"Why are you with Kol?" Astrid asked Cassie through the phone.

Cassie sighed. "Well I'm bored and Kol seems to be having a lot of fun these days. Maybe I just want to see my big brother."

"Okay, whatever. Stay safe, love you," said Astrid, shaking her head at the girls behaviour. Outside she could hear a car door slamming, it was Rebekah. "Hey Bekah!"

Astrid walked into the living room only to have the fright of her life. Esther Mikaelson was standing in front of the fire place.

"Hey Astrid-" Rebekah stopped talking hen she spotted her mother. "Mother." Esther turned round with a smug smile on her face. Astrid sped forward and pinned her up against the wall, holding her by her throat.

"Give us one good reason why we shouldn't kill you right now," Astrid warned, tightening her grip on Esther's throat.

"Because I'm dying," Esther replied in a solemn voice.

"What?" exclaimed Rebekah, and Astrid let go of the older woman. "How are you dying?"

"Rebekah's got a point, you said Ayana preserved your body with a spell," Astrid said, reciting Esther's words.

"She did. I'm drawing power from the Bennet witch line. When Abby died, the connection was severed," Esther told them, pacing around the room. "So my body has weakened."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Oh what a tragedy. Go die already." She spat.

"If you've come to spend your last moments with your loving daughters, prepare to be disappointed," Rebekah spat at her mother. "You should have spent less time plotting our deaths."

"Is that what you two think I've been doing on the other side?" Esther took a step closer to them "I've been looking over you for a thousand years of joy and heartbreak. Astrid, your fights with Klaus. Rebekah, the nights you cried yourself to sleep calling my name. Not a day has gone by that I wasn't there by either of you."

Rebekah's voice broke as she spoke. "And yet you still tried to kill us."

"Because it shouldn't have been a thousand years Rebekah. No one should have to live that long."

"But we haven't lived at all," Astrid confessed with tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry you two, I'm so sorry," Esther apologised but Astrid didn't believe her. The last thing Astrid saw was Esther drop to the floor so the original walked out with tears in her eyes.

***

About half an hour later, Klaus dragged Astrid to the Salvatore house because he wanted to know where the white oak stake was.

"I get that, but why do I have to go?" Astrid complained as she walked up to the Salvatore house.

Klaus stopped and turned to her. "Because, they're more scared of you than they are of me." He carried on walking.  They walked straight through the door and into the living room where they waited for Stefan who came rushing in with his phone in his hand.

"That wasn't too hard, was it?" Klaus smirked as Stefan froze at the sight of the two originals in his living room. "Astrid, sweetheart, would you mind going to fetch Alaric?"

"I'm your wife not your servant but, whatever gets me away from you two," Astrid muttered the last part under her breath as she went down to the basement.

The beaten up man looked at her. "I'm assuming you're Klaus' wife?" He guessed.

Astrid hummed in response before grabbing him by the collar and dragging him upstairs to where the other two vampires where. 

"It's a little gratuitous, don't you think, Stefan?" said Klaus, trying to get under the younger vampires skin. "I would have been more gentle." The next thing she knew, Rebekah walked through the door.

"Did he fess up yet?" the blonde asked, sounding very impatient.

"Yeah," Astrid confirmed. "He claimed to have put it in the cave where no vampire can get in."

Rebekah nodded, "I'll take him to the caves then," Rebekah looked at Alaric. "You're gonna go in and fetch me the stake. And if you think you can hide, you're wrong." And with that, the blonde original dragged Alaric out of the Salvatore house and to the caves.

"And then there was one," Klaus joked, but no one actually found it funny. 

Astrid intervened. "We know about Damon's 'road trip' to Denver with Elena. He failed, by the way," she faked a smile.

"Not that that's news anymore," Klaus added.

"So what are you going to do now? Hm?" asked Stefan, a bit of confidence in his tone. "Are you two gonna kill me?"

Klaus sipped a bit off his drink, "I haven't actually decided yet-"

"I have. I would very much like to kill you. And probably everyone else in this town," Astrid informed them while plopping herself down on the couch.

Stefan shrugged, "at least she's honest. You've had every chance and every excuse imaginable to do it. But yet you haven't, which means you don't want to."

"You know something, you're right. You see I'm still waiting for my old friend to come back," Klaus growled at Stefan. "And by the looks of it, he's just beneath the surface."

"Ripper," whispered Astrid in Stefan's ear before chuckling to herself.

"I've been fighting that part of myself, thinking that if I repressed it then it would go away. But it won't. And now that I've accepted it, it can't control me," Stefan smirked and kept his eyes on Klaus. "And neither can you. So unless you're going to stake me, why don't you two get the hell out of my house." And with that, Stefan walked off.

"Well that was dramatic."

***

When they got back home, they were both very quiet. "What's wrong?" Klaus asked his wife softly.

Astrid shook her head, "nothing."

"Astrid, I know you better than anyone," said Klaus. "What's wrong."

"Something feels...off," Astrid didn't know how else to describe it. "With Rebekah I mean. When she walked into the Salvatore boarding house it just didn't fell, like...her."

Klaus shrugged, "I thought she seemed fine. Calm down, we got the last stake we're okay. Nothing can kill us now."

Astrid laughed, "Don't jinx it."

Klaus sat down on the couch next to Astrid and put his arm around her shoulders, and without thinking, she snuggled into him. And they both sat there for a while in silence before Astrid fell asleep in his arms and he carried her up to bed.