Four years isn't a long time, not to anyone who lives an ordinary life with no loss. Not to anyone who lives in Mystic Falls. It's just another set number of silly traditions, happy holiday's and town events, replaying over and over and over again...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
EVERYTHING IN HOPE MIKAELSON'S LIFE HAS CHANGED, so it's a relief to her when not a damn thing about Mystic Falls is different. The same tire-worn roads from tourists driving through on their way to a bigger city, the same crisp air that always makes it feel like autumn, the same sunny sky that belts beams through every crack in every tree branch.
And yet, it still doesn't feel like she's home.
The car shakes on the gravel in the road as Hope pulls up beside Caroline Forbes' childhood home. Small on the outside, large on the inside. Hope yanks the keys from the ignition in her dad's car. She makes no move to step out of the vehicle. If she does, then it all becomes real— her dad is dead and she's back to square one.
It's not that Hope hates this small, rustic town in central Virginia. It's charming qualities make it a suitable place to live, and it's no wonder why every founding family finds themselves back here. The southern hospitality of the waitresses at the breakfast diners, the fair amount of teenagers that populate the town square on the weekends or after school, the seemingly kind-hearted authority figures that manage to keep the town safe. Mystic Falls is safe. Yet everyone who Hope has ever loved has lived here and died.
When her dad was diagnosed, they'd found it too late. Cancer of the brain. He was dying long before anyone could've guessed something was wrong. He fainted at work and was rushed to the hospital. It was the day Hope's life changed for the worst.
Hope's mom died in an accident when Hope was ten, and her dad when she was fifteen. Ask anyone, but their answer would remain the same as everyone else's— that's not a long life with a parent, let alone two.
After her dad died, holding her hand in his bedroom where there was once a comfortable California king that was shortly replaced with a hospital bed, Hope spent a couple years in New Orleans. She tried to make it feel like home, but the truth was, it never would be. Not without her dad alive.
And now, she's back here.
Four years isn't a long time, not to anyone who lives an ordinary life with no loss. Not to anyone who lives in Mystic Falls. It's just another set number of silly traditions, happy holiday's and town events, replaying over and over and over again. For Hope, four years has felt like a lifetime. She's barely eighteen and yet, she feels like half of her life has already been lived. And truly, she just wants to forget it ever happened in the first place.
She doesn't know how long she's been sitting outside her (ex)-stepmother's home in nothing but silence. She jumps at the sound of someone tapping on the driver's seat window. The sun blinds her when she turns, so she makes a visor with her hand and cranks down the window. Alaric is standing there, eyes squinting and hands on his hips.
"Hey," he says. "Let me help with your things."
Hope doesn't say a word as she pops the trunk. She hardly brought anything back with her from New Orleans. Who knew how long it'd be before she decided Mystic Falls wasn't enough for her, either.
