These Are Dark Times (The Originals: Season 4 Fanfiction)

Chapter 16: A Place Where I Feel Happiest

Elijah sliced his hand, letting the blood pour out into the bowl. 

'Vincent needs our blood,' he said, looking at Rebekah once he was finished cutting his hand. 

'Right. All four of us, and Kol isn't answering bloody phone.' Elijah sighed and cleaned his bloodied hand with a small hand towel. 'He's finally got a chance at happiness, and we're asking him to come home and play host to a quarter of a demon.' 

'There has to be another way,' Freya said, with exasperation in her voice. 

'But what if there isn't another way?' Elijah replied sharply. 

'I can't believe this is happening,' Rebekah said. 'I'm usually the first one who wants to run off on my own and - and now I don't have a say in the matter. I'm feeling quite perturbed.' 

'Hope. Hope is all that matters,' Elijah said softly, attempting his best to de-escalate the panic rising in all of us. 

'This is not happening,' Freya snapped, standing abruptly. 'I will not let this family be split apart. I'm going to go to the bell tower and I'm going to run through more of Mother's grimoires.' She turned and left, Elijah calling her name, but to no avail, leaving both Rebekah and Elijah alone in the room. 

'Elijah, you know how it feels to be apart,' Rebekah said, and her brother turned to look her in the eyes. 'At first the freedom is exhilarating, and then one day, inevitably, you wake up with that pit in your stomach, that dull, aching feeling of missing the only people who know you.'  

'Until that very ache threatens to consume you entirely,' Elijah replied. 

'For a thousand years, we have been honouring a vow to stand together. Being forced to separate feels like torture.' 

The line beeped. Rebekah cancelled the call. 

'Still no word from Kol,' she said, turning around to face her brother. 'And if he doesn't bother to show, that just leaves Hayley. She is Hope's only other immortal relative.' Elijah shook his head slowly. 

'No. Kol will come. And Niklaus will be with his child. The three of them must remain together.' 

'And what about Nik? On his own, no family. You know very well that without you around, he will go mad.' 

I sat on my bed, feeling the growing bump, the baby stirring inside of me, almost as if it was anxious. Anxious to come out into the world or anxious for the coming storm that was the Hollow, I wasn't sure. I heard soft footfalls and looked up to see Elijah entering the room. 

'Lilliana, I can't undo the things I've -' 

'Elijah.' 

'No. I can't stop being... this. I also can't stop loving you.' He walked forward, and reached out to touch my face, and this time I welcomed it, even leaned into it. He slid his hand down my arm and then to my stomach. 'So you tell me what you need me to do. Yes, I'm ashamed and I'm appalled, but...' 

'It's okay, Elijah. You don't need to apologise. I just need you to fight for our child.' He dropped to his knees, almost reverently, and placed a kiss on my stomach. 

'I will. I will fight for our child, until every last breath and beat of my heart.' He stood, grasping my hands. 'When this is over, I want to take you far away from here. Us, and our child.' 

'Where? Where will we go that the Hollow will not try to reach for our child?' 

'I know a place. It's a place where I feel happiest. A little country town, called Manosque, in France.' 

'France... sounds magical.' He kissed my forehead tenderly. 

'I am so sorry for what you saw behind that door. I am so, so sorry, and I will spend a thousand lifetimes making that up to you.' We kissed tenderly, and he stroked my stomach again. 'I will go, and I will fight for our child. We'll leave as soon as the Hollow is separated.' I smiled, and he turned, disengaging from me, and left the room. 

At the church... 

The witches of New Orleans came, lowering gifts on a small table before Dominic and the Hollow, now entrapped in Hope Mikaelson.

'Quite the party,' Marcel called out. The crowd parted to let them through. 

'Marcel Gerard, king of New Orleans,' Dominic exclaimed. Marcel and Sofya kept walking down the aisle, only to slam into an invisible boundary, the kind that could be created only by a spell. 'Accompanied by his top advisor. Well, I trust you've come to grovel and bow before the power of the Hollow.'

'Actually, we came to make a truce,' Marcel replied. 'The way I see it, we both have the same enemy: the Mikaelsons. Now, you help me get them out of this city, and maybe there's a world in which we all live happily ever after.' 

'Diplomacy. A wise choice.' He looked down at Hope, and she gave a simple nod. Dominic removed the barrier, allowing Sofya and Marcel to walk further down the aisle, until they came to the steps of the small stage nearby. 

'I want the king to kneel before me,' Hope said, and reluctantly, Marcel got down on one knee and bowed his head. 

'Behold,' Dominic exclaimed, 'the great covens of New Orleans. Even the great Marcel Gerard is nothing in the face of the Hollow.' Suddenly, Marcel looked up, and blew a handful of sleeping spell dust in Hope's face. She collapsed instantly into his arms, and he vamp sped off with her unconscious body in tow. Sofya stabbed Dominic instantly, and he cried out as the acolytes gathered around, murmuring and shouting in disconcertion. 

'Hear ye, hear ye,' Klaus exclaimed, walking into the room with what looked like an exceptionally large snow globe in his hand, 'all disciples and acolytes of the evil Hollow.' They stopped and turned to him, still seemingly rather confused as to what was taking place. 'Now that your master has been subdued, the power she promised you has been revoked, rendering you helpless, and bringing this pitiful coup to a rather abrupt end. This dark object,' and at this, he held up the snow globe object, 'has the astounding ability to seal you in the room.' Without warning, he threw it into the centre of the room, startling the acolytes, and trapping them in a boundary spell from which they could not get out from. 

'Which is very inconvenient, indeed,' Elijah said, walking out to the edge of the balcony on the top floor of the church, holding a bottle enclosed with a rag in his hands, 'particularly when one considers the architectural composition of the structure. So with very little effort...' and he turned and lit the rag on the end of the bottle, turning back to the frightened witches, 'this place becomes an inferno.' KIaus smirked up at his brother, as Elijah threw the bottle, the both of them seemingly callous to the cries of their enemies. And why should they be sympathetic?