chapter thirty-one,

said Ambrose as he looked down at Marian in the bed. He knew she wouldn't respond, though some small part of him hoped she'd wake up just for him. Glancing back into the hallway to see if Klaus was still there, he strolled into the little room and towards the bed. "Way worse than this morning." He looked up at the clock. "Yesterday morning now, I guess."

Sighing, he placed his hands on his thighs and sat down on the seat beside the bed. "You know, I don't even think Klaus was this scared when Mikael was here."

He pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocking it and pressing on an app. "I downloaded some music for you," he continued. "I thought it would come in handy, you know, since we see so much of each other." He'd gotten quite used to Marian calling him and asking if he could take her places. "Klaus said Tchaikovsky's your favourite."

A song began to play as he placed his phone down on the bedside table. "Apparently you're a grandma when it comes to music," he joked. "I normally don't listen to classical music, but I'll do it for you. Don't tell my granddad though. He's been trying to get me to listen to classical music since I was born."

He laughed once. "You'd probably like him, especially with your thing for older men." Ambrose wasn't used to this silence; especially not from someone as talkative and opinionated as Marian Mikaelson. He could've sworn she was worse than his own mother in lecturing him about his life's decisions.

"God, I could literally say anything right now and you wouldn't even move." He watched her carefully. Part of him was scared that she'd wake up suddenly. "You can be a real bitch at times." He glanced back over at her. "And your taste in men is terrible—I mean, Damon Salvatore? Really? He's such an asshole. He used you like you were nothing. But you're not nothing, you're special. You're beautiful and really caring when you want to be and you have this desire to see the good in everyone that I really wish the rest of your family had sometimes."

"And he was willing to throw that all away for a doppelgänger who seems to have a death wish. He doesn't deserve you, Marian." He looked down at his feet and fiddled with the laces of his shoes just as her eyes began to open.

"You're too good for him. And I really hope you give him hell next time you see him."

"Well, that's just great," Klaus grumbled as he stormed back into the room, leaning stiffly on the wall beside the doorway. The boy looked up to his with a raised brow. "Elijah's gone," he continued. "Forever, so it seems."

Ambrose didn't quite know what to say. He was slightly relieved when something caught both of their attention. The lights began to flicker in the room. Klaus noticed it too. The boy frowned when a certain noise reached his ears. It was a beating heart, and it slowly began to beat faster and faster, breaths becoming ragged. He gulped, his head following the noise as they continued to speed up, eyes widening as he realised that it was coming from Marian. Klaus slowly reached for his phone, dialling Rebekah's number.

The girl's body started buckling, shaking. Neither hybrid knew what to do. "Nik?" Rebekah answered as the lights in the room turned off. The only thing that remained turned on was the CD player that Ambrose had brought with him, Tchaikovsky's Pas de Deux from the Nutcracker building in tension and dynamics. "What's wrong?"

Alarm spread across Ambrose's face as her heart kept beating faster and faster and her body shook more and more violently, and just as she opened her eyes widely, he leapt forward and covered her mouth, muffling the pain scream that escaped her lips.

"She's awake," Klaus told Rebekah, hanging up almost immediately, his eyes fixed on the panicked girl. He felt as if he couldn't move, frozen as he painfully watched his niece's fear. He'd never been one to comfort the girl—in fact, he was usually the one causing her grief—but now, he felt that he had to do something to help. The thought of Marian dying only one day after being reunited with her whole family broke his heart, and the thought of having to find her when she would be reborn scared him half to death himself.

"Marian!" Ambrose exclaimed, grabbing both her arms to try and stabilise her. "Hey, it's okay. You're okay. You're okay. It's okay." He tried to gently lay her back onto the bed, careful not to hurt her, but she refused to lie back down.

"I should be dead," she rasped, her voice catching in her throat. I should be dead, she thought again. Her grandmother had killed her. She should be dead, so how was she alive? Her eyes hurt from the pressure of building tears. The pain in her stomach was unbearable; an intense burning erupted every time she took a breath. She knew that panicking would only make it worse, but she was scared. Nothing made sense to her. "She killed me. I should be dead."

Ambrose, trying to help her get as comfortable as she could, searched for the remote for the bed and lifted the back of it until it almost touched her back. She squeezed her eyes shut as she willed herself to lean back. It felt like she was being stabbed all over again.

A hand reached out and grabbed hers, squeezing it tightly. She looked up, her mouth trembling when she realised that her uncle was sitting there with her. How had she not seen him before? "You're going to be okay, love," he said slowly. "We won't let you leave us again."

Us, she thought. Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah... Kol! "Where's my dad?" she asked frantically. Her eyes were wide as the first tear willed itself to fall down her cheek. "I want my dad." She began to panic. Finn had betrayed them and sided with her grandmother. Had they done something to Kol? Klaus was a hybrid; was he the only one who'd survived?

"Marian, love," he said quietly to her. "I need you to calm down. Kol's on his way. Everything is going to be alright." The words sounded foreign to him. "He'll be here soon."

"She killed me," Marian sobbed, the events of the ritual replaying continuously in her mind. "And he helped." She was brokenhearted. Finn had always been so caring with her, but she supposed nine hundred years in a box was enough to warrant a need for death. And so had Damon, but he used her endlessly to keep Elena safe. And Bonnie—her sister—had willingly given her magic to Esther to kill the Originals. "Everyone I thought loved me wants me dead."

"Not everyone, love," Klaus said. He wasn't quite sure who she was referring to, but he knew how upset she gets when someone—or everyone—betrays her. It was the same shattering feeling he was used to. "I still love you." She sniffed. "And Bekah, Elijah too."

"And me," Ambrose added, catching her attention. He smiled softly when he heard her heart beat just a little faster.

"And your father, well..." Klaus continued. "Kol—"

"Loves you more than life itself." Marian turned her head quickly, her eyes widening and filling with tears almost immediately as she saw Kol standing in the doorway. Alive! Then, in an instant, he replaced Klaus in the seat beside her bed, and held her tightly. But all she wanted was for him to hug her and tell her she was going to be okay.

"I don't want to die, Papa," she whispered, beginning to cry again.

"You won't, darling. I promise," said Kol. He had only just gotten his daughter back after almost a century; he would never let her go again.

"It hurts," she told him. "Everywhere hurts."

"You're going to be okay," he said firmly. "I'm here."

Behind the two, Rebekah quietly beckoned the two hybrids to exit the room, leaving the two alone. After everything that had happened in the last day, she knew that they needed some time with each other.

...

Kol explained everything from the previous night to Marian; how Esther had convinced Elena to help her kill her children, how Damon had only manipulated her into following him so that Finn would know exactly where to find her, how Bonnie and her mum had helped Esther channel the power of the full moon...

"But the dagger was a dark object," Marian said. "How am I alive?"

"You used our power to give you strength, darling," he told her. "You healed yourself." Marian never ceased to amaze her father. She had always been lacking in her magic, but somehow she'd been able to save herself from death. Kol had never fully understood how her magic was weak; the Mikaelson witches had always been one of the stronger bloodlines, and combined with her mother's magic—she should've been the most powerful of them all. So why wasn't she?

"Then why am I here?" she asked. She was still bleeding; she could feel it. By now, the nurse had come back and removed the empty blood bag from the intravenous line attached to the inside of her forearm.

"You said yourself, the dagger was a dark object." His hand reached for something on the table beside the bed. Marian eyed it carefully. Kol lifted an old piece of cloth from inside a creased paper bag. She vaguely recognised it. "Lucky for you, dark objects are my expertise."

The girl frowned. "What is it?"

He took the lid off and placed it in her hand. "The Cloth of Miracles," he told her with a smirk. She cringed, realising where she knew it from. Marian had made it herself centuries ago, thinking that the name she'd given it was marvellous at the time.

"That was two hundred years ago. It won't work anymore. It barely worked then."

Kol smiled gently. "This was designed to absorb the power of a dark object," he told her. "You made it," he continued. "And I happen to know that the things you make never fail."

A memory of one of her children standing beside Mikael and pointing towards her flashed in her mind. He'd killed her moments later, a single tear falling down her cheek because her own daughter wanted her dead. Swallowing deeply, she closed her eyes and tried to push the memory away.

"Promise you'll find me," she whispered, bringing the vial closer to her lips. "Promise me that if I die again, you'll find me. I don't want to live without you again." Marian was scared of a great deal of things in this world—spiders had always been one of her greatest fears—but nothing compared to her fear of her father never finding her after she died.

Kol placed a hand on her cheek. "I always will. No matter what. You'll be stuck with me forever." He smiled at her. "And if this works, I'll compel them to let me take you home." He knew how much she hated hospitals; yes, she'd grown up in the twenty-first century, but Marian was still used to the malpractices of previous periods. He knew that Klaus would be overjoyed if they left the hospital, too.

"Really?" Marian asked hopefully.

"Really."

She nodded. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

Marian moved her arms stiffly to push her blanket down, but not so far down that when she lifted her hospital gown she was left exposed, and reached for her bandage. She hissed when she touched it; it still hurt. Kol pushed her hands to the side and gripped the edge of the bandage, gently picking at the edges until he could lift it from her skin. She closed her eyes tightly when he replaced it with the cloth, a painful sting erupting from the rough fabric.

The pair waited, Kol expecting to see the cloth glow as it had done when she'd first made it, and Marian waiting for the pain to die down.

"Anything?" Kol prompted.

She opened her eyes and looked at him unhappily. "I told you it wouldn't wor..." She paused, feeling a strange sensation tingle inside her.

"What?" asked Kol.

He looked down, his frown dissolving when he saw the cloth glow a dim golden colour. She'd once told him that it was the light of the sun, and that she'd weaved it from strands of the sun's hair. After a moment, the light disappeared, and Kol moved his hands back to her abdomen to take it off. Relief spread across his face as he pulled it slowly, seeing that the wound was indeed healing itself.

Marian gasped when he lifted it completely, folding it and placing it on the bedside table. She hadn't expected it to work; if her memory served her right. But she supposed that if Elijah's elixir had worked on Elena, then this could work on her.

"Let's get you out of this godforsaken place and into your bed."

Kol then went to find the nurse and Marian's doctor, compelling them to allow her to be discharged from the hospital. Now that the dark magic had been expelled from her body, her only challenges were her pain and her dizzy spells. She'd been given enough blood to function, and with time and rest, she would fully recover.

part ii:

tvd s3, ep16:

wc: