CHAPTER THREE : make her swoon

Klaus was busy giving Emerita a tour of the Compound, talking and catching up over what they've missed over the past Millenia. It would certainly take more than a few hours or even a day, but they had to begin somewhere. Emerita, who's life wasn't nearly as busy or as threatened as the Mikaelson's was, merely nodded long as Klaus told her the tales of the havok he wreaked and how he very nearly came to the brink of being killed by his own father in Mystic Falls.

Emerita pulled a face at the name of the town. "For the life of me, Niklaus, I can not comprehend what is so interesting about that town that you'd go back there."

"I already told you," Klaus' tone was long suffering. "I needed to break my curse and then I needed the doppelganger's blood to build an army."

Emerita raised a brow, "And how exactly did that plan work out for you?"

"There may have been room for improvement." The Hybrid admitted in a grumble.

"May have?" She repeated, clearly incredulous. "You got desicated, you nearly got killed, your doppelganger was turned into a vampire, all of your Hybrids were killed and you now live in New Orleans, father to a baby I have yet to meet and on the outs with your brother." 

"Yes, yes, rub my nose in my failures, that's what a good sister-in-law should do." Klaus gave her a glare that didn't really have any heat in it.

Emerita opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. She thought for a while before saying, "You know, I want to argue against that statement, but it is unfortunately completely true."

"Do you really still hate him after all this time?" Klaus was curious about the answer. Whenever he breached the subject of her and Elijah, she would change the subject nearly immediately. But the Hybrid was nothing if not persistent.

Emerita sighed, knowing that Klaus was asking out of both concern and curiosity. "Nik, you and I both know, I've never hated that man a day in my life."

Klaus pounced on that information. "Then why don't you forgive him?"

"I don't know how." She admitted, chest constricting painfully as the longing of a millenia, for her husband, ripped through her heart. "I've thought about him every day over the last thousand years, for a time I was so angry at him. After a while, the anger faded and all that was left was hurt. Hurt because he went against my choice, because he made me into a vampire. I didn't want this, and he forced it onto me."

"He loved you, still does, and didn't want to live eternity without you." The Hybrid tried to reason with her, wanting her to understand why Elijah forced her to change.

"That plan worked out for him about as well as your Hybrid-army plan did for you." Emerita shot back, voice tinged with bitterness that spoke of a score left unsettled.

"You know, I'm not the only one who's changed." Klaus told her matter-of-factly.

Emerita didn't even try to deny it. "I had to survive all on my own, Nik. Being indestructible made sure I stayed alive, but it didn't help me live. I haven't lived properly in all the time I was on my own."

Klaus dropped the subject for now, not wanting to chase her away when she barely arrived. "So, this is the room I had set up for you."

Emerita raised an eyebrow at him, "Were you that sure I'd come?"

"No, I hoped you would come, but I was never sure." Klaus admitted with a slight smile.

Emerita let out a puff of air,
"Well, my bags are in my car, which is parked in the garage of the hotel I was planning on staying in."

"Nope, not an option." Klaus shook his head determinedly. His plan to play cupid for Emerita and Elijah wouldn't work if they didn't stay under the same roof. "I haven't seen my best friend in a thousand years, you are not staying in some hotel when there is more than enough space and reasons for you to stay here."

Emerita gave him a look, crossing her arms over her chest. "I can think of  one very big reason not to stay."

"If the reason is Elijah, then all the more reason for you to stay." The smugness on his face gave way for something more serious. "It's been a thousand years, it's time for you two to work out your differences."

"That is not happening." Emerita told him firmly. Even if she wanted to work things out with her husband, she would have no idea where to begin.

The smug look was back on his face, "I beg to differ."

"And why is that?" Emerita raised a somewhat irked brow.

The look on Klaus' face might have been smug, but his words were utterly sincere. "Because Elijah hasn't lived without you either." 

Klaus deemed that answer enough and walked away from his sister-in-law, who was ungracefully gaping at him.

Not an hour later, Klaus, Elijah and Emerita was on their way to Lucien's apartment - the man she met earlier. Apparently the Mikaelson brother's still have questions for him and because she was the one who scared him away, Emerita is being pulled along with them. At least that was Klaus' reasoning when she asked why her presence was necessary.

Klaus and Elijah have just burst into Lucien's apartment to question him further on what he's doing in New Orleans, when Emerita walks into an invisible barrier, and is stopped by said barrier.

"I'm not intived in." Emerita whined sulkily, crossing her arms over her chest. Elijah watched his wife with a soft smile - she was so adorable. And, oh, how he adores her.

"Then I guess that makes you door guard." The Hybrid smirked. Emerita glared at him, but otherwise didn't comment. She wasn't much in the mood for him after being pulled along to aid them, only to realize she can't enter the apartment.

"Lucien..." Klaus called out as the two Originals looked around for their target. "Come out, come out, wherever you are." He taunted. At the sound of his voice, Alexis walks into the living room with a sly smile.

"I'm afraid you missed him." The witch told him nonchalantly as she saunters towards the two brother's.

Klaus eyes her suspiciously. "Where is he?"

"At the police station. A detective, Kinney, had some questions for him." Alexis explained, causing a frown to appear on Emerita's face. Why would a thousand years old vampire willing allow a human to take him in for questioning?

Elijah was as skeptical as his wife, and much more verbose about it. "And he allowed himself to be arrested?"

Alexis looked smug. "He has nothing to hide."

Elijah seems to get an idea and smiles as he sits down on the leather couch. Emerita eyed her husband from the doorway, trying to figure out what he is planning. "And if he does, he could easily compel the trouble away or eat the poor detective."

Alexis' eyes moved to her, obvious interest flaring in them. "And who might you be?"

"My name is Emerita." Was all the female Original offered, still miffed about the fact that she has to stay outside.

"Lucien's occupied." Elijah said when it became clear that Alexis wanted more information about his wife, but she was unwilling to share any. "Perhaps we should entertain ourselves right here?"

Klaus gives Elijah a smile before looking over at Alexis, who seems amused. "Oh. Well, I've never been one to turn down a snack..." Klaus smiles devilishly at Alexis and Emerita pulled a face - since the discovery of blood bags she doesn't drink from humans, she doesn't kill them and she most certainly doesn't turn them. After that one girl she killed a thousand years ago, she never killed anyone else again. "But before we get started, love, why don't you be a dear an allow my sister-in-law to enter." Klaus gestured to where Emerita was standing in the doorway.

That caused Alexis' eyebrows to jump up to her hairline. "I wasn't aware any of the Original's are married."

"I am." Elijah admitted without any hesitance.

"We're seperated." Emerita added from the doorway, a slight scowl on her lovely face. It gave Elijah a little hope that she didn't completely deny their marriage - especially given the fact that one of the last things she ever told him was that they are no longer husband and wife.

Interested by this information, Alexis waved a hand and allowed the vampire girl entrance. A relieved sigh slipped past Emerita's lips as she finally entered the apartment.

"I was wondering who you are, seeing as you are in the prophecy, but even Lucien had no earthly idea as to who you are." Alexis looked her up and down speculatively, more than a little curious. It is not everyday you hear an Original is married - this is very big news.

"Yes, well, I'm an Original and married to one, so do the math yourself." Emerita gave the witch a cold smile and Alexis adverted her eyes as she did just what the woman said. She almost gasped in surprise at the conclusion she came too - the two must have been married since before the Mikaelson's became vampires.

Alexis pushed her surprise and shock away in favour of setting up ingredients for another spell on a small round table in the living room, and has just lit some candles as Klaus and Elijah watch her with interest. Emerita stood nearby, watching uneasily. Witches make her uncomfortable.

Klaus' limited patience ran out minutes ago. "How much longer is this going to take?"

Emerita turned to him, "How is it that you're a thousand years old, but never quite mastered the art of patience?"

"I can be patient if I have to, but if I don't have to, then I will never be. After all, I waited five hundred years for another doppelganger."

"Right. Tatia." Emerita's expression darkened as she remembered the girl who would flirt with her husband left, right and center. Elijah, of course even hopelessly in love with his wife back then, never gave her a second glance and always rejected her advances politely. Eventually Tatia's eyes fell on Klaus and a tentative romance began to blossom as the blonde haired man began to take care of both Tatia and her son. A week later Henrik was killed by a werewolf.

Klaus hid a smirk at her tone - even as humans Emerita was extremely jealous, sometimes to either the point of being insecure or lashing out violently to whoever was trying to catch Elijah's attention. He had a feeling that there was some amusement in his not so distant future.

"Elijah and I can begin now, but just us. Sadly, I've already shown you what visions of yours I've managed to divine." Alexis told them.

Klaus wasn't having it. "The warning was for both of us - friend, foe, and family. I'd like to see his, please."

"Since family is one of your concerns, and you two are brothers, are you so sure you want to see what I have to show you?" Alexis was certainly curious about their dynamics. She brushes her hair off of her neck, and both Klaus and Elijah smirk in amusement, a surge of jealousy going through Emerita.

She didn't want her husband that close to another woman. The female vampire nearly hit herself when her possessive thoughts registered in her mind. She had no right or any claim on him whatsoever - she let Elijah go, gave him his freedom when she left.

So, why did neither of them deny the fact that they are married? There was no contract binding them to each other or rings on their fingers. Then again, marriage isn't about a piece of paper or flashy jewelry - it's about two people loving each other so much that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, they want the good and the bad, the ups and the downs. They are willing to face your best and worst sides and still wants to stick around.

Emerita was pulled out of her musings by her husband's smooth voice that always managed to make her swoon like a lovelorn maiden. "Oh, I never could resist a good spoiler."

"Mrs. Mikaelson?" Alexis held a hand out to Emerita in question, who instinctively took a step away from her.

"I'll pass." Emerita denied. She doesn't like to drink from the vein and would not do so unless she had no other options left.

"Pity." Alexis noted, but let it go.
The brothers move in toward her, and while Elijah grabs Alexis' left wrist on which to feed, Klaus vamps-out and bites into Alexis' neck with his fangs.

In the visions, there is another flash of a page from a spell book, which is covered in unintelligible writing around two pentacles drawn on either end of the page. It then flashes to the Mikaelson compound's living room, where the portrait of Elijah has been splashed with a fount of blood, which drips down the length of the painting and onto the frame. The vision cuts to Marcel, who is on his knees on the floor of what looks like St. Louis Cathedral and wiping at a cut on his face as someone stands over him. Then the vision flashes over to the police department, where Lucien is seen stroking the palm of Cami's hand in the interrogation room, as though he's reading the lines. Cami looks nervous as he does so.

Just then, the sight of Lucien with Cami shocks Klaus and Elijah so much that they snap Alexis' neck as they're pulling away from her, causing Emerita's eyes to widen in surprise. Concerned, Elijah gently lays her body down on the table, taking care not to drop her on the candles.

Klaud was agitated by what he had seen. "Well, at least your visions were specific. It seems Lucien has intentions for Camille."

"And what of Marcel - family and friend? Where do his loyalties lie?" Elijah looked at his brother expectantly.

"Find him and question him." Klaus orders before he turns to leave, and Elijah looks at him in confusion.

"And where are you going?" He asked his brother with raised brows.

Klaus, who was never one to waste an opportunity, purposefully didn't tell either of them exactly where he was headed. "I'm going to eliminate an old friend before he gets his teeth into my therapist!"

He knew Emerita would figure it out eventually, but in order to connect the dots that Camille is his therapist, she would have to talk with Elijah first and if that happened, then: Mission Accomplished.

"Wait, what bloody therapist?" Emerita frowned as she looked after the Hybrid, frowning because she did not know where he went. Behind her a throat cleared softly and suddenly Emerita was very aware of the fact that she was now completely alone with her husband.

***

AUTHOR'S NOTE

okay, so, i'm officially starting this story. i've decided that Frozen Heart will be my next story to focus on, so expect regular updates after War of Hearts - Season 1 is finished - there is like less than five chapters of season 1 left.

hope you liked the chapter!

-Mixie