In Between

Chapter 28

I heard a loud scream, I sighed then walked to Nik's room, Hayley behind me. She said" I see your interrogation went well." As we saw Nik washing blood from his hands,
Nik said" Turns out these witches are delicate creatures. No matter. As suspected, my mother has Elijah captive."
" Great. Let's go find them."
" Ester is too powerful. She won't easily be found. I need to draw her out." He went to close the doors,
" Wait. Where are you going?"
" I'm going to change my shirt. And then I'm gonna find my brother."
" Klaus, let me come with you."
" I know you want to help, Hayley, but you can't. My mother is wretched. She will target you in order to thwart me. And I can't very well save Elijah if I'm busy saving you... can I?" He closed the door, I looked at Hayley as we walked out.
I said" You have something planned, don't you?"
She said" Possibly, gonna say anything?"
" No, just don't get killed for Elijah's sanity." She nodded.

Nik and I dug up Ester's coffin, started pouring gasoline on it,
Nik said" Are you watching this, mother?  Nothing says, I loath you, quite like desecrating a corpse." He opened a lighter,
Then we heard Elijah say" Niklaus." I looked at Nik, then we followed Elijah, or whoever the hell that was.
We stopped in front of him, Nik keeping me in arm's reach just in case this was a trap.
Elijah said" You seem troubled. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were worried."
Nik said" What has she done to you?"
" A thousand years of murder and mayhem... and mother believes she can still save our souls. She wants to talk. Perhaps we should listen."
I got angry, it was an illusion to try and get Nik and I, Nik threw a chair and the illusion disappeared, "Enough... of the petty illusions, Ester. Where is Elijah?"
Then we heard her say" He's preoccupied at the moment. I'm helping him find his way. But not to worry, I'll turn him to you. All I ask is that you hear me out."
" You expect us to sit through a sermon of your lies?" He pulled me to him,
" I have lied in the past, to my shame. But I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm in the process of making Elijah into the man he was meant to be. And I intend to do the same for you. This plantation, ruined by fire. How sad. Not to mention symbolic. After all, you never intended to build a true home here. Even as Hayley carried your child. As Rebekah, Raven, and Elijah sought to defend you... your thoughts were focused only on your conquest of the Quarter. Tell me. How did that go?"
" I'm sorry. Is this some sort of motherly critique? Please feel free to choke on it."
" I mention your failures only to make a point, my dear. You've endured serveral lifetimes of misery. Never mind the suffering you've caused others, even to your own blood. You yourself remain trapped in a perpetual state of despair. I have come to offer you a means to escape that cycle."
" And that's about all the hypocrisy I can take. I suggest you give me my brother before I get angry."
" Such hatred. It breaks my heart to see you like this. The boy I loved."
" Your love was a curse. An affect you feigned. The truth is you're no better than Mikael. And like him, you seem to have crawled back from the grave... simply to ruin your own children. Oh. You didn't know. Yes, the destroyer has risen. Brought back to kill me by the witch Davina. Well, surely, Kol has revealed everything to you. Or is mother's loyal little bootlicker not quite so loyal after all?"
" If Mikael has returned, we will need to deal with him."
Nik laughed," We? Is that a joke? Am I to forego centuries of hatred for my evil mother in order to join her... In besting the very demon she herself allowed to raise me."
" I am not evil, Niklaus. I am your salvation. And Mikael? He was not always a demon. Long ago, he loved his children with all his heart. He doted on your brother Finn. But it was our first born Freya who was the apple of his eye."
" Do you really think that saccharine recollections of ancient history... will have any effect on me at all?" We started walking out,
" What I think is you have gone mad from centuries of hating your parents. But if you join me now... I can grant you peace." Nik turned around, he's not serious is he," And should Mikael return with the intent to harm you... I will strike him down myself."
" That's quite an offer. But you know... I've never needed any help when it comes to killing parents."
" You reject me out of hatred. But I have something stronger. I have the truth about your father. Not Mikael. Your real father." We followed her outside," A thousand years ago, in a fit of rage... you wrapped your bare hands around my neck and squeezed until I died. Do you even remember why?"
" Let's see. You turned us all into monsters. You cursed me. Denied me off my hybrid nature. You lied about my father."
" It's that one, above all. You killed me because I kept you from ever knowing your true father."
" My hatred for you runs so deep, it's difficult to pinpoint its origin. Maybe I hate that I am the product of a whore's lechery."
She slapped his face," Watch your mouth. You would do well to remember that you are still my son."
" You judge me evil. Yet it was your lust that made me what I am."
" Not once have I ever regretted the love I had for your father. And you have never known the truth of how that love came to be. Of what happened... in the months after Mikael and I lost your sister Freya to the plague. There are no words for the loss of a child. As you well know." I stepped forward but Nik held out his arm, I stopped," After Freya died, Mikael was inconsolable. Compelled by his grief, We were forced to pack our things and set across the seas. Eventually, his despair would drive us apart. And that's when I saw him for the first time. Your father. I'd never seen a man like him. Powerful yet wise. But loved by his people. And because Mikael had chosen to leave me alone in his grief... shunning me from his life, I found myself drawn to another."
" Spare me the sordid details of my origin."
" I only speak the truth."
" Then tell me this, mother. Why did your Adonis abandon his son? Why did he allow me to be raised by a monster who hated me? Why not claim me for himself? Raise me among the wolves? Or was he ashamed of his bastard as you were?"
" No, no, no. He loved you. It was I who forbade it. I knew if Mikael had learned of my infidelity, he would have destroyed us in his rage. I had no choice. When I learned I was with child, I went back to Mikael. I told him I was having his baby. He showed no joy but neither did he suspect the truth. When you were born, it renewed his spirit. We had Kol, Rebekah, Raven, Henrik. Because of you, we were a family again."
" A family built on secrets and lies."
" Oh, you were my secret joy. And to protect your secret... I denied you a life with your father. But what if I could make up for all that... by curing of this sickness that infected your soul. Whereas I put Kol and Finn into the bodies of a witch... you, I shall place into the body of a werewolf... so you can live out your days as what you were always meant to be."
" What could possibly make you think I would agree to such a thing?"
" With mortality, you could start over. You could have a family of your own. Happiness. Peace. All the things you've long been denied."
" Enough! Tell me where Elijah is, or I will kill you. In this body of any other... you choose to jump into from now until bloody Armageddon. Ung!" He was pushed back by magic.
" I had hoped there was some part of you... that yearned for an end to your vicious ways. But if you are determined to perpetuate the cycle violence... to which you've become accustomed... well, then, I'll have to accommodate you." Then she snapped his neck,
I screamed" Nik!" I ran to him but was stopped by her,
" My dear daughter, Raven, why do you allow yourself to become like him?"
" Because he is my family! They might have lied to me from where I came from, but they did it so we would stay together. You on the other hand, lied to me for what? To keep me in line with the others?"
" Because you did not need to know where you had come from."
" No, that's not how that works, Mikael treated me as though I was a dog! He would have beat me just as he did Nik, but Rebekah liked me so he wouldn't let me come to harm! I was so different from my siblings, I don't know how I didn't see it sooner but then I just mixed with them, that's what you had hoped for, that I would never find out?"
" I had hoped to tell you myself, but Elijah seemed to tell you before I could."
" You are not my mother, they are my siblings, but you are not my mother!"
" I nursed you to health when Elijah found you, I took you in while your real parents abandoned you to die in the cold."
" Then I should have died."
" Why don't you join me, Raven? You've wanted to be human, so you could live a normal life, unlike this life where your siblings control you."
" They don't control me, not anymore, not ever again, I do as I please, at my own will." She snapped my neck.

I woke up, Nik said" You're awake. Just in time." I looked around and saw we were in front of Elijah. Nik put me down and then ripped a doll from the ceiling. I stood in front of Elijah, Nik ripped the chains holding Elijah and I caught him. Nik and I put him down, leaning him against the wall. We looked at him," Wake up, Brother. Elijah."
Then we heard our mother say" He wont wake. Not yet. Which gives you and I one last chance to discuss my offer."
" You promised me Elijah's safe return. What was that, a lie? Just like that ghoulish atrocity outside... claiming to be my father back from
The dead."
" Your father's return is real. I pulled him from the other side before it collapsed. Left him in the Bayou to join the wolves. And I used the execution of one of his own to draw him here. Where I knew he'd find you."
" To what end? Besides my torment?"
" I brought him here to be the father you never had. To teach you to become the man you always longed to be. Once you are remade as a werewolf, you can join him."
Nik stood up," His return... changes nothing."
" It changes everything. It is my gift to you, Niklaus. This offer is your last chance at salvation. Reject me now -!: you will live out your endless days unloved and alone. Do not refuse me out of some ancient spite.."
" Not spite. Hatred. A pure and perfect hatred that's greater now than the day I first took your life."
" Why? After all I've done to explain to you, why must you persist?"
Nik pinned her to the wall by her neck," Because you came for my child! My daughter! Your own blood."
" You don't understand."
" My child!"
" Niklaus, I had to." She made his nose bleed,
" You declared war when you came after my family. And for that, I will make you suffer as only I can. After all, I am my mother's son." He threw her and then we got Elijah, we walked out.
Once we got home, we put Elijah on his bed, and Hayley walked in, we all looked at Elijah.