Hope, this isn't you.

Everything that can be lost may also be found.

Deep down, I believe that there is still some good in you.

Your humanity is flickering, Hope. It's trying to return.

I am not going to fight you, and I am not going to run.

I know you're trying to get through to me.

Hatred is an emotion, and in my experience, you can only hate what you could love.

You know you're not okay.

I hate you for making me love you, Hope Mikaelson.

We mean to bring you hope, not hurt, but either is humanity ...

Hope rolled over with a sigh. The hard stone floor hurt against her back. She stared up at the ceiling. There was no torture like boredom.

At least when she was stuck in the astral projection, being annoyed endlessly by her family who thought she could be saved, there was something to do. Now, she was just stuck alone with her thoughts swirling around in her head, the good chasing the bad and the bad chasing the good.

She felt like she was laying in some sort of limbo - even more so that when she was laying in actual limbo. She was at the top of a peak, and she could fall either way. It was her decision. She was just too scared to commit to a direction.

Damn it - scared was an emotion.

The last time she had felt something like that creeping in, it was when Lizzie had betrayed her - had lied to her face about still loving her. Because if Lizzie really was still in love with her like she claimed, she would've staked Aurora the second Hope set that sharp piece of wood in her hand. She wouldn't have been able to break their sire bond like she did without finding the loophole and removing the one thing that caused the bond and ... oh, she was spiraling again. And she didn't have the option to tear some poor, unsuspecting man's throat out in the middle of the street to stop feeling this time.

She shifted on the floor again, the small movement momentarily distracting her from her thoughts. She needed something to distract her or she was going to lose her mind. She closed her eyes.

Concentrate.

Filter everything else out and just focus on that one voice in the crowd.

There was one thing she could do to hurt herself and send her humanity switch back in the other direction. She just had to find Lizzie's voice through all the noise of the Salvatore School.

It was late. The younger kids were all asleep for the night, cutting out a large chunk of the white noise to sift through. But it also meant the older kids were sneaking around and giggling and getting louder and louder the closer it got to curfew and quiet hours.

Fuck. That anger and frustration she felt was also an emotion. Hope slammed her fists against the stone floor. Just fuck. Fuck it all.

And then she heard it.

She was willing to bet no other vampire would've been able to. It wasn't loud. It was barely even detectable. It wasn't Lizzie's voice, but it was undeniably Lizzie.

After how much time they'd spent together in the last few years and how many nights Hope had laid awake next to her in that motel bed, just listening to the sound of her heartbeat, Hope would recognize the rhythm anywhere.

It beat away steadily in Lizzie's chest.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

Lizzie adjusted her head so her ear wasn't pressed against her pillow anymore. Apparently, she had been subconsciously listening for Hope down in the cells as she fell asleep and it had woken her up when she heard Hope hit her cell. Now she listened to the sound of her breathing, waiting for something - anything.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

Lizzie propped herself up on one elbow. Hope's breathing was strangely kind of soothing. It was so steady and even. Maybe that was a perk of not having your humanity anymore. Nothing to quicken your breath or make it catch in your throat. She didn't know what about hearing someone two floors down fill their lungs was so calming, but she settled back in and closed her eyes.

It was like having Hope there with her. With her heretic hearing, it was almost as loud as it was when Hope would lay next to her in the motel bed. Lizzie was pretty sure she didn't sleep - maybe that was another perk of not feeling, or just of being a tribrid - but she would lay with Lizzie, not moving, just breathing. It made it feel like Hope was laying right next to her.

As she drifted off to sleep, Lizzie reached out instinctively, shooting back awake when she realized the spot next to her was empty. She thought she made it up, but she could have sworn Hope's breath stuttered. Like something had caught her off guard or stolen her attention.

Lizzie held a hand over her chest where her heart hammered away, spurred by the adrenaline that came with the only-half-awake fear of Hope disappearing.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud .

Hope sat up in her cell. Something had made Lizzie's heart start beating faster. It had been steadily slowing down as she fell asleep, but then it shot to life with a renewed vigor. Something dangerously close to guilt swirled in Hope's stomach.

Lizzie was probably drifting off to sleep when a nightmare jerked her awake - and Hope had a pretty good feeling what kind of nightmarish things she could reliving. Maybe when Hope nearly killed her dad. Or maybe when Hope snapped her neck the moment after Lizzie said she loved her and was never going to give up. Or maybe when Hope had locked her in a god-proof coffin to starve to death. Or even maybe when Hope had forced her to brutally torture Aurora ...

Hope struggled to fill her lungs against the pain of the memories. She pressed her back against the wall as her breaths got faster and harder.

How had she done all that to Lizzie? To her best friend? To her something more? She loved Lizzie - hadn't realized just how much until she had turned off her humanity and could look through the grief and guilt she had over Landon. With her emotions on, she hadn't wanted to admit that she was in love with someone else so soon after Landon died - and maybe, maybe, while he was still alive and she was still with him. But with her emotions off ...

But now it was too late. Hope buried her face in her hands. Lizzie had found the loophole, had figured out that hating her would break the sire bond and Hope's heart. Her heart that was supposed to feel anything but somehow felt that betrayal. She raked her fingers through her hair in a desperate attempt to soothe herself.

She didn't like this. There was a tight feeling in her chest. Something heavy in her stomach. Something wet in her eyes. Something rough in her throat. She didn't want those feelings. She blinked back hot tears, trying to suck in as much air as she could.

In. In. Out. In. Out. In. In. In.

Lizzie pulled back the blankets and slid her feet to the floor. She didn't know what she planned to do, but she was letting her bare legs lead the way. She crept to the door, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. She could still hear Hope's ragged breathing - a tell-tale and all-too-familiar sign of a panic attack setting in. Lizzie hurried down the silent hallways, her bare feet freezing on the stone stairs leading into the cells.

"Hope?" Lizzie whispered, peering around the corner.

Hope glanced up, sticky lips parting as she took in Lizzie's soft bedhead and pajamas. "Lizzie!" She shot to her feet, gripping at the bars of her cell to steady herself. "I'm so sorry -"

"Hey ..." Lizzie set her cold hands over Hope's and looked her in the eyes. "Apologize after the panic attack."

Hope shook her head. Her cheeks and her nose were dark red. "It's not a panic attack," she insisted.

"Crying? Feels like you can't breathe? Racing heart? Shaking hands? It's a panic attack, Hope. Trust me, I know."

Lizzie slid open the cell door, and Hope stepped back.

"What are you doing? Your dad said to leave that locked and the ... barrier ... spell ... up," Hope finished weakly as she watched Lizzie raise a hand and siphon the invisible wall that was keeping her and the monster she had become in. "Lizzie ..."

Hope wanted to tell her that she was being too gentle. Or too naive. Or too weak. Whatever adjective would get her back out of Hope's reach, physically and emotionally.

"Just sit," Lizzie said, motioning to the padded bench that Hope had been ignoring since she woke up on it. "And don't argue with me," Lizzie said, cutting Hope off only a syllable into her protest.

Hope sighed and sat down. She didn't want Lizzie there. She wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want anyone around or if she didn't want Lizzie to see her like that. Deeper down was an even stronger suspicion that it was because she knew she didn't deserve the immense amount of comfort Lizzie brought her. She was spiraling with guilt over the hell she put Lizzie through, after all. Why should Hope get relief from that with Lizzie herself?

"Just breathe. You can talk about it if you want, or we can just sit in silence," Lizzie offered with a tender smile. She rested her hand on the top of her own thigh, palm up and fingers spread. "You can hold my hand if you want too."

Hope just stared at her blankly.

"What?" Lizzie scrunched her forehead at the tribrid. "You think I don't know how to do this?"

"I think I don't deserve this," Hope said, not sure how honest she was going to be until she opened her mouth. She winced both at how hard it was to get the words out around the lump in her throat and at how pathetic and vulnerable her voice sounded.

"Well, you do," Lizzie said bluntly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and Hope was just being an argumentative child.

"I don't. I - I killed you."

"To be fair, I snapped your neck after that, so we're even."

"No." Hope shook her head. She wasn't having any of that. Lizzie wasn't going to make it seem like they were fair and square after everything. It wasn't even close. "You knew I would come back to life. You were doing it to get away. I did it thinking you would be gone forever because ..."

Lizzie's eyes sparkled as she drifted closer to Hope. "Because what?"

Hope had to glance away from Lizzie's intense gaze. "Because of what you said."

"That you were being a bully?" Lizzie laughed dryly. "I knew that bruised your ego."

"No." Hope found the corners of her mouth turning up against her will. "The other thing."

"Right. When I said I wasn't going to run."

"The part where you said you love me, Lizzie," Hope said firmly. She didn't want this to be a light conversation where Lizzie made jokes out of her own trauma. She knew those conversations all too well.

"Oh ..."

If the dim light wasn't just playing tricks on Hope's eyes, there was a flush creeping across Lizzie's high cheekbones.

"It scared the shit out of me, if I'm being honest."

"I ..." Lizzie took a deep, shaky breath, sandwiching her hands between her thighs. "... usually have that effect on people when I tell them how I really feel."

It certainly wasn't her first rejected and it wasn't going to be her last. But this one stung a little more than the others. Maybe because she'd been silently crushing on Hope for more than a decade, letting that hope tangle around her heart so much that killing it felt like killing herself.

"I didn't want you to be in love with me." Hope pursed her lips and turned her eyes towards the ceiling, trying to blink away the tears before they fell. She was unsuccessful, and she hurried to brush them away angrily. She didn't want to cry. She wanted to get her words out without getting all choked up. "Because if I was capable of being loved, then -" Hope's voice cracked. "- then I was capable of being saved." She shook her head back and forth, crying full-force now. Her shoulders shook with the effort. "And I didn't want to be saved. I wanted you all to give up on me."

Lizzie adjusted herself so that she was sitting facing Hope. "And when I said I wouldn't ..."

"I panicked, and I just ... eliminated the problem." Hope leaned back and sighed. "And then when that didn't work, I eliminated the problem a different way."

Lizzie furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Killing you didn't work, but I did end up making you hate me." Hope pressed the crown of her head against the wall, her lips forming a tense, straight line. She really couldn't blame Lizzie. She couldn't blame anyone but herself. For any of it.

"No you didn't." Lizzie stared at her, not understanding. "Hope, I meant what I said. Every single word. I hated what you were doing, but I never hated you. I never stopped loving you. I couldn't if I tried - and trust me, I tried."

"No, you did," Hope argued. There was no other explanation. "You must have. It's how you broke the sire bond."

Lizzie just kept staring at her blankly.

"A vampire only bonds to her sire when she has feelings for them before she turns. Human feelings. Vampirism only heightens those emotions. That's how the bond is formed," Hope explained.

"Hope, I know. I did all of MG's homework for Advanced Vampirism. What does this have to do with you thinking I hated you?"

"There's always a loophole, and you, Elizabeth Jenna Saltzman, have always been the best at finding them. It's how you broke the sire bond. You got rid of the thing that formed the bond - your love for me."

"No ..." Lizzie picked up Hope's hands in hers, stroking her thumbs over the backs of Hope's knuckles. "I broke the sire bond the same way I fought the Oni last fall and the same way I fight my own impulses every single day. Hope, I left you in that motel room to go find a way to raise Jen's family so that I could turn back time to when you still had your humanity on."

"What?"

"That was my and Aurora's plan. To raise Chronos and travel back to before you flipped your switch. To get you back."

"And Aurora was on board with that?"

"She wanted her brother back, and she thought one of the gods could do that too."

Hope smiled a little as she gripped Lizzie's hands tighter. "You were going to raise a god to get me back?"

"Gods. Multiple. But of course. I told you I wasn't going to give up, and I meant what I said."

For a moment, Hope just gazed up at her, the tears drying on her cheeks. Time seemed to slow down as she took it all in. Then, she shook herself free from the trance. "I think ..." she said slowly. "I think I might have my humanity back."

Lizzie laughed, and Hope found herself weakly chuckling along, sniffling and wiping at her nose.

"What was your first hint?" Lizzie joked.

Hope knew it was rhetorical, but she answered anyway. "When you had me sobbing my eyes out in the middle of the road the night you broke my neck."

Now it was Lizzie's turn to look surprised. "What?"

"Yeah. I was a mess when I thought you didn't love me anymore." Hope thought about telling her what she did to cope with that, but she decided against it. Lizzie already knew how much of a monster she was. They could get into the specifics in the morning. "Would you ... Would you stay with me? Just until I fall asleep?"

"No." Lizzie shook her head somberly and stood up.

Hope's heart fell. "Oh."

Lizzie held out her hand. "But you can come upstairs and sleep in my bed with me."

Hope smiled. She was sure Alaric and MG and the other students would have something to say about Lizzie setting her free in the middle of the night, but she didn't care.

"I love you too," Hope whispered as Lizzie led her up the dark stairwell by the hand. "Clearly more than I thought. I just ... don't want to leave that unsaid, in case it wasn't obvious."

Lizzie stopped on the stairs and turned to crinkle her nose. "It was a little obvious."

Hope stood on her tiptoes, her hand still in Lizzie's, the other on her waist. Carefully, Hope covered Lizzie's lips with her own. She froze for a long, long moment, wanting to savor their first, before she lowered her heels back down.

"I missed you," Hope breathed when her mouth was free.

"I missed you, too."