Free of family

45

Alexis woke up the next morning to see Arkyn sleeping on the chair beside her. She tried to sit up gently without waking him, but the moment the sheets crinkled under her body, he sat up straight looking immediately at her.
"Morning." She greeted.
"Hey, sweetheart."
"Were you really sitting there all night?"
"It's not like I had a better place to be."
"You could've always gone to Bonnie." She teased. "You'd have had the house all to yourselves."
"Come now, Lex. Do you really think I'd leave your side with you in the hospital?"
"I know. I was just trying to lighten up the situation." A nurse walked in.
"Good morning." He said, holding a sort of clipboard.
"Morning."
"And how is our patient today?"
"I'm fine. Can I leave now?"
"Pretty much. I just need to check your vitals, but other than that you seem fine to go." The nurse said walking to Alexis's side.
"Are you sure?" Arkyn asked and Alexis rolled her eyes.
"Ark, I am perfectly fine!" Alexis rolled her eyes.
"No you're not."
"Stop overreacting."
"Oh, I'm sorry. You having a reaction to something unknown and having to spend the night in hospital is nothing to worry about. Silly me."
"I'm fine, Ark. I promise."
"Alexis, when you were thirteen and you sliced your foot open on glass and you were literally gushing blood, you said the exact same thing. 'I'm fine, Ark. I promise.' " He imitated. "So, I'm gonna need a little more than just your word."
"Everything seems to be in order." The nurse said.
"See?" Alexis stuck her tongue out at Arkyn who rolled his eyes.
"Lex-"
"If you're really worried, then you can just wait on me hand and foot all day long to make sure I'm okay." The nurse covered his snort with a cough and Arkyn looked up at him before looking back at Alexis.
"I was thinking more along the lines you go see your grandmother." Alexis's narrowed her eyes, and gave him an aneurysm. He didn't even flinch. "Stop it."
"I'm not going to Ruby. Have you talked to Xavier?"
"I left him a voicemail."
"I'm not going to Ruby. Without Xave there, there is an extremely big possibility of there being a physical to-the-death fight."
"You're not going to kill your grandmother."
"I'll run away."
"And where will you go?" He humoured her.
"I can't tell you. If I tell you, you're going to come get me. And also because I have no clue. Maybe Rebekah will help me disappear."
"Yeah, sure. Ask my sister to help you run away. Why not ask Kol too?"
"Good idea." She grinned.
"And what, are you going to involve my mother?"
"No. We don't like her. For all we know, she's the reason I'm here in the first place. This is probably part of her evil plan to kill you."
"At least this time you're not accusing-"
"Well hers and Bonnie's."
"There it is."
"Can I go home?" Alexis pouted looking at the nurse.
"Just need you to sign this." He said, picking up a clipboard and pen. Alexis did as asked before handing it over. As soon as she did, she jumped out of her bed. Arkyn caught her before she could fall.
"Okay, I swear Ark, I just stood up too fast. I promise." She assured and he laughed.
"Here are your clothes." He sighed resigned, and she took them before heading into the bathroom.

After the huge bombshell the original witch had dropped on Bonnie, she'd gone to see her friends. Elena owed her an explanation as to why she'd lied the day before. She got there the same time as Caroline and they headed up to Elena's room.
"So, what did the original witch want with you?" Caroline asked as they sat down. "I couldn't hear a thing from downstairs."
"She did this spell thing. I don't know, she was burning sage, and was wafting it around us."
"So that's why you asked me to bring some sage?" Bonnie asked and Elena nodded. She sighed and pulled out the sage and her grimoire, looking for the spell. She concentrated on the sage in a bowl in front of her. "Incendia." She whispered and it lit. She began wafting it around the room.
"Caroline, can you go see if this works?"
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"Go downstairs. Use your vampire hearing to listen in." Caroline groaned but complied with Elena's demands. "Did you know Damon slept with Rebekah?"
"What?"
"Of course he did. It's Damon." Caroline sped back up and stood in the doorway. Elena looked at her and she rolled her eyes but walked back downstairs.
"I went over there this morning to talk to him and she was there. And he didn't even look remorseful."
"Like Caroline said, it's Damon." Bonnie shrugged.
"He was gloating. Like actual gloat. Like he was proud of himself for sleeping with her. Is it working?" Elena asked.
"It's not working." Caroline sped back into the room. "I can hear every word you're saying about Damon, the vampire gigolo."
"I don't know, it's a tricky spell." Bonnie shrugged.
"When Esther did it, she kept the sage burning. There was a lot more smoke." Elena instructed.
"Alright." Bonnie relit her sage, before turning to Caroline. "Try it again." Caroline scoffed and walked out.
"Esther has a way to kill Klaus." Elena said, before looking at Bonnie softly. "But it means killing them all."
"Okay firstly, this privacy spell is totally not working." Caroline sped back up and rolled her eyes. "And secondly, define all."
"She means including Ark." Bonnie crossed her arms with a glare.
"Yeah. But hear me out. She made some really good points. Did you know there's a lot Ark went through that we didn't know? She showed me this memory of Ark- something she saw on the other side, I guess. And Ark loves his siblings. If we don't do anything about him but we kill his siblings- he's going to be beyond angry."
"Elena this is Arkyn we're talking about. Arkyn who has saved our lives more times than we can count. Arkyn who has helped us every time he could. Arkyn who is dating Bonnie."
"It's okay." Bonnie shook her head.
"I'm sorry, what? Am I the only sane one here?" She scoffed. She looked at Elena and then at Bonnie. "Ark is our friend. He's the love of your life. And we're talking about killing him."
"No, we're talking about giving him a chance to be at peace." Bonnie said. "Speaking of Esther, you should know that she came to see me and Abby this morning."
"Okay, well, what did she want?"
"She wanted to introduce herself. And explain herself. Since Abby and I helped bring her back, she's channeling our entire ancestral bloodline for power. I think she was just covering all her bases to see if we'd be a problem."
"Okay, well, is there a way to stop her from channeling you?" Caroline asked.
"Even if there was, why would I want that?"
"Because you love Ark. You love him and you'd be helping his mom kill him. Isn't this the exact thing you've been trying to avoid?" Seeing that she wasn't making much of an impact on Bonnie she turned to her other friend. "And Elena, before the sun and the moon ritual, Elijah found a way to keep you alive. But now we're just gonna let him die? It just doesn't feel right."
"There's no time to change our minds. They'll be dead by the end of the night."
"What?"
"It's a full moon. Esther needs to harness the energy of a celestial event. She asked me and Abby to join her."
"This is Arkyn, Bonnie. Sweet, generous Arkyn. Arkyn who showed you as much of the world as he could in four months. Arkyn who saved us, and threatened his evil brother, for us. Arkyn who has stood by your side time and time again, no matter how we betrayed him or hurt him. Who gave me his only dose of miracle Klaus blood in case we were ever in a tough situation involving werewolves. For god's sake, even your grams kind of liked him. You're going to throw all that away?"
"I know, and I love him. But..." Bonnie thought. "You know everything you went through with your dad? Multiply that by a billion. Imagine losing everyone you ever cared about because your brother threw a hissy fit. Because that is Ark. And one day I'm going to die, and so will Lex and Xave. But he's still going to be around with more people to mourn. I don't want to be standing in his way of achieving peace."
"But he won't be in peace. He's a vampire. He'll be on the other side alone."
"Esther assured me he won't be on the other side. I guess she has some pull over there or something." Bonnie shrugged. "But I want to go. See him one last time. Before everything happens I want to just say goodbye." She stood and whisked out of the room.