Damon was silent as Stefan went with him to see Bonnie. He hated to admit it, but having his baby brother along might actually be helpful since the Bennet witch didn't exactly like him. He couldn't actually blame her for not trusting him, her grandmother died because of him, tangentially. Not that she liked Stefan much more. Maybe they should have brought Elena along to smooth the way, but since she was in bed with the devil, so to speak, he doubted that pathway forward would help either.

How would he explain it to Bonnie, and then how the hell could she even begin to fix it? He had no clue how the overwhelming urge to keep her safe even happened. And why the hell wasn't he hit the hardest by it?

When they finally pulled up outside the Bennet house, Stefan turned to him and waited for an explanation. Sighing, he gave him the upshot of what he felt certain of, but unsure of how to fix. "Do you remember how focused on Abigail you were when you transitioned?" Stefan's eyes slitted at the memory and a tilt of his head told Damon to go on. "How about the way you could break Katherine's compulsion when it came to Abigail? Do you remember finding her after Katherine's first attempt, even after she told you to stay with her?" It had hurt him at the time, Katherine's insistence that Stefan stay with her, but he'd blinked past it and left her, alone with him and for that he'd pushed away his annoyance and congratulated his good luck. A small nod meant that Stefan recalled what Damon mentioned, if vaguely. "Ric is having the same urge to protect Abi, Stefan, the same urge to risk my ire that you had even if I can't compel his ass. That tells me there's something more going on than just Abi's sparkling personality and beauty. Something magical, maybe?" He gestured at the Bennet house, where he hoped the witch was in residence. "Hopefully Bonnie will be willing to listen, and help."

While Damon and Stefan worked up the courage and a way to explain why they were coming to Bonnie for help, Abigail was still napping in her hotel room. What overtook her as she rested wasn't a normal dream, because of course it wouldn't be.

She was back in the room that she'd woken up in, the curtains swaying gently in a breeze that came from nowhere, since she knew the windows were closed. Sitting on the bed, waiting, for what she wasn't sure.

"You look much better," a deep voice offered from the doorway. Turning she was met with a face that was only slightly familiar. "You don't remember me? It was a long time ago that we first met, in the garden-" And the memory of this strange man came back to her in sharp relief.

She'd been in the garden after her parents had died. Only a week or so after her terrible loss, she'd sought peace away from Lily's concern and Damon's need to make sure she was alright. Abigail had been seated on the same bench that one day in the near future Katherine would kill her when a stranger approached. Dressed as well as anyone of her status, he was tall, dark and unbearably handsome. He asked to sit, and she assumed he was one of Mr. Salvatore's associates so she agreed, moving slightly to give him room past her dress skirt. He'd sat with her and spoke about loss, family, and grief. As though he knew her, and it brought her such peace. Before he'd left, he kissed her knuckles and told her he hoped they'd meet again.

"You never told me your name," she realized, smiling up at him, seeing that he was garbed as she was, in the current style of the time she woke up in.

"That I didn't." He gestured to the space on the bed beside her and she nodded her assent. Once seated, he studied her face. "You've grown up," his hand rose as though of its own accord, but he stopped himself before he could touch her face. "I apologize."

Abigail reached out and touched the still hovering hand, and closed the gap between the fingertips and her skin, letting him know that he was free to touch her face. "I don't mind." She closed her eyes as he traced the subtle changes, the sharpness that replaced the softness of youth, the way her lips had become more plush with age. Her eyes opened when his hand left her skin.

"Soon." The man, dark hair and eyes promised, and then he was gone like a whisper.

Bonnie was looking at Damon like he'd lost his mind, which he was starting to feel like he had. She wouldn't invite them inside, which made sense, but agreed to speak to them on the porch. As Damon told her about Abigail Morgan, and his suspicions, he watched a flicker cross her face before her expression returned to irritated indifference.

"And what precisely do you want from me?" Her question was sharp and probing. A witch still coming into her power.

Stefan answered for him. "We don't know, Bonnie, but I can tell you this. What I felt when I transitioned about Abi was stronger than any type of obsession I have ever felt. The urge to be with her, near her, was almost as strong as the call of human blood. And that's incredibly disturbing considering-"

"Your past?" She offered. Sighing she leaned against the doorframe. "And you say that Ric is showing the same protectiveness?" Damon nodded. "I think you're fine as long as no one turns Ric into a vampire." She started to go back inside, but Damon's voice stopped her.

"You flinched." Bonnie swallowed and waited. "When I told you about Abigail, you flinched, why?"

"I remembered that story about the real life sleeping beauty," she was trying to be flippant, but Damon and from the way Stefan stiffened so did his brother, knew it was forced. "Not everyday that a local legend is confirmed, right?"

"Bullshit," Damon replied. "Don't forget that I can HEAR your pulse quickening, Bonnie Bennet. What made you flinch, honestly?"

Bonnie's back went ramrod straight and she looked Damon dead in the eye from the safety of her house. "And don't you forget, Damon Salvatore, that I'm Emily's descendent and I can and will make you hurt."

"Bonnie," Stefan's voice came out pleading, and Damon was thankful for his brother's ability to whine. "Please."

Bonnie's eyes never left Damon's as she answered. "After Caroline brought up the legend of Morgan House, I talked to Grams, she told me to stay away from the house, that whatever or WHOMEVER was inside was meant to stay in safety until the time was right. When she died," her eyes pinched at the memory, but she went on. "I started looking through the family histories that she kept. Emily was burned, but her book was kept safe. She mentioned Abigail, and how she wasn't sure WHAT she was, only that her power was great and that the protection of her was paramount." She sighed. "I don't know what that means, or how to figure it out, and that's the truth. Honestly." And with that, she closed the door and left the brothers standing in stunned silence.

"What the literal-" Damon shook his head and looked at Stefan. "What are we supposed to do with that?"

Stefan's head shake mirrored his older brother. "No clue, but let's talk about it at the house." More questions than answers, the Salvatore brothers returned to their home, wondering how the hell they would figure out the mystery that was Abigail Morgan.

Abigail's dreams didn't stop with the return of her mysterious visitor, instead they morphed to her childhood home, before her parents died. She was in her room, touching the things she'd long forgot about. Her bedspread, had it really been pale blue? The line of dolls on her windowsill looked forlorn, but that wasn't a surprise, books had always been her preference. The shelves of books, not as high or as filled as their library, but holding her favorites. Her fingertips traced their spins, wishing that she could tote them all back to the reality she left behind.

"There you are," she swallowed as the voice she hadn't heard, not even in the shadow people garden that she fought through to come back, pierced her heart. "I was wondering when you'd find me."

Abi turned and drunk in the vision her mother presented. A taller, but not by much, version of herself. Posture perfect, hair arranged carefully, and her dress immaculate. "Mother," her voice was so quiet she wondered if this mirage could hear her.

"Abigail," her mother walked forward and took her hand. "You look just like me," she sounded satisfied by that knowledge. "Tinier, perhaps, but your face-" unlike the gentleman who came before, her mother showed no hesitance at touching her face. Like him, she traced the changes that came after she'd died. "You're beautiful."

Abigail's smile was small, since the compliment seemed more for her mother than herself. "I never got to say goodbye." Seemed more appropriate an answer.

A rueful smile graced her mother's face, far from ruining the beauty it simply gave her a new angle of attractiveness. "Yes, about that. Your father, his family were a dangerous lot." Family? "A knife hung over us our entire life, Abigail, threatening to slice us apart. It was simply a matter of when." She sighed, her hand squeezing Abi's. "I wish we'd had more time to prepare you."

"For your deaths?" Abi sounded incredulous. As though warning would have helped. "Is there such a thing?"

Her mother's smile tightened, still not comfortable with being questioned about her actions. "Perhaps, perhaps not." She took a more disconcerting look at Abi's attire. "What is this that you're wearing? I can see your knees."

"Yes, well, this is what's deemed appropriate in 2010, Mother." Abigail refused to bend to a dead woman's ire. "I was scandalized myself when Damon brought me the first dress." Her mother's eyes lit up at the mention of Damon's name. "Not that he matters much, since-"

"Of course he matters," her mother's interruption startled her. "Damon Salvatore was the entire point of naming Lily and Giuseppe your guardians, Abigail." She pulled her hand from Abi's and started pacing. "Haven't you read the book? Did you read the letter?" Abigail started to speak, but once again her mother kept speaking. "It's all there, everything, who you are, what you are, and most importantly why he's important." When her mother's eyes met hers again they were blazing and Abigail felt shocked by the seriousness she saw. "You must learn, and then you must study, and you have to know him. Fully, Abigail." And then she was gone, like the man before, but this time the abruptness woke Abigail.

Gasping awake, she looked around at a rapidly darkening hotel room. What the hell? She felt like she'd run miles without water, so once she had a drink, she sat down and tried to focus on what her mother had said. The book and letter were more important than she'd taken stock of, clearly, but Damon? Why the hell was he so important?