I'd Choose You Over Anything

Chapter 5- Apologies

Hope would admit, she wasn't the best at apologies but she had to make it work. She had no reason to do what she did last night, it all just happened. She'll probably end up getting Landon lunch by the time she was done with apologizing to Josie.

Hope had seen only one car in the driveway. She felt nervous, uneasy and she didn't like the feeling. Once she got up to the door, she knocked. This time Josie opened the door.

"Hope? What are you doing here?" Josie had asked.

"I came to apologize for my rude behavior last night." Josie was confused. She didn't know what Hope was exactly apologizing. The amount of scoffing Hope did last night or saying that she never truly loved Josie back then.

"For what?" She decided to ask the question. Hope looked down a bit and realized she was playing with her fingers, out of nervous habit which hasn't happened in a long time.

"Could I come in? It's quite chilly out today." Josie nods and allowed Hope to walk in.

Hope felt warm once she entered the threshold. Josie closed the door and walked over to the living room. Hope followed behind.

"So as I was saying, I'm sorry." Hope said

Josie smiles at Hope and Hope smiled back. They sat down on the couch.

"I still don't know why you're apologizing." Josie was confused. She knew Hope was never the one to apologize unless she actually thought she did some bad things.

"I'm sorry for literally everything. I had no right to behave that way. And I'm sorry that I basically told you that I never loved you." Josie looked away from Hope after Hope said that.

"Jo, I did love you. You know that right?" Hope went to reach out to hold Josie's hands to comfort her or to let her know that Hope was telling the absolute truth but she kept her hands to herself.

"I don't know what to believe anymore." Josie said. Which Hope understood but it didn't mean it didn't hurt. It hurt quite a lot.

Josie looked at Hope and saw that Hope was already looking at her. She knew Hope felt bad about everything.

"Would you like anything to drink?" Josie asked, trying to be a good hostess to her guest. Hope shook her head.

"Right now, I'd like for you to talk to me. It's been years sense we last saw each other. I didn't think it'd be this hard to see each other again."

"You left first Hope. You wanted to leave without telling me, you wanted to ghost me." Hope looked taken aback from what Josie said. She couldn't believe it.

"What are you trying to say?" Hope asked.

"You left which I understand why but you didn't even come to talk to me about it. You wanted to pack up and leave." Josie seemed almost heartbroken just by remembering the memory.

"I was going to tell you." Hope said. She genuinely meant it. She cared for Josie a lot back then and she still cared. She knew she'd always care for Josie.

"When exactly," Josie crossed her arms which meant Hope was deeply in trouble now,"You have a killer to catch Hope. We can talk about the past later. It's about now Hope, not back then. We were kids doing dumb shit. You should just go before Jade gets back."

Hope nodded, taking everything in. She knew she had a killer to catch but something is telling her deep down that she knew the killer would never leave this shit hole of a town.

Hope left Josie's house and went back to Landon's office. She brought him food and handed it to him.

"Thank you, did you find anything else out?" Hope nods at Landon's question.

"The killer is here in Mystic Falls still. We just have to narrow it down to everyone who's close with Ric and then question them and ask where they were that night."

Landon knew that, that would take a lot of work. He was up to it bcuz it was his job. He knew Hope was most likely right. She basically had a sixth sense for these things. After all she was New Orleans best detective ever.

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After interrogating almost everyone in Mystic Falls, Hope came up with an idea. First thing first was to eat some food and talk it over with Landon.

Once they sat at a diner, Landon looked at the menu and Hope took it from him,"So everyone else has an alibi for the night of Alaric's murder."

Landon nodded at that and the waitress came back around. They ordered their drinks and the waitress left again.

"We're back at square one." Landon said and that made Hope a little upset. She knew there was something off about this case. The only person they didn't question was Jade. Lizzie was safe because she was gone but Jade. Jade was different. She had a creepy vibe.

"We need to find Jade." Hope said and Landon raised an eyebrow.

"You realize that you just went over to Josie's to apologize and now you're going after her wife? You really like making enemies Mikaelson." Landon took a sip of his apple juice.

"It's not even like that. I would never target Josie unintentionally but we need to talk to Jade and figure out where she's been. We can't just exclude her because she's someone's wife."

Landon knew Hope was right but Jade was Mystic Falls best person to go. She was basically like your therapist.

"Hope, we also didn't ask questions to Emma. You went to the school and asked questions to Dorian. So we have two people to still question."

Hope nods and takes a sip of her coffee. She would need the coffee sense she couldn't sleep. She can never truly sleep when there are cases.

"You go question Emma and I'll question Jade." Hope said and Landon liked the plan.

"Okay so who do you think is the killer?" Hope shrugged at Landon's question.

"I want to say Emma because she was sleeping with Alaric while she was still with Dorian so she tried to get rid of Alaric before he could go around and tell people."

"Why would Alaric say anything to anyone if he didn't have very many friends?" Landon asked.

"Maybe when he gets drunk he tells crazy stories. I don't know, I'm just throwing things out there." Landon raised an eyebrow.

"Do you normally throw things out there?" Landon had asked Hope and Hope shook her head. Normally she wouldn't work with people. She liked working alone, she did better when working alone.

Hope got a phone call and she answered it after she excused herself from the table. Jackson had called.

"So Hope, are you close to figuring out the case?" Jackson asked. He normally called to check up on all the cases.

"Yessir. When do you need me to come back?" Hope wanted to know because she deeply missed New Orleans. She wanted to leave the moment she got back to Mystic Falls.

"This weekend, I can't have all these cases unsolved and you work better alone so you better figure this out on your own. In the meantime, keep me updated."

Hope nods and remembered that this was a phone call, not a face to face and replied,"Of course sir. You have my word."

Jackson hung up and Hope slid her phone back into her pocket. She looked around outside and saw a huge group of people surrounding something.

She walked up to them and they saw Dorian's dead body. She called Landon and after her talk with Landon she called the police. She looked up and saw someone quickly turn around and leave. This case was getting more extreme by the minute.