'the boy who still has a lot of good to do'

.

.

.

Georgie wrapped Rafael's jacket around her a little tighter as she and Landon finished wrapping chains around the tree. They weren't going to make it back to the Salvatore School before the moon rose, and despite Raf's protests, Georgie had said that she would stay with him throughout the night. Landon was supposed to go back with MG when the time came, but Georgie was doubtful about that. Not only was MG nowhere to be seen but she also knew that Landon had no ability in his body to leave Raf behind, ever.

"You sure this is gonna work?" Rafael asked as Landon stepped back to look at his and Georgie's handiwork, nodding a little as he looked at the chains wrapped around his werewolf brother.

"Oh, to be honest, bro, this is actually a first for me," Landon replied, the sarcasm seeping through his tone as he looked back at Raf. "But if you have a better idea, I'm all ears. Georgie, any thoughts?"

Georgie shook her head, not wanting to get involved in whatever small argument that she could sense was brewing between the boys. Even though she wasn't bound to the moon cycle in the same way that Rafael was, it still put her on edge. She was so used to staying inside with headphones on during a full moon that she was already beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with the situation Landon had gotten them into. There was a feeling of dread in her stomach, as if something was going to go terribly wrong that night.

"A better plan would've been not leaving the school at all," Raf complained, tugging at the chains to make sure that they would be able to hold him. He shared a look with Georgie, both of them not so sure that they would be able to. She agreed with Raf's statement too, wondering why they'd even gone along with Landon's stupid plan anyway.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to help MG!" Landon exclaimed as he looked between Georgie and Raf, noticing how they were avoiding his gaze. "Or you."

"And now we're both screwed!" Raf replied, getting nervous about not being at the Salvatore School for his transformation. It was different for Georgie - sure, her anger could cloud her judgement sometimes but she mostly had complete control over her wolf abilities whereas he didn't at all. "'Cause, what, you-you couldn't find your parents, so you... you made him get answers from his? That's not right!"

"Answers that made his life better," Landon replied back, moving past where Georgie had crouched down to look at the small bonfire that the three teenagers had made. She was worried that it was already beginning to dwindle, having not collected enough firewood to begin with. "And this is coming from the guy who won't even have the conversation?" 

"What conversation?"

Georgie felt like she was intruding on a private conversation, but it also didn't seem like the perfect moment for her to just get up and leave without saying anything - and she didn't want to interrupt whatever Landon was about to say. Something in her told her that it was something she maybe wanted to know the answer to too.

"The conversation you have been avoiding all week. And, hey, look at that. I have the key to the padlocks. So... we're having it."

"Landon," Georgie warned, her voice more serious than he had really heard it before. The two boys turned to look at her in surprise, almost as if they had forgotten she was there. "Don't taunt him right now."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"We both know you have feelings for Hope!"

Georgie looked up from the fire pit at that point, her eyes widening a little as she looked to Raf. She expected the boy to deny it, to tell Landon he was imagining things or to say that he was making things up - but it didn't come. Raf's eyes widened a little, shaking his head ever so slightly as he looked at his brother with a look that Georgie didn't quite know how to place.

"That was the slug talking," Rafeal said urgently, but Landon shook his head as he looked across the small wooded area to where his adoptive brother was almost pleading for him to stop the conversation with his eyes.

"The slug lowered your inhibitions. But it didn't make you do anything you didn't already want to do."

"Whether or not I have feelings, it don't matter, 'cause I would never act on them. I would never," Raf continued, indirectly admitting that he did have feelings for Hope. Georgie would honestly never have guessed that Rafael fancied her cousin, but nothing had grown to surprise her amongst their supernatural friend group.

"I know. Of course I know that," Landon replied casually, causing Georgie and Raf to book look at him in utter confusion. Georgie stood up from where she had been crouched beside the fire, wiping her hands off on her jeans before coughing lightly so that the boys paused in this conversation to look at her.

She smiled at them gently, motioning over her shoulder to the woods behind them and back down to where the fire that Landon had started was slowly dying out. 

"I'm gonna go grab more wood for the fire. Landon, if Raf starts to turn, you HAVE to go. I know it'll be hard for you, but I'll be with him every second of the way," Georgie told them both before directing the latter part of her sentence to Landon who still didn't look like he had any intention of doing so. "Please Landon, promise me. If Hope finds out I let you get mauled to death, I'll never hear the end of it."

Landon rolled his eyes a little sarcastically, playfully throwing his hands in the air as Georgie retreated into the woods. He smiled as she went, before turning back to Raf and continuing their conversation about the other boy also having feelings for his girlfriend.

Georgie just hoped that Landon would keep his promise.

_____

"Stay away from me, Dr. Saltzman. I can't control it," MG croaked out as Alaric and Kaleb found him, crouching down beside the boy who reeked of blood and tears. Kaleb was frantically running his eyes over his best friend, confused on why MG was seemingly bleeding when he was a vampire.

"Shh. It's okay. We're here. We're here. Just tell me what happened," Alaric replied, sharing a worried glance with Kaleb. Things had been looking bad all day but finding a bleeding, panicked MG and no sign of Landon or Georgie was making them even more panicked.

"There are demons all around me. Beast horns and devil's tongues," MG replied, gasping a little as his hand grabbed on to Kaleb's. The boy was clearly struggling with his ripper tendencies, his eyes narrowing in and out of the prominent vein on Alaric's neck. Kaleb pushed the man back a little, noticing how MG's eyes kept looking at the veins.

He grabbed on to his newest friend, looking at him with deep concern as he continued to splutter out nonsense. MG was into comic books and learning but Kaleb had never once seen the boy pick up a prose or poetry book so this was ridiculously out of character for him.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" Kaleb asked his head-teacher, partially blaming the man for this happening due to him not letting Kaleb spend the break at the school. Kaleb couldn't help but wonder if he hadn't been on the urn hunt if he'd have been able to prevent whatever trouble the rest had gotten themselves into.

"He's delusional, which means only one thing," Alaric told him, his mind instantly dreading the words that he was about to speak out loud. "He's been bitten."

Kaleb squinted at him, rolling his eyes a little at the stupid response. He looked at Alaric in distain before looking back at MG who was whimpering still and muttering more nonsense under his breath as he looked between Kaleb and Alaric with a far away look in his eyes. 

"He's a vampire. We do the biting."

Alaric shook his head as he looked at the blood that rested around MG. He pulled at the collar of the boy's shirt to reveal a large bloody wound across the base of his neck. Kaleb almost recoiled at the sight, knowing that the deep fang marks were way too big to have been from a vampire.

"By a werewolf."

"Rafael," Kaleb breathed, his eyes widening as he thought back to what the lucid werewolf had told them all earlier on. "He said he saw a monster. He is the damn monster!"

_____

Just as Georgie was finally walking back with more firewood, she heard the shouts and screams of Rafael. The Lockwood girl sighed as she increased her pace, knowing that the last thing they needed was a wolf Rafael and her not there to help lead him away from Landon - since she knew for a fact the boy would not have left his brother.

As she got closer to the clearing, her eyebrows furrowed as she realised that the yells she was hearing weren't just those of Rafael's transforming yells, but the human and pained ones of none other than Landon Kirby. Georgie increased her pace, now sprinting back through the forest as she felt her arms get nicked by branches and shrubs as she pushed herself faster to reach the boy. She didn't know what had gotten to him, but she could smell that sickly smell of his blood from a mile away.

"I don't have anything left to fight for. My dad was right. I'm a monster!"

Georgie's heart dropped as she made out MG's broken voice above the mix of Landon's frantic yells and Rafael's snarls. She felt her stomach clench in fear as she realised why she was smelling blood. The sudden conversations she and Josie had exchanged about MG's ripper side rushed into her head as she slammed into the clearing, her eyes scanning it quickly to see Rafael screaming in pain and anger as he tried to hold back his shift while watching MG drop Landon to the ground, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

Georgie's eyes fell on Landon's eyes, wide open but no longer seeing anything. How the wet blood dripped from the gash on his neck but his mouth was open with no breathing. She looked up as she met eyes with MG, his pupils blown out and black as he looked at the blood that coated her arms from scratching them on branches as she ran towards them.

"GEORGIE, GET OUT OF HERE!"

______

"I bit you," Rafael gasped in remembrance as he noticed the bite on MG's arm, his eyes resting upon the larger one on the vampire's neck as he tried to recall the incident. His mind was a little fuzzy, but it was as if the memories were all starting to come back to him now.

"What?" Hope asked, turning to look at Raf in confusion as she tried to piece together everything that was happening. Her mind was so focused on Landon and Georgie that she had forgotten that Rafael had still been missing memories of the night prior.

"This is all my fault," MG gasped out, his eyes looking into Rafael's almost as if he was pleading for forgiveness. He looked around at them all frantically, the awareness of what he had done running through his head. "Raf... I'm so sorry."

Kaleb almost growled at this, not having understood the situation. He looked up angrily at Rafael at the boy's admission to having bitten his best friend. He twisted his neck, looking between a frozen Rafael and a panicking MG, feeling anger rise up in him.

"What, sorry? What are you sorry for? He's the one that should be sorry," Kaleb growled as he began to storm towards Raf. "He's the fool that bit you!"

Alaric slammed himself into Kaleb, attempting to hold the boy back although he knew that it didn't really matter. If Kaleb wanted to push Alaric off him then he had the supernatural strength to do that, and there was nothing Alaric could do about it. Hope nodded at Alaric before turning around to Rafael who was muttering panickedly now too, his eyes wide as he grasped his head with his hands.

"I remember now," Rafael told them all as he looked at the large bite across MG's neck, understanding now why he didn't remember biting the boy there. "The elixir. The bite. His face. Being back here..."

They all watched as he got angrier and angreir, taking a step towards MG as he gritted his teeth and tried to stop his tempter from getting the better of him.

"I remember who the monster was."

_____

Georgie dropped as MG charged towards her, using her previous survival skills that she had learnt over the years to duck under his arm as he rushed towards her. She knew fine well that she was stupid to try and even take on MG - especially after he had just drank human blood. She maybe would have managed to knock some sense into him if he was still just on animal blood diet but she knew from previous stories that now that he had a taste of blood his ripper tendencies weren't about to stop him there.

Rafael was screaming in a mix of grief, pain and anguish as he yelled out Landon's name, praying that his best friend would somehow come back to life. He switched between screaming out for Georgie to leave him but the hybrid would never turn her back on a friend. She knew that she could at least control her shift, but Raf wasn't so lucky. If he got loose, he would kill MG and her too. She wasn't about to let another one of her friends die.

"MG, STOP!" She yelled out as the boy finally latched on to her, his hand wrapped around her throat as he lifted her and slammed her against of the trees. Georgie yelled out in pain as she felt one of her ribs definitely pop out of place, struggling under his grasp as the black veins under his eyes appeared. He looked at her with no emotion, almost as if he didn't even recognise who she was, as he went to lean in and rip into her neck.

She didn't want to do it, but her fight and flight kicked in. Georgie managed to use her werewolf strength to push him back before forcing herself to shift into the large black wolf. She tried to ignore the agony of her bones snapping and mending quickly but the already broken rib made it harder than usual to adjust.

He lunged for her once more, managing to just catch her hind leg as she tried to slink away from him. Rafael screamed out her name louder this time as the black wolf let out a large yelp, the crunch of the bones in her back leg echoing through the forest. Georgie didn't know what else to do, it was as if everything in her body was on auto drive.

She twisted in MG's grasp, her fangs opening up and latching on to the closet piece of skin she could find and gripping tightly. As he stumbled away from her, it was as if the girl suddenly realised what she had done. She felt herself involuntary changing back into her human self, ignoring the fact she was stone cold naked now as she met eyes with MG who looked a mix of betrayed and infuriated at the large werewolf bite that was resting on his neck now.

"MG..."

The next thing she knew, his fangs were sinking deep into her neck and time almost seemed to halt. She faintly remembered hearing Rafael's yells gradually turn into wolf snarls and feeling the fangs in her neck be ripped out of her skin as she stumbled through the trees, trying to escape the clearing and MG without even realising what she was doing.

Georgie had no idea how far she made it before her knees finally gave way, the last thing her mind remembering was that she never got to say goodbye to Josie.

_____

"I did it. It was me. I'm the monster," MG told them all as Rafael recounted the story, Hope's mouth wide open as she stumbled a little upon hearing her boyfriend was dead and her roommate likely was too. Alaric felt sick to his stomach, knowing that those two teenager deaths were on his hands for not having prevented this. 

"When you finished your turn, y-you got loose and bit MG. Watching Landon die was too traumatic, too human, so you reverted back and scrambled your memory," Alaric summed up, his voice soft and sympathetic as he looked between MG and Landon, knowing that there was so many small things leading up to MG's loss of control that should have been preventable.

It was Kaleb who voiced his concern for the missing girl, realising that Hope was too busy panicking about the death of Landon and potential death of Georgie to ask any further questions. He looked between MG and Rafael, sniffing the air slightly to try and see if he could pick up the familiar scent of the hybrid. He wasn't a fan of the wolves usually but Georgie was different - maybe because he knew that she would be like him one day.

"What about Georgie?" Kaleb voiced but Rafael shook his head as the memories kept flashing through his head. Hope was still on her knees, trying to force herself to breathe in and out as she realised the two people she had grown to care for the most in the world were... gone.

"I don't want to remember any of this."

"Raf, where are you going?" Alaric called out, concern lacing his voice as Rafael began to head back into the forest.

"Away from MG before I finish the job," Rafael replied, a snarl on his lips before turning back to Kaleb as the boy shouted for him to wait. His anger was evident and didn't soften even as he noticed the tear rolling down Kaleb's cheek. "Landon's body is out there. I'm gonna go find it - and Georgie."

They all stayed there in silence. Hope's sobs were faintly filling everyone's ears from where she was trying to piece together everything that she had just been told and MG's whimpers were providing them all with the proof that it was all real and not just some messed up dream. Alaric wasn't even sure how he was going to go on from this, let alone tell the student body about it. His mind wandered to his daughters for a moment and the pain in his chest from watching Jo die in his arms flared up as he thought about having to break the news to Josie.

His daughter might not have told him a lot about herself and her relationship with Georgie but he knew love when he saw it. He knew the pain she was going to be in and he wouldn't wish it on anyone - certainly not Hope or Josie.

"I was so mad," MG murmured out, causing Kabel and Alaric to look down at him and snap them both out of their thoughts. "I wanted to h-hurt Landon. I didn't want his blood. I needed it. And Georgie, I needed hers so much. I needed all of it. 'Cause I'm not a monster. I'm a demon. So many demons in hell!"

Alaric soothed the boy as they both turned to look over their shoulders at Hope, knowing that she was the only way to save MG now. Alaric knew that it involved her blood, but Kaleb had no idea of the specifics here other than Hope had the cure to a werewolf bite.

Some part of Hope didn't want to give MG the cure. Some part of Hope was repeating in her head that he had taken Landon and Georgie from her, that they were dead because of him. But Hope knew that she had to do what was right here - and she knew that from not just her past but because of everything Georgie and Landon had taught her in their short time together. And that's what made it even more harder for the girl: she knew that had Georgie or Landon been in her position they would have saved MG. She owed it to them.

So Hope took a deep breath and rose to her feet, turning around and looking at the three men crouched on the ground.

"I need your knife."

___


Rafael walked through the forest, his eyes finding the burned out campfire before they moved to land on Landon's body. All thoughts of Georgie left his head as he fell to his knees to cradle his brother to his chest, the blood on his neck now dried and crusting from the wound that was slit across his throat.

Hope was quick to follow, her mind going blank as her eyes fall on Landon's unseeing eyes. She stumbled slightly as she approached the two boys - one barely holding on now his brother was gone and one died to save him. She grabbed on to a nearby tree for support as her heart snapped in two at the sight, before finally falling forward to her knees next to Raf.

Alaric watched from behind as he noticed the two teens cradling the body between them, the realisation crossing him that Georgie's was still nowhere in sight. He felt a deeper dread fill him as he glanced around the clearing and noticed no sign at all of her, knowing that they would at some point need to leave Landon's body to try and find hers too.

Before he could even say anything to the two grieving teens, they all looked up as Kaleb and a freshly healed MG walked into the clearing. Raf snarled at the sight, rising to his feet with an unbridled anger as he looked at MG. He had full intention of beating the boy to pieces but it was a yelling Hope, grabbing and pulling at his arm and reminding him that Landon wouldn't want this that caused him to stop.

Hope held on tightly to the crying werewolf as Alaric and Kaleb exchanged glances, both of them sharing the thought that they still needed to go through the pain of finding Georgie too. Just before either of them could move away from the group to look for the hybrid, MG spoke up as his eyes furrowed at Landon's body.

"Uh, am I still delusional or do y'all see this?"

They all watched as Landon's corpse started to smoke, the teens and Alaric panicking at the sight. He'd never seen this in all of his years and they certainly hadn't either. It got even stranger as Hope tried to use magic to put him out, but the smoke and flames just increased. They all jumped backwards as his body suddenly burst into flames, everyone yelling in confusion and surprise.

Almost as soon as the fire started, it stopped.

They all peered forward to see what looked like an ash shell of where Landon had been, no flames or smoke left at all. Just as Alaric went to move forward to touch the shell, a hand shot upwards and out of the carcass. They all gasped as the shell cracked and dust flew everywhere, none other than a fully-living and breathing Landon Kirby standing and looking at them all in amazement.

"What's going on?" Landon asked, rather calmly for someone who had just died and been resurrected in fire and ash.

"You ever heard of the legend of the phoenix?" Alaric asked, sudden amazement crossing his face as he forgot about everything else for just a moment as Landon looked between them all in disbelief. The last thing he remembered was Rafael and Georgie screaming out his name.

Rafael was the first to rush forward and pull his brother into a hug, so tight that Landon would usually have complained that it hurt but he was still too reeling from everything that had happened to complain. Hope joined the hug, the trio all clinging on tight to each other as Kaleb and MG's heads suddenly swivelled to the right, giving each other a look of concern before they looked back to Alaric who had picked up on the movement.

"What is it?"

Hope, Rafael and Landon all broke apart at the suddenly worried tone that came from Alaric, guilt filling Hope and Rafael as they realised they had got so caught up in Landon that they'd forgotten about Georgie for a moment. 

Kaleb didn't say anything but sped off, everyone rushing after him as MG went at a normal jog pace so that they could follow the boy. The closer to Kaleb they got, the more Alaric was noticing the thick trail of blood on the forest floor and the more and more concerned he was becoming. The four teenagers and Alaric reached Kaleb just as he was pulling off his shirt, having already pulled off his jacket as he crouched beside a tree.

Hope took a step forward before turning around and throwing up a little, her stomach still uneasy from seeing Landon's ripped throat. She had already seen one dead body, she certainly hadn't needed to see another.

"Doc," Kaleb called out as the rest caught up, his eyes wide as he looked between everyone and Hope who was refusing to make eye contact. "She's..."

"Don't," Rafael warned, knowing that if he said the words it would likely set Hope off again. Kaleb shook his head frantically as Alaric crouched down, noticing what Kaleb noticed.

"No, she's... she's breathing."

Alaric grabbed on to Georgie's wrist, feeling for a pulse to confirm that Kaleb was right. Her chest was moving - barely - and he almost jumped in delight as he felt the confirmation of a faint pulse against his finger tips. The large wound on the side of her neck didn't seem to have healed at all however, and they could see a fresh trickle of blood still coming from it even though it had occurred 24 hours prior almost.

Nothing else needed to be said before Kaleb was biting into his wrist and placing it to Georgie's mouth, attempting for the hybrid to drink some of his blood to heal her. They all sighed in relief as her mouth closed around his wrist after a moment, Kaleb nodding to them all to confirm that she was drinking from him.

Hope sighed as she leaned back into Landon and Rafael for support, feeling utterly drained after the emotional rollercoaster that they had been on all evening. Just as she went to start to feel some relief, the dread re-entered her as they all watched the naked (although Kaleb had done his best to cover her up) Georgie turn on her side and vomit the vampire blood back up with a groan. 

Alaric swore loudly as he grabbed on to Georgie's face, yelling out her name as he tried to get some form of response from the girl who was shivering slightly. Kaleb moved back as he noticed Hope rushing to Georgie's side, watching as the girl looked between them all and her roommate in panic. Her and Alaric exchanged glances for a moment before she grabbed his knife from his side sheath, cutting her palm open like she had done five minutes before and pressing it to Georgie's mouth.

Rafael and Landon watched on confused, not sure why Hope's blood would be different than Kaleb's but Kaleb and MG had just witnessed it's powers when saving MG's life. They all waited with baited breaths as Georgie finally slumped away from Hope's wrist, the blood seeming to settle into her system as her head dropped back with a sigh.

"Fuck you, MG," Georgie muttered out, everyone breathing a sigh of relief for a brief moment before her eyes rolled backwards and her body went somewhat limp. Alaric groaned out in frustration but calmed as he noticed she was still breathing, ordering everyone to get back to the truck while Hope wrapped the jacket around Georgie to preserve her modesty.

It was going to be one long trip back to the Salvatore Boarding School.