Hosie Stories

Story 33 - "A chance to heal?"

This is based before Hope killed Lizzie in Canon.

Pre warning: this is not a happy one

Hope had forgotten what it's like to feel emotion. She forgot what it's like to care, to love, to be sad, and to feel. She'd forgotten what it's like to live. And now, after being tracked down by her family and given a letter that was written by her mother, she feels...everything.

Right now, she feels mostly numb. There had been a rush of emotion when she first switched it back on. The most obvious one was an incredible sadness, followed shortly by the deepest sense of guilt.

So, not only does she feel everything, but she remembers too.

Hope remembers plunging the blade forged from her blood into Landon's chest.

Hope remembers how good it had felt when she threw Alaric across the town square of Mystic Falls. After years of him worrying she could become just like her father - and she finally was.

Hope can recount every single time her friends tried to reach her and how she threatened them with murder after each failed attempt.

She remembers all of the countless, innocent lives, that she took. She knows exactly how the warmth of their blood trickling down her throat gave her a sense of superiority, how she felt like a predator that caught its prey. Like she can still taste it.

She remembers it all.

Each life that was taken.

Each person that was hurt.

Each person that fell victim to her darkness.

And all the feelings that came with them.

The sickest part of her made it a game to remember the name of each person. After a while, it was difficult so she resulted in writing them on paper.

So, in one pocket of her leather ja,cket she has her mother's letter. And in the o,ther she has the list - a list that is now just names of families she has to track down. People she has to give back to. People that she has to spend her eternity making it up to, even if they don't know it.

Starting with Alaric's family. Her old headmaster.

She heard a few years back that he never made it out of the coma she put him in, and that he died a few months after she left.

She's not really sure how she'll make it up to his daughters. Lizzie, well she's not sure the blond will forgive her, even if she gave up chasing Hope after a while. Josie...

Maybe there's hope for her.

This is what brings her back to the town she spent a good part of her childhood in. Where she went to school. Mystic Falls. Because this is where Lizzie is. Hope knows this, after hearing something about Lizzie taking the role of headmistress after she graduated.

She arrives at the school rather easily. She enters the building, walking through the corridors to find the office of the headmistress. She feels the eyes on her, people watching as she walks by. She hears the whispers, the rise in heartbeats. People are scared of her. And so they should be. She's a villain, the villain from everyone's nightmare.

Hope knocks on the door.

"Come in," Lizzie says. Hope notices she's got her head in a pile of paperwork. The pen drags across the paper one final time before Lizzie looks up. As soon as she sees Hope, her entire body freezes.

The first thing Hope notes about Lizzie is how she's aged. Her hair is a similar length, but the color has changed ever so slightly. She wears glasses now, which she guesses are just for reading. She dresses smarter, something that comes with her job title.

And Hope also notices the look on Lizzie's face. It has been a long time since she last saw her, but Hope remembers how it looks when she's angry. 

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lizzie shouts, her hand siphoning magic from the books around her as she speaks. "You know I may not have a stake to kill you anymore, but I can damn well make you suffer." She stands. Lizzie moves around her desk, with her hand in the air and a spell on the tip of her tongue, ready to fire at any given moment.

"I'm here to apologize," Hope says. She says it as genuine and sincere as she possibly can. Her eyes show enough emotion, hoping that Lizzie will catch on and understand what that means.

"Oh, so you finally turned it back on?" Hope nods. "Good. Then you'll actually feel my words when I say..." The hand she has raised collides with Hope's cheek in a swift slap.

"How could you? You killed my father and then you left us right when we needed you most! And now she's gone!" Tesrs forms quickly. Hope, after trying to soothe her cheek, frowns in confusion.

"What do you mean? Who's gone?" Lizzie laughs bitterly. Of course Hope doesn't know. Of course she doesn't realise.

"Who do you think, Hope?"

"I-I don't understand." She says.

"Josie." Hope stops. What does Lizzie mean by gone? Surely, she can't mean...

Hope doesn't dare think it.

"Gone where? Will she be back? I-I need to apologize to her too."

"Are you kidding me? It was our 22nd birthday last week, Hope. We merged. I made it out and she didn't." Lizzie explains. "If you'd been here you'd know that. If you'd been here, maybe we would've had a better shot at saving her life, but now I have to live without her...without my sister." Lizzie cries. No point holding it back now.

"I..." Hope wants to speak and yet nothing comes out. Her brain is still processing this information. It can't be real. Josie can't be dead. Hope needs her.

She didn't realize. Hope didn't realize. When she had her emotions off, she barely kept track of what day it was. She would simply feed and repeat. In a way, time didn't feel real. She would just kill. It was all she knew. Kill and cause mischief. Hope didn't keep track of her own birthdays, so in no way would she have kept track of the birthdays of others.

"We needed a friend, but instead you were off doing god knows what and killing whoever you wanted to! And do you know what makes it worse?" Lizzie pauses. Hope shakes her head, awaiting the response. And she knows that each word Lizzie says will dig into her chest, further and further. Reaching her heart until it breaks beyond repair.

"She waited...Josie waited for you. Every single day, she thought maybe you'd show up. Maybe some part of you still cared. I tried telling her there was no point holding out hope, and yet she refused to give up on you. Until her dying breath, she was still looking for a way to save you. And now seeing you here...I'm not sure there's anything worth saving."

Tears stream down Hope's cheeks as she thinks about Josie. How she's never going to see those eyes again. How she'll never see the creases on her face when she laughs. How she'll never get to make her laugh, all because of some ancient curse on Gemini twins.

It feels as though her entire world is crumbling down around her. The pain, something she hasn't felt in a while, something she hasn't felt to this extent since she lost her parents - it's unbearable.

Josie shouldn't be dead. It was never meant to be Josie. It was never meant to be either of them. They were supposed to find a loophole. They always found loopholes. 

"No. No no no no no! I-I'm sorry, Lizzie. I'm so so sorry. I'm sorry." She collapses, knees crashing to the ground.

A few years back Lizzie would've gone to her, put a hand on her back, but now she's fine with leaving Hope alone. After all, she did this to herself. Whether she chose to turn off her humanity or not, she chose to kill those people. She chose to hurt Alaric. She chose to feed on innocent civilians.

Lizzie looks down at her and reaches into her pocket. The parts of her that she's gained from Josie are telling her not to, but the sight of what's in her hand is a painful reminder that she needs it gone.

"Josie doesn't need it anymore. And I certainly don't either." She says, handing Hope the talisman. The tribrid looks up from her hands, eyes blurred with tears. She stares at it. Her mind floods with memories as she takes it.

Lizzie leaves, leaving Hope more alone than ever. In her quest for forgiveness she's realised there's nobody left who wants to hear it. There's nobody left who cares for her.