Elena was sitting with Rebekah outside a small café having lunch. They were having a girl's day. They'd spent several hours at the mall before deciding to have lunch before going home. Elena even managed to get the day off from magic training with Freya to spend the day with her sister.
"You know, this city is so different than it used to be in a lot of ways, but in many, it's exactly the same. See that?" Rebekah asked as she pointed to a large, castle-like house that could be seen for miles. "We used to live there."
"You lived in a castle. Wait, that shouldn't surprise me. It fits given that you were considered royalty. I guess that's still the same too. There's still a hierarchy," Elena said. She'd told her siblings about Marcel. Well, sort of. She hadn't mentioned him by name and she downplayed her encounter with him, but she told them there was a new vampire leader and a witch leader. They hadn't been happy, especially Nik, but they'd all decided not to engage with the man for now. They had to lie low.
"Yes, Nik is still pissed about that. He's furious someone took over what was ours. I'm fairly certain he would be trying to take it back if we weren't on the run again. Although, that didn't stop him the first time. It also didn't end well for us the first time though," Rebekah said.
Just then, Elena's eyes wandered to a table several feet away, where she saw Marcel sit down with a young girl. "Oh, I guess the asshole's ears were ringing."
Rebekah followed her sister's eyes and was shocked to see Marcel, someone she thought was long dead. She just stared at him for a minute. Then shock turned to rage. She'd loved Marcel and it crushed her when she thought he was dead. Yet, here he was more than a century later alive and well. He didn't seem to have a care in the world. "I'll kill him!"
Elena watched as Rebekah got up and stalked towards the vampire king. Elena immediately got up to follow her. "Rebekah, wait!"
Marcel noticed Rebekah moments before she got to him and immediately stood up. "Rebekah?"
"You bastard!" Rebekah snarled before slapping him across the face. "I thought you were dead! You've been here the whole time, taking control of what we built?!"
"Rebekah, we're in public," Elena said as she made it to her sister's side. They were supposed to keeping a low profile. Making a scene in a public place was not keeping a low profile.
Marcel laughed. "So, now you care about not making a scene in public, huh? It didn't stop you from stupidly using magic in public not too long ago."
Elena cringed. There went her secret about magic. It was probably just as well anyway. She wasn't going to be able to hide it from her siblings forever.
Rebekah looked at her sister in surprise for a moment, but she quickly recovered and glared back at Marcel. "That is my sister you're talking to. You will show her some respect!"
Marcel was shocked to say the least. He had no idea that the new witch in town was actually related to the Originals. He'd thought he knew about all of their family. "Sister? You never said you had another sibling."
"And you didn't say anything about not being dead," Rebekah countered.
"Hey, it's not my fault you all decided to take off without even trying to help me," Marcel said with a glare.
"We did try to help you! There was nothing we could do. If we'd stayed any longer, we'd all be dead! You could've sought us out. You chose to let us believe you were dead!" Rebekah snapped angrily.
The girl Marcel was sitting with stood up and glared at the two women. "Marcel, what's going on?"
"It's fine, Davine. I'm just catching up with an old friend," Marcel assured her.
"Rebekah, I think we should get out of here. We're attracting a crowd," Elena said.
Rebekah looked over to see a bunch of people looking at them. "Fine, but this is not over."
"How do you know Marcel?" Elena asked.
"Later. Right now, we need to get home because you have some explaining to do," Rebekah said as she put an arm around her sister and led her away from the café.
Xxxxxxxxxx
An hour later, Elena and Rebekah were sitting around he dining room with their other siblings. Rebekah and Elena filled them in on everything that happened, including the fact that Elena had tapped into her witch powers.
"Is this how you really escaped Finn, Elena?" Elijah asked.
Elena nodded. "I used telekinesis on him. He didn't see it coming, so it bought me a couple of minutes."
"How long have you been able to do magic?" Elijah asked.
"A few months," she said.
"And you decided to lie to us about it. Why?" Klaus asked sounding quite irritated.
"Because I knew you'd pressure me into learning how to use it, and I didn't want that," Elena responded.
"Yes, because not doing so is dangerous, especially for us. We are on the run. We can't attract attention to ourselves, or Mother will find us. If you accidentally use magic in public because you aren't trying to control it, we run the risk of that. Not to mention that it is a part of you and shouldn't be suppressed," Elijah told her.
"Yes, why would you even want to suppress it? Magic is a wonderful gift," Kol said. He envied his sister for getting her magic. He missed being a witch so much. The idea that any witch would try to ignore such a gift was unfathomable to him.
"Kol, I know how much you loved having magic, but all I see it as is a way that I'm like her," Elena said.
It didn't take much for Elijah to figure out who Elena was referring to when she said 'her.' There was only one person it could be. "Elena, listen to me. You're nothing like Mother. Nothing. You may have her gift, but that doesn't make you like her. You are much better than she could ever be."
"For now. But she probably wasn't always like that either. Maybe magic ruined her. I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to be the kind of person that thinks it's okay to play God. To bring someone back from the dead even if it means taking someone else's life," Elena explained.
"That's not going to happen," Elijah assured her.
"You don't know that," she said.
"Yes, I do. I know you better than that, even if you don't know yourself better than that. I have known what kind of person you were before I even knew you were my sister. I was awed by you. Do you know what my first impression of you was?" Elijah asked.
"That I looked exactly like your treacherous ex-girlfriend?" Elena asked. She couldn't help it. Despite the seriousness of this discussion, she had to tease her brother a little.
"I'll request that you never bring that up again," Elijah said with a shudder. He'd gone to great lengths to try to forget the fact that his sister looked identical to the woman he'd once saw himself loving. He certainly didn't want to be reminded of it. "And I meant the next time we saw each other. When you tried to surrender yourself to Niklaus to protect your loved ones. You were willing to die for them, and I had never met anyone that selfless or courageous. That is why when it came time, I offered you the elixir. You deserved to survive."
"I know what you're trying to say, Elijah. You're trying to tell me that that means I won't be like Esther, but what if you're wrong?" Elena asked.
"I'm not. You are a much better person than our mother could ever dream of being. You won't do to people what she has," Elijah said.
"Elena, the fact that you know you don't want to be like her means that you know that there's a line you shouldn't cross. You won't cross it," Kol said confidently.
"It just scares me. But I know that I don't have a choice. The witch I told you about isn't giving me one," Elena said.
"Yes, tell us more about her. What does she know about you?" Klaus asked suspiciously. He did not trust some witch that none of them knew. In fact, as a rule, he didn't trust anyone outside of the family.
"Yeah, and why would you go to her when you have a brother who is more than capable of teaching you," Kol said a bit offended.
"I didn't go to her, Kol. I got caught using magic in public and she forced me to learn. She controls the witches in the Quarter. Although, admittedly, she's not as bad as I originally thought. She's strict about her rules though. And she only knows generic things, Nik. She knows we're running from our mother, but she doesn't know who she is. She just knows she's a controlling, evil, bitch," Elena explained.
"That's more than I would like anyone to know about us, Elena. We don't know anything about this woman. We don't know if we can trust. For all we know, she could know Mother and speak to her about the girl that is running from her mother," Elijah said.
"She could sense the cloaking spell on me, so I had to tell her something. Besides, she's not like that. I've been working with her for a couple of weeks. She wouldn't do or allow the things Esther has done. She's even offered me protection from her if it becomes necessary," Elena told him.
"Still, we should meet her. How about you invite her to dinner this Friday?" Elijah suggested.
Elena was hesitant, but she knew her brother would not rest until he met Freya. Her siblings were insanely overprotective of her, especially Elijah and Nik. "Alright, but no one threatens or attacks her without cause. She could probably take you all anyway. She's pretty strong."
"That doesn't make me feel better about this," Elijah commented.
Klaus turned to Rebekah. "Tell us about Marcel." He was both happy and pissed off when he found out about Marcel. He was happy to find out that the man he thought of as a son was still alive, but he was angry that he just let them think he was dead for so long.
Rebekah nodded and began telling him that she knew. Elena added her part to it as well.
Xxxxxxxxxxx
Finn made his way into his mother's study. They hadn't left Ireland yet. There were no leads on his siblings, so there was no rush to leave. They were currently trying to figure out what their next move was.
"Mother?" Finn called as he entered his mother's study. She wasn't there though. She must not be home. Her grimoire was open on the desk though. He went over to it, curious about what she was up to. Perhaps it was something to help locate his treacherous siblings. However, it wasn't a location spell he found when he peered at the page she was looking at. It was a resurrection spell. Who on earth was his mother planning on resurrecting?
"Finn?" Esther's voice called out.
Finn looked over at his mother. "Mother, what are you doing? Who do you plan on bringing back from the dead?"
"You should not be looking at that. It's not your concern," Esther said before walking over and closing the book.
"Mother, resurrections are dangerous. They typically kill the caster. This wouldn't be like with Elena. Her soul hadn't fully moved on yet," Finn said.
"I'm aware of all of that, Finn. Should I need to use the spell, I will have a safeguard in place," Esther said.
"You didn't answer my question, Mother. Who do you intend to bring back, and why?" Finn asked.
Esther sighed. She supposed she might as well tell him now. She was getting closer to deciding to use that spell. "I am growing tired of searching the globe for your wayward siblings. And once I find them, I will still need a way to control them. There is one person who has aways been able to do that."
Finn's eyes widened when he realized what she was eluding to. "You can't mean who I think you do. Mother, he's a beast! He killed your daughter when she was less than a week old!"
"I was weak from giving birth. I couldn't stop him then, but I am at my strongest now. I can keep your father in line. Besides, we both know why that happened, don't we, Finn? You left him alone with her.
Finn cringed. He could never forget that. He had carried that with him every day. "I was starving. If I had stayed another moment, I was afraid I would kill her. I didn't think he'd do anything to a baby."
"But it doesn't change the fact that it would not have happened if you'd stayed until your siblings returned," Esther said.
"I know that. However, now you want to bring that monster back. You wish to put him in Elena's orbit once again. It goes too far. He could kill her," Finn said. He didn't like his sister much. He didn't like any of his siblings. He was all for his mother punishing them. But he had a limit, and his mother quickly approaching it.
"Finn, trust me to know what is best. I know what I'm doing. I will keep Mikael in line. Now, I could use some time alone. Leave me please," Esther said.
"Yes, Mother," Finn said reluctantly before walking out of the room. He stood frozen outside of the room for a minute. He imagined the carnage that would follow if his mother brought his father back to life. He imagined the damage that man could do to his siblings, especially Elena. As much as he didn't like his siblings, he didn't wish that on them. With that realization, he'd made a decision. He needed to find his siblings before his mother did.
