They all met in the basement. Kol was out cold from the torture both Bonnie and Damon had inflicted him. Damon being as unpredictable as he was, had given the dagger to Bonnie and she had willingly dragged it into Kol's chest.
Klaus dropped Rebekah's unconscious body next to his brother's and rushed to the witch and vampire.
"I thought I had made myself clear as to not use the dagger unnecessarily."
"Why bother given it to me then?" Damon asked, looking between Elena and Stefan. His brother was leaning against a wall, his eyes unfocussed, sipping at the blood bag they had given him. Colours were coming back to his sickly white face. The burns from the fire and vervained ropes were also healing slowly.
"Why indeed?" Klaus spat back at him. "Then again I don't see why I don't end this right now. Dagger them both and lock them away."
"Because we need information from them" Elijah stepped in, putting a hand on his brother's forearm. He turned his gaze toward Bonnie and Damon, "Please keep an eye on them."
Damon and Bonnie nodded, looking over the two youngest members of the Mikaelson family, ready to jump on Rebekah the moment she would wake up. Bonnie also kept a protective glance on Shane who was sitting on the ground, pressing his knees to his chest. He had refused Elena's blood to quicken his healing, pretending he wasn't physically harmed, simply shaken up. She knew of what Stefan had told them that they had starved Shane for two days and had intimidated him and terrorized him in his sleep, trying to get him to give away the location of Silas' tomb, but he swore he did not tell them what he knew. Bonnie was sure they had physically injured him as well but for some reason he stuck to his original story. At Bonnie's shocked expression he reassured her that he had seen worst back when he had travelled through the Middle East and he pleaded for her to remain calm and trust him when he said he was okay.
Elijah dragged Klaus to the opposite corner of the room and that's when Klaus noticed Caroline, pacing around like a mad lioness trying to protect her cubs. Although he thought she still looked quite attractive with that mad expression, Klaus did not understand what was wrong with her. Because something was definitely off.
Concerned, he took a few steps her way before Elijah grabbed his arm again, stopping him in his pace. Klaus turned his stony expression towards his brother.
"What is wrong with her?" he asked pointing at Caroline. "What happened outside, Elijah? I heard her scream and she's been acting bizarre ever since you came in. What have you done?"
"What happened is her ex-boyfriend showed up and attacked Caroline and Elena in the woods surrounding the house" sensing his brother's muscles tense under his hand, he quickly continued "No harm was done... not to them anyway. You'll be happy to hear Tyler Lockwood is dead. She on the other hand did not take it well, I had to take action in order to continue on with our plan..."
Klaus quickly did the maths, "You compelled her" he growled, unhappy with his brother.
"I did not have a choice and you know it. You would have done the same thing" Elijah retorted.
Klaus' face turned to the side, his brows furrowed. Elijah thought the idea of his brother hesitating to compel someone after he compelled thousands of innocents before, quite disturbing. "Then again, maybe you would have not."
Klaus ignored his elder's somewhat proud eyes and moved past him to look at the blond vampire. "Why is she still acting like this? The mission is done, it's complete."
Elijah looked at Caroline. She was biting her nails and every sound made her snap her head in the direction it came from.
"You see, the problem is her mission was to find Matt and bring him safely away from here... and Matt, well he is not in this house."
Elena was keeping an eye on the stairway when she heard Klaus and Elijah's discussion.
"What do you mean Matt is not in the house? I thought the witch had said they were all here!" Klaus snapped.
Elena stepped in to give the eldest Mikaelson some help, she moved closer to the two men aware she could get caught in the crossfire of an argument between the brothers "We didn't have anything belonging to Matt, but we were sure he was here. This is not Bonnie's fault. Maybe Rebekah felt bad and sent him back to Mystic Falls... I will try his cellphone, maybe he put it back on."
Ignoring the young brunette, Klaus walked up to Elijah "Take the compulsion away, let her live this the way she wants."
"We have no time for her to go in a fit over Tyler's death or Matt's whereabouts, believe me we are better off with Caroline in this zombie state than her going around mopping" Damon said, matter-of-factly.
"Geez, a bit of compassion."
They all whirled around to look at Rebekah, grabbing her head as if she was trying to push away a massive headache (which she probably was).
"Ouch! Nicklaus, that hurt."
Klaus walked to her, giving her a hard look.
"Sister, tell me, how did you like the ambush? I remember you used to love big surprise parties back in the days."
"Quit with the chitchat. What do you want?" she looked to her right and saw her brother's dead-ish body "Kol!"
She tried to get up to reach him but Klaus pushed her back hard making her fall on her behind. "Not so fast baby sister."
"Rebekah" Elijah said, his voice suave, persuasive "we want you no harm."
Rebekah scoffed and pushed back her blond hair which had fell in her face. "Sure you don't. That's why you burst in here and attack us."
"I know the choice of word is a bit childish love but, even you would have to admit, you started it" Klaus replied. "First you planned this big attack against me. You hired Tyler, who is dead by the way but I guess you care as much as I do about your little puppets' survival. Then, you tried to kill Caroline. You stole my sword and somehow managed to learn about this man's (he pointed at Shane) knowledge of the tomb's whereabouts and kidnapped him. Did you really think this would go unpunished? Kol got reckless, torturing Stefan here instead of simply killing him, which made Damon quite revengeful and Bonnie, our now strongest weapon, was waiting for nothing else then a reason to stake one of us Originals in the back. Well you certainly gave her one of those now by taking her teacher-boyfriend away."
He saw from the corner of his eyes Bonnie flinch. Elena moved closer to Stefan so they showed a united front with Bonnie and Damon on their right.
"Kol did a wonderful job collecting information" Rebekah said, pleased to see Klaus' displeasure. "He's the one who found out about dear Mister Atticus Shane. After every session at the Gilbert's Lake House he stayed behind, hiding, and he learned so much from these two chatterboxes (she nodded in Elena and Bonnie's direction – smiling sweetly) it was just a matter of timing before we could orchestrate everything. Tyler was hard to convince."
She looked at Caroline frowning "What's wrong with her? Anyway he did not believe me when I told him you two were a thing now that he was out of the picture, he was still loyal to his friends. But he got around eventually after I sent him proof of what I was saying." She reached for her cell phone and selected her photo gallery before throwing it at Klaus. He scrolled through the pictures of him and Caroline. He stopped on one of them which was showing Caroline and him, their faces an inch apart. The intensity of their exchange was palpable. "And when he realized I was saying the truth, well, he reacted beyond my expectation."
"Yet you knew he would not stand a chance against me" Klaus said, plucking the phone in his back pocket.
"I hoped he would have had the chance to finish Caroline off before you came crashing the party. But the past is the past and we must look forward."
"Since your puppet is now dead and you are cornered, yes I would say looking forward is your best and only option" Elijah intervened.
He walked to his sister and knelt to be at eye-level with her "Rebekah, you realize I can not permit you to go on with this vengeance plan you have. You and Kol need to get back to us, so we can live as a family again."
Rebekah simply scoffed and looked at her brother's lifeless body next to her. "Then undagger him. Show me you are willing to show us mercy, and then we can discuss a mutual agreement of peacekeeping."
Elijah got back up and turned to Klaus, and expecting look on his face. Klaus felt Caroline move next to him, she had gotten closer to him when Rebekah had woken up, wether to be by his side to face his sister or to force Matt's location out of the other blonde, he did not know.
Klaus narrowed his eyes trying to perceive any sign of deception from her sister. His gut feeling told him not to trust Rebekah, and yet Elijah was so sure that their family's reunion was imminent that he thought maybe his gut feeling was a repercussion of his uncontrollable lack of trust for everyone.
Finally, Klaus nodded his agreement.
"Oh come on! I can smell the mutiny from here" Damon exclaimed.
"He's right don't trust her!" Bonnie cried out.
Rebekah smiled and turned before undaggering Kol.
"Family is everything, you should know that Damon" Elijah said, smiling at the raven-haired younger vampire. "We will work out our differences."
"As long as you do that far far away from Mystic Falls, I have no problem with that."
Klaus was staring at Kol's greyish body slowly regain his colours. It would take his brother a minute or so before he'd start annoying him again. He felt warm fingers on his forearm and looked at Caroline stairing up at him.
"It's going to be fine" she said.
She was still frowning, undoubtedly still preoccupied by Matt's absence and yet she felt the need to reassure him.
"Tell me Bekah, as a peace offering, would you tell us where dear Matt is? You wouldn't have killed the young man now would you?"
He hoped his voice was level as he did not want his sister to understand how important that information was for him or Caroline, at this moment. They all jumped when they heard a voice come from behind them.
"I'm right here."
In a synchronized movement everyone turned towards the staircase, there stood Matt, with a 30-or-so year old latina woman with a satisfied smile on her face. Slumped on the ground next to them was Jeremy with a nasty gash on his forehead.
"Rebekah, what have you done?" Elijah murmured.
"It's a trap" Klaus growled looking meaningfully at his older brother.
And then all hell broke loose.