Chapter Text
It had been a week since Sasanka left Mystic Falls. A week since Josie woke to an empty bed and reached across the sheets only to meet cold linen where his warmth should have been. His room felt too big for one person. The jacket he'd thrown over the chair still smelled faintly of him. Hope’s books lay open on the desk like someone had folded time back on itself and stepped out for a minute. They had not stepped out.
The note on the nightstand looked smaller than she remembered. She had read it until the edges wore soft. Her fingers hovered before she picked it up, then trembled as she smoothed the paper against her palm. The handwriting felt like a map, every line leading her back to him and to the part of herself that kept answering his absence.
Josie,
I wanted to wake you and kiss you one last time, to tell you I love you, but I couldn’t. If I saw your tears again, I wouldn’t have the strength to walk away, and you know I need this. I need to find out who I am without Hope, to face what’s left of me on my own. If I stayed, you’d spend your time trying to put me back together, and I can’t ask you to carry that.
I’ve given you a thousand reasons to leave and still you stayed, and that’s the cruelest kindness you ever showed me. Leaving is the only way I can set you free. I know I’m hurting you now and I’m sorry, Jo, with everything I have. When I return and if you still love me, I’ll beg for your forgiveness. You and I are perfect for each other. Never believe anything else.
Sasanka.
The edges of the lines blurred as tears filled her eyes. She pressed the letter against her heart and let the heat of those words hold her for a moment. She understood why he had gone. She felt the hollow Hope had left inside him, the way it had turned his voice thinner, his laugh quieter, the way he stared at nothing and came back changed. Understanding did not make the ache any smaller. It settled in her ribs like a stone.
Her fingers found the talisman at her collarbone. The tiny metal was always there, always warm, always a small drumbeat against her throat. She put her thumb over it and felt his pulse as surely as if he sat across her. It steadied her breathing. It was a small mercy in days that felt otherwise ruined. I can feel him. He is out there somewhere. That is enough for now, she thought, and the thought both comforted her and tore at her.
Sasanka had meant to free her from his pain. He had believed leaving would spare her the work of mending him. Josie closed her eyes and let the memory of his hands hold her, remembered the way he protected and the way he hurt, and made a choice that had nothing to do with reason. If loving him meant walking with his darkness, she would do it. If it meant standing in the fire of his grief and not stepping back, she would stand there until her feet gave out.
“I’ll wait for you.” she whispered into the quiet, her voice small and fierce at once. “No matter how long it takes. I’ll be here when you come back.” The words felt like a promise and like a dare.
✦✦✦
A week without Sasanka had shifted everything. The Salvatore School moved on as if nothing had happened. Students filled the halls with chatter, classrooms buzzed with routine, and laughter carried through the courtyards. To everyone else, life pressed forward. For Josie, the hours dragged heavy and unkind. Silence threaded through her days, stretching thin and sharp, each second reminding her of the absence carved into her chest.
When Freya and Rebekah arrived to pack up Hope’s things, Josie offered to help. Every shirt folded, every book tucked into a box felt like adding another stone to her grave.
Her hand lingered on the desk. The cracked leather of Hope’s sketchbook pressed against her fingertips. She traced the worn cover as if the grooves themselves carried memory, then passed it carefully to Rebekah. Her throat tightened as she spoke.
“Did you hear anything from him? Before he left?”
The sisters looked at each other. The kind of look that said more than words ever could. The silence between them sank in Josie’s stomach like lead.
Freya placed a stack of books on the desk with deliberate care, as though stalling for air. “He… teleported a note to the compound.”
Josie’s heart flickered at the mention. “Oh…”
Rebekah tilted her head, her bluntness sharp as glass. “He said he broke up with you before leaving. Is that true?”
“Rebekah.” Freya cut in quickly, but even her scolding tone carried worry.
Rebekah only shrugged, but her gaze softened when it fell back on Josie. The words had landed harder than she meant, and they both knew it.
Josie held her arms tight against her ribs as if bracing herself. “He did. I tried to be angry at him… at least for a few minutes. But… I understand why he needed to go.”
Freya’s face gentled. Her voice came low, steady, the kind that reached into the quiet without asking for permission. “He’s been running from his emotions since he was a child. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”
✦✦✦
Once Hope’s belongings were packed and loaded into the car, Freya drifted toward Caroline. Their voices dropped to a private murmur while Rebekah lingered nearby. She hesitated only a moment before stepping closer to Josie, her fingers brushing lightly against her arm. She guided her a few steps away from the others.
“Listen…” Rebekah began, shifting as though the words tasted unfamiliar. “If you need anything at all… call Freya. Or me.”
Josie blinked, caught off guard.
“You mean a lot to him. Even if he was stupid enough to break up with you.” Rebekah continued, her voice losing its usual sharp edge. “And we all saw how hard you fought for him when he turned his humanity off. What I’m saying is… our doors are always open to you.”
For a moment, something like embarrassment flickered across her face. She rolled her eyes and gave a dramatic shake of her head. “God… I can’t believe I just said that to Caroline’s daughter of all people.”
Josie stayed where she was, rooted in place, as Rebekah rejoined Freya. She watched them climb into the car, their figures shrinking against the horizon until there was nothing left but the quiet hum of the engine fading down the road.
Her mother’s voice pulled her back. “What was that about?”
Josie glanced over, offering a faint smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Caroline studied her carefully, worry drawn deep into her expression. “Are you okay? I know things have been hard since everything that happened. The funerals And… with Sasanka leaving.”
“I… am handling it.” Josie said at last. The pause between words betrayed her more than she meant it to.
Caroline stepped closer, her tone gentle. “If you want to talk about anything… I’m here, alright?”
Josie nodded. Words felt heavy, too heavy to carry. Instead, her fingers drifted toward the talisman at her throat. The faint pulse beneath her palm steadied her, a quiet reminder that he was still out there, even if the boy tied to that heartbeat felt unbearably far away.
That night she carried her things into the twins’ room. Hope’s side became hers. But when the school fell silent and the moonlight stretched across the floor, Josie found herself drawn to Sasanka’s bed. She curled into his sheets and whispered wishes into the dark. She prayed that when her eyes opened, he would be there, as if none of this had ever happened.
✦✦✦
Lizzie had taken Sasanka’s disappearance as a personal insult. Whatever fragile truce she and the Mikaelson twin had managed to build shattered the moment he left. Josie still couldn’t tell if her sister was angry because Sasanka had broken up with her or because he had not even bothered to say goodbye to Lizzie.
Lizzie and MG were together now. Officially. Josie wanted to be happy for them, but every smile they shared and every casual brush of their hands only pressed deeper into the ache inside her. Their joy mirrored everything she had lost and she carried it in silence.
That morning, she sat at the long breakfast table with the rest of the Super Squad. Cleo, Wade, MG, Lizzie and Finch. The empty seats across from her cut sharper than she expected. Others should have been there. The losses hung like ghosts between them, unspoken but present in every glance and every pause.
Since Jed’s death, Finch had stepped into the role of alpha. She carried herself with a rough confidence, but Josie noticed something else, how much closer Finch always seemed to be these days. Too close. Ever since Sasanka disappeared, Finch had begun orbiting her like a shadow. Josie felt the weight of her eyes even now, prickling across her skin.
Finch had asked her out more than once already. Josie always said no, careful to be gentle. But Finch never seemed to hear the word the way it was meant. To her, rejection was not the end. It was a challenge. A game. And Josie hated it, because her heart was already tethered elsewhere, bound to someone who was not here.
The scrape of Finch’s tray jolted her. She slid it close, bumping Josie’s, and leaned in with a smile that carried too much certainty. “You look kind of sad lately, Jo. Maybe we could hang out today. I could cheer you up.”
Josie’s stomach tightened. She forced a thin smile, careful not to let the crack show in front of everyone. “I’m fine, thanks.”
Lizzie’s eyes narrowed immediately. She cut her gaze at Finch, sharp as glass. “Of course she’s sad. Our friends died. Her boyfriend ran away.”
The words landed heavy. The table shifted under their weight. MG fidgeted with his fork, dragging food around his plate. Wade ducked his head, shrinking behind his breakfast as if silence could shield him.
It was Cleo who steadied the moment, her voice soft but sure. “Have you heard anything from your dad?”
Relief swept through Josie. She turned to Cleo, grateful for the lifeline, and let the conversation drift toward safer ground. Yet even as voices filled the space again, she felt it, the steady unrelenting stare. And somewhere deep down, Josie knew it was not going to fade anytime soon.
✦✦✦
Josie was in her new room, putting her clothes into the closet, when Lizzie barged in without knocking.
“What was that?” Lizzie demanded.
Josie blinked, holding up a skirt like it was evidence. “Um… a skirt?”
“No.” Lizzie groaned and rolled her eyes. “At breakfast. With Finch.”
Josie set the skirt down and pressed her lips together. “Oh. That. She’s been flirting nonstop, asking me out over and over.”
“Ew. Tell her no.”
“I did.” Josie sighed and sank onto the bed. “Like… a dozen times already.”
Lizzie waved a hand as if that wasn’t good enough. “Then hex her. There’s such a thing as being too nice, Josie. But… she wasn’t wrong about one thing.”
Josie frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You need to move on. Summer fling. Someone fun, uncomplicated and emotionally available.”
“Lizzie…” Josie cut her off with a glare.
“I don’t get it.” Lizzie shot back, frustration rising. “He broke your heart and ran off and you’re just… waiting? For him to come back?”
“Yes.” Josie’s voice was steady. “He lost his twin, Lizzie. He’s grieving. And I’ll wait, because I love him.”
Lizzie scoffed, folding her arms tighter. “I’ll never understand your weird fixation on him.”
Before Josie could respond, Lizzie’s eyes landed on a canvas propped against the wall, half-hidden beneath a cloth. A mischievous smirk curled across her lips as she started toward it.
“Um…” Josie scrambled off the bed, moving to block her. “Sasanka doesn’t like people looking at his paintings.”
Lizzie arched a brow. “Sasanka isn’t here. He’ll never know.”
“Lizzie, don’t…”
But she shoved past and yanked the cloth away. She froze. Her eyes went wide, then she squealed, throwing her hands over her face. “Gah! Why?!”
Josie’s cheeks flamed as she rushed to cover the canvas again. She never should have taken it out of hiding. The image burned in her memory anyway. Sasanka’s brush gliding across the canvas, his expression soft with concentration, sunlight spilling across the bed. Her bare skin glowing beneath the sheets. He had painted her that morning after his humanity returned, when he needed something to anchor him.
Lizzie peeked through her fingers, horrified and gleeful all at once. “Is this what you two did? You just… posed like one of those French girls while he painted naked portraits of you?”
Josie’s face went scarlet. “It wasn’t…! We didn’t…!”
Lizzie gasped dramatically, her grin spreading. “Wait till Mom hears about this.”
“What? No, Lizzie, wait!”
But she was already bolting down the hall, laughter echoing behind her.
Josie tore after her, heart pounding, mortification pressing close behind. Yet beneath it all, laughter threatened to break free from her own chest, as if even in her embarrassment she could not quite let go of the memory of him.
✦✦✦
Since leaving Mystic Falls, Sasanka drifted like a ghost. Cities blurred past him in quick flashes of blue, each one nothing more than another backdrop he refused to claim. He never stayed long enough for silence to catch him, never let the air grow still. Invisibility kept strangers from seeing him, and intangibility made sure he never reappeared inside stone, steel or worse; flesh. One exploding cow had been lesson enough.
But no trick of magic could outpace the stillness waiting inside him. Sleep was worse. When exhaustion forced him under, his mind betrayed him. Night after night, the same loop. Hope’s death unraveling in new and cruel ways. Fire swallowing her whole. His own hands tightening around her throat.
The silence mocked him. He used to have Hope’s voice pulling him back or Josie’s touch steadying him. Now there was nothing but air that carried no warmth, only loss.
The necklace pressed against his chest was the single thing that tethered him. Once Hope’s, now his lifeline. Through it, Josie’s heartbeat pulsed, steady and alive. Whenever the darkness inside him pressed too close, he clutched it until his palm ached, syncing his frantic rhythm to hers. It was the only way he remembered how to breathe.
He missed her. God, he missed her more than he could bear. He remembered the way she had anchored him when his humanity snapped back, how she had held his brokenness like it belonged to her too. She forgave him when she had every reason not to. After everything he did to her father, to Lizzie, to her. And still, she stayed.
With Hope gone, the shadows inside him whispered louder and hungrier. They wanted to turn grief into rage, love into ruin. He could almost feel the edge of it, ready to consume him whole. He would not let Josie be dragged down with him. Not again.
So, he kept moving. One city to the next, as if distance alone could keep her safe from him.
✦✦✦
It didn’t take Sasanka long to learn that the worst monsters didn’t have claws or fangs. They wore silk ties and polished shoes, their cruelty hidden behind locked doors.
He was half-asleep in a hotel bed when the sound cut through the wall. A muffled cry, smothered too quickly. A man’s sharp voice. A girl’s broken whimper. His eyes snapped open, the truth settling in an instant.
The wall split with a flick of his hand, plaster peeling away like paper. He stepped through, and the room froze. A man in a suit stood over a girl bound to the bed, his belt loose, his pants half down. She was gagged, shaking, her eyes wide as they landed on Sasanka like he had been summoned there.
The man lurched back, fumbling for his clothes. “What the hell…”
“The walls here are paper thin.” Sasanka said, voice calm, almost bored. “I’m leaving zero stars.”
The man grabbed a gun off the nightstand and aimed it at his head. His hand shook. “Sit down or I’ll blow your brains out.”
“I’ll stand.”
“I said sit down!”
“Or what? You going to shoot me?” Sasanka’s smirk was sharp enough to cut. “When the gunshot echoes, the whole floor will come running. And what will they see? You, with your pants around your ankles.” His head tilted. “Not much of a defense, is it?”
The man’s hand trembled harder. He didn’t get the chance to pull the trigger before his wrist snapped with a crack that echoed in the silence charm Sasanka cast a moment later. The gun clattered to the floor. The man dropped with it, screaming.
Another flick of Sasanka’s fingers, and the girl’s restraints fell away. She scrambled back, clutching the sheets to her chest. Her stare was wide and unblinking, caught between terror and relief, as though she couldn’t tell if he was an angel or a demon.
Sasanka ignored her. He dragged the man by the throat across the carpet and shoved open the balcony door. Cool night air poured in. “Apologize to her…” he said softly. “Or you can fly.”
The man stammered, tripping over words, choking out a desperate string of apologies.
Sasanka let go with a casual pat to the shoulder. A heartbeat later, the man toppled over the rail. His scream disappeared into the dark until it ended against the pavement ten stories below.
When Sasanka turned back, the girl was already pressing herself into the corner, trembling and small. He brushed her mind with compulsion, smoothing the edges into something survivable. She had escaped on her own. The man had jumped. That was all she would remember.
By the time he crossed back into his own room and the wall closed behind him, it was as if he had never been there at all.
✦✦✦
When sleep finally dragged him under after being questioned by cops, Sasanka braced for daily nightmares. But the first thing he felt wasn’t pain. It was the soft drag of fingers through his hair, the warmth of a lap beneath his head, and a heartbeat steady and familiar.
Josie.
His eyes opened slowly, fear tightening in his chest. For a moment he thought it was another trick, another cruel shape his nightmares had taken. But she was there. Sitting in a field of wildflowers, her back resting against the trunk of a lone tree. A pale yellow dress spilled around her knees; a flower tucked behind her ear. When she smiled, the storm inside him fell quiet.
“Hi.” he whispered.
“Hi.” she breathed, her voice trembling but warm.
“God I missed you, Jo.”
“I missed you too.”
He pushed himself upright, brushing a tear from her cheek. She leaned into his hand, nuzzling his palm like she had been waiting for it. His chest tightened painfully. He knew this was a dream. He knew he had left her behind in the waking world. But with her so close, he couldn’t stop himself.
He leaned forward until their lips hovered inches apart. “Can I?”
Her answer was a whisper, thick with longing. “Please.”
The kiss began soft, tentative, then deepened as Josie slid her hands into his hair and pulled him closer. Her head tilted and he drank her in, every movement hungry, desperate, as if this might vanish the moment he blinked. A sound broke from her throat, soft and wanting, and he smiled against her mouth even as the kiss consumed them both.
His lips wandered down her throat, lingering at the curve of her collarbone. His teeth grazed her skin before catching in a playful bite. She gasped, and he soothed it with a slow kiss until a red mark bloomed against her pale skin. Pride flickered in his eyes as he pressed his mouth to it.
“Mine.” he whispered against her pulse.
Josie rolled her eyes, but the curve of her smile betrayed her. “Always.”
Somewhere far away in Mystic Falls, Josie’s eyes fluttered open in Sasanka’s bed, her lips still tingling with the echo of his kiss.
She really needed a cold shower. Pushing herself upright, she padded toward the bathroom, the floor cool under her bare feet. Clothes slipped into the hamper one by one until she stood before the mirror.
Her reflection made her freeze. Flushed cheeks. Tousled hair. And a mark, red and tender, blooming along her collarbone exactly where his mouth had been in the dream.
Her fingers shook as she touched it. A shiver ran through her and her voice broke the stillness, soft with awe and disbelief.
“How… is this possible?”
✦✦✦
Two weeks slipped by, though for Josie it felt like she was living in two worlds at once.
By day, the library became her sanctuary. Towers of books rose around her, restless stacks of tomes on dream magic, psychic tethering, and astral projection. She searched page after page for answers, desperate for something to explain the impossible. But none of it satisfied her. Deep down, she already knew. The dreams were real. He was real. The marks he left on her skin and the things he told her about his journey was proof that they were.
She told herself that he deserved to know the truth, that when he drew her close and let himself grieve, she wasn’t some fragile illusion born of longing. She was really there. But the thought froze her every time. If Sasanka discovered it, he would push her away. He had left Mystic Falls to keep her from stitching his broken pieces back together, and yet in dreams he welcomed her without walls, without fear. To him, she was safe because she was only a memory. Only the shape of what he missed. If he knew otherwise, he might find a way to stop it.
It wasn’t lying, she told herself. Just a secret. Sasanka hated liars, but this felt different. She could shoulder the guilt if it meant holding him a little longer, even if only in the shadows of sleep.
So, she surrendered to it. She let herself slip into naps at odd hours, curling beneath blankets to chase him across time zones while the rest of the world spun on without her. And people noticed. They noticed how she vanished halfway through the afternoon. They noticed the faint smile tugging at her lips when she woke. The girl who had been drowning in heartbreak only weeks ago now carried herself with a quiet glow, as though some hidden light had found its way back into her.
✦✦✦
Breakfast at the Salvatore School was always a storm of voices and clattering trays, but this morning Josie barely registered any of it. She sat hunched over her plate, dragging her fork through eggs she had no interest in, pretending not to feel Finch’s stare. It clung to her across the table, heavy and unrelenting, like she was a puzzle Finch intended to solve. If Josie just focused on her food, maybe she could disappear into it.
“So, Jo…” MG’s voice broke through the noise, casual but curious. “Where have you been sneaking off to lately?”
Josie stiffened.
Lizzie’s smirk bloomed before Josie could answer, her tone syrupy sweet. “She’s dating someone new.”
Josie’s head snapped up. “What? No, I’m not.”
“Oh, please.” Lizzie leaned in, suspicion glittering in her eyes. “I saw that hickey on your neck last week. And you have been saying no to everyone I tried to set you up with.”
Heat rushed to Josie’s cheeks. She swallowed hard. “That’s because I don’t want to date anyone. Not because I already am.”
Lizzie tilted her chin with smug certainty. “Uh-huh. Then where did the hickey come from?”
Josie’s brain scrambled for something, anything. The words tumbled out flat and pathetic. “That was… a mosquito bite.”
Cleo raised her brow. “Must be some supernatural mosquito, then.”
The table erupted in laughter. The sound pressed into Josie’s skin like needles. Everyone laughed… everyone except Finch. Her eyes didn’t waver but Josie saw the jealously in there.
“Seriously.” Josie tried again, forcing calm into her tone. “I’m not dating anyone.”
Lizzie refused to let it drop. “You’ve been sneaking off at weird hours, smiling like you’ve got a secret. Something’s up with you.”
Josie’s fork clattered against the plate, louder than she meant. She sighed, the weight of it spilling out. “What, I can’t smile now?”
“Not when you were heartbroken.” Lizzie shot back, sharp as a knife.
The last of Josie’s patience frayed. “Lizzie, just drop it. Please.”
Silence fell over the table. All eyes clung to her, waiting for her to crack, to spill a truth she couldn’t give them. She pushed back from her seat and walked away before the air crushed her.
There was no explaining this. She hadn’t even told Sasanka. How could she tell anyone else? If they knew, they wouldn’t understand. They’d only decide she had finally lost her mind.
✦✦✦
Lizzie watched Josie slip out through the dining room doors and rolled her eyes. “See? Didn’t I tell you? She’s clearly found a rebound.”
MG frowned. He dragged his fork through his plate as if the answer might be hidden there. “I thought she was going to wait for Sasanka. After the way she fought for him, it feels weird she’d move on that fast.”
“MG!” Lizzie snapped. Her voice was sharp enough to cut. “We do not say you-know-who’s name anymore.”
MG stared at her. “He isn’t Voldemort.”
Lizzie huffed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Well, not in front of my fragile sister. Every time someone says his name, Josie gets that tragic look and runs off.”
Cleo tilted her head. “Are you sure she’s sad? Because to me, she looked happy.”
Wade nodded. “Yeah. I noticed that too.”
Finch pushed her fork against the plate, her scowl fixed downward. The tribrid was gone. Finally gone. Yet Josie still refused her. Finch had told herself it was heartbreak, that Josie only needed time before she saw who was standing right in front of her. But if Josie was already smiling for someone else, if she was choosing someone else, then what excuse was left?
✦✦✦
Finch moved like a shadow through the hallways; her gaze locked on Josie. She had to know where she was going. It had to be to meet this secret lover. The thought twisted in her chest. Josie had sworn she wasn’t interested in anyone. Finch had believed her. She told herself Josie was only holding back, maybe even playing hard to get. But now the truth pressed in like a blade. Josie had someone.
And whoever it was, Finch would make sure they regretted it. She could call the pack. Rough them up if she had to. Drive them away for good.
Josie slipped outside, unaware of the eyes burning into her back. Finch tensed, ready to follow, when a pack member appeared at her side.
“Finch, can you help me with something?” he asked.
Her jaw tightened. Irritation flared hot in her chest, but she smothered it beneath a careful mask.
“Sure.” she said, voice steady. “What do you need?”
✦✦✦
Josie drifted toward the lake after leaving the main building. June’s heat shimmered across the water, and with summer vacation in full swing, most students had already gone home. Only those without families lingered, leaving the grounds quieter than usual.
The dock always drew her in. It was where she and Sasanka had shared their first kiss, where he had asked her to be his, and where he had scattered his sister’s ashes. Every memory pressed heavier now. She wished Hope were still alive. If Hope were here, Sasanka would be here too.
Josie had always envied the twins’ bond. They never wasted words on petty arguments. They stood side by side, fierce and unshakable, untouched by the jealousy or resentment that always seem to haunt her own relationship with Lizzie. She wished she could have that kind of closeness with her sister, but it always slipped just out of reach.
Hope had been Sasanka’s anchor since childhood. Josie didn’t want to replace that, but if he needed something to hold onto, she would be there. In his dreams. In any way he needed her.
The thought had barely settled when pain cracked against the back of her skull. The world spun, colors and shadows bleeding together, and everything went black as she crumpled onto the dock.