After we got back to the school...
Alaric closed the door behind us and stood there in silence for a few seconds, as if he were trying to decide where the hell to even begin.
Now that we were back at the school, I had finally managed to find something to wear—a T-shirt I borrowed from him. It didn't fit perfectly, especially around the shoulders, but at least it didn't look like it was about to commit suicide like the last one had when I was still a horse-sized wolf stuffed into someone else's jacket.
Lizzie and Josie were sitting on the couch, still wearing that mixture of curiosity and disbelief on their faces, as if they weren't sure whether they should look directly at me or pretend none of that had happened. Hope stood farther away near the window, arms crossed, her gaze fixed on some point outside that she didn't seem to actually be seeing.
I was doing my best not to look directly at her.
Which was proving much harder than it should have been.
Alaric crossed his arms.
"All right, Ethan. Now that you're back to having two legs, you can talk, and, thankfully, you're wearing clothes again... I'd really like you to explain exactly what happened out there."
Lizzie muffled a laugh behind her hand.
I looked at Alaric with a tired expression.
"You say that like I planned all of this, old man."
"After the last three weeks involving you, I'm starting to consider every possibility."
"Very funny, old man."
"It wasn't a joke."
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, my body still feeling a little strange, like all the pieces had gone back into the right places but hadn't quite settled yet.
"Okay. I'll try to explain, but I'm warning you now, you're probably going to finish this conversation with more questions than answers, because I have no idea what happened either."
Alaric pulled over a chair and sat down in front of me, elbows resting on his knees, wearing the expression of someone who was about to hear something important and already knew it.
"Start from the moment you left here."
I nodded and began stitching the memory together out loud, trying to give it an order it hadn't had while I was actually living through it.
"After I left your office, I went to my room, took a shower, talked to my mom, stayed there for a while. But that strange feeling wouldn't go away."
Josie leaned forward.
"What kind of feeling?"
I took a few seconds to find a way to explain it properly.
"Like something was missing."
Lizzie frowned.
"Missing how?"
"I don't know. That was the problem. It wasn't hunger, it wasn't pain, it didn't feel like magic... it was just this restlessness. Like when you know you forgot to do something important, but you can't remember what, and it keeps nagging at you all day."
Alaric nodded slowly.
"And that made you go into the woods?"
"Not directly. I just wanted to get out of my room, get some air, and I ended up going to that tree where I usually hang out."
Lizzie immediately pointed at me.
"Ethan's tree."
I slowly turned my head toward her.
"It's not my tree."
"You go there practically every day."
"That doesn't make it mine."
"You literally said you were going to carve your name into it."
I stared at Lizzie.
"You pay way too much attention to my life."
She smiled, pleased with herself.
"Someone has to."
Alaric raised a hand.
"Can we get back to the part where Ethan turns into a nine-hundred-pound creature?"
"We don't even know how much I weighed."
Alaric just stared at me without saying anything, waiting.
"Fine, fine." I took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the memory even before I started telling it. "I was sitting under the tree when I heard a howl coming from the woods."
Hope, who until then had stayed silent while looking out the window, turned toward me for the first time since the conversation began.
"A normal howl?"
I thought about it.
"At the time, it sounded normal. Just a wolf howling somewhere far away."
"But?" she asked, her eyes fixed on me now.
"But my body reacted. My heart sped up, my hearing sort of locked onto the sound like it had been programmed specifically for it, and I felt the urge to follow."
Alaric narrowed his eyes.
"An urge or a need?"
The question actually made me stop and think about the difference before answering.
"Need might be too strong. It didn't feel like someone was controlling my mind. I knew I could've stayed sitting there if I wanted to. But something inside me wanted to find out where the sound was coming from. It was almost like hearing someone call your name in the middle of a crowd—you turn before you even think about it."
Josie exchanged a quick look with Hope.
"An instinctive response."
"That's exactly what it felt like."
Alaric rested his elbows on his knees.
"And then?"
"I went into the woods. The farther I went, the stronger it got. My heart started beating really fast, my body temperature went up even more, and I felt pressure in my chest."
"Pain?"
"No."
"Weakness?"
"No."
Hope uncrossed her arms, moving slightly away from the window without seeming to notice.
"And your bones? Did you feel anything changing? Joints dislocating? Bones breaking?"
I shook my head.
"Nothing."
Her expression became even more intrigued, almost concerned.
"That's completely different from a normal transformation."
"Considering every werewolf here describes transforming as some combination of medieval torture and getting hit by a truck, I figured it probably was."
Lizzie grimaced.
"That's a horrible description."
"But an effective one."
Josie almost smiled.
"And when you actually transformed?"
The humor vanished from my face instantly, like someone had switched it off.
"That's the part I don't remember."
Alaric immediately became more alert, his entire body straightening in the chair.
"You lost consciousness?"
I nodded.
"My vision started going dark, all the sounds blended together, my heart kept pounding like crazy, and then..." I snapped my fingers. "Nothing. I blacked out."
"For how long?"
"No idea. Could've been five seconds or five minutes. When I woke up, I was near that lake." I looked down at my own hands, still feeling strange about it. "Except they weren't hands."
Lizzie tried to hold back a laugh and failed miserably.
I looked at her.
"Go ahead and laugh. I know how that sounded."
"Sorry."
"I woke up with four paws, fur, a tail that apparently had opinions of its own, and a reflection in the lake that looked like something straight out of a horror movie."
Josie gave me a small smile.
"Were you scared?"
"Honestly? More surprised than scared," I answered without hesitation, with no desire to soften it. "The first thing I thought was that I'd killed someone."
Her smile disappeared immediately.
"Ethan..."
"It was the only explanation I knew. For a werewolf to trigger the curse, they have to take a life. I'd blacked out, and I had no idea what I'd done afterward."
My voice grew quieter. More serious.
"So I started looking for blood, the scent of someone injured, anything that would've shown I'd attacked somebody."
Alaric watched me carefully without interrupting.
"And you didn't find anything."
"Nothing." I exhaled, feeling that strange relief from hours earlier all over again. "That's when I started realizing none of it fit the rules you guys had taught me."
Hope nodded, putting the pieces together out loud.
"You didn't kill anyone, there was no full moon, it was daytime, and you didn't suffer during the transformation."
"Exactly." I rubbed a hand over my face, exhausted just from remembering it. "And then I thought of something I probably should've realized a long time ago."
Josie tilted her head.
"What?"
"Nothing about me has been normal from the beginning." I opened my hands, almost like I was presenting evidence. "My strength has never been normal, my hearing has never been normal, my healing has never been normal. I can use magic even though everyone thinks I have werewolf blood. Then I fall into a coma for three weeks, wake up looking a few years older, and a few hours later I turn into a giant wolf in the middle of the afternoon." I shook my head. "Maybe I should stop expecting anything about me to follow the rules."
Josie looked thoughtful, her eyes fixed on some random spot in the room.
"But that's exactly what bothers me. You're not just a little different from the werewolves here, Ethan. It's like practically every rule is different for you."
"Thanks for making my existence even more concerning."
She made a small face, almost apologetic.
"That wasn't my intention."
"I know."
Josie rested her hands on her knees, hesitating before continuing.
"Can I ask you something?"
"You already are."
She rolled her eyes but kept going.
"Who exactly are your parents?"
I blinked.
"Josie, you already know everything about them, don't you? I've explained this several times."
"Sorry, I had to ask," she said. "I know some things, but I'm trying to understand where this could have come from. Your mother is...?"
"Human."
"Completely human?"
"As far as I know, yeah." I made a vague gesture with my hand. "She's not a witch, she's not a vampire, she's never turned into a giant animal, she's never drunk anybody's blood, and she can't set things on fire with her mind. She's just a normal woman."
Lizzie raised an eyebrow.
"That definition of normal got weirdly specific."
"I go to school here now. I had to update my standards."
Josie let out a short laugh.
"Then all of this probably came from your father."
My mood dropped slightly, the way it always did whenever the subject got too close to him.
"Probably."
"That guy," she added almost without thinking.
My jaw tightened almost on its own.
"Yeah."
Josie noticed immediately.
"And what exactly do you know about him?"
I let out a dry laugh with absolutely no humor behind it.
"That answer's easy: almost fucking nothing."
"Your mother never told you?"
"She told me what she knew. That's the problem."
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, trying to organize out loud what I'd already gone over in my head countless times.
"I know his name. I know he knew my mom. I know the two of them had something complicated. I know he left before I was born." My voice came out a little more bitter than I'd intended. "And apparently I know he decided to leave an entire collection of supernatural problems in my DNA before disappearing for good."
Nobody joked this time.
The silence that settled over the room had a different kind of weight to it, almost respectful.
"Your mother never saw Clark transform?" Alaric asked.
"Never mentioned it."
"Full moon?"
"Nothing."
"Some kind of curse?"
"No."
"Others like him?"
I shook my head.
"Nothing." The irritation began building in my chest, the same way it always did whenever I tried to put together pieces of a puzzle when I didn't even know whether I had all the pieces. "That's what I'm saying. I don't know who that man really was. Every time I discover something new about myself, I also discover one more thing he should've explained before he disappeared."
The silence changed again—heavier now, more aware of just how much that hurt, even if I tried to hide it behind sarcasm.
Josie spoke more softly, almost carefully.
"Then there's a good chance you inherited this form from him."
"That's what I'm starting to think."
"Even so..." Hope finally spoke, her voice cutting through the silence.
I automatically looked at her.
She stepped completely away from the window, her arms still crossed, but now her entire body was turned toward me.
"That doesn't explain everything."
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"Let's assume Clark really was some different kind of wolf-like creature. That could explain your strength, your temperature, your senses, this transformation..." She paused, her eyes locked on mine. "But it doesn't explain your magic."
I stayed quiet for a second.
"You didn't have to remind me about that part."
Hope raised an eyebrow.
"You'd rather ignore it?"
"It was working pretty well so far."
Lizzie laughed.
Alaric didn't.
"Hope's right."
"Of course she is."
I looked down at my hands, slowly turning them over as if I expected to find an answer written there.
"My mother's human, my father was apparently some extremely weird version of a wolf, and I can use magic."
Josie thought for a little longer than before.
"Then maybe the question isn't just what your father was."
I looked up.
"What's the other one?"
She hesitated, like she already knew the question would hurt before she even asked it.
"Why are you different even from him?"
That actually left me speechless.
I'd been so focused on figuring out what I'd inherited from Clark that I'd never considered—not even for a second—that maybe there were parts of me that even he hadn't possessed.
Parts that were mine alone.
No explanation.
No inheritance.
No one to blame or thank.
After a few seconds, I let out a long sigh, trying to push that weight away before it swallowed too much of the room.
"A few weeks ago, my biggest problem was not understanding math."
Lizzie immediately smiled.
"If you're feeling nostalgic, I'm sure we can arrange a test for you tomorrow."
I turned toward Alaric.
"I take it back."
He finally laughed, short but genuine.
"At least something's back to normal."
The conversation ended sometime after that.
Or at least we stopped asking questions long enough to pretend it had.
Alaric still wanted to speak with some of the teachers, Josie looked ready to turn my entire existence into an academic research project, and Lizzie was probably already planning to call me horse-wolf for the rest of the school year.
I was almost at the door when I heard:
"Ethan, wait."
I stopped.
Looked over my shoulder.
Hope was watching me with a serious expression, her arms still crossed, but there was something in her eyes asking for more than her posture suggested.
"Can I talk to you?"
"Sure."
She left first, and I followed.
We walked through the hallways for a while without saying anything, the silence between us strange in a way I couldn't explain, until we reached an almost empty part of the school near a large window where the afternoon sunlight streamed in at an angle.
Hope stopped.
I crossed my arms.
"This looks like it's going to be a serious conversation."
"It is."
A teasing smile slipped out before I could stop it.
"What, are you going to confess your feelings for me or something?"
"What?!" Hope immediately turned her face away, color rushing into her cheeks, and it only took her a second to rebuild the serious expression she'd had before. "No, that's not it."
She crossed her arms again as if that might help rebuild the wall my joke had accidentally knocked down.
"Sorry, I'm just messing with you."
She let out a small breath through her nose, almost a suppressed laugh.
"Can you be serious for five minutes?"
I thought about it.
"Never tried. But we can find out."
Hope shook her head.
For a moment, she almost genuinely smiled—and for a second, I really wanted to see that smile finish happening.
Then she became serious again, and something in her expression closed off, like she was preparing herself to walk through a very heavy door.
"Before I talk about your father, there are some things about me and my family that you need to understand."
I frowned.
"Your family?"
"You know practically nothing about them."
"I know practically nothing about you."
Hope raised an eyebrow.
"Thanks."
"I didn't mean it as criticism. You never told me, and I never asked."
She nodded, accepting that.
"Fair."
She took a deep breath, the kind someone takes when they're gathering courage before giving away something important.
"You know me as Hope Marshall."
"Yeah."
"But Marshall isn't my original last name. It's my mother's last name." She paused, her fingers lightly tightening around her arm. "My real name is Hope Mikaelson."
I repeated it slowly, letting the word roll off my tongue as though that might help me understand it.
"Mikaelson..."
The name sounded familiar, echoing somewhere in the distant corners of my memory.
"Wait. Mikaelson, as in... those Mikaelsons?"
Hope crossed her arms again, more defensive now.
"Depends on what you've heard."
"Nothing that makes me want to attend a family dinner."
She let out a short, genuine laugh.
"Then you probably heard about the right ones."
"Okay. I think you're going to have to start from the beginning."
Hope leaned against the wall as though it might help support the weight of her own history.
"My family is over a thousand years old."
I stared at her.
"A thousand?"
"Approximately."
"You say that like it's perfectly normal."
"For my family, unfortunately, it is."
"That did not make me feel better."
Hope took another deep breath.
"My grandmother's name was Esther. She was a very powerful witch. More than a thousand years ago, she transformed her children into what would become the first vampires."
"Wait." I raised a hand. "Your grandmother created vampires?"
"The Original Vampires."
"That doesn't make the story any less insane."
Hope almost smiled again.
"Elijah, Rebekah, Kol, Finn... they're all my family." She hesitated, and something changed in her expression, an extra weight that hadn't been there a second earlier. "And my father."
"Your father is an Original vampire?"
"It's a little more complicated than that."
I sighed.
"Of course it is."
"My father's name is Niklaus Mikaelson."
It took me a moment to process that.
"Klaus?"
Hope caught my reaction immediately.
"You've heard of him."
"A few times, usually accompanied by things like 'don't provoke him,' 'don't piss him off,' and 'run.'"
"That's definitely him."
"Your father was the Original Hybrid?"
She nodded.
"Vampire and werewolf."
I slowly pointed at her.
"So you have vampire blood, werewolf blood..."
"And magic."
I stared at her, almost at a loss for words.
"You're basically the complete supernatural package."
Hope grimaced.
"I don't really like that definition."
"I thought it was efficient."
This time, she genuinely smiled.
It didn't last long.
"My mother's name was Hayley Marshall."
My attention immediately returned to her, something tightening in my chest at the way she'd said was.
"So Marshall came from her."
"Yes."
There was a subtle change in her expression as she said the name, her shoulders dropping slightly, the light in her eyes fading.
"For a long time, using Marshall meant something to me."
"Why didn't you want to use Mikaelson?"
Hope looked out the window as though the answer were somewhere out there, far away.
"Because Mikaelson isn't just a last name, Ethan. It's a reputation. When someone hears that name, they see a thousand years of stories before they see the person." She slowly ran her fingers along the windowsill without really looking at it. "My father, my uncles, everything they've done, all the people they've killed, all the enemies they've made."
Her gaze returned to mine, more intense than I expected.
"When someone finds out I'm a Mikaelson, a lot of the time they stop seeing me and only see my father."
"They only see Klaus."
"Exactly."
"So your mother's last name let you just be you."
"That's how it felt." She paused, the silence stretching between us. "And it was also my mother's name."
Something about the way she said that caught my attention, a tiny crack in her voice that was almost hidden.
"But you said was."
Hope stayed silent for a moment too long.
"Lately... I'm not so sure it means anything anymore."
There was something behind those words.
Sadness.
Anger too.
I could tell, could almost physically feel it, but I still didn't know why.
I only knew it hurt her in a way I recognized without understanding where that recognition came from.
"Then why do you keep using it?"
She shrugged, a gesture too small to hide what lay behind it.
"Habit, maybe. Or because I still don't know if I want to go back to using Mikaelson."
I thought for a moment.
"You say that like you have to choose."
Hope looked at me.
"What?"
"Between Marshall and Mikaelson." I shrugged. "Maybe I'm talking nonsense because I found out about your family five minutes ago, but one came from your mother and the other from your father. Neither one has to decide who you are. You're still Hope."
For some reason, she stared at me for several seconds longer than normal, as though she were searching for something in my face.
"What?"
"Nothing."
She looked away almost too quickly.
"Anyway... I needed to explain that before talking about Clark."
My mood changed immediately, his name bringing that familiar weight back.
"My father."
"Yes. My aunt Freya told me some things about him."
"Freya?"
"My oldest aunt. A witch."
"Is she a thousand years old too?"
"More or less."
I nodded solemnly.
"Of course."
"Ethan..."
"I'm trying to keep up! Your family needs a map."
She rolled her eyes, but the trace of a smile escaped before she continued.
"Freya never actually met your father, but my father did."
I froze.
"Klaus knew my father?"
"Yes."
"Were they friends?"
Hope made an expression that was difficult to read, somewhere between amused and cautious.
"I think 'friends' would be a very generous word."
"Sounds more like my old man."
She continued.
"Freya said my father considered Clark different from any wolf he'd ever met."
That caught my attention more than I expected.
"Different how?"
"She doesn't know all the details, but Klaus respected his strength."
"Is that important?"
Hope almost laughed.
"My father doesn't usually respect anyone because of their strength."
"How strong was my father?"
She hesitated.
And that hesitation alone told me the answer wasn't going to be small.
"Freya said Klaus believed Clark could come close to him."
"Wow. So the guy wasn't exactly a lightweight."
"No."
I looked at my hands, feeling something between pride and fear twisting together in my chest.
Suddenly, going straight through an entire tree seemed a little less absurd.
"That explains some things."
"Maybe."
But Hope still looked like she was hiding something, her shoulders tense in a way I was already starting to recognize.
I noticed.
"There's more."
It wasn't a question.
Hope looked away.
"There is."
"How much worse?"
"I don't know how you're going to react."
I let out a dry laugh.
"Hope, practically every discovery about my father makes him look worse. I think I've built up a tolerance by now."
She didn't laugh this time.
"Clark knew my mother too."
I froze again, my entire body going rigid.
"Your mother..." I shook my head, already having a pretty good idea where this was headed.
"Yes."
"Right..."
I waited, the silence stretching until it was almost unbearable.
Hope didn't continue immediately.
My expression slowly changed as the pieces clicked into place before I even wanted to admit it.
"Oh, no."
"Ethan—"
"Please don't tell me that son of a bitch slept with your mother too."
Hope pressed her lips together.
"He did."
I closed my eyes and rubbed both hands over my face as though that might somehow erase the information.
"Of course." I let out a completely humorless laugh. "Of course he did."
"The situation is a little more complicated than that."
"How can it possibly be more complicated?"
Hope took a deep breath, and this time her voice became more careful, weighing each word.
"Back then, my mother and Klaus weren't in a normal relationship. They slept together once. That's how she got pregnant with me."
I nodded slowly.
"Okay."
"But Clark also met my mother somewhere else."
My brain started putting the pieces together before I wanted it to.
"Wait..."
Hope continued, her voice quieter now.
"My mother slept with Clark very close to the time she slept with my father."
I stared at her.
"How close?"
"Close enough for something extremely rare to happen."
I frowned.
"What?"
Hope hesitated again, her fingers tightening around her own arm.
"When my mother got pregnant, there were two babies."
My expression completely changed.
"Twins?"
"Yes."
"You had a brother?"
She slowly nodded, her eyes shining in a way I couldn't tell was pain or something even deeper.
"I did."
That word stopped me cold.
Did.
My voice automatically dropped.
"What happened?"
"He didn't survive the pregnancy."
My sarcasm died right there, with no chance of coming back.
"Oh..." I looked at her. "I'm sorry."
Hope made a small movement with her shoulders, the kind of gesture that tries to look casual but can't.
"I never got to meet him."
"He was still your brother."
She watched me for a moment, something crossing her face too quickly for me to identify before she looked away.
"For a long time, everyone assumed Klaus was the father of both of us. There was no reason to think otherwise."
"But he wasn't."
Hope shook her head.
"According to Freya, no."
I already knew where this was going.
Even so, I didn't want to hear it.
Every word seemed to bring me closer to the edge of a cliff I hadn't chosen to stand on.
"Hope..."
"My brother was Clark's son."
The entire hallway seemed to fall silent, the sounds of the world outside disappearing for a second, just like they had in the woods when I'd seen her for the first time in that form.
I stared at her.
"My father..." I vaguely pointed between us. "Was your brother's father?"
"Yes."
I ran a hand through my hair, trying to process something that felt far too big to fit inside my head.
"How is that even possible?"
Hope tried to explain, her voice calmer now, almost instructional, as though talking about the technical details made the rest of it easier to bear.
"It's rare, but it can happen even with humans. A woman can release two eggs during the same cycle. If she has sex with two different men within a short enough period of time, each egg can be fertilized by a different father."
My brow furrowed.
"So two twins..."
"Can have different biological fathers."
"That's actually real?"
"It is. It's called heteropaternal superfecundation."
I stayed silent for several seconds, letting that sink in.
"And considering we're talking about your mother, the Original Hybrid, and whatever the hell my father was..."
"Freya thinks trying to apply only human rules to the situation would make it even more complicated."
"Fair enough."
Then something else hit me.
Suddenly.
Like a punch to the stomach.
"Wait." I looked directly at Hope. "If Clark was his father..."
She understood before I finished the sentence, her eyes already filled with a sad certainty.
"Yes."
"He'd be my brother too."
Hope slowly nodded.
"Your half-brother."
I didn't know why it hit me so hard.
I'd never known that boy.
He'd died before he was born, before he'd ever had the chance to truly exist.
I hadn't even known he'd existed until a few seconds ago.
And yet he was my father's son.
My blood.
My brother.
Something inside me hurt for a boy I would never know, who would never have a name or a face or a voice—only that empty space where he should have been.
"Fuck..." I murmured almost to myself, my voice rougher than I expected. "So my father knew your family, knew Klaus, slept with your mother, and was your brother's father."
Hope made a small grimace.
"Basically."
"Do you realize how completely insane that sentence is?"
"My family doesn't usually have simple stories."
I let out a small laugh, the first genuine one in several minutes.
"I'm starting to notice."
For a few seconds, the tension eased.
A tiny breath of relief from all the insanity I'd just heard.
But it didn't last long, because when I looked at Hope again, I noticed it.
The sadness.
Not the distant sadness she'd shown when talking about the brother she'd never known.
This was different.
Recent.
Heavy.
And there was anger mixed into it.
A lot of anger.
Hidden behind her eyes like something she'd been holding onto for days and no longer knew where to put.
Her fingers were squeezing her own arms, her jaw was tense, her breathing a little shorter than it should have been.
She was trying to hide it.
Maybe from me.
Maybe from herself.
I watched her for a few seconds, feeling that same strange tug in my chest that I'd felt in the woods—as if her pain somehow echoed directly inside me without needing any explanation.
"Hope..."
She looked up.
"What?"
I hesitated.
Maybe it wasn't any of my business.
It probably wasn't.
Even so, something inside me needed to ask.
"What happened to you?"
Her posture changed immediately, almost as though she'd been startled.
"What do you mean?"
"You're different."
Hope frowned.
"You barely know me."
"I know."
"Then how do you know I'm different?"
I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to find a way to explain without sounding too weird.
"Maybe 'different' was the wrong word." I tried to organize my thoughts. "It's just... you're sad."
She went completely still.
I continued more slowly, choosing each word carefully.
"Really sad. And you seem angry about something too. I don't know who you're angry at or why, but you are."
Hope looked away.
I'd hit the mark.
Immediately, I felt like maybe I'd gone too far, like I'd opened a door that wasn't mine to open.
"Look, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. I shouldn't have—"
"My mother died."
I stopped.
For a few seconds, I thought I'd heard her wrong, like the words had somehow gotten tangled in the air between us.
"What?"
Hope looked down.
When she spoke again, her voice was much quieter, almost breaking in the middle.
"My mother died a few days ago."
Everything I'd been about to say disappeared instantly.
Hayley.
The woman she'd just spent several minutes talking about.
The person whose last name she'd chosen to carry for so long, like a small shield against a name that was far too big.
She was dead.
And it had only been a few days.
Suddenly, several things made sense all at once—the sadness I'd felt in the woods without understanding where it came from, the anger she was hiding, the exhaustion in her shoulders, the way she'd said Marshall didn't mean the same thing anymore, like the name had lost half of its weight the exact moment the person who gave it to her was gone.
"Hope..."
She shook her head.
"You don't have to."
"I was going to say I'm sorry."
"I know."
There was an enormous exhaustion in her voice.
The kind of exhaustion that doesn't come from one bad night's sleep, but from spending days holding something far too heavy by yourself.
"Everyone says that."
She didn't sound angry with me.
Just tired of hearing the same words when none of them could change anything.
I nodded.
"Then I won't say it again."
Hope looked up, surprised for a second.
I stayed quiet for a moment, trying not to ruin it by saying the wrong thing.
"But now I understand what you meant about Marshall."
Her expression changed.
Just slightly.
"It was her last name."
"I figured."
Hope looked down again, her voice lowering along with her gaze.
"When I started using Marshall, it was because I wanted something that felt like mine. Something that didn't come carrying a thousand years of blood, enemies, and stories." She took a deep breath, her chest slowly rising and falling. "But it was hers too."
Her voice faltered almost imperceptibly, a tiny crack she tried to hide too quickly.
"And now she's not here anymore."
For the first time that day, no joke came to mind.
No sarcastic comment.
Nothing.
I just stood there, present, not really knowing what to do with my hands or my words, only knowing I didn't want to be anywhere else.
Then I asked:
"Are you angry at yourself too?"
Hope's eyes snapped up.
The question seemed to catch her completely off guard.
For several seconds, she just stared at me as though she were trying to decide whether to answer or tell me to mind my own business.
Then she looked away.
"I am."
The answer came out so quietly that for a moment I thought I'd misheard her.
I frowned.
"Why?"
Hope didn't answer immediately.
Her fingers slowly curled inward, her nails pressing into her palms.
"Because it all started with me."
I stayed silent.
She took a deep breath, but even breathing seemed more difficult now.
"I did something stupid, Ethan. Really stupid."
"What?"
Hope closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, there was shame mixed with the anger.
"I wanted my father back."
That wasn't even close to the answer I'd expected.
"Klaus?"
She nodded.
"I hadn't seen him in years. My family had been forced to separate, and he... he just stayed away from me. I understood the reasons, at least some of them, but that didn't make me miss him any less."
Hope ran her tongue over her lips, searching for the words.
"I was tired of letters. Tired of knowing he was somewhere in the world and that he never came to see me. So I thought that if something really bad happened..."
She stopped.
I started to understand.
"He'd come back."
Hope nodded again, this time with more difficulty.
"I got Henry to help me. I put my mother under a sleeping spell and hid her."
I stared at Hope, not knowing what to say.
"You..."
I stopped.
"You kidnapped your own mother?"
She gave a short, bitter laugh.
"It sounds even worse when you say it out loud, doesn't it?"
"A little."
My expression remained serious.
"But I'm guessing you weren't planning to hurt her."
Hope immediately shook her head.
"Never."
The answer came firmly.
"She was safe. That's what I kept telling myself. I knew where she was. I knew the spell wasn't going to hurt her. I just wanted to scare my family enough to make my father show up."
Her voice started becoming heavier.
"And it worked." She swallowed hard. "Klaus came back."
I already knew there was a but coming.
And judging by the way Hope tightened her arms around herself, it was a big one.
"But when I went back to get my mother..."
Hope stopped.
"She was gone."
My stomach tightened.
"Someone found her?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Greta Sienna."
The name came out filled with hatred.
It wasn't difficult to notice.
"She was a vampire. A fanatic. She believed vampires should remain 'pure.' To her, werewolves were inferior and hybrids were an abomination that should never have existed."
My expression hardened.
"Sounds lovely."
"She hated my father for what he was. And she hated me even more because of what I could become."
"Because you have all three bloodlines."
"Yes." Hope clenched her jaw. "She wanted to make sure no more hybrids could exist. And she decided the way to do that was to eliminate my werewolf side."
"How?"
"With a binding spell."
I thought about it for a few seconds.
"Like... locking that part of you away?"
"Exactly. My wolf side would still exist, but it would be sealed."
"And she used your mother to force you into it."
Hope nodded.
"If I agreed to the ritual, she'd give my mother back."
I slowly shook my head.
"I'm guessing you didn't believe her."
"I wanted to."
That answer hurt more than if she'd simply said no.
Hope looked at the floor.
"And that's where Roman came in."
The anger returned immediately.
This time much more visibly.
Her hands clenched.
"Roman Sienna."
I searched my memory for the name.
It took me a few seconds.
Then I remembered.
"Wait... Roman?"
Hope looked at me.
"You know him?"
"I think so." I frowned. "The vampire from this school? Brown hair, always looks like he's trying to seem mysterious?"
Despite the situation, Hope let out a short laugh.
"That's him."
"I've seen him a few times." My expression changed. "What does he have to do with this?"
Hope became serious again.
"Greta is his mother."
I blinked.
"Oh."
Now things were starting to get ugly.
"She put Roman in the Salvatore School on purpose."
"To spy on you."
"To get close to me." Hope nodded. "And it worked."
There was something different in the way she said it.
I noticed.
"You liked him."
Hope looked away.
"I did."
I didn't need to ask anything else.
That one word explained a lot.
"He got close to me, talked to me, made it seem like he understood what it was like to be different..." The anger returned. "And that entire time, he was only there because Greta had sent him."
My jaw tightened.
"Son of a bitch."
Hope looked at me.
"Ethan—"
"What? Am I wrong?"
She stared at me for several seconds.
"No."
"Then he's a son of a bitch."
A small smile appeared despite her attempt to stop it.
But it quickly disappeared.
"Roman took me to where my mother was being held. At first I thought he was trying to help me." Hope swallowed hard. "When we got there, I realized he knew a lot more than he'd told me."
"He handed you over to his mother."
"He helped." Her voice hardened. "Maybe he believed Greta wouldn't do anything truly terrible. Maybe he thought all she wanted was the spell. I don't know." Hope shook her head. "And honestly, I still don't know if that makes any difference."
I didn't know either.
"What happened after that?"
Hope took a long time to answer.
It was obvious this part was worse.
Much worse.
"I found my mother tied up."
My expression hardened.
"Greta had kept her alive because she needed me."
Hope's voice began to tremble ever so slightly.
"My mother tried to convince me to run, but I wasn't going to leave her behind. So we came up with an idea."
"The spell."
She nodded.
"Greta wanted my werewolf side sealed away. So my mother decided to have the ritual performed on herself first."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"To buy time. If her wolf side was bound, Greta would think we were cooperating."
Hope closed her eyes.
"My mother knew the risk."
"What risk?"
She opened her eyes again.
"My mother was a hybrid."
It took me a few seconds.
Then I remembered something I'd learned in class.
"Vampire and werewolf."
"Yes."
"And when they sealed her wolf side..."
"Only the vampire part remained."
My expression changed.
"The sun."
Hope nodded.
"She lost the natural protection she'd had as a hybrid. Without a daylight ring, she'd burn if she stepped outside the house."
"And she knew that before the ritual."
"She did."
That made me fall silent.
Hayley had agreed to it anyway.
To give her daughter a chance.
Hope continued before I could say anything.
"We fought back. My mother killed the witch who performed the spell and told me to run." She let out a shaky breath. "I should've run."
Her eyes became wet.
"But I hesitated."
"Hope..."
"Greta showed up." Her voice became even quieter. "She knocked me down before I could do anything."
I was completely silent now.
No jokes.
No interruptions.
"When I woke up... my mother was already dead."
My father told me what happened afterward, even though he didn't want to.
Her breathing became uneven.
"My father had just arrived too, but there was someone else there."
The way she said it made it clear that revelation hurt too.
"My uncle Elijah."
I remembered the name.
One of the Originals.
"Was he trying to help?"
Hope let out a hollow laugh.
"No."
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"Elijah had asked to have his memories erased some time earlier. It's a complicated story involving my family and something called the Hollow." She shook her head. "The important part is that he didn't remember my mother. He didn't remember me. He didn't remember my father as his brother."
I was beginning to understand.
"So he didn't know who he was protecting."
"He knew Antoinette, Roman's sister. And he believed Klaus was after her family."
Hope held her arms even tighter.
"When my father tried to get inside..."
She stopped.
"Elijah fought him."
"So Klaus couldn't get to your mother."
Hope didn't answer immediately.
She didn't need to.
Her expression already had.
"Greta had my mother pinned against the wall."
Her voice began to crack.
"She put her hand against her chest."
My stomach twisted.
I knew enough about vampires to understand what that meant.
"She was going to rip her heart out."
Hope nodded.
A tear escaped.
She immediately wiped it away, almost angry at herself for letting it happen.
"My mother looked around." Hope took a deep breath. "She saw my father unable to get to her."
Another pause.
"She saw Elijah standing there without even recognizing her."
The anger appeared alongside the pain.
"And she saw me."
Her voice finally broke.
"I was lying on the floor."
I didn't move.
"Then she made a choice." Hope pressed her lips together. "Greta had a daylight ring."
I realized it before she finished.
"No..."
Hope nodded.
"My mother tore off the finger that had the ring on it."
Her voice almost disappeared.
"And dragged Greta outside into the sunlight."
Silence.
Complete silence.
"They both burned to death."
Hope looked at the floor, her shoulders trembling.
I didn't know what to say.
There wasn't a single sentence in the world that could make any of that better.
Then Hope finally let out something that seemed to have been trapped inside her for days.
"And it all started because I wanted my father to come home."
I looked up at her.
"Hope..."
"If I hadn't kidnapped my mother—"
"No."
She stared at me.
"Ethan—"
"No."
My voice came out firmer this time.
"You fucked up?"
Hope looked surprised.
"Wow. Thanks."
"Let me finish."
I stepped a little closer.
"You did something stupid because you wanted to see your father. You put your mother in danger without realizing how big the risk really was."
Hope looked away.
"Exactly."
"But you didn't kill your mother."
She looked back at me.
"Greta chose to kidnap her. Greta chose to use you and your mother because of that sick ideology of hers. Roman chose to lie to you and help his mother. And your mother..."
I stopped.
"Your mother chose to save you."
Hope went completely still.
"That doesn't erase what you did." I shook my head. "And maybe you're going to have to live with that for a long time."
My voice grew quieter.
"But there's a huge difference between making a mistake and wanting someone to die."
Hope didn't answer.
"From what you just told me..." I continued. "Hayley could've tried to save her own life."
Hope lowered her gaze.
"She could have."
"But she didn't."
"No."
"She chose you."
Hope's jaw trembled.
"She always did."
There was no anger in those words.
Only a longing so deep that, for some reason, it was worse.
Hope brought a hand to her face.
"She always chose me."
This time, she couldn't hold back the tears.
I stood there for a second, not exactly knowing what I was supposed to do.
Then I simply opened my arms a little.
I didn't walk toward her.
Didn't pull her in.
I just left the choice there.
Hope looked at me.
For a few seconds, she seemed surprised.
Then something inside her gave way.
She took the two steps separating us and hugged me.
My body went rigid for a moment.
Not because I didn't want it.
Quite the opposite.
I just hadn't expected it.
Then I wrapped my arms around her, not squeezing too tightly, not saying anything.
Hope rested her face against my chest and stayed there.
I could feel her shoulders trembling slightly, and for the first time since that conversation had begun, I didn't try to come up with something clever to say.
I didn't make a joke.
I didn't try to fix it.
Because I finally understood that some things simply couldn't be fixed.
Sometimes, the only thing you could do was stay.