4x03 – Haunter of Ruins

Katherine was in a hotel in New York when she got the call. She had been holding her phone all day debating or not whether to call Elijah. She heard he woke up, and knew it could be awkward. She wasn't sure where they stood. But when her phone screen lit up, her heart skipped a beat thinking that he had called her, reached out to her. Her face fell when she saw a different name: Vincent Giffith.

She rolled her eyes at how silly she was being and waited a minute before picking up. He could be calling to pick a fight wither about all the tiny little ways she helped Caroline along over the years, but Vincent wasn't stupid enough for a move like that.

So she answered the phone and made an effort to sigh into the microphone so he could hear it. "What do you want, Vincent?"

"I want you to come back to New Orleans," he requested. "The whole cities in danger, and I think you might be the only one who can match what we're up against."

"The Mikaelsons?" Katherine asked with a scoff. "So they're taking out their revenge fantasies? Look, I told you, I'm done with that family. I can't keep fighting them. Your own your own with them."

"Not the Mikaelsons," Vincent said quickly, before Katherine could hang up. "You remember my wife Eva, right?"

"Vaguely," Katherine admitted, bored. "The child-snatching creep?"

"She wasn't always like that," he told her. "She was everything once: smart, beautiful, full of love and light. Something evil got inside of her and it twisted her up. And it left nothing but darkness; I think that darkness has come back again."

Katherine could hear his voice cracking, but she didn't really care. She just raised an eyebrow and asked: "And what does this have to do with me?"

"You're the second darkest thing I've ever seen in my life," Vincent told her. "The devil herself."

She rolled her eyes. "I get the point, Vincent, I'm asking what's in it for me?"

"The darkness has already taken one child," he told her, "and whoever's doing this is going to want more. I'm desperate, so whatever you want? You got it."

"Now that's what I like to hear," Katherine said. "I'll be on the next flight out."


In Mystic Falls, Klaus was spending the day with his daughter. The rest of the family had met her briefly before allowing them some time alone to bond, and Elijah and Rebekah could be found in the old parlour room.

"Since Nik has found his noble purpose," Rebekah mused, sitting down in one of the old chairs, "what about you?"

Elijah, unable to think about his long-term search for a noble purpose, simply replied with: "Niklaus is spending the day with his daughter and tomorrow we seek sanctuary elsewhere. Mystic Falls is the first place Marcel will look."

"That's not what I meant, is it?" She asked. "You're no longer tethered to him. You must have thought about it, so what will you do with your immortality now that you're not burdened with saving Nik's soul?"

"I don't know," he answered, honestly. He turned his phone over in his hands, half expecting it to light up with Katerina's name on the screen. She must of known they were awake by now? Did she still have his number? He had to get a new phone soon, as not only was his outdated, but if they were chased he couldn't be tracked. If she didn't call soon, he was going to have to, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. "What about you?" He asked, turning back to Rebekah. "Do you still desire a family of your own?"

"Well, true love continues to elude me," she reminded him with a sigh.

"I am sorry, I know the way you felt about Marcel," Elijah said, comfortingly.

"Now we have a fresh start," Rebekah said, getting up and walking towards him. "Perhaps we should take this one quiet day to decide what we want our new paths to be."

She kissed him on the cheek before she left and he sighed, looking back to his phone. After a minute's thought, he found her name in his contacts and hoped she still had the same number before pressing the call icon.

She answered quickly, after only the first ring, and greeted him simply with only his name: "Elijah."

"Katerina," he returned, his heart skipping a beat when he heard her voice. It had been too long, as was just as beautiful as ever. "You were waiting for my call?"

She paused, clearly at an impasse: admit her vulnerability or lie. "Yeah, I know you'll have to change numbers soon… Plus, I was just kind of hoping you would call."

Elijah smiled and sat down in the chair Rebekah had vacated. "Indeed? Where are you?"

"JFK," she answered. "There's no private jets available until next week, so first class will just have to do. I'm headed to New Orleans."

"Don't," he ordered instantly. "We've just escaped New Orleans, Katerina, Marcellus and Vincent could trap you and use you as bait, and we can't come back to rescue you if they do-"

Katherine interrupted him with a laugh. "Elijah, I'm the devil. If it's a trap they're going to be trapped with me. Besides, Vincent offered me anything I wanted if I helped him with some baddie that's kidnapping kids. A debt from him could be helpful in the future for us."

"Us?"

Katherine hesitated. "I guess there isn't an 'us' anymore, is there?"

"Caroline informed us of your aid in her rescue mission," he told her, "and Niklaus informed us of your company in his darkest hours. I understand what these acts have meant to you. But you were still partly the reason we suffered so much. I refuse to be caught in this war between you and Niklaus again, I don't deserve this. So if there is going to be an 'us', I need you to forgive him, and I need him to forgive you."

There was a silence on the other end of the line before Katherine agreed. "I get it," she told him. "I hope Klaus does too."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Meanwhile, Finn noticed how none of the guest bedrooms seemed to be occupied by one Keelin Malroux and went on a quick walk to find her. He was absolutely appalled to find her tied up in the stables where they used to keep horses with that painful looking muzzle to extract her venom.

"Bloody hell," he snarled at the sight. He rushed over to free her of the contraption, apologising for his family as he did so. "This animosity… I expected better from Freya at least… I can't apologise enough…"

"She's just trying to help her family, I get it," Keelin said, sarcastically. "It looks like they're really suffering. Did their mimosas go bad at lunch?"

"Lord, I hope not, they'll start World War Three," Finn claimed, scowling. "And I heard the first two were bad."

Keelin narrowed her eyes, clearly confused by his references to the tragedies. "What?" She asked.

Finn just shook his head. "Ignore me. But I know what it's like to be imprisoned by these people, and all I can see that you've done to deserve it is make a mislead deal with Hayley."

"You don't buy into this whole family loyalty thing?" Keelin asked.

"Not exactly," Finn replied. "You're cut. Why aren't you healing?"

Before Keelin could reply, Freya appeared in the doorway of the barn and glared at the scene before her. "Why is her mask off?" She demanded, storming over to fix it back in it's place. Keelin hissed and Finn turned away. "We need as much venom as we can get."

"She needs a break," Finn declared, seething angrily at the one sibling he'd never been mad at before. "This is torture, Freya."

"She'll live," Freya said. "If our brothers get bitten again they may not be so lucky."

"And you don't think it's this kind of behaviour that got us all into that situation in the first place?" Finn asked, crossing his arms. "Perhaps if we stop making enemies, people will stop trying to kill us."

She scoffed. "It's a little too late for that, Finn."

"I thought you were above this," he said. "I thought you were human."

There was a pause as Freya turned to him, her face falling but not out of guilt. Out of shock. "You know, I'm starting to see why they locked you in a box for nine centuries," she mused. "You're just as judgemental as they told me you were."

The mention of that damn box instantly made Finn feel claustrophobic. He looked around the walls of the closed stable and at the imprisonment of the poor werewolf and took a deep breath, refusing to meet his sister's eye. "I need some air," he decreed, turning to leave.

Freya sighed as he left before taking the mask back off Keelin and making a concoction for her wounds. "This isn't a punishment," she insisted as she worked. "It's a necessary evil."

"Most people who do evil convince themselves it's necessary," Keelin informed her.

"Why aren't you healing?" Freya asked.

Keelin paused before admitting: "I once dated a surgeon. While trying to impress her on a hike, I took a spill and broke my ankle – double compound fractur. The next day I was good as new, which didn't make sense to her, obviously. Being a medical anomaly can suck."

"So you had a witch slow the healing process?" Freya asked.

"No, I swiped a pass to a path lab, used my tissue sample to analyse the chemotaxis of my bodies enzymes…" She trailed off when she noticed Freya getting confused. "Even a monster is a biological organism. Given the right chemicals, it can be strengthened or weakened so I devised the right treatment to help suppress my werewolf traits. Not magic. Medicine."


When Katherine arrived in New Orleans, she found Vincent in St Anne's church, chanting in a musical rhythm as he worked on a spell. He looked up when Katherine entered and sighed with dread and thanks.

"Adam Folson isn't our only case," he told her as she walked in. "Three more accounts of missing kids. Marcel's vampires saw lights at the old Davilla Estate, which has been boarded up for years. Let's go." He walked past Katherine, who continued to walk to the alter he was working at to examine his magic.

"Wait," she requested. "What's this?" She pulled a fresh, clean notebook out of the burning ash and held it up for him to see. "This looks fine, why didn't it burn?"

Vincent's face fell in shock as he walked forward to see it. It was brown leather bound and had a symbol on the front of a snake biting its own tail.

"Katherine, do me a favour," he wished. "Keep that book far away from me. If I even try to come for it, kill me."

He lead her out of the church and she paused before slipping it into her bag and following him through the front doors. The drive to the Davilla estate was longer than Katherine remembered, but Vincent's car was top-of-the-line so she didn't mind it too much.

"I've never seen you scared before," Katherine claimed as they climbed out. "What are we up against here?"

"My past," Vincent mused. "Marcel used to run this city with a much tighter fist, and had the witches scared at every turn. I wanted to take him down to protect my wife and my unborn kid. I looked for forms of magic he couldn't defend against. Couldn't find anything. And then, one night, I walk into my house and find that notebook sitting on the table. It's an instruction manual for sacrificial magic, but it's not like anything I've seen practised anywhere. Made me feel invincible."

"You're not the first witch to make sacrifices to the ancestors-"

"This isn't the ancestors," Vincent snapped. "This is something much older, and the book never gave it a name."

"So who planted the book?" Katherine asked.

"That's the thing," Vincent said. "The book's written in my handwriting. And I don't remember writing it."


Stefan found Hayley on the front porch, watching Klaus and Hope paint together. He walked up to her and leaned against the banister, giving her a friendly smile.

"We should tell Klaus about us," Stefan suggested, reaching out to hold her hand. "Tonight. The longer we refrain from telling him, the more likely he is to get paranoid about why he wasn't informed. Besides, tomorrow we're leaving, right? Better figure out what our plan is from there."

"You just want to tell Hope," Hayley scoffed with a laugh.

Stefan shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe I just want to kiss my girlfriend without panicking about whether Hope is near."

"So I'm your girlfriend now?" Hayley asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Aren't you?"

There was a pause as Hayley shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I am. We'll talk to Klaus tonight. Let him just enjoy the day before we discuss co-parenting."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Five minutes after Freya left the barn, Finn returned and with a snap of his fingers, Keelin's restraints fell. She pulled the mask off herself and he helped her get to her feet. "You're free to go," he informed her.

"Thank you," she said, stopping to smile at him.

"As long as you're alive you will be hunted," he told her. "Don't go back to your old life. Disappear. Good luck."

Keelin nodded and jumped out of the window seconds before Freya returned, storming towards him in a fit of rage. "Where the hell is she?" Freya demanded.

"I had to," Finn insisted.

"You had to what?" Freya asked. "Sentence our family to death? Do you really hate us that much?"

"Do you even hear yourself?" Finn asked, completely outraged. "There is a little child in that house, not fifty yards away, and Marcellus is in another state. We cannot live like this; we cannot keep making the same mistakes."

"I'm going after her," Freya claimed, going to storm past him.

Finn raised his hands and sent Freya flying against the back wall. When she got to her feet she snarled at him, much like a wolf herself, and raised her hands to fight back. They engaged in a power struggle for only a moment, both using all their power to hurt the other, but Freya was stronger and sent Finn through the air, breaking a pillar as he collided with it and falling to the floor in a heap. He felt his back bruising but nothing felt broken.

"I can do much worse," Freya warned. "Stay out of my way."

"Freya, stop it," Finn pleaded. "We have enough for the cure, Marcel is ages away-"

"Marcel could be handing out vials of his venom to anyone," Freya claimed. "We can't avoid a threat that could be everywhere."

"Keelin shouldn't have to suffer for that," Finn argued, stubbornly. "And Hope shouldn't be raised in world where innocent people are held captive and tortured in our barn."

"We'll tell her the world is a bad place," Freya defended. "Sometimes we have to do bad things to survive. She'll be safer if she learns that early on."

"It's not her job to stay safe," her reminded her. "It's ours. That includes protecting her innocence and trying to raise her to be a decent person."

Freya rolled her eyes. "She's a Mikaelson, she can live without her innocence. She can't live without her family."

"Enough," Elijah said, appearing in the doorway of the stable and looking between them. "I've heard this bickering all day, and it's been interesting hearing the two of you on different sides, but this ends here. Before either of you say something you'll regret."

"I've had enough of this," Freya said. "I have a wolf to hunt."

"You will do no such thing," Elijah ordered. "You will let her go."

Freya raised an eyebrow. "Fine," she relented, too quickly for Elijah or Finn's liking.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Klaus's art room in the old mansion was still filled to the brim with his work. The home had only been partially cleared of themselves when they moved to New Orleans, with some stuff being kept in case they ever returned to New Orleans.

Caroline found herself in that room late in the afternoon as it began to turn to evening, looking up at the grand landscape that she'd originally believed he'd stolen from the Louvre, before being enlightened and impressed with his talent. She didn't admit it at the time of course, but everything about that moment was so romantic.

"My daughter is an art prodigy," Klaus claimed, appearing in the doorway. She turned to face him and he smiled at her, walking towards her and putting a hand on her back. "Soon we'll have a room like this, full of her art."

"That piece of yours," she mused, "the landscape hanging in the Hermitage? It was bought two years ago by Brandhorst for the price of twenty-seven million dollars." When she told him this, he raised an eyebrow, impressed by the price. "I know that because I visited Munich at around the same time, to find an art student, who was the ancestor of the witch who crafted the dark stake that cursed Rebekah. While I was in her apartment, I saw your name on some of her notes and found that her class were studying your piece."

"That's always nice to hear," Klaus said with a genuine smile. "I shall have to go and revisit it; it's gaining a lot of attention, isn't it? Did you go and see it, Love?"

"I went to," she admitted. "I even went around the museum for a little bit, but I stopped before I got to it, and I remembered in this room, when you first told me about it hanging in the Hermitage, you told me you'd take me to see it. I didn't want to see it without you. I told myself it wasn't that big of a deal, but… This is the room where you promised to take me to Rome, Paris, Tokyo, wherever I wanted to go."

Klaus nodded. "And if I recall correctly, this is the room you shot me down in, and told me how shallow it was that I got all these thing at the snap of my fingers, and confronted me with the truth about people, and how I treat them."

"You told me I was making assumptions," she added with a shrug. "And I was. I'm not the same small town girl I was. I can't say anymore that I've never been anywhere. I've been across the states, to Germany, to Egypt and Ghana, to Singapore – always looking for cures for your family. And I realised that I don't want to have these experiences without you. I want it to be you who shows me these things." She turned to face him fully, putting a hand on his cheek and looking adoringly into his eyes. "I love you, Klaus."

He remembered five years ago, before they parted, and she'd told him that. He couldn't quite bring himself to say it back, but he had assured her that he meant it. Now, however, things with different. He didn't need to hide his feelings anymore.

"I love you," he claimed, reaching up to touch her face, pulling her in to kiss him. "I will do so forever. And I still intend to show you everything I love. I promise."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Elijah received a phone call once night had settled over Mystic Falls. Katerina was on the other line, sounding panicked and angry, a combination which he hadn't heard from her for years.

"Where's Hope?" She asked. "Do you see her? Is she okay?"

Elijah narrowed his eyes. He was sat in the living room watching the fire, and he wasn't with Hope but he could hear her upstairs talking to her mother and father about a nightmare she was having, about a bad man hurting kids.

"She's here," he told Katerina. "I assume she's fine. Is there a reason for her not to be?"

"You remember that darkness Vincent called me to New Orleans to help me him with?" She asked. "It's not possession but it is… controlling. This being almost compelled a warlock to do it's bidding, and apparently did the same to Vincent eight years ago. This guy started kidnapping children, like Vincent's wife did, and we saved them just in time, but they were linked to totems. Five totems, four children. The fifth was the drawing I stole from Hope's school for Klaus to see a few years ago."

Elijah jumped to his feet and ran upstairs, where Hope was out of bed and Klaus and Hayley were kneeling to face her. He checked the child's forehead with the palm of his hand and told Katerina: "She's cold, and her nose is bleeding."

"She isn't safe, Elijah," Katerina insisted. "I don't know what's happening, but Vincent does, and he can cure her. You need to come back

"Thank you for telling me," he said before hanging up.

"What is it, Elijah?" Klaus demanded, rising up to face him.

Elijah sighed. "Something's going on in New Orleans that's affecting Hope. Niklaus, Katerina and Vincent appear to be out of their league, I'm not sure what they can do without our help."

"Well we can't go back," Hayley insisted, shocked at the idea.

"We may have to," Elijah said. "I don't like it either, but Marcellus is still staked until Vincent can find a cure for him, and we can handle the city without his presence. It may be the only way to help Hope."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"I know what you're thinking," Freya said, pacing around the circle of salt that kept Keelin trapped. "I'm the wicked witch in your story. But if I can track you down, that means others can too, and they want you dead. You should be thankful I want to keep you alive."

"You want me to thank you?" Keelin demanded. "Come over here and I'll show you how thankful I am."

Freya rolled her eyes at the dramatics. "My siblings are heading back to New Orleans; we need a cure now more than ever. Unless… we can cure the disease."

"What are you talking about?" Keelin asked.

"You said so yourself," Freya reminded her. "A monster is just a biological organism. You want your freedom? Well maybe you can help set us all free. Maybe you can help me weaken someone else: my magic, your medicine."

"Are you offering me a deal?" Keelin asked, warily.

"You can have your life back," Freya promised. "But first, you're going to help me turn Marcel Gerard, Lucien Castle and Caroline Forbes all back to regular vampires, so none of them can hurt us."


AN: I'm not a massive Freelin shipper. More of a Frucien kind of gal. /Keelin deserved way better, just saying.

Anyway, I hate this chapter. Feels very empty to me. Review anyway. - Izzy

(PS. I have a new story coming out hopefully today. It's a re-write of TVD Season 6 (sort of) and I hope you guys will check it out. Ships will be Stelena, Bamon and romantic!Katholine, so if any of those float your boat take a look)