THE next morning, Elijah entered the courtyard to find Marcel sending out a series of police officers to search the city.

"Anything?" The Original questioned loudly, his voice echoing in the empty hall.

Upon hearing his voice, Valentina emerged from one of the rooms upstairs and stood above them on the balcony with a hopeful expression.

"They're putting eyes and ears out everywhere. Daywalkers are working every contact we've got. Cops, dock workers, guys in the Treme... Word is out: anyone trying to earn favor with me gets a lifetime of it if they find them." Marcel answered in determination.

"Good." Elijah praised with a curt nod of his head and started walking up the stairs past Valentina. "I need a pen and paper."

Marcel watched for a second then tilted his head to the side and quickly followed suit. Valentina furrowed her eyebrows and rushed to join them both in the study.

"Hey, am I taking orders from you now, or are we in this together?" Marcel asked curiously, not thrilled about being bossed around like a lap dog.

Elijah started removing his jacket in frustration. "Pen and paper, Marcellus. Now!"

Marcel sighed loudly, trying to calm himself before he snapped back. "I want her back just as much as you do, you know... The both of them." He pointed out sternly then turned around on his heels and left the room.

"You don't have to snap at him. He's doing what he can to help." Valentina came to Marcel's defense.

Elijah didn't respond. Instead, he began undoing the tie around his neck while he looked at Valentina, who was visibly worn down from the stress and anxiety.

There were dark circles under her green eyes and dried blood caked around her cuticles. Her hair was disheveled into a wild mess.

He wanted to comfort her and provide her with the answers she had hoped for. He could've held her while she cried or listened to her talk herself into one of her downward spirals, but they both knew that would do nothing to help soothe her. The only thing that could was finding Klaus.

"Stop staring at me." She requested quietly.

"I wasn't---" He tried to lie but she shot him an unconvinced scowl. He thought he had been discrete, but she could see him from the corner of her eye. "Have you slept at all?" He asked curiously, his face curled up into one of concern.

"No. I'll sleep when we find Nik. I... I need to keep myself distracted. So how can I help?" She changed the subject to keep him from pestering her any further.

"I need you to make a list of names." He vaguely requested while unbuttoning his blue dress shirt.

"Uh... okay," Valentina responded awkwardly, unsure how that was going to help, and glanced around for something to use. "Whose names am I taking down exactly?"

When she turned around, Elijah was standing there shirtless with names tattooed across his skin. "Oh my God." She gaped in disbelief and slowly approached him, examining the names written across his shoulders, arms, back, and torso. "Who did this?"

"Monique Deveraux." He replied.

"Sabine Laurent." Valentina read the name on his wrist aloud in confusion then raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that the witch who gives those tours in the Quarter? The one Celeste body snatched?"

"I believe they represent the names of the women Celeste inhabited for the past two centuries," Elijah explained his theory.

"It's called a Devinette." Marcel said knowingly after returning and handed the paper and pen to Valentina. "It's old school. Kind of a riddle. Witches use them to teach their kids. Solve it, and it disappears."

Valentina began writing down the names sprawled out across her best friend's body, gently turning his wrists around to see the tattoos on the inside. "So we're supposed to just play this game while Nik and Rebekah are God knows where? How do we know this isn't just some fucked up trick to steer us on the wrong path and delay us?"

"Celeste forced me to make a choice between yourself and my siblings, and now she means to mock that choice, taunting me with a childish game." Elijah sneered venomously as impatience rose inside of him like a burning flame. "The longer the game, the more they suffer. To find Klaus and Rebekah, we need to solve this riddle. The solution lies somewhere in these names."

"The name next to Sabine..." Marcel pointed a finger at it. "Annie La Fleur, she's the witch that was shunned from her coven just over a year ago. Never knew why, but I can find out."

"We'll start there." Elijah agreed with a curt nod.

After Valentina had finished taking note of every single name, Elijah got dressed again and offered to follow Marcel's lead. He walked over to his sister-in-law, who looked up at him with an exhausted expression. "I'll call with any news. In the mean time, I suggest getting some sleep. You look dreadful."

"You flatter me." She mused sarcastically, rolled her eyes, and remained silent for a moment before shaking her head. "I can't sleep. Believe me, I've tried. I'm so exhausted, and it feels like my head is gonna explode, but I can't fall asleep. My husband is missing, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it." She whispered, her voice wavering emotionally. "I feel useless. I can't sleep knowing he's out there somewhere with no one to help him. I know Nik is practically invincible, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel pain. I--- it---"

"Listen to me." Elijah called out for her attention, cutting off the words because she could stutter them out. "Niklaus would be at ease if he knew you were safe here instead of running around the city. Staying here is the best choice."

"I wasn't questioning that." She said with a shake of her head. "I just hate that I can't do anything. Sitting around and waiting is killing me."

"You can. You have the names and an endless internet search engine at your disposal. We'll do what we can out there while you do what you can here. We'll find him." He tried to confidently assure her and kissed her tenderly on the temple then left to catch up with Marcel.

While they were gone, Valentina stayed at the compound and sat at the desk, searching the names on Google for any data or records. It wasn't long before Elijah called to discuss the news about Annie.

Valentina sat back in the office chair with a look of disbelief as she held the phone to her ear. "She killed herself?"

"Yes, drowned herself in the Mississippi, to be precise." Elijah replied from the other end. "Celeste was clearly tired of the body and ready to take Sabine's."

"Why do you think that?" She questioned curiously, twirling a pen between her fingers.

"Because she leaped to her death from the very location Celeste and I had our first kiss." He said grimly, causing Valentina to wrinkle her nose up in a grimace. "All these names, these lives, stolen that Celeste might take her revenge. I suppose we have no choice but to see where they take us." He sneered bitterly. "Valentina, I have to go. I'll call you back."

"Alright. Be safe." She said affectionately.

The line went dead so she set her phone down on the desk and threw her head back on the chair. Thoughts about what Klaus flooded her brain and she couldn't stop herself from worrying about the potential torture he would be enduring.

She felt her chest tighten from the anxiety and rubbed it with the palm of her hand while groaning in discomfort. She suddenly gasped loudly for air and tears rose to the surface. Her heart dropped down into her stomach, the air left her lungs just as they filled, and she couldn't fight the feeling that she was suffocating.

Her hands trembled vigorously, unable to keep them steady. She tried taking deep, slow breaths but it was only making it worse. Her vision blurred with the world around her, along with the high-pitched ringing piercing at her ear drums.

She was forced to settle down after tiny flutters rippled through her uterus. Her unborn children kicking forcefully as they experienced the same emotions. Placing a hand on either side of her baby bump where she felt them, she leaned back into the chair, wiggled her legs up and down, and started to do the breathing techniques Klaus had taught her.

Forcefully wiping her tears away, she situated herself at the desk and returned to searching. Her phone chimed with a text message from Elijah, asking her to look into a Clara Summerlin.

Her head snapped up a few hours later when Elijah and Marcel returned to the compound. She looked at the Original with hope gleaming in her dull eyes but was soon met with disappointment again after he shook his head.

"Find anything about Clara, the mystery witch?" Marcel asked nervously.

"Yes." She leaned forward in her seat, held a finger up, and clicked on the tab she had open for Clara. "So turns out she was a nurse at the Fleur-de-Lis Sanitarium." She explained then pulled up a black and white photograph taken in 1919 and pointed out the witch amongst the others. "She's that one. I've never seen her before. Do you guys know who she is? Recognize her maybe?"

"No, I don't." Elijah rejected with a shake of his head and turned to Marcel, who turned away from the computer and began pacing the floor with his arms folded over his chest and his head hung low.

Valentina tilted her chin at him with an uneasy expression.

"Marcel?" Elijah asked him then noticed the alarm and worry written on the middle vampire's face. "Marcel? Do I need to remind you that Niklaus and Rebekah are somewhere suffering horribly? If you know something, talk."

Marcel ran his tongue along his bottom lip before taking a deep breath. "The Sanitarium. That's where you'll find them."

"Wait. Are you sure? How could you possibly know that?" Valentina questioned against him.

"I just know." Marcel snapped defensively.

"Okay..." Valentina mused oddly.

"How do you know?" Elijah pressed further for answers, suspicion rising in both Mikaelsons with the younger vampire's responses.

Marcel stared at Elijah for a moment and swayed on his feet. He broke eye contact, looked at the floor, then glanced at Valentina apologetically. "If I'm right, you need to know exactly what we're walking into. We did something, Rebekah and I... I think the witches are trying to use it against her. It was, uh... something that you're not gonna like." He said darkly and went on to explain how he and Rebekah asked for a witch's help to bring Mikael to New Orleans in 1919 in their attempt to scare Klaus off.

Valentina glared at Marcel in betrayal, tears burning in her green eyes. She turned her head, unable to look at him any longer, and walked over to the window, gazing down at the city below them. She squeezed her eyes shut as her lips curled up into a sob, letting out a small, heartbroken wail.

Marcel walked over with a look of pure guilt and grabbed her wrist in his hand, to which she aggressively shoved him away from her. "Get off me. How dare you?! You have no idea what that night did to me."

"Val---" Marcel called out softly with his hands held up in surrender. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I---"

"That means nothing to me." She sneered coldly. "You pretended to be our friend. You lied to us. To me."

"Val, I never lied to you." Marcel rejected sternly, frantically shaking his head. "I was--- I am your friend."

"For the better part of a century, I have wondered how Father found us, what foolish mistake that we had made to destroy our time in the one place that we could finally call home. Did you know, I even blamed myself for a time, Marcellus?" Elijah said slowly yet furiously. He grabbed Marcel's neck and sped him over to the wall, holding him a few feet above by the throat. "Niklaus treated you like a son."

"Rebekah," Marcel spoke her name which caused Elijah to jerk his head to the side. "I loved her. I still love her. All we ever wanted was to be together, but as long as Klaus was around, that was never gonna happen."

Elijah dropped Marcel to his feet, stood threateningly close, and jabbed a finger in his face. "When Klaus learns the truth, there will be no end to his rage. I will not let my sister suffer that wrath."

"Then we need to get to them before he learns the truth," Marcel said sternly, pushing past him toward the study doors.

"Something tells me it's too late for that." Valentina mused hollowly and stared miles away at the empty space in front of her. "Elijah... He'll stop at nothing."

"I must go before Rebekah falls victim to Niklaus' blind rage." Elijah excused himself to leave.

"Then go." She urged him with a motion of her hand. "I'm fine here."

He sighed heavily, kissed her on the forehead like earlier, and rushed out of the compound.

Marcel lingered for a moment, staring at her with sorrowful eyes. "Val---"

"Get... OUT!" She bellowed furiously, her hands curled into fists by her sides and a steady stream of grief-stricken tears rolling down her cheeks. "Get the fuck out of here. I never want to see you again. Don't bother with your apologies or your poor excuses because nothing you say with ever be good enough to excuse what you've done. He should've killed you. It was a mistake leaving you alive." She sneered out of blind rage, not thinking clearly about the words she was saying or how they would affect him. That was the least of her concerns at the moment. Before he could respond or express his hurt, she stormed out of the room, knocking into his shoulder in the way out.

Marcel stayed in place briefly, blinking away the tears and swallowing the lump inside of his throat. He turned on his heels, walked out of the study, and sped after Elijah to catch up with the Original so he could save Rebekah from Klaus.

---
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