~Ten Years Later~

It was a regular day at the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young and Gifted—Caroline had a stack of applications to review, Stefan, Jeremy and Alaric were in the middle of a hunter training session, Freya and Bonnie were teaching a spells class, Keelin was chatting up some newbie werewolves, and Damon and Elena were somehow sleeping through all of it.

Everything seemed the same, but it wasn't. Today was different. In the middle of spells class, an excited Hope Mikealson yelled, "Yes, that's it!" She always sat in the back because all the other witches were "centuries behind", as she would complain to her Aunt Freya, but all her time spent day-dreaming in class had finally paid off. Freya sensed that what her niece was thinking about was important. Hope never said much during class. "I don't want to show off there. Everyone's still learning to control their powers and understanding what it means to be a witch and me answering all the questions doesn't help them." she once said.

"Bonnie, please continue the class. I need to talk to Hope, alone." She gestured to Hope and then to the door. Hope sped to the front of the class and both her and her aunt promptly left. As they began walking down the corridor, Freya asked, "What's going on? You don't have a sudden interest in participating in class now, do you?"

Hope rolled her eyes and began walking up the stairs. "No, it's more than that. Follow me." she said. She opened the door to Damon's room and quickly moved toward the bed, promptly nudging Elena awake. She seemed flustered and annoyed when she realized that it wasn't Damon who woke her. After some moments tossing and turning, she opened her eyes, grabbed her phone to check the time and then finally, begrudgingly, rolled out of bed.

"What?" Elena said with a slow yawn as Hope dragged her to her Aunt Freya's room.

"You'll see." Hope replied. "Aunt Freya, could you get Stefan?"

"Sure." she replied, with some confusion. In the following few minutes, Hope gathered various herbs, a knife, and other strange ingredients and set them around the large bowl on the desk, while Elena made herself at home on Freya's bed. She was very tempted to pull the covers over herself and go back to sleep when Freya returned with Stefan.

"What's going on?" Stefan asked, as he stepped into the room.

Hearing his voice, Elena replied, "I don't know, but Hope was so pressed she woke me up super early. You know I slept at 4AM, last night?"

"We know." all three said in unison.

"You're not the least bit quiet, you know that?" Freya whispered to Elena.

"So, what's this all about?" Stefan asked, wanting to change the subject. Even if he had moved on from Elena, he still didn't like knowing this much about her and his brother's sex life.

Hope began throwing all the ingredients she laid out before her into the bowl. Grabbing the knife, she gestured to Elena. "I need your blood." Half awake, Elena got off the bed and placed her hand over the bowl as Hope nicked it. The blood dripped from her hand for a few seconds before her hand healed. "Now it's your turn, Stefan." Hope said, pointing the knife towards him.

"What, no. I'm the cure, remember?" he replied. "Wait, what is this even for?" Just then the door opened, and Damon and Bonnie stumbled in.

"Can you guys not be so loud? I slept unbelievably l—" Damon started.

"We know." Bonnie said, effectively shutting him up.

"Bonnie, come here, I'm going to need you for this, as well." Hope said as she grinded up some hyacinths. "And Stefan, if this doesn't work, I'll turn you into a hybrid or bring you back from the grave or whatever. Just trust me, I've thought this through." And for some reason, Stefan believed her. He grabbed the knife and sterilized it with some hand sanitizer he had in his pocket. Years of being human and being married to Caroline taught him to do these things cautiously. He winced as he sliced down his hand and held it over the bowl. "Okay, now Bonnie, I'm going to need you to channel your ancestors."

"What, now?" Bonnie remarked in surprise.

"Hold on, is this what I think it is?" Elena asked, suddenly fully awake.

"Yes, it is." Hope said. Hope and Bonnie joined hands and began chanting. They phasmatosed the crap out of the potion for what felt like hours to everyone else in the room, until Hope and Bonnie promptly opened their eyes. "Now, Elena, Stefan, come join me." Hope held out her hands for the two and almost instantly, they did. More chanting ensued. This time, however, the weather outside began to change, the ground shook, and the potion began to glow. First it was bright, like the sun itself was brought into the room, but then, an onyx blood color. Everyone watched as maroons and blacks danced through the potion. Suddenly Damon was next to Elena and Caroline and Alaric were opening the door. All stood in awe at Hope as she created it.

"Is that—" Caroline trailed off.

"Oh my god." Hope opened her eyes and grabbed the shot glasses sitting at the side of the desk. She poured a small amount of the potion into them, stood up and handed each of them to Stefan, Elena, and Damon.

"This is the cure to vampirism. A little play on the travelers' anti-magic spell. Bottoms up." she said. All three drank the potion without a second thought"

"How?" Damon asked, wiping his mouth.

"I thought about all the stories I heard from Stefan about the travelers while I was daydreaming today in class. And I know that one pesky thing with the cure is that once someone drinks your blood, they take the cure. So, I decided to tweak it. Using the travelers' anti-magic spell, a protection spell linked to the sun itself, and some guidance from Qetisyah—Thank you, Bonnie—I made my own version of the cure. And this one can't get sucked out of you. Instead, you are now living, breathing wells for it. You're welcome." Just as Damon, Elena, and Stefan fell to the floor, all the adults in the room caught them. They placed all three on the bed and waited. A few hours later, Elena awoke to find Stefan and Damon looking at her.

"You know we thought we lost you there." Damon said.

"What happened?" Elena asked, groggy.

"Well we woke up about an hour ago. We tested the potion. It works. Bonnie's mom stopped by and drank my blood. She's tending to the garden in the back. She's a witch, again." Damon replied.

"And since I haven't hacked up a tooth or blood, I say that we're in the clear." Stefan smiled, feeling the most alive he's ever felt in a long time. "I'm gonna go," he added, sensing what was going to happen. As he closed the door behind himself, he was startled by Caroline. "What's up?"

Stefan could sense the certainty in her expression, but he wasn't sure where it came from. In the years since opening the school, she had always asked for a second opinion, or a third opinion, or a seventeenth opinion when making a decision. Sometimes she would even write to Klaus about it, not that he answered.

"I think I want to take the cure." she says.