Chapter Text
John woke with a jolt.
His body reacted before his mind—muscles tensing, breath shallow, heart racing as if he were still running through corridors full of death. He tried to sit up too fast and the world tilted slightly.
This wasn’t a cell.
The smell was different. Too clean. Wood, something warm in the air. A fireplace recently extinguished, maybe.
“calm.”
The voice came from the right. Low. Controlled.
John turned his head.
Elijah was sitting in a nearby armchair, legs crossed, his coat folded neatly over the armrest. His hands rested together, perfectly still, as if he’d been there for hours—which was probably true.
John blinked twice.
Relief hit him short and brutal, knocking the air out of his lungs for a second.
He let out a short, slightly hysterical laugh.
“Holy shit…” He dragged a hand down his face. “Okay. At least I didn’t wake up chained again.”
Elijah didn’t smile. But his gaze softened by a millimeter.
“You are safe.”
“Great,” John breathed, sinking back into the mattress a little. “Because for a second I thought you were gonna start sparkling in the sunlight and playing dramatic piano.”
Elijah raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
John waved a vague hand.
“Nothing. Forget it. But speaking of which…” He squinted, studying Elijah sitting there, far too still. “You’ve got a very ‘sparkly vampire watching me sleep’ posture.”
Silence.
“Like Edward,” John added, far too animated for someone who’d just been rescued. “Twilight. Don’t pretend you’ve never heard of it. Rebekah watched it with me.”
Elijah blinked. Slowly.
“I do not sparkle.”
“Thank God,” John sighed. “One narcissistic Mikaelson per family is more than enough.”
He started looking around more carefully. A large room, old walls, furniture far too elegant to be casual.
“Where are we?” he asked. “And please tell me you finished killing those assholes.”
“I did,” Elijah replied, without emotion. “And we are somewhere that does not appear on maps.”
John nodded.
“Good.” He grimaced. “Because those sons of bitches just grabbed the copy.” He pointed at himself. “Me. And left you roaming free. The Original. Geniuses.”
A muscle in Elijah’s jaw tightened. Almost imperceptibly.
“Rest,” Elijah said, redirecting the conversation with the ease of someone who decided when it ended. “Your body is still recovering.”
“Absolutely not.” John shook his head. “I want a shower. Urgently. And food. A lot of food. Then maybe I’ll sleep.”
He paused.
Looked at his hands.
Frowned.
“…You cleaned my hands.”
Elijah didn’t answer right away.
John turned his head slowly, staring at him.
“They were covered in blood,” his voice dropped. “From the man I killed. But I can still feel it.”
He rubbed his fingers together, as if trying to wipe something invisible away.
“The warmth. The weight. His heart in my hand.”
The room fell silent again.
John lifted his gaze to Elijah, serious for the first time.
“How do you do it?” he asked. “Flip a switch and forget? Or do you just shove it behind that… red door?”
Elijah didn’t look away.
“It is not something you forget,” he said. “It is something you learn to carry.”
John let out a humorless laugh.
“Then I’m screwed. Because I don’t think I have one of those doors.”
He took a deep breath, shaking his head.
“And I didn’t want to kill that guy. I really didn’t.”
He inhaled again, as if still trying to organize his own body.
“It was automatic. It didn’t come from me.”
He raised his hand, opening and closing his fingers, testing.
“It came from this—from the body. From reflexes.”
His eyes flicked up to Elijah for a second, too fast to be accusation.
Then dropped again.
“Like someone taught it before I ever had a say. By the time I realized, it was already done.”
He lifted his arm, studying the smooth skin where cuts had once been.
“And I got another one. The healing. Found that out when I was captive. They hurt me… and it closed. On its own.”
Silence.
John looked up again, half defiant, half exhausted.
“So far, there are only two gifts of yours that I actually like.”
Elijah inclined his head slightly.
“Which are they?”
John flashed a crooked grin.
“This face,” he pointed at himself. “Because let’s be honest—I’m way too pretty.”
He paused.
“And the healing.”
The smile faded a little.
“The rest…” He shrugged. “I’m still deciding if the package is worth it.”
Elijah remained silent. But something in his gaze had shifted.
Not pity.
Recognition.
---
Hot water pounded against John’s back hard enough to sting. Steam rose, fogging the mirror, slowly dissolving the world around him until it became nothing but sound and heat.
He braced his hands against the shower wall.
Stared at them.
The same hands that had held a blade.
The same hands that had felt the snap—not of bone breaking, but of a heart being torn free.
He could still feel the phantom warmth.
A pulse that was no longer his.
(Hey…)
he thought, carefully.
(You’re there, right?)
Nothing answered at first. Just the water.
John took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and arranged his thoughts the way one chooses words that must not escape.
(Grimoire… I know you’re here. Don’t disappear now. Please.)
The silence stretched a second too long.
Then it came.
Not as a clear voice—as it never was—but as a scratch in his mind. A rough echo, hoarse, tired, but alive.
“I am. Don’t get annoying.”
John let out a short laugh, too relieved to hide it.
(Good. Good… because I needed to ask something. Actually, a lot of things.)
He rested his forehead against the cold tile of the stall.
What was that? The body… the magic… me… the three of us?
Water ran down his face, mixing with something he refused to admit was relief.
The Grimoire took its time this time.
“That,” it finally said, “was survival without a manual.”
“You didn’t become something else. You stopped splitting yourself.”
John swallowed hard.
(It felt… wrong. Too strong. It wasn’t just magic. It wasn’t just vampire.)
“No,” the Grimoire agreed. “It was decision.”
“You—Lívia—wanted to live. The body wanted to kill. The magic wanted to obey. For the first time, no one pulled in the wrong direction.”
John fell silent. The water hit his back like it was trying to tear something out of him.
(So is that what I’m becoming?)
“No,” the voice replied, firm. “That’s what you are when you stop pretending only one of you exists.”
He breathed in deeply.
The steam trembled in the air.
(Grimoire…) he said, his tone shifting, lower. (I remembered something.)
The presence of the book sharpened, alert.
(The missing ingredient for the weapon against Dahlia. It wasn’t metal. It wasn’t a symbol. It was blood.)
He opened his eyes.
(Esther’s blood.)
“I know,” said the Grimoire, quieter. “But I didn’t know.”
John frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does, when you understand that knowledge can be locked,” the book replied. “Some truths only open when the mind carrying them reaches the right point. Before that… they’re just pages stuck together.”
John closed his eyes again.
(We’re going to have to show this to Elijah. As a vision. Not as a plan.)
“Because if you say it out loud, he’ll try to control it,” the Grimoire replied, acidic. “And this isn’t something that can be controlled.”
One corner of John’s mouth lifted, tired.
(See? That’s why you’re my favorite accomplice.) He exhaled. (In all my lies and messes.)
“Don’t flatter me,” the voice grumbled. “I’ve been burned for less.”
John laughed for real this time. A low, crooked, human laugh.
(But I’m glad you’re with me.)
The water kept falling, constant. His body hurt less now. His mind felt a little more organized.
“So am I,” the Grimoire answered, softer. “Even when you’re an idiot.”
John turned off the shower.
Steam still clung to his skin when he stepped out of the stall.
The towel was folded with far too much care to be a coincidence. He pulled it over his head, drying his hair, and only then noticed the rest.
Clothes.
Perfectly folded on the chair near the bed: dark trousers, a clean shirt, a coat folded with almost military precision. Nothing flashy. Everything expensive. Everything… Elijah.
And beside the clothes, leaning there as if it were the most natural thing in the world, was it.
The Grimoire.
Its cover still marked, its pages slightly warped—but whole. Far too whole for something that had been kicked, forgotten, and left behind.
John stopped.
For a second, his chest tightened.
“You really came back with me…” he murmured, more to himself than to it.
He dressed slowly. Each piece felt like it helped his body fit back into itself, as if this too were part of the healing. When he finished, he picked up the Grimoire and held it against his chest.
Then he took a deep breath.
John opened the door.
The place was far too quiet.
Too clean.
It smelled of expensive wood, leather, and something citrusy John couldn’t name—but that screamed old money. He let his gaze sweep over the space as he walked slowly, still feeling his body adjust from the inside, as if every bone were being set back into its proper place.
“These vampires…” he muttered. “Even when they’re hiding from the world, they don’t let go of luxury. Impressive.”
Then the smell really hit him.
Food.
Hot. Real. Not blood. Not metallic. Actual food.
John’s stomach growled far too loudly, betraying him in the middle of the elegant silence.
He froze at the kitchen entrance.
Elijah Mikaelson was there.
Sleeves rolled up to his forearms, shirt still impeccable, focused on a pot simmering on the stove. His movements were precise, controlled—like everything about him—stirring with a wooden spoon as if this were… normal.
John blinked.
Blink again.
“…did I die and go to the wrong heaven?” he asked, his voice still a little rough. “Because this is way off-script.”
Elijah didn’t turn around right away.
“You woke sooner than I expected,” he said calmly. “Sit. It’s not ready yet.”
John’s stomach growled again, louder this time.
“Wow. Sorry. It doesn’t know how to behave around millennia-old family heads who cook.”
Elijah shot him a brief glance over his shoulder. One discreet lift of an eyebrow.
“John.”
“No, seriously.” John was already walking in, eyes wide. “I need a camera. Right now. Because when I tell Rebekah or Kol about this, they’re going to think I hit my head even harder than I already did.”
He pointed dramatically.
“Elijah Mikaelson. Cooking. For me. Man… this is insanely cool.”
The Original turned back to the pot, but the corner of his mouth tightened just slightly.
“If you finish that sentence with another provocation—”
“I absolutely will,” John cut in, grinning. “But it’s genuine curiosity.”
He leaned against the counter, watching every movement like he was observing a rare animal.
“Tell me something… how does a guy over a thousand years old, rich, handsome, well-dressed, with an audiobook narrator voice and a constant emotional-danger vibe… stay single?”
Elijah stopped stirring.
“Do you truly want to discuss my personal life… now?”
“Completely,” John replied without hesitation. “This is historical. I want it on record. Because honestly—you have everything women like.”
Elijah turned slowly.
His gaze was serious. Ancient. Assessing.
“Finish.”
John smiled, but there was something softer there now.
“And yet… alone.”
The silence that followed wasn’t tense. It was heavy.
Elijah turned back to the stove and switched off the heat with a calm motion.
“Some things,” he said as he plated the food, “are not meant to last. Others… last too long.”
He set the plate in front of John.
Hot food. Simple. It smelled outrageously good.
John swallowed.
“…okay.” He pulled out the chair and sat. “That answer was unfairly deep for a kitchen.”
Elijah sat across from him, finally allowing himself to observe John fully.
“Eat,” he said. “Then you can talk more.”
John blinked a few times, forcing his body to comply.
Elijah noticed.
He always noticed.
“What is it?” he asked, not touching him.
John exhaled slowly.
“Nothing,” he lied badly. “I mean… nothing physical. I think.”
He nudged the plate away slightly.
The shift in tone came without warning, like a tide pulling back before the wave.
“My magic isn’t… broken anymore,” he said at last. “It’s different.”
Elijah didn’t respond. He just listened.
“Before, it came in pieces. Fragments. A symbol, a half-phrase, a faceless image.” John rubbed his forehead. “Now it’s like someone adjusted the focus.”
He looked up.
“And that scares the hell out of me.”
He set the utensils aside, his expression finally serious.
“The vision I had… it’s about Dahlia.”
The name landed heavily between them.
“We’re going to lose this war, Elijah.” John drew a deep breath. “And Hope… will pay the price.”
The silence didn’t break. It deepened.
Then John extended his hand, hesitant, like someone offering something too alive to touch without care.
“So… what do you choose?” he asked. “Do you want to see the face of our enemy?”
Elijah studied the outstretched hand.
The fingers trembled slightly—a detail too small for anyone else to notice.
Except him.
*Calm,* the Grimoire snarled inside John’s head, impatient. *Less epic. More plausible. Elijah distrusts exaggeration.*
Right. Fine tuning.
He let the tremor lessen. Just enough that someone who wanted to notice, would.
*(GRIMOIRE, WHAT NOW?)* John thought, panic screaming inside his skull.
The answer came sharp and irritated:
“NOW? NOW YOU STOP THINKING ABOUT DEFEAT AND START ACTING, YOU ANIMAL. REMEMBER THE EPISODE. THE RITUAL. THE FOREST SCENE.”
John swallowed hard. Elijah read it as contained emotion.
“Are you sure you want to see?” John asked, his voice rougher than he meant. “It’s not… pretty.”
Elijah inclined his head—a minimal gesture that said everything: *Don’t underestimate me.*
“Show me.”
“I… don’t know if I can control what you’ll see,” John admitted, and that part was true.
“I don’t ask for control,” Elijah replied. “I ask for truth.”
John placed his hand on Elijah’s wrist. The skin was warm.
John closed his eyes and tried. Tried not to think of the real scene, but of remembering watching it. The couch. The laptop. The episode paused so he could grab more soda.
But the magic—that unstable, living thing inside him—didn’t obey logic.
It took the memory…
And amplified it.
The kitchen didn’t vanish all at once.
It tore.
The table was still there. The light still existed. Elijah could feel the weight of the chair beneath his body. But everything began to overlap, like two badly aligned images.
The smell changed first.
Damp earth. Resin. Old blood.
The forest.
Klaus stood ahead. Not furious. Not lost. Too calm for someone about to die. The golden dagger gleamed in his hand—not like a weapon, but like a decision.
The strike didn’t come from hatred.
It came from calculation.
The blade sank into his own chest, severing the thread of light that bound him to Dahlia. There was no immediate scream. Just a dull, wrong sound, like something essential being switched off.
Then Dahlia screamed.
Not in pain.
In betrayal.
The world trembled. Two bodies fell almost at the same time. The impact echoed low, swallowed by a forest that did not care.
Silence.
The trees vanished. The ground gave way.
Now it was the Mikaelson compound.
Klaus lay motionless. Not dead. Bound. Dahlia as well. Two monsters anchored to the same fate, linked by something no one there fully understood.
Elijah saw himself there—younger, more rigid. Freya paced back and forth, her magic fraying at the edges. Rebekah watched in silence, fear locked tight in clenched fists.
Attempts.
Arguments.
Mistakes.
“There has to be a way,” Freya’s voice cracked, insistent. “Without killing Klaus.”
No one answered.
Then Camille stepped in.
Not running. Not panicked.
She stopped.
Looked.
Thought.
“Klaus’s plan was never to kill Dahlia,” she said, and there was the slightest hesitation—almost imperceptible—before the next sentence. “It was to buy time.”
Everyone turned to her.
“The ingredients for the weapon…” Camille took a breath, as if organizing something she didn’t want to say. “They were wrong.”
The air seemed to stop.
“It isn’t Freya’s blood.”
“It never was.”
The name came heavy, inevitable:
“It’s Esther’s blood.”
The revelation fell like a contained thunderclap. No one spoke. No one moved.
“Klaus knew,” Camille continued, her voice lower now. “He knew your plan would fail. That Dahlia needed to believe.”
The image began to falter.
The edges unraveled. Sounds stretched and warped, like old tape.
The compound, the forest, the bodies—everything fractured at once.
And then—
Elijah was back in the kitchen.
John’s hand was still gripping his wrist.
The air was heavy.
The future still burned behind his eyes.
John blinked, the world taking half a second too long to realign, his hand pulling away from Elijah’s wrist as if burned.
The metallic taste came next.
He raised a hand to his face on reflex and only then saw the red on his fingers.
“Shit…” he muttered, more exhausted than frightened.
Elijah noticed immediately.
“Is that a consequence of the vision?” he asked, already on his feet.
John shrugged, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
“Used to be worse.” He tried for a half-smile. “Guess my body’s… learning.”
Elijah remained seated. Still. His eyes, however, dropped for a moment to the bloodstained hand, assessing the detail like someone measuring an unexpected variable.
“The bleeding stopped too quickly,” he observed. “This isn’t collapse. It’s adaptation.”
Only then did he lift his gaze to John’s face.
“Interesting,” he repeated, and now the word carried calculation, not surprise. “You didn’t just see the future. You saw a sacrifice.”
John nearly passed out from relief.
HE BELIEVED IT! HE BELIEVED OUR STUPID LIE! — the Grimoire sounded as shocked as John felt.
“So…” John ventured. “You believe me?”
Elijah studied him for another moment.
“I believe you saw something,” he said, choosing his words carefully.
He stood, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt.
“Esther’s blood,” he murmured, more to himself. “The mother who created us and then cursed us. Hers would be the key to saving the child who might… redeem our lineage.”
Elijah nodded once.
“Then we have work to do.”
He started to leave the kitchen, then paused in the doorway.
“John.”
“Yes?”
“That vision… did it come whole? Or in fragments?”
John swallowed. (TRICK QUESTION, GRIMOIRE!)
“Fragments. But the important ones came together.”
Elijah inclined his head, still facing away.
“Fragments,” Elijah said, his voice distant, “can be interpreted in many ways. Be careful which ones you choose to assemble.”
And he left.
John collapsed back into the chair, legs weak.
“Fuck,” he murmured to the empty air.
(Lying to an Original is more stressful than dying,) John thought.
The Grimoire’s reply came instantly, amused:
NOTE FOR THE FUTURE: DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN. UNLESS YOU HAVE TO. WHICH YOU WILL. BECAUSE YOU’RE AN IDIOT.
John laughed—a half-hysterical, half-relieved sound.
And as he finished eating the rest of the food Elijah had made, a truth surfaced, more terrifying than any lie:
Elijah now expected more “visions.”
And sooner or later, the supply of episodes would run out.
---
POST-CREDIT SCENE
The office felt more like a private gallery than a place of work.
Dark oak walls. Shelves lined with books far too old to be mere decoration. A fireplace crackled softly, casting living shadows across the room. The only other source of light came from a desk lamp.
The man behind the mahogany desk held an impeccable posture. His three-piece charcoal suit fit him with the ease of someone who has worn power for centuries. A few sheets of paper rested between his fingers — a report.
But his eyes were on the window.
A fine rain streaked the glass, warping the indistinct European city beyond.
The door opened without a sound.
“And then?” she asked as she entered. Her voice was melodic, far too beautiful to carry any real warmth. “Did your experiment produce the expected results?”
Tristan didn’t turn. He simply aligned the report on the desk, meticulous.
“In a way,” he replied. His voice was soft, polite. “Elijah’s reaction was predictable. Efficient. Complete. Brutal.”
Aurora moved closer, her heels silent against the Persian rug. She picked up the report, her eyes scanning the lines.
“Eliminating all the pawns…” she murmured, almost amused. “Excessive, don’t you think? For a clone.”
“For a clone that regenerates,” Tristan corrected, finally turning his chair to face her.
His eyes — a near-silver gray — reflected the firelight.
“That was the interesting variable,” he continued, gesturing to the report with two fingers. “The wound sealing itself. The magical fever. The body reacting like an Original… while the mind remained something else.”
Aurora dropped the paper onto the desk as if it were contaminated.
“Manufacturing defect,” she said. “Or evolution?”
Tristan walked toward the fireplace, watching the flames.
“The objective was never to kill the clone,” he said calmly. “It was to test it. Resilience. The Mikaelsons’ response. The level of attachment.”
A near-smile touched his lips.
“The paragon of Mikaelson order caring for a defective copy. There’s a story there. A vulnerability.”
Aurora poured herself a glass of cognac, watching the amber liquid swirl.
“And if they come after you?” she asked. “Because of this test?”
“Let them,” he replied without emotion. “It would be a strategic miscalculation. They have an ancient witch aunt, a child to protect… and now an unstable clone to manage. Adding the Martels to the equation would be a mistake. Elijah will know that.”
Tristan turned back to the window, the rain reflected in his pale eyes.
“Patience, my dear, is the sharpest weapon of all.” He paused. “We dropped the stone into the lake. Now we observe the ripples.”
Aurora smiled slowly.
“So we do nothing.”
“Not now,” he corrected. “We observe. Study. Understand what, exactly, the Mikaelsons have brought into existence.”
His gaze hardened, predatory.
“And then we decide whether it is a tool… a weapon… or an anomaly that must be eliminated.”
The rain continued to fall, indifferent.