Chapter 15

“I don’t see why we can’t kill them right now. He’s a witch, she’s a human, easy to kill,” Klaus muttered during breakfast the next morning. “He’s been stirring up trouble and-”

“Who said anything about killing?” Bella replied as she buttered her piece of toast. “I promised them that they could spend their after life together and not separated by the Other Side.” Oh, she had thought really hard about this, merely because she had made that promise without actually having a plan. It was Kol who reminded her that she had the best way to fulfill that promise and at the same time to get revenge for what Silas had done to her family. To Kol. To Klaus. “Speaking of the Other Side, anyone heard Katherine last night?”

Elijah let out a deep breath as he put his napkin down on his plate. “Turning her into the anchor to the Other Side was a little harsh, wasn’t it? After all she’s been through due to our family?”

“Is that guilt, brother?” Klaus said amused. “I, for one, believe it was a great decision. It’s Katherine. You can get a lot better than Katherine as your lover.”

“It’s not-” Elijah scowled before rising to his feet and got ready to give a speech. “Granted, she can’t be trusted after she deceived us for so long, but we all got second chances. Third chances. Katerina is turning over a new leaf and she’s shown that by making sure we had the cure. In exchange for her freedom. In exchange for-”

“Oh, get off it, Elijah,” Rebekah rolled her eyes at him. “Katherine is a conniving little bitch, just like all the other doppelgangers and she’s been playing you both for years. Do you honestly believe her so called feelings for you are real? She’s the female version of Niklaus, she even said so herself. They manipulate, they punish, they control. They share the same thirst of power and you know why? Because they feel alone.”

“Niklaus has changed since Myriam came into his life. Kol has changed since he met Bella, why can’t Katerina have changed?”

“Because for God’s sake, Elijah, Katherine gets off on fucking with your head. Honestly, if she’d been so afraid of Niklaus during the time she was running from him, she’d have killed herself. But she didn’t. And you know why? She wants to live. Katherine doesn’t want to die so instead she’s doing everything in her power to make sure that she stays alive. If that means hanging out with your self-righteous ass, then so be it!” She fumed as she, too, got to her feet. “Besides, Nik and Kol only changed because they fear their girlfriends while you merely want to fix your broken little toy.”

“Niklaus has hidden Myriam from us for a long time and he didn’t change one bit.”

“This is not about me,” Klaus finally interrupted. “We need to take a step back and consider our actions should Bella not have intervened. While I am all for murder and mayhem, Silas is a bloody thorn in our side. Granted, we could leave and have the Salvatores take care of this problem, but I believe they’re not entirely capable of greatness. Unlike us, Bella wants to resolve things peacefully, and this is her way of doing it.”

“Well, I prefer not to kill anyone and to give people what they want,” Bella shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. I mean, I haven’t even discovered half of what I can do and it’s scary.”

“Yep, with great power comes great responsibility,” Kol said as he popped a strawberry into his mouth and leaned back into his chair.

“Says the homicidal maniac,” Rebekah rolled her eyes at her brother.

Kol coughed. “Excuse you, sister. It’s reformed homicidal maniac!”

“Well that remains to be seen,” Rebekah huffed as she nodded towards the doors. “Ah, the lovebirds have arrived! Breakfast?”

Silas leveled his gaze upon the vampires and Bella. “We’ve agreed to your stalling techniques, Miss Swan, we’d like you to stop it now and relieve us from our burden. End our lives and make good on your promise.”

Bella scowled as she took a sip of her coffee. “Who did you worship in your time? Hecate? Circe?”

“I did,” Silas nodded. “Both. And the sun god Helios, we all worshipped him.”

She sighed as she shook her head and rose to her feet. “Must be fated then that I’m the one helping you two get what you deserve. I can’t kill you guys because Silas would still end up on the Other Side. However, I can relieve you from your burdens and grant you peace. A transformation.”

Right after Bella finished speaking, she flew across the room, hitting a wall as she kept dangling her feet. “Silas!”

Klaus was quick to rush over to Amara and putting his hand around her little neck and Kol was smacked against another wall when he wanted to stop Silas. “Kill my love, Klaus Mikaelson, and I’ll kill your little friend.”

“She’s immortal, mate,” he spat at the warlock. “Unlike your girl.”

“I said I would help, not how,” Bella struggled to breathe. She inwardly cursed when she saw Henrik flicker into the dining room and see everything that was going on. He started to yell at Klaus to let Bella fight her own battles because she was the reason evil was inside these walls, yada yada yada. “Let go of me, I’ll help you right now.”

“You lie!”

Bella took a deep breath and tried to push Silas’ force away from her so she could focus. Immortal or not, she still needed to breathe and he was powerful. Bella knew that she was more powerful than him, but she didn’t want to test her own strength, not indoors. She always feared she’d break something when trying to do something. Even when she used her powers to nudge people against walls. They were nudges, not full blasts. Bella eventually managed to breathe normally again and even though she was still up against the wall, she was ending it now. All of it, and she wasn’t even going to explain it to Silas and Amara.

Focusing on the two, she started to visualize them as swans and made the thought grow inside her mind. Bigger. Urgent. Willing and forcing the original faces of Elena and Stefan to turn. Bella dropped to the floor the moment Silas changed into a majestic black swan and she was relieved that by forcing him to become something else, his magic was taken away as well.

“Someone open a door or something,” she muttered as she looked at Henrik, who was looking at her with a shocked expression on his face. “What?” Bella sneered at the boy while she allowed herself to be put back on her feet by Kol and didn’t look away from the boy ghost.

“A thank you would be nice,” Kol huffed.

“Yes, thank you, Kol,” she quickly said, validating her words by rubbing his arm as she held on to him. “Who wants to talk to Henrik? This little buddy needs to move on.”

“I don’t want to! I want to return! Like you did for Kol!”

“He wants to return and join you guys, apparently.”

“We already discussed this,” Klaus muttered after he had ushered the swans out of the window. “Too much has happened in the last thousand years since he was alive and while he’s still my brother, I don’t wish to be responsible for him.”

“I know,” Bella replied as she sat down in Kol’s lap, still a bit dazed of the smack against the wall. “But we haven’t given Rebekah and Elijah the chance to talk to him yet.”

Elijah sucked in a breath, not sure if he was ready to stumble into something new so fast. It remained to be amazing to see Bella wield her powers and for a short moment he had feared for all of their lives when Silas seemed to snap. “I’m certain that between all of us we could take care of our baby brother if he wishes to return?”

Klaus rolled his eyes. “Do you honestly wish for him to return? Elijah, we’re monsters. Deadly beasts with emotions as fragile as a hair. If we lose ourselves for only a second, we could kill him and I’m certainly not willing to turn him at this age.” Granted, he, Kol and Bella had discussed this already; allowing their siblings to come to the same conclusions as they had, but he already knew it was going to be impossible for Bella to resurrect Henrik. According to her, he felt different.

“Nik, he’s our brother,” Rebekah replied. “Doesn’t he deserve another chance, like Kol has had?”

“And it’s your fault he’s dead in the first place, Niklaus!” Elijah countered passionately. “You always drone on about family first. Family. You’ve kept us in boxes, so afraid you’d lose us and you don’t wish for Henrik to return? We have the opportunity to reunite with our youngest sibling! We should take advantage of that!”

Bella could feel Kol tense up underneath her and looked at him, gently caressing his cheek with her hand. “Shh,” she whispered and softly kissed his cheek. “Let the big boys fight this out, you can beat up Elijah later.”

“You are correct, brother mine,” Klaus said, once again getting up from his chair, rising and making himself appear taller than Elijah and his sister; a tactic that had always worked so well. “It is my fault that Henrik’s dead and I shall have to live with that guilt for as long as I shall live, like I have done up until this day. Bella allowed me to speak to him, and I profusely apologized to the boy, asking for his forgiveness, which I thankfully received so that makes my guilt a bit less heavy,” he continued as he advanced at his siblings, anger bubbling underneath his skin. “Do you believe he’d flourish in this modern day and age? After all that we’ve been through, all the enemies we’ve gathered? They could use him against us, Elijah.”

“We can protect him.”

Klaus let out a snort. “You two were so against me taking in Marcel, raising him as one of our own, teaching him all that I could…” He then pointed at Elijah. “Until you started to mess with his education it all went well! But that was Marcel. Family, sure, but not by blood. Henrik will be a completely different story and I am sorry, Elijah, but I can’t have you screw him over as well.”

“Niklaus, I believe we both have a vastly different memory of that time.”

“Oh please, your constant bickering and fighting didn’t do Marcel any good, you both twisted his mind and manipulated him. In fact you and Nik were constantly at odds with each other that Nik undaggered Kol out of spite to raise some hell and rebel against you, Elijah. But it took a whole tenement building and a bloody Hamlet for the both of you to decide to box him in favor of Marcel!” Rebekah shot at Elijah, but also directing it towards Niklaus.

“Kol, say something,” Elijah urged him.

“Why should I, brother?” Kol said, still his hands tightly fisted in Bella’s lap. “All I can see is history repeating itself. I’m with Nik on this. There is no place for another sibling in our midst.”

“Why are you so mean!” Henrik screeched. “It’s your fault! It’s your bloody fault!” He directed that at Bella before flinging something heavy at her.

Kol caught the vase with ease and set it down in front of Bella. “He’s a menace. The two of you will fawn over him and make him even worse, turn him into a spoilt brat while me and Nik will be on the sidelines watching because you two don’t trust us enough to do good. Not that I’m planning to stick around, anyway, I promised Bella to show her the world, but you’ll be left with Nik and even though Myriam is more than capable of making sure he doesn’t do anything rash, you just know that history will repeat itself. Henrik needs a mother. A father. Not his deranged siblings.”

“Speaking of which,” Klaus punched Elijah, hard. “Just because we have someone in our family that can do the most wondrous of things, doesn’t mean we will use her. That we’ll force her to use her gifts for us and if she’s not cooperating that we’ll torture obedience from her. Bella’s a lovely girl who’s been nothing but kind and a good influence on our previously untamable brother. We shall not use her as an opportunity. As an object. As one of our array of powerful beings,” he spat. “She makes the decisions, not Kol. Not I, and certainly not you. We should feel honored that she’s giving us the chance to discuss Henrik’s possible resurrection amongst ourselves, but I have a feeling that she’s already made up her mind.”

Kol visibly relaxed as he let out a breath. Bella was smiling proudly at the hybrid before she beamed up at Kol. “Told you.”

Kol returned the smile she gave him. “What’s your verdict on our baby brother then?”

“I know how much you all want to see him again, no matter what has been said just now. But unlike with Kol, I don’t sense anything about him that could make me bring him back. There’s nothing there but an intelligent, angry young boy who thinks nothing has changed. That it will be alright once he’s back, but it won’t be. When I spoke to Kol when he was a ghost, I could feel his potential and which is why I had him peel back layer upon layer of his emotions, his feelings, to show him that. I can’t do that with the boy. Nor do I want to. You all have a wonderful life at this point; there’s nothing threatening your way of life and you can finally enjoy it again now that Silas has been taken care of. Now that the Other Side is still intact. Why bring in a complication?”

“He’s our brother, Bella,” Rebekah growled.

“I know he is, but I just told you that I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I can’t. I can’t even forcibly move him on and will have to ask for reinforcements.”

“Do you have to do that?” Rebekah asked, her demeanor suddenly small, scared, sad. “I mean, what’s the harm in him lingering around here? He’s been here for a thousand years and now he finally has someone he can talk to and-”

“Sister,” Kol said calmly. “Henrik has been a spirit for so long, he’s died, he’s gone. He’s bound to the Earth because he failed to move on by himself. I believe he only got back to life, sort to speak, because we are all here. Because we’re back where we left him. He feeds off of our energy to be here, to interact, to throw things at Bella because he doesn’t like her. He’s afraid, he worries about us and wants to protect us.”

“And what’s wrong with that, Kol?” Rebekah shot at him. “What’s so wrong about having a spirited family member?”

“Because we are created by magic, and leaving him exposed long enough, Henrik could turn into a bloody menace and terrorize everything and everyone. Had we been anything other than vampires or immortal, Henrik would have made us feel drained and exhausted due to his energy sucking to remain here. Should he stay here, we’ll eventually move on, he’ll be unable to communicate with us and he’ll flicker out again until we come back. It’s much better for him to leave this place and go elsewhere where he can be taken care of properly. He doesn’t mean well, despite what he’s saying, despite of who he was. Now, I’ve seen Bella help out a lost spirit or two on our travels and they weren’t quite the hassle as Henrik is. As much as I like the idea of Henrik always being here for us, it’s wrong and potentially catastrophic.” Why did it feel like he was repeating himself over and over like a broken record?

“Who cares? We’re immortals,” Rebekah sighed. “Come on, don’t be such a party pooper, Kol.”

“Rebekah…”

“No, it’s alright,” Bella said as she shrugged. “For what it’s worth, it’s best to remove him from the limbo that he is in now, he’s alone. Should he move on, he could reunite with long lost relatives, like an aunt or uncle or grandparents, who knows? Not me, but hey, at least it’s worth a shot. If the majority of you wants him to continue to be alone, then so be it.”

“But like you said, he’s looking out for us!”

“Rebekah, you’re vampires. You don’t need to be looked after,” Bella said with a slight chuckle. “Besides, Henrik might think he’s doing the right thing, but he’s not. He can become stronger and stronger and then decide to experiment on taking over people; possess them and hurt them. Get those people killed or do harm himself while in said body. It’s fine!”

“They don’t want me to leave!” Henrik laughed as he danced around the room. “So that’s you leaving?”

Both Elijah and Klaus had gone quiet during this discussion with Rebekah, and Bella knew that Klaus was on her side. They had already discussed this. The possibilities. The only solution was for Henrik to be removed and forced to move on. “Look, I understand you want your baby brother back, but it’s simply not possible. It’s not good for him to stick around, either. You shouldn’t feel guilty for the life you have now or that he got killed. It’s all part of life and in the past, life was harder. His time was a long time ago,” she then huffed. “You’re freaking vampires, you deal with death of loved ones a lot. Get over it.” When both Elijah and Rebekah opened their mouths, Bella turned them into a stag and a common barn owl. “They can hate me all they want later.”

“I do believe that Elijah was on our side, Bella,” Klaus mused as he quickly closed the window he had previously pushed the swans out of so that his sister couldn’t escape. “You didn’t have to give them a time out.”

Bella ducked when Henrik threw a rather large buste of some sort of important person at her. “You’re a meanie!” Henrik cried out as the object shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor.

“I’m going to call my da- grandfather to see what to do now, if I even can get help,” Bella grumbled as she left the room to make her call.

Hey Bells, how are you doing?”

“Great! No accidents so far!” Bella grinned. “How are you, dad?”

We’ve been over this, Bella, I am not your father.”

“Force of habit.”

Charlie huffed in the other end of the call. “Hades told me you’ve recently sent some souls his way. I think it’s great that your big heart also reaches to the ghosts.”

“Kol told me that it’s what some witches – mediums – do, and I feel for them, there aren’t a lot of people who they can fully interact with. Which brings me to a problem I think I need Hades for… Do you think you could ask him to come down for me?”

Of course I can! He’s been waiting for this opportunity, very curious to meet you,” Charlie replied cheerfully. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

Bella let out a snort. “Nothing I can’t handle apart from this… extremely annoying little kid who I can’t help, but I have a feeling Hades might.”

Very well. Word of warning; he is a bit of a flirt.”

Bella let out a snort. “I’m sure I can handle it.” She then remembered something and felt stupid for asking, but better safe than sorry, right? “Since he’s like… a God and all, does he require an offering of some sort?”

A warm, loud laughter could be heard coming out of Charlie’s mouth. “Sweetheart, I am a God, do I require an offering?”

“No, but that’s because you raised me and shit.”

He’s our cousin, he doesn’t get shit.”

“If you’re sure.”

If anything, he should give you an offering because he’s an Olympian and you’re more of a Titan than he is, but that’s a story for later. I’ll send him your way.”

4 Comments:

  1. Clever what she did for Silas and Amara.
    I do believe if she even could bring Henrik back it wouldn’t be for the best.

  2. Yaay meet some of her family awesome

  3. Awesome update! Absolutely love this story!

  4. Bekah and Elijah need to learn to keep their tempers and well Henrik needs to stop being a punk lol he really does. bella can’t bring him back and if she did she is right he would be a spoil little shit that would do anything and everything to make bella miserable along with the otehrs since they lived for over a thousand years. Update again soon want to see how Hades acts. and what is this about her being a titan? waiting patiently for the next chapter

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