It took about a month of Kol being on his best behaviour before Davina relented and took him back as her boyfriend. A vampire, but still the person he used to be. Myriam thought it was pathetic, really.
Kaleb had left the city upon coming back to his senses and his own body, and Myriam couldn’t blame him. If it had been up to her, she would have left as well. But she stayed. Because she’d never run from anything again.
She hadn’t left Débauche in a month, either. Klaus came to her when he had time, but she never went to the Compound where he was still keeping his parents and Mikael pretty much on his two feet. Myriam hated it. She hated everything. And she didn’t want to get out of bed. It was as if the whole world was spinning and making her nauseous which was stupid because she was a vampire and couldn’t get sick.
She had her witches do some spells on her to see if she was under a spell or poisoned or whatever, but they couldn’t find anything, and that was so frustrating. Myriam actually burst out in tears over that. There was something wrong with her, she could feel it. She sighed when she felt a familiar depression next to her in bed and rolled into him. “I’ve missed you.”
“What’s this nonsense of not wanting to leave your bed, love?” Klaus asked kindly as he put his arms around her. “You have a business to run.”
“I know,” Myriam sighed.
“Have you been feeding lately? You look a little pale around the nose.”
She nodded. “The bare minimum though, just enough not to desiccate, but blood tastes disgusting, so something is wrong, but my witches can’t seem to figure out what.”
“Perhaps Freya can mean something to you.”
“Oh hell no,” Myriam huffed. “I don’t trust her, Klaus. I believe she’s truthful, but I doubt we can trust her.”
Klaus sucked in a breath and nodded. His wife had the same suspicions as he did. “Ask Davina. Or some other powerful witch you trust. We’ll turn every stone there is to figure it out. Would you perhaps like to talk to Camille? She has some great insights.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Myriam asked with a small voice.
“No.”
“Then why suggest talking to Cami?
“Well, perhaps you are struggling with something that makes you this inactive, and you can’t talk to me about it. Cami asks the right questions.”
“I’m not going to talk to Cami,” Myriam said as she took out her phone and shot Kol a message. He responded immediately that he and Davina were on their way. “Happy?”
“And what if Davina can’t find anything either?”
Myriam huffed.
“Love?”
“Fine. You can call your sister.”
~o.O.o~
“Oh, I can smell it,” Kol said as he walked into Myriam’s apartment. “I could smell it the moment I walked in here!”
“What are you talking about?” Klaus looked at his brother, a confused look on his face. “Smell what?”
“Myriam! Honestly, Nik, you don’t know the scent of your own wife? Or perhaps you’ve forgotten to use your nose around her for the last 300 years?”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Myriam complained, refusing to lift her head from her pillow. “I’ve been fine – until this issue.”
“There’s another layer on top of your scent, darling,” Kol said as he sat down on the bed next to her, wedging her between him and Klaus. “If my mutt of a brother uses his bloody nose, he’d smell it too. What is strange, however, is that I can’t hear that extra heartbeat that usually comes with this thing.”
She turned her head to look at him and narrowed her eyes. “What crackhead in which drug den did you drink since you resurrected because what you are implying is impossible. There is absolutely no freaking way that I am pregnant!”
Klaus looked at his brother with a confused look on his face before inhaling Myriam’s scent. It was different. It was… new. Like Kol said, another layer mixed with her own. “Impossible or not, I think he’s right.”
“Alright, let’s not freak the vampire out here,” Davina said as she swatted Kol on the head. “Let me see,” she said as she placed her hands above Myriam’s body and started to chant a little spell before being knocked flat on her ass. “What?”
“Are you okay?” Klaus questioned as he pointed to the young witch but remained at his wife’s side. “Myriam? Love? Do you know what just happened?”
“How the hell should I know?” Myriam muttered. “I feel worse.”
“How is this possible?” Klaus looked at the witch for answers. “I know that us vampires can have a healthy body if, IF, we ingest enough blood to keep everything in check, but a pregnant vampire? That’s unheard of!”
“Well, you’re part wolf,” Kol pointed out. “And you likely don’t shoot blanks. As for Myriam… I have no clue…” he said as he hadn’t moved from the bed either. “Well… I might. You won’t like what I’m thinking.”
“Kol,” Klaus warned him.
“Two recent events have changed Myriam’s course. One; she was an Augustine Vampire. Two; before that, our mother tried to change Myriam into a vampire hunter and changed her entire genetic makeup to make her an Original like us. Mother wanted us dead, yes, but what if she had a failsafe in the spell used on Myriam that would reward her humanity after we’d all die?”
“But we didn’t.”
“No, and Myriam didn’t turn into the vampire hunter mother wanted her to be either, because of her demons.”
“This is ridiculous,” Myriam huffed as she pushed Klaus off the bed and got to her feet. After a slight wobble, she made it to her dresser. “I want a second- third opinion,” she looked at Klaus as he got back to his feet. “Time to get your fucking evil mother out of fucking storage. The bitch and I need to have a fucking chat.”
“Love, we could ask Freya-”
“If Kol’s right and I have a parasite in me, it’s your mother’s fault. So, let’s go straight to the source.”
Klaus was taken aback by that. For months she had avoided coming to the compound because he currently housed his parents in various states of desiccation and she hated them with a passion, one that rivalled his own. His wife didn’t look pregnant. But she was right, the only way to be sure that Esther’s spell on Myriam had messed with her body was by asking Esther herself.
He wasn’t going to allow himself to get excited – yet. A child in their family was something they’d always wanted. Rebekah might get a bit jealous, but she’d be a fantastic aunt. Kol would be the crazy uncle and Klaus the overprotective father. Myriam, the doting mother.
Although the last time Klaus brought a child into the fold Myriam bolted, and many years later killed him while she was under the influence. But this would be their own flesh and blood, surely it would be different this time?
Myriam seemed to stabilise somewhat after she had two glasses of Klaus’ blood and was well enough to walk back to the Compound with them, albeit grumpy and very pissed off. She sulked when Klaus took her all the way down to the dungeons with a few bags of blood to rouse his mother from her slumber, but he didn’t want to risk his mother running away.
Once she was on her feet, Klaus compelled her to speak the truth whenever he or Myriam would ask a question, that way, they knew that everything coming out of her mouth was true.
“Have you come to kill me, again?”
“Oh, I’d really love to,” Myriam replied as she stood behind Klaus for safety. “And depending on how this conversation will go I actually might.”
“Behave, love,” Klaus told her quietly.
“I honestly don’t know why you’re keeping her alive, seriously!”
“For times like these,” he replied before looking at his mother. “What exactly did you do to Myriam back in Mystic Falls?”
“I had her in my possession for a few days so I could prepare her for the spell that would turn her into a vampire hunter, like your father. I thought it’d be irony for the one you love so much to be your downfall, Niklaus.”
“Why her?”
“Because she took Alaric from me after she cleansed him, of course. I couldn’t allow that to happen,” Esther said as she propped herself up against a wall. “I hadn’t known about her demons being so tenacious and fiercely protective of their master. They ripped away every part of the spell that was harmful to her and those she loved and left her being an Original vampire, like yourself. They sacrificed themselves to save their master.”
“What else did you do with the spell, Mother? Kol suspects you did more.”
“Oh, of course! Should she have completed her task by killing all of you, she’d revert back to being a human to live out the rest of her miserable life alone,” Esther smiled then. “Call it a reward, if you will. But I doubt it stuck like most of my spell didn’t.” Esther then sniffed the air and blinked. “How is that possible? You smell like a human. Or at least a part of you.”
“Both Kol and I suspect her to be with child, mother. Because of your spell and the interference of Myriam’s demons, is that possible?”
“With her? Anything is possible, but Niklaus, if she’s truly with child, Dahlia will come for us all! She will take the child and cause eternal suffering for you!”
“It’s fine, we’re not keeping it anyway if I am. How do we get rid of it?” Myriam said coldly. “Davina couldn’t even find it with her magic without being knocked on her ass. It’s a parasite, it makes me feel weak and lethargic. It needs to go.”
“You could try to ask Freya for help. If Myriam’s truly with child, she’d be able to pierce through every defence the child may have at this point as Freya’s kin,” Esther suggested, still not wiping the look of worry off of her face. “Niklaus, Dahlia will come for that child.”
Myriam growled and snapped Esther’s neck before making her way upstairs to the courtyard to pour herself a big glass of bourbon. There was no way that she was pregnant and if she was, Esther was a terrible witch, one that couldn’t even work around demons with her spells. Why had she ever been so afraid of the woman when all she could do was fail?
Even so, magic was fickle and it was entirely possible that Myriam was pregnant; it wasn’t as if she’d been turned into an Original vampire after being a regular vampire for so long, or been the victim of some crazy scientist turning her into a Ripper who liked to munch on vampires instead of humans. The universe had one hell of a sense of humour.
No, if she had something inside of her, it was likely some magical parasite draining Myriam from all of her energy, no matter how much or how little she ate. Witches were good at shit like this. Yes. She wasn’t pregnant. And Freya was going to fix Klaus or else. What if he’d father a child with another werewolf? Or a human? Myriam would kill them all, and her husband would be so angry because a child was what the family had yearned for for years. Marcel was adopted, but a flesh and blood child…
Oh.
If she were pregnant, she’d have to fight her family over it because there was no way that Myriam was going to give birth. Nor care for a child. No way in hell was she going to take care of a child. She wasn’t maternal. She liked to help people, but raise a child? Hell no.
Oh, hell no.
She knocked down her glass of bourbon and poured herself another. She could just run away and forget it all, but she was still feeling so lethargic that running away sounded like a chore. She sat down on one of the sofa’s and sighed deeply. There was no doubt that Klaus had already called Freya and there was no doubt in her mind that Klaus was already thinking that she was with child.
Oh, hell no.
Drowning her glass, she reached for the bottle for a refill and growled when Klaus took it away from her. “Give that back. I’ve earned it after having dealt with your mother and no doubt Freya is on her way.”
“And I doubt she’d want you drunk, love,” he said kindly as he sat down next to her, a worried expression on his face. “And what if Freya won’t be able to determine that you’re carrying?”
“Then we’re going to carve open my stomach and pull whatever it is out of there and throw it away,” she said as she tried to crawl over him to get to her bottle of alcohol. “We are not raising a child!” she then paused for a moment as she was sitting on Klaus’ lap with her knees. “Oh, I know! We could give it to Dahlia! She loves to be a mother, doesn’t she?”
“Why are you doing this, love?” he sighed as he threw the bottle of alcohol across the courtyard against a pillar, smashing it to pieces. Klaus then sat her back down next to him and looked at her, truly looked at her and what he saw broke his heart. She was scared shitless. “Talk to me, Myriam,” he said kindly. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“I don’t understand why you’re not even remotely upset about the fact that it’s possible that I’m a pregnant vampire,” she stated angrily. “Haven’t I been through enough?”
“You speak of children as if they’re a burden.”
“I love children. When they’re not mine,” she crossed her arms over her chest. “They’re noisy. Loud. Stinky. Demand attention constantly and they’re fucking adorable and fragile. But we’re vampires, Klaus. The child will be born into a family made out of mostly vampires with anger issues and paranoia, and they will inherit our enemies.”
“If a child should be born into our family, they’ll have some very cool aunts and uncles who would do anything to protect them from our enemies, and they won’t have anything to worry about,” Klaus assured her. “Myriam, when I brought Marcel into our family, we weren’t ready for it, but your influence has changed us all, for the better.”
“I am not mother material!”
“You’ll be an excellent mother, Myriam, I promise you that.”
She hit him in the chest then and got to her feet to walk to the other table with bottles of alcohol on it. “And why the fuck is shit like this always happening to me? Can’t I get like a break? Couldn’t this have happened to Rebekah? I’m sure she’d be a great mother! Hell, even Kol and Davina would be better parents than me!”
When Freya entered the courtyard, Myriam thought she smelled delicious and made an attempt to take a bite out of her out of frustration, but the oldest Mikaelson flung her across the courtyard. “What is this? Kol told me about what happened to her a few months ago, did she have a relapse?”
“That’s for you to find out, sister,” Klaus sighed as he pulled Myriam to her feet and made sure she was in one piece before making her sit down in a chair again. “Myriam hasn’t been herself lately, and up until today, she hadn’t left her bed for almost a week. We had Davina come in who couldn’t be of any use. Before that, Myriam had her own witches try to figure out what was wrong but they came up empty as well. Now, we have a theory and our mother admitted that it could be a possibility.”
“You want me to check her over?” Freya blinked at him. “All those other witches have failed.”
“You’re not any witch, you’re my sister,” Klaus begged her. “Please.”
“Niklaus, I don’t have time for this, Dahlia is drawing close, and I still haven’t figured out why or how on Earth she could have found me.”
“If our theory is correct, you might be able to get more than those other witches have gotten previously,” Klaus said carefully.
Freya’s jaw dropped then. “What! How!”
“We’ll discuss the how later, please, all we need is confirmation.” He looked at Myriam for a moment before looking back at his sister. “I promise, she won’t bite.”
Freya sighed and nodded before sitting down on the table in front of her brother and his wife and took her hands. Closing her eyes, she quietly chanted a spell as feelings and emotions flooded over her. “Someone’s good at hiding,” Freya smiled as she concentrated. “It’s already using their magic to remain hidden until it’s time to come out, but that takes a lot of energy which it draws from you, Myriam. It’s no wonder you’ve been feeling ill and out of sorts.”
“It’s a parasite.”
“Only a parasite of the good kind,” Freya opened her eyes to look at Myriam with tears in her eyes. “You’re expecting a baby in five months.”
“The hell I am,” she muttered. “Take it out.”
Freya nervously laughed. “I can’t.”
“Then get me a knife and I will!” Myriam growled.
“You won’t,” Freya said as she put her hand on Myriam’s stomach. “Your child is protecting itself, and therefore, you. You’re even more indestructible as you previously were. It’s why Davina bounced herself off of you when she tried figuring things out and why your witches didn’t come up with anything, either. Whether you like it or not, that child is coming in five months or so.”
“Fuck this shit,” Myriam said as she swatted Freya’s hand away and headed towards the exit. “I’m going to find a way!”
“It’s not your decision to make!” Klaus snarled as he walked after her. “Not by yourself! You can’t run away from this, Myriam and you can’t make this decision on your own because it’s our child! You heard Freya, there’s nothing you can do about this, and the baby will come. Our baby.”
“Then we’ll give it to Dahlia so she can fuck off again!”
“What!” Freya blurted. “Are you out of your mind! Do you have any idea what she’ll do to your child? Myriam, that’s the last thing you’d want!”
“Stop telling me what I want!” Myriam yelled before speeding back to Débauche and telling her security that none of the Mikaelsons were allowed entrance to the club before going back to her apartment with a bottle of bourbon.
~o.O.o~
That night, the Mikaelsons had a family meeting about Myriam. Klaus had decided to leave his wife alone, for now, because she was being unreasonable. Rebekah was, as expected, happy to hear that their family was going to get an expansion and Kol was excited to become an uncle. Cami was present as well as Davina because by now they were practically furniture in the Compound.
“To be honest, Nik, I understand where Myriam’s coming from,” Kol sighed as he took a sip of his drink. “We’ve always promised her to protect her, no matter what and yet, look what she’s endured over the years. Even at our hands. Your hands. Esther. Mikael. The Augustine Society… the fact that she hasn’t completely lost her mind or the will to live is beyond me. Compared to us, she always was fragile.”
“Are you insinuating that your best friend is mentally unstable?” Klaus angrily shot at his brother. “Do dare to say that to her face and see what happens.”
“You know I’m right!”
“You’re wrong,” Klaus shot at him. “She’s the strongest of all of us. Always fought hard to keep us together, to make sure we all got along. She’s the sole reason why you’re still out of your box.”
Cami looked between the arguing brothers and raised her hand. “If I may?” she asked before continuing. “From the stories I’ve heard about her from you, I can say that you’re both right. But did she ever get council for everything she’s endured?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Cami smiled kindly at Klaus. “You yourself told me that talking to me about your issues was the first time you truly spoke to someone outside your family to get insights. Did Myriam have someone like that? To help her navigate through all the troubles that she’s had?”
“She has me.”
“Other than you, Klaus. You’re too close,” she laughed. “And frankly, not really on her emotional level.”
“Well, she found herself living with a vampire hunter for awhile two years ago after Kol died,” Klaus sighed. “I was back in New Orleans at that time, but she wasn’t ready to come home yet.”
“She doesn’t particularly like Alaric anymore,” Kol scowled. “Don’t get me wrong, he had a great influence on her and adopted some good ideas from him on how to deal with her issues, but he hurt her. I should go and rip his heart out for that, but she told me not to.”
“Is there anyone else she had a connection to that’s not you?”
“Why do you ask, Camille?” Klaus asked as he tiredly pinched the bridge of his nose. “My wife has lost her mind, obviously.”
“No, she hasn’t. She’s terrified, Klaus. Likely even beyond that, and when people experience that much fear, they tend to be irrational. So, I’ll ask again, is there anyone still living that she had a connection with? Because that child will come, no matter what, and it’d be in both their interests if she’d be okay with that.”
“Well… to be fair,” Rebekah piped up. “Nik is the prime example of lashing out when he’s terrified if there’s anyone who could get through to her it’d be him.”
“He’s too close to her, Rebekah. What she needs is someone impartial. Someone who knows her and who she had a bond with to be a mediator of sort between herself and her feelings,” Cami explained. “Come on, there must be someone who still gives a crap about her?”
“And why are you saying that?” Klaus snapped. “She’s adored by everyone!”
Rebekah sighed as she twirled her hair around her finger. “Not really. The whole Mystic Falls gang ganged up on her after finding out that she was married to the big bad wolf who was willing to sacrifice everyone to break his curse.”
Kol looked at Klaus. “I know someone.”
“No. I don’t want him in my city!” Klaus shot at his brother. “He will not set one foot in my city, I’ll kill him on sight because he was supposed to be her friend, but in the end, he betrayed her!”
“But deep down, he still cares for her. I’ve seen that on occasion when she and I tried to stop you lot from raising Silas,” Kol pointed out. “He hurt her, yes, but he might just be the person we need to help her.”
“Whoever it is, I suggest you get him fast,” Cami spoke up.
Klaus scowled. “This is a bad idea.”
“Klaus, do you want to help your wife or not?”
“Fine!” Klaus blurted before looking at his brother. “You go back to Mystic Falls and fetch me Damon Salvatore, and God help me for not tearing him to shreds when he’s in front of me!”
~o.O.o~
Kol hated to be back in Mystic Falls. For some reason, he could still feel the fire that consumed him lingering in his bones after setting foot on the soil. He hated having have to deal with the idiots, but this was for Myriam’s good.
He knocked on the door of the Salvatore home and waited patiently for the door to open. He was going to try to be nice about it, be a reasonable person and not to fly in a blind rage, because his brother had been right, Damon Salvatore was one of those who hurt their Myriam, and they shouldn’t be allowed to walk this earth. It was because of Myriam that he was still alive.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Damon’s voice sounded as the door swung open. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“I was. And then I wasn’t,” Kol replied. “Good to see you, Damon, I’m not here to hurt you,” he added before taking one of Elijah’s white handkerchiefs out of his pocket and waved it around. “I’m calling for a truce.”
Damon narrowed his eyes on Kol. “Is Myriam alright? Is that why you’re here?”
“Do you know something I don’t?” Kol said surprised. “You act as if you were expecting something.”
“Yeah,” Damon nodded as he closed the door behind him. “I’ll explain on the way.”
