Bayou Safe House - Porch

I could hear the incessant bickering on the back porch long before we made it to the screen door; Freya was insisting that we leave this place, immediately; any delay in spiriting away was a risk. Klaus scorned back at her, "it's one day! We're in the middle of nowhere, the house is cloaked. We weren't followed, and I'm not asking!"

Hope and I came outside, and I made a point of declaring quite loudly to the group, "everybody! Look who's awake."

Every Mikaelson stopped immediately and turned to face the new arrival, the small, timid red-headed seven-year-old girl standing very close to me. Everyone was frozen, and mesmerized. Her neck craned up, her eyes darted around them all quickly, and she whispered a small, "hello."

"Hello," Klaus greeted his daughter, visibly emotional to finally have this moment, to finally hear her speak for the first time.

Another moment ticked by, Austin gurgled in my arms, and then Hope tugged on my sleeve gently, and she asked, "Annie, can I go play in the garden?"

"Yeah. Sure," I nodded and smiled down at her.

Hope hurried along and skipped away towards her favourite spot, undoubtedly aware of the many eyes watching over her. The Mikaelson siblings tore their gaze away and looked to each other, uncertain of what to do or say in such a novel moment. Rebekah drew the short straw for me; she offered to take Austin inside while I spoke to Klaus, and the family followed her lead, one by one. He was watching Hope intently, she was setting out her paint set, down at the bottom of the garden.

I perched against the railing beside him and said, happily, "it's really hard to tear her away from that spot. She would stay there all day if I let her. She says she 'does her best work there'."

"What terrible things did you tell her?" He snapped, without looking back.

"I told her that you're a hybrid. I also told her that you're very old," I told him, truthfully, "other than that, yes, she's got somewhat of an old soul, but she's still only seven, we can wait to share the gory details."

"Well, someone must have disparaged me. Perhaps that crone, Mary..."

"Stop!" I hissed back, and he did. His eyes snapped to mine and the look he gave me confirmed that he was only lashing out because he was scared and he didn't know what to do here. I assured him, "I've spent five years protecting her from everything, including all the horror stories floating around about you. She doesn't know your history. What she does know is that you protect your family, no matter what."

"And yet she fears me."

"She's a very sensitive kid. And you're not exactly calm right now," I posed, and he took it. I sighed, and told him, "look, you were her fairy tale prince, Klaus, built up over five years of bedtime stories. And now you're real. You have a lot to live up to."

Bayou Safe House - Kitchen

"It appears you have a few stories of your own to tell," Rebekah said, passing over a blanket for Austin, "five years of them."

I accepted, gratefully, tucked in the KO-ed little boy snoozing away on the couch, and told her, quietly, "only a handful are good."

I settled down beside him, and stroked his little cheeks, and dark messy hair. Rebekah had held her tongue for long enough. She insisted I follow her through to the kitchen, and the second we were out of earshot she burst out, "are you really not going to address the tiny cute elephant in that room? Story time starts now. Let's rewind to around 2 years ago, shall we? Where is and who is the boy's father?"

I slid my hands into my pockets, leant against the breakfast bar, and told her, "Tyler Lockwood."

"That...is...oh. Wow. Really?" She stammered, "how on earth did that come about?"

"You can bring that brow way back down. He's not my son."

"Oh...you and Hayley were always cackling together and reminiscing on that infamous trip to Austin, I just assumed..."

"That is actually where his name comes from. Tyler was there, too."

Rebekah hummed and hesitated to ask, "and where exactly is Tyler now?"

"...no longer with us," I muttered, vaguely, and Rebekah knew not to push that story any further.

"What about the boy's mother?" Rebekah asked, "what of her?"

"I don't know who she is, and to be quite honest, finding out is not on the top of my agenda considering she bailed on them both."

"I see. Well, I don't have any stories. It was much and such the same in the Chambre de Chasse. In some ways it didn't feel like five years. You would look back one day and nothing had changed. Time lost it's meaning."

"I thought time would lose all meaning after century three or four."

"Hmm. Yes and no," Rebekah ruminated, and shifted gears, "but now that we are free of that perpetual pause button, and now that Klaus has found his noble purpose, I can't help but wonder...what will Elijah do?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He is no longer tethered to him. He must have thought about it, at least once in that mental prison, if not in the last thousand years. What will he do with his immortality, now he is not burdened with saving Nik's soul?" Her eyes were wide and fixed on mine as she posed, "I wonder...if you asked him a certain question...what his answer might be now?"

"So...that came up," I said, flatly, and looked away, it wasn't a flicker of hope I felt in my heart as she spoke, it was sadness. Over five years ago, maybe closer to six, I had put the idea of Elijah taking the cure on the table, and it was met with a resounding, 'don't even ask me that'. It was a pivotal moment in our relationship, a point of no return.

"Yes. It did," Rebekah said, assuredly, dragging me back to the present, "once or twice. We all have the opportunity for a fresh start. Perhaps we should use this one quiet day to decide what we want our new beginning to be."

Bayou Safe House - Porch

Elijah joined me later out on the back porch; I was surveying the grounds, but I was mostly lost in my own thoughts, with Rebekah's earlier suggestion leading the trail back through the past. Elijah settled beside me, a welcome reprieve, and posed, "let me guess. You want the world to disappear."

"Not the whole world," I conceded, "you can stay. Hope. Aus, too. Klaus can visit on the weekends, I guess."

He laughed with me and I realised I had missed it. It was a balm after so many years, something the smallest piece of me figured I would never hear again, and if things were different, I surely would have heard that hearty laugh and I would have felt nineteen again. I would have felt like I did the second he came back from Marcel's hold and he followed me outside and he kissed me for the first time. I know I would have. But instead...I missed Enzo's laugh more, and that wild grin waiting for the response he wanted, and the last time I'd heard or seen either.

"You can talk to me about anything," Elijah said, softly, "I want you to know that."

I considered beginning to tell him, then and there, but it was way too much to go through in one conversation. I didn't know where to start and half of it was stuffed down so deep I hadn't even reconciled those parts in my own mind, I wouldn't retell it right. I clocked Freya headed down towards the barn which prompted a vague starting point for me, "I betrayed a lot of people over the last five years, Elijah. Killed people just to cover my tracks, keep Hope safe. I was ruthless."

"Hmm. You were a Mikaelson. You did what you had to do," he observed, pensively.

"The truth is...I'd do it all again," I admitted, darkly, "I told myself a hundred times over that it was all for Hope, but maybe I did it for selfish reasons, too. I wanted you...I wanted you all back so that I could finally take my eye off the ball for one second, so I didn't have to do this alone anymore, and maybe I could finally relax and take a beat. But now…you are all back and that feeling hasn't gone away. It never switches off."

"It's called being a parent, I believe. The worry for their well-being will never switch off, but you are most definitely not in this alone."

"Yeah, so I got what I wanted, right? I got the village back. I should be really happy right now, for at least a little while...but there's an innocent woman in that barn, miserable and scared, and she doesn't deserve to be there."

"Release her," Elijah said, without missing a beat.

I stared back and reminded him, "but if Marcel finds you..."

"You can't do this forever," Elijah said, plainly, "your life is more than the salvation of the Mikaelson family. Now, trust me...you'll lose yourself. You must do what you think is right, and you must release her."

I sighed heavily, and said, "okay, I'm so glad you feel that way."

"Rosanna!" Freya bellowed and stalked her way over.

"Ah. You've done so already?" Elijah asked rhetorically and I hummed in response.

"Where is she?!" Freya demanded, her eyes shooting back and forth between her two culprits.

"I had to, Freya," I admitted.

"Had to what, exactly? Sentence my family to death? Yeah? I'm going after her!" Freya scorned. I stepped in front of Freya, cutting off her storming off. Her eyes darkened and she seethed in my face, "get out of my way. I will not ask twice."

"We have enough venom to make the cure. We don't need an endless supply. Let's just hit the road and avoid Marcel-"

"Marcel could be handling out vials of his venom to anyone. We can't avoid a threat that could be everywhere."

"Keelin shouldn't suffer for that. She's done enough."

"Oh," Freya chuckled, "so now, suddenly you are the arbiter of right or wrong?"

"I've done plenty wrong in my life, Freya. But we need think about the sweet little girl who's going around healing injured fireflies with her magic. If we're keeping someone captive in our barn, she's gonna have questions."

"Then tell her that the world's a bad place and that sometimes we have to do bad things to survive. She'll be safer if she learns that early."

"It's not her job to keep herself safe!" I hit back, "it's mine. It's ours. And that includes protecting her innocence."

"She's a Mikaelson - she can live without her innocence," Freya scorned, "she can't live without her family. And let's not forget, you are not her-"

"Enough," Elijah bellowed, "before you say something you'll regret."

Freya glared back at me, without so much as a peppering of regret. She spoke through gritted teeth, "thank you, brother. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a wolf to hunt."

Elijah flashed in front of his sister and spoke with finality, "you will let her go."

"Fine," Freya huffed out, after a long stare-down, and she stormed off, back inside the house, slamming the screen door behind her for good measure.

Elijah and I stewed in the moment for a while longer, and I thanked him for having my back.

"Of course," he said, "I wonder, would you have dinner with me tonight? I was thinking out on the veranda, if the night holds up. It would give us an opportunity to talk some more, without any interruptions."

Bayou Safe House - Veranda - That night

I took a deep breath, and stepped outside, and immediately was struck by the glow. The entire veranda was covered in fairy lights, and the fire pit was dancing away; it looked incredible, and I felt a fool for not fully utilizing this space before, it completely drew me in.

"Were they asleep?" Elijah asked, looking over his shoulder as he poured us wine.

"Yes. Soundly. Rebekah is some kind of wizard, and has shot straight to the top of the babysitter list. Even though, Hope still had her muddy shoes on. She's Hayley's daughter alright," I laughed and accepted the glass of red wine. I gestured around at the impressive spread of food, and incredible set-up, and I quipped, "um...are you expecting company?"

"Yeah. She should be here any second. I think you're gonna like her," he said, and we settled down to our meal.

We spoke about surface level things for most of the night. My hair was longer, and darker. Hope gesticulated in certain ways that reminded him of Hayley, and I agreed wholeheartedly, and added in a few more. I told him how Austin had come to be named so, the entire story of that trip, for what I realised was the first time to anyone outside the three of us. We finished our meal, and dipped in and out of sides, and sat back and finished another bottle of wine. It was nice. Elijah told me of Rebekah teaching them new modern dances in the Chambre de Chasse, and as the wine warmed my cheeks I begged him to show me one. He wouldn't dream of it, he called her offerings blasphemous to the art of dance. I whined and cursed his snobbery. He dug out his phone with a smirk, and played something twinkly, something warm and soulful, and he extended his hand to me. We danced together, a classic waltz, and he told me, with certainty, "I cannot forgo what I know and love. I don't need to learn anything new. I would take this every day, every time."

I hummed and rested my head on his chest. I closed my eyes, and I remembered New Year's Eve, 2014; I remembered dancing like this in a small cabin, in the middle of nowhere, the last fluffy flakes of snow drifting gently down outside, the crackling warmth of the fire, his hand on the small of my back- I stopped dancing, and I stepped back from Elijah, and he respected it. I said, "I have a lot to tell you. Five years of things."

"Tell me everything."

And that I did. I told him...everything from the day the Mikaelsons dropped. How I wasn't long into my search when I was informed that The Armory needed Bonnie Bennett to open a vault. They chased her for three years, until Damon gave me up, in a twisted attempt to save Bonnie's life. A vindictive siren was released upon the world as a result. Bonnie and I beat back literal Hellfire together and Stefan sacrificed himself on his wedding night and took his old flame Katherine down with him.

"He...um...he was human, Stefan," I explained, "I-I made him so...in a moment of blind rage."

Elijah's gaze never left me once. He remained stoic and invested.

"He...under the control of the Siren...god, I'm sorry," I huffed out.

"It's alright. I don't want to cause you pain."

I took a deep breath and I told him, "I married a man named Enzo St John. Stefan...took his life and I used the cure on Stefan, in response...and it actually saved him from the Siren's control. And...he was free to live the rest of human days with Caroline, and get married...and I went to their wedding, despite everything. It was...memorable. Stefan sacrificed himself to take down Katherine, for good, to literally save the world. And I know that his guilt played a big part in that decision. I couldn't be mad that he'd murdered Enzo, because he wasn't in control. And then, I couldn't be proud of his choice, because I was mad at him: he could've had the happy ever after, and he threw it away...for noble reasons, I get it...but still. I felt like my pain...infected him or something."

"Stefan had his own pain, decades to atone for. He went out on his own terms," Elijah offered, "saving the people he loved. I don't think he'd want to cause another ounce of your pain. I am so sorry for your loss."

"Thank you."

"And how did the boy come to be in your care?"

"He is Tyler Lockwood's son. Tyler was on his way to me, with another vial of werewolf venom; he was instrumental, he followed leads and ended up connecting me with most of the packs."

"Forgive me, I find it odd that Tyler would ever help Niklaus."

I scoffed and shrugged, "I don't find it odd that Tyler ended up being the better man. Made perfect sense. He didn't let the past dictate who he was anymore, and he told me that he just wanted to help his friend, and that he loved me more than he hated him. And then...Damon...under the influence of the Siren...he took Tyler's life. He ripped out his throat. And that kind of made Sunday dinner super awkward after that...so I returned to the Bayou. To the Crescents. Enzo and I went our own way for a little while, until...yeah. The bridge back to Mystic Falls...it's not just burned, there's nothing left, like you'd never know there was ever a bridge there."

"But you went back for the wedding? If I'm following the timeline correctly."

"That was for Caroline...and Bonnie and the literal hellfire."

"I was wrong before, earlier today, when I said that you were a Mikaelson. You're not a Mikaelson. You don't have a Mikaelson heart. There's just too much good in you. It's why I fell in love with you. I suspect it's why your husband fell in love with you," Elijah said, sincerely, "Rebekah asked me something...who I might be if Niklaus no longer needed me. Did I have any desires of my own? And I thought about it, a lot. There was a time, long ago, I do recall, I wanted more. But somehow, I have...I lost the feelings...beneath blood and chaos."

"Elijah, you can't let the bad things that you did in your past define you now, forever more. I know you. You are good."

"No. You are," he insisted, "and you've had to endure too much darkness. Rosanna, I-"

"ROSANNA!" Klaus bellowed out, and burst through the screen door, "COME! PLEASE!"

Elijah and I exchanged a worried glance, and raced inside.