~ Stefan's Pov ~
There's a deafening silence in the house, Liz sits beside me with silent tears streaming down her face and Damon sits in the corner nursing an almost empty bottle of bourbon, his eyes bloodshot; he blames himself for all of this, Elena going off the rails and not fighting hard enough to talk her off the edge, no one blames him, not even Klaus. Elijah just stands looking out the window, drink in hand, his breathing is slow and heavy. Rebekah's in the nursery with the baby, and Elena's in the basement; chained without her daylight ring and dying from Klaus' bite, it's unlikely she'll live through the day. Kol is comforting Destiny on the couch next to mine while she cries, she used her powers on Caroline until she made herself sick, just trying to get even a twitch out of her but so far nothing's happened. She says now we just need to wait. She either wakes up....or she doesn't.
~ Klaus' Pov ~
She's just lying there, cold and unconscious; the only movement is the shallow rise and fall of her chest, it's been a day since we brought her home...she should be awake. Destiny has done what she can but only time will tell. I take her hand in mine and kiss it, "Come back to me love, please come back to me." My eyes fill once again with tears as I stare for any signs of movement, nothing. "I can't do this without you, I am nothing without you." I hold back the tears as I hear the wailing of our daughter disturb the silence of the house, it gets louder and louder until Rebekah appears in the door with her in her arms.
"Anything?" She asks, trying to shush the baby. I stand up to face her and shake my head. "Niklaus please take her, she doesn't want me she wants you." She walks into the room.
"No, she wants Caroline." I look away from them. As Rebekah gets closer to me the baby stops crying.
"See." She says and thrusts my daughter into my arms. I stare down at the wide eyed baby as Rebekah leaves us, she wriggles and whimpers until I sit back down next to Caroline and hold her closer to me. I just stare at her, I don't know what to do; I need Caroline, she needs Caroline. She starts to fuss in my arms, I shush her and rock her gently in my arms.
"I'm sorry little one, your mummy isn't quite ready for you yet; I hope I'll do for now." She stops fussing as I move closer to Caroline, I take her hand in mine. I look back at the baby in my arms and smile. "You have your mummy's eyes." She just blinks tiredly at me. "Something tells me you're going to be exactly like her." She blinks, I look at Caroline and smile then look back at the baby in my arm. "Before I met your mother, everything was so cold and empty; but when I saw her, there was suddenly light and warmth. She is everything good about this world, and she gave me you. She is so excited to meet you little one." I feel Caroline's hand twitch, my head shoots up; I scan her body. I move slightly closer and her finger twitches, the baby starts fussing in my arm. "Caroline?" I whisper. Suddenly the baby in my arm pushes her hand out from her blanket and stretches it towards Caroline. I move even closer and bring Caroline's hand up to our daughter's, she wraps her tiny fist around Caroline's finger. She stops fussing, I watch as Caroline's hand slowly grasps our daughter's hand. "Caroline?" my voice barely above a whisper. The grey that plagues her skin fades and her natural blush returns, her breathing speeds up and she moves her head to the side slightly and scrunches up her face. She blinks a few times before opening her eyes slowly, and looks into mine with a sweet smile on her face.
"Klaus?" Her voice is hoarse. "What happened?" I lean forward and pull her tightly against me, careful not to crush the baby in my arms.
"We almost lost you." The tears I was holding back now flow freely. We pull apart only slightly and I gesture for her to look down, as she does her eyes widen and fill with tears; a sad smile appearing on her face. "Say hello to our daughter." She carefully takes the baby from my arm and holds her close to her chest.
"Hi sweetheart." She sobs happily once again at the sight of her. "Oh my god I love you so much, you've been through a lot huh?" She laughs through her tears. "Oh sweetie you have no idea how happy I am to meet you." She kisses her forehead. "Your daddy and I love you so much, princess."
"So much." I whisper as I lean my head against Caroline. She wraps a free arm around me and pulls me close.
"I love you."
"I love you." She kisses my lips, I don't want to let her go but the baby starts to fuss. We laugh into the kiss and pull away to look down at the baby. "We need to give you a name don't we?" I say taking hold of her tiny hand.
"Any ideas?" She brushes her fingers over her cheek.
"How about Ada?"
"Ada?" She looks down at the baby who just stares at us with wide eyes and her mouth open wide. "Ada, Ada Destiny Mikaelson." I smile.
"That'll go straight to her head, I hope you know that." She laughs.
"Oh I know, but she brought her into this world and saved my life; she earned it."
~ Caroline's Pov ~
"Where's Elena?" I ask, reluctantly ending our happy moment. Klaus sighs.
"She's in the basement, dying from my venom." I nod. "She tried to kill Ada, and you. I can't-"
"It's okay, I know. If you didn't do it I would have killed her anyway. She came after our daughter, an innocent child, to get back at you; she's not Elena anymore." I take a deep breath. "I'm okay."
"You're not." Tears start to fall from my eyes, Klaus wraps his arms around me.
"Whenever I thought about having children, I always thought Elena would be there along side me; we wanted to be moms together, take our daughters to dance classes and help them with their Miss Mystic applications, but the reality hurts so much. She was supposed to be my best friend Klaus, she was supposed to love and support me...I don't know this Elena, she's not the Elena I knew. It feels like my best friend died, she's gone forever." He rubs my back as I sob into his chest. We sit in silence for a while, Klaus soothing me as I calm down. "Could you heal her?"
"Caroline-"
"She needs to pay for what she did, venom is painful but she dies quickly."
"I think I'm rubbing off on you love." He smirks at me.
"I want to talk to her, then we can all decide what to do with her."
"Not alone."
"Just wait behind the door, she won't talk to me with you there." His eyebrows knit together, he does not like this idea. "I know what I'm doing, trust me." He nods.
"Before we do anything; your poor mother is downstairs worrying about you, I think you should go show everyone you are indeed alive."
"My mom's here, oh my god." I quickly get out of bed, Klaus stands and keeps his arms around me incase I fall. "I'm okay." We leave the bedroom and walk down the two flights of stairs to the foyer, we stand outside the closed sitting room door and I take a deep breath. You go first, I mouth to Klaus who rolls his eyes; I give him my best mom look and he raises his hands in surrender with a smile on his face. He relaxes his face so it's unreadable and once I'm against the wall out of sight he opens the door and walks in, immediately there are questions from every corner of the room. I take a deep breath and walk into the room, my mom gasps and nearly collapses.
"Caroline!" She sobs and runs to me, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me into a tight hug. "Oh baby I thought I lost you." She cries into my shoulder. I hold her up with one arm and keep her close to me, it's only been a month but god I missed her so much.
"I'm okay mom." I rub her back. "There's someone here that wants to meet her grandma." She pulls quickly away and looks between us to Ada.
"Oh my god, Caroline." I smile and walk us into the middle of the sitting room. I hand her over to my very anxious mother who smothers her with kisses. "She has your eyes Care." Ada wraps her hand around my mom's finger and looks between me and her. "Hi sweetheart. Oh look at you, you sweet little thing. Does this little angel have a name yet?"
"Ada." Klaus says wrapping an arm around me and pulling me tightly to his side.
"Ada Destiny Mikaelson." I say with a smile and look over at Destiny, her eyes are bright red and leaking an ungodly amount of tears. She rushes over to me and pulls me into a crushing hug.
"Don't you ever do that to me again!" She sobs into my shoulder. "You're my sister, and if you ever leave me I'll bring you back from the dead and kill you all over again." I laugh and rub her back as she cries.
"Thank you for saving me." She hugs me tighter.
"What are sisters for?" We pull back and she wipes her tears away. "Now, if you don't mind I'm going to spend some time with my namesake." She hurries over to my mom who is now sitting on the couch baby talking to Ada.
"You gave us quite the scare dear sister." Elijah says in his usual formal gruffness. "I'm glad you're alright." He nods at me with a small smile, I pull him into a hug. After a moment's hesitation he hugs me back. We pull apart, he clears his throat and takes a step back which gives Kol the opportunity to quickly wrap his arms around me and squeeze, completely ejecting the air from my lungs. He pulls back but keeps his arms on my shoulders and looks into my eyes.
"I've gotten quite used to having you around Miss Forbes, it would cause our family great pain if you were to leave us so..don't." He smiles and rubs the back of his neck. "And we would have to deal with heartbroken, depressed, rampage, "the world needs to burn" Klaus, and he's been so tolerable lately." Klaus shoves his shoulder and he laughs. "Kidding, sort of." He nods and clears his throat then joins Destiny and my mom on the couch. Stefan is next to crush me.
"You're okay." He says, still holding me tightly.
"I'm okay." He pulls back and clears his throat.
"Sorry, its just..." He chuckles and smiles. "What would I do without my sober sponsor?"
"Crumble, into little tiny Stefan pieces." We laugh.
"I'm really happy you're okay." I smile and look over at everyone around Ada, my perfect happy little girl. He makes his way over to everyone and leaves me with Klaus, I search the room for a now absent Damon.
"He went outside." Klaus says, I kiss his cheek and squeeze his arm lightly. I leave the room and head out the front door to find Damon sitting on the porch bench, staring into space; his eyes are bloodshot and his hair is a mess, he's hurting. I sit next to him, he takes a deep breath. He pulls me into a crushing hug, I hug him back just as tight.
"I'm so sorry." He whispers and pulls away, looking back out. "If I kept her at home and talked her off the edge, I just let her spiral, this is my fault."
"Damon." I take his hands in mine. "This is not your fault. She's not our Elena anymore, our Elena died a long time ago."
"I know when she turned she stopped being Elena. It was all a lie."
"No. She loved you Damon, the real Elena, she loved you so much." He scoffs and looks away. "Do you remember the ball Klaus and his family threw back in Mystic Falls? The day after, she came over and all she could talk about was you; how bad she felt for going behind your back, how she thought she'd lost you for lying about talking to Esther, she told me she loved you." He looks at me, tears welling in his eyes. "Before she turned, and Stefan was back albeit humanity-less, she really did love you Damon. I'm so sorry Damon, you don't deserve this." He says nothing, just stares at me wide eyed and broken. I pull him close to me, he wraps his arms around me; I feel his tears wetting my shoulder and rolling down my back. We sit like this for a while until he pulls away from me and wipes his hand down his face.
"You know I was wrong about you." He says leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Here you are, barely out of a coma your best friend put you in, comforting me. Your selflessness never ceases to amaze me." He looks up at me. "You deserve the life you're building for yourself, you deserve to be happy." I smile at him.
"You deserve to be happy too Damon, you have lived through so much pain and heartbreak and you've done it alone, you don't have to be alone anymore. We will always be here for you, whenever you need us." He smiles, this one feels different; genuine and relieved, like some of the weight he carries has lifted. "Come on in when you're ready, we'll order some takeout for dinner and we can all play some dumb family games and try to kill each other." He nods as I stand up, as I open the door he stops me.
"Hey Blondie?" I look back at him. "Thank you." I smile and walk into the house, where I'm greeted by the sound of my wailing daughter.
"Oh no, what's wrong princess?" I say as I approach Klaus holding Ada.
"I think she's hungry." He says as he hands her to me.
"Aw my poor baby, let's get you fed then." I sit down on the couch and start feeding her, an incredibly odd sensation that shocks me at first.
"Caroline, I hate to ask but as we are running out of time, what is it you want to do with Elena?" Elijah asks from his armchair.
"I've asked Klaus to heal her, then I don't exactly know. We should all discuss what happens to her."
"Well with my magical knowhow, I'm sure we can whip something up." Destiny chimes in.
"The tomb." Damon suggests from the doorway. "We seal her in the tomb, cover it and make sure she never escapes. Once she desiccates, as long as she's sealed in and undisturbed, she won't get out."
"I could always rectify the nasty living corpse detail." Destiny suggests.
"What do you mean?" Stefan asks, leaning forward in his chair.
"I could put a spell on her so once she's desiccated for a while she died, twenty years or so as a living corpse then dead." I look at Damon then Stefan, neither are happy having this conversation.
"Personally I'm in favour of the torture until dead method." Klaus chimes in sarcastically, I nudge him.
"This way, she suffers for a long time then dies, she'll be locked away with no chance of hurting anyone again." I say, I suppose trying to justify our coming actions.
"Whatever you want to do Caroline." Elijah says. Everyone's looking at me expectantly, it's my job to decide the fate of my best friend, it's up to me to choose how she dies; and no matter what I choose, it will be at my hands.
"I want to talk to her."
(A/N: baby's name is pronounced Ay-duh)