Author's Note: New chapter! Blame work, life, and trying to figure out what to do with everyone's favorite bitchy brunette for this taking so long. Anyways read, enjoy, and leave some reviews.

Hanging On By A Thread

"So... that happened," Hope said as they left a house in the Boston suburbs. When Dr. Saltzman had asked if she wanted to help with another recruitment trip before the summer break ended she had expected something similar to what she'd seen before, not whatever that had just been.

"Not what you were expecting?" Alaric said with a smirk, climbing into the driver seat of his Jeep.

"They were dressed like Shakespeare." Hope retorted, not having any better way to describe what the Salvatore School's newest witch had been wearing.

"Yeah, that was odd."Alaric replied, staring ahead for a moment before shrugging. "Still I prefer an odd witch to hillbilly wolves or hungry vampires."

"I don't know, at least with those I can just spell them to sleep." Hope replied, leaning against the window as she settled in for the drive back to the school. She had intended to return to the school already but when Alaric had mentioned this trip she'd decided to make a detour and fly to Boston instead.

"But then we wouldn't have gotten cookies." Alaric said, smiling as Hope laughed in agreement. The family had been quite accommodating, the only reason he had even brought Hope along was because he didn't want her staying at the school by herself. "You know you didn't have to come back yet, there's another week before classes start."

"But then who would demonstrate to the Muggles that magic was real?" Hope asked with faux sincerity. She had figured that was why Dr. Saltzman had wanted her along in the first place, to cut through the doubt. "Also I thought you said first generation witches were rare?"

"They're not first generation." Alaric corrected, Hope looking at him oddly at that. He supposed that was fair, as the family had clearly not known anything about the supernatural world. "It's just that a nasty divorce means that their witch mother wasn't around. Or cared enough to tell their kid not to read spells from a sixteenth-century poet out loud."

"Was that really how you found them?" Hope asked, laughing to herself as she got a nod in response. "Wow that's... kind of pathetic? There's got to be a better way to find out about new supernaturals than that."

"If you come up with one please tell me," Alaric replied, god knows he would love to have an easier way to do this. Having to wait for a new supernatural to cause enough trouble to make the evening news was not the best way to do things but it was the only way they really had. "And don't think you've distracted me from my original question, why did you want to come back early?"

Hope glared slightly at Dr. Saltzman for pressing the point again, before sighing and answering him. "I didn't want to be in the way. Freya and Keelin are busy getting ready for the baby and it's easier on them if I'm not around."

Alaric refrained from rolling his eyes at Hope's answer, he knew damn well that she hadn't bothered discussing any of that with them before deciding to come back. A rather angry phone call from Freya wondering why he'd asked her to return early had been enough to confirm that. He would be perfectly content to have Hope stay with her family as much as possible, but it seemed the tribrid's desire to cut herself off from everyone had started to include her own family as well. "So how are they handling the pregnancy then?" Alaric asked, deciding not to push Hope on her issues for now. They had a full school year for him to do that.

"Think about how nice and balanced werewolves normally are, then add pregnancy hormones to that." Hope said, smiling as she remembered some of the funnier outbursts she'd seen. Keelin was only about four months pregnant now so it was going to get worse, she almost wished she'd be there to see it.

"Hmm, Caroline used to use those as an excuse as well. Still not too sure she even really had them." Alaric said, not exactly remembering the time fondly. With the entire history of pregnant vampires being limited to just Caroline it wasn't as if he could really refute her though.

"Right, sometimes I forget that the evil twins birth was as weird as my own." Hope said, head tilting slightly as she thought about it for a minute.

"Yeah, the three of you definitely win on weirdness." Alaric commented. A miracle baby between a thousand year old hybrid and a twenty year old werewolf who was kidnapped as she was born and brought her mother back to life versus a pair of twins magically transplanted from their dead mother into an unknowing vampire who they nearly killed by siphoning from the inside. Not a lot could compare. "See the three of you do have something in common."

"Uh huh, if the way things were before summer break is any indication the only thing we have in common is that we hate each other." Hope replied, shutting Dr. Saltzman down before he could try to convince her to give them another chance. She had tried being nice and it had blown up in her face. She was fine being by herself anyways, it was better that way.

"Oh no," Hope said under her breath, looking across the common area of the school in horror. This couldn't be happening, she had to be seeing things. Or maybe it was a spell, that made sense, they taught magic here after all.

"Hi Hope," Lizzie said with a giant grin on her face, her voice far to cheery for to be good for the young tribrid. Walking right up to her Lizzie stopped in front of her, her eyes flicking from the floor to the top of Hope's head. "Didn't see you down there."

Why? What had she done to deserve this? What had she done that was so bad that fate would have Lizzie suddenly have growth spurt over the summer and now be taller than she was? "Really? Haven't seen each other all summer and that's what you go with?"

"And what a wonderful summer it was. Just weeks of laying out on the beach in the Bahamas," Lizzie said, smiling at the way Hope rolled her eyes at her.

"Uh huh, good for you." Hope said, ignoring the girl. Lizzie was far to pale to have spent as much time on the beach as she was claiming, so clearly she was just trying to make her jealous. Why she even bothered she had no idea.

"Lizzie!" Hope heard Josie call out, seeing the other half of the Gemini twins coming over to them. Like Lizzie, Josie seemed to have had a growth spurt, being at least as tall as Hope was, if not a little taller. Josie stopped for a moment at seeing her before pushing on and going up to her sister. "I've been looking for you all over the place. Dad wants us to give a tour to a new witch."

"Umm, that's Mom's job, why do we have to do it?" Lizzie whined, not that she minded giving the tour. It was the principle of the matter.

"Yeah well, Mom is packing up to leave, something about a scouting trip in the Balkans." Josie said, delivering the bad news to her twin. Almost instantly she saw Lizzie's mood start to shift, prompting her to reach out and grab her shoulder to steady her.

Taking a deep breath, Lizzie kept herself calm, not letting the sudden news derail her good mood. "Ok, let's get this over with then. Hope, go dig a burrow or whatever it is hobbits do."

Watching as the twins left Hope started to go to her room before shrugging and deciding to follow after the twins instead. If it was the witch she had helped recruit on her most recent trip then seeing the twins reactions should be worth putting up with Lizzie for a little longer.

It wasn't the witch she had thought it would be, instead a brunette that appeared to around their age with long hair that fell in curls around her shoulders. She had been talking with Dr. Saltzman outside the main doors while she unloaded her stuff, but as the twins approached her she turned and looked them over with an almost predatory gaze. "So you're the tour guides I was promised?"

"That's right, I'm Lizzie." Lizzie replied, giving the new girl a smile as Hope stopped in the archway of the main doors and watched them interact.

"Josie, we're sisters." Josie chimed in, blushing slightly as the girl turned to her and looked her over.

"Twins actually, and clearly fraternal." Lizzie continued, as their dad took Penelope's bags and moved to take them inside. Penelope was a witch that Caroline had found and she had limited experience with the supernatural world, it would be best to let her get to know some witches her own age before he bogged her down with the rest of the registration process.

"Penelope," the girl said, before stepping forward and wrapping an arm around one of Josie's. "Now about this tour."

"Uh," Josie stuttered out as she was pulled along, not sure what to do as her sister glared at Penelope for ignoring her.

Stepping up Lizzie grabbed Penelope's other arm, "Right this way, first is the commons area." Moving towards the school she saw Hope standing in the doorway, a smirk on her face from having watched the byplay. "Scratch that, let's check out the grounds first."

"Oh? Are we avoiding someone?" Penelope asked, turning to look Hope over. A smirk appeared on her face as her eyes ran her over, the girl wasn't someone she would think needed to be avoided. "She's hot. Ex-girlfriend?"

"What?!" Josie and Lizzie shouted almost simultaneously, both looking over at each other as they did. Penelope looked between the twins for a moment before smirking even more, clearly able to tell that something had happened between the three of them. She might've been off with her guess but it didn't seem to be by that much.

"No, never. Hope's just... would saying she's a walking pit of misery and despair be too much?" Lizzie said as she recovered first, answering for both of them.

"She's not that bad," Josie countered getting a glare from Lizzie at that. "But she isn't exactly friendly either."

"Understatement of the year." Lizzie added, pulling Penelope, and by extension Josie, further from said unfriendly teen. "Trust us, you're better off staying far away from her. No matter how hot she is."

"You've gotten sloppy," Alaric commented, throwing a high kick at Hope that made her fall over while trying to dodge. Glaring at the man from the ground near the lake she swept out with one hand, coming nowhere near connecting with him but sending him to the ground none the less. "Cheater..."

"I might not have had much of a chance to keep up with training but that doesn't mean I didn't pick up any new tricks." Hope commented, getting back on her feet before helping Alaric up to his. She had been pretty good at basic non-verbal spells before but over the summer she had worked on them with Freya until they were now second nature.

"It's not exactly sporting," Alaric said, rubbing his sore backside.

"Sporting? Seriously?" Hope remarked, finding the very idea laughable. In any real fight she was going to start with magic and then use her physical skills only if necessary. There was no need for her to be sporting.

"Yeah, not really a thing is it?" Alaric admitted, trying to remember if he had ever been in a fight that was "fair." The answer was almost certainly no, there wasn't really such a thing as fair when it came to supernaturals, one side always had an advantage. And if you didn't have a natural advantage then you needed to create one through whatever means necessary. "That being said, no magic while sparing. You won't learn anything that way."

"Fine," Hope conceded. It wasn't like she intended to use it anyways, she had only done so this time to make a point. If anything she needed the physical exertion, she had been feeling antsy all day and couldn't figure out why.

"I think we have to call it here for the day though, I have to get back to the school and get ready for tonight." Alaric said, not all that thrilled about needing to cut things short. He had been late getting out here as he was stuck talking to one of the new student's parents and now he had to leave after barely fifteen minutes of sparring.

"What's tonight?" Hope asked, not knowing what the man would need to prepare for. Classes didn't even start back for another week and there were maybe thirty students on campus at the moment.

"It's a full moon tonight," Alaric answered, smiling a bit as he saw Hope remember. She didn't have to transform like a regular werewolf would but he thought she'd be more aware than that.

"That's why I've been so jittery..." Hope muttered, annoyed at having forgotten. While back in New Orleans it hadn't been something she'd paid attention to at all. With Keelin being pregnant she couldn't shift and there had been enough going on around her to not notice the extra energy. Here at school though there just wasn't enough to keep her occupied. "Need any help?"

Alaric just stared at her for a minute, wondering if he was hearing right. Hope Mikaelson volunteering to do anything related to other students? He might need to have Dorian check if that was a sign of an apocalypse. "...you know what? Sure, why not."

When she had volunteered to help she hadn't thought about what she would actually be doing, just wanting something to keep herself busy. Turns out there wasn't really that much to do. There were only four werewolves on campus at the moment and they were all familiar with what to do. Go down to their individual transition rooms, wait for someone(Hope this time) to cast a screening spell to give them some privacy, and change out of their clothes and into a robe to await the full moon. Not much to it.

"There's not as much to this as I thought." Hope commented idly, getting a soft chuckle from the lone female werewolf whose clothes she was waiting to take. Kourtney was an attractive girl with dark skin and light brown hair that she usually had pulled into tight braids. Tonight though she let it fall loose around her, the natural curls stopping just above her shoulders.

"It's meant to be simple. Keeps things from going sideways." Kourtney commented, getting a slight nod from Hope in understanding. "It's too bad Javier graduated though, if he had been here Dr. Saltzman might let us have the night out."

"That's happened?" Hope asked, having never heard of it. It seemed like too great a risk for the school to take.

"Only in the summer, when there's so few of us here and the alpha could keep control. Javier was good at it, had a stronger grasp of his senses when transformed and kept us out of anywhere that would be trouble. It'll be hard to replace him." Kourtney said, an almost wistful sigh escaping her. Javier was by no means perfect but he had been a good alpha for the school pack.

"Oh right, he graduated," Hope said after a moment. It was hard to imagine the brute that had tried to force her to join the pack being a good alpha but apparently that was the case. Hell Kourtney had been one of the ones that attacked her on his orders and here she was having a civil conversation with her. "So who's going to replace him? You?"

"Oh hell no. I don't want that. I don't even like being in a pack, but I'm not as strong as you are." Kourtney said, watching as Hope squirmed uncomfortably at that. It was hard to imagine that the girl in front of her was the same one that had beaten Javier to a pulp months earlier. She had been legitimately afraid of her then, but now she couldn't feel any reason to be so. "There's a few that'll try but my money's on that new wolf, Jed."

"Jed? Seriously?" Hope asked, glancing over at the transition chamber he was in, despite knowing she wouldn't be able to see into it. True. the wolf seemed to have eaten whatever magic food the twins had found and suddenly grown a good five inches over the summer and had definitely filled out, but it was hard to imagine him being able to becoming the alpha.

"Javier took a liking to him, was grooming him to be the next alpha. And the rest of the pack is pretty young, so he has a shot." Kourtney elaborated, filling Hope in. There were only three wolves that were really older than Jed; herself, Brian who couldn't fight to save his life, and Cho who could fight but was severely outclassed in size and strength. "Unless of course you want to be alpha."

"Not happening," Hope replied immediately, having no desire to do so. If Jed wanted the title than let him have it, having an alpha that didn't want to do it would only hurt the pack.

"Too bad, I would've liked to have seen what you would have come up with for the talent show." Kourtney replied, a smile on her face at the idea. Hope actually laughed at that, before a sudden jolt seemed to run through the room. "Looks like the moon's coming up, you should leave before it does. Transformation isn't pleasant to be around."

"Right," Hope replied, taking the clothes Kourtney passed through the bars and placing them on a bench outside where they wouldn't get torn apart. "Good... luck I guess?" What exactly did you say to someone who was about to have every bone in their body broken and put back together?

"Thanks Hope, if you ever find a way to not have this hurt so much let me know. God knows I could use it." Kourtney replied, turning away from the door and walking to the center of the room, thus missing the look on Hope's face.

Leaving the cells Hope couldn't keep Kourtney's words out of her head. She did actually know a way to take away the pain of being forced to transform, but it was by doing something she had sworn to never do again. By turning a werewolf into a hybrid. Shaking her head to clear it of her thoughts she realized her feet had led her to main doors without her noticing. Deciding she needed a more effective way to clear her head she headed out, after all it would be a shame not to embrace her werewolf side on such a night.

"You don't look German," Lizzie said, voicing her opinion as she with her back against her bed, her sister and Penelope seated on the floor of the twins' bedroom as well. With tonight being a full moon they were confined to their rooms and Josie had suggested they have the new girl stay with them as it wouldn't be right to have her be alone her first night at the school.

"Oh? And what do German's look like?" Penelope asked, a smirk on her face as she did.

"Umm... blonde, I guess." Lizzie managed to come up with, not having actually met any Germans before. At least not as far as she knew.

"So like you," Penelope replied, her ever present smirk seeming to widen as Josie laughed from beside her. "They're not all blonde, or lack humor, or whatever other dumb stereotype you're thinking of."

Lizzie didn't really know how to reply to that. The Salvatore School did a great job of integrating all three species, and was very accepting when it came to things like sexuality but they did not have a lot of international students. Her mom had been talking about wanting to find more over the summer but Penelope was the first such student to actually attend.

"Besides, I didn't say I was all German. My Dad was Indonesian, and a witch. I got my magic from him." Penelope continued, leaning back against Josie's bed as she got comfortable.

"So your Mom isn't a witch?" Josie asked, curious about the new girl. She was so much more at ease than she would have been in the same situation. Whereas she had a hard time doing anything that put her in the spotlight Penelope seemed perfectly at ease with all the attention she was getting.

"Nope, she's an accountant. I pretty much taught myself magic after my Dad died but she wanted me to have more structure if I kept at it so here I am." Penelope said, gesturing around to the room before shrugging. "It'll do I guess."

"Oh it'll do alright. The Salvatore School offers an unmatched magical education. And is the only school to have all three species intermingled." Lizzie chimed in, quoting the lines she'd heard her mom use while giving tours.

"So what's that like, the species thing? Because I didn't even know werewolves or vampires were a thing." Penelope admitted, eyes shining with curiosity. Her mom was accepting of her desire to learn magic but it wasn't easy to learn about the supernatural community if you were outside of it, especially when you moved as much as they had.

"Well it's-" Josie started, before being cut off by Lizzie.

"A pain in the ass. Like seriously, every month we have to lock down just to make sure no one gets eaten by a werewolf." Lizzie ranted, missing the pout Josie had at being interrupted. "They're all locked up anyways, unless one of them figures out how to dig a hole through concrete we're not in any danger. It's ridiculous."

"So what do they look like? Is it like in the movies?" Penelope asked, letting the part about being eaten go as her curiosity took hold. They wouldn't have them transform at the school if it was really that much of a risk, right?

"No, not at all." Josie said quickly, not wanting her sister to steal the spotlight again. "They look just like normal wolves."

"Big wolves. Hope was like twice the size of a normal one." Lizzie added, remembering her encounter with the tribrid. She hadn't even thought of it at the time but it was the first time she'd seen a transformed werewolf in person.

"Hope's the girl from earlier right? So she's a werewolf?" Penelope asked, still curious about the girl and how the twins had reacted to her. Maybe there was some witch versus werewolf thing she didn't know about.

"Kind of." Josie answered, Penelope quirking an eyebrow to her at that. How was one 'kind of' a werewolf? "Hope's a tribrid. Part witch, part werewolf, and part vampire."

"That's a thing?" Penelope said, not really knowing if that was supposed to be something special or not. The brochure for the school hadn't said anything about tribrids at least.

"Ugh, no. No. We are not spending out night talking about Hope." Lizzie whined, wanting to talk about literally anything else.

"Why not? She sounds interesting." Penelope said, enjoying the fact that it seemed to annoy Lizzie.

"Trust me, you'll be sick of hearing about Hope and the rest of the Mikaelsons once classes start and you have to write papers on them." Lizzie countered, an annoyed look on her face. She knew the Mikaelson's were pretty important to the history of the supernatural world but it didn't make having to write about them any easier.

"Mikaelson? Is that her family?" Penelope asked, rolling the name over in her head. She wasn't sure but she thought she'd seen it one of her Dad's grimoires.

"You really don't know who the Mikaelsons are?" Josie asked, kind of shocked at that. The Mikaelsons were the most infamous family in the supernatural world, everyone knew about them. Even plenty of non-supernaturals would recognize the name as it showed up in fairy tales and such fairly often. Always as the villain of course.

"Are they like the royals of supernatural world or something?" Penelope asked, causing Lizzie to dry heave at the very thought.

"Try the exact opposite. They're the great evil of our world, and I mean that literally, that's what Hope's dad is actually called in our history books. And it's not like rest of the family was any better. She's dangerous." Lizzie shared, giving Penelope the shortened version.

"Everyone at this school is dangerous, us included." Josie said, defending Hope slightly. Her and Hope might not be friends but there was no reason to be talking about her like this. She had never done anything to hurt them.

"Whatever. Didn't I say I didn't want to spend all night talking about Hope?" Lizzie said before turning and fishing under the bed for something. Pulling out a half empty bottle of wine from under the bed she held it up. "How about we do something more fun instead?"

"This is becoming a problem Rick." Sheriff Matt Donovan said, kneeling in front of the two recently deceased vampires in the city park. He had spotted them in town earlier, recognizing the daylight rings they had, and from there it had been a simple case of offering them bait and seeing if they would take it.

"We handled it, didn't we?" The bait said, pointing out the positive aspect first. A small cut to his leg had been enough to lure them out, and the first had fallen to his stake before he realized that Alaric was armed. The second had been stupid enough to let Donovan shoot him, never considering that the bullets in the sheriffs gun were filled with wood specifically to kill vampires.

"Yeah, just like we did the last time, and the time before that. This is the fourth time in three months Rick. That's a problem." Sheriff Donovan pointed out, knowing that Alaric knew so as well. Caroline had managed to talk one pair of vampires into leaving but the rest had all been slain after being baited into attacking what they thought was an easy target.

"What do you want us to do? Put up a sign that says No Vampires Allowed?" Alaric asked, honestly wanting to know if the man had any ideas. The vampires Caroline had talked with had just wanted to see the place their race had begun and had been willing to behave while here. The rest he assumed had been here for similar reasons but he hadn't got a chance to ask before things turned violent.

"You know what, if you think it'll work then sure. It's better than nothing." Matt countered, getting an eye roll from Rick. "Isn't there a spell or something you can do to keep them out?"

"No, a spell of that magnitude is too much," Alaric replied. There had been such a spell in the past but it wasn't the kind they could easily replicate. "Maybe we can work out some sort of magical warning spell, let them know that they're not welcome and that we can find them."

"That might wor-" Matt started before catching sight of something moving in the dark behind Rick. As the figure blurred forward he tried to get his gun up, shouting out a warning, "Rick!"

Turning Alaric saw the woman speeding toward him, arms outstretched to rip out his throat. Even while his body moved on instinct and tried to get his stake up to counter he knew he wouldn't be able to before the vampire reached him. Just before she did though a gray blur came flying into his view, crashing into the vampire from the side and knocking her to the ground.

Hope had been out running for hours by now, simply enjoying the freedom her wolf form offered. At least until the wind shifted and carried two very familiar scents out to her, Dr. Saltzman and blood. Turning she ran towards the scents as quickly as her four legs could carry her, taking in everything she could.

There were at least three other scents there, one she vaguely remembered smelling before, something that she hoped meant it was a friend and two others that were unfamiliar. As she drew closer though she could tell that those scents belonged to vampires, and that the blood she could smell was tinted with the same smell.

Fortunately the park was rather close to the school grounds, which honestly seemed to just be asking for trouble. But in this case she was grateful for it as it meant she was able to get there quicker, especially as a fifth scent hit her. Another vampire, one that was still alive.

Soon she was able to actually see the two men, Dr. Saltzman and another that she recognized as the sheriff, the man having come by the school a few times. And coming up behind Dr. Saltzman was the vampire she had smelled, clearly going in for the kill.

Not hesitating she flung herself at the vampire, just barely reaching her before she reached Dr. Saltzman. Fangs widening she latched onto the vampire's outstretched arm with her teeth, clamping down on it as her momentum sent them both to the ground. Going on instinct she bit down on the arm, tearing through the bone with a vicious crunch before twisting her head to rip the limb clean off in a spray of blood.

The woman screamed at that, lashing out wildly with kicks that pushed Hope off of her before scrambling back to her feet and turning to run for her life. The sight of her turning to flee seemed to trigger some instinct in Hope, the tribrid moving to go after her, growling as the vampire started to pick up speed to escape.

Not willing to let her prey get away Hope channeled her magic through her tail, using it as medium to cast a spell in way she hadn't even known was possible. The magic ripped out from her, invisible claws tearing into the fleeing vampire's legs and shredding the muscles there. A vampire's speed and strength might come from the magic that kept them alive but it still needed to be channeled through the proper muscles, and with those now destroyed she couldn't run.

Turning as she fell the vampire managed to face Hope just as she leapt for her, fighting back as best she could with only one arm. Blood ran down the teen's side but it was all for naught as her fangs finally reached the woman's throat. "Ple-," the vampire barely managed to get out before Hope's fangs clamped shut, ripping the woman's throat out and leaving her to choke on her last plea.

"Hope?" Alaric managed to get out finally, still trying to process the events of the last few seconds. That was all it had taken, maybe twenty seconds between thinking he was about to have a vampire take his head off and seeing a werewolf that had to be Hope ripping her throat out instead. Thinking quickly he shrugged off the outer button down shirt he was wearing, approaching the still transformed Hope cautiously. "Hope."

Turing Hope saw Dr. Saltzman approaching, almost starting to growl before seeing the shirt he held out. Realizing what he wanted, she turned back, forcing herself to shift back to human as she felt Dr. Saltzman drape the shirt around her shoulders to give her some coverage.

Glancing back at Donovan, Alaric gestured to Hope and then to where his Jeep was parked, nodding in thanks as he saw the man move that way. There was at least a blanket in there that he could give Hope, and it would give her a few minutes with just him to process what had just happened.

Glancing around the park he winced at how much blood there was and considered that he might need a minute too. Most of it was from the vampires but given the gashes in Hope's side that were still healing a fair amount of it was hers as well. And the girl herself was covered in it, blood dying her mouth and throat and already staining through the shirt he'd lent her in multiple places.

Standing beside the young girl Alaric sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder than Hope didn't even seem to notice. Her eyes were locked on to the vampire she had just killed, the shock of what she had done setting in. "Thank you," Alaric said, getting Hope to stir and turn to look up at him. "You saved my life. My girls will still have a father thanks to you."

That wasn't entirely true of course. Donovan and himself might well have been able to fight off the vampire even if Hope hadn't shown up, and even if they couldn't he wasn't out of tricks. But it was what Hope needed to hear. That what she had done had saved someone, and there was enough truth to it that he didn't feel the least bit conflicted about it.

"I only meant to stop her. But then she ran, and I..." Trailing off Hope's gaze returned to the vampire she'd slain. The moment she'd turn to run her instinct had taken over, to the point she couldn't hold herself back. She had wanted to kill, to rip her apart, and she had. "I enjoyed it."

"No, you didn't." Alaric corrected immediately, feeling Hope jolt in surprise at how quick his rebuttal had been. "Hope I've seen plenty of werewolves, vampires, witches, and humans that enjoyed killing. You are not one of them."

"But I-" Hope started, before shutting down. She didn't even know what she was trying to argue.

"The animalistic side that takes priority while transformed might have wanted to kill. But that doesn't mean it's you. If you had really enjoyed it then you wouldn't be crying." Alaric pointed out, Hope reaching up to feel at her eyes in surprise, having not even noticed the tears forming.

A transformed werewolf was dangerous, even one that had as much control as Hope, because they were guided so strongly by instinct. If they smelled something new they would quickly move from being curious as to what it was to needing to know, if they had to fight it didn't take long to go from hurting their opponent to killing them. And if something happened to truly trigger their predatory instincts then almost nothing could pull them back, they would hunt down and slaughter whatever their target was.

That didn't mean that they were monsters though, no more than any supernatural at least. He had long believed that part of what made humans different from animals was their ability to go against what their instincts or desires might tell them to do. And werewolves were no different, it was just that while transformed they lost almost all ability to restrain themselves. It came with time for most but for all of Hope's talent and abilities she had only been able to transform for a few months. The only reason he was willing to allow her to transform as freely as she did was because he was certain that as long as no one forced her to fight then she wouldn't be dangerous. And so far she hadn't been.

Hope didn't say anything, just focusing on her breathing as she felt a tear slowly fall down her face. She knew what Dr. Saltzman was saying, it was all things she'd heard before. At school, from her mom, from Keelin, even from her Dad. But it was different feeling it. The desire to kill had been so strong, even stronger than what she'd felt at her mom's wake, or at the church, and she hadn't been able to stop herself. And that scared her. "What if-" Hope started, before a blanket fell on top of her.

"There you go kid." Sheriff Donovan said, laughing softly as Hope pulled the blanket off from where he had dropped it and instead wrapping it around her as she stood up. "Hope, right? Thanks for the help. I did not want to have to tell Rick's girls their Dad got eaten because he got slow."

"Slow my ass. You were the one who said there were only two vamps." Alaric countered, glaring at the man slightly. If wasn't like they hadn't taken precautions, the same silver totem he had used to detect approaching supernaturals while training Hope was placed on the bench beside where he been sitting for instance, but they hadn't been paying attention to it once they thought they'd eliminated the threat.

"I said I saw two vampires, never said there were only two." Matt pointed out, getting an eye roll from Rick. Glancing around the area he sighed at the amount of work this was going to be to clean up, the two he and Rick had killed would be fairly simple but the third was a mess. "You should get out of here, I'll take care of cleaning this up."

"Thanks Matt," Alaric said, placing a hand on Hope's shoulder and guiding her to the car. Thankfully she went with it, wanting to be gone from there as much as he did. Part of him wanted to stop and let her at least wipe the blood off, but as Hope demurely climbed into the passenger seat of his Jeep, never saying a word the whole time, he decided it was best just to get back.

Then short drive back to the school passed in silence, Hope just leaning her head against the window, gazing out at nothing. He would have her speak with Emma tomorrow, which was honestly something she should've been doing since returning to the school. For now though there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say to make things better for her. Hope was strong enough to handle what she had done, he knew that, but god he wished that she didn't have to be.

Hope had never been so grateful to have her own bathroom and shower as she was now. She hadn't realized just how much blood she had been covered in until she actually started cleaning it off. It had gotten everywhere. The idea of someone walking in and seeing her like that, or finding bloodstains in the shower the next morning, was not something she wanted to deal with.

The hot water from the shower was helping her calm down as well, letting her process what had happened. It wasn't as if it was the first time she had killed of course, but the other times hadn't been so violent. The first time had been at her Mom's wake, and the rage that had fueled her there had driven away any remorse she might have felt. Then with the massacre at the church her Dad and Marcel had been there and she'd been so focused on keeping the dark magic at bay that she hadn't let herself dwell on it. The things she had done were still horrible but she had never had to face them like this.

There had just been so much blood. And the screams. The woman had been trying to beg for her life when she'd killed her. And she hadn't cared, hadn't even hesitated. Every member of her family had told her that she couldn't hesitate in a real fight, that if someone came after her life then she couldn't hold back. So she hadn't, and now she felt like shit because of it.

"I saved Dr. Saltzman, that's what matters." Hope told herself softly, trying to convince herself of that. It was easier said than done. Take one life to save another, tell yourself the life you saved was worth more. She wasn't anywhere near naive enough to believe it was really that simple, but she was willing to pretend.

"My girls will still have a father thanks to you," Dr. Saltzman's words echoed in her mind, reminding her of that. Josie and Lizzie wouldn't have to go through the same pain she had, the pain of losing a parent. That was worth it. She didn't like the twins but she would never wish that on anyone. And if she could prevent them from ever knowing what that was like then she would.

A part of her wanted to know how the twins would react if they knew she'd saved their dad's life. Lizzie would definitely be a brat about it, try to pretend like it wasn't a big deal or that she was just trying to show off. Josie would be kinder, thank her for saving her dad, maybe even hug her. 'Heh, maybe we could actually become friends,' Hope thought idly, a small smile on her face at the thought.

That would never happen though, because she would never let them find out. The twins were probably asleep by now, with no idea of what had occurred that night. They didn't need to know how close they came to losing their father. They had what she had always wanted, a normal life with parents that loved her and were there for her, she wasn't going to shatter that image for them.

Author's Note: It was never fair that Hope was the only Mikaelson not to have eaten someone so I just had to fix that, and hey her wolf form finally got to do something. Her werewolf side is severely underused in the series, and used pretty much only for sex related reasons in a lot of fics, so I wanted to fix that. The being able to use magic while transformed makes sense to me and will get addressed more later. As for Penelope, she's kinda hard to write for this fic, as her character was really just loves Josie, hates Lizzie, and is a bitch. And two of those don't apply yet. Developing and then destroying her relationship with the twins should be fun though. Figuring out how she interacts with Hope is harder, they had like 3 scenes together all series. Glad to have finally gotten this done though, no idea when the next chapter will be, but hopefully it wont take as long as this one did.