-24-

Finn

Finn was reluctant to let Freya out of his sight. She'd convinced him to stop by the grocery store for a few essentials and grab some food from that restaurant that he'd gone to with Isolde.

Now, even as they entered the ostentatious door of the too large manor and into relative safety, Finn didn't want to be seperated. He was seconds from directing his elder sister to the kitchen so she could eat when Esther appeared on the balcony with her arms folded atop the railing. Her eyes scanned Freya from head to toe and her lips pursed in faint, mocking disapproval.

"This is certainly not one of the Alexanders, son." Esther said with a quirked brow, sliding a hand along the banisher as she descended the stairs. The disapproval still written all over her face.

Finn felt his shoulders tense as Esther came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. Freya's eyes hadn't wavered from Esther since the moment their mother had spoken and Finn started to worry over the outcome of this confrontation.

He'd wondered about this moment since he'd learned that Freya could quite possibly be alive after all these years. He wondered what his sister would be like as an adult. Would she have aged to be far, far older than the rest of them? Would she have decided to forgive their mother? Would she even recognize him?

What would she do when confronted with their mother? What would she do when confronted with Niklaus?

These thoughts plagued him more so than the answers he might one day receive.

Finn had asked his mother, several times to no avail, why she'd made the decision to turn to Dahlia for help. The question plagued him. His mother's refusal to answer left him questioning almost every interaction he'd had with her since he was a boy. She, his one lifeline in a sea of darkness. The only one who'd ever shown him an ounce of affection. The only one to ever accept him fully.

And yet she couldn't trust him with her answer - with the truth.

His mother's outright refusal to trust him had created a schism between them that Finn found himself unable to reconcile. He wanted to bridge the gap, to remain close with his mother, because without her what did he have? But she turned him away at every effort. She refused him. She rejected him.

All of these things lead to this moment. This confrontation between the eldest child and the mother who'd abandoned her.

"Son?" Freya repeated, pushing Finn out of the way gently with two fingers. Finn reluctantly allowed it, worried about the confrontation he foolishly and naively thought might end with some sort of resolution between them. He held out hope that they could get past the betrayals, but the look on Freya's face said differently. "Ah, so you are alive." Her eyes glittered dangerously, brows lifted as their mother made it to the foot of the stairs. "And powerless." Freya's brows raised. "Unable to leave, I take it?"

"Courtesy of an old witch. Far older than I. Who might you be?" Esther asked, coming to a stop in front of Freya. "Quite a powerful witch yourself, if my senses are not failing me."

"An old witch." Freya repeated, tilting her head and ignoring the question. "Vera Alexander?"

"Master Vera," Esther nearly hissed at the elder witches name and Finn bit the insides of his cheeks as the energy in the room stirred and Freya's already incensed look flashed again at the disrespectful attitude of their mother towards her soul bond, "has confined me and taken my freedom like an errant child needing scolding."

Things settled a fraction asFreya smiled a predatory little smile, and Finn's wrist began to twitch. He itched to separate his mother and Freya. Hundreds of scenarios surged through his mind at warp speed and not one of them ended well.

"I see. I suppose I should thank her for such a gift."

Silently, without disturbing the tension that was coming off the two women in the room, Niklaus and Kol entered the still open door eyeing the witches with interest. Finn gave them a helpless look, hoping to convey that he felt this was a dangerous situation.

His brothers, as always, ignored him completely.

Esther opened her mouth to speak and with a single flick of Freya's wrist, their mother began to choke, collapsing to her knees with her hands clawing at her neck.

"I didn't say you could speak to me." Freya's eyes shone with unshed tears, her voice sounded rough and raw. She looked away and cleared her throat.

Finn made a move to go to Esther, to help her up, or something. Anything but simply stand there and watch this happen but Niklaus grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

"Oh I wouldn't do that, brother. Look at how much fun our dear long lost sister is having?" Niklaus said with a malicious grin, eyes never leaving Esther's tortured form.

Esther's eyes widened dramatically and she glanced from Klaus to Freya as her son's words registered. She was struggling to breath, and one hand dropped to the floor to brace herself against it while the other was still clawing at her throat as though she could remove the invisible hand. Esther was desperately trying to breath, tears rolling down her face.

"I wouldn't want to rob anyone else of their plans," Freya glanced over at her brothers, specifically Niklaus, "anything important going on that involves our mother?"

"Oh I don't believe so," Klaus responded with a wicked, wicked grin stretching across his features. "Elijah mentioned something about truths unknown. More information he would like to extract should what we learned about you turn out to be true and alas," he gestured to Freya and let the implication hang in the air.

Freya released Esther from her magic and Esther fell to the floor, gasping for breath. "Freya…. Da-Dahlia."

Freya whirled around to stare at Esther, her back to her brothers. "You dare speak her name to me? You dare, after all you've done?"

"Freya, you had so much light." Esther whispered (whether because of her shame or because of the suffocation, Finn wasn't sure) against the floor, head down in utter shame and voice dripping with disappointment and a hint of consternation.

Finn grimaced at Esther's poor word choice. Esther gave Freya to Dahlia. Someone who would steal a child couldn't have been anything less than the most vile of tormentors. Now would not be the time to point out whatever trauma Freya had endured at the hands of such a woman.

Just like that it was like Freya's emotions became heightened like vampires and the room around them began to shake, the chandelier above them lost a few glass pieces that fell and shattered around them. "You don't see that light in me?" Freya hissed, eyes flashing with unresolved pain that broke Finn's heart. "That's because Dahlia snuffed it out. I was five." Even Niklaus flinched at Freya's desperate tone. Freya closed her eyes and breathed sharply. When she spoke again, her tone was more controlled but they all saw the tears that had begun rolling down her cheeks. "And she was the Devil. She took my light. My love. My will to live. My ability to die."

The tears were falling from their mother's eyes. "My dear Freya. I am so sorry." Her voice wavered as she looked up at her eldest.

Freya closed the distance between them and laid a hand on Esther's forehead. Esther leaned into the touch, sobbing desperately and raising a hand to clasp onto her daughter's wrist. "It's a little late for that."

Esther's eyes widened, her heart rate accelerated.

In a brief moment of clarity, Finn realized exactly what his sister planned on doing and tried to wrench himself out of Niklaus' grasp but they hybrid was too strong and Finn's legs were scrambling on the floor for purchase he couldn't find.

"Freya, dont!" He called desperately.

"Freya, please, no." Esther begged, pushing herself back up to her knees and ignoring how hard Finn was fighting to reach her.

Another tear ran down their mother's eye and a look of grief and resignation flitted across the elder witch's face. She closed her eyes and gave a single nod.

And then her entire form burst into a hundred dead ravens all around them.

"What a splendid performance," Kol clapped with a barking laugh just seconds after the last bird hit the floor. Everyone turned to look at him whilst he gingerly stepped over the remnants of their now dead mother. He lightly smacked a hand on Freya's back as he walked by, a broken cell phone in his other hand that he waved at Niklaus as he made to exit the manor, "welcome to the family. Or shall I say 'welcome back?' Brooms are in the pantry. Rubbish bin in the garage. Rebekah will go mad if she walks into this mess."

Niklaus dropped Finn unceremoniously and stepped around all the death as well, raising his brows at Freya.

"Well at least I can honestly tell Elijah it wasn't me who spoiled his fun this time. It is now you and I both who have committed matricide." He grinned cheekily. "Welcome to the club."

Finn crawled across the floor to where his mother had been just moments before, trembling and pale as he pushed dead ravens away from the spot his eyes hadn't left.

Mother.

His Mother.

Once again like a bad dream he couldn't wake from. Once again his mother died, this time right before his eyes. In seconds. Before he could find a way to stop it.

Before he'd gotten a chance to make peace with her.

They'd spent the last week at odds and he hadn't made peace with her. His hands buried into his hair as he released a strangled scream.

The only one who'd truly loved him in his life.

Dead.

"Finn?" Freya sounded worried, her face pinched and eyes wide as she came into his field of vision.

Freya, sweet Freya, his older sister. His only friend. His only friend in a thousand years. He'd wanted her back in his life so badly, so very badly, and now she'd murdered in cold blood the only person who'd shown Finn any love and affection in the same harrowing amount of time.

'Freya killed mother.' Finn's mind warped around this new reality as he tugged at his hair and the world tunneled and settled on the smallest of all the dead ravens. He reached for it with a strangled cry, realizing that he was even deprived of a body to bury - to hold while his mind unraveled.

"Oh come now, Finn, that was inevitable." Kol scoffed with a flippant roll of his eyes from where he stood now half out the door. "One of us was bound to do it. Need I remind you that she tried to kill us all? But then, so did you. How pathetic you are, Finn."

"Thank you, Kol." Niklaus responded with an eye roll before they landed on his eldest brother with the barest trace of concern. The hybrid held an arm out toward the stairs. "Come, Freya. Since you've graciously rid us of Esther there's now an available suite for you. Bring your bags."

Freya hadn't moved from where she stood before Finn. He was far too upset about their mother's death, in her opinion, and she couldn't see why he was so visibly with Kol's condescending remarks followed by Niklaus' callous regard, her own anger was rising once again. She placed a hand upon Finn's shoulder, who shrugged it off with a growl.

Freya didn't know that Finn was turning so many things over and over in his head.

He didn't want to hurt Freya. He didn't. But the echoes. The darkness was cloying at his insides. The rage. The hurt. The pain, so much pain it threatened to split him in two.

'Mother,' he thought, 'Freya killed mother.'

"Finn… she separated us." Freya said with misguided but hardened resolve. "She gave me away. To the devil. She did that. You've no idea the suffering I've had to endure."

"... your suffering." Finn hissed through the tears he hadn't realized were falling silently, sliding down his cheek and to the floor between where his hands were now cradling one of the small, dead ravens.

The rage he felt was like the burn of white oak ash seeped in a pool of vervain and applied to his heart and into his very blood stream as it rippled through his entire being. It was like liquid fire. Or like long awaited death that would never come. A sob wrenched out of him before he could attempt to control it. The second gut wrenching sob he didn't even try.

"Finn…" Freya breathed as he looked up sharply. His vampire face was on full display and he growled menacingly at his closest sibling. The one he just got back. The one he'd mourned for and dreamed of for centuries.

Life was unkind. Unfair. To him more than most and it was so fucking painful. He breathed in deeply, something deep within him telling him it would be all too easy to not have to feel so much pain and anger. All too easy. A receptor in the brain he could just… flip. It would be so easy.

"Finn." This voice was Niklaus. The abomination. The first of his siblings to kill his mother. Finn's predatory gaze flitted to the hybrid with disdain dripping from his features. Recognition seemed to dawn on the hybrid's face and the man scoffed and matched Finn's look of disdain. "If you can't take it then turn it off, Finn. You always were a coward."

A growl, full of malice, ripped out of Finn's chest. Venom and saliva fell from between his clenched elongated fangs. The rage, the pain, it was all swirling inside him. The memories. Brief glimpses of his life, when he'd been graciously allowed to live it, swirled in his mind's eye like a match to the gas leak that was his rampant emotions.

Niklaus' face went from disdainful to enraged in a second. The hybrid pushed Freya out of the way, not caring as she smacked against the column of the bottom of the stairs. His face morphed into that of the vampires - complete with the added fangs and the golden eyes of the wolf. It was the first time Finn had seen Niklaus' hybrid face and he wasn't at all impressed by the alpha male posturing.

"Come on then," Klaus shouted, coming within inches of Finn's face, "let's do this."

Just as Finn was ready to lunge, a sharp pain began in his head and Freya stepped up between the brothers. "I think the two of you need time to cool off," was all Freya said and both Finn and Niklaus' heads were wrenched to the side with a sickening crack and the last thing they heard was Kol's raucous laughter.

Isolde

"Damn," Isolde gasped, wrapping the fingers of one hand around her neck with a deep frown and slamming on the breaks just as she'd pulled away from the Forbes' house, "You guys were right, that really does feel like it happened to me."

At Elijah's alarmed look she turned down the street that would lead them to the manor and hit the gas - hard. "Someone snapped one of your brother's necks."

"I would wager that one of them snapped the other's neck, considering Freya and Esther's reunion and the myriad ways that could go wrong," Elijah stated and Isolde wondered at Elijah's airy tone. He sounded like he was pretending not to be angry about something. Her brother's did that same thing. It was almost amusing to hear it coming from Elijah. "In any case you should slow down. I doubt they're in any real danger."

"I'm not taking that chance. Actually," she hit the breaks again, Elijah surging forward and getting slammed back as the seat belt locked up. He grunted and Isolde pulled them over to the side of the road. Now out of the residential district the road was forest all around, "take my car. I'll get there faster without it."

Elijah's jaw ticked as Isolde threw the driver's door open. He was out of the car and pressing her against it lightly before she had a chance to shroud and run to the Mikaelson's manor. She looked up at his dangerously dark eyes as one of his hands wrapped around hers and brought it up to his mouth. His other hand was pressing against the top of the car. His hips jutted into hers, pinning her in place.

Isolde pulled at her trapped hand lightly but Elijah only tightened his grip in response. She raised her brows and opened her mouth to ask what the hell he was doing when he pulled her forward into a tight hug.

"Breathe," Elijah said. His tone was more of a soft command as he released the hand he'd trapped and wrapped that arm around her shoulders and up into her hair until he was gripping the back of her head. He pressed her head lightly into the juncture between his neck and clavicle.

Isolde was tense, but she'd been tense all day. The stress had been wreaking havoc on her since the moment she'd gotten off the phone with Marcus and found out everything there was to know about the Tribuni that was leading an inevitable insurrection within her Nation. Then it had been one thing after another since and now one of her bonds was hurt and she didn't know why or how or who and she needed to…

"I said breathe. In. Now. " Elijah's sultry voice was much harder and lower, more growly and assertive than his usual tone, cracking like a whip across her frayed nerves. She didn't think about it, Isolde just let herself do as he commanded. She took a long breath in. "Good girl," he drawled, his breath was hot against the shell of her ear and she shivered, "now back out."

As she breathed out she felt some of the tension ease out of her shoulders and she sagged lightly against Elijah. He held her up, lazily rubbing a hand up and down his back as she buried her nose in his neck and kept breathing in and out to his commands.

It must have been three or four minutes of this before Elijah carefully pulled back and slid his hands up to cup her face. The skin of his fingers on her jaw felt like little electric shocks that renewed some of her sapped energy in an interesting way. She tingled, looking into his eyes with wonder at how much better she felt.

Elijah's face was a mere few inches from her, a light smile upon his lips. "Better?"

Isolde nodded, their noses brushing. "How did you…"

He leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers, the little electric shocks had subsided but that did nothing to decrease the jolt that went through her body as they connected. Slowly, he drew back from her, dropping one hand to her waist and raising the other to brush her hair out of her face, thumb lingering at her temple.

"You've been anxious and spiraling since Freya and Bonnie came through that… portal. Pair that with your inability to slow down and I was beginning to worry you'd be reduced to a puddle of anxiety at my very feet. I hope I didn't overstep."

Isolde snorted indelicately and looked away from him. Some understanding of his motives and a little piece of the puzzle in her mind labeled 'Elijah' locking into place. He cared. He was worried. And so he took action.

She decided that she liked these qualities about him. She liked them quite a bit. Now did that commanding tone of voice he used transfer to more elicit activities, she wondered? Isolde looked back up at him, giving him a grateful smile, her hand settling on his forearm.

"Thank you. I needed it," Isolde said with sincerity.

He damn near preened at her words, but tried to cover it under a sultry half smile. "Now do you still want to come with me to find out what's happened to my brother? Or brothers, which is quite likely.." he took a breath and then leveled her with a steady look and switched tactics, "there's much on your plate. We needn't add more to it."

Isolde huffed a small laugh and shook her head. "I want you to add to my plate. Make it overflow, I'll watch it spill onto the floors."

"And when it becomes too much?" He asked quietly, with a raised brow. Isolde wondered if he was asking this because he really needed to know what she would do when his family became too much for her, like she figured it had for every one else he'd been involved with. Under his tone she could feel it, the insecurity. The sadness. She wanted more than anything to make him understand that she wasn't going to go anywhere. "When each time you reach down to pick up a spill and more falls with it until it's impossible to continue?"

"Then I'll get a bigger plate." Isolde said as his eyes searched hers as if looking for a single crack in her resolve. "I want the good and I want the bad, Elijah. I don't care how bad the bad gets. I've got skeletons, too."

There was a small pause. Silence. Almost awkwardly long.

And then Elijah laughed, his eyes glittering with joy as he swept Isolde up and twirled her three times before he put her back down again, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

"Then let's go see what the trouble is this time, shall we?"

I thought about whether I should or shouldn't kill off Esther when Freya entered the mix or wait for Dahlia. I decided to choose this route because it would lead to some bonding between Isolde and Finn and I've got some plans for Dahlia that are better off without her sister around.

Also, Klaus' more accommodating reaction to Freya in this vs in TO is directly because he's not worried about Hope. Since there is no child and he's feeling more secure in his power than ever because of his bond paired with his family not trying to come after him for all the bullshit he's pulled his anxieties are just slightly more under control.

Updates have been quick because I caught the plague and y'all have inspired me to work on FSO over the other stories I've been working on. Seriously, y'all are the best. I'm almost out of the woods now, the plague was less bad this time around. (I've had it twice. Ugh.) I should be back to work soon so I hope you've enjoyed the fast updates while they lasted!