OOC: First Originals story, so please be kind. Changing the timeline a bit here for this one: Elena had a brother and a sister, a sister that was heavily involved in the Mikaelson drama in seasons two through five of TVD. Klaus and Hayley had their one-night stand six years after Esther's death. The rest is pretty much the same. Reviews are love!

Dear Diary,

I had the dream again, the one in which I died forever. The one in which Elijah never came to Mystic Falls, where my sister wasn't the Petrova Doppleganger, and vampires were regulated to the B-rated movies Caroline, Bonnie, Elena and I threw popcorn at and mocked endlessly during Girl's Only weekend. Stephan and Damon were just two hot brothers with the sad misfortune of loving the same girl (with myself mooning after Damon like he was the answer to my every prayer). I never win his heart in these dreams, though, which I think is the saddest part of them all. Even over the fact that, without Elijah's intervention, my cancer eventually got the better of me. I died a scant two years after graduation, buried next to Mom and Dad.

My death was horrible in the way all cancer-death's are, or so I'm told. Wasting away from the chemo, from the very things that were supposed to save me. So skeletal in death that Elena and Stephan ordered a closed-casket viewing. It was better for everyone that way, and funerals really are for the living. Those of us that die are beyond the cares, the need to say the goodbyes. And the tears and prayers of our loved ones hold as much sway on our souls whether landing on unliving flesh or polished wood. No, funerals are not for the dead. That's what the comfort of the grave is for, the cool, peaceful, loamy earth like a blanket that magically soothes all aches, all pains.

My death was horrible, but death itself was truly a relief. So I stood next to my coffin and watched. Watched Tyler and Caroline, newly engaged, placing flowers on the mirror-like surface of my coffin. Watched Stephan holding Elena close, letting her sob into his chest while Damon stood like a silent guardian above them. He'd always look after them both, I knew. Bonnie and Matt chatted softly in the back pew, a new bond forming between them. Funny, I could see their futures entwining with every word, like light weaving itself in majestic Celtic knots above their heads, binding them together for a Happily Ever After.

They deserved it, all my friends. Happiness. Or happy for now.

And there were no vampires in Mystic Falls. And there were no werewolves in Mystic Falls. And there were no witches in Mystic Falls.

… and there was peace.

Even for me.

No, especially for me.

I gazed down at those last four words glowing on my iPad and fought not to frown. Something about them twisted in my gut, churning with the coffee that had been my morning breakfast until I wasn't sure I was going to keep it down. Surely, I was happy now, right? Six years had passed since Ester's death, five years since the curse on Klaus Mikaelson was broken, since Mikael was dead forever, and since the entirety of my junior year in Hell ended. And there I sat, no longer the sixteen year old child hanging on her older sister's every word. No longer a part of Mystic Falls in any sense of the word, either. I'd taken my queue from Elijah's note to me right after his mother—I meant Ester's—final death and got the hell out of that town.

Go, Alynia Gilbert. Go and live your life, as I am finally free to live mine. Know you are only as alone as you wish to remain.

Always and Forever,

Elijah

I'd done exactly that. I was my own person, finally. A civil engineer freshly minted and certified from UNLV, good ol' University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I had a job waiting for me in Seattle with a good firm. I had nothing to look back on, nothing to take with me from the place of my birth, from that damned town in nowhere Virginia.

I was happy.

Wasn't I?

The coffee in the pit of my stomach, combined with the remnants of that last dream, seemed to disagree with my assessment.

"Hey, 'Nia, you awake?"

I jerked, slapping the cover closed on my iPad. "Yeah," I called back. "Yeah, Danielle. Sorry, got lost reading."

Danielle stuck her head around the corner of the bathroom, blond hair plastered to her scalp, fresh from the shower. "You okay? You sound like someone walked over your grave or something."

Wow. If she only knew the half of it—which I would never tell. I threw a pillow in her direction instead. "Is that some kind of crack because we're touring the French Quarter today."

She dodged the pillow easily, smirking. "Totally. You know Ellis has this obsession with gravestone etchings and stuff. Absolutely morbid if you ask me, but she's so certain we're going to find graves with our names on them in some form."

I wrinkled my nose at that. "Just how many Alynia Gilbert's do you think there are? It's not exactly up there in America's Favorite Baby Name category."

"I'll take Things I Absolutely Give No Fucks About for one-thousand, Alex," she smirked, dipping back into the little hotel bathroom. "We all agreed to take this tour during the day so we can drunk our brains out tonight. I'm honestly counting on you and Lexi to keep me awake through the whole graveyard snooze-fest. I mean, who wants to hear about dead people rotting for centuries and fake ghosts and crap?"

"Apparently, Ellis does."

"You see," Danielle snapped, popping back around the corner and leveling her tooth brush at me like it was a laser pointer. "That's why she graduated with a degree in Pretty Picture Painting—"

"You mean Fine Arts with a minor in animation?"

"—and we graduated with engineering degrees. I'm not knocking the work she put into her degree at all, but, seriously? If this graveyard starts sinking into the big swamp place—they have a special name for it out here but screw me if I know or care—then people call us to fix it. You know, engineers with actual real jobs? Painting pictures of Ghosts in the Graveyard? Dude, wasn't that a game we played as children? Isn't it time to grow out of tween fairy tales like ghosts and crap?"

"The word you were looking for is 'bayou,' not 'big swamp place,'" I corrected, hiding a grin behind a sip of my coffee. "And yes, that was a bit mocking of Ellis' choice of career. She is our friend. Besides, you have to have a vivid imagination to do what she does. Where do you think she gets her inspiration?"

Dani popped her toothbrush back into her mouth, rolling her lovely green eyes. "Whath weth do ith realth imathgination," she held up one finger in pause, and dipped back into the bathroom to spit in the sink. "Sorry, I meant to say 'what we do takes real imagination.' It takes talent to look at lines on a paper and see the entirely of what we are designing on two dimensional paper. And we don't need to chase ghost stories to do that. After this tour, the only ghost chasing I want to star in is 'Scooby Doo and the case of Why the Hell is My Beer Empty.'"

I half-laughed/half-coughed coffee onto the floor. "You are such a bitch," I grinned.

"That's why you love me."

"That, and your terrible taste in music."

She narrowed her eyes at me in mock anger. "You know what else is terrible? Bleeding out all over the pavement."

"So don't do that," I quipped right back. "Jesus, woman, we're supposed to be in New Orleans for our last trip together before we graduate. I don't have time for you to bleed out all over the place."

This time, she laughed. "You see, this is why we are friends. You give back as a good as you get."

And maybe, just maybe, my trepidation about my life wasn't so bad anymore. My life was amazing, or at least was about to become amazing. And it was filled with sarcastic, breathing, human people. Just like myself.

So when Dani vanished back into the bathroom to finish dressing, I flopped back down on the bed, fishing through my bag until I found it. The well-worn paper, delicately folded along the creases he'd made, protected from time and my own hand in its little plastic sleeve. I don't know why I took it everywhere with me. Maybe as a reminder that the crazy events of my past really did occur. A tangible piece of evidence that my sister was, in fact, now a vampire. That a vampire had saved my life and I'd saved his. Or maybe because… hell, I don't know. Maybe as proof that I made it out. I survived when so many hadn't.

But maybe it was time to let go.

I flicked a glance towards the bathroom, the somewhat shrill tones of Skrillex beating against the door until it nearly vibrated in its frame. As much as I hated dub step, I did love the girl who listened to it as if she were my own sister.

Know you are only as alone as you wish to remain.

I wasn't alone anymore. Not with Danni, Ellis, and Lexi.

It was time to let go.

I flicked open the iPad again, saving my journal entry and tapping the Google App. "Find historic bridges near the French Quarter."

A moment later I was reading about the Crescent City Connection, both its modern design and its history. Yes, that would do it.

"We're adding a stop to the tour today," I told Dani as she stepped out of the bathroom.

"God, tell me it's not to some voodoo shop or something. I might have to kill you."

"Nope, I want to travel across the Crescent City Connection."

"Why?"

I turned the screen towards her. "Looks interesting, for one. For another, I want to say goodbye to something. That's as good a place as any."

For once, Dani's cat-like features softened. "I know you lost your parents on a bridge, and—"

I was shaking my head before she'd even started speaking. "Nothing like that, though thank you for asking," I took a deep breath. "You're right that this is our last big trip together before we run away to our new careers, move to new cities. I think it would be symbolic to do a… uh… well, ceremony of goodbye. You know, let go of the things always holding us back."

Her expression sharpened again. "Well, I know Ellis would be all over it. So why not? I can toss in a tube of lipstick or something. Cast out yesterday's colors to make way for tomorrows or some such hippie shit."

It took everything in me not to glance at my bag, at that note. It was time.

Beyond time.

"You have got to try this," Ellis beamed, sliding the drink my way.

I eyed the 'cauldron of magic' that was the supposed drink of choice in this slice of the French Quarter with mildly veiled skepticism. After the Tarot Card Cookies and the Ouija Board Bread sandwiches we'd had in the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 Gift Shop and Lunch Shack, I was pretty much mystified out.

Not that the day was a total pisser of a tourist trap. The cemetery, itself, had a quiet sense of power to it, a foreboding sensation that even Dani was hesitant to break. We walked the graves with our tour guide, quietly observing the dead with a reverence we never possessed in any other city. Maybe there was something to the stories in the French Quarter. Maybe all the streets and shops were truly haunted, just not in the Wes Craven/splatter-punk way. Maybe memory was tangible in this place and walked the streets with the living, layer after layer of hopes and dreams and thoughts and fears blending into its own reality. Maybe the dead here did watch over the living.

Perhaps in a century or so, some group of girls would walk these streets and feel me and my friends laughing in the sunlight, carefree for probably the last time in our lives.

I tried to shake that last thought away and brought the straw to my lips, sampling the drink. My skin continued to crawl, though, acting as if I could still feel the invisible eyes on me. Someone watching me constantly, nearly glimpsed from the corner of my eye, or hidden behind the graves. That sensation continued to cling to me like a film, filtering my whole day through a haze of paranoia.

Impossible, I told myself, giving Ellis a thumb's up. The drink was tasty, if a bit sweet for my taste. Dani flat out rolled her eyes, shooting her fifth shot of whiskey and chasing it down with a healthy dose of Dos Equix. Ellis's smile ratcheted up a few watts at my reaction and she pushed through the crowds to get herself another one.

"Don't encourage her," Lexi yelled above the live jazz blasting around us. "I can't possibly handle another cemetery tour."

"Suck it up," Dani interjected. "Or should I say, drink it up. We agreed to go back for the haunted ghost tour at midnight, though whatever possessed me to do that had to be the Ghost of Mistakes Past."

"Whatever," I slurped up more of the drink, alcoholic warmth spreading from my stomach through the rest of me. "I intend to be well and truly drunk when we do that. But I'll go for Ellis."

"The shit we do for friendship," Lexi sighed dramatically, puffing her raven bangs away from her eyes. "We should have gone to Hawaii. Hot cabana boys serving us drinks with little umbrellas in them, rubbing tanning oil all over our skin with their strong hands… And no spooky graveyards or tourist cookies that taste like cardboard."

I nearly groaned in agreement. "That sounds like heaven right now."

Lexi tilted her head towards me, expression worried. "You okay? You've been out of it since we hit that graveyard this morning. What gives?"

"She's depressed from the lack of sex," Dani answered for me, blue eyes twinkling with laughter. "Seriously, this trip has been more like a family outing than our last big party before graduation. We all need to get laid."

"Not all of us define ourselves by the amount of strange we're hitting," I laughed.

"Maybe some of you should," she countered with a wink. "Take a look around. This place is teaming with men that need a little me in their lives. I'm determined to fill that need."

"Whore," Lexi laughed.

"I prefer the term 'empowered and strong woman who always gets what she wants,' thank you very much," Dani winked. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dance."

"Go with her," I pushed Lexi's elbow. "Don't let her go anywhere with anyone alone. She's tough, but this isn't home, you know? She doesn't know this city or where to go if there's trouble."

"Sure," Lexi nodded, still staring at me with concern. "Are you sure you're okay?"

No, I wanted to say. The word was on my tongue, ready to be screamed to the world. No, I wasn't okay. But I didn't know why, and that was the most frustrating part. "I'm fine," I lied, tossing a fair imitation of Dani's trademark saucy wink for emphasis. "Seriously, go with her. I'll keep Ellis entertained."

Those lovely blue eyes narrowed. "No," she said slowly, shaking her head and grabbing my wrist. "No, we all need to dance. Stop drinking that fruity crap and come and dance with us."

As if that were a choice. She grabbed my arm, drug me out onto the dance floor and into the thick of people. I had no idea how to dance to jazz, and apparently neither did the crowd of people. They jumped and clapped and called out to the musicians, swaying here or there as the beat moved them. Lexi had no problems with it, either, quickly loosing herself in the scream of the horns and the pounding of the drums. She could have been a local for all anyone knew. Dani and I shared a grin, and proceeded to try and emulate our friend. No matter where we were, or what we did, Lexi always found the pulse of the town and led us along for the ride. New Orleans was no exception.

Except… except that damnable feeling of being watched was getting worse, compounding until I felt it more than the beat of the music. Until the need to run was crushing my heart.

God, what was wrong with me?

"I need another drink," I roared into Dani's ear, trying not to panic.

"Get me one, too," she roared back above the music. "In fact, bring me two. I think I've found my lucky stranger for the night."

She pointed behind her hand, indicating a man with dark skin and flashing eyes, with features that would have made Venus, herself, come down from Olympus to be with him. My heart leaped out of my chest to slam against the roof of my mouth, fear washing any sense of attraction I'd felt right out sight. Vampire, my brain screamed. That man was a vampire, and he was old. At least two hundred years old. Which made him two hundred times more than she could handle. Don't ask me how I knew that, and right in that moment, I didn't care.

"Don't," I jumped in her line of sight. "Not that one. He's not the one. Look, there are plenty of hot guys around this place. Just… not that one."

She wrinkled her nose at me. "Is it because he's black? Nia, I never thought of you as—"

"What? No! Don't be an idiot—both in assuming that and secondly in going anywhere with him. He's dangerous."

Dani peeked over my shoulder, a sly smile touching her perfect lips. "I know, that's why I want him. Something finally dangerous in this supposed city of crazy darkness. Please, the Vegas strip holds more danger than this decrepit city. If you ask me, we were gypped. The only thing scary in New Orleans is the price of the drinks and the fake voodoo acts. Besides," she glanced back at me. "Who said I'd go anywhere with him? Up against the wall, college library style, is better for me anyway. No useless goodbyes in the morning and all that shit."

"Please," I tried again, taking her face in my hands. "Not him. Find someone else. He scares me."

"You, maybe. But apparently not Lexi."

I whipped around, watching in that slow-motion horror movie way as Lexi and the vampire smiled at one another. His arm slipped around her waist, swaying to the music, fitting together like the keys of a piano.

Dani sighed heavily. "Great, now I have to find a new target. No way Lexi-the-Always-Laid is going to be the only one getting any tonight."

I heard her stomp off behind me, her anger brushing against my skin like hot steely needles. I shivered, rubbing my hands over my arms and tried not to panic. I couldn't let Lexi do this. I had to stop her and—

I felt him before his hand touched mine, the pressure inside me inflating until it burst from my flesh in a soundless cry. Darkness swam across my vision, my knees buckling. But he was there, his other arm wrapping around my waist, pressing my back to his chest. Just the contact of his body against mine silenced the screaming panic inside. Like the culmination of this collision of fate had finally arrived. There was nothing else to anticipate, just like there was nothing I could do.

I was in the arms of an Original again.

God.

Oh, God.

"You're the one that's been following us all day," I whispered, knowing he could hear me.

"Following you," he corrected gently in my ear, fingers lacing with mine, wrapping my arms around his in a parody of a lover's embrace. "Hello there, Alynia."

Tears burned my eyes.

"Hello, Elijah."