"The lights go out all around me.
One last candle to keep out the night,
And then the darkness surrounds me.
I know I'm alive, but it feels like I've died."
Kol couldn't remember the last time had moved, other than to breathe and fight the tears that still threatened to roll down his face away. His family didn't need to see him like this, not in the face of the danger around them.
They had no idea either. They were all so painfully oblivious to the very reason their mother had come back, believing the lie that she spent a thousand years hating them to all of the sudden want to forgive them? Kol could see why they might believe it, but he couldn't, not after being betrayed by his family like he was.
Everything Darcy had said added up. Why would she want the very thing that made Kol want to be better out of his life if she wanted them to be a family? She would want him to have that, to be a better man for both the family and the world. With Darcy around, he didn't care to hold grudges against his family. He didn't trust them, but he didn't want them all dead—except Nik, as he continuously seemed to torment Darcy and was one of the named reasons why she left.
You need to know, if you know nothing else, that I love you, Kol Mikaelson. I never imagined I could feel the way that you make me feel effortlessly, and every moment I spent with you is the best of my life. This isn't goodbye, just a see you later. One day, I'll be back, and we can figure out this eternity thing together, when I don't have to leave ever again.
I wish I could explain to you why I have to leave, but this is something I have to do alone. If I tell you, you'll find me, and if you find me, your mother will find me. Right now, I have to get away from her and your brother.
He had a letter, a single letter, to remember her by. There were the pictures they took on his phone, locked with a secret word that only Darcy and Kol knew to ensure that Klaus never got inside, and he had looked through them at least a hundred times as the sleepless night he had suffered through went on, but seeing that smile only made the pieces of his heart knot up, feel as if they might explode and become irreparable.
His mind had been so focused on the letter in his hand, so lost in the thoughts that had changed him in such a profound way, after only a course of a single month, that he didn't realize someone had knocked on his door. The person was someone who would at least somewhat understand the distance he had put between himself and his siblings; she knew that he had feelings for Darcy, though Kol had never told her out-loud what they were. She had asked, on more than one occasion, and she had learned from watching the two interact just what the feelings her youngest older brother felt for this doppelgänger who looked different than all the others. It was love, a kind of love she had only felt once in her life as well—and she was the girl who fell in love too easily. It was something her brothers usually condemned her for, and Kol had been one of them.
It was just something he had never experienced, and even experiencing it now, he still didn't have the answer to the question he and Darcy had posed on their very first date. Was love a strength or a weakness?
In a way, it felt like both to him. He was weaker in some ways. Every spare thought was on Darcy. He was more distracted, and there was a certain human who, if lost to him through death, had the power to absolutely destroy him, maybe even for the rest of eternity.
The strength he felt every time she told him that she believed in him, that she knew he could be a better person . . . despite the struggle he felt within himself, he had the strength to be a better man. Despite the insatiable blood lust he had received that none of his siblings had, he was able to stop himself from killing anyone, aside from those two mistakes he had made that Darcy knew about now.
He hadn't wanted to tell her of his failings, as he was so afraid she might see him for the monster that he was someday, but she didn't see him that way, at least not yet. She found him a man who might find redemption one day, a man who could move past the monster that he was and be better.
Rebekah stepped inside, after knocking got her nowhere, and noticed her brother staring at a piece of paper in his hands. She was curious as to what the letter said, but she respected his privacy enough to not look, to turn her gaze away from it and towards his face instead.
"Kol, what's wrong?" she asked. "Our mother is worried. You didn't come down to breakfast."
"Please just leave me alone."
Rebekah knew this was the kind of response Kol might give her; after her many heartbreaks over the years, she would always give him the same. He was very avid when he told her that he believed love was a weakness that they couldn't afford, but he had tried to be there for her through her heartbreaks anyways. It was something Rebekah had always respected him for; he had a good heart buried in there somewhere, and she wondered if maybe Darcy had found it.
"Mother said that Darcy was selfish, that she didn't want us to become a family again," Rebekah said, and when they had all sat around the dinner table, wondering amongst themselves what had Kol so upset—mentioning Darcy a time or two—their mother had spoken up about the strange doppelgänger. Elijah and Rebekah both knew better, and in a way, Klaus did as well. He hadn't spoken to her on good terms much, but she was always willing to sacrifice herself for everyone, in a way even Elena wasn't. Only Bonnie seemed to match the selflessness that she showed day after day.
No one knew about the selfish moments she allowed herself to have with Kol, but it didn't change the fact that Rebekah, Elijah, and Klaus knew something was wrong with what their mother had said. Darcy wasn't selfish like that.
"That's outrageous," Kol snapped, allowing his eyes to tear away from his letter and over towards his only sister. "Above all else, she wanted me to be happy, even if it meant being happy without her and with family."
"Why would Mother lie?" she asked, though it felt good to have her doubts confirmed, at least a little bit.
Kol knew better than to trust his siblings, but if he was going to trust any of them, Rebekah was the one to trust. She had only betrayed him once over the years, the most recent time, and while it stung, he was able to look past it for the sake of having someone to confide in about the chaos around them.
"Because I don't think Mother wants us to be a family and still amongst the living."
Kol noticed the recognition flash across his sister's eyes, which widened ever so slightly, and he felt relief that he wasn't the only one who felt this way. Surely they all had their doubts, but it seemed that Rebekah had wanted to ignore her doubts, to be a family. It was all she had ever wanted.
Rebekah left after just a moment, without saying another word to Kol, and that confused him—scared him a bit as well. Tossing the letter to the side, he chased after his sister, moving as fast as his vampire speed would allow. He followed her into the den, where he found her standing next to Elijah.
Elijah noticed Kol's presence in the doorway immediately, and he gestured him over to him, wordlessly. Kol was very confused, but he walked over to his brother anyways, taking each step with caution.
Surely Rebekah hadn't given Elijah the last dagger, had she? This wasn't some elaborate setup to dagger him for leaving the ball last night, for not coming down for breakfast—for suspecting their mother's intentions were not as she said that they were.
All it took to ease his fears was for Elijah to hold up a burnt bundle of herbs. He could smell the hint of sage, mixed with ashes, and he knew in an instant what it was that Elijah had found.
Their mother had used the sage for a privacy spell, but for what? What did she need to hide?
Kol realized that he wasn't the only one who feared their mother's true intentions, which was why Rebekah had left Kol's room to find Elijah. She had her doubts, but hearing both brother's skepticism, how could she ignore it now?
"What can we do?" Rebekah whispered.
Elijah shook his head. "Not much. We will have to come up with some ideas before we do anything impetuous."
Kol rolled his eyes. "Isn't that what I do best?"
"I mean it, Kol," Elijah said, the corners of his eyes tightening a bit. "We have to act carefully."
"Fine, fine." Kol took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his front pockets, allowing his eyes to move back to the sage in his brother's hands. "Carefully it is."
Elijah's eyebrows rose. "I have to say, you are not the man who was daggered over a century ago. Who is this new Kol we're meeting?"
Kol, despite the fact that there was no joy inside of him, felt his lips curling up into a smirk, a scoff pushing out of his nose. His eyes moved away from Elijah, towards the doorway, and he hesitated. The faint sound of footsteps in the distance distracted him from whatever response he might've given, anything but the truth.
The less his siblings knew, the better, at least until he could figure all of this out. Why had Darcy left? What was so dangerous that she had to go alone?
What had their mother said to her?
Their mother was the one who stepped into the den, wearing a soft, motherly smile as her eyes moved between each of her children, landing on Kol last and remaining there.
"My son," she said, and she took a few steps across the room, to wrap her arms around his stiff body. "I worried when you did not come down to dine with us this morning. Are you alright?"
"Nothing I'd like to talk about."
She let go of him and stepped back, gesturing her hand towards the doorway she had come through. "When I heard your voice, I made us both a drink. Would you care to join me?"
"Not particularly."
"Kol." Hearing Elijah call out to him sternly, to speak to him as if he was a child, irritated Kol, but when his gaze met his brother's, he understood, at least a bit. The tightness in Elijah's eyes, the reminder of what they had previously been discussing, had the inside of him calming down, at least in the sense of taming his anger towards his brother.
Kol wondered if it was possible to break off pieces of his own teeth, a question he had never thought to ponder until that moment. His teeth were barred so tightly together that he imagined that if it was possible for him to do it to himself, he probably would have.
With a reluctant sigh, he followed his mother out of the den and through the mansion that Klaus had built. Kol was at least grateful for his own room, but he couldn't shake the emptiness he felt everywhere he went, especially the one time he dared to look out towards the large backyard.
It had been the last time he saw Darcy, the last moment he got a chance to speak with her, and he just let her go. He believed there would be another chance, a time after the ball where he could go stop her from running away, but even though he left in the middle of it all, he still didn't find her at home. She had already gone, with notes left behind for the people of her home to find later.
He imagined they said similar things to his own, and his curiosity almost got the better of him. Had she told them the truth? Did their letters have more to say than his own?
Out of respect for Darcy, he didn't read any other notes but instead left, off to search through the whole town for her. Finding her nowhere, not even at the Salvatores, he eventually gave up and came home, showing himself to his room—where he had remained since. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since she left, but he couldn't shake the void. It wasn't the amount of time; it was the fact that she was gone, with no way for him to even know how to contact her or if she was safe.
There was a sitting room that his mother seemed to prefer to be in, as it had a large window that overlooked the nature around the property, and Kol briefly wondered if that was where Elijah had found the burnt sage.
Their mother wore a kind smile, and she sat down onto one of the sofas inside of the room. Two glasses, full of a pale pink champagne, sat in front of her on the table, and she patted the seat next to her.
"Sit with me, Kol," she said, and a smile that only a mother could have spread across her face like butter, melting with her expression so perfectly that Kol almost believed the warmth within it. "Tell me all about her."
HE knew this wasn't real, and the parts of him that didn't trust anyone were coming out strong. Anything he might say might give more away than he realized, and she might find some sort of clue to take Darcy down within simple words. He couldn't take that risk, even if his mother was still here.
"Come on, my son," she cooed, allowing her smile to widen and her eyebrows to rise on her forehead. "This is your first love. I would very much like to hear all about her."
He snorted. "You've seen it all. You know all about it."
"Why do you look so sad?" she asked. "What has happened?"
"She broke up with me," he snapped. "Is that what you want to hear?"
"No, but it is probably what's best for the family," she said, as if the statement wasn't completely calloused to her son's truly shattered heart. "Please, son, let us toast to family."
"I'm not in the mood." He picked his champagne glass off of the table and turned to head out of the room. Elijah wanted him to talk with her, to take any suspicion away from the fact that they all knew, but he couldn't do it, not without endangering Darcy.
He wouldn't do anything to do that.
He rushed downstairs towards the kitchen, moving carefully enough that he didn't spill a drop of his champagne. He didn't know why his mother was so insistent that he drink the champagne—she had been furious that he hadn't been present for the toast the night prior, where they had all drank the very same champagne she was trying to get Kol to drink now—but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of drinking it, even if it wasn't somehow part of her plan.
There was commotion in the other room, the grand entrance room where most of the ball had been held. He remembered introducing himself to all sorts of people from town, people that he didn't actually care to know or remember, but most of the night was a scattered blur, varied memories that mostly erased out of his mind when Darcy said those few words that changed everything. "I have to do something on my own."
He stepped into the grand entrance room and almost paled at who he saw standing inside, with her arms wrapped so tightly around Finn that it probably would've broken some other human.
It had been over nine centuries since any of them saw Sage. No one even knew she was alive, yet here she was, holding onto Finn with tears falling down both of their faces.
Kol could feel his stomach knotting up inside of him, jealousy at its finest. He had never been jealous of Finn or Sage, not in any way, but to see his brother get the chance to hold the woman he had loved for so long, who had loved him for so long . . . he told himself that the two deserved it, after all they had been through, but the jealousy was raging inside of him, churning the pits of his stomach in a way that was unfamiliar.
He didn't get jealous; he had never cared enough to be jealous before, but he was now, in the face of the love that he now understood.
The sound of thick heels clinking against the hard, rounded staircase that descended down into the grand entrance room ripped Kol out of his own thoughts, reminding him that their mother was, in fact, trying to kill them all. It wasn't that he had actually forgotten, but his own bitterness of the situation made his heart harden.
She looked surprised to see Finn holding onto Sage, and that only infuriated Kol more. Seeing the smile on her face, the genuine happiness for her eldest son, burned rage inside of Kol that he hadn't experienced before, not in a long time.
"What, Mother?" Kol snapped to her. "Are you not going to tell Sage to leave him, too? In the name of family and whatnot?"
Every eye in the room, which he hadn't noticed was full of everyone, turned towards Kol, some mouths falling open in surprise. He didn't care if it was rude, didn't care if their mother was upset by what he said. She had no idea the amount of pain she had caused him, simply by making the love of his life afraid of her, afraid enough that she left alone, to ensure she couldn't find her.
He hadn't realized that he still had his champagne glass in his hand, but he didn't want it anymore. In a fit of rage, he turned and threw it against the far corner of the room, shattering it against the hard ground, sending bits of broken glass scattered around the room.
He didn't stick around any longer. He had been inside all day, and it wasn't accomplishing anything. Darcy wanted to be safe, and who better to protect her than the man who knew more about protection and safety than any of them? He could find the artifact that allowed them to remain hidden from locator spells, or he could help her learn a cloaking spell that he had heard tell of over the years.
First, he had to find her, and to do that, he had to have a certain witch in town do a locator spell on her now.
He knew Bonnie wouldn't have a very friendly reception to him, as he was certain she had heard who he was by now, but she was the only person he knew who could help him.
If Darcy wanted to run, that was fine. He would run with her.
A/N: The lyrics are from the song Beauty From Pain by Superchick.
These last few chapters of this story got to me, hard. I was crying like a baby when writing them because I hurt so much for Kol and Darcy. Uhh. I hope you guys feel that same pain, that I did my job well and you feel the pain of the characters. It's not that I want you guys to be sad or anything, but I wanna be a good writer.
Read, review, and enjoy. :)