Chapter Text
You were alone, left out in the cold
Clinging to the ruin of your broken home
Too lost and hurting to carry your load
We all need someone to holdYou've been fighting the memory, all on your own
Nothing worsens, nothing grows
I know how it feels being by yourself in the rain
We all need someone to stay
-Someone to Stay, Vancouver Sleep Clinic
Penelope Park doesn’t know when she really started to care or even fall in love with the succession of giving her heart. All she remembered was it was supposed to be a sort of distraction. Her ultimate mission in Salvatore is primarily tied to her family coven and relations. Nothing more, to be honest, an institution like this makes her skin crawls. As someone who had the freedom to be anywhere for the past decade due to being homeschooled. The prospect of staying inside the same space for the incoming years activates her flight response.
If it isn't for the extensive discipline that her coven instilled in her, maybe her rebellious streak would have dripped out to neglect her coven responsibilities. But alas, Penelope Park is nothing more but an emotionless accepting machine when it comes to her witch duties. Damn her level-headedness and upbringing, them knowing how to rile her up and by rile, challenging her with an almost impossible task. It might have had to do due to the fact that growing up being too alienated by her siblings, and her father, her prodigious magical ability has been a refuge for her. Something she’ll forever have despite everything, something she knew she’ll forever have. Until she realized her power is nothing compared to the possibility of losing the person she loved most. Now, funny how life really does suck.
God, to clear it all out, besides the whole practiced compartmentalization she’s nothing but a damaged teen trying to breathe outside her coven influence. At least here in Salvatore, so her primary mission has been reduced into a side hustle to please her coven. Her main mission, however, is to took over the whole school, a way for her to have some sort of control. Maybe Archimedes Valentin Park would be proud once she thrives here, encompassing her darling of a daughter Panthea Anatolia Park.
Thinking about the mixed emotions she had over her father's actions causes her to grit her molars. It has been three years since her father's descent to his doomed but somewhere inside her. She craved some sort of validation. A recognition that she’s deserving to be the Park’s legacy bearer for the Circle of the Divine Twilight but even on his last days, the Park patriarch is nothing but a cold entity who keeps on scolding her, questioning and undermining her decisions.
“It’s just your father’s way of showing he cares…” her mother's soothing yet steady voice cajoled her, it has been like that ever since. That the only parental warmth she experienced came from her mother. Aurora Park was an angel sent of a parent if she wasn’t too absorbed in the family business, still, she was glad to have her mother on her side, she even secretly loved the fussing. Her mother's job brought forth a whole experience of traveling around the world, accompanied by Stella, sometimes by aunt Pan and Lillian (the first two being her coven tutor and the latter her security, who randomly taught her self-defense) on her mother business endeavor on the art world.
Her rampant thought about her family came to a halt when she saw her.
Josette Olivia Saltzman. Josie. Jo-Jo. Her light in the darkest of night. Okay, that’s too cheesy, even for her but the girl really does brighten her day or night. Whichever.
Until she remembered that she’s been avoiding the girl since the aftermath of the Wickery incident.
Cold grips tightly on her spine as she remembered the last night incident.
Hope had laughed on her face in her predicament days ago and she wanted to drown the tribrid for some time now. What such luck she had to have Hope around in a game of spin the bottle while her sister is also present.
Instead of grabbing lunch, she turned back to her room. She pulled her phone out of her uniform pocket.
calling one of my unnecessary huge
amount of winning favor, red.
What is it, Penelope?
Make it quick, I’m in the middle
of choosing between
steaming beef stroganoff and
good old porterhouse steak
lunch delivered to my room, thanks
you could’ve asked your girls for that.
i saw you in the dining hall. i’m hungry
o, and you saw josie, she’s looking around
for you, you dumbass
exactly why i’m eating in my room
you’re an idiot. what do you want?
what have chef Noel cooked up?
aside from very western cuisine
there’s spicy beef rendang you’ve been
asking for weeks from him.
great, a rice bowl of that, and
coconut water
K
Somehow she’s glad Hope doesn’t push. It’s why they worked. A sort of respect has been established between them despite the thrashy banter that they played outside, after all, it was just for kicks and they never really poke on too personal matters. A sort of entertainment for their classes because Hope somehow became her rival after too many challenging looks in the subjects they shared. She even knew it had become a source of betting pool her ass of a cousin pulled. However, it had been a year since she started the con she perfectly pulled on roping Hope Mikaelson to hang out in her room. A sly play on her part to subject the girl on a battle of chess and earning an hour of hanging out and a favor to do whatever bidding on whoever wins on their game, in the end, the tribrid figured out that she got set up after losing so badly.
“What happened again that you’re avoiding Josie like the plague? I mean, aside from the spin the bottle. I feel like I’m missing something.”
Penelope whipped her head to her door, she’s lying on her back staring aimlessly at the wooden cracks in the ceiling. There stood an auburn-haired girl balancing a tray filled with plates and drinks. She pushes herself up and out of her bed. Meeting the girl on her couch, her sitting while Hope put the tray down in the middle of the refectory stained glass table, before sitting on the floor.
“Who says I’m avoiding her.”
“I got you on my messages, Park.”
“Nothing, everything is cool, yeah, cool.”
“Yeah, and you’re speaking nerd.”
“I— wow, Mikaelson, between the two of us, you’re the biggest nerd, you just shield it with the whole loner and angst-filled aura but underneath.”
“Shut up, just tell me why your royal highness is not gracing the tables of the ‘it’ cliques downstairs?” She huffs, knowing how inescapable her situation now, preferring to escape but couldn’t do so instead she bid her time to think as she grabs her bowl and a spoon, “and don’t try to say it wasn’t because of Josie because I’m tired of your denial ass. I told you just asked her. She’s been laying it down on you ever…”
“I— okay, I might have gone overboard last night, something went down. Josie got hurt, Jed was responsible I lost control. I was mad and now I don’t have a face to really explained what happened.”
“Is this about the Wickery?”
“Yes, stupid Thea visiting the school Friday night just to mess my Saturday by accepting her dare to join her stupid Wickery game. I mean she’s supposed to be in uni, right, I swear to god all she does is make my life miserable.”
Hope laughed at her, great, her friend laughed at her. Stupid. Fucking. Feelings. She never really thought it would come to this, but here it is, it’s happening. The first time she saw her, it was clear genuine entertainment and curiosity but now whenever her mind drifts off to the taller brunette with one smallest waist possible, the innocent chocolate brown orbs, and pouty lips dressed like the good girl that she’s not; makes her heart flutter in ways she never knew is possible.
“Pen, I don’t know about you but I know you’re crazy about the girl… and I’m tired of witnessing the sexual tension so high-strung whenever you two are in the same room. Maybe it’s time you finally act and accept the fact that you like Josie.” Hope’s tone is serious, something rare between them. Yeah, Penelope Park and Hope Mikaelson hang on the daily but mostly it revolves around their classes together, witchcraft—whenever Hope needed another witch so she doesn’t lose control while she performed a complicated spell Penelope have been her go-to—, chess and her regaling the play by play of any dumbassery that she witnessed outside. It was not usual for them to talked deeply, it could have been counted on her two hands the times they got too real with each other. Between them, she’s the usual one who jabs on Hope’s skittish behavior about her loner exterior. If it hadn’t for the fact that she pledged Hope in OBR their friendship wouldn’t really tighten.
Hope’s advice rung inside her head as she kept quiet and focused on her meal. Mostly getting lost on the thought of the times she almost crossed the line on the headmaster’s brunette daughter.
“I’m not sure I’m built to fall in love.” a laced of insecurity is readable in her voice. She set the half-eaten bowl of beef rendang on the coffee table in front of her.
There is a beat of silence before Hope spoke.
“Same,” a small grin spread her face as she threw a look on her side. Hope is halfway on her steak, and mid-stiffen on slicing the beef.
“Right, like think about it. We’re mess-up overachievers in here. What have we had to offer for someone like Josie Saltzman? I’ll be another mess for her to fix, and I don’t even need to be fixed but Josie— Josie is a fixer. She already thinks I’m too messed up. Not that I am but I’m far more functioning kind of mess… but still a mess and she’ll try to fix it and she’ll get hurt once she realized I couldn’t be fixed.” she rants. The amount of time she spent with the brunette was growing rapidly to greater numbers compared to last year. Though it usually involved mentoring the younger siphoner now it ends up on her occasionally letting her wall down and she could see how much the other girl is itching to save her or something. Josie is someone who will go on a huge lecture on why it’s bad to smoke marijuana every time they see each other. Or why she should stop drinking, or the times Josie lectured her about pulling a prank on Alaric Saltzman. The last one, she barely minds. The guy constantly had it coming.
“Peez, you created Terra Mater for her. Please. You’re enough. You’ve gone to great lengths teaching her spells that are not allowed here because Dr. Saltzman is too restricting to supernaturals on reaching their full potential. You’ve been hedging her to be a part of OBR, and don’t deny it. The circle meeting with the magi were you going off and backing her to be a part of the guild since she’s an upcoming freshman. Do you even want me to remind you about two months ago? Telling her to take as much from you while she got transported to the arena for the trial.”
She looked down on her half-eaten food. Hope wasn’t lying but at the same time. Hope wasn’t even aware of all the things she really does inside this school. Even then she knew Hope will be wary of her once some wrong move was made, trust shattering. Good thing she really is good at playing the field. Disgusting, really, but she’s built for this.
It’s another reminder that whatever she developed for the four years stay here, matter it be platonic or romantic, will crash and burn. She sighed. Forcing herself to finished her food before drinking the glass of coconut water without much thinking. Picking herself up, she went to one of her wall shelves where her relaxing weed stash is located. Getting one of her already rolled joints and opening her window to at least let out the smoke while she sealed the door area with a spell.
“You’re just gonna smoke your Saltzman situation away?”
“Hope, I like you but If you don’t— I really not in the mood to be bothered to make a move.”
“Why? You like her, honestly, you liked her since you came here that fall of 2027. I mean I might have been a loner but I’m definitely not blind. It’s been what, December 2028. You’re wasting so much time and for what?” she was a mid drag when Hope adds, “Or maybe you’re afraid that maybe she’s it.” This earned her to looked like an amateur smoker on how bad she coughs upon hearing that.
She almost didn’t get the words out. “God, I could practically kill you for that.” her eyes red from tears as she lunges for her water in her mini-fridge. Making the burning of her chest stops as she breathes deeply before chugging some of the water.
Deep inside her, she knew something snaps. Hearing the words that she’s too afraid to acknowledge. A faraway conversation with her aunt Astra came rushing back in the forefront of her mind
“Auntie, why aren’t you married…” it was Penelope’s curiosity of a five-year-old that opened that topic. Her aunt was then still a High Witch on their coven but an elder already for the Park family. It occurred to her as she got dragged to one of the schools in Seattle where her Aunt’s oldest son, Xavier and Pax is studying. It was family day and aunt Astra behind her busy schedule try to be present in her boys' life. Her being baby-sat by the scientist has something to do with her father being away in Tokyo for business and it just coincides that her mother has longer trips in Africa which required her to stay put with one of her aunts.
“We Park only falls in love, once, Penelope. Always remember that.”
“What does fall in love means?”
“It’s about this kind of pull you’ll feel when you met your person. It’s the feeling of strong attachment, making them your world, random things remind you of them, and that feeling that you just want to lie beside each other forever. Seeing them happy fills us up with indescribable happiness and when they are hurting the pain we feel is much more like we couldn’t take it, our heart wouldn’t. We Parks are tied to that, so remember, if you ever really fall in love, hold unto it tight and never let it go because it would be miserable if you end up losing your person.” there’s a faraway looked on her aunt.
Back then Penelope doesn’t understand the wistful looked that her aunt shared with her until she grew a little up. Learning that aunt Astra’s long-time boyfriend died from a car accident while her aunt was in labor with Paxon.
Mitchell Andrea Hughes was her aunt Astra’s long-time boyfriend, and a human. They met when she was in MIT and it was a huge commotion to the Park family who never accepts anyone to the family except if you are of witch descent. Her aunt so ready to disavow the family until it was her grandmother who begged for the two, still, Archibald Vernon Park Sr. was a tyrant of a father.
Her grandfather was so opposed to the relationship that the accident whispered foul play but was never cleared. To this day she couldn’t believe that her aunt remained loyal to the family, though, she was sure the anger was there but who to blame anymore. When the old fart died two years ago, she hadn’t seen her aunt attend the funeral lest visit the family mausoleum.
“You alright, Pen?”
She moved near her bed, trying to wrap her head about the bomb that Hope dropped on her as she thought of her aunt’s tragic love story, not to add her aunt Pan have been lovelorn. God, it was pathetic.
Trickle the theory back to her situation. It’s now creeping on her, silently holding her on the spot with a vice-like grip while the walls try to close on her.
Does she feel like Josie is it?
Is it really possible?
Maybe it’s just the same as what she felt from An?
Like it was fascination and admiration, right?
It could, right?
It plays on her head, ruminating oblivion she wanted to escape but couldn’t that even her relaxing weed has been rendered helpless on making her brain synapses to slow down.
She stared at Hope, a concerned looked was plastered on the tribrid face.
Damnit.
Her OCD is picking up and she couldn’t even stop herself because this is new territory. She knew she’s spiraling but she couldn’t really stop that all she could pull out was, “I don’t think so…” she muttered, that if it wasn’t for Hope’s werewolf keen senses, she wouldn’t hear her.
Hope is quick to leave her plate and sat on the edge of her bed.
“What’s wrong…?”
Why is she fucking crying? Really, in front of the tribrid? Not that she doesn’t like to look vulnerable, she caught herself being vulnerable to the tribrid but this is the first time tears are streaming down her face. How pathetic is that? She just realized something. Isn’t she supposed to celebrate when things like this happened? But she— this— the flirting? How stupid of her that she falls for the flustered look, the affection thrown at her when there’s a sea of students around here throwing themselves at her.
“What if I’m really in love with Josie… Hope! I couldn’t!”
“Okay, calm down, you’re the only person who I know has a different reaction once they figured out they like someone.”
“I couldn’t like Josie, I—“
“Okay, you’re freaking out. Is this really the first time you really like someone, cause damn, Park…” Hope was smiling at her but Penelope grimaced, “I’m telling you is not that bad, I mean looking at my rap sheet, you liking Josie is far safer over my only romantic dalliance. Kinda traumatic, if I’m being honest and he’s my first kiss when he was plotting and signing my family’s death warrants. That’s how bad it was.” Hope has a sheepish chuckle displayed in front of her, while her mind still dances on the idea of the talk she had when she was younger melding to the moments she spent with the brunette. Paying no mind on the way Hope rambled about teenage love and her crushes because goddamnit. Penelope Park doesn’t do teenage love unless it’s for show.
It’s hitting her like a block of rocks coming from the steep hillside while she lay unmovable on her spot.
Waiting for the ponderosity of what it all meant.
She admits if Josie was it. It’s not really that bad but it also meant she couldn’t mess it up. She can even acknowledge she liked the girl the first time she laid eyes on her. She much enjoyed her company even though half the time they end up bickering because Josie has the huge ‘no, Penelope’ personality when it comes to things she does but it became too endearing, now, she even loves flustering the other girl to no end.
“Hope! shit! We had a paper to write later for the Elemental class we had. You need to be our buffer!” Penelope suddenly snaps out of her dazed musing. Hope has a bewildered look of no way.
“I thought we’re keeping this friendship under-wraps?”
“Josie knew we hang out, she asked about you sometimes.”
There’s an unreadable expression from Hope. Then it cracks. She knew she’s fucked. Way to go about keeping your high wall when she pathetically brings it all down for Josie Saltzman without even knowing it.
“Well, no, figure your shit out and talk to Josie, or maybe tell me the real reason why you needed a buffer?”
“You don’t understand…”
There is a devastating truth riding on this, through the times she spent with the siphoner. Without realizing it she already gave her heart and once it all comes crashing down. Penelope would need more than a call from heaven to help herself wrapped her head around it. God, she basically needs at least months to wrap her head on it.
“Try to make me, Park, and stop being overdramatic… if you like her go for it. I know I told you off last year but we weren’t really friends that time and now I get to know you and you’re decent and actually great at pulling Josie out of her shell, so why not give it a try.”
If it was just that easy. Hope Andrea Mikaelson, but you don’t understand. This talk about forever, and I’m a mess. Between the two of us, you’ve been the one who has been too honest to me about your trauma not that we really talk about it but you slipped it out but you don’t know the depth of my suffering, it was always glossed over.
Instead of speaking up her mind, she put the joint between her lips, taking a deep drag and letting the smoke spread through every part of her lungs before releasing it out.
She pushes the tears away using the back of her hand, clearing her throat she looked at Hope, mustering all the stoic bone inside her.
“Never mind. I’ll deal with it.”
“Come on, P! What? You just gonna act like that you’re not internally having a meltdown right now?”
“It’s— it’s complicated. I have priorities?”
“Don’t we all?”
“I witnessed my parent loved each other too much but I also saw them hurting too much because of that love.” she closed her eyes, not sure how to explain her predicament.
“You’re not making any sense, P.”
“My father is under a magical coma for three years now… Our healers said that his soul is not on his body and for two years that I stayed by my mother's side I saw how much she’s hurting. I promised myself even though I hated him most of my life that I’ll try to get him back because I couldn’t look at my mother’s eye and see how dull it became even though she tries to mask it in front of us. Why do you think I obsessed about my magical limits too much. You’re not the only one who blames bad stuff on themselves Hope, and, loving someone, or even thinking of being with someone, having the kind of happiness that my mother was robbed of because the love of her life lay still on our family sanctum. I don’t deserve it because I feel like I was the cause of it all.”
Penelope broke down after that, thankfully Hope holds her in her arms. She couldn’t continue. Couldn’t really let out all the pain constricting her heart like a thorny vine. She couldn’t tell the fact that the man she hated all her life put distance between them because he was scared of her future. How her father's journey to the afterlife was driven by the love he had for her to stop accepting a prophesy and now her mother suffers the affliction of living life like an emotionless mother who has five children to think and raise.
***
Hope helped her afterward. She doesn’t question her anymore and she was canceling on Josie and consequently dodging the girl every damn time. Since that December and honestly, it was great that Mr. Furke was a personal mentor. He doesn’t really list her absences before Christmas break, he does however meet with her one time in the library and told her off to fix whatever problems she’s dealing with for her to missed his class.
After almost two weeks of hiding and giving Josie the cold shoulder, in just a few hours a car will pick her up, a sign of her winter break starting. Before that, she makes sure that all the spell she needed to cast inside her room is all done to make sure that when she went back that it would stay in its pristine look. She was clutching her backpack and thinking of what to put when Hope Mikaelson entered from her bathroom door.
Penelope quirks her brow, questioning the auburn-haired girl.
“I gave you time to fix your shit, P. But it’s been weeks… When you return, deal with it, okay? I couldn’t make excuses to Josie anymore. She acts like she doesn’t care but the girl was hurting from your actions. You sent Jas to your usual spell casting study date, you sent Bri your research on the one class you had together and she’s losing it. She doesn’t understand why you pulled away.”
She grabs her leather-bound sketchpad and her roll case, busying herself on putting it on her backpack instead of dealing with Hope’s words.
“I will, you sure you’re not going home to New Orleans? I could ask the pilot to drop you off at Louis Armstrong, we still have a few hours, before I go to France and meet my grandparents.”
“No, I’m not dealing with you and Jed inside a flying tin can. Aunt Bex pulled a family meeting that today holidays will be spent in Dad’s house here in Mystic Falls. I need to fix the place, aunt Freya and Keelin are flying tomorrow. At least I need to get one of the rooms ready and baby-proof it. Even the west coasters are flying here.”
“Well, good luck. I’m so glad we don’t really do Christmas.” Penelope grin as she saw how Hope grimaced. The tribrid hated this particular holiday despite her love for her family.
***
Penelope was waiting in the portico for the car that would take her and Jed to the private airstrip near Mystic Falls when her cousin pulls out beside her. She was in the middle of choosing a song and putting her headphones in. She huffed in annoyance, she visited the guy after their altercation but it was more threatening his lizard brain cousin about his actions can cause on other people.
“P!” she stared at the tall neanderthal next to her, she rolled her eyes.
“Don’t talk to me, Jedidiah.”
“Oh, come on…”
“I still don’t forgive you, stop being an ass.” she rolled her eyes. Sometimes she hated her life, why did she even get stuck with the magically challenged werewolf cousin.
“I tried making it up to Josie,”
“Don’t care,” Jed has studied in Salvatore since he was a kid, he was just really bad at magic but what to expect her grandfather family on the mother side barely have enough magical abilities when it came to men compared to the women in their line, then two years ago the slope incident happened.
“P,” a heavily tinted Maybach pulled over, she grabs the strap of her backpack as she shifted her weight, waiting for a tall blonde to get out from the driver seat and open her door.
“I’m not sharing the backseat with you,” she whispered angrily at the wolf as she put her headphones on and smiled at Lillian who opened her door. “He’s not riding on the back with me.” A confused look was thrown at her but she shrugs it off.
She reclined the flushed cream leather a little then took out her drawing pad and her drawing kit case as the beat of rock music filled her ears. Penelope loved to draw, it’s another form of therapy for her, it makes her mind focus on one image in her mind as she works on the layering, picturing the casting of light, and now she found herself drawing the riverbank near her home in Ravenwood.
She was busy outlining and working on the depth of the surrounding making sure the trees on the other side of the riverbank is set when the car pull over to the private airstrip. She closed her leather-bound sketchpad and rolling her leather kit case. They’ve met with the customs agent right through the hangar, it wasn’t tedious, between her and Jed she’s not hauling anything, giving her passport and id’s that the security check needed then she’s inside and going back to her previous endeavor. She usually travels light. A backpack where she could put the utmost necessities, a few books she’d like to read again, her sketchbook materials, her laptop, and chargers. She doesn’t mind not bringing clothes as most of the time she had her wardrobe prepared by Lillian in advance.
“Is ma coming to the trip?”
She inquired, the only reason she’s flying to Europe was because of her mother’s family and somewhat because of her dad. Colmar has been a haven for her father in his teenage years when he was cast out of the family. It was then that her mother and father met again and why he bought a vineyard just in the outskirt of Colmar, nearer the Volges when they got married and when her father step-in into the family business, establishing an agrobiology research center for Ethuil Pharmaceutical.
“Madam Aurora and Lady Pan were asked by Lady Astra to attend the company, Christmas Gala. You knew they needed to front that they cared about human traditions.” she nods, understanding the constraint of how to live as a Park and how it extends to her mother’s duty. “Your grandfather however is available, he went back to London as quick as he wrapped his business in Washington and will be down the vineyard by nightfall.”
Penelope nods, accepting her fate that her winter break will revolve around coven responsibility and be entertained by her grandfather from time to time. Her grandmother was handling the business left to her in London with the help of Jed’s father, uncle Jordan. While his grandfather who longed retired from his diplomatic work still get roped once in a while to the politics inside Washington, aside from that he occasional speak around universities where foreign relation students studies, but the old man mostly spent his day reading, playing chess, or Surakarta or accompanying her grandmother.
Her grandfather despite his lineage of being a witch never really practice or interested in it due to the fact that he was a man and their power were far minuscule when they try to practice compared to the women in the family, hence Jed poor magical ability, though she thinks he really wanted to be one and it frustrates the wolf to no end being the only child and not being able to be one when he grew up surrounded by witches.