"Please don't do this," Stefan says to Elena Gilbert, but she silences his protests with a look. She pulls him down for a last kiss, both of them attempting in their own way to face the inevitability of her death. Stefan is crying softly, holding her tightly.
"You go over there," Klaus says, deceptively blasé, gesturing to the last circle. To her credit, the doppelganger walks instead of letting herself be dragged. She truly is the self-sacrificing type, willing to protect her friends at any cost. Her friends certainly went to embarrassingly long lengths to save her.
Caroline comes back, dragging the female wolf behind her by the scruff of her neck, as one would for a stray dog. The vampire is dragged along by the other hand, her head forced down by the Original's superior strength. She shoves them each into their respective circles.
"Caroline?" The doppelganger asks, stunned. "What are you doing here?"
So she hadn't been informed of Caroline's loyalties. She had spent the day preparing for this, rather than keeping up to date with the crucial details. How utterly of this age.
Caroline smiles triumphantly, but she deigns to answer, no longer bothering with her American accent. "Watching my husband become whole again."
The doppelganger looks stunned, completely out of allies and scared out of her mind at the prospect of her death. She looks younger than her age, a lost lamb led to the slaughter. He revels in it.
"What's going on?" The werewolf asks, terrified. She has no idea what this is for.
"You, love, are part of a sacrifice. A means to an end, if you will. My means, to my end." As all mortal lives were.
"Our," Caroline corrects.
"Our," He amends. "Greta, if you please." He brings one arm out from behind his back, and she begins to chant, fire lighting the circles and illuminating the clearing.
He surveyed the three women in the circles of fire. He enjoyed the poetry of the triple goddesses, the likes of which he and his family had worshiped as children. Frigg and Freyja and Skađi. Those days were gone, but he could enjoy the poetry.
Klaus walked into the first circle. The werewolf crawls back on her hands and knees, her eyes wide with terror. She skirted the edge of the circle and burned her hand. She flinched instinctively, and he took the chance to thrust his hand into the werewolf's back, pulling it out with her heart in his hand. His fingers jam against her ribs before breaking through, but they heal before he can truly notice the pain.
He could feel the wolf slowly returning to him. It was euphoric, like feeding for the first time.
He moved to the next circle. He can see the blankness in the other's eye. She has turned off her emotions, in order not to feel the pain of dying. He stakes her, seeing her face gray. A rush of power went through him, filling every fiber of his being. If only Father could see him now.
He approached the doppelganger's circle slowly, getting used to this regained strength. She was trembling. Her courage had gotten her this far, and now her journey would end. What a short life she had led. He could see Caroline through the flames, her eyes following his every move, committing this moment to memory. Their final victory.
Klaus bit into the doppelganger's, neck, as he had done to hundreds of thousands of victims before, and began to drink. She let out a little scream, but he only inhaled deeper, the thick iron tang filling his mouth. He could feel her going limp in his arms, feel her butterfly pulse fading in her neck, struggling to survive.
He could feel her death in him, and he dropped the body to the ground. The moonstone explodes behind him, that trinket he had spent so long looking for, but he pays it no mind. It has served its purpose.
He has the wolf again.
This does not come without consequences. He feels the loss of his pack again, the instinctual grief just as potent as it had been a thousand years ago. Along with the wolf strength comes the codependency of the social animal. The father he never knew, only a corpse. Alvis, a potential wolf but an innocent. The howls of the dying wolves as his siblings pulled out their hearts.
No, he thinks, that is history a thousand years past. I am the hybrid, the first of my kind. I need no pack.
He looks up, his back arching and his fangs bared, that grief forgotten. He has lost much, but he has more to gain.
Caroline is giddy as her husband looks up at her, fangs gleaming, eyes yellow like a werewolf's. Something she hasn't seen in a thousand years, when Mikael still cared for her safety and dragged her away from the sight.
Niklaus is staggering under the weight of the transformation, weak. Had his bones begun to crack, reshape themselves? How would this work? They had speculated this over the years, anticipating this moment when it seemed so far away.
But they had never anticipated this.
Greta's head snaps to the side, her spine cracking. The Bennett witch emerges from behind her falling body, chanting. Pain rips through her head and the fire roars, rising to the tips of the trees. She can feel the heat washing over her, intense as the pain in my head.
Niklaus crumples, his legs broken, not under the force of his transformation but under the assault of concussive magic. They had known that Bonnie was still alive, but they had thought Greta could hold her off for a while and Caroline could kill her. But the witch has much more power than they had predicted- no nosebleeds now.
But it gets much worse. Elijah surges forward out of the trees, and in an instant, his hand is in Niklaus' chest, gripping his heart.
"Niklaus!" She screams, taking a step, but Elijah digs his hand in deeper, stopping her short.
"This is for our family," Elijah growls, just as he did that day in Dublin. "You tossed them into the sea like they were nothing."
"Elijah, please," Caroline begs. This was one of the only ways Niklaus could be killed. She can't let that happen. Not now, after everything.
"I didn't throw them into the sea," Niklaus says, gasping for breath, blood dripping out his mouth. "I kept them. And I can reunite you with them." He is begging, all the triumph gone from him. Any disillusions about Elijah not really trying to kill them shatter. "But if you kill me, you will never find them."
Elijah turns to Caroline. "Is this true?" The feeling of a hand through your lung and around your heart is a deeply excruciating one, and he is desperate. He could be saying anything.
"No!" Salvatore yells. "Elijah, do it now! Kill him!"
Elijah is stuck in a moment of indecision, his hand in Niklaus' chest but the hope of seeing his family again stopping him. The Bennett witch is still chanting, but she is tiring.
"Elijah," She says softly, a plea, "We would never kill our family."
Elijah looks up, and with an apologetic look to the Bennett witch, he pulls his hand from Niklaus' chest. He drags him away through the flames, and in an instant, they are gone.
"Elijah!" Stefan says, but it is not enough to convince the Original.
Caroline gives one last look at the fiery circles, the bodies lying in them. Stefan and Bonnie on the ground. How she had longed for this day for a thousand years.
And now that was done. Which begs the question. Now what?
As soon as they leave the clearing, Niklaus transforms into his wolf form. He screams just as much as he did the first time, the bones cracking loudly, shaping him to be the wolf. He falls to all fours, growling at them, rolling his head as his spine bends to accommodate being a quadruped.
He has lost his chance. And to add insult to injury, he and Caroline must clean up the mess left behind from his rampage.
"Just like old times, yeah?" Caroline says, dragging bodies into a truck.
Elijah doesn't trust how quickly she's forgiven him. After all, he snapped her neck and turned her over to the Salvatores. Hardly a light matter. And just two days ago, he had his hands wrist deep in Niklaus' chest. If there's one thing he knows about the pair of them, it is that harm to one means the wrath of the other.
But she seems in quite the chipper mood, so he agrees.
"Where were you before I called you?" He asks.
"Don't pretend you didn't know we were in London, Elijah," she says. "What did you do in Dublin after you ran your coup, may I ask? Did you rule?" A trap of a question. She is taunting him, trying to make him display his regret.
"No," He replies shortly.
"Then where did you go?" She pulls a matchbox from her pocket and strikes it. Throwing it into the pileup, the bodies burn, making it seem as it were a terrible car crash. If suspicion arises they can always compel the authorities later.
"I traveled," he answers. "Just as we have always done."
"You could have joined us," she says. "We always would allow you to be with us." Her voice betrays her, a sliver of resentment cutting at him.
"I thought you had killed the rest of them. Finn. Kol. Rebekah." He knows how he sounds. But he must make his point.
"As if I could ever get rid of Kol," she says fondly. "And Niklaus is too fond of Rebekah."
"And Finn?" He asks, raising his eyebrows.
"You haven't seen him for nine hundred years, Elijah," she says. "Do you truly care for him as much as you pretend to?"
"He is my brother, Caroline," Elijah says. "And unlike someone, that still carries weight with me." He blurs away from her, but knows her mouth is open in protest.
They track Niklaus wordlessly, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife. The wolf is not subtle, which makes things much easier.
They follow the swath of death back into the forest, where broken branches and bent grass leads to another clearing lit by painfully bright sunlight. On a gently sloping hill lies Niklaus, naked as the day he was born. He's unconscious, and dirt smudges his skin. He has a triangle tattoo on his back- now that was new.
His brother stirs, looking up. "That was amazing," Niklaus breathes, awestruck. Elijah threw his clothes at him.
"Get up and get dressed, eskelde," Caroline calls. "As much as I like to see you naked, your brother does not agree with that sentiment."
"How long was it?" Niklaus asks, tugging on his pants.
"Two days," He replies, averting his eyes. "The full moon came and went and yet you remained a wolf."
"So I can change at will," Niklaus says, smiling smugly. "That's good to know."
"Thank the gods," Caroline says, "I won't have to fight you every full moon."
Klaus gets in her face, smiling. "Now that I wouldn't mind." The couple looks at each other intensely, challenging.
Elijah clears his throat loudly. "In case you've forgotten, we had a bargain."
"That's right," His brother says, amused. "You wish to be reunited with our family."
"You did give your word," he says sternly, as if they were children again and he was advising Niklaus against angering Father.
Niklaus puts on the shirt and shrugs on the jacket, getting used to clothes again. "What kind of brother would I be if I broke my word? Even if you did try to kill me."
Elijah glares at him, irritated. "I could have. But I didn't."
"Now no one can," His brother boasts, "Not even you."
"Technically, I could still kill you in your sleep," Caroline points out lightly.
"Ah, but you'd miss me too much," Klaus replies. "Relax, Elijah. All is forgiven."
"Where are they," he demands in a level tone.
Klaus gives him an amused look, wetting his lips and taking on a ponderous look he knows to be wary of. "You need to lighten up, brother. I'll take you to see them soon."
They get back to the apartment, Elijah trailing awkwardly behind them. Caroline is already very aware of Niklaus' intentions to dagger Elijah. They've always had a spare, from when she had been daggered by the Five, so that would be used for him now.
They open the door to the apartment and find Stefan Salvatore there, pacing.
"Look what we have here," Niklaus says, shutting the door behind him, locking it.
"I'm here for my brother," he says, looking up.
Caroline scoffs. There is no lost love between the two of them.
"Well, you see, I have an obligation to my own brother," Niklaus says, jabbing in indication with his thumb. "And you understand familial obligation, don't you? Otherwise, you wouldn't be here."
"Let me show Elijah," Caroline says. "You deal with Stefan."
Niklaus takes her hand, and she feels the cold metal of the dagger against her skin and the slight burn of white oak ash. "Are you sure?"
"Well, I certainly don't want to talk about Damon Salvatore," she says, holding the blade against her forearm to conceal it. "Come on, Elijah."
She can see how cautious Elijah is being when she leads him to the back rooms where the coffins are.
"See?" she says, "Just as promised."
Elijah opens up Kol's coffin, then Rebekah's. She was right, he doesn't check Finn's or notice the extra coffin for Esther. He stares at his family in disbelief, glad beyond belief to see them. She can see it written all over his face.
She stands next to Elijah and strikes suddenly. Her brother-in-law bellows as the dagger pierces his stomach and his skin grays, giving the illusion of his death.
"That was for snapping my neck," She says, and heaves him into his coffin.
She can hear Stefan ask, "What was that?"
She blurs back to the room. "None of your concern, Salvatore. What are you here for?"
"Damon Salvatore had the misfortune of coming across a werewolf and was just stupid enough to get bitten," Niklaus says, amused. He has a drink in his hand, and he gestures with it.
"The witches said that you have the cure," Stefan says, desperate. He doesn't want his brother to die.
"Did they?" The couple exchanges a glance. Of course the witches would get involved. The werewolf bite cure was something they kept close to their chests. A bargaining chip to play at the right time.
After all, that discovery had not been a pleasant one.
France, 1038
"I didn't realize there were werewolves here," Caroline says. "I thought they were rare."
"Well, it's a large world out there, Caroline," he replies.
"One of them bit me," she says. "My ankle."
Sure enough, a red bite mark shines on her ankle, oozing blood and some other substance.
"Why isn't it healing?" She asks.
They've had to figure out a lot of things on their own. How they could heal others with their blood- Elijah's doing. How to turn a human into one of them- also Elijah. How to kill one of those they've turned- Niklaus. Exactly how extensive their healing powers were- Rebekah had been reckless and had been the test subject for many of those.
He supposes that this is just another experiment.
"Let's get you back to Elijah and Rebekah," He decides. "If it's anything too bad-"
"Then leave me behind and escape," she says.
"We're not going to leave you behind," he says sternly. "Always and forever, however trite a motto, still includes you."
They run through the forest, getting to the village amidst stares from the others. Their family is a mysterious one, and people like to speculate.
"What happened?" Rebekah asked. "I thought you were going to go hunting."
"Werewolves in the forest," Caroline says, "One of them bit me. It's not healing."
They attempt to wait it out, but Caroline gets worse. He brings humans for her to feed on, but she throws up the blood. People are beginning to get suspicious, and he begins to worry a lot more. Could this actually kill her?
The hallucinations begin to take hold. She screams loudly through the night, yelling at things that aren't there.
"Father," she says, sweating profusely, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."
"Caroline," he tries softly, reaching for her arm.
"Get away from me!" she screams, clutching at her head. "You're not real! You're dead, you're not real, you're not real!"
She shoves him hard, and he stumbles, but regains his footing.
Her posture is staggered and her mind is being ravaged by venom, though he doesn't know that. They never even realized that a werewolf bite could kill a vampire until that day.
She's muttering to her herself, alternating between crying and snarling at him, which he has no idea what to do about. They've spent about thirty years together, and while he knows her better than everyone else, but even he is not aware of all of her demons.
Rebekah inches into room. "Is she getting better yet?"
Caroline's attitude does a complete one-eighty. "Esther," she snarls, and Klaus has to hold her back, covering her mouth to keep her from saying anything. Her skin feels clammy.
She bites his palm and begins to suck, drinking from him. He's never had someone sucking his blood, but he's not opposed to the feeling at the moment. It's oddly intimate. She sighs in relief.
"Is that better?" He asks nervously, urgently. He needs to know she's alright.
She nods, but her eyes close and another wave of panic runs through him. He feels for her breath and finds it evening out, steadying. She's fine, just sleeping. If it happens again he can take care of her.
Whatever that bite did to her, his blood is the cure.
Mystic Falls, 2010
"What makes you think that I can help?" Niklaus asks. "I mean, the witches have never liked Damon Salvatore, why would they save him?"
"If you have a cure, I want it," Stefan says.
"You are what we call useless, Stefan," Caroline points out.
"And you have not been cooperative as of late," Niklaus adds. "What do you have to offer?"
"Like you said, I don't even know if you have the cure," Stefan replied. "Why would I show all my cards now?"
"It appears we are at an impasse." Niklaus sighs, but takes her wrist. "May I?"
"Go ahead," she says. He lets his hybrid features display themselves and bites into the white flesh, and both of them moan a little in pleasure. Stefan looks on in horror, wide-eyed. He thinks that this intimate act will kill her. Not an unsurprising assumption.
Niklaus looks up and turns to Stefan, licking the blood off his lips.
"What did you just do?" Stefan asks, confused.
"Well-" The hybrid starts.
Caroline bites into her husband's neck from behind, drinking deeply. She can feel fire burning in her belly, but she has a point to make. Her fangs unlatch from him, and the red mark on her wrist disappears.
"Now, I'm hoping your brother won't be trying to do that," Caroline says, "But you get the point. His blood is the cure."
"So," Niklaus repeats, smirking. "What do you have to offer?"
Stefan is silent. He cannot think of anything worth their while.
"I thought so. You have nothing of interest to me. At least, not as you are." He cuts open his wrist and lets the blood drop into a wineglass.
Caroline looks at him. Was he really so desperate for companionship that he would go so far as to get the Ripper? She enjoyed bloodshed every once in a while, but the Ripper represented over-indulgence, being seen. He had been the reason they had nearly been caught in Chicago. Perhaps he thought Mikael's tomb was permanent, but she wasn't quite as sure.
"You know, I heard of a guy," Niklaus says, pouring himself a drink. "Absolutely crazy. Always on and of the wagon. The Ripper of Monterrey, they called him."
Caroline rolls her eyes at her husband's dramatics while Stefan looks apprehensive. He has an idea of what Klaus wants from him now.
"I haven't been like that for a while," Stefan says slowly.
"Well the I hope you can find the words to say goodbye." Niklaus shrugs. "I know Caroline wants to see him dead."
"Well, I don't see why we have to keep him alive," Caroline says, placing her chin on his shoulder. But anyone would be a fool to think that the sign of affection wasn't also a threat.
"So there it is." He sighs, beginning to pour the blood onto the floor.
"Stop," Stefan blurts out.
"I knew you'd see sense," Niklaus says, stopping the stream of blood hitting the floor. He hands Stefan the wine glass. "Now, come back here when you're done with this, or I will pay your brother a visit and bite him myself. And you'll get no blood from me again."
Stefan speeds off, urgency in every movement.
"Do you really want the Ripper back that badly?" Caroline asks. "He attracts too much attention."
"Mikael's gone and we're practically indestructible, love," he says, pouring her a drink. "Why not celebrate it?"
She drinks slowly, the alcohol burning down her throat. "What are we going to do now, eskelde?"
He toasts her. "Enjoy the life we've been given."
Season 2 is done and I've gotten 100 followers in a week! Wow, guys, thanks! I hope you guys continue to read and review.
I loved your guys' responses to the last chapter. One of the things I've never really liked about the show is how indestructible the Salvatores are. And how people always underestimate Caroline, especially Damon. So he paid for that mistake.
So, Jenna's alive! She's honestly a character I wanted to see as a vampire. Other than the Originals, we do not see any adult vampires, only teenagers stuck as teenagers. I wanted to explore the different levels of maturity for them.
Thanks to UniquePhreek for being my beta and for the upcoming cover art.
-PhoenixCycle