Author's Note: And here's the aftermath of Josie trying to win an award for Worst Ways To Handle A Crush. Enjoy and leave reviews, cause I like those.

Hanging On By A Thread

The smell of smoke was what woke her up, Hope staring at that the fire sweeping across her room wondering how the hell it had happened and honestly not knowing if she was still dreaming for a moment. She couldn't tell why or how it had started but it had already consumed many of her paintings and materials in the far corner of her room. The couch near the window that Josie had been sleeping on last night had flames covering nearly half of it, and they were spreading rapidly across her room.

Finally getting her self into gear she pushed away the smoke surrounding her with a quick spell before focusing on the fire. "Vid aer," she cast, sucking the air out of that side of her room and putting the fire out in seconds. With the flames gone now she flicked her wrist at the window, shattering it with another spell and pushing the smoke out of the room to clear the air. It was only then that she realized someone was calling for her through the door.

"Hope! Hope! Open the door dammit." She could hear Dr. Saltzman yelling, moving to do so until her door was knocked clean of it's hinges, Caroline vamping into the room a second later.

"Hope! Are you okay? What happened?" Caroline asked, looking the young teen over. She had been out in town getting breakfast and had come back to the school to find everything in a panic as a fire had started in Hope's room.

"I don't know. I woke up and everything was..." Hope said before trailing off, finally looking around and seeing what she had lost. Almost all of her artwork and related supplies had been consumed by the flames, along with her laptop and some of the clothes she had scattered across that side of the room. The paintings were all she really cared about though, feeling tears starting to well up as she realized they were all gone. The only one she had ever made with her dad, a few of the ones that her mom had helped her with, two that she had made of Marcel and Rebekah, the one she'd been working on as a gift for Freya and Keelin. They were all gone.

Seeing the girl starting to break down Caroline gestured to her partner, Alaric working to move the few students that had gathered outside out of the way. Fortunately it was early still so not too many were up. "I'm so sorry."

"It's... it's fine." Hope said in an entirely unbelievable manner, shrugging her shoulders as she tried to act like it didn't hurt. "It was an accident, those happen. Nothing I can do about it."

"Hope... you don't have to pretend to be ok all the time." Caroline said, placing a hand on the girl's arm to reassure her. That seemed to be the tipping point, Hope pushing herself into the woman and letting the tears flow. Caroline just held the girl, wondering how long Hope had been holding back for. God knows she'd been through enough that it was hard to tell.

Stepping into the room after shooing away the onlookers Alaric took a look around, wincing at the damage done. Leaving Hope to Caroline he walked around the burned area, careful to test the floor and make sure it would hold before looking to see if he could find the source of the fire. "I think it was a wiring fault." Alaric said, getting them to look over at him.

Pointing he showed them where the wall had been scorched through, revealing several wires that had been charred. He wasn't an arson inspector so it was hard to tell but looked like the fire could have started from there. Honestly it was either that or someone had done this on purpose, and while there were plenty that might want too there weren't many that had either the ability or guts to do so.

"See? An accident. That's all," Hope said, moving away from Caroline and starting to pull herself back together. Part of her wondered if someone had done this but an accident made sense and caused less trouble for everyone.

"We'll repair everything and replace whatever was lost, at no charge to you of course." Caroline said, dropping into her Headmistress role as she saw that Hope had calmed down. It would be a hit to the school's emergency fund but nothing that couldn't be replaced in time.

Hope gave an ugly snort of a laugh at that, as if they could replace what she'd lost. And she didn't give a damn about having to pay for it, she had plenty of money. In fact, "How about I pay for it, and I get to throw in some upgrades?"

"What kind of upgrades?" Alaric asked, glancing suspiciously around the room and wondering if Hope had set it herself before shaking his head to rid himself of the thought. If she had she wouldn't have let it consume the paintings.

"A bathroom and shower of my own to start with," Hope said, tired of having to use the girl's room down the hallway. "Maybe a microwave, I don't know. Haven't thought it all out yet."

"I don't know if I'm comfortable having you shoulder the bill for this," Caroline said, looking at Rick to see how he felt.

"Really? My family has given enough money to this school that the name on the door should say Mikaelson by now." Hope retorted, getting Caroline to wince as the point hit home. The school had several donors, many quite wealthy, but the Mikaelson's had supported it since near it's founding and provided nearly half the funds the school had used since.

"Yeah, but the Mikaelson School just doesn't have the same ring to it that the Salvatore School does." Alaric pointed out, getting Hope to look at him oddly before trying to conceal a laugh.

"Hmm, the Mikaelson Institute maybe?" Caroline said, joining in with Rick. "No, everyone would think we were an asylum then."

"The Mikaelson Academy?" Hope offered, getting the two adults to smile as she turned her attention away from what she'd lost for a moment. "That sounds... fine."

"Eh..." Alaric said, shrugging his shoulders noncommittally.

"Oh fine, you can leave it as the Salvatore School." Hope said, having to admit that it did have a nice ring to it. "But I'm still upgrading my room."

"We'll agree to discuss it." Caroline said, willing to say only that much for now. Honestly she'd probably let her, it would likely help Hope deal with the loss of her stuff if she had hand in rebuilding the room. And it wasn't as if she didn't have money to burn, having inherited her mother, father and in particular her uncle's fortunes. Elijah hadn't worn ten-thousand dollar suits and driven around in a Bentley for nothing after all.

"What's going on?" Lizzie asked, grabbing her twin as she saw her sitting on one of the benches in the hallway. Josie looked like she had just seen someone get murdered, which seemed unlikely but wasn't as impossible as she would like.

"Uh, there was a fire. In Hope's room." Josie said, giving a nervous glance around even as she did. How had this happened? She had just cast a tiny fire spell to destroy the note. What she hadn't noticed had been the fan Hope kept going in her room constantly, and once the note had started to burn it ended up getting blown across the room. Once it landed among the easily combustible painting and art supplies it hadn't taken long to become the roaring blaze that had destroyed half the room.

"Was she hurt?" Lizzie asked, concern flashing across her face for a moment before she pushed it away. As if the tribrid would be hurt by something like this.

"I don't think so..." Josie said, having seen her mom enter the room and her dad shooing people away. If Hope had been hurt she doubted he would have been so calm. Oh god, she could have set Hope on fire! That thought suddenly hit her, the idea of hurting the girl like that making her physically ill.

"Are you ok?" Lizzie asked, seeing her sister suddenly clutching at her stomach.

"I'm fine. Some of the smoke must have got to me."Josie lied, not having been near enough to room for the smoke to have effected her. She had practically ran from Hope's room after casting her spell, and had been getting an early breakfast when she heard the commotion.

"Well breathe better then?" Lizzie said slowly getting a confused look from her twin. "Ok, so I don't know how to treat smoke sickness."

"I'm pretty certain it's called smoke inhalation," Josie corrected, getting Lizzie to roll her eyes.

"Whatever. So who do you think did it?" Lizzie said, sitting down next to her sister and thus missing the look of sheer terror on Josie's face.

"What? Why do you think anyone did it?" Josie said, trying to speak as normally as possible and not sound guilty. Given that her voice only squeaked once she thought she did pretty well.

"Oh please, you think a fire just magically started in Hope's room?" Lizzie said, before pausing as she thought about what she said. "Bad wording, it was definitely started magically but you know, cast by someone. So who? My money's on Alyssa Chang. She's bitchy enough."

"Why does it have to be started by anyone?" Josie said, hoping that Lizzie would just drop this line of thought. The last thing she needed was for anyone to start thinking that it had been deliberate, as even if they didn't find out it was her it would still cause problems.

"Or maybe it was the wolves, one of them could've chucked a burning pinecone through her window." Lizzie said, ignoring her sister as she started thinking through the possibilities. "If Grayson hadn't been about to pee all over himself last night I might've thought he had done it."

"Why can't it just be an accident?" Josie said, as that was what it actually was. A horrible stupid accident because she wanted to get rid of note confessing to her crush. And had somehow handled it so badly that she ended up setting Hope's room on fire with the tribrid in it.

"You should read more," Lizzie said, getting a glare in response for that. "Stuff like this is never an accident. There's always someone behind it and let's face it, there's plenty of people that would like to set Hope on fire."

"Yeah, and you're probably at the top of that list." Josie snapped back, Lizzie actually looking hurt for a second at what she had said.

"I may not like Hope, but I would never want to hurt her." Lizzie said, her sister having the decency to at least look ashamed at having suggested as much. Sure her and Hope had never gotten along, constantly fighting with each other since they were kids but she had never wanted her to be hurt. She wasn't that kind of a person.

"I- I know that." Josie said, although if she was being honest there had been times she wasn't so sure. Hope and Lizzie fought like cats and dogs and for as little reason. If she hadn't been the one to set the fire she might have actually suspected Lizzie of doing so. Well if Lizzie hadn't seemed to have had a bonding moment with the teen herself the night before.

Seeing Hope exiting her room along with her parents Josie decided to use that as a distraction, "Well, it looks like Hope's alright at least." Josie said, feeling a wave of relief wash over her. At least she hadn't actually harmed her.

Turning Lizzie looked down the hall to see Hope for herself, the tribrid seeming to be arguing with her parents about something. As if feeling her gaze Hope looked over at her and Josie and for a second Lizzie thought she was going to smile at them. Instead her eyes narrowed in a glare, confusing Lizzie, "Why does it look like she's pissed at us?"

"I don't know," Josie said, tensing up as she noticed the look on Hope's face. Did she know it was her that had started the fire somehow?

Before Lizzie could respond someone else came up from the opposite end of the hall, "Hey Lizzie." Grayson said as he came from behind them, the two girls turning to look at the teen vampire and missing the way Hope's glare focused in on him. "Do you think we could talk?"

Lizzie glanced at Josie for a second, before steeling herself. "You have one minute. Start talking."

"I was hoping we could talk alone?" Grayson asked, resisting the urge to flinch as he saw Josie glare at him.

"You must be crazy if you think I'm letting you be alone with my sister." Josie said, practically snarling at the vampire. He was lucky that she'd been distracted by her crush on Hope, otherwise it might've been his room that caught fire, and far less accidentally.

That was probably fair Grayson had to admit, even while trying to think of a better way to go about this. Glancing around the hallway he saw Hope at the other end of it glaring at him and felt a wave of fear run down his spine. Screw trying to find a better way to do this, he was going to say what he needed to and get the hell out of here. "I'm sorry for what happened last night, I don't know what came over me. And it won't happen again. With anyone. And uh, yeah we should break up."

The Saltzman twins just stared at the teen that, trying to get through everything he had said. Was that really it? Hey sorry for almost biting you, oh and we should break up. Even as Lizzie tried to think of what to say, Grayson vanished, vamping out of there after saying his piece. "What a dick," Josie said finally, Lizzie nodding in agreement. Pulling herself together she started to launch into a tirade just as she saw her parents approaching them. What did they need to talk to them about so early?

"You have to be kidding." Lizzie said, glaring at her parents as they informed her of the bad news. Due to Hope's room having spontaneously combusted they had decided to cancel their Spring Break trip next week to Florida. She had been looking forward to it for months and now it was just gone. "Why?"

"We have to stay and oversee the contractors when they come to fix Hope's room." Caroline explained, looking between her two daughters. Josie seemed to be handling it ok, just staring down at her feet, while Lizzie looked like she was about to fly off the handle.

"So let someone else babysit them, why does it need to be you?" Lizzie retorted, nearly shouting back at her parents at this point. First Grayson nearly eats her, then he had the gall to come by and break up with her this morning, not even giving her the satisfaction of dumping his ass before just vamping away. And now this? She had been hoping to use the break as time to get over the loser but now it was being taken away too.

"We can't do that. Having so many humans on campus is already a risk, we can't be absent as well." Alaric said, trying to explain things to his daughter. In a lot of ways this happening right before Spring Break had been a blessing, there would be a lot less students around as those that could went home.

"This is bullshit!" Lizzie yelled, standing up and starting to pace around the office. Was this why Hope had been glaring at her earlier? Had she known of their trip and been jealous that they had family to spend time with? That made zero sense of course but her brain latched on to it and ran with it, "First you start spending all your time with Hope, and now you're canceling our family's trip over her!"

With every word Lizzie became more animated, gesturing wildly around the room as her voice got louder, her parents looking at each other in concern. "Lizzie..." Caroline said, moving to hold her daughter to try to calm her down. That ended up being a mistake.

Without any magic Lizzie's rant was harmless, if a little concerning. As her mom touched her though Lizzie siphoned off of her without even realizing, drawing in the magic subconsciously. "No!" Lizzie shouted, not wanting her mom to try and placate her right now. As she did the magic she'd unknowingly taken exploded out of her, a wave of energy that shattered the windows and sent her mom, dad, and twin tumbling across the room.

"Wha- what? Did I?" Lizzie asked, looking around the room at what she'd caused. Her mom and dad were looking at each other in concern while Josie seemed to be in shock about what had just happened. Turning Lizzie ran, throwing the doors open and dashing down the hall. Ignoring the looks from the other students she headed for the front doors, nearly running into Hope who had just been leaving the common area. Glaring at her she angrily shoved the slightly taller girl out of the way, before making her way outside.

"What the hell?" Hope yelled after her, wondering why in the world the girl was running. There was a flash as a vampire shot past her, the familiar scent that lingered in the air behind her letting her know it was Caroline. Looking back the way she had come from she could see Dr. Saltzman shutting the door to his study, a nervous looking Josie at his side.

Seeing the brunette she started towards her, hoping that she could shed some light on what was going on. Seeing her approach though Josie's eyes went wide with what looked like fear, before she turned and practically ran down one of the other hallways. Left just standing there Hope felt her face fall as she wondered what was going on. After last night she'd thought that at least her and Josie could be friends but given the way she was running away from her it didn't seem that would be the case.

"You know that you don't have to come every time," Caroline said, sitting on a bench outside of Lizzie's therapist's office with her other daughter. It had taken some work to find a therapist that dealt with witches, obviously not being something she could just post an ad for online. She managed to find a good one in D.C. though, and the woman had even agreed to come down to Richmond to do her twice weekly sessions with Lizzie. For a hefty bonus of course.

"I do, though. I need to be here for Lizzie." Josie replied, not exactly thrilled about it but feeling she needed to be here. An hour in the car here, two hours sitting around waiting, and then another hour back. Not exactly the most thrilling way to spend her time. But it was her fault this was even happening.

She had been the one to start the fire in Hope's room that led to their Spring Break getting canceled. It had been because of her that Lizzie had snapped. It was her fault and she didn't even have the courage to own up to it. Instead she was just tagging along with her sister, acting like everything was fine. At least it got her out of the school, where she couldn't be seen pining for Hope. Lizzie already seemed to be getting suspicious of her and the last thing she needed was for her twin to find out she had a crush on the girl, that could only make things worse at this point.

"You're a great sister," Caroline said, giving her daughter a hug. It had always impressed her how willing Josie was to look out others, a trait she had to have gotten from her biological mother as it certainly hadn't come from her. Lizzie on the other hand seemed to have picked up on all of her traits, for better and for worse.

"But, if you're going to insist on coming up here, then you need to find something to do while you're here. I don't want you coming all the way here to just sit around in the office." Caroline continued, not wanting her daughter to just sit around up here. Lizzie at least had books to read on her tablet during the trip, Josie just stuck her headphones in and zoned out most of the way.

"What is there even to do around here?" Josie asked, wondering what her mom had in mind.

"Well I could probably find a gymnastics or dance class nearby if you wanted to do that."Caroline said, before laughing at the look on her daughter's face. Right, that was more something that Lizzie would like. "Or I'm sure we could find someone offering music lessons, I know you enjoy that."

"Maybe," Josie said, not sure if what she really wanted to do that either. She liked music of course, both playing and singing but it was more something she wanted to work through on her own. What she would really like was something that could help her as a witch but they were unlikely to find that here in Richmond. She was pretty sure there was a coven in the city, there tended to be at least one in any city that was large or old enough after all, but she had no idea how to go about contacting them.

"Well you think about it and let me know," Caroline said, keeping her arm around her daughter as she did. Whatever Josie wanted she'd get it for her, even if it meant compelling a few humans to work around her schedule. "And if you ever decide you don't want to come with Lizzie then that's ok too. I don't want you to feel obligated."

Josie just nodded at that, not ever intending to take her up on it. She'd be there for her sister for as long as she needed her. And even when Lizzie felt like she didn't then she'd still be there anyways.

"Ok, what's going on?" Alaric asked, wincing at the force that Hope was putting into her punches. They were working on hand to hand combat today, mostly in making sure that Hope could transition from a chain of punches to kicks, elbows, or knees seamlessly.

"It's. Your. Stupid. Evil. Brats." Hope said in between blows, punctuating the last one with a kick that drove Alaric backwards.

"What have they done this time?" Alaric asked, sighing as he put the pads down and tried to get feeling back into his hand.

"It's just...ugh, I don't even know. I thought things were getting better for a week or two but now things might be worse than they were before." Hope said, moving to get a drink of water as Dr. Saltzman had decided it was time for a break. Lizzie was mostly just being typical Lizzie, although it felt like there was more bite to her insults lately. Josie on the other hand had developed a startling ability to disappear whenever Hope was around and that honestly hurt more than Lizzie's barbs.

"Well Lizzie's going through some stuff right now and Josie's trying to be there for her. So maybe that's why." Alaric said, knowing damn well that was why. Lizzie seemed to have a grudge against Hope for having the bad luck of having her room catch fire right before spring break. Which was idiotic but he wasn't about to actually tell his daughter that given her current state.

"Speaking of going through some stuff, there needs to be better sex-ed for the vamps. Or a refresher course at least." Hope said suddenly, wanting to get the topic off of her. Alaric choked on the water he was taking a sip from at what she had said. Not her intention but a nice bonus.

"What? Why are you saying- oh god, please tell me you didn't?" Alaric said, looking at Hope with what she could best described as disappointment.

"What? No, ew. This isn't about about me at all." Hope said, shaking her head in rebuttal. "I went out for a run the other night and found one of the vamps about to take a bite out of their date. I don't think that's what they intended but if I hadn't stepped in then who knows what might have happened."

Hope was smart he'd give her that, no names, no genders, and not even giving him an accurate date to try to figure out who it was. It wasn't subtle but since she didn't want to get whoever it was in trouble he'd let it go for know. "We go over it with every new vamp that comes to the school but I'll admit that there might be gaps in what they learn."

Werewolves and witches didn't have the same issues that vampires did. They still had to deal with the heightened hormones and emotional state but they weren't likely to be triggered by them in the same way a vampire might be. There was a thin line for a vampire between arousal and hunger, and young vampires especially had a hard time not crossing from one to the other.

"Who does it? You?" Hope asked, now curious about the process. Every student had to go through a two week sex-ed class with Emma during 6th grade but it hadn't gone into that much detail on the particularities between species. It had made up for that though by going into excruciating detail on everything else.

"No. Caroline actually does it." Alaric said, being quite happy that it wasn't him. It was best to keep the fact that he had been a vampire for a time secret anyways, it helped avoid a lot of questions.

Hope processed that for a moment before smirking, "She's awful at it, isn't she?"

"She could be better." Alaric couched, not wanting to entirely throw her under the bus. It wasn't that she was bad but rather that she wanted to be done with it as quickly as possible and tended to rush through it.

Hope laughed at that, not able to see the woman giving the birds and the bees talk to new vamps. "What if I said I knew someone that could do a refresher course for all of them, that knew first hand what it was like?"

"I would say it depends which one you're referring too," Alaric replied, knowing there were really only three vampires that Hope knew. And it would be a cold day in hell before he allowed Kol Mikaelson to step foot inside this school. Still if one of their vampires had been close to losing control then it was likely that others were struggling as well. "Ok, who do you have in mind?"

"What are you staring at?" Lizzie said, throwing herself onto the couch in the common area beside her sister who was pretending to be reading something for her Japanese language course. She couldn't believe out of all the things that she could have done that she'd chosen the one thing that led to more homework. Sure there were some spells that sounded cool that were Japanese but it was just too much work.

"Nothing," Josie said, returning her attention to her Beginner's Guide to Japanese.

"Uh huh," Lizzie said, obviously not believing that. Following the path Josie had been looking she ignored the senior goth coven that was loudly discussing whether it was still possible to summon Hellfire and instead focused in on Hope who was seated on the far end of the room. It was rare for her to hang out in the common area, and but apparently she had picked today of all days to hang out and read.

"Were you staring at Hope again?" Lizzie asked, Josie stiffening beside her as her twin called her out. She had caught her sister staring at her several times now, usually with a look on her face like she'd just seen a puppy kicked, and there had been that whole thing with her trying to suggest that Hope wasn't that bad. "What, you have a crush on her or something?"

"What? No, why would I?" Josie said, panicking as she could tell that Lizzie didn't believe her. She had to think of something to get out of this. She couldn't have Lizzie knowing about this, at best she'd hate Hope and start picking even more fights with her. And at worst she'd steal her for herself. "How could I have a crush on someone who said such mean things about my twin?"

"What?" Lizzie said, her eyes narrowing in anger while Josie seemed to freeze. Had Hope been the one spreading the rumors about her being crazy? About being bi-polar? She didn't like the girl but she hadn't thought she was the type to do that, it just didn't seem like her. "Is she the one spreading all these rumors about me?"

Josie willed herself to say no, to take back what she said. Of course it wasn't Hope, it was the other twenty people that had seen Lizzie storm out their parent's wrecked office that day. Instead though she just felt herself nod, deepening the lie she had told.

Anger rising Lizzie shot to her feet, stomping toward Hope to confront her about it. Seeing the goth coven along the way though she stopped, choosing to go about this a different way. "You wanted to know about summoning Hellfire right?" She said loudly, getting everyone in the area's attention. "Then you should ask Hope, I hear that's how her room caught fire. Apparently she tried to summon her daddy up from hell and didn't get it right."

Everything fell silent as her line hit home, and for a moment Lizzie felt that she'd made a mistake. Something in Hope's face just seemed to break, her eyes filling with pain in a way that made her regret what she'd said. Then she knew she'd made a mistake as those eyes darkened, filling with rage as the entire building began to shake. As Hope rose to her feet Lizzie honestly thought the girl was going to rip her apart, whether literally or figuratively she wasn't sure, but it was going to be messy. Instead she just walked on by, keeping her gaze focused on anything but her.

As the rumbling faded Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief, turning to see Hope heading outside. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the sight of a few drops of water on the ground along where Hope had passed. Had she been crying? She was the one who started this by telling everyone she was crazy, if she couldn't handle it then why start it. For a moment she could feel doubt creep in but she pushed it away, Josie wouldn't have lied to her. Her twin would never lie to her about something like this.

Author's Note: Shorter chapter this time, and the last three or four scenes bounce around more than I'd like but hopefully it's alright. I decided to skip the scene of Caroline catching up to Lizzie after her meltdown because honestly I don't know Caroline's character well enough to write it, I never watched TVD and have no intention too. Plus there's a decent chance we'll eventually get that scene in Legacies anyways.