AN: The prompt for this story is: A story entitled "A New Beginning"

AH AU.

It's a new town. Not really, Elena thinks, the town is a few hundred years old. It's not new, it's just new to her. But, as she grips the familiar steering wheel, she tells herself that it's a new beginning. It looks so different from Mystic Falls, that it's a relief.

This place will be better, she tells herself as she parks in the driveway of a blue house she's parked in twice in two days.

Her driveway, now, she thinks as she notices the sign declaring the house isn't for sale anymore, it's sold. She'll need to take that out of the yard soon, she thinks. This town will be different because this town will only know what she tells it.

It's not going to be filled with people who knew her parents and thought they had room to judge. It's a fresh start. She parks and with a sigh, she gets out, keys in hand. She barely has any furniture to bring in, the previous owner had left the furniture with the house and didn't add the cost into the price. His wife picked all of their furniture, he had told Elena as they signed the papers. He just couldn't get rid of it after their divorce, and but he couldn't stay either.

It was a little odd, she thinks, looking back as she gets the box out of the passenger seat. She balances it on her knee as she unlocks the door, and when she can set it down in the entryway. She remembers to lock her SUV, and then shuts the door.

The previous owner and his wife really liked dark wood, she thinks as she walks to the master bedroom. Her journals fit nicely on the empty bookcase near the closet door, and she places her toiletries where she thinks they should go. She makes a list of what she didn't notice before moving in, like that the curtains in the guest bedroom are too bright for the room, and that she needs to buy a new mattress for the master bedroom, because it just feels odd. Little things that add up to a decently sized list. She moves things around, puts her clothes in her new closet, puts up plates, she tries to do everything in one day. Elena's just happy she's a light packer, after the fifth box. She keeps working, and she eventually gets through the second to last box.

It's so quiet other than the noise of the things that she's moving that she almost jumps when she hears the doorbell ring.

She chastises herself, this is a new town. It's probably just the postman. Either way, she walks downstairs, and opens the door, cautiously. A cheery woman with pink lipstick smiles at her, with a covered pie plate in her hands.

"I'm Caroline Mikaelson. Welcome to the neighborhood!" She says, and Elena doesn't quite trust it for a second, but this woman is being genuine.

"Thank you." Elena says and the blonde hands her the pie plate.

"Where did you move from?" The other woman asks.

"Virginia." Elena answers, and the blonde nods.

"My husband and I moved here a few years ago from New Orleans. We used to live in Virginia too. It's a small world after all, isn't it?" She asks and Elena laughs before answering.

"Yeah, I guess it is." Elena says and the blonde smiles at her again.

"That's my strawberry pie. It's won the best dessert award here a few years in a row. I hope you like it. Let us know if you need anything, we live just a few houses down, the gray one." The blonde tells her and Elena tells her she'll tell her if she needs help. Caroline walks away and Elena shuts the door. She puts it in the fridge, and her stomach growls. She checks her phone. The times on the clocks in the kitchen are off, and she sets them to the right time before getting her purse from her bedroom. It's later than she thought and unless she wants to eat pie for dinner, she needs to go to the grocery store.

She debates just eating pie for dinner, and just going to the grocery store after work on Monday, for a minute. Then she tells herself she'll try the pie after she returns and cooks dinner.

The streets are about as busy as the ones of Mystic Falls and she hates the little thread of relief she feels at something so familiar. Her parents died there, her uncle died there and she barely came out of that car crash alive. Everyone in that town stared at her like she caused their deaths, and her Aunt Jenna needed the house anyway. Her brother and aunt didn't blame her, and she told herself that their opinions were the only ones that mattered.

She parks in the parking lot, and readies herself. Another exhale and then she's in the brightly lit store, that's moderately busy. She gets a shopping cart and walks around. Familiar looking things get crossed off her list and put in her cart. She's in longer than she would be if she knew where everything was, but she doesn't care. The house will be dark and lonely when she returns to it. Even if she barely speaks for than a sentence or two to anyone, it's a little better than being in that house. Her house, she tells herself.

A few employees ask if they can help her find anything, but she tells them she's fine. She'll spend more time in here anyway, she thinks. She might as well get used to it.

She checks out with a full cart, with a few things that weren't on her list. It's fine. She moved to this town for the job she applied for and was hired for.

Groceries are loaded into her backseat and then unloaded. She finds the garage door opener when she puts the chips away in one of the cabinets. Then she pulls her SUV in, and she knows she should explore more, but she ends up making a sandwich and chips for dinner first. She watches a show on her phone as she eats, partially because she follows the show and partially to have some noise in the house.

She cuts a piece of the pie, after taking it out of her fridge. She makes a list of all of the things she needs to do while she eats it.

It's a unique pie and it doesn't remind her of anything, which is a gift in itself.

She sets out her clothes and gets ready for the next day and follows an old routine in a new place. It's a little weird to be in a house by herself, and not hear the noises of Jeremy and her Aunt Jenna. But she's an adult now, and she needs to deal with it, she tells herself.

She gets ready too early, she forgets that this town doesn't have any of the distractions she had in Mystic Falls. She checks her lipstick and double checks everything to make sure it's perfect, and then leaves.

The office building is already starting to become busy, and other cars in the parking lot are a reassuring sight. She parks carefully, she forgot how odd it felt to drive in heels, and makes her way to her new job.

Her boss is waiting for her when she leaves the elevators, and introduces herself as Melissa, to confirm Elena's assumption. She shows Elena her cubicle and she pretends to settle in for a few minutes until her boss comes back to go to a meeting. Not to interact or deal with right away, just to observe.

By lunch, she's got a stack of papers to read before work the next day. Her boss is nice and introduces her to most of the people they pass, and they're going to go to lunch when her boss stops when they pass a man in a suit and he stops too.

"Elena, this is Elijah Mikaelson. He's one of the lawyers we work with. Elijah, this is Elena Gilbert." Melissa says and it clicks. This must be Caroline's husband. She's about to say more, and then Melissa gets pulled away by a panicked looking coworker.

"Excuse me for a moment." Her blonde boss says and Elena nods. The man in the suit is gorgeous, but he's married. Back off, she tells herself, but he looks

"Of course." Elijah says and then Melissa disappears out of sight.

"I met your wife, she's really nice." She says, and his eyebrow furrows momentarily for a second.

"Caroline." She clarifies. His eyes widen.

"I'm not married. Caroline is my sister-in-law. She's married to my brother Niklaus." Elijah says and Elena gets it.

"Is her husband your only brother?" She asks.

"I actually have four brothers and a sister. What about you?" He asks.

"I just have a younger brother, Jeremy." She says and he nods. Melissa returns to tell Elena that she has to stay at the office and fix a problem.

"Would you like to go to lunch with me?" He asks, taking a risk. She seems nice and their mutual lunch plan has just been canceled, after all. She smiles at him.

"I would like that." She says and he thinks that maybe taking a risk once in a while isn't a bad thing after all.

"My family comes from Denmark. We moved to America when we were children." He says.

She hasn't told him about Mystic Falls and the name of the small town she grew up in, but she asks what languages his parents speak. He tells her that they used to speak Danish and English.

"Used to?" She asks and then feels stupid because then he nods and tells her that his parents are dead.

"Mine are too." She tells him. It's a gloomy topic and it's not something she planned on sharing to very many people if at all, but there's just something about him. She never does this, she tells him as they walk back to her office building, his is nearby. She never meets strangers and tells them way too personal information, and she certainly never does what she's about to do. Before he asks, she hands him a piece of paper.

"That's my number, if you want to call me." She says before she walks towards the building.

"I will." He says and she can't help the grin on her face, that stays the rest of the day.

She comes home to an empty house, but she gets pizza from a highly recommended restaurant on the way home and gets a text from Elijah Mikaelson. Caroline spots her as she's pulling in and she puts the pizza on the island in the kitchen before walking back out to see if Caroline is still out there.

"Hi!" Caroline says and Elena smiles back at her and greets her too.

"I met your brother-in-law today." She says, and Caroline asks which one, Klaus has three living brothers.

"Elijah." Elena says and Caroline immediately connects the dots.

"Do you like him?" Caroline asks.

"I'm not sure." She admits and then a car pulls into Caroline's driveway.

She sees a driver with dirty blonde hair, and then the car is parked and locked and the man kisses Caroline on the lips and then asks if she's the neighbor he's heard so much about. Elena answers that she probably is, unless they have another new neighbor.

As they talk and she grows to like her new neighbors and all of it. It's a new beginning, her new beginning she thinks. She can't wait for the rest of it.