"Good morning," I said and kissed Hope on the head. I surveyed the enormous tower of sweet treats adorning the long table and muttered, "I guess apple turnover is fruit."

"Well, I saw no harm in indulging my daughter's sweet tooth. All things in moderation, of course," Klaus beamed back.

"Okay. Don't eat too many. You'll get a stomach ache," I laughed with Hope, and gestured to Klaus to step away with me, "can we talk?"

"I'm merely giving her options, I won't actually let her scoff the lot," Klaus said.

"No. It's not that. It's...have you seen Elijah?"

"I always assume he is with you," Klaus said, coyly.

"No...he was gone when I woke up. The dagger was gone too. He may have gone to Marcel's?"

Elijah was not at Marcel's. He had never been there. Freya conducted a locator spell, but nothing came up. He was cloaked, by magic, she could feel it. Right on cue, that creepy jawbone started slowly rotating of its own accord on the table. Vincent entered the game, as the bearer of fantastic news. That was The Hollow performing the party trick. She had Elijah, and she wanted the bone.

"In exchange for Elijah?" I asked.

"No, you don't understand," Vincent said, "there won't be an exchange. She needs Elijah to die in order to channel the energy from his sacrifice. She's already poisoned him with the rose thorns. She wants this bone by sundown. If she doesn't get it, then she's gonna come here and she's gonna take it. And when she does, she's gonna burn this entire city to the ground."

Marcel and Klaus came back to hear out Vincent's plan: Marcel would hand over the bone, and then stab the Hollow with Hope's blood, and then Vincent would cast a big old spell that buries The Hollow for good.

"The Ancestors' spell requires a sacrifice. An Original has to die," I reminded him.

"Yeah, and right now, the Hollow is gonna use Elijah's death to come back, but there's a window where I can use the sacrifice to shove her back into her grave," Vincent said, matter-of-fact.

My neck snapped to Klaus, who was already rattling off, "you'll forgive me for stating the obvious, but your plan does nothing to save my brother. In fact, it relies entirely upon his death."

Marcel tried to play peace-maker but Vincent cut him off, "Elijah's already dead. Now, the only thing that we can do right now is figure out whether or not that death is gonna count for something."

"That's not a call any of us get to make. Especially not you," I bit back, and implored of the group, "there has to be a way to save him."

Klaus suggested the antidote we used to cure Marcel's bite. Freya had it, but wasn't convinced it would work effectively against the poison of the rosebush.

"You guys aren't listening, okay?!" Vincent implored upon a room full of deaf ears, "even if we do cure Elijah, we still have a big problem, that's called the Hollow. And it's just gonna keep coming at us until it resurrects. And when that happens, we're talking about an ancient, primal power that's made flesh and blood. It will wipe out this entire city in an afternoon, and ain't a damn thing that you or anybody else here can do about it. Now, my way? We take her out while she's still a spirit. Elijah dies, but at least his death counts for something."

"No. No, I'm not willing to discuss this any further," Klaus said, definitively.

"What about your little girl?" Vincent asked, "this thing wiped out the entire Labonair bloodline. It already got to Hope once, right? Now, this is a chance, Klaus. This is probably the one chance that you got. Now you want to blow that opportunity to maybe save your brother, or do you want to do your job and save your little girl?"

"Don't use my daughter to justify your absurd plan," Klaus scorned.

"Hey, his "absurd" plan is the only plan that we've got," Marcel interrupted, "so, maybe we should do a little less fighting, and a little more thinking."

"There's always a loophole. I have my mother's grimoires. I welcome you to study them with me," Freya suggested to Vincent.


I excused myself from the war room and found myself back in Elijah's bedroom. I just...needed a moment. I couldn't swallow the thought that last night, however perfect it may have been, there was a very good chance that it was goodbye. I put both shaking hands on the bed for support.

"Annie?" Hope said, pulling me back to the present.

I wiped my tear-stained cheeks and worked on controlling my voice, "Hope. I didn't see you there, sweetie."

Hope wandered inside the room and pulled herself up beside me on the bed. She asked, "Uncle Elijah is sick, isn't he?"

"Uncle Elijah is very sick," I said, slowly.

"Well, can we help him?"

"We're doing everything that we can. I promise."

Hope nodded thoughtfully, and said, "maybe I can help Aunt Freya do a spell to make him better. Maybe you and me could one. Like we used to do all the time back home?"

"That...that's very brave of you," I said, shakily.

"We'll figure it out, Annie," Hope assured me and flung her arms around my neck, "we'll get him back for you."


Freya tried to place Elijah's soul inside the pendant, just as she had done once before, for her brother Finn. A decent enough plan, but that pendant was now smashed. She could not hope to resurrect Elijah until she was certain his mind was whole; you know, like, how you can't cast a broken bone without properly setting it. She explained it way better. Basically, when the pendant shattered, Elijah's mind shattered along with it. He had most likely retreated to the innermost of his consciousness, to the very core of his being. She needed to go inside his mind, dig around a thousand years worth of memories and find the memory he was clinging on to, only then could she pull him out. I volunteered to go in, but she spouted her usual 'family first, bond of blood' spiel and dove in headfirst. She couldn't find him; in part because sustaining the spell and searching Elijah's mind at the same time was pretty taxing.

"It would require more power to send you in," Freya argued back, after composing herself after her own failed attempt.

"No. You stay here and anchor the spell. Send me in, Freya, I can find him. Elijah and I are pretty damn close," I implored.

"Okay. It's worth a try. Lie down."

"So, what do I...do in there? I just search until I find him?" I asked, a hint of nerves peppering through.

Freya took over a bowl filled with god knows what, and dipped my hand in it. She stood over me, and explained, "you don't have time. There are too many memories for you to randomly search. You have to think, where would Elijah find refuge? It has to be somewhere that represents the fundamental basis of who he is. Hopefully, that's a good place. When you find it, draw him out and wake him up. But be careful, his mind is unstable."


I awoke inside a blinding white corridor, feeling groggy, like I'd slept too long. I creaked my bones and hauled myself up with a couple groans. My first thought, honestly, was...this looks awfully familiar.

"Ignatius?" I whispered.

Who the hell is Ignatius? Freya's voice echoed inside my own mind.

"Urgh! Oh my god! What is that about?"

I'm looking through your eyes. Pick a damn door already. We've wasted enough time!

"Inside voice! Use your 'inside another person's mind' voice, Freya!" I demanded and surveyed the dizzying length of doors to choose from, "okay. Come on, Elijah, where are you?"


Where are you? Where is this?

"It's his apartment back in Mystic Falls," I explained, "right after he saved me from...well, Klaus, who was using me as a blood bag...good times."

"Stop!" Elijah snatched my wrist off his arm, and by my wrist, I mean, the Rosanna in front of me, her wrist. He rasped in a harsh tone I'd rarely heard since, "I don't need you to do that. I don't need you to make this okay for me. I'm not here for another dose of your misplaced absolution."

"Wh-" Rosanna huffed out, her tone dropped to match his, "then, why are you here?"

He stepped up to her, caressed her cheek, gently. He wasn't looking at her, he was fixed on the bruises on her face, and neck; a flicker of anger was suppressed from his expression; he composed himself. He finally looked at her. He pulled her into him, ever closer and my heart completely stopped along with hers. I felt again, second-hand, for one fleeting moment, that his lips were going to meet mine for the first time. He simply stated, "you are free."

Okay, it sure is angsty, but we need to try something else. Not an almost kiss. Try a significant one?


Elijah stepped out of the back door of the plantation house. Rosanna turned to face him, and I could see I really made next to no attempt to contain that smile. I almost laughed. I definitely remembered playing it a little cooler than that. She looked so happy, as she bit her lip, and then said, "you're back."

Elijah grinned and his eyes danced all over her. He nodded, and he said, "I'm back."

"You might want to look away, Freya," I suggested.

I'm seeing through your eyes! You look away.

"Nah," I muttered out.

They looked at each other for another beat, remembering all of the other's details and nuances, what was real, and what was imagined while parted, and then, yeah, she was so done waiting. She kissed Elijah, for the first time. She kissed him, but my god did he kiss her back. He pulled her body up against his, hands exploring every inch, waist, hips, neck. I could feel the lingering ghost of his touch now, I fought not to move with her, like it was built into my own muscle memory.

They parted; the energy and the bliss still buzzing around, and she whispered to him, "welcome home."

"Hey! Elijah?" I said, "can you hear me?! We can go home for real. Right now."

He smiled at her, not me, and he took her inside the house, right on to the next scene.

God, do not follow them.

"This was a big deal! First kiss. First...you know," I proclaimed to the empty set.

His mind is fractured, Rosanna. I never said you'd find him somewhere happy. Try something else.


I opened the door and stepped into a forest, and followed the sounds of their voices.

"I do not care about the car," Elijah stated tersely, and parked his hands on his hips, "I do not have an omnipresent link to any of my cars."

"Any of them?" Rosanna scoffed back, a little snottily, "did you even notice it was gone?"

Why would Elijah revisit a run of the mill domestic?

"You wanted something...not happy," I told Freya, vaguely.

"I spoke with Kol," Elijah stated. The words still scraped their way out. Her guard shot right up; her arms barricaded across her chest. He informed her, "he boasted the effects of your blood, and from there you found yourself hooked up to blood bags, headed for certain death."

"Hmm," she hummed and said, "that's still up for debate. I'd go with uncertain death."

"Rosanna-" Elijah sighed.

"Klaus did this to me," she interrupted him, sharply, "not Kol."

"Because of Kol. You would think that were an obvious enough red flag," Elijah said, with disdain, "my family continues to cause strife to yours, irrespective of who we decide to apportion blame to. This deal is the closest we can get to all parties appeased. Now, I'm doing my best, but there is only so much that I can do when you are not. I implore you to cease your recklessness; cease throwing yourself head first into danger and operate with a little common sense from here on out."

"Okay. I'm lost," she uttered.

"None of it is real," Elijah informed her, callously, "what you feel for Kol. You fundamentally destroy one another. You are cursed to be drawn in like this so that you don't. I am very protective of you. Why? You're not my family. It isn't real. It's all in our heads. A quirk of our creation."

Uh, what is he talking about?

"If I cover my ears, does that cover yours too?" I asked, and tried it.

No. It doesn't.

"Okay. I officially don't care what you have to say," she scoffed, immaturely, and stormed away from him.

"You don't care because you are not programmed to," Elijah scorned and flashed before her, stepping into every attempt to leave, "don't you find it odd how many of his indiscretions you so willingly forgive without a second thought? How some millennia of women before you could not hope to tame him? But you…a girl he has known outside the bedroom for all of what? Less than a day? You were the one to fire cupid's arrow into his buttocks and fundamentally change everything about him?"

Did you sleep with KOL?!

"ONCE. I mean...twice. It was a million years ago," I hissed back.

Oh good lord.

"I understand that it hurts. It must feel very real to you, but it is not," Elijah implored, "I am not looking to hurt you, Rosanna. I am not. Quite the contrary."

"Then stop!" she scorned back at him, "Just stop! Stop coming for me. Turn off your SOS radar and leave me alone! You are officially off the hook! Next time I steam-roller my way right into mortal danger, it is not on you to come and rescue me! Or berate me afterwards! I'm not drawn to Kol! Not everyone is drawn together by some mystical creation link-thing, no, that's just our crappy deal! My choices, as stupid and as ill-advised as they may be, are my own! And I don't have to justify them to you!"

"You need to grow up," Elijah declared, "fast. Before your luck runs out."

"What part of this is lucky?!" Rosanna scorned after him as he disappeared further out into the dark woods.

"Elijah?! HEY! I'm uh...I'm turning that SOS beacon back on?" I shouted into the darkness.

We are running out of time. FOCUS. Try a memory you're not in.


This time we were back in New Orleans. Elijah was sat in front of the fire place, fiddling with something. Klaus came through the door, rather meekly, and eventually said, "I'm sorry the holiday didn't quite go to plan."

I made my way over to Elijah and looked over his shoulder. He had a ring box in his hands.

Oh my God.

I moved around the couch and took a better look just as Elijah snapped the box shut and looked over at his brother. He scoffed and cleared his throat, "I've never known fear like that, Niklaus. Another inch. Another second...and I don't know whatever compelled Rebekah to release her hand but-"

"That was Rebekah," Klaus insisted, "that was your sister, who is tremendously sorry. And Rosanna, she's fine-"

"She is not fine," Elijah stated, tersely, "I am not fine. I can feel her slipping through my hands, Niklaus, the last grains of sand...but she almost died...right in front of me."

"She didn't, brother. Just...give her time."

Did you know that he had a...

"Nope," I said definitively, "but I think I have an idea."


I opened the door to my sister's Whitmore College dorm, well, for all the time she spent in it. Tears streamed down Rosanna's face, as she struggled to steady her composure, and say, "I was so scared that wasn't gonna mean anything anymore."

Elijah released a huff of laughter. His eyes were locked onto hers; they never left. She wiped away the tickling tear from her cheek and took him in, bemused at his reaction, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. He shook his head and he closed the gap between them as he professed, "I understand your apprehension, though I do not share it. I knew it a year ago. I knew it the very second I heard your voice on Hayley's voicemail, when you opened that door, when I held you in my arms once more, and, dare I be so bold as to presume-"

His hands disappeared around her waist, up her neck, pulling her into a long, sensual kiss; a kiss almost a year in the making. I saw the smirk at her heated response as she kissed him back. There was that ghost of a touch as he caressed her jaw with his thumb, his hand still at home on the nape of her neck as he professed, "I love you, Rosanna. Nothing has changed. Nothing."

"Elijah? This is where I came back to you, right? Back from the presumed dead?" I asked him.

Rosanna scoffed and whispered, "I feel like such an idiot."

He smirked and he kissed her, slowly, waiting for a response, and then he rasped into his kiss, "how about feeling how much I missed you, instead?"

"Elijah. It's me. I know you're here. Look at me!" I demanded.

He looks a little...occupied.

The memory continued beat for beat, but Elijah wouldn't even look at me. I cursed and left the room; I was floundering here.

You get one more attempt, okay? And then I'm taking over.

"Just give me a minute to think!" I hollered at the empty echoing hallway.

You don't have a minute! I appreciate that you and Elijah have a thing, you clearly care about each other, but there is an entire millennium of memories in here! I'm sorry you are just a blip on a very long timeline.


I burst into another room, and relived our last night together.

"First thing tomorrow," Elijah said, very closely. His eyes danced between her eyes and her lips and he pulled her into him again. He kissed her and told her everything he couldn't say. He was sorry, he wanted forgiveness, he wanted to show just how sorry he was. She wrapped her arms around his neck, lost her hands in his hair, down his chest, and she kissed him back. His jacket hit the floor. His tie. Her shirt. His.

Okay, I get it. You had a lot of sex. Doesn't mean you know him best. I'm pulling you out-

"NO!" I shouted back, and opened the closest door.


You're done, Rosanna! You're not thinking about who Elijah is. You're thinking about who you want him to be!

Elijah's hand played with her hair and caressed her naked back as she slowly woke up. I felt the delighted shiver run down mine. She turned around in the sheets and asked him, coyly, "were you watching me sleep?"

"Hmm...possibly, a little," he whispered back, and kissed her hand, sweetly.

She caressed his face and told him, "it was the only way to be sure, Elijah, and Klaus...I think part of him sees that already. But more than anything you have to forgive yourself."

"Do you?" He asked, quietly, "forgive me?"

"Yes," the word fell from my own lips, shakily.

"Yes," she assured him, "despite everything that we've done...all those we have lost...we're still here. You're not alone."

He looked into her eyes, found what he was looking for, and he kissed her.

ROSANNA!

"I know where he is!" I said, with tears lining my eyes and ran down the hallway, "this day. It was this day, just later!"


Elijah was curled up on the bed at Lucien's penthouse, sweating, shivering...dying. I watched him from the doorway. I watched the nightmare I couldn't escape from. He finally saw me, and smiled, weakly, as he rasped, "I saw you...I had a dream...I was holding you. You seemed happy."

"It wasn't a dream," she said. A ghostly version of myself passed through me, and pulled Elijah into her arms. She told him, "I was happy."

Elijah shook and he caressed her face and he whispered, "if Niklaus doesn't make it-"

"-he will make it," she insisted.

"Listen to me," he implored, "now, you have grieved enough. You promise me...if not for yourself, then...for that little girl...you will get as far away from this place as you can. I want you to be happy, my love. Please. All I want...ever wanted...is for you to be happy."

He kissed her, long and hard, like it was the last time; he kissed her goodbye.

"Don't cry," he whispered, and brushed the tears from her cheeks, "I've had so many lifetimes...you...you're my favourite."

The memory stopped at this point. It froze like a scene from a movie. I knew the next line; the line that had sparked the idea to come here. I looked over at Elijah, my Elijah, standing by the window, looking out on what he imagined below. He moved for the first time, and looked over at his memory of us, "you're not supposed to know it's a last kiss, right? But I couldn't escape the feeling; I knew."

"You clearly felt as awful as you looked, then," I said.

I saw the peak in his smile, but it disappeared almost as quick. He faced me and said, "I've been in some dark places, Rosanna."

"I've been in some beautiful ones. Why are you here?"

"Something you said here, something true. Like a lighthouse in a storm, just a few words but...it was something to hold on to."

"You always come back to me?"

He nodded.

"So, you did hear me," I said, and figured my smile was something resembling that really cool one on the porch. I stretched out my hand, and said, "let's go home."