Part 1 of the 'with love's light wings' series.

Josie and Hope post-gargoyle.

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all. - Emily Brontë

Alaric saves her from a gargoyle and everything moves in slow motion.

He rushes in front of her as the knife comes towards her at speed and it's almost like she can see the tenuous friendship she'd formed with Josie crumbling before her eyes.

She's alone by choice but alone and lonely are two very different things and lonely is not something she has ever chosen but something that has chosen her. The time they spent together in the park was a reprieve she hasn't had even in the few fleeting moments she spent entertaining Landon – a boy she'd once thought a kindred spirit but now knows to be a liar.

Hope feels each blow that the Saltzmans rain down against the gargoyle like a strike against her own chest; Josie's eyes steeped in a livid anger that Hope knows twists in her own soul, a serpent coiled to strike. Its bitter venom will poison their tender connection and leave it to curdle and wither on its own.

But still – there is her name in her heart, fragile hope, blooming like a glass flower waiting to be split into irreconcilable pieces.

"Nice job" is obliterated in the cascade of rage and Hope – girl and feeling alike, shatter. There is no concern for the girl almost stabbed and killed, only anger that she was saved at all. Only blame made immeasurable stacked against a guilt she doesn't deserve; it is not her choice whether she lives or dies – if it was, she never would have been. It was Alaric's decision to save her and though she wished it, she should have known better than to expect him to be held culpable for his own actions. She understands – has loved her father through all his faults, desperate for his attention when he abandoned her, lost without his presence as fleeting as it has always been in her life.

She understands.

But it hurts.

/

Alaric Saltzman is a good man and a good mentor. He is kind and persevering, strong willed, generous and open in both mind and heart. But his kindness only extends so far and his strong will means unforgiving grudges and her father is one of those he persevered against. He is so focused on his ideals; on the bitterness and darkness he has seen and that he works to prevent, that he so often overlooks and ignores the good.

Klaus Mikaelson has reserved a special hatred in Alaric, made obvious even in death, in his unbelievably biased book about the history of the supernatural.

Klaus Mikaelson: The Great Evil.

Hope doesn't think she'll ever forget being nine years old, in Supernatural History 101 and seeing that as the chapter title. She hopes Alaric Saltzman never forgets having to shut down that classroom for two weeks just to repair the damage emotional magic could cause.

Her father was not a good man. He had killed countless people, ruthlessly, mercilessly, had made a game of it even. He had ripped people's lives away and forced hundreds into an existence never asked for and callously given. He had murdered wolves in pursuit of a pointless army and tormented a small town with single-minded focus as a means to achieve his own goals. He was not a good man. But he was not a bad one.

He was a vampire. And he was a werewolf. Born with a rage sealed inside of him until it was forced to the surface at the peak of his turning. He was who he was just as much because of his afflictions as it was because of his own attitude and upbringing. Hope almost couldn't count the annotations she'd left in her copy of Alaric's book on the subject, knowing even when she'd written them that he would never accept them as facts, only the conjecture of a wishful daughter's heart.

He's a werewolf – a species known to be consistently aggressive throughout their whole lives. They are most volatile after their first shift and in a high-energy, high-aggression state from the day they trigger their curse until the day they turn.

He's a vampire. It is well-known that vampires live in heightened states of self; whatever their personality was like in life, whatever emotions and attributes were most prominent are made even more-so in transition and post-transition. They adjust to this new level of emotions and learn control until they operate normally but in that heightened state.

Klaus Mikaelson became a hybrid during the two most volatile times for both of these species.

Klaus Mikaelson is my father.

He is a good father even if he is not a good person.

Hope could almost ignore the rage that stirred where people were ignorant and didn't understand her father. She could even almost ignore Alaric's bias and the way he forces his perceptions onto her father – never seeing him as he was, even as he changed and evolved, always seeing him as a monster.

But she could never forgive the way he treats her because of it.

The way he focuses on her faults and calls them his as if she could never be anything but what her father made her – as if her father would ever make her that way. Her father had loved her with a single-minded intensity since before her birth. He had sent her away from him and stayed away from her and lived and died for her – all of it done out of love. He was a better father than Alaric had ever known to be and Hope loathes the way her teacher seems to try and connect with her; the way he tries to impose himself, to carve out a space where only her father could stand.

Alaric Saltzman is a teacher and a mentor that too often over-steps his bounds.

/

Josie's cold-shoulder is the edge she needs, she decides, walking into the gym to meet Alaric and staring dead-eyed at his confused expression.

"No gym clothes, Hope?"

"Not today."

Not ever again. Or at least not with him. He ignores his girls for her – makes her out to be a favourite when she doesn't even want to be an option and while she appreciates the length he went to her for her, she knows he would do the same for any other student and that's all Hope wants to be; just like any other student.

He talks about harmony and togetherness and sends his children off with her with the expectation that they'll magically forget their grudges and become friends because he wills it so. But he can't practise what he preaches; can't even devote time to his own kids – girls that Hope wants to know. Wants to be able to depend on and talk to.

Well…Okay, no it's mostly Josie. Hope is mostly in this for Josie.

She empathises with Lizzie but she also knows that Lizzie thinks loss is loss; that everyone's loss is somehow the same and on the same scale. She is grieving still – probably always will be – and is riddled with guilt still over the hand she had in it and still angry at the outcome. A Lizzie who can appreciate that is one she would want to know. She would never want her to understand – to understand would be to go through it herself, and Hope wouldn't wish how she feels on anyone.

Alaric still looks confused, probably wondering if he screwed up a schedule or something and Hope decides that now, is her moment.

"I'm not training with you anymore."

There's an angered edge to that confusion but he laughs it away like it's a joke and she doesn't understand what she's saying and Hope is a little pissed off.

"Hope?" he questions, "What do you mean? I'm your teacher. You can't just…not train anymore."

"I'm not saying that. Yet. Get a vampire to train me. If you won't then I won't train anymore. I'm good enough on my own that it wouldn't be too much of a loss. Then I can just wait until the holidays and have my Uncle Kol teach me."

It's a bit of a dig, she admits, a bit of a petty one but one that she delights in none the less. The knowledge that Kol Mikaelson was revived in his original body has made both him and her Aunt Davina even more of a legend on campus but every time her Uncle is mentioned Hope can see the tension in Alaric's shoulders, the angry set of his mouth. She knows he has her Uncle's murderers on tap and hopes that he'd passed on that bit of information to them. She can only imagine Elena Gilbert and the days she'd spent awake when she'd heard the news.

"Hope. No. I mean – what's going on?"

"It's not up for debate, Mr Saltzman. Either get a vampire to teach me or I'm out. It's not an official class – you can't make me participate."

"No I know that, Hope – but you've always wanted to participate. It's dangerous in the real world, Hope, you know that. You need to be training!"

"And I will be," she interjects, a sour taste in her mouth at the mere suggestion of the things she's endured, things he has no right to bring up. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth and she knows the next thing she says will probably get her into trouble but if he's going to nudge a wound, she'll pry open one of his.

"But hey, maybe this way, you'll have some free time to oh, I don't know, read a book, research a knife or oh! I know! You could spend time teaching your own kids."

There's a curl to his mouth, like he's going to say she is one of his kids and Hope steps back, shaking her head before the words even form.

"I'm the daughter of the Great Evil," she says, a cutting edge to her smile as she turns to leave, "I think I'll be fine on my own."

/

That night she roams the woods after curfew and feels the moonlight sing in her blood. The call to change is strong even without the full moon; the stresses of the past few days coming to a head and leaving her itching in her human skin.

She wanders out towards the Mill, figuring if she does give in to the desire, she'll at least have a safe place to put her clothes and wonders at how easily she can choose it now. There was a time after her first change and her dad's death where she lived with Kol and Davina in their house in Maine and wouldn't shift at all.

They'd bought and moved into the house within days of her dad and Uncle Elijah's demise; somehow knowing immediately that she'd go with them before anyone else. New York was no place for wolves, they said, but there was plenty of forest in Maine and Hope could run wild there. For her Uncle, who had wanted to leave the country and move them into Canada – polite people and decent health-care, he'd shrugged – it was quite the compromise.

Hope's whole room had been packed up and shipped to their Maine house, and her Uncle spent day-in and day-out keeping her company when Davina was at work. The pair were somehow the perfect mix of there and not; though she imagined that was to be expected with two people who had both died and been resurrected twice. Death was as much a fear as it was a companion.

But although they'd moved there in thoughtfulness for her new curse, Hope couldn't bear to turn. She'd sit outside on their back-porch at night, staring into the sky and the forest in perfect silence, straining her ears to listen as deeply into the woods as she could manage before the sense would overwhelm her and she'd tune into the steady drawl of her Uncle's vampiric pulse or the humming flutter of her Aunt's heart. The itch would rise in her skin and hammer into her blood but she would never submit to it.

They'd join her sometimes, sitting with her until the silence was no longer so consuming and she'd grow tired and go to bed. The times they didn't stay, they spent popping in and out; Kol with a blanket – though she now ran unnaturally hot – and then Davina with hot chocolate; both with comforting kisses to the top of her head and assuring squeezes of her shoulders.

Full moons were different.

She'd wander into a clearing in the woods – one she had carved out herself by accident in what was reported as a freak wild-fire – and sit there for hours, raging and crying and mourning.

But never in her wolf-skin.

Davina never broached the topic with her, and must've chided Kol away from it too, but Hope could see the concern in their eyes and the sympathy and knew that they understood. This quiet suffering she was inflicting on herself wasn't healthy – it would never be healthy – but it was something she needed to feel then. Nobody would punish her for what happened – it wasn't – isn't – her fault – but she needed someone to. If no one else would, then she would punish herself.

She felt guilty – feels guilty still – that her mother would never again be a wolf. That that part of her had been locked away and she hadn't even had the dignity of dying as she was; instead just a half-self, and not even the one she'd preferred. And equally still, she felt the guilt of her father's death; guilt and anger. He had manipulated her, sought to use her first turn to kill himself and she raged that he decided to be a martyr and not even say goodbye – even if she'd gotten a goodbye in the end.

She loathed that he'd left her alone – an orphan, so soon after she'd just gotten him back but she loved him more than she could ever hate him for that. Mostly she was angry at herself. She had been so desperate to have him near again that she'd taken in the Hollow and then become a coward. It was her fear of dying that made her father act so rashly. She was his heart – he would do anything to keep her safe and he had. His death was for her – because he loved her so much that dying for her wasn't even a question.

His love for her was redemption in his eyes and eventually the thought no longer angered her. Instead she was heart-broken; proud and saddened by the man her father was and how people's projections had hurt him. There was no honour for beasts and monsters; only men. Beasts and monsters could not love or be redeemed but men could and there was honour in that. He could love her and be redeemed, be honourable and die that way; be remembered by her above all, that way.

It hurt her more than anything but it was that that she chose to remember. The good times they'd had together, and how much he'd loved her. How much both her parents had loved her.

The moon is bright and almost full overhead, the Mill a shadow looming just ahead.

Hope rubs at her Mikaelson necklace around her neck and makes a mental note to call her Uncle soon.

She's a hot second away from stripping down and shifting when she hears the screech of metal and the roar of a beast. The knife is gone but Hope knows more than most that removing the bait doesn't kill the lure and she takes off back to the school in a full-sprint.

/

Josie races away from her father the second the gargoyle is gone and tries not to notice the way Hope flinches slightly away from her as she passes; her eyes studiously averted.

She doesn't hang back, not even to check on her twin – though she's certain Lizzie will be fine, briefly fawned over by their dad before she's brought to their room. They can stew in their anger together she decides, after all, Lizzie loves to bitch about Hope.

Closing her dorm-door behind her, Josie leans against it with a sigh, some of the anger evaporating as she thinks of the way Hope's eyes had shone with laughter in the square. It was so different than the everyday dull gleam of her eyes; the way she looked at the world around her with such weary sadness. Josie always understood conceptually that Hope had lost a lot – her mother dead and then both her father and her uncle dead a few weeks later. But though she knew there was so much more to it than that – more than even her father would say – she often forgot how big it was on its own. Hope had gone from wanting and needing her father to having him and her mother in the same instant and just as quickly lost one and then both of them.

Josie's mother had come back to them after Hayley died sans Hope and her father's concern had nearly cascaded down to eclipse her and Lizzie's joy. Finally – Hope-free days and Dad's attention.

But as the weeks drew on and Hope still hadn't come back Josie had started wondering on what had really happened. Roman showed up eventually and was promptly expelled and black-listed – something Josie hadn't even realised the school did until that moment. Lizzie – sad to lose the eye-candy had interrogated their mom but all she would say was that he was a part of it, the reason Hope lost her mother.

When they were asked to help Mr Mikaelson, Josie hadn't cared much. It was a chance to get things she wanted, sure, but Hope had been a pest and casual concern didn't come naturally when things concerned Hope. That changed almost instantly when word came that Mr Mikaelson and his brother – also Mr Mikaelson – had died. A kernel of care had bloomed in her chest even as her father went to call the Salvatore family to relay the news, an excited gleam in his eyes.

Hope hadn't come back to the school – though, Josie hadn't really expected her to immediately. But six months passed and slowly, that kernel blossomed until it came to life in a study session for Supernatural History. Klaus Mikaelson: The Great Evil, the chapter read, with new annotations in her father's hand-writing, no doubt for a new revision of a history now changed.

It had occurred to her in that moment that Hope had read that book, that chapter. That it was mean and dark and Hope wasn't necessarily a friend, but Josie's sympathy for the girl had grown in the time she'd been gone.

Grieving, her mom had said, her eyes a little too bright and a little too wet to be inconspicuous.

Hope had never gone to the school as a Mikaelson, she remembered, she had always been a Marshall. She'd had to lie and face the cruel stories of her father for eight years as if they didn't affect her and then he was gone and she was an orphan and Josie's father was planning to re-release his own book with an annotated chapter; Klaus Mikaelson: The Great Evil Slayed as if he was some sort of monster. But monsters wouldn't die for people and Josie knew that he had died for Hope. Saved Hope. Loved Hope.

Klaus Mikaelson sounded like a better father than her own, who couldn't be bothered to find time to spend with her outside of the classes he taught that she attended.

Josie had said as much to her mom and though the fight that had ensued between her parents was aggravating and epic and left her and Lizzie hidden away in their room, stomachs churning with their own and their twin's pain, Josie had seen the victorious sheen of her mother's red-rimmed eyes and knew the book would never be updated just as she knew the stubborn set of her father's shoulders meant it would never be changed.

It would at least be a small kindness to Hope, she'd thought.

It's only too bad Josie has only been able to dole out small kindnesses, she thinks now, wondering if Hope will be even cagier and isolated than before now that Josie has basically blamed her for her dad's recklessness. It's not too far from the norm, now that she thinks about it, but Josie has never even implied she'd prefer Hope dead before and certainly not to her face like she has tonight. Family is important, she knows that and Hope definitely does as well, but it isn't like they don't know each other – haven't known each other almost their whole lives.

She doesn't wish Hope dead – doesn't even really wish her gone anymore as much as she wishes that her dad was just a better dad. She remembers, with dim certainty, a conversation between her parents when she was little. They would be better parents, they'd both said and Josie guessed they thought they'd succeeded. A mother who loved them more than words but who was gone halfway around the world more often than she was home and a father who was home but never present, always with something or someone else as a higher priority. But they'd built them a school – a place of safety, and she guesses they thought that was enough.

It's not.

It never will be.

A school where hundreds of other kids are their kids and she sees her Mr Saltzman the teacher and the Headmaster more than she sees Alaric Saltzman, her dad.

That would never be enough for her.

/

She stone-walls Hope's attempt at a smile from across the room, the next day, in favour of Lizzie and the guilt follows her for hours as she tries to ignore the twinge in her chest at the way Hope's whole face dropped and an expression of complete apathy washed over her features. Her eyes looked dead from a distance and she almost fears what they would have looked like if she were closer.

She's known Hope is capable of hurt – the girl didn't see anything but a house and back-woods in Maine for six months after her dad died, obviously she was capable of it – but she's never really seen it before today.

Their interactions have always been that bit towards the acerbic and Lizzie's and Hope's have always been bitchy at best. They don't like each other – or didn't, she guesses, until today at least. Today they laughed and they talked and Hope opened up to her and told her secrets when Josie asked for them. She didn't verbally destroy her for mentioning her mom the way she's seen Hope obliterate people for mentioning her parents in front of her – everyone except the primary years and their innocent eyes and naïve questions susceptible to her wrath.

But there wasn't any wrath today – just annoyance and then joy.

That weight of angst and what she could only guess was loneliness had been lifted from her shoulders and Josie had seen a side of Hope she hadn't seen in years. One that had existed in a little girl until she'd grown up and seen how horrible the world could be.

Josie hadn't experienced anything similar to that – couldn't quite see the world without that optimistic sheen her mother had taught her, even after She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had tried to ruin it and just crushed Josie's heart instead. But the idea that she had helped Hope restore that little piece of herself and then taken it away again eats at her because for all that she and Lizzie complain that they tried to be there again and again for Hope, the effort had always been somewhat minimal and almost always because they felt obligated to.

But today Hope had tried. Had really, genuinely tried and remained open to her and the idea of friendship and company even after Josie had slammed her and her dad for saving Hope.

Hope had reached out and tried and Josie had shut her down – twice.

And so she finds herself hovering outside Hope's open door, hesitant to enter an empty room but nervous to be caught loitering after curfew. It's not as clean as she always imagined it'd be – clothes and spell books tossed on every spare inch of furniture and slinking their way to the floor. There are paints and pencils and pens and ink and brushes and every art supply imaginable pouring out of fancy cases around an easel and a canvas facing away from her.

Temptation gets the best of her as footsteps trump up the stairs and she quickly enters and closes the door behind her.

She doesn't go near the easel, choosing to hover near the bed – unsure still if she should even be here. Hope will probably be angry, she thinks, or worse, she'll look at Josie with those dead eyes and the guilt will well up for all eternity and consume her because she'll have done that to her. Hurt the untouchable Hope Mikaelson.

But she has to try, she tells herself, because Hope tried.

/

Hope wanders into her room still thinking of the roar in the woods until all thoughts abruptly cease at the sight of Josie Saltzman slumped over on her bed and curled into her pillow.

There's a buzzing in her head for a moment; her vision seeming to swim. She should be angry or at the very least upset but all that seems to well up in her is that dying ember of hope.

She's not sure what Josie's doing here but the sight of the girl curled around her pillow, face buried in the fabric, her breath coming out in soft puffs that are almost snores is so serene that it's hard to imagine she had any malicious intent. She'd probably come to talk, Hope supposes, and from the way Josie is slumped, she assumes the girl had fallen asleep waiting up for her.

Something in Hope's chest warms at the thought and she closes the door gently, not wanting to stir her. She must be exhausted, especially with the spells she's done today – unfamiliar magic or even unfamiliar spells tend to drain more than usual and Hope knows well enough that Josie's never been taught an offensive spell in her life.

Hope putters around the room quietly, setting her jacket down and taking off her shoes and jeans and swapping them for some fluffy socks and some sweatpants. The nights she doesn't run when the urge strikes her, she paints and she knows tonight will be one such night.

Josie huffs a little into the pillow, an almost word escaping her as she twines her fingers into the quilt on Hope's bed. Her fingers are fisted around a wolf on the fabric and something in Hope's chest shifts just that bit more. Josie's exhausted and Hope should let her sleep, but not here.

Planning ahead, she re-opens her door before heading over to the bed. With gentle touches she removes the vice grip Josie has on the bed-covers and scoops her carefully into her arms, making sure her head is comfortable resting on her shoulder. Josie's a few inches taller than her and she's sure the sight of Hope walking down the hallway between their rooms with her in her arms would be more than comical but mercifully no one else is awake.

Josie mutters something – another almost word, and Hope bites her lip to stop the threatening smile, certain it wouldn't be able to pass as anything other than adoring. She had been forced to share a room with the twins once when she was eleven after Lizzie had destroyed part of their room in a rage-out and Josie had caught the curtains on fire in sheer surprise. Lizzie slept like the dead for the two nights they spent in Hope's room but Josie talked in her sleep; little half-thoughts and slurred words.

A younger Hope had been annoyed; used to sleeping in almost absolute silence and absolute dark, and having already sacrificed the latter, was furious at the lack of the former. Now, Hope can't really see it as anything but cute.

Hope holds her a little tighter and Josie's fist clenches around Hope's shirt, her head leaning further into the crook of her neck, soft breaths ghosting over the skin of her neck.

Josie and Lizzie's door appears out of the shadows at the end of the corridor and Hope hesitates for only a brief moment before opening the door with magic. She's knows Lizzie will wake up in the morning and be pissed that Josie didn't let her know she was back, but she's beyond certain that Lizzie will be even more pissed waking up now to Hope bringing Josie back.

The blonde in question is curled half-under her covers, half-out of them, her head angled towards Josie's empty bed and Hope almost laughs at her disgruntled expression because Lizzie is going to be absolutely unbearable in the morning but at least she's not stuck with it.

The sheets on Josie's bed are already turned down and she sets the girl in her bed with little preamble, tucking the blankets around her and making sure she's covered up to her chin because outside had been close to freezing even if Hope can no longer accurately gauge temperature by regular standards and even with all the renovations, the upper most floors were always that little bit colder than everywhere else in the school.

She glances between Josie and Lizzie, eyeing the way Lizzie's sheets have started sliding towards the floor and the hairs on the blonde's arms have begun to stand up, her skin riddled with goose-bumps before conceding with a sigh, that no, she is not that asshole and crossing the room to her side with the barest hint of reluctance, pulling the covers up over the siphon.

She almost wants to say something to her unconscious form, some small zinger to the girl who'd nicknamed her Mope Mikaelson but reconsiders, figuring Lizzie as the type to spontaneously wake up if only to spite her.

Instead Hope crosses back over to Josie's side and snags a pen and a piece of paper from the brunette's desk and here, here she hesitates because what does she even say?

She doesn't know the reason Josie was in her room despite what she wishes it was, doesn't know what was up with her earlier in the common room, all she really knows is that Josie was angry and blamed Hope and when Hope tried tentatively to connect Josie had shut her down.

She understands the reasons Josie has for doing that but she's still frustrated and a little hurt. She wonders if she should have just woken Josie up and made her leave; if that would carry the point she wants – that Josie doesn't get to just shut her down and then show up on a whim and have Hope be nice to her.

But I did that, she recalls. She hadn't expected them to be nice to her after she shut down attempts to talk or connect when they were younger, but she was also fully aware that Caroline and Alaric would absolutely make the twins be nice to her regardless of how she acted. If she was being a brat, then she was acting out because she was upset, but the Saltzman twins were to be above it all; to understand that and keep trying no matter what she did. Part of it had everything to do with how obedient she was; how for the most part she never strayed from being a good daughter, a good student, and the few times she did she was acting out. But it was always different with the twins and yet they were given the same speech. It's no wonder they've resented her all this time.

They'd put up with it for years, even when they were being as snarky and unforgiving as Hope was they'd still been putting up with her, often straddling a line between casually polite and positively caustic. But even straddling that line, there were so many times they'd made the effort to reach out where Hope never would; as disingenuous as it had sometimes been.

She shouldn't fall back into old rhythms just because she's hurt – that's the whole point of this venture, after all. She wants to be Josie's friend – she's meant to be trying, progressing and part of that is remaining open to talking to the girl even when she's angry and frustrated and upset.

But being open to talking doesn't mean being the one to initiate the conversation – Josie had hurt her first, this time. Hope will make the effort not to cut herself off if Josie will make the effort to reach out again. Josie is stubborn and quietly confident; if there is something she wants to do then she'll do it. She can make the first move in this weird twist of roles.

Her mind made up, Hope replaces the pen and paper and shuffles back towards the door, glancing back at the brunette only once before setting off for her own room.

She has painting to do after all.

/

The next morning Josie catches Hope's eye on her way into the assembly hall, the tribrid perched in the middle row of seats and Lizzie already marching her way towards the front row and the two chairs closest to their dad's podium – the ones that are universally acknowledged as theirs.

She's on the edge of the aisle, seemingly not paying attention to anything but the moment Josie and Lizzie walk in it's like she knows and her eyes lock onto Josie's with a focus and intensity she's almost altogether unprepared for.

Hope doesn't smile at her like she tried yesterday but she arches a brow, clearly expecting something and this – this is her moment, Josie decides.

She smiles first, shyly but with warmth, with intent and a little edge of guilt.

I'm sorry, she tries to convey, not certain if it's something that even can be said with a smile but all too willing to try.

Hope had gone above and beyond for the past two days, even after Landon had betrayed her less than two days before that, in an almost strange act of trust and openness.

She'd reached out twice and smiled and laughed and been there – fully there, in every moment with Josie. And then last night, when Josie is certain the last thing she'd seen was Hope's pillow as she fell asleep waiting for her, Josie had woken up to the sound of her dorm-door clicking closed and the smell of petrichor and sun. Her chest had warmed with quiet joy at the knowledge that Hope had brought her back to her room, hadn't just woken her up and kicked her out and the kindness Hope had shown had her waking up for the first time with a smile on her face; nervous and excited to greet the day.

Hope's eyes drop briefly from hers and a blush rises just slightly in Josie's cheeks at the knowledge that Hope is staring at her mouth. Her stomach turns slightly in a way that's not at all unpleasant and the moment lingers, seeming to draw itself out for forever.

And then it happens.

Hope smiles back.

It's not a full one, not the bashful and delighted grin from days before, but it's there; warm and purposeful. A response.

It's not quite forgiveness, but understanding.

I get it, it says and Josie's smile widens just that bit more because there's a chance for them. There's a chance.

She brushes her hand along Hope's shoulder as she walks passed her and her skin tingles; a precursor to the feel of Hope's fingers catching hers before she's out of reach.

Lizzie looks at her as she sits down beside her, confused and then calculating as she looks behind them.

Josie had been altogether frightening this morning; waking up cheerful and optimistic. She'd practically shot up from her bed from sleep looking alarmingly awake and Lizzie's disturbed expression at Josie's morning smile had only seemed to amuse her; her sister knowing well that Josie shouldn't even be addressed until after two cups of tea and a shower.

"What's got you so perky?" she wonders, bumping her shoulder into her sister's. It's weird – beyond so because breakfast is going to be after this whole assembly and there is definitely no tea in their dorm room – and definitely concerning as much as it's just plain nice; she hasn't seen Josie smile like that since before the Wicked Bitch of the West had rolled in.

Josie just sighs, that same smile clinging to her lips as she chances a glance behind her and locks eyes with Hope again, those crystalline eyes already on her. The smile that tugs at Hope's lips is getting her stared at by the class-mate beside her, but she doesn't even seem to care and Josie is too delighted to be the cause of it to even indulge the brief sadness that rises up in her chest at the notion of how strange it must be to see.

She turns back around, watching Lizzie as she peers back behind them, suspicious eyes roving and catching no one before she looks curiously back at her sister.

"Is it a someone? It's a someone right? Who?" She pokes, casting another glance around and slumping back into her chair in frustration when she doesn't see anyone acting weird except a couple people in the middle row who seem to have edged slightly away from the She-Wolf, Mope Mikaelson. Huh. Lizzie would too.

Josie bumps their shoulders again, catching Lizzie's eyes as she turns to face her.

"It's nothing, today is just…it's going to be a good day."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I can feel it."

"Really? Is that the only thing you've felt today?"

Josie's indignant squawk is everything, a furious blush igniting in her cheeks as Lizzie laughs and the curious stares of fellow students turn towards them.

"Ohmygod – no! Lizzie just – just no!" Josie swats at her, thwacking her arm repeatedly and devolving into flustered babble as Lizzie laughs.

Maybe Josie is right.

Today will be a good day.

And that, of course, is when the sheriff strolls in.

/

Cheryl Blossom is a mean-girl extraordinaire that Hope can honestly barely compute the presence of. She's very much the definition of the word extra but the way she looks at her girlfriend rocks something in Hope's chest. Her eyes have that familiar haunted look; loss and loneliness, but it dims, something a lot like love taking its place the minute Cheryl so much as hears Toni's name.

That something as simple as a name could lift whatever veil of darkness seems to loom over Cheryl makes Hope ache with a kind of want she's never felt before and sends the image of two vivid brown eyes racing through her mind.

It must radiate out of her, she figures, a cry for help, because Cheryl pulls her aside gently after the cheerleaders have finished their lunches, waving her girlfriend ahead of her and linking arms with Hope.

"It's okay, babe," she grins, bussing a kiss against Toni's cheek, "Hope and I are just gonna talk about her future cheer audition."

They walk towards the gym at a crawl and Hope is as amazed at Cheryl's presence being so weirdly reassuring as she is at the way nobody even looks twice at her in the hallway. It's more privacy than she's ever expected could be found in a high school hallway but she supposes that must be the magic of Cheryl's aura. The girl isn't even looking at anyone and yet her whole body seems to scream, Fight me.

The companionable silence certainly doesn't last forever and barely a second later, what she now realises is an intervention begins.

"You've lost someone," Cheryl starts bluntly, patting her captured arm with her other hand at the way Hope unconsciously flinches. "Still fresh, then."

"Isn't it always?"

The look Cheryl gives her is weighted, assessing, like she can tell the depth of Hope's character with a simple stare and maybe she can because her whole demeanour seems to soften that little bit more.

"My mom was killed two years ago…I was in danger so my dad…he dealt with it, but he died a few months later," she offers stiltedly, resisting the urge to scratch at her skin. There isn't a wound or a scab to pick at even though it so often feels like there is.

"My brother was killed," Cheryl says then, glaring down some freshman who wanders into their path until he practically slams himself into the lockers in an effort to correct himself. "And no matter how much time passes, it hurts the same. It will always hurt the same – especially because he was my other half, my twin."

They pull up just inside of the gym doors and Cheryl drops her arm, turning to face her. Her eyes are sad but Hope is surprised to find them dry. She can't imagine losing someone so close to her, someone who's been by her side since their inception by the universe. The very idea sounds like it would be the end of the world and yet, Cheryl disproves it. Still, the notion stands, and the idea of Josie or Lizzie suffering that is something she very much wants to forget could ever happen. With their Twin Pain, it might very well be true.

"With every day that passes – every day that I spend being loved by someone that matters to me, someone that I love…It's like the edges of the pain get softer. When I think of him, I don't just think of the bad stuff, of how he died and how I don't have him anymore. I think of all the good things; the time I did have with him. How much he loved me and how much I will always love him," Cheryl tells her, that warmth she has for Toni creeping back into her eyes, "Jason may be gone but it doesn't erase that."

The it's the same for you is as loud as if she'd yelled it, the unsaid words like a balm; heavy and soothing pressing against Hope's chest where that phantom pain lives.

Hope smiles then, as soft as the look in Cheryl's eyes, squeezing Cheryl's arm lightly because for as extra as this girl before her is, she is just as wounded as Hope and yet somehow still so compassionate.

"I think you're wrong," Hope suggests, "Your brother may be dead, but he isn't gone. His influence isn't gone. I can tell…that you loved each other a lot. And that that love has helped shape you as a person, and because of that, because you live, so does a part of him. I think your brother would be beyond proud of who you are, Cheryl. I think anyone would be."

Cheryl's dark eyes gloss over then, just as Hope's do and before she knows it, the tribrid is being dragged into the first hug she's had in months. It's comforting, Hope notes, having someone familiar with how she feels hug her is nice. Being hugged at all by someone not related to her for the first time in two years is even nicer, she notes, a little twinge of sadness in her chest coming at the thought of all she's deprived herself of. The only person she's had real physical contact with outside of her family and fight-training is Josie and that weird shift in her chest stirs again at the thought.

The girls part then, looking away from each other briefly to allow them both a short moment to collect themselves and when Hope meets Cheryl's gaze next, the red-head smiles at her, holding a pair of cat-ears out.

"Here," she says, putting them on Hope's head with a knowing look, "for whatever you need to do to find Dana."

The red-head saunters off then, barely halfway towards her squad before she starts yelling for suicide sprints.

That girl, Hope thinks, already fondly tweaking one of the ears as she walks off to find her posse of misfits, is going to be trouble.

/

Hope is not okay.

The idea that she would be is almost laughable but the last person she expected to make that observation is her sister.

And yet, as Josie walks back into their room after finally getting the shower, still towel drying her hair and grimacing at the persistent smell of spider-guts even after half a bottle of shampoo; that is what she is greeted with.

"I don't think Hope is okay."

Josie isn't really sure what she's supposed to say to that. It's been plenty obvious for years that Hope is very much not okay, but there's always been the impression that she was handling it. She was never going to be the same as she was before but they'd all known that. The decided lack of 'okay' is relative in that instance but very obvious elsewhere, mainly in her rampant trust issues, serious paranoia and total detest of anyone her own age or older. So anyone that isn't a primary student essentially.

God, Lizzie, you're blonde not blind, she thinks.

"…What makes you say that?" she says instead.

Lizzie levels her own incredulous look back at her before sighing and flopping back against her pillow, ever the dramatic.

"I saw that look," Lizzie says first, pointing a finger at her and arching an eyebrow when Josie looks surprised. Josie is surprised, having not noticed her own face betraying her and tries to school her features only to give up a second later, leveling a disgruntled look back at her sister.

"You call her Mope Mikaelson," she retorts, "how did you possibly think she was okay?"

Lizzie concedes with a kind of short-tempered grace only she can manage, her hands a dismissive wave in the air.

"Well, yeah, but I figured it was just her new normal, y'know? And I mean, what else was I going to call her? Skulky Skulkerson?" she huffs, "And besides. It's a natural progression from Dope to Mope, Jo, let's not act like it was never going to happen."

Josie almost cringes, thinking back to Lizzie's most terrible tirade against Hope – the moment the jealousy had truly taken root and the pettiness was at an all-time high. The blonde had called her every name under the sun but none had been as long-lasting and persistent as Hope the Dope Mikaelson.

It was the rhyming, she'd told Josie, there's nothing that makes an insult better than a good rhyme.

Lizzie looks contemplative now, like some realisation is suddenly dawning; an epiphany on the crest of the horizon coming down and Josie discards her towel to sit beside her sister, playing with her blonde locks when her sister lays her head in Josie's lap.

"Do you think…"

Josie knows better than to respond to a half-sentence, humming encouragingly instead and scratching her nails lightly against Lizzie's scalp.

She'd only seen Hope twice today, once that morning at the assembly and then again in the woods by the Mill, when the whole group had swanned in to save her and Rafael from a Doctor Who-esque spider creature but Lizzie had been at Hope's side for hours; even going back to her when they'd prepped Sasha to go home.

Lizzie hadn't been acting too unlike herself before then, so, she surmises, whatever Hope had done – it must've been then.

"Do you ever think about…about Jo?"

The words are a whisper of a breath, shaking and ashamed, like they should never have been given thought much less a voice. If Josie hadn't been waiting for them she's sure she would've missed them and even then, she's almost certain she's misheard.

It's definitely not what she'd expected to hear.

Lizzie's eyes are closed like she's afraid to look at her and see her reaction and Josie squeezes her shoulder gently to ease her mind.

"I…sometimes, Lizzie, I mean…I'm named after her and she – she was almost dad's wife once and well, we kind of exist because of her so…sometimes…"

Why, she wants to ask. Because it is truly so – so random. The only time their biological mother ever really comes up is when people bring up their bloodline, the coven they belong to, the great and powerful and fallen Gemini. And even then, Jo Laughlin herself is never specifically mentioned. Their dad doesn't talk about her and their mom – because Caroline Forbes is their mother goddamnit – has never really mentioned her either. The most either of them has ever really heard of their biological mother was when they'd been told about the Gemini coven as a whole, and the history of siphoners.

Lizzie seems to catch her train of thought, shifting her head out of Josie's lap to sit up and look her sister in the eye.

"I just…Hope said something," Lizzie reveals, "MG was compelling Sasha and he…he told her Dana died and just – the look on her face…So I – I said he should just take it all away and I thought that would be helping her but Hope stopped us and…she said something."

There's this pause, like Lizzie is still measuring the weight and worth of her words before she continues:

"She said…to tell Sasha that…That losing Dana was going to hurt. It always would but eventually she would remember the good times. She said – Sasha should hold onto those, because they would get her through it and I just..."

"She was talking about her parents," Josie says gently, tugging her sister against her shoulder and bearing the frustrated huff of "I know" so close to her ear.

"I just – I thought –"

"You thought, it's been two years since they died and she never saw them that often before then. You thought that two years would be enough to get used to it – that Hope would be different but she'd move on," Josie voices for her, feeling Lizzie's dejected little nod against her. She wraps an arm around her sister, working her fingers back into her blonde hair and easing out small tangles. "But she hasn't. And you're realising that she's never going to move on from that the way you expect her to. But…that doesn't explain why you're bringing up Jo."

Lizzie curls that bit closer to her, her arms tightly crossed over her own chest to the point where Josie nearly recoils at the bony elbow digging into her side. She doesn't though, just waits out the quiet and keeps moving her fingers through Lizzie's hair, knowing the response to her defensiveness should always be comfort if she wants Lizzie to say anything.

"She was going to be our mom," Lizzie explains at last, "and we…we lost her."

Josie shakes her head gently.

"It's not the same, Lizzie. We didn't even…We grew up with a mom. We didn't even know Jo, we didn't even know that we'd lost her and it's not like there was a space left by it. We never had her long enough to lose."

"But we did –"

"I guess. But that doesn't mean it's the same. The fact that Jo and Hayley both got murdered doesn't make it the same. The situations are so different, Lizzie, and so are the outcomes. Grief isn't some math equation – it's not like there's a set time-limit for it."

"I'm…I'm getting that now, I guess. I just…it always seemed like that was just how it worked."

"Only because we haven't really lost anyone," Josie points out, "Grief will always be a guess if we don't experience it. And even experiencing it doesn't make it the same. Sure the steps of it might be the same but it's still different for everyone. No one will ever really get how Hope feels even if they're in a similar situation because nobody else is Hope. Everyone is different and deals with things differently. Having your mom killed and then your dad die for you? Nobody is going to just magically be okay with it," Josie sighs, "Not even Hope Mikaelson."

Especially not Hope Mikaelson – the girl who wore her family's crest around her neck, whose room was littered with their photographs and who had spent years looking for a way to bring her family back together. She was a Mikaelson; Always and Forever was their blood bond and Hope was never going to be okay losing the two people she had fought to have that with.

"Do you think she's ever going to be okay?" Lizzie asks a while later.

Josie barely hesitates, nodding already, thinking on the last couple of days and the differences they've had already. She lingers on the image of Hope's smile; the way it lit up her eyes and lets the memory of it flood her with warmth enough to sleep.

"I think she's getting there."

/

A few hours after the monster guts have been thoroughly scrubbed from her skin and hair and her unsalvageable clothes have been given proper ceremony before being tossed in the trash, Hope wanders back into the woods; the image of Lizzie's almost understanding expression fresh in her mind and the sympathy for a compelled Sasha simmering in her stomach.

Hope had considered going to find Landon for the thirty seconds it took for the memory of him betraying her repeatedly and lying to her face to set in and then decided that there was absolutely no fucking way she was doing that.

Sure, he might not be the monster they were hunting but he has lied and betrayed and run from them ever since they saved Rafael and then had the nerve to act like a victim for not trusting and forgiving him afterwards. They don't even know what he is and for all that Caleb is a massive douche, he was also not wrong when said Landon had come for the knife just like all the other monsters.

Instead, Hope had shed her clothes in a clearing out by the Mill and gone for a run like she'd wanted to the day before; delighted to be able to escape all human thought in her wolf form and commit to the thrill of the moon overhead and the freedom of her run.

It was magical and liberating while it lasted but now, pulling her clothes back on, the slow stream of thought picks up again and Hope is hard-pressed trying not to linger on the other more infuriating thing she's seen today; Josie kissing Rafael.

It was understandable. She supposes it was even a little bit genius; Josie didn't have a hand to siphon with so she literally sucked the magic out of him. Great.

But the image of it in her mind turns something in her stomach and that shift she's been feeling for days is even stronger now, fresh out of her wolf-form and the thought of Josie kissing Rafael makes her legitimately uncomfortable to the point of it almost physically hurting.

She almost wishes she could say it's for Lizzie; that her sympathy for Josie getting the guy Lizzie wants is causing this turmoil, but she and Lizzie aren't quite there yet even if they're closer now after Sasha than they were before.

But it's not.

She knows the reason for it – at least in part, but she brushes away because it's not possible and she doesn't feel that way. She's jealous for their closeness, the ease they both had in just opening up to each other.

That's all it is, she tells herself, heading off towards the school and trying to ignore the heavy feeling that comes with lying to herself.

Unbidden, her Uncle Kol comes to mind. She'd called him yesterday to fill him in on everything and then spent ten minutes with Davina talking him out of taking her out of school to home-school in the safety of Maine. She'd been touched that he'd brave Mystic Falls for her but the anxiety that bloomed in her chest and the outright fear she'd heard in Davina's voice was too much to ever make even the idea worth it.

Of course filling him in had led to explaining the time she'd spent with Josie and when Kol and Davina had both started smiling, a confused Hope had justly questioned them. Davina had tried to brush it off but Kol had no such qualms, laughing as he announced, "Hope, darling, by the third time Davina and I had done magic together, we were both hard-pressed not to brave the dust and spiders and jump each other in our crypt."

Davina had sputtered, though even she seemed amused, slapping Kol on the arm but going willingly when he pulled her into his lap.

Hope's cheeks had burned a furious red for hours after she'd hastily ended their video-chat and nothing, not even the calm that came with painting would abate them.

Aunt Davina and Uncle Kol are different from her and Josie though, she tells herself. Where Hope has no doubts that her aunt and uncle are soulmates, Josie and Hope are barely friends.

It takes everything in her to ignore the fact that that's how it started with them too.