'it's been a crazy day'

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Georgie wasn't sure how much time had passed for her friends while she had been off on her time travelling escapade, but it obviously hadn't been seconds. Her feet gave way underneath her as she found herself dropped on to the foyer floor, the lights much more dim than they had been previously which told her one thing: it was likely the middle of the night.

Groaning as she pushed herself up from the heap on the floor she was lying in, she looked around and noticed that nothing seemed to have changed since she had first been transported by the Time Keeper. Her bag was still in the foyer which told her it likely hadn't been more than 24 hours that she had been gone, and the fact Alaric wasn't standing staring at her like he he had seen a ghost was a good thing.

"Oh, Georgie, thank god," he breathed as he lowered his crossbow, his pyjamas swamping his frame as he moved forward to pull the girl into a hug. "You're okay. What the hell happened to you?"

Georgie was glad she wasn't in her blood coated clothes anymore but that didn't mean she wasn't still bruised up and covered in cuts from her second situation. All of the jumping through time had drained her, and she was now realising that the only reason she had made it to the third and final scenario was from adrenaline. Now that it was wearing off, she felt like she could pass out at any given moment.

"Georgie," Hope's voice breathed from the bottom of the staircase. Georgie spun around to see a half-awake Hope Mikaelson looking at her with cautious eyes. Georgie didn't blame them - the last thing they'd seen of her was her being essentially kidnapped by one of Malivore's monsters. "You're okay."

Georgie shrugged, not really sure if she was okay. Physically she was a little sore and bruised, and mentally her head was completely scrambled. Her father wasn't the man she thought he was and it turns out her beliefs of not having a family might have been misplaced after all.

"Georgie!"

Lizzie and Josie appeared at the top of the stairs, MG and Kaleb standing just behind them. She figured that either of the vamps had heard the commotion and woken up the twins on their way downstairs to see what it was about. Georgie assumed that considering they didn't seem to be on high alert about anything, it was safe to assume they'd defeated the Time Keeper somehow.

"Is he gone?" Georgie asked, her knees trembling a little as her legs almost considering giving way again. "How did you do it?"

"We didn't," Lizzie admitted, seeming the most awake out of all the teenagers. Georgie knew she was right in assuming it must have been the middle of the night because she wasn't actually sure if MG was even awake or sleep waking since he looked asleep almost. "He did it himself. He came back here hours after you left, spouted some rubbish about being a pawn in family matters and then he just like..."

"...he dissolved," Kaleb finished as Lizzie trailed off in disgust. "All over my new Jordans."

Georgie went to open her mouth to apologise to Kaleb but she closed it as he held up a finger to silently tell her not to say a word. It was obvious he was upset about the shoes and if she hadn't been so broke she would have offered to buy him a new one. They wouldn't have been put in that mess if she hadn't tried to grab that golf club from him.

"What happened to you?"

Georgie flinched as Josie's hands brushed the sides of her face. She hadn't even noticed Josie breeze down the stairs to get a closer look at the state of her lover. A brief look of hurt crossed the Saltzman's face for a moment as she registered Georgie's reaction, thinking it was something that she had done that had caused her to want to leave the school in the first place and then this reaction only making it more likely in her eyes that it was in fact the case.

Georgie looked down at her hands for a moment before looking up at them all with a look they couldn't quite figure out. Hope felt her chest clench a little at the uncertainty in Georgie's eyes, the look behind them reminding her of a memory that she had long locked away in her mind.

"I met my family," Georgie said as she looked around at them all.

"You met Tyler again?" Alaric asked, rubbing his eyes to try and clear the sleep from them. This would make twice in the one year that Georgie had somehow met her dead father, and Alaric wasn't sure he liked coincidences like that.

She shook her head, her eyes meeting Hope's as a look of realisation flashed across the tribrid's face. Georgie looked around at them all, her eyes faintly landing on the M necklace that hung around Hope's neck before looking at them all.

"No, not my dad. My mom's side of the family - my biological uncle and his siblings," Georgie said, everyone's eyes widening as they realised who she meant by her biological uncle. Everyone's eyes flickered to Hope who was looking at her cousin in disbelief, a gasp dropping from her lips.

"You were there," Hope accused her, her eyes full with tears now as she tilted her head and looked at Georgie in confusion. "The black wolf, the day after my mom saved the rest of them - you were there."

Georgie nodded, noticing how Josie and the others continued to look at the bruises and cuts that littered the hybrid's body. She knew that they had a lot of questions but she could see how tired they all were and she wanted to just put it off for the rest of the evening.

Lizzie, however, wasn't willing to just drop this new found information. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she grabbed on to the staircase barrier, her mouth wide open as she looked around at everyone to gauge their reactions.

"I'm sorry, what Back to the Future bullshit is this?"

"LIZZIE!" Josie gasped, turning around and raising her eyebrows at her to subtly tell her to stop talking. She turned back around to look at Georgie, pushing down the sinking feeling in her chest that something was already beginning to change between them. "But also, time-travel? How did you get all these... cuts and bruises?"

Georgie smiled at her, ignoring everyone else in the room for just a moment as she looked into Josie's eyes and the pain of the past 24 hours almost seemed to leave her body. She smiled as she reached out and squeezed the siphoner's hand, lacing their fingers together for just a moment before letting out a small chuckle in disbelief.

"It's been a crazy day."

___

The first thing Georgie did the next day was sit down Hope and explain the three different past events that she had been taken to by the Time Keeper. She started off by explaining her encounter with the Originals and Marcel - although she skipped past the part where Klaus almost ripped her heart from her chest as she decided that Hope had already heard enough of the irrational decisions the man had made in the past.

Explaining to Hope that she had just missed Jackson's death was hard for them both - Georgie didn't know the man but she had felt Hayley's pain at the time and continuing her story seemed to bring up more pain for Hope who had barely known him too but had known the love that her family had for him. She tried to skim through the details of Tristan's torture but Hope had asked - repeatedly - for her to not leave a single detail out so she explained the wolfsbane and blood drinking that his lackeys had done to her.

Hope didn't need her to explain the third one as she had remembered it, although they both agreed it was a weird situation to know that the memory Hope had carried with her for years was literally created by Georgie the day prior. They had discussed how disappointed Georgie had been not to have met her mother but they could only assume that that would have altered history too much for the Time Keeper to have allowed.

"So, anything from the hobbit?"

Hope rolled her eyes at Georgie's nickname for Landon but her shoulders drooped a little at the mention of the boy regardless. Georgie instantly could sense that Hope didn't really want to talk about it.

"He says he needs time," Hope admitted before standing up and brushing the creases out of her plaid skirt. Georgie expected her to end the conversation quickly, and that was exactly what Hope was doing. "So he's getting time, even if it feels like it's ripping me apart."

Georgie stood up from her bed, reaching out and tugging her cousin into a tight hug. Hope took a moment before accepting it and wrapping her arms around Georgie, so used to not having anyone there for her that she was still learning to accept the love from the girl.

"The things we do for love," Georgie mused before pulling back and reaching out to grab her phone. "Speaking of love, I have an awkward phone call to have with our aunts and uncle Kol about them already being aware of my time travelling adventure."

_____

"Status update: Josie didn't come back last night," Lizzie told Hope later that afternoon as she tried to brief the tribrid on her plan to get Josie to forgive her after their fallout during the Miss Mystic Falls ball. "I think she slept in Penelope's old room, which is a really good way to get hepatitis B."

"Have you slept at all? You seem a little..." Hope trailed off as she stared at Lizzie in concern, knowing that the blonde was one bad conversation away from going completely off the rails again.

"Focused? Motivated? On point? Not sleeping in the same bedroom means that Twin Forgiveness Cuddle is off the table. But she's been holed up in the library, so a snack offering should do the trick."

"Hey!" Georgie interrupted Hope and Lizzie, her eyes narrowing a little as she looked at the mess that littered the room. "Have you seen Josie? She left without saying goodbye this morning and seemed in a rush."

"Josie was in OUR ROOM?" Hope asked, turning to look at Georgie with a scrunched eyebrow. She hadn't even heard the other Saltzman sneak in or out during the night and the thought of that was somewhat unnerving. Georgie blushed a little before turning back to look at Lizzie who looked almost disappointed in herself for thinking Josie would go to Penelope's room and not Georgie's.

Lizzie looked at Georgie for a second before a lightbulb almost seemed to go off in her head. A smirk fell on her lips as she turned to look at Georgie as if butter wouldn't melt before the hybrid instantly decided to back out of whatever plan Lizzie was creating involving her.

"Oh no, whatever happened between you and Josie needs to be resolved with yourselves - I'm not getting involved," Georgie said, wincing a little as she moved her head too quickly. Lizzie and Hope both turned to look at her in concern as she wheezed a little, the hybrid looking up at them and instantly trying to downplay the situation. "I'm fine, my neck is... just a little tender."

An awkward silence fell over the three, Lizzie having been filled in by Hope about what had happened when Georgie had came face to face with the leader of the Strix. They couldn't imagine what she had gone through, since they had lived a much more relaxed supernatural teenage life than their parents had. Sure, they had had it rough during their childhoods but the past year or so had been relatively normal.

"She's in the library," Lizzie huffed out, rolling her eyes as Georgie perked up and took off without even thanking the blonde. Lizzie turned to look at Hope, noticing the amused look on the tribrid's face. "God, she is so whipped."

_____

Having been unsuccessful at finding Josie, Georgie had found herself walking the corridors with Raf. The boy was going through something since their traumatic night in the woods and she was hoping that he would feel comfortable confiding in her - but the more time she spent with him the more she was realising that he himself didn't even realise anything was happening.

Just as Georgie went to say something to him, one of the Seniors - a vampire - bumped into her and caused her to stumble into Raf. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder to steady her while turning around to look at the vampire that had just shoved Georgie - accidentally or not, Raf didn't care.

"Watch it, half-breed," the vampire sneered at Georgie, his friends laughing cruelly at the girl. It was no secret that Georgie was a little insecure about being an unactivated hybrid, and one look at how her face fell was enough to make Rafael see red.

"What'd you say to her?" He snarled, his eyes flashing yellow as he squared up to the vampire. Georgie placed a gentle hand on his arm to try and calm him, but even she had issues controlling her inner wolf as more vampires appeared and flared their fangs and dark veins under their eyes. "Get your vampires - out of my face."

Just as Georgie felt her canines poke her bottom lip at the vampires refusing to back down, she was snapped out of her daze by Alaric rushing in between the two boys and trying to push them backwards and away from each other. Raf, however, didn't seem to register that it was their principal and instead sent Alaric flying through the air and crashing into the floor. The man smacked into some chairs as the vampires snarled at Raf, causing Georgie's protective instincts to kick in.

While the rest of the wolves were relatively non-lethal to the vampires since it wasn't a full moon, it was a different story for Georgie. She had been practicing her control for ages with the teachers and Hope, but something about having an entire group of vampires hissing at Raf was causing her to see red. She bared her teeth, her bones tingling as she felt a shift coming on. Jed was yelling at the pack to back down, and they all followed their alphas orders - minus Georgie who had never been a part of the pack due to her hybrid nature.

Even Raf backed off a little as Georgie and the senior vampire continued to snarl off, before a cold hand was pushing her by the shoulder back into Raf's chest. She snarled for a second before noticing that it was Roman, Hope's ex-boyfriend who had played a part in Hayley's death. She wasn't really sure if that was calming to her at all, but rather the hand that latched around her wrist brought her back to earth.

Georgie snapped out of her angry glare to look at Emma who was looking at her in shock. She instantly softened, noticing how Raf was now crouched down in front of Alaric who was flinching away from the werewolf that had just thrown him to the floor. Alaric looked up at where Emma was staring at Georgie in surprise and both of the adults shared a concerned look at what they had just witnessed.

They had already discussed that morning that they were concerned about Rafael but they hadn't even taken a moment to consider how Georgie's mental state was after not only almost dying and being suddenly healed (something that no-one had figured out exactly but they all knew it was something to do with Penelope) and then being whisked away to a future she had never been involved with only to be tortured by her long-lost family's nemesis. They'd been so caught up in Malivore that they hadn't realised she was also suffering silently.

"Georgie, Raf, calm down."

____

Georgie wasn't sure what this "merge" thing that Hope, Lizzie and Josie had been speaking about all day was. She had been blissfully ignoring the entire situation, assuming it was just some small witch thing that wouldn't effect her at all but it looked like life had significantly different plans than to just let her exist without the pain that came with that knowledge.

"Hey, have you seen Josie? I've been trying to catch her all day," Georgie stopped Hope as the girl passed her in the corridor, confused as to why everyone was so on edge. "If I didn't know better I'd think you were all hiding something from me."

Hope seemed a little flushed as she looked at Georgie, knowing that she couldn't lie to her after everything the girl had been through in the past week. Hope almost felt guilty after hearing about Georgie and Raf's freak out at the vampires earlier, since the thought of Georgie's mental state hadn't even crossed her mind the entire time since Georgie had watched MG rip Landon's throat out right in front of her. She had even so preoccupied with everything else that she had forgotten how new to the teenage supernatural world Georgie even was.

Her reaction instantly triggered something in Georgie. The girl tensed up a little, a frown falling on to her face as a look of betrayal crossed over her features. She searched Hope's face for a moment before taking a step away from her and letting her arms fall to her side.

"You ARE hiding something from me. You, Jose and Lizzie are keeping something from me," Georgie almost whispered, the pain in her voice almost cutting Hope in the heart. She sounded so young and defenceless that Hope just felt even guiltier for not involving her in helping the twins to discover what the merge actually was. 

Just before Georgie could say anything else, two sets of footsteps caused her to turn around and see the twins standing uncomfortably at the end of the corridor. It was obvious that the girl's weren't talking to each other but it was also clear that they had heard every part of the conversation. The look of betrayal on Georgie's face broke Josie's heart and she knew that they had to tell Georgie even if it was going to hurt them all.

"Please," Georgie said, interrupting Lizzie before she even could begin speaking. "Don't. Lie. To. Me."

Her eyes flashed yellow for a moment, causing the other three girls to share concerned looks before Josie held up her hands and nodded to try and soothe her. They knew that Georgie had a shocking temper - explained by the fact she not only had the same temperamental genes as Klaus Mikaelson but Tyler Lockwood too - but this was something unnerving.

"We'll tell you everything," Josie said, causing Hope and Lizzie to look at her in surprise as they didn't think Josie would want Georgie carrying the burden of knowledge about the merge. "But first we need your help."