Author's Note: Errybody OOC, IDGAF

Chapter 1

Niklaus' eyes were wide open, staring back at him. Marcel was sure Niklaus could see him but he knew because of the pain he was suffering from the blade in his chest he wasn't focused on much else.

The night he defeated the Mikaelsons seemed a lifetime ago though only a few years had passed. Since that night, he has been filled with regret. He was so angry at the Mikaelsons for killing Davina. Killing them made the most sense at the time but each day he visited Klaus trapped in his vampire graveyard, he felt as if he'd betrayed his family. He tried to convince himself that the Mikaelsons were never truly his family but memories of his time as a child growing up under their caring tutelage plagued him continuously.

Every day he considered taking the blade out but the more time that past the angrier he was sure Niklaus would be. He thought about Hope growing up without her father. He knew that one day the blade would be taken out of Klaus, whether by his hands or someone else's, and when Klaus woke to find Hope, perhaps 80 years old, her entire life past him by, he would never forgive him.

-M-

Haylee spent years searching for cures for the Mikaelson family and when she did she snuck back into New Orleans and to the Mikaelson Compound in search of Niklaus. She went undetected, Klaus' security becoming lax after so many years of waiting. She freed him and pulled Papa Tunde's blade from his chest, waking the other Mikaelsons in the process. Once Klaus was awake, the two escaped New Orleans together and rendezvoused back with his siblings at Haylee's home in Florida.

Niklaus had never been happier than when he saw his daughter, 13 years old and the spitting image of her Aunt Rebekah at her age. All he wanted to do was protect her the same way he'd protected Rebekah all those years. Better. He wanted to make sure that no harm should ever befall her.

But he still had a debt in New Orleans and he aimed to collect it.

The Mikaelson siblings spent months living with Haylee, staying low and keeping it a secret that the Original family was back. Klaus was sure that Marcel had figured out he was gone by then so he didn't want to have any rumors spread about vampires in the town to avoid Marcel finding them sooner than he needed him to.

"Are you all out of your mind?" Haylee yelled at the Mikaelsons crowding her living room. She'd just come from checking on Hope, fast asleep in bed, when she overheard Kol letting it slip that the Mikaelsons were planning to seek revenge on Marcel.

Freya had been working none stop since she woke to find a spell to defeat Marcel as per Niklaus's adamant request.

"I worked myself to the bone saving you people and the second you're out of harm's way you decide to run back to New Orleans to die."

"No one's going to die." Klaus barked. "I am grateful for everything you've done for this family, Haylee, truly I am, but Marcellus will not get away with this. I gave him everything! I made him the man he is today! And this is how he repays me? By trying to kill my brothers, locking me away from my daughter and forcing her out of the city that is so rightfully hers."

"Marcel's bite is still venomous to you. You would risk your life for vengeance?"

Niklaus reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small vial with a red liquid inside.

"The cure. Freya synthesized the cure you got from that old witch using our blood. We have enough vials to go to war for years."

"Years? What about your daughter? She's been without her father for 12 years and now you're going to make her go without you for longer?"

"Hope will not be without a father for much longer. I'm going to get Marcel out of her home and we will live in New Orleans again as we should!"

"So you run Marcel out of New Orleans, then what? He's going to come back. Have you learned nothing in a thousand years! You will never be without enemies if you can't learn to stay down when you're beaten."

"We are not beaten! We are the Mikaelsons! We are never beaten. New Orleans is the city we built! It is our home! I will take it back if I have to kill every other vampire on Earth to do it!"

"Elijah, please. You can't possibly agree with this idiocy."

With sorrowful eyes, Elijah answered, "I do. Normally I would agree that leaving New Orleans for good would be the best recourse but Marcel tried to destroy this family. He left us for dead. We will receive our retribution."

"Oh no, not you too. Rebekah, Freya, Kol, someone be the voice of reason."

Rebekah sighed in frustration and said, "You know how things work around here, love. Niklaus and Elijah say jump, the rest of us ask how high."

"No, Rebekah, you don't have to do this. Stay here with me and Hope."

"Rebekah will do as she's told!" Klaus booms. "We are a family! We move and think and act as one. I let Marcellus out of my hold and we all see the grave mistake that was. I won't let that happen again. From this moment forth, if you're not with us, you're against us. So you choose now, Haylee. Are you a part of this family, or not."

Haylee glanced around at the other Mikaelsons. No one was going to stand up to the eldest two brothers while they were in such a rage. She knew she would have to make the same moral sacrifice if she intended to keep the peace. The thought of taking Hope and running away crossed her mind for a brief moment but Klaus had already missed so much of his daughter's life, she knew he would hunt Haylee down and end her before he lost Hope again.

"Fine, whatever. But if anything should happen to Hope-"

"I will burn the city down and rebuild it from scratch before I ever let anything happen to Hope. She will forever be this family's first priority." Klaus turned to the others to get their confirmation. "Are we all in agreement?"

With a snarky smirk, Kol replied, "Listen, mate, I agreed to follow you lot unquestioned but I draw the line at immortal babysitter."

Before Kol could let out a chuckle, Niklaus had him pinned against a wall, his arm twisted behind his back and a silver dagger pressing against his ribcage.

"Niklaus," Elijah barked. "No, no more daggers. If we are to return to New Orleans we are to do it together. We can't keep turning on each other when there are still people out there who want us dead."

Klaus heeded his brother and pulled away from Kol with the dagger clutched tightly in his hand.

In the same moment, Elijah sped over to Kol and brought the youngest brother over to the sofa with him. In the blink of an eye he threw Kol over his knee and began raining down swats all over his bottom, using his vampires speed and strength to his advantage.

Everyone stared on in awe. Even Freya ceased her spell to watch. When it was over, Elijah pushed Kol from his lap and stood as if everything was the same old same.

"We are a family. There will be no more daggering, no more betraying, no more rebellion. From now on, if you intend to bring shame on this family, I will shame you."

Kol rose to his feet with tears in his eyes and rubbing his still sore behind. "Arse." He bit angrily.

Elijah cut his eyes at him and Kol unconsciously stilled his hands, covering his entire bottom in order to prevent further smacks coming his way.

"Are we all in agreement?" Elijah pressed.

Everyone nodded solemnly, Freya with the fear that her frail human body wouldn't be able to withstand Elijah's vampire might as well as the others so at the moment she decided to find a spell that could toughen her body should she ever be on the receiving end of what looked like a very painful spanking.

-M-

Soon after Freya found the curative spell to return Marcel to his original non-Original self. Once it was cast all that was needed was to bleed the serum out of him. The Mikaelsons went back to New Orleans and stormed the compound, killing every vampire in their wake until they made it to Marcel. He was captured and confined in the basement as Niklaus bled him out.

Marcel tried to struggle against the Vervain engrained shackles as he stood chained against a support beam but he'd lost too much blood to put up a good fight. He was cut from sternum to naval, bleeding heavily into the metal tub before him. He was quickly fading from pain and blood loss.

Flashback:

A thousand years of fear mad his eyes open at the slightest provocation so when he heard the stirring of the boy in the room next to his, Klaus woke immediately. He rushed to the boy's beside to hear little Marcel struggling to wake from a nightmarish dream.

He shook the boy's shoulders until his big brown eyes fluttered but then the boy began to fight against him, screaming for a man who was not Niklaus to set him free, to stop hurting him.

"Marcellus, wake up. It's poppa, Marcellus. Wake up."

"Poppa?"

Klaus face fell, afraid that the boy hadn't yet seen him as his father and feared having his heartbroken by yet another person who couldn't love him with the passion he loved them.

"It's me, Klaus." He corrected.

"Poppa," The boy lunged head first into Klaus's chest, soaking his evening gown with tears. I dreamed he had come back and he was trying to take me from you."

Niklaus knew who the 'he' in Marcel's dream was without the boy having to specify. The man who had tortured him under the reign of the whip for so many years before Niklaus rescued him.

"It was just a dream, Marcellus. No one will ever take you from me."

"Promise."

"I promise. I will be with you, my son, always and forever."

End Flashback.

When Marcel woke it was as an ordinary vampire to the face of his angry Sire.

"I loved you once. Like my son." Niklaus muttered. "As much as any father would their son. More than my own father loved me. You were selfish and ungrateful…and cruel. Qualities I would commend you for if you hadn't used them against your own family. But, wait, we're not your family anymore, are we. You denounced us with every venomous tooth you dug into my brothers and with that treacherous dagger you stabbed into my heart."

"Your brother tried to kill me! Your family killed Davina! And you did nothing! You forgave them like you always do. You people deserved everything that happened to you!"

Niklaus slammed his hand against the wall beside Marcel's face. "Davina's death," He growled. "Was unfortunate but it had to be done."

"Had to be done for your family. It's always about you people. The rest of us mean nothing. We're just pawns to be used and sacrificed."

"You're right." Said Klaus calmly. "We use people and we throw them away like broken toys when we're finished. But you weren't just another broken toy. You were one of us. We trusted you and you continued to betray us time after time after time. I am capable of forgiveness to those I call my family, Marcellus. No one should know that better than you but you have released yourself from the ties that bind us so I will release you."

Niklaus opened the shackles preventing Marcel from moving.

"Leave New Orleans and never return. If you ever come back I will end you the moment I see the whites of your eyes."

Marcel was heartbroken to hear this but he knew it was best not to argue.

"How long do I have to clear out?"

"Let's say an hour. The thought of having a traitor in my city any longer than that makes me sick."

"That's not enough time. I have to gather my things, round up my remaining men, make provisions to move,"

"I don't care if you leave this city with nothing but the shirt on your back! Your well-being is no longer a concern of mine. And don't worry about your men. While I've been down here taking care of you, my siblings have been ordered to search the city and find any vampire, witch, werewolf, and human that has ever pledged their allegiance to you and end their pitiful existence."

-M-

Marcel was searching through a drawer in his once room, now Niklaus' room, when Elijah entered. The young vampire's breath caught in his chest immediately, afraid that his time was up.

He quickly looked at the clock above the bed and said, "You can't do this. I've got 12 minutes left."

"Do not worry, I didn't come here to exact my revenge. I've come…to apologize."

At first Marcel was surprised by this proclamation. After biting him and his brother the last thing he expected to hear from Elijah was an apology but then he considered that perhaps, like he, Elijah had realized that he was justified in his revenge.

"For trying to kill me? Or killing Davina?"

"…both, I suppose."

"Save it. I don't need your guilty apology."

"I'm not apologizing because I feel guilty. I'm apologizing because you trusted us and I betrayed that trust. That night, when you were talking to Klaus on that bridge you were just ranting from anger…but all I could think about was that prophesy and I was sure that you were going to fulfill it. I…I was just trying to protect my family."

"The story of my life. You people destroy, maim, and kill all in the name of the family and expect life to just on like everyone is supposed to just forget the friends and loved ones that you killed."

"Marcel, Davina-"

"Don't say her name! Don't you ever say her name! Don't ever talk about her! She was just a girl and you killed her just like you people do with anyone who's not a Mikaelson."

Elijah sighed heavily, accepting that he couldn't get through to him now.

Before Elijah could leave, Marcel asked, "Was I ever really a part of that family? One of you?"

With sorrowful eyes, Elijah replied, "Niklaus has slaughtered entire cities; men, women, children, everyone, for the slightest infraction. But you…you betray him, attempt to slaughter his family, take him from his child, and you're still alive. He has grieved you twice, I don't think he could bare to do it a third. That's why he's banishing you. That's why he hasn't killed you. Because you were family, you were his son, his best friend…his brother."

"I was never his brother."

"You were. At least, he tried to make it so anyway. Since we returned to New Orleans, Niklaus has put more trust in you than he has ever done with anyone who wasn't his sibling, marking you as his true family. But in a thousand years, through all our quarrelling, never have we tried to so maliciously slaughter each other. So maybe it was you who never saw him as your brother."

Again, Elijah tried to leave but paused at the subtle tones of Marcel's voice.

"When I was ten years old," He muttered. "Klaus said I was too young to light the lanterns in the barn on my own but I did it anyway because I thought I was mature enough to do anything. You people made me feel like that. You made me feel like there was nothing I couldn't do. Like my past and the world we lived in didn't matter. But then one day, something happened, I guess I didn't close the lantern or it fell, I don't know, but the next thing I knew I was trapped in a burning barn with no way out…but then you saved me. I got out alive but Klaus's favorite horse didn't.

That night I waited for him to come home, sure that when he came back he was going to beat the hell out of me and sell me back to the plantation. But he didn't. He held me and apologized for not being there to protect me and when I told him I killed his horse he said he wasn't angry. He said that it was a mistake and I would always be forgiven for making a mistake.

I knew then that I had found my forever family and you all would never give up on me. Even when he found out it was me and Rebekah who called your dad to New Orleans, he forgave me again. He should've killed me but he didn't. He forgave me for my mistake."

"What are you trying to say? That poisoning Freya, biting me and Kol, and plunging that dagger in Niklaus' heart for 12 years was all a mistake?"

"I'm saying…that I've always wanted to be his brother because I've always envied the relationship you all had. The closeness, the trust, the way you never gave up on each other no matter what…but I had something with him too. It was different, I wasn't his brother, but I wasn't just a somebody either. I was…"

"His son. He treated you differently because you were different. When you became a man he tried to treat you as one, giving you the space you needed to grow into the man you wanted to be but Niklaus had been around long enough to see the horrors of this world and even as a vampire he felt he had to protect you. He struggled to make you his brother but you were always his son…until now. I've never seen him so hurt. I don't think it will be so easy for him to forgive you this time, if he ever will."

"But you're saying there's a chance? A chance for his forgiveness."

"The true mark of family is forgiveness…but I wouldn't get your hopes up. You should just leave this city and never return or risk death."

"Would you leave? I mean, if your dad wasn't a sociopath bent on destroying his children, would you leave if there was a chance…if there was a chance he would forgive you?"

"Marcellus…Marcel, at this point, in Niklaus's eyes, the only difference between you and our father is that you're still alive. Leave before he rectifies that mistake."

Elijah finally left Marcel to finish packing with the little time he had left in the city.

Marcel was certain that he could change Niklaus's mind. He was born in New Orleans, he helped build it into the kingdom it was. He refused to leave it, even if it meant his death.