Elijah x Elena | AU | Post-Memory-Wipe | Emotional slow burn, soul-deep intimacy, healing

The first time she saw him again, he was playing piano in a bar that smelled like wine and rain.

She didn’t recognize him at first.

Not really.

But the music — slow, aching, reverent — made something in her chest ache before she even looked up. And when she did, her fingers froze around the glass in her hand.

Because it was him.

Elijah.

Hair slightly longer. No suit. No ring. No burdened elegance. Just a man in a black sweater, head bowed over ivory keys like the weight of the world wasn’t on his shoulders anymore.

Except… it was. She could see it in the way he played.

Not what he played — some half-improvised jazz — but how.

Like he was chasing something he couldn’t name.

Elena had come to this little town in southern France to forget things.

It was supposed to be quiet here. No vampires. No blood. Just flowers, long walks, and a little notebook she kept pretending she’d start writing in again.

And then he happened.

Not the Elijah she remembered.

Not the one who held himself like a sword wrapped in silk. Not the one who made promises with a voice that could command kings.

This man was softer. Untethered. Still.

And when his eyes met hers, he didn’t blink like he recognized her.

He smiled politely.

Didn’t know her at all.

“You play beautifully,” she said after his set, nerves humming.

He looked up from wiping down the keyboard, calm but unreadable.

“Merci,” he replied in soft French-accented English. “Though I fear I tend to drift into melancholia.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Elena said, sitting at the bar now. “Some things deserve to be felt all the way through.”

His smile was subtle. But real.

“You speak like someone who’s lived more lives than one,” he said.

“Maybe I have.”

He offered his hand. “I go by Eli.”

She shook it.

“Elena.”

He hesitated. Not visibly. Just a flicker in his eyes. Like the name pressed against some invisible door.

“It suits you.”

She started coming every night.

Not to flirt. Not at first. Just to sit.

To listen.

And he kept playing. Always with that haunting softness. Like the music was the only way his soul knew how to speak.

They talked after his sets. Sometimes just about music. Sometimes about nothing at all. But there was something in the silence between them that started to feel personal.

Intimate.

Like the hush of snow. Or the space before a kiss.

“Do you ever wonder who you were… before?” she asked one night, after too much wine.

They were sitting on the steps outside the bar. The stars above were sharp and bright.

He turned to her slowly.

“All the time.”

“Do you remember anything?”

“Flashes,” he admitted. “A voice. A violin. The word ‘always.’ It repeats sometimes. I don’t know why.”

She looked at him then — really looked. This man who once tore through history, now sitting barefoot on stone steps with wine on his breath and mystery in his chest.

“You were someone important,” she whispered.

“I don’t feel important.”

“Maybe that’s what makes you finally free.”

The First Time He Touched Her

It was gentle.

He reached for her hand when she was laughing — a soft, genuine thing that surprised even her — and he just… rested his fingers there. On hers.

He looked at her like music looked at silence.

“You bring something back,” he said quietly. “Not memory. Just… something I want to remember.”

She didn’t pull away.

“You do the same.”

One Night, She Kissed Him

It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t even expected.

She walked into the bar. He was playing something familiar, something beautiful and lonely, and when he looked up — just looked at her — she couldn’t breathe.

So after the last note faded, and the crowd clapped, and he stepped offstage with that ghost of a smile…

She kissed him.

Soft. Reverent. A question she didn’t have the words for.

And he kissed her back like he already knew the answer.

But the Past Finds Everyone Eventually

A man showed up at the bar two weeks later.

Tall. Tense. American accent. He watched Elijah play from the corner. Didn’t clap. Didn’t smile.

Afterward, he approached. Said a name.

“Elijah.”

Elijah blinked.

The man continued, strained.

“It’s me. Klaus.”

Elena froze.

She watched from the bar as Elijah stared at the man like he was speaking a language he’d never heard.

“I’m sorry,” Elijah said softly. “I think you have the wrong person.”

But something shifted in his eyes.

Something cracked.

That Night, He Didn’t Sleep

He told Elena what the man said. About being brothers. About New Orleans. About monsters and family and blood.

Elena didn’t lie.

She told him it was true. All of it.

“And you?” he asked. “Who were you to me?”

She hesitated.

“You were the man who made promises when no one else did. You were kind when it was inconvenient. You were… broken. But you never let it make you cruel.”

He looked at her like the world had tilted sideways.

“And who am I now?”

“The man I’m falling for,” she said.

The Final Choice

He stood at the ocean edge the next day.

Klaus was gone — promised to come back when Elijah was ready.

But Elijah didn’t follow him.

He stayed.

Sat beside Elena on the sand as the sun dropped into the sea.

“If I remember,” he said, “I might become someone I don’t like.”

“And if you don’t?” she asked.

He looked at her. Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with unbearable gentleness.

“Then maybe I get to become someone new. Someone who chooses peace. Who chooses… you.”

Final Lines (Poetic & Emotional)

He didn’t remember the man he used to be.

But in the quiet, in the music, in her — he found pieces worth holding.

And for the first time in a thousand years, Elijah Mikaelson didn’t feel like a legacy or a burden.

He felt like a beginning.

Not because he remembered who he was.

But because he finally saw who he could be.