"So this may only be a fraction of our potential enemies," said Elijah once he and Klaus had returned.

Klaus chuckled. "In hindsight, we could've been nicer to people. Or at least left fewer survivors."

Beatrix snorted. "Mostly you could've been nicer to people..."

"We don't know all their motivations," he replied. "Half of these people could want to put the bullet in Elijah's heart! End the sire war with the pull of a trigger."

Elijah was unfazed. "I have an army devoted to keeping me alive. The only people that care to protect you are standing in this very room. As you well know, Niklaus, there is another way."

Klaus sighed, and Freya frowned. "You're going to run?"

"There was a time when the name Klaus Mikaelson was little more than a rumor," he answered. "A shadowy figure who cast fear into the very bones of any who heard whisper of him. I don't run, sister. I disappear. And tonight, the four of you are going to make that possible." He held up a burlap sack with blood over it, appearing to be holding a head.

"I will get that to Marcellus," said Elijah, taking it from him.

"We can get started on a spell," Kol offered. "Come on, you two."

He led Freya and Beatrix over to the courtyard, and opened a container next to the chair he sat in, extracting a blood bag. He started drinking from it, and pulled out some other materials he'd had in a bag that'd been hanging over his shoulder. "We can do a spell that will make him untraceable, in a sense. If anyone tries to locate him, it will show he is here, in New Orleans, but in the meantime, he can disappear elsewhere."

"I like that idea," said Beatrix. "What should we do, then?"

He held out a chalice. "We'll just get Nik to bleed into that. Add some oleander and spotted owl feather, I'll give you the incantation, and we'll be good."

"Impressive," said Freya. "You created this spell?"

"Well, there's no witchcraft on this planet that I haven't studied," said Kol. "I solidified it the best way I could— teaching. Beatrix here is a diligent little pupil." He looked over at his sister. "You and I met a century ago, didn't we? You were the only witch in town I couldn't charm into doing my bidding. Beatrix was the one that told me to back down and stop trying so we wouldn't bother you. Honestly, I just figured you fancied the ladies."

Freya blushed and rolled her eyes, though she cast a sideways look at Beatrix. "Oh, because that's the only reason a woman wouldn't swoon for you?"

Kol shrugged. "Well, either that, or you're my long-lost, not-so-dead older sister."

Freya patted his hand. "I'm glad you're back. You should know, Rebekah kept her promise to fight for you... before the curse. And of course, Davina never gave up on you."

Kol paused a bit, as if only just remembering he'd promised Davina a date that night. "She did right by me, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did," said Beatrix.

"And I have to do right by her," he continued. "You mind if I write the spell down? Should be easy enough to figure out. There's somewhere I ought to be."

"I'm happy for him," mused Freya to Beatrix once he'd left the parchment behind with the spell. The two women made their way up to Freya's personal little study. "I experimented the other day, you know. A little."

"Did you?" said the Heretic with a smile. "And how was it?"

"Well, one thing's for sure, I definitely fancy women. Probably more than I fancy men."

Beatrix patted her back in approval. "Good, Freya. Do what makes you happy."

"I definitely will," she chuckled lightly as the two got to working on the spell.

They were finished by the time Elijah had returned, and by the time Klaus had packed his bags along with Hayley and Hope, who were going with him.

"It's done," said Freya. "Any witch who does a locator spell will believe you're right here in New Orleans."

Elijah cast the two an amused smile. "You know, for all of his mischief, Kol truly is a master of his craft."

"That's what I've been saying for years," sighed Beatrix.

Klaus laughed. "Yes, well, drawing trouble is his forte. You'll thank him for me?"

Elijah nodded. "Don't stop driving 'til you're absolutely certain that you are safe."

"You don't have to remind me how precious my cargo is." The hybrid moved to hug Eliijah before giving Freya a kiss on the cheek. "Keep him in line, would you, sister?"

She nodded, and Klaus came toward Beatrix, briefly setting down the bag in his hand so that he could cup her face. "And you, my little witch," he muttered, "stay safe, would you? I don't need to return to find out something's happened to you."

"I'll be fine, Klaus," she assured him. "Take care of Hope and make sure to be patient, alright, you and Hayley need to try and function as a unit, not as separate entities."

He offered her a smile before leaning in to kiss her on the lips, picking his bag up before leaving the entrance hall.

Elijah beckoned for Freya and Beatrix to follow him. They went to the upstairs room over looking the street, remaining on the balcony as Klaus got into the car and eventually drove away.

"It's going to be quiet around here," Freya murmured as they watched the car disappear into the distance.

"I wouldn't bet on it," Elijah said.

This proved to be true. In the morning, Beatrix was awoken very unceremoniously by Kol, shaking her awake and demanding she come with him to speak with Elijah.

"Why are we being roused from our beds so aggressively?" inquired Elijah

"Finn is back," said Kol savagely, looking livid. "He's here, in his Original body."

Elijah frowned and shared a look with Beatrix. "Are you quite sure?"

"I saw him with my own eyes," said Kol. "He must have come back when Beatrix resurrected me. The spell was tied to the blood of the Mikaelson line. Either it worked on him, or he found a way to hijack it. Either way, the only 'how' I care about right now is how long I'm going to make him suffer before I kill him."

When Kol began to pace the room, Elijah held his hands up as if to calm him. "Restraint, brother. For now."

"Why?" spat Kol. "Finn is clearly the one spreading rumors about missing white oak. He's luring Nik's enemies out of the woodwork. It's all part of his tedious revenge fantasy." He turned to Beatrix. "You believe me, don't you?"

She hesitated. "Well, the thing is, Josh, Davina's friend, showed me that those rumors started online just before you were brought back, meaning Finn couldn't be behind them. We need to be cautious of what his motives are but if he was tied in and I brought him back, he might not even have a plan."

Kol glared at her. "After all these years being my friend and you're supporting him?"

"I'm not supporting him, Kol, I'm trying to ease the tension so you don't go act rashly. Yes, I am furious for what he did to you and I'm not letting that slide, but you can't just go about saying Finn is guilty for a million things."

He suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. "I can't?" he snarled. She stared at him blankly. Kol had always been the most temperamental one, and this wasn't all that out of character for him. "How can you say that? He's behind this!"

"Finn is innocent," said Freya as she walked into the room, crossing her arms and sitting on the desk behind her. "Beatrix is right. Unhand her, brother."

Kol let go of her, but glared at his sister. "Pardon me, love, but Finn tried to kill the rest of us more than once! He's an enemy of our family."

"He is our family," corrected Freya. "Finn's return is an opportunity to mend old wounds and fix what's broken."

Kol nearly flipped the table beside him. "He didn't just drop a bloody vase! He murdered me."

Elijah held up a finger to silence Kol, and faced his elder sister. "You seem certain..."

"Is everyone siding with her?" Kol growled, looking at Beatrix as if expecting her to aid him. "Trix, you're the only one who's consistently been at my side when they cast me out, can't you—?"

"Let's just hear her the bloody hell out!" snarled Beatrix. "You know I respect you, Kol, so don't go starting a problem with me. I'm trying to keep you calm because in case you forgot, your girlfriend is human and that temper isn't going to fly."

"Time and time again," Elijah said to Freya once the other two were quiet, "Finn has demonstrated nothing but contempt toward his family. So, you tell me— how can you be so certain that he would return to us in peace?"

She did not answer, because Finn himself entered the library, holding his hands up in surrender. "Our sister knows me well," he said smoothly. "Though, perhaps you're right to doubt my intentions. By all means, let's discuss our family quarrels. I believe we're long overdue."

Elijah fixed his jacket. "Yes, I believe we are. Just one moment." He raised his phone as it began to ring and stepped out of the room.

Finn turned to Beatrix. "You may leave, Heretic, this does not concern you."

"Don't have a go at her!" snarled Kol. "She's more family than you are!"

"My, my, have I really been shoved aside by a child?" said Finn, amused. "After all, compared to us, she is very, very young, but of course, our brothers do enjoy having their playthings, it makes sense they'd take a fancy to someone not so ancient. Someone who can't subdue them..."

Kol lunged forward, but Beatrix and Freya jumped between them. "Piss off, Finn, before there's really a problem!" spat Kol.

"Oh, Kol, your temper is still getting the best of you," Finn chided boredly. "Needing witches to hold you back... isn't your girlfriend a witch? Wonder how long it'll be before you tear her throat out—"

This time, both of them lunged at each other, but the majority of their squabble was mostly Finn dodging in between trying to strike Kol.

"Stop it!" hissed Beatrix, flicking her wrists and creating a barrier between them.

"Take a swing at me, huh?" sneered Kol. "All these side-steps and parries... Even the way you fight is boring."

"It's an odd critique," shot back Finn, "considering all your flair and flourish couldn't keep you from being bested the last time we faced each other—"

Kol swung his leg out, knocking Beatrix to the floor and disrupting her barrier spell, shoving Freya aside before pinning Finn back onto a wall. However, before he could do anything, another person sped into the room, pulling Kol off of Finn. Lucien put him in a chokehold, and then turned to Beatrix. "Perhaps we should let them fight? After all, they can't actually kill each other."

"What are you even doing here?" said Beatrix, waving her hand and making Lucien be moved away from Kol.

"Behave yourselves!" Elijah said loudly as he returned to the room. "Particularly considering we'll be confined here together for the foreseeable future."

"What the bloody fucking hell does that mean?" Kol demanded.

"I believe the term is 'staycation,'" Elijah answered. "You see, Niklaus isn't the only one who's inspired revenge fantasies. Right now, we are all at risk. So, while Marcel works to retrieve the white oak, I recommend we dispense with the posturing and get down to some good, old-fashioned family bonding."

Kol immediately stormed out of the room, not interested in associating with the others. Beatrix frowned and followed after him, finding him out in the hallway.

"They always shove me the hell aside!" he growled, grabbing a nearby vase and throwing it across the room, causing it to shatter when it hit the ground.

"Hey, control yourself," she said sternly, reaching in the direction of the vase and making it fly back into her hand, repaired. "Kol, I know you're not happiest with me, either, right now, but this is not the time to contribute to more conflict between your family. Finn is an ass, I won't pretend he isn't. But you're all in danger. Especially Freya. They have no right to be shutting you down, but if you continue to be so fiery, they won't have any problem continuing to do so as well. There is a chance that things can get better if we all just try and approach it with more patience."

Kol huffed, but suddenly stopped, listening in on a conversation in the next room. He moved closer to one of the nearby windows, and motioned for Beatrix to follow along.

"So tell me," Elijah was saying to Finn, "how was Hell? Is it warm this time of year?"

Finn let out a gruff sigh. "You always had a penchant for idle chat."

"Well, perhaps we could discuss something a little bit more constructive," replied Elijah.

"Do you intend to threaten me into being a better brother?"

"Depends. Why are you here?

"Could you believe me if I told you I'd changed?"

"Have you?" asked Elijah skeptically. Kol smirked at this.

"Yes... and no," responded Finn. "All that time trapped alone in Freya's pendant, I was able to reflect on what we've become over a millennium. I'm still sickened by what you are, but I'm done trying to atone for past sins."

The sound of someone walking round the room could be heard— likely Elijah. "It is curious the way you speak as though you and I are not the same..."

"We are not the same!" Finn sneered. "You see, I still have a chance at some small happiness, and I'm going to take it. My proposal is simple— allow Freya to put me back in a witch's body. Let the two of us go, and I promise never to look back again."

At this, Kol's eyes became darker, and he turned to Beatrix angrily before speeding away.

Beatrix let out a frustrated groan, hearing as Elijah left the other room.

"Come out, Heretic," called Finn. "I can sense you're there."

Well, fuck. She hadn't wanted to speak with him. But she went into the room with him anyway, and he crossed his arms. "Is it so wrong of me to despise this wretched body?" he inquired. "It'd be much more bearable if I could simultaneously be a witch, as you are."

"No, it's not wrong to hate your body," she said with a cheeky smile. "But nowadays, they call that being self-conscious."

Finn rolled his eyes, and she continued speaking, "What I find wrong is that you want to take over a body that doesn't belong to you. You want to use someone else as a puppet the way you did with Vincent."

He scoffed. "You find that wrong, do you?" he inquired. "If that's wrong, I can't imagine what you think of the horrid things my brothers have done."

"I never said that what everyone's done isn't bad," she replied. "In fact, I'm terrible myself— that's something I won't deny. But with the way things are right now, it's really not the best idea to be perpetuating animosity. Trust me, I hate having to be fake and pretend to like a horrendous situation, but this is your chance to rekindle. Pushing everyone away and being rude won't do anyone any good. You're all at risk and if there's one thing I've learned from observing the lot of you, it's that when you actually try to function as a cohesive unit, you get a lot done."

He shook his head. "Foolish, young girl," he said. "I can't imagine how you're still around."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've been with what, all three of my brothers and you are not yet dead? Perhaps your condition is worse than death. I hear... imprisonment, madness, darkness..."

"And what of it?"

"You have no ties to them. No blood binds you here. Why haven't you left?"

"What reason have I to leave? They are the only family I have left."

"They will ruin you," he pointed out. "It's a slow-growing poison that'll tear you apart. You won't survive. The longer you associate with them, the less years you have left in the foreseeable future. You deserve better."

Beatrix frowned. "I'm not abandoning them. That's the difference between you and me, Finn. You have this family and yes, you have every right to despise them, but they are your family no matter what, and all you do is push each other away. I chose to consider them family and I choose to stay because I have gotten to know them and have understood all their flaws."

"You expect me to look past all of that?" he growled.

He moved closer to her, and she backed away ever so slightly. She did not know him well enough, and she didn't know how he was going to react. Given his age, he would likely have been the strongest and fastest of the Original siblings and could have killed her before she could blink, but after not having trained in the way his brothers did, she wasn't sure he could even match up to Kol's abilities. Either way, she took the safer route and moved away.

"Nine hundred years they kept me in a coffin with a dagger inside of me," he said lowly. "Don't speak to me of forgiveness, Heretic, because I heard it. That day, in whatever year it was. You. Your voice. And them shutting you down. I had barely enough strength to hear, but I could, because it was the only time in nine hundred years that someone opened that lid and spoke to me."

It was 1918, just after Beatrix had finished her violent episode after losing her magic. She felt isolated and bored, and had wandered about the Compound looking for something to do.

Never before had she looked into the lower rooms where the coffins were kept. She ran her hand over the coffin Kol was in, then stopped at another that she could sense was occupied. She'd heard stories of Finn, but had never seen him.

She opened the lid and looked at him. Her hand reached tentatively over the dagger in his chest, before she withdrew it slowly. "I haven't met you, yet," she said, looking over his desiccated face. "I suppose you're a good person to talk to. You might not understand what it means when I say that I lost my mind, but I did. And they say you're critical but moral— more so than Elijah. Kol told me once that you and I would have gotten along very well. But they say that you hate what you all are, and that they won't release you because all you do is judge. I think that's unfair. So I suppose maybe you're the one who could understand me most. I feel you might like to be up and around again. It's not fair to be shut in a box for so many years..."

She had reached her hand back to the dagger, and had wrapped her palm around the hilt to pull it out, but just before she could move it, a hand caught her wrist and she let out a surprised gasp. Elijah had stopped her, and on the other side of her, Klaus was glaring at her.

"What do you think you're doing?" the hybrid growled.

"I-I thought—"

Elijah moved her hand away from the dagger and turned her to face him. "Beatrix, we do not wish to chastise you so soon when you have not yet recovered, but do not ever try to do something like this without consulting us. You did not know our brother and he could very well kill you the instant he awakes."

She gulped. "I-I didn't think—"

"You didn't think he posed a danger to you?" scoffed Klaus behind her. "What is the bloody point of us keeping you here, love? You are not safe out there. Do not make it unsafe for you in here, too." He turned her to face him, looking into his eyes to compel her. "Don't ever try to wake any of my daggered siblings again. No matter who it is, or what anyone else says."

"Alright," she breathed, unable to resist. Without her magic, she was still weak, and vulnerable. "I won't do it again..."

"I didn't know you could hear," said Beatrix quietly.

"Yours was the only voice aside from my family's that I ever heard. And I thought, for a moment, you would have freed me, and I was ready to awake once more. I wouldn't have harmed you— how could I be such a beast? They pretend to know me, but if they really gave a single damn, they'd know that I would never be brutish enough to harm a woman, especially not the one who was going to give me a chance to be free.

"But it was my brothers that stopped you. And so, I remained there. Gathering hatred and that 'animosity' you speak of. The only accompaniment I had ringing in my head was that conversation, which only reminded me of the fact that my family cannot stand me. So what did I have left to do but despise what we were? I never wanted to be such a beast. They became the worst of the lot."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. He looked furious, and she still feared he'd kill her...

"Even now, you are afraid of me," he said, ceasing his movements toward her. "I can hear your heart beating a million miles an hour. You are so conditioned to cruelty and pain. You are accustomed to suffering because you are an unofficial Mikaelson. I hear you were trapped and tortured and brought on an insurmountable amount of pain that none can tolerate unless they're supernatural.

"If Niklaus really cared, he never would have helped turn you. He'd have made sure you didn't die with his blood in your system. He would have helped you be free. If Kol really cared, he'd have helped you find a place among those witches he's met all over the world— he'd have helped you be free of the Mikaelsons.

"And if Elijah really cared, he never would have attached himself to you. He would have healed you from that episode and compelled you to forget them. Compelled you to start a new life, change your identity. But they didn't, and it only put you in more danger. You lost part of your life and returned back into the fray. All they do is use you, can't you see that? I tell you this because I cannot seem to be freed of this wretched life, but you have a chance."

Finn glared into her soul. "Get out while you have the chance. My brothers are not like me— they will not give you this option because they need you. They want you wrapped around their fingers. Kol wants someone on his side. He will not wish for you to go, not when you can be his backup whenever he has an idiotic idea. Elijah and Niklaus desire a plaything in bed that they can toy with and toss aside. You are better than this. So get out. Were you mine, I'd never forsake you in this manner. They will get you killed, mark my words."

He left the room, leaving her stunned.