✔ The Way We Burn || Kol Mikaelson (Complete)

Interlude - Old Bones and Lonely Soul

The Mikaelson house in Mystic Falls never felt like home to Rebekah. It took months for Nik to rebuild it after Kol and Nora burned the first one and disappeared. In a world free of the threat of the daggers, Rebekah felt oddly bereft. There were no daggers. But there were also no Kol and Nora. So she chose to remain with Nik just like she always did.

Matt's presence in the small town was also one of the reasons even though she never admitted it to her brothers until the last minute.

The new house was even more extravagant than the last one. It was also colder and lonelier. Rebekah's old golden rose was the only thing Nora's fire left intact. Looking at her room now, she realized there wasn't much here apart from that rose that she wanted to keep and take with her.

She put a few clothes in her suitcase and the rose atop them before carefully closing it. Light reflected on her wedding band. She stepped out of the room and closed the door. There were other bedrooms in the hallway. Nik even designed one for Finn and Sage but they never came back. Nor called. Not that she blamed them.

However, she was all too aware of the guilt that was eating Nik away. Devouring him from the inside. After the fire, he remained outside the ruins for weeks. Nothing she and Elijah did helped. Even when his curse ended and he could step into a building once more, Nik always ended up back to the scorched ruins waiting for Kol and Nora to appear again.

They never did.

Nik's remorse was strong. Too strong. And he desperately wished for Kol to know how much he loved him in spite of his actions. Regrets were pointless, however. Kol and his wife were gone and Rebekah doubted they planned to come back.

The first time she saw Nora, Rebekah was still a young girl unaware of the cruelty of the world. It was a few days after Kol gifted her a golden rose. That silly big brother of hers must have thought she was too blind to see him hiding in the tree. Hoping to surprise him, she followed him into the forest and was astonished to see him meet with a woman, a faint but true smile unknowingly dancing at the corners of his lips. They disappeared into thin air not long afterward as if they had never been there. Magic was truly a wonderful thing when practiced well.

Her first reaction was to feel angry and jealous. Finn was still the same wooden person who cared for nothing but grieving his late wife – whom he had barely known. Elijah and Nik were fighting over the shameless and prideless Tatia. All Rebekah had was Kol and Henrik, and now another woman was stealing yet another one of her brothers.

However, she slowly came to the realization that nobody could steal Kol away from his siblings. While he did go into the forest to spend time with that strange woman, his eyes never lost their sparkle when it came to being around their family. Every day, he would play with Henrik, shower her with affection, tease Elijah, and just defend Nik from their father even though no one but she knew the truth. And it was only because she caught a glimpse of him threatening their father. So she secretly started covering for him when he left to meet with Nora.

When she overheard their father telling Kol he would end up alone, she was stunned. Kol was family. He was caring, powerful, and confident, and just always there when someone needed him. In exchange, he never asked for anything. How could such a wonderful and strong man end up alone?

It was only long after that she knew the answer to this question. Kol indeed never asked for anything. His power and determination were amazing. But he kept suffering in silence, never showing even a hint of his pain to his siblings. Perhaps this was why Nora managed to become so close to him. Because she alone knew both the monster and the man lurking beneath his face. She knew and understood his scars and never chose someone else over him. She always stood by him, Kol and Nora against the world.