Mystic Falls, VA September 28, 1864

"She's been unconscious for too long, Stefan." Damon said, glaring at his brother over the corpses that he'd lined the dining room with. "And you eat like a pig."

Stefan looked up from another drained body, and gave a self satisfied smile. "And you're far too judgmental." He dropped the body with a loud thud. "I'll clean the mess in a moment." He rolled his eyes and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin that Damon had dropped in front of him. "As for Abigail, I agree, she has been out for far too long. I think I should run up and check on her." He stood, but before he could flash away with his knew speed, Damon stopped him.

"Let's both go," he offered, still not trusting his gluttonous brother. Well fed or not, Stefan was dangerous. He was on a rampage against the Founding Families, having already begun to scratch names off his list. Together they ascended the stairs to Abigail's bedroom.

Inside her room, they found her the same as when Damon had put her there. She was lying in the center of her bed, pillow carefully under her head, hair fanned out, with her blankets pulled up under her arms. She looked peaceful. Her eyes were closed and she seemed for all the world to be resting peacefully. She was clearly breathing, and she didn't seem to be in distress. So why was he so worried?

They stepped further into the room and looked around for a place to sit. There was a chair by the bed, which Stefan readily took. Damon, daring his brother's wrath, sat on the bed.

He smiled when he remembered coming into this room when she'd first come to live with them.

It had been a stormy night and she'd been having bad dreams. Not the dark ones that came with her premonitions, just the usual bad dreams that children have. Especially children who just had a tragic event, such as a horrific house fire which killed and destroyed her entire world.

Damon had been walking past her room after having another altercation with his father when he heard her cry out. Her door was ajar, so he'd walked closer. Through the slit, he'd seen her sitting up and crying. Knocking quietly, she had just as quietly granted him entry.

He'd held her and told her fairy tales and silly stories until the fear ran away with the storm. They laid in this bed, cuddled together among pillows and blankets, and held each other until both of them felt better. He from his father's violent displeasure, and she from unnamed night terror.

"You're smiling," Stefan observed.

Damon nodded, and looked to where his brother sat on the other side of Abigail's bed. "Yes, I am. I was remembering another time in this room." He gave a sniff. "I held her in this bed once." He saw Stefan give an angry twitch. "We were children, Stefan, and it was only for comfort."

"Ah," his brother said, calming. "I didn't know."

What you don't know about her could fill an ocean, Damon thought, but he said nothing.

Abigail could hear nothing of the men at her bedside. She was still fighting for control of her own body, and her own consciousness. Coming back was imperative, she felt, yet she couldn't seem to rise to the surface of the pain and terror she'd experienced from seeing the brothers die, and then Stefan's horrific stage show.

Some piece of her knew that the pain and terror, and her inability to fully process how she felt about all of it was keeping her trapped inside herself. She couldn't really work through how to make peace with any of it. Try as she might, no lesson from her papa came to her that would deal with how to make sense of seeing two people die at the hands of someone close to them, nor what to do when one of them then rips that person and an entire houseful of staff apart just to create some ambiance.

She felt a sharp stab as pure grief and pain pierced her heart. Abigail wondered when God or whomever was in charge of the balance of nature would decide that she'd paid her dues. Was the cost so high because she couldn't die, she wondered. Or was it because she refused to give in to the path that her parents, and her guardian had chosen?

As a woman, she'd been told her entire life to follow the rules. And the rules were that she had to give herself over to whatever the adults in her life dictated. The male adults especially. Yet, when given the plans for her marriage, instead of meekly following the path, she'd negotiated. She attempted to act against the laws of nature, as she'd been taught. Was this her punishment?

Damon was looking at Abi's face when a tear escaped the corner of her eye. He allowed himself a glance out of the corner of his eye at his brother to see if he'd noticed, but luckily Stefan was reading a book he'd found on her bedside table. Hazarding more wrath from the unhinged, he allowed his hand to find Abigail's on the bed where he'd rested it when he'd laid her down.

As his fingertips barely touched her skin, he felt the darkness pull him. It was crushing and suffocating. All of his power was used to not make a sound, as he felt her pain and suffering flow around him. Her anguish at seeing his father shoot each of them in the heart, he could hear the echo of the heart rendering scream she'd released when she'd seen the vision. He felt his own tear fall. And then, before he could pull away, away from the crushing anguish, he saw her slowing move toward his father's office as his brother baited her with whispered words. He urged her silently to stay in her room, knowing it was futile. He felt her utter helpless terror as she saw the monster waiting surrounded by all the gore he'd helped clean up, somehow made more terrible through her eyes.

Damon moved his fingers from hers and willed his secondhand grief and pain away. She was trapped for now, trying to make sense of so much pain and suffering. He needed to think of how to make it better. And soon, because he couldn't leave her to the whims of Stefan. She was in this state due to a great part because of him.

As his mind tried to think of a way to fix Abigail's predicament, he didn't notice that his brother had been paying attention. He'd seen his brother's fingertips brush Abigail's, and the tears that played on his face. What was this, the Ripper felt curious. Simple sentimentality, or had Damon learned why Abigail was locked away from her destiny as Stefan's bride?