Time After Time (Book 2)

Chapter 5

It was early in the morning, Hope was exercising in front of the portal, waiting for the next monster to come out. "Hope....Andrea....Mikealson." Lizzie says behind her. "Yes Lizzie? Wait, what?" "It's official, I remember everything. When I woke up from that spell Josie blasted me with, you popped into my messed up brain like an acid flashback." "How? You and the twins are literally the only people who know that I exist!" Hope goes to hug her. "Epic former frenemy/future sister in law reunion is gonna have to wait. Josie and Landon are going to the dance tonight." Lizzie sighs. "Ok? So? I thought you said they were friends?" Hope looks at her, confused. "No, you don't get it. Josie is probably gonna kill me for this, or she might end up telling you herself eventually but, she was pregnant." Lizzie bites her lip. "Pardon?" Hope blinks. Lizzie groans. "I'm terrible with secrets. Josie was pregnant, with twins. Not the twins but another set of babies. And she lost them. Apparently after the game, she hurled up black magi-goo and when she went to clean it up with a spell, she couldn't." Lizzie looks down. "Oh my god." Hope sits down on the bench. "Josie had a....a miscarriage?" She looks at her. Lizzie slowly nods. "I'm so sorry Hope. The nurse said that the babies couldn't handle all the black magic and they didn't make it." Hope sighs as a single tear rolls down her cheek. She quickly wipes it away. "It's ok, I don't blame her. She probably wasn't in the right state of mind. With me being gone, her trying day and night to get me back. And being pregnant at the same time, it takes a toll on you. But I don't get what that has to do with tonight?" Hope asks her. "There's a decade dance, she might not be with Frodo but she's been in and out of depression lately. Plus the fact that she just lost her babies, sorry, your guys' babies, she might end up drinking and get drunk. Who knows what she'll do?" Lizzie stares at her. "You have to stop it. Speak the truth. Spill your beans. Tell your tale." Hope looks at her. "Why didn't you tell her?" "Cause, I don't want to be the one to break her heart. That's your job." The portal behind starts opening. "Ugh, not a good time!"

They both turn to see a woman dressed from the 80's standing in front of them. "Who the hell are you?" Hope asks. She laughs. "I'm the Keeper. And this is gonna be alot easier than I thought. Welcome to the game." Her bracelet glows and suddenly she disappeared. "Well that was....anticlimactic." They both start walking. "We have to get to the school to protect Landon." "More like Josie from Landon. By letting her know that her wife is back and she might have drunk sex with a human-sized muppet." As they step on the curb, a car comes speeding their way. Their world goes black a moment before they both wake up on the ground in the middle of the park. "What just happened?" Lizzie asks. "I think the game just started." Hope sighs.

"Alright, everybody work together." Josie tells the students as she leads them into the main hall. "And Lizzie's gonna be here any second and trust me, you do not want to have only 98 red balloons." She quickly waves at Landon before she turns to check on something else. Rafael laughs as he walks up behind him. "What's so funny?" "You said you and Josie were just friends right? Well what was that?" He asks. Landon shakes his head. "Dude, you're seeing things. She has kids and a wife." "Whom we've never seen before. Look, you've seen Back To The Future. The kids are hers, but they mention another mom that doesn't even go here. We've never seen her before. She's a witch and you're a Phoenix. Who knows what that could make together. Maybe they make tribrid's. I don't know much about magical human reproduction. But you come from a mud man and she was magically implanted into a vampire. I'd say anything could happen at this point." Rafael shrugs. "She's pregnant." Landon reminds him. Rafael looks around before whispering. "I heard a rumor that she lost the babies." "What? Where'd you hear that from?" Rafael shrugs. "One of the witches." "Look, you can't let anyone else hear about this. Josie's going through some stuff right now." Landon looks at him with wide eyes. "Hey!" Josie walks up to them. "So, I talked to Lizzie, and I think she's gonna be staying in town with dad tonight." Josie smiles. "Good." Landon nods. "Just FYI, right? So I was thinking, we could hang out later and watch a movie or something?" She asks. "Yeah, yeah cool." "Ok, see you later." Josie walks off. Rafael laughs. "Dude, just stop ok? It's not like that." "Hey, whatever you say man." They both start lifting the table when a balloon pops and Rafael drops it. "Dude." Landon stares at him.