Upon seeing the dumbfounded looks on the faces of everyone gathered around the table, Peter sighed and held up his hands. “Imagine these hands representing Bella and Myriam. They’re twins. Despite the two very different lives they have lead up until Bella’s arrival here, they were always like this,” he interlocked his fingers. “Twins have this rare connection, that’s scientifically proven by actual humans, by the way. With Carlisle’s treatment of their embryos, the bond only strengthened. Myriam was the one who could avoid all of Bella’s powers, including her shield ability. Perhaps not her mental intrusion, but all the physical attacks or abilities, yes. She was created as a safety, incase Bella wouldn’t be able to be controlled. Bella, in her own special way, was created as a counterbalance for Myriam. To even out the anger, the strength, Myriam would possess.”
It was a lightbulb moment for Freya. “Of course!” She exclaimed before slapping her forehead with her flat hand. “How could we have missed this? It’s the simplest explanation and the simplest solution!”
“To be fair, you’ve missed this because you’re used to things being extremely complicated,” Peter had a flat expression on his face, hating it that he had to force feed them the information that had already been available to them.
“With Bella reverting back to being a human, all of her meddled DNA changed back to the way it was in the womb, no years long messing with the body and mind, just the 9 months of manipulation,” Freya started to explain to her siblings, being rather excited about it. “The same happened to Myriam, Bella shattered her Cold One physique, her DNA had already been altered by turning into a Cold One in the first place, but Bella shattered her shell. We had to use magic to save Myriam and make her our kind of vampire. She became a tribrid instead, so everything is out of whack for their so-called Twin connection. The problem here is that Bella is still human and out of sync with her sister, she lost her balance.”
“Please explain Myriam’s new connection, Freya,” Peter leaned against the table as he stood next to the witch, at least someone had a brain around this place. “It’ll also explain her instability and additional mood swings.”
Freya then blinked at him. “Sorry?”
Forget his earlier compliment on the woman. No brains. Sighing, Peter retrieved a stake from his inside pocket and drove it through Myriam’s heart.
“NO! Are you insane!?” Klaus bellowed as he threw Peter away and pulled Myriam into his arms, unsure of how to hold her for fear of her falling apart to his touch. “Why would you kill the girl you claim to be your daughter?!”
Peter dusted himself off and sauntered back, taking his time as he whistled a tune he always had stuck in his head, saying nothing.
“Five…” Bella said softly, unsure where that need came from. “Four… Three… Two…”
Kol eyed Bella curiously before blinking in recognition, drawing in a breath. Standing in surprise, he glanced at Elijah and Rebekah who shared equal bewilderment as they too turned to watch Klaus and Myriam. Their brother was not paying attention to them, too distraught by the incapacitated girl in his arms to understand what truly had been done by the spell. “Nik…” Kol warned.
When Bella reached zero, Myriam’s eyes fluttered before she angrily pulled the stake out of her heart and threw it at Peter, who expertly caught it. “Fucker!” she yelled at him. “How dare you scare me like that!” She got to her feet and pushed Klaus off of her before she set herself off with her feet and launched herself at Peter. She was going to rip his head off.
Peter, of course, caught his daughter and pulled her hands behind her back as he twisted her around. “None of that, kitten,” he told her before looking at the Mikaelsons. “Your little spell has not only linked Myriam to Klaus, but also to his daughter, seeing as you lot thought it was a brilliant idea to use her blood to stabilize the transformation. Nothing wrong with that, I’m grateful that you’ve made my daughter invincible like yourself, but the connection is wrong. So, now you know. There’s a wrong connection for Myriam and no connection for Bella, how are you going to fix that?”
Myriam was connected to Hope. That explained why Hope was having so many temper tantrums and drove her mother up the wall, as even leaving New Orleans didn’t work. “We need to remove the connection to Hope,” Klaus said determined.
“Do that, and your spell will lose merit and Myriam will die. I’m sorry, but that spell of yours made your life a lot harder,” Peter said as he released his angry daughter. “The connection doesn’t hurt your daughter’s life. If anything, it makes her feel like a normal teenager. Teenagers are supposed to rage and rage and rage, drive their parents batty. No, the solution is to make Bella immortal and re-establish the connection with her sister.”
“Turning Bella is not an option, we’ve already established that. Her gifts have the potential to become worse, as it has happened with Myriam,” Kol said as he put his arms around Bella. “On top of that, she really doesn’t want to be a vampire.”
“She doesn’t have to be,” Freya realized, but there was hesitation in her voice. “There is a solution, but it’s not something to be taken lightly. I can re-establish her link with Myriam with no problem, I’ll even link her to Hope to give her a sense of balance, but the solution to her immortality is something… I had to endure… and Klaus knows exactly what I’m talking about, although he volunteered and I never did.”
“Dahlia’s spell,” Klaus replied as he put his arms around Myriam after Peter had released her. “But that will endanger anyone who’s linked to her. Kill her, kill the person who she’s linked with.”
“Not with a few adjustments, I’m well aware that it’s different in this case as Bella’s a human, but I think I can make it work so that she’ll become as indestructible as you and Myriam are. Without her having to turn. It’ll take me a few days to figure it out, but I can do it. As long as you have Hope here, or at least her blood that I can use to link Bella to Hope too.”
“No,” Bella shook her head. “No. No more messing with magic or making new connections. Just…”
“If we only link you to Myriam, Bella, you’ll get the full brunt of Myriam’s connection to Klaus. You think this morning was bad? Imagine being a third wheel in everything they do,” Freya explained.
“Then don’t. I’ll die eventually and Myriam will be fine.”
Klaus could feel Myriam tense up and kept his arms around her. “Excuse us,” he said politely as he directed Myriam towards her room, taking her out of the situation that had the potential to get really dangerous.
“Myriam doesn’t want you to die, Bella,” Rebekah said, also slightly hurt by Bella’s remark. “And neither do I. Nor Kol. Nor Freya or Nik. You’re a part of our family, we’re not letting you go.”
“I know that!” Bella said angrily. “But I’m fucking done with magic. With longevity. What guarantee is there that things will stabilize for me? I can imagine it will work wonders on Myriam, but I can’t see that happening for me. I fucking hate hearing everyone, every thought, feel everything. I don’t even know what my own feelings are most of the time and whatever I try, I can’t control it, so please, can you guarantee that everything that you’re proposing will actually fix this?!”
Kol was surprised by the firecracker in his arms, Bella didn’t do anger, but it was rolling off of her as if she was going to box fifty rounds against a puff of smoke. He understood where she was coming from, though. Everything.
“Can you?” Bella looked at Peter. “Since you know everything and shit, can you guarantee this? Because frankly, no matter how much I enjoy being around the family, it might be actually better to take me out of the whole equation, making life a lot easier for everyone.”
Peter eyed her, nodding after a moment. “If you are bonded to Myriam and Kol at the very least, yes. I don’t see the need for Klaus’ kid as you’d be connected to her through your sister. It’s a clean circle of blood that you all would be bound by that you shouldn’t need any aging spell either since traces of Myriam’s original Cold One change does remain within her and you’d also be linked to that. That is the only thing I can’t promise but your witch here can mix something up later.”
“To Kol? We can’t do that to him!”
“I think you should ask him if he’s willing to for you. You really shouldn’t take choices away from others if they want to do for you,” he scolded her. “After all, you just told your sister you wanted to die and leave her behind without consideration of her feelings,” he added the final on his way to go check on the girl and hybrid.
“Let’s do it,” Kol said, slightly hurt by Bella thinking he wouldn’t want her to be linked to him. If anything, he would be very happy because he wouldn’t lose her. When Bella looked at him, with fire in her eyes, he returned the look. “I know you feel like you’re cursed, especially now your gifts have amplified, but please stop wanting to die. It’s not the way out. You’re going to stay and fight. Remember your conversation with Myriam yesterday? You stay and you fight. Freya is going to link you to Myriam and to me, and you’re going to stay and fight. And there’ll be no discussion. I’m taking the choice away from you. You’re not fit to make choices at this point,” he said sternly before pointing at Myriam’s room. “And you’re going to apologize to your sister.”
Bella kept looking at him, not moving at all.
‘Now,’ Kol commanded, making her snap out of whatever she was feeling and raging about in her head, causing her to blink and slowly nod. She turned around and walked to Myriam’s room and Kol was right behind her. ‘You’re going to tell her you’re sorry and that you were scared, that’s all.’
Bella gingerly knocked on the door, and flinched when the door swung open, revealing Klaus. “Now’s not the time,” he told her. “Unless you do want to be dead, because your sister is about to kill you herself.”
“I only wanted to tell her how sorry I am and that I acted out of fear,” Bella said, barely a whisper. All of her anger gone, but it had been replaced by grief, sadness and fear. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“I know,” Klaus said gently as he looked over her to meet eyes with his brother. “However, words were said and repeated, and she’s currently not able to talk to you rationally. I am certain that once Myriam is able to, you two could have a supervised chat. For now, Kol’s going to tell Freya to go ahead with the preparation of the spells.”
Kol sighed. Of course. It only made sense. He and his siblings had hurt Klaus enough over the years, badly enough for their angry brother to hunt them down and try to kill them. Or box them for a very long time. He’d been on the receiving end of Klaus’ wrath for a lot of times, and if Myriam had reached this point, it was best to keep the human away from her sister. And it was certainly a story he needed to tell Bella. “Bella and I are going to have a good chat,” Kol told his brother. “She still doesn’t realize how certain words can sting or rip figurative hearts out and I have all the stories.”
Klaus nodded to his brother before looking at Bella again. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, your sister still loves you, she cares for you deeply. Only right now… she’s blinded by her pain.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again as she stumbled back against Kol as a wave of anger hit her, punching her in the gut. Myriam was hurt. Angry, but mostly hurt and fearful. Because of Bella. Klaus felt the same but less intense and the same feeling came off of Kol. When Klaus closed the door, she looked up at Kol. “Maybe you should be alone too?”
“Oh no,” Kol said as he took her hand and crossed the courtyard as he picked up a glass of blood. “You and I are going to have a chat, no matter how much it’ll hurt. Perhaps Rebekah could join us to tell her side of things?” He asked as he looked at his sister.
“Therapy time, joy,” she remarked before looking at Freya, who nodded and went upstairs, straight to work. Rebekah reluctantly joined Bella and Kol in Bella’s room for story time. All Rebekah wanted was to have Bella stop wanting to kill herself, it has been an issue for quite some time, and it was cowardly. She could understand Bella, as Bella likely felt there was no other way out, but there always was and there would always be.
Kol sat Bella down on the sofa and sat down next to her, Rebekah choose the chair opposite of them. “Now, you understand things better when you can actually see and feel things inside your mind, so how about both Beks and I open up about the parts we want to learn you about and you can ask questions instead?”
“You also said you found it hard to distinguish your own feelings from that of others,” Rebekah said calmly, crossing her legs over each other as she relaxed in her chair. “It’s easier to do that when you’ve experienced the full scope of emotions and feelings. And between me and Kol, you’ll get a crash course. You’ll also learn about the many times we’ve angered Nik up to the point of him wanting to kill us, just like your sister wants to do right now, and the reasons why.”
“Let’s tell you what it means to be a family and all the feelings involved when you’re a part of this one,” Kol smiled at Bella as he reassuringly squeezed her leg. “Go on then, find us.”
It wasn’t hard to find both Kol and Rebekah’s thoughts and feelings that belonged to what they were showing her. Family. Love. Always and Forever. Betrayal. Backstabbing. Klaus on a power kick. Klaus allowing fear to rule his anger. Kol and Rebekah allowed fear to do horrible things to ensure Klaus would go down. Then there were times where Klaus used his siblings against each other. Various Christmas balls, parties. Daggers in chests. But there were also good times where they lived harmoniously, until something would set someone off and it’d start all over again. An angry Klaus was a scary Klaus, Bella had figured as much as she hadn’t liked him in the beginning, but to see his anger in Kol and Rebekah’s minds, was horrifying. Much like Myriam was like now. Wanting to kill her own sibling for something she’d said and it didn’t sit well.
Bella saw a lot of similarities with the Cullens, though. Always bickering, not happy with each other’s actions, sabotaging… but the main difference is that the loyalty felt different. The Cullens were loyal out of sheer fear, the Mikaelsons actually felt love for each other, no matter the difficulties they were going through. They were always coming back together.
Things were different now, as Rebekah and Kol showed Bella progress to where they were now as a family. They had learned from the past, mended fences and actually liked being together. Klaus knew not to take everything literally and all the siblings had found their own little place in the world, and in their family. They actually lived harmoniously now, waiting for the next thing to blow all their good feelings to smithereens and ruin their lives again.
Bella still couldn’t get past the fact that they had all been so awful to each other, out of fear, out of anger. It was alright now, but she didn’t want this to happen between her and Myriam. Especially if Bella was going to be immortal for the sake of her sister, then this shouldn’t happen between them. She didn’t want it to happen.
If it would make Myriam feel better if Bella would become immortal and stick around, then Bella was going to do so. Cursed or not. Because Myriam had sacrificed herself to find and fight for Bella. It was the least Bella could do and she’d been such an ungrateful brat by being selfish.
She was sobbing by the time Rebekah closed her mind and Kol took it a little bit further by making Bella feel everything he felt for her. She was reeling of all the emotions and impressions, not sure if this was a punishment or if Kol and Rebekah were trying to make it clear to her that this is something normal between sibings, to love and hate each other. That there was no black and white, perhaps only in Bella’s case, who only disliked things when she should get angry about things.
Myriam was angry with Bella because Bella didn’t want to live eternally with her curse, which was selfish. It was only correct that Myriam was angry and that she wanted to kill Bella. But it wasn’t pure hate, merely out of love. And how Bella’s words had stung, so hurt. Bella had been a bad sister. She was going to do better.
Kol put his arms around her and pulled Bella in his lap. “It’s alright, darling,” he said soothingly. “This is what family is all about.”
“To kill each other?”
“Try to, at least,” he grinned. “At times. Especially as you’ve lived as long as we have. She truly loves you, Bella, she doesn’t want to be alone, much like you don’t want to be alone. You’re going to have to try harder. Fight harder. And watch your words a little, because words can hurt as much as physical attacks.”
She was still sobbing in his arms, no doubt she was still feeling everything and trying to deal with it all. “And I meant what I said, Bella, I want you with me forever. If Freya’s spell can link you and I together, and you with your sister, then we’ll get everything we need. We get you. And we get the both of you in balance,” he continued, softly caressing her back as he looked at Rebekah, who was simply smiling. “And you’ll continue to learn. You’ll make mistakes, but you will always know that you have a family. Not simply with your sister, but with us. You’re a Mikaelson. Always and forever.”
