14: Renewal of Life

[The Abattoir, French Quarter, New Orleans. July 16th, 2088. 4:03 pm]

Sam had left him alone long enough. She’d been watching him from the shadows, hearing his voice talk to a person who was no longer there. Of course, he had already proclaimed that he was all hers, just like the citizens in New Orleans, but some distance had been a good idea.

Let things percolate in that tiny brain of his. Allow him to grieve and to allow him to get used to the idea of her and the Machine working in New Orleans. Besides, she had to find a place to set up a cot and most of the hardware. The Machine didn’t like the lack of surveillance, or at least the lack of the level of surveillance she was used to, and needed time to adjust, coax businesses with great deals to upgrade, gift the local cops with money to get more cameras and what not.

It was a great couple of weeks to get the lay of the land, but she and Klaus needed to talk. Now that she was close to him, she could feel this invisible pull towards him and that was as intriguing as it was scary. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, other than feeling extremely aroused by the mere thought of Klaus underneath her as she rode the both of them to their climaxes.

[message: He’s alone.]

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered as she secured a gun in her leg holster and grabbed her coat as she left the apartment and headed towards Klaus’ fortress.

She was stopped by some vampires before she could even enter the building. “Get your hands off of me or you’ll regret it,” she muttered, not looking up to them and not moving an inch.

“You have no business here.”

“You bet your ass I do,” Sam said as she kicked against one vampire’s shin with brute force, snapping it in a million pieces – at least he let go of her. She then grabbed the other by his head and pushed him against the nearest wall. Satisfied with her handiwork, she stepped over the groaning vampires and headed straight for the stairs when she didn’t see Klaus in the courtyard.

His study was upstairs, she knew that. She had listened to him walk around for days, she knew exactly where everything was. It was what she did best. Track and somewhat sniff. When she had made her presence known to him the month before, he smelled like paint, paint thinner and bourbon.

It had been intriguing to watch his interaction with this old lady before she passed, it had been a side of Klaus Sam hadn’t been familiar with. There was something soft in his anger, something fragile. Something human. She was well aware that not all people saw him that way and she didn’t particularly care; she found it interesting, that’s all. The big bad wolf upset about an old lady who he proclaimed to be a great witch. His sister in law.

She hadn’t even known he had siblings.

She opened the French doors to his study and smirked as she leaned against the doorpost. “You know, if you’d wanted to keep me out, you should have done a better job at securing this place.”

“I don’t care,” his speech was slurred, there were empty bottles of bourbon everywhere. “Everyone left me. Bella, Kol… Elijah and Rebekah didn’t even bother returning after hearing that Bella passed away…”

“I’m here.”

“And how long until you leave me too? I haven’t seen you in three weeks, Sameen. Three weeks! And before that, what? Eighty years?”

“You weren’t ready for me, and I wasn’t ready for you,” she said simply. “Besides, you left me first. I had to learn things on my own.”

“So, when are you going to leave again?”

Sighing, she zoomed around his study to pick up the empty bottles and threw them in an empty bag or two, cleaning the place up. She snatched the bottle out of his hand and threw it in the fireplace. “You are going to clean yourself up, and you’re going to take me out to dinner. I’m hungry and you look as if you haven’t had a good meal in ages.”

“Piss off,” Klaus spat as he wobbled on his feet.

“Fuck you,” she retorted and pushed him towards the bathroom. “Do as I say or I will cut off your balls.”

[The Abattoir, French Quarter, New Orleans. June 28th, 2089. 2:02 pm]

Becky, Bella and Kol’s great great granddaughter, was visiting him with her children. Her first born Nick – much to Klaus’ dismay, the boy’s other name was Damon -, her second born KJ, Kol Jasper Mikaelson and her newborn Charles. It was the first anniversary of Bella’s death and Becky, bless her heart, wanted to be sure that Klaus was alright and show off the lastest addition to the family.

Klaus liked KJ. He was the last baby Bella saw born and was introduced to and he reminded him about his own daughter, Hope, when she was so little. He had high hopes for KJ. Even as an almost two year old, the boy showed so much potential, and for a second born, it was even more exceptional. His brother Nick barely showed anything; he was more of an enforcer. No doubt he’d end up doing something in law enforcement.

All of Bella and Kol’s progyny had paid him a visit over the last year, and he hated every moment of it. It hurt. Every child had at least some of their features and mannerisms and he’d rather have them stop worrying. He had Sameen now, and his Sameen was all he needed.

But, all Becky wanted to do was proudly show off her newest sprog. And he was ugly. Babies were ugly. They were adorable but they all looked the same in the end. She was telling Klaus about she was going to take Charlie to be blessed by the regents, in the hope that like all Mikaelson children, Charlie would be able to survive the Mikaelson insanity.

After Bella and Kol had successfully been appointed as regents of the covens of New Orleans, they made new rules. Such as the position as regent was always going to be governed by two witches. Not one. The position simply held too much power for one witch to handle. This was also a safeguard to hold the regent accountable for their actions and much to all the witches’ surprise, the ancestors agreed with Bella and Kol’s ideas to reform.

However, he didn’t quite like Becky’s remark of the family being insane and neither did Sameen, who was already quick to put the baby stroller/carriage combination out of the gate and she was patiently waiting for Becky to rejoin her children. “I suggest you make yourself scarce, little dove,” Klaus said, his tone of voice low in warning. “Don’t cause too much trouble along the way and you shall survive our insanity. Now that your grandmother is gone, there’s nothing that will hold me back in eradicating you all to prevent a whole bunch of powerful witches ruining this city.”

“Powerful indeed,” Becky replied, sending Klaus flying across the courtyard and Sameen after him as she rejoined her children. “Bite me, uncle.”

“Do not tempt me!” He called after her as she walked away with her children.

Sam got to her feet with a growl and rubbed her ass as she looked at Klaus. “You really think that their magic will ruin the city?”

“It will tear this place apart. Not only that, it will tear the family apart. We need to control it if we want to be able to live a normal, quiet life instead of cleaning up after them all the time,” he grumbled as he, too, got to his feet.

“Alright,” Sam said, agreeing after a quick moment of calculations. “Let me run that by our friend, have her set up some sort of diagram with a projected growth and what not. See where we can strike best.”

“You agree?” Klaus blinked at her. “You agree to killing family?”

She shrugged. “If it prevents a disaster, then yes. Too much power for one family isn’t a good thing anyway, if everything I read and heard in the last year is true.”

Smiling widely, he poured himself a glass of bourbon.

“I draw the line at killing children and infants,” she stated as she moved to the table and got herself something to drink as well. “And we’ll consider every name, every human, our friend comes up with.”

Klaus thought for a moment and then slowly nodded. It felt strange to have someone at his side like this, and he was certain that Bella would have understood his reasoning, his fear. Never would he have thought that Sameen would agree with him as they were going to kill innocent humans for the greater good. However, he was glad that she was. “You have yourself a deal, Sameen.”

[Almonaster Ave, New Orleans. September 9th, 2106. 4:08 am]

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call,” KJ coughed, his blood spluttering out of his mouth, going everywhere but back inside his body. “Mom will kill me if I ever get my ass back to LA.”

“What happened?” Klaus asked as he propped the boy up against him. Barely twenty years old and the boy was dying from an obvious car crash. He reeked of alcohol and drugs. Even though Klaus didn’t speak to Becky anymore, he had kept tabs on KJ as he grew into a young man, despite him being on the other coast. Klaus had spies everywhere and he had been grateful to them.

He hadn’t been pleased when the boy went off the rails about five years ago after his father Joel died in a shooting related incident, leaving Becky alone with four children, the oldest barely 18. As expected, Becky hadn’t taken too well to the death of her husband either, and she struggled with the raising of her children and her own grief.

KJ had so much potential, and he had been wasting it. It had been a simple matter of applying himself and sticking to it, but he never got the push, the support, he needed.

Which, ultimately, lead to this unfortunate night. What was he doing in New Orleans anyway?

“We had a party in the area…” KJ wheezed as Klaus tried to keep the boy in one piece. “Alcohol, drugs… women… I might have taken something bad and wandered here…”

Klaus sighed as he bit his hand and had the young man drink from him. “Tell me, KJ, what do you want from me? Just my healing ability?”

He shook his head. “I want to die. I don’t want to be like this anymore, uncle. I’m a loser.”

“Hardly. And you do not wish to die as you’ve willingly drank from my blood just now.”

“I want to be better. Stronger. I want to be able to protect Josie when mom goes out for a drink…I want to die, but I don’t.”

He had to start somewhere, hadn’t he? Sure, his plan was to kill most of the Mikaelson line, keeping the first line mainly intact up until now, but what if he could turn his favourite into a vampire like himself? Teach him. Make him a better person and simply teach him? “I need to hear you say it, KJ,” he said softly. Sameen was going to laugh at him. He knew for a fact that she was going to because he was showing that he cared maybe a little too much about his family despite it being already far removed as it was.

“Uncle Klaus, please… please turn me, I’ll be good. I’ll be better.”

[Accessing current feeds]

[The Abattoir, French Quarter, New Orleans. January 27th, 2311. 6:03 pm]

Bella had passed out in his arms the moment they left the building on the cemetery and he didn’t stop to watch the building go up in flames. She needed to get home, he doubted that she had much longer to live.

And that made him angry. She wasn’t allowed to leave him. She had promised. Bella had promised him, and Nik, that she wasn’t going to leave them again. And Mandy made sure that Bella couldn’t be turned either due to the use of ‘special blood’ and it didn’t require a genius to figure out that she had either found a doppelganger and used the doppelganger’s blood or a Gilbert as the cure was still running through their veins – but didn’t Nik tell him that he and made sure that they were all gone?

If Mandy knew about the cure, maybe other witches would too.

“We have a problem,” Kol said as he tucked Bella in bed. “Well, we have several problems,” he sighed as he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at his siblings and Sameen.

“What happened?” Klaus demanded as he looked at the pale Bella. She was covered in blood, but it wasn’t hers. At least not the majority of it. “Were you successful?”

“A building appeared in the cemetery, it was probably cloaked before, and I couldn’t enter,” Kol ran his hand through his hair. “Bella went in on her own but she was already dead on her feet before she entered the building. Not quite sure what happened inside other than Bella kicking ass, destroying the object Mandy used to influence her and killed Mandy. Only then I could go in and help Bella.”

“If the threat is gone, why haven’t you cured her yet?” Klaus. Oved to Bella and bit his hand so he could feed his brother’s mate his blood, but was surprised when Kol forcibly pulled Klaus away from her. “Bloody hell!”

“Just because she eliminated the threat doesn’t mean she’s fine, Nik!” Kol spat as he moved himself between Bella and his brother. “The poison still rages through her system, even more so now that her body isn’t manipulated anymore through representational magic! The bitch not only used spells and herbs, but also a special kind of blood that rejects ALL vampire blood.”

“That’s impossible! We made sure Elena’s line ended a long time ago!”

Elijah pursed his lips as he watched his siblings quarrel. “We all know that Elena was very smart, what if she somehow managed to hide one of her children? If I recall, she had many.”

“And it’s possible it’s not even Gilbert blood, what if there’s another doppelganger?” Kol offered, causing Klaus to grimace. “We need to do something.”

“I could pay a visit to the witches who asked me for their help, you know, your distant family?” Sam offered and when the heads of Kol and Klaus snapped to her, she nodded, saluted and spat off.

“Is there anything we can do?” Rebekah asked softly. “Have Elijah and myself visit the regent?”

“No,” Kol growled. “That’s Bella’s job and as long as she’s still breathing, she wouldn’t want any of us to deal with it.”

“You and Elijah need to focus on taking out more werewolves and make us a bigger army. Take KJ with you if you so please,” Klaus told his sister. “I know it’s not what you’d like to do right now, but please.”

“I understand, you don’t wish for neither myself or Elijah to be here, Nik, but you are not the only ones who care for her.”

Klaus let out a growl and pushed his sister out of the room. “You have no right,” he said angrily. “Yes, you were there to help dispose of her problems but once all of that was done, you and Elijah left. When Kol and Bella returned to New Orleans, you didn’t. Not even for her consecration!”

“Nik!” Rebekah said, hurt bleeding through in her voice.

“Don’t.”

Elijah was smart enough to leave the room on his own. “Very well, brother,” he said calmly, understanding that he and his sister had, indeed, fallen from their brother’s graces and they had a lot to make up for. “Come, Rebekah, let us play with some wolves.”

[The Abattoir, French Quarter, New Orleans. Ancestral Plane. January 27th, 2311. 6:32 pm]

She had been on this side before and like this, alone. But the last time had been as an old lady, ready to say goodbye to Klaus and join Kol in the had been easy then, to say goodbye, mainly because she’d been ready. Done.

But now? She wished she could have stuck around a little longer. She had promised both Kol and Klaus she wouldn’t die on them, at least not this soon and it hurt to be on this side again and see her boys in so much pain. So much anger. It wasn’t fair that they got to live on and she had to fade away again.

All she wanted was to hug Klaus and her husband and tell them that everything was going to be alright. She hoped everything was going to be alright, she trusted them to make sure everything would be alright, but it wasn’t fair.

Bella tried to go back to her body; she wasn’t completely gone yet. She could go back, couldn’t she?

“Is it harder, the second time?”

Bella turned around and smiled when she saw the familiar face of her daughter, Nina. She was slightly older than Bella remembered, but it was her. Nina had always looked a lot like Kol – Kaleb – with her beautiful bone structure and her pretty eyes. Then, of course, was the height. “Oh, wow, Nina!” Bella laughed and hugged her tightly.

“Hi mom,” Nina gently rubbed Bella’s back before letting go of her. “Is it harder, the second time?”

Bella sighed and nodded as she followed Nina’s gaze to see her father and uncle bicker through their frustration. “I promised them.”

“Mother,” Nina sighed. “You know very well not to make promises you can’t keep.”

“I am not done!” Bella said as she pointed towards her family. “I was brought back to create order among the witches and I haven’t been able to do that yet because someone poisoned me!”

“I know, it’s unfair, but mom, they shouldn’t have resurrected you in the first place.”

“I know that!” Bella blurted, angry at her daughter for no reason at all, just someone who was there to get angry at. “But they did and nobody did a fucking thing to stop it from happening!”

“No, because we thought that dad had earned it to see you again.”

“But what about me? I- I can’t leave them again, Nina.”

Her daughter sucked in a breath and nodded. “I’m allowed to give you one full day in full control and in full health over this body so you can get your affairs in order. The ancestors understand that you are a powerful witch and you have done a lot for the community. You, too, deserve a break.” She then smiled and moved closer. “What you do with your time in this body is all up to you, mother.”

[The Abattoir, French Quarter, New Orleans. January 27th, 2311. 7:14 pm]

“But it isn’t fair, Nik! I’m used to being daggered and resurrected and what have you, but those witches broke the agreement Bella and I set up by bringing her back! And now she’s dying because Claire witches are still bitches!”

“I know it isn’t fair, brother,” Klaus shot back at him. “Do you think I’m happy about this? She deserves better than this fate, and we all know it.”

“I’m going to kill them all,” Kol grumbled. “If she dies – when she dies, I will kill them all.”

“And I’ll be happy to assist you with that.”

“You will do no such thing,” Bella said, her voice strong and powerful as she sat up and cast a spell to remove the cast around her leg. “Stop fighting, we have work to do and not much time to do it.”

She got out of bed and went to retrieve some clean clothes before looking back at the stunned faces before her. “The Ancestors owe me. I have a day. Nina says hi. I’m going to take a quick shower while you two fetch me all the books from our playhouse in the Cemetery. And get me something to eat.”

When they didn’t move, she crossed her arms over each other. “What?”

He was simply at a loss for words. One moment his wife, his soulmate, was dying and now she was walking around like a spring chicken, even her fractured ankle had become healthy again. “You-”

“I’m real,” Bella smiled at Kol before walking over and kissing him tenderly. “Back at full power, loads of juice and I’m not going to stop before we fix all of this. Got it?”

“Got it, Cuddles,” he smiled and kissed her again.

“Go get me food and all the books,” she grinned as she pushed him away and headed to the bathroom. “We have a lot of work to do!”

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