JUST A LITTLE BIT OF YOUR HEART | TO [1]

XXXI • THE MAP OF MOMENTS

Mikaelson Safe House in Arkansas, Texas

Monique Deveraux is hanging a three-feet, thirty-five inches Christmas festive wreath on the main front door of the cloaked safe house. When she comes back inside, she finds Elijah leaning against the lit fireplace, thinking, while Rebekah remains at the grocery store nearby to buy the necessities.

"Well, I'd be lying if I say that this place isn't nice." Monique commented cheerfully with a big smile on her beautiful face, "Just as how I remember it, from a hundred years ago...Christmas. I'd say, we should get mistletoe." The young woman quickly picks up a glass bottle of red wine and examines it, "Nik must have compelled a wine-lover to keep it up, because I found a 2005 bordot! Which I recall is his and Rebekah's favourite. You want a sip?"

"I appreciate the sentiment, Monique, but I do recognize when I'm being handled with kid gloves." Elijah, who's genuinely annoyed, admitted so.

A genuinely tired, shaky sigh of nervousness leaves Monique, who puts down the glass bottle of wine back down on the coffee table, who's irritated by guilt, "Okay, I'm sorry." She looks back at him, "How are you feeling?"

"Patronized." By his own girlfriend, Elijah simply replied the obvious, before they both look down at baby Hope, who is laying in her play pen, cooing, which incurs a smile upon the woman's face, "I am here to protect you." His precious niece, the one and only innocence his family remains to have now, therefore he doesn't need anyone-- especially the woman he's in love with to protect him as if he's fragile as a baby. He can take care of himself...

Monique shakes her head a little, "I know you mean to, Elijah--"

"And yet, you find it necessary for my sister to render me unconscious before bringing me here?" The young man cut her off.

"Actually, I admit, that was my idea." Monique slowly nods, nervous to proceed, "But what other choice do we have? You won't listen to me. You weren't yourself, I was worried about you, and I still am. I needed to get us out of that diner, because I was protecting you. I was protecting her." She steps closer to him in genuine sympathy, "What happened to you, Elijah?" Because she knows well enough that the young man from the previous night wasn't the same young man who she fell in love with this whole time, and that magnificent man is not a bloodthirsty murderer with no remorse.

"I don't know. Niklaus sent me to protect Hope. My job is to keep her safe." As her uncle, Elijah vowed, clearly tense about the previous night's event.

****

Mikaelson Compound

Davina, Marisa and Kaleb/Kol are performing a significant spell, involving a small cauldron consisting of a potion and a large straw poppet. The three young witches chant together in unison, with their eyes closed, as only the pair of 'siblings' dip the large poppet into the contents of the cauldron. Eventually, they put down the doll, made of straw, and look at each other.

A genuinely tired sigh leaves Marisa, "It's finished. Unfortunately..."

Davina gives her own best friend a genuine look of clear sympathy when she trailed off, hence she finished for her, "Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's not enough to protect Cami's body from Esther's magic." As Rebekah's vessel.

"I might know a way to distract you from your troubled mind?" Kaleb/Kol flirted with the younger witch suggestively right in front of her best friend.

As Marisa is clearly disgusted by her 'brother''s flirt right before her, Davina smiles and laughs instead, which incurs Marcel's sudden presence as he storms into the room protectively and glares at Kaleb/Kol suspiciously.