(Hope is Not the Goal 1x04 part two)
Rowan stands side by side with the other teenagers, looking down at what was Dana's dead body. Her head quickly snaps up when she feels the burning stare of all six teenagers surrounding her and she glances up with a blank stare. "Can I help any of you?" She deadpans.
MG gapes, "you killed Dana!"
"No," Rowan defends herself. "I mean, yes, but she was obviously going to die anyway."
Harry lets a small smirk grace his lips while Landon looks at the girl in disbelief, not-so-subtly inching away from her.
"Do you not feel any remorse at all?" Kaleb scoffs.
The Night girl arches an eyebrow, "do you?"
Hope, in an attempt to stop her girlfriend from killing anyone else, steps in by glancing at Lizzie, "Should we call your dad…?"
Lizzie gives Hope a snide look, "Why? So he can take another bullet for you?"
Rowan clenches her jaw and glares at the blonde.
Hope also returns Lizzie’s look back to her as though she’s not understanding the gravity of the situation, "No, because whatever did this is not a vampire or a broken neck." She refers to the way Dana's body had shed its skin. Hope gives Landon a pointed look, "It’s got to be another monster from the knife."
Kaleb, both suspicious of their newest student and eager to clear his own name, picks up where Hope left off and looks at Landon questioningly. "Well, maybe the monster has been right in front of us all along."
Landon immediately takes offense to Kaleb’s accusation as the vampire walks closer to him. Rowan and Harry simutaneously step in front of the Kirby boy, their eyes narrowed at Kaleb and daring him to come closer.
"What?" Landon scoffs, "Are you serious?"
"Hey, none of this started happening until you showed up and stole that knife, which is exactly what the other monsters came here to do. You saying it’s a coincidence?"
"Damn straight," Rowan snaps. "Why, Kaleb? Afraid your little ploy to feed on humans so you can be the strongest at the schol, is failing?" Her lips rise into a smug smile. "Don't tell me you're afraid of a human? Because that's what this all boils down to, right? You're accusing him because you're either afraid of him or because you did it yourself." Rowan looks around at her fellow students to make sure they feel the same way, but she wasn't expecting what she got. Hope and Lizzie were avoiding her eyes, seemingly guilty for how they felt. "You guys, you believe that Landon didn't do it, right?"
MG gives her a sympathetic expression, and it’s clear that he’s not going to go to bat for the Kirby boy. Landon, visibly hurt by this accusation, takes one last look at Hope before taking off on foot, "Got it. Say no more."
"Landon!" Rowan calls out helplessly. Her arm gets caught in Harry's hold as she tries to rush after the human boy.
"Let him go," the Styles boy demands. "He needs time, he's hurt." He squints at the other teenagers, "rightfully so."
······
Back outside, Hope, MG, Lizzie, a stone-faced Rowan, a pouty Harry, and Kaleb are cleaning up the evidence of Dana’s death. MG is ripping pages out of a comic book to use to wipe the goo off of his shoes while Lizzie hoses the remnants of Dana’s liquified organs off of the pavement and Hope cleans off her hands with a washcloth. Kaleb walks up behind the girls and makes another disgusted face, "Nasty." Kaleb then turns the topic back to himself as he starts to back away. "Yeah, so, um… I’m out of here. But, little piece of advice? Landon could be in there right now, eating fools. So… I’ll holla. Kaleb gestures around at the group before turning and walking away from them.
Lizzie and Hope, both unimpressed by Kaleb’s team spirit, roll their eyes. Rowan, in a fit of exhaustion, plops down on a clean piece of the ground and huffs. Hope sighs as MG goes back to cleaning up his shoes, "Come on, guys. If it’s not Landon, then what else could it be?"
"Literally anything, Hope." The Night snarks, upset with her girlfriend for not trusting Landon. She understands why the Mikaelson is wary of the Kirby boy, she really does, but what she doesn't understand is why Hope is treating Landon like he's done something worse than Roman Sienna ever has.
MG frowns when he notices something on the page he’s using to wipe off his shoes before suddenly being stricken by an idea, "Spider." He breathes.
Rowan straightens up and jerks herself up from off the ground. She shares a fearful look with Harry, who's fisting his curly hair with panicked eyes.
MG grins, "you've battled mythical creatures and you're scared of a little spider?"
Harry gapes, "little?" His eyes widen and Rowan silently groans, knowing the Styles boy is going off the deep end. "Little, you say? Oh, little. Because the spider being little makes it better," he mocks. "Because a little spider disintegrated Dana's body!"
"Okay," the Night girl hushes him. "It-it can't be that big, right?"
MG shakes his head with an excited smile, "A big spider!" He exclaims, "An Arachne, if you want to get specific."
MG smooths out the page and holds it up to show the girls and the curly headed boy. On it is a very large spider creature, and Lizzie yanks it out of his hand to look at it before scoffing and handing it back, "This is nerd porn, not real life."
MG, excited about the discovery he’s just made, begins to explain his hypothesis in an animated tone of voice, "So were dragons and gargoyles! The writer bases her comics off of Greek lore. An Arachne was originally a beautiful woman who was cursed by a jealous god and turned into a giant spider. Uh, all it wants to do is be human, so it wears the skin of its prey to pass. Oh, my God! It’s-it’s fangs are huge, so they could pass for a vampire bite! And its bite liquefies its victims! Plus, I found a web in Dana’s hair!"
Rowan and Harry inch toward each other at the same time, Rowan being the one to voice her worry. "I am not dying by getting eaten by a spider, okay? Charlotte's fucking Web is just shit out of luck,"
Hope shoots Rowan a look before glancing back at MG, "That would explain why it couldn’t follow the knife out of town. An SUV-sized insect can’t exactly hitch-hike unless it inhabits the body of someone."
"Who? Sasha, maybe?"
Lizzie looks over at Hope with a snide expression, "My money is still on your boyfriend."
Hope shoots Lizzie a glare, "He’s not my boyfriend. Rowan's my girlfriend, Lizzie. You know this."
"Do I?" Lizzie taunts, "because you're only Rowan's girlfriend when it's convinient for you."
Hope falls silent, masking her hurt with irritation. Her eyes instinctively glance toward the Night girl and she smiles gently when Rowan firmly shakes her with with a fond look in her eyes. Despite their disagreements, Rowan Night and Hope Mikaelson knew who they were, and they didn't need Lizzie Saltzman of all people to tell them.
Despite her best efforts to start another arguement between the couple, Lizzie slumps in defeat and looks at MG. "If we had something from it, we could do a tracking spell…"
Suddenly, Landon appears behind rhem, "Would its face work?"
Lizzie, Hope, Harry, and MG turn and look horrified as Landon holds up the piece of flesh Landon punched off of Connor’s face. Rowan lets out a sound of disgust before smiling widely at the Kirby boy, "I knew I kept you around for a reason."
·····
MG, Lizzie, Landon, Harry, Rowan and Hope are running through the woods toward the school when suddenly, MG’s school phone starts to ring. MG looks at the screen and sees that it’s Alaric who is calling and immediately panics and hands the phone to Lizzie, "It’s for you. No way I’m telling your dad what we’re about to do."
Lizzie groans as she looks at the ringing phone in her hands, "I suck at lying." Lizzie looks behind her and sees Landon and immediately tosses the phone to him, "You’re great at it."
Landon, not trying to lose his place at the school, turns to see Rowan and shrugs. "You're the badass,"
He tosses her the phone and she clumsily fumbles with it before looking at Hope with apologetic eyes, "You’re his favorite."
Hope looks at the phone apprehensively and passes it back to Lizzie, "You’re the hero!"
Rowan pants, dramatically inhaling oxygen into her lungs. "I could so be a damn football player,"
"No," Harry says simply.
"I know,"
Realizing she’s the one who has to take the call, Lizzie slows down and answers the call, putting it on speaker so everyone else can listen as well. She greets her father in a feigned cheerful tone of voice in hopes of concealing their activities from him, "Hi, Daddy…"
"Hey, thought I’d call, check in, see how things are going…"
Lizzie fake-smiles to try to sound as innocent as possible, "So good…"
Alaric decides to waste no more time beating around the bush and just comes out with it, "Really? Define good, Lizzie, because I don’t think that involves me tracking down Dana’s body to the glove compartment!"
Lizzie, not wanting to disappoint her dad again, tries to talk herself out of trouble. "Listen, Dad, it’s fine! We cracked the case. It’s a spider—but, like, a big, huge, nasty spider."
Hope, realizing Lizzie is doing nothing to help their case, rolls her eyes, and MG gives Lizzie a look to indicate he’d like to leave him out of it, "And MG’s comic books know how to kill it!"
"You sound psychotic," Rowan points out before realization flashes through her eyes. "Oh, wait..."
Lizzie sends the blonde a glare while Alaric scoffs in exasperation, clearly not as confident in their abilities to kill the creature as Lizzie is, "Comic books? Really?" Alaric takes a deep breath and tries to get them to stand down in the kindest voice he can muster. "Lizzie, listen to me—whatever you’re thinking of doing? Don’t. Okay? So, just tell me where you are, and Matt and I will be right there. And where is Hope?"
Lizzie, intent on doing this on her own, ignores this question. "I’m sorry, Dad. You’re gonna have to trust me for once."
Lizzie hangs up the phone, and Hope looks impressed by Lizzie’s strength of will in this issue, as does MG. Rowan purses her lips and gives the girl a nod. Lizzie's expression becomes determined as she addresses her five teammates, "Let’s do this."
·····
While Harry goes to momentarily distract Alaric and Matt, Rowan stays with Landon to protect him if anything goes wrong while doing his part of the plan.
"Rowan," he looks at her with wide eyes. "Are you ready?"
"Hell no," she shakes her head. Landon only has time to gape at her before the Night is shoving him forward into the hideout.
He stumbles in, holding a long pipe that has been painted yellow. He leaps into the mill and distracts the creature by shouting at it and catching it’s attention by hitting the pipe against the metal railing toward the entrance, "Hey, douchebag!" When the arachne turns to see Landon, he immediately goes pale at the sight of the monstrous creature in front of him, "Oh-"
"-shit-" Rowan yelps and grabs Landon by the back of his shirt, yanking him out of the hideout. Her eyes connect with Hope's as she looks over her shoulder and she sends the girl an encouraging smile.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Landon worries.
"Yes," Rowan replies. "She's Hope Mikaelson."
······
Landon is sitting on the edge of the dock at the quarry, skipping rocks over the lake’s surface, when Hope and Rowan walk up behind him and join him
"So much for my plan to spend the day as a normal teenage girl," Hope voices as she sits behind him. She shoots Rowan a weak smile as the blonde sits on the other side of the Kirby boy, "You did good back there."
"Yeah…" he glances at her, "Felt nice to be part of the team, until you all accused me of being a monster."
Hope frowns, knowing that Landon has a valid point, and gives him an apologetic look, "I’m sorry… It’s just gonna take us some time before we can trust you again."
"Yeah, I got that. Repeatedly," Landon takes a deep breath before he continues. "So, let me lay this out for you all at once—I don’t know why I was drawn to that knife any more than I can explain why a super-sized spider inhabited the body of a kid who used to bully me in high school. I don’t know why creatures we’ve only read about in books are making cameos in Mystic Falls. I don’t have an explanation for any of this. And, let’s be honest-- neither do any of you. So, as far as I can see, we’re supposed to be in this together. And this morning, all I wanted to be was sitting here, part of this, spending time with you guys. But, all day long, you ridiculed me and then you hung me out to dry when it mattered." Landon stands to his feet and looks at Hope with a pointed expression, "You wanted to know what it’s like to be normal? Congrats, Hope. You’re officially normal."
Landon walks away, leaving Hope to feel guilty and ashamed for her behavior towards him. Her eyes flicker toward the Night, who has a conflicted expression on her face, and the Mikaelson slumps. "Are you going to make me feel bad too?"
"No," Rowan smiles. "My job isn't to make you feel bad, Hope. It's to lift when you up when you feel bad."
Hope shakes her head, "you don't look like you want to do much lifting right now."
Rowan shrugs, "I'm just thinking about today."
"What about today?"
"We were on different sides today, Hope." Rowan points out, "we were angry and snarky with each other and it was never like that before Landon came here."
The Mikaelson narrows her eyes, "are you finally saying that Landon is the problem here?"
The Night girl sighs heavily. "No," she replies. "I'm saying that your problem with Landon is what's causing all this trouble between us." Hope looks at her, confused. "I don't know why you're having such a hard time forgiving Landon when you forgave Roman so easily,"
"I-"
"I don't want to know either," Rowan cuts her off. "Because I know I'm probably not going to like the answer. I love you," the Guardian glances at Hope. "I love with you with everything I have, if I haven't made that obvious. I've tolerated people I don't like for a decade, because I love you, Hope. If-If you can't do this, if you can't at least tolerate Landon, maybe-maybe it's time that you reconsider what Lizzie said,"
Hope looks at her girlfriend sharply, her eyes wide. "What? You- you believe Lizzie?"
"Of course I don't," the Night responds. "But I do believe that you're not all in. I don't think it's because you don't love me, but I think it's because you're scared. I know you're scared and it's perfectly okay to be scared, but I can't do the work for both of us, Hope. Not- not anymore, not with what's going to happen in my life these next few weeks."
"What do you mean?" The Mikaelson questions softly. "What's going on?"
Rowan swallows thickly, not quite ready to admit what she's planning to do. Her lips fall into a frown and her eyebrows furrow.
"I'm meeting my Dad, Hope."
·····
AUTHOR'S NOTE: hello my lovelies!! 💕 thank you so much for reading. i also want to thank you guys for being so loving and warm to me. it's been a while since i've felt appreciated and you guys really brighten my day. thank you for all the kindness. all my love. -M.