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stahlop · 5 years ago

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Once Upon a Time 2x14 “Manhattan” Review

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Well, holy shit! Neal and Baelfire are the same person! Who saw that coming (right, pretty much everyone)? And he’s still an asshole. Apparently Milah and Rumplestiltskin were actually in love with each other at one point, but she turned on him rather quickly. Emma is not in a good place right now. Not only has she discovered that fate is responsible for everything, but Henry has found out the truth about his father. Also, Cora wants the Dark One Dagger which can’t be good.

Summary: Emma discovers that Neal is Gold’s son and has to come to terms with that. Hook, Cora, and Regina find the map with the coordinates for the Dark One Dagger. In the Enchanted Forest, Rumplestiltskin gets called to be in the Ogres War, but a prophecy from a Seer has him taking desperate measures to go home.

Opening: NYC

Character Observations:

Rumplestiltskin/Gold: So, before he was a coward, before Milah was disgusted by the sight of him, Rumplestiltskin and Milah were actually in love. And he’s all about joining the Ogres War to prove he’s not a coward like his father (wow, let’s hope Henry doesn’t end up with the coward trait that apparently has plagued that family for the past three generations). After what I’m assuming is at least 6-7 months, Rumplestiltskin is tasked with guarding a crate for an officer who is called to the front. He is told it contains a beast that can help them win the Ogres War. It turns out to be a child who is a Seer (and she’s scary as all hell, eye sockets stitched up and actual eyes in her hands, who came up with that nightmare?). Rumplestiltskin won’t indulge hearing his future because it’s dark magic (oh the irony), but once the Seer starts talking about Milah, Rumplestiltskin is all in to hear what she has to say. He gives her water in exchange for what she has to say. She tells him Milah is already with child, a son (Rumplestiltskin is so happy about this news), but Rumplestiltskin’s actions on the battlefield tomorrow will leave him fatherless. Which he takes to mean he will die. But when the Seer refuses to give more information, Rumplestiltskin thinks she’s lying. She tells him they will meet again and he’ll help her again. He again accuses her of lying. She gives him one last vision of them riding cows into battle the next day so that he knows she is speaking the truth. She reiterates her original vision and Rumplestiltskin covers the crate back up. The next morning (early as the sun has not even risen yet), Rumplestiltskin sees injured men coming from the battlefield. A fellow soldier (also not wearing a hood of any kind) tells him they’re lucky because the only way you can go home from the Ogres War is if you’re injured and cannot fight anymore. The officer tells the troops that they have just received horses for battle. He calls the saddles cows, confirming what the Seer said about riding cows into battle. Rumplestiltskin is getting very worried now that the Seer’s vision has come true. He is convinced he will die in battle and never see Milah or meet his son. He goes to the Seer’s crate, but she is no longer there. He just happens to see a blacksmith’s mallet and decides he’s going to injure himself by bashing his knee. Why did he decide to do this before the battle? If he’d done this during the battle no one would have been the wiser that it wasn’t a battle injury and then he would’ve gone home a hero. But now we know how he got his limp and why he was branded a coward. So, apparently Rumplestiltskin had to walk home from the front on an injured knee (is that how all the injured had to get home, by walking?), and when he gets home, not only has Milah already had the baby, but she’s up and about and lost the baby weight (how long was Rumplestiltskin go for?). She does not look that happy to see him. Rumplestiltskin immediately asks what the baby’s name is before even saying hello to his wife (always with the names Rumple). When Milah tells him Baelfire, he’s ecstatic that she chose a strong name (no reasoning why she chose this name?), and that he’ll need it to live with the shame of being his son. Rumplestiltskin tries to justify his actions to Milah but she’s not having it. And here’s the Milah we’ve seen before, the one who hates her husband with the fires of 1000 suns. She brands him a coward like his father. Rumplestiltskin has had enough! His father tried to abandon him, he would never do the same to his child. Honestly, I wish we’d seen this episode before Desperate Souls, The Return, and The Crocodile, because then we’d have had great foreshadowing rather than a ‘look how much we’re going to run into the ground how Rumple loved his family, hated dark magic and would never abandon his son’ episode that shows us just how low he went by becoming the Dark One and abandoning all his ideals. Rumplestiltskin doesn’t know what Milah wanted him to do. She tells him he could have fought and died. He’s heartbroken about that, but instantly goes into loving father mode when she hands him Bae so she can go off and be alone. We next see Rumplestiltskin a little bit after Bae left, having found the Seer. He’s mad that, while what she told him was the truth, it didn’t pan out the way he thought it would. She should have told him the details. He wants to find his son. She tells him it will take many years and a curse. A curse he will not cast or break. He wants more details, she tells him she has limits. Rumplestiltskin doesn’t think that’s good enough. He tries to strangle the Seer into telling him more, but she tells him he needs to take her powers if he wants to see what he needs to do. He gladly does. He doesn’t understand it all when it hits him. The Seer tells him it’s a puzzle to be sorted and soon he’ll be able to distinguish between what could be and what will be. He accuses her of wanting to give him her power so she could be free from the torment of visions. She tells him he’ll work it all out. The Seer has one last vision before she dies which basically insinuates that Henry will be Rumplestiltskin’s undoing, whatever that means.

Gold is desperate to find his son. He has taken Emma and Henry as far as his magic could help him in finding Bae. An apartment building. Emma deduces that the one buzzer without a name belongs to his son, and he runs when they ring the bell. Gold tells Emma that the deal will be fulfilled when she brings his son back and he gets to talk with him. Henry tries to comfort Gold while they wait. Gold thanks him for bringing Emma to Storybrooke as none of this would have happened otherwise. Or you know, if Gold hadn’t been such a coward back in the day, he wouldn’t have ruined everyone’s lives by manipulating Regina into casting the curse and he could have been living with his son happily ever after. But potato, po-tah-to. Henry tells Gold that he forgave Emma for giving him up because she did what she thought was best, and his son will forgive him too. Gold tells him the situation is quite different and not so noble. Henry thinks that because he is there now his son will have to forgive him too. Gold is getting exceedingly nervous. Henry doesn’t understand why; he was excited to meet his mom (oh, to have Henry’s optimism). Gold says that life experience has shown him that things don’t always go the way you want them to. Henry starts wondering why Gold didn’t just look into the future to find out how their reunion would go. Gold explains that trying to figure out visions of the future is more like a puzzle with missing pieces; difficult to read and never what you think. Emma comes back and tells them his son got away and Gold is disappointed. But not disappointed enough that he doesn’t break into the apartment to look for clues. Emma tries to dissuade him, telling him he could get arrested, but he uses that as an excuse for his son to have to see him to either press or drop charges. Gold notices Emma looking at a dreamcatcher in the apartment so he thinks she’s not telling him something and starts yelling at her. They go back and forth with Gold accusing Emma of knowing something and Emma saying she doesn’t until he finally threatens that he’ll make her tell him. Emma reminds him he has no magic here and Gold knocks something over and says no one breaks deals with him and then Neal comes in. Gold is in visible shock when he sees his son. Gold thinks Neal came to talk to him, but Neal says he just came to make sure he didn’t hurt Emma, as he’s seen what his father does to people who break deals. Gold just wants to talk to Neal, but Neal wants him out of his apartment. Emma tries to defuse the situation, but Gold realizes the two of them know each other, and the second Henry walks in, he puts it together. And he also puts together that Neal has inherited the abandoning his son trait that all the men in Rumplestiltskin’s line seem to fall victim to. Neal wants his father out of his apartment but Gold tells him the deal was for Emma to get Neal to talk to him. Neal gives him three minutes. And then Gold goes crazy, because he actually thinks Neal will take his offer of making him 14 again, erasing his memory, and getting to live his life out with his father. What the Fuck?! Has this literally been his plan the whole time? Neal just found out he’s a father, does Gold really think he’ll abandon him to become a teenager again? Gold just wants Neal to give him a chance. He even shows him how he’s changed by coming to the Land Without Magic, but Neal calls him out by saying how he’s still trying to use magic to make up for everything. Neal tells him he’s letting him go like he let him go all those years ago. Gold tells Neal he’s sorry, but Neal doesn’t care. He walks away to go talk to Henry. We end with Gold remembering the prophecy about the boy and probably wondering what he’s going to do since ‘the boy’ has turned out to be his grandson.

Neal: Oh, god, where do I even start with Neal. His treatment of Emma is still abysmal. I’m glad he tells Gold off, because he totally deserves it, but the way he deals with Emma is just horrible. We first see him running when Emma tries to get into his apartment, so we already know he’s still shady, if someone ringing his bell causes him to panic and run. Then, when he realizes it’s Emma chasing him he actually seems happy to see her. Like what does he think is going to happen? Or is it just the fact that she’s alive and well? Then she starts questioning him and he’s confused until she mentions his father and Rumplestiltskin. Then he’s pissed that she brought his father to NYC and Emma is rightly more pissed when she tells him he doesn’t get to be angry. Emma starts peppering him with questions but he wants to get off the street (again, telling me that he’s into something shady if he doesn’t want to be seen on the street), and tells her to follow him to a bar. Emma doesn’t want to go, but then he jokes that she can continue yelling at him there. I’m glad to see his sense of humor is still in tact during this whole thing. Emma reluctantly follows. At the bar Neal tells Emma she can ask him whatever she wants (and they’ve apparently already been there long enough for Neal to order and receive a beer). Neal tells her he didn’t know who she was and August told him later. He wouldn’t have gone near her if he’d known who she was (wow, just wow!). Emma is very close to tears now, telling Neal she loved him. Neal claims he was just trying to help her by getting her home. Was there seriously no other way he could have done this? I’m sure if he’d just told her about the curse she would’ve thought he was crazy and just left him all on her own. No jail time required. Emma is still nonplussed that them meeting was a coincidence. Neal says him and Emma meeting could have messed things up with getting her to break the curse. Neal chalks it up to fate and destiny. He thinks maybe they met for a reason and something good came out of their relationship (yep, Henry, the reason Emma broke the curse). Notice that Neal never asks Emma how she got to Storybrooke or how she broke the curse. It’s still all about him and his feelings. Emma says she just ended up in jail, and she’s over it and him. Neal smiles when he sees she’s still wearing the swan keychain and calls her out on it. She tears it off and claims it was to remind her not to trust anyone ever again. Emma tries to bring him back to Gold, and Neal is upset she made a deal with him, but he’s not going back and there’s nothing she can do about it. But he does end up back at his apartment, trying to save Emma from his father. And while they’re arguing, Neal and Emma get a little too familiar with each other and then Henry comes out, calling Emma mom and Neal realizes that Henry is his son. And I get that he’s upset that he didn’t know about him and that Emma wasn’t going to tell him about Henry, but he left her and framed her and put her in jail. Emma doesn’t owe him anything! Neal wants to go talk to Emma and Henry, but Gold wants to talk to him first, which Neal doesn’t want to do until Gold tells him that’s part of the deal with Emma. So they talk, and Gold talks crazy, and nothing Gold says makes him want to forgive his father. Neal tells him that all Gold has thought about is what he, himself went through to find him, but never once has he thought about what he, his son, has been through all these years. I may not like Neal, but finally, someone is calling out Gold for his selfishness. Thank you! Neal tells him how he sees that image of his father letting go of his hand every night and how he chose magic (with a little nod to Rumplestiltskin’s gesturing) over him. Neal is done with him and tells him to get out. Here’s the thing though, I see no emotion in Neal’s face or voice. It’s like he’s talking to a wall and not his father, and I don’t know if that’s an acting choice or that the actor just couldn’t get the emotional range needed. Either way, I get more emotional over Gold’s reactions, even though he deserves it, than I do over Neal’s. Emma comes back in to tell Neal that Henry wants to meet him. Neal accuses Emma of not telling him about Henry (at this moment), and she says she wasn’t planning on telling him. Neal says Henry is his kid too so he gets some say now (no, he really doesn’t get any say, I doubt he’s even on the original birth certificate and Emma has no legal right to him at the moment), and Emma snipes at him. Neal takes a deep breath and Emma asks him not to break his heart. He claims he won’t do what his father did, and Emma reminds him that he broke her heart. Neal doesn’t even look guilty about this, he’s almost insulted that she brings it up again. He says they’re all messed up and to not let Henry get messed up too (too late). Neal apologizes to Henry for not being there before, but Henry says it’s okay because he didn’t know about him (and Neal doesn’t look guilty here either, because he should).

Emma: She is not having a good day. I mean, who would be having a good day when the person she was betrayed the most by happens to also be the son Gold wants her to find for him. So Emma discovers Neal is Gold’s son and rightly freaks out because now she thinks her whole life has been a lie. She rightly questions Neal about whether he knew who she was when they met, but Neal’s freaking out over his father having finally found him. He yells at Emma for bringing Rumplestiltskin to him, but Emma’s not having it. And I get that Neal is very pissed off at his father, but Emma has way more right to be pissed right now because her whole life has just gone off kilter. She’s already had to deal with the fact that her parents are fairy tale characters and she had to break a curse and she’s the savior, but now the guy who broke her has turned up again and happens to be connected to all the fairy tale characters that she’s just getting used to. It’s a lot to take in. So they ‘talk’. Emma is trying so hard during this conversation to not cry. You can see it in her face and hear it in her voice. She will not let her emotions take over. Emma thinks everything was a set up between them and that Neal just used her to take the fall for the watches. Neal claims if he’d known who she was when they met he never would’ve gone near her. Wow, that’s harsh. Emma’s even more pissed that he essentially ran off because August told him to. Emma is incredulous that they could’ve met if he or Gold didn’t orchestrate it, but Neal thinks it was fate, because them meeting could’ve stopped her from going to Storybrooke and breaking the curse. I’m sure Emma is thinking about how them being together is exactly how she got to Storybrooke to break the curse. Neal thinks they must have met for a reason and that something good came out of their relationship, but Emma is not going to bring Henry into this, so she lies and tells him the only thing that happened was she went to jail. She also pulls off the swan keychain she wore because she’s had her closure with Neal and doesn’t need it anymore. She’s still insistent on bringing Neal back to Gold. Neal tells her she doesn’t have to uphold her end and Emma says she knows. She’s actually looking forward to that confrontation, I can tell. But Neal won’t go and tells Emma to tell his father she lost him in the chase. If she does that, she’ll never see him again. Emma’s down with the never seeing Neal again. On the way back to Gold and Henry, Emma calls Mary Margaret because she doesn’t know what to do. She’s looking for validation to not tell Henry about his father, but Mary Margaret makes her see that Emma is not protecting Henry but protecting herself. Emma goes back to Gold and he decides to break into Neal’s apartment to wait for his son. Emma notices a dreamcatcher on the window and thinks back to when they almost took the one from the hotel room. Gold notices that she’s getting nostalgic and thinks she’s keeping something from him about his son. Emma sends Henry into the other room when Gold starts yelling and threatening her, and it looks like things are going to get violent when Neal shows up. He says he came back to protect Emma. Gold and Neal argue and Emma tries to get Neal to calm down, but accidentally calls him Neal and Gold realizes they know each other. And then all hell breaks loose when Henry enters. Emma tries to get him back in the other room, and, of course, this is one of the few times Henry decides to call Emma, mom, and then she tries to not let Henry answer when Neal asks for his age, but all is for naught because Neal figures out that Henry is his son. Emma doesn’t deny it this time, and you can see the anguish in her face when she makes the decision to let Neal know Henry is her son. Henry is mad because Emma lied to him. She says she’d hoped to never see him again, that he wasn’t a good guy, and that he broke her heart. She does not mention the fact that he framed her and put her in jail. She says she was thinking of herself and not Henry. Henry accuses her of being like Regina. Whoa! Emma is nothing like Regina. Protecting Henry from the asshole who ruined her life is one thing, manipulating and making you think you’re crazy is something else entirely. Emma doesn’t even try to defend herself, she just apologizes to Henry and then goes to get Neal when Henry says he wants to meet him. Neal gets mad because Emma wasn’t going to mention him and Emma doesn’t deny it. Seriously, why would she tell Neal about Henry? He framed her and got her put in jail! Then he gets all high and mighty about how she can’t make all the decisions because Henry’s his kid too. Emma’s done and just tells him to go talk to Henry. Emma tells him not to break his heart like he did with her. Neal doesn’t like that she called him out on that, again, but says they shouldn’t try to mess up their kid like they’re messed up. Too late. Emma watches forlornly out the window as Henry and Neal talk. I just feel so horrible for Emma at this moment. She’s finally got her family and then Neal comes out of the woodwork to mess it all up. Because we all know he’s going to mess it all up.

Regina/Cora/Hook: Meanwhile, back in Storybrooke, these three idiots are trying to find Gold’s dagger. Cora is playing the ever doting mother to Regina (and has gotten a new Storybrooke makeover in the process, and she looks so much better in modern clothing and her hair down). Regina is upset because Emma took Henry out of Storybrooke without telling her. Cora placates her by telling her Henry will be back soon, but Regina says he still won’t be with her. Hook comes in and hears that Gold is out of Storybrooke. Regina doesn’t know where he is, but Hook immediately goes into planning mode that if he’s out of Storybrooke he’s powerless and can be killed. You can just see his mind working. It’s glorious! Cora and Regina remind him that they would lose their magic too, but Hook doesn’t have magic so it’s of no consequence to him. Regina berates him about just going up and stabbing him. Hook would rather use his hook, but he hasn’t been able to find it since leaving the hospital. Cora would rather Hook stay and help them look for the Dark One dagger which can kill him in Storybrooke. Regina goes to visit Belle in the hospital to see if she has any info, but with the amnesia she’s no help, so Regina puts her to sleep. And then, instead of rifling through Belle’s purse like a normal person, she levitates everything inside until she finds a library book number written on a notecard. Regina, Cora, and Hook go looking in the library. Cora is impressed how Regina deduced where the dagger, or something that could lead them to the dagger, might be. They don’t find the book, but there is a crudely drawn map. How lucky for them that they have a pirate who can decipher maps with them. Except, when he does decipher it, Cora decides that he can’t help them anymore and knocks him out. Regina asks Cora if this is why she’s really here, to get the dagger and become the Dark One. Cora says that if they control Gold then they can make him kill the Charmings and Emma and then Henry will be all Regina’s and no one can blame them. Regina smiles at this and finds this an acceptable plan. Just, ugh! Regina is so much smarter than this. I guess without anyone in her corner (Henry, Sr.) she really just blindly follows whomever shows her the slightest hint of love, and totally bypasses all the warning signals that they are using her for their own gain. I wish I didn’t feel sorry for Regina, but she was trying to change in the first half of the season, so I really want to believe that would have continued if not for Cora. As for Hook, what does the dagger matter if you go with your original plan to kill Gold where he has no power? Get away from Cora and do what you need. I can live with just seeing Rumplestiltskin in flashbacks.

Milah: We get to see her actually in love with her husband. She’s worried for Rumplestiltskin when he gets drafted to go to war. He’s adamant that this will help him not be known as the son of a coward anymore and Milah tells him that he can’t always live in his father’s shadow. She has so much faith in him, it’s scary. She tells him to go and fight honorably and when he gets back they can start their family. Little does she know she’s already pregnant. When Rumplestiltskin arrives home, Milah’s already had the baby (he’s probably 2-3 months old) and she’s disgusted by what her husband did to get out of fighting. Rumplestiltskin insists that he did it to ensure he got home to his family, but she’d rather him died and be known as a hero than him injuring himself like a coward. For someone who was so much in love with her husband before he left, she turns on him pretty quickly. Now we see the Milah we were introduced to in The Crocodile. She’s not a happy camper that she’s now saddled to town coward, because that is what he’s now become in her’s and the town’s eyes.

Questions:

How many Ogres Wars have there been? We see one in this episode, there was another that Bae was supposed to fight in during Desperate Souls (could possibly be the same war), Belle’s kingdom made a deal with Rumplestiltskin in Skin Deep to help stop the war. That could also be the same war that Snow dealt with as she mentions to Charming that the Ogres were back in The Outsider. Has there always been an Ogres War happening or do they just happen every generation?

We’re all pretty clear that Cora has come back for the Dark One dagger and not Regina, right?

I thought the favor that Emma was doing for Gold was helping him find his son in NYC? Now it’s getting his son to talk to him as well?

In Broken Neal entered the apartment wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. What kind of trouble is he in that he still has a briefcase type job?

Why did Neal consider himself in hiding from his father? As far as he knew it was the last bean left. Why did he think his father would come after him?

All August had to show Neal was a paper with “I know you’re Baelfire” written on it? That’s what made him frame Emma and send her to jail?

How did August find out Neal was Baelfire in the first place? It’s not like he can do internet research and find a connection between the two? How did he know about Baelfire in the first place?

Why is Rumplestiltskin the only soldier not wearing a chainmail hood? I’m assuming it’s so we recognize him, but it just looks odd that he’s the only one not wearing one.

Would Emma have told Henry about Neal if he hadn’t shown up at the apartment?

I get that Cora and Hook wouldn’t know how to look up books in a library, but should Regina have that knowledge ingrained in her head from the curse?

Why would the duke send saddles made of the finest leather to the battlefield where most people are ending up injured or dead and the horses most likely to run off with the saddles still on them?

Why does Gold think there’s something up with Emma and the dreamcatcher? They literally just used one to look at Pongo’s memories like a week ago.

Was Neal waiting for the right moment to come into his apartment? It seems pretty convenient that he came in right when Gold was threatening Emma.

How does one try to abandon their child? It seems pretty clear that Rumplestiltskin’s father did abandon him as he was raised by spinsters.

Did Gold remember the undoing prophecy when Emma said they were bringing Henry with them to find his son? Did he think he was going to kill Henry before they set out on their trip?

What does ‘his undoing’ mean? Is Henry going to bring about Gold’s death? Will he release him from being the Dark One?

Observations:

Milah’s dress is the same color blue as the dress Rumplestiltskin later dresses Belle in when she’s his maid.

Hook still seems to be in pretty bad shape (considering it’s still a day or two after the accident), but Greg is walking around as if he didn’t just have chest surgery and has been discharged from the hospital.

Neal lives in apartment 407.

I know when I’m stuck in a hospital, I must make sure to have my false lashes on and mascaraed, like Belle.

When Belle asks Regina if they were friends Regina responds that they spent some time together. Yeah, she had you locked away for about 30 years total between the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke.

Gold knows how to pick a lock.

David’s lines about how Gold can’t be Henry’s grandfather because he is and how Thanksgiving would suck are hilarious.

Greg decides to stay in Storybrooke and has managed to record Regina doing magic.

Cora calls the dagger the Kris Dagger.

We already knew that the Blue Fairy had inadvertently given Rumplestiltskin the idea for a curse in The Return, but now we know where he got the idea for moving everyone in the land with it.

Timeline:

Ok, so I don’t think this has been established in the show quite yet, but when Rumplestiltskin and Bae’s timeline is in the show has now come into question. In Tallahassee I guesstimated Neal’s age at around 23. But this is impossible if he and Rumple come from the same timeline as Snow and Charming and everyone else. If Bae went through the portal to the Land Without Magic and immediately went on living his life, he’d be much older than 23 when he met Emma. Rumple was putting the events of Snow and Charming getting together and Regina casting the curse for years, which would mean Neal would have had to have been in his 30’s or 40’s (or even older) by the time he met Emma in Portland if he’d come directly from the portal. But I’m thinking he didn’t. He would have had to have gone somewhere else first where he either didn’t age or aged slower. He also says to Gold that he has seen him letting him go in the portal for more years than he can know. Hmm, any thoughts on where that might have been?

Great episode! Emma finally got to confront Neal about what he did, but she’s also discovered that he’s Gold’s son, which means he’s from the Enchanted Forest as well. Which means what exactly? I don’t know. Will Neal come back to Storybrooke now that he knows about Henry? Will they try some sort of custody agreement? How will Regina react to all this. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled that Gold somehow procured her his own grandson to raise. I just hope that Emma doesn’t go back to Neal now that’s he’s going to be some kind of fixture in her life, because he is bad news. Don’t go for the guy who put you in jail Emma, no matter how he spins it.

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peopleandrhythm · 7 years ago

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S2E9: Break Me on This Lonely Road

A large pickup truck, black as night, rumbles through the Louisiana bayou, its enormous tires crunching easily over the brambles. Affixed to the hitch is a rather large camper, big enough to house several people. Together they weave through the trees, sending fauna scattering, before rolling to a stop in the middle of a clearing. The engine cuts, but all is not quiet as a caravan of other vehicles, trucks and cars and Jeeps, appears from behind, cutting the same path as the truck.

When the circle of vehicles finally quiets, Sebastian Sharpe steps out of the black truck, his boots snapping twigs as he lands on the ground. Soon, others follow suit, climbing out of their cars and trucks. There are dozens of them, people of various shapes, sizes, colors, and genders, all dressed in a manner that suggests that perhaps they might have to survive an apocalypse at some point in the near future. And then, of course, there are the weapons.

Everyone in the clearing has at least two weapons on their person; there are knives tucked in boots, peashooters strapped to ankles, crossbows slung across backs, pistols wedged into belts. There are enough weapons in this clearing to supply a well-organized militia—which is exactly what this is.

Sebastian opens his arms and gestures widely to the people looking at him. “This’ll do,” he calls. “We’ll set up camp here.” He smiles up at the trees, hazy in the soft sunlight of dawn, and smirks. “Yeah. Yeah, this seems like a fine spot to begin the end of the vampire species.”

The sun has barely crested over the horizon when Marcel approaches his apartment building. He’s not looking up as he walks to the front doors, tapping at his phone in his hand. He’s writing a response (Damn, at least let me take you to dinner first.) to Rebekah’s last text (Bite me.), but before he can hit send, there’s a low thwap. He looks down, and the barest, bloody tip of an arrow is protruding from his chest. He rolls his eyes, and the curse is half-formed on his lips when the phone tumbles to the ground, his body, desiccated, following soon after.

Jordan walks over to him, eyes narrowed. He gestures for his few comrades to step forward. “Come on. Get ‘im in the truck. We’ll want to get him back to camp before he wakes up and kills us.”

The compound is quiet, and Freya pads through the courtyard as silently as possible. She’s nearly at the entryway when a voice from above calls down, “Where are you headed?”

Her head snaps up, and Klaus is on the first floor balcony, staring down at her. “I didn’t realize you were suddenly in charge of my whereabouts, Niklaus.”

In one deft move, Klaus launches himself over the balcony rail and lands in front of his elder sister. “You’re leaving to go see her.”

Freya can feel the anger rippling off of Klaus. “That’s hardly your business.”

“Our brother nearly died because of your attachment to this girl!”

“Nik!” They both turn to see Rebekah storming down the stairs. “Leave our sister alone.”

“How can you defend her, Rebekah?” Klaus argues, gesturing wildly. “She betrayed this family—”

“An offense you yourself have committed countless times over the centuries.” She comes to a stop by Freya’s side. “Where exactly did you find this moral superiority you so desperately cling to now? Freya made a choice, a liberty you have so rarely granted me during our years together. Disagree with her all you want, she is still our fiercest defender and our sister.” Rebekah loops her arm through Freya’s. “She deserves happiness, wherever she might find it.”

Klaus looks properly scolded, and Rebekah takes his silence as an opportunity to guide Freya toward the front gates. Rebekah kisses her cheek. “I am glad you have found someone to make you happy, sister.”

Freya smiles. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Rebekah.”

Rebekah rolls her eyes. “I have been the great betrayer of Klaus Mikaelson more times than I care to remember. I’d be happy to share the title with someone else for once.”

“I can still hear you,” Klaus calls.

“Oh, sod off,” Rebekah snaps. Then she gives Freya a little nudge. “Go. Be with the girl you love.”

“I don’t know if I—”

“Yes, you do.”

Freya nods, and then disappears onto the busy New Orleans street.

Marcel wakes slowly, and then very suddenly. His jaw is aching horribly, and he reaches up to claw at the mask on his face. Whatever it is, it’s tugging painfully at his fangs, and feels like it’s squeezing the life out of him.

Despite the pain, he pushes himself up onto one elbow, and tries to take stock of his situation. He’s in a small space—a camper, he gathers, similar to those that the Crescents live out of in the bayou. The space is littered with papers, old leather-bound tomes, and piles and piles of weapons. Marcel recognizes an arsenal dedicated to hunting vampires; he hasn’t seen this many stakes in years.

He shifts, and there’s a clanking sound; his feet are chained to the wheel well of the camper, with only a few inches of slack. He yanks on the chain, but even his considerable strength, weakened though he is, can’t break it.

His focus returns to the mask. He can feel his fangs, not willingly bared, being wrenched from his gums, as though they’re barely hanging on by a thread. He hasn’t known this exquisite a pain in quite some time, and he has no idea what’s going on. His hands grab at the mask, but they trip over two long, clear hoses. Amber liquid drips through, and Marcel’s startled to see his own venom. Angry, he makes to rip off the mask, but it doesn’t budge an inch; it’s been spelled onto his face.

Livid, Marcel lets out a low growl. Someone is stealing his venom, and when he finds out who, he’s going to tear their head from their body.

When Freya walks into Amaya’s apartment, there are stacks of paper everywhere. Amaya herself is lost on the couch, flipping through a large binder spread on her lap. Freya drops her jacket onto a chair and settles next to Amaya. “This is all for his funeral?”

Amaya nods. “They do things so differently in New Orleans. I mean, there are plenty of Catholic churches, so I’m not worried about that, but the funeral procession is so…much.” She sighs. “Back home it’s so much quieter.”

Freya runs a hand up and down her back. “You don’t have to have the whole New Orleans…experience. You knew your brother best. No one would know better than you how to honor his life.”

Setting the binder of caskets aside, Amaya reaches onto the coffee table and retrieves a stack of photographs. “I had all these printed today. I didn’t know…I didn’t know which ones I wanted to use. Should it be just him, or the two of us? I have a few of our entire family, but when our house burned down we lost most of those.”

Freya peeks over her shoulder at the photos as Amaya flips through them. They’re mostly of Joel and Amaya within the past few years. She sees the light in Amaya’s eyes, the happiness as her brother tosses her into a pool. She can also see the way Joel looks at her, a fierce kind of love that only eldest siblings could hope to understand. A hot wave of guilt washes over her, and she points at a photo to distract herself. “When was this one taken? He doesn’t have that scar here.”

Amaya freezes, then turns very slowly to stare questioningly at Freya. “How did you know about his scar?”

Freya’s eyes go wide. “You told me about it.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t tell you really anything about Joel. I was going to wait and see how…how serious we were before I brought you two together. Did you know him?” Her voice is accusatory. “Did you know my brother?”

Scrambling for answers she doesn’t have, Freya says, “I think I ran into him once. When leaving here. It’s not important, not when you have so many things on your plate—”

“Why are you lying to me?” Amaya stands up, sending papers scattering.

“Amaya, listen…” Freya stands too. “Your brother…he wasn’t exactly who you thought he was.”

“Who I thought he was? What the hell is that supposed to mean? He was my brother.”

“And your brother tried to kill mine!” Amaya’s face blooms in shock at Freya’s outburst. Freya says quickly, “Your brother was…he was a vampire hunter, and he tried to kill my brother. I know you loved him and I am so, so sorry for the fact that you’ve lost him, but he was a killer, and he had to be stopped.”

Amaya’s blinking rapidly, eyes searching as she tries to process everything she’s hearing. Eventually, in the softest voice, she asks, “Did you kill him?”

“I—no. It wasn’t me.”

“But who know who it was.”

A long pause. “Yes.”

Amaya nods. “Okay. Okay.” She reaches down and grabs Freya’s jacket off of the couch. She shoves it into Freya’s chest. “Get out.”

“Amaya—”

“No. Get out. Get the hell out. I don’t know about—about vampires and vampire hunters—you sound insane. I want you out of my apartment and out of my life.”

Freya’s face betrays her heartbreak. “Amaya, please…”

“He was my brother.” Amaya’s voice cracks, and her eyes are brimming with tears. “My brother. The only person I had left. He was my brother.”

And in a thousand years, Freya has never felt so small.

Marcel’s still tugging on the mask strapped to his face when the door to the camper creaks open. He stops and glares. Sebastian walks up to him and smiles down. “How’re we doing?”

Though it hurts to talk, Marcel winces and says, muffled, “I can’t wait to kill you.”

With a laugh, Sebastian replies, “Not likely. We know we can’t kill you—yet, because we’ve definitely got people working on that—but we don’t want you dead. In fact, you’re so valuable to the cause, you’ll probably be the last vampire in the world to die.”

Marcel’s eyes narrow. “And why is that?”

“Because your venom is more valuable to us than gold.”

“And what exactly are you going to do with my venom?”

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?” He crouches down so he’s staring Marcel right in the face. “We’re going to wipe out the Original vampires, and their sire lines with them.”

When Freya walks back through the compound, she’s quiet. She keeps her eyes affixed to the ground, hoping to just disappear into her bedroom for a while. She’s crossing the courtyard when she hears a quiet voice from above. “Aunt Freya?”

Freya looks up, and Hope on the balcony above, watching her tentatively. “Hope?”

Hope starts, “Can I…” Then she sees her aunt’s face. “Are you okay?”

Freya’s eyes dart away. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Hope jerks her head toward her bedroom. “Come on. Let’s talk.”

Sebastian tugs on one of the tubes winding out of Marcel’s mask. It’s nearly completely empty. “Looks like we’ve dried you out.” He calls over his shoulder, “Lorena!”

The camper door swings open, and a young woman with large eyes and dark hair enters. Sebastian smiles at her. “Please remove our friend’s mask. We need to give him time to let his venom stores replenish.”

“Sure thing.” Lorena glides over to Marcel and kneels in front of him. She places her hands on either side of his mask and bows her head. There’s a low heat that simmers across Marcel’s skin, and then the mask slides easily off of his face.

He narrows his eyes. “A witch helping vampire hunters? A little cliché, don’t you think?”

Lorena smiles. “I would think that if anyone understood the enmity between witches and vampires, it would be the once-great king of New Orleans.” She pats his shoulder condescendingly, but when she does, she seizes up, stare going blank.

“Lorena?” Sebastian crouches down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

The girl is silent, and Marcel watches her warily until her eyes pop open, and her hand drops away from his shoulder. “There’s a girl.”

Sebastian looks confused. “A girl? What girl?”

“A wolf. Lovely curls.” She looks at Sebastian. “She is the key to curing a vampire of his venom.”

Marcel goes very still as Lorena mentions River. He’s known, of course, that as long as she’s alive, there will always be an antidote to his venom, but lately he hasn’t been overly interested in using it to kill anyone. Sebastian eyes him. “Who is she?” Marcel says nothing. “Whatever. There are only so many wolves in this swamp town. We’ll find her.” He pushes himself to his feet, leaving a silently seething Marcel on the ground.

Hope sits cross-legged on her bed, her aunt in a chair opposite her. She plays with fingers in her lap. “I’ve been thinking a lot. About what you did. About what I’ve done. About the things we do for the people we love.” She looks up at Freya. “You do love her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Freya breathes. “Yes, I do.”

Hope nods. “I figured. You don’t keep that kind of secret for a fling.” She lets out a little laugh. “I’m not too good at this, this…running a city thing. I made a pretty big mess of things.”

“You’re trying your best,” Freya argues, “and I think there’s little more anyone could ask of you.”

A half-hearted shrug. “Maybe. But that’s not the point. The point is…it’s been…a year and change since I first met River, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her from this world. It’s a big thing, to love someone like that. It makes you…redefine what your family is, what it means to you.”

“Here parents died,” Freya says, “when she was twelve. They were killed by vampires. Joel…her brother…he knew. It’s why he became a hunter in the first place. When I found out what he had been doing in town, I knew he was going to have to die. I knew the only option we were going to have was to kill him, and I just…” She sighs. “I just wanted to spare her that grief for as long as I could.”

Hope stews on that for a moment. “You know…if River hadn’t volunteered her venom, if she had said no when I asked her to help my mom and I cure Uncle Elijah and Uncle Kol…I don’t think I could have let my mom force her.” She shakes her head a little. “I would have let all of you stay in the Chambre de Chasse if it meant keeping her safe. So I guess we’re not that different after all.” She smiles. “I guess we’re both pretty terrible Mikaelsons.”

Freya gives a little smile in return, and then tries to surreptitiously flick a tear away. Hope makes a concerned face. “What’s wrong?”

Freya shakes her head. “Amaya knows. About her brother, and why he died. I didn’t mean to tell her, it just…came out.”

“Oh.” Hope chews on her lip. “I bet it didn’t go so well.”

“No. No…she hates me now.”

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Freya.” Hope crawls off of the bed and hugs her aunt. “I’m sorry for everything.”

Freya squeezes her niece in return. “I’m sorry, too, Hope. For all of it.”

River and Hope are sitting together in the courtyard, taking turns tossing popcorn into each other’s mouths. A kernel bounces off of River’s nose, and Hope lets out a barking laugh, tossing her head back and nearly falling out of her chair. River makes a face, and chucks a whole handful of popcorn at her girlfriend.

“Hope?”

The two look away from their popcorn war to see Josh standing the shadow near the entry. Hope grins and waves him over. “Hey Josh! What’s up?”

Josh walks closer, face uncertain. “Have you seen Marcel lately?”

Hope looks to River, who merely shrugs. “No…sorry. I haven’t talked to him in a while. Why?”

“He wasn’t answering his phone all day, so I just headed over to his place to see what he was up to, and…” Josh reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone, the screen cracked like a lightning strike. “I…think he’s in trouble.”

“Thank you for meeting with me.” Amaya sits at a corner table in Mama Rae’s, a steaming mug of tea in her hands. She studies the liquid inside intently. “I realize…I realize now that the police lied to me about the circumstances of my brother’s death. It wasn’t a hit-and-run. He was murdered. He was killed because he was…” Her eyes dart around circumspectly, before she lowers her voice. “He was a vampire hunter, wasn’t he?”

Sebastian smiles sadly and nods. “Your brother was a good friend and an excellent fighter. We’re all gonna miss him.”

“All? How many of you are there?”

Sebastian leans back in his seat, spinning his coffee cup on the table. “Your brother was a member of one of the largest and most covert networks of vampire hunters in the world. We’ve been travelling the continent for decades, rooting out vampire infestations from the Yukon all the way down to Panama. There are hundreds of us, scattered all over the place, with the single goal of making the world safer for humans to live in.”

Amaya’s eyes go wide as she takes Sebastian’s words in. “Yesterday I was just a grad student trying to live in a world without my brother. Now I live in a world with vampires. It’s all…it’s a lot. It’s a lot more than I bargained for.”

“Listen, Amaya, you’re smart. You’re young. You’ve got a long life full of potential in front of you. The way I see it, you have two options. You can keep living your life, going to grad school, being the person you always thought you would be, just without Joel in your life.” She winces. “Or you can join us.”

Amaya’s eyebrows fly upward. “Join you?”

“A group of us have rolled into town to fight the scourge of vampires in New Orleans. We could use your help.” Sebastian leans in, talking low and earnestly. “You could avenge your brother’s death, make the undead of this city pay for what they’ve taken from you. Help us eliminate the vampires from New Orleans, and then you can move on without fear of losing someone else you love.”

Amaya thinks briefly of Freya, but then shakes her head to clear it. “I’ve lost everyone I love. There’s no one left. What do you need me to do?”

#the originals #originals #tvd #tvd fic #originals fic #people and rhythm #pr 2x09

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