"I'm so sorry, Gracie. This isn't about you."
Niklaus carried Grace's unconscious body through the woods. He was out of Dahlia's earshot and when some of the adrenaline left his veins, he felt the guilt crashing down on him. But he wasn't ashamed for what he did to his siblings. They deserved every bit of it.
He only felt guilty what he did to Grace. The woman that stood by him, that stood up to the man she so deeply loved to free him. Niklaus knew it the moment he escaped from being daggered and he heard her literally yelling at his siblings that she would bring back Hope to her friend, whatever the cost may be. He realized that she didn't spill his plan to Elijah. She was the only one who fought for him.
Still, he did punish her for nothing. Even tough he swore to never hurt her again. He already did enough to her. Sometimes he thought back to the moment he broke his curse, shortly after her broke her neck to turn her into a vampire. She looked at him with pure hatred, but there was something he saw in her - a fire that lit up brightly, a light that he felt drawn to. In the beginning, he hurt her to have his revenge on Elijah. But he didn't let her live through the sacrifice to continue that - he did it for himself, because he had this feeling that she could save his family. And she did. She turned out to be this one person he would trust his life on.
Today, he fell back into his old self. He didn't trust her with his plan. He could've told her and now he was sure that she would've stood by his side, even if it meant betraying Rebekah and Elijah. But in his rage, he trusted no one and he chose to do the same he did three years ago: hurting her because he knew that it was the only way to truly punish his brother. He could destroy what Elijah built here, his vampire community and he could even curse Hayley to the form of a beast, but still, nothing could hurt his brother in the way that knowing that his one true love was suffering.
"Wait what I've got in store for Hayley...and Grace."
It was when he heard her name that Elijah unleashed his own sinister monster into the fight.
"I hope that one day you will forgive me. I love you so much, Gracie."
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and a single tear escaped his eye and fell onto her cheek. Shortly he eyed the worsening bite before placing her gently into the coffin he prepared.
Niklaus needed to finish his plan, even tough it made his hands shake in pain as he injected her another shot of vervain, so she would sleep for a while longer. Then, he closed the lid of the coffin and pushed it into the hole that some minions already dug up. It wasn't deep, Elijah would be able to free her without much effort.
If his plan worked. If not, she would die in here alone.
But she would die anyway, because after Dahlia found out what he was about to do first, she would kill his whole family without blinking an eye.
There still was the mark on her arm. For a moment he thought that he would buy her time with this, that the witch wouldn't think about killing her if she knew she already suffered.
He could tell that lie to himself for as long as he wanted, it wouldn't gain any more truth. Niklaus betrayed her in the worst way possible and he hated himself for it.
Shaking his head, he tried to push away the guilt and concentrate on the task ahead. He bit into his wrist and let his blood drop into a glass, before placing it in front of the makeshift grave the humans were just filling with earth again.
Niklaus took one last look at the coffin before turning around and leaving.
What he didn't know was that Grace heard every word he said.
...
She heard children laughing from afar.
Two, little brunette beauties, a girl and boy were hopping around a large garden. They held their little hands and giggled care freely.
"Come on, Jer, we have to run faster."
It was exactly how Elena had been this age. She had played often with Jeremy outside, but her little brother could never be fast enough for her liking. But Jeremy still loved it.
Grace remembered that she always had refused to babysit when her parents asked her to. Of course, she was a steadily annoyed teenager at that time. Sometimes, Elena's friends, little Bonnie and Caroline came over to play, too, and it had been hell a lot of responsibility to take over. At that time Grace only wanted to lock herself in her room and read, but in the end she always agreed with a dramatic eye roll.
Whenever she saw the children play so innocently, she forgot her worries and she realized that she loved her siblings so deeply, she could watch them play all day. It was a little quell of happiness within the confusing times of being a teenager.
Smiling, Grace stepped down the stairs to their garden. The old wood squeaked as usual, but it made it feel like home.
"Don't run too far away, you two."
She called after them. But when the children heard her voice they flinched, stopped in their tracks and turned around with frightened expressions.
"Stay away from us! You're a monster!"
Elena's high pitched voice yelled. Jeremy was hiding behind her.
A frown appeared on Grace's face and it seemed as if the carefree atmosphere shifted abruptly. Dark clouds were hiding the formerly shining sun, the woods that spread around the garden immediately seemed darker and threatening. The flowers that had been in full bloom died.
She raised her hands and saw them smeared with blood. Her eyes widened in shock. When she looked up again, she saw a pile of bodies in front of her. Some of them were still breathing and begging for their lives, but it was only a matter of time before the last glimpse of hope would vanish from their eyes.
Grace couldn't save them, because those were the people she already killed. She recognized some of their faces, but to her shame she realized that she didn't couldn't even remember most of them. She killed so many since she became a vampire, but she didn't knew a thing about them. Were they missed by a family or friends? What were they told what had happened to their loved one?
They could pass her and never know that they were facing a murderer. Grace would never get punished for her since.
"We don't care of you die. We don't need you."
Elena and Jeremy suddenly stood in front of the corpses and they both glared at her. The vampire breathed heavily and she couldn't bring out any words. She wanted to turn around and run, but when she swung around, she saw that fire was consuming her home again.
Grace fell to her knees, unable to do anything and suddenly, everything went quiet. Her siblings' voice vanished, the crying and groans from her victims disappeared. The heat that came from the fire wasn't to be felt anymore.
When she opened her eyes, all Grace saw was darkness.
She felt that she was trapped in a very confined space, there wasn't much air left for her to breathe.
Panic overwhelmed her and she desperately pressed and punched against the lid of the coffin, but it just wouldn't move a bit. She didn't really understood what was going on, but her survival instincts kicked in. For a moment she didn't even feel the throbbing wound on her neck.
"Somebody help me!"
She screamed.
"Gracie."
Nik lightly tipped her chin upwards.
He knelt in front of her on the burnt grass of the one colorful garden.
"I can't, Nik. I'm so afraid to die. Please, help me."
She said sobbing. Her whole body was trembling.
"Oh Gracie, you see, that's why you can't never be truly one of us. We can't allow ourselves to be afraid of anything. That's what you'll never be. You're a coward."
Grace looked up to him helplessly. He was telling the truth.
"You're weak."
Rebekah appeared next to her brother. She smiled cruelly down to her.
"You're a murderer."
Elena spoke from behind her.
"You're a traitor."
Jeremy's light, childish voice continued.
"You're a liability."
Elijah was the last one to tell her who she really was. She was nothing. She didn't mean anything.
He took her hand and helped her to her feet. His eyes carried this cold amusement, reserved for the people he didn't care a bit about.
"Goodbye, my love."
Elijah placed a gentle kiss on her knuckled before he let go of her. Together with his siblings and Jeremy and Elena, her turned to leave.
"No!"
She yelled and tried to run after her, but her feet were like glued to ground. She couldn't move a muscle.
"Please, don't!"
Grace was damned to live an eternity in loneliness. Because she didn't deserve to be loved by these people.
But still, she was too much of a coward to die.
She gasped for air when she opened her eyes again. Surprisingly, he lungs eagerly could take in breath after breath and the fresh air of the woods filled them.
"Grace! Grace, listen to me, you're save."
Elijah held her tightly in his arms and tried to calm her shaking body. He wasn't sure if she was really conscious and he frowned, but then, his eyes fell onto the massive wound on her neck and his muscles tensed. What his brother had done to her was unforgivable. Some mere hours ago, Grace had assured him that Niklaus would never hurt her. And he believed her.
He was ripped out of his thoughts when she suddenly grabbed his shoulders with a bone crushing force.
"Please! Please don't leave me, I love you!"
The silence after she blurted out these words was pressing down on them and Elijah's lips parted in shock and surprise. He stared into her eyes that were filled with panic and fear, but he for a short moment, he could see that what she said was the truth.
But then, he realized that she was probably just hallucinating because of the bite. The Original pressed his lips into a tight line and hurried to bend down and fetch the glass that hopefully contained Niklaus' blood. He only mused that he left it here to calm his guilt and save her after she got out of that coffin. It was so ironic that of all people Niklaus was the only one to heal this lethal disease.
Elijah held the glass to her lips and watched as she desperately drank the blood until the last drop. To his relief, the wound immediately closed and some color came back to her deadly pale cheeks.
Grace needed a moment to process what happened. She was still breathing heavily, the scenes from her hallucinations still so prominent that she couldn't concentrate.
"Thank you."
She whispered. Elijah's face looked tormented by the worry and fright he carried for hours. He had felt a fear that shook him from the inside because he didn't know what happened to the woman he loved. There had been moments where he had thought that she was dead. When he found Niklaus, daggered, laying next to an unconscious Dahlia and Grace was nowhere to be seen, he had assumed the worst. But then he found a little paper with the exact location of her in Hope's baby carrier.
Elijah cupped her cheeks and placed a long kiss on her forehead. He tried to make her feel how relieved he was to see her alive. Unfortunately, she wasn't well and unharmed. Dahlia's mark still lingered on her skin and Elijah was sure that whatever she saw caused by the bite, combined with panic that was triggered because of being trapped in nearly chocking space of the coffin, would haunt her for a long time.
"We need to get away from here."
The Original took her still shaking head and lead her away from this wretched place.