MONTHS had passed since Hope was given to Rebekah for her safety. In their grief, the Mikaelsons drifted apart to do their own things. Elijah was trying his best to keep the family together but the hybrids were making it increasingly difficult for him with their stubbornness. Ingrid hadn't spoken much since her daughter's departure and Klaus holed himself up in his study.

Klaus was listening to Mozart's Requiem in D Minor K 626-3 on a record player while he furiously tried to stretch a canvas over a wooden frame for a painting. When he teared through the canvas, he angrily threw it all across the room just as Elijah returned from his meeting. Klaus, overwhelmed with frustration, yelled at the top of his lungs.

Elijah picked up the canvas Klaus threw and examined it. "I suppose we shall have to call this your "white period.""

"I'm missing a crucial color in my palette-- that of my enemies' blood." Klaus answered in fury, snarling in determination.

"Well, I recommend a Venetian red, with a dash of rust..." Elijah joked causing Klaus to completely lose his temper.

"It's been months! I've adhered to our plan: sit and do nothing, sell our grief. And now, my child is safely away, and another full moon is upon us-- another night of pathetic weakness as the moonlight rings steal my strength!" Klaus screamed and Elijah gave a sympathetic look. After a moment, Klaus calmed down slightly, though he was still clearly upset. "The inertia is killing me. I need to act. I-I-I need-- I need to spill blood."

"Well, then, you'll be pleased to know that I've located the last of the twelve rings forged with your blood." Elijah informed him, glancing at his brother in concern.

At the sound of this, Klaus perked up slightly. "Then, it's time!"

"And none too soon. I'm concerned about Ingrid." Elijah admitted, hoping to get Klaus to talk about his wife. When Klaus refused to speak on the matter or make eye contact, Elijah sighed and took a step toward him. "She is hardly home. She hasn't spoke to anyone in months. Niklaus, you have abandoned her in your time of grief but I implore you to remember that she is grieving as well."

Klaus stared at the wall in front of him, tears pooling in his light blue eyes, but otherwise didn't respond or move. Sighing in annoyance, Elijah spared one last look at him before turning on his heels and leaving him alone.

Elijah was in the middle of packing up Hope's nursery when Ingrid walked down the hall. She stopped dead in her tracks and stormed into the room, pushing him away in anger. "What right do you have?!"

"Welcome back. What is it, the third night this week?" Elijah questioned her in a passive-aggressive tone of voice.

"Spare me your indignation." She snarled at him and narrowed her eyes. "I do not recall permitting you to touch anything." She jeered while snatching one of the stuffed toys from his hands.

"As we have discussed, our illusion needs to be flawless. Now, months have passed. It's the appropriate time." Elijah replied with a pointed expression, trying to be sympathetic but stern at the same time.

"Who decides what is appropriate? You?" Ingrid interrogated him rapidly then smiled bitterly. "What else are you ready to claim is appropriate? Hmm? That Niklaus and I are supposed to be over our grief by now?"

Elijah sighed and licked his lips, gathering his patience. "I understand this is difficult for you--"

"--You do not understand anything!" Ingrid bellowed at him and pointed a finger at him. "What is becoming tremendously difficult is going about my life with the very fact that Francesca Guerrera has somehow been granted the right to still breathe despite her scheme to sacrifice my daughter. Knowing I am not allowed to murder her yet is difficult." She replied, getting more furious by the second.

"You will have your vengeance, I promise you this." Elijah said softly, giving her his word.

Ingrid glared at him and growled lowly. "I sincerely doubt that at this particular moment. However, until I stare into her lifeless eyes, this is my room and I will be the one to decide when it is appropriate. So, get the hell out."

Elijah clentched his jaw but nodded in agreement and studied her face for a moment. "What is it you do when you're away?"

She glanced at him with narrowed eyes and readjusted her posture so that her shoulders were back. "I don't think telling you would be a productive use of my time."

Elijah sighed at her avoidance and smoothed out his jacket. "Very well." He mused in disappointment and walked out of the room.

After he was gone, she slammed the door behind him and walked over to the bassinet with a blank face. She grabbed the teddy bear and hugged it tightly, sobbing into his synthetic fur.

Ingrid was standing on the balcony above the courtyard, listening to Klaus and Elijah plan their revenge

"We have the Guerreras where we want them." Klaus remarked with a smirk while pacing the floor. "We have them waiting, we have them worried, and now, we know they're an army with no defenses against an Original."

"We don't know that for certain." Elijah rejected sternly.

Klaus shrugged his shoulders and waved him off. "I'm willing to gamble."

"It's too risky! The stake didn't just disappear, someone has it." Elijah argued, reminding him that the white oak stake was floating around New Orleans.

Klaus paused for a second then shrugged again. "One enemy at a time! In the end, we'll slay them all." He sat down at the table, weaking just as he felt one of the moonlight rings being activated. "Tonight, we just have to plant the right seeds, and for that, we need help." He suggested and looked up at the balcony. Elijah followed his gaze and made eye contact with Ingrid, who stared down at them with a stone cold face.

Ingrid reluctantly joined them in the courtyard and they began to explain the plan to take back the moonlight rings from the Guerrera family.

"We're taking the twelve original rings. Now, four of them sit on the hands of the Guerrera brothers, one on Francesca, three with the home security detail, and the rest scattered amongst her lackeys." Elijah explained to them and sighed heavily. "Now, each ring is distinguishable by its setting-- gauche, like those that wear them." He insulted in disdain as Ingrid let out a small breath from her nose in a weak attempt at a laugh.

"If they believe they can get their hands on the stake, they will come for me when I am weak." Klaus concluded, looking at them sternly. "Each ring you retrieve will strengthen me, but I will still at a disadvantage."

"Ergo, any hope of our success depends entirely upon our working together." Elijah remarked with a raised eyebrow and looked at Ingrid. "The two of you can no longer afford to retreat to separate corners."

Ingrid barely glanced over at Klaus, who sighed and stood up to look at her in the eye. "This is our fight. Are you ready for battle, Ingrid?" He questioned softly, a small smile on his face.

She was slouched on her seat while absentmindedly picking at her fingernails. Pondering for a moment, she sat forward with a dark look on her face. "Alright, but Francesca is mine." She snarled harshly and the brothers nodded in agreement.

"She is all yours, my love." Klaus assured her with an affectionate smile but Ingrid didn't reciprocate the motion.

"I'll deal with the last piece of the puzzle." Elijah informed them as he walked out of the compound.

Night continued on and Klaus kneeled on the floor of his art room, weakened, surrounded by canvases while he waited for the plan to begin. He gasped in relief as he began to gain some of his strength back from the rings being removed. He smiled in satisfaction and rolled his neck.

Meanwhile downstairs, many of the Guerrera werewolves invaded the compound and quickly split up. Two of the werewolves made their way for one of the staircases, where Ingrid sped toward them and aggressively punched her hands through the chests, ripping their hearts out. She carelessly dropped them onto the floor and slipped each of their rings off of their fingers.

Upstairs, Klaus, having regained more strength, smirked and grabbed his palette off of the nearby easel. Growing ever stronger, he smiled widely as he grabbed a handful of paintbrushes off of a nearby end table. He gasped in relief as he got even stronger from the loss of the most recent ring and smiled widely. He set down a canvas as he prepared to paint and took a paintbrush in each hand, holding them in a defensive manner.

Ingrid finished removing the other ring from one of werewolves she killed downstairs when many more Guerrera wolves found her and crowded around her. She smirked sinisterly at them and laughed darkly. "Today must be my lucky day."

Noticing a moonlight ring on the finger of one of the female security guards, she pointed at them with a fake impressed look on her face. "My, my... that is a pretty ring."

Upstairs, two Guerrera wolves made their way to Klaus' study, where they noticed him kneeling weakly on the floor. Sensing that they were approaching, Klaus flipped the paintbrushes in his hands and waited until they got closer.

Downstairs, Ingrid removed the ring from the female security guard's hand, returning more strength to him. Once they were close, Klaus smiled and quickly turned to forcefully throw the paintbrushes toward them, impaling the wolves in their throats and killing them.

Another werewolf slowly walked around the downstairs of the compound, but was quickly found by Ingrid, who violently grabbed him by the throat and slammed him down into the concrete. The impact from his skull smashing into the concrete killed him instantly and Ingrid harshly ripped the ring off his finger.

Upstairs, Klaus dragged the bodies of the two werewolves toward the canvas he lied on the floor, smiling as he did so. He happily dipped his paintbrush into the wounds of the corpse's neck and used his blood as paint while he worked on his newest painting.

A few moments later, Elijah returned to the compound and joined him. Klaus didn't look away from his painting and called out to his brother. "I'm still not at full strength. Which of the rings are unaccounted for?" He asked in curiosity, dipping his brush in blood and painting away at the canvas.

"Only one. I must say, the brothers fought valiantly before Ms. Guerrera escaped." Elijah informed him in a dry tone of voice, fixing his suit sleeves.

Klaus turned to Elijah and gave him a look that was both shocked and incredulous. "You let her get away!?"

Elijah shook his head and smiled widely. "...Not exactly. She's Ingrid's, remember?"

Francesca was desperately speeding down the road in her car, attempting to flee town before the Mikaelsons could kill her. She anxiously turned around to see if anyone was following her, but when she turned back, she saw something speeding toward her. Ingrid slammed into Francesca's car, ruining the engine block and destroying the vehicle entirely.

Francesca lifted her head from the steering wheel, blood pouring from her forehead as she began to breathe heavily in a panic. She looked up through the shattered windshield to see the empty road in front of her. She frantically reached for her seat belt and began trying to undo it, only to find herself stuck.

Suddenly, her car door was ripped off its hinges and Ingrid furiously pulled her out from inside the vehicle before tossing her body across the asphalt carelessly like a rag doll.

Francesca crashed to the ground, getting road rash and a major concussion. She sat up and started to trip over herself as she tried to stand up to her feet. Ingrid slowly stalked toward her, like a predator toying with its prey before the kill, with a golden-amber eyes and deep, vicious veins crawling across her cheeks.

"No! No! Look, Ingrid, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, okay?! Please don't kill me!" Francesca backed away from her but it was too late, Ingrid stood over her with an evil expression on her face.

"Your words mean nothing." The Original replied in a hollow tone then reached down and plunged her hand into the wolf's abdomen, ripping out her organs one by one. It was a slow, agonizing death for Francesca Guerrera but a satisfying act of vengeance for Ingrid Mikaelson.

The hybrid leaned down to stare into Francesca's cold, dead eyes and smirked happily before ripping the ring from her finger. She then returned home and tossed the ring to Elijah, who caught it with ease, as she walked toward the stairs.

Ingrid was covered in blood, her hands stained and blood splatter covering her face. Elijah watched her go and sighed heavily to himself.

He and Klaus then began destroying the stones from the rings. "Could you not just take a sledgehammer to them?" Klaus asked in annoyance from the tedious process.

"These were forged by a witch, brother. And, as such, only the elements of fire and water can destroy them." Elijah replied while rolling up his sleeves and gathering a pitcher of water and a stone bowl with burning charcoal in it. "I'd have thought this would have brought you greater pleasure." He commented in surprise, almost let down by the lack of enthusiasm.

"As would I. This was my fault. All of it." Klaus mumbled in a depressed manner and Elijah gaped at him in surprise at this confession. The younger brother looked down at his feet, upset. "If I had just stayed home and accepted my role as a husband and a father instead of..." He admitted, his voice breaking. "...playing king... I should have listened to you. Instead, my greed and my envy robbed me of my daughter. My actions led to the release of the weapon that can kill not just me, but you and Ingrid."

"In a thousand years, I've survived your attempts to destroy me, brother." Elijah reminded him and gathered up the stones, dropping them in the bowl with the burning charcoal. He then looked up at Klaus and smiled. "I imagine I can survive this."

Klaus glanced over at him in confusion. "You chase my redemption, like a man rolling a stone up an endless mountain."

Elijah picked up the pitcher and poured water over the stones and the charcoal, destroying them both. "Well, no mountain is endless, brother. Some are just steeper than others."

Klaus stared in the bowl as the stones broke apart, revealing small drops of his blood that were magically forged within them.

Elijah watched them break apart then sighed and gave Klaus a frown. "As much as I would like to able to comfort Ingrid, I believe that only you can understand her grief. You are her husband and she needs you now more than ever." He explained in a stern tone of voice, giving him a matching facial expression. "You need to be the one to comfort her in this moment."

"We lost our child..." Klaus trailed off in sorrow, shaking his head and mouthing his words for a minute. "I mean, what could I possibly say to ease her pain?"

Elijah placed his hand on Klaus' shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. "Whatever she needs to hear."

Klaus was walking down the hallways when he noticed a familiar female figure standing in his study, looking at his painting with her back to him. He licked his anxiously and walked into the room to join her.

She was standing in front of the painting with her arms crossed and her eyes trained in the brushstrokes. She didn't look over at him when he joined her and she didn't say anything for what felt like ages. "It's morbid but raw. You executed it beautifully, Niklaus." She complimented and turned on her heels to walk away.

"Ingrid." He called out to her in a soft manner causing her to stop before reaching the door. She stopped but didn't turn to face him, just staring at the hall in front of her as tears began to pool in her eyes.

Klaus took a hesitant step toward her and gulped down his fear. "I'm sorry." He whispered in an emotional voice and watched her back stiffen from his apology. "I'm sorry for everything. But I'm exceptionally sorry for the way I abandoned you through all of this. My grief swallowed me and I didn't want it to swallow you." He admitted with tears falling down his cheeks. "They say giving your partner space is the best choice so I wanted to give you your space. I didn't expect it to feel like we were planets away. I didn't mean to make you feel like you have to be so far. I never wanted to push you away."

She finally turned to face him, her own tears flowing down her cheeks. "You never pushed me away. I pulled away." She informed him sternly, not wanting him to take the blame. "I couldn't..." She trailed off and licked her lips. "I couldn't pretend to be a good, stable wife through this. I couldn't give you what you needed so I pushed away. How can I help you grieve if I cannot help myself?"

She took a small step toward him and stuttered while processing her words. "All I feel is unspeakable rage and heartbreak. After a thousand years, I finally held her in my arms only for her to have to leave because of our greed and selfishness." Ingrid sneered in disgust then shook her head. "Knowing she is out there so far out of my reach is tearing me apart. What mother creates such a horrible environment that their daughter has to be sent away? I... I am an appalling example of a mother. I failed her and I need to make it right because all I can think about is if I will ever hold her again. If I will ever see her again..."

Klaus quickly walked toward her so they were finally standing face to face in a close proximity. "You will." He remarked in an assuring tone and hesitantly took her hand in his. "But, in order to do that, we need to regain control of the city. We have been working separately for too long. We can work together to do it again." He proposed, squeezing her hand. "It was not you who failed our daughter. It was me. I failed her and... I failed you. My own ego and avarice got in the way of doing what I should have done, be a present husband and father."

He reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek with a frown. "I will not allow that to happen again." He promised in a stern voice then paused for a moment. "I need you, Ingrid. I need my wife at my side because I don't think I can do this alone anymore." He admitted, his voice cracking as tears ran down his face. "I lost my daughter, I can't lose my wife too."

"I don't even know who I am anymore, Niklaus." Ingrid confessed with a quiver of her bottom lip. "I don't think I would be good to have around at this moment."

Klaus placed a hand on her cheek and kissed her forehead. "I will accept you in any way you are. We are both in dark places right now. Perhaps we can help to dig our way out from those tunnels and finally see the light." He suggested with a small smile, brushing a stray piece of hair from her face. "I love you, Ingrid."

She wrapped him into a right hug, finally embracing him after three long months. He stood there shock for a moment before returning the gesture and kissing the top of her head. Ingrid leaned away from the hug and stared deeply into his eyes. "I love you, Niklaus."

He smiled happily and hovered his lips above hers, nervous to kiss her. Ingrid, sensing his hesitation, enclosed the gap between them and brushed her lips against his in a loving, passionate kiss.

---
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-the1andonlytifftiff