Chapter Text
Hope reread the same sentence for maybe the fifth time.
She had been perched at Alaric's desk for hours, desperately skimming through a stack of massive books for something that could fix everything.
She had a feeling that she'd still come up empty handed, even if she were able to focus enough to read.
She wanted to cry from the stress of it all. Even though she had a fully formed plan, she still felt like she could be missing something.
In the worst case scenario, Dark Josie would be one step ahead of her.
Her brooding was abruptly interrupted, which was probably for the best.
“Hope,” Landon gasped as he rushed into the room, breathless.
Hope’s eyes darted up from the book she was reading. They were glassy and bloodshot, like she might’ve been crying not long before.
She almost let herself feel grateful for the interruption, until she saw the look on Landon's face. “Did you get the flower?” she asked immediately in lieu of a greeting, her voice just as tense as her shoulders.
Landon only averted his gaze, shifting uncomfortably on his feet.
Hope somehow tensed even further, her eyes instantly narrowing into a furious glare. “Landon, I need that flower for the potion,” she hissed dangerously, clearly putting in a lot of effort to keep herself from yelling.
Landon's only response was a nervous gulp.
Hope's chair scraped harshly across the floor as she rose to her feet. “It’s the most important step for all of this," she spat, her stress propelling her straight into a rant. "Lizzie might die without it—Josie would never bounce back from that, they’d both be lost forever. Why didn’t you get it for me, what the hell happened?”
Landon still couldn’t meet her eye. “I got sidetracked with Raf,” he replied quietly, almost as if he were ashamed.
Hope scoffed. “We can’t afford to get sidetracked!” she yelled, the air around her crackling with magic like a live wire.
Landon didn’t dare to say a word.
Hope rubbed at her temple, the stress showing clearly on her face. “This is why I do everything myself,” she growled under her breath, flipping the book she’d been skimming through shut where it laid on the desk. She paused, mentally preparing to go find the flower herself.
“Well, it’s not like you would let me actually help you if I tried,” Landon argued, beginning to sound slightly angry himself. “You only trust me with little errands—it’s like I’m your intern or something.”
The comment seemed to flip a switch in Hope—she no longer had a handle on her rage. The book magically flew across the room and slammed violently into a bookshelf. “Yeah, well, apparently you can’t even handle a little errand!” she shouted furiously. “We can’t afford to make mistakes right now, Landon!”
Hope closed her eyes and forced herself to suck in a deep, labored breath, apparently trying to get a hold of her anger. When she spoke again it was softer, almost like she was talking to herself. “One misstep, and I…,” she trailed off, swallowing thickly. “We could lose Josie forever.”
Hope didn’t wait for his response, getting a hold of herself and moving across the room to where she’d accidentally just launched the book.
Landon frowned at the fact that she was barely looking at him, her eyes distant like she was thinking about something else entirely and barely paying attention to their conversation at all. “Don’t act like you’re the only one who cares about this,” he retorted. “I’m willing to die just for this plan.”
“If I could, I’d die permanently to save her,” Hope muttered under her breath with the utmost certainty, grabbing the book from the floor, clearly impatient to be somewhere else. “This plan can’t fail. If it does, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“Why are you so obsessed with Josie?” Landon asked.
Hope froze in her tracks at the question. It effectively pulled her out of her head, forcing her to hone in on the conversation. “Obsessed?” she repeated slowly, her gaze fixating on Landon with an almost unbearable intensity.
Landon shrugged and nodded. He looked at her expectantly, his jaw tense, awaiting her answer.
Hope’s expression was cold and unreadable, but very strained, as if she might snap at any moment. “Landon, Josie is a ticking time bomb right now,” she stated carefully. “You don’t know her like I do. Her power… she’s way more dangerous than anything we’ve dealt with.”
Landon sighed deeply, frustrated. “Okay, but I’m not just talking about this week, Hope,” he said impatiently. “You’ve been way more focused on Josie than anything else since we got back together, even before she went dark.”
Hope’s nostrils flared, her jaw ticking dangerously. “Well, maybe you didn’t notice ,” she hissed through her teeth. “But Josie was spiraling long before that sandclock broke. Of course I’ve been focused on her, I care about her.”
Landon scowled. “Well, you've been so focused on her, you aren’t even paying attention to our relationship at this point,” he accused.
Hope scoffed at that, taken aback. “I don’t have the luxury of paying attention to our relationship,” she snapped, tossing the book back on the desk before she turned back around to face him. "If I don’t save Josie, no one will."
A flash of hurt rolled through Landon's eyes.
Hope noticed it and it made her pause. “I’m sorry, Landon. But, right now, that’s my priority,” she continued, more matter-of-fact than confrontational. “I don’t have the energy to balance anything else.”
Landon scowled. “Well, I don’t see the point in us even being in a relationship if you aren’t going to pay attention to it!” he snapped.
Hope recoiled slightly, her lips parting in shock. She blinked, her eyes glazing over in thought, the anger slowly from her face as she processed Landon’s words.
Some sort of realization dawned on her. “You’re right,” she said quietly.
Landon’s brow furrowed with confusion. He took a step closer. “Wait,” he said, calmer now and attempting to backtrack. “I didn’t mean that.”
“No,” Hope replied, her lips drooping into a contemplative frown. “You’re right. This isn’t working out.”
A flash of panic showed in Landon’s eyes. “Hope,” he said, slowly taking another step closer, as though he was trying not to scare her off. “We can work through this. We always do.”
Hope stared at him. “No, Landon,” she muttered. “We don’t always work through it. We always push it under the rug and pretend nothing’s wrong.”
Landon frowned. “I can fix this,” he said, his voice firm.
Hope shook her head. She looked sad, but resigned to the reality of things. “You can’t fix it,” she answered, her tone gentle. “It’s more my fault than yours. I haven’t been fair to you. You deserve to be with someone who isn’t so preoccupied with saving the world all of the time.”
Landon’s bottom lip trembled, his eyes widening. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “What are you saying?”
Hope sighed, gulping to prepare herself for what she had to say next. “Landon, I can’t be who you need me to be,” she explained, sounding desperate for him to understand. “I have too much on my plate to focus on fixing us right now. And I can’t just walk away from any of it. I’m sorry, Landon—I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t putting my all into this—”
“Hope, are you breaking up with me right now?” Landon interrupted, his voice slightly cracking.
The question hung heavy in the air.
Hope gulped, averting her gaze. “Yes,” she replied simply.
Landon immediately shook his head. “No,” he blurted out, taking another step closer. “I will fight for this—”
“I’m sorry, Landon,” Hope interrupted. “I just… I can’t put any more energy into this right now, and neither of us can expect you to hold this relationship together on your own.”
“Hope!” Landon called out after her desperately, but she was already rushing out the door.
Hope didn’t turn back. She had a flower to find, after all.
Hope never expected to find herself in a boxing ring, floating a few inches off of the ground with Josie’s hand wrapped around her neck.
Then again, one of the few powers Hope lacked was the ability to see into the future. This wasn’t the first thing that took her off guard that week.
The room had fallen dead silent, despite the fact that the whole school was packed onto the bleachers.
Everyone looked horrified.
The school’s resident savior was in a pretty vulnerable position, after all.
Hope, for her part, looked relatively emotionless. A bit sad, if anything.
She certainly didn’t look like someone who was about to die. But, she was immortal, after all. Her death seemed insignificant to her.
The same couldn’t be said for the students in the audience. Dark Josie could probably do a lot of damage to them in the time it took for Hope to revive.
Some of them were already trying to slip out through the doors without drawing attention to themselves.
Hope squirmed slightly to no avail, slumping when she realized that she would not be getting out of this situation unless Josie let her.
Josie made no move to finish her off. She just cocked her head to the side curiously, scanning Hope’s expression, her own cold and calculating.
“We both know that you might win if you tried,” Josie muttered under her breath, too low to be heard by their audience.
Hope said nothing. She was resigned to say nothing from here on out, in fact. She would much rather die with dignity than beg for her life. (Especially if she was going to revive, anyway.)
“Why aren’t you trying, Hope?” Josie asked with an exaggerated pout, staged and taunting. “I’m so disappointed.”
Hope licked her lips, staring back at Dark Josie defiantly.
Josie’s eyes flickered with annoyance at Hope’s refusal to speak. The emotion quickly disappeared and was replaced with her usual casual amusement.
“You’re so quiet, now,” Josie purred. “What’s wrong? You had so much to say just a few minutes ago.”
Hope averted her gaze, her jaw ticking with irritation. Regular Josie knew exactly how to push Hope's buttons—Hope was starting to realize that Dark Josie retained this ability.
Hope bit her tongue to stop herself from saying something snarky.
If Josie was going to kill her, Hope honestly wanted her to just get on with it.
Josie had other plans—apparently, she liked to play with her prey. “Awe, are you sad because I said that I don’t think my good side likes you?” she asked with another condescending pout.
Hope looked back at her with a warning glare.
Josie smirked under the attention, satisfied that she’d struck a nerve. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she murmured, her gaze darkening, drifting down and up again. “I like you enough for the both of us.”
Hope’s brow furrowed at that, her mouth twisting into a confused frown. “You like me?” she echoed before she could stop herself.
Dark Josie’s eyes flickered with amusement. She shrugged. “Sure,” she said noncommittally. “You’re definitely more interesting than anyone else around here.”
Hope scowled, her eyes darkening. “Glad to hear I don’t bore you,” she drawled sarcastically.
Josie smirked. She tapped her chin with her free hand, glancing away with a contemplative purse of her lips. “But do you know what would make you more interesting, Hope?” she prompted, something dangerous in her tone.
Hope's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Everything Dark Josie said sounded a lot like a setup. “What?”
Josie's eyes fixated on Hope's again. “If you were like me,” she practically sang, punctuating the statement with a sadistic chuckle.
Hope stilled for a pregnant pause, staring at Josie warily. “Like you?” she asked, bemused.
Josie smirked. “Let’s say... morally ambiguous,” she suggested with a light shrug, nodding when her own words bounced back to her.
Hope scoffed, in slight disbelief. “Morally ambiguous?” she echoed, her eyes darting down to look at the hand wrapped around her throat. She looked back up again, raising an eyebrow. “Is that what you’d call this?” she asked sarcastically.
Josie scoffed out a laugh. “No,” she drawled, her stare intensifying. “I’d call this foreplay.”
Hope instantly felt her cheeks flood with warmth, the implication making her heart pound rapidly in her chest. Her eyes darted away from Josie's to stare at the crowd on the bleachers again.
“What the hell are you playing at, Josie?” Hope growled quietly, pinning Josie with a glare. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it already.”
Josie cocked her head to the side, her lips curling up into a playful smile. She appeared to be extremely pleased with the reaction.
Hope felt it when Josie began to siphon from her.
It wasn’t the siphoning Hope was used to. Usually, when they’d hold hands to perform a spell, Josie would be very careful about the amount of power she took.
With repetition, Josie had mastered it—she would siphon just beyond the threshold she needed, extremely careful not to take more.
This time, Josie’s siphoning was steady and uninhibited. Dark Josie wasn’t holding back at all. Hope instantly felt dazed and confused, her vision starting to dim.
Josie took a step closer and leaned in, her breath puffing against Hope’s ear. “I am going to kill you, since you asked so nicely,” she whispered, her voice soft and teasing. “Then, as soon as you come back, I’ll show you the dark side.”
Hope attempted to scoff, but she found herself already feeling a bit too lightheaded to follow through. “Are you serious?” she muttered weakly instead, the strong pull of Josie’s siphoning relentless.
Josie smiled, her lips brushing over Hope’s temple. “Dead serious,” she murmured, casual like she was commenting on the weather.
Hope blinked a few times in rapid succession, finding herself now contending with a throbbing headache. She glanced over at the bleachers over Josie's shoulder.
Everyone looked even more horrified than before. Some were pushing through the crowd to flee.
Hope’s field of vision swarmed with black dots all of a sudden. They began to rapidly multiply.
Hope felt herself begin to panic. She mustered up as much energy as she could just to keep herself awake.
Josie moved even closer to her, practically hugging her at this point. “You’re Klaus Mikaelson’s daughter, Hope,” she whispered. Something about her voice was insistent and serious this time—it was very unlike the way Dark Josie spoke about anything else. “You aren’t meant to be locked up in a tower drinking rabbit's blood.”
Hope blinked, confused. She gave into her tiredness and allowed her eyes to flutter closed with a quiet whimper. She slumped until her forehead was resting against Josie’s shoulder, her breathing heavy and labored.
“You should own this world,” Dark Josie murmured with the utmost certainty. “Everyone in it should bow to you. Deep down, you know I’m right.”
Hope only hummed lightly in response, Josie’s words beginning to fade in and out of her awareness as the darkness started to overtake her.
Josie continued, whispering softly into Hope’s ear like she was telling her a bedtime story. “Sh, it’s okay,” she cooed, her free hand caressing Hope’s cheek. “When you wake up, it'll be much easier to ignore those pesky little morals of yours. I can’t wait to find out who you really are.”
Hope would later marvel at the fact that those words made her feel so comfortable and safe right before she died.
Hope came back to consciousness with a sharp gasp. Her eyes instantly snapped open.
Then, they instantly snapped shut again. She groaned lightly and rubbed at her temple, pulling herself into a seated position and covering her face with her hands.
The light had been blinding.
She could hear harsh whispers and frantic footsteps, as though they were just on the threshold of her awareness, muffled like noises traveling through water.
She could feel everything. Each of her nerves seemed to be more sensitive than ever before, to the point where it was almost painful where the weight of her body pressed against the ground.
It was painful, she suddenly decided. One moment it was bearable, and the next she felt desperate to address it. She launched to her feet so quickly that she swayed, having disoriented herself.
Something was off. She’d never moved so quickly before. It had been like a reflex—a compulsion she had no control over.
And there was this insistent pull in her stomach—a hunger unlike any she’d ever felt before. She nearly groaned from the strength of it.
Something was wrong.
Alarmed, Hope’s eyes squinted open despite the harshness of the light.
The gym. The boxing ring. Some of it came back to her in flashes—images of her fight with Dark Josie, and the way she'd lost.
Hope suddenly noticed that Josie was there, still, staring intently at her. “Welcome back,” she drawled.
Hope frowned, briefly glancing at the scrawny boy Josie was holding by the shoulders. She thought that she might’ve recognized him from her History class.
Hope’s eyes darted over to the bleachers, just to find them empty. Only trash was left behind, popcorn strewn about like everyone had left in a hurry.
“They ran,” Josie explained, her voice deceptively casual. Hope turned back to look at her again. Josie just shrugged nonchalantly. “Self-preservation, I guess. I did manage to catch this one for you, though.”
Josie practically tossed the boy on the ground at Hope’s feet.
Hope glanced down at him with a frown. She looked back up to find Josie staring at her with an intensity that sent a shiver down her spine. Josie raised an eyebrow. “Feed,” she commanded simply, daring Hope to defy her.
Hope hesitated, looking down at the boy warily. He stared back up at her, terrified and paralyzed, pleading with her not to kill him.
Hope felt a thrill of excitement and adrenaline course through her body. She nearly shivered from the power of it. It was so strong. Much stronger than the little voice in the back of her head telling her that this was wrong.
She blinked a few times and glanced up at Josie, her mouth twisting into a slightly conflicted frown.
Josie barely contained a glare, releasing an annoyed huff. “You don’t have to lie about who you are anymore,” she snapped impatiently. “You don’t have to be who my father tells you to be. I’m giving you an opportunity. Stop rejecting yourself.”
Much to her own surprise, Hope didn’t need any more encouragement. She only hesitated for a moment longer before she grabbed the boy off of the ground, pulled him closer until his back was against her chest and sank her fangs into his neck.
Hope’s eyelids fluttered closed from the pleasure of it, even as he released a panicked yelp. He began to beg for his life. It only seemed to amplify Hope’s excitement, even as some small part of her screamed at her to stop.
Hope’s eyes snapped open, glowing a brilliant gold. She continued to drink, but she locked eyes with Josie again, as though she were waiting for instruction.
It felt like the natural thing to do for some reason—like it was only right.
Josie tilted her head curiously. She didn’t look particularly pleased or displeased—she only looked fascinated. It was as if she were studying the scene before her; analyzing it.
“Kill him,” Josie commanded again, with absolutely no inflection in her voice, as though it were that simple.
And it was that simple, Hope realized. She pulled back for a moment, her eyes fixating directly on her target. Then, she sank her teeth in once again and drank with renewed vigor.
The boy whimpered and struggled for a moment, but it didn’t take long for him to slump back against her.
Hope reveled in the feeling of taking his energy for herself. She wondered fleetingly if this was how it felt for Josie to siphon.
The boy’s body eventually fell to the ground.
Hope’s chest was heaving with heavy breaths. She stared down at him, slightly shocked by what she’d just done.
When she looked up again, Josie was smirking back at her, apparently very pleased. Strangely, it hinted at something genuine, closer to the real Josie than Hope had seen since Dark Josie took over.
Josie came forward, carefully stepping around the body.
Hope turned toward Josie as she approached, her muscles practically vibrating from the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Her ears were ringing not unpleasantly, her eyes on high alert. Every cell in her body was standing at attention.
Josie stepped right into Hope’s personal space. She glanced over Hope for a moment, studying her closely.
Josie leaned even closer, until Hope felt Josie’s breath trailing down her neck. She gently placed one hand on Hope’s shoulder and the other against her collarbone. “I am so proud of you,” she murmured into Hope’s ear.
Almost as quickly as Josie had approached, she was gone, pulling back and walking around the body, only sparing it a bored glance.
Hope’s eyes were still trained on her intently, as though she were worried that Josie might disappear over the course of a blink.
“I guess today wasn’t such a waste, after all,” Josie said with a contemplative purse of her lips, turning back around just to give Hope another thorough once-over. “In fact, this might be even better. The Merge can wait till next year.”
Hope felt a sharp twinge of discomfort at the mention of the Merge.
But, Hope found that discomfort relatively easy to ignore. After all, Dark Josie seemed to be saying that she was planning to put her plans for the Merge on the back-burner for now.
Besides, Hope was suddenly a little bit too distracted to worry. She swallowed thickly.
She could hear Josie’s heartbeat now, clear as day, since the boy’s had stopped. Hope’s gaze drifted down to Josie’s neck of its own accord, entranced by the dull thump of Josie’s pulse despite the fact that she’d just fed.
Hope forced herself to look back up, abruptly snapping herself out of it with a few rapid blinks.
Josie was staring at her with a knowing smirk and a raised eyebrow. She had obviously noticed that Hope was distracted, and she seemed to know exactly why.
Hope cleared her throat, uncomfortably glancing away. “And what exactly will you do until then?” she asked to deflect, her voice scratchy from disuse.
Josie let out a dark laugh, apparently amused by the question for some reason. Hope looked over at her once again, confused by the reaction.
“Oh, I’m sure that we ,” Josie started, pausing to shoot Hope a meaningful look. “Can find a way to occupy ourselves in the meantime.”
Hope frowned. Part of her was confused by the suggestion. Another part of her was thrilled.
Hope was still trying to adjust to the fact that she was juggling three entities inside of herself now. Apparently, they weren’t all on the same page.
“We?” she echoed, keeping her face intentionally blank as she tried to decide how she felt.
Josie mounted a pout, but the amusement still swimming in her eyes made it obvious that it was just an act. “Awe, sweetie,” she purred slowly, her pout becoming even more exaggerated. “You weren’t thinking that I’d leave you behind, were you?”