She had seen enough. This was what she had wanted, after all. They shouldn't grieve her or be in pain, just forget that she ever existed. And then move on. Was it even moving on if in their minds, they had never even known her? Well she didn't need to bother with that anymore. They were happier without her. The only moving on she had to do was her own. Where was this bus going? It didn't really matter, as long as it would be away.

She had reached the bus' final destination. She had taken the money for the bus from Alaric's office. It was her inheritance anyway, given that her father paid for most of the school. Now, she was stranded in a back alley in some city she hadn't paid enough attention to know. She had just been thinking about her future. A pro about total erasure was that all options were technically open to her. Should she try to find a wild Werewolf pack? She would have to pretend to be new and stranded. They couldn't find out she was Klaus' daughter after he had apparently hunted down werewolves to turn into hybrids and then killed them all a couple decades ago. They would know her as Hayley's daughter immediately after seeing her birthmark. That'd definitely be too many questions. She was also really not a normal werewolf. Given that she could turn on command and had most powers of a hybrid, she'd not be great at avoiding attention. But would a witch coven be better? Witches had always been bad news for her. Well, except Aunt Freya. But New Orleans really wasn't an option. She was still the apocalypse and all that. It would also be quite the opposite of a start over. Other witches would probably be a good idea. But what if they had a way to telling she wasn't who she claimed to be? Were there other werewitches? Would they see right through her? She was pretty knowledgeable in magic and spells, but by no means an expert. Maybe she should just extract herself from the magic community altogether. As a descendent of the witches who created the werewolf and vampire curse, there would probably be people after her blood or powers regardless of her parentage. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Noone can hunt what they don't know about. And the chances that any creature beside her could have anti Malivore powers were very slim. So, humans then. Humans. What do those normally do?

It turned out Hope was good at pickpocketing. Her werewolf side helped keeping her body warm and healthy and she might have used a spell or two to help out, but she tried to leave most things supernatural behind. She slept in an old abandoned building on a mattress she found by the street. Now noone asked about her history, not even her name. She didn't feel too guilty for stealing money from people to pay for food. The vampires in her life just went around killing people for food, so it wasn't really that bad in comparison. She lived this simple life for months. It was good to clear things up for her. She was now sure she had made the right decision. It was going to be winter soon. While she was asleep, she heard a noise. She opened one eye lazily, checking for a squirrel or a raccoon or just a rat. She jumped up when she realised there was a little boy standing over her.

"Who are you?"

"I'm sorry!"

Hope dropped her threatening position she had automatically assumed. Hopefully there hadn't been any yellow in her eyes to scare the boy.

"No, no need. Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I'm James. I was hiding."

A loud bang was heard on the door that Hope had improvised from leftover furniture. Had it not been for the spell on it, it would have shattered.

"Come here, James! There's no use in hiding, we saw you climb in through that window! If you come out now, noone needs to get hurt!"

Panic spread on the boy's face.

Hope didn't need more to be convinced. She looked at James reassuringly and told him: "You're going to hide, okay? I'll make them go away."

He still looked worried, but too scared to give her more than a nod as an answer.

The window was too small for an adult man, but Hope fit through it with a little effort. Once out, she realised that the man hadn't been alone.

"Who are you?"

With three guns pointed at her face, Hope understood what James must have felt not even a minute earlier. She put her hands up almost instinctually. What should she do? Just wolf out? Then what? Kill them all to leave no witnesses? She could do that. No problem. But she didn't know anything about these men. They weren't some racist fanatics who murdered her mother, but pointing guns at her. Those were still dangerous, she needed to defend herself, without harming them, without –

She didn't even hear the bang. In retrospect, the police sirens must have come first. And then one of the men shot her. He shot her. Because he was scared. That must have been it. In the moment, Hope just realised that something was seriously wrong. Suddenly, time unfroze and pain shot up from her stomach to her chest and what felt like everywhere. She prayed that James had not seen it happening. On the bright side, he was probably safe from the men who had disappeared immediately. Hope managed to draw up a picture of her mom at a camp fire next to Jackson before she passed out.

The police arrived to find a girl gunned down and unconscious. They had been called because of suspicious activity in an abandoned building, so they had only expected to warn a homeless man to stay out of private property, not to need medical assistance. They called for an ambulance immediately, although they didn't see too high a chance. Of course they hoped the girl would make it, but they had seen gunshot wounds. Being unconscious was definitely a bad sign. They performed CPR on her until the ambulance showed up and the paramedics continued. She died in the ambulance. It was tragic, really. The police investigation would reveal that she was probably homeless and had been for a while. Noone to inform. The officers didn't lose any sleep over it.

"Are you sure we should be here?"

"It's the morgue, who could tell on us?"

"I just don't think it fits staying low so well."

She didn't know where she was. It was tight, too tight. And dark. She felt weird. This wasn't right. She needed to get out.

"What was that?"

"That's coming from inside the body bag."

He decided to open the zip on the bag.

The girl inside broke free and forcefully took in a breath.

Three equally confused people stared at each other.

The woman came to her senses and looked down at the tag.

"It says here that you got shot in the stomach. I don't see a wound."

The man responded as well.

"Does that mean…?"

Meanwhile, Hope remembered what had happened, realised where she was. She had been dead. Which meant she was now a vampire and a full tribrid. She would never age past 18. But she had more urgent problems now. If she was transitioning, that meant she needed to get away from these humans. She would get bloodthirsty any moment now and didn't know whether she could restrain herself from killing them. She didn't know a lot about this at all, probably because it was unlike anything that had ever happened.

"Wait, are you feeling hungry? Did you get hurt before dying?"

"You should maybe not mention that."

She had misunderstood Hope's shock about the questions. How much did they know.

"I… don't know. My stomach hurts."

She was careful not to give away too much.

"We need to get her out of here."

"You're right, she can't be in a hospital right now."

"What is going on?"

Her worry was only half acted.

"Come with us. We will take you somewhere safe. I promise we can explain, but you need to trust us now. Alright? Get her some clothes!"

After getting dressed and sneaking out of the hospital, the strange couple took her to a surprisingly nice apartment. Well, nice by homeless standards, not Mikaelson standards.

"So… We're vampires. And you are going to be one as well, as far as we can tell."

They looked at her expectantly. What reaction was she supposed to give?

"That must come as a shock for you. You need to drink someone's blood now to survive."

Possibly. Or her dad's or her own or a doppelgänger's.

"You don't need to be afraid. You will get used to it. We did. My name is Claire. And he is Bernard."

"I'm Hope."

"That's a beautiful name. Can you come with me now? Bernard is going back to the hospital and taking care of things."

She nodded slightly.

They had picked a drunk man behind a club. She had instinctively known to show her fangs and go for his throat. It was weird and unfamiliar and she thought of her parents again and the fact that they had lived off of this for decades and centuries. It being the most natural movement for them.

"You need to stop!"

Lost in thought, she had almost killed the man. Claire had tried to stop her for a while now, but she had been absentminded. She let him go and left it to Claire to compel him. It was, after all, a skill she didn't know about yet. While she was busy, Hope took the opportunity to bite her palm and lick away a couple of drops in case she needed to. Had anyone ever changed themselves into a vampire?

"That should be enough. Come on. This must have been exhausting. You can sleep in our guest room."

"Hope is sleeping. How did it go at the hospital?"

"Way too easy. I didn't even need to compel anyone. Just throw her file away. Apparently she was homeless and unidentified and got shot in a street fight. There was no funeral scheduled."

"That's sad. Maybe that's why she wasn't so shocked by us. She probably hasn't seen a friendly face in a while. And witnessed enough horrible things that this isn't all too shocking for her. What do you think her story is? Where are her parents? Had she not had vampire blood in her system, her life would have been over. Just like that, and noone would have known about it."

"Did she mention what happened?"

"I asked her. She said that she was knocked out by someone and robbed and then woke up again without a headache. Some vampire probably drank her blood while she was unconscious and decided not to let her die. Or at least not with bite marks on her and without blood."

"Poor thing. Do you think she wants to stay with us?"

"Where else would she go? I really don't know. We have so much to teach her. She won't be able to go out in the sun tomorrow. I don't want to break her heart."

Claire didn't break Hope's heart. Hope knew vampires couldn't go out in the sun. It was how her mum died after all. She also knew that she could have made her own daylight ring. Well, if she had needed it at all. This vampire couple was being so nice to her. They tried to help her adjust. She couldn't help but enjoy the caring actions. She hadn't even talked to someone really in months. Technically, she wanted to distance herself from the magic community. Fortunately though, vampires were mostly isolated and on their own or in small groups. There were no covens or packs and the political structure of New Orleans was quite unique as well. She was probably not at risk.

They kept together for a couple more months. Hope desperately needed the social contact, especially while grieving the future she would never have and the possibilities taken from her. Claire and Bernard never pushed her to tell them more about her backstory than they already knew, including the white lie about the vampire attack. It was believable, really, since she had been such an easy target. On a more emotional night she had opened up the slightest bit and told them that her parents had been dead for years. It wasn't suspicious to avoid your history when it was such an emotional topic. Hope had a much harder time explaining why she didn't heal people with her blood. The truth, that she didn't want to risk any interactions and possible hybrids, wasn't an option. They probably would have thought of her as unnecessarily cruel, had she not avoided killing altogether. For all they knew, she just didn't want any injuries because they meant bad memories. On the day that they had found Hope, they had been at the hospital to steal donated blood. Hope really enjoyed this way of feeding, although it admittedly didn't taste as good as straight from the source.

"Stealing food. It reminds me of the good times", she used to joke with Bernard.

Their partnership could have gone on forever. None of them would have minded. But it wasn't meant to be.

"That was a night, wasn't it?"

Claire unloaded their groceries on the table.

"It was. Bernie really knows how to sing. Who would have thought?"

Hope immediately regretted this question when she saw the expression in Claire's face.

"He was a singer, you know? Before all of this. We lived in France. And he had the voice of an angel."

Hope sat down quietly. She didn't want to disturb the moment.

"On the day he was turned, he sang in a big opera house. I was all the proud wife. There were a lot of important people there. Including a delegation from New Orleans."