Part 11

Nocturne Opus 48 haunted the compound with melancholy strings and unexpected heavy keystrokes punctuated by successive rapid fire violent explosions. Elijah would have been perfectly satisfied playing Debussy for his newfound sister, delighted in the awe that graced her blue eyes whenever he played it for her, his lips curved with the pride knowing the genuine realization of love that dawned on her were drawn by his fingers.

But she lay asleep now, not stirring from the healing rest that Freya whispered into her.

And when it was Niklaus that stood watching him from afar, darkening the doorway to the salon, his hands on the piano could only draw out Chopin in maddening grief-stricken accompaniment.

Who was he, Elijah wondered, when he could not pull his brother from his despair, and could only reflect in passive reflection the same storms that surged in Niklaus?

There was no peace or comfort in his fingers, as he did not ease but raged from 48 to Nocturne 62, less angry, but maddeningly lonelier, a tinge more bitter in its sadness.

His last solitary note hung in the air between them, reverberating like so much electric force. Niklaus did not make a move to step into the salon. Elijah did not seek to stand or close the distance.

When Caroline was awake, she had urged him to seek his own happiness, and leave his brother's salvation to her and Niklaus himself. He had thought himself fulfilled. His family was together, which had been his decades long mission when he had despaired at what he had thought he lost. Hope was a miracle, and so was Hayley's affection. This was love. And love was rare in a thousand years.

He had been in love. Had he not?

Family and love made him happy.

But that night, Elijah was a spectator when Klaus barreled headfirst into unknown territory, held the soulless young siphoner witch that Marcel called Parker then revealed himself to be a known enemy named Kai. His brother had been ruthless countless times over the centuries. Klaus Mikaelson could tear the carotid of many creatures.

Leave my family alone, he had gritted out the demand.

And that boy had a death wish. With Kai's bright smile and a taunting reply, Elijah knew the fight with the covens had ended. The final foe, the leader and the final blood tie to the Gemini. "No can do, Hybrid King." And then Kai had spread his arms wide, as if to unfurl a cape from his bare shoulders, or presenting himself like a savior on a cross. "There can only be one. I have lived my miserable life because of Pop. I deserve all the power of the Gemini coven, and I'll have it when I have those little ones in my hands." He made a move as a thrill rushed through him. "The power of a whole ancient coven, wasted on two tiny infants, ripe for the taking. Pity the little aberrations won't even live long enough to enjoy them. Lucky for uncle Kai."

Klaus never needed to turn off any humanity, or drown in bloodlust and lose himself to the call of darkness. Always because he teetered on the edge of all of it. In their millennia, he had only been farthest from that cliff when Caroline arrived, flustered and nervous, then bloodied because she had dared to save him.

He never bothered to bite. Bare handed, Niklaus clawed into the witch's trachea, then pulled out the mess of arteries and veins until the head barely hung onto the mangled neck. With fierce golden eyes he pulled. The tearing muscles and ripping skin made a squelching liquid noise. Kai's body fell onto the ground with a thud.

"Niklaus," Elijah called to him.

But he had been intent on ensuring there would be little possibility of mending, of witches stitching him together, or reanimation. Elijah watched, clear eyes, never turning away, when his brother tore the corpse limb from limb, until his largest pieces were smaller than either of the twins possibly could be.

Marcel had run, but there was nowhere to hide. Elijah knew if Niklaus did not, then he would pursue the vampire that Klaus had taken as his own. There were littler ones now, as powerful as they were defenseless, as much his family as the one that he had been raising with Hayley.

And then Klaus picked up remnants of the siphoner and tossed several to Kol, several to Freya, then gathered the head and hands to himself. "Spell them, burn them, toss them into the bayou, bury them far apart. Make sure there can be no coming back. My children won't spend a lifetime looking over their shoulders, chased by a soulless sociopath like we were."

There was a time when Klaus had sworn to Elijah that the twins were merely an incidental to the girl he adored.

Maybe Caroline was right. Maybe salvation was closer to Niklaus than Elijah ever thought. Maybe Elijah was unburdened now.

The scream tore through the still air. They sped through the wetlands and the forest.

The cabin was closer to a massacre scene than a birth tableau. Elijah's gaze swept across the room. Beside him, Klaus dropped Kai's head and limbs onto the floor. Even the gore of Klaus' kill seemed less bloody than the pool of blood that gathered and spread under Caroline. She lay spread, her abdomen gaping open, her skin gray, lips blue, eyes half lidded. Kneeling a few feet away, soaked in blood, holding babies in each of her arms, was his sister.

Slowly, Rebekah turned to her siblings. Elijah noted the glassy eyes, knew the youngest of his siblings slid into a state that protected her mind from the trauma before her. The relief was palpable in her expression. "They're girls." The babies mewled and squirmed in Rebekah's arms, so tiny, so incessant. And Klaus strode into the cabin, past his sister, past the newborns he had just called his children.

The hands that were steady when he shredded Kai Parker were trembling when he gathered Caroline up to rest against his body, then reached to try to close the gaping wound that barely healed. "You need blood, sweetheart."

Silent tears tracked down her bloodied cheeks. Elijah noted the shift in Klaus' face, when he brought his wrist to her mouth, willing his blood into her, watching the precious liquid wasted as it dribbled down her chin. Her eyes rolled back and her head dropped.

It was the despair, that look of utter helplessness in his brother's eyes, that seared into Elijah's brain—that was the Klaus he still saw when his fingers danced with fury along the ivory keys.

Kol, for all his bluster, settled beside Rebekah and with a gentle touch and soothing voice, calmed their sister enough to take one of the babies in his arms. His curious eyes moved over the red-faced babies, then looked up at Klaus. "We'll need to have them checked out in the hospital," he suggested. "Nik," Kol prompted.

But Klaus was unhearing, unseeing, unfeeling beyond a small radius where he sat in the pool of her blood.

"They aren't vampires. They're premature human babies." Even Kol, for all the bloodshed and violence that he himself had wrought, winced at the next declaration. "C-section premature babies."

It was to him that Kol turned then. Elijah gave a curt nod, because it was clear that Klaus would not. Kol helped Rebekah up.

"Nik," was Rebekah's broken exclamation as she stepped forward.

"Go," Elijah said, his voice firm. It would not do if Niklaus emerges from the state he descended and lashes out. It would not do to delay.

And so the youngest of the Mikaelson siblings, with one child each, fled the cabin.

Sluggish and painfully slow healing notwithstanding, the trickle of Klaus' blood down her throat gave her enough strength to open her eyes. The pressure of Klaus' hand on the wound was firm still. Elijah could hear the sharp intake of his brother's breath, the slight smile that did not reach his eyes, when she turned to look up at him. She started to reach up at him, and recognizing the effort it took her, Klaus took her hand and held it up to his cheek.

"You look like a fright," her voice cracked through the parched throat. Elijah could see the pain that it took, to simply say the words, to breathe, to keep herself awake.

How vampire healing failed her, after her body had been siphoned of her vampire life force as the babies grew and fought to survive.

Would that the babies were inside of her, and he knew that his brother would will the babies to drain him, if only it would give her back a fraction of the strength to heal.

It was as near to death as any of them had been, and she was closer to ash than flesh.

"And you, love, are still the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," Klaus told her.

Everyone knew he was lying, because she was open and bloodied and unkempt from captivity. The strains of Liebestraume no 3 itched at his fingers. No one could call him a liar.

That beauty that his brother saw in death, that stubborn determination that with her fading he could keep her alive by deceiving himself…

If this was the love and happiness that Caroline urged him to find for himself, Elijah wondered if he would ever be prepared. She thought he was denying himself joy, but there was no joy in his brother now.

Freya kept the coolest head of all.

"We need to give her time to regain her strength, to take blood, to heal her body," Freya said. And then she took one of Caroline's bloodied hands in hers. It was the one that held the paragon diamond, caked with blood and mud, useless now that the twins had been born. What would happen to the ring now, with its gemstone no longer serving to channel siphon powers? A gaudy little trinket, symbolizing Klaus' failed promise. "Caroline, you're in pain. I can help you."

"Do it," Klaus hissed. Anything to take what pain there was away.

Was that the lowly state that love could drive you, Elijah wondered. Klaus did not ask the how and what in exchange, and all the essential questions. This was the happiness that Caroline thought he needed to find.

But Freya did not address their younger brother. He was not the one to undergo the spell. Soon, Caroline would fade. He could see it in those eyes. "I can bring together Ayana's preservation spell and the sleeping spell. You're going to sleep without pain, and we can prevent your body from further deteriorating. Your body will take care of the rest as the magic of your vampirism recovers from the siphon. And we will give you blood to replenish all you lost, so you can heal."

"No anchor."

Freya shook her head. "No anchor. Ayana's spell did not need an anchor, unlike the sleeping spell."

"How long will she sleep?" was Klaus' broken question. Finally, Elijah thought.

"As long as you need to heal," Freya said somberly, looking at Caroline. It was a positive spin on she did not know. And then the truth that dispelled further objections. "Asleep and alive until we know not when, or do nothing and wait to see if your healing will outpace the bleeding. The twins drained you, Caroline. It will take time to-"

"Don't tell Bekah. And, if I don't wake up, don't tell the babies."

"That's a moot point, sweetheart. Because I will make sure you'll be awake in no time." Klaus leaned forward and pressed a tender, longing kiss on her lips. "Has it already been six months since you woke me up in the catacombs? I'll return the favor, love. I swear I won't stop until I wake you up."

And then she turned in Klaus' arms and looked straight at him. Elijah's throat constricted in the face of his denial. This was what she wanted for him, and he could deceive himself for one second that he had it. "Elijah, can I have your tie?" The odd request flustered him, but he loosened the long piece of cloth from his neck and approached her. "I don't have a lot of time. I'll sleep, Freya," she consented. "The last six months have been the happiest I have ever been, Klaus. Thank you. Now give me your hand," Caroline requested.

Elijah's heart skipped a beat. Because he knew.

Her ring was hazy, but her eyes shone brighter than any diamond through the pain. And Niklaus was right. She was bloody beautiful. Her hand shook as she binds her hands with his brother's. Knowing what she wanted now, and giving her the grace not to fall apart in her weakness, Elijah took the tie that was her makeshift cord, then continued for her the action of binding her and Niklaus' hands together.

Her voice was soft, breathless, and he wanted to tell her she did not needed to expend her energy on words that he knew well that Niklaus knew. But he respected her need to say them all the same. It did not matter now what physical strength she lacked, how she had come to them desperate and afraid. His brother's fiancé—wife minutes from now—was the strongest woman he would ever know.

"These are the hands that protected me, the hands of the man I love with all my soul," she breathed. "No matter what happens. These are the hands that I trust will hold our family as one. Please, love. If we do this, no matter what happens to me, swear that anyone who wants to get to the babies will need to go through you."

And in one final move before an indefinite sleep, Caroline had sought a final promise.

The makeshift ceremony in the center of the pool of her own blood was pagan, unintentionally ritualistic. It was not the pomp and organization one would have expected from Caroline Forbes, but perhaps one that could be expected from Caroline Mikaelson. His brother stared at their bloodied hands bound by Elijah's tie. His voice was guttural, and Elijah knew it was the emotions that consumed him.

"These are the hands that will love and cherish you more tomorrow than yesterday," Klaus said, obviously searching inside himself for his handfasting vows when the ceremony was unbidden and he had been ill prepared. "These are the hands that will tear limb from limb anyone that dares threaten our future. These are the hands that will hold you in joy or grief." And then, he closed his eyes for a moment, before opening them clear and stark. "These are the hands that will hold your children as my own."

Her lips curved as she closed her eyes, exhausted, the tear seeping from the corner of her eye could be both joy and pain. Elijah found the words rote on his tongue even if it had been centuries since he had been in a handfast. "Your hands are bound together now, your lives and your souls joined in union."

There was no kiss to seal the union, no celebration, no rush through the woods or the aisle. She would not be able to pull the end of the tie to unravel it.

Freya bowed her head and said the words to the combined spell. Caroline was asleep, her wound no longer bleeding, would be bound as soon as they reached the compound. Klaus pulled himself up to his feet and lifted her in his arms, and the preservation spell held without a sign of pain on his wife's expression, the wound no longer bleeding.

It was the calm on Niklaus' face that haunted him to this day. Elijah's fingers on the keys were rapid and tireless, quick and frantic over Tiersen's piano of La Valse d'Amelie, coalescing into a truth that he could no longer deny. Caroline's words rang true from beyond the veil of her sleep.

Elijah stood from the piano, making his way through the corridors in a dreamlike state. His footsteps rooted through the rooms to where he knew he needed to go. He passed by the slightly ajar door of Niklaus' bedroom, paused at the sight of the gauzy curtains fluttering in the wind, sunlight streaming in across the bed. Caroline lay on the side of the bed, as if taking an afternoon nap.

Earlier on, he had posed a coffin, luxurious and lush, and in keeping with family traditions. After all, had the siblings not slept in coffins when their bodies were preserved and tied to Niklaus' life? Were they not placed in the safety of their coffins every time Niklaus had daggered them over the centuries.

"I will not have the children seeing their mother in a coffin," was his refusal, as if the babies were not barely conscious.

The spell had bought time, yet that was all. Preserved in the state when it was cast, Caroline continued to regain the vampiric magic that had been nearly completely siphoned off when the twins were in distress. In a week's time, the wound had completely healed, the skin on her stomach as flawless and perfect as before, if Kol were to be believed. He did not bother to ask how it was Kol knew that fact, just wished his youngest brother had more tact that to let Klaus overhear.

When Caroline still did not wake after two weeks, Klaus spent more time in the bedroom. It was then that he realized that his brother spent hours walking into Caroline's dreams. What he did, what they talked about, Niklaus never shared.

When she used the last of her waking moments to handfast herself to his brother, Caroline had bound the Mikaelson family to the two little souls she birthed but would not be awake to care for. Niklaus had sworn to protect them like his own. And he had fortified the compound that there would never be a stranger that could come closer to Hope and the twins. Yet over the weeks he had found Niklaus spending his days in her dreams.

"Let us furnish a guest bedroom. Make it luxurious and personalized, Niklaus. When she wakes up, it would be like waking up in Versailles," he suggested.

If she were not constantly there, perhaps Klaus could walk amongst those of them awake. Perhaps he could be the father that Elijah had seen he could be, and not a walking shell looking forward to the stolen moments when he could slip into her dreams. Perhaps then, Niklaus could see that Rebekah, while caring for his children fiercely, would oft find herself looking deep into nothingness, or would refuse to sleep because her nightmares were of cutting into Caroline, butchering her sister to save his daughters. Or that Elijah himself was in a crisis, pouring his grief and loss and this yawning discovery into escalating madness in the pieces of music that he played in the salon.

With no one to speak with, he imagined Caroline standing by the piano like she did in the streets when he first played Claire de Lune.

"My wife is not a guest here," Klaus responded coldly at his suggestion. "I am not moving her to a guestroom, no matter how finely you appoint it."

And so there they were, two Mikaelsons—maybe more if Kol or Bekah or Freya would care to share—drowning in their own sweet sorrows, changed utterly in different ways by one girl.

One by the discovery of love; the other by the realization that the love he thought was there was not enough.

Klaus was fighting for his love, would not let go even when it seemed hopeless, when Elijah truly thought he would be better off living among the living while waiting for her to wake.

This was love—irreversible, unquestionable, self-sacrificing love. Yet it did not make him happy.

Happiness, what an elusive thing. But Caroline's words dug deep in his bones. Find what makes him happy.

He turned his back to his brother's bedroom, then made his way down the corridor to the next room. The nursery adjoined his bedroom. The nursery had been empty for the month since Caroline slept, and the twins needed to stay at the NICU with Rebekah and Kol taking turns as guardians to their nieces. Elijah had half-expected Klaus to finish painting the walls. But the twins had been brought home to the compound and the walls were still half outlined in pencil and half filled in with paint, testament to Klaus' life that was frozen still.

They were cared for, provided for, and most importantly safe.

What hollow life, Elijah thought.

Rebekah slept in the Queen Anne chair in the corner. Elijah stepped into the nursery and looked at the precious little ones, one month in and yet unnamed. There were pretty girls with a tuft of golden hair, he thought, and if Klaus could visit them more than a passing through, and if he could see them open their eyes and reveal the light blue pairs that were so much like their mother's, he could discover love again.

But Klaus would not name them until she woke. Elijah wondered why Klaus would not ask her for names, since he visited her dreams more often than his own children.

And then Elijah finally made his way to Hope's nursery. Hayley raised her head and looked up at him with a gentle smile. His heart warmed at the sight of Hope asleep in her arms. He took his niece from Hayley, then gently placed her the bed. Elijah made his way back and sat in the chair across from her.

Her small smile tempered. "Have you worked it through by now, Elijah?"

He should not have been surprised. Hours in the salon going through pieces and pieces of music like he was exorcising spirits attached to his soul. "I think I have." He licked his lips. "I love this family. I love Hope. I love you," he told her.

"I love you too, Elijah," she said, sadly.

And she was a little sadist, but he deserved it. Because it was very apparent that she knew where this was going. Still she left him out to dry, to be the one to verbalize it, to pull it from his gut.

"But I want what they have," he admitted.

Love and affection and torturous pain. He was a masochist too, it seemed. Should that make them a perfect pair?

"I want to be happy. I want a love that drives me insane, that makes me want to kill," he said, remembering the way that Klaus tore at Kai, "that makes me willing to die," he thought of Caroline half-dead when Klaus carried her from the catacombs after she braved his captivity and rescued him. "I want it all."

"Not everybody gets a love like that. Sometimes love can be quiet and fulfilling, like settling into your favorite chair at the end of the day." He rested his elbows on his knees. "One thousand years, Hayley, and I haven't had what I see Niklaus has. I had always been too intent in keeping the family together, holding us as one, fighting for our lives, that I never had a chance to live. I never found a love like that. And if I regret this afterwards because I never find it, at least my regret is not because I never looked for it."

She blinked and hastily wiped away the tears that fell, because she was brave and strong and he loved her for that. "What about Hope?"

"Nothing changes. I don't love her or you less than I did before I walked into this room, Hayley."

She nodded at the words. "I'm just not enough." Hayley sighed. "Go ahead, Elijah. I hope you find the happiness you deserve."

tbc