~Marcel POV~
"Top-notch day, huh?" Josh said as the two drank together in Marcel's loft. But Marcel wasn't exactly feeling the power of the so-called top-notch day. "At least you got the thorns. That's a win, right?"
"If we're lucky, Vincent can siphon off the power." Marcel replied. "And help Sofya. Then it's a win."
"Well, you don't sound all that optimistic." Josh told him. "Is this about Sofya...or Rebekah?"
"Klaus used to tell me that having power made you a target. Having allies made you vulnerable." Marcel told him. "So choose, you can have one or the other. Power or friends."
"You know that's psychotic, right?"
"Yeah." Marcel said with a small smile. "But then, maybe there's some truth to it too."
"Well, for what it's worth, I'm pretty glad you're my friend." Josh told him. "Whatever's coming, whatever this city's gonna face—The Hollow, The Mikaelsons—I know that you will do the right thing. I have never doubted that."
"The Hollow is unlike anything we've ever faced." Marcel told him. "There's a darkness to her...a coldness. I tell you Josh, as strong as I am, she took me down like I was nothing. I've seen her go up against Fiore and win. I can't do this on my own. We're gonna need all the allies we can get. Vincent, Sofya, Klaus, Odessa. Even Rebekah. Or else this fight's over before it starts."
~Hayley POV~
Hayley sat on the sofa, examining the pendant in which Elijah's consciousness lived. The place where the red door lived. The place where the darkest parts of Elijah's being lived.
"From what I heard, you saved the day." Fiore said as she sauntered towards Hayley.
"I wouldn't say that." Hayley told her darkly.
"Let me guess, you ventured into Elijah's shattered mind and he was wearing a suit that hadn't been ironed. Gasp!" Fiore said with a chuckle. "And now like his mind, your illusion of an immaculate Elijah is shattered."
"Yeah. The illusion is definitely shattered." Hayley told her sadly. "Fiore, I went through the red door."
The smile on Fiore's face turned into a look of shock and her eyes only bore the abject look of horror. The same horror that Hayley had felt, but now that she had felt Fiore's horror, she knew that her illusion of Elijah was rightfully shattered.
"Why?" Fiore asked her.
"I tried to save him." Hayley replied. "But the things I saw, the innocent people, the slaughter—I really thought that I would find him in a good place. But he chose the darkest part of himself."
"You knew what he was going into this Hayley. What we all are." Fiore said quietly, trying to think of the right thing to say. "All of us have committed countless atrocities over the years. But whilst Elijah's methods may be askew, his motivation is not. Because as much as I hate to admit, Elijah truly only does things for his family. And perhaps he isn't as upfront about it as the rest of us are, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Whilst we all lose sight of that every once in a while, Elijah has never strayed from his goal—the desire for us to be more than monsters. I suppose in that sense, he's better than all of us."
Fiore went to leave and Hayley mustered the courage to tell her the other horror she had seen behind the red door.
"We were there." Hayley told her. "The two of us, we were there. He had killed us."
"The red door isn't just a space for memories." Fiore explained. "It keeps your darkest desires and your most baleful betrayals. Elijah must feel like he betrayed us in some way. It's nothing to worry about, we're still here."
"I guess." Fiore gave Hayley a kiss on the cheek before leaving for her room, but Hayley remained focused on the betrayals. And now she has started to think that maybe that wasn't Fiore's dead body there. Maybe it was Odessa's.
~Fiore POV~
I flopped onto my bed, drained by the day's events. I was tired, but I couldn't get to sleep. I was angry at Nik and if I woke up the next morning with him there, I would have been even more angry.
"Waiting for me I gather?" Nik said as he stood by the doorframe.
"To spontaneously combust, why yes I am." I said rolling my eyes at him. "This better be the part where you apologise."
"I feel like I've spent most of our marriage apologising." Nik said with a small chuckle.
"Well you do a lot of things that require an apology." I told him.
"Blossom, I am sorry, for the way I treated you earlier today." He told me. "I was scared. I still am. I don't know how I'll cope if we can't resurrect Elijah. If we lose him."
"Thank you for the apology." I told him. "But Nik, if in the event that we do lose Elijah, I hope you know how strong you are. You will survive."
He took my hand in his and kissed it, smiling at me as he pulled away.
"I love you, Blossom."
"I love you too, Nik."
~Hayley POV~
Hayley took a deep breath before knocking on her disgruntled son's door, only to receive no answer. She knocked again and received the same results causing her to sigh.
"Hey kid, can we talk?" Hayley said only to once again receive no answer. "Elliott, I'm coming in."
She broke the locked door in and when she entered, she found her son, looking sickly on the bed. She panicked and ran up to him, checking him.
"Hayley, you need to get out." He told her feebly.
"No, you need to get help, let me get Freya."
"No!" Elliott told her, waving his hand so that the door locked. "You can't tell anyone. You need to promise me you won't tell anybody."
"Elliott—"
"Promise me!" He told her, in between coughing fits.
"I promise." She told him as she sat beside him on the bed, holding tightly onto his hand. "Elliott, what's wrong?"
"I let out a lot of power when I was in there." He told her. "I changed the timeline, from outside the Loophole."
"Elliott, why would you do that?" She asked him.
"You were supposed to die." He explained.
"Kid, you didn't need to do that for me." Hayley told her son as he was shaking uncontrollably. "You're sick. I don't know what to do."
"I need you to go into my dresser, get the orange and the blue powder." He told her and she immediately dived for the drawer and brought out the two jars.
"What do I do now?" She asked him frantically.
"Stop panicking." He told her frailly. "I'll be fine, just put it on my head."
She obliged and as she sprinkled the substance on his head, his breathing began to normalise and his skin changed back from its sickly pale colour.
"Are you okay?" She asked him.
"I'm okay." She pulled him in for a hug and squeezed him tightly.
"What the hell happened, kid?" She inquired worriedly. "I was so scared! What do you mean I was supposed to die? None of this is making sense."
"I haemorrhaged a lot of power today." He explained. "Elijah was meant to kill you. I should've let you die. I should've brought you back from outside, but what with all the stuff going on with Inadu, I was scared I wouldn't be able to. So I panicked. And from inside the pendant, I changed the timeline."
"Elliott, you shouldn't have done that." Hayley told him. "If something had happened to you...I don't even know what I'd do. Especially if it was because of me."
"I'm fine." He assured her. "But I couldn't just let you die. I'll never be able to sit back and watch you die. Especially if I knew I could stop it."
"But you've changed the timeline before." Hayley said in confusion. "Why did this happen?"
"I'm being punished." He told her as he changed from his sweaty clothes. "The Loophole and I have been up to no good as of late. This is nature's payback."
"Elliott, please, don't do anything like that ever again, okay?" She pleaded and he gave her a small smile.
"I'm okay Hayley." He assured her.
"And here I thought you were mad at me because I yelled at you." She said with a dark chuckle.
"What?" He said laughing at her and throwing a shirt at her. "Of course I wasn't mad at you. That was probably the highlight of my life."
"What?"
"You never yell at me, you let me do whatever I want because you're not the doting mother type. I've come to get that. But for the first time in my life, you were perfectly okay with being my mom." He told her. "Tough parts included."
"Elliott—"
"You wanna see something cool?" He asked her before bringing up his wrist where she saw a tattoo of a thorn bracelet with three charms indented on it. One of a boar, one of a tree with five branches and one of a wolf and a cub.
"I didn't know you had a tattoo." Hayley said in surprise.
"It's a magical one." He explained. "Of people I've saved."
"What?"
"Look." He said as she took his hand and pointed at each one before explaining them. "The boar is Finn, the tree is Fiore and the wolf and the cub is you."
"Did you choose that or...?"
"Nope." He said with a smirk. "That is the power of the timeline. Yours is definitely my favourite though."
She looked back at him, completely in shock by what he had said her. She gave him another hug and smiled at him before putting him back into bed.
"Goodnight kid." She told him.
"Goodnight mom." Once he was lying down she gave him a kiss on the forehead.
"And Elliott." Hayley said as she stopped at the doorpost. "I want you to know that I do love being your mom because you are the most amazing kid I have ever had the pleasure of knowing."
"I love you too."