New Alliances (A Vampire Diaries Seasons 3 and 4 Fanfiction)

Chapter 10: A Last Stand

Finn turned to look at Esther from where he was standing inside the pentagram as the moon began to rise. 

'They're coming, Mother,' he said. Her face filled with panic. 

'No, it's too soon. The moon is not high enough,' she replied. 'Go quickly,' she added, motioning to Abby and Bonnie. The two witches hurried away as Klaus, Elijah, myself and Kol walked up the hill to meet the eldest Mikaelson brother and the Original Witch. 'My sons, Lilliana, come forward,' she said. Finn held out his hand to his mother. 

'Stay beside me,' he said. 

'It's okay. They can't enter.' Kol stepped forward, but the flames went up, higher and stronger, casting an even sharper orange glow over the clearing. Kol scoffed, stepping back. 

'That's lovely,' he said. 'We are stuck out here while the favorite son plays sacrificial lamb.' 

'Be quiet, Kol,' the Original Witch replied. 'Your brother knows virtue you cannot even imagine.' 

'Whatever you think of us,' Elijah spoke, 'killing your own children, let alone the woman I love, would be an atrocity.' She gave them a confident smirk. 

'I am sparing your girlfriend a thousand lifetimes of agony without her true love, Elijah. My only regret is that I did not let you die a thousand years ago,' the witch replied. My hand clasped Elijah's, and he looked down at me, interlacing his fingers through mine. 

'You're pathetic, Esther,' I snarled. 'Killing your own children... how perfectly cowardly of you.' 

'You claim to love a man whose true colours you have not even seen,' Esther snapped back. 'That is not love.' 

'You didn't see Mikael's true colours at first, did you? No. I choose to love your son regardless. And not even a thousand hells could separate me from Elijah.' 

'Enough,' Klaus said. 'All this talk is boring me. End this now, Mother, or I'll send you back to hell,' he added with a small smirk. 

'For a thousand years, I've been forced to watch you. Felt the pain of every victim. Suffered while you shed blood. Even you, Elijah, with your claim to nobility, you're no better. All of you... you're a curse on this Earth stretched out over generations. If you've come to plead for your life, I'm sorry... you've wasted your time.' 

We were standing there, when all of a sudden, Esther, with her eyes closed, cried out, 

'No! Sisters, do not abandon me!' The flames grew even stronger than they had before. 

'Mother!' Finn exclaimed, grabbing her. The four of us outside the circle turned away, the flames growing that much stronger. Then the lights went dark. Kol stepped inside the circle, the flames extinguished, but one thing had changed. Finn and Esther were gone. 

Later... 

Rebekah walked around the corner after her conversation with Elijah to see Klaus tossing pages of his drawings of Caroline into the fireplace. 

'Thought you'd have gone by now,' he remarked. 'Elijah and Lilliana are leaving. 'Kol's fled. Esther and Finn are gone too.' She walked to the large table nearby and picked up one of his drawings, studying it. She put it down, walking towards Klaus and speaking. 

'I hated you when I learned you killed our mother... but I realise now after a thousand years together as a family, you're the only one who never left me.' He gave her a sad smile. 

'Well, aren't we a pair?' 

'There's something I think you need to see.' She showed her phone to him, the video playing of Elena in the cave before she was going to kill her before the botched sacrifice ritual had ended. 

'Come to brag about your skills as a torturer?' he asked her. 

'Look at the images on the wall behind Elena,' Rebekah said. His brows knitted in confusion as he continued to watch the video. 'The natives told the story of our family history. Look at the images on the far wall.' 

'What is it?' 

'A native worshipping at the great white oak tree.' 

'We burned that tree to the ground,' he said, looking up at her in confusion. 

'Look at the markings that precede it. That's the native calendar.' 

'This can't be right,' he replied, his voice trembling in near terror. 

'A white oak tree 300 years after we fled back to the Old World. There must have been a sapling, a new tree to replace the old. That tree could kill us. It's not over, Nik.' The two siblings locked eyes. 

Elijah walked into the bedroom to see me packing my stuff. 

'I'm glad we're leaving town,' I said, folding up a sundress and packing it in, zipping up the suitcase. 'We can get a fresh start, a new life. We can be happy. No more Salvatores, or daggers, or doppelgangers, no more family drama. Just us and the open road.' He wrapped his arms around my waist, kissing me on the neck, sniffing it. 

'You really want out, don't you?' I leaned back against him, holding his hands, which were still around my waist. 

'I do.' The two of us stood there for a bit, when suddenly I broke the silence again. 'I heard what you said to Rebekah, about virtue and how you're not - how you aren't what you originally were. The person that you've become.' 

'Esther was right.' I turned towards him, cradling his face in my hands. 

'No, she wasn't. She's been trying to sow fear and pain for a long time, Elijah. You are noble. You do care very deeply about family. Sometimes, when we care for things very deeply, we go about protecting them the wrong way. It's okay. Everyone makes mistakes. That doesn't mean we're monsters. I've called myself a monster every day for the past 100 years for killing my father in cold blood after I was turned. But I've come to realise that that wasn't my fault. I was a baby vamp, with crazy emotions and a lust for blood. Someone like him - he deserved to go. He didn't deserve to go by my hand, that's just how it happened.' I stood on my tip-toes and gave him a gentle kiss, which he reciprocated.