AN: I do not own TVD or TO. I was thinking of maybe throwing in a few other crossovers into this story as well. People Lexa has met over the course of her life. I was thinking of X-Company and maybe Outlander, and of course Charmed

1728

Bodies brushed past her indifferently. Children ran through the streets and around her skirts while ignoring the sharp cries of their mothers. Several paces ahead she saw men conducting their business at a roughhewn table that had been erected before the ruins of the law offices that had burnt the previous year.

Vendors peddled their wares from beneath colourful awnings; everything from food to shoes were on display. She slid around a few young men and approached the stall. She lifted an apple and inspected the damaged skin; it would be mealy. The fruit had been on display for far too long; luckily that didn't matter to her. She haggled over the price before coming to an agreement and filling her basket.

Turning on her heel she gasped when she collided with another body. Adjusting her bonnet she resisted the urge to glare at the young man who had just celebrated his nineteenth birthday; she remembered his mother during her pregnancy. A sigh caught in her throat when she saw the playful twinkle in his eyes.

"Senorita," Milo Thorne righted her basket, "may I be of assistance? A beautiful lady such as you should not be carrying her own shopping."

Milo had been paying her a lot of attention lately. He was sweet, but had trouble taking a hint.

"I'm quite alright," she tightened her hold when he tried to take her basket. A frown twisted her lips when she walked away and found him following her. She finally turned to face him when she finished her shopping and he fell into step beside her on the path. "Do you need something?"

"No," he shook his head, "I only wish to enjoy your company and to know you better."

I'll bet, she scoffed and shook her head.

He was not the first man to shower her with attention. It had started the year after Kol had been killed, but then they had accepted the knowledge that she was in mourning and left her alone. As time passed and she sequestered herself further people began to forget the husband that had disappeared, or maybe they just stopped caring. They left her be, but without fail she would suffer the clumsy attempts at flirting that came from her visits to the market.

They walked a quarter mile with Milo keeping up a running commentary on anything and everything. She ignored him for the most part; that might have been her mistake. He seemed to take her silence as encouragement. She was just thinking of the herbs she would need to grind that night for the woman who would come for assistance when she stopped walking.

They had made it back to her home; his voice turned to a dull drone as her eyes locked on a small patch of grass in the garden where she had once laid on her back to look up at the stars. It had been twenty-six years and she could still recall how the stars had sparkled in his eyes; she could still feel his lips on hers.

"Would it be terribly presumptuous of me to steal a kiss?" He didn't wait for an answer before taking her shoulders and pressing her against a tree.

Maybe it was the nostalgia. Maybe it was the strange sense of longing that had overcome her. Maybe she just wanted to feel. If she were being honest she didn't know why she let him kiss her. All she knew was that when he pushed her against the tree and slid his tongue into her mouth it was not Milo Thorne kissing her.

Lost in the memory of a day, decades gone by, her hands dropped the basket and wandered. She found a quickly hardening bulge in his trousers and sighed when his lips lifted to travel the length of her throat. With her eyes still shut she let him lower her to the ground.

"Alexandria," he groaned. His hips rolled down between her spread thighs.

She closed her eyes and did her best to ignore his voice. Her eyes finally snapped open when cool air swirled around her legs. She pushed futilely on his chest and squirmed.

"Get off me," she grunted.

He renewed his efforts in lifting her skirts; spurred on by her cries.

I truly have terrible luck with men, she thought. Squeezing her eyes shut she relaxed beneath him. She felt him taking advantage of her recent submission by un-fastening his trousers. Lexa took a steadying breath before focusing all of her energy into her hands.

She was on her feet when he crashed through the foliage. She had laid down the basket and sealed the door before he'd managed to catch his breath.

Her eyes refused to stay closed. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't get the sound of his voice out of her head.

Twenty minutes after she had sealed the door of her house his fists had pounded on the wood. He had yelled every obscenity he had known calling her everything from a cock tease to an evil bitch. Her blood had run cold when he'd called her a witch. She should have opened the door and altered his memory of the afternoon, but that spell took time and close physical proximity to the target; she wouldn't have had enough time before he either ran or made good on the promises he had made to finish what he'd started.

I truly have terrible luck with men, she tried to close her eyes. Her mind however would not stop. It was true; the only man that had been good for her had been murdered by his brothers.

She climbed to her feet. It was just as well that she couldn't sleep. When she did her dreams were plagued by him. It was always the same. She would fall asleep and find Kol in her bed cold and grey; she had tried everything she could think of but she was never able to wake him. If she left the room in her dream she would rarely see him again until the next night. It was rare when she would not dream of him; those were usually the nights she was too tired to keep her eyes open.

She hadn't had a decent sleep in twenty-six years; not even her sleeping herbs helped.

Lexa knelt at the foot of her bed and lifted the lid of the old trunk. Her fingers carefully untied the ribbons and pulled aside the soft edges of the cloth. She lifted the two books and moved to sit cross legged on her bed.

She ran her fingertips over the worn leather. A whispered incantation lit the candle that stood where there had once been a vase of daisies. The flickering light illuminated the worn cover; she traced the faded runes that had been carved into the edge centuries before.

She had told herself keeping his grimoire was practical, but the truth was she hadn't been able to part with it. She'd re-written many of the spells in her own grimoire behind the compendium of herbs she had amassed under the tutelage of her aunt.

Opening the book she traced the pressed daisy. It was the first one she had restored with magic; he had immediately taken it and preserved it between the pages. He had once told her when he was human he had placed preservation spells on the grimoire; that spell seemed to extend to anything placed inside. Aside from being flattened the flower was as fresh as it had been that summer afternoon.

She took a deep breath and moved on. She studied the runes until the candle burned itself out. Lexa squinted in the moonlight but the spells had started to blur together. Laying her head back on the pillow her heavy eyelids finally drifted shut.

Lexa opened her eyes and suppressed a sob when she found him prone beside her. She smoothed back his dark hair and traced the prominent veins with her fingertips. Surely her unconscious mind was trying to make her feel guilty; trying to tell her that she should have helped him, she should have done something.

She couldn't lie there and watch him though. She stood from the bed and stepped into the hall.

Normally she would step into a field, or her kitchen. Sometimes he would show up there as well alive and vibrant.

Tonight she had emerged in the garden of her childhood home. The grass tickled the soles of her feet. The wind brought the smell of fresh flowers to her nose. Lifting her head she felt her breath catch in her throat. A woman sat in the sun a dozen feet away. Tiny flower petals littered the dress that always reminded her of spring.

When she exhaled she found herself at eyelevel with the rose bushes. Looking down she found herself in a pale blue dress that was tied at the waist with a white ribbon. Gone was her shift.

She tiptoed across the grass and leaned over the woman's shoulder. Her hands were busy twisting the daisies into a small crown.

"Ninita," she smiled brilliantly and captured Lexa's tiny hands in her own. "Sit with me 'Lexa." Her blue eyes sparkled in the sun when Lexa crossed her legs and tilted her head to look up. "I've made you something."

"That's too big Mama," she tilted her head and laughed when the crown of flowers was placed in her hair.

"Nonsense," Giulia grinned, "it's a perfect fit, see?"

Lexa lifted her hands and found the crown secure in her hair. Glancing down she found herself a woman again and dressed once more in her shift. Her lip began to tremble when she looked at her mother.

"Don't cry, ninita," Giulia wiped away a tear when it slid down her cheek.

Lexa found she was powerless to stop though. She wrapped her arms tightly around her mother's neck. She buried her face in the chestnut curls and sobbed while Giulia rubbed her back.

"I've missed you, Mama."

"I've missed you as well, 'Lexa," Giulia smiled sadly. She pulled back and cupped her daughter's cheeks. "We must talk now. I'm not sure how much time I'll have."

"Mama?" Lexa frowned.

"You've done something very foolish ninita," Giulia shook her head. "You've revealed your abilities to someone and now you are in danger."

"One accusation will not come to anything," Lexa insisted.

"My sweet 'Lexa," she kissed her child's brow, "surely you've noticed what others have. You've stopped Alexandria. You're frozen."

"I don't understand, Mama," Lexa shook her head.

"This is not the first accusation leveled on you," Giulia sighed. "You are forty-four years old. How many women that age look as young as you? Your neighbors have been whispering for years. Deep down you know this."

Lexa ran her fingertips over the petals on her mother's skirt. In that moment she wanted more than anything to be a child again. She wanted to curl up in her father's lap, listen to her mother sing, and know that everything would be okay.

"You have to leave, ninita," Giulia lifted her chin, "you must leave now."

"But…" Lexa blinked back tears, "… if I go I'll never stop running."

Giulia smoothed back Lexa's hair and straightened the ribbon around her neck. Lifting her gaze she searched her only child's eyes.

"You will stop," Giulia reassured her. "It might take time, but you will find somewhere to settle again."

"How long?"

"I don't know," she shook her head. "Now it is time for you to wake up."

She sat up to find the sun high in the sky. The last time she had slept that late was after the death of Emiliano. She doubted she'd find her love downstairs though.

She debated getting dressed at all but in the end decided on it. She was just tucking her blouse into her skirt when she felt something tickle her ear. Sitting on the edge of the bed she pulled a comb through her tangled curls and blinked when the white petal fluttered into her lap.

Unbidden her dream came back to her. The note of urgency when her mother told her to run echoed in her ears. Her fingers deftly twisted her hair into a braid to lay over her left shoulder and picked up the small mirror from the bureau.

Was her subconscious talking to her? Had her mother truly visited her dreams? It was not unheard of for a witch to communicate from the other side, but Giulia Ricci had never bridged the gap before. She had not seen her mother since she was five years old.

Lexa squinted in the looking glass. She tilted her head this way and that while scrutinizing her features. It had often seemed strange to her that men continued to show an interest in her as the years passed her by. Bits and pieces of the tavern had warped and crumbled around her, but staring at her soft features she could find no change. She couldn't find so much as a wrinkle in her pale skin.

She knew that Milo Thorne would level an accusation. She had initially believed that his would be the first, but after her dream she was no longer certain.

Perhaps she was being paranoid. Perhaps it was foolish and irrational. Her actions could have been classified as many things, and at the very bottom of the list she tacked on the word sane.

The full moon was shining through her bedroom window when she finally slid the grimoires into the black bag. She didn't bother undressing before falling asleep.

Raucous shouts roused her from a deep sleep. Over the cacophony of angry voices and the crackling of a heavy fire she could just make out the shouts of 'witch'.

She was on her feet in an instant and pulling open the door to the hall. Lexa recognized the mistake when black smoke filled the bedroom and stung her eyes. She slammed the door shut and coughed violently.

Ice dripped down her spine as she weighed the options before her. She could attempt to stop the fire in its tracks and confirm what they were shouting. She could try to force her way through the smoke filled tavern and be incinerated in the blaze. She could stay where she was and wait for her lungs to fill with smoke; it wouldn't be long with the speed it was sliding under the door. The last option was by far the best one.

She stumbled through the smoke filled room and threw the bag over her shoulder. Her fists banged on the window when the warped wood would not allow the glass to open.

Coughing she lifted the neckline of her blouse over her mouth and laid a hand on the glass. A pained hissed escaped her lips when the heat burnt her palm. She powered through it and muttered a spell that turned the glass to water.

She perched on the window sill and gritted her teeth while staring at the ground some twenty feet below. She could hear the shouts from the front of the building, but it was the sound of a beam falling within that gave her the nerve she needed to jump.

Her ankle twisted under her and she grunted. Rising onto her hands and knees she drew in a greedy mouthful of air and felt her lungs clear. She exhaled and forced herself to her feet mildly surprised when there was no residual pain in her ankle. To be sure she rolled the joint a couple of times before her head snapped towards the north where heavy steps were circling the house.

"Invisque."

She took just enough time to cast the spell before sprinting into the woods. The false sound of feminine screams reached her ears from the window.

In terms of the Soulmate dreams... she still shared the dreams while he was daggered but because the dagger was in place it appeared as if he was dead. The dreams can be ignored however; she can leave. And in the case of Stefan and Rebekah, Nik compelled Stefan to forget everything he knew of Rebekah so he had no idea who the woman he kept dreaming of was until he met her again nearly a century later.