Secrecy (Hosie)

Part 42: Truth

Author's note: Okay, I think this may be my favorite chapter so far. I hope you enjoy!

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People say you can't unring a bell,
And that may be true.
But you can often stifle it's chime
Under the pressure
Of warped conjecture and distortions,
Lessening the magnitude
Of its palpations.

This is a mechanism Hope had grown so accustomed to employing over the course of her life. However, the vibrations of some truths cannot be dulled forever. They will ring out like church bells, rising above the din of jumbled fables and facades, calling Josie inevitably to the truth.

Not long after Hope was taken up to her room to clean up all of the blood on her body, change clothes and let her body heal, she hears a soft knock on the door.

She slowly gets up from her spot on her bed, careful not to reopen the wound which is now almost completely closed up, turning the doorknob to open the door.

It's Lizzie, "Hey...I just wanted to check on you. How's the hole in your stomach?"

Hope sits back down on the bed, eyeing Lizzie weirdly at her bluntness, "Um, fine...Thanks? It's almost healed now."

Lizzie sits at the foot and shoots her a sympathetic look, "And how are you handling...everything else?"

"It's not me I'm worried about."

Lizzie watches as Hope stares down at her hands, fiddling with her rings anxiously. She pauses for a minute before admitting, "Your family and my parents explained everything to me..." Hope looks up to her quickly, searching her expression for any indication of what she feels about Hope's truth, "And personally..." She lowers her voice to a whisper, "I think it's pretty cool."

The use of the word cool throws Hope for a loop. She raises an eyebrow at the girl, "You think it's cool that I kept my identity a secret from you and Josie for 7 months?"

"No, I mean the fact that you're a Mikaelson is cool. You're like...royalty in the supernatural community. And you're also the most powerful being to ever exist."

"Doesn't really feel like it."

Lizzie sighs, "...For the record, I'm not mad at you for keeping us in the dark. You were just trying to keep us out of danger."

Hope gives her a grateful smile, wiping her lower eyelashes as she feels the pooling water in her eyes almost overflow. All of this is so overwhelming, so many people who know her identity, most all under one roof.

Lizzie scoots closer to her, "Come here," She reaches out to pull Hope into an embrace, but the movement causes Hope to wince, and Lizzie withdraws quickly, "Shit, sorry. I forgot about the hole in your stomach."

The way she clenches her teeth into a grimace after repeating the same blunt description of her wound is comical enough to make Hope release a weak, amused chuckle.

Lizzie lets out a matching giggle, "What the fuck are you laughing at? That's not funny at all, Hope."

"...It's a little funny."

"I think the blood loss is making you delusional."

Hope sighs in defeat, "Yeah, you're probably right."

Lizzie studies Hope for a moment, knowing there's one particular question on her mind, "If you're wondering, our families didn't tell Josie everything. She came upstairs right after you did... said she needed to think."