I do not own vampire diaries; I just own this plot bunny.
Chapter Fourteen
"So, did anyone find anything of value?" asked Damon, pouring himself another glass of whiskey.
"It's nine in the morning," Davina murmured. Did this man survive off anything other than blood, whiskey, and spite? She was guessing he was fueled more by spite than the other two things. The constant quips he made at his brother and anyone else told her as such.
"And what is your point, mini-Bennett?" he asked, downing the contents in one gulp. Her point, as he so nicely put it was, had just been proven. He was an alcoholic.
"No point needed," she told him.
He opened his mouth to speak when Stefan's sounded out. Always to the rescue.
"Damon, we haven't found anything useful."
Damon threw his hands up in frustration. "Perfect!"
Tessa watched the scene with a blank look. Why was she here? Well it was a trick question. She knew why she was there. She was living out her immortal life with her younger sister, her pupil turned brother-in-law and her niece. She was surrounded by family and also strangers. People who wore faces she knew and yet they weren't the same.
It was all rather depressing. Of course that could also be the residual grieving she had been doing. Silas, while a prick to the world, had been hers once.
"On the topic at hand," Elijah said, trying to make some peace. She caught Henrik's displeased look but made no comment. They were going to have to talk this out soon. "We've looked for something, anything to collaborate with Freya's words. So far nothing. Dahlia is a ghost."
"We've fought ghosts," Damon spoke with conviction. It was like he was trying to make his word law. Tessa rolled her eyes, and she wasn't the only one. Bonnie looked like she had heard him say this before and said nothing. But the eye roll was there. Caroline looked like her nails were more important.
"Well this ghost does not wish to be found," Elijah countered. Tessa let her eyes fall on Freya. The other witch was quiet. She'd been that way since they had returned. That wasn't good. It usually meant one of two things: either Freya had already thought about using herself as bait to lure out Dahlia, or she was going to.
Between Freya and Bonnie, she had too many martyrs in her life.
Tessa opened her mouth to say something when a growl sounded out. It was something so animal that it couldn't be human. Davina moved then, quick as lightning and up the stairs before anyone could follow. Elijah was next and Tessa, not wanting to miss out on whatever caused that reaction followed.
Henrik held onto his brother. He was lucky he had made it in time to stop him from doing something stupid. Bonnie held Hayley down, her magic keeping the she-wolf pinned to the floor while the witch was also cradling the terrified child in her arms.
None of them knew just what had happened. Well, Henrik had felt Hope's magic. But it had felt more like she was growing into it. He hadn't expected his niece to literally grow up overnight. The former six-month-old was now seven years old. It had terrified Klaus and his brother's parental drive kicked in. Of course his rage was also there. He could understand just how he felt.
If Davina had grown miraculously over night, he would have lost his patience. That was something he was happy he had been able to see. His brother had been robbed of that in a way.
"Niklaus calm down," he gritted out, struggling to keep hold of the Original hybrid. His magic could only do so much before his brother remembered he was older and stronger.
"Where is she?" his brother roared. The child in Bonnie's arms let out a sob.
"What the hell is going on?" Elijah demanded as he came into the room. Davina skidded into the room just a few seconds later. The two walked into the room and Henrik saw his daughter rush over to her mother.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Where is Hope?" Klaus growled.
"She's right in front of you," said Tessa, entering the room. She knelt down by the others and reached for the child's cheek. The little girl couldn't be older than seven years old, maybe eight. She had deep brown hair, though there was a shine of auburn in the dim light. Her eyes were a light blue, but Tessa could see how they were similar to Hayley's. The magic in her veins was bright as a beacon and as she stared, she noticed something.
"Well this is interesting," she murmured.
"Tessa–"
Klaus grabbed hold of his brother and shoved him off. He was across the room and about to wrap his hand around Tessa's throat when the elder witch waved her hand. He dropped to the floor; neck snapped. Henrik groaned and sat up. He had really underestimated how long he could keep his brother in check. He wouldn't be making that mistake again.
"What's interesting?" Bonnie asked, remembering her words.
"Hmm? Oh her magic has been tampered with. Someone accelerated her aging, probably to make her mother acceptable to a magical transfer. That's usually between the ages of six and eight. Seven is more acceptable. The witchling is easier to mold that way," Tessa paused, deep in thought.
Bonnie could remember herself at that age. Not her current incarnation of seven. No at that age, she was too busy dealing with an absentee father and an alcoholic grandmother. In her past life, she could remember like the back of her hand. Tessa had been teaching her how to control fire. She also remembered liking figs. They had been her favorite thing to eat. Her mother had told her she wouldn't eat anything else unless there were figs on her plate.
She didn't like figs now.
If someone had been tampering with Hope's aging and magic, she had a good idea of who it was. Dahlia was on the move. That meant they wouldn't have long to prepare.
She glanced down at Hope again. She hadn't let go of Bonnie once. Her parents hadn't reacted kindly to her transformation. Bonnie frowned and turned her gaze to Hayley. Golden eyes glared back.
"Stop that," she snapped. "You're scaring your little girl. Do you want her to be afraid of you?"
Hayley's eyes widened; the gold slowly ebbed away. She hadn't thought of how she was scaring her little girl. She had been scared herself.
"I didn't know," she whispered.
"Well you do now," Bonnie quipped. "You should think before you act. I would have thought between you and Klaus, you were the more levelheaded."
Hayley flinched at the remark. Good, thought Bonnie. She could think on how foolish she was being. Hope needed her right now. She was scared too, more than both her parents. Just the night before she had been an infant, lying beside her father.
"Hope," Davina ushered, her voice gentle. "Did you want to get something to eat? You must be hungry."
The little peered out from Bonnie's chest. She nodded once. Davina held out her hand and after a moment, she took it. Bonnie released her and watched as Davina lead her out the door. Elijah watched until she was out of earshot to speak.
"Can someone please explain?" he asked.
"Weren't you listening?" Tessa scoffed. "Hope has been turned into a child, and your brother and your girlfriend freaked out. It's kind of self-explanatory."
"But how?"
"Well, when two people are overcome with lust, they decide to make the beast with two backs and somehow, in the midst of all that, they procreate. Nine months go by and then suddenly, there's a little one," Tessa said, her voice dry with sarcasm. "Of course, magic has played a factor, so she's grown up with extra steps."
Henrik and Bonnie laughed, though Bonnie tried to hide it with the back of her palm. Elijah flushed and then cleared his throat.
"Are you finished being childish?"
"Are you?" Tessa raised an eyebrow. "Because it isn't that hard to grasp. Maybe if you stopped trying to be the saintly brother and just looked around you, it would be easier for you."
Henrik coughed. "You can stop now."
"But it's so fun."
"I'm sure it is," he said.
"We should head downstairs," Bonnie spoke.
The others nodded and Bonnie removed the spell on Hayley. The she-wolf left the room in search of her daughter while Henrik picked up Klaus. Carrying him out the room, that left the two witches and Elijah. Bonnie followed shortly after Henrik. The two elders stared each other down.
"Are you going to take this seriously?" asked Elijah.
"Are you?" countered Tessa. "There's a witch out there trying to harm your family, Elijah. I would have thought you were trying to rain down hell. Or did that only apply to you, Klaus, and Rebekah? I mean, you did leave Finn and Kol to die."
He recoiled. "You know nothing."
"I know enough," she told him. Her eyes were cold, far off in another time. She wasn't standing in Klaus's guest room in the boardinghouse anymore. She was in a cave deep in the woods, nursing a bleeding child back to health. The little boy was crying out in pain for his family. His tongue spoke in Norse, but she could hear every name he called.
Finn. Niklaus. Elijah. Rebekah. Kol.
He called for them every night as she healed him. He cried out their names in agony on a full moon. Mourned them when they passed through their village and found their hut burned to the ground.
Elijah and his family had let their younger brother slip through their fingers. Let him wonder back into those woods bloodied and dying. They had never tried to find him, even after learning his body had disappeared. They mourned for something that wasn't there and refused to dwell on him. She had seen how it shaped him.
Henrik was every bit like his family. He never showed his pride, but it was there. He also rarely showed the darker side of him. Bonnie and Davina had been part of his healing process and she knew that if he had been a vampire, he would have been just as lost as Kol. He would have been just as mad as Klaus and Mikael. The monster that he held back was restrained by the chains he placed there.
But Tessa had seen it lurking behind his eyes. He had almost fallen prey to the darkness within once. Bonnie's death had awoken the beast. While raising Davina, she had spent many nights wondering where he had been and just who had he killed.
The night he showed up at her cottage, he had been blanketed in expression. The magic had taken a deep hold of him, and she had sent him away. She didn't care how he expelled it or caged the beast, but she wanted him gone. Davina hadn't needed to see that.
He hadn't returned for three months. When he had darkened her doorway again, she could see the animal had been caged. But he was haunted by it. After a long hug between father and daughter, Henrik had spent the day in the company of his little girl. She had been almost ten years old then. He had missed out on almost two years of her life in his quest for vengeance.
That night after he had let Davina fall asleep curled up next to him, he found her by the fireplace. She had been writing in her grimoire. He had sat down across from her and stared into the flames, a silence between them.
"Promise me something?" he asked after a few moments.
"Depends on what it is," she told him, closing her book.
"If I ever go back to that place," he paused and looked into her eyes. "If I tap into Expression like that again, and I can't come out of it, I need you to promise me…"
"I will."
He smiled, though his eyes were wet. "Thank you," he murmured. "I just—I can't be like them."
Them.
The ones who abandoned him. The ones who buried a ghost.
"I won't let you become like them." She had promised.
"You'll never know how much we mourned for him," Elijah said vehemently, bringing her back to the present. Tessa stared at him.
And then she laughed, it was humorless and cold. She moved to exit the room and then paused. She didn't even bother to spare him a look over her shoulder as she spoke. "You're right, by the way. I won't ever know how you felt. But I will always know how he did."
