AN: I'm cleaning out old stories on my computer. Enjoy a comedy of psychoanalytical errors. Tag to TO Season 2.

Checking your inbox first thing in the morning is a game of Russian roulette. There's always that one email waiting for you that can make or break your day. This morning, Cami wasn't so lucky. Setting down her coffee, she cautiously opened the message from her department chair…

Crap.

Her advisor had dropped dead overnight. It was sad, sure, but honestly not that surprising. Her thesis advisor was the sort of man who took his morning coffee with half and half – half a bottle of bourbon and half a pack of cigarettes. He used to show up to their weekly meetings with more problems than the patients she was studying, which was saying something since her degree was in Abnormal Psych.

So again, not surprising, but a gigantic inconvenience.

Cami was freaking out. While her thesis advisor exploring the great beyond, her proposal was in less than a week. Unless her dead advisor was willing to sign off on her project from the grave all the work she'd put into her current proposal was a complete waste. In terms of a research project, she was back to square one …with seven days and counting.

It was an utter disaster.

She needed a new project and a new advisor stat, but the only other faculty who didn't already have a student and would even be willing to take her on so last minute specialized in family psychology. She hesitated in sending a very desperate email to her potential new advisor. It was a long shot in the dark. Family psychology wasn't her specialty and she didn't even have a family to use for her research. And even if she did, the family would have to be pretty dysfunctional if she was ever going to be able to formulate an entire thesis around them.

And what family did she know in New Orleans willing and able to meet with her at the drop of a hat? She might as well just quit school now because where on earth would she ever find-

-wait…just wait. Hold the freaking phone. What was she even saying?

Slamming her laptop closed, Cami reached for her cell. She had the most reasonable Mikaelson on the end of the line in seconds.

"Elijah, thank God you answered."

"Camille, a pleasure. How can I help you?"

"Look, I need a favor. I know it's last minute, but I'm desperate. I promise that's the only reason I am asking."

"If I am able, of course."

"Well, that's the thing. It's not going to be easy."

"No?"

"In fact, I'm sure it's going to be impossible."

"Is that so." A pause. "Is this task that you request… dangerous?"

"I foresee some death threats, yeah."

"Should I involve Niklaus with this then?"

"He should be there, yes. Most definitely."

Elijah suddenly sounded very concerned. "Camille, are you currently in danger?"

"Only of failing out of school," she laughed.

Now Elijah sounded confused. "Then you have lost me. Just tell me: what do you need?"

"I need you to get your entire family in the same room, all of them, the entire Mikaelson clan. "

"That is quite impossible."

"Please, Elijah. I have a week to find a new subject for my psychology thesis."

"And you wish to use my family?"

"It's not like you Mikaelsons couldn't use the free therapy. Trust me, Elijah, by the end of the week I promise I will have all of you in a better place."

"And that 'better place' will be the Other Side because we will have all violently murdered each other, Camille."

"See, what is up with all the anger and violence? What happened to just talking through your issues?"

"You have met my brother Niklaus…"

"…and his issues, yes, I have. In fact, I was going to write my whole thesis on him but now I have to focus on an entire family. Please, Elijah, just one week with the Mikaelsons…"

"…will drive you insane."

"Which I clearly am already since I'm recommending couch time for a brood of neurotic, abusive vampires and their psychotic witch of a mother."

"Do you think Esther is at the center of what ills my siblings?"

"That's psych 101, Elijah. Yes, I will need your mother too."

She could hear him considering her offer on the other end of the line. "Meet me at the Compound in an hour."

"Is that a yes?"

"I can make no promises."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Don't thank me just yet," Elijah said. "I will see you soon, Camille."

Cheering silently, Cami quickly emailed her potential new advisor, packed her laptop, her notebook and her DSM-5 and headed out the door. If she pulled off this week, and managed to survive it, this was going to be the best thesis ever.