You Don't Know What I'd Do For You (Love you like oxygen)

fourteen

*A/N* Alright everybody, it's finally happening, these next chapters will be Elijah's long-awaited rescue! Congratulations if you held on for this long, you finally made it! The next few chapters will definitely contain some very hard subjects, and it's going to be more descriptive than before, not just implied. This is your last warning, PLEASE do not read if you are triggered by ANYTHING in the tags. If fluff interests you, I plan to do a whole lot of that towards the end of the book. So, if this stuff does trigger you, check the A/N at the beginning of each chapter and I will tell you if the chapter is triggering or not. Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this book so far and if you have to leave because of the topics, absolutely no hard feelings, I hope that you are okay :) Now, on with the story!

The sun was setting by the time Marcel, Kol, and Rebekah had finally sent the much-anticipated text. We found it. Klaus and Freya, as discussed, had been waiting in the car close by but well out of reach of any danger. The second that he had read the message, Klaus was bursting out of the car and vamping over to Freya's side in the next instant. "Come, on," the hybrid urged, voice tense as he hurled the driver's side door open and pulled his older sister to her feet, "we can't afford to waste any time."

With that, he had scooped the eldest Mikaelson up and had turned and sped through the woods, faster than lightning would have ever dared to go, towards the rest of his family. In that moment right then, with the two of them blazing through the woods together, an unspoken burden was lifted from their shoulders. Some unknown tensions cut loose as they were both brought together for one, sole purpose, and there wasn't a single force in all the world that could stop them from achieving it. They were going to bring their brother home, whatever it took, no matter the price.

It took only a matter of minutes for the two to reach the others, who were well hidden but still within viewing distance of the barn. As soon as they arrived, Marcel placed a strong, steadying grip on both of his sire's shoulders, "Klaus, Klaus!" he called, trying to rein the hybrid in, "We can't lose our position, snap out of it!"

"They'll pay dearly for this," Klaus seethed, practically foaming at the mouth with his fangs extending and eyes flashing an electric, inhuman gold.

"Brother, I can assure you, they will, but we can't just go up and knock on the door," reasoned Kol, going to stand by Marcel and leveling his older brother with a determined look, "We need a plan before we engage or we're as good as dead."

"Nik," strangely enough, it was Rebekah's gentle, quiet, seemingly far away voice that shocked Klaus to his senses.

Relaxing, letting the wolf in him go dormant again, the hybrid turned his eyes to his beloved younger sister. Her blue eyes, so like his own, were filled with tears, her face reflecting a horror that only she knew the reasoning behind, like she had just discovered some terrible truth. "Nik," she said again, even more faintly this time, "Nik, Mikael's in there."

He didn't know what there was about those few, simple words, but they rang differently in his head. Yes, he had known that Mikael was behind this, Esther as well no doubt, probably even Finn. That shouldn't have come as any surprise to him, to any of them. Rebekah shouldn't look like that, her words shouldn't have felt like that. It was Mikael for fuck's sake, the same one who had abused them their entire childhood and hunted them down for a thousand years. The vampire who hunts vampires, the unkillable, unstoppable missile that was targeted directly at his family. This practically had his name written all over the cover of it, they could have all guessed this in their sleep. But the sentence went through a different register. Mikael was in there, he was in there with Elijah.

Suddenly, Klaus was in a completely different place, surrounded by a world that only he could see. There was no Rebekah, no Kol, no Freya, no Marcel, no Mikael, no Esther, no barn... but there was Elijah. Not the Elijah he knew though, not the one that all the rest of the world thought of when they heard his name, not the Bloodied Stag or the Noble Martyr or the Beast. It was an Elijah that he had almost forgotten about, a version that had almost been buried. Almost. This was a young boy, no older than 9 or 10, but a boy that Klaus had thought the world of. With big, gentle hands, and strong, safe arms, and long, fast legs. The boy that had taught his new little brother how to carve, how to draw with charred wood, how to climb to the top of trees, how to rock little baby Kol to sleep.

When Klaus looked more closely, he didn't see a monster, or a vampire, or blood and fangs, or dead bodies, or decapitated heads and ripped out hearts. He didn't see the shoulder that they all leaned on, or the backbone that kept them all from giving up. Not the pillar to their empire, or the grip that held them all close and never let go, always and forever. He didn't see the always immaculate, always perfect, never out of place, carefully put together, completely under control role model who knew exactly what to do. No. In the place of all that, Klaus saw something that he had forgotten that his brother had ever been. Instead, the great, undefeatable, infamous, feared hybrid... only saw a child. A child like he himself had once been, like all his siblings had once been. Just like little Marcellus and beautiful, tiny Hope. A child who grew up too fast, but never got the chance to grow old.

Slamming back into reality, Klaus' emotions were suddenly stilled. His wild, fiery, unbridled rage was replaced with a steely calm. The world wasn't buzzing and blurring, it was frozen, breathless. His thoughts weren't whirling and spiraling and exploding and overriding every rational part of his mind that there was left, they were sure and confident. It didn't feel like him, it didn't feel like his thoughts or his movements, it felt like it was somebody else. It felt like Elijah.

The words seeped into him slowly, they weren't really spoken, just... emanated. It was a determined message. Desperate, yes, but still seeming confident that these words were worth it, that if these were the last words that he would ever speak, he would be okay with it. "The pain is all for you." It reverberated through Klaus, teasing up old memories that had been cherished throughout all of the hybrid's many lifetimes. Looking around, there was a similar, dazed expression on all of their faces as the words finished echoing and the feeling slowly faded. Setting his jaw, Kol glanced at the barn before turning his gaze back to the rest of them. "So," he started, voice slightly shaky but resolute all the same, "what's the plan?"

*A/N* Thank you so much for reading, this was a bit shorter but I wanted to get it out of the way so that we can FINALLY get to the good parts of this story. I'm so excited to write this but I am approaching midterms so the next chapter or two might be a bit slower than I would hope for but I will try my best. Farewell, beautiful people, I shall see you again whenever the next chapter gets updated! Also, I changed the cover and I absolutely love it!

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