For part eight, I decided to introduce a new POV - 8. 8 will be anyone who isn't family, such as Davina or Katherine, or a flashback that is third person limited or omniscient. Because of that, this is a filler chapter (that's just over 3,500 words). Sorry; I don't think it'll bore anyone, but still.

WARNINGS: more talk about Klaus selling drugs, talk about Freya doing them (briefly), a little more about the abuse Mikael dished out, and talk of Esther dying and what that did to one of her children. Also, prepare yourself for the shipping ;)

8.1

Davina gets home and maps out a plan. God knows she'll need one for what she's about to do.

She pulls out her favorite I'm an adult who owns stationary stationary and writes at the top, "Operation Amputated Limb." She giggles at it, and herself, feeling stupid for acting like this is all a joke or something.

She makes a list of things that she needs to do, and it looks like this:

1. Make sure Klaus won't take Tim and Josh away from me when I go against his wishes

2. Call Klaus in

3. Offer to pay for a trip to New York (USE WHAT'S LEFT OF THE SHUT UP MONEY)

4. When he doesn't want to go, threaten to call him in

4.a. Go to the bathroom once on flight and think about how it's weird that we're friends, considering the circumstances

5. Anyway

6. If this doesn't work out, and he hates me, have a plan.

7. What will I do if he hates me?

8. Whatever, I'll figure it out

Once she's made the list, she grabs her phone.

Dialing the number is easy; pressing call isn't. While she was making the plan, she ignored the fact that by doing this, she'll be betraying Klaus' trust, and going against her word. She doesn't want to do that, but he needs to be with his family. She would give anything to get to have hers back. The difference here is that he doesn't want his family, while they want him, and she wants her family, while they don't want her.

He's being stupid. She'll be doing him a favor.

But maybe he has a reason for staying away. There were six years of his life he'd never spoken of, except to mention that he'd run away at seventeen. He'd never said anything about where he went, or what he did until he came back to New Orleans at twenty-three. For all she knows, he could be a murder. He could be a wanted criminal, or something.

Maybe his siblings won't care. Siblings usually stick together through thick and thin, right? So they should just brush off any of the bad things he does - the ones she knows about (selling his anti-depressors like candy) and the ones she doesn't (killing a man in Canada, maybe? it can't be impossible, right?).

Ugh. Moral issues.

She sets the phone down after erasing the number. She'll give him five to seven days, and if he hasn't called in himself, she'll do it for him.

8.2

Katherine steps off the plane easily. Matt had been wonderful, sleeping most of the flight, and then being entertained by the cartoon the plane provided for the rest of it. And she loves being in the air, even if it reminds her of Tatia and her stupid obsession with air crafts.

Getting to see Elijah is a great way to distract her, especially with Matt being too interested in everything to keep her busy.

Matt continues that trend as she grabs their stuff, and buys a toy that's way, way too expensive. However, when he sees his daddy, he becomes a lot like a pointer dog, and focuses on nothing else.

"Dada!" He screeches on repeat, much to the chagrin of everyone around them. Luckily, it catches Elijah's attention.

Katherine gives the people around her sheepish smiles, and hurries toward Elijah. He comes forward, too, so they meet in the middle. Elijah pulls Matt out of her arms, and kisses his cheeks while making sloppy noises.

"Where's the crowd?" She asks, shouldering her backpack a little higher.

He grabs the luggage bag before answering, "they stayed home. If you and Matthew had come with me, then they would've been here, like with Freya's husband. But they decided to let us have a moment alone before you and Graham get an interrogation."

"Graham?"

"Freya's husband. They wanted to wait for you to be here before they gave him one." He smiles, and kisses her on the cheek. His lips land much closer to her lips than they did Matt's. She grins back.

"So, are they everything you ever thought they would be?"

He laughs, leading her out. "Let me remind you, I knew them for all eleven years of my life. Freya has matured, though she was already so adult-like, I don't imagine it was much of a leap. Finn has given up on being a hair model, he's made a family tree. He's a genealogist now. And Kol, as you know, is the actor Cole Henderson."

"Do you remember how we went to go see that stupid movie he was in for our one year anniversary?"

He smiles at her, and even though Matt's got his fingers in his Dada's mouth, it's just as beautiful as it always was. "Yes. I told him, and he actually blushed. I think that's the first time that ever happened."

Katherine laughs. She's heard lots of stories about the Mikaelson siblings, none more than Niklaus, Kol, and Rebekah. Kol being shameless and careless is something she knows a lot about.

They've barely entered the parking lot before he's saying, "there's our car." He sets off, holding Matt a little tighter while he's in the road. Then he turns to her, a soft look on his face she doesn't see often enough. "You'll love them, Katherine. I've told them about you already, and I don't doubt they'll love you back."

"Thanks, babe," she says with another kiss, this time to his cheek.

He beams at her again, and hands Matt to her. "You get him in, and I'll get your stuff?" She nods, and pulls her backpack off so he can stick it in the trunk. Matt goes in to the car seat easily, not minding that it's not his usual one.

She slides into the passenger seat at the same time that Elijah settles in the drivers'. Matt babbles while he backs out, so Katherine indulges him.

Elijah grabs her hand over the middle console, and gives her the look he's always given her, the one that says, I love you so much. Even though she's nervous to meet his family, an odd feeling considering all she knows about them, she returns the look happily.

8.3

Radley Mikaelson, now Radley Bishop, has spent his whole life watching the universe tear his mom down.

First, his dad got her pregnant and bailed. (Or something like that, he isn't really sure. His mom has never talked about it before.) Then, she got with Xavier, who got her hooked on inhalants. Then, she met John, who she left Xavier for.

He can still remember Xavier slapping his mom for breaking up with him, and John promising to never leave after that. Well, John did leave. He left Mom, when she was a few months pregnant with Leah.

Then came David, for all of five minutes, who did two good things: put Mom through rehab, and brought Brooke to their lives.

David left for his ex-wife, though, and Radley had a few years of his mom swearing off men for good before she started seeing this other guy. She never brought him home, and never spoke of him, so he has no clue who the guy is.

He got Mom pregnant, though, with Nina. She had Nina and swore off men again, until she met Graham at the GED place. She'd dropped out, and he was a teacher there. And the rest is history. Except, not really, because life is still going on, and his mom still has problems. His life is still a soap opera waiting to happen.

Take Nina for example. Nowadays, they all just say that Nina is Graham's, like Justin is. Radley knows it isn't the truth, all of them do.

He has no problem lying for his mom, though. After everything she's gone through, he'll do anything for her, including getting adopted by Graham and changing his name to Radley Bishop.

He'll also watch his younger siblings while Mom and Graham go have fun in New York.

She promised she'll get us out there soon, he reminds himself daily.

Chasing after Justin is a full time job, especially with Nina insisting on being his boss and that pissing him off. Leah can't do it without needing her inhaler, and Brooke is too lazy to do it, so he's always watching them.

It's worth it, though. Mom calls every night, and tells them about how the reunions are going. She's happy, and that's all he really cares about. He just has to remind himself of that a lot, that's all.

8.4

Caroline flops heavily onto the couch. She loves Bonnie, but all she hears about is her long distance relationship with a guy from Santa Clara, and everything - every last thing - relates back to him.

God, she wasn't like this, was she? Caroline will seriously apologize, if she was. It's awful, never hearing anything out of Bonnie except stuff about Jeremy. Like, what does she do when they aren't texting? Did she talk to Grams? If so, how is she?

Anyway. After that exhausting lunch, all she wants to do is watch some trash TV and not dwell on anything.

The TV turns on as slow as Grams walks. She's twenty-four, and still living with her mother. It's not a plasma - Liz doesn't want one, and what she says goes. The image isn't too bad, luckily. She can barely make out the pores on the Kardashian's faces; if it was any worse, she would've already bought a flat screen.

The bad screen is why she blames not seeing it earlier.

When it finally gears up, she sees a picture of seven people on the screen. She hears the name Mikaelson, but she brushes it off. Surely, he isn't the only person in the whole world with that last name. She also thinks, this must be that Manhunt everyone was talking about. But then she sees the faces.

It's a little fuzzy, but the only person in the photo that's standing looks strikingly like Klaus, just aged down from the seventeen year old she knew.

The commercial changes into a different one before she has enough time to take it all in.

So, she plucks her phone out of her purse, and searches, "Klaus Mikaelson."

There are a couple hundred hits; she clicks on the top one. It's a website that's clearly affiliated with the commercial, as the picture is front and center. And yeah, that's Klaus, right there. His isn't showing off his cute dimples, but his hair is just as messy as it always was, and his eyes are showing the melancholic look he'd had at the beginning and end of their relationship.

The page said that they were separated on May 10th, the day their mother was killed, and that the search was being led by the Mikaelson siblings' grandparents and aunt.

"Oh my god," she mumbled.

Klaus, her at-one-time Epic Love Story, was Niklaus Mikaelson. Is - is Niklaus Mikaelson. The picture and the date of death for the mother is proof enough of that.

Holy shit.

Without thinking, she dials the number at the bottom of the page.

"Hello?"

Stupid, she asks, "is Klaus there?" It hadn't said anywhere if he had or hadn't been found, so it's a fair question. However, she didn't introduce herself first, so she's being rude.

She's going to correct herself, but when she starts to speak, the woman on the other line says, "Klaus? Do you mean Niklaus?"

"Um, yes. By the way, my name is Caroline Forbes. Is he? There, I mean."

She's all over the place, but the woman doesn't seem to mind. "I'm Torunn Leifson. And unfortunately, no, he hasn't been found yet. Do you have any information on him?"

"Well...he goes by Klaus." She wracks her brain for anything else pertinent, but all that comes to mind is how he swept her off her feet as easy as he left. "Um, I think he lives in Louisiana now, or something around there." She bites her lip, feeling like she's disappointing Torunn. "I haven't seen him in three years, I'm sorry I don't have more."

"That's quite alright. If you don't mind my asking, how did you know him?"

"Ah...he was my boyfriend." Bonnie had despised him for the first bit there, and so had the Salvatore brothers. By the time they'd hit six years, though, her friends had come around. Now, they hate him, and she can't mention him without getting a glare, an "I told you so", or a guilt trip.

When Torunn speaks, she doesn't judgmental at all. "Well, I'm glad he wasn't alone, at least. How was he?"

"Excuse me?" Was this lady asking how he was in bed?

"I mean, was he okay? He suffered terrible abuse, and I think all us Mikaelsons and Leifsons would feel better knowing if he was okay or not."

"Oh…." Did she want to tell Klaus' secrets? It couldn't hurt, could it? This is his aunt, after all. "Well, we were together for six years. He was good at hiding his emotions. I wouldn't say he was depressed, though, except for at the fifteenth anniversary of his mother's death, it really hit him hard. I'm not sure why, it hadn't affected him much the other anniversaries. He left the day after and I haven't heard from him or seen him in the three years since."

She clears her throat, all of the emotions of the time coming back to her. "Sorry," she adds.

Torunn quickly consoles, "it's okay. His siblings will be happy to hear that someone was there for him, and that he was okay." The thought of his siblings knowing about them is scary - she'd never had to worry about them, because while he spoke of them often, he never said anything about finding them - but she hums her agreement. "I'll call you when we find him, is that alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it sounds great. Thank you."

"No, thank you." And the line goes dead.

There's more finality and closure in that than in her relationship with Klaus. The thought makes her breath hitch with either a laugh or a sob - she decides not to choose which one is worse.

Her mom finds her crying into her ice cream when she gets off work a few hours later.

8.5

Graham and Freya settle down for bed easily. They've been together for a few years now, so they're more in sync than Graham had thought possible.

He curls around her, and listens to her talk to the kids. He'd been a little daunted at first, since dating her meant dating her and the whole, four-kid package. Her oldest, Radley, had been suspicious at first, too, where the girls had seemed uninterested.

Now, though, they've all gone from Mikaelson's to Bishop's, and he's happy to call them his children.

Freya hands the phone over so he can say good night to Nina and Justin, and then she ends the call.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Are your brothers always like that?" He asks, referencing the interrogation they'd given him and Katherine.

She shrugs. "Finn has always been protective of me, and Elijah has always been a little, well, scary. Scary isn't the right word. Kol is the scary one, really. When we were still in the Manor, he would go on rampages and ruin things around the house to get attention." Graham raises an eyebrow. "Don't give me that look. He isn't and was never crazy. Father ignored him, and so did Mother. He wasn't the middle child, but he didn't always have a friend around, since Rebekah was busy with Henrik, and Elijah and I had paired off with Finn and Niklaus. He just felt left out and neglected."

Graham stifles a smile at her defensiveness. "So if I ever leave you out of something, you'll freak out and break a window."

"No," she laughs. "And the only time he ever broke a window was when he was four. He'd graduated to sticking wine glasses down the garbage disposal and flushing Mother's jewelry. And occasionally dislocating his arm."

She says that like it's a fond memory. Not for the first time, he wonders what he married into (not that he regrets it for even a second). "Are mental illnesses common in your family?"

"What?"

"Well, you have anxiety, and Kol has it, too. And from what you've told me, it seems like your parents were sociopaths, or at least showed tendencies. Kol, too." When she doesn't respond, he adds, "you just called your brothers scary."

"Elijah isn't scary, he's just...fierce. Driven."

"And sociopathic?" He teases, trying to lighten the mood. He's honestly not trying to call her family crazy, but it's coming out that way, and he doesn't know how to fix it any other way.

"No." She isn't laughing. She doesn't look mad, but she's not amused. "Why would you think that, anyway?"

"Elijah seems like he isn't, I was just teasing you about that. But Kol? Kol is irresponsible, and clearly had early behavioral issues. Your parents, from what you've told me, were manipulative, grandiose and shameless. Also, irresponsible."

She countered, "so irresponsibility is a sign of being a sociopath?"

"No, but - "

"Next time you talk to your dad, let him know he's got a new case to study." She crosses her arms and lays with her back to him.

"Freya, honey, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to say anything bad about your family. I was just asking because my siblings and I never did anything like this."

Sighing, she turns to face him. "Well, that's because your parents didn't abandon you. They didn't leave you with six siblings to take care of, and they certainly didn't single each of you out as the favorite, or the hated."

The information is all new to him - they've never talked in depth about what her parents did to her and her siblings. Quietly, he asks, "did they pick favorites?"

"Of course. They loved Finn and I, and Henrik. They could've loved Elijah, too, but they saw him as a 'traitor'. He loved Niklaus too much to been seen as anything else. The same went for Kol and Rebekah. Either you loved them, or loved him. And if you loved him, then you were the children that they dealt with, instead of loving back." She frowned at the concerned look on face, reading him easily. "We all loved Niklaus. Some of us showed it more than others, though, and that got them sent to that terrible position. He threatened Finn and I about it, too, so I never switched."

"He threatened you?" Graham knows he sounds a little silly, since his tone come out a little high, but he doesn't care.

She nods, but doesn't elaborate. "Anyway. Do you want me to tell them to back off? I can do that, if you want. I'm sure Elijah has, already." She doesn't say it, but she implies that she's done with that topic.

And well, if there's one thing he can do, it's go along with the subject change. "No, it's fine. I would appreciate not having to do that again, though."

She nods, and turns so she can mold her back to his front. "Of course, love. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, babe."