Episode Twelve: I Might Seem So Strong

Vincent and Hope sit side-by-side in the third pew from the front, the church yawning wide around them. Hope's eyes are trained on the statue of the Virgin Mary at the back of the altar. Hope's never been overly religious, but at this particular moment, she feels an odd sort of kinship to the woman who got more than she ever bargained for.

It's been a while since either of them have spoken. Vincent's taken some time to process the story that Hope just relayed to him. He places his palms on his thighs and stretches his fingers out. "Who knows?" His voice is quiet, but the echo in the empty church is still jarring.

"No one." Who the hell would she tell?

"Alright. Alright, it's gonna stay that way."

Hope's head snaps to stare at Vincent. "What do you mean? Shouldn't—I mean, my parents—"

Vincent lets out a low hum of disapproval. "Your daddy cannot find out about this until we are sure we know what's goin' on."

"Why?"

Side-eying her, the regent says, "Because he'd burn this place to the ground."

Hope opens her mouth to argue, but then closes it again. He's not wrong. So instead she says, "Well what are we going to do? Because I can't be the…the…"

"The Advocate."

She doesn't even want to say it. "Right. See, I can't do that. I have enough family members to deal with without tacking on generations of dead witches."

"See it don't work like that."

"How do you know that?" Hope stands up and begins pacing between the pews. "How do you know I couldn't just…I don't know, give this power or ability or whatever to someone else? To Theo? She seems to want it!"

"No, no, Theo could not be trusted with this. And besides, you told me what happened."

Hope stops pacing. "What?"

"You told me that Theo asked the ancestors to bind themselves to their most faithful, most judicious descendant. Sure, she might have meant herself, but if they chose you, they chose you. Ain't much we can do about that."

Hope swallows thickly. She just stares at Vincent, face pale. After a minute, she whispers, "I have to go get River." She turns and makes a beeline for the exit.

"Now hang on!" Vincent shoots to his feet to stop her, but Hope whips around. "No! No, I can't deal with this today."

"You have to deal with this today. Theo LeRoy is on a warpath."

"My girlfriend needs me," Hope snarls. "And I need…I need…" She takes a deep breath. "I need to not be here." She storms toward the doors once more, and this time, Vincent doesn't try to stop her.


Hayley and Hope trek through the bayou, each with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. Hayley notices Hope's uncharacteristic silence, and asks, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah."

Hayley's not convinced. "Do you feel…different?"

Hope looks up at her mother, wide-eyed. "Why would I feel different?"

With a shrug, Hayley says, "I'm no witch, but I would imagine that suddenly being connected to a city's worth of ancestral magic would make a girl feel more powerful than usual."

"Oh. Yeah, no, I more or less feel the same." Honestly, Hope hasn't even had time to consider what this new connection might mean for her beyond the fact that she is now its lynchpin.

"Then why so quiet?"

Hope hates this. She tells her mother everything; after fifteen years of mostly just each other for companionship, the mother and daughter are extremely close, and Hayley has always been a reliable sounding board for Hope's troubles. But Hope trusts Vincent, and if he thinks it's best for her to keep the fact that she is the Advocate a secret for the time being, she will.

So she lies. "Just looking forward to seeing River."

And sure enough, Mary's cabin is appearing through the trees, the wood soft in the glow of early morning. The two step up onto the front porch, but they don't even get the chance to knock before the door is being yanked open. "I've been naked for an hour," River says unceremoniously, wrapped tightly in a plaid blanket.

Hope cocks a half-smile. "Maybe I was late on purpose."

Hayley rolls her eyes as River grabs the duffel bag from her girlfriend and retreats into the house. She and Hope follow her in. "How was your night?"

"Um." River closes herself in the bathroom to dress, but says through the door, "Actually, not the worst?"

Surprised, Hayley and Hope exchange a look. "Really?" Hope calls.

"Really. I mean, don't get me wrong, the transition was so painful I wanted to peel off all of my skin, but…" She reemerges, dressed in jeans and a tank top, her feet still bare. "Being a wolf?" She searches for the words.

"There's nothing like it," Hayley offers, and River nods.

The front door opens, and Mary and Rose enter, each carrying a massive pail of water. Mary nods her hellos to the newcomers, and then says, "Damn water thing's busted again, so we gotta use the well for a while."

River sniffs the air. "Is that food?"

Hayley drops her duffel bag onto the floor, and River kneels to unzip it. "Bagels, oranges, bacon—probably cold by now—hard-boiled eggs, muffins, and, of course—"

"Beignets," Hope finishes.

River looks up, two strips of bacon already crammed into her mouth. "Ah luff ya," she says.

Hayley laughs, and then turns in surprise when she feels a tap on her shoulder. She sees Rose, face severe, jerk her head toward the open door. "We need to talk." Hayley's eyebrows fly up, but she nods and follows the alpha outside.

Hope helps River move all of the food onto the rickety kitchen table as Mary heads back outside to fill her water tank. As they sit, Hope asks, "So what was it like?"

River swallows her huge bite of beignets. "It was…it made sense."

"Okay…?"

"Like…being a wolf made sense. The part where my body was literally tearing itself to pieces to become the wolf, that made no sense, but once I was in that body…the smells, the sounds…the feeling of the wind in my fur as I ran…it was like my whole life was leading up to that moment."

Hope squeezes River's hand atop the table. "I'm glad it was better than you thought it would be. It sounds awesome." Her eyes fall down to the table.

River senses a shift in mood, and puts down the muffin she had just reached for. "Is everything okay?"

Hope hears Mary's heavy footfalls on the porch, and shakes her head. "Later?"

River's eyebrows furrow, but she nods as Mary reenters the cabin, cursing under her breath about the plumbing.


Marcel strides into the empty church, tapping on his phone as he says, "Alright, what the hell was so important you had to pull me out of a meeting with the mayor?"

Vincent's waiting for him on the altar. "You alone?"

Sliding his phone into his pocket, Marcel gives Vincent a look somewhere between confused and offended. "Yeah, of course I'm alone. You ask me to come alone, I come alone. Now what is this about? Shouldn't you be keepin' your witches from starting yet another civil war in my city?"

Vincent decides to let my city go. "So you know about Theo."

"Know that she tried to make herself the grand pupa of the ancestors and failed? Yeah, I know." He stands before the regent, hands on his hips, chin in the air. "So what?"

"Theo may have failed to make herself the ancestors' Advocate, but that doesn't mean the spell itself failed."

"Look, Vincent, I don't got time to—"

"It's Hope Mikaelson." Marcel is deadly silent. "Hope Mikaelson is now the Advocate for the ancestors of New Orleans."

Marcel runs a hand over his face. "This isn't funny."

"No." Vincent steps down off the altar to stand right in front of Marcel. "This is the best damn news we've gotten in years."

Marcel looks at the regent like he's crazy. "You think this is good news? Klaus Mikaelson's daughter now has exclusive access to the witches and you think we shouldn't be runnin' for this hills?"

"Think about it, Marcel," Vincent hisses. "How many times have we tried to establish a real, lasting peace in this city, huh? One in which every community—witches, wolves, and vampires—have been able to live their lives in peace, free to be who they are?" Marcel doesn't answer. "Even since the fall of the Mikaelsons, we ain't had a real peace. The witches weren't strong enough to fight for themselves, and that's what led Theo to do what she did."

"What's your point?"

"My point is that the witches and the wolves were never gonna trust you to speak for them. And the wolves and vampires were never gonna trust me to speak for them, neither. And as many times as we've tried to create a—a—a council, a group representin' everybody in the city, it's never worked!

"But Hope." Vincent's face blooms into something bright and buoyant. "Hope might just be the key to savin' this city once and for all."


Outside of Mary's cabin, behind the first row of trees, Rose rounds on Hayley, arms crossed. "I don't like you."

Hayley's face betrays only mild surprise. "Okay."

"I might've been a kid when you left fifteen years ago, but even then I understood that our alpha was abandoning us to go on some grand quest to save a couple of vampires who individually have lived longer than everyone in this pack combined."

"Rose—"

"I'm not done," Rose snaps. "For years we were leaderless. Jackson was dead, you took off god knows where, and the vampires decided to pick us off while we were at our weakest. After a while Marcel told them to back off. He played it like he was trying to honor you or something, but I knew. He just didn't want the death of your pack to draw you back here." She scoffs. "Not that I thought for a second it would."

Hayley looks at the ground, tugs on the hem of her shirt. "Look, Rose, I know I didn't do right by this pack—"

"So I stepped up." Rose keeps talks like Hayley never opened her mouth. "I triggered the curse at nineteen, and when I was twenty-two I couldn't stand by and watch my people fade away into nothingness. I've been alpha for three years now, and I may not know what I'm doing, but I do know what my next step is."

Face drawn, Hayley asks, "And what's that?"

"I need a meeting with Vincent Griffith and Marcel Gerard, and you're going to set it up for me." Not a question, not a request. A demand.

Hayley takes a deep breath. "Okay. And what would this meeting be about, exactly?"

Rose's answering smile is sarcastic. "Well that's alpha business, and you're not the alpha anymore."

It stings, but Hayley knows she deserves it. "And why should I ask them to meet with you? Seems to me like you don't have much going for you out here."

Rose narrows her eyes. "You're going to do it because I spent last night keeping your daughter's girlfriend from losing her goddamn mind. And because you owe us."

Hayley sighs deeply, then nods. "Okay. Okay." She starts to walk back toward the house, and then stops, turns to face Rose again. "Why do you turn?"

Rose's brows knit in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"The rest of the pack. They gained control of their turning during the ceremony with Jackson. But you…"

Rose works her jaw. "I was a kid, and I hadn't triggered my curse, so I wasn't invited to the wedding. Every Crescent born afterward would inherit that ability, but me…" She shrugs. "I got shafted."

"Oh." Hayley never considered the kids, never thought about those who hadn't yet triggered their curses, but might, someday. "I'm sorry."

"Whatever." Rose nods to the cabin. "Get them back to the Quarter. And get me that meeting with Vincent and Marcel." And with that, Rose stalks off into the woods.


When River and Hope enter the compound, their jaws immediately drop. An intricate web of streamers—gold, green, and purple—encompass the courtyard, where a small army of workers assembles a stage in one corner. Across the way, a long table is being put together, an endless tablecloth waiting to be draped over top. Colored balloons are tied to the balconies, and strings of lights weave between the wrought iron.

"What the hell?"

Elijah and Rebekah turn to grin at the girls, who can barely move for shock. "Welcome back!" Rebekah says cheerfully. She walks over to them and wraps an arm around River's shoulder. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I'm doing the weirdest acid trip in history. What is all this?"

"Ah." Elijah sets a clipboard down on the impossibly long table and approaches. "These are…preparations. For the party."

"The party," Hope repeats, deadpan. "Wasn't Mardi Gras, like, months ago?"

"It's for you!" Rebekah chirps.

Hope's eyes widen even further. "For me?"

"For your birthday!"

And that's when Hope remembers: her eighteenth birthday is tomorrow. "Oh."

Elijah tries to dampen his smile. "Did you forget?"

"Honestly…yeah. I mean, first there was rescuing Dad, and then waking all of you up, and then River getting kidnapped, and then last night…" She catches herself before she says too much, recalling Vincent's warning. "It's just been a lot. I haven't had time to think about…"

"Being an adult?" Rebekah offers. Hope nods.

River points at all of the decorations. "That still doesn't explain all this."

"Yeah," Hope says. "I mean, a party? For who? I have one friend, and I'm dating her."

"The party is for New Orleans." Everyone's eyes turn to Klaus, who's descending the staircase, gesturing grandly to the set-up. "All of the most important figures in this city will be invited to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of my child, as well as our triumphant return to New Orleans."

Hope nods once, eyes falling to the floor. "Right. So this has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with reminding everyone that the Mikaelsons are all-powerful harbingers of terror."

Klaus gives a too-pleased grin. "Well, I suppose one could…" He trails off as his daughter stalks past him, avoiding his gaze. "Hope?" He looks at his siblings, bewildered.

River narrows her eyes in judgement. "Dude." Shaking her head, she follows her girlfriend up to their shared room.

Elijah shifts to cross his arms and glare at his brother, who merely gives a baffled shrug.


After dropping the girls off at the compound, Hayley makes her way to St. Anne's, where she's lucky enough to find both Vincent and Marcel, heads tipped together conspiratorially. They look up quickly when they hear her footsteps. "What're you doing here?" Marcel asks bluntly.

"Nice to see you too." She finally reaches them and crosses her arms. "I need the two of you to meet with Rose Capitoline."

The men exchange blank looks. "Who's that?"

Hayley rolls her eyes. "She's the new alpha of the Crescent pack."

"Huh." Marcel leans up against the wall of the sanctuary. "Didn't realize they had a new alpha."

"Shocking they didn't consult with you first."

"Well why does she want a meeting with us? Shouldn't the Crescents hate the vampires, and the witches too?"

"Oh, they should, and they do," Hayley says bitingly. "But I don't know why she wants a meeting. I don't care. You're going to give it to her."

Marcel works his jaw like he wants to argue, but Vincent says, "Actually…I think meeting with her is a good idea." He gives Marcel a significant look, and Marcel slowly nods in agreement.

Hayley looks between the two of them with suspicion. "Do I want to know what's going on here?"

Vincent gives her a bland smile. "Tell Rose we'd like to talk to her as soon as possible."

Part of Hayley is worried that Rose is walking into something far more complicated than she could ever imagine, but right now she just wants to get back to Hope. "Whatever," she says, spinning around, already pulling her phone out of her pocket as she exits the church.


When River enters their bedroom, Hope is leaning on the rail of the balcony, her hair falling down to obscure her face from view. The werewolf makes her way out, standing beside her girlfriend and looking down onto the street below. "I don't really know what to say when your vampire dad says he's going to use your birthday as an excuse to claim power in New Orleans. Maybe offer to make tea?"

Hope puffs out something akin to a laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, it's just…I knew, who he was, what his priorities were. My mom tried her hardest not to…make him seem like a monster to me. And he didn't. My whole life I thought of my dad as a martyr who sacrificed a life with me to save his siblings, and he was a hero to me." She sighs. "I guess even heroes are people, too. Still, I should have known better than to expect too much from the man so terrible that he was the scary story regular vampires told each other over campfires."

"I don't think you were unreasonable to expect your dad not to be a dick," River points out.

"I guess." Hope tucks her hair behind one ear so she can see her girlfriend out of the corner of her eye. "It's just, with everything going on…"

"Holy shit!" River grabs Hope's arm and pulls her upright so they're facing each other.

That's when Hope feels it, the trickle of something hot and wet from her nose. She wicks the blood away with the back of her hand. "Sorry, sorry—"

"Don't—oh my god." River takes Hope's face in her hands and stares her right in the eyes. "This has gone on long enough. Tell me what's going on, now."

Hope stares back for a long while, and then whispers. "Okay, but not here." Her eyes flick down to the street. "Come on. Let's go for a walk."


They meet in St. James Infirmary. It's neutral ground for all of them, and Rose already feels ganged up on, even though she's the one who called the meeting. Vincent and Marcel, for all their disagreements, are mostly allies, and they have no reason to listen to a word she says.

There's a jazz band playing, and the bar is fairly crowded, so when Rose approaches the corner table where the witch regent and the vampire king are waiting for her, she's not worried they'll be overheard. They're seated when she walks up, shoulders straight to display a sense of confidence she's not sure she has. "I'm surprised you agreed to meet with me."

Marcel motions for her to take a seat opposite them. "Actually, we were going to reach out to you."

That's…interesting. Rose slowly lowers herself into the chair, suspicion coloring her face. "Why?"

"We wanted to talk to you about the future of New Orleans," Vincent says, gaze steady.

"That's a lucky coincidence. I'm here to talk about the wolves' future in New Orleans. I am done watching my people suffer in silence out in the bayou. We deserve access to medicine, to culture. Our children deserve to go to schools, real schools. We deserve to live our lives without fear that the vampires are going to slaughter us, or that the witches are going to put a curse on us again. We want back in the Quarter, and we want it now."

Vincent and Marcel look at each other, the ghosts of smiles dancing at the corners of their mouths. Finally Marcel flags down a server and says to Rose, "Get yourself a drink. We have a lot to talk about."


They're walking down Chartres Street toward Jackson Square. Each restaurant they pass is blaring music as the midday lunch rush swirls around them. Hope keeps her hands in her pocket as she begins her story. "Because the bones of my grandmother were consecrated on New Orleans soil, I have an ancestral tie to the magic that fuels the witches who live here." River nods, following along. "Fifteen years ago, that tie was severed. It was a much bigger deal for the witches who live here, because for them, the ancestors are their only source of magic. That's not the case for me, so it wasn't much of a problem.

"Last night, that ancestral tie was…fixed. All of us have access to that power again, but it's…it's different now."

"Different how?"

Hope takes a deep breath, searching for the words. "The witch who did the spell, Theo—"

"The crazy bitch who kidnapped me in my sleep? I'm familiar."

"Right. Well, she was worried that the ancestors, if we were connected to them again, would, I guess, be super controlling of the living witches. Apparently that was a big problem back in the day? I don't know, I was like two.

"Anyway, she tried to make herself the sort-of gatekeeper for the ancestors. They'd only be able to express their opinions, concerns, whatever to her. They wouldn't be able to control us."

"Well, that sounds like a good thing," River says. "What's the issue?"

Hope stops walking, and River does the same. "It didn't work."

River stares at her blankly. "What do you mean?"

"Theo didn't make herself the gatekeeper." She pauses. "It's me. I'm the Advocate for the ancestors."

River's eyes widen. "Okay, I'm still not one hundred percent sure what that means, but it sounds serious."

For a second, Hope wants to walk away, to leave River far from the confusing mess that her life is devolving into. But she doesn't think she could do any of this without River by her side, that snarky, comforting voice in her ear. So she explains, "It means I hear them. All the time. Hundreds, thousands of voices in my head, screaming at me, whispering to me. The ancestors of New Orleans have been silent for fifteen years, and now I'm the only person who can hear them."

River grips Hope's hand so hard Hope worries the bones might crack. "Jesus Christ, that sounds awful."

"It's—I don't know. It's a lot, and you can't tell anyone."

"Yeah, of course." River's face works through a dozen different emotions. "But is this what's causing the nosebleeds? I thought those started before last night."

"Oh." Hope starts to walk again, River's hand still squeezing hers. "It's…related?" River merely waits for her to elaborate. "Okay, think of my magic like…like a river." River smiles, and Hope rolls her eyes. "Like an actual river, a strong one, like the raging rapids that people raft down. It's fast and strong and overwhelming. And my entire life, I've put this dam in the river. It's kept my power at bay. Sure, I've been able to use it, mostly for small spells—opening locks, locator spells, turning off the lights when I don't feel like getting out of bed. And each time I use that power, a tiny crack forms in the dam. Nothing I can't handle. My power stays hidden, where it can't hurt anybody.

"But since the night that Vincent came to Tallahassee to get me, I have been doing much bigger spells, and using a lot more magic. And those tiny cracks are now much, much bigger. It's getting harder and harder for me to keep the power from swallowing me whole, and thus…"

"Nosebleeds," River finishes, and Hope nods. "Shouldn't you tell someone about this? What about Freya? She's got to know how to help."

"I know, I know, it's just…" Hope worries her bottom lip between her teeth. "I don't know what to do. And now that I have this ancestral magic on top of what I already had…it's like the raging river is flooding."

"Hope." River pulls them to a stop again. "It's not just you and your mom anymore. You have people in your life who can help you, who want to help you. You have to let them. Before this magic kills you."

Hope nods. "You're right. I know you're right. But Vincent told me to keep this whole Advocate thing a secret and—"

"Screw Vincent." River kisses Hope's forehead, and Hope didn't realize just how much she needed that. "You are more important than whatever he's up to."

Hope smiles softly. "Thanks for…I don't know. Being you. Being epic."

"Yeah, I'm pretty great." She loops her arm through Hope's and resumes their walk to Jackson Square. "Remember that when I tell you I forgot to get you a birthday present."


It's late in the day, and Theo LeRoy is alone in her crypt, seething. She's mostly righted everything inside, and now she's poring over every piece of paper she owns, trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.

"It should have worked," she mutters to herself, fingers curled into fists atop her work table. "I did everything right. It should have worked."

"I think it did."

Theo's eyes flick up to see Dom leaning in the doorway. "I'm not in the mood."

Ignoring her, Dom says, "I just had a very interesting conversation with all nine of our Harvest girls."

Theo's eyes are scanning the pages again. "So?"

"None of them can access the ancestors."

That catches Theo's attention. She straightens up. "What do you mean?"

"They've been trying to channel the ancestors all morning. Contorted themselves six ways to Sunday and still nothing."

Theo leans back against the wall. "That is interesting."

"So what does it mean if not even the nine girls we sent to retrieve the ancestors can commune with them? Someone has to be talking to them. They're not exactly a quiet group."

A slow, dangerous smile spreads across Theo's face. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That there's an Advocate running around the city somewhere and we have no idea who they are?"

Theo lets out a long, humorless laugh. "Oh, I am going to find them. Whoever they are, I will hunt them down and I will take back what was stolen from me." Her eyes snap to Dom, who's looking at her with something akin to surprise. "Even if I have to kill them to do it."


The season one finale, "Hope for a Life That is Calm," is already available on the Tumblr blog peopleandrhythm at this time.