He had been told once by Mama T, when he was upset that the resurrected witch he dug up did not recall him, that souls had existed since the beginning, and that with all of those many lives lived, souls did not remember blips, and that he, Niklaus Mikaelson, was in fact, just a blip.

On his knees, at the altar that is his lover's body, while aunties and cousins swarm around the room to bring back the dead, he prays to the gods of his youth, over and over, in an ancient tongue, a tongue conjuring images of winter, wolves, and the smell of the sea.

Eir, læknaðu ástina mína og taktu mig í staðinn,

Eir, láttu barnið mitt lifa, taktu mig í staðinn

Paulette breaks from arranging a candle circle in the middle of the living room and whispers for Lydia's attention, and the women eye the vampire bowed by strong feeling, a strong feeling for a witch. It's a curious sight. The sinewy vampire, praying real words with glowing eyes, fingers splayed over the span of the witch's stomach, asking for everyone in the house and waiting on the porch is asking for.

A miracle.

"She will not return without the child," Klaus says, the waver of his voice going undetected to the present ears, "If the gatekeeper will not accept my soul, then I will give him someone he will."

And when did he first hear the heartbeat? Was it really in the backseat of the Camaro when she ceased to be on this plane, the tiny drum loud and finally known in the silence of the car. Or had it been last night, when he foolishly and recklessly was too preoccupied with covering his lies and deceit that he missed that there was to be a child.

A child.

In all of his years, and there have been many, too many for a human to fathom, lifetimes and lifetimes, he had never imagined he would be a father, and he just can't quite imagine it now, even with the heartbeat counting down its life in its dead mother.

But that's not true, you had a child once, he was beautiful and courageous and grew up to be…

"Don't work like that playboy," Lydia says, motioning for another cousin to help her lift Bonnie from the couch, but Klaus lunges to his feet so quickly that the ladies drop their hold on the witch.

Damon clears his throat and the tension in the room, and takes up the Mikaelson cause, "Look, I get it everyone is stressed right now about Bon Bon, but if you all can bippity boppity bring her back, then can you get to it? And then we don't have to do all of this," He remarks, waving his hands at the spectacle of Klaus, fangs drawn and squared off from the witches, "I imagine that the longer we wait then the harder it is going to be to resurrect her. So, if Klaus and I need to collect some souls for this Papa, then give us the names."

Lydia rolls her eyes at Klaus, as if saying don't test me, and turns to the vampire under the doorsill, "If she pregnant, she wouldn't have gone to the other side, so there is no trade with Papa."

"Where is she?" Klaus whispers to himself, and to everyone, and to no one at all.

And Paulette places her warm hand on Klaus's shoulder, "The Holy Mother has her," She says with so much hope that Klaus wants to hope too, "The Holy Mother protects women and children in limbo, especially witches with children in limbo, so there is a chance that Bonnie is there holding on until the baby passes, but we won't let that happen, will we ladies?

Heads nod and some speak Amen.

"Um, Paulette, before you go promising shit, we gonna need Antoinette here to complete the circle and we gonna need the baby daddy's blood for this to work.

Shirtless and jeans stiff with blood, Klaus looks about the room, as if he is not sure where he is, and then reaches for the brass bowl on the coffee table and bites into his wrist and lets his blood drain into the bowl.

And Damon narrows his eyes at Klaus, thinking of how many days Bonnie had been down here with him and how many days had she lain under Mystic Falls, and how many days had she lived with the thought that no one was looking for her.

"We have it." Paulette offers a tight smile to onlookers before taking the blood-filled bowl and pouring it past Bonnie's lips.

Blood trickles down the sides of Bonnie's parted pout.

"And here I thought you 'posed to be the future brother-in-law," Lydia snorts with a laugh, "Now do us a solid and li–

Lydia's request is cut short by Antoinette hurling past Damon into Mama T's living room, eyes wild and breathless, repeating, Is she here, Is she here, Is she here, throwing down her bag and keys on the carpet and tugging at her jacket sleeve.

And the scene registers, the vampire posed to strike, the vampire at the door, the strong fear and revulsion from her family and her best friend gone on the couch.

Anyone would have cracked.

Klaus and Damon crash to their knees simultaneously. Clenched teeth and inhuman growls, the youngest of the Guidry girls cover their eyes and step back from the convulsing creatures.

And Antoinette, in her self-righteous anger, holds fast, her outstretched hands magically snapping each vessel of blood in the vampire bodies.

"You vampires bring nothing but pain and death to a witch."

The pain contorts and twists the vampires.

And blood runs down Damon's nose as he pleads, nails digging into the porch, and Klaus gasps, choking on the blood pouring out of his mouth, his body flattened to the carpet.

Paulette jumps up and shakes Antoinette. Stop. Stop. Stop.

With his blood no longer boiling, Klaus leaps from the floor, over the coffee table and grabs Antoinette by the neck, slamming her up against the wall, her feet dangling several feet from the floor.

And hands instantly clamor at his back and neck, claw at his eyes, and kick at his legs, and they all scream for him to let her go.

But he squeezes the strained neck, taut flesh in his hands, thinking all I have to do is press, I have killed hundreds before and I will kill a hundred more. He races through strangled faces and races through the anger. Anger at Antoinette for blaming him, anger at his brother for warning him, and anger at himself because he agrees.

He is death and destruction. He had only dug her up for a crown. All of the tales are true.

And if you could do it over, the madness is that you would still do it the same, you would still scrounge up her lovely bones, you would still lament at the loss of her heart and power in the sewer, you would still fall…

Wind enters the room, the hands don't need to clamor anymore, no need to kick and scream. And Klaus involuntarily drops the Ninth Ward witch and backs away from her crumpled body, his heart quickening, the hairs on his neck stiff and covered in sweat from the women's hands.

The Guidry women rush in to help Antoinette and the rest continue their chant.

They cast him out. His body knocked to the middle of the street.

Antoinette rushes to the doorway, rubbing at her throat, and croaks, "You!", at Damon, who is still standing on the porch and who didn't bat an eye at Klaus being thrown over his head, "You take him to Marcel's. He has his brother."

And the door, the wooden door that Klaus kicked in, the door that laid sideways, half-splintered, wonderfully and hopelessly locks into the frame, parting the vampires from Bonnie.

BKBKBKBK

The women do the ritual.

Holding hands, they form a circle, and call upon Jesus Mama.

'Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb'

And while their eyes are closed, blood running down the bow of their lips, her body rises and falls, and the baby heart beats, but her eyes won't open, and she won't speak.

'Think she in a coma?'

'No, I think she's just tired.'

The women move her body at Antoinette's request, because she is worried that the vampires will return and take the witch, even though Paulette points out to her niece that Bonnie is loved by those vampires.

'If that's love then she better here staying with us.'

But Bonnie still won't wake and the baby needs to feed.

"You gonna have to meet up with one of them, 'Nette. Gon' head and go look for them, they will give you their blood for her."

Antoinette doesn't have to look far.

She finds one renting a grimy motel room on Dauphine. He dutifully punctures a vein and drips his blood into a solo cup. He writes down his number and says he understands how she feels, he really does, he commends her for being so protective over the witch, but if she can call him when Bonnie wakes, he will be so fucking grateful and he will owe her one.

'You knew her before?'

Turbulent blue eyes squint and his full mouth downturns and he tells her that Bonnie is his best friend, but he hasn't always been the best to her, but he found her, and he is determined to make it right.

'How'd you find her?'

'Marcel. He contacted me and said Elijah and Klaus had her. The rest is history.'

She doesn't look for the other.

Word has it that the streets of the quarter are running red because of him.

Blood pours past Bonnie gums, and her feverish dreams continue.

She dreams of love, in the abstract and in the tangible, she dreams of her father and her grandmother.

She dreams of darkness, of the night and of the tomb, she dreams of pillow feathers floating in the air and of the murky water in a sewer.

And she dreams again and again, of a dark-skinned woman bathed in a spectral glow, inviting her to sit at her feet, to lay her head on her cerulean robes, and Bonnie does and cries in her lap, a daughter crying to her mother of what to do now, how to go on.

The woman only ever smiles at her and tells her that in time it won't hurt.

After two weeks, her eyes flutter open, and there is a ray of sun, dust swirling in its beam, and she opens her eyes wider to the light, even though they are weighty and tired. And her friend, Antoinette, who has been at her bedside for fourteen days, welcomes her back with tears in her eyes, and dips a rag into a bowl of cool water at the night stand, wrings it out and places it on Bonnie's warm forehead.

In time it won't hurt.

And Bonnie sighs, heavy with life, remembering everything.

Author's Note

Man. I really enjoyed writing these scenes and I hope you enjoyed reading it