In the shadowed depths of the crypt, where the air was thick with the scent of ancient dust and the lingering echo of centuries-old secrets, all five siblings gathered, their gazes fixed on the desiccated body of their father, Mikael. He lay entombed in chains, as if Abby had feared the possibility he might escape even in his deathlike state. Despite his powerless state, the mere sight of him sent shivers down their spines, reigniting old fears and unresolved anguishes.

The silence that hung between them was palpable, a heavy cloak that seemed to smother their thoughts. It was Rebekah who dared to pierce it, her voice a mere whisper, trembling with the weight of their shared history.

"So, what do we do?"

"Kill him," came the immediate, synchronized response from Kol and Nik, their voices a grim chorus of resolve.

"He is still our father," Finn's objection was weak, hollow, as if he himself doubted the conviction of his words.

"Finn is correct," Elijah nodded in agreement with Finn, his demeanour calm yet fraught with an undercurrent of tension. "He is still our father. In his current state, he poses no immediate threat. We need not rush to judgment."

"We've believed the same before and look what happened." Nik countered sharply, his words slicing through the air, "Marcel dead, New Orleans burned, and –"

"The rest of us daggered and in coffins because you wanted to keep us safe." Kol voice laden with a bitter sarcasm that echoed the depth of their collective pain, finished Nik's sentence for him.

"My point brother, is that we should kill him and rid ourselves of the threat he poses once and for all."

"How?" Rebekah ventured.

Her eyes narrowed in annoyance as she was ignored by all four of her brother's as they continued to argue back and forth about what the best course of action might be. Fine if they were going to ignore her, then she would ignore them, their bickering was giving her a headache anyway. She looked back down at her father and considered the problem.

A white oak stake was required to kill an immortal. Mikael had hunted them from years, haunted their footsteps, chased them from one city to the next. Even before they were vampires, he had been their greatest fear, a loving father he was not. Nik had borne the brunt of his wickedness but all of them had tasted his angry punishments more than once. He'd possessed the only weapon capable of rendering death to them, he would not have allowed it to exist far from his reach. Which meant it was almost certainly entombed with him.

And if it wasn't then her brother's argument was irrelevant because they would have no way of killing him.

Determined, Rebekah eyed her father's suit, recalling the fashion trends she had swiftly caught up on. Modern suits typically had nine pockets, but only one could possibly conceal the stake they so desperately needed.

Wrapped in chains as he was, there was no way she could search his pockets for the stake. Normally Rebekah would be hesitant to get too close to her father, but in his desiccated state he wasn't much of a threat to her. Besides, for once she was in full agreement with Nik.

Mikael needed to die; it was the only way to keep Maya safe from him.

Ignoring the bickering of her brothers, she approached the sarcophagus. Her strength, supernatural and unfazed by the chains that bound Mikael, tore them apart with ease. She was met with no resistance, no sign of life from her father, confirming her belief in his current harmlessness and her own determination.

"Rebekah!" The warning shout from one of her brothers went unheeded as she delved into the jacket pocket, her fingers closing around the familiar, dreaded shape of the white oak stake.

With a swift, decisive motion, she plunged the stake into Mikael's heart. His eyes snapped open, a silent scream on his lips, a horrifying echo of the man who had once been their father, their hunter. The stake ignited, flames quickly consuming his body, reducing him to ashes under the watchful eyes of his children.

"There," Rebekah declared, her voice steady, betraying none of the turmoil that raged within her. "Problem solved."

The siblings stood together in silence, a mix of relief and sorrow in their eyes, as they faced the ashes of their father. The crypt, now a tomb of memories both terrifying and sorrowful, held them in a moment of collective mourning for what they had lost and what they had been forced to become.

"Remember keep a low profile. We need information before we make a move."

Everyone nodded, accepting her instructions, just as it should be.

Once the Mikaelson's were all seated in the living room and had been served with drinks, Damon gave Sam a nod, and as she magically sealed the room, he introduced her.

"This is Dr Acesco. She's Maya's therapist."

The reaction was immediate and varied—a symphony of emotions played across the Mikaelsons' faces. Elijah's brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown; a silent question mark etched across his features. Kol and Rebekah exchanged looks of uncertainty, their eyes speaking volumes of unvoiced concerns. Klaus, ever the tempest, displayed a storm of anger in his eyes, a silent testament to his protective instincts. And Finn, the picture of surprise, looked as if he'd stumbled into a world completely alien to him.

"Therapist? You mean like that Freud character?" Finn's confusion broke the silence, his voice laced with incredulity.

Sam's response was a gentle smile, the kind that promised enlightenment and understanding. "The field of psychology, and indeed psychotherapy, has evolved dramatically from Freud's era. We've come a long way in understanding the human mind," she explained, her voice a soothing balm to the brewing storm of emotions.

"Why does Maya need a therapist?" Klaus's voice cut through the room, sharp as a knife, his gaze locked onto Damon with an intensity that could melt steel.

"That," Damon replied, his gaze unwavering as he faced Klaus's challenge, "is exactly why we're here today."

He turned slightly, giving the floor to Sam, who stood with a confidence born of years of helping others navigate their darkest waters.

"As Damon mentioned, I'm Dr Acesco—Sam, if you prefer. And yes, I am Maya's therapist. She's entrusted me with the permission to share aspects of her early childhood and history. It's our hope that this will help you understand her better, to know how to be the support she needs," Sam elaborated.

"You mean what happened when she was a baby?" Rebekah asked, she'd been brought up to speed by Elijah as to what had happened to Maya's mother and stepfather when she'd been a toddler. What had almost happened to Maya herself.

"That." Sam answered with a nod, "And the years that followed before she came to live with Damon."

A ripple of bewilderment swept through the Mikaelsons, each one grappling with the revelation. They had all believed Maya had been under Damon's protective wing since the harrowing loss of her parents.

"Before?" Kol echoed, voicing the collective confusion, his brow furrowed in concern.

"Maya didn't come to live with me until a few days after her twelfth birthday." Damon clarified. "Before that she was living with her stepfathers sister and her family."

The room hung on the edge of a question, but before another word could be spoken, Elijah interjected with the authority of a conductor silencing the orchestra.

"Let's afford Damon and Dr Acesco the courtesy of explaining everything. Hold your inquiries and comments till the end," he proposed, his gaze locking onto Klaus with an unspoken warning.

Damon's voice was a low rumble, each word heavy with the gravity of untold stories.

"During the years of the war in Britain, the Ministry of Magic there, passed a lot of laws targeting vampires." he began, his gaze distant as if reliving the memories. "So, I was in America when Jasmine and Luke died, I'd tried to persuade her to come back with me, escape the war, but she refused. She was a target, and so was Maya, because of some prophecy."

Another ripple went through the Mikaelson's at Damon's words. All of them upset that their daughter and niece had been explicitly targeted by the madman who'd murdered her mother. Even Elijah looked like he wanted to say something, but with significant effort he managed to control himself, and shot looks at his siblings that settled them down as well.

"Jasmine trusted their safety to a magical charm called a Fidelius." He continued, "It basically conceals a secret, like the location of a family, within someone else's mind. The person Jasmine and Luke chose, Peter Pettigrew, betrayed them. They were killed, Maya survived no one knows how, Pettigrew escaped and Sirius Black, Maya's other godfather was blamed for his crimes and locked up in Azkaban.

"I found out about their deaths a few weeks after they happened. Too late to attend the funeral, but I visited their graves and spoke to another friend of theirs. He told me that Maya had been given into the care of Luke's sister; Petunia Dursley. Her godfather was in Azkaban, and her godmother Alice Longbottom and her husband Frank were both in St Mungo's. They'd been tortured into insanity by some of Voldemort's follower's a few days after Jasmine and Luke were murdered.

"I was unaware that Lady Magic had named me as Maya's godfather, and I didn't know that Petunia and her family were non-magical. Considering the laws that were still in place, and the general sentiments against vampires in magical Britain at that time, I figured Petunia wouldn't allow me anywhere near Maya, even if I was a longtime friend of the Potter's. So, I returned home to New York, and Maya stayed with the Dursley's.

"When she turned eleven, she went to Hogwarts and returned to the Dursley's at the end of the school year. Then a few days after her twelfth birthday, she turned up on my doorstep in New York."

Damon could see the questions in their eyes as he finished the succinct explanation of why had hadn't raised Maya after Jasmine and Luke's deaths, and when he had taken her in. He hadn't really gotten into the details of what Maya's life with the Dursley's had been like. They'd decided it would be best for Sam to explain that part, since she would be able to tell it much more clinically than he could. He was well aware that none of them would take it very well, and being too emotional in the telling wouldn't help at all.

Sam gave him a nod, and took up the explanation. Choosing to state it plainly, expecting uproar to follow her announcement, and prepared to wait it out until she could explain in further detail.

"The Dursley's were mentally, verbally, and physically abusive towards Maya."

Both Damon and Sam had expected outrage, a tempest of sound and fury to come from the Mikaelson siblings. That wasn't what they got, not for the first few moments.

In the wake of Sam's declaration pure silence followed, as if the world itself had come to a complete standstill. The air itself seemed to thicken, charged with a volatile mix of shock, anger, and an almost palpable sorrow, as each of the Mikaelson's processed the revelation.

Finn, often the most reserved and contemplative of the siblings, felt a cold anger seep into his veins. His initial surprise at the concept of a therapist gave way to a deeper, more profound dismay, upon understanding the reasons for Maya's need of one.

"Abused," he echoed softly, the word tasting bitter on his tongue. "Our niece, subjected to such barbarism..." His voice trailed off, not because he had nothing more to say, but because words seemed insufficient.

Finn, who had seen centuries pass, found himself grappling with a horror that felt too raw, too cruel to fit into the narrative of his long existence. It was bad enough that he had been unable to protect his siblings, too weak to save them, Freya from Dahlia, and the others from Mikael. That his bright, clever, sweet, and loving, little niece had endured such horrors at the hands of those meant to care for her – he was filled with rage like never before, all he wanted to do was hunt down those who had hurt Maya and deliver the same pain upon them.

Elijah, always so composed and controlled, felt his usual mask crack and shatter under the weight of Dr Acesco's words. Igniting the fire he often kept dampened down, the one that reminded him too much of his father's mindless rages for him not to suppress. For once he let it loose, fuelled by protectiveness and fury, for the niece he had loved since the moment he set eyes on her. His glass left his hand before he even realised, he'd loosed it crashing against the wall tiny pieces falling to the floor beneath, just as the tide of anger within him was crashing against the shattered rocks of his self-control.

First, he'd failed Niklaus, in not getting him away from the brutality of Mikael, now to learn that he had also failed his niece. That Maya had suffered the same fate at the hands of those who should have loved and protected her. Not even fourteen years old and she had already known suffering beyond what anyone should have.

The gratitude he felt towards Damon for taking Maya in, for loving and caring for her the way that she deserved, increased a hundredfold beyond what he had already felt. There was no way he would ever be able to repay such a debt, just as there was no torment that would be enough to make the Dursleys pay for what they had done to her. There was nothing more important than family. And no one hurt his family and lived.

Kol, the wild one, the impulsive and fiery misfit, who oftentimes felt like an outsider in his own family, even knowing they loved him, that had always been true. Had seen a kindred spirit in Maya, from the moment they met, cunning, crafty, mischievous, fun-loving, the same traits he valued in himself. A bright light, casting away the shadows that had consumed his existence since he had lost access to his magic.

If Nik had been the one to take the brunt of Mikael's physical rage, he had been the one to take the majority of the verbal barbs he had spewed. He knew the same pain his niece had experienced, and he felt his anger lash out like a physical force. The glass in his hand crumpled into dust. There was no outrage, no explosion of anger strong enough to convey what he felt right now.

His usual playfulness was replaced by a dark ferocity. He who so often danced on the line of morality, found no humour, no lightness in this darkness. His thoughts were chaotic, a whirlwind of revenge, protection, and an aching sadness for the pain Maya had endured. 'They will pay!' a silent promise, a dark oath that left no room for mercy. For Kol, this was personal, an attack on family, and he would stop at nothing to ensure such a transgression was answered in kind.

Rebekah, the baby of the family for a millennium, the heart and soul, felt a tumult of emotions crash over her like a tidal wave. Adorable, wonderful, Maya, who had opened her eyes and her heart to opportunities she thought lost to her. Her heart broke for what she had suffered, the same pain she had seen Nik go through at the hands of Mikael, whose torment she had finally brought to an end after far too long.

How could such depraved people exist in the world, those who harmed children, especially the ones they were supposed to love and protect were the worst of the worst. She had more blood on her hands than most, as did her siblings, but there was not one of them that would ever lay a hand on an innocent child. Rebekah loved fiercely, but along with her love came a protective streak that rivalled that of a mother bear with her cubs, and with Sam's words that fierce protectiveness, roared into life.

"We will do right by her," she vowed, her voice laced with a fierce determination. For Rebekah, this was not just about retribution; it was about providing Maya with a haven, a family that would shower her with the love and protection she had been denied.

"No one will ever hurt her again," she promised, a pledge that was both a balm to her own aching heart and a battle cry for Maya's future.

Klaus, the storm personified, whose rage tended to burn with the fierceness of a volcano was frozen. The last thing he had ever wanted for Maya was for her to suffer the way that he had at the hands of someone from whom she should only have known love and protection. To know that she had been enduring abuse whilst he had blithely been going about his life, none the wiser about his miracle of a daughter and the torments she had been experiencing was unbearable.

There was no anger, nor rage, no fury, strong enough to express what he was feeling right now. No words could truly express the wrath he would visit down upon those who had dared to lay a hand on his child. The revelation was a direct challenge to his nature, an affront to his very essence as both a father and a protector.

"To think that such vermin had their hands on my daughter..." His voice was a low growl, vibrating with the promise of vengeance. For Klaus, this was more than just an emotional wound; it was a call to arms. His mind raced, not just with plans for retribution but with a desperate need to undo the past, to fill Maya's life with enough love and strength that the shadows of her former pain would be obliterated.

"They will rue the day they laid a finger on her," he vowed, his determination as deadly as it was absolute. His eyes met Damon's, saw the same agony and rage within them that he was feeling,

"Where are they now?" The controlled anger in his voice was enough to bring his siblings out of their own thoughts. Klaus was never that controlled, that had always fallen to Elijah and Finn. To see the roles reversed, Elijah losing control whilst Klaus maintained it was shocking enough to draw their attention fully back from their own turbulent thoughts.

"Prison. In Britain." Damon replied, "before any of you make any plans to go after them, and believe me I want to, we need to discuss what's best for Maya."

"What is best for my daughter is that the scum who harmed her cease to exist."

"That is your anger talking." Damon forced himself to reply calmly, there was no need to exacerbate the turbulent emotions that were filling the room. "Your need for vengeance. But you are a father now, and Maya's needs have to come before yours, especially if you want to remain a part of her life."

"Is that a threat?"

"A promise. I will protect Maya to the best of my ability, and if protecting her means keeping her safe from you, then that is what I will do, Nik."

Where most might have expected him to respond to such a challenge with jealousy and anger, Klaus found the primary emotion that swept over him in response to Damon's promise was relief. The knowledge that someone loved his daughter enough to protect her, even from him, was a comfort. Despite what others, Elijah, and Finn, might say, he was well aware of his own shortcomings. He had a temper, he was impulsive, he cared little for people outside his own flesh and blood, the list was long. He knew that as much as he didn't want to, as much as he loved Maya with a fierceness that outstripped anything he had felt before, that he still might hurt her.

He didn't want to. By all the gods, he didn't want to.

But he was not a good man, not as worthy of her as he should be.

And if he did one day do something that caused her pain, then he would need Damon to live up to the promise he had just sworn, and protect Maya from him.

Taking a deep breath and quelling the rising tide of fury within him, he sat back down, unsure of exactly when he had risen, and regarded Damon and Sam with a serious mien.

"Please explain, everything. I'm listening."