A/N: So I've decided to rewrite this story because I didn't like the tone and the direction it was heading previously. I also renamed it to something I think will suit it more in the later chapters.

Hope took a deep breath before reluctantly entering her old room. Boxes were piled up to the ceiling with all of her belongings that Alaric never bothered to move. He just locked the room and called it a storage closet. No matter how unrecognizable the room was however, to Hope, it felt like the closest thing to home. She didn't belong anywhere in the world just hours ago when no one truly remembered her because of Malivore, but now she had a place to stay. If only those who surrounded her would re-accept her.

She began to walk towards one of the boxes that contained old pictures of family and friends including her mom, dad, Josie, Landon and more. Her Aunt Freya had decided to stay one more day before heading back to New Orleans. She of course had obligations there with Keelin and Nik.

Hope traced her hand over a picture of her and her father, which had been glossed over with dust since she jumped into the pit. As her eyes started to well up when she reminded herself of everything she lost both 3 years ago with her parents and recently with her friendships, she was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Hey," said Freya softly as she gazed at her niece with sympathetic eyes, "I just wanted to see if you needed help unpacking."

"To be honest," Hope sniffled under her breath, trying not to seem like she was crying, "I don't know if I want to stay." Freya took a step towards her niece with a concerned look across her face. "What makes you say that?"

"I just..." Hope hesitated trying to appear as confident as possible to her aunt, who was already getting suspicious, "I just don't feel like I belong here anymore. I'm just going to complicate things." Her voice trailed off as she picked up the picture frame of her and her family and sat down on the undressed mattress.

Freya took this as a hint and sat down next to the tribrid, pulling her under her arm in an attempt to comfort her. With her head atop of Hope's she began, "Hope, you belong here. Before all this Malivore stuff, Alaric kept me updated on your progress here, and you seemed to have made a new family here."

Hope flinched at the mention of family, triggering her memories of her father and mother. She only sighed for an answer, not looking up at Freya to hide her puffy, red eyes.

Freya shifted their position to where she turned both of their bodies so that they were directly facing each other, "I'm not saying that anyone could replace your mom or dad, but I know you care about these people and deep down they care about you too. They just need time to re-adjust to you being in their lives again where they know who you are."

Freya takes her eyes off of her niece and shifts them down to the picture in Hope's hands. "and I know they would be so proud of you right now. You're just like every Mikaelson, always sacrificing themselves unnecessarily."

The joke did lighten the mood, but tears still littered the tribrid's face as she was pulled into a hug by her aunt. Freya moves her hands to her niece's face, wiping the remaining tears off. With her hands still cupped around her face, "I think we should start working on getting this room back to your room" Freya suggested, to change the topic.

Both the blonde witch and her niece got up off the bed and moved towards the boxes, where they sorted through the different lamps, lights, candles, paintings, paints, and everything else that was stuffed away. Her and her aunt quickly re-placed all the items that were scattered around Hope's room before the end of the last school year and were done in about 20 minutes. All the negative thoughts and tearful conversations were long forgotten in that brief period of time, but as Hope pulled out the last picture, one of her and Landon, buried at the bottom of the final box, all positive progress had been lost.

"I've seen that look before," said Freya, interrupting the auburn haired girl's downward spiral, "You love him, don't you?"

"Of course I do," sniffled Hope, "We shared an epic love, if that even exists," her voice trailed off. "But me being here will just complicate things. He was so happy with Josie, but now with the memories… I'm afraid I'm going to lose both of them, my first love and my best friend. And what if he doesn't choose me? I won't be happy here, and it will be my fault. It always is…"

Hope was out of breath after her confession. She sobbed in between each sentence, each one getting louder and more intense than the next. She sighs before beginning again, but this time trying to control her emotions, "Everytime I lose someone, the voice in my head says it's my fault. It happened with my mom, it happened with my dad, and it's no different in this situation."

Her aim to try and be more stable proved to be ineffective, as the lights in the room started to flicker and the furniture to rattle. Hope doesn't realize that she was the cause of the ensuing chaos occurring only in her room, so she continued with just as much infliction as before, "It was my choice to jump into Malivore. It was my decision to not tell everyone who I was when I got back. It should be my decision to choose if I want to leave Mystic Falls or not."

Hope was yelling now, and at the end of her last sentence, the newly put up lights had exploded with a wave of magic that had simultaneously knocked over Freya, sending her to the ground.

Hope stood in the center of her room, realizing what she had done. She fell to the ground as well, not because of magic, but because of desperation and exhaustion. Aunt Freya had already made her way to Hope, gathering her back into a hug, trying to calm her down when Hope began to speak again, but this time in a much more calm manner, "I just don't want to cause anymore pain to the people I love."

Freya let her words sit in the air a while before responding, "You are Hope Mikaelson, the strongest known being on this planet but you're not only that. You are the most resilient Mikaelson of this family. You are not alone and will never be alone Hope."

Within an instant of her saying that, Freya was met with the strongest, and most affectionate hug from the tribrid who seemed like she was never going to let go. Without letting go, Freya put a simple in theory yet completely complicated idea into the air: "If you're that upset about the chance of losing him, why don't you go talk to him?"

"That's easier said than done, Aunt Freya," Hope scoffed. "What if I'm not his choice?"

Freya tried to show the bright side of the situation to her niece. She knew that Hope loved him, she could see it in the way she looked at his picture and hear it in her voice, but if he did indeed reject her, she knew Hope was strong enough to come out of it a better and stronger person. "Then you have more time to heal," she said with a tone of hope in her voice, "and I'm only a call away if you need me anytime or anywhere."

With one last final hug, Hope gathered herself, and walked towards Landon's room.

Hope held her breath as she knocked on the door, not knowing what to expect or even if he was in his room. Within a few seconds Hope saw the door open and Landon's head peaked around, as if he was avoiding all contact with anyone at the school. "Oh, hi Hope," Landon said in a surprised voice, "I didn't think you were going to talk to me this early…" his voice trailed off as his eyes avoided as much eye contact as possible and made their way to the ground.

Hope was already in front of him and it would be awkward if she turned back now, so she continued with her plan. "Well I'm here aren't I?" she said with unintentional snark in her voice.

Landon stumbled around the door to finally show the rest of his body instead of just his head. He was still in the same clothes when they fought the Croatoan earlier. He continued to avoid as much eye contact as possible and fidget around before coughing out: "Um, do you want to come in?"

"Sure" Hope replied, this time making sure to cut down on the snark.

Landon awkwardly left the entrance to his room to clean up the mess of papers from his journal from his bed on to his side table. Hope walked in feeling rejected and uncomfortable in a room that she's spent countless nights in before she jumped in the pit.

She looked around the room to be faced with the normalcy of the science-fiction posters that littered the walls, his guitar neatly on its stand next to his nightstand, and the messy laundry that was slung around the room, yet all of this still felt unnatural to her.

Landon broke the silence that had filled the room for what seemed like infinity, "So, what did you come here for Hope?" he asked, matching the snark in Hope's voice from earlier. He damn well already knew the answer, one that he had been avoiding and wanted to avoid for the rest of the month, but he asked anyway.

Hope took in a deep breath before gathering up the courage to say, "I'm really sorry for bursting out towards you during the Croatoan, but I just wanted to see–"

Landon interrupted as soon as he got enough confirmation as to where this conversation was heading, "You came to see if I still have feelings for you."

Hope simply nodded, too afraid to say anything in fear of seeming like an idiot for even considering this was a good idea in the first place.

Landon paused and was settled in thought before finally filling the void of silence with his answer, "Listen Hope, everything is just jumbled up in my brain so much that I don't know what's real and what's not. It all feels like a dream that I can't wake up from, and maybe," he paused, "I don't want to wake up from this one. Of course I had feelings for you Hope. I loved you."

Hope listened intently to Landon until she heard the word "loved." Past tense, meaning he didn't love her anymore. Hope was on the verge of tears, knowing that she wasn't going to get the answer she was looking for.

"But then you disappeared. Poof. You left me the summer with Josie. You come back and interact with us without telling us who you really are. I don't know what to make of it Hope, I can barley put what I'm feeling right now into words."

Hope tried to gather some composure to not sound like she was about to cry, "Of course," she whispered, I never expected an answer right away. I just wanted some clarity."

Landon looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet with his hands in his pockets, "I don't know if anything will go back to the way it was. But as of right now, I can't give you the answer you want, or even an answer for that matter. I'm sorry."

Landon's eyes were filled with pity that Hope took as unwarranted. She did want to be seen as weak nonetheless his pity because she was just rejected.

Hope quickly made an exit for herself with a lie, "No, it's fine." She turned towards the door before stopping, "Goodnight Landon" she said with a quivering voice.

Hope made a straight line to the bathroom as the tears started to pour down her face. She was so stupid to think she could expect an answer so soon. Before she could dwell on the fact, she bumped into someone when turning into the bathroom. She looked up to see no one other than Josie Saltzman.

Bumping into Josie was the last thing Hope wanted. Josie had dropped her shampoo carrier when Hope ran into her, spilling all of its contents all over the floor. She was still in a robe from her apparent shower as her hair was still damp.

"Oh my god," Hope said, trying to hide the tears on her face and her puffy red eyes, "Are you ok?" I'm so sorry."

Josie bent down to pick her the things that had spilled out of the carrier, slipping her answer to Hope's question under her breath: "Yeah, I'm fine."

To Hope, the Saltzman twin was still an enigma; this was her first interaction with her since she blasted the spell in the gym giving everyone's memories back. They stared at each other after she cast it, like she was finally realizing who the mysterious girl was, who came out of nowhere in Mystic Falls and started hanging out with her dad, but Hope didn't actually know what had gone through her head.

Hope was released from her thoughts when they grabbed the same bottle at the same time, forcing them both to do what they were obviously avoiding: looking up.

The tension didn't go away but only heightened when Josie made slight eye contact before quickly moving her eyes to a different subject. Josie's never seen Hope this vulnerable before. She wanted to comfort her, make sure she's ok, or tell her she would be there if she needed anything, but she couldn't move past everything that had happened these past few weeks with just one look.

Josie played it safe and went against her instinct of being the caretaker of everyone and left Hope in the hallway with a simple "Goodnight Hope."

Josie moved slowly to her room, ultimately feeling guilty for her decision to leave Hope like that, in that state. She knew deep down inside her that they should just put all of this stuff behind them and try and get their friendship back to where it was before, where Hope literally tried to take a bullet for her. But things were never as easy as they seemed. She distracted her mind from the topic by brushing her hair, changing, and making one final decision to check up on Landon before the night was over. After all, he was her boyfriend last time she remembered, but things have changed.

Josie was surprised when her slight knock on his door pushed it open revealing the mess his room had been left in. The drawers to his dresser were open and clothes were either missing or thrown all across the room. His backpack was gone and the journal he always kept on his bed-side table was nowhere to be found. Her eyes shifted to the bed where they found a piece paper ripped out of a notebook with Landon's handwriting:

I never wanted to hurt either of you, but I know I can't give you all the answers you want or the answers you deserve. I'm sorry to do this, but the only way to avoid causing pain on myself and you all is to leave, to clear my mind and separate myself from all the issues that have risen because of me.

My absence will give all of us time to heal and process everything that has happened over these past months. I don't become a burden in the back of anyone's mind, so I hope you all can forget about me, at least for a while. I wish the best for each of you, with or without me in your life.

With love and deep regret, Landon.

Reality began to set in for Josie as tears formed in her eyes. He was gone.