marcel.

Camille, on the other hand, rubs up against his legs and gets her white fur all over the ankle of his work pants. He crouches down to pet her. She only gets in one pet before Hayley is licking his cheek. She runs off as Tyler comes to join in on the slobber fest.

Klaus wipes off his cheek and stands. He heads towards the kitchen, and shakes his head when he sees Marcel has moved from the counter to the table. He shakes the food bags, and all of his pets converge on him at once.

He feeds the dogs first, so they can get right to business and not trample the poor cats. Marcel gives him a look, while Camille just crouches down to eat.

Klaus makes himself a bowl of mac 'n' cheese, and sits heavily on his couch. A piece of dog fur goes up his nose.

Why is my life like this, he thinks as he turns on the TV.

When it clicks on, it's Oprah. She says, "and now, we're going to talk to Leif Trulsson about what he's trying to accomplish with his Mikaelson Manhunt. Leif?"

Leif's face comes up on the screen, and Klaus flinches. Elijah was his spitting image, their eyes are different, and their jaws (or what jaw Elijah had at 11 years old), and that's it.

He scrambles to turn it to something else, anything else. All he hears before his button-smashing takes him to a rerun of Roseann is Leif saying, "Elijah called in earlier, actually. We are very excited for what this means."

He's trying to relax into the dynamics of Roseann's family when Camille yowls. He stands on weary feet, and grabs his keys and the cat carrier.

Why indeed, he imagines Elijah saying dryly, as he wrestles her into the carrier.