Chapter Text
“Can you give us a second?”
Lizzie tried her best to ignore her father’s gaze and focused on Hope instead as he walked past her and out of the office. She gulped lightly, realizing how tense Hope was about all this. She stepped closer to her once she heard the door closing behind her and took a deep breath, looking down at her own hands.
“I, um, I made these…” keeping her eyes down on her hands, she extended the pair of letters to her. Hope took them and looked down at them, and only then Lizzie spared a glance to her face. “It’s for… after the battle. For my parents, Josie and… you. It’s not much really, because I’m horrible at goodbyes but I… I had to make them. Please give them to them.”
Hope nodded, and as soon as she looked up to her, Lizzie moved her gaze back to the letters.
“I will. Did you… talk to your mom and sister?”
“Yeah. It was… kind of bad. Josie cried a lot. Mom freaked out… pretty bad. She said she’s taking the first flight from Belgium to here to stop me so… we have to do this first thing in the morning, somehow. Or as soon as she gets here you’ll have to compel her to not intervene.”
“Maybe she’s right,” Lizzie looked up at Hope’s eyes for that, noticing now that they were shimmering with tears. “It should be me, Lizzie.”
“No. You’ve made enough sacrifices all your life, Hope. It’s not up to you now.” Hope parted her lips, probably to argue back, but she kept on, trying her best to smirk. “Besides, it’s my time to shine. You’re not taking that from me.”
Hope sighed in defeat but smiled in the end, and that was enough to put a real smile on Lizzie’s face at least. She avoided Hope’s eyes once more by looking down, feeling the tense silence that settled around them.
She hated to be the one to ask this. Moments like this had her wishing she was a mind-reader to know what was going on inside Hope’s head… that would make everything so much easier.
But she needed to know; now more than ever that she was most likely going to die.
“Is there… anything you’d like to tell me?”
Lizzie found Hope’s eyes again, seeing the mixed emotions crossing her face. A bit of confusion, shock, pain… nothing of what Lizzie was expecting.
She shouldn’t have asked anything.
“Yes,” Hope answered after long seconds, holding her stare. “Yes, of course. I…” Lizzie bit the inside of her cheek, feeling her heart racing and not even caring that Hope probably heard it. This was it. It was happening. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what I did to you,” any ghost of a smile that was slowly tugging at Lizzie’s lips fell at that, as much as her heart must have dropped.
She shouldn’t have asked anything.
“I’ll never forgive myself for it, Lizzie. I… tried to get you to kill someone. I practically tortured you as much as I tortured Aurora. I – I killed you; I took your life, and your dreams, from you. I just… I was feeling threatened by you because I knew that if I didn’t get you out of my way, somehow, you’d be able to bring my humanity back sooner or later. I am so sorry.”
Lizzie knew she was being truthful about all of it, there was nothing but pure sincerity in Hope’s eyes, but she still stupidly waited for more. She wanted to know why Hope thought that she’d be able to bring her humanity back when no one in school had been able to do that… but she couldn’t bear the thought of what the answer would be.
Probably something related to considering Lizzie her best friend, like a sister.
She shouldn’t have asked anything in the first place. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
“I know,” Lizzie whispered once she realized Hope was waiting for her response. “I know that wasn’t you, so… I forgive you.”
She wanted to say more; she wanted to tell her how she wasn’t able to say she loved MG back because she was in love with someone else. She had been for quite a while now and only realized it the same night that Hope killed her, and then the sire bond confirmed it.
It was all right there, in front of her. It all made sense, but only for her. What was she expecting?
There was no way that Hope couldn’t know how the sire bond was made, but she decided to never speak on it for a reason.
Lizzie was the one in denial. She had to accept it.
“Well, I’ll go talk to my dad now. See if he can calm my mom down.”
She tried to laugh to relieve the tension in the room, but Hope didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile… she looked conflicted about something if anything, but Lizzie was too much in her own heartbreak to try to understand about it.
She’d done everything already. She’d told Hope she loved her – twice. She’d confessed to her that she idolized her since they were kids. What else was there to say?
Lizzie looked up at Hope, one last time.
Please say something.
Hope stared back.
But didn’t say anything.
Lizzie gave her a tiny smile and a nod, turned around and walked over to the door.
She opened it, with the smallest of hopes to actually hear Hope’s voice behind her stopping her, but there was silence.
Only silence as Lizzie walked out of the office and closed the door behind her.
Hope groaned when her back hit the ground. She blinked her eyes open to see she was in the middle of the woods; Ken’s punch had sent her flying off. But she had to get back, even if it was time for Lizzie to set the explosion, she had to get back and be there with her to try to kill Ken and take Lizzie out of there before it was too late.
She was the tribrid. She may have not told anyone what her plan was, but she was not going to let Lizzie die.
Hope took the sword that had fallen off her hand from the ground and was about to vamp back to the school’s field, but her eyes stayed on the piece of paper that was next to the sword.
She took her free hand to the pocket of her jacket immediately, realizing that Lizzie’s letter had fallen off with the impact. She’d carried with her this whole time; it was a part of Lizzie, not her last part, because she was going to save her, but still.
Hope took the letter, ready to put it back into her jacket, when the words inside caught her attention.
Lizzie told her to read it after the battle.
But she couldn’t take her eyes off the words.
Hope;
I just wanted to thank you because for so long I was so scared that I was never going to be able to experience what being in love was like. I wanted to have that so bad.
And then I realized… I had been in love for so long. I still am.
Being in love with you had been one of the best things in my messed up life, so… thank you for making me love you, Hope Mikaelson.
Love,
Lizzie.
Hope felt numb.
The sword slipped from her other hand as she tried to process the words.
How couldn’t she see it before? How could she be so stupid?
“Is there… anything you’d like to tell me?”
Hope had wanted to tell her everything; she knew she had to apologize first for what she did to her, but she’d wanted to explain more, explain how she’d killed her because she actually loved her so much that even without her humanity she knew Lizzie could make her feel things. That was why she was so threatened by her and pushed what was left of those emotions down to get her out of her way.
And how if she had her emotions on when they learned about the sire bond, her heart would come out from her chest from happiness to know Lizzie loved her back. Her no humanity self did a pretty good job at hiding it. But then, even without her humanity, when Lizzie snapped her neck and betrayed her, she didn’t only break the sire bond, but her heart too.
All this time, since that moment, Hope had believed that Lizzie was able to break the sire bond because she fell out of love with her. When she was truly back, she thought that Lizzie had still some affection for her, and that she should feel happy with only that. She shouldn’t ask for more; she’d tortured her by making her watch as she tortured Aurora. She’d killed her.
She had to be grateful that Lizzie still wanted to be her friend, to say the least.
But she was wrong.
Lizzie was still in love with her.
They still had a chance.
Hope smiled but jumped to hear the explosion going off in the distance.
No.
No, no, no, no.
Hope vamped towards the school’s field, arriving just in time to see the field covered in giant flames everywhere.
The only thing she was able to do was fall on her knees and stare in shock at the scene in front of her.
She was too late.
Too late to confess her feelings. Too late to save Lizzie.
What had she done?