Feelings - A Hosie Story

Chapter 21 - "She's awake"

Alaric and Lizzie finally start to stir. They clutch at their heads, the after-effects of the magic still leaving a dull ache. That's something sure to last a few hours at least.

Alaric looks at Lizzie. He makes sure she seems okay. She nods at him. And then he remembers his situation. He turns to search for his other daughter, to find her alive and well, only with tears streaming down her cheeks. She appears to be holding Hope. And the tribrid, well she looks...dead.

He and Lizzie rush over to her.

"What happened?" Alaric asks, panicked.

"He-he shot at me, but she jumped in the way. She saved my life. Hope saved me and healed my wounds before she died." Josie chokes out, struggling to make any eye contact. She can't let Hope out of her sight. "The guy, he ran off with his witch friend. I-I don't know where." Josie wipes away some of the tears with her hand.

So, the man hurt Josie for weeks, and now he's killed Hope. Not only that, but he's now nowhere to be found.

Alaric's angry. Lizzie is too. And Josie can't bring herself to be anything other than

"We need to get Hope back to school. I have some stashes of human blood there for when she wakes up." Alaric explains.

"Okay, girls I'm going to need your help getting Hope into the car." Alaric collects the weapons that were pulled away from them when they arrived. Lizzie uses magic she took from Hope earlier to levitate the girl the entire way to the car. Lizzie gently puts Hope in one of the backseats before jumping in the front next to her father. Josie takes the spot next to Hope, making sure the girl is safe for the entire journey. She holds Hope's hand the entire time, waiting for Hope to squeeze back. She doesn't. It's just Hope's cold skin pressed against her own.

When they finally arrive, Lizzie siphons the kid closest to her so that she can use the same spell to transport Hope up to her room. Josie stays close, as does Alaric.

Students stop and look. Whispers can be heard as they walk through the corridors. Many of the students are shocked that Josie is alive. News of her supposed death had spread fast when it was first discovered and the ones that know Josie had mourned her in their own way. All of them notice Hope's floating form (it would be hard not to). Some of them ask each other what they think has happened, others turn to the vampires to see if they can hear anything, like a heartbeat.

They reach Hope's room. Lizzie lets her down onto the bed. The twins sit on either side of Hope, with Josie pulling the blanket up to her friend's shoulders. Alaric tells them to wait there while he goes to fetch a blood bag for Hope. He sneaks back in minutes later, having missed nothing but a tense silence. Caroline comes in behind him, relieved to see Josie back. She's pulling Josie into a hug when a vampire speeds in.

It's MG.

He smiles widely when he sees Josie. They've always been such great friends, so he couldn't be more glad to see her here. His expression falters when he sees Hope. He looks at a distraught Lizzie and his heart sinks further.

"How'd this happen?" He wonders.

"H-Hope saved me," Josie says, but she can't get out any other details. Her voice shakes with each word. Thankfully, Alaric manages to explain it all, getting MG and Caroline all caught up on recent events. Once the man is done explaining, MG goes to hug both Josie and Lizzie.

"I'm gonna call her Aunt Freya. She deserves to know what's happened to her niece." Alaric grabs his phone. The Mikaelson woman picks up quickly and he tells her everything that has happened, everything that he knows. It's not much, but he emphasizes that Hope saved his daughter from a madman. Freya tells him that she and the family will book the next flight to Mystic Falls and until then she will be there through astral projection.

~~~~~

Two hours pass. Hope's still dead. There have been no changes. Freya has appeared in her astral form and has been talking with everyone since. Every so often someone says something to Hope. They beg her to come back, they thank her for always trying to protect everyone.

Josie keeps thinking to herself, wondering if maybe this is it. What if, for some reason, Hope doesn't wake up? Sure Hope is a tribrid and it's guaranteed she'll wake up, but what if she doesn't? Or what if it takes days?

Josie's just panicking. She knows that...

But what if it's not just panic? What if Hope is really, truly, properly dead? Josie's never imagined a life without Hope because she's never had to, but not that she's worried it could be a possibility, she's terrified. she's experienced something similar before when she had no memory of who Hope was. And that life was far from perfect. It became messy and complicated and yet it somehow always felt incomplete. It was part of what led to her struggles with dark magic - that hole that she felt, the misery. Dark magic was the only way she managed to fill it, well until she got her memories back.

A life without Hope is a life without joy, without fun and excitement. A life without Hope would mean the school would be missing a hero, its greatest protector. Living without Hope is a lifetime of grieving and suffering, which Josie knows would never stop.

"Why is it taking so long?" Lizzie asks.

"It can take up to twenty-four hours. This is normal, we just have to be patient." Alaric explains.

"That's how long it normally takes, but this is Hope we are talking about. She's the first and only one of her kind. We don't what's going to happen, what she'll be like when she wakes up. There's no manual for this sort of thing. And nobody has ever had this kind of power before. And now my niece is cursed with it. She deserves better. We all wanted better for her." Freya explains, emotions crawl into her words the more she talks.

~~~~~

Another seven hours. Still nothing. Curfew is around the corner. Alaric tells the students in the room to go to bed, but they all refuse. None of them want to leave until they see that Hope is okay. They have to be there for her.

Ric and Caroline still leave to make sure the rest of the school is going to bed. They come back after ten minutes.

Freya leaves briefly to go and speak to her wife and check on her son. She comes back moments later.

~~~~~

Thirty minutes. Still nothing. Silence as they all-

Hope sits up, her hand reaching for her neck as she gasps for air.

She's awake.