Black and White

Epilogue

"Two of them, Hope? Really?!" Freya asked, the twins sleeping in her room still, where Freya had just been looking for her.

Hope was in the art studio, still working on the one painting that had continually vexed her since meeting Elizabeth. Her father had stopped in to check in on her, complimented her work, made sure she had slept and dropped off some breakfast. She had finally begun to get the piece where she wanted it when Freya had come in.

"They are sisters, Aunt Freya. Don't be gross. The only one I have feelings for Lizzie. We fell asleep together talking. They must have worn themselves out flying last night... you were separated from your siblings for such a long time... You ought to understand how they feel more than anyone." Hope spoke pointedly.

"Flying?" Freya asked, the barest twinge of a smile quirking at her lips. Hope didn't notice how the word caught her attention.

"Yeah, and it was amazing. They were beautiful up there and when they brought me up with them... indescribable. I have done some amazing things in my life. More so than almost anyone else in the world. This was better than all of that." Hope spoke breathlessly and with a kind of wonder, Freya hadn't seen since her niece was a tiny seven-year-old girl.

"That does sound wonderful, Hope. I'm glad for you,... but for how long do you think you will be able to hide these two from the rest of our family?" Freya asked. "Realistically, I feel like if they weren't all distracted by their drama they would have already picked up on the comings and goings of two extra powerful supernaturals."

"I will take it up with them tonight, try and talk through some solutions," Hope said as she realized just how right her aunt was. "Their 'master' sent them here, certainly 'He' ought to be providing their accommodations for the duration of their stay on our world."

-----////-----

"Be safe and have fun, Baby Girl. Try not to get home too late. I am sure your Dad and I will both be staying up waiting for you. If there's any kind of funny business, you know he'll know." Hayley Marshall-Kenner 'Mikaelson' raised an eyebrow at her daughter in a kind of mischief encouraging warning. The signals were certainly mixed, but in a manner that gave Hope some much-needed leeway.

"Hey Hope, Penelope, and Lizzie are in the car at the gate. Are you ready?" Josie surprised the tribrid by approaching, looking every inch the typical teenage girl in a lined denim jacket and t-shirt, hair pulled back in a pony-tail.

"Yeah, uh, hey Jo. I was just about to head out." Hope smiled at her new friend before turning back to Hayley. "Love you, Mom. Bye."

"Introduce me later?" Hayley whispered as she hugged her daughter and went back inside. Josie and Hope could both still hear her mutter to herself. "The joys of a bisexual daughter. I only recognize one name of three girls and she could be dating any of them or none of them. You know I trust Hope implicitly but I never know what's going on with her."

"I need to spend more time with her." Hope sighed more to herself than to Josie.

"She seems like a good mom," Josie replied blithely. "You seem good for Lizzie too, I wanted to say. She seems to have evened out considerably and to be much more comfortable in her skin than I can remember her having been in a long time. I think a lot of that progress is owed to you, and I want you to know that I appreciate it. Whatever you might have said, whatever you might have done, whether you realized it or not... thank you."

"I'm honestly not sure of anything I might have to do, but you are welcome nonetheless," Hope replied as they joined the blonde in question and Penelope. "We do need to talk about the housing situation though."

-----/////------

"Okay, so you were a demon, but you aren't anymore?" Penelope was asking as Hope laid out a picnic blanket across the grass. She still seemed to be in a bit of shock as the other three girls had been filling her in on everything she had missed. "What are you now?"

"We aren't completely sure, to be honest." Lizzie fielded the question. "I know that I am not demonic any longer. Whatever binding Hope had placed on me isn't there anymore. I might be an angel again, but I don't think so. Maybe I'm somewhere in between?"

Hope rounded on Lizzie, then. "We aren't bound to one another anymore? Why didn't I notice?"

"We were... a bit preoccupied at that point. Even I didn't notice until I had a moment of quiet in your room late last night. I didn't think it was that big a..."

"If we aren't' bound nothing is tying us together... we could be separated..." Hope immediately started on a mental spiral until Lizzie caught her by the shoulders and tilted her chin up to meet her eyes.

"Hey there, Hope, look at me... I made you a promise and if anyone were to try to get between us I would release the full menace of my inner demon bitch on them, do you understand me?" Lizzie led her away from the others for a moment and staring deeply enough into Hope that she could almost imagine another, deeper kind of bond between them. "Now, are you ready to go teach Penelope how to fly?"

Hope took a few more deep breaths before a bright smile broke out across her face once more. She grabbed Lizzie's hand and tugged her into a jog back to where Josie and Penelope were waiting, sitting just slightly too close to one another. "Of course I am."