His aunt? His mother, the most dangerous and powerful witch he encountered was scared of her. What sort of disaster where they really dealing with?
He looked at Davina and saw her watching him carefully. He sat down heavily. He felt like the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders. It was times like this that he truly hated his family. There was so much baggage, so much intrigues. Everyone out for them selves. Even Elijah, Rebekah and Nik were both just fighting for their own goals.
He felt Davina's hand on his arm. He looked down, not quite understanding what she was trying to do.
"We will figure it out."
"How?" How could she know that he was going through that in his mind? His face hardly showed any sings. But then again she was always intuitive. She probably just picked up on that. He just needed to stop being so paranoid or he was going to turn into Nik.
"I just felt really worried all of a sudden. And I know it wasn't me. I might not want an innocent child to be hurt, but I don't like your family."
Well, there goes his theory. Now, she is picking up his emotions too.
"You must think me a fool." He said as he fixated his gaze in front of him, carefully avoiding her eyes. "My family betrayed me more times than I can count but here they are facing a danger. One most likely of their own making. And instead of me getting the hell away from this city and my family, I run to their aid."
"They are your family." She shrugged.
"And the witches were yours. Yet, you fought them for months."
"I didn't have to face them every day. It's much easier to hate while you have to be tucked away in an attic." She teased.
"You know, I don't remember when I talked to someone this much about …"
"Sorry? Am I interrupting?"
Kol's first instinct was to stand in front of Davina and shelter her from whoever came. He expected a witch or someone send by his siblings. He certainly was not expecting her.
"How…? This is not possible." The girl in front of him was dressed in a long white nightgown with a wool sweater on top, her blond hair was a total mess but Kol could still recognize her. He took to witch as his date to a Christmas party a century ago. The same Christmas party he got daggered at because Rebekah betrayed him to their brothers.
"I have been asleep almost as long as you." She smiled at him. "We have much to discuss and I think you both deserve some answers."
"You?" His mind was slowly connecting the dots. "You were the one pushing me and Davina together?"
"Kol, who is she?" He heard Davina utter from behind him.
"A witch I used to know about a century ago."
"I am more than that. Why don't we sit? It's going to be a long story."
Kol sat back on the bed but still watched the witch cautiously as she sat down on the sofa.
Davina decided that it would be safer to let Kol talk to her and just listen. He knew her to some extent and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. She felt Kol's hand squeeze hers. She looked at him but his gaze was fixed at the witch now sitting in front of them.
"Well, don't let us hold our breaths, darling."
"Do you remember your mother telling you about your sister, Freya? You had an older sister." She started.
"Yes, she died of plague and we moved. Finn used to moan about her all the time. What of it?" Davina could tell that he was growing impatient.
"Esther lied."
"Lied about what?"
"Your sister didn't die. Esther gave her away to her sister, Dahlia."
Davina tugged at Kol's arm: "That was the name Esther used."
Kol stiffed: "First of, how do you know about this? And secondly, even if this is what really happened, this Dahlia person is dead by now."
"Dahlia found a way around that. She bound us together and put a spell in place. We slumber for a century only to awake for a single year of life. She said it was the closed thing we had to immortality."
Davina's eyes widened as the words sinked in. The girl inevitably admitted to be Kol's older sister. The sister that died before he was even born.
"I know it's hard to believe, but…"
"Hard to believe?!" Kol stood up and flashed in front of her. "You admitted to bind me and Davina and now you are telling me that you are my sister?! Do you really think me that gullible?"
"Search my mind." She stood up and all of a sudden they were standing uncomfortably close to each other. "Search my mind. It will explain everything."
"You are just going to let him into your head like that?" Davina asked. She would never let anyone inside her head. It would make her too vulnerable. She wouldn't even trust Kol that much.
"Dahlia is coming and soon. I need him to see the truth. I don't have weeks to earn his trust."
The witch suddenly gasped in pain and surprise as Kol clasped his hands over her head and not so gently slipped into her mind.
Kol looked around. It was snowing and it was cold. Cold to the bone. Snow was everywhere. He couldn't place where he was. But the memory wasn't clear, the details were blurry and some of the none important parts were missing all together.
"Sister, please! I cannot give up my child!" Kol turned around searching for the sound of that voice. He could clearly recognise the pregnant blond woman as a younger version of his mother. She was holding a little boy who was crying at her side. Probably Finn. Another woman, brunette with much sharper features was standing opposite her. Kol didn't recognise her but it would seem this was his aunt. She held a younger blond girl in a fierce gip that he could tell would leave bruises, just by looking at it.
"You've already offered me more than just this one child. Our bargain was for this first born and every firstborn of each generation that is to come. For as long as your line shall last." The brunette woman spat at Esther.
"If you do this, if you take my daughter, I swear to you I will return to the black arts, I will grow in power as a witch, I will make you pay."
"Your power is nothing against mine! Foolish girl! You knew the bargain you made. And should you defy me, then I will take all your children." She continues as she stepped closer to Esther forcing her to step back. "Including little Finn!"
Finn at started crying at that. Esther tucked him to her side trying to calm him down in vain.
"Even unborn Elijah!"
"No, Dahlia!" Esther begged her sister, but she merely picked up the little girl and carried her off while she screamed.
The memory disappeared and was quickly replaced with another.
"Your mother doesn't want you anymore. I am your family now." Dahlia hissed at the child.
Kol kept browsing though memory after memory. Those of any significance lighting up like Christmas light. It was disturbing to watch. Especially when he saw her trying to kill herself and her unborn child. She didn't get to escape as her child did. He felt her pain so much it almost forced him out of her mind but he kept going.
"Ah, I would be careful with that one." Said a witch to a much older Freya. It was a century ago. He could see her watching a past version of himself.
"He is a seducer. The boy is worse than Klaus."
"It's not like that." Freya protested as she watched him with longing.
"It never is, sweetheart. Stay away from them, they will destroy you." Instead, Freya moved towards him.
Kol took a quick breath and withdrew from her mind. This was his sister. This was his older sister that should have been dead for a long time. This was part of his family that never betrayed him. This was a young girl damaged beyond repair like the rest of them. A girl that just desperately wanted her family.
"Freya." He whispered.
She nodded, a little smile appeared on her face and her eyes teared up as she looked him in the eye.
For the longest time, there was nothing but silence. Then he heard Davina utter quietly: "Kol? What happened?"
He looked away from Freya and his eyes almost immediately found Davina: "She is my big sister. And she…"
He looked away from Davina back to Freya as he realised: "You said you owed us some answers. You are the witch that place the spell on me and Davina. You are the one drawing us together. Why?"
Hayley was sitting in front of a fire. It was too late and everyone went to sleep, but she could fall asleep and so she sat alone breathing in the fresh air.
"Hello, little wolf." She turned around at that voice. Klaus Mikaelson was standing right behind her.
"What do you want, Klaus?" She asked as she calmly turned around. She was annoyed if anything. She definitely had nothing to fear from him anymore. At least not while she was still carrying the baby.
"My brother said if I want something, I should just command. So I came to ask you to return to the compound." She could hear his voice was uneasy and he was carefully choosing his every word.
"And if I say no?" She asked, "You are just going to drag me back there anyway, aren't you?"
"Look, Hayley." He sat down. "I do want this child and I want her to know me as her father."
"And where am I in that picture, Klaus?" She challenged him finally meeting his gaze, "Rotting in a dungeon? Or perhaps dead?"
She could actually hear him gritting his teeth: "A child should be raised by her parents, in her childhood home."
She stayed silent as she watched Klaus. For the first time since she met him, she felt like he actually wanted to change, like he actually could. Maybe you can teach an old dog some new tricks after all. Maybe there was a future, where her child could get all that she and Klaus never had, no matter how dysfunctional this situation really was.
A/N: Hello, everyone! I hope you like the chapter. I won't be able to upload any new once for the next two weeks but I will keep writing so after those two weeks, there will be more updates. I hope that softens the wait. :-)