Chapter Text
It's been three months since Landon had come back from the Triad headquarters, having resurrected with no memory of who killed him, or how Malivore had magically dried out. After about a month of waiting for the other shoe to drop, of looking over their shoulders for another monster, or Triad soldiers, everyone at the Salvatore school seemed to have calmed down and moved on; everyone but Lizzie Saltzman.
Lizzie has been slowly losing her mind over the last couple of months. At first, something about the way everything with Malivore got resolved just didn't seem to add up, and the fact that everyone else had accepted it all so easily really frustrated her. Then the dreams started.
Lizzie has been having dreams about what seemed to be alternate realities. There was one where the school was breaking down, with hardly any new recruits coming in to teach and her father spent entirely too much time with her and Josie, which somehow seemed out of place (even though he spent as much time with them in their waking hours).
Then there was one where the school didn't even exist, and Lizzie and Josie went to Mystic Falls high school, where Josie was apparently the Queen Bee and Lizzie a social outcast with mental problems. Oh, and their dad was a drunk history teacher at the school.
Worst of all was the one dream she had about a reality where Josie was dead, and Lizzie was the one that killed her. When she dreamed about this reality, Lizzie usually woke up with her heart racing, and tears streaming down her face after she saw all her friends fight and lose their lives in a war against all supernatural beings.
At first, Lizzie paid these dreams no mind. Chalked it up to a delayed reaction to all the monsters they had been faced with. But soon, she had these dreams every night, and they kept feeling more and more real. And the more often she had them, the more details she seemed to remember. A flash of red hair. A sarcastic comment aimed at her. A thumb wiping away blood from the corner of a smirking mouth.
All these realities, or memories, or whatever they were, had two things in common. The started with Lizzie making a wish to get rid of a girl named Hope and ended with her regretting that wish. Either Hope somehow managed to get back into her life, or she simply didn't exist, and the world fell apart.
The worst part was that this Hope didn't seem to exist at all outside her dreams. She always seemed so important in her dreams. Everyone knew her, or of her; the all-powerful tribrid; the tragic orphan; the pain in Lizzie ass. Yet when Lizzie woke up, and tried to find any trace of Hope, or asked around if anyone knew who she was- there was nothing. And talking about some girl no one has heard of certainly earned her some sideways glances. Yet Lizzie knew, for once in her life without a shadow of a doubt that she was not crazy. Not about Hope.
The more she looked, the more she realised there was an empty space to be filled; in her life, in the school, in the world in general. So many things didn't have an explanation.
Like why had Klaus Michelson donated so much money to help get this school started? Or how had Josie survived a bullet made from Malivore?
How had Raphael become a wolf permanently, and why could no one turn him back?
Why was there an empty room in the attic, with some girl's clothes and books, but no pictures or school records to show who lived there? Lizzie had claimed it as her own due to the strained relationship the two twins were having since they had found out about the merge, and being there had always made her feel as if she could almost remember Hope existing in the space.
How had MG not died from a werewolf bite? And most importantly, and bizarrely, what on earth caused Malivore to just up and evaporate into seemingly thin air?
Somehow none of these questions bothered anyone else at Salvatore school, but they sure bothered Lizzie. And the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that her dreams weren't just dreams, and that Hope was the answer to all these questions.
Considering both MG and Josie got healed by some mysterious blood that no one could remember the origins of, Lizzie deduced that Hope must be Klaus Mikaelson's daughter, which would make her blood have similar healing properties to his. It would also explain his donation to the school, and possibly even why he was dead. The room was also most likely Hope's. Lizzie didn't know how Hope fitted into the remaining questions, but she could feel that somehow she was the answer to them too.
This realisation had left only one thing for Lizzie to do- go to New Orleans to pay a visit to the remaining Mikaelsons and see if perhaps they could help her figure out what on earth was going on.
So one night, Lizzie snuck into her dad's office to find in his "secret" supernatural registry where in New Orleans the Mikaelson residence was. She packed enough clothes for a few days, grabbing a sweatshirt with Mikaelson printed on the back after some consideration. She reasoned that she might be able to use it to convince the terrifying ancient witches and vampires of the Mikaelson family that she wasn't completely mental showing up at their house talking about some girl none of them could remember.
What Lizzie didn't want to admit to herself, was that she was taking it because she'd been sleeping in the sweatshirt for some weird reason since moving into what she was now positive was Hope's room. The smell seemed almost painfully familiar, and even though the feeling of a memory just beyond her reach was almost painful, it still provided some inexplicable comfort. After a couple of days, the smell was gone, but Lizzie kept wearing the sweatshirt, all the while resolutely avoiding thinking about why on earth she was doing that and how weird and creepy it probably was.
At four in the morning on Saturday, just after the last of the stragglers of the unofficially official Friday night party sneak into their rooms to sleep the Saturday away Lizzie makes her way out of the school grounds, slipping past the protection spells she had helped cast. With any luck, it will be this evening at the earliest that anyone comes looking for her and realises she's gone, by which point she would have hopefully made her way to New Orleans.
Lizzie arrived in New Orleans about fifteen hours later. She had gotten into the first car that had stopped for her, and after casting a spell on the creepy looking driver, made him drive her all the way to New Orleans.
Around about hour five on the road, Lizzie began to seriously question what the hell she was doing. Running away from school in the dead of night, to drive across the country to seek out the most ancient and powerful supernatural family to ask them, what? To help her find a girl that no one but Lizzie remembers that she is pretty sure is part of the Mikaelson family?
None of her memories about Hope were even pleasant. She remembers repeatedly wishing for the other girl to be gone from her life. Remembers the anger and irritation and something else, burning hot in the pit of her stomach, when she ended up back in her life no matter how Lizzie wished for her to be gone.
Worst of all, she remembered the world where Hope never existed. Just thinking about the look in her father's eyes when he told her that she killed Josie was enough to make her want to cry. Even the memory of Penelope's angry, broken gaze made her feel guilty.
So, how was Lizzie to explain all of that to Hope's family? Why was Lizzie the only one to remember her? Somehow she doubted that telling Rebekah and Freya Mikaelson that she wished for their forgotten niece to disappear, and then she kind of did, would go over well with them.
Best case scenario they will slam the door in her face, worst case… Well, she didn't want to think about that. Lizzie was all too familiar with the horror stories about the Mikaelsons.
Lizzie thought about getting the man to turn around and just going home. She could probably still get back before anyone noticed she was even gone. But something stopped her from giving up.
Something deep in her gut, telling her she had to find Hope. Remember her. Really remember her, not just the alternate reality versions of her that kept haunting Lizzie in her dreams every night.
Knowing that she was missing memories, not being able to explain certain feelings and things in her life was driving her mad.
It was like trying to remember a spell, being able to picture it on the page in a grimoire, knowing precisely what it will do, almost hearing the words in your mind and just not being able to grasp them fully.
Only this was so much worse. Almost painful. Thinking about Hope gave Lizzie a headache, yet she couldn't stop.
So she had to keep going.
Hope was surrounded by nothing. There was no light, no sound, no smell. Absolutely nothing she could latch on to but her thoughts.
She had read about sensory deprivation. A little bit of light reading before bed. Lizzie had scoffed at her when she saw the book, calling her a sociopath. The comment had seemed uncalled for to Hope, just like most of Lizzie’s comments. In retrospect, it kind of made sense though. Torture by sensory deprivation had always seemed absurd to her before. The fact that mere absence of anything could break someone. There was no pain, so what was there to complain about?
Now she understood.
She had no idea how long she had been in Malivore. Didn’t even know if her plan had worked and she had destroyed it. At least that would have given her some peace, something to hold onto. At least then she was the hero like Lizzie told her to be. Of course, no one would remember, but she’d know.
There was nothing.
At first, Hope had tried to scream, struggle, move. She had quickly realised there was no point. There was no one to yell at, she couldn’t even hear her own voice. No point in moving, there was nothing to move towards, nothing to struggle against.
Soon she began to hallucinate. She had read about that too, that after too long without any stimuli, the brain begins to make things up. She started hearing voices and seeing things move in the darkness around her.
Maybe going mad wouldn’t be so bad. At least then she won’t be so alone.
Maybe if she waited some more, soon she would start to hear the voices of the people she had left behind, and perhaps she will even see them.
Maybe, her brain will eventually construct a whole new reality around her, and she wouldn’t even be able to tell that none of it was real.
That was a dangerous road to go down.
So Hope waited. And thought. And tried to reach out with her magic, her consciousness, feeling stupid but hoping that maybe if she did really defeat Malivore, and was simply stuck in some hellish dimension, she might be able to reach someone in the real world.
So Hope, true to her name, kept going. Kept reaching out with her magic as far as she could, trying to come across anyone familiar. Or anyone at all.
After what seemed like years, or maybe only minutes, it was hard to tell time in total darkness, Hope sensed something.
Either she was finally going crazy, or she really could reach out beyond this dimension to someone on the outside.
This person… They seemed familiar. Hope wasn’t even sure what she was doing. Was she reaching out with her magic? Her consciousness? Her soul?
Whatever it was, it seemed to be working. Hope was tugging at them, calling them to her, knocking against the wall that the magic of Malivore had put up around her entire existence. And the wall seemed to be cracking.
At first, Hope thought it must have been Landon she found. Surely their connection, their love had led her to him, and now Landon will remember her.
After a while, she realised it wasn’t Landon after all. No, this person somehow seemed even more familiar. They had magic, and Hope knew that magic. Had felt it many times, pulling on her own, feeding off of it.
Hope had found Lizzie Saltzman. And Lizzie was struggling to remember her.
Hope felt it. That wall, surrounding her existence, shielding it from everyone she loves, it was almost weaker around Lizzie. There were cracks and stones missing, and Hope could almost peer through. See Lizzie’s consciousness, struggling to understand, to remember, to reach through and grasp her hand.
So Hope banged against it harder. Screamed louder. Pushed all of her magic against it and prayed that Lizzie would understand. That Lizzie will look for her.
Lizzie’s headache was only getting worse. Now it was just a constant buzz in the back of her skull, sometimes getting worse, others barely noticeable, but always there.
After 15 hours in a car with a bewitched driver, Lizzie was about ready to jump out of the passenger door window.
Taking a nap didn’t help. All she could see when she closed her eyes was Hope. Hope staring at her with disdain, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth and dropping another drained body onto a pile of lifeless forms surrounding her.
Hope, stepping out of a sports car, in a skin-tight leotard, like some kind of knock-off X-men suit, smirking at Josie, barely sparing Lizzie a glance.
Hope, Hope, Hope.
It’s like she was always there, in the back of her mind, like that goddamned headache. Or maybe she Hope was the headache.
Lizzie jerked awake as she felt the car stop. She looked over at her driver, who was staring blankly through the windshield. They must have reached the French Quarter in New Orleans, the destination that Lizzie chanted in her spell when she first got into the car.
Lizzie realised the car was parked outside the Mikaelson compound or at least the house that was listed as such in her father’s supernatural registry.
She quickly got out of the car, grabbing her bag from the back seat. Leaning back down to peer through the window, Lizzie whispered a few words, ending the spell she had put on the man. He looked over, completely bewildered.
Lizzie smiled sweetly, “Thank you so much for giving me a lift! You really are a life saver!”
Without waiting for a reply, which she was sure would not be as enthusiastic as hers, Lizzie turned around and walked towards the front door of the Mikaelson house.
Now, standing outside her destination in the humid New Orleans night, Lizzie felt her heartbeat quicken. It had all suddenly become very real. She was about to knock on the door of the family that ruled this town with some crazy tale of a lost relative that no one could remember.
Just as Lizzie was about to raise her hand and knock, her phone rang.
The sound startled her so much she nearly dropped her phone. With shaky fingers, Lizzie pressed accept and waited for her father to start yelling at her.
Instead, she heard Josie voice on the phone.
“Where the hell are you Lizzie?”- came Josie’s irritated voice through the speaker.
The twins haven’t been on the best of terms lately, given all the recent developments. Josie still hadn’t forgiven Lizzie for not telling her about Penelope leaving, even though Satan incarnate had come back to Salvatore school barely a month later. Caroline had sent her back after she tried to ditch her new witch school and join the vampire on her quest for answers about the Merge.
The grudge wasn’t one sided though. Lizzie still hadn’t forgiven Josie for… Something she couldn’t quite remember. The blond had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with Hope, even though when she had brought it up with Josie, her twin had looked at her like she was finally completely losing her mind.
Lizzie bit her lip, considering her answer. Finally, she decided to go with the truth.
“New Orleans.”- the blond stared plainly.
She was met with silence from the other end of the line. Josie was probably in shock, or waiting for the punch line.
“I’m sorry, you’re not joking?”- Josie laughed incredulously.
“No. I’m in New Orleans, and... And I need you to cover for me with dad.”- Lizzie thought that was a long shot, but no point beating around the bush now.
“Even forgetting for the moment that I’m not currently mad at you, what exactly do you expect me to tell dad, Lizzie?”
“Look, I know we’re not exactly on the best terms right now, Jo. But this is very important to me, and I need your help. I need my twin.”- Lizzie held her breath. Even when the girls were on the worst terms, they had always had each other’s backs, and Lizzie hoped this time she hadn’t pushed Josie too far.
“That’s not fair Lizzie. You know I can’t say no when you put it like that. Even though I really want to. I can’t keep covering for you, and taking care of you anymore. No more codependency, we both agreed.”
So Josie was more mad than Lizzie anticipated. She supposed she should have expected this response, especially since Penelope had finally revealed why she broke up with Josie in the first place. With the news about the Merge on top of that, Josie was really pushing back in her relationship with Lizzie. Even though the blond supposed it was warranted, she also felt like sometimes Josie overcompensated.
Like right now.
“Look, Jo, I get that. And I agree, but this isn’t just me asking you to cover for me so I can hang out with a boy, or go to a party. I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t desperate. This is very important to me.” Lizzie took a deep breath, blinking away tears that have suddenly sprung to her eyes. “I know you and dad think I’m finally losing my mind completely-“
“Lizzie, we don’t...”
“No, let me finish. I know that’s what you’re thinking, even if you won’t say it. I see the looks you and dad share whenever I bring up all the things that don’t add up. There are so many unanswered questions, Jo, and I can’t just leave it alone. It’s like there is something, or someone, that won’t let me give up. And I know you think these dreams aren’t real, but honestly, after everything that’s happened with Malivore and it’s barrage of monsters, is this really so hard to believe?”
Lizzie took a deep breath after her speech, waiting for her sister’s reply with baited breath.
Josie sighed- “Ok. I’ll cover for you, if it’s really this important. But you better be careful, and you will have to tell dad soon, you know I can’t lie to him for long.”
Lizzie smiled, relieved. “Thank you so much Jo, you have no idea how much this means to me. I’ll tell dad as soon as I even have anything to tell. The Mikaelson are probably just going to slam the door in my face when I try to tell them about Hope...”
“Did you just say Hope?”- came in a British drawl from behind Lizzie. A not entirely friendly voice, and one that certainly commanded attention.
Lizzie turned around slowly, coming face to face with none other than Rebekah Mikaelson. Somehow, she was even more intimidating in person, Lizzie could very easily believe all the stories she read about the blond vampire standing in front of her now. Power seemed to radiate from her, and she didn’t look too happy with what she overheard Lizzie speaking about.
Josie’s voice carried through the phone, but Lizzie was too distracted.
“I’ll talk to you later Jo.” -Lizzie ended the call, slowly bringing her phone away from her ear, all the while maintaining eye contact with Rebekah. . She had an uncomfortable feeling that she looked like a deer caught in headlights.
“Well?”- Rebekah raised her eyebrow expectantly, seizing the smaller witch up. She reeked of fear, but underneath that, there was something else. A certain determination.
“Well what?”- Lizzie tried to play dumb, which in itself was an ill advised course of action.
“You just said something about telling my family about Hope, what did you mean. What do you know about Hope?”
“You know who that is?”- Lizzie was caught off guard. Rebekah sounded like she knew who Hope was and Lizzie has not considered the possibility of that.
“I know that Hope is my niece. There are pictures of her all over the house, diary entries, videos of her growing up. I also know that neither I nor my sister remember her, so you better start talking little witch.”
“Well...” Lizzie cleared her throat, this was harder than she thought it was going to be. “I don’t really... I have dreams about her. About Hope. They’re, well... they’re kind of not from this reality. And no one else remembers her at school. But there are too many things that don’t add up, and I started having those dreams and I just thought... Well, I’m pretty sure Hope is the answer to those questions, so I came here because I was hoping you might know something else...”
Lizzie shifted from one foot to another, her heart racing. Rebekah’s face was inscrutable as she studied the young witch, trying to see what angle she was playing. The vampire could hear the girl’s heart beating frantically, and decided that if she did have some agenda beyond finding out about Hope her and Freya could handle it.
“All-right little witch, you better come in and tell all of that to Freya and Keelin. And spare no detail.”
Rebekah turned around and made her way towards the door of the house they were stood in front of. Once she was halfway through the door, she looked over her shoulder at the witch, who was stood stock still on the pavement, looking unsure.
“Well, little witch, are you coming in to talk about that niece of mine that you are somehow the only one to remember?”