Hello to everyone who is out there reading this. This one shot is my first attempt at writing, so I am eager to hear what you think about it. Positive comments, negative comments, constructive criticism, hit me with it people :)

Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Vampire Diaries or the Originals, only my original characters. Also English is not my first language so please be gentle with my grammatical errors and mistakes :)

Hope you will enjoy this!

Lexi

Love. That one little four lettered word was what came into his mind as he wandered around the city of Rome aimlessly. One word that he had willingly tried to keep out of his mind and out of his thoughts. God knows – if he or she even existed – that he had tried so hard to avoid thinking about love or more precisely, to avoid the memories that word had brought forth for him. If someone had asked him three years prior to that day, who was the first person that came to his mind at the mentioning of the word love, he probably would have been able to offer a list of women that he had once loved, the past loves and romances that were long gone. And perhaps he would have also mentioned his family. After all, they had promised always and forever to each other.

However, years had passed by in a blur and his associations with love had changed significantly. Even though he could not die naturally, if someone had asked him who was that one person that he would want to spend his last living moments with, Elijah Mikealson knew that he would have the answer right away. Her. And that answer had not been clearer in his mind then right there in the streets of Rome. Everything about the Italian city had reminded him of her.

He walked by the bakery on the corner and he was hit with the memories of her, walking to that little shop every morning to get them breakfast and buy them their first cappuccinos of the day. How she would wake him every single morning and force him to eat the baked goods, saying that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, even in Rome. God, he remembers her immense and utter love and devotion to the city of Roma, as she affectionately referred to it in Italian.

As he kept on strolling through the streets, he saw the restaurant where she had quickly become a regular, seeing as they had dined there every day and night. He remembers how much she loved food and how excited and eager she seemed to try something new every day. Elijah feels a smile grace his lips as he remembers how much she could eat and still find space inside her stomach for dessert and gelato on their way home. It's gelato for crying out loud Elijah, practically the best thing that happened to world since jazz music! After explaining the wonders of gelato to him, he remembers that she would make him try a different combination each day. Or on some days, even three.

The next place that brings forth another massive wave of memories is that fountain in the middle of square, exactly seven and half minutes away from her apartment. This is where she would come with a book in her hand when she felt homesick. The reason why was, as she had once told him, that her hometown had one very similar and she had said that it reminded her of the times when she was a high school student. She would walk to the fountain, find an empty bench and sit down with a book to read and listen to the sounds of her home. When he asked her about her method of chasing away homesickness, she had simply answered it was better to get lost in someone else's story than to be lost in your own of sorrow and loneliness.

Elijah remembers that he had never met a person who had always found a reason to be happy. She had always managed to find the silver lining in every situation and encouraged the ones around her to do the same. He had never met anyone who seemed so at peace with herself and her life, although she had repeatedly assured him that that was not the case. He remembers telling her about his family, about how their family life was not as harmonic and idyllic as one would imagine. When he told her about his brother, Niklaus, she just smiled softly and said with honesty that he must be a good person who just needs to let go of his fears. When he mentioned his sister Rebekah, she badgered him for weeks after the conversation to invite his sister for a few days in Rome. Although he did not go into details about the gory past of his family, she was still unbelievably positive about them and encouraged Elijah repeatedly to act the same. To Elijah, she was his beautiful angel sent from heaven.

He walks by the restaurant where they had first met and is hit with the images of a beautiful light brown haired woman sitting by herself and ordering three different meals in Italian. When the waiter had left, he saw her lips pull into the largest and happiest smiles he had seen and watched her break into a miniature dance of joy. She would later tell him that was her very first time ordering lunch in Italian, without pauses or having to think about the words that would come next. He remembers inviting her about an hour later if she would want to share a dessert with him at his table, her answer had left him speechless and then smiling like a fool. I'm sorry mister, but dessert is something that I do not share. You can have your own at my table. Had he known that he would spend the next four months falling deeper and deeper in love with that woman, he probably would have tried his luck before she had started eating.

He remembers that their dessert date, as she would later refer to it, had extended well into a night of talking, eating, walking, eating, dancing and eventually, more eating. He had never seen a human being eat that much and yet somehow successfully manage to keep their body slender. He remembers how she would let out those adorable giggles when he placed his hand right under her ribs before pulling her in for a kiss. At first he found them utterly humorous, but over time those sounds had become music to his ears. He first heard it when they were leaving the bar around two in the morning, after she had managed to coax him into some dancing to Italian songs. She had asked him to dance with her with the sweetest smile and he could not refuse her – so he danced with her until two am. He had learned some weeks later than she believed that one's personality can be revealed just by the way they dance. People that enjoy dancing are most likely the ones that truly know how to enjoy life, she had told him one night while they were lying in her bed, under the sheets after some passionate love making. She giggled right in his face after he had offered to walk her home and just as he had moved in to kiss her and somehow that did not discourage him one bit.

He realizes that they somehow always ended up sharing details of their past in a horizontal position. It could be his bed, hers, the couch in her apartment or even the garden of his home. She had told him about her origins in her bed after the first night they had spent together. She mentioned how she was born in Budapest to a Croatian father and to a Hungarian mother who were later separated by the war that was going on in her father's country. She had told him that she did not see his father during the years of the Croatian War of Independence, taking four precious years of her childhood away. Upon further questioning, she had mentioned that her family divides their time between Budapest and Dubrovnik and that her parents are still happily married. He remembers how she would laugh at his astonishment when she had mentioned to him that at the age of 21 she could speak five languages fluently and had been planning on making Italian the sixth. When he had tried to praise her, she had simply answered that three out of those five were a given, seeing that she spoke Croatian with her father, Hungarian with her mother and Serbian with her nanny.

Then he remembers how he was also laying his bed, exactly 25 days after meeting her, sneaking a peek into the book that she had been reading when he revealed his immortality to her. She had returned to his bedroom a blood bag after going to the kitchen for some water and gave him her best 'care to explain?' look. He had expected her to lash out in anger, to run away in fear, but to his utmost surprise she had sat down next to him and listened everything that he had to stay. He had seen her face go pale at the mention of his age, but other than that her face had been completely blank during his explanation. Once he had finished sharing his story, she simply nodded and placed a hand on his cheek, caressing the soft skin under her fingers. He had expected her ask about how many people he had killed during his life or about the advantages or disadvantages of getting romantically involved with an original vampire, but instead she just leaned in to kiss him. When he had asked her if she was scared of him, she shook her head and answered, 'If you had wanted to kill me Elijah, I'm pretty sure that you would have done it already'. She had told him repeatedly, that while his news were a lot to take in, they did not change her thoughts and feelings for him. That had to be the moment when Elijah had realized that he was in love with the light brown haired and dark blue eyed woman sitting in front of him.

She was eager to learn more about his nature and had asked him the very same night to show her his fangs. She had actually joked and said that he was lucky that he would never need to think about how to dress for Halloween. He had not been impressed by that remark at all. After that night she had started to call him Dr. Cullen, because he had told her when they met that he was a doctor who was giving lectures at the medical universities in Rome. Needless to say, her reference to the patriarch of the vampire family in that pathetic book managed to impress him less than her Halloween costume one. But despite all her teasing and jokes, he could not help but fall in love with her even more.

She was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen in his thousand years. She truly was something incredibly breathtaking both from the outside and even more from the inside. He realizes that he had never received more love or nurturing from anyone else in his lifetime. She had fallen irrevocably in love with him and with her love came her acceptance, her loyalty and her utmost care and devotion to him. She had given him everything he could have ever wanted from life in those four short months that she had graced his life with her presence. He feels his eyes stinging with an unfamiliar pain as he remembers her wide and bright smile. Her loud and infectious laugh that could brighten up any person's day. Her soft hands that would caress his skin until the moment she had fallen asleep. Her beautiful dark blue eyes that turned to green once sunlight had hit them, that could tell him a thousand words. Her silky light brown hair that he loved running his fingers through and that would somehow always end up in his face, nearly suffocating him as she moved around in her sleep. He was in love with everything about her. To Elijah Mikealson, everything on her was perfect from her head to toe.

He felt a tear escape from his eye as he realized where had unintentionally ended up as he wandered the streets. He was stood right outside her old apartment, the place where he had declared his love for her and promised her that he would protect her from everything in the world. The place where he had extended his heart to her and asked her to do him the honor of becoming his wife. So many joyful and happy memories had rushed at him as he took in the place where the woman he is in love with used to live. Once those pass, he remembers his biggest regret and failure as he keeps staring at the window that allowed him to see inside the living room. He remembers coming home after meeting a witch, who apparently had information on his brother and his journey that he had embarked on to break the curse. He had missed both lunch and dinner and decided to surprise his food enthusiastic lover by picking up her favorites from their favorite restaurant. He had been eager to get home to see her lying on her couch with a glass of pinot noir sitting on the coffee table while she was lost in her newest book. Instead, when he opened up the door and crossed the foyer quickly, he noticed that something was terribly wrong.

He couldn't hear her heartbeat inside the apartment. That slightly faster than average heartbeat could not be heard. His thought was that maybe she had run down to get her daily fix of gelato, or maybe she had the same idea and had gone down to Mauro's to get take out for them. However as he neared her living room he saw that the apartment was a mess. Every single object was moved or thrown to the floor. The vase that was once on the coffee table holding a bouquet of pink tulips was now on the floor in hundreds of pieces. Dropping the food he sped through the house in search of his fiancée and had felt close to fainting when he saw that her bedroom was destroyed and there was blood on the walls, on the bed sheets and also on the curtains – blood that judging by the scent, belonged to his fiancée. The bedside table had its wonky leg broken off and he found the makeshift stake stained with blood by the bed. She tried to fight back, he had realized as he felt tears streaming down his face. All of a sudden his sorrow and pain had turned into blind rage as he sped through the bedroom trying to find the scent of the vampire that had taken his fiancée. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing. He then had tried to trace her scent, but that had also disappeared after he had sped down about ten streets. That was when he had broken down. For the first time in his life he had felt happy and his enemies had caught up with him and had exploited his only weakness. They had taken her away from him and possibly killed her. He had immediately reached out to a witch and demanded that she perform a locating spell to find her, but the witch had come up empty handed. 'It's as if she had vanished, Elijah. I tried everything but I cannot locate her anywhere', the witch said. When fifteen other witches and warlocks had given him the same answer he had known what that meant. The woman that loved was gone. She was gone.

He remembers that he had stood exactly in the same spot three years ago when he had sworn to her memory that he would find whoever was responsible for her death and put them torture them until they begged for death. They had taken away the one thing that had managed to turn his days of existence into days of living. They had taken away the woman that he had wanted to spend the rest of eternity with. He had failed to protect her. He had sworn to her that her death would be avenged, but after two years of searching for his fiancée's murderers he had come up empty handed. There were no traces to follow, yet he could not give up. He had returned to Rome after he had a dream about her. She had appeared in his dream and gave him a look that had stated her unhappiness with him and encouraged him to come to peace with her death. She had encouraged him to let go of his pain and his vengeance and to continue to live on with his life, because he deserves to be happy even after she was gone. He had tried to reach for her, but she disappeared before their skins could touch and he woke up grasping onto the sheets on his bed.

"I am terribly sorry, my love. I know that I will disappoint you with this, but I cannot rest until I find out who had taken you away from me. I hope that you find it in yourself to forgive me, my angel. I will love you forever."

He murmured this quiet prayer as he looked up to the sky and hoped more than anything that heaven existed and that she could hear him. He stood there for a few more minutes and then turned to make his way back toward the fountain. He knew that it was time for him to return to New Orleans to see his brother. Just as he was crossing the square he had heard the distinct sounds of high heels clicking on the cobblestones of the square and hurrying into the direction where he had come from. He wouldn't have turned around if it wasn't for the wind that had picked up for a mere second and blew the traces of a familiar scent his way. Her. He had quickly turned on his heel and sped through the square with a newfound hope when he saw a woman hurriedly walk down the street and close to the houses. However, by the time that he had reached to where he had seen the woman, he had found no one. Had the woman been just a fragment of his imagination, trying to lull him into a false sense of hope that maybe she was alive and well after all this time? His mind had gone into override as various scenarios of reuniting with his lost love had appeared in front his eyes. He felt his chest tighten and knew that he had to let the rational side of his brain take over. He shook his head and told himself that she was long gone and dead and that it was time for him to return to New Orleans. He took in a deep breath and without bothering to keep up appearances, he sped down the streets, wanting to get away from the painful memories as fast as possible, disappearing from sight in a mere second.

Several hundreds of feet away on top of an apartment building a person had let out a loud sigh of relief as they stood up and took in a few deep breaths. Wind blew into light brown waves as a dainty feminine hand reached up to cover a pair of full pink lips. A dark blue pair of eyes stared at the square where the person had just seen the love of their life stand. Zorana Milovanovic started sobbing once she was certain that he was gone. She had heard every single word he had said to the sky a few minutes ago and felt her throat tighten as she realized that he had just been a few feet away from her. She literally felt her heart break as she watched him walk away as a man who was broken, hurt and hungry for revenge. My dear God, what have I done?