Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

MG leaves Josie lying on a bench. 

She’s in a state where she really shouldn’t be alone. She can’t be trusted to look after herself (even more so than usual).

She stays still for a while, splayed out on her back, lost in her thoughts. Eventually she sits up, but the process is slow. She forgets what she’s doing a couple times along the way. When she’s finally vertical, she pauses to ask herself why she wanted to be vertical in the first place.

She just sits there and stares blankly into space for a while longer. 

Time is moving strangely. Later—minutes (or maybe hours) later—she finds herself in the woods.

She can’t really remember how she got there. 

She’s lost, maybe. But being lost would sort of require her to have some awareness of her surroundings, which she definitely doesn’t have. 

She’d feel just as lost in the comfort of her own bedroom with the state she’s in, so she isn’t bothered by it. She doesn’t really have the capacity to reflect on it, if she’s honest.

She’s busy reflecting on other things. 

She’s thinking, thinking, thinking—it’s way worse than usual. It’s inescapable this time. Her thoughts are heavier and more demanding and ready to just spill off of her tongue at the slightest provocation.

She’s glad she’s alone.

Because there’s a lot of things she doesn’t want to let slip—things she needs to keep secret. She has a lot of secrets, all of which she usually tries to avoid thinking about altogether.

They’re all she can seem to think about now. 

She blames the weed.

She almost told all of her secrets to MG, which she knows somewhere deep down should terrify her. She’s been putting in a lot of effort to keep them to herself lately for a reason—(a reason she can’t quite remember at the moment). 

All she knows is that it’s pretty important to keep certain things hidden from certain people—well, a specific person, really.

She’s been dodging that specific person. Because it’s hard for her not to give herself away, even when she’s not all fucked up on truth-weed. 

Josie’s pretty sure that Hope has been dodging her back. 

It should make things easier on her, but it just makes everything feel decidedly worse.

Still, it does mean that Hope is easier to avoid. Hope doesn’t come chasing after her when she runs away anymore. 

Josie still finds herself paranoid about it, though, thinking that Hope will corner her at any moment if they’re within a mile radius. 

Maybe that’s why Josie’s wandering around deep in the woods. She’s running away aimlessly again, praying that Hope won’t find her. 

“Josie?”

Josie’s prayers go unanswered, apparently. She spins around. The world takes a moment to catch up with her—it blurs and lags behind.

Hope’s there, pretty as ever. 

She looks confused. Her brow’s furrowed, and she’s sporting a little frown.

“What are you doing in the woods?” Hope asks, her confused frown deepening.

“Avoiding you,” Josie replies without a moment’s hesitation.

Hope tenses like she’s been tased or something. 

Some part of Josie knows that she should be more concerned about what she’s just revealed. But the reason for that is just out of reach somewhere in her brain. Before she can find it, she forgets what she’s said altogether.

She feels pretty out of it. She’s doing the mental equivalent of stumbling around in the dark, really—her vision’s bouncing around a little and everything’s foggy at the edges.

Things always get a little foggy at the edges when she’s looking at Hope, though.

“What is going on?” 

Josie gets confused for a moment, because it’s not Hope speaking. She wonders if it might be her own voice, but then she registers that whoever said it has an accent.

The reaction’s a bit delayed, but Josie’s eyes bounce from left to right. They finally settle on someone over Hope’s shoulder—someone Josie really should’ve noticed before. She probably would’ve if she was in her right mind.

Josie sees her now, anyway. “You’re pretty,” she blurts out instantly.

The girl frowns ever-so-slightly and cocks her head to the side, her eyes narrowing.

Josie knows that look very well. She’s just not used to being on the receiving end of it. 

Something about this new person seems absurdly familiar, actually. The way she’s staring at Josie like she’s trying to read her; the way she’s wearing an outfit that Josie’s pretty sure she has in her own closet. 

“Are you my replacement?” Josie blurts out.

It’s a question that should probably be said spitefully, but it rolls off of Josie’s tongue innocently enough. 

She’s just curious. 

The drug honestly doesn’t leave her with room for the critical thinking that would be needed to produce spite. 

“What?” Hope breathes after a tense pause. She looks thoroughly shocked—almost horrified.

Josie giggles. 

She can’t help it. 

She really can’t help it, and she can’t remember why she’d otherwise stop herself.

Hope has always been a little dim in the friendship department—but, really, it seems absurd to Josie that Hope would be surprised.

The mysterious girl clears her throat, and Josie’s eyes dart over to her again like she’s been startled.

Mystery girl glances at Josie before she speaks. “Hope, who is this?” she asks. She looks confused—but more awkward than anything else.

Josie gets the vibe that she’s too intuitive to get confused easily.

Josie cocks her head to the side curiously, her eyes drifting back over to Hope, even though her vision lags a little behind again. “You haven’t even mentioned me?” she asks, her voice distant and cloudy like she’s halfway in a dream. “Makes sense.”

Hope is tenser than Josie’s ever seen her, now—and that’s saying something. “Josie, I—”

“Don’t feel bad,” Josie cuts her off, dead serious. “I’m trying to replace you, too.”

Everything goes still and silent for a long while—still, silent, and incredibly awkward. Hope looks like she’s just been punched. 

The mystery person who Hope has yet to introduce looks like she feels like she's intruding or something. “I should give you two some privacy,” she says slowly, backing away a few steps.

Josie thinks the girl’s voice sounds a lot more confident—a lot more self-assured than her own. She wonders if this girl might be the better version of herself.

The girl spins around to walk back where they’d come from.

Hope doesn’t even attempt to stop her. She’s still stunned into silence, staring at Josie blankly.

If Hope’s waiting for her to speak, Josie doesn’t notice. She gets distracted by a leaf as it falls.

It falls slowly, floating through the air with grace—but then it hits the ground, and it’s still.

Josie wants to cry.

Hope clears her throat, crossing her arms over her chest. “What do you mean you’re trying to replace me?” she asks.

Everything about Hope screams defensive, which Josie would usually notice. Usually, Josie would quiet down and construct her sentences carefully. She’d withdraw into herself, or maybe even try to leave.

But right now, Josie’s all fucked up. The thought of tailoring what she says to Hope’s reaction doesn’t even cross her mind. She might as well be talking to the leaf. “I met a girl,” she says, her words slurring together a bit. “She’s bad for me. Bad in general, really. But I need to date her.”

Hope doesn’t reply for a minute. She’s a little pale, in a weird way, Josie notices. 

She’s still gorgeous, though.

Hope swallows thickly, shifting on her feet. “I don’t get what that has to do with me,” she admits, point-blank.

“It has everything to do with you,” Josie replies with a clumsy shrug. “Everything has to do with you.”

Josie pauses, stares off into space and awkwardly nods to herself, agreeing with her own statement as if she wasn’t the one who said it. 

Hope falls silent. Her brow furrows. She’s obviously confused.

When Josie looks at Hope again, she finds that expression extremely frustrating. How dare Hope be confused. “You’re in my head,” Josie mutters, almost like she’s talking to herself. “You escaped, but you’re still in there.”

Hope shakes her head. “You’re not making sense,” she replies, breaking eye contact. Her voice wavers a bit.

Josie laughs. It’s an uninhibited, self-deprecating laugh. “I know.”

Her tone is harsh. It’s angry and inflamed, exploding out of her like a bursting pressure bomb. 

Maybe she does have the capacity for spite, after all. 

Toward herself. Not toward Hope.

Hope’s defensiveness melts away just a little bit. She looks more concerned than anything else, now. “Hey, what’s going on?” she prompts gently, finally realizing that something must be wrong. “Are you okay, Jo?”

Josie can feel her eyes start to water.

Hope must see it, because her arms instinctively drop to her sides and she takes a step closer.

Josie jerks back like she’s been startled, almost tripping over her feet.

She kind of wishes she did trip—she’d much rather be on the ground, if she’s honest. She kind of wants to just lie down and stay still, like that leaf.

Hope freezes. Her eyes are wide (and a little hurt), and Josie can tell that she didn’t expect that—that she thought Josie still trusted her; that Josie would let her in.

That makes Josie mad. 

Of course Hope would expect Josie to act like nothing’s wrong between them.

Maybe Josie does have the capacity to spite Hope, it turns out.

“No, Hope,” Josie snaps. “I’m not fucking okay.”

Her voice comes out way angrier than she anticipated—and way angrier than Hope anticipated, as well, if the shocked look on the tribrid’s face is anything to go by.

Josie tries not to feel too satisfied.

“I…,” Hope trails off, clearly taken off guard. She clears her throat, visibly trying to regain her composure. Her voice is carefully measured when she speaks. “I don’t know why you’re angry.”

Josie scowls, her eyes somehow darkening despite the fact that they're glazed over. “I’m angry because you said you wouldn’t leave me behind and it was a lie,” she states.

Hope scoffs without a moment's hesitation. Her eyes narrow and she shifts on her feet, crossing her arms tightly over her chest again.

Josie realizes that she's successfully pissed Hope off.

“Are you serious?” Hope demands, in disbelief. “If anything, you’re the one who left me behind.”

Josie scoffs herself at that, rolling her eyes. “Only because I figured that you wouldn’t notice me gone,” she says darkly.

The conversation's spiraling into dangerous territory, but Josie can't remember why she should care.

“Of course I notice!” Hope practically shouts. She throws her arms up in the air, exasperated.

Hope has that fire in her eyes that always ignites whenever Josie pushes her buttons. Josie is a bit thrilled to see that she can still get this kind of reaction out of her, even though she knows she shouldn't be.

At least it means that she still has some kind of power over Hope—that she can evoke some kind of emotion in her (even if it's not the one that she wants).

Josie knows she should stop, now. She knows she should back off. 

The drug won't let her. “Could’ve fooled me,” she replies, matter of fact.

Hope's face falls.

It's as if Hope really didn't realize how much she'd let Josie believe their friendship was unimportant to her.

Josie practically feels her heart snap into pieces in her chest.

"I...," Hope trails off, and it's pretty obvious that she doesn't know what to say. Her voice sounds weaker when she speaks up again. "I’ve been going through a lot."

“So have I,” Josie says, but there's no bite to it.

It's just the truth.

Josie's not angry anymore. She's just sad, now.

She wishes Hope was avoiding her on purpose.

She wishes Hope was mad at her for something, even.

But it seems like the entire thing is taking Hope off guard. And that means that it hadn't even crossed her mind. 

Josie's hit by the weight of it—her own insignificance.

Hope's hit, too. Josie can see the guilt start to pool in her eyes. “You haven’t been seeking me out, either,” Hope says quietly—desperately.

Josie swallows thickly. Her throat's burning—literally burning, in a way she's never felt before.

It's hard to speak, but she has to. She can't stop now.

“You’re right,” Josie admits, her voice overwhelmed and fraying at the edges. There's a pause. A single tear rolls down her cheek. She curses herself for it, but she doesn't bother to wipe it away. She just lets it fall, helpless. “I haven’t."

Hope just kind of flounders at that, her mouth opening and closing because she doesn't know what to say. 

The silence drags out for far too long, and it's suffocating, so Josie breaks it. "Hope,” she whispers—and her voice cracks, and now she's really fucking crying. "I can't do this anymore."

The flood gates are open. Josie's crying—she couldn't hold it back if she tried—and she feels like a child.

And Hope's unnaturally pale, all of a sudden—pale as a ghost, really. She looks like she's about to pass out.

The air's so heavy. It's not just about the drug anymore. 

Hope sucks in a shaky breath. “Do what?” she breathes on the exhale, like she doesn't want to know the answer.

Hope's expression is some amalgam of guilt and shame and absolute misery, now.

Josie feels a pang of guilt. She just had to go and selfishly air out her feelings.

Josie can barely stomach the way Hope's looking at her. Some emotion's written all over her face—something powerful. Josie can't tell if it's empathy or just plain pity, but one of those options has the power to destroy her, so she stares intently at the ground.

Hope steps forward, but Josie doesn't jerk back this time.

She doesn't move at all, actually. She just keeps her head down and stays very still, even when Hope's suddenly all up in her personal space. She doesn't even have the energy to raise a hand and wipe the tears off her face, so she's grateful when Hope reaches out and does it for her.

It's futile, though. They just keep coming. 

"Do what, Josie?" Hope asks again, and her voice is a little steadier this time around—a little more insistent. 

Josie can hear the tone of desperation beneath it, though, and that's what really breaks her. 

Josie meets Hope's gaze, just to find the tribrid crying a little herself.

Josie's lip trembles, and before she knows it she practically collapses in on herself, falling to her knees. She finds it in her to cover her face with her hands, but then she's sobbing uncontrollably.

Hope doesn't hesitate. She follows as Josie falls, kneeling in front of her and wrapping her up in a hug to support her.

Josie appreciates it. It's the only thing that stops her from curling up in the fetal position on the forest floor, if she's honest.

She already feels painfully ashamed of letting Hope see her like this. She doesn't think she can even blame the truth weed for it.

It's as if all of these emotions had been tucked away neatly in a pressure cooker, but Hope came along and poked a hole in it. 

Hope's smart—she can read between the lines, and she absolutely knows what's going on. "Josie, please," she whispers frantically, her voice thick and raspy like she's the one who's been crying. "Jo, I—I didn't mean to, I swear—I didn't know you... I'm so sorry. I didn't know you felt this way about me."

That makes it worse.

Hope pulls Josie close to her chest and rubs tiny circles into the muscles of her back, though, and that makes her feel just a tiny bit better.

At least Hope isn't repulsed by her now. 

Josie tries to focus on those circles, because she really needs to ground herself and get her shit together. She's having a full on breakdown over something that shouldn't be a big deal to her—something that wouldn't be a big deal to her if she hadn't been desperately in love with Hope Mikaelson for months.

For a while, she can't really speak and just tries to get her sobbing under control. Hope doesn't let her go the whole time, and she starts whispering little phrases into Josie's ear at some point—it's okay, let it out.

Josie doesn't want to let it out.

Josie wants to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible.

So, she cracks down on it. It takes her a few minutes, but she packs it all away again. She stops sobbing. "It's not your fault," she whispers between shaky breaths, and it's the truth.

There's a moment of stillness, but then Josie's rising to her feet. 

Hope seems a little startled by it.

Josie understands why. There was a moment there where Josie thought she'd never stop sobbing.

All of a sudden, she's fine.

(Or, well, she looks fine.)

She wipes at her eyes with a sleeve.

It's almost casual.

Hope rises to her feet. She's still pale. She looks extremely concerned, and slightly confused. 

Josie knows because she spares her a single glance.

Then, Josie spins on her heel and starts to walk away.

Hope makes a weird, panicked noise. She clears her throat. "Josie, wait!" she calls out, stepping forward. "Don't walk away from this—"

Josie halts in her tracks but doesn't turn back around. "From what?" she calls over her shoulder.

She gives Hope a good fifteen seconds to answer, but Hope clearly doesn't know what to say.

"I have to go," Josie says, starting to walk again as if nothing happened. "I have a date."

Chapter Text

Finch forgives her.

It’s a close call, really. Josie practically has to beg.

Finch is hurt, and she has a right to be—Josie stood her up. Josie was the one who made a move and asked her to meet up at lunch and then promptly fell off the face of the earth.

Finch is so hurt that she doesn’t seem to want to give Josie a chance to explain herself, at first. 

Josie can’t really tell if it’s disproportionate. She’s still upset and panicky herself (for other reasons), and she still feels a bit off from the truth weed (even if its effect has weakened).

Josie practically flounders and rambles, but, apparently, she seems distressed enough to reassure Finch that their potential means something to her. She can breathe again when she gets on the back of Finch’s moped, even if something’s still burning a bit at the back of her throat.

She’s used to the feeling, at this point—the feeling that she has something to say but can’t say it. Her drug-induced outburst didn’t do much to make it better. 

She feels lighter at first, like a weight’s been taken off her chest, but that wears off quickly and she’s left with dread.

When she gets back home, she heads straight for her room. 

If she moves a little quicker when she passes by Hope’s door, no one has to know about it.

Josie fully intends to pretend that nothing happened. 

She can’t remember what she said to Hope that clearly, anyway. 

And she barely sees Hope at all anymore. It shouldn’t be too hard.

Resolving to ignore it doesn’t stop her from ruminating. She goes over and over the scene in her head, trying to map out what exactly she said to no avail.

But, at school a couple days later, everything's back to normal. 

She’s leaning against a locker, staring into Finch’s eyes, and it’s nice. They’re bantering about stupid, human things like minigolf, and there’s not a monster in sight. 

It’s normal.

Josie feels a bit giddy, and her vision’s a bit clouded around the edges. She can feel herself blushing when Finch flirts with her.

She hasn’t felt anything like this since—

She doesn’t even want to think about that, so she shuts it down. 

It’s much easier to do at Mystic Falls High. 

At the Salvatore School, there’s reminders everywhere. 

At the Salvatore School, it’s like she’s haunted.

Here, she’s free of it. No one knows who she is, except for herself. She gets to reinvent herself. It’s lighthearted and simple, and she doesn’t feel as suffocated by the things she can’t say—not yet, anyway.

It’s easy to convince herself that she’s not a witch. It’s easy to convince herself that she hasn’t made mistakes.

It’s easy to just stare into Finch’s eyes and smile and blush and let Finch tease her about being a good girl who’s never taken a step on the “wild side.”

She hopes that Finch never finds out how wrong she is.

It’s plausible here, that she won’t. Finch can’t exactly find out about Josie’s black magic rampage without finding out about the whole supernatural world, which is a closely guarded secret. 

That’s the best case scenario, to Josie. If she were still at the Salvatore School, any new student would find out that she was half the reason that no one felt safe there anymore before the end of their first day.

Josie’s lucky that she can just store away her magic and be a normal person on command.

She wishes she could store away all of her awareness of the supernatural world and all of her regrets, too. 

She can’t do that--not completely. But it’s easy to pretend when she’s surrounded by people who are ignorant to it themselves.

Finch teases Josie about her color-coordinated headband, as if Finch thinks she has the upper-hand. 

Josie allows it. She enjoys it. In the past, it might’ve made her magic froth at the mouth, but she doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. It’s off in a coin at the school somewhere, and it’s not going to bother her. 

She likes having someone look at her as if she’s sheltered and sweet and couldn’t hurt a fly. She lets herself believe that that’s who she is, for just a moment.

“Josie.”

Hope’s voice snaps her out of the trance she’s in, staring into Finch’s eyes. The flirty smile plummets right off of her face as she straightens. 

A bolt of energy flows through her when she takes in the sight of Hope, pretty as ever but obviously on a warpath. 

Hope isn’t supposed to be here. She’s like a bulldozer, slipping through the school doors and shattering Josie’s immersion in this fantasy. 

Josie feels the urge to run, but she stays perfectly still. She looks at Hope warily and waits for the whole world to shatter around her.

Finch turns and stares at Hope. “Who’s this?” she asks. 

Finch’s voice is already hostile, and Josie doesn’t know what to make of that. 

Hope spares Finch a single glance. It’s more of a death glare than anything else.

Josie doesn’t know what to make of that, either.

But then Hope’s eyes are back on Josie, and Josie couldn’t make anything of it if she tried.

Hope looks incredibly serious—driven and determined. Josie recognizes it. She knows the expression very well. Hope’s in the middle of a plan, dead set on the next step.

Josie’s heart seizes in her chest. “Hope,” she observes, trying to keep the shock out of her voice and stay neutral. “What are you doing here?”

Josie’s dreading the answer, whatever it may be. She assumes someone’s life’s on the line, with the way Hope’s looking at her.

Josie’s nervous.

But she’s always been decent at hiding how she truly feels. 

Or so she thought. Finch is giving her a weird look, now, so she’s not so sure about that anymore. Maybe she's not so decent at it when Hope's around.

“I need your help,” Hope says simply, her voice tight and restrained.

Josie’s back on earth. The high from talking to Finch is completely gone. The air’s crackling with tension now, and, for a long moment, Hope and Josie just stare at each other.

Josie’s face falls. She knows she’ll inevitably end up going with Hope now (wherever the tribrid wants to take her), even though she feels the look of betrayal Finch is already aiming at her.

Josie licks her lips. “Wait for me in the parking lot,” she orders simply.

Hope gives Finch another look before she goes. It’s even more scathing than the last.

It doesn’t help things. “What’s going on?” Finch demands, the moment Hope is out the door. “Who was that?”

Josie shifts on her feet, uncomfortably aware that Hope can probably still hear every word they’re saying. “That was Hope,” she answers.

Finch raises an eyebrow. “And who is she?” she deadpans. “To you?”

Josie hesitates. That probably doesn’t help things, either. “A friend,” she replies.  Her mouth feels dry, and it tastes like a lie.

Finch gives her a look. “A friend,” she echoes.

Josie doesn’t reply. 

“And what does your friend want?” Finch asks.

Finch seems angry. Josie doesn’t know why she’s already so angry, and Josie doesn’t know how to react. “I don’t know,” she replies after a moment. It’s totally honest, this time.

Finch scoffs. “But you’re still going to ditch,” she says, matter of fact. “And go with her, anyway.”

Josie swallows thickly, averting eye contact. “She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important,” she practically mumbles. She sounds exhausted, even to her own ears, like the situation has already managed to drain the life right out of her.

Finch crosses her arms over her chest defensively. “Is she your ex?” she demands.

Josie barely keeps herself from gasping aloud, her eyes darting back to Finch’s in shock. “No,” she hisses under her breath, as if she’s scandalized.

Finch stares at her, her jaw tense. That reaction doesn’t seem to have helped at all—she looks even more suspicious than before. “Well, who the hell is she, then?” she snaps. Something in her voice feels like an accusation. “Your dealer or something?”

Josie blinks. That wasn’t what she was expecting at all. It takes her a moment to respond. “No,” she says slowly.

Finch’s eyes narrow. “What does she want?” she demands. “Why would she make you ditch class?”

Josie doesn’t know the answer to that yet. She’s also fully aware that she probably couldn’t tell Finch even if she did know.

The question only serves to remind her that Hope is waiting in the parking lot, probably impatient and appearing very suspicious to passersby. 

“We can talk about this later,” Josie answers evasively, shoving a book into her locker and slamming it shut.

That's probably an even sketchier response than the last one, but Josie doesn’t have the energy to manage this.

She knows that whatever happens when she walks out of the school will drain her, too, and she can’t very well tell Finch that it’s most likely about the end of the world. She decides to deflect instead. “I have to go.”

Finch scoffs. “You’re really going to ditch the date we just planned and go off with this random chick who just showed up out of nowhere?”

Josie falters, because it sort of forces her to realize how all of this must look. 

“I’m sorry,” Josie mutters, bowing her head in shame. “We can reschedule.”

Finch lets out a dark chuckle, shaking her head. “No, we can’t,” she says. “Not if you can’t be honest with me.”

Finch storms off down the hall, and Josie knows that she should follow her if she wants this relationship to not fall apart before it even starts.

But she can’t leave Hope hanging in the parking lot. She highly doubts that Hope would come looking for her if it weren’t a matter of life and death, especially with how tense things have been between them.

She heads out the door.

Hope tries a few angles. 

It only takes a few angles before Josie caves.

And then Josie almost dies.

Lizzie almost dies, too, so Josie’s pissed.

She’s pissed because she’s hurt, and it’s better to just paint that over with anger. Being angry feels a lot safer than being hurt, particularly when it feels like Hope might stroll in at any moment and assault her with another pout.

It’s not an irrational fear, as it turns out, because it happens the next day. 

Lizzie’s in class.

Josie should be in class, too. 

But Josie is skipping for probably the fourth time since she transferred. (She’s not a very good student, as it turns out.)

She’s packing. It can’t wait till the weekend. She needs to get the hell out as soon as possible. She’d have already moved out last night, if she could only move fast enough.

She’s alone in her room packing, and there’s a knock on the door that she doesn’t want to answer. She wants to ignore it, because she’s sick of acting okay for people. It’s exhausting.

But Josie’s never been known to put her needs first. 

It could be her Dad, or MG, or Lizzie, wanting to see her off. She needs to suck it up and put on a brave face for them one last time before she goes—or so she tells herself. 

Otherwise, they’ll worry.

She takes a deep, labored breath and plasters on a fake smile.

It slips right off of her face the moment she swings the door open. Her eyes dim abruptly, like putting out a fire with a bucket of water. 

She turns around and walks back over to her bed without a word. Her suitcase is splayed out across it, and the person at the door just reminded her of why she needs to finish packing immediately.

She can’t bring herself to slam the door in her face, though.

Hope awkwardly clears her throat, apparently unsure if that’s an invitation to come in or not. “Um,” she starts, taking a tentative step inside. “Lizzie said you’re moving out.”

Josie’s jaw ticks. “Lizzie shouldn’t be talking to you at all,” she retorts. Her voice is low, dark and dismissive. She’s too exhausted to hide it.

There’s a pause. “You’re angry,” Hope observes, her voice a bit quiet.

“You’re surprised?” Josie mutters, shoving a shirt in her suitcase with a bit too much force.

Hope slides all the way into the room and gently shuts the door behind her. “Look, Jo, I know everyone’s pissed at me,” she starts, her eyes downcast. “And rightfully so. But... you don’t have to leave.”

Josie feels that burning in the back of her throat, back in full force. Her hands tremble when she shoves another shirt into the suitcase. She doesn’t know if it’s from anger or some other emotion, but she decides it’s anger again because that’s safest. “Yes, I do,” she replies simply—neutrally.

There’s another pause, a heavy silence, where Hope just stays very still. But then Hope drifts closer to the bed, where Josie’s shuffling things around in her suitcase, and tries to insert herself into Josie’s line of sight.

Josie doesn’t let her. She practically turns her whole body away just to avoid having to look at Hope. She doesn’t have an excuse for it—it’s really obvious, but she can’t bring herself to care.

Hope swallows thickly, her gaze faltering like she’s just now realizing that things are way worse than she thought. She looks hurt for a second, but then she tenses up and her expression goes cold. “Can you just look at me?” she blurts out, and she even has the nerve to sound frustrated.

Something in Josie snaps from the pressure, and suddenly she’s seething. “Oh, you want me to look at you?” she bites, turning to pin Hope with a furious glare. She throws the shirt in her hands into the suitcase with all the force of swinging an axe. “Sure, no problem, Hope—what else do you want me to do? You want me to bend over backwards—you want me to lock myself in the fucking dungeon?”

Hope freezes, stunned. 

Josie’s voice is raw and anguished. Her words burst out of her without hesitation, with all the force of a waterfall. She feels unhinged. She doesn’t even bother trying to hide it for once, and she can already feel the tears stinging the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall.

She doesn’t let them.

She's let herself be weak in front of Hope before, but things aren't the same now.

The silence drags out for long enough that it’s shocking when Hope breaks it. “That’s not…,” she trails off. She can’t even bring herself to make eye contact. She’s whispering, but her voice is harsh and thick with emotion. “That’s not fair.”

Josie scoffs. “I don’t need a lecture on what’s fair,” she snaps, her voice angrier than intended. “Not from you.”

Hope swallows thickly. She still won’t meet Josie’s eye. “I didn’t come here to lecture you,” she says. Her voice is slow and measured. She’s clearly trying to de-escalate the situation. “I came to talk.”

Josie runs a hand through her hair almost violently, releasing a frustrated sigh. “About what?” she asks.

Josie’s slightly calmer now—ever-so-slightly.

Hope hesitates. She knows she's on thin ice. “Why are you so angry?” she asks.

Hope’s voice has little inflection. It’s neutral, like she’s rehearsed it. It pisses Josie off, because Hope shouldn't have to ask. “You need me to spell that out for you?” Josie snarks with a glare.

Hope releases a breath. Her expression is still cold, but something desperate is building in her eyes. “I know what I did was shitty, Jo,” she blurts out. “But I thought you, of all people, would understand—”

“Don’t insult me like that,” Josie cuts her off furiously, slamming the suitcase closed.

Hope falls silent again. She opens and closes her mouth, rocking forward on her heels like she has no clue what to do or say. “I did what I had to do,” she finally settles on. “Just like you. To protect someone I love—”

“At the risk of people you don’t care as much about—I know,” Josie cuts her off again. 

Her voice is less furious this time. It’s more like stating an unfortunate fact than anything else, and that seems to take Hope off guard.

It seems like a punch in the gut for Hope, actually. “That’s not fair,” she repeats, but her voice is quieter and she doesn’t sound so sure of herself.

Josie takes a deep breath. It grates against her lungs, but it calms her down slightly. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s not a competition,” Hope blurts out. She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. Josie almost feels bad for her. “It’s not like there’s a way to… to rank how much I care about people—”

“Oh, but there is,” Josie cuts her off a third time, turning to face her head-on.

Hope stills at the movement. She looks a lot less guarded than before. She watches Josie warily, like she’s scared of what she'll do next.

“You were ready to trade our lives for his,” Josie explained, her voice measured and matter of fact even as her heart breaks at the truth of it. “You were ready to trade any progress I might have made for this last ditch effort, shitty plan of yours—”

“It worked,” Hope cuts her off.

Josie’s jaw ticks. She crosses her arms over her chest. “Barely,” she retorts.

“I asked for your help because I was desperate, Josie,” Hope says. Her words tumble over each other. It’s obvious that she feels like she’s losing control of the situation. “Because you were the only one I could count on—”

“I wasn’t ready,” Josie interrupts. There’s a trace of anger in her voice again, because she feels like she’s being manipulated, and she’s not going to let it happen a second time. “I told you I wasn’t ready.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Hope snaps. She’s angry now, too—maybe she also feels like it’s safer. “And you can’t run from who you are forever, Josie—I was doing you a favor.”

Josie scoffs, in disbelief. “A favor?” 

Hope tosses her hands in the air, exasperated. “Yes!” she practically shouts, fuming. “You can’t keep living a lie! You can’t convince yourself that you and—and Fae are going to ride off into the sunset—”

“Her name is Finch,” Josie growls, her eyes burning. Hope had said the name as if it were a swear word, and there’s really nothing she could’ve done to piss Josie off more. Josie takes a step closer. “And keep it out of your mouth—for fuck’s sake, Hope, you have no right—”

“Fae, Finch, whatever,” Hope spits out with a dismissive wave of her hand—and, oh, Josie realizes that she was wrong, because that pisses her off even more. “The point is that there’s gonna come a day where this little bubble of yours bursts, Josie, and you’ll have to realize that you can’t even be honest with her about who you are.”

Josie feels like she’s about to explode. She’s glad she doesn’t have her magic, because if she did she would’ve certainly shattered the windows by now. “That’s none of your fucking business!” she shouts, her voice rough and unhinged in a way that’s very unlike her.

“Someone has to tell you!” Hope retorts, just as angry. “You can’t run from who you are forever!”

Josie’s upper lip curls back into a snarl, and she steps right into Hope’s personal space to tower over her. “I can run as long as I want to—I have a right to run,” she hisses through her teeth. “But you tried to take that choice from me… you—you manipulated me—”

“I told you the truth,” Hope grits out. “About how I felt; about what I wanted. You still had a choice. You could’ve said no.”

“Bullshit,” Josie retorts without hesitation. “I tried to say no—you wouldn’t let me walk away… y-you knew I would never be able to deny you, not if you…,” she trails off, her chest heaving with heavy breaths.

“Not if I what?” Hope challenges, daring Josie to continue.

“Not if you gave me that look,” Josie says, like the word look is a swear.  “Or—or softened your voice like that, or called me Jo, you…”

Josie trails off again and things fall silent. She stares at the wall for a second like she’s thinking, trying to ignore the furious pounding of her heart in her chest.

Hope just watches her, her brow furrowing with confusion.

Then, a realization dawns on Josie—a horrible one, by the look on her face. She stills completely. The anger sort of drains right out of her, and she’s left shell-shocked. “You took advantage of my feelings for you.”

The room falls silent again, and it’s deafening. 

Hope doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. For a long moment, she just gapes at Josie in shock. When she speaks, her voice is just above a whisper—nothing like the way she'd just been yelling. “What?”

“You did,” Josie reasserts, her voice stronger and more accusatory this time around.

Hope shakes her head frantically, like she refuses to accept it. “No. Josie—”

“I thought I could trust you,” Josie blurts out, the tears stinging at her eyes again. She takes a step back from Hope like she’s afraid of her. “Even though I knew you’d never reciprocate—”

“Josie—”

“I thought you cared,” Josie blurts out. Her voice is watery, and it’s more panicked than angry, now. She looks like she wants to escape. “I thought you’d never exploit me like that, but—but you knew it was dangerous, you knew I wasn’t ready and you—you backed me into a corner. You used me.” 

Hope shakes her head again, her eyes even more panicked than Josie’s. “Stop it,” she breathes, huffing out the words like she’s desperate to detox from them. “That’s not true. I didn’t even want you involved. I would have never dragged you into it if Lizzie hadn’t ditched me. You know that.” 

A tear escapes and rolls down Josie’s face. She violently wipes it away and averts eye contact. “I don’t care about me, Hope,” she retorts. “I’m glad you asked me, I’m glad I was there, otherwise you would’ve fucking killed her—”

“I didn’t know that thing would be leaking black magic!” Hope exclaims. She sounds all kinds of desperate.

“You wouldn't let her stop when you realized, anyway,” Josie retaliates, glaring once again.

Hope acts like she didn't hear that. “Don’t act like I dragged either of you there against your will!” she replies. “I didn’t force Lizzie to do anything—she knew it was risky, she came back because she wanted to help!”

“She came back because she wanted to protect me!” Josie shouts. “From you!”

Hope falls silent. The glare melts right off of her face, and her shoulders drop like she wants to shrink back into herself and disappear.

“She came back because she knew,” Josie continues, her voice grating and accusatory but barely above a whisper. “She knew as well as you did that I’d do anything you asked, and she knew you wouldn't stop. Not even if it meant burying me in that graveyard.”

Hope gulps, avoiding Josie’s gaze. “I never meant to—”

“I almost had to watch her get hurt,” Josie cuts her off. “You were ready to let me watch my sister die because you decided that her life is worth less than his.”

Hope’s eyes snap back over to Josie’s, because that statement takes her off guard. “I didn’t—”

“Her life matters to me, Hope,” Josie snaps, cutting her off again. “More than my own. I love my sister. I’d die for her.”

“I know that, Josie,” Hope breathes, her expression anguished like she wants to reach out.

Josie swallows. She clears her throat before she speaks, like there’s something blocking it. “And I’d die for you, too,” she says quietly. “Because I love you.”

The silence is worse than ever, this time. Hope is staring straight at her, and she looks miserable, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t say I love you, she doesn’t say I’m sorry. She just stares, her jaw clenched and her eyes pained—and, to Josie, it looks like Hope wishes Josie didn’t love her.

Josie can’t even stomach the idea of that, so she keeps talking just to fill the silence. “But you were ready to let us both die for him,” she says, her voice empty of all emotion, now, like she’s dead inside. “Because even if there was ever a time you loved either of us, you love him more.”

“Stop,” Hope grates out the moment Josie finishes her sentence.

Josie doesn’t obey. “As if it weren’t painful enough for me to just know that, you had to show me,” she practically whimpers, her bottom lip trembling. “You had to show me that my life means less to you—”

“That’s not true!” Hope interrupts, and it seems like she’s finally snapped out of it, because she looks angry that Josie would even suggest such a thing.

Josie can’t stop now. It’s like she’s still on the truth weed, or something. “I’m just another pawn to you, when it comes down to it,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “Just like everyone else. The moment we had in my head where I thought you might care about me for just a second was another monster-of-the-week plan to you—I was fucking stupid to think that you wouldn’t just toss me aside the second the problem was solved—”

“Josie, stop it!” Hope commands as she steps closer, her eyes sparking.

“You stop it!” Josie blurts out, her voice cracking again from the force of it. “Leave me alone—let me move on!”

The words ring out between them like a gunshot, and Hope freezes like she’s being apprehended.

It stays silent again for a long while—too long, really. But Josie’s too miserable—she has to say something. “I was so close,” she whimpers.

Hope clears her throat. “Is that what you want?” she manages, swallowing. Her eyes dart around the room—landing anywhere but on Josie’s. “To move on?”

Josie lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “You think I want this?” 

Hope’s pale as all hell again, Josie notices. But Josie couldn’t guess what Hope’s feeling for the life of her. Hope won't even look at her. 

But it's obvious that Hope’s feeling something, so it urges Josie to continue. “You think a cell in my body wants to get over you?” she asks seriously.

Hope lets out a shaky breath. With a burst of courage, she forces herself to meet Josie’s eye.

She looks sad. Miserable, really. Guilty.

Conflicted.

Josie ignores it. “I want to want it,” she admits. “I want you to mean nothing to me.”

Hope instantly shakes her head, like she refuses to believe it—like she needs it not to be true. “You don’t mean that,” she whispers, and it sounds like she feels like it’ll break her if it’s true.

Josie stares straight at her. “I do,” she says honestly.

Josie sees Hope’s heart break right in front of her. Hope doesn’t even try to hide it. 

Josie doesn't expect it to happen. It certainly isn't her intention. If she's honest, she didn’t think Hope even cared that much.

Josie doesn't know how to feel about it. She's comforted, on some level, to see that Hope valued this—whatever it was, once upon a time. But she can take no pleasure in seeing Hope suffer. 

Josie licks her lips and blinks away tears. “I want to take away this power you have over me,” she states quietly, turning back to her suitcase and starting to zip it up. “I can’t trust you with it anymore.”

Hope makes a strangled noise of protest, but she seems to repress it before it can escape her throat. Her breathing is shaky and shattered, and it’s all Josie can hear when she pulls a second suitcase onto her bed. 

“Josie, I’m sorry,” Hope whispers. She sounds every bit as miserable as Josie feels.

Josie closes her eyes and breathes in deep, trying to get a hold of herself. “Me too,” she whispers back. “Get out.”

Josie acts as if Hope's already gone the moment the words leave her mouth. She focuses entirely on getting the second suitcase open, on going through the motions to fill it. 

Hope lingers for a few long moments, her hesitation thick in the air. Josie can hear her shaky breathing; she can feel the tension.

Josie wants nothing more than to turn around and comfort her, but she can't. She won't let herself.

Hope slips out the door quietly, and she closes it as if she's trying not to disturb Josie; gently enough that it's as if she's afraid to wake someone up if she shuts it too hard. 

It's the consideration behind it—as if Hope doesn't want to risk fucking things up any further—that really gets to Josie the second the door clicks shut.

She lets the tears come out, finally. She lets it all overtake her. Her feelings hit her with all the vengeance of feelings that have been packed away and denied expression for months.

But when she's done, she doesn't feel any better.

Chapter Text

The stages of grief aren’t simple.

Hope knows that. She’s been jumping from one to another for most of her life. She’s familiar with them. 

She hates them all. But she’s still familiar.

She’s familiar with the way her chest aches with something raw and inconsolable—she’s familiar with the way the world closes in on itself, gets darker and smaller—the way it’s harder to breathe, somehow, like the air gets thicker or heavier, or like her lungs just don’t want to keep working—

She was supposed to be avoiding it. The worst of it, anyway. That was the whole point. If the plan worked out for her—if she got Landon back—she wouldn’t have to deal with the other stages at all. That’s what she told herself.

And it all goes according to plan, more or less.

So, Hope keeps telling herself that she should be happy. She finally got what she wanted, after all.

Landon’s back.

Their relationship feels rusty, like she doesn’t quite know how to settle back into it after everything that happened. Like she’s afraid to break him. 

She’s stiff and uncomfortable, and it doesn’t help that Landon’s not acting like himself.

He’s being weird. He’s more talkative than usual, almost to the point of being socially inept. 

Hope tells herself that he has the right to act a little weird, after everything he’s been through.

She decides not to comment on it. 

She has other things to worry about, anyway.

A lot of other things.

Hope's mind feels like a mess of unfamiliar feelings and frantic thoughts—and, on top of that, there’s a new monster that’s probably not as harmless as it looks.

Hope spends all morning chasing after it with Lizzie. 

Lizzie hates her even more than usual. She doesn’t stop glaring (not even once) all day. It’s like she thinks Hope will disintegrate if she glares hard enough.

Lizzie's trying her best to make that happen.

Hope can't blame her. Part of her wouldn’t mind disintegrating.

The guilt is worse than it ever was, really. And that’s saying something. 

She feels lonely. 

And, underneath it all, she feels like she’s still grieving. 

She can't figure out if it's worse.

Josie wasn’t taken from Hope against her will. Josie simply decided that she didn’t want to be in Hope’s life anymore—or, rather, that she didn’t want Hope to be in hers.

And all because Hope made it seem like she didn't care, without even realizing it.

It’s a new kind of pain.

Hope hates it. 

She hates everything about it. She feels like she’s burning alive.

She beats the gremlin to a pulp to try to get it out of her system, but it doesn’t help. Not at all.

Lizzie and Cleo observe from a safe distance.

Cleo looks concerned when it’s over, but Lizzie’s glare is still firmly in place.

Lizzie hates her, Hope realizes.

She hates her for what she’s done to Josie.

Hope sees where she’s coming from. 

Lizzie has every right to hate her.

Hope's kind of on Lizzie's side, actually. She hates herself a little. 

Part of Hope thinks she deserves all the glaring; all the snide remarks; all the scowls.

She doesn’t glare back. She avoids eye contact and keeps her head down all day, like a scolded puppy.

But Lizzie’s relentless. She never runs out of biting comments—she never runs out of anger. The closer Hope gets, the worse it is.

Hope knows it’s best to keep her distance.

That’s why Hope shouldn’t even be considering it.

She shouldn’t be leaving her room. She shouldn’t be walking across the hall. She shouldn’t be knocking.

Lizzie swings open the door after a long pause. She tenses up the moment she sees Hope. Her glare’s back, without a moment of hesitation. “You have a lot of nerve coming here, Mikaelson,” she snarls.

Hope ignores it entirely, putting in a concentrated effort to look apathetic. “Is Josie here?”

That's all Hope cares about, after all. She can deal with the glaring, as long as she gets that information.

Lizzie scoffs, like the question personally insults her. There’s a pause before she answers, like she’s giving Hope the chance to take her stupid question back.

Hope doesn't take her stupid question back.

“No,” Lizzie snaps, her anger visibly intensifying. “She left.”

Hope blinks, her apathetic act cracking ever so slightly. Her gaze falters. “Oh,” she mutters, trying not to sound too disappointed. “When will she be back?”

Lizzie rolls her eyes so hard it’s nearly violent. “Never,” she replies, like it should be obvious.

Hope freezes, apparently shellshocked. “What?” she barely manages, her voice tight and strained in her throat.

Lizzie’s glare lessens in intensity to some degree, like she’s taken off guard by Hope’s reaction. She gives Hope an appraising glance, annoyance still rolling off of her in waves regardless. “She isn't coming back.”

Hope pales. She feels sick, instantly. “What do you mean?” she asks. “I… did she leave leave? Already?”

Hope feels herself begin to panic. Her heart’s suddenly pounding rapidly in her chest. 

The feeling’s unfamiliar and unnatural. It’s also unhealthy, probably. For a moment, Hope's worried she might have a heart attack.

And she must look like she's about to have a heart attack, too, or something. 

She must, because Lizzie’s not even glaring anymore. Lizzie’s just staring at Hope warily, like she doesn't know what to expect. “Yes,” Lizzie answers with a curt nod, her tone surprisingly neutral. “This morning.”

Hope instantly shakes her head. “No,” she blurts out, refusing to believe it. “That’s not possible.”

Lizzie rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “Maybe not for someone less determined,” she snarks. “But she stayed up all night packing. Seemed like she couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

Hope blinks.

That's how she realizes her eyes are watering.

She hates it, but she can’t stop it. 

She feels like she’s losing control. She barely feels connected to her body at all, really.

It's as if her soul is retreating further back into some dark abyss in her mind.

When she speaks, it doesn’t sound like her voice, even to her own ears. “That can’t be true,” she whispers, her voice breaking slightly.

Lizzie raises an eyebrow. She pulls the door open, stepping back into the room. “Look around, if you don’t believe me.”

Hope doesn’t bother protesting. She immediately steps inside, her eyes darting around the room like she thinks there’s a monster hiding in it somewhere.

She realizes pretty quickly that Josie’s side of the room is empty.

There’s nothing. 

Everything’s gone. 

Josie’s clothes. Her books. 

Even her comforter.

Hope just stares, shell-shocked. She doesn’t attempt to move much further into the room, even when Lizzie turns her back to take a few steps further inside.

She's paralyzed.

She can barely breathe.

It’s agony.

Hope feels like some part of her has died—the last little part of her that was holding onto hope that maybe she and Josie could work things out. That maybe they could try to have the conversation they had the night before again, and somehow reach a different conclusion.

Her optimism is extinguished as abruptly as a candle is blown out.

She feels dead inside.

She probably looks the part, too. The way Lizzie’s watching her is evidence enough.

Hope can’t keep the despair off of her face.

She knows it’s a futile effort, so she doesn’t even bother trying.

Josie’s gone.

Josie’s gone and Hope has no one to blame but herself. 

She feels that fact cut into her like a knife. She wishes, just for a moment, that it would kill her.

“Hope?” Lizzie calls out, not sure if it's safe to try to communicate with the tribrid at all when she's in this state.

“She’s gone,” Hope breathes, shocked.

Lizzie sighs, like the conversation’s inconvenient or exhausting or both. “Why do you suddenly care?” she demands, exasperated.

Hope doesn’t know how to respond to that. She flinches and her gaze falters. She looks around the room, just as an excuse to avoid eye contact.

“You’ve barely looked at her all month,” Lizzie accuses, more irritable this time around.

But Hope doesn’t hear her.

She’s distracted.

Her eyes caught the glint of something on Josie’s desk. 

Her heart sinks. 

She knows exactly what it is before she stumbles over and picks it up, but she tries to talk herself out of it anyway.

She can’t talk herself out of it anymore when the talisman’s resting heavy in her palm.

She’s stunned, for a moment. 

And then the panic worsens.

Hope’s breathing gets a bit heavier. It’s unsteady; ragged, as if she’s being hunted down in a horror movie. “She’ll come back,” she whispers to herself with a sharp nod, like she’s trying to convince herself.

“Maybe for Thanksgiving,” Lizzie drawls, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t expect her sooner.”

Hope starts pacing like a caged animal. “No, she’ll come back—she has to,” she blurts out, her voice fraying at the edges. “She wouldn’t leave it here. She forgot. She’ll realize it’s missing—she’ll… she’ll come back for it.”

Lizzie falls silent for a long moment. 

Lizzie’s looks at Hope like she pities her, but Hope doesn’t notice. Hope doesn’t look like she’s paying attention at all. 

It looks a lot like Hope’s on the verge of a breakdown, actually.

Lizzie frowns. She decides to tread carefully, despite their differences. “Hope…,” she starts. “She left that here on purpose.”

Hope’s eyes snap over to Lizzie. “How do you know that?” she demands, but it sounds a lot like she doesn’t want to know the answer.

Lizzie hesitates, but then she just shrugs. “I saw her put it down,” she says simply.

Hope becomes very still. Her eyes are still watering—but they're glazed over a bit, now, like she’s somewhere else entirely. 

Hope doesn’t say anything for too long.

It makes Lizzie a bit uncomfortable.

Lizzie shifts on her feet. “I’m... sorry,” she mutters reluctantly, conflicted. 

Lizzie's still angry. But she's decided not to fully express it.

It seems like she's aware that Hope's fragile.

Hope can see that.

It makes everything feel worse.

Hope huffs out a breath, but it’s more like she’s deflating than anything else. “I just…,” she starts, her voice cracking. She rocks on her feet like she doesn’t know what to do, avoiding eye contact and staring intensely at the wall. “I need to talk to her.”

Lizzie shakes her head instantly, her jaw flexing. “No,”  she says. “You need to give her space.”

Hope makes a strangled noise of protest, like she needs to make Lizzie understand. “Lizzie," she says, her voice weaker this time around. "I need to talk to her.”

Lizzie scoffs. “No. She’s been hoping you’d knock on that door all month,” she snaps with an exasperated wave of her hand, some of her anger coming back to the surface. “Hoping you'd come talk to her. Just staring at the door like she could starbeam you in by sheer force of will. Thinking I wouldn't notice.”

Hope gulps. She tenses, that information making her feel even worse. A tear escapes from the corner of her eye, and she doesn’t bother trying to wipe it away.

Lizzie sighs and runs a hand through her hair, frustrated. “You broke her heart, Hope,” she states after a moment, matter of fact. “Again.”

Hope tenses. A sob gets caught in her throat.

She swallows to try to cover it up, but it’s not enough.

She's rocking on her heels, wringing her hands together. 

She's beyond distressed.

And Lizzie can see it, clear as day. But there’s not much she can do.

“I didn’t mean to,” Hope manages to say, her voice strained like she’s barely holding herself together.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lizzie says, her voice still stern. "It doesn't matter whether you meant to or not."

Hope looks at her. It's clearly not the feedback she was hoping to receive.

Lizzie frowns. “Give her space.”

Hope doesn’t do what Lizzie wants her to do.

She tries—she really tries—but she spirals every time she stays still for too long. 

She has a bit of a breakdown in her room, but she pulls herself off of the floor. 

She wanders around campus aimlessly, hoping that the fresh air or the pressure of being in public could help her hold it together.

It doesn’t, really. It keeps her from crying, but she feels like she’s going to explode if she doesn’t do something.

She lies to herself, the whole time—even while she does the locator spell.

At first, she tells herself it’s just for practice. 

Then, she tells herself she just wants to know that Josie’s safe somewhere.

Then, she’s walking.

She tells herself she’s going on a casual, aimless stroll across town, but she knows it’s a lie.

She can tell it’s a lie, from the desperation in her chest, and from the way her vision keeps getting all cloudy. 

She’s knocking on a door before she can think twice about it. 

Which is unfortunate, really, because she’s crying. And if she'd thought twice about it, she probably would’ve waited a minute and tried to calm down.

Or maybe she would’ve turned around and left altogether.

She considers it for a moment, anyway—turning around and leaving altogether.

It’s too late, though.

There’s footsteps. They get louder, and then the door’s swinging open.

The moment Josie sees Hope, she freezes. It’s like she thinks Hope has a gun aimed at her or something.

Hope sees the shock in Josie’s eyes, just before they become cold and guarded. 

Hope watches Josie close herself off.

It’s not familiar.

Josie never does that with Hope. 

Josie licks her lips. She scans over Hope with a quick glance, as if she thinks Hope might be injured or something. “Why are you here?” she asks.

Hope sucks in a breath. She tries very hard to look like she hasn’t been crying. “I need to talk to you,” she replies, already ashamed by how rough her voice sounds.

Josie looks very much like she doesn’t know how to react.

She doesn’t look furious, exactly. She looks more conflicted than anything. 

There’s a long silence that’s more like a standoff. Josie stares at Hope intensely, looking like she’s torn between comforting her and slamming the door in her face.

Josie breaks eye contact and swallows thickly. “I... I don’t want to talk,” she says simply, already moving to shut the door. “You shouldn’t have come. Go home, Hope.”

“Wait!” Hope calls out desperately, placing her hand on the door to stop it before it clicks shut.

Josie tenses further, biting her lip and eying Hope warily.

“You left this at school,” Hope says, pulling the talisman out of her pocket and lifting it up in the air.

It dangles—spins haphazardly in the air, for a while.  

Josie stills, paling like she’s seen a ghost. She stares at the talisman blankly. 

Hope’s breathing becomes a little shaky. She fights back the tears. They're threatening to rise up again. 

Josie licks her lips. Her eyes darken and she stares at the ground. “I know,” she mutters, like she's trying not to feel guilty.

Josie won't make eye contact.

Hope hates it.

Hope huffs out a heavy breath, feeling like she’s about to combust. “I used it,” she blurts out, visibly unhinged. “For a locator spell.”

Josie’s lips twitch into a confused frown. She glances up at Hope reluctantly, not understanding the point of the statement.

“It’s still yours, Josie,” Hope continues—like that means something—her voice low and broken.

Josie's eyes widen, something like panic rising in her eyes. “Hope—”

“It’s still yours,” Hope cuts her off, sounding frantic and desperate (and looking the part, too). “I know you want me to think it’s trash to you. But the spell worked.”

Josie swallows thickly, averting her gaze.

After a moment, Josie sighs, opening the door a bit wider and stepping outside. They both stand there, in their space, the silence only broken by the echo of the door clicking shut.

“I don’t want you to think it’s trash to me,” Josie says quietly.

Hope feels her chest flood with relief.

It doesn’t completely resolve the panic and misery she’s been with battling all day, though.

Josie shakes her head, like she’s debating with herself about whether or not to participate in the conversation. She makes eye contact with Hope after a moment, her expression gravely serious. “I would’ve thrown it out if it were.”

Hope’s heart flips strangely.

She doesn’t know what to make of it. She’s just grateful that it isn’t pounding like it’s about to give out, as it was earlier.

Josie sort of breaks it with what she says next, though. “But... listen,” she starts, her voice hushed. She gives Hope a look, trying to urge her to pay attention. “I left it behind on purpose."

Hope swallows, her gaze faltering. It's something she already knew, but it somehow hurts more to hear Josie say it.

Josie lets out an exasperated sigh. "I’m trying to leave behind all of... this," she manages, making a vague gesture at the air between them. "Please. Let me.”

“But I don’t want you to leave me behind,” Hope blurts out without thinking.

She sounds pathetic. 

She realizes it only a moment after the words leave her mouth.

The response visibly irritates Josie. She looks more than irritated, actually—there’s some kind of franticness boiling underneath it all. “Don’t do that,” she snaps.

Hope blinks. “Don’t do what?”

“Don’t turn this on me,” Josie commands, her nostrils flaring with irritation. 

Hope opens her mouth as if she’s going to respond, but she very quickly realizes that she has nothing to say.

Josie huffs out a breath, overwhelmed. “Jesus Christ, Hope,” she laments, running her hands through her hair almost violently to express some sort of exasperation. “You don’t get to just show up and expect me to get over everything.”

Hope shakes her head, her eyes wide and desperate. “No, I don’t expect you to get over anything—I just…,” she trails off, her ragged breathing even more noticeable in the silence. “Please. Let me apologize.”

Josie stares at her, visibly uncertain. The silence drags on while Hope waits for her response, every second making Hope feel like Josie is getting farther and farther out of reach.

Hope speaks, just to fill the silence. "I know I fucked up," she blurts out, the words messy and desperate and jumbled together. "I know you don't want me in your life—I know you want to forget me." 

Josie releases a shaky breath. Her eyes look a bit watery now, too. "Hope—"

"But I don't want you to forget me," Hope cuts her off, speaking even faster; even more desperately than before. She ignores the way her eyes sting—she ignores the way her throat burns. "I don't want to mean nothing to you. I don't want you to think you ever meant nothing to me, either, Jo—not even for a second. You're everything to me."

Josie's left speechless by that, apparently. Her lips part, like the admission's a shock to her system.

The silence draws out, and it makes Hope restless. She shifts on her feet, trying to keep her breathing under control. 

Josie licks her lips and finally opens her mouth to say something. 

Hope never finds out what she was planning to say.

The door opens and bumps into Josie’s back, nearly pushing her right into Hope. 

Josie catches herself and steps aside to make room for the door to open further.

To Hope’s horror, Finch steps outside.

“Everything okay?” Finch asks Josie, her gaze locking onto her first.

Hope freezes. She blinks away her tears, trying to compose herself.

She also attempts to repress the burning rage that floods her chest in response to the interruption.

That’s less successful.

Josie fails to reply. She looks very much like she’d rather be anywhere else.

Finch finally takes note of Hope, giving her a once over and a very obvious scowl, her eyes narrowing. “Oh,” she spits. “It’s you.”

Hope’s eyes harden at the hostility, fully prepared to reflect it right back.

Finch doesn’t exactly let her. She turns to Josie directly. “What’s she doing here?” she asks, acting as if Hope can’t hear her at all.

That does nothing but infuriate Hope further. She glares at the side of Finch’s head like she’s trying to burn a hole through it, but she bites her tongue.

“We’re just... talking,” Josie mutters awkwardly, shifting on her feet and staring at her shoes.

“Talking,” Finch echoes, sounding skeptical.

Finch turns back to look at Hope, whose death glare hasn’t faltered since the moment Finch came outside.

Finch blinks at her, but then she smirks. She takes a step forward.

Hope’s wolf doesn’t like her body language—not at all.

“What were you two talking about?” Finch asks Hope, her voice nothing short of taunting. “Anything interesting?”

“None of your business,” Hope growls.

She doesn’t like Finch’s attitude.

Finch chuckles, her eyes hard. “Oh?” she muses, cocking her head to the side. “You sure you don’t want my input?”

“Finch,” Josie snaps, grabbing her arm and pulling her back a step.

Josie looks very uncomfortable, from where Hope’s standing. 

Hope doesn’t like that, either.

Finch pauses at the interruption, staring at Josie. She recovers quickly, smirking again and stepping closer to Josie in a way that makes Hope’s hackles rise. “When are you going to be done, Jos?” Finch purrs. “I thought we were gonna talk.”

It takes Josie a moment to process what’s happening. She seems confused, initially, but it isn’t long before some kind of realization dawns on her. Her eyes harden. She steps back, putting more distance between herself and Finch. “What are you doing?” she hisses, as if she’s trying to keep Hope from hearing the comment. “Stop.”

Finch stills.

She’s taken aback for a moment, like she didn’t expect Josie to reject her.

Hope tries not to feel too satisfied.

Josie doesn’t wait for Finch to respond. “Wait inside,” she commands, leaving no room for argument. 

Finch scoffs, glaring at Josie like she’s been betrayed. She gives up when Josie doesn't falter, briefly glancing at Hope.  “Whatever,” Finch says with a scowl, hesitating for only a moment. She rolls her eyes, but then she moves back inside, nearly slamming the door behind her. 

Hope’s pretty sure Finch hates her.

But Hope doesn’t care.

It's not like she values the girl's opinion, anyway.

Hope doesn't understand why Josie's even entertaining Finch as a romantic prospect, actually. Josie's clearly way too good for her.

Josie takes Hope's evaluative glance the wrong way. "Stop," she growls, the moment the door's shut. “Don’t you dare look at me like I’ve betrayed you. You have no right.”

Hope blinks, surprised by the accusation. “I'm not, I just…,” she starts, shifting awkwardly on her feet before she continues. “Who is she? Where did you find her?”

Josie tenses. “I don't owe you those answers,” she replies shortly.

Josie obviously wants to avoid the subject, but Hope can't find it in herself to care. “You sure you can trust her?”

Josie tenses even further, since Hope didn't respect her signal to back off. “That's none of your business,” she snaps.

Hope frowns. “Sorry. I’m just concerned,” she mutters, glancing away like a scolded puppy.

“Well, don’t be,” Josie commands, shutting down the line of questioning once and for all. 

Hope's frown deepens, but she doesn't say anything.

Her brief silence is infuriating to Josie, apparently.

"You know what? No," Josie growls through her teeth, taking a threatening step closer and pointing an accusatory finger, her teeth practically baring. “What the fuck makes you think you have the right to pop up out of nowhere and judge me for my love life? You can’t just act like you suddenly care again when it's convenient for you—where the fuck were you when I needed you?”

Silence. Dead silence.

The words hit Hope like a freight train, and she doesn't quite know what to do with them.

The silence extends for far too long to be comfortable. Hope's grateful when Josie breaks it, but no longer grateful after Josie's next words register.

“I...,” Josie whispers, squeezing her eyes shut like what she's about to say is some kind of painful secret. "I needed you."

Hope is far too devastated to respond. She's pretty sure Josie has more to say, though, so she stares blankly, waiting for Josie to continue.

"I needed you," Josie repeats, and it sounds like it hurts her even more this time around. "When I woke up, I needed you—I needed a friend, I needed you to show me that you still cared—despite everything, despite what I'd done—"

Hope barely resists the urge to reach out. “Of course I still cared," she breathes, stepping closer. "I will never stop caring about you, Josie—of course I cared—”

“Don’t say that like it’s obvious!” Josie snaps. 

Hope instantly falls silent, taken aback.

Josie huffs out a shaky breath, looking very much like she's about to cry. “Don’t make me feel stupid—don't say that like I should've known—like I should be psychic or something,” she whispers harshly, pinning Hope with an accusatory glare. “It wasn’t obvious—you wouldn’t even look at me.”

Hope gulps. “Josie…,” she trails off, not knowing what to say.

A tear finally rolls down Josie's face. Her lip trembles, and it makes Hope feel sick to her stomach again. “Why couldn't you just come talk to me?” Josie whispers, her voice less hostile and more broken this time around. “After everything?” 

It's official—Hope hates herself. She really does. “I…,” she starts weakly, avoiding eye contact and swallowing thickly. “I don’t know.”

Josie scoffs, but it seems more self-deprecating than anything else. She roughly wipes a tear off of her cheek, as if she's angry with herself for crying. “So it didn’t even occur to you, then,” she mutters under her breath. 

Hope instantly shakes her head, forcing herself to make eye contact. “It occurred to me,” she states, her voice firmer than it's been all night.

Josie stares at her, surprised by the force behind the comment—but a little skeptical, by the looks of it.

Hope lets out a heavy sigh, willing herself to be vulnerable with no small amount of reluctance. “I… I think about you all the time,” she admits quietly, her voice shaking. A light blush rises to her cheeks and she averts eye contact once again.

Josie scoffs. “Yeah, sure you do,” she mutters sarcastically, like she thinks Hope's making fun of her.

“No, listen to me,” Hope says desperately, stepping close. “I mean it. And I know I've been terrible to you—I know I suck at showing it. But that doesn’t mean I don't care, and it doesn't mean I haven’t been worried.”

Josie avoids meeting her eye. “Not worried enough to check in?” she murmurs.

Hope licks her lips, scanning Josie's expression. “I wanted to,” she replies, like she needs Josie to believe her. 

Josie bites her lip. She wants to believe it—Hope can see that written all over her face. “Then why didn’t you?” she asks. There's something hopeful in her voice, like the explanation might change things.

Hope hesitates. “Something stopped me,” she says.

She knows it's a shitty excuse, the moment it leaves her mouth. 

It's not an excuse at all, really. It's the vaguest thing she could've said.

It sounds like bullshit, even though it's the truth.

Josie thinks it sounds like bullshit, too, if the way her face falls is anything to go by. “Something stopped you,” she echoes, her voice empty and hollow.

It sounds even stupider when Josie repeats it.

Josie's jaw ticks. “Two months of nothing,” she starts, her voice tightly controlled. “And all you have to say to me is something stopped you.”

Hope wants to take it back, almost, but she can't think of anything else to say. She just lets the words hang there in the air, the silence filling her with more dread the longer it drags out.

Josie shakes her head. To Hope's surprise, she doesn't look angry—not really. She just looks stressed. “I can’t accept that,” she whispers urgently. “Hope, you can’t expect me to accept that.”

Josie looks like she really wants to accept it—like she's trying really hard not to.

Hope gulps. “I know,” she whispers back, hopeless. She looks away, like she's ashamed. “I know it’s not good enough—I know.”

Josie wipes away a tear, biting her lip. “Then why did you even bother coming here, Hope?” she asks, sounding exhausted.

Hope looks up at that. “Because I can’t let you think I don’t care, Josie,” she answers, her voice determined.

Josie blinks, surprised. She stares at Hope for a long moment, like she's searching for something in her eyes. She seems to find what she's looking for, but then she all but deflates, her shoulders falling while her eyes drop to the ground. “I know you care,” she relents. "I can see it now."

Hope stays silent. She waits. She waits, because it sounds like there's a catch.

Josie sniffles a little bit. “It doesn’t change things,” she breathes.

Hope feels her heart ache.

Josie swallows nervously, shifting on her feet. “Listen to me,” she whispers, looking up. Her defenses melt away, and Hope can see her genuineness; her concern; her pain. “I forgive you.”

Hope doesn't feel any relief from it, though, because Josie's crying. Josie's crying, and Hope caused it, and Hope's pretty sure she'll never feel relieved ever again.

"I can forgive you. For all of it," Josie repeats shakily, her voice barely above a whisper. She gulps, looking down. "But I still can’t be what you want from me."

Hope's brow furrows with confusion. She shakes her head and reaches out to grab Josie's hands in her own, panicked. “I don’t need you to be anything besides what you are,” she whispers sincerely. Her stomach does a nervous flip, but she packs all the confidence she has left into what she says next. “I love you, Josie.”

Josie's eyes widen. She sucks in a breath, reflexively pulling her hands away. “Hope,” she replies, her voice unusually low and serious. It sounds a lot like an accusation, or maybe a warning.

Hope looks away instantly. “Sorry,” she mutters weakly, embarrassed by her own intensity. “I... um, I’m sorry. Continue.”

There's a long, heavy pause while Josie attempts to recover. She swallows before she tries to speak again. “I just, I mean that I... I can’t be your friend,” she sputters, avoiding eye contact and fixing her eyes on Hope's shirt collar instead. “Or, I mean, I... can't be just your friend."

Hope stills.

She doesn't know why it's so shocking, to hear Josie restate how she feels. It really shouldn't be shocking at all. Hope already knew.

But something about it still feels very new and unfamiliar.

(And confusing.)

Hope can't dwell on it for long, because Josie starts to ramble. "I tried," she says, panicky, like she's trying to defend herself. "I thought I could do it. I thought I could be your friend, or—or your acquaintance, or nothing to you—whatever you wanted me to be, whenever you wanted me to be it—but I can't."

Hope's brow furrows with concern, her lips twitching down into a frown.

Josie's eyes catch the motion, and her gaze drops to stare at Hope's lips. It's as if everything freezes for her, because she doesn't look back up. Her own lips part, and she zones out for a moment like she's in a trance. Hope doesn't even think she realizes she's doing it.

She must realize what she's doing, though, after a pause, because she stares down at her feet with a blush. "I can't turn it off," she admits quietly. Hope doesn't like the shame that's packed into her voice, but she has no idea how to fix it. "Not when I'm with you."

Hope doesn't know what to say.

She wants to say that she doesn't want Josie to turn it off.

But that would probably come across the wrong way. 

Before Hope can figure out what to say, Josie's speaking again. "But... I can't keep doing this," she mumbles, rubbing at her eyes to try to stop crying. "I can't be in love with you anymore."

Hope visibly flinches.

She wants to say something that'll make it better; that'll make all of this go away, and take them back to a time when things were okay.

But she's too scared to open her mouth. It's starting to seem like everything she says just makes things worse.

She hates the way Josie's lip trembles, though, and the way Josie lets a few more tears escape. She hates the way Josie's shoulders are low, like she's defeated, or like she's trying to shrink away into nothing.

“It hurts,” Josie practically whimpers, almost as if she's talking to herself.

Hope knew that. She knew that that was the truth, so she doesn't know why hearing it out loud makes her feel so much fucking worse. She feels like she wants to cry herself—like she wants to crawl out of her skin.

Hope steps forward and reaches out on instinct, cupping Josie's jaw and tilting her head. "Hey, look at me," she says softly, brushing her thumb over Josie's cheek. Josie meets her eye reluctantly—uncertainly. Hope packs all of the sincerity she can manage into her voice, wanting Josie to know that she means what she's about to say with every cell in her body. "I'm sorry."

Josie's eyes water. Her lip trembles. She looks absolutely miserable.

Hope hates it. 

Hope feels herself start to cry, too. But she ignores it.

Josie clears her throat before she speaks, trying to pull her shit together. “It’s not your fault that you don’t feel the same way,” she whispers, her voice cracking.

Hope instantly shakes her head, because something about that's very wrong, even if she can't pinpoint exactly what it is. “Jo—”

“Hope, it’s okay,” Josie cuts her off. Her voice is a little bit stronger, but just as miserable. She huffs out a shaky breath. “I don’t want you to feel guilty for that.” 

Hope frowns. There's really no scenario in which she won't feel guilty.

Josie takes an abrupt step back, like she's suddenly realized the intimacy implied in their position and wants to shut it down.

Hope allows her hand to drop. She doesn't try to follow.

Josie's a little unsettled, it seems, because she can't even make eye contact. She nervously tugs on the hem of her shirt, balling it up into a fist. "I just can’t do this anymore," she admits, her voice a little frantic, like she wants to run. "It's not your fault, I just need you to understand that."

Hope becomes suddenly aware that the conversation is rapidly nearing an end.

But Hope doesn't want the conversation to end.

She isn't ready.

"What do you mean?" she blurts out, her tone graceless and panicked. "What can't you do?"

“I mean…,” Josie trails off, hesitating. She won't make eye contact, but the pain in her eyes is clear as day, anyway. She swallows, her next words coming out weak. “I mean that I don’t think we should talk like this anymore.”

Hope's lips part in shock. It's like the reality of the situation has suddenly hit her. She stills for a moment, her breathing ragged.

She knows what Josie means—Josie means that they shouldn't talk at all.

Ever.

"No," Hope breathes without thinking, the desperation clear in her voice. "No. I can't lose you, Jo."

Josie squeezes her eyes shut and tenses, like the words are physically painful to her. "Stop," she whispers, devastated. "Please, stop. Don't make this harder than it is."

Hope shakes her head frantically. “Josie, please,” she practically begs. 

She sounds pathetic. She knows it, but she can't bring herself to care.

She's desperate.

She feels like something important is slipping right out of her grasp, and she'll get on her knees if she has to.

Josie clears her throat, crossing her arms over her chest—closing herself off. “It’s late,” she mutters reluctantly, still unable to make eye contact. Her voice is almost unbearably sad, but it's gentle. “You should go home.”

Hope's left speechless. She doesn't even move.

She just stands there like an absolute idiot.

Josie lingers for a long moment. It's like a part of her is hoping that Hope will find some valid counter-argument, even though she knows there is none.

She swallows thickly when Hope says nothing. "Goodbye, Hope," she says, with an air of finality that makes Hope's heart sink in her chest.

Hope can't bring herself to say it back.

Josie waits, giving her the chance to, but it seems like Hope would prefer to stay in denial.

Josie wants to stay in denial, too—she wants to stand there on the porch with Hope all night and pretend that the conversation can last forever, but she won't let herself.

She releases a sharp sigh and turns around, opening the door and shutting it behind her before she allows herself to hesitate.

Chapter Text

Hope knows that time’s supposed to make things easier. That’s what people have always told her.

But it gets worse, day after  day.

It hurts.

It’s duller when she’s with Landon.

It’s like his presence sedates her. She doesn’t feel good, not really—but she doesn’t feel much of anything. She remembers less; thinks less. It’s like her mind fogs over. 

It’s how she’s felt around him ever since she got him back from the prison world. 

She’s with him on the fifth day.

He’s talking about something. Hope doesn’t really know what it is. It’s probably Star Wars, or maybe he’s giving her some advice—advice about how to stop being miserable.

Hope’s a little zoned out. She’s staring at him, but she doesn’t really see him. Her attention’s far away, focused on her thoughts bubbling frantically under the surface like they’re some hazard in her periphery.

Somehow, her mind still feels stagnant. It’s like being with Landon stifles her, blocking in everything she is with a thin layer of ice. 

She used to like it. She was kind of addicted, actually. It was nice. She could just sit there with him, and it was like her brain turned off.

It’s part of why she’d been ignoring everyone else to spend time with him.

But this time she’s unsettled, more aware than ever that something is building in her, as if the depths below are swelling and expanding and looking for release.

The pressure’s unbearable. 

She wonders if Josie’s okay.

“Hope.” 

Hope blinks out of her daze, a bit startled.

Landon’s looking at her expectantly. “Are you paying attention?” 

She stares at him. She gets a feeling like her heart’s plummeting through her chest. She feels a jolt of desperation, as if she wants to catch it before it hits the ground. 

She takes a moment too long to think about it, trying to fight back against the sudden burning in her throat. “No,” she admits, the gravity of her voice a bit too heavy for the context. “I haven’t been… for a while.”

Landon frowns, but he doesn’t seem upset. He doesn’t seem to feel much of anything, actually, and he doesn’t miss a beat. “I was saying that I think you should try—”

He doesn’t get it. 

Of course he doesn’t. He never does—not really. 

He’s been so sweet and attentive ever since he got back. It’s almost like he’s a different person. 

It’s like he was made just to be there for her—to give her advice, to listen to her problems. 

But there’s an emptiness to it. She doesn’t feel like he sees her—not really. He says all of the right things, but it feels more like the way the right answer gets spit out of a calculator than anything else.

Landon’s still talking when Hope remembers to listen. “And I know you think that you can handle—”

“I think I need space,” Hope blurts out, cutting him off.

Landon falls silent. He tries to reply, but he seems to be glitching out a little. He’s staring blankly at her, his mouth opening and closing.

“Space?” he echoes, like he doesn’t understand the concept. “How much?”

She breaks up with him.

He doesn’t get that, either—not at all.

She doesn’t know how to explain it to him. She just doesn’t want to be sedated anymore.

She wants to feel it—all of it. The guilt; the anxiety. 

She thinks she deserves it. 

She deserves it, because if there were some kind of God, she knows he’d judge her guilty.

There isn’t a God—at least not for her. She’s the furthest thing from God, and now that Josie’s gone, she feels it every second of every day. She feels like she’s about to buckle under the weight of her mistakes. 

She feels like she is a mistake.

She knows she’s being dramatic.

She keeps telling herself that. Keeps calling herself pathetic. It’s the only thing that can get her out of bed in the morning. 

Josie didn’t die or anything. She’s just a couple of miles away.

But it feels like she’s worlds away, to Hope—like she glitched out of existence the moment she closed the door.

Hope keeps trying to force some perspective on herself. 

She’s been through worse—she absolutely has. She has no right to float through the halls like a ghost over this. 

Half of her family died, for fuck’s sake. Her parents died because of her. In comparison, this should be nothing.

It looks like nothing, anyway, to everyone else. Hope doesn’t tell anyone that she groveled at Josie’s doorstep like a pathetic stray dog. She doesn’t tell anyone that she misses Josie. She doesn’t even mention her.

And no one else mentions her. No one else seems to notice that she’s gone. They all get over her absence so quickly, as if she’s not important—and Hope almost wants to scream at them for it.

But she knows it’d make her a hypocrite.

Josie isn’t dead to them, after all. She’s a phone call away, or a walk away—even if it is a little far. She’d pick up a call for any of them—ask them to come inside.

The path’s closed for Hope, though. The line’s busy.

There isn’t anything Hope could say that would change things, anyway. She already told Josie that she loved her, and that changed nothing. She was foolish to think it would matter.

All she can do is ruminate.

Cleo’s the only one who notices.

Hope figures it’s because Cleo can read her so easily. Either that or it’s because Cleo’s her roommate, and it’s getting harder and harder for Hope to get out of bed. 

It would be easier if her days held more than a series of disappointments. On Thursday, Hope sees a girl with straight brown hair in the hallway. Her heart jumps like she’s been electrocuted, but it’s a false alarm. The girl turns her head a little, and Hope’s heart drops like a pile of bricks.

There's less of a chance of things like that happening if she just stays in her room.

She’s miserable, burrowed under her blankets all day, but she can’t get herself to cry. She can’t feel it fully. It’s like she’s blocked.

She tries to force herself to get up and go about her day as usual at first, but she’s too depressed. She doesn’t want to do anything. She’s sick and tired of the monsters, one after the other—and the crises, one after the other. 

She never has a second to breathe or recover. That used to be the best case scenario—it meant that she didn’t have the time to mourn, either. 

But something snapped, and now she doesn’t feel like running anymore. She's tired of feeling like the Red Queen running to stay in place, or Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill. 

She just wants to lay down and accept that she’ll never get anywhere. She’s never felt anything quite like it before—which is saying something, since she’s tasted just about every flavor of misery in her life. 

This time it’s different. Her sadness used to be raw and angry, exploding from her like a tightly coiled spring. 

Now she’s just defeated. She can barely find the energy to move.

If she stays under her covers and closes her eyes tightly enough, she can almost see Josie’s face.

That comforts her a little. It reminds her that Josie still exists somewhere, even if Hope can’t see her. Hope holds onto it. 

It’s a bit bittersweet, though. Hope keeps remembering how Josie looked when Hope made her cry. She keeps tensing up and forgetting how to breathe when she remembers that the image is going to fade, and that one day she won’t even remember what Josie looked like.

Cleo leaves early on Monday, and it’s almost 2 PM when she returns. Hope’s still in bed, hidden under her covers. “Hope? Are you alright?”

Cleo knows something’s wrong even though most people have just been staring right past her. Worse, Hope has the sinking feeling that Cleo knows it’s about Josie. Cleo has only been in her life for less than a month, but she already knows her better than anyone.

Hope doesn't answer the question. She knows that if she says more than a couple words it'll be obvious that she feels like she's about to fall apart.

Cleo isn't put off by it. “Have you eaten?” she continues. “You should come get something to eat with me.” 

Hope clears her throat. “No,” she says simply, her voice rough from disuse.

There's a moment of silence, in which Hope stares blankly at the blanket she has tucked over her face.

Cleo sighs. “Hope,” she says, her voice stern. “You need to get out of bed.”

Hope pouts miserably, but Cleo can't see it. “I’m sick,” she mumbles, just loud enough for Cleo to make out the words.

Hope can practically hear Cleo's raised eyebrow when she speaks. “You have been acting like this all week,” Cleo observes. Hope hears her step closer. “What’s the matter with you?” 

Hope sighs. She gives up on hiding, throwing off her covers but making no move to get up. “I just can’t do it today,” she says.

Cleo frowns, studying her closely. “Do what?” she asks. “Get up?”

“I can’t do any of it,” Hope mutters, averting her eyes to the ceiling. “The monsters, the people. Any of it.”

“There is no monster that I know of,” Cleo replies. “And if you do not want to see people, we can eat somewhere they won't find us.”

Hope hesitates, glancing at Cleo uncertainly.

Cleo gives her a pointed look. “Get up,” she orders.

Hope huffs out a dramatic sigh. “Fine.”

Cleo drags her out for a picnic in the woods.

It’s almost pleasant for a moment, until Cleo starts asking questions. “Are you going to tell me what is troubling you?”

Hope almost chokes on a grape, but covers it up by clearing her throat. She avoids eye contact. “It’s not important,” she mumbles.

Cleo raises an eyebrow. “Not to be rude, but I don’t believe you,” she deadpans.

Hope glances at her uncertainly. She hesitates, but eventually decides that maybe getting advice isn't the worst idea. “I got in a fight with my…,” she trails off with a frown, a bit disoriented by whatever her mouth was about to say. “With Josie,” she finishes.

Cleo eyes her, not looking surprised whatsoever. "And what did you fight about?" she asks, her tone carefully restrained.

Hope looks a bit skittish at the question, shifting in her seat. 

Cleo doesn't look at her, keeping her eyes respectfully trained elsewhere.

Hope picks up another grape, fiddling with it in her hands as an excuse not to look up. She swallows. "I fucked up with her," she mumbles. She pops the grape in her mouth and chews it thoroughly, swallowing before she continues. "Really bad."

"What did you do?" Cleo asks.

Hope hesitates. "I just...," she starts. "I haven't been paying enough attention to her. I've just been so focused on saving Landon. And I didn't even realize that it was hurting her, until she told me that...," she trails off, realizing what she was about to reveal.

Cleo waits patiently for her to continue.

Hope clears her throat, bracing herself. "Until she told me that she has feelings for me," she finishes, her voice guarded.

Cleo hums, once again unsurprised. She remains quiet for a long pause, studying Hope out of the corner of her eye. “I see," she says carefully. "And have you considered the possibility that you may have feelings for her, too?”

Hope stills. She practically stops breathing. Her eyes widen like a cornered animal's. “I’m with Landon,” she deflects.

It's a lie. Hope doesn't even know why she says it. It's just a reflex.

Cleo purses her lips. “That is not the question I asked you,” she says, gentle like she knows that Hope is a split second from running away.

It's not a moment later that Hope practically goes deaf from a screaming banshee.

Hope’s almost grateful to have a problem to focus on. 

Until she’s not. 

It really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone when it happens.

Ric breaks the circle, and it hits her. It hits her like a freight train. 

It feels familiar—that’s what’s insidious about it. It feels like coming home, if her home were the long, sleepless nights she spent trying to hold onto the memory of her parents.

There’s always been a graveyard in Hope, deep in her subconscious—something she’s held at bay just barely, but now she’s in it.

She’s been in it before. 

Now she’s in it again, but she’s not alone. That thing is with her—the banshee, the thing everybody keeps calling a monster—and it’s nice. 

She can’t see outside of herself, but it’s better than it was. It’s better than dealing with it alone. 

And maybe they’re wrong. Maybe the banshee isn’t a monster. (No more of a monster than Hope, anyway.) Maybe the banshee’s good.

Hope doesn’t know what happens, then. If she screams, she doesn’t notice. She feels like she wants to, but she has no control. She’s lost in her head. The banshee has the reins—and Hope’s okay with it. 

Hope’s busy.

There’s a lot in her head—she hadn’t realized. 

There’s a lot she never wanted to think about again. 

It just kind of unfolds around her, like a movie projected on a wall. And she watches it. It’s like her life flashing before her eyes, except all of the worst moments. 

It hurts. 

It’s addictive. 

She tells herself that she deserves it—or maybe that’s what the banshee tells her. It starts to get hard to tell where the banshee stops and Hope begins. It’s like they’re one and the same.

She almost loses herself—and she’s okay with it.

She was starting to get tired, after all. Real life was overrated, she tells herself. There’s nothing out in the real world that’s worth coming back to.

So nothing breaks through to her.

Nothing except Josie. 

She comes back for Josie, because Josie makes her a promise. Josie promises to stay.

“You lied to me.”

Josie tenses.

The banshee’s gone. Josie had coaxed it out with a long speech—or more like purged it out, easing Hope back into a will to live; restoring her hope for the future, with which the banshee was incompatible.

The thing flew out of her and burst into flames in the air, unable to find another suitable host. 

It made Hope feel broken. But that didn’t hit her until she and Josie made eye contact.

Because she knew, the moment she saw the guilty look in Josie’s eyes, that Josie hadn’t meant it.

“You said what you thought I wanted to hear,” Hope continues, glaring furiously at Josie’s back and keeping pace as the siphoner tries to flee down the hallway. “You didn’t mean any of it.”

Josie’s halts in her step, her hands clenched into fists. She hesitates for a minute, like she’s not sure if she wants to fight, but then she spins around. “Doesn’t feel good, does it?” she deadpans, her expression cold.

Hope’s nostrils flare, her eyes igniting. She steps forward, pointing a finger at the ground in front of Josie’s feet, her muscles tense. “I meant every word I said to you, Josie,” she hisses, furious that Josie would even suggest otherwise.

“Did you, now?” Josie challenges, more guarded than Hope had ever seen her.

“Yes,” Hope replies without hesitation.

Josie crosses her arms over her chest, holding eye contact. “So, you meant it?” she starts. “When you said that it was my fault that Landon was in the prison world?”

Hope freezes. She takes a long moment before she tries to say anything, the expectant look in Josie’s eyes making her feel sick.

A boy comes around the corner, apparently intending to walk down the hall. He halts in his tracks when he sees them, sensing the tension from a mile away. He spins around and scurries away instantly.

Neither of them even notice.

“No,” Hope breathes, her gaze faltering as the guilt overtakes her anger. “I made a mistake—”

“You didn’t mean it, then,” Josie spits. “Not every word—”

“I made a mistake,” Hope repeats, her voice emphatic and utterly miserable. It gives Josie pause, so Hope continues. “I meant it when I said that you were good,” she continues, desperate. “And—and strong—I meant it when I said that I believed in you, that I’d be here for you if things got dark again—”

“You don’t get to pick and choose what you meant and what you didn’t!” Josie practically shouts.

Hope falls silent, because there’s something furious and wild in Josie’s eyes that she doesn’t know how to handle.

Hope’s silence seems to make Josie angrier. “You don’t get to lie to me,” she snaps, stepping closer and coming very close to aggressively poking Hope in the chest. “And then dictate what was and wasn’t a lie. You don’t get to act like I’m being unreasonable when I wonder if anything you ever said to me was the truth.”

Hope flinches at that, averting eye contact like a scolded puppy.

“You’ve said things to get me to do what you wanted me to do, too,” Josie says, her anger slightly deflating like she doesn’t have the energy to continue arguing. “You broke my trust to solve a problem—you can’t repair it.”

Hope looks up at her, because the last part takes her off guard. It sticks out to her. She can feel the weight of it; how desperate Josie is to get it across to her.

Hope’s heart breaks a little.

Josie looks more stressed than anything else. 

Hope swallows thickly, knowing that she’s the cause of it. Her throat feels raw. “So, that gives you the right to lie to me, then?” she says quietly, feeling defeated.

Josie glances away, the first hint that she’s a bit uncertain of herself. “I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done,” she mumbles, not sounding entirely sure.

Hope scoffs. “You think I would tell you that I’d be here for you and then go back on it?” she asks, like the very idea of it is ridiculous.

Josie bites her lip, hesitating. “I think you would say anything you thought I needed to hear to solve a problem,” she mutters after a moment. “It’s what you did. We’re even.”

Hope scoffs out a self-deprecating laugh. “We’re not even,” she says with certainty.

Josie frowns, taken aback by the bitterness in the tribrid’s voice. She manages to look up at Hope again, studying her.

“Because this doesn’t clear the slate for us, does it?” Hope demands. “You’re still angry with me.”

Josie scans over Hope for a long pause, her expression defeated. “I’m not angry,” she admits, waving an arm to show her exasperation. “Not really. I’m just tired.”

Hope blinks a few times and swallows thickly, because that’s worse.

Josie clears her throat, steeling herself. “Which is why this needs to stop,” she says, trying to sound firm; powering through it when her voice wavers. “The constant arguing. I can’t keep going back and forth with you like this, Hope. We talked, I made a decision—there’s nothing left to talk about.”

Josie sounds a bit like she’s trying to convince herself.

Hope’s jaw flexes. She tries not to let Josie see how hurt she is, but it’s clear as day in her eyes. “You shouldn’t have come, then,” she mutters under her breath, preparing to turn and retreat to her room with her tail between her legs.

Josie’s eyes flare. “I had to come,” she retorts, sounding like there might still be some anger in her yet. “You think I could just find out that you’ve been taken over by a fucking banshee and do nothing?”

“Last I checked, you wanted nothing to do with me,” Hope says without hesitating, her voice bitter and accusatory.

Josie scowls, shaking her head. “That’s not fair,” she growls, her anger palpable again. “I can’t be in your life—that doesn’t mean I’ll ever figure out how to stop caring about you. Don’t act like I broke your heart when you broke mine.”

Hope flinches, recoiling from the words like Josie slapped her.

They fall into a heavy silence. The air crackles with tension. Hope can't tell if one of them is losing control of their magic or if it's all in her head.

Hope’s lip trembles. She looks like she's barely holding herself together. She feels that way, too. “I’m grieving you and you know it,” she says.

Josie blinks in shock, her brow furrowing with confusion like she hadn't known that at all.

It only spurs Hope on. She waves over her shoulder, trying to point back at the gym where she'd just been possessed. “I’m grieving this—this meant something to me, Josie,” she blurts out, gesturing vaguely in the air between them. “You meant something to me. I’m not going to let you look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t believe that I care about you.”

“What the hell do you want from me?” Josie blurts out, a little panicked.

Hope falls silent, taken aback.

Josie's breathing is frantic, and she looks even more stressed than she had before. “I know you want to be friends, or something,” she starts to ramble. “But I can’t, Hope. I just can’t!”

“Then why didn’t you just leave me to it?!” Hope blurts out, feeling unhinged. “Why didn’t you just—just let that thing keep me!”

Josie recoils in horror, her jaw dropping. “Don’t say that!” she practically shouts. “Why the hell would you say that?”

Hope feels like she's losing it. Her heart's beating too quick to be healthy, aching in her chest. “Because maybe that’s what I'm meant to be!” she replies. She averts eye contact when Josie gapes at her and practically shrinks back into herself, her voice coming out weaker when she speaks again. “Maybe this is what was meant to happen to me—maybe it was a long time coming, maybe—maybe I deserved it.”

Josie can't even speak for a moment, not knowing what to say. “No," she commands, her voice stern. "Look at me."

Hope looks up, not daring to defy the order.

“You don’t deserve that," Josie snaps, apparently angry at the suggestion. "No one does.”

Hope stares at her for a minute. “Oh, but I do,” she states, sounding entirely too sure of herself for Josie's liking.

Josie just stares at her, not knowing what to say.

“And it was easier,” Hope continues, matter of fact. “It was better, Jo. To only feel one thing—that was better.”

Josie stares at her blankly.

Hope lets out a deranged laugh, throwing her hands in the air. “I don’t want to feel all of this,” she says. “I don’t want to feel any of it. There's no point anymore—”

Josie holds up a hand, snapping out of her stupor. “Stop,” she commands.

Hope falls silent, blinking away surprise when she realizes what she's just said.

Josie's breathing starts to fall apart, as if she's about to hyperventilate. She looks panicked. “You can’t—Hope, you can’t put all of that on me right now,” she breathes.

Hope is shocked for a moment, but she almost immediately realizes that Josie is right. “You're right,” she says, gulping. "I'm sorry."

Josie stares at her, still visibly unsettled.

Hope feels the pressure in her head, stronger than ever. Something snaps and her eyes glaze over, the tension draining straight out of her shoulders. “I don’t know what came over me,” she states, her voice entirely devoid of emotion as though the entire argument hadn't happened.

Josie recoils, disoriented by the abrupt shift in her mood. She stares at Hope like she has three heads, falling silent.

Hope stares back at her blankly, as though she's not even present.

Josie blinks. “What did you just do?” she asks.

Hope doesn't even answer her.

Josie swallows, glancing around uncertainly. “You just shut it off,” she says, her voice quiet . “Like it was nothing.”

Hope raises an eyebrow. 

Josie frowns, disturbed. “You can’t just do that, Hope—”

“I can,” Hope cuts her off, sounding not at all like herself. “I have; I will.”

Josie stares at her, concerned.

Hope doesn't seem interested in talking about it. “You should go home now,” she says simply.

Without another word, Hope spins around and starts to walk away. 

Josie is stunned into stillness for a moment, but then she charges down the hall after her. “Hope,” she says, trying to urge her to listen.

Josie grabs Hope's wrist to try to stop her, but she jerks back right away like she's been shocked.

Hope's magic feels different. Josie frowns, worried that the banshee might've made more of a lasting impact on her than she thought.

The contact is enough to get Hope to stop walking. She spins around, but she still looks entirely apathetic. “What?” 

Josie glances around, like she’s not sure of the answer.

Hope stares at her, impatient. “If you’re gonna leave," she starts. "Then leave.”

Josie stares at her, looking a bit vulnerable. “I can’t,” she says quietly.

“You can’t?” Hope repeats, her expression still entirely blank.

Josie could do nothing but stare, bewildered.

Hope raises an eyebrow. “Well, that’s funny," she says sarcastically. "Because you seemed to be pretty convinced that you were going to—”

“Are you okay?” Josie cuts her off, the worry clear in her voice.

Hope falls silent. “Am I okay?” she echoes.

Josie's gaze falters with uncertainty.

Hope laughs. “I thought I made it pretty clear that I wasn’t,” she says, still sounding entirely emotionless. “But that’s not your problem anymore, Josie. Go home.”

Without another word, Hope turns and walks calmly down the hall, leaving Josie standing there, shell-shocked.