Chapter 6
True to her word, Jenna begins teaching Bonnie about the pitfalls of the magic that she practices (or rather, the affiliation of certain spells towards the truly dark like necromancy and soul binding). She lectures her on the cost to themselves. Bonnie leaves her lessons deep in contemplation and terribly frightened of her grimoire each time. She tears through the pages, eyes scanning the weathered pages trying to do a mental calculation of what some of the spells would cost her but magic was imprecise more often than not and always leaves her imagination running wild. It terrifies her how much she craves it, the rush, the power... it... it was just as dark and intoxicating as Jenna had warned and a part of her wonders how much had already been taken from her.
Elena, frustrated by Jenna's strict and unfair (in her mind at least) punishment, hatches a plan with Damon and sneaks out of the house through Jeremy's window while Jenna was busy. Her phone lights up fifteen minutes into her escape but she ignores it, choosing to focus on the road as Damon speeds through Virginia's landscape in the dead of night. Stefan was in danger, Stefan needed her, and she could take whatever punishments Jenna would give her. Nothing was as important as Stefan Salvatore right now.
'Count Stefan Salvatore as a loss, Elena. It may seem harsh but you have to look at it from another point of view. I've told you before that the Mikaelsons would come back if you take Stefan back, how many more people would die for that? How many innocents would be caught in the crossfire? You and your friends already have a lot of blood in your hands? How much more do you want? How many people need to die for you?” She pushed Jenna's words away. No one was going to die, Klaus had gotten what he wanted, Stefan just had to escape and they would be free.
Throwing a glance at Damon, she could see the clenched jaw and the guilt and resolve warring within him as he drove through the long stretch of road. They'd gotten a fix on him in Chicago and they took the first chance they could.
“Go to sleep Elena, I'll wake you when we get there.” He said when he noticed her eyes drooping.
Klaus gritted his teeth as another wolf died in transition, his features contorted in pain. Nothing was working, his curse breaking should have allowed him to turn others into hybrids themselves. From the side, he noticed Elijah observing and mentally taking notes. If only he had Astrid or Asbjorn with him (preferably the former), they always had been unnaturally gifted at magic. He had no doubt that they would have been able to resolve this by now if he had them.
He could see Stefan's horror at the sight of the failed hybrid but paid him no mind. It was time to see a witch and perhaps awaken their little sister. Rebekah would no doubt be upset about her time in the coffin and by the loss of her beau but she would get over it soon enough, they had always and forever after all.
Rebekah's eyes widened as she began to flicker in and out of the dream realm. Her brothers' words becoming faint in her ears as she reached out to grab them, to anchor herself to the dream world or to take them with her, she didn't know.
'”I think you're waking up! You know what to do!” Finn shouted.
“Good luck Bekah!” Kol said with a grin.
She woke up hungry and gasping in a plush coffin with her brothers standing to the side. A part of her wanted to be angry but... Finn and Kol's faces flickered into her mind and she shook it away. Her mind was hazy and it seemed like she was forgetting something important. She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath as it snapped open when the scent of blood reached her and she sprung upon the guard.
“Elijah!” She said happily greeting her brother with a hug before rushing up to Nik with a snarl. “YOU!” She shouted, hand reaching up to strike.
She isn’t at all shocked when Nik catches her arm and stops her momentum. Nor does she allow it to stop her from trying to claw at him. Elijah’s gentle but firm voice breaks in, calling her as his hand wraps around her waist and hauls her away from their brother.
“Calm yourself, sister.” Elijah says. “Niklaus isn’t in the best of moods right now.”
She snorts as she throws a glare at said brother. “When isn’t he in a bad mood?”
“Rebekah.” The voice is stern and forbidding, reminiscent of their childhood days where Elijah had been forced to be the caretaker of the siblings. Rebekah Mikaelson knows that tone, knows what it means and so she calms herself.
“I assume you need me for something?”
“We need something of yours, something that once belonged to mother.” He says, tone flat. Rebekah’s hands immediately reached for her mother’s necklace before coming up empty. A few moments of anger and panicked searching leaves them with nothing to show for it.
A tilt of her head. “Dare I ask, why are you trying to contact mother?”
“My curse has been broken but I can’t understand why I can’t sire hybrids.” NIklaus says with a grit of his teeth.
‘Well now,’ She thought as she eyed him. Elijah was right, this was more than just one of Niklaus’ moods… this was… a flash of red hair, green eyes, and a sweet smile. Astrid, he hadn’t seen him like this since the first few years of Astrid’s death. All of the memories of the last few years in the dream world came rushing back to her.
Another glance at Nik and his tense body had her keeping silent on the dream world, at least for now. “You don’t seem happy about it.” She pointed out.
“Oh, believe me, our mother has a lot to answer for.” Nik tells her before pausing. “The sooner I have my answers, the sooner we can all return to Mystic Falls. I’m having a home prepared for us and soon our brothers would be awake as well.”
That gets her attention. “Wouldn’t that make it easier for… for him to find us?” She says quietly, as though she were afraid of who might be listening.
“I have it on good authority that he ran afoul of a very powerful witch and is currently incarcerated.”
She looks at him, at the sincerity in his eyes and the centuries long weight was gone from him. She began to feel hope again, perhaps something of a future to look forward to? Helping Astrid raise her son? And her son’s future children? Oh, she burned with that desire but with it came the thoughts of Stefan and Astrid’s fairly frequent rants about the moronic group of people he associated with, including his girlfriend, the current doppelganger.
“Stefan moved on from me, apparently he’s a vegetarian now.” She said with disgust as she forgot her resolve.
NIk’s eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
Quickly backtracking, she gave him a smile and said. “You’ll find that I have many tricks up my sleeve.” A glance at her torn dress has her grimacing. “Now, I need some new clothes.”
Seeing Stefan again was both painful and not. This Stefan was a sad, brooding sap who had none of the cruelty and manipulative streak that she had fallen for. This wasn’t the Ripper. No, this was a lovestruck high schooler. And one that wasn’t a very good liar either.
“Ah, Stefan. Meet or rather re-meet my little sister Rebekah Mikaelson.” Nik said teasingly.
A quick flirtatious little smile as she sauntered towards him had made him drop his guard and before anything could be done, she had snapped his neck. This man was a threat to her best friend and her best friend’s son. It was a simple thing for her to do, a little math equation, really. Stefan = threat to Astrid… Astrid - Stefan = no threat. Well that was the thought, the names were interchangeable with any member of the doppelganger’s little group. It didn’t matter in the end, she would just kill them as they came along.
After rebreaking Stefan’s neck the moment he had woken up (and yes, her anger was very much justified), she had proceeded to curse the man to the high heavens for daring to give her necklace, her mother’s necklace, to his little flavour of the month. That wretched little blood bag who had started this whole thing. She turned to her brothers, a snarl on her lips as Niklaus finished with the traitorous witch.
“I want my necklace back!” She snarled at them.
“And you shall have it.” NIklaus promised.
She glanced at the man at her feet and kicked him in disgust. “I’m surprised the doppelganger’s still alive, I thought it required the death of the current doppelganger?”
The silence that met her was dark and forbidding and the look of guilt and anguish on Nik’s face told her that she really, really, did not want to know. A glance at Elijah and she knew that she would be briefed about it later on, when they were well outside of their brother’s hearing range.
She leaned in to deepen the kiss, her hands going to his hair while his hands wrapped around her. She pulled away from him, his eyes loving and his smile gentle as they both panted. “I’ll build our house here, on this spot.” Niklaus promised her.
She looked back at the water before turning back to Niklaus. “It’s a beautiful place, I think it would be perfect.” She said with a large smile.
“Astrid… “ He said before she pulled him in for another kiss. His hands trailing up to her cheeks had her shivering.
Ianthe woke up, heart pounding in anticipation. This wasn’t the first time she’d had dreams of NIklaus, they were becoming more frequent and bothersome. Every night she was being forced to relive her life with him and she knew that Neville was being forced into the same thing. She sighed as she glanced at the clock and then groaned.
Her mirror chimed and she picked it up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. “Hello?” She asked with a slur.
“Oh, did I wake you up?” Hermione’s voice called out softly.
“No, I woke up like thirty seconds before you called.” She said with a yawn.
Hermione gave her a soft smile. “There’s something I wanted to tell you before everyone else.”
She immediately sat up, eyes alert and eyeing her best friend. “You’re pregnant!” She gasped out.
“Yes.” Hermione said with an exuberant smile. “I’ve only just found out and I’m waiting for Ron to get home before I tell him.” She said.
“Oh! Congratulations!” Ianthe said, all exhaustion leaving her body. “Teddy’ll be happy to have another cousin.”
Hermione gave her another smile. “I don’t think Ron would argue with me, I mean we’ve talked about this for so long, we’ve been trying for a while… and anyway, would you be our baby’s godmother?” She asked.
“Yes, yes, of course.” She said before her phone rang. Head dropping as she sighed, Hermione laughed. “I’ll let you get that.”
She picked up the call, already knowing who it was. “What did Elena do now, Jenna.” She asked.
“Elena ran away last night. I believe she and Damon are heading to Stefan and the Mikaelsons. And you know what that means…” Jenna said.
“So the Mikalesons will be back soon, then. Stupid, foolish, selfish girl.” She growled out. Ianthe felt conflicted, a part of her longed to see Niklaus, to be by his side but she knew that it all had been from her last life, all of her memories bleeding through. But the emotions still affected her. And of course, there was the matter of her dream friends, Sage, and little Henrik Mikaelson.
“You can’t keep your survival a secret for much longer, not when everything’s about to come back full force.” Jenna said.
“I know and I’ll be ready by then.”
“How’s the kid?” Jenna asked.
“Fine, he’s finally woken up. He was freaking out at first, there were these women he didn’t know, not from the village and the last thing he remembered were the wolves but then he calmed down as soon as he saw me. We’re more worried about his immune system right now though. I’ve brought Gabrielle here, she’s talented at potions and has just finished her medi-witch training, she’s a fully certified healer now but she jumped at the chance to learn from Andromeda.”
“Hmm, that’s great. Do you think it would be wise to give Henrik to his siblings?” Jenna asked and wasn’t that the million dollar question? None of them were the same people they’d been when they died.
“Maybe, well… at least Finn, the eldest Mikaelson, should be safe. Bekah might be, Elijah is a yes. The other two… well… they adore their brother so I hope they’ll be kept in line.”
“Wait and see approach then?”
“Yeah, we wait and see.”
After taking Niklaus’ credit card and leaving him with Stefan to clean up the mess, she dragged Elijah away to go shopping for some clothes. There was something she really needed to talk to him about and it was best said away from Stefan.
Having selected a brand she’d deemed appropriate and after scoping out the latest fashions, she grabbed an armful of clothes and tossed them at her brother before grabbing a pile for herself. A little compulsion ensured that they were left alone. She turned to Elijah who was carefully draping the clothes onto a chair.
“Tatia wasn’t the key to the stone, Astrid was.” He said quietly, voice soft enough that none could hear them without enhanced hearing.
Rebekah turned to her brother sharply. Horror written on her face. “And Nik…” She trailed off, unable to imagine a world where Niklaus would use Astrid to break his curse or how twisted their mother truly was to use his own betrothed to curse him.
“Not willingly or knowingly. When she realised that she was the key, she used a spell to take on Tatia’s form. It only broke when she died.” Elijah explained before his head tilted to the side.
“You don’t seem surprised by the fact that Astrid has a doppelganger.” Elijah said.
Rebekah raised a brow. “You and I both know that it wasn’t a doppelganger. Just as you must know that Asbjorn has been reincarnated as well.”
“Hmm… the question is, how do you know?”
“Finn has been awake for centuries, trapped inside his body, in the darkness…” She paused to allow that to sink into her brother’s mind. “Or at least he was, until about two decades ago when he was pulled into the dreams of two little children and he became their dream buddy or imaginary friend. We never knew which of them was the anchor to the dream world but given the fact that Astrid is, sadly, once more deceased… it leaves Asbjorn as the only logical choice.”
“Finn has been… and Astrid and Asbjorn, you’ve known about it this whole time?”
“Yes, Finn convinced them to search out Sage’s consciousness and since she was in England at the time, they were all asleep at the same time and he was able to talk to her and send her to them.”
Elijah sat down, shock was written all over his face but she wasn’t done yet. “We know Niklaus killed mother. The natives wrote about it in a cave and I showed it to Kol and Finn, what she did to Niklaus then was wrong and knowing about Astrid makes it worse.” She told him.
“We have to tell him.” Elijah said.
“Yes, we do. But not while we have a traitor in our midst.”
“In Mystic Falls then?”
“Yes.”
Elena came home thoroughly disappointed and to a great scolding. Jenna was practically breathing fire as she was sent to her room and that was when she noticed the bars on every window. She grabbed the spare phone that Damon had given her and noticed the text from Bonnie.
[7:15 pm
From: Bonnie
The spirits contacted me last night and told me about someone who might be able to stop Klaus and Elijah.]
[7:16 pm
To: Bonnie
Who?]
[7:16 pm
From: Bonnie
Their father, Mikael, the Original Vampire Hunter. He’s been hunting them ever since they were turned.]
[7:17 pm
To: Bonnie
Can we find him? And what do we need?]
Elena glanced up from her phone before shoving it under her pillow as Jenna peeked into her room. She glared at her aunt as Jenna sighed before closing the door again.