Author's Note: This should've been done a month ago but I kinda forgot that I hadn't actually finished this. Whoops? Oh well, it's done and out now, so enjoy the last chapter of Waiting Game.

Waiting Game

"Hey, how are you holding up?" Hope asked as she approached Lizzie. The girl was just sitting on her bed, staring over at Josie's, where her sister should be. Instead Josie was still unconscious in the cells with Alaric standing watch over her.

"Oh you know, as well as can be expected after nearly being murdered in a noir film by my twin's evil alter ego," Lizzie said, summing up the events of the day rather succinctly.

"Right," Hope said shortly, having been expecting something similar. Walking over she sat on the bed next to Lizzie, leaving barely any room between them. "We'll find a way to help her."

"I know," Lizzie said, surprising Hope a little. "I just... I should have noticed. My sister had a full on psychotic break and I didn't notice. I should be the fucking expert on what to look out for."

"Lizzie... you can't blame yourself," Hope said, leaning a bit to tap Lizzie with her shoulder. They had all missed just how close Josie was to losing control, Lizzie shouldn't blame herself.

Lizzie didn't say anything, instead just leaning over and laying her head on the shorter girl's shoulder. She was glad that Hope had come to check on her, she couldn't stand being alone right now. "Am I a horrible person?"

"Only some of the time," Hope answered, smiling as she heard Lizzie give a snort of laughter at that. "Of course you're not. Why would you think that?"

"Because Josie is possessed by dark magic and I'm somehow making it about me?" Lizzie said softly, still keeping her head on Hope's shoulder. Instead of waiting for an answer she pressed on, "Do you think it's just the dark magic making her this way or..." she didn't want to finish that thought.

Hope didn't answer immediately, instead taking her time to get her thoughts right, "I think, that the dark magic caused her mind to fracture. Everyone has parts of themselves they hate and keep locked away, the magic she took in found those and amplified them."

"So yes?" Lizzie said hesitantly, not wanting that to be the answer. She didn't want her twin to want her dead. She didn't want Josie to hate her.

"No, not really. Speaking from experience it's not that simple, dark magic takes the smallest feelings, ones you would never act on, and twists them into something darker. A slight annoyance that would've made you roll your eyes before can be changed to making you wanting to kill them. And then the urge keeps building until you finally give in," Hope expounded, being far more familiar with the subject than pretty much anyone at the school.

"Well that's great. Cause I've never annoyed Josie," Lizzie said, sarcasm clear in her voice. "Maybe I should just start planning my own funeral. There could be flowers, and music, a video tribute maybe. Maybe you do the eulogy? Or would it be better to leave it to MG?"

"Come on Lizzie, do you really think I'll let anything happen to you?" Hope said, kind of annoyed that Lizzie was just writing herself off.

"No..." Lizzie grumbled out, admitting Hope had a point. She wasn't quite a defenseless damsel in distress but Hope played the heroic knight swooping in at the last minute pretty well. "You did come save me in that fifties hell after all... eventually."

"I didn't even know who you were. You should be glad I showed up at all," Hope teased, both knowing that she didn't mean it. She needed to find Emma and punch her later for ever sending her into that, how was a fictional life that overwrote their own memories supposed to help anyone? "You never did keep your promise you know, to tell me what my word meant."

"Ugh, I only said that so that you'd say it and we could leave. I don't speak Latin Hope," Lizzie said, finally lifting her head from Hope's shoulder just so the tribrid could see her rolling her eyes at her. "Fatum, right? I guess that means fate?"

"Close, although a more accurate interpretation would be a doomed fate, or undesired one at least," Hope said, Lizzie just staring at her.

"You know Latin? Wait, of course you do, you're Hope," Lizzie said, getting over her surprise quickly. Given how many spells were in Latin it wasn't that shocking, and Hope knew more about magic than anyone she knew. "And what do you mean 'doomed'? Cause from where I'm standing it turned out pretty well."

"Yeah, well I also chose not to be with Landon. Again," Hope said, shrugging forlornly as she did. "It's like my own brain is telling me that we're never going to work."

"Maybe your brain is just telling you that you don't actually love him?" Lizzie said, her eyes widening as she did. Crap, she hadn't meant to say that. Pointing out Landon was a less than useful garden gnome was fine, suggesting that Hope might not love him was definitively not. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

Hope just stared at Lizzie, the shock of what she had said taking a minute to wear off. She wanted to refute what Lizzie said, tell her that she was wrong. But she didn't. She just let out a sigh, giving Lizzie a tired smile, "It's fine. I know you didn't mean it."

'Bullshit,' Lizzie thought instantly, thankfully not saying so out loud for once. Of course she had meant it, they both knew she had meant it. And for some reason Hope didn't even want to try and argue against what she had said. "So my safe word was caecus, what does it mean?" Lizzie asked suddenly, grasping for something to change the subject.

"Blind. Or I guess oblivious would work better," Hope answered, letting Lizzie change the subject. It wasn't too hard to guess what Lizzie's word had been referring too. They had just been talking about her missing the signs with Josie after all.

Great, now her own subconscious was throwing shade at her. "Bit on the nose, isn't it?" Lizzie said, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"A little. I'm not sure about the others but I feel like our escape words were just reflections of our own subconscious thoughts," Hope reasoned, shrugging her shoulders. The stupid game had been based off a chambre de chais and that was representational magic, so she wouldn't be shocked if it followed similar rules.

"So whose subconscious do you think stuck us in knock-off Casablanca?" Lizzie asked, having been wondering that for awhile. "It wasn't MG, or we all would've been stuck wearing spandex. Maybe it was Raf, he's boring enough to think noir-world would be interesting. Or Emma, she's old."

"Lizzie..." Hope said, shaking her head at Lizzie. "I thought you liked Raf."

"Yeah, until I realized there were cardboard cutouts with more personality," Lizzie said, not feeling any reason to hold back. She had gone for Raf mostly because he was new and hot, not because she'd ever felt any real connection to him. "I clearly have a type, new, mysterious, hot, brooding, probably dangerous. I might've fallen for you if my memories hadn't come back so early."

Hope's eyes widened at that, darting over to Lizzie as she wondered if she was being serious. She didn't really sound serious, but Lizzie never really did. And while she was certain that Lizzie had started down this path as a way to distract her from Josie, Hope couldn't help but wonder how much truth there was to what she was saying. "I'm not sure if I should be flattered or offended."

"Flattered, obviously. My taste in guys may suck but I have excellent taste in women," Lizzie said, leaning away from Hope and giving her an exaggerated wink.

Hope tilted her head slightly, giving Lizzie a curious look, "Who els-" she started to ask, before getting cut off as the door to the room burst open.

"Oh good, you two are together. That saves me another trip," MG said, smiling brightly at the two girls. "Dr. S sent me to get you, he said it looks like Josie is starting to wake up."

Lizzie and Hope shared a worried glance at that, before both leapt to their feet. They had both been hoping that she'd stay under longer, give them more time to find a way to help. Now though they had no choice but to face Josie head on and see if things were as bad as they feared they were.


Sitting down on the bed Lizzie pulled her knees into herself, wrapping her arms around them and holding them to her. She wasn't even in her own room, instead having been moved to Hope's under the cover of an invisibility spell where she was supposed to hide out and stay until it was safe. Not that she had any idea when that would be.

She wasn't even scared, not any more. She had to face her biggest fear to even get into the ring with Josie, now she was just drained as she waited for Hope to save the day. Because Hope would save the day, she didn't doubt that for a second. Even when she'd ran away she'd never doubted Hope, she'd doubted herself being able to hold up for her part. And even when she hadn't been able to it hadn't mattered, Hope had found a way to win even when she lost.

That would've pissed her off it had happened last year, the idea of Hope being so annoyingly perfect that she was able to pull out a victory no matter how hopeless it seemed. Now, with her sister's life on the line, she was just grateful Hope considered them worth saving.

Shaking her head she looked around for something to distract her, she didn't want to spend all night brooding after all. That was a Hope move, and an annoying one at that. Maybe if she was lucky she'd even find something embarrassing to hold over Hope. She kind of doubted it though, as Hope had stupidly had her dad burn all of her stuff before swan-diving into Malivore. Rummaging through Hope's drawers she gave a wicked grin as she found a notebook, sitting back down on the bed before cracking it open, hoping to find something scandalous.

Instead her face dropped as she realized quickly that this was just a notebook for Hope's spell ideas. Which was a little cool, but not what she'd been hoping for. Flipping through it anyway as she had nothing better to do she couldn't help but be surprised to see how many were related to her or Josie. The first several pages were filled with ideas for how to suppress the sand-clock or nullify it's magic, followed by twice as many pages on how ways to force her way into the prison world. There were even a few notes on ways to force Alyssa to talk, some of which had been scratched out to the point of being nearly illegible but had enough remaining to make Lizzie wince. Hope had apparently been getting close to literally tearing the information out of Alyssa before her lunatic uncle had shown up.

The next couple of pages had a few notes about the golden arrow, and what Hope thought it's capabilities might be, along with a few scrapped ideas for protection spells to block it. Then they shifted to the most recent problem, and there were a lot of notes and ideas jotted down for it. Flipping forward Lizzie counted nearly a dozen pages, all filled with ideas for how to take the dark magic out of Josie, how to stop her without hurting her, how to keep everyone safe.

Reaching the last page her eyes went a little wide as she saw just how complicated the potion Hope had used to keep her safe was. It alone took up a page and half and had was so complex that even with her capabilities she doubted she could recreate it. Calling it a potion was almost an insult, it was more of a liquid spell by the time Hope had finished, the tribrid having used multiple spells to change it's properties and effects until she had created exactly what she needed. It was mindbogglingly complex and the fact that Hope had created it in maybe half a day left her head spinning.

Setting the notebook aside she fell back onto Hope's bed, letting out a sigh. She knew that Hope did a lot for them, but there was something about seeing it written down that hit her hard. Whenever Hope showed up and saved the day with some spell no one had ever heard of they all had tendency to just shrug and attribute it to Hope being Hope. But it wasn't that simple, she didn't just open a book and pull out the perfect spell for a problem no one had ever faced before. It was only possible because she was a prodigy at witchcraft in addition to being unfathomably powerful and strong and gorgeous.

It was also annoying as fuck, because seriously did Hope have to try and take on every problem by herself? Ok sure, she hadn't really been a lot of help the last few days, and trapped in a prison world for a while, but she surely she could've helped with some of this. Hope was too short to be trying to take all of their problems onto her shoulders.

Smiling at her own dumb joke Lizzie couldn't help but wish Hope was here. She hated to sleep alone to begin with, and the reasons for not being able to have either Josie or Hope nearby made that even more apparent. Part of her wanted to sneak back into her dad's office and sleep there, at least then she'd have someone nearby. But wishing for something she couldn't have at the moment wasn't going to do her any good, she'd be better off just trying to sleep and hoping things were better in the morning.


So despite her best efforts Lizzie hadn't been able to get to sleep. Which had led to what was surely a spectacularly stupid idea. That had worked thanks to the horribly tacky ring she'd found while snooping around Hope's room. "Wow, you missed that me that much?" Hope said, giving Lizzie the most annoying smirk.

Smiling in spite of herself Lizzie just shrugged, "Huh, you know, I was actually expecting Josie." So yeah, maybe risking being discovered to sneak into her room to steal the prism just so she could feel less alone was a bad idea. But it worked so who cares?

"No you weren't. Or I wouldn't be here," the projection of Hope said, that same annoying smirk still on her face.

"Whatever. Don't let it go to your head. I just needed someone to talk to," Lizzie said, taking off the illusion ring before sitting back down on Hope's bed. It was still a crime against fashion but it was at least a useful one.

"Obviously. I'm sure that's the only reason you picked Hope," fake Hope said, an annoying smirk on her face that made Lizzie glare at the construct.

"What are you getting at?" Lizzie asked. So what if her subconscious had thought of Hope first when wanting someone to comfort her? They were friends, and she'd grown to really like having her around.

"Oh please, you can't really be that oblivious can you? I guess caecus really was the right word for you," Fake Hope said, her voice taking on a taunting lilt that Lizzie could only remember Hope using a handful of times.

"Ugh, all I wanted was to have someone to talk to. Not cryptic psychoanlyzation," Lizzie replied, rolling her eyes.

"You didn't forget that I'm just a manifestation of your own subconscious did you? Because you of all people know how this works," Fake Hope said, smiling down at Lizzie from where she stood next to the bed.

"Shut up," Lizzie groaned, without any real feeling behind it.

"You know arguing with yourself is the first sign of insanity," Fake Hope said, a teasing tone to her voice that Lizzie was already missing hearing.

"Yeah well, that ship sailed a long time ago," Lizzie said, not particularly caring. Yeah she was crazy, whatever. It wasn't like Hope had ever cared or treated her any different because of it. "Can't you just not talk?"

"Really? So you want me to just be eye candy then? Maybe you're not as blind as I thought," Hope said, giving off a small laugh that made Lizzie squirm uncomfortably. Most of the time the prism made an accurate enough copy it was hard to tell it wasn't real but occasionally some actions didn't match up right. And the way Fake Hope's eyes failed to light up as she laughed really served to remind Lizzie it wasn't her.

"Why don't you just come out and say whatever it is you're hinting at?" Lizzie demanded, glaring at the prism construct. This had been a bad idea, she'd forgotten how annoying the constructs could be. Since she tended to immediately say or act on whatever she thought anyways it had rarely been an issue for her, but she knew from Josie's experiences how trying it could be.

"Fine, I'll help you see the light. The reason you're unable to sleep tonight, the reason you go out of your way to be around Hope, why you go after Landon so often, why you fear Josie ever being with her... it's all the same reason. You l-"

"Enough!" Lizzie shouted, grabbing the crystal and shutting it off. Clutching it tightly she shook her head, forcing her thoughts past what the construct had been saying. This had been a stupid idea. She should've known better to try and use the prism for comfort, especially when her emotions were all over the place. It had been a been a bad idea born out of a moments weakness. So what if she had wished she had Hope there to comfort her, the tribrid had been there to do so a number of times. It didn't mean anything.


"So when did you and Hope start dating?" One of the witches asked, getting Lizzie to stop in her tracks.

"Umm, what? Where did you get that idea?" Lizzie asked, actually stunned to hear that. They'd just gotten back to the school after walking back from the docks and this is what they hit her with?

"Oh please, we all saw that eulogy," another of the witches said, Lizzie too shocked still to notice which one. "Hope was more emotional than I've ever seen her."

"Plus, she did say that you were her lover," another witch chimed in, Lizzie's glance darting over to her for a moment.

'Oh fuck,' Lizzie thought, her eyes going wide with realization. Of course they would think that given the mess she'd made of trying to give her own eulogy. Hope was going to kill her when she found out.

"I need to go," Lizzie said roughly, not listening to anyone's protests and pushing her way out of the group. She could understand why they might've had that thought but how could any of them really believe that Hope and her were dating? They might be more crazy than she was.

Ignoring the calls from behind her she headed for her room, wanting to get as far away from people before they could bombard her with more stupid questions. Because it was stupid, how could her and Hope be dating? Sure they had been spending a lot of time together since she'd come back from Malivore, and there were always stupid rumors floating around but this was just idiotic.

To start with Hope had a boyfriend, one she'd tell anyone that asked how much she loved him. Hell pretty much the only thing most students knew about Landon was that he was Hope's boyfriend, especially after Josie had restored all of their memories. And it wasn't like Hope would ever date her anyways, if anything it'd be Josie she went for. Everyone went for Josie.

Reaching her room, Lizzie darted inside, relieved to see that Josie wasn't here at the moment. That was good, she didn't want her sister asking questions. Especially if she had heard the rumors as well. Knowing how these things worked they'd probably already spread across the whole school. And no one would even bother questioning why the hell Hope would bother dating someone like her. It was so absurd. In what world would Hope possibly return her feelings?

Her feelings?... 'Oh fuck,' Lizzie thought once more, having realized the path her thoughts had gone down. She hadn't meant that, right? She couldn't have feelings for Hope. As if to present a counter argument the memories of the last few months sprang to her mind, of her finding excuses to spend time with Hope, the jealousy she'd felt anytime she was with Landon, throwing herself at the first emotionally unavailable guy that walked by to distract herself, the simple joy that she felt when with Hope. She had a crush on Hope Mikaelson. "Dammit!"

She wasn't supposed to have a crush on Hope, that was her sister's thing. And Landon's. And Rafael's. And probably half the damn school. It wasn't supposed to be her. No wonder her subconscious had kept calling her blind, it should've been obvious since the moment she started inventing excuses to spend time with her. Unbidden another memory sprang to her mind, of the moment they'd both exited the noir world, of the way Hope had looked at her, a look full of relief and joy that had made her heart skip a beat even in the moment. Now thinking back on it she could feel her face flush, her heart speeding up just at the thought of Hope looking at her like that once more. "Double dammit!"

She had a crush on Hope Mikaelson. Now what the hell was she supposed to do?


Author's Note: And done. I did say that this was a story about Lizzie eventually realizing she had a crush on Hope. I never did say I'd have her act on it. Sigh, I really do need to write a story where Lizzie actually does for once. I like subtext too much. Well there's an idea for my next story. First though I have an extra scene for 3x02 to finish and then a story for another fandom that needs to be written. In the meantime let me know what you thought of this one and check out some of my other stories if you havent already. Or even if you have.