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

twenty-six

*A/N* Okay, hello everyone, we are back again, I am going to start writing every day rather than waiting until the very end of the week to upload a chapter. Hopefully, I can start getting chapters out every three or four days and we can be done this book by the end of 2023, that's the plan, tbh it's really optimistic tho. Anyways, this chapter also doesn't really have any trigger warnings and there probably won't be a whole lot from here on out but I'll still add them if I think they're needed, for this chapter though, there's just some grief, death, a generous dose of child neglect, you know, the works. I think the show moved on way too fast from Henrik, so, I wanted to put my own take on it. Enjoy!

Elijah POV

It happened swiftly, I was simply there, and then I wasn't. One moment, I was at Freya's side as my magic rushed forward to aid hers, and the next, it all went black. I didn't feel myself fall, I didn't know the moment that my knees hit the floor, I didn't realize the arms that caught me, it was all so far away as one world faded into another. The embrace was numb, endless, and nothing, closing in all around me as my eyes slid shut and I knew no more. I didn't really ever wake up, the light and colours just seeped in like a dream, there was no distinct starting point, no real beginning. The whole thing spanned the width of eternity, impossibly close but also endlessly far, incredibly real but also impossible to touch. Just teasing and tempting, but meaningless at the same time, everything I dreamed of, but all the while also having a feeling to it that I never could have imagined.

The view played through my own eyes, like a memory, but as colourful and sharp as a dream. I was with my mother, her squeezing my hands so hard that they bruised for a week as she pushed a new baby out and into the waiting arms of the midwife. The crying, wriggling bundle was taken aside to be bathed as I wrung out water from a cloth to wipe away the sweat on Esther's brow and neck. She laid back in the bed, looking tired but also cold and uncaring, annoyance blooming freely on her expression as the midwife returned with the screaming child. I could tell she was in one of her moods again, her attentions slipped fluidly between love and neglect with astounding ease these days.

"Do you want to hold him, mother?" I asked as the midwife approached the bed.

"No, just take it away, Elijah," speaking of the new baby as though he were a hideous snake, "I don't want it in my sights."

Sighing quietly, I turned to the woman with a gentle smile, taking the squirming bundle from her arms and thanking her as she took her leave. I decided to let Esther be for the moment, hoping against hope that she would change her mind and be loving, and gentle, and kind once more the next day. No matter how many times I plainly witnessed her demeanor switch right before my very eyes, I always found myself foolishly thinking that the loving moments would stay this time around. They never did, I never learned, and it never cut any less deep when the hands that used to caress and cradle became sharp and cold.

It was late into the night, the sky a deep, midnight blue and littered with breathtaking stars, the wind whispering gently as it tenderly ruffled the leaves of the trees. Since it was summer, we were allowed our own rooms now that the bitter cold didn't drive us all to share our warmth together by the hearth during the night. Silently slipping through the house, the small bundle now quiet and still in my arms, I made my way to the room I shared with Finn, finding him already asleep. It wasn't surprising to me that he had been peacefully sleeping rather than up helping our mother. He never helped with the children, not with Rebekah, not with Kol, not even with Niklaus. It also came as no surprise that Mikael wasn't there aiding his wife. He saw helping or comforting his children in any way to be far below him, even at their birth.

Slipping soundless into the room, I carefully laid down in my bed, drawing the sheets up and over myself and the baby. He slept soundly in my arms, for whatever reason, I couldn't bring myself to put him down in the cradle. I held him against my chest, tiny head in the crook of my neck and a small hand holding tightly to my shirt. My arms wrapped protectively around him, my fingers running through his downy tufts of brown hair. We were so close to each other, our chests rising and falling in sync, my heartbeat reaching out to encompass the delicate thrumming of his. There was no end to our beginning.

Clips, and pieces, and scraps of a lifetime flitted behind my closed eyes, so fast that words couldn't have grasped them, but my mind saw them clear as day. There was a small boy, toddling around on clumsy legs, with fuzzy brown hair and deep brown eyes, so much like my own that it was sometimes hard to remember that he wasn't mine. He was Esther's and Mikael's, even if only I remembered his birthday, even if only I knew his favourite colour, even if he only ran to me when he was scared. He wasn't mine, never was, never would be.

Henrik.

The same boy, maybe 5 or so, giggling endlessly as he wrestled with Kol and Rebekah in the woods. He squealed with delight as he splashed in a creek. He ran through fields of tall, green grass, chasing butterflies under the sun. He sat in my lap around the bonfire, his little neck craned up in awe at the silver moon and her stars. He squirmed while I put his hair in a braid. He lay around on the hay bales like he had all the time in the world.

But it wasn't enough.

There was the sound of Niklaus, now fully grown, desperately shouting for help. I rushed from the stables just in time to see him coming from the woods towards the house, the body of that little brown-eyed boy lying limp in his arms, no older than 10. The skin was cold, the form was stiff, the lungs were still, the heart was hollow. Never to move again, never to run around in the sun, never to play in the woods, never to look at the stars. Never again. Never to laugh, never to smile, never to fall asleep in my arms. Never again. Never to grow up, never to fall in love. Never.

Dead.

I sat by the grave long after the rest of my family had left. I had held Niklaus as he had cried, promising to him over and over that I didn't blame him, that I wasn't angry. I had promised Rebekah that I would follow inside soon, that I just needed a moment longer, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. The sun had long since crawled below the horizon, her last rays of light eventually following so that the world was bathed in cold and darkness. I shivered helplessly as it began to rain and the wind blew bitterly, but still I could not leave. I didn't want that little boy to be alone, I wanted to stay with him, I wanted to follow after him.

Gone.

In the next moment, suddenly everything went still, the flashes of memories ground to a halt and I found myself back in my own body, no longer like I was watching somebody else. All around me was white, it surrounded me infinitely, there were no edges, no boundaries, just a white plain that stretch on for as far as the eye could see, everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. As soon as I went to look around me though, I froze in place, because in front of me was a young boy, with long, soft, ash brown hair and warm, gentle, chocolate eyes. "Henrik-" I whispered, but had to stop myself as my throat choked up.

"Hi, Elijah," he said, voice light and cheerful, a huge smile on his face.

My steps towards him felt like walking in a dream, but as I approached him, my heart fell. I could touch him, but I could not feel him. My palm was positioned perfectly against his cheek, like he was really there, but it was all an illusion and all that my fingers held was empty air. He looked exactly like how I remembered him, and his voice sounded so real, but he wasn't there, not really. Tears abruptly began to roll down my face, because it just wasn't fair. He should have had more time, he should have gotten to grow up and live a full life, he should have gotten to say goodbye.

It was so lonely that it physically hurt, my chest ached with the weight of my longing for him. I wanted to hold him, just once, just one more time, I would have given the whole world for it. I wanted his eyes to shine brighter than the stars, I wanted his laughter to be heard all throughout the house, I wanted his hair to smell like pine, and sage, and honey. I wanted him to be real, I wanted him to be here, I wanted him to be with me. 

I wanted him to be mine.

And just at that thought, I had the insane urge to burst out into hysterical laughter even as I continued to cry. Because even all these centuries later, I still had to remind myself that he was never my son...

He was never my...

He was never...

...He was...

*A/N* I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, this was actually surprisingly hard for me to write, I still am not the happiest with it, but I didn't want to delay it. Thank you so much for reading, I thought this idea was interesting and wanted to give it a try, see you in the next one!

1741 words