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

thirty-five

*A/N* ...Hey, y'all... it's been a hot second, but... WE FUCKING DID IT BITCHES!!! Can you people believe this is the LAST chapter of the story? I'm actually going to cry. I will have one last ending chapter with all my favourite lines and scenes from throughout the book, but this is the end of the actual plot. In honor of this being the final stretch, this is solely fluff and feel-good family bonding (but of course with a little angst because it makes the fluff better and I'm not sure it's even possible for this fandom to exist without it). The Mikaelsons deserve a happy ending and it's been a rough ride, so I think we all need a bit of closure. I will be changing the timeline quite significantly in this chapter because nobody has time for all that shit, so just pretend it makes sense, I know I'm missing a ton of key events, characters like Hope are way younger while characters like Davina are much older, and I'm switching a ton of shit around, just deal with it. There are no trigger warnings for this chapter, please enjoy, I'll just be over here sobbing in the corner.

After all his centuries walking the Earth, Elijah had come to know that it didn't matter what the clocks and calendars ever said, some years were simply longer than others, with small, timeless infinities slipping in between the dragging seconds. His decades that were spent with Mikael would always be more than the years that made them up, the number of days could never encompass the agony, never do justice to the trauma. Time couldn't fathom that which was immeasurable. But, just as some days, some years, some millenia  were longer, some were shorter as well, some passed you by with nothing left but a blurred, distorted memory. The past years had been the latter, five years gone with a blink of awe-filled eyes as his family had healed, stitched itself back together. Perhaps, in another life, people might have said "just like before," but the Mikaelsons had always been fundamentally broken, just on the edge of falling apart, even in the beginning. This was new, and it had taken everyone a lot of getting used to, but it was beautiful in the end, their great tapestry imperfectly mended, the frayed ends twining themselves back together to bridge the gaps.

As the months had passed, each breath came a little easier, the atmosphere a little less tense. The compound seemed to almost glow, there was just something so comforting about a big house finally being full of people, walking into the spacious rooms to find that they were no longer empty. It was no longer just a place they were staying for a few years before they would have to run again, it was well and truly a home. It was freeing in a way Elijah never knew he needed, to be able to really make a space his own without being scared he would be forced to leave it all behind at the drop of a hat. It was no longer just a space that they existed in, it was theirs, a place for them to live and be a real family, grow together instead of apart.

That was another thing that had changed, there was no more running. No more of Esther coming out of the blue with a new scheme and no more of Mikael hunting them down for centuries on end. They had kept the barn heavily guarded and the bodies of their parents carefully monitored while Elijah had recovered enough to face them again. It had taken him some time, but, in the end, it had been his own hands, sure and steady, that had plunged the White Oak stake clean through their father's chest. Those brown eyes hadn't shed a single tear as they watched Mikael choke on his own blood, grapple helplessly at the wood protruding from his rib cage, and look into the face of the child he had hurt so terribly as he slowly faded to nothing but bitter ash. Elijah had stood with the rest of his siblings, looking on as Freya had bound Esther's soul before daggering her borrowed body, watching as the spreading crimson promised her permanent transfer through to the other side. Each of them had stood side by side as the barn was set on fire, the memory of their horrible excuse for parents left behind among the soot, charred wood, and rubble, condemned to be forgotten with no grave nor marker. And when they returned to the compound, there was no somber occasion, no funeral, because there was no loss. The few Mikaelsons that had known loving and gentle parents had lost them many centuries ago already, and the others hadn't truly ever had them at all, so there could be no real loss. The only thing that was mourned was an idea and a dream of what Esther and Mikael could have been. The only thing they grieved was the last chance that their parents had had to be what they all needed, and even in their parents' dying moments, the two couldn't bring themselves to love the children that they had cursed to live forever.