Ava's POV:

I screamed until I could scream no more, desperate to make someone hear me, and achieved nothing but a sore throat.

Being dead sucked.

Dying was one thing, but being stuck in a world where I could communicate with absolutely no one, well that was something else entirely. What was I supposed to do?

I had followed Rebekah and Elijah back up to the house, but I'd kept my distance; seeing my own lifeless body was nothing short of disturbing. I'd seen plenty of dead bodies during my time. It sort of came with the territory when you were a vampire, but to see your own dead body? It was a whole new kind of horrifying.

For days I followed Elijah around, trying everything I could think of to break through the invisible barrier that was keeping me away from his world. I watched as he sat in the room that I'd been staying in, doing nothing but sitting there. Sometimes he'd talk aloud to himself, but only when he was alone in the house. Sometimes he'd talk to me…well, not to me as such, since he didn't know I was there and listening, but I guess he was saying the stuff that he'd say if I was there. Other times he'd just sit in complete silence, wringing his hands together.

I sat down next to him purely because I liked being close to him. It still felt as though I was a million miles away, though, because he couldn't see or hear me. I didn't exist in his world.

It wasn't until a week after my death that I had any kind of breakthrough.

He was in my room again, but this time he was angry. Angry that I'd died, angry because I'd trusted Klaus and anyone who trusted Klaus paid the price, he was living proof of that and I…well, I was proof that if you trust Klaus, you wind up dead.

I was frustrated. Frustrated because I was right in front of him! I was yelling in the loudest voice I could muster and still he had no idea I was there. Suddenly, that old cliché, the one about not being able to see what's right in front of you, made a lot more sense.

In a burst of pure rage, stemming from the fact that I was completely and utterly unable to make myself heard, I screamed "I'm right here!"

At the same time, the windows on the other side of the room shattered, sending glass flying into the room.

We both stopped and stared at the now-empty window frames and the shards of glass that littered the floor. Elijah looked shocked.

Had I done that?

We both started to walk over. I walked over the glass, making my way towards the empty window frame. I expected it to crunch under my feet, but I could barely feel it beneath my shoes. I guess, since I was a ghost, I didn't really have that much of an impact…except the one I seemed to have made on the window. Had I really done that? It didn't seem likely…yet there was nothing else that could have possibly done it. The weather outside was calm and there was nothing to suggest that someone had thrown something at the window.

I turned away from the window. What if I could control things without touching them? It wasn't much…it didn't really let anyone know I was still here, but it was better than nothing. It was better than being almost non-existent.

I focused on a vase that sat on top of the dresser. I concentrated hard, thinking of nothing but the vase. I could feel all the tensions and emotions from the last week rising inside me as I tried futilely to knock the vase off the edge. I was about to give up when it tipped itself off the dresser to the floor. The smash grabbed Elijah's attention who, up until now, had been inspecting the window.

With one last glance at the window, he hurried forwards to inspect the vase which, like the window, had no way of being pushed off.

Brilliant.

Elijah's POV:

She's dead. It's entirely my fault. I shouldn't have used her to get to Klaus, that was foolish of me. I should have known he'd have turned it around and used her against me.

I grieved when she left back in the 1500s, but this was different. I'd known she was alive then. Alive but incredibly angry at me. It hurt knowing that my actions had resulted in her running away, but there was always the possibility that one day I'd find her again. And I did. This time she was gone. Infinitely gone. I wasn't going to run into her in Mystic Falls after 500 years apart. I wasn't ever going to run into her again.

"I'm right here!"

At the same time, the windows smashed. They shattered into a thousand shards of glass with no discernable explanation.

I walked over to the windows, the shards of glass crunching beneath my shoes as I did. It wasn't the windows that unnerved me, though. It was the voice that I'd heard just as they shattered.

It was faint and I could barely hear it…human senses definitely wouldn't have picked up on it, and the sound was somewhat marred by the shattering of the glass, but I'd heard it.

It sounded like…her.

It was impossible.

I ran my finger along the window sill, not even flinching when shards of glass cut into the skin. It would heal in a second or so.

I heard another smash from behind me and turned to find the vase that had been stood atop of the dresser had somehow knocked itself off to the floor. I hurried over. This wasn't an accident…it had been too far back for it to just topple over.

No…it wasn't possible. Was she…here? Right now? The voice, the window, the vase. It all made sense.

No. It was impossible. Ava's dead. Only a fool would try and convince himself that the ghost of his lost love was trying to make contact.