Now

My Dearest Elijah,
                                 I understand if you despise me for my actions. It's a burden I bear with a heavy heart. Yet, please know that every choice I made was for your sake and that of your family. The situation demanded a sacrifice, one that I made out of love for you. My affection for you outweighs any pain caused, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I had reasons to do what I did...I tried to bring them to reason you in this letter. Please, try and understand me....

Elijah folded the piece of paper back like it was kept tucked safely and perfectly inside the envelope addressed to him. He could not bring himself to go on to read the rest of the letter. Maybe it was because his eyes were clouded from the tears that collected or because his heart ached terribly making his hands tremble.

No matter what the letter contained, whatever the reason may be, but it didn't or rather could never change the fact that it happened. It happened and no one could undo it.

Maeve had left him.

24 Hours Ago

Maeve had her eyes closed and hands raised with palms up and open. Several incoherent words left her lips. Her spell was directed at the moonstones scattered in the granite bowl kept on the wooden table in the workshop she built for herself inside her apartment.

Days went by with shocking turn of events. Marcel, despite being outcasted, interfered into the city and attacked the Alpha of the crescent moon pack and his comrades. He destroyed the moonstones, which on his part was a strategically planned attempt to sabotage Klaus's plans. So the man turned to his closest friend and requested if he could use the resources of her large pack and gather moonstones.

Maeve agreed and got enough moonstones to at least begin the process. And so it all came to the evening. Maeve performing the spell, getting back into her well missed and affectionately called "Ally" position in the lives of the Mikaelson family.

Klaus entered the room just as Maeve began the spell. He held out his hand, palm up.

"What is this?" inquired Maeve glancing at the crystal clear thick red vial in his palm.

"It's my blood. You would require it for the spell, wouldn't you?" he asked clearly puzzled with the question. "Genevieve said she would."

Maeve rolled her eyes. "Nikky baby, come on. It's me──better, smarter and more efficient."

Klaus smiled back at her. He placed the vial on the table. "Thank you Maeve."

"Ah forget it. I just like that I am back."

"Me too. You seem more like the old Maeve." Maeve smiled back at him.

"She does."

"I agree." said the other two brothers walking into the room. Elijah smiled bright at Maeve.

"Do you need anything else?"

"Just some time. That's all. Any news on Marcel's plans?"

"None. He's gone." Kol informed her. "I talked to Ezekiel as well. He said that Marcel was basically outcasted by every single business partnership. Just the humans have kept ties, rest have terminated their partnership or whatever transaction existed previously."

"Good. After what he did to Jackson and his beta, I hope he soon pays a hefty fine."

"Now go back into the Abbatoir. I have to finish the spell." she shushed at them waving her hands in the air.

Everyone couldn't help but laugh at her action. "Call us if you need anything." said Elijah. Maeve walked around the table and approached him.

She planted a quick kiss on his lips. "I will. Give em' hell, babe."

"Oh, babe is it?" teased Kol.

"Shut your mouth." Elijah shot back.

"You really changed him." Kol said glancing at Maeve. "I like you more now." everyone shared a much needed laughter before the three brothers left leaving Maeve to finish her spell in complete silence.

The candles flickered and swayed as the gentle wind blew in from the cracked open window. Maeve was by herself chanting the spell.

The moonstones glowed mildly as the spell began to slowly progress towards its epitome. Suddenly Maeve flinched stopping the spell. She heard the bang of the front door blasting open followed by stomping feet on the marble flooring heading her way.

Maeve fisted her hands and with a quick look the door to her workshop was bolted shut. But it failed to withstand the force of those on the other side. The door broke off its hinges and crashed on the floor.

Four men and two women stepped inside the room unsurprisingly for Maeve. "If it isn't sisters in arms; Genevieve and Francesca."

"Maeve Kalon. The buzz of every news outlet." Francesca commented egoistically. "We are here for the spell."

"It's not for you." Maeve waved her hand making the men choke on air and fall to their knees. She waved another arm and sent Genevieve flying across the room. Francesca grew slightly unnerved by this show but didn't show it. She pulled out a gun and aimed it at Maeve.

"Stop the spell." she commanded Maeve. "I'm not asking."

Maeve chuckled darkly. "You think a gun is going to scare me?"

Francesca grinned and scoffed. "The bullet should."

Maeve turned her head away, scoffing darkly, "silver? You think that will stop me?"

Maeve stared Francesca down but clearly it wasn't working. Francesca only grinned in return.

"Suit yourself. You are dying today, one way or another." Maeve twisted her arm upward muttering a quick spell under her breath. Francesca whimpered as her grip on the gun wavered. Just before she would drop the gun, she gritted her teeth and fired a shot.

The silver bullet pierced through Maeve's temple, through her skull and lodged into the wall behind. Maeve's body froze, the spell stopped and she dropped to the floor. Dead.

"Good riddance." said Francesca glancing sideways at Genevieve. "Finish the spell. I believe that's Klaus's blood, right there."

Now

Klaus threw open the door to Elijah's room. Ezekiel followed right behind him.

"We have got a problem." announced Klaus, although a part of him believes Elijah already knew what it was.

"Maeve left us." replied Elijah, in a strong cold voice.

"That's...not all." Elijah glanced at Maeve's brother already hating the news more dreadful than of her departure.

"What could possibly top everything that has already happened?"

Ezekiel sighed before he informed the brothers. Something that shook them to their core. "Maeve has formally abdicated from her position as Alpha."

12 Hours ago

Elijah, Klaus, Kol and Hayley marched through the long pathways of the cemetery heading for a war against the witches. Hayley the newly turned unsired Hybrid led the brothers through the similar looking pathways. Her senses were extremely heightened as well as the connection with her daughter, giving them the advantage they desperately needed.

The war between the witches at their place of worship, the souls of those trapped in the ancestral well and the Mikaelsons began. Four went to four corners fighting souls that withheld them from rescuing their blood and the newest member of the family from being sacrificed.

Suddenly, to everyone's shock, everything came to a standstill. The souls disappeared, so did the force that put a protective barrier between the ritual and the Mikaelsons.

A blinding aura surrounded them forcing the witches down on their knees in a form of submission.

"I thought you killed her!" shouted Monique before she bellowed in excruciating pain.

"Francesca did!" responded Genevieve clutching her head to relieve some of the pain.

The brothers and Hayley looked at one another for a moment before they all knew exactly what was happening. From behind them, she strutted approaching them.

Her eyes looked past the family, directly at the witches. She spread open her arms, and right on queue the wind picked up and the fire burning in marshalls was vanquished.

"You really should have thought twice. Don't you know?" Maeve stopped just beside the brothers. She glanced from Klaus to Kol and lastly to Elijah, "a Serene witch will always come for a Mikaelson."

Maeve turned her head to her right where Elijah and Kol stood, and smiled. She turned to Klaus next and did the same. Then hell broke loose. The wind picked up and came for the witches throwing them off their feet and on the stone altar. Monique stretched her hand out muttering a few words but it only made everything worse. The wind flew more strong and threw her in the air and hung her mid air with no restraints of any kind. Monique gasped and began to scream.

Maeve stepped closer to Genevieve and knelt in front of her. She pressed two fingers under the red headed witch's chin and forcefully made her look up. Genevieve kept grunting and gasping feeling the struggle of having to submit to the wind that forced her to kneel on her knees.

"You wanted to know how powerful I can be? I am? Honey this is just the trailer." Maeve's eyes burnt red and in rage like none Genevieve had ever seen. "Don't worry. I know someone else is desperate to get her claws on you. Frankly I envy her to get to play executioner."

Maeve looked to her right directing her next cold words at Hayley. "Genevieve is yours to feast on, Hayley. Make me proud."

Maeve stood up, and walked to the table where the littlest Mikaelson cooed gazing at the world around. She picked up the girl softly in her hands and walked to the Mikaelson family. A look of love and admiration in her eyes struck a sense of love and familiarity in the hearts of the brothers. But why?

"What is it with you Mikaelson genes, I mean, you some fine looking bunch." joked Maeve making everyone smile.

"You want to finish them? I'll take the little one home." a silent agreement was made when all four turned away from Maeve, ignoring the loving longing look she gave them and a single tear shed from her eye.

Now

"I tried everyone who'd know where she could be. No one has got a clue." Ezekiel informed everyone. Impatience and tension rose to an even higher level.

2 a.m. on the night — just two hours after the family bid a goodbye to the littlest Mikaelson and Maeve was still nowhere to be seen...no one had even heard a peep from her since she rescued her goddaughter from the clutches of the coven that destroyed Maeve's life.

They, at first thought her absence from the Abbatoir was because she was doing what she did best — find ways to protect Hope Andrea Mikaelson but when she failed to show up till midnight, everyone grew restless.

"She left Niklaus. That's what has happened." said Elijah with finality in his words. "She left us. For whatever reason she thought was valid."

Klaus looked at his brother wryly. "She wouldn't leave just like that, brother. This is Maeve we are talking about. She was supposed to be here. Protecting my daughter like she did in the morning — like she promised me she would. She wouldn't abandon a promise she's made."

Elijah held up the letter she wrote to him and said, "why is it she wrote this letter to me and said that she is leaving? She did it because she believes, her leaving is the best decision for us."

"Not to mention the abdicating of the position? I mean, Maeve has worked hard for months to just give it up like that. Isn't it a little suspicious?" Ezekiel argued.

"It is extremely suspicious. Maybe the letter says something....Elijah what does she say? What else?" inquired Klaus impatiently.

"I haven't read the entire letter."

"Then are you waiting for an invitation? Read it. The sooner we find Maeve, the faster she can do what she does the best and I know that my daughter will be safer than she currently is."

Right on cue the shout of the names of Elijah, Klaus and Kol from a familiar voice raised their brows before they sped out. Neither of the two brothers currently in the Abbatoir, Ezekiel and Hayley could believe their eyes seeing who stood in the middle of the compound staring back at them with wide eyes.

"What are you doing here?" asked Klaus speeding down the small flight of stairs and marching up to the last person they expected to arrive at the residence.

"She came to me and took Hope." she replied making them grow scared.

"Rebekah, what happened?" asked Hayley, staying surprisingly calm.

"Maeve...she phoned me and said to meet her at this crossroads just outside of the city line. Nik told me that Maeve would soon give the protection to Hope to hide her and me from the world. So I went along. Maeve put a sleeping spell on me and took Hope with her.

"But why?" Rebekah held up a neatly folded paper and handed it to Klaus.

He unfolded it and read it aloud for everyone. "Rebekah, and everyone else because I know you all would be reading this as well. I knew your mother was planning something, conspiring with the witches to come after the little sugar plum. I took matters into my own hands. I owe a large debt to you all and given everything that you have been through constantly for me, this is me repaying you all. I hope you still trust me enough to know that your daughter is as safe as she would be if she was in your care. Love, your greatest ally, Maeve."

"Owe? Debt? What is wrong with her?" asked Elijah to everyone present.

To make the night more dramatic Kol sped in carrying a large stack of books in his hands.

"Please don't tell me you are about to make the night more miserable than it's already become." said Ezekiel already hating what was going to follow.

"I went to the therapist that she was visiting for weeks to see if she's there but turns out, there is no doctor Asin. There is a doctor named Asin but the lady is a Dentist, not a psychologist."

"So where was Maeve going?"

"Doing this in an abandoned room in that building." Kol held out his hand. Everyone took one book from the stack examining the book.

"She was practicing magic? But she didn't have magic until weeks after this."

"This is a different kind of magic." explained Kol. "It's sort of an all can do kind of witchcraft. Right ingredients and even a five year old can make the spell work."

"But why?"

"Be better than the best so no one suffers because of you." Rebekah read out from one of the books. She glanced up at the rest of them. "It's Maeve's handwriting."

"Here..." said Hayley pointing at a particular page in the book she held, "owe everything to Ezekiel, Elijah, Nik, Kol and Rebekah. Pay them for what they had to give up."

Elijah licked his bottom lip feeling a nauseous feeling in his stomach at the thought he was about to say, "you don't think abdicating the title so you would have the throne to yourself and taking care of Hope personally is her way of paying us back, do you?"

"She has said it multiple times, thanked us for staying by her side when we could have left." Rebekah added on.

"If Hope is with Maeve we shouldn't even be worried, right?" asked Hayley. "She is whom we trusted to do every spell and what-nots to hide our daughter from the world and now she is taking care of her, herself. Isn't this just as good as Rebekah taking care of her?"

While everyone agreed with Hayley with their whole hearts, Klaus being slightly more relieved of his daughter's protection, even he failed to notice like everyone else the almost rehearsed sounding reasoning of Hayley followed by a suspicious sigh and averting of eyes.

************************************
Wow, it's been long since last update. How is everyone doing?

Okay so the chapter was intense with so many things happening. I've got some nice stuff...better, like wayyy better things planned and I'm excited. What about you all?

What do you think of this plot twist? Let me know in the comments. Let's see how many of you can guess what I have planned.

Take care everyone!

Raven :)