Work Text:
She wasn't ready to put yet another relationship on display to the entire school the way it had been with Landon. Her heart felt barely healed enough to show it privately to Lizzie.
But after everything they'd lived through, - after all the things she'd put Lizzie through - Hope had known that Lizzie deserved to know how Hope felt about her.
So one day, a month after Lizzie and MG had broken up she'd snagged Lizzie's wrist and led her out into the forest surrounding the Salvatore Boarding School to make sure they wouldn't be overheard by any of the supernaturally heightened ears surrounding them, and said to Lizzie the words she'd heard from Lizzie back when she'd been unable to respond to them herself.
"I love you," she remembered saying, as her heart beat painfully against her ribcage and she could hear Lizzie's own skip a beat. But before a nervous smile could slip onto Hope's face Lizzie's own twisted into a millisecond of pain and then was swept clear by a bright smile which made Hope's stomach clench around something that had suddenly gone cold.
"I love you too," Lizzie had replied easily, her voice light but eyelids fluttering rapidly, eyes not quite pointed at Hope when she said it.
Hope had known that she'd done a lot to hurt Lizzie while her emotions had been gone, but that had been the moment when she'd realized that the damage might have even more to do with the things Hope had failed to say, than the things she'd done.
"No," Hope said then, realizing Lizzie was either mistaking her meaning or unable to believe Hope could be speaking about something other than friendship alone.
"No? You don't love me? I think I’m offended," Lizzie tried to joke.
And for a moment Hope had considered letting her. Maybe this was Lizzie's way to gently let Hope know that the confessions that had been stuck running over the back of Hope's eyelids on repeat since the moment her humanity had returned - and only placed on the back burner as the war with the gods had taken precedence - were no longer true, that snapping Lizzie's neck, or almost forcing Lizzie to become the same kind of monster that Hope had been was too much.
But that was cowardice talking again. The same cowardice that had let Hope pretend that she didn't care about anything, Lizzie least of all, even as Lizzie had become something like a nexus to Hope. And she had been, she remembered the possessiveness that had coiled heat around Hope's cold dead heart during that month of hunting Aurora. The way everything inside Hope thrummed with satisfaction any time Lizzie leaned toward her with obvious attraction, any time Lizzie smiled despite herself, any time Lizzie grew angry enough to scream in Hope's face. As long as it had been Hope who brought the emotions out she hadn't cared what kind they were.
With the advantage of reflection Hope occasionally wondered if her humanity had truly been gone at all, her family had always spoken of it like a light switch that could be flipped off in any of the younger vampires. But for Hope, it was like a button that she'd had to keep pressed; or like a hand grenade with a missing pin where Hope had to keep it clenched in her fist knowing that as soon as she forgot herself her emotions would return in an explosion of burning light.
"No, I love you, Lizzie," she'd repeated herself and then to make herself absolutely clear had narrowed the distance between them and lightly placed her fingers against the side of Lizzie's face, urging Lizzie to actually look at her for this, "I'm in love with you."
And by the spirits of her ancestors but she was.
Lizzie had buried a place for herself in Hope's heart during the worst months of her life, and every day since had only reminded Hope how amazing and beautiful and deserving of that spot Lizzie really was.
"Oh," Lizzie had said, looking like all the air had somehow been pulled from the surrounding forest. And then she'd grabbed Hope’s shirt by the shoulder, clenched her fingers in the cloth to pull her forward, and kissed her.
After that, though they’d both decided that they weren’t quite ready to let anyone else know about the new status of their relationship.
Hope because she wasn’t quite ready for the eyes of their friends. Lizzie because she didn’t want to hurt MG any more than she had by breaking up with him only weeks after starting to date him. And both of them because they wanted to let it be something that was just theirs for a while longer. It was nice to let themselves enjoy something nice that was for once without drama or life-or-death stakes.
So for the school’s annual winter holiday celebration, they’d arrived at the party separately.
It sounded like a good idea at the time.
Hope had forgotten that as far as everyone else was concerned though, Lizzie had been single for three months now. Which meant the sight that greeted her when she arrived wasn’t just Lizzie, - her hair lightly curled into waves and pulled up into a loose bun that showed off the beautiful sparkly red dress which exposed Lizzie’s back to the air, and made Hope swallow at the sudden dryness at the back of her throat; it was also Jen, a half step too close to Lizzie and very clear intent written in the way her eyes shone with interest.
The echo of the humanity-less Hope that would remain a part of her forever now, hissed like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.
It was a disquieting sensation, especially because she wasn’t sure that she wanted to actually fight the sudden urge to flash across the floor separating them, and throw Jen into the table holding the punch bowl that was all the way on the other side of the room.
The mature thing to do would be to go join one of her other friends and leave Lizzie to talk with Jen. After all, she did trust Lizzie, and Lizzie was allowed to talk with other people. Jen was her friend. And even if Hope well saw that Jen was clearly flirting with Lizzie it’s not like Hope could blame her.
It’s not as if Jen knew that Lizzie was dating Hope.
And Lizzie wasn’t even flirting back, Hope knew how that looked. Both through years of observing it from the sidelines and from being the focus of said flirting more recently. Lizzie was just having a conversation.
It was fine. There was no reason to freak out just because other people had eyes too.
The part of herself that was all Mikaelson disagreed, jaw clenching as Jen’s hand moved to remove a loose speck of glinting plastic glitter that had fallen into Lizzie’s hair from one of the room’s decorations.
“Lizzie!” Hope called out with a smile that felt slightly manic around the edges, already halfway to them only seconds later. Apparently, Hope was not going to be mature and rational about this after all.
“Hey, Hope,” Lizzie smiled back, her brow furrowing as she took a better look at Hope.
Hope only barely managed to make herself stop before she could encroach on Lizzie’s personal space in a show of claim that would be instantly clear to all the people around. But just because Hope suddenly felt like announcing their relationship to the world at large because of the instincts passed on to her by both her mother and her father, didn’t mean that Lizzie was.
She felt her mind blanking on what to do next for a moment. And then...
“Do you want to dance?” was what came out first.
Hope saw Lizzie’s eyes clearing with understanding, as her gaze flickered for a moment from Hope to Jen and then back again. Then some kind of certainty seemed to fall into place behind Lizzie’s eyes.
“Sure, Sweetie,” Lizzie said, taking her hand, and leaned forward to place a short, sweet kiss on Hope’s lips. “I’d love to.”
“And I love you,” fell past Hope’s lips without any input from her brain before a blush rose on her cheeks, both at the pleased-as-punch look that flashed over Lizzie’s face and the hush that had fallen over the party.
She cleared her throat and ignoring everyone’s eyes pulled Lizzie onto the dance floor.