Elijah looked at his mother with a mixture of disbelief and horror. "Is Elena Rebekah's daughter?"
"Yes," Esther responded. Now that her plans were out in the open, there was no reason to hide it.
"Bloody hell!" Kol swore. He never would've guessed this. Even when his mother had said that the girl was one of them, it hadn't crossed his mind that she was Rebekah's. Rebekah's baby died shortly after she gave birth.
"How. That child died. We were there," Elijah said.
"You were not there when the baby 'died.' I sent you all away, purposely," Esther said.
"You told us to leave because Rebekah needed her rest. When we got back, you said that the child died through complications from her birth. You sent us away so that you could give Rebekah's baby away," Klaus said enraged.
"Mother, tell me that's not true. You wouldn't do such a thing, would you?" Finn asked. This horrified even him. He never questioned his mother. He always believed that whatever she did was for the good of their family, but he couldn't find anything good from taking Rebekah's child away.
"I had no choice, Finn. You know that. You know why I had to do it," Ester said.
"What did you do, Mother? Tell us what happened?" Elijah demanded. He didn't care about whatever his mother and Finn were talking about at the moment. He'd figure that out later. Right now, he needed to know what happened.
"I couldn't allow Rebekah to keep the child. She wouldn't have been able to protect her or care for her, not for long. None of us would. I bound her magic and took her to Ayana. I needed her hidden, but simply keeping her magic hidden wouldn't be enough. Neither would giving her away to someone else. She had to stop existing in that time period. Ayana had a spell that would send the child into the next millennium to one of her future descendants. I don't know what became of her then. She must have been given to the Gilberts at some point," Esther told them.
"Wait a second. Elena is a doppelganger. If she's Rebekah's, she was born before the doppelganger curse existed," Klaus said. He knew that his niece was a Petrova. A relative of Tatia's came to visit once. That was who Rebekah laid with to create the child, but it was before they became vampires, which meant it was before the creation of doppelgangers.
"No. The Petrova doppelganger curse existed long before Tatia. It's why I was able to use her blood to create you and bind your werewolf side. That being said, I don't know why Elena became a doppelganger. It was much too soon after Tatia. I can only describe it as a glitch," Esther said.
Elijah was becoming more enraged with every word his mother spoke. She'd given Rebekah's child away and let her think that she was dead. Rebekah never recovered from the loss of her child. She carried that with her for the last one thousand years. She never spoke about it, but Elijah knew it tormented her. His mother had caused that pain. Then there was Elena. The pain she went through because of his mother's actions. Niklaus would've never laid a finger on her if he'd known the truth. On that, Elijah had no doubt. The tension between her and Rebekah would've been nonexistent. Elena had daggered Rebekah. Rebekah had tried to kill her not too long ago. None of that had to happen. None of it should've happened. His mother's cruelty had set off a chain of events that had far reaching consequences.
"I know my actions seem cruel, but they were necessary," Esther said.
"Seem cruel?" Kol asked in disbelief. Leave it to his mother to downplay the obvious. "You told your daughter that her baby was dead and then you gave the child away!"
Elijah, meanwhile, shook his head and started pacing. This was what he did when he was so angry that he was on the verge of losing control. He didn't allow himself to lose control, but right now he was very close. He wanted to throttle his mother.
Klaus cringed as he watched his brother. Elijah was livid. Klaus had seen his brother angry before, of course, many times because of him, but he'd only rarely seen him like this, and he wasn't particularly interested in seeing it again. It never ended well when Elijah was this kind of angry. Klaus couldn't blame him though. He was angry too. He'd had a front row seat to Rebekah's pain when her child 'died.' They all had. She had been inconsolable. She was never the same. He also had his own anger over what he'd done to Elena, things that never had to happen.
"I didn't do it lightly, Kol. The things I have done were for the good of this family. They were for that child," Esther said.
"Was setting me on a course to sacrifice her for the good of that child too? How about sending an emissary to kill her so that I couldn't use her blood?" Klaus asked angrily.
"I didn't know then. I didn't become aware that she was Rebekah's child until after I returned," Esther told him.
"You didn't know. You say that as though it should make a difference. Everything that happened to that poor girl is a result of your actions. You made her family her enemies!" Elijah snarled.
"It was better than the alternative," Esther said.
"And what was the alternative, Mother? Why did you do this?" Kol asked. He doubted any explanation would be good enough, but he wanted to hear it anyway. Rebekah certainly would too. Rebekah was going to be livid. She would never forgive their mother for this. It was quite sad because Rebekah loved their mother the most, aside from Finn, of course.
"There is no time to go into it now, but suffice it to say that Rebekah was never going to be able to lead a happy life with Elena. She would've been taken from her one way or another," Esther said.
"She didn't have to be told that she was dead," Finn said. He understood the need to send Elena away. He did. It was the only way to save her from Freya's fate. However, he couldn't understand his mother telling Rebekah that she was dead. She could've been told the truth. She could've at least been told that her child was in danger and that she'd live a better life elsewhere. Even that much would've given her some solace. Finn wasn't close with Rebekah, but no one deserved this.
"She wouldn't have understood. She would've tried to stop me," Esther said.
Just then, Bonnie and her mother started walking over. Bonnie was surprised to see the Originals. They definitely were not supposed to be there. The entire purpose of this night was to kill them. "What's going on?"
"Excellent, you're here. We need to get started," Esther said.
"Mother, if you think we will allow you to do this, you have clearly lost your mind," Elijah said. He wouldn't have allowed his mother to turn Elena into a weapon when she was just Elena Gilbert. Now that he knew she was his niece, there was no way in hell he'd let it happen.
"I'm afraid you can't stop it," Esther said before reaching for Finn's hand. She needed contract with at least one of them to start the transfer of power to Elena. She only needed one of them because they were now all linked.
Finn shied away and started backing up out of the circle. He couldn't do this, not now that he knew what his mother's true intentions were. This was not her choice to make. She didn't get to risk Elena's life and wellbeing to stop Dahlia. Elena was not her child.
"Finn, what are you doing?" Esther said.
"You made choices that were not yours to make. You played God with that child's life. I will not be a party to you continuing to do so," Finn said.
"It's a sad day when even your most loyal son grows a mind of his own, isn't it Mother?" Klaus asked with a smirk.
"Wait, what's going on? What child is he talking about? We did not sign on to harm children," Abby said. The last she knew, they were killing the Originals. That was the purpose of this ritual.
"It's not what you think. I admit I was less than honest with you, Abby. No one will die tonight. The purpose of this ritual is to transfer the residual witch magic from my children into a witch in my family line. That will allow her the power she needs to defeat a powerful witch with he potential to destroy all of us," Esther said. She knew that she couldn't keep it from the Bennetts now. If she didn't tell them, her children would. They might believe it or they might not, but they would at least question it.
"You… You want to turn a witch into a magical weapon? That's dark magic, and the witch probably wouldn't even live long enough to benefit from it. That much power would overwhelm her," Abby said.
"Not while she's linked to my children," Esther said.
"Wait, you said a witch from your line, but I thought your kids were your only family," Bonnie said.
"Not quite," she said.
"This conversation is tedious and irrelevant. We're not going to let you use Elena as a weapon for your own means. Try it and we'll kill every last one of you," Klaus warned.
"What? Elena? No, Elena's not a witch. She's certainly not your family," Bonnie said with a cringe. It disgusted her just thinking about Elena being their family.
"I'm afraid your wrong on both fronts, darling," Kol said.
Esther reached her hand out to Finn again. "Finn, step back into the circle. This needs to happen."
"No," was all Finn said.
Abby shook her head. She was out too. "It's irrelevant. You need me to help perform this ritual. I won't do it. I'm not about to turn a young witch into a magical weapon. The damage she would do without even trying would be devastating. I won't do that to her or the world."
"Mom, what are you saying? This isn't true. Elena isn't a witch," Bonnie said.
"She is. That much I already knew. I was there the day she arrived magically on our doorstep. It's a long story, but she is a witch," Abby said.
"Abby, you must do this. The threat we face without her is more dangerous than you can comprehend," Esther said.
"No. Nothing is more dangerous than an unstable witch infused with magic she wasn't meant to handle. Bonnie, let's go. This isn't happening," Abby said as she began to walk away.
Bonnie, not knowing what else to do, followed her.
Esther glared at her children. "Do you realize what we all did today?"
"Yeah. We apparently saved our niece from your mad science," Kol said.
"Let's go. We need to get home. I will not have Rebekah believing this cruelty for so much as another day," Elijah said before turning to his mother. "It seems I must clean up your mess again, Mother. However, this will be the last time. Should you come anywhere near my siblings or my niece again, it won't be Niklaus you need to worry about killing you."
Esther looked at Finn as the other started to leave. "Finn."
Finn shook his head before wordlessly following the others.