((Thanks for waiting, ya'll. Sorry it's not much. I did the best I could. Song is "Charlie Boy" by Lumineers))
Elijah breathed a sigh of relief, his arm wrapped around Elena as they watched as Chogun's spirit warriors, in human form, now chained Dominic's ankles and wrists with enchanted manacles where he still lay in unconscious in the street.
He leaned down and kissed Elena's forehead, eliciting a small smile from her before releasing her from his grasp, turning to Misha.
"Fashionably late to the party as always…" the warlock smiled as he removed his earplugs and stepped forward, walking into Elijah's opening arms, now ready to have their reunion, "I missed you, boy."
The two hugged tightly for a few moments before Misha loosened his grip, but not before whispering in Elijah's ear, "I'm truly sorry about Katerina…and Vivienne."
Elijah gave a sad smile as he pulled back and nodded to his friend in silent appreciation for his condolences.
"Now, be a big brother," Misha smirked, pointing to Kol and Rebekah now standing in wait behind the original
Elijah rolled his eyes in amusement before turning on his heel to face his siblings.
"Elijah…" he heard a familiar female voice whisper joyfully and he chuckled as Rebekah immediately raced forward and jumped into his arms, grasping him tightly around the neck like she used to do when she was a small child, while Kol stood not far behind her, smiling.
Elijah looked over Rebekah's shoulder as she clung to him and slowly reached out his right hand, placing it gently and reverently on the side of Kol's face, locking eyes tenderly with his brother.
"You must be Elena Gilbert," Misha suddenly said on Elijah's other side, stepping forward to address Elena as she took in the scene of the Mikaelson siblings together.
"Yes," Elena smiled kindly, turning to face the warlock directly as he straightened
"I'm Misha DeVaraux, Elijah's childhood friend and longtime warlock in crime. I saw you briefly when we first arrived in Mystic Falls, but we were never properly introduced. It's nice to finally meet you. "
"Likewise," Elena replied, stretching out her hand, but her action was immediately blocked by Misha as he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into a big bear hug.
"Oh!" Elena chuckled into the warlock's shoulder as Misha held her tightly to him.
"Easy, Misha!" Kol chided warmly, over Elijah's shoulder, "Don't hurt the poor doppelganger, we'll need her in one piece for the ritual…" he then looked to Elijah as Rebekah now released her hold on their older brother and stepped back from him, "Both of them."
"Speaking of the ritual, are you sure those manacles will hold Dominic until then?" Elijah asked, turning back to Misha, his arm still around Rebekah as his eyes fell upon the scene of the spirit warriors now carrying Dominic, still unconscious and wrapped in chains, toward the forest line and disappearing inside.
"Chogun acquired them from Catholic missionaries who apparently captured Kaspar sometime in the 1500s. According to him, if they can hold a powerful necromancer, they can hold a demonic vampire hunter…" Misha said, following the scene himself with his own eyes, then squinting up toward the night sky, "At least for another hour until the moon is at its apex and we can perform the ritual."
"And don't forget our friend the Wendigo," Kol pointed out, motioning toward the property's edge, where Chogun recited ritualistic words in his native Algonquin tongue, giving orders to the Wendigo before it gave a growled in reply and disappeared into the tree line as well until it was needed again, "Chogun will have it keeping a close eye on Dominic while we are gone."
"Gone?" Elijah asked, narrowing his eyes as he looked over to Kol
"Yes," Misha added, his eyes turning sad as he turned to face them, "We are going back to the mansion. We have to prepare for the ritual and I imagine that Elena will want to see Stefan and you'll want to see Klaus…"
"Klaus?" Elijah asked, his face falling, "Why? What's happened? Is he alright?"
"Elijah…" Rebekah said softly, putting a hand on Elijah's shoulder, causing him to turn back to face her, "He's more than alright…" then she gave him a reassuring smirk, "He's human."
# # # # #
Damon sighed as he stood on the steps of the back veranda of the Mikaelson Mansion, taking in his surroundings, listening for any sign of danger.
But, it had been an hour or more since everyone left and there seemed to be nothing threatening nearby, so Damon relaxed his senses and looked up to the night sky, taking in the clearness of the fall night and the brightness of the moon and the accompanying stars.
Somehow, it seemed like dejavu…
And though it was a different house and a different veranda and a different backyard, Damon sighed and closed his eyes, his thoughts wandering to Stefan.
There were many nights when they were young and more recently when they were reunited, fighting the war to keep Elena and her friends safe, that Damon would stand out on the back veranda of the Salvatore boarding house, staring at the night sky and Stefan would join him. And, whether they were on the same side or at odds, they always sat together in eachother's company like true brothers.
Suddenly, Damon turned as he heard the back door open and a rush of hope filled him, his heart half hoping to see Stefan standing there, ready to walk out and join him.
But, instead, he came face to face with Elena.
Damon's face crumbled as he beheld her and he tried to give her a brave smile in greeting, but Elena, like usual, saw right through it and immediately stepped through the threshold, walking across the veranda toward him, her eyes filling with tears.
"I'm so sorry, Damon-" she started
But, Damon immediately cut her off, closing the distance between them with vampire speed and taking her face in his hands and kissing her passionately
# # # # # #
Misha slowly opened the door to Klaus' bedroom, stepping aside to let Elijah in and watching as the older original looked around the room for a moment, taking in the décor of his surroundings and realizing that, even during his stay in the mansion with his siblings, he had never been in Klaus' bedroom.
Elijah nodded reassuringly back to Misha and Misha left without a word, closing the door behind him.
When Misha was gone, Elijah turned back to examine the room.
It was not at all what he had expected—bathed in warm colors and intimately decorated, unlike the rest of the mansion which looked like Klaus had hired an interior decorator that only believed in black and white as the main scheme.
Charlie boy, don't go to war,
First born in forty – four…
Elijah quietly moved through the sitting room that held very few pieces of furniture—only a large leather sofa and end table, a bar in one corner of the room, a large desk in the other, and a four foot Victorian style art easel just inside the doorway to the inner bedchamber, on which sat some of Klaus' unfinished paintings.
His eyes softened as he paused next to it and stepped forward, thumbing through the painting as he took in their subjects—mostly landscapes.
Kennedy made him believe,
We could do much more…
When he was finished, he set the paintings back against the easel and moved through the threshold into the next room and beheld his brother asleep under the blankets in the king size canopy bed along the far wall.
Elijah smirked as he cast his eyes up to the walls and the menagerie of photographs and paintings scattered around the room in a collage representing Klaus' one thousand years upon the earth—many of which Elijah had never seen before.
It started with a number of drawings and paintings—animals, birds, a waterfall—all done by Klaus as a young boy on what looked like animal skin canvas and framed in shadow boxes to protect them from the weather of time.
Lillian, don't hang your head…
The next was a portrait of Rebekah's face when she was a young girl, maybe fourteen. It was done in charcoal and showed her in an intense gaze with her hair whirling all around her.
Love should make you feel good…
In a circle around her portrait were other portraits of the original siblings done by Klaus as a young man—Henrik cuddling a rabbit in his arms, Kol looking over his shoulder, Finn wielding his bow, and Elijah holding the muzzle of his horse.
In uniform you raised a man,
Who volunteered to stand…
Elijah gave a soft smile as he gave one last glance over the original family—young and human—then looked above them to a long line of drawings and framed paintings done by Klaus on various types of paper from different time periods and all of different buildings that Elijah recognized as the numerous residences where he and his siblings had lived over the centuries and called home.
As continued to follow the wall around the room, his eyes fell next upon commissioned formal paintings of the Mikaelson siblings together, from Medieval Times through the Victorian Era.
Only one, done in Istanbul in 1050AD, included Finn.
Play the bugle, play the taps,
Make your mothers proud…
Elijah looked to the opposite wall and there were also African masks, large and ornate Mardi Gras Masks from when they had lived in New Orleans and three engraved ceremonial swords and other weapons collected from Italy, Japan and Egypt and two period guns with accompanying pictures of Klaus and Elijah receiving them and wielding them.
Raise your rifles to the sky boys,
Fire that volley loud…
Next, Klaus and Elijah stood together in a formal photograph with a group of their business associates outside a building in New Orleans sometime in the Civil War era and one of Rebekah from the same time period, laughing as she sat side saddle on a horse in the wake of the ocean along the Garden District levy.
There was also an informal photograph of Kol, Elijah, Klaus and Rebekah smiling with their arms around eachother outside the front gate of their villa home in the French Quarter.
Another photograph showed Rebekah and Kol looking over the edge of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and another one featured Elijah standing in front the Great Pyramids—both had been taken by Klaus, if Elijah remembered correctly, with a hand held camera he had acquired sometime in the early 1900s.
The picture with Rebekah and Kol was the last picture of Kol taken before Klaus had daggered him.
The news was bad on Upland Ave.,
Metuchen mourn our loss…
Elijah sighed softly as he continued to the next collage of pictures of Klaus and Rebekah together in the 1920s—first in a formal portrait together, then one of Rebekah in a fur coat in front of a car in Chicago, then one of Rebekah dancing with Stefan Salvatore and the final one with Klaus and Stefan sitting at a bar with like brothers as they smiled warmly, Stefan's arm around Klaus.
Sons rebelled while fathers yelled,
And mothers clutched the cross…
The next photograph was of Klaus in the 1930's, alone, on safari in Africa, his foot on top of an elephant he had killed as he wielding a gun in his hand.
Elijah suddenly realized that by that time, he must have daggered Rebekah, because the succession of photographs that followed were all of Klaus in various locations and decades, but on his own without any of his siblings with him.
Elijah's eyes softened in sadness and he turned them from the wall, onto his brother still sleeping form in the nearby bed.
Play the bugle, play the taps,
Make your fathers proud…
With one last glance toward the wall and the pieces of their family history upon them, Elijah moved slowly toward the bed where Klaus slept and rounded the end quietly, coming up on the side of the mattress stealthily and lying down quietly and carefully on the open side of the bed next to his brother.
Raise your rifles to the sky boys,
Fire that volley loud…
Once his head was resting on the pillow, Elijah turned on his side so that his soft brown eyes could look upon his brother's face, relaxed in sleep.
Then he tentatively reached over with his left hand and rested in on his brother's forehead and relished in awe at the human warmth radiating from the skin.
So, what Rebekah and Kol had told him was true.
Klaus was human.
Which meant...
Elijah smirked to himself, then, after a moment, moved his hand from Klaus' forehead to his brother's cheek and closed his eyes, concentrating so that he could penetrate his brother's dreams with his mind.
And within moments, he opened his eyes in another time and place and found himself lying next to Niklaus as a young boy in the meadow of their childhood, beneath the forest canopy of what would later become Stephen's Woods.
Niklaus, aged nine, turned his head and gave his brother a youthful smile, then turned his gaze to the commotion above him and Elijah followed his gaze to see a young Kol, Rebekah and Finn spinning in circles above them in the shadow of the sunlight.
Elijah soon realized that Klaus was dreaming of their favorite past time as children—a game, really—to see who could spin around in the meadow the longest without getting dizzy.
The last person still spinning was the winner.
Elijah smiled in reply when they turned to each other again, his chocolate brown irises meeting Niklaus' blue, just before a four year old Rebekah, cried out, then happily fell over onto Elijah's chest, causing him to grunt, then chuckle.
And within moments, Kol and Finn followed close behind—Finn landing in the space between Klaus and Elijah and Kol landing on top of all three of them.
# # # # #
Fifteen minutes later, Klaus moved restlessly under the covers of his bed and gasped softly as his eyes opened and he awoke, his gaze shifting around for a moment before falling upon his brother's face, inches from his, and the older original watching him steadily with soft eyes.
"Elijah…" he said in a quiet voice, smirking as he Elijah removed his hand slowly from his brother's face
"Hey…" Elijah replied almost under his breath
"You finally made it…" Klaus whispered, "I'm glad to see you're in one piece. I've missed you, brother."
"Me, too," Elijah replied then propped his hand under his head as he smiled as he raised an eyebrow and employed a sentence he had used many time in conversation with his brother over the last thousand years, "So, Niklaus…What have I missed?"
Klaus rolled over on his back and chuckled