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Hope had never given up on her. Not when she had the choice. She repeated it to herself as she left Finch, as she boarded the bus, as she felt the metal of the talisman warm from where it sat on her collarbone. She remembered when Hope gave it to her, to make quiet things heard.
But was she ever heard? Really? By the person that needed to hear it most? She’d told Finch to stay, to fight, but the tears falling down her cheeks weren’t for the girl in front of her.
“I want you to stay.”
They were for her.
She sighed, watched the trees race past. Hope was gone, and it was because of Landon. Landon was always the driving force behind Hope’s actions, and Josie would be stupid not to see the obsession that refused to die. Hope supported Josie, yes, until it came to Landon.
She manipulated Josie, saw black magic coursing through her veins with those wide eyes apologetic but not remorseful, and Josie had forgiven her, of course she did, but in her heart was a thorn that still stung at the memory. One that dug deeper with every breath. Lodged in her throat, bloody and impossible to swallow.
And it was the same for Hope losing her humanity. She understood. If she had to drive a knife into someone…into Hope, she would probably turn full dark Josie and never return. But Hope was doing all this for a boy that didn’t try to stay for either of them.
He was intent on being a martyr and up until now, his phoenix powers had protected him. But he finally got his wish and Hope saw it as her own fault. It was stupid and painful and horrible and Josie didn’t understand why everyone hurt each other like this.
Hope didn’t deserve it. Maybe some people did, but not her.
She didn’t understand why her heart was broken not from her dad laying in a potentially irreversible coma but from her best friend leaving them all behind. Maybe it wasn’t just her heart but everything. All of her, a twisted mess that could only clean up other messes.
And maybe she should let someone else fix this one, but after all this time trying to be selfish she’d found the one thing she couldn’t count on anyone else for. She wasn’t sure if she trusted anyone else to love Hope this much, besides the Mikaelsons who already promised her all the help she needed.
This was her responsibility.
—
It was time. Months with Caroline and occasionally Freya or other Mikaelsons, months of Hope terrorizing the town. Not even the news of Lizzie being turned brought her back. Not the feeling of emptiness from her loss, the black hole swirling in her heart and growing. Everything was eating away at her and she let it, had to, to focus on fixing Hope.
Through it all, the rooting through useless ingredients and spells to find millions of possibilities, chances, to test out and find the one cure, her hand would only steady on her necklace. It was her purpose.
She gave up on the concept of day or night and Caroline gave up on checking on her. She tried for weeks, but eventually just told Josie she knew a thing or two about obsessive love and that she couldn’t say anything to stop her. She was right.
But Josie found the cure and now she was on a bus back home to the Salvatore school. It was a spell that forced someone not only to relive important memories but the feelings of those memories. Her breath was shaky, heart racing, wondering when she’d be close enough for Hope to hear it or if she could already.
Her question was answered when, an hour later, Hope looked up with a dangerous smirk, fingers lightly tapping the bars of the cage she was in in the middle of the gym. It made her avert her gaze instantly. Josie wished for the day when they didn’t have a fucking makeshift prison in the middle of the gym.
She smoothed down her skirt with one hand to try and wipe some of the sweat off her palms. Her other hand clutched an ancient, fraying spell book to her chest—to some yellow shirt that felt too sunny for how she was feeling—and she took a deep breath before looking Hope in the eye again. The squad was lurking just outside the gym in case anything went sideways and Ethan was somewhere around, invisible and utterly useless if Hope did manage to get out of this.
Freya had spelled the cage, though, so they had a while before Hope could break it. It would’ve been forever if it were anyone but the tribrid. Josie swallowed, that thorn tickling her throat again as Hope continued to smile. Like nothing was wrong.
Josie had a sinking feeling that this would be like the memory spell, that it would fix everyone’s problems but her own and she’d wake up to a nightmare that was a daydream to everyone around her.
She also knew, like she knew then, that she had to do this. Watching Hope inevitably walk away to get Landon back would hurt the same whether she had her humanity or not. At least with it, everyone else would be happy. Besides Hope, anyway, who probably wouldn’t be happy until Landon was alive again and fully immortal.
Millions of thorns to swallow, and rip apart her throat. To tear her voice away until all she had were hands to give what everyone needed. A fixer.
Hope surprisingly wasn’t saying anything. It was unnerving, like she was waiting for Josie to fail. That wasn’t what Josie was nervous about, though. And she knew Hope underestimated her, because she didn’t know the lengths she would and had gone to. The jungles she’d convinced Kol to trek through (and then trekked through herself, unsure if he’d looked thoroughly enough for a supposed hidden temple that turned out to be just a myth after all).
Josie began saying the words, her voice strong and loud. For some reason, with her waiting behind the gym doors, Josie expected to feel Lizzie’s reaction, her feelings of support, but there was nothing. She continued, louder, walking up to the cage and wrapping her hand around the same bar Hope was holding.
Wind whipped around them, Hope and Josie’s hair flying wildly around them as their eyes locked, never leaving each other. But Josie could tell the spell was working, a glazed look passing over Hope’s eyes before they closed against their will. Her hand moved on the bar, slid down until her pinkie was touching the top of Josie’s hand.
Hope’s face scrunched up as she tried to resist, and Josie let go of the bar in favor of fully laying her hand over Hope’s. She tightened her hold, siphoning some of her power to channel the spell. Hope let out a shuddered breath and Josie’s heart felt like bursting but she kept chanting, the power erasing all the exhaustion she’d felt for the last few months and filling her with bright-hot energy.
Soon, she heard doors open behind her. Freya, Kol, Rebekah, and Marcel walked in, chanting the same words and causing tears to spring from Hope’s eyes and run down her cheeks. After a couple minutes, she fell to her knees, sobbing, her hand leaving Josie’s and Josie feeling unbearably empty without it—and selfish for even thinking about that now.
Hope was muttering something, and Josie slowly stopped chanting when she realized Hope’s eyes were open, they were just focused on the ground. She was apologizing. Over and over again. Josie felt her throat constrict painfully.
“Why are you sorry?” She whispered. The Mikaelsons were wasting no time, Freya performing the spell to take down the barrier around the cage while the others hovered around Josie with concerned looks.
Hope lifted up her head. Mascara was smeared down her face and she looked more desperate and weak than Josie had ever seen her. Eyebrows furrowed together, lips trembling and hands grabbing at her knees, clawing, almost, like she had to hold something or do something, anything, but didn’t know how. Hope looked human.
“I killed him, Jo.”