Josie felt kind of like she had emotional whiplash. She'd just gotten back to being herself again after letting the darkness take over for so long. She'd be afraid of it, afraid of her own strength until Hope had reminded her with her example that being powerful didn't have to mean being dark or evil. She didn't have to be like Kai. She didn't have to hurt the people she loved. She could be strong like Hope was. Powerful and good. It was what she'd needed to stand up to her dark side and come back to her family.
Fighting back against the darkness didn't absolve her of the guilt for everything she'd done under its influence, though. The people she'd hurt, the things she'd done, the fact that the Necromancer was basically all powerful now and it was her fault. She'd forced Lizzie to merge by threatening to kill all of their classmates and she would have won; she would have absorbed Lizzie, killed her for real if Hope hadn't intervened. And the worst thing of all was that Hope hadn't woken up. She'd gone into Josie’s mind to save her from herself, but she hadn't woken up when Josie did and Josie didn't know how to fix it.
And now here she was standing in the middle of what looked like New York City moments after closing her eyes to try and sleep. Josie grabbed the note that floated toward her and read it quickly. “Goodland?” she questioned aloud. For a moment, she wondered if someone had put her back in The Game, but she wouldn't remember who she really was if that was the case, right? Still, being transported to a place she didn't think really existed was pretty up there on the weird scale. Was the Entity a new kind of monster sent by Malivore? Was it something else completely? She could feel some really strong magic in this place, that was for sure, but it still didn't give her the answers she desperately craved and she honestly didn't even know where to start getting them. Plan A, she decided, involved making her way to this Ostriches Villa the note mentioned.
The thing about living in Goodland was that nothing was ever stable. Not the places, not the people, not the scenarios. Losing Lizzie—the one person from home who'd been here since before Hope—had cemented that for her in a way nothing else so far had. Lizzie had been the constant familiar thing that grounded her. Now she was the veteran Mystic Falls resident, which in her mind just meant they were all hosed.
Luckily for Hope's sanity, they always returned to New York whenever they went somewhere else. If Goodland was a constant shift to new places, she was sure she'd go insane. No, going back to New York meant there was something that felt solid, always something that had grown familiar. Like the pizza place she'd gone to her first day here. She'd picked up a few pies and was heading back to the Villa when she spotted a familiar silhouette in front of her going the same way.
"Jo?" She lengthened her stride to catch up, not quite sure how to deal with the conflicting emotions she was feeling at the moment. She'd put those aside for now to help Josie first.
Josie thought she was imagining the voice at first or that maybe Hope was just still there in her subconscious, a part of her like Lizzie should have been after the Merge. Would have been if her dark side had gotten her way. It wasn’t until Hope had caught up with her and she glanced to the side and actually saw her that Josie started to think she was really. The boxes were certainly giving off a very real - and delicious - smell. Forgetting the pizza for a moment, Josie turned and hugged her friend - tightly - without warning. She was too relieved to see her there, conscious, to do anything else. She didn’t know how it was possible, how Hope was actually awake when just moments before they hadn’t known how to help her.
“Oh, my god, Hope!” she cried. “You’re okay!” If her impulsiveness damaged the pizza, she’d have another thing to feel guilty about, but she was just too damn happy to see Hope to think about that in the moment.
"Whoa, hey." It was only due to her good reflexes that the pizzas survived Josie's sudden hug, the boxes shuffled to one hand and held out to the side. Hugging her back tightly with one arm, Hope's mind quickly crossed off a few scenarios that Josie could have been arriving from. About a hundred new questions arose in their place, but at least she wasn't going to have to explain both Goodland and how a stranger knew Josie's name. And Josie wasn't mad about the whole Landon thing. This was manageable. "I'm fine, I promise. And you're okay, too." For now. This place... She pushed the thought aside.
"I missed you, Josie. A lot. …Did you happen to see a letter?" The letter was a good place to start, she figured. Confirming that it was the truth, answering questions...
Deciding that for the moment she didn’t care how Hope was okay, Josie nodded. Focus on the letter, what they were doing here and how the hell to get home. Good plan. It hadn’t occurred to her yet that time could move differently here or that Hope could have been here longer than her, like a lot longer. Then again, it wasn’t like she did this kind of thing a lot. Unplanned trips to prison worlds aside.
“From some kind of entity, yeah. So what are we thinking? Some kind of monster? Or a kind of reality warning spell? This has got to be the weirdest thing Malivore has ever sent after us.” And that was grading on a pretty steep curve. “I kind of thought we might be stuck in The Game at first, but then we wouldn’t remember who we really were, right?”
Giving Josie one last squeeze, Hope let her go and started walking toward the Villa again. The pizza was going to get cold, otherwise. "The Game? No, not important right now. This isn't a Malivore thing, though I thought that too at first." For vastly different reasons. And she still wasn't sure which was worse.
"So the Entity is a real thing, if it's a monster it's definitely a different kind than we're used to. I've been here for eight months now. The last thing I remember from home was jumping into the Malivore pit. But we're all here from different points in the timeline. And it's not just us. This is too much, isn't it?"
“Eight months?!?!” Josie’s head was starting to hurt. Thinking it was Malivore had been easy, that was normal and with Hope here it was even something she knew they could copy with and figure out eventually. It was actually easier than the truth – that the Entity was something else, that this was some unknown. She didn’t know how to fight that. “But I just saw you.” Sort of. She didn’t feel like explaining that it had been in her subconscious where she’d disguised herself as a fairy tale pig and Hope had been dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.
“Who else is here? Is Lizzie? What about my dad?”
"Yea, the people here say we're here and there at the same time. So whatever's going on back home is still happening, you're still there. You're just also here." Like a copy, even though Hope still thought of people as 'going home' when they left Goodland. It was better than imagining them ceasing to exist.
Ugh, this was the hard part. "Um. Lizzie went back home last week. You and your dad were here before, but you both left a while ago." Triggering a meltdown that had cost her quite a lot, but Josie didn't need to know that. "Landon and Sebastian are here, along with... well a whole bunch of people from before we were born. Like Bonnie, but young Bonnie. Really young Jeremy... And some people we only know about because of books and movies? Like... Spider-man. And half the Weasley family."
“Oh.” In all honesty, Josie wasn’t sure if she was disappointed that Lizzie wasn’t there or glad. They hadn’t had the chance to really yet and after what she’d done, she wasn’t sure how ready she was to face Lizzie. Hope didn’t seem to remember all of that, at least, and it was honestly a relief. It didn’t ease her guilt, but maybe it made it just a little bit easier to cope with it. Or maybe that’s what she was telling herself to keep from missing them too much.
“The Weasley family? Like from Harry Potter? Are you serious?” This just kept getting weirder and Josie couldn’t decide if that was really freaky or really cool. Maybe it was somewhere in between.
Hope looked over at Josie as they walked, trying to get a gauge on where the other girl's mind was. She felt protective of both Saltzman girls, but it had always been Josie more than Lizzie. There was something different about the Josie who was walking next to her. It seemed like a good thing, whatever it was, but Hope was still cautious of hurting her or overloading her. "I'm guessing you're from after I failed at killing Malivore?"
She remembered feeling the same way when she'd first arrived, though now she really only thought about it when someone new arrived from home. "Yup, straight out of the books. Some of them even know they're from books and movies. But mostly we all just kind of skirt around that kind of thing out of politeness."
“You mean, from when you did your martyr thing and made us all forget you for months? Yeah.” It was possible that Josie might still have some emotions about that which she didn't want to talk about. The idea of Hope sacrificing herself, yeah, it was brave, but there had been a lot of fallout from that choice, not just leaving people who cared about her behind, but things had been really awkward for a while. “I, um, found this spell that restored everyone’s memories after you came back and I found out who you really were.” She didn't know if Hope even knew about that part, of she'd come from right after her well-intentioned jump.
It was so weird, thinking about all these characters she'd read about being real, but maybe it wasn't that different from Malivore monsters being real. Maybe the world had just forgotten they were more than just stories, too.
“I know you were trying to save us,” she added, “but please don't do anything like that again. ‘Cause we’re all better with you around. We’ll always find a way together, without you having to sacrifice yourself, okay?”
"Landon didn't mention that you were the reason everyone's memory came back, just that it did." She hadn't wanted to push, either, given the circumstances. Hope felt a surge of pride at the same time as awkwardness flooded her. She believed in Josie, of course she would have found a way to bring back those memories. But in doing so, she'd broken her own heart by all reports. "It hasn't happened yet for me, but I'm really sorry about... everything. I never meant to come back, I wasn't supposed to come back, and if I never had..." People would have been happy. Happier.
"There are some things here that happen sometimes, and I'm the only one that can stop them. But way more often there's a lot of other people here who stop it, too. I'm trying to learn that balance and not sacrifice myself, promise. Especially since I—since people from home have shown up."
“Then Lizzie would have still remembered after I did that spell to save her from that Samurai guy and Landon would have still kept killing himself over and over just for a glimpse of what he somehow knew he was missing even when he couldn’t remember you. I would still be...” She trailed off. It wasn’t something she was ready to talk about yet. “I’m glad you came back, Hope. We needed you to be there.”
Josie shook her head. It didn’t sound that different from home. “I know you think you’re the only one who can stop things,” she said a little more gently, “but you’re not. I know you don’t want anyone else to get hurt, trust me, I really really get that, but it doesn’t all have to be on your. You know, the rest of us can be kind of badass, too. You just have to let us.”
The list of things she'd missed didn't make Hope any more eager to leave Goodland and go back home. That was some other tribrid's set of problems. She had her own set, and sure, some of it was similar, but in the end she was pretty happy to stay here. "Or I wouldn't have failed at whatever I did in there and no one would have ever found out. I mean, if we're playing in hypotheticals, at least give me the one where I get everything I wanted." Josie's unfinished sentence didn't escape Hope's notice, and she made a note to ask about that later. After Josie had settled in more.
"I know you can be. Finding that spell was pretty badass. But the dangerous stuff..." She shifted the pizzas again and looped her arm through Josie's. "I don't want you guys to get hurt permanently. Not when I could take whatever it is."
“I don’t want you to get hurt, either,” Josie said stubbornly. “And I’m not as fragile as everyone thinks I am.” She more like muttered that last sentence, but it was true. Hope didn’t even know the things she’d done and, yeah, a lot of it was really bad, but Josie was finally coming to terms with the fact that she could be powerful and good and she wasn’t going to be content to sit on the sidelines anymore.
Glancing at the pizza’s, she decided she wanted to change the subject. “So, are those all for you or are you taking me to a pizza party?” she joked.
The subject change was welcome, both because Hope was pretty sure she couldn't convince her that it wasn't Josie's perceived fragility that drove her and because she'd been a little too close to spilling the beans on Mikael's visit to Goodland. "They're all for me—except the ones I'm leaving in the kitchen of the apartment for everyone else to eat. It's a pretty crowded place, actually, and I'm not even supposed to be staying there. So I figure feeding them keeps me on their good side."
"We all get assigned rooms in that letter, by the way. But you can bargain for different ones."
“Yeah?” Josie said, pulling out her letter. “8-C,” she read as she saw the part about the housing assignment. “Where do they have you?” She didn't totally know about bargaining for something better. It sounded like Hope was one of the few people she knew who actually remembered her.
"That's one of the kids' rooms. I can get you moved in with Bonnie or Elena if you want." Maybe even if she didn't want. Hope had pushed Lizzie onto Bonnie without any input, after all. "I'm technically in 8-B, but I've never spent the night there. 8-C is where I was headed with these pizzas." At least there was that.
“I think that means some of it is mine,” Josie teased. “At the very least, I should definitely help you carry it.” She wanted to protest that she wasn't a kid. She also wanted to say she was totally fine staying close to where Hope was, but she had to admit that staying with Aunt Bonnie or Aunt Elena sounded pretty great. Even if they weren't from the same time as her.
She hated the ‘orphan’ floor with a passion she didn’t know she could feel for a living space. Hopefully she’d be out of it in just over a month. Maybe less. But if she could make sure Josie didn’t feel unwanted, she would. Passing over some of the boxes was easily done, even if Hope made sure she was carrying one more than Josie. “I should have asked if you were hungry. Or needed anything—Do you need anything before we head up?”
Smiling, Josie took some of the boxes from Hope. She felt a little better that she was helping, even if it was just pizza. At Hope’s question, she shook her head. If she needed anything, she didn’t think it was something Hope could give her right now. Or maybe she could, but it would require Josie explaining a lot more than she was prepared to right now. This was all enough to process anyway and she would much rather just hang out and meet some pizza.
“What are the chances we can sneak some decent beer past the guardians to wash this down with,” she asked, half joking. She winked at Hope to show she was maybe not 100% serious.
"Getting the beer is a much bigger problem than sneaking it. A few spells and they're easy enough to sneak past. I did it a lot before your dad showed up. But you can also solve getting the beer if you feel like asking Sebastian to compel some bodega worker." Hope tried to make it look casual as she watched Josie for a reaction to the name. Landon hated him, and no one else knew him. At least, not the him that he was outside of Goodland.
Josie definitely made a face when Hope mentioned Sebastian. Maybe he had made it possible for their dad to get out of the prison world with them, but Josie wasn't sure it made up for what he'd done to Lizzie. She wasn't sure anything would. Then again, maybe she wasn't really in a position to judge anymore, all things considered. Either way, she definitely thought Lizzie deserved better. Probably better than both of them. “Maybe we’ll just stay sober then,” she said. She didn't like the idea of asking Sebastian for a favor. Or owing him one.
"Wow. That bad?" Hope was a bit surprised to have Landon's dislike confirmed. And by Josie of all people, who could usually find something good about someone. But Sebastian really didn't seem to be all that terrible... then again, considering Hope's family, maybe she had a skewed idea of what terrible people did. "We can find a different way some other night." And not that often. Hope didn't want to see her go down as deeply as her dad could.
“I just don’t want to owe him,” Josie said. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get into what had happened between Sebastian and Lizzie. She knew the world wasn’t black and white, but she didn’t trust him and she didn’t think he was good for Lizzie, especially after everything. “Anyway, I’m good with the pizza,” she said brightly. Pizza and Hope’s company. She wished Lizzie was here, but this was still a pretty good start.