#d:jesse

Hades: your character is visited by my character’s ghost.

The sun peaked over the horizon before she appeared, darkness overtaking the buildings that dotted the Vancouver skyline. Jesse Ainsworth sat on a worn leather couch in yet another nondescript apartment, stubble covering his face, and at that moment he looked every bit of his 36 years. Ten years without her and he still couldn’t break his yearly cycle. Move from city to city, hunt, assuage Elliot’s concerns, maybe spend a holiday or two with his brother, and come home to an empty apartment and a bottle of whiskey as he waited for her to appear.

She wasn’t supposed to die. Of all the supernatural persons on the planet, Rebekah was the one that was supposed to live forever. They’d talked for hours about what would happen when he aged and she didn’t, when he died, what would happen when he realized she couldn’t give him a family, but in the end they couldn’t quit each other. She had never asked him to turn, and what haunted him the most was that he would have if she’d asked. It was both a blessing and a curse now, for he couldn’t imagine eternity without her. His saving grace was in the knowledge that he would die.

They’d been together for five years and he’d been pondering a ring and a forever – actual forever – with her before he came home to find a pile of ash and a necklace in their bed. Before the night was over, the Mikaelson men had scattered and Damon Salvatore had paid with his life. And Jesse, Jesse had begun his ritual of leaving.

She came like this in the night. Not often and certainly not without quite a bit of witchy work on her side, but Rebekah appeared when he would least expect it. She could never stay long and there were times when she never even spoke, just looked at him as if he was her entire world. When she appeared this time, she looked every bit of ethereal beauty, her blonde hair glistening as she sat across from him on the ottoman.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she murmured, her voice soft and breaking the silence of the apartment. He looked at her, his eyes wider as he took her in. He didn’t pretend to not know what she was talking about and his eyes darted towards the floor as she continued. “I can’t always show myself, but I’m with you every day,” she began.

“I know,” he whispered. “That’s what keeps me going.”

“No,” she said gently, her hand grazing across his cheek. “It makes me wish I could die again, because seeing you like this is worse than being dead. I will never be able to see my brothers, but you, my love, you I will see again.” She smiled. “I need you to live for me.”

“I don’t want to forget you. I don’t want to find someone else. I love you. It’s always going to be you,” he started, knowing that she must have heard Elliot’s strong opinions on the subject of moving on.

“You don’t have to. But you can’t isolate yourself either. You can’t just wait to die, Jesse. Your brother needs you, Hadley, your nieces and nephews, they need you. And I might not be there, but I need you to be strong for me.” She kissed his forehead softly, fingers running through his hair.

“Will you still come?”

“Yes, and when it’s time for you to join me, I’ll be here. But that time isn’t now.”

With those words, a soft kiss on the cheek that felt like feathers, and another whisper about love, she was gone.

Just as she had been for ten years.

Jesse pulled out his phone and dialed the familiar numbers.

“Sorry, I forgot about the time difference,” he said gruffly. “I just thought I might come and stay with you for awhile, Elliot.”

Sounds fun.