𝟙.𝟙𝟝: 𝕀'𝕝𝕝 𝕋𝕖𝕝𝕝 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝔸 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪

—Narrator's perspective—

Arabella fluttered her eyes open, feeling the sunlight hit her face, directly to her eyes making her wake up. She quietly groaned, feeling a small weight on her arm and that was when she knew, her morning was about to be perfect.

Despite her small debacle with Hope yesterday, she couldn't stay mad at her for long. She reached for her phone on top of the side table near her, without moving Hope.

It was just 5:30 in the morning which made her groan at how early she woke up. Instead of standing up to start the day, she placed the phone back on the table and pulled Hope closer to her.

Arabella is wide awake but she had nothing better to do but to stay in bed, waiting for Hope to wake up. Her fingers were gently brushing her hair, so gentle so that she wouldn't wake Hope up from her actions.

She truly loves the girl, so much so that she couldn't possibly think of being away from her any time soon.

"Bella..?" Hope called in a whisper, eyes darting to the girl who looked down at her with a small smile.

"Morning." She greeted quietly, still looking up in the ceiling. She felt Hope turn her body and faced her, looking up from where she was and studying Arabella's face. "I'm sorry. You know, for being insensitive about Roman."

Hope frowned, her hand found its way to Arabella's cheek which she was caressing gently. "Oh please, don't apologise. Because I'm going to apologise then you will and it will be a whole mess going back and forth." She exaggerated making Arabella chuckle softly.

"Okay then." She replied with a genuine smile of Hope's behaviour. "Things happened yesterday. Like, Landon finding out about her mom. He confronted me when I was halfway through my 6th bottle of a classic wine." Bella sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Oh, I don't want to get out of this bed." Hope groaned, burrying her face in Arabella's neck making the girl laugh. "Why's your bed much more comfortable than mine? That's unfair."

"Hope. You don't sleep in your own bed." She pointed out and Hope just hummed. "Also, I still have that session with Emma in 7:30 so I need to take a shower."

Hope whined and held her tight. "It's still, what, 6:30? Just stay in bed." Her face was still burried in Arabella's neck, the Vampire chuckling of her actions.

"Hope—"

"—Bella." She interrupted making the Blone laugh again. "I swear to god if you leave this bed, I'll chase you down to the hallways."

The door knocked making their eyes snap to the door, Hope groaned when Arabella stood up fastly to answer it. When she opened it, Ric had his hand against his eyes.

"Are you decent? Can I look?" He said, peaking and dropped his hand when the girl was fully dressed and glaring at him.

"Seriously?"

"Can't be too careful." He snickered. "I'm just reminding you that you have an appointment with Emma. Don't skip it." Ric pointed at her and skipped the halls, giving her a look.

Arabella exhaled, closing the door and looked back to see Hope. The Vampire walked back to her, seeing a look on Hope's eyes lighten up all so suddenly. "What's gotten into you?" She asked, grabbing a towel on the chair so she can take a shower.

"Oh, Nothing." She hummed mysteriously, sitting up and went to the edge of the bed. "You go ahead and take a shower. I'll be right here."

Arabella frowned even more. "What are you planning? Should I be worried?" She asked and crossed her arms. The Mikaelson stood up and held Bella's hands.

"I love you." She whispered making the blonde chuckle, kissing her as a response and the two were back to bed again.

☘︎︎

"I was just 5 minutes late." Arabella defended in a huff, Emma chuckling and nodding in understanding.

"Perfectly reasonable. So, let's discuss about what you've seen when your were... intoxicated with werewolf venom." She started, crossing her legs and waited for a response.

"Well, I just recently found out that the father I grew up with isn't my biological father." She started and earned a nod from Emma, gesturing her to keep going. "His name is William? Like my messed up family, he resents me as well."

Emma squinted her eyes, studying the blonde who had an unreadable expression. "And how does that make you feel?"

"Not surprised?" Arabella guessed and went with her words continuing to talk. "I already have Emmett as a father and look how that turned out."

"Does William trigger anything inside you? Anger, maybe?" Emma questioned further more, wanting to get a reaction from the girl.

"No. It doesn't because he's dead. Just like how anyone else dies who hated me." She deadpanned pointed out with a heavy sigh following. "When... Rafael ran deep in the woods, he left all of us to fend for ourselves. Penelope did the best she could on making me stay awake. But I knew she could only do so much for Mg and me."

Emma nodded, processing the information more and more. "Did you tell Penelope to save Mg rather than you?"

The girl nodded, staring at the floor the entire time. "I was going out on a limb. It's better than me than him. I mean, he's still a kid and I can't die."

"But you knew that werewolf toxin might do the trick in putting your life over for good. Why did you risk that chance, Ara?" She questioned, waiting for a response.

"I don't know." She replied, looking up to meet the witch's eyes. "There were part of me that wanted to go, half of me wanted to stay. Besides, I'm still alive. Werewolves are useless for my death." Arabella shrugged, crossing her arms while she leaned on the couch.

"Go? You still wanted to be at peace?"

Arabella paused, her ulterior instincts getting the better of her. Her gaze trailed down to the floor and unable to speak a word that will benefit both of their situation. At first, she herself was confused of what she was thinking.

She got someone worth living for, Hope. But why did the Salvatore acted as if she was too careless of her own life.

"Ara?" Emma called out making the Vampire snap back to reality and hummed in response. "Alaric wants to talk to us. We'll continue this in another session, okay?" She asked and the other nodded, standing up to leave without another word.

In boredom, she opened the two story door of Alaric's office and she saw the Headmaster talking with Hope. She exhaled and sat on the chair, feeling a little awful about what she just discovered earlier. Soon after, Emma walked inside the room and asked what was wrong.

Alaric only cleared his throat and played a recorded voice message. "Hey, Ric. Sorry to take off like that, but I just needed a little time. So I'm going camping for a while. Hopefully I can catch up on classwork later. Tell Raf and Jed hi for me." The recorder beeps and it was the end of the message.

"Jed? Why would he say hi to Jed?" Hope asked skeptic about it. "You should go after him. Something doesn't make sense."

"Hope." Ric called and she shook her head.

"Triad already tried to come for him once. It's not safe for him out there."

"We kept a massive secret from him, and I think he just needs some time to process that. I think we should respect his privacy and just wait." Ric informed that made Hope softly scoff and left the room in anger.

Arabella shook her head, trying to focus but the more she thought about something, the less it all made sense. "I'm gonna... go." She said and exited the room as well, feeling a little nauseous.

Emma watched her leave, a frown entered her expression which made Ric question what is it. "These kids have been through so much lately. I've done all I can to help Rafael, but the side effects of Hope's elixir are getting worse. He's losing time, Having flashes of agression. I think he's still sliding between his wolf mind and his human mind."

"I will— I'll keep an eye on him." He assured, he himself is not sure.

"And what of Arabella? You saw her earlier she looks like a mess." Emma sighed in frustration. "Our last session didn't go well, Alaric. I think it might be related to her trauma of her father."

Alaric frowned, confused. "She's fine. I'll talk to her later."

"You've been running on fumes these past few weeks. It wouldn't hurt to bring someone else to help, maybe even assist in researching Rafael's condition." She hinted a certain man which made Alaric look away in a sarcastic smile.

"Dorian is too proud to come back. You know that." He pointed out.

"And you know how much I respect you. But are you sure it's his pride that's the problem?" She questioned again.

☘︎︎

"Jo? You seem preoccupied." Arabella said, looking over her in worry.

Josie flinched by her sudden appearance, looking up to meet the blonde's eyes in confusion. "Look." She said and pointed at the books that was scattered around the table. "Many of these pages are ripped off. Someone's destroying information bit by bits."

"What are these anyways?" Arabella asked to distract her mindset and picked one book up, reading a few letters now and there.

"A... project." Josie answered flushed and took the book away from her hands.

Arabella gave her a confused look but didn't question it seeing as Lizzie appeared out of thin air, making their eyes snap to her direction. Josie flipped her hand and all of the books closed in one second.

"I brought you some brain food." The Blonde siphoner chirped and walked to the pair who was more interesed in the books.

"I'm not hungry." Her twin replied flatly, avoiding eye contact.

"It's all your favourite things." Lizzie pointed out, looking down on the tray of food on her hands and back to the brunette who rolled her eyes.

"Which I'm sure somebody else had to tell you." She remarked, Lizzie's eyes travelled to a word searcher making Arabella frown and follow her gaze.

Her heart dropped and coughed when she saw the 'merge' on there. Arabella took a look on one of the books and one flatly said 'Gemini Coven'. The Vampire gripped on the chair in front of her before speeding away, feeling a little guilty and concerned.

"Uh, hi." Arabella greeted when she saw Hope by the chair in front of the door entrance of their room. "I'm just gonna grab something and leave." She informed and rummaged through her drawers to find something.

Hope frowned at her behaviour, standing up and completely forgetting about what Lizzie promised. "You okay? You seem, off." She asked, going besides the girl who nodded.

"Just... need a fresh air." She forced a smile and kept rummaging through her stuff. "Where the hell is it?" She whispered to herself.

"Hey." Hope called out for a much more soothing tone, holding her shoulder. "Talk to me."

Arabella inhaled deeply, looking over the girl. "I'm just tired. Don't worry." She said with a genuine smile, holding Hope's cheek in a move to convince her.

"Okay lovebirds there is a child present." Lizzie came in from the foor, holding a crystal in hand. Hope stepped back, looking at the siphoner in glare. "Knock yourself out." She handed it to Hope. "The first time's kind of freaky, because you're basically talking to your subconscious."

"Talking to who now?" Arabella questioned in a frown, looking at the two witches who said don't worry about it.

"Thanks. This is for you." Hope handed Lizzie a notebook which Arabella got a glimpse of it. 'The history of the Gemini Coven. "I saw your dad reading it. He keeps it locked up in his office, so it's bound to have something about that merge thing Josie's looking for."

Arabella coughed again, turning around and acted like she's still searching. Her mind went to Ric and casually cussed him for not telling his daughters sooner.

"If your dad's hiding something, I'm sure it's for a good reason." Hope said in a smile, looking over to Arabella who pulled out a notebook of her own.

"I'm sure I can handle it, whatever it is." She said in an assuring smile.

"You really can't, Liz." Arabella whispered and walked past Hope. "Follow me." She said and exited the room.

Arabella waited for the tribrid outside for a few moments then joining her to walk in the halls. "What was that? Do you know what the merge is?" She asked in a curious tone while they walk side by side.

"Yes. It's not pretty, Hope."

☘︎︎