Willow ↠ Elijah Mikaelson

14

Willow didn't get too far as to reach the outside, she reached around the corner before she had to sit down and cry.

Her wounds were still fresh, and though they had healed a tiny bit, she had just re-opened them. Willow took her phone out of her pocket and started scrolling through her photos, starting to delete each and every single one of them.

She was about five photos in to deleting when Elijah leant against the wall and just looked down to her. "What are you doing?"

"Just getting rid of some things I'd prefer to forget" she said, pressing the screen multiple times to delete the next photo.

Elijah bent down and snatched the phone from her hands, locking it and putting it in his pocket. "Deleting photos doesn't delete the memory of your late family" he told her.

Elijah did have a point. Even if Willow had deleted everything, every single bit of evidence to hint to her previous life. She still had to live with the thought that her entire family had died at the hands of the Strix. She still had to live with the memory of watching the light in her Aunt's eyes fade into nothing.

"One could hope" she looked up at him and shrugged, pressing her lips together into a false smile as her eyes burned with the tears she held back.

Willow looked straight ahead quickly and slowly blinked. She felt Elijah's body slide down the wall and perch next to her. "It isn't all bad" he tried to comfort her "you managed to make an original vampire bleed" he pointed to the speckle of blood on his white shirt, it was so pathetic it actually made her laugh.

"New record for me, eh?" Willow replied "I'm sure vampires as old as you are experts in getting blood stains out of shirts"

"Usually I'd just throw them away" he said, rubbing the speck of blood "but this is one of my favourites"

He was obviously joking. But as Elijah didn't strike her much as a person that would joke around, it served to be a lot more entertaining that it would.

"You shouldn't have worn it then if you thought you'd be fighting today" she played along, nudging him.

"I had no idea I would be bested" he nudged back, a cute smile on his face like he was actually enjoying himself, and the fear of oblivion had disappeared for those split seconds. "But I went easy on you"

Willow had ran out of things to say, her smile had faded when she looked up at him, it wasn't like he served as a reminder to the predicament she was in now, it was that he was being so nice to her. The smallest of things right now could cause her to break down.

Willow let out a bubble of laughter before breaking out into a hysterical sob. She didn't need an explanation, if Elijah was a human and in her situation, he'd probably not stop crying. So he tried to console the girl in the only way he knew how, the original put his arm around her and pulled her into a tight hug.

Willow cried into his shoulder, her hand placed neatly on his chest as she finally could cry and cry and someone just be there for her. Someone other than Christopher.

"Sh" Elijah tried to soothe her, he didn't really know what to say to her or what else to do apart from just let her run out of tears. He would have told her that everything would be okay, but at this precise moment, he didn't know a thing. Elijah was really good at looking to the future and seeing what would happen, but in this case, he couldn't. He couldn't even see a future for him, never mind the people around him. But seeing her in this state, no light in her eyes, no hope, nothing. He couldn't help but lie to her "everything will be okay, I'll assure it"

"how do you know?" She lifted her head, though Willow had to argue with herself to do it, the gentle hold Elijah had on her felt incredibly strong, she felt some sort of connection, something that made her heart flutter.

"I don't know" he smiled at her "I just do"

She pushed herself so she was sat upright again, her back against the wall, leaning her head back too. "I keep telling myself I need to be strong, but sometimes, I just can't" she twiddled her fingers, the sight somehow addictive as she couldn't bring herself to pull away and look elsewhere. Maybe it was just tiredness, maybe she was just zoning out.

"Sometimes it's better to let it all out; I believe letting out your emotions is a sign of being strong" he told her "allowing yourself to be completely vulnerable"

By the look on Elijah's face, Willow saw that the man never really let anything out, he was always that same man with the same expression, the man she never saw smile apart from when he looked at her.

She leant her head forward and gently kissed him on the cheek and then rested her head on his shoulder "thank you, Elijah"

"What for?" He asked in return

"Just... this" she didn't know how to explain it properly, Willow couldn't put it into words. Her cheeks were burning and heart racing from kissing his cheek.

Elijah glanced down at his watch and saw the time, they had been sat there for more than an hour. "We should really be getting back soon"

"Just five more minutes?" She asked "please?"

And so they sat there, in silence until Willow recovered.

Down Under (Acoustic) - nonono