𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑑, 𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑤ℎ𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠

chapter twenty three. something about you

Hope had been running from the dumb blonde stereotypes since she was ten and said people exhale oxygen and inhale carbon dioxide.

Simon still brings it up once a month and she hates it, now she's standing in the Institute, water dripping off her dirty blonde hair as she takes in the scenery and she misses the teasing.

"You're wearing clothes, what a refreshing pace." Someone stood next to her. For a while she didn't say anything, watched the birds fly past the window, all of them eager to be reunited with one another.

"What did we do to deserve the honour of your presence? Come to suck the lives out of your children?" Hope turned to her and Maryse gave Hope her version of a smile, worn out but still beautiful.

"I thought you were the Sanderson sister." Hope wanted to smile, she could feel her muscles try to push up, form into a smile but nothing happens. Her face is dull.

"I heard what happened with Jace." Maryse spoke when she knew Hope wasn't going to respond. Hope looks away, another person who knows she's a monster.

Like father, like daughter.

Maryse doesn't have to say it but it's written on her face. "I didn't want to hurt him. I care about your son. Your children have become my second family." Maryse rested a hand on Hope's arm. She flinched at the touch.

"Niña de verano, your eyes are tired." When Hope got used to the touch, Maryse rested a hand on her cheek, brushing the soft blonde streeks from her face. Hope rested her face against the woman's hand, closed her eyes.

"My mom passed away eight years ago today." When Hope shut her eyes tightly enough, she could picture her mum with her mum.

For almost a decade, on this very day, Hope Mikaelson, Hope Andrea, Hope Marshall or whatever you want to call her, would wake up screaming. This morning when she woke up it was peaceful, for the first time it was peaceful before she remembered the events of the previous night.

"I have something for you." Hope's eyes shot open. "Okay." Maryse removed something from her purse. Hope watched as she put a picture, there were two kids in it. One of them had a pasta strainer on their head, the other one had spaghetti in their hair.

She recognised one of the kids immediately because the one covered in pasta is her. Baby Hope was giddy with delight and was shoving a handful of pasta in her mouth, another hand in her friend's mouth.

"What is this?" She held the picture closer to be able to recognise the other kid in the picture. The boy with the messy black hair that stuck out of the strainer.

"That's you and Alec twenty years ago." Hope furrowed her brows, her and Alec were so small, still in diapers and kind of adorable. But she didn't understand how they were in the same room.

"No matter what Hayley and I did, you two were always so messy." Maryse laughed, Hope turned the picture and she immediately recognised the handwriting.

Hope and Alec
2003

"How is this possible?"

"I told you I knew your parents."

"I didn't know we knew each other." Hope spoke as Maryse took another picture from her bag. In this one she was holding a baby in her small arms, kissing the girl with the thin hair's cheek.

"We had to cut contact a while after Izzy was born and the war between the Shadowhunters and the Shadow world began."

"I have to show this to Izzy, is she around here?" Hope held one picture in her hand and Maryse told her she could keep them. She tells Hope where to find her kids before she leaves.