Chapter Text
It had been about a month since Hope and Landon both woke up after Hope got trapped in Josie’ mind and Landon got shot with a golden arrow. Luckily, through the help of Hope’s family and their resources, they were able to successfully save both their niece and her boyfriend. However, Landon’s status as Hope’s boyfriend didn’t last much longer than that. Almost immediately after they woke up, Hope broke up with Landon, much to his dismay.
Hope told him that she didn’t think that they were truly right for each other, and that it was just cruel to both of them to remain in a relationship. She told him that she loved him, but she was not in love with him, which was completely true.
While Hope might not have been completely conscious in Josie’s mind, she was still aware and could think in that time. She did a lot of self-discovery and reflection, and realized that she was more in love with the idea of Landon and being with someone who was supposed to be immortal, but she really didn’t love him in a way that could make them both happy for all of eternity.
Needless to say, Landon was pissed. Despite the two of them having fights and not being on the same page for a while prior to their brush with death, Landon thought Hope’s break up was a complete surprise. Ever since their break up, Landon was still trying to convince Hope to take him back, which was really getting on Hope’s nerves.
Josie, on the other hand, had been there for Hope through everything. Hope and Josie have been spending a lot of time together since she woke up. First, Josie was doing everything she could to thank Hope for saving her from her darker side, even though Hope kept telling her that it was not necessary.
Luckily, Hope and Josie’s friendship was even stronger than before the Dark Josie incident. Hope has been confiding in Josie about her situation with Landon, while Hope has been trying to get Josie more comfortable doing magic again.
The two friends had become closer and closer recently. Josie had even been having sleepovers with Hope more often than she had been sleeping in her own room. Both Hope and Josie have been taking comfort in each other and often fall asleep cuddling, which neither girl would admit is anything more than platonic.
In fact, ever since the whole incident with Pig Josie and the sleeping beauty situation (which Hope and Josie never actually discussed), Hope has been feeling more protective of and more in tune with Josie. She couldn’t really explain why, or she wasn’t ready to fully admit why. So, when Hope saw Josie visibly uncomfortable as she was standing next to someone in the hall way, Hope immediately went over to see what was going on.
“So, JoJo, did you miss me?” Hope heard the voice of Penelope Park say to Josie with her back to Hope.
Penelope great! Just great. Well, at least, now I know why Josie looks like she’s seen a ghost. Poor Josie, she looks so mortified. Hope thought to herself as she walked up to Josie. ‘
“Josie! There you are!...” Hope said, drawing Josie and Penelope’s attention.
Hope saw Josie visibly relax when Hope interrupted, which made Hope smile internally. Hope was happy she read the situation correct and was helping Josie. Penelope, however, looked irritated, which Hope didn’t much care about.
“... I thought we were going to meet up to study for midterms?” Hope said, trying to come up with an excuse to get Josie away from Penelope as soon as possible.
Josie took Hope’s help quickly and gratefully as she smiled and replied.
“Yes.. yes, we are. Sorry, I was on my way to find you when I was… umm.. stopped.” Josie finished and glanced at Penelope.
“I was just telling JoJo here that I’m transferring back to Salvatore for at least the rest of the semester. My mom got transferred back to the area, and I thought we should catch up.” Penelope said, cocky and smirking at Josie.
“Yeah.. well maybe some other time, Penelope. I have a previous engagement for today. Let’s go, Hope. See you around, I guess.” Josie said quickly to Penelope before pulling Hope with her towards her room and away from Penelope.
When the duo made their way into Hope’s room, Josie quickly pulled Hope into a hug.
“Thank you, Hope! I was not expecting to see her here or ever again, honestly.” Josie said
“It’s no problem, Jo. Really, I’m happy to help. I could see she was making you uncomfortable and I just wanted to help.”
“I just don’t want to have to deal with her. She broke my heart, lied to me multiple times, and manipulated me instead of just telling me things straight up. I can’t go through that again. I don’t want to go through that again. The worst part is that I know she is going to keep pushing me and egging me on to get back together with her…. God, this is going to suck.” Josie said, plopping down in Hope’s bed in defeat.
Hope had an idea as Josie finished talking, a crazy idea, but just crazy enough that it might actually work. An idea that could solve both her Landon problem and Josie’s Penelope problem, she just hoped that Josie wouldn’t be disgusted by the thought of it or something.
Hope started to pace before talking, an obvious sign that the Tribrid was nervous, which didn’t happen very often.
“I… uh.. I might have an idea, Jo. It could help get Penelope off your back and get Landon off of mine, but I don’t know how you would feel about it and the last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable..” Hope’s rambling was stopped by Josie.
“Hope! Tell me what’s going on? What’s your idea?” Josie asked, both curious and a little concerned at the same time.
“What if… what if you and I date…”
Josie’s eyes went wide at Hope thought, but Hope continued before Josie had time to fully process it.
“...pretend to date. What if we pretended to date. We would know the truth, but to everyone else we would be together. Maybe if it looks like we both moved on and are happy then they will leave us alone for good this time.” Hope finished.
The silence after Hope finished explaining her crazy idea was long, and Hope would have given anything to make it go away. Josie, however, was thinking, really thinking about Hope’s idea. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense and the more she thought it could actually work. Finally after what felt like a lifetime to Hope, Josie ended the silence and spoke.
“Let’s do it” Josie said, smiling at Hope.