FOURTEEN | LONG WAY BACK FROM HELL

THE PAIN IN OCTAVIA'S BODY hadn't stopped and she didn't think it would for a while. Rebekah and Klaus were both missing and the crescent wolves had turned back into their wolf form. She felt like her insides were on fire and had a headache, her entire body felt like jello, but at least she stopped sweating.

After her blackout she had woken up in a bed, at the Mikaelson's. She wasn't surprised by Elijahs actions, but she got up anyway, slowly and took a long shower. These empath abilities were really fucking with her, she knew someone she cared about was hurt but she didn't know who or how hurt.

Octavia took a wild guess and figured it was Rebekah. She did care about the blonde original sister, but it could also be Klaus. She was worried that he was missing dispute wanting to end his immortal life only the day before. Maybe she did care for him, at least a little bit.

She wasn't sure, and she wasn't going to spend the next thirty five minutes guessing either. The Dalton witch needed to find them and bring them back safely. She needed Elijahs help to do that, and that required speaking to him.

Octavia still didn't want to talk about her nightmares or the pain that she was feeling constantly. She hadn't told anyone what Sophie had said that day, or what she saw in her mind. She had to figure that out on her own, it was the only way and for now she would deal with the pain.

Elijah was already downstairs when she got there. She assumed that he was going to find answers, and she was going with him. The moment she appeared his eyes focused in on something... her neck. Fuck. She didn't make a move to cover the hickeys that Cameron he given her the night before.

It wasn't Elijah's business anyway and yet she felt incredibly guilty about it. "Are you ready to go save your siblings from impending doom?" She asked him with a small smile.

He didn't return in and instead frowned. "Let's go." He grabbed her and vamp sped to the cemetery, there was a group of people gathered around, Monique in the center of them. Octavia didn't like the coldness that Elijah was giving her.

He grabbed one of the men and flung him, like he literally flung that man. Then he held her as they jumped down and he elbowed two more people. The group stepped away leaving Monique with a candle in her hand.

"My siblings have been taken. Where are they?" He simply asked the young witch.

She was almost emotionless as she answered him. "You're interrupting my Aunt Sophie's consecration."

Elijah was just as confused as Octavia. Not that Octavia cared much about Sophie, she honestly would have said good riddance if it wasn't in front of Monique. "How did this happen?" The Dalton witch questioned.

"Aunt Sophie was a casualty of war." That was off. She smiled, who the hell was she kidding, she clearly had something to do with Sophie's demise. 

"Monique, I recommend you give me what I want. Unless, of course, you'd like Octavia and I to level this place and everything in it." Octavia raised her hand to prove a point with a smirk.

"That won't be necessary. I have a message for you from Celeste." She raised her hand toward Elijah and started casting a spell. Elijah, suddenly uncomfortable, pulled at the collar of his shirt. When he ripped open the top button of his shirt, he saw the name Theresa tattooed on his chest. Monique continued the spell as many more names appeared on his body, including Sabine. Octavia didn't know what the hell was happening. "To find what you're looking for, follow the path she left behind." Monique finished and Octavia coughed into her hand. Blood. No surprise there.

Before anyone could question the blood on her lips Elijah rushed them back to the compound. She quickly walked away from him and felt another sharp pain in her chest. It was excruciating, but at least she hadn't blown anything up yet. Octavia gritted here teeth as she watched the flowers to catch a flame. "Shit. Shit. Shit." She muttered and tried to put them out.

"Octavia!" Elijah yelled, it wasn't a scary yell or anything but he sounded like he needed her presence. The flames went out and she went up the stairs. She entered the room where Elijah was taking off his clothes, well just his shirt. She bit her lip as she saw his chest and the names littered all over him. Fuck, he had a nice chest. "I need you to make a list of these names." The Dalton witch gulped and nodded walking towards him.

Maybe he would have noticed her behavior if he was so focused on her neck. He didn't like it, at all, but he also made no move to question it. They weren't together nor would they ever be and so whatever she did with her body was none of his business.

The blonde started at the names on his arms and back, she saw Sabine again. Just as she was in the cemetery she was confused as ever. "What is this?"

"I believe they represent the names of the women Celeste inhabited for the past two centuries." Marcel joined the two of them and gave a look to Octavia who had a hand resting on his shoulder. He handed the pen and paper over to her with an almost glare.

"It's called a Devinette. It's old school. Kind of a riddle. Witches use them to teach their kids. Solve it, and it disappears." Octavia had never heard of that in her life, then again no one in her coven had ever thought to teach her to co trip her magic. Just then Hayley entered the room as if she had been standing in the hall the whole time.

"Why? What's the point?" The werewolf questioned as she took note of the way the blonde witch was looking at Elijah.

"Celeste forced me to make a choice between Octavia and yourself and my siblings, and now she means to mock that choice, taunting me with a childish game. The longer the game, the more they suffer. To find Klaus and Rebekah, we need to solve this riddle. The solution lies somewhere in these names." Octavia sighed and wrote down the names on the paper. Klaus and Rebekah were suffering and she could feel it, feel something and she didn't tell him. How could she tell him. She couldn't. Not right then at least.

"The name next to Sabine... Annie La Fleur, she's the witch that was shunned from her coven just over a year ago. Never knew why, but I can find out." Marcel spoke and pointed at a name on the originals arm.

•

ELIJAH AND MARCEL SOON left after he put his clothes back on. Octavia didn't go, it was better that she stayed. Hayley was with her with a small smile on her face. She didn't want to know what the werewolf was going on about. The marks on her neck or Elijahs naked chest.

"What?" She almost laughed.

"You were looking at Elijah a little different today." She looked like she was about to explode. Octavia scoffed and rolled her eyes at her friend.

"I was not, I was just doing what he asked." The Dalton witch stated simply. "Which yes, did require me to look at his chest." She shrugged.

"Sure you were, but you liked it." Hayley went on and Octavia sighed and rolled her eyes. She wouldn't mind seeing his bare chest again, but that didn't mean she liked it. That's at least what she told herself.

"It's not like that."

"Whatever you say to convince yourself that you aren't falling for him." The werewolf told her. "What about that guy last night, the one that gave you those." She pointed at her neck.

"He might have been your cousin or uncle maybe your brother, but his name was Cameron. He seemed nice enough before I decided to kiss him senseless." Did that make her a little slutty? She didn't think so.

"Scandalous." Hayley smirked and then got serious again, as serious as she could get while they were having a conversation about boys. "Does Elijah know those are from him?" The fucking hickeys again.

"He knows that they weren't from a curling iron, but he shouldn't care and doesn't care. Even if he did care about me like that he would never act on it." Octavia could say that with almost certainty, she was a child to him. She wasn't grown and even if she was he had a thousand years on her and she also knew that he was too noble to act on his own feelings.

"Because of your age?" Octavia nodded. "Speaking of, when is your birthday?" Octavia didn't think about her birthday much, it was just a day that you were a year older. No one in the coven had celebrated her birthday since she was four. No one was allowed to either. Truth be told, she was sure when her birthday was. Not the exact date anyway. She always celebrated it during this month. Cami had tried when she was younger to give her presents but they always got thrown away.

"Umm... not really sure." The young witch admitted. It was her biggest shame, but it was one of them. Another would be how she didn't learn to read or write until she was eight. "It wasn't really celebrated in my coven."

Hayley made no move to question her further on the subject and she was thankful. "Alright, how about we say a rough estimate and say your birthday is today. Happy birthday, Octavia. How is adult life treating you?" Octavia smiled and decided she could definitely play along with that.

"Same old, same old. A murder here and some arson there, you know how it is." The sad truth was none of it was a lie.

Hayley have her a soft smile. "I'm serious though, we are celebrating your birthday." She didn't have the heart to tell her that she wasn't in a celebrating mood. "And now that you are officially a legal adult what is Elijah's excuse now? The answer is: he doesn't have one."

"Shut up." The blonde witch told her and grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the table next to them. "Here's to me." She said before opening the bottle and chugging it. Then the phone rang and Hayley picked it up and put it on speaker.

"Hey Elijah, did you find out?" Hayley asked.

"Annie La Fluer took her own life." He stated simply. The two girls gave each other looks of confusion.

"She killed herself?" Octavia had to be sure that's what she heard.

If she didn't know any better she heard Elijah take in a sharp breath. "Yes, drowned herself in the Mississippi, to be precise. Celeste was clearly tired of the body and ready to take Sabine's."

"How do you know that?" Hayley asked. There was no way Elijah could know for sure and yet he did.

"Because she leaped to her death from the very location Celeste and I had our first kiss." He explained.

Hayley watched as Octavia's eyes widened in surprise. Octavia didn't care about Elijah's past lovers or anything like that, she had convinced herself. It was the nature of the way she had done it that surprised her was all. "Poetic, I guess... in a creepy-vendetta sort of way." The werewolf girl joked and the blonde witch cracked a smile.

"All these names, these lives, stolen that Celeste might take her revenge. I suppose we have no choice but to see where they take us. I have to go. I'll call you back."

"Elijah, wait!"

"What is it?"

"Ask Marcel if he knows anything about a name on that list-- Brynne Deveraux. Sophie said that it was her family's bloodline that put the curse on the Crescent wolves, but Celeste said that she was the only one that could break it. If Brynne Deveraux was actually Celeste when she cast the spell, then maybe Celeste can still break it." Hayley was hopeful and that could only install more hope in Octavia. Octavia didn't have a lot of hope left in her, she had given it up so long ago.

"I'll see what he knows." Elijah told her.

"Elijah, I'm really sorry that you're going through this. If I had known that Celeste made you choose who to help–" Hayley started to say before he cut her off.

"You were going to die in that fire Hayley along with Octavia and my brother's child. There was no choice." He told them and hung up the phone. Klaus and Rebekah were still missing, and Octavia felt as if her hear shattered.

She had done something, wrong, he was ignoring her and it hurt. Maybe she hadn't done anything at all and he was just worried for his siblings but she was worried too.

When Klaus and Rebekah were found she needed to speak with him. She would never say it out loud but all of Hayley's teasing could have some truth, whatever truth it was.

"Do you think he's mad at me?" Octavia couldn't help but ask the pregnant werewolf girl next to her. Hayley sighed.

"I think he's worried about Klaus and Rebekah and it doesn't have anything to do with you." She answered honestly and the Dalton witch nodded. She wanted to hear that. "Speaking of... can't you do a tracking spell or something?"

Octavia bit her bottom lip and nodded. She didn't know many spells or how to cast them correctly, but tracking was easy enough. Plus, she had this how empath thing to work with. "I can try, but I doubt it will work." They should have already tried this.

Hayley left and came back with a map of New Orleans and set it on the table for Octavia. The blonde girl grabbed a needle and pricked her own finger letting the blood drop onto the map.

She was as visualizing Rebekah and Klaus, trying to think about where they were, how they were. Hayley watched as the blood started to move slightly and the wind picked up around them before it all stopped suddenly.

"What happened?" Hayley wondered.

"It didn't work, just as expected, but that does mean they are being cloaked by a witch." Octavia sighed and grabbed a cloth to cover her finger. It was the only clue they had it was nothing they didn't already know.

"It's not really helpful, anything else, other feelings?"

"All I can tell you is that they're in pain, a lot of it." Octavia groaned and propped herself up against the table. She was sweating badly again and vision going in and out from blurry to clear.

•

OCTAVIA HAD GONE TO GET A snack and a fan to cool herself off and while she was gone Elijah had called again, telling Hayley to find out what she could about some witch named, Clara.

Hayley was typing on the laptop and Octavia was hovering and deciding whether or not she was going to drink. The pain hadn't lessened but it wasn't as manageable as before.

Octavia dug her hand into the doritos bag and shoved some in her mouth. "Have you found anything yet?"

"Not really, just that she worked at a sanitarium- the Fluer-de-Lis." Hayley explained and the blonde girl nodded and shoved more chips into her mouth before handing Hayley the bag. "Thank you, I'm so hungry. I swear next time someone goes to the store they better buy ice cream."

"I'll put it on the list." Octavia retorted.

"There's a list?"

"There is one now."

The fan was doing wonders for what she assumed was a fever, it was almost similar to how she was feeling in the Bayou when Elijah got bit. Did Rebekah get bit by a werewolf? Did Klaus bite her? So many questions so little time.

Elijah is back in an instant, Octavia's eyes don't meet his. He's ignoring her and she can do the same back but that doesn't stop her from pushing her hair in front of her neck.

"Hey, look, I found—" Hayley's cut off by Elijah.

"You were right about the Deveraux witch."  At least Hayley and Elijah have reconciled. Before anything else is said Marcel vamp speeds into the room.

"Find anything about Clara, the mystery witch?" He asks them, Octavia catches his eye. Things are slightly less tense, slightly.

"Not much. She was a nurse at the Fleur-de-Lis Sanitarium." Octavia explains to him and she sees him freeze and his face drop. "What? You know her?"

Hayley clicks on a picture and points to her so Marcel and Elijah can see what she looked like. "Top row, second from the right."

Elijah shakes his head and looks at Marcel. "No, I don't. Marcel?" Marcel didn't even need to say anything for Octavia to know that he did. He knew exactly who she was and he was hiding something. Still he didn't speak up. "Marcel? Do I need to remind you that Niklaus and Rebekah are somewhere suffering horribly? If you know something, talk."

Suffering horribly didn't even cover it if the way the blonde witch felt was accurate.

"The Sanitarium. That's where you'll find them." He finally gives in.

"Are you sure? How do you know?" Octavia asks.

"I just know." He replies and gives her a look, one she knows. Don't pry, please. It's pleading but it's also gone in an instant.

"She asked how do you know?" Elijah speaks up, addressing her briefly, but he's not focused on her at all.

Marcel sighs, "If I'm right, you need to know exactly what we're walking into. We did something, Rebekah and I... I think the witches are trying to use it against her. It was, uh... something that you're not gonna like."

Marcel explains to the trio that he and Rebekah had summoned Mikael to New Orleans in 1919. Octavia had never met Mikael and never wanted to, she'd heard enough horror stories about the vampire vampire hunter.

She can practically feel Elijah's anger even if his face doesn't betray him. "For the better part of a century, I have wondered how Father found us, what foolish mistake that we had made to destroy our time in the one place that we could finally call home. Did you know, I even blamed myself for a time, Marcellus?"

This was going to end badly, oh so badly. It all felt like a never ending betrayal leading back to her front doorstep. "Elijah—" She tried but he ignores her.

"Niklaus treated you like a son."

"Rebekah. I loved her. I still love her. All we ever wanted was to be together, but as long as Klaus was around, that was never gonna happen. But hey, I guess you wouldn't know anything about that, huh?" There's no heartbreak about Marcel confessing his love for Rebekah nothing that indicates that she ever truly cared about him more than she thought. That was fine, he was family and he was always going to be family and if she had to pick then Marcel and Davina were her top priority.

"When Klaus learns the truth, there will be no end to his rage. I will not let my sister suffer that wrath." Elijah says. Another thing that she hadn't considered yet, Klaus was going to be very angry and although Hayley and her had taken the knives she was sure he would be able to find another way to torture his sister.

"Then we need to get to them before he learns the truth." Marcel tells him.

Octavia nods and steps forward, "I agree. Let's go."

Elijah and Marcel both stop and look at her. "No, O, absolutely not. We're not letting you walk into a potential war zone." Marcel stops her and she shrugs off his hand on her shoulder.

"Rebekah's in danger." She states simply and that's seems to be enough for Marcel. He knows that she's very capable of handling herself.

Elijah is not so easily convinced and even though he's been ignoring her, he looks to
meet her eyes. "I think it's best if you stay here... we have it handled." He thinks she's going to lose it again, that she's a liability, there's no other explanation.

Just as if Klaus was in the room she smirked up at him. "Good thing I wasn't asking then. Now let's get going their in danger and in a lot of pain." She could feel it.

Elijah looks at her intensity in his gaze and barley gives a nod as Marcel grabs her and
they speed to the sanitarium. Neither of them questioned her statement on how she couldn't know that their in a lot of pain.

They reached the entrance and decided to split up.

Octavia started to walk around the sanitarium, trying to follow her instincts and the pain. It had to lead to one of them so she just tried to follow it. Klaus' voice rang through and she started to run towards it.

As she approached she saw Elijah stab a blade into Klaus' chest. A pang of pain erupted in her own. It was there, faintly but there nonetheless.

She wasn't sure how to feel as he fell into Elijah's arms and Rebekah and Marcel ran away leaving the three of them there.

Octavia came out of her spot to look at Elijah who stared back at her and to the little trickle of blood that came out of her nose.