ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ ʜᴏᴍᴇ ⇴ ᴛᴠᴅ ² ✓

nineteen

"What the hell do you mean? I just told you this plan is... almost most definitely going to fail!" Billie tried to refrain from yelling into the phone, not even close to achieving her goal so she began to move even further away from the dancing crowd, overly paranoid that the two vampires in the lawn might hear her. She leaned against a wall at the side of the Lockwood's home.

"Billie we can't back out now."

Billie wanted to scream out into the night with frustration. They were going to get themselves killed. 

Another voice joined Damon's from his side of the line, British and composed, the phone already on speaker since she'd called. "Besides, you've already stated the problem here is Stefan. When he returns... we will take care of him."

Mikael, the original hell bent on murdering his illegitimate hybrid son. A necessary evil they had to tolerate to get rid of Klaus. He spoke the words as if it was the simplest matter in the world and Billie wanted more than anything to believe him and have faith that their plan would work, but she wouldn't risk the lives of her friends if she had even a shadow of a doubt.

"That's just it, it's not just... Stefan. Please listen to me, I don't think we should kill Klaus. I-I can't explain it but it doesn't feel right." Billie finally let out the thought that had floated around her head for days now. 

She had never been so unsure, yet sure of a prediction before. Billie had no reason to be so attached to Klaus, no reason to have such a guilty conscience at the idea of his death, and yet, when she thought of his body lying desiccated on the floor with an ancient white oak stake coming from his heart, a gut feeling began to scream at her with words from a language she could not understand.

"Billie don't you dare flake out on me right now." Damon lowered his tone and Billie shivered slightly as she got the feeling he was threatening her.

"Damon you know I wouldn't say this if I didn't think it was important. I want him gone just as much as you. For what he did to Stefan, to Elena. Hell, even for the shit he pulled on Katherine!"

There was a long bought of silence from the line and Billie could almost picture Damon trading tense glares with Papa Original, as he liked to call him. 

Perhaps if Billie could have come to them with some more concrete evidence rather than some vague, silly little shadows she was afraid of, maybe they would have been more accepting of her words. 

But the girl understood that there was only one way to provide them with that, immediately dismissing the idea. She could not become a vampire for this, that was a death sentence, Mickey's words did not leave her quite so easily. However if she did not, Billie risked unconceivable consequences on her friends when their plan inevitably failed.

She was beginning to think the connection had disappeared before the most stony tone Harper had ever heard come from the dark haired Salvatore sounded into her ear.

"I think you should head home for the night, Blue." 

Billie opened her mouth to respond but a long, continuous beep came in place of any further conversation and she pulled the phone away, jaw wide in disbelief. 

An almost painful grunt escaped her lips as she tried to exert her frustration as quietly as possible, but when the rage still crowded her bones, she swung her fist hard into the brick exterior of the Lockwood mansion.

⇴

Billie had no idea why she couldn't will herself to move as she watched Stefan leap to tackle his brother off of Klaus, the ornate stake skidding away on the polished floors. All she could do was watch on helplessly as Klaus eyed the weapon, jumping up to grab it and driving it through his father's dead heart.

She had not frozen in fear, no that's not what it was. As she watched, along with the couple dozen hybrids Klaus had returned with, the burning of Mikael's body on the front doorsteps of the mansion, she knew it was not fear that had kept her from moving a single muscle to help.

Her vision disappeared for a moment as her mind was transported back twenty minutes to the dark sideway of the house where Mikael had arrived unexpectedly to see her.

"Tonight, Niklaus will die. I will kill him. And you... despite your inhibitions towards this certain fate, you will not intervene." Pale blue, almost grey orbs dilated hypnotically inches from her face. Billie was powerless as the compulsion washed over her like a summer's day breeze. 

"You will not warn him, you will not tell anyone of your doubts. You, will simply observe."

The memories seemed to hit her like a brick in the face as she finally began to realise just how big of a screw up this was. 

They had tried. And they had failed.

Having her wits back about her, Harper snapped her eyes towards the open entrance of the Lockwood's house, finding Stefan still on top of his brother, pinning him down, leaving him helpless but to watch as his nemesis stood victorious over his hunter's corpse. 

They met desperate eyes and an unwilling tear fell from the clairvoyant's hazel gaze. Angry at him and Mikael for not taking her seriously, angry that now, her very last hope of being free again, of living some twisted version of a normal life, was gone. Floating away tauntingly in the wind and waving goodbye to her.

"What have you done..." Damon muttered in disbelief as Stefan continued to hold him down, a strange expression of shock on his face, as though he himself could not believe what he had just done.

"He's earned his freedom."

Klaus approached them, an unreadable tone to his sharp features. Stefan slowly climbed off of his brother to face the original, being uncompelled of his influence as everyone watched silently.

He had got what he wanted, his freedom, and stabbed everyone else in the back to get it.

Before the attention could fall back on them, Damon inconspicuously fled the scene without alerting the stalking hybrids, taking Billie with him into the night as Homecoming raged on not fifty yards from where they presently stood.

The second the world finally began to slow down again, Billie found herself staring at the entrance to the Salvatore boarding house, eyes watering the rain that  drowned her hopeless spirit.