A/N: I know I said I'll take a break only for 2-3 weeks but apparently my laptop decided to fall down and ruin itself so break got a bit extended. Here's the new chapter. Hope you like it. You'll know the reason for the title at the end.


ICS, London

There was a sudden call on SK's phone. It turned out to be his parents.

"Hi Ma, Hi Pa," SK greeted his parents.

Hope internally groaned as she missed out on a golden opportunity to make him forget about her, but she just smiled.

"Hi Surya, Hi Andrea," His parents greeted them from the other end.

"Ok Andrea, Josie, can I talk with my parents now? I missed out on it yesterday," SK requested them, after which Hope and Josie found themselves outside the room.

Hope and Josie just stared at each other silently for about 2 minutes, after which Hope spoke up.

"Josie, I'm not doing it"

"What?" Josie's lower jaw threatened to fall on the floor.

"I'll not compel him and take away his agency like that," Hope replied.

"Andrea," Hope's eyes widened, but Josie continued, "We can't get caught again. So, I'm going to call Andrea even if it looks like we are alone. Sorry, I digressed. The point is, he would be much safer without being linked to us"

"Josie, I could protect him better if I'm with him because Hollow can look at our deepest and darkest fears, AKA she can read our entire minds. So, regardless of me cutting him off, he's linked to me. If he's with me, I can at the very least be next to him and protect him in any way I can," Hope justified.

While Josie could see the reason, the darker part in her felt anger towards Hope for not cutting him off. The siphon just about managed to keep her darker self in check. She inhaled and exhaled deeply. "Whatever you say, Andrea"


Meanwhile, inside the room

"Surya, why did you not call us yesterday?" SK's mom asked.

SK's eyes widened. What could he say to his parents? That he actually found out that he's in love with the girl they warned about? What would they think of him? They would actually think that he was wasting his time doing useless things, like falling in love instead of studying. Also, he could not possibly say that he went to the cinema to watch a special show of Ghilli. They'll absolutely revolt. His parents are very kind people but if they knew that he did this kind of stuff, he would be dead or else he would be asked to come back home, which he could not have either way.

"I was tired," SK lied, but as his face was down, his parents believed him this time.

"Yesterday was a free day, right?" His dad asked him this time.

"Yes, dad. It was. But there was an assignment which I had to complete on Machine learning"

As he lied, he remembered that he actually had a pending assignment and had not completed it.

"It's understandable, my son. Next time, we hope that you'll at the very least inform us or text us in the internet messenger app," His mom said, for which SK nodded in agreement.

"Also, SK, are you in love?" His dad asked.

SK's eyes widened. Was he reading his mind or something? This was bad. Excessively bad.

"No, dad" SK lied, still recovering from the whiplash his father's question gave him.

"Good. I hope you concentrate on your studies. On that note, we are going to visit you there tomorrow. We just booked a flight for tonight your time." His dad said.

'What? How? Why now?' were some of the questions running through SK's mind at this point in time.

"Dad, you don't have to do that. Flight tickets are very expensive. You know they cost around 3 hundred thousand in Indian Rupees now, right? Is it worth it?" SK put up his genuine concerns about parents spending more money to see him.

"Nonsense. Nothing is expensive if we get to see our son," they returned.

"Ok dad, mom. I'll be waiting" SK smiled sweetly but was profusely sweating in his hands. He loved his parents, but if they saw him and Hope eyeing each other a certain way, then he would be done for.

"Andrea, Josie, you can come in," SK invited them as he opened the room door.

"What is it, SK? You seem rattled for some reason," Hope enquired.

"Nothing big Andrea. My parents are coming to visit. Just a small request to you and Josie. Don't mention my confession to them." SK requested her.

"Oh, Ok fine then. You're ashamed of me!" Hope mock frowned.

"No, no Andrea. I didn't mean it like that," Seeing Hope upset startled SK.

Hope giggled. "It's too easy to get you so worked up. Don't worry. I know talking about it with parents can be embarrassing"

"More like disastrous. They would ask me to come back home from college," SK returned.

"That seems harsh. Ok, we won't say anything about it to your parents," Hope and Josie promised.

"Thank You" SK smiled at both the girls.


At around the same time, Outside ICS Campus

Ken landed outside ICS along with Inadu and Katherine.

"So, what now?" Katherine asked.

"Katherine, Ken, keep your head down for this one. I'm going to collect all the information we need from the tribrid," Inadu said.

"How are you going to do that?" Ken asked with mockery lacing his voice.

"Like this," The raven haired girl snapped as she turned herself into Elijah using a glamour spell.

"Katerina," The Hollow, who now looked like Elijah, said to Katherine.

"This is perfect," Katherine said as she giggled.

"How long would this take?" Ken asked her.

"This should only take minutes. I go in, I stand near the tribrid, we find out the details about the weapon and then we leave," Inadu said simply.

"We need to be quick." Katherine said as Inadu super sped.

She went to the hostel where she enquired about Hope's room and immediately went to the tribrid's room as she tapped at the front door.

SK and the girls heard someone tapping the room door.

Hope went on to open the door.

"Uncle Elijah!" She hugged him tightly.

Inadu, using this physical touch, read her mind completely to find out about the weapon.

After breaking their hug, Inadu shook hands with Josie.

"Daniel" She introduced herself as the person she looked like. She read Elijah's mind about the cover the tribrid had come up with and decided to roll with it.

"Josie" The siphon introduced herself. She did feel a lot of power emanating from Inadu but brushed it up to shaking hands with an Original vampire.

"SK. The guy roommate" The human introduced himself as she shook his hands.

Inadu was extremely happy as his mind was a delight and was ripe for exploitation but hid her smirk as she could not possibly show that she had read her mind.

"SK, can you give us some privacy?" Hope asked him which SK duly obliged.

SK took his books and notebooks and went off to the library. Library had a no phone policy, so he left his phone in the room.

"So, uncle, how is Landon?" Hope now directed his question at Inadu.

"He was quite friendly. I could see why you liked the boy. Also, SK seems very sweet," Inadu smooth talked with Hope like Elijah.

"He is" Hope blushed.

"My dear niece, are you in love?" Inadu asked to keep Hope from thinking about anything else.

"Actually, about that, I am feeling extremely guilty. Hey, enough about me. Tell me about what Ken, Hollow and Katherine have planned," Hope became sensible at the end.

"I told you everything I knew already on our phone call yesterday. Hope you need to be careful with them. They are very dangerous," Inadu gloated, feigning concern.

"I will be Elijah," Hope assured.

"Alright. Let me meet the man who stole your heart on my way out of here. Where will he be?" Inadu was already running a new plan in her head.

"He will be in the library," Hope answered.

"Don't worry. I'll just talk with him and because you have classes, I'll leave the campus to do sight-seeing. It's been at least half a century since I've been here," Inadu had all memories of Elijah which she exploited them to lie effortlessly.

"Bye Elijah. See you soon"

"Bye Hope"

Inadu smirked as she headed for the library.

Hope immediately got a call on her phone after Inadu left her room.

"Hi" Hope's eyes widened as a blood soaked Elijah was on the other end of the video call along with Kol, Marcel and Rebekah with all of them being soaked in blood.

"Elijah, I just saw you here. How are you in New Orleans?" Hope asked with wide eyes.

"My dear niece, I was never there," Elijah said.

"But you were here just now and went to meet SK in the library" Hope face-palmed herself as she realised some imposter was after SK.

"They are already there!" Rebekah could be heard through the phone.

"Hope?!" There was another voice that was heard.

"Niklaus?!" Elijah asked.

"Dad?! Mom?!" Hope asked as Hayley and Klaus came into view. Tears never seem to get exhausted as another pool of them rushed through her eyes.

"Josie, can you please search for SK in the library?" Hope relegated the job of finding her lover to her friend because she was too shocked to go anywhere else after looking at her parents.

"Anything for you, Hope," Josie said as she rushed to the library.

When she rushed to the library, she couldn't find SK. After that, Josie searched all around the campus for about an hour, after which she returned to her room.

"What is it Josie? Where is SK?" Hope asked with worry lacing her tone.

"SK is missing." Josie replied.

Hope's palms started sweating as she thought about his parents visiting him tomorrow and also she was progressively getting more and more scared for him.

"Hope, don't worry, we'll find him," Josie consoled her friend, who looked like she was having a panic attack.


A/N1: What happened to SK? Any guesses? Also a chapter mostly focussed on the main trio than the supporting characters after a long time. Hoping that you liked it. As my laptop is now well, I think I might be back to publishing chaps weekly. But we'll see how it all goes!

A/N2: This is a random note which has nothing to do with the story. Like at June 22 is like the B'Day of my fav actor Thalapathy Vijay. I tried to shoehorn a reference of his but nothing came up. Anyways Happy Birthday Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar and thank you for contributing to a lot of pop culture references in this story!