MARCEL stood out on the porch, waiting for Ingrid to reply, with a large grin on his face.

Ingrid smiled back at him and stepped out of the way, gesturing for him to come inside. He nodded his head in appreciation and walked past her, over the threshold. She closed the door behind him and strolled into the living room, the vampire following suit. "Marcellus Gerard. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Marcel looked at her in surprise and tilted his head to the side. "I wasn't aware you knew who I was."

"And I was not aware that you knew I was here. Let alone alive." She remarked with a blank expression and began pouring him a drink from the bar behind the couch.

"Makes me wonder what else Klaus lied about." He sneered in anger and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Niklaus does what he assumes to be the best and while it may not be what I would do, I support him." She replied in a strong manner and held the drink out to him. "How may I help you, Marcellus?"

He took the drink from her and chuckled kindly. "You can just call me Marcel." He informed her, waving his hand. "I'm here because the word on the grapevine is that you're the most honest and rational Mikaelson."

She nodded in understanding, listening to his heartbeat and not hearing it waver. "While I do not view myself as the most rational, I am the most honest. I do not and will not lie. Now, I may hide things or refuse to answer questions that I believe you do not deserve the answer to but that is the difference." She then gestured for him to have a seat and sat down on the couch across from him, folding her hands and glancing at him with a polite yet stern expression.

"Klaus has been lying to me over and over and I just need some answers." He explained while taking a seat and sipping on his drink. He paused and waited for her to motion for him to continue. "Why are the Mikaelsons back in New Orleans?"

"A few months ago, we had recieved a letter from a particular enemy of Niklaus' stating that a witch here in New Orleans was plotting against him." Ingrid honestly answered then paused for a second with a frown. "That turned out to be a lie."

"So, why are you still here?" Marcel asked sternly, leaning forward in his seat.

"You make it sound as though we are unwelcome." She commented with an amused smirk and answered again. "The witches linked my life to that of Sophie Deveraux and until about three hours ago I was. I would have left but I was not willing to take the risk--"

"That she would do something to get your baby killed." Marcel finished for her with a knowing smile. "Yeah. Congratulations on that by the way."

She knew he wasn't being sincere but smiled at him regardless. "Niklaus was right to praise your intelligence."

"I know that's not the only reason why four Originals are here." Marcel remarked with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

Ingrid licked her lips with a smile and crossed her leg over the other, refusing to answer in full. "If I gave you that answer, you would not be pleased and quite a few people would die. Especially that of Sophie Deveraux."

Marcel narrowed his eyes and moved on from the question. He smiled with a small laugh and pointed his finger at her. "You know, Klaus raised me. I grew up in the Abbatoir." He mused out loud and sat back in his seat, running his fingers across the skin above his top lip. "I remember... there was this portrait of you hanging above the fireplace in what used to be Klaus' office. As a kid, I always thought you were so beautiful. He had painted you with this warm smile and I always felt comforted by the idea of you looking down on me. Watching over me. I liked to think that had you been there... you would have been the mother I never had."

She nodded slowly while listening to his story, an unreadable expression crossing her face. Ingrid then glanced at him with an empathetic frown. "I apologize that I could not be there for you as a child."

Marcel waved her off with a fake smile. "It's fine. Not like you had a choice."

"Hmm." She mused lowly in agreement and studied him closely. "What do you really want from me, Marcel?"

He sighed and slapped his hands down against his thighs, finally getting to the real reason he came to see Ingrid. "There is a theory that I need help testing..."

She nodded slowly and pursed her lips. "I may be able to assist you but there is one problem..." She trailed off, feeling a presence slowly approaching them from the kitchen. "Hello, Tyler. I can smell the desperation and rage from here. That is far enough." The Original greeted the Lockwood without turning to face him and kept her eyes on Marcel, who glanced at her in shock.

Tyler stopped on his place, a harsh glare on his face, as he twirled on a familiar object between his fingers. "Drop it." She ordered in a harsh tone of voice, narrowing her dark brown eyes in anger.

The sound of metal hit the ground from behind her and she sat up straight in her seat. "Kick it under the couch." She ordered again and metal object slid toward her, landing next to her foot. She glanced at Marcel while slowly bending down to pick it up. Ingrid paused in shock when she saw that it was none other than her golden dagger. She stood to her feet and sneered at the vampire. "You lied. Loyalty and trust works both ways, Marcellus. It is evident that you do not plan of reciprocating the same honesty that I offered you."

Marcel quickly stood to his feet while frantically shaking his head. "No, no, no! Ingrid, I never lied. I really do need your help. I thought Tyler was here to help. I didn't know he was going to dagger you." He informed her in honestly but she wasn't convinced. "I swear!"

"Lies!" She bellowed in rage then sped toward him and grabbed him by the throat.

Tyler sped toward her but she pushed him away with an immense amount of force causing him to crash into the wall, sending the antique, golden mirror to fall to the floor and smash into pieces.

Marcel struggled against her grip but she was too strong. Her eyes moved rapidly side to side as she debated what the best choice of action for his dishonesty would be. A smirk slowly crossed her face when she came to a solution and her golden-amber eyes met Marcel's brown ones. She retracted her fangs and sunk them into his neck, injecting werewolf venom into his blood stream.

Marcel screamed out in pain as she pulled away, blood dribbling down the side of her mouth. She dropped him to the ground like a rag-doll and he placed a hand to his wound, hissing in pain.

Ingrid then turned on her heels and turned to Tyler, slowly walking toward him as he pulled himself out of the mess of shattered glass. She picked him up by the collar of the shirt and stood him up to face her. She chuckled and clicked her tongue with a smirk. "Aww, poor Tyler. Such a miserable, poor excuse of a superior species. Niklaus wasted that potential on the likes of you." She then threw him across the room again and he crashed into the table, knocking the glasses onto the ground and coming face to face with Marcel. Before he could attempt to get up, Ingrid grabbed him again and stabbed him repeatedly the torso with a makeshift stake from a broken chair.

Tyler yelled in pain and pulled the stake out, dropping it to the ground. Once his wound healed, he growled at her in rage and glared. He slipped his hand in his pocket and fumbled with an object. He waited for Ingrid to make the next move but he realized that her next move would be to kill him so he pulled out his phone and yelled into the speaker. "NOW!"

Suddenly, there was a series of voices chanting around them and Ingrid fell to her knees, gripping her head and screaming out in pain. She began to bleed from her eyes and Marcel rushed toward Tyler, begging him to stop hurting her, but the hybrid refused to listen and snapped the King of New Orleans' neck. Marcel fell to the ground, incapacitated, and Tyler watched as Ingrid finally stopped screaming because she had fallen unconscious.

A few hours had passed since Ingrid had been abducted from the plantation and Elijah walked through the door to find the living room a disaster. He stopped, observing the scene to see shattered glass, blood, broken furniture, and the golden dagger lying in the middle of the mess. His heart began to pound harshly in his chest as he ran through the house screaming his sister-in-law's name. "Ingrid! INGRID!"

When there was no sign of her, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Rebekah, who answered it in an annoyed manner. "Goodbye means goodbye, Elijah."

"Is she with you?" Elijah questioned in worry, his breathing heavy.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Rebekah snapped in confusion.

"Ingrid's gone. Where is she?" He demanded harshly, not meaning to be so rough.

"WHAT?" Rebekah gaped in shock.

Klaus rushed into the house, panic written all over his face. "Marcel was here." Elijah looked stunned, and absentmindedly dropped the phone from his ear as Klaus walked into the living room and picked up the dagger. He looked down to see the blood on the carpet and paused in fear. "That's Marcel's." He then noticed the stake and picked it up. His face fell as he recognized the scent and turned to Elijah with a dark expression. "Tyler Lockwood."

Ingrid was woken up by Tyler stabbing a syringe into Ingrid's stomach, directly into her womb, and drawing out a measure of her blood. Her eyes flew open and she groaned in pain, pushing him away just as he removed the syringe. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Tyler turned to her with a glare and held up the blood-filled syringe. "I'm testing a theory I have. Your baby--" He grimaced at the term and scoffed. "--shares your blood, meaning it's a hyrbid. I want to see if it can make other hybrids." He explained then stabbed Dwayne in the neck, injecting him with the blood, and snapped his neck, killing him. Dwayne's lifeless body fell to the floor with a loud thump.

Ingrid glanced at Tyler in confusion for a second before laughing loudly. "You really are the moron I always thought you to be." She said in-between laughter. "Of course she can make hybrids. Her parents are hybrids. That tends to be how genetics work."

"Klaus will use her to make more hybrids." He sneered at her, enraged at her mocking. "He can make an entire army of hyrbid slaves with your daughter's blood."

"He won't need to." Ingrid replied with a smirk, hoping to enrage him further. "If Niklaus wants an army of hybrids, I can do that. And should he ever need to, I would do it without question."

He grabbed a knife from his bag and held it out to her, threateningly. "No way am I going to let that happen."

"As if you have the choice." She remarked in amusement and ripped the handcuffs off, freeing herself. She then stood to her feet and smirked over at him. "You'll be dead before you have the chance."

"Wouldn't be too sure about that." Tyler remarked smugly and Ingrid threw her head back, laughing again.

Dwayne then awakened with a gasp and started freaking out. Tyler walked over to him, calming him down, and pointed at Ingrid. "You're gonna have to feed on her."

Ingrid knew that the moment Dwayne fed on her, he would be her sired hybrid, so she held her wrist out to him. Dwayne took a hesitant step forward and glanced at her in reluctance. Ingrid bit into her wrist causing her blood to roll down her arm, dripping onto the hardwood floor. Dwayne couldn't contain his hunger and ran toward her, feeding off her blood.

After a moment, Dwayne stopped feeding and fell to the floor in pain. Tyler pushed him outside and left Ingrid in the shack to tend to him. Ingrid rolled her eyes and walked out of the shed to see Dwayne convulsing on the ground. Tyler grabbed his face, hoping to ground him back to reality, and yelled. "Look at me! Look at me!" Dwayne started to calm down, and eventually lied still and Tyler sat back, relieved. "You're okay."

Dwayne's hybrid face emerged and he smiled widely. "I'm better than okay."

"Of course you are." Ingrid commented with a satisfied smirk and walked out onto the porch.

Tyler smiled at the male hybrid and started to walk toward Ingrid but Dwayne rushed toward him, standing between them in a protective manner. "Get away from her!"

The Lockwood glanced at him in confusion as Ingrid crossed her arms over her chest and smirked in victory. Ingrid placed a gentle hand on Dwayne's shoulder and whispered. "Dwayne... kill him."

Dwayne then rushed toward Tyler snd tossed him across the yard as Ingrid walked away, making her way out of the bayou. She walked through the clearing and came face to face with Hayley Marshall. "Oh, Hayley... still following Tyler around like a lost puppy?" She questioned in a patronizing tone then gave her a fake pout. "He will never love you, you know. Not when Caroline is sitting around waiting for him. I would not worry though because he will be dead long before they can reunite."

"Klaus is using you." Hayley remarked in a malicious manner, crossing her arms over her chest and shifting on her feet. "What do you think he's going to do to you after the baby is born? Let me say it for you, he's either going to dagger you and store you in a box again or he's going to breed you like a rabbit. He doesn't care about you. He only cares about his hybrids."

Ingrid scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You two are relentlessly annoying. Niklaus and I have been married for a millenia. You want to know what will to do to me after I have this baby? Nothing." She confidently replied with a smug smile then paused for a second, debating on what to do next. "But since you seem to be so against hybrids..." She trailed off then bit into her wrist before shoving it into Hayley's throat, forcing her to drink it. Ingrid placed her hands on either side of Hayley's head and snapped her neck in a harsh, swift manner.

Elijah walked over to them just as Hayley's body hit the ground and stared at Ingrid in confusion and disappointment. "I guess you don't need my help." He remarked with a smile before walking over to embrace her in a relieved hug. "I am glad you are alright."

"Where is Niklaus?" She questioned quickly while pulling away from him, her face holding a worried appearance.

"I imagine hunting Tyler Lockwood down as we speak." Elijah replied in a smooth tone then looked at her with a blank face. "You may lose your bet."

"That's perfectly alright with me. Klaus had dibs." She answered with a laugh, waving her hand up in nonchalance.

"I'll take you home." He said, placing his hand on her elbow and attempting to pull her away from the bayou.

"Hold on. There is something I need to do first." She explained in significance and walked way from him, leaving him with Hayley's dead body.

She walked back through the woods and approached the shack, noticing Klaus standing on the porch with a hole in his shirt. She furrowed her eyebrows in concern and rushed toward him. "Niklaus!"

Klaus turned his head up to see his wife walking toward him and let out a deep breath of solace. "Ingrid!" He grabbed ahold of her face with both of his hands and kissed her passionately on the lips. When he pulled away, he raised an eyebrow at her with an impressed smirk. "You never seem to actually need my help."

"Nope. I just have you around for your looks." She replied with a shake of her head and the couple laughed together. "What happened?" She questioned him in concern, motioning to the dried blood on his stomach.

"Tyler Lockwood stabbed me." He sneered in anger, looking down at his ruined shirt.

"Likewise." She replied, showing him the small injection hole in her shirt and the speck of blood and Klaus scowled in fury. "Can I assume he is finally dead?"

"No, he wanted to die. So I decided there is no better punishment than to let him live his miserable life." He explained to her with a smirk and placed a hand on her baby bump. "Is she okay?"

"She is okay. She is incredibly resilient." She informed hime, placing a hand next to his. "Like her father."

"More like her mother." Klaus smiled then looked down at Dwayne's body with a raised eyebrow. "Was that you?"

"Partially." Ingrid replied with a shrug of her shoulders and was about to say more when Elijah and Hayley approached them.

"There you are!" He greeted his brother then smirked at the in-transition hyrbid. "Ahh, if it isn't Hayley. This--" he said while kicking the dead body over. "-- appears to be a hybrid."

"His name was Dwayne." Hayley snapped in offense, glaring at him.

"Well, whoever it was, I didn't sire him." Klaus remarked with a pointed expression then turned to Ingrid. "Any ideas as to how this happened?"

Ingrid opened her mouth to explain but was interrupted before she could.

"As if you didn't know!" Hayley yelled at him causing the couple to glance at her in amusement. She was about to storm toward them but Elijah held her back and walked in front of her to protect her from Klaus.

"Ahhh, well, aren't you two fast friends?" Klaus stated, unamused, and urged them to lie their thoughts out in the open. "Oh, come on, then. What kind of horrible accusation have you conspired to levy against me?"

"Tyler Lockwood brought Ingrid here to test a theory." Elijah began and Klaus nodded at him to continue. "That the blood of her child could be used to sire hybrids. He claims that you both knew that. Furthermore, that you both intended to use this knowledge to build an army."

"Yes, I knew." Ingrid announced in a slight attitude causing them to look at her in surprise. "Oh, come on. This is not all that shocking. The witches said she was a hybrid... we are both hybrids." She said, motioning between herself and Klaus. "I knew there was a possibility and guess what? It was proven to be true." She informed them, pointing down at Dwayne. "Does no one else think about these things?"

Klaus turned to his brother, both hurt and angry. "And, of course, you assume it's true. I mean, why else would I show interest in my own flesh and blood? A heartbroken little crybaby points his finger at me, and my own brother falls in line, eager to believe it! How quickly you believe the worst." He lashed out, unsure how else to deal with the pain from his brother's accusations.

Elijah rolled his eyes and took a step toward him. "Oh, spare me your indignation. When have you ever demonstrated any kind of concern towards Ingrid or her child, beyond your own selfish pursuits?" He questioned in exasperation.

"All the time." Ingrid replied with a confused look on her face. "Have you chosen to ignore that?"

"And what was it you once said to me?" Elijah questioned, ignoring her, then proceeded to impersonate Klaus. "Every king needs an heir!"

"My big brother. So, you doubt my intentions? Well, I can't say I'm surprised, standing next to the noble Elijah, how can I be anything but the lesser brother? A liar, a manipulator, a bastard." Klaus snarled, hurt evident in his voice and Ingrid knew he was close to tears.

The two brothers stared at each other as Klaus approached him. Elijah seemed to be reconsidering his position but it was too late. Klaus had already let the pain seep into his heart.

"That's all I am to you, isn't it? And Rebekah. And, judging by the way Hayley hangs on your every word, it's clear she feels the same way! Not that her opinions matters." Klaus paused, looking even more hurt. "No doubt my child will as well."

Ingrid shook her head and placed a comforting hand in his. "No. Never." She whispered softly with a serious look in her dark brown eyes.

Elijah realized what he had down and attempted to apologize, speaking more kindly this time. "Brother, if--"

Klaus didn't want to hear it and interrupted him. "You've said all that needs to be said, brother." He stepped back a few steps and held his arms out in defeat. "I'll play the role I've been given."

He turned as though he was going to walk away, but instead, he turned back quickly and sped over to Elijah before biting him savagely on the neck. Hayley screamed in horror and ran over to him.

Klaus wiped his mouth with his hand and smirked. "You two enjoy each other's company. You'll have much to bond over, once the hallucinations and dementia set in. Consider that bite to be my parting gift to you both."

"Wait! I need Ingrid's blood or I'll die." Hayley called out to them as they began walking away.

Ingrid turned back to her with a pondering face before shaking her head. "Let's see how you two do for the next twenty-three hours. Maybe Elijah will kill you first." She replied with a mocking smile before turning on her heels and walking out of the bayou hand in hand with Klaus.

When they reached the car, he held the door open for her and was about to close it but paused with an amused smile. "I took the liberty of healing Marcel for you, love. He agreed to give you a second chance."

"Oh, I am so pleased." She replied in sarcasm with an eyeroll.

He then shut the door with a chuckle and walked over to the driver's side, climbing in. He looked at her with a stern expression and started the car. "Put your seat belt on, please."

She gave him an incredulous look but he glanced back at her, not letting up. She mocked his expression and the two stared at one another for a long moment. After a moment, she held her hands up in surrender and slipped the seat belt over her torso, buckling herself in. When she was done, she glanced at him with an overdramatic annoyed face and he laughed before leaning over and kissing her on the lips.

They were driving in silence and it was peaceful. Ingrid watched the trees go by and was in her thoughts until she suddenly turned to look at him and spoke up. "She will never look down on you to be lesser."

He furrowed his eyebrows and looked over at her for a split second, turning back toward the road. "What, love?"

"Our daughter. She will never hate you." Ingrid replied in an austere manner causing him to look at her in confusion. "Because I will never hate you. Niklaus, I never once thought you to be lesser than or a manipulator or a bastard. You are her father and she will love you."

"How can you be so sure?" He question in a small voice, fearful that he would turn out to be like his father.

"Because you are a good man in your own way, Niklaus. If you show her the same love you show me, there is no doubt in my mind that she will love you unconditionally." She answered honestly, not a hint of any deception in her voice, and stared through the windshield. "You're going to be the best father."

---
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