Memories

The next day Landon awakes abruptly, almost throwing Josie off his bed since his cute girlfriend was lying next to him in bed, having stayed over to make sure that he's fine.

"I remember" he gasps, memories about Hope and Seylah flooding his mind.

"Landon. Babe, how are you feeling?" Josie asks with a yawn, seeing him awake.

"Awoken. Josie, whatever you did. It made me remember everything I forgot because of Malivore." He tells her.

"Malivore? What did you forget?" She asks surprised.

"Hope. She was our friend. And my mom. I met her briefly." Landon stammers.

"But none of us heard about Hope before. Not even a name in any of the school's documents." Josie tells him, stroking over his arm, thinking he's having a panic attack.

"I don't know. But I didn't stop Malivore before and neither did Sosuke. Hope did." Landon says.

"You are serious about this, aren't you?" Josie says.

"Yeah. Completely." He answers.

"Alright, then let's talk to Hope. She's joining the school today." Josie says and about an hour later the two of them all but abduct Hope when she arrives at the school.

"I remember you. That you lost your parents, you like peanut butter blast with whipped cream on the bottom and that we had a thing a while ago." Landon tells Hope, who looks at them wide eyed, Josie looking upset at the mention of their past relationship.

"How?" Hope asks.

"Whatever Josie blasted me with brought back my memories." Landon explains.

"We should use it on everybody." He adds.

"Why? I didn't tell people so they could continue to be happy. And not get sucked into my mess." Hope tells them, shaking her head.

"Hope. Everyone deserves to know and you being gone isn't why anyone's happy. I mean you know how Dr. Saltzman and Sosuke were holding up before you came back. Life around here isn't better off without you." Landon tells her.

"Fine whatever, just make sure Sosuke gets back his memories if we're doing this." Hope accepts after pausing for a moment.

"It's great and all that you two agree that we should get back everyone's memory, but I don't know how." Josie tells them nervously.

"There is a spell my aunt Freya used to tell me about. Maybe we should contact her?" Hope suggests.

"I will look into it. For the time being you should just settle in... again apparently." Josie tells Hope, who accepts this with a nod and a grateful hug.

|Later that day|

Josie, not wanting to let her mind wonder what exactly happened between Hope and her boyfriend, is ready to head out to meet Hope's aunt, having contacted her over the phone and the witch seemed at least curious about what Josie told her about.

"Hi. Where are you off to?" Sosuke asks Josie while he is getting a bag out of Alaric's car which he borrowed.

"Uhhh... New Orleans?" Josie says nervously.

"Really? Weird, Hope said she's from there. But are you sure you want to make the trip by bus? I could give you a ride." He offers.

"Actually... That'd be great." Josie says and nods gratefully.

"Alright, let me just give this to Hope. Just some of her things she forgot." Sosuke says and heads into the school, finding Hope in the room across from his old one with her new roommate.

"Uh, Hi. Sorry to interrupt, but I brought a few of your things babe." Sosuke says, entering the room while the two were bickering.

"Sosuke. Meet my roommate. Alyssa." Hope says, introducing the two while being annoyed at her roommate.

"Ah you're back. I remember you... somewhat." He says, nodding to Alyssa who rolls her eyes and leaves the room.

"Already regretting me talking you into this I see." Sosuke says chuckling, when Hope all but rips the bag out of his hand in a sour mood.

"Yeah." Hope replies pouting.

"And I actually can't stay. I just offered to give Josie a ride." Sosuke tells Hope apologetically.

"Where's she heading?" Hope asks.

"New Orleans." He replies.

"I see. Well, whatever you find out there... Just know I love you." Hope tells him worried how he'll react to regaining his memories.

"That sounds weirdly ominous... care to explain?" He asks.

"You'll see. Just stay safe and... come back to me, alright?" Hope tells him hugging him strongly and kisses him passionately.

"Yeah, no need to worry about that. We'll be back before you know it." Sosuke tells his girlfriend and leaves the room somewhat confused.

"You OK?" Josie asks Sosuke, getting in the car when he comes out of the school.

"Yeah, Hope was just acting really weird I don't know. I guess I'm just worried now that we're bound to see each other less and less, that she will see my ugly sides and will leave me." Sosuke says lost in thought before starting the car and driving off to New Orleans.

6 hours and an awkward car ride later the two teens wait for a witch in a bar.

"Who are we meeting?" Sosuke asks Josie while they are waiting.

"A witch called Freya Mikaelson." Josie answers.

"Any relation to Hope?" Sosuke asks after hearing the last name.

"I think so, though she doesn't know it yet." Josie tells him just before a blonde woman enters the bar and heads right over to them.

"I suppose you contacted me about that spell?" Freya asks Josie.

"I did. Could you help with my request?" Josie asks.

"Yes. But how will you repay my troubles?" Freya asks in return.

"Answers. Answers for who is missing in your life. You must have felt some kind of void, am I right?" Josie replies and Freya nods curiously before sliding over a paper with the spell Josie needs.

The young witch wastes no time and uses the spell, blasting herself, Freya and Sosuke all together after a few minutes during which Freya and Sosuke chat quietly.

"Hey you. This isn't a inn. You better get out of my place." The owner tells the three gruffly after waking them up at most 10 minutes later.

The three leave and Sosuke drives them to a motel nearby where he gets a room.

"Are we all remembering Hope again?" Sosuke asks, his head still working on catching up with his forgotten memories.

"Yeah." Josie groans feeling a bit nauseous, climbing out of the car along with Freya as Sosuke comes back from renting a room at the reception.

"Yes. How is she?" Freya asks, looking at the two of them.

"Right now? Probably pissed at her roommate." Sosuke says offhandedly.

"She's fine. For now anyways." Sosuke tells Freya honestly.

"For now?" Freya asks worried.

"She's a bit of a dumbass martyr. And from the looks of it I will have my work cut out for me in beating it out of her." Sosuke says.

"I'm sorry. Did he just say he's gonna beat my niece?" Freya asks Josie.

"I'm sure he meant it figuratively. They are a couple." Josie replies.

"We made a promise, doesn't matter." Sosuke tells them in a foul mood while unlocking their room.

"Well as unusual and weird it was to meet you two. I have other business to attend to. But tell my niece that her aunt says hello. And I better not hear her complain about someone beating her or I will pop over to Mystic Hills and curse your ass." Freya says.

"Yeah yeah." Sosuke replies and shuts the door in the woman's face while Josie looks at him shocked.

"What? I'm annoyed and moody." Sosuke grumbles pushing past her.

"I'll take the sofa. We can head back first thing tomorrow." Sosuke tells Josie who looks around the room unsure what to do.

"Get some rest Josie." Sosuke says before flopping down onto the sofa.

"Sosuke? Are you still awake?" Josie asks 20 minutes later.

"What is it?" Sosuke asks, sounding less annoyed while stifling a yawn.

"About Hope and Landon... Did they ever... I mean how close were they?" Josie asks worriedly.

"No. Don't worry, they only made out a bunch of times." Sosuke tells her.

"And you're OK with that?" Josie asks surprised.

"Now? Yeah. Three months ago... hard to say. You don't have to worry about Landon still being into Hope though if that's why you're asking." Sosuke says.

"Why not?" Josie asks.

"Because he broke up with her. She kept what happened with his mother secret from us and that was that. And he told me later that he already felt Hope pulling away before that." Sosuke replies.

"So they are definitely over?" Josie says relieved.

"Yeah. I think so. Although she did sacrifice herself to safe him most of all." Sosuke tells Josie.

"Safe him?" Josie asks.

"Yeah... You better ask Landon about that. The gist of it is though, that Landon is supposed to be a vessel for Malivore. And Hope is the only person who can kill Malivore because she's the tribrid. Now, get to sleep." Sosuke explains.

|The next day|

Sosuke and Josie are sitting in the car on their way back to Mystic Falls.

"Can I ask you something?" Josie says.

"Sure." He replies, glancing over to her.

"Are you happier than before?. Now that you know." Josie asks.

"Not really. I am relieved though." He answers.

"Why's that?" She questions.

"Because now I know why Hope sometimes got dodgy when it came to our past." Sosuke tells her.

"Why?" Josie asks curiously.

"Fear and shame I'm guessing. The way she headed into the pit wasn't exactly in favor of our relationship and I guess she was glad that this time around I never was worried about her and Landon." Sosuke explains.

"I see." Josie murmurs to herself.

"Can I ask you something?" He says looking over to her and sees her nod.

"What that demon hunter said... Could you help me find out more about it?" Sosuke requests.

"You mean about that lightning clan he claimed you're from?" Josie asks.

"Yeah. I'd like to know if it's true and what my powers actually do." Sosuke says.

"Sure I will help you. Can you help me out with something in return? My dad is really secretive about this thing called the merge. I don't know what it is and what it has to do with me... But it seems important." Josie says.

"You've got yourself a Deal. Let's find out the truth about ourselves." He accepts nodding.

"Thank you. And thank you for coming here with me." Josie thanks him.

"What else are friends for?" Sosuke replies with a small grin.

"Are we though? Friends I mean." Josie asks quietly.

"You treated me normally growing up. You didn't belittle me or pick on me for being human so that's a win in my book at least." Sosuke replies, shrugging.

"Maybe, but that's not really what a friend is supposed to be. And to be honest, I was just afraid of you when we were younger." Josie confesses.

"Well what about now? Still scared?" He asks.

"A bit maybe. I mean after what you did to those men who were attacking us... But then again I understand that you were only protecting us." Josie tells him.

"That's fair I guess." Sosuke says with a sigh.

"I don't think it's fair that you were kicked out though." Josie tells him after a few moments of heavy silence between them.

"It worked out for the best honestly. If I hadn't been thrown out then Hope and I wouldn't be as close as we are now." Sosuke says with a shrug.

"Are you going to come back now that Hope transferred?" Josie asks.

"Someday maybe. At the moment I'm still unwelcome because of the other students' parents. Plus we decided we need some space so we don't become too dependent on each other. With her being the tribrid and having her fair share of enemies... We can't become easy targets." Sosuke says.

"So you're going to continue going to public school?" Josie asks.

"I don't know we'll see. I mean I graduated the normie way already a year ago.I took advanced classes because with my emotions on the fritz I basically had nothing but time to focus on studying." Sosuke explains.

"Wow. Why continue to go to school then?" Josie asks.

"I wish for at least some sense of normalcy. Even if it is kind of pretend." Sosuke answers with a shrug.

Meanwhile in Mystic Falls the next monster appears in town and after killing the mayor heads towards the Salvatore school who thought that they already captured the monster when a Zombie showed up at their doorstep and was quickly relocated to the school's cells.

The group quickly finds out that the other monster is a croatoan thanks to the word being carved into a wooden door near the dead mayor's body.

With that found out MG and Kaleb volunteer to hit the books and find out its weaknesses while they are secretly keeping an eye on Sebastian, an old Vampire who was dessicated for roughly around 500 years underneath the school and started to awaken when the blood from the blood fountain spilled on him.

After trying to woo Lizzy into reviving him he tries his luck with MG and Kaleb, who plan to finish him off instead. Before they get the chance to do so however Wade gets tricked into reviving him.

The two vampires managed to locate him after he fled the school and are keeping him in Dr. Saltzman's old office.

While the others are struggling to keep the Croatoan away from what they assume is Landon, MG informs them that it's actually after people who keep secrets.

"Why is it after me then? I'm not keeping any secrets." Landon whines while the group consisting of him, Rafael, Lizzie and Hope flee into the gym and barricade themselves in front of the doors, breaking through over time however.

"It's not after you. It's after me." Hope says in realization.

Lucky for them that is when Sosuke and Josie show up, the latter siphoning Sosuke before using her newly acquired spell to make everyone regain their memories, leaving only Josie, Hope, Landon and Sosuke awake because they already know.

"What'd we miss?" Sosuke asks.

"You're back." Hope says relieved.

The croatoan looks around confused before focusing its wooden, melted looking face on Sosuke.

"You have to tell us your secret, whatever it is. Otherwise it will come for you." Hope warns Sosuke, surprised that he of all people has a secret.

"I don't really want to." Sosuke grumbles and pushes Josie lightly aside out of the way of one of the creature's tentacles.

"Sosuke. Trust me. I won't love you any less." Hope promises.

"You can't know that. But I guess I do owe you the truth. It's about after you disappeared." Sosuke says before dodging a tentacle trying to impale him.

"You know that I did some bounty hunting... what you don't know is that there was an incident where I killed a lot of supernatural beings while you were gone." Souke admits, a tentacle piercing his stomach and pulls him in by it.

"Ow. Hey, I told the secret you fucktard." Sosuke shouts annoyed, blasting the monster with lightning, but nothing really happened.

"Fine... The truth about me killing them... was that I liked it. For the first time ever since Dr.S. brought me to school I enjoyed killing again." Sosuke confesses and the Croatoan releases him with a hole in his lower abdomen.

"Josie, get Landon out of here. It's coming for him." Hope warns the other witch while rushing over to Sosuke.

Josie grabs Landon and starts running out of the gym and down the school's corridors.

"It's OK. I know what it's like to give in to your urges. Even the bad ones." Hope tells Sosuke, stroking his cheek while looking at his wound worried.

"Can you take a step back?" He requests relieved and she nods, moving away before a stream of electricity connects Sosuke to an outlet and his wound starts regenerating.

"Here. You gotta use this to blast the creature. it belongs to the witch that created it." MG says, arriving behind Hope and hands her a pendant that Sebastian had with him. The old vampire explained the story of his love with the witch who was tasked with finding the killer who was terrorizing her village. Being blind to the fact that it was Sebastian who was killing people she created the croatoan to find the guilty party, but everyone in town was keeping secrets so it went ballistic and killed everyone.

Hope pulls Sosuke to his feet and takes the pendant before the two give chase after Josie and Landon.

When the couple catches up to Josie, Landon and the croatoan Hope uses a spell to destroy it with the pendant and sure enough it melts into a blue sludge.

"We did it." Hope says relieved and sees Josie and Landon stop running and hug each other happily.

"Good job." Sosuke tells her, rubbing her shoulder, only to get pulled into a fierce kiss by the cute brunette.