I was watching Elijah & Hope's talk about his childhood and this line stuck out to me. I wish it could have been explored more. But why in the world would a family show focus on the entire family, right?

Anyway, I know I have some readers who only know about the Mikaelson family through my fics. I don't usually include her but Freya is mentioned in this one shot. She's their eldest sister. Only Finn ever knew her and they were quite close. Esther gave Freya away in exchange for the ability to have a large family. Everyone else believed she had died.

In this one shot, Freya and Finn are both alive. The family all lives together in NOLA and is getting some much needed therapy. Hope doesn't exist. (I love her but she took away from the main family aspect) That's about all you need to know. Who knows, I may add to this here and there. I don't think it'd be total agere, but Kol would definitely be treated younger than 19. Because, he really is just a baby.

Anyway, let me know what you think! As always, feel free to leave prompts or ask me questions! I am on Tumblr and love communicating on there, as well as in the comments!

The phases come and they go. It's to be expected, according to Cami. The family has been through so much trauma and pain. Now that they're all together, working out their issues and trying to do better, there will be high highs.

There will also be low lows.

Usually, the lows have something to do with Kol. Sure, Finn picks fights here and there. Rebekah struggles with Freya in terms of not being the only sister of the family, but those are rare. Kol's down periods lead to pouting, sarcastic comments and if allowed long enough, epic tantrums.

Klaus does his best to be patient. After all, he knows a lot of the scars of Kol's past have to do with him. With the help of Cami, he's trying to do better about accountability. He needs to own his past, even if he feels there are reasons behind the behavior.

He's less patient when it comes to Kol's attitude with the others. At the end of the day, he's still viciously protective of all his siblings. Especially Rebekah and Elijah.

This week's Kol's "low" has been directed at Elijah. It started out with the small infraction of Elijah forgot to replace the champagne and there was none left to make Kol's favorite brunch mimosas. Then things got worse when Elijah called him out for cheating at Scrabble. All of it added up to Kol snapping over being asked to not leave his shoes by the front door and instead, in the closet or his room. Ever since, he's refused to say much to his second eldest brother. Tensions were fraught, with still 3 days to go until their next family therapy appointment.

By now, Klaus knows it's more than just the shoes. It's why he tries to be patient. Yet, with each glare Kol sends Elijah's way, Klaus is tempted to lecture him. He has to go through the breathing exercises that Cami taught him.

That Saturday morning, Klaus enters the dining room to find the breakfast dishes still scattered about. Klaus pulls out his phone to check the chore chart that Freya put together. While they have a housekeeper, she still felt if they are to heal like a normal family, they should act like one. As suspected, it's his younger brother's day to do the dishes.

"Kol!" There's silence. Klaus raises his voice. "Kol! Get down here!"

A brief wind takes over the room. "Heavens, Nik. There is no reason to shout," Kol says, folding his arms over his chest.

"You didn't come when asked," Klaus says, already trying to hide his irritation.

"I didn't realize I had to respond to your every summons."

Klaus clicks his tongues. "The dishes."

"They exist, yes."

Kol's eyebrow is arched. An annoying smirk plays on his lips. Klaus shakes his head.

"'Tis your job this week," he reminds him.

Kol waves his hand. "I'll get to them eventually."

"You shall do them now."

"Or what?" Kol snorts. "Let's not pretend like you have any authority around here." Klaus opens his mouth but his younger brother is quick. "And do not pull the "this is my house" nonsense. It's the family's, and you're not even the oldest. Not even close."

Klaus' jaw locks.

Breathing. Remember the breathing.

Screw the bloody breathing.

Klaus is only able to vamp halfway to the archway when Elijah intercepts. He stands between the two, shoulders straight. They're the same height and somehow, his older brother always seems taller. Elijah looks between the two. Kol's smarmy smirk quickly fades and annoyance takes its place.

"Enough," Elijah commands. He glances at his middle brother. "I know you were not going to attack him."

"I'm sure you heard the way he spoke to me," Klaus counters. "He was baiting."

Elijah looks at Kol. "You know better than to speak to your brother that way."

Kol scoffs. "Of course you would take his side."

"What other side is there?" Klaus scoffs. "You were giving me an attitude."

"And that gives you any right to lunge at me?"

"You've been stomping around here for weeks, pouting and snapping at everyone! You're bloody lucky it took me this long."

Kol extends his arms. "Go for it, Nik. Or is the big, bad hybrid all bark but no bite?"

Elijah pushes Klaus back before the thought of reacting can come. He fixes Kol with a Look.

"Your issues are with me. Not Niklaus. Do not take it out on him."

"Of course." Kol rolls his eyes. "As I said, defend your favorite brother. Again."

"I do not have favorites, Kol. I am simply looking to defend the right brother. Should Klaus have lunged at you? No. But are you really going to defend your actions?"

Kol rolls his eyes. "Oh, so now you care about who's in the right?"

"Are we really going to do this right now?" Klaus snaps. "You're allowing the dishes to bring up the past?"

"I just find it humorous is all. Not much has changed."

"You're mad Elijah is defending me when you were in the wrong."

"This time. But would it have really mattered if I was right?" He doesn't allow either of his brothers to speak. "Or even if I am wrong, if I were you, Nik, I would've gotten away with it. After all, it's always you."

"This is ridiculous!" Klaus snaps.

Elijah shakes his head "Klaus, we're supposed to allow each other to feel the way we do. It's the only way we can move on as a family. Kol has every right to be upset."

"Damn right I do," Kol interjects. "Because the only people who ever get in trouble around here are me or Finn. Precious Rebekah could set the world on fire and the lot of you would find a way to defend it."

"I have punished Rebekah," Klaus says.

"Has Elijah? Well, maybe. Again, all in the name of pleasing you. Finn, Bex and I rotted in coffins in the mere hopes that you would one day act like a decent person. You massacred people by the thousands, controlled our lives for centuries. And yet, Elijah stuck by your side."

Klaus grinds his teeth and hides a small growl. The gears in his brain churn as he does his best to keep it in. Elijah catches the look his eye and quickly mouths the word "don't". Kol catches it.

"Don't what? Dagger me? If he did, would you let him throw me in another coffin?"

"That's enough," Elijah's voice is firmer this time. Though he keeps the anger on his face, Kol does back down some. "You are entirely out of line. Yes, I have made mistakes in the past. You are clearly angry with me and I am fine with that. We can discuss it, rather than you taking it out on your brother. Who, at the moment, has done nothing wrong."

"That's my point! The millions of times he was wrong and I was right, you still took his side. Now that the roles are reversed, you can't even bother to do it with me."

"I am trying to rectify my mistakes."

"By picking Nik. As usually."

Klaus' anger boils over. He shoves Elijah out of the way and gets up in Kol's face. For only a moment, he sees a flicker of fear in Kol's eyes. It's quickly replaced with the tough bravado of before.

"He didn't always choose me," he seethes.

Kol scoffs. "When did he not?"

"Niklaus," Elijah warns.

Klaus ignores him. "When we were children, I planned on running away. I could no longer take our father's torment. I begged Elijah to go with me."

Kol tilts his head. Some confusion mixes with the anger. "You never left. We were stuck with both of you for decades."

Elijah steps forward. "Both of you!"

He tries to get between them, but Klaus pushes him away.

"We never went, because I couldn't go on my own and Elijah refused. And why? Because he didn't have heart to leave you!"

Kol blinks. Klaus takes a step back, expecting satisfaction to run through him. He never thought he'd see the day when he could shut Kol's smart mouth once and for all.

And yet, he feels nothing but sadness as his brother's eyes turn a mixture of guilt and confusion. Kol stares past Klaus to Elijah, but there's another breeze. The two youngest Mikaelson brothers are the only ones left in the dining room.

Kol is frozen in place. He stares at the spot where Elijah once was. Klaus opens his mouth then closes it again. With a breeze of his own, he vamps out of the room. It takes a good 15 minutes to find Elijah. His brother is by the labyrinth, staring at the colorful path.

"Brother," Klaus whispers.

Elijah's voice is low. Not angry, not sad. Devoid of all emotion and low. "I have two rules, Niklaus."

"Elijah…

"Two rules," he interrupts. "One, we do all we can to get along as a family. So we can make it work this time around. It is the first time we are all living under one roof. Freya is here. We want to do right, do better. That means not picking fights."

"I am aware."

"So, you defied that one." Elijah leans down and plucks a purple flower from one of the hedges. He twists it between his fingers. "The other, was one just between us. We may share many things in therapy. Reveal context to the way we have behaved for the millennia. You and I, however, were to share one very important secret."

Klaus nods. "Do not tell Rebekah or Kol about that night."

"Precisely."

Klaus draws a deep breath.

"I could not bear to hear him speak about you like this any longer," he defends himself. "He goes on and on about how you chose me over him, over all of them."

"Which is true." Elijah's voice doesn't waver as he stares at the flower. "I did."

"Yes. There is still a reason. One that clearly shut him up."

"'Tis my choice how much I can handle. If I wanted them to know, I would have told them. I didn't. You did."

"So, what happens now?"

"That is to be determined. Kol now knows the truth. I'm sure he feels guilt. Sadness. Things have shifted. There is more hurt and chaos than there originally was."

"I only wanted to defend you."

"And in turn, you hurt one of the people I have been trying to protect."

The flower crushes to dust beneath Elijah's grip. It falls onto the pristine green grass below. He dusts his hands off and nods.

"Thank you, Niklaus," he says dryly. "I feel so much better."

Klaus is left alone in the garden with nothing but his guilt.

Once the dishes are done, Kol doesn't leave his room for the rest of the day. He sits on his bed and tries to figure out when it could have occurred. Klaus didn't cite an age. Tensions were often high when they were children. As much as Klaus and Elijah tried to keep things light for Kol, Rebekah and Henrik, there was very little that could be done to hide the monster their father truly was. Finn certainly didn't help matters by acting as their mother's puppet.

Still, Klaus always looked up to Elijah. He wanted to please him so badly. If the middle brother was upset, it was always due to their parents or Finn. Kol struggles to remember a time when they weren't.

It takes a few hours of nothing but staring at the wall to think of a few days. They're fuzzy. Kol isn't sure if he was 10 or 11, which would put Klaus at 15 or 16 and Elijah at most 19. For a few days, Klaus was in a foul mood. He didn't touch his paints or charcoal. Kept his head down rather than play with the younger ones. Instead, he kept his head down, muttered "yes, ma'am", "no, sir". He wouldn't meet Elijah's eye, but then again, he wasn't talking to any of them.

Kol asked his second eldest brother what was wrong. Elijah redirected him to play with Rebekah and Henrik, telling him to worry about being a little boy. That irritated Kol enough to distract him. He wasn't a baby anymore like Rebekah and Henrik. At that age, he felt like nearly a man! How dare Elijah call him a little boy?

Looking back, it was purposeful wording and it worked. Kol stopped worrying about Klaus and instead was annoyed with Elijah the rest of the day. Come morning, Klaus was more or less his usual self and the matter was forgotten.

Could that have been it? Or perhaps another time that Kol wasn't able to see?

He always argued that he wasn't a little boy. Yet, as more time passes, especially once Henrik died, Kol realizes that perhaps he truly is "the baby". At least the baby boy. Old enough to know the family history but nowhere near the context.

Elijah stayed behind for him. Well, likely him, Rebekah and Henrik. Still, he had a chance to escape with the brother he always favored. And still, he remained for his younger siblings.

Somehow, the feeling of being chosen doesn't make him feel any better than he did when he assumed a lifetime of neglect.

The sun falls before there's a knock on his door. Kol tries to ignore it, fearing Freya or Rebekah are on the other side. He really does not wish to talk it out with them. They buy too much into Cami's "therapy" speak.

There's another knock, a harder one this time, implying it's one of his brothers. He doesn't feel much like seeing any of them either. Kol is in no mood to make up with Klaus yet. Finn will likely just lecture him for his behavior.

"Kol."

He would take any of them in place of the brother that stands outside his door.

There's another beat of silence. "I am coming in."

Kol thinks about yelling that he's naked, but that probably wouldn't stop him. He sits up against his pillows and picks at a piece of fuzz on his sweatshirt.

Elijah enters and shuts the door, but stays close by. He purses his lips. For a moment, Kol wonders if he'll yell at him. After all, the entire thing started because of him. Had he just cleared the dishes in the first place none of it would've happened.

Why did he let it go so far? Why does he always take it to such extremes?

"Niklaus should not have told you that."

Kol is taken aback by his calm demeanor. "I let it go too far. I'm not even sure why I did."

"Because you have a lot of anger riddled up inside of you. Thus the point of therapy. Finding you healthy ways to release it."

"Probably a waste of money for me," Kol muses. "I clearly don't know when to just walk away."

"Because you expect if you do enough, we'll be the ones to." Kol ducks his head. "You're not wrong. In the past, we have."

"Not always."

Elijah clears his throat. Kol looks back up to meet his eyes.

"I didn't know."

"You weren't meant to."

"Why? Because you regret it?"

"No!" Elijah scrubs his hand over his face. "Regret, it's not the right word. I spent so long defending Niklaus and letting him get away with so much because I felt guilty. He couldn't be on his own. In turn, he stayed in a horrible situation."

"You could have gone. Finn was still there."

Elijah ejects a bitter laugh. "I was not about to leave you three with Finn. He did Mother and Father's bidding. You needed someone to protect you."

"I could have taken care of Bekah and Henrik."

Elijah gets a look about him. The same one Freya does when she learns how horrid their childhood was. After all, the younger siblings got much different versions of Esther and Mikael. The traumatized, guarded ones. She pities them.

Kol hates being pitied.

"Stop it," he mumbles.

"You were just a child yourself," Elijah says. "No older than 10."

"So? I am sure that at that age you were tending to the rest of us."

"Yes, but it was what I was bred to do from birth. Myself and Finn, we were in charge. 'Twas your job to be a child."

"Well, I'm not a child anymore. I don't need you protecting me from the truth."

Elijah sighs, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter how old you or Rebekah get. I will always look at you as children. That's what happens when you raise little ones."

"I'm not little."

Elijah pinches the bridge of his nose. Kol wonders if he can piss him off enough to leave him alone. He has in the past.

It doesn't seem to be working this time. Elijah steps forward.

"I do not regret what I did. I wish circumstances were different so I didn't have to choose. That we lived in a home in which Klaus did not want to run away. One where if I left, I could know that my younger siblings would be safe. Alas, that is not the life we lead." Elijah folds his hands. "So, I did what I could. I remained in our home. Protected all of you as much as I could. And ultimately, I failed."

Kol frowns. He bites on his lower lip until blood is drawn. It quickly fades away.

"I tried to balance it. Find a way for all of us to be a family. I thought the only way to do that was to rectify all of Klaus' pain. Without realizing I attributed to the rest of yours."

Kol sighs. "Elijah, I do not wish to rehash all of this. You've more than apologized."

"Yet, you're still angry. That's why you keep picking fights over it."

"Of course I'm angry. That kind of thing doesn't just go away because we talk to Nik's girlfriend once a week."

"She isn't his girlfriend.

"Not yet anyway."

"Are you going to continue deflecting?"

Kol shrugs. "It's what I'm best at, is it not?"

A small smile pokes up on Elijah's lips, involuntarily causing one on Kol's. Both are quick to disappear.

"I don't know how long I'll be angry," Kol whispers. "I don't want to be. Sometimes, I'm fine. I can be around the rest of you and it's like it never happened. Then, it hits me out of nowhere."

"That's normal."

"I don't like the way it feels. I hate going from feeling happy to…this."

Elijah nods. "I wish I could take this from you, Brother. Protect you from all the very pain I caused."

"I know. That's why I hate being angry with you. I know you're sorry. And now…" Kol exhales through his nose. "Now I know that you once protected me above Nik."

"That doesn't mean you cannot be angry with me. It doesn't change a thing."

"Sort of feels that way. I mean, I still am. Yet…it helps to know. I just wish…God. This is stupid."

"Nothing is stupid." Elijah sits at the edge of his bed. "You know we're supposed to be honest. In healthy ways, that is."

Kol sits up straighter, crossing his legs.

"I spent so long wishing you had protected me and now, here I am wishing you hadn't so you could've been safe."

"I don't care about my safety. It isn't your job to worry about that," Elijah says firmly. "I'm your older brother."

"That doesn't mean I can't care about you!" Kol snaps. "I hate that you were in that position. Maybe if I was older or a little more mature, if I had been more like you…you would've felt better about leaving me to care for the little ones."

"You were one of the little ones," Elijah argues. "You still are."

"I'm not a child anymore, Elijah! I don't need you protecting me from the truth! You can tell me things like this! Our relationship could've been different!"

Elijah runs his fingers through his hair. Kol folds his arms over his chest, not feeling nearly as old as he claims to be. How do his siblings have this power over him?

"It's as I said," Elijah whispers. "To me, you are a little boy." Kol opens his mouth but his brother's hand is enough to silence him. "I know, you are 19. You have been for quite some time. It does not change that you are my little brother. I have done a terrible job of protecting you in the past. So, now, if you want to be angry or think of me a certain way, I shall allow it. I owe you that much."

"You owe me honesty," Kol says. He tries to keep his voice firm, but it comes out almost broken. "You owe me the truth. You owe me the brother I always wanted. The one you were when I was a child. That means telling me the truth."

"I don't want you to feel guilty." Elijah shakes his head. "I do not regret what I did. And I know for a fact that Niklaus does not resent you, any of you for it."

"I know he doesn't. There is much Nik and I have to work out, but this isn't it."

"Yet, it's one more thing for you to sort out. Which is what I wished to prevent."

Kol rubs his chin. There is silence for several minutes. Both brothers stare at one another. Kol takes in a side of Elijah he isn't sure he has in a long while. His protector. Someone who put him first.

It may not have stayed that way forever. Yet, it existed once. Maybe it's starting to again.

"I shall work on being kinder to myself," Kol says, unsure of how true the promise is. "If you work on treating me like a man."

Elijah bites his lip. "That may take some work."

"Well, I don't see loving myself very much for a long time either. I'd say it's a good thing we're in therapy, eh?"

Elijah chuckles, shaking his head. "Perhaps it's not as much of a scam as you thought."

Kol nods, trying to hide a smile of his own. "Do you think we'll ever be able to tell each other everything about the past?"

"Maybe not. There are some things that are just too hard to discuss. However, I shall work on telling you the important things."

"Thank you. I'll work on telling you when I'm angry. Not just be a dick to you…and Klaus." He sighs. "I should probably go apologize to him."

"He owes you one as well."

"Do not be too hard on him." Elijah looks less than pleased. Kol sighs. "Brother, he was defending you. I was being terrible and he just wanted me to stop."

"I told him to never do that."

"You protected him for 1,000 years. Now is not the time to stop, simply because you wanted to me. Believe it or not, you can be a good brother to more than one of us at a time."

Kol tries to lighten the mood with a smirk. Elijah scoots closer, smacking him upside the head before pulling him in for a hug. Kol fidgets a moment.

"What is this?"

"A hug. I know I've been horrid, but you truly don't recognize one?"

Kol wraps his arms around him. He's unsure when they hugged last. After all, he hasn't exactly been in a touchy-feely mood as of late.

So, he allows Elijah to hold him. His strong, long arms wrapped around him. Kol's head presses against his shoulder. He slouches a bit to appear smaller. For a moment, Kol drops all pretenses of being a grown man.

He's just a little boy who needs the warm embrace of his older brother.