Author's Notes: This one-shot uses the character and story from my other fic, Eastern Sun In The Western Sky.

~The Dying Sun~

She supposed she will never know what it means to stand atop the stage, with fans screaming her name over and over again. The feeling of being adored and thousands of eyes on her sweaty figure as she soaked in their applause.

She supposed she will never know what it will be like to hear the songs she and her band wrote being played on the radio, as they gather around and drink to their success. The radio blasting their tune as they sang along as they had always dreamed of.

She supposed she will never know the betrayal or sadness those friends of her will feel, the betrayal from her leaving their group before their first step has even been taken, the sadness as the news of her leaving reaches them.

Jay breathed, the tasteless rain staining her tongue with a taste that she will never find again.

Beside her lay the man that caused all of her troubles.

The man that infuriated her to the point of distress.

The man that both caused her heart to beat in excitement and fear.

The only man capable of paling her skin to a ghostly white whilst bringing out the blooming red of her cheeks.

The man that can make her cry in pain and smile in joy at the same time.

Jay reached out a ghostly hand to this man, gasps leaving her throat as her fingers brushed over his cold skin that was hard yet soft to the touch.

With shaky fingers, she poked at his lids weakly, smiling ruefully when he did not awaken like he usually did.

The tasteless rain mixed with her bitter tears as they ran down her cheeks and drenched her hair wet.

Wake up

She could feel the wooden stake in her stomach, penetrating and unmoving like the pillars of her impending death.

It left a gaping hole in her from which the red life force slowly but surely flowed away from her like an unending river.

Beside her, she could see the same gaping hole and same red on his body. But where hers remained wide as the jaws of death, his was slowly but surely closing as the gates of heaven closed to him.

Wake up

She never imagined her death in such a way before.

She had imagined many scenarios of her death, being constantly hounded by this man who was a favorite of Danger.

They had scraped through so many together that she almost thought they were invincible.

But each and every time, he was there to get her out of it.

She smiled wryly and tangled pale fingers with his motionless ones.

Wake up

This time however, it was her who got him out of it.

He would probably throw a fit at her when he awakens, screaming at her what a bloody idiot she was for doing what she did. But it will only be because his pride as an undefeatable immortal was wounded, not because he cared for her.

It was strange and ironic.

The curse that bounded them together got her into many dangers but also became the reason she escaped death so many times, for what happened to her happened to him. In turn, his incredible healing saved her skin more times than she can remember.

The curse that was placed on them so that the infuriating bastard will finally learn how to care for someone else besides his own skin.

Well, Jay hoped their curser was happy.

They had broken the curse at last, right here as the rain drained them with its embrace.

It was monumentally ironic and Jay grimaced in pain. What was made to keep them together is the thing that finally tears them apart.

She squeezed his fingers, hoping to elicit a response of some sort from him.

But his eyes kept closed, dark hair splaying across the features she came to love. Those features that haunted her waking days and dreams.

And his eyes, God his eyes.

She will miss looking into them.

Wake up

Tugging on his hand, she hoped he would grant her one last look of those sinful eyes of his.

Did she regret jumping in front of him as the stake flew through the air, shot by none other than one of her kin? Did she regret putting herself in danger to save him as he kneeled in weakness?

She didn't regret it at the time as time slowed for her and her heart squeezed painfully at the panic and indescribable worry that grabbed her as she watched him go down before her.

She didn't regret it at the time as her body and heart knew exactly what she wanted to do before her mind did. Her brain only managed to catch up only when she stood in front of him, protecting him as she felt an immeasurable pain in her stomach, the stake having missed its former intended position.

She had felt a weight lifting off her shoulders at that moment, a weight that chained her heart for the time she had known him, vanishing as if it was never there.

She didn't know whether to smile or cry at the realization that the curse was gone at that very moment.

The perpetrators of the atrocious act had long since left, thinking that death would claim the both of them. But it seems death would only be collecting her this time.

Ironically. The curse failed to save her life this time. But it saved his.

She sniffled and cried, feeling the stinging pain of the wound leaving her as the gates of heaven that closed to him opened to her.

"Kol, wake up."

To answer her questions that no one but her heard, she never regretted any of it.

Releasing his hand, hers rose to touch his cheeks, wet from the rain and cold with his perpetual death.

She didn't regret putting his life before hers at all, even though at the time she thought she would not die, only to find out too late that she will die indeed.

She only regretted she will never know what it will be like to love him, forever and always.

Forever and always.

For her love had come too late.

"Kol, I…"

As her last breaths left her, just moments before her eyes went dark, she saw those sinful eyes she loved so much fluttering open wearily before they widened in horror.

Her heart did not have its chance to leap for him.

~The Dying Sky~

"Kol…"

He heard his brother Elijah before the man even walked into the area.

He did not wish to speak to anyone nor listen to any words of comfort.

Lest of all the words of his brother.

He ignored him, pensive eyes gazing into the orange flames that took away the last vestiges of his curse.

He was finally rid of the curse and her.

Yet he felt no joy nor saw cause to celebrate.

There was only an empty feeling within.

A hollow darkness that consumed his entire being and left him with nothing.

And this emptiness only grew as the flames burned bigger and brighter with the dying stars that dotted the sky.

Elijah, in all honesty, did not know what to say to his brother. He had no words of comfort or words of wisdom to offer, for Elijah himself did not know what he should say to nurse his own emotions, needless to say that of his brother.

He stopped a short distance away from Kol and the burning flames, wondering if Kol would throw himself into the flames as well so that he too burned away along with her.

If he did, Elijah would only stop him because his body and mind told him so but his heart didn't.

He too, felt like throwing himself into the devouring inferno.

He felt responsible for what happened. It was his doing that caused this.

When he traced it all back, it all went back to the moment where he handed her his card and asked her to call him.

He had brought this upon himself, upon his brother and upon her.

He watched his brother who watched the flames, and suddenly he very much wanted to know what went on in that usually mischievous mind of his.

But Elijah knew he lost all rights to ask him that.

So he kept silent, still as the night and alert as the sun that rose its flaming mane on the horizon, watching his brother, both in their own solitude.

Kol did not know what went through his brother's mind, and he felt the gaze of his brother constantly. But he didn't care.

He didn't want to care.

If he allowed himself to care, the tight lid that he was trying to hold down will all but burst forth, and Kol knew that it was the last thing any of his family wanted.

That she wanted.

So he kept it shut, the lid bubbling and straining beneath his will, the only thing holding him together as the heat of the flames licked away at the air.

But he didn't feel the warmth. Instead the cold only gained strength as the fire burned higher and higher towards the fading sky.

His fists clenched, unwillingly recalling the moment the light left her eyes.

It should have been him. It should have been them.

It should have been either him or the both of them.

But it was never supposed to be her and only her.

In his sleep of darkness, he thought he had heard a voice calling him, urging him to awaken with growing urgency but fading strength.

It was no longer a thought now. He knew.

She was calling him. Calling him to save her, or perhaps just to see him one last time.

Did it matter now?

He took no breaths nor moved. All was still within him and he wished to remain as such for the remainder of his eternity. His long, long eternity.

He had worked tirelessly to break that stupid curse and now that it was broken, he wished it wasn't.

That was not how it was supposed to end.

Damn her. He damned her to the highest heavens for breaking the curse at the least inopportune of times.

He heard the bones in his fingers breaking underneath the strain he placed on them.

For one moment, one small moment, he allowed himself to heave a shaky breath, feeling a wetness in his eyes that he did not want.

And something occurred to him during this fleeting moment of weakness. Something that will haunt him forever and always.

"I never got to know her real name." Elijah felt the shiver in Kol's voice, ringing through the dead of the night as dawn broke over in the far distance.

His voice was cold and dead; just like them.

Elijah closed his eyes and released a shaky breath, the smell of smoke and burning skin invading his senses.

"Neither did I."