◤ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖗: ❛ wilting flowers ❜ ◢

✧

MARISOL EYED THE DISHELVED WOMAN AS SHE SCURRIED OUT OF THE APARTMENT BEFORE TURNING A GLARE TO MAGNUS. Her nephew, in a similar state of disarray with wild hair and clothes clumsily piled on, only offered a shrug in response, a look of smugness clouding his features.

         She stepped further into the apartment, closing the door behind her. It used to be hers – well, she used to live there. She still had partial ownership of it, the same as Magnus, but it had hardly been home for the past few years. Home was with Elijah. Temporarily, perhaps, but home.

         "If I had known you'd had company, I would've called," she noted, placing her bag down on the kitchen table.

         "I don't mind."

         "Your lover certainly did."

         Magnus grimaced. "Lover. That term's so outdated. You can just call her my one-night stand. It sounds better."

         She leveled a look at him. "I'm outdated."

         "I disagree. You look very young," he smiled brightly at her, moving to the fridge, getting a blood bag from it.

         "That's careless," she commented.

         "I live alone."

         "You never know," she countered. Magnus wasn't twenty years younger than her, lived as long as she had, had the survival skills necessary, but the idea of him being taken from her filled her with fear. Yes, no one used the fridge besides him. Yes, it was a small probability that someone would see the blood bags, but still.

         If something happened to him, she didn't know how she could live. Or, if she even would.

         "Thank you for the concern, Aunt Marisol, but my lovers – as you like to call them – stay in my bedroom. No one goes into the kitchen except me and you."

         She pursed her lips. It wasn't often that he referred to her as his aunt. They had long since dropped the title, the familial respect changing as they lived long enough. He was Magnus, and she was Marisol, and they knew their relation, but he didn't feel the need to address her aunt and she didn't need it.

         Magnus felt more like her best friend than her nephew. Her longtime life partner who she had seen grow for centuries, the only tether to her life 500-years ago.

         "And Elijah."

         He rolled his eyes. "Like Elijah cares. He's on the same diet as me."

         "I'm allowed to worry about you, you know?" she questioned, unfazed as he sipped the blood right from the container. After he transitioned, watching him feed made her nauseous. She couldn't stomach the blood and watching life drain from victim's eyes. She had seen enough of this to know it looked like drinking water.

         He pointed at her. "You're allowed to worry about things that need to be worried about. Not me keeping some extra blood bags in my fridge for when I don't feel like going hunting," he corrected.

         "Fine," she conceded, "Are you coming to the bar tonight?"

         Magnus groaned. "I've watched Elijah play thousands of times now, do I have to watch him again?"

         "No, but we're getting dinner beforehand. I just want a family meal with my nephew and my partner, is that so much to ask for?" she smiled sweetly at him.

         He glared at her. "You're being manipulative. I don't like manipulative Marisol."

         "I'm not being manipulative; I'm asking my nephew to dinner. It's not like we get to eat together much," she pouted.

         "Maybe it's because we have different diets. I like to drink blood; you like to eat food. Not many places cater to both of us," Magnus mused.

         "For me?"

         "Why is this so important to you?"

         She hesitated, opening her mouth before closing it then trying again, confessing, "Elijah wants to go dinner. Just the two of us. And he's been talking about...forever. And us. I think he wants to propose."

         He sucked in a breath. "Oh."

         "Yes, oh," she cleared her throat, standing up and moving around the kitchen, "Clearly, I can't let him ask me because I can't say yes."

         "Because he doesn't remember," Magnus concluded.

         "Because he doesn't remember," she agreed, "And because this is a fantasy. It's temporary, and while divorce is very easy to come by these days, I don't think he'd like to get his memories back once the Hollow is out of Hope and be married to me."

         "You never know," he countered.

         "But I know this; I know him. I love him more than I've ever loved a person romantically, and he's it for me – but he let me go. And I let him go. This is just closure. So I can't think about marrying him and I can't let him ask, because I don't know if I'll be able to turn him down or if I'll be able to face him if I do."

         "So dinner."

         "Dinner."

         She pointedly ignored the sympathetic gaze Magnus gave her. She didn't need the pity; she chose this for herself, and she would never regret it. Elijah was hers, in this wonderful dream of France, but one day Klaus would come and take him home. Everything would shatter, he would abandon her again in favor of his family, and she would have to move on. As before, as it would continue to be.

         And she would finally be able to say goodbye to Elijah Mikaelson forever. She would live however long, perhaps 500 more years, and eventually thinking about him wouldn't hurt anymore. Closure. This had to be her closure.

         "What time?"

         Her eyes finally flickered to his. "Seven. At the bistro across from the bar."

         "I'll meet you there."

         She didn't think there would be enough forwards in any language to convey her thankfulness. Still, she had to start. "Thank you."

✧

         NO PROPOSAL OCCURRED at dinner, much to the relief of Marisol. Elijah looked mildly miffed by Magnus joining them, an excuse of oh when Marisa mentioned you guys were getting dinner tonight I didn't think it was a date, I'm sorry! but didn't seem too angry or put off by his appearance.

         Magnus accompanied them to the bar, watching the first few of Elijah's songs before Carlotta appeared. "I didn't know you liked to come here," Marisol commented.

         Carlotta shrugged. "I don't, but you've fussed quite a bit about Elijah's talents, so I had to see them myself," she gave a soft smile, and Marisol's brows furrowed slightly because the expression seemed similar to someone else's. A smile she had seen on someone else's face, yet she couldn't place it. "I hope you don't mind."

         She shook her head. "Not at all. I mean, it's not like I own the bar," she joked.

         With Carlotta as a firm barrier, Magnus kissed Marisol on the forehead and bid them goodnight. Carlotta eyed the gesture, noting, "You're very close with your brother."

         "Yes," she sucked in a breath. It was the common alias for them. Older sister and younger brother. It worked out far better for them than aunt and nephew or close friends. "He's the only family I have left."

         "I'm sorry."

         "Don't be," she waved off the apology, "My family died a long time ago, but Magnus and I have each other."

         "That's sweet."

         "What about you? Are you close with your family?" she asked, sipping at her wine.

         Carlotta shook her head. "Not particularly. I'm in the same boat as you; my family's dead – well, my adoptive family, but I've recently found out where to find my birth mother. It's only a question if I talk to her."

         Marisol shrugged. "Do you want to?"

         "Not particularly," the young girl shrugged, looking away from Marisol and to the crowd of other guests, "My parents were good to me. Even after I figured out I was adopted, it didn't change how I felt about them. But, I still can't help but be curious about where I came from. And – I hope this isn't too personal – but I have a genetic condition that I want to talk to my birth mom about."

         "It's not too personal. If you want to talk to her, why shouldn't you? The worst thing she can do is turn you away."

         "I guess."

         A beat of silence, then: "Elijah's very good at the piano."

         Marisol beamed. "I know. He's gifted at a lot of things."

         "How long have you been together?"

         "A few years now."

         "Any talk of marriage?"

         The hand reaching for her wine glass stilled for a second. Marriage. That damn word again. That damn question. Guillermo, the bartender, had been asking for a year now, Darla the owner hinted at it – the one thing Marisol wanted to avoid was the one thing everyone asked. Marriage.

         Immortals got married. She had been to a few weddings for vampires, but those were after decades of being together. Sometimes a century or two. It wasn't years. Years passed by like seconds. Little dots in her lifetime. Every moment with Elijah was a blip of her life, short instances of meeting, falling in love, then abandoning.

         This might be the longest, but it was still only years. He had a lived a thousand of them, she had lived five hundred. Years meant nothing to her, but everything to the humans around them. She should be thinking of marriage by their standards; she and Elijah had been dating long enough and now it was time to put a ring on it and make it official.

         But marriage was a concept she had waved off long ago. She had been engaged, a long time ago to a man she hardly remembered now, but it never happened. Marisol Bigora never walked down an aisle, never vowed to share her life with someone, never had the rings to prove her love.

         And marriage to Elijah could never happen. Not in these conditions, not when he abandoned her before. Another lifetime, he promised her, in the instance that he wasn't bound to his family, in the instance that she wasn't a liability. That was this lifetime, their lifetime, but she didn't know when it would end, and she didn't want to tie him to her after their separate universe collapsed.

         "No," she answered, taking another swallow of wine, "It hasn't come up yet."

         "Do you want to marry him?"

         "You're awfully nosy," she deflected.

         Carlotta backed away. "I didn't mean to pry."

         "You're not," she relented, "I'm just teasing you."

         She looked to Elijah. He didn't look at her, but she could see the smile on his face, the way his head was turned ever-so slightly in their direction. He would never admit it, but he was listening. Not the general enhanced hearing, but decidedly listening to them, eavesdropping on their conversation.

         How could she admit it? How could she tell him she wanted to marry him if when he asked she rejected him? It would be too cruel.

         Marisol Bigora longed to marry him, but that wasn't in the cards for her. This was the only piece of Elijah Mikaelson she would receive, and she was determined not to be greedy.

         "I have to go to the bathroom," she spoke up, "I'll be right back."

         She shoved herself off of the stool, not sparing Carlotta or Elijah a glance as she went to the back. Dabbing her face with cold water, she looked at herself in the mirror. What a mess she had created for herself. Magnus didn't ask these questions; he knew. He knew her in a way no one else ever had, in a way she never allowed anyone else.

         Above all, she just wanted him. He made life easier, made it so she could breathe when Elijah suffocated her. Elijah burned her, roared a fire inside her, and she craved to be burned again.

         She fixed pieces of her hair, cleared her throat, then walked out. Carlotta wasn't by the bar, and looking around revealed no answers to her location. She frowned. But in her search she found someone else – not Carlotta or Magnus, but Klaus.

         She hadn't seen him in years.

         It wasn't the first time he had visited, wasn't the first time he had spoken to Elijah here, but every time her eyes caught his she was filled with terror. One of these times, it would all be over. Klaus would arrive, maybe with Rebekah, Hayley, and Hope, and they would take him away. No, not away, home. They would take Elijah home to New Orleans, and she would be left in the dust of France.

         Her eyes found table centers of flowers wilting. The Hollow. Come Klaus, wilting flowers followed. She snatched some fallen petals before slipping out of the bar. In a whisper, "Klaus."

         A minute later, and the hybrid waltzed out the front doors. Quickly, he grabbed her arm, speeding them away. The sensation didn't fill her with nauseousness anymore, but the sensation still wasn't comfortable. He left her go when they were a far enough distance away near the water.

         "You shouldn't be here," she started.

         He said nothing, and she noted the haunted eyes featured on his face. Klaus never looked his joyous and mischievous self when he visited. Despair, haunted, and lonely were the words she would use to describe him. As angry as she wanted to be for the danger he placed everyone in for coming, she couldn't help but feel sympathetic instead.

         "Everything is under control."

         She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And how would you explain this?" she held up the wilted petals, "The Hollow grows stronger when you see him. When any of you get near each other. You have to stay away."

         "And what do you know about the Hollow?" he roared back in protest, "You weren't there."

         "I didn't have to be," she snapped back, "I understand enough from everything Marcel's pieced together for me. I know that it's strong, and it feeds off its hosts. You can keep it at bay when you're apart, but the moment any of you get together, it's over. The flowers don't wilt when you're not around."

         Klaus looked away from her. In a moment of frail vulnerability, he admitted, "I need him."

         She had seen Klaus at many dark moments. She had seen his triumphs and failures in New Orleans, but she had never seen him vulnerable. That was reserved to those he considered family. Not to an outsider like her.

         "I know," she softly replied, "Even if he doesn't know it, he needs you too. I can see it."

         Klaus shook his head. "He's content. Here, with you."

         She wanted to laugh. Content? She wanted more than content, but again, she settled. "He doesn't know any better. And this isn't forever. One day, you're going to find a solution. You're gonna figure out how to destroy the Hollow and you're gonna bring Elijah back. When he remembers, he'll stay with you."

         "And you?" his eyes flickered to her.

         She swallowed. "And I'll let him go."

         "That easily?"

         No. Not easily. Nothing with Elijah had ever been easy. The circumstances declared that everything had to be a challenge – either the time period, their history, or the amnesia.

         "He's not mine."

         "Both of you...always willing to let the other go. So sacrificial," he mused.

         She clenched her jaw. "Not sacrificial, but selfless. I know I'm being selfish here, implanting myself in his life, being with again when he doesn't remember it's not the first time, but I'm not greedy. I won't keep him longer than he wants. And once he has his memories, I know he won't want me, so I won't hold him back."

         Klaus said nothing, so she continued. "I've protected him here. None of your enemies have gotten close to him, and I'll continue to make sure of that. But you can't come back until the Hollow's gone. None of your siblings can. So please, don't make this harder than it has to be."

         She traded him the petals in her hand. He looked down at them, glaring like his eyes were lasers, but didn't refute her. Klaus was not her friend, and she wasn't his, but they were friendly enough. Sitting together eating gelato and staring at the water until he decided enough was enough and left. She went home, dodged Elijah's questions, and settled into an uncertain slumber.