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

twenty-five

*A/N* And here was my foolish ass thinking that I would actually have enough motivation to get out two chapters in one week to make up for being away. *sigh* Alright, not really any trigger warnings for this one either, just some violence and stuff, nothing major or anything. Um, yeah, that's it, thank you all so much for your comments, I love them dearly, please enjoy my newest addition to this absolute trainwreck! Also, 25 chapters, you guys, holy fuck! Idk why that feels so impressive lmao, anyways, sorry, I'll shut up now. ON WITH THE STORY!!!

Rebekah was the first to wake up, baby blue eyes blinked open as her senses snapped back into place. One quick glance around at her surroundings was all it took, one glimpse of the tables of knives, the shackles that hung from the ceiling, the pools of blood--Elijah's blood--that decorated the floor and her body was set on fire as her heart sounded loud in her ears. The rage boiled over, so powerful that her lungs heaved with the effort of containing it. It felt bigger than her, like the built up anger from a thousand years of injustice was clawing its way through her veins.

Klaus and Kol sat up next to her, both with their fangs already extended and their glares dead-set on Mikael, who stood right by Esther in front of the door, just where he had been when the spell was cast. Finn, Freya, and Marcel stirred at the back of the room, their bodies closest to Elijah, who still remained unmoving where he had fallen. One by one, their eyes all fell on the body of their dear brother, and you could hear the breath leave their lungs as their hearts faltered. "Did you find what you were looking for, my child?" Esther asked softly as she looked at Rebekah, her face feigning a sympathy that used to be convincing.

Turning away, refusing to fall into her mother's trap, Rebekah looked at her older brother, still motionless on the ground. Tears began to stream down her face, a quiet sob escaping her, as she looked at the broken form, the blood that seeped from unhealing wounds, the desiccation that had crept up his neck. As much as she wanted to run to Elijah, to hold him close, to yell at him to wake up, to do anything  that might help, she was frozen, paralyzed with fear at the thought of reaching for a hand that might never hold hers again, listening endlessly for a heart that would never beat.

She was scared, terrified, that her brother was dead, not staked or daggered, not held captive in a magical prison, dead, and faded, and fallen, and gone. And she cried for everything that would be gone with him, for the person who spent late nights with Freya around the hearth, for the person that smiled softly in the corner as Kol played the piano but insisted that he hadn't been the one to teach it to him. She cried for the person who endlessly praised Nik's every painting like the hybrid's happiness was what made the stars shine, for the person who held Marcel to such a high degree of respect like he hadn't read stories to him every night until the child was nearly 10. She cried for the person who had been the one to convince Klaus over and over not to dagger Finn again, for the person who used to stay at Henrik's grave until the sun came up, for the only person that Hayley really trusted to hold her baby, and for the person that Rebekah still dreamed would walk her down the aisle some day. Above all, she cried for a little, childish part of herself that screamed that it just wasn't fair.

"How could you-" Kol started but had to cut himself off as his throat closed up around the words he had intended to unleash on Esther.

How could she? How could she have just sat there and had dinner with her children while she knew her husband was abusing Elijah in the other room? How could she have stood there silently and done nothing? And for years. Did nothing, said nothing to no one, turned a cold shoulder and pulled the curtains shut, left Elijah alone for years. How could she?

"Just the same as you can, my dear boy," their mother said, she stepped forward and placed a hand on Kol's shoulder, but her eyes only fell on Klaus as she said the words.