Augustine sighs in annoyance hearing yet another thump and a scream of rage that had been all too familiar in the recent months. After the battle many months ago it wasn't only he and Hayley who were hurting. Klaus was so full of rage constantly being weakened by the moonlight rings. On the nights of the full moon it was the worst but both brothers were significantly weaker than before at all times now. 

Not only him, but Lucy had taken to distancing herself away from everyone as well. Getting used to the transition of being a hybrid was harder for both women than any of them initially thought.  

He reluctantly finds himself in his brothers art room along with Elijah. 

"I suppose we shall have to call this your "white period." Elijah jokes. 

Klaus turns to him angrily. "I'm missing a crucial color in my palette, that of my enemies' blood."

"That's well past dramatic, Niklaus." Augustine sighs. 

"It's been months! I've adhered to our plan: sit and do nothing, sell our grief." He rants as he begins pacing the room. 

"I am yet another full moon away from my children, Niklaus. I understand your anger." Augustine tells him in hopes of calming him down. He turns to Elijah whom he knows was working on something pertaining to their plan today. "It's time we act, Elijah." 

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!

Elijah gives both men, but mainly Augustine looks of sympathy. "Well, then, you'll be pleased to know that I've located the last of the twelve rings forged with your blood. But I am concerned for Lucy and Hayley." 

Klaus turns away knowing this was directed more towards Augustine. Augustine gives him a frustrated look. "Elijah, leave them be." 

"If you and Lucy would treat each other as more than strangers and you would encourage Hayley a bit more-" 

Augustine holds his hand up to halt him, giving his brother cold eyes. "Lucy should be going to you, brother. And do not speak to me of Hayley. She is grieving. She is allowed to grieve, especially while we sit and wait for months on end, I gave her my word that she would have her children back, Lijah. I don't expect anything from her until i've been able to fulfill my word."

Unbeknownst to him, Elijah had taken it upon himself to pack up the children's nursery. Hayley was the first to find him and stops dead in her tracks looking furious. "What do you think you're doing, Elijah?"

"Welcome back. What is it, the third night this week?" Elijah sarcastically questions the women. Neither her nor Lucy had been very present in the past few months. 

She gives him an annoyed look, wondering why he was even pestering her. "I don't need a caretaker. Hybrids are invincible, right? What are you doing, Elijah?"

Elijah sighs and gestures around the room of packed up boxes. "As we have discussed, our illusion needs to be flawless. Now, months have passed. It's the appropriate time. Neither you or Augustine have entered this room, I didn't think you'd mind."

"What's next on the "appropriate" list? August and I hold our heads up high and say we're ready to try again?" She snaps at him. 

"What is going on?" Augustine harshly exhales from the doorway watching the two glare at each other. He looks around realizes there were boxing around the room, Elijah was packing up the nursery. 

He steps to the side and points to the door. "Out, Elijah." 

"You must-"

"No. Do not enter this room again, brother. Go." He grits in anger, he was getting rather fed up with his brother attempting to fix Hayley. His hypothesis was that he was frustrated with Lucy and she was never around enough for him to lecture to he went to the next best thing. 

Elijah's eyes flit between the two and then he nods his head in understanding and leaves. 

Augustine watches as the new hybrid begins aggressively unpacking everything he had thrown into the boxes. "Who does he think he is?" She harshly whispers to herself but he hears her. 

Augustine frowns at her frustration and gently pulls her away from the boxes, not allowing her to push herself away from him. She gives him a look telling him what he already knew. Don't mess with me right now. 

He brushes a stray piece of her hair behind her ear and softly smiles at her. "Do not worry. I will ensure that he does not mess with this room again." 

"Why is Francesca Guerrera still breathing after she plotted with the witches to kill our babies, August?" She growls though he knows her frustration isn't exactly aimed at him. He couldn't exactly blame her. None of the brothers had known it would take so long for them to make the city safe again. 

"Soon." He reassures her. "I promise i'll leave her for you, alright?" 

"He can not touch this room, August." She firmly states but he sees the tremble in her bottom lip. He pulls her into his embrace and kisses her forehead. "I know, I know. I didn't know he was planning on doing this. I will make sure this room stays just as it is." 

Klaus soon calls both of his brothers into the study to tell them what he had spoken about with Marcel today. "We have the Guerrera's where we want them. 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 argues, the night of the attack the white oak stake had gone missing and it was one of the reasons the family had been in hiding for months.

"I agree with Niklaus." Augustine tells him. "It's been too long, if the wolves had it they would have tried to target one of us by now, no doubt." 

"The stake didn't just disappear, someone has it." Elijah reminds the two aggressively.

"One enemy at a time! In the end, we'll slay them all." Klaus declares. Elijah watches as both of his brothers grab onto something to stable themselves, no doubt the effects of the moonlight ring hitting them simultaneously. 

Hayley and Lucy now join the three to discuss their plan for the night. "We're taking the twelve original rings. Now, four of them sit on the hands of the Guerrera brothers. One on Oliver, one on Francesca, three with the home security detail, and the rest scattered amongst her lackeys. Now, each ring is distinguishable by its setting, gauche, like those that wear them." Klaus explains. 

"If they believe they can get their hands on the stake, they will come for Klaus and I when we are weak. Each ring you retrieve will strengthen us, but we will still at a disadvantage." Augustine finishes for him. 

Elijah pointedly looks at the two women. "Ergo, any hope of our success depends entirely upon our working together. The two of you can no longer afford to retreat to separate corners."

Hayley and Lucy share a short look. Both sisters had distanced themselves from each other as well through out the months. Lucy was trying to get over her traumatic death and what she had become and Hayley couldn't cope with what she had become and the absence of her children. 

"Hay?" Lucy quietly comments. 

Hayley looks at Augustine. "Just promise me that Francesca doesn't come out of this alive."

He kisses her forehead. "She's all yours, my love." 

Augustine sits in Klaus' art room with him writing in a journal as Klaus begins to set up his canvasses. 

Their eyes meet, looking a little lighter knowing that Marcel's part of the plan must have worked if they had immediately gained some of their strength. 

On the first floor of the home, Hayley and Lucy snap two wolves necks and slip the rings off of their fingers. 

Both girls look up realizing they've been surrounded by Guerrera wolves. They tense as they spot another ring on one of the females. "Have I mentioned that I've had a rotten couple of months?"

Augustine doesn't remove his eyes from his journal as two wolves enter the study. Klaus grins as he throws both paint brushes into the wolves throats, quickly killing them. He happily drags one of the bodies towards his canvas and dips the brush into the mans blood. 

"I suppose you weren't being dramatic when you said you needed their blood for your paintings." Augustine mutters under his breath. Only receiving a mischievous grin in response. 

Hayley catches Oliver rather quickly, the first thing she does is punch him as hard as she could in the jaw before slamming him to the wall. "You think you're strong because of that ring you wear? You're nothing. We were strong, we were part of a pack, and you ruined it."

She forces the ring off of his finger and waives it in his face. "If I see you with one of these again, I will kill you myself."

Klaus is still painting with the blood of the werewolves some time later when Elijah enters the room. "I'm still not at full strength. Which of the rings are unaccounted for?"

"Only one. I must say, the brothers fought valiantly before Ms. Guerrera escaped." Elijah muses. Klaus turns to him giving him astounded look. "You allowed her to get away?"

"Not exactly."

Francesca's car is racing down the road in her attempt to flee the city before she is killed. She looks in her rear view mirror to make sure no one is following her but when she looks forward she sees Hayley. 

She slams on her breaks as hard as she can , as soon as the car stops her door is ruthlessly torn open and she is dragged out screaming. 

Hayley begins tearing the nursery apart mercilessly. Her emotions completely taking her over, she throws the changing table into the wall and even kicks through the dresser. 

Augustine watches from the doorway knowing she was overwhelmed with all of her new emotions, the biggest challenge a vampire has is blood lust but your heightened emotions play a big part in that. 

"My love." He states just loud enough for her to hear. 

"I killed her." She cries. "Francesca looked me in the eye and begged me for her life as I tore her apart. But I don't feel better! I don't feel peace! I don't feel anything."

"It's normal for you to feel this way." He gently tells her. 

"Nothing about what I am is normal." She looks utterly defeated as she says this. 

"Your feelings are heightened. Given what happened it's not unexpected that your feelings are all over the place, Hayley. I understand." 

"I don't want to live like this. I hate it! When I was living with the Crescents in the Bayou, I finally understood the...purity of being a wolf, the nobility. I killed eight wolves tonight before I got to Francesca. Eight of my own people. What's noble about that? I acted no better than a.." She trails off slowly looking to him not knowing if this would hurt him.

"A vampire?" He questions and she nods her head. He slowly approaches her, using his pointer finger and his thumb to grasp her chin and force her to look at him. "You may think I don't understand, but I do. Perhaps better than anyone can. I lost the first woman I ever loved and my child, and then I was turned into this. In addition, Esther then cursed away my wolf side for a thousand years before I even knew I had it. When I woke up I was so over ridden with emotion that I killed someone whom I once looked at like a little sister. None of my siblings could understand me. I was alone. But you, Hayley Marshall, are not alone. And you never will be so long as I live. Killing those people doesn't make you a monster, it makes you a grieving mother. It makes you a mother fighting to get her kids back." 

Her lower lip juts out as the tears freely flow down her cheeks. "I'm a mother. Not a monster." 

"You're a mother. Not a monster." He repeats with softer eyes than she had ever seen him possess. "Give yourself some grace, my love. You've been through a lot." 

She nods her head, and although she was still hurting beyond belief it felt like he had healed a small part of her she didn't know had been broken. Regardless of what she did or how she acted he had been extremely patient and supportive the entire time even though he had lost his children too. 

Augustine rolls over in bed pulling the brunette closer into his form. He kisses her bare shoulder three times and wakes her up. "You came in late." He whispers in her ear. 

A small smile takes over her face as she sheepishly admits where Lucy had dragged her the night before. Klaus was tasked by Elijah to help Lucy adjust to being a hybrid, the suited vampire unable to relate to being one, and he had taken her on a witch hunt. She had dragged Hayley along not wanting to go with the man alone but both woman had surprisingly enjoyed it. 

"Ah yes." He nuzzles his face into her neck. "That would be why I can hear Elijah lecturing Lucy at this very moment." 

"Do you think it was wrong?" She questions him curiously. 

"I think..." He ponders his thoughts not wanting to say the wrong thing. "I think you're full of a lot of anger and sadness and right now that's the only way to get some of it out. But I also think that once everything is taken care of you won't be going on any more murdering sprees. It's just not who you are." He admits honestly. "But you can't be a Mikaelson without a few murdering sprees, it's a requirement." 

She quietly snorts at his last comment. "I'm not a Mikaelson." 

"You have my word that one day you will be." He lightly nips her neck making her squirm. 

"August." She lightly moans. "You can't say things like that." 

"Don't order me around, woman." He pinches her side. "You've done enough of that the past couple of months." 

She shrugs her shoulders not denying it. 

"I am going to go save Lucy before Elijah lectures her to death." He leaves the bed and exits the room but not before giving her a short forehead kiss. 

"I would hope that you would hold yourself to a higher standard than Niklaus." Elijah snaps at the woman who was endlessly frustrating him. 

Augustine sees the two standing in the doorway of one of the bathrooms. Lucy in nothing but a towel. "I'm a hybrid now, and I have a werewolf temper to go with my new appetite. And the witches who tried to kill my baby niece and nephew are worth nothing more than food. Excuse me." She scoots past Elijah. Said man quickly takes himself to the study Klaus was in. 

Augustine blocks the woman's path. "Lucy." 

"Augustine." 

"It's Augustine now, eh?" He raises an eyebrow at her. 

"You've demanded that I call you that for nearly the past year." She reminds him. 

He clicks his tongue at her. "And you so happen to choose now to listen?" 

"Why are you complaining?" She scoffs and attempts to move past the man again. It's not a surprise when he blocks her path yet again. "What do you want?" 

"I just want to chat." He shrugs nonchalantly. "You haven't spoken to me much recently. I thought we were past this." 

She smiles. "We were." Her face drops. "And then I was stabbed in the stomach by your ex bed buddy and left for dead, oh wait because she still had some secret crush on you she injected me with my niece or nephews blood which turned me into this." 

Augustine's casual facade falls upon her words. "You blame me for your transition?" 

"It's whatever." She scoffs and forcefully pushes past him, disappearing into her own room. 

"It is no ones fault but your own that my sister is dead!" The woman spits at him in anger as she looks at him with nothing but pure disgust. 

"You would blame me for my parents doing?" He questions in disbelief, tears welled in his own eyes. "I loved Mary more than I have ever loved anything." 

His face is harshly smacked to the side and it takes a moment for him to register what had just happened. Before he can help himself the veins travel up his eyes and his fangs begin elongating.

Augustine snaps out of the memory he was in upon hearing his brother's traveling voices. 

"A little less criticism from you, and Lucy will be just fine." Klaus snaps at the suited man. 

Augustine enters the room and becomes the victim of Elijah's glare. "The mother of your child deserves much better than just fine and so does Lucy! Augustine you'll take them to the Bayou. Find any remaining wolves. Perhaps their people can reach them. Now, more than ever, they needs a connection to something, some of their humanity, some degree of dignity." He growls before storming out of the room. 

Augustine and the two sisters are searching around the Bayou wolf encampments for any wolves who may be hiding out. "I told you, this place is deserted." Hayley narrows her eyes at the man.

"Did you really have to bring us out here?" Lucy grunts in annoyance as she finds another tent empty. 

"Honestly, it was Elijah's idea and I don't think it was a bad one." He tells the shorter girl before turning to Hayley. "Their scent is fresh, they are in hiding. Which means somewhere out here is the remainder of your pack."

Hayley stops and places her hands on her hips. "And then what? It's not exactly like they're going to welcome us. If there's one thing these people hate more than vampires, it's hybrids." 

"What they hate, my love, is their lack of power in all of this. Which is why the wolves were willing to make the deal with the witches in the first place in return for the rings. Whoever is left out here either doesn't want to be a part of the fight or the witch hasn't gotten to yet. Thus, bringing us here. We need to find them first." He explains to her as he continues his search. 

"Awesome. All we gotta do is find them." Lucy mumbles. 

Lucy moves ahead of the two as Augustine comes to Hayley's side. "I want you to find them using your heightened senses. You must learn to use them properly." She closes her eyes for a moment and sniffs the air. Her eyes snap open and she gives him a grumpy look. "This is stupid. I am a mess! I cry all day, I feed all night. All I can think about is how much I miss my kids."

"This is just another step in getting them back." He assures her. He gestures at a mans jacket laying on a turned over chair. "Go on." 

She reluctantly lifts the jacket to smell and slowly but surely begins following in the direction her nose was leading her. He smiles at her proudly and calls for Lucy to follow. 

It doesn't take long for the three to find a group of wolves seemingly following Oliver's lead in a clearing not too far away. "So, Jackson is MIA and Oliver seems to think he's the Alpha. They're not going to listen to me."

Lucy scrunches her face up in anger. "I can't believe they're following that idiot." 

"Regardless of your supernatural status you still have that birthmark on your shoulder proving you are one of them. You just have to show them that." Augustine gestures for the two to move forward without him. 

They hesitate but slowly move forward anyways. When they come into view all of them turn into a defensive stance. "The hell you two want?" Oliver grits out in anger. 

Hayley holds her hands up. "We didn't come here to fight, Oliver. Our pack has been divided by people who want us to be their slaves. What we need right now is a leader. Someone who will reunite us and make us strong again. Someone who will fight for our pack. If you let me, I can be that person."

"You think we can trust you? You're not one of us! Hell, you're not even a wolf, you're a blood-sucking vampire parasite!"He accuses not wanting the people to side with her. 

Lucy takes a threatening step forward. "Say that again Oliver and you'll see what happens." 

He scoffs with a mean smile on his face. "You tough girls, you're gonna attack me? In front of all them? You'll just give them another reason to say yes to Cassie and her moonlight rings. Yeah, they would rather follow a witch than you. Me? Hell, I'd rather die than follow you." 

Augustine speeds in and knocks the man flat on his back, he places the heel of his shoe on the mans neck and places pressure on it. "Well, at least I can kill you now. You have one of those faces that automatically tells me I don't like you so believe me when I say I have been wanting to do this since the moment I met you." 

Hayley gapes at him in disbelief. She was trying to get them to let her back into the pack, not shun her for life. "Hey! Let him go, August! What the hell?" 

"When you're the leader, Hayley, you kill the one speaking the loudest and the others quickly fall in line." He tuts at her knowing it will only annoy her more, he also left out his term of endearment he's grown so fond of knowing it would only drive the wolves away from her more.  

Hayley scoffs at him and marches to his side. "They may not like me very much, but these people, including Oliver, are my family. Let him go. Now." 

Augustine looks around at all of the people watching and smiles. He releases the pressure form the blondes neck and takes a step back. "Well, there's your leader everyone. Powerful, fearless, and merciful."

He turns to leave but she stops him looking confused. "What was that?" 

He sends her a wink. "A political boost I believe you would call it." 

Her face softens realizing all of that was for show, and it was for her. 

"Now, Elijah is requesting my presence at Rousseau's. I must go." He informs her. 

"Stay safe." She whispers not wanting any of the other wolves to hear her. 

He purses his lips to hide his smile before leaving. 

Augustine harshly blinks his eyes to ensure that he is not going crazy. He arrived that the local bar noticing a bunch of wolves and humans even, sprinting out like their lives depended on it. Upon entering the door his body momentarily froze realizing he was seeing Elijah being nearly murdered with the white oak stake. The yielder of the weapon. Mikael. 

Elijah desperately attempts to push the stake away from the man as Marcel checks on Davina. 

Without another thought Augustine shoves his father away from his brother. Mikael's eyes snap towards the culprit and a menacing smile grows on his face. "One of the bastards i've truly been looking for." 

Augustine's vision goes red remembering what the man had put Hayley and their unborn children through. How he had dragged her into purgatory and attempted to kill all of them. 

His piercing blue eyes turn into a glowing amber as he releases an animalistic growl and launches at the man. He gets a few punches in before the man kicks him in his side against the bar. He briefly makes eye contact with a witch cowering behind the bar before turning around and grabbing a nearby piece of wood. He and Mikael both speed at each other once again. 

"Augustine, no!" Elijah shouts in distraught, thinking the man was too far into his emotions to realize their father yielded the white oak stake. 

Augustine pays his zero mind, due to Elijah's shout he briefly gains the upper hand on the man and uses that moment to stab the piece of wood through his abdomen. He aims the piece of wood upwards instead of straight through his body, his whole hand now nearly encapsulated by his fathers intestines.

 "This is for the mother of my children." He snarls. His hand clenches the wood so hard that the wood splinters into multiple different pieces. 

He yanks his hand out of his father and takes a few steps back besides Elijah who watches with slight horror written on his face at his brothers actions. He always forgot how ruthless his brother could be seeing as he tends to stay out of the action most of the time and let he or Klaus handle a majority of battles. 

Mikael yells out in pain as the pieces of wood splinter into multiple different organs, one slowly reaching towards his heart. His body is unable to heal due to the wood piercing so many different areas so deeply in his body. 

"STOP! Go back, NOW." Davina screams with her hand held out. 

Augustine and Elijah's face fall in surprise as the man immediately stumbles out of the door in pain. Marcel stares at her in disappointment. She glares at all three of them and follows the man out. 

Augustine looks back to the man he had briefly seen behind the bar during his short battle and raises an eyebrow at him when he notices him staring. "You want to say something?"

The man looks stunned at being called out and having both original brothers staring right back at him. "Not me, mate. Not a bloody thing."

Both of the brothers rush home to inform Klaus of the new danger they now face but he too seems disturbed. Before either of them can inform him of Mikael's return he begins ranting. "I met the witch, Cassie. I studied her, her presence, the way she carried herself, the fervor with which she voiced her hatred of our kind. I looked into that girl's eyes, and, I swear to you both, she's not just guided by our mother. She is our mother."

Elijah looks far more stressed than Augustine who just sighs and takes a gulp of whiskey straight from the bottle. 

"What is happening?" Elijah whispers. 

"I'm going to kill her. I will boil her bones and feed them to the dogs, if that's what it takes." Klaus continues to rant while pacing. When Elijah tries to interrupt him again he turns towards the man overly annoyed. "What? What could possibly be more important than the return of our mother?"

"The return of our father." Augustine bluntly tells him making the man freeze. 

Elijah nods. "I saw him standing there in the flesh as you do now. He was enslaved with some spell cast by Davina. He holds the stake. If she chooses to release him..." 

A determined look comes over Klaus' face. "Well, then there's only one question we need to ask, isn't there? Which of our parents do we kill first?" 

"Hard to pick one." Augustine groans. All of the men pause upon hearing the huge amount of footsteps in the compound. Augustine raises his eyebrows in confusion following both of his brothers to investigate. 

They all see Hayley and Lucy leading in dozens of Crescent wolves into the compound. "Take any of the rooms on the first floor." Hayley kindly tells them all. 

Klaus gives Augustine a look of disbelief, the man shrugs in response having no idea what the women have been up to since he left them in the Bayou. Apparently it was a lot. 

"Are we running a kennel now?" Klaus questions her with an attitude. 

Hayley waives his question off. "I'll handle them." 

"Our family is under siege. It is not the time for guests." He snaps at her. 

She places her hands on her hips. "Look, if they're not with us, they're with the witches. August asked me to step up. This is me stepping up." 

"I don't see Oliver amongst them. Am I to assume you finished him off?" Klaus questions with a hopeful look. 

"We made a deal. He'll pledge his loyalty to Cassie, report back, and tell me everything that he learns." Hayley grins feeling proud of herself. 

"You should have seen her!" Lucy beams at the man. "She beat him down and was like i'm gonna chop off your head if you dare betray us." 

"I was not!" Hayley scoffs at her younger sister who nods her head rapidly at Klaus. She turns to more wolves who are entering the compound. "You girls can just go through here." She directs. 

Elijah is almost out of the compound when he runs into Lucy. "Are you leaving somewhere?" She questions seeing the bags in his hand. 

"To be perfectly honest with you, the presence of all of them here, it's... it's a little much. No, perhaps it's for the best. You should be with your kind." He tells her bluntly, leaving before she has a chance to say anything. 

Augustine feels the need to comfort the woman, tell her his brother has always been an idiot when it comes to love and that he would come around. But now knowing how she feels about him he feels it's best to leave her be. 

Hayley meets his eyes and he gives her an encouraging nod, letting her know he supports her decision to bring the wolves here. It was smart, he had to admit. Regardless of either of his brother's feelings he'll support her. 

A/N: LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS CHAPTER PLEASE! 

UM WHEN DID AUGUSTINE BECOME THIS PATIENT AND THOUGHTFUL MAN? 

DO YOU GUYS AGREE WITH LUCY PLACING THE BLAME ON AUGUSTINE?