Lockwood Mansion
October 22, 2010

Damon was still fuming when he finally stepped inside the mayor's mansion. He'd been too pissed to even drive and Liz, sensing his mood, had promised to drop him off back at his place afterwards. Stefan was conveniently MIA, apparently in search of a witch to find another witch.

Then if that wasn't enough, Vampire Barbie, Little Gilbert, and Judgy apparently all decided to take an unplanned weekend road trip to somewhere. Even before he could think of asking them what the hell, according to Caroline, he could dot, dot, dot. If she wasn't Elena's friend, he might have staked her a long time ago. If Damon had to guess, Caroline must have picked up that annoying expression from the Evil Vampire Slut herself. Back when, as a newly turned vampire, she'd been spying for Katherine. But what was probably the most galling was that the one person he'd counted on the most to always have his back. Regardless of his frequent times, he'd actually killed the high school history teacher. Just out of the blue, his best friend turned around and literally stabbed him in the aforementioned back. Oh, he was in a really foul mood after being manhandled by the douche bag. Original Hybrid in his own home really pissed him off.

"What the hell, Ric?!" Damon hissed as soon as he could safely pull him away from the slowly gathering council members. Noticing Ric's Gilbert Ring, he briefly considered his available options: if it was as easy as snapping his friend's neck, he could end the meeting before it even started. But Elena would probably have another conniption fit if he did. And besides, it would only delay the inevitable. So for now verbal threats would have to suffice.

"Hey ease off, Damon, and for the record I was just about to ask the same thing about you. Like maybe you can tell me why do you look like you just woke up after sleeping on the floor?" Ric chided in a hushed tone.

Noticing Damon's gaze on his ring, he smirked. "Don't even think about trying it," he warned Damon.

"Well, maybe I should. Dick." Damon threatened. "I really didn't have time to clean up after the Hybrid Freak paid me a not so pleasant visit."

"Why did Klaus-" Ric started, but Damon cut him off.

"I don't know, he said to deliver to stupid message to my annoying little brother. But I think he was up to something else as well."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know, just a gut feeling is all." Damon answered.

Damon looked around them, making sure no one was nearby. From who he could see milling about, almost everyone was present for the hastily called meeting.

"So what's the big deal, Buddy? Why did you suddenly feel the need to convene these bunch of morons?"

"I had no other choice," Ric snapped, raising his voice. Damon made as if to respond when the one person he didn't want to talk to intruded into their conversation. His emotions were getting the better of him. He didn't notice that the newly instated mayor appeared as if out of nowhere.

"Gentlemen, are we going to have a problem?" Carol Lockwood asked. She eyed both men carefully. Damon hoped that she'd only just caught the tail end of their discussion.

"No Mrs Lockwood, Damon and I are just in disagreement with exactly how we should be looking for Miss Gilbert," Ric stated calmly whilst ignoring Damon's bristled attitude towards him.

"We can discuss this later in private if you two wish, but we need to start this meeting." Carol said, trying to be diplomatic about things.

She'd only just started to accept that her son was a werewolf and his girlfriend, also a child of one of the founding families, was a vampire. It had shocked her when she found out that the town sheriff already knew the truth about her daughter. Then seemingly out of the blue an ancient vampire, who is also a werewolf, turned Tyler into a hybrid. Aren't vampires supposed to be their town's enemy? These sorts of thoughts had been plaguing her consciousness for weeks now. Although Liz Forbes had not come out and confirmed it, Carol had started to suspect that both Salvatore brothers were vampires as well. She knew particular details would need to be addressed carefully. If handled poorly, it could spell disaster for both Liz and her own children.

Once satisfied that neither of them was about to start an argument, she moved off and slowly made her way to the front of the room to address them all.

Damon, still feeling blindsided by his friend, was considering ignoring him for the remainder of the meeting when he caught sight of a person he was least expecting to see.

"Fuck! Just what the hell is he of all people doing back here?" he grumbled to the only person he could talk to so openly. Well, so much for his plans of giving Ric a cold shoulder, he groused mentally.

"Who?" Ric asked, looking about, not finding who Damon was upset about seeing again.

"Him?" Ric continued when Damon, with an exasperated sigh, pointed out Bill Forbes to his friend.

"Why is he back in town? I thought you'd compelled him to leave?" Damon turned his gaze back on his friend and eyed him.

"What?"

"Are you okay, Ric? Did you forget the bastard has trained himself to be resistant compulsion?"

Damon noted a brief glimmer of something in his friend's eyes before they returned with renewed understanding.

"Sorry Damon. If you haven't noticed yet, you're not the only one dealing with issues. I have my real job to deal with. I've also been distracted lately with Elena missing and now I got Jeremy pressuring me to teach him how to hunt vampires. And part of the reason I needed to convene this meeting with these people is in part because the Gilbert Family is a founding family," Ric finally said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead in frustration.

"So cut me some slack if I don't recall everything that goes on in this town," Rick added, his hand partially muffling his voice, but at least for Damon he could understand him perfectly.

"Fine. Whatever. All I know is if he is in town it cannot be for anything good," Damon said, finally relenting. Something in the back of his mind lingered, but he couldn't coax it to the surface. Whatever it was obviously wasn't too important to be concerned about. Damon had always prided himself on his ability to recall details, so why should now be any different.

Carol called the room to order and after everyone had found a seat she nodded for Ric to stand and approach the front of the room. Damon split his time waiting by glaring at his drinking buddy and Caroline's vampire hating father. It never ceased to amaze him how stupid people could be sometimes. A supposedly intelligent man, Bill Forbes, who had somehow been able to train himself to be resistant to vampire compulsion also thought he could save his daughter from being a blood-sucking vampire by weaning her need for blood by torturing her.

Barbie Vampire was not one of his most favorite people the only reason he did care anything about her was because she was important to Elena. Damon found it both sad and cruelly ironic that of all the people present here this evening. Bill Forbes thought he could just fix his daughter by sheer willpower.

If that had been the case, either Stefan or he would have found a way to become human again. Damon's mind briefly wandered back through his first few days of being a vampire, shaking his head in bitter remembrance. He would never tell another soul, but he had actually tried to seek a religious solution to his plight and had subsequently drained the priest dry. Granted he was still dealing with his bloodlust, but he really wanted help. Until the holy man had foolishly tried to express his hateful beliefs on to Damon. He'd just lost it and has never looked back. His thoughts were broken when Ric started to speak.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, as many of you are quite aware, with the untimely passing of John Gilbert and my former girlfriend Jenna Sommers, I was surprised just as all of you to learn that I had been named the legal guardian to both Elena and Jeremy Gilbert. By a strange quirk of fate of my own, I have had my own encounters with vampires myself. So at the time it only seemed reasonable to act as the proxy for Elena until she turned eighteen. I've been more than happy to help fill that position within this esteemed council of like-minded individuals," Ric paused and looked about as if waiting for someone to add something. When no one spoke up he continued.

"However, I will say that more than a few individuals on this council, present here this night, have on more than one occasion voiced their concerns to me privately about Elena not officially taking up her role just as her parents would have wanted for her to do once she reached her majority."

A cacophony of 'who' and 'tell us their names' echoed from more than a few voices, and Damon's voice was one of the first to speak up. Ric waited in silence until everyone quieted down.

"I will not point fingers or say who did or didn't voice their concerns to me. The fact remains that as much as I dislike it I think we need to consider it."

"It's about time too. The Gilbert family has been an important member of this council since the very beginning," Pastor Young spoke aloud. Damon considered the possibility that if what Ric had just publicly stated were true, could the man still in his pastor clothing be one of the people that might've approached Ric in private. The question was why?

"Elena will need to be brought into the fold. I know for a fact that Miranda and Grayson only wanted to shield their children as long as they could," a voice said behind Damon.

"Elena could step in and take on the role her mother held as custodian of our confidential records," another person added.

"We also lost an invaluable connection to the Augustine Society as well," an annoyingly familiar voice started. Damon's body stiffened involuntarily. He couldn't help himself, but Damon had done his utmost best to put that unpleasant past as well as the friend he'd left there behind him. When Bill Forbes brought it up a vision of an indoctrinated Elena following in her father's footsteps, horrified. Damon doubted he could have remained sane if the face of the woman he once loved was performing horrific acts in the name of science would've destroyed him.

"When Doctor Gilbert died. Without him we have no way of contacting this secretive society. We lost our access to their research data. More than once Grayson hinted to me they had at least one of those blood suckers caged, to run a multitude of experiments on. Maybe if Elena is officially brought into this body she might find whatever contact information Grayson had at the time," Bill Forbes continued, unaware of the turmoil his addition to their little meeting inflicted on Damon's psyche.

"Uh… Thank you Mister Forbes. I wasn't aware of those types of connections Elena's family had to such organizations. But we have a much larger problem. Which is the real reason I wanted us to meet regarding Elena," Ric spoke up finally.

Damon's gaze refocused on his friend, and once again he caught another odd look in Ric's eyes. But when Damon tried looking again, he couldn't see anything amiss. Did Ric know something about the Augustine Society that he never shared with Damon? Not that Ric would suspect that Damon had any sort of connection with it. Damon was so lost in his own thoughts again that it took a collective gasp of several council members to bring him back to reality.

"Elena Gilbert has been missing for how long?"

"Who else knew about this?"

"Why were we not told about this?"

Rick held up both hands to silence the room. It took a moment before everyone compiled.

"Elena has been missing for almost exactly twenty-seven days. And at least four council members, including myself, were made aware of this," he paused to gauge if any further outbursts would erupt, then Ric continued.

"As to why we waited. I hate to say this but I believe we have exhausted all the possible means we have at our disposal to ascertain Elena's whereabouts. I wanted to bring this matter before the council," Ric stated solemnly, making no attempt to hide the concern and would-be parent would have in a similar situation. Damon opened his mouth to finally add to the discussion when someone he hardly knew uttered something that stopped him cold, and based on Ric's expression it had a similar result with him as well.

"Oh God! It has to be those accursed vampires again. They have always been interested in that poor girl! Only this time they, whoever they are, finally got their fangs into her this time," an unfamiliar woman cried out. Damon and Rick appeared surprised by the outburst and only after giving the Mayor a perplexed expression did she finally relent and motioned for Liz to take over the discussion.

Liz stood slowly and allowed her gaze to sweep the room, pausing momentarily on Damon before coming to rest on Ric, who had retaken his seat next to Damon. Liz cleared her throat and briefly locked eyes with Ric before starting.

"These are some rather painful memories to dredge up again. So please bear with me. This is not the first time the vampires have come looking for Elena Gilbert. The last time this occurred was a little over fifteen years ago when three of them showed up," Liz reflected.

"How are you so sure that they were vampires?" Damon asked carefully. He'd never heard about this before. It must have happened after both he and Stefan had moved on.

"Well, I remember two of the vampires were female, and now that I'm thinking about it, I do remember seeing one of them recently. It took me until now to reconnect the two faces in my head," a member of Liz's security team chimed in. Damon twisted in his seat and studied the man. But it was Ric who'd asked before he could.

"What do you mean?" Ric asked.

"Oh… She was one of those vampires affected by the Gilbert Device during the Founders Day Celebration. But we shouldn't need to worry about her now. I distinctly remember watching as another member of my team put her in with the other vampires we burned alive that night."

"So what about the third one. What makes you so sure he was a vampire?" Damon asked. Liz didn't say anything, instead she looked at her former husband and something unspoken was passed between them before Bill Forbes answered Damon's question and he almost wished he hadn't even asked.

"Because I was the one that stabbed him in the heart with a wood stake, but unlike the other vampires we've heard about, that normally die. This one stood up many hours afterwards and walked out of the building as if he just needed a nap or something akin to one. But not before he killed the guard I personally left there to watch over the body. However, before that, the vamp must have compelled the poor man to tell him the address of Greyson(?) and Miranda's daughter," Bill said, looking directly at Damon before looking around the room.

"Grayson was away from home at a medical conference in Denver. So when the three vampires arrived at the Gilbert residence only Miranda was there with a thirty three-month-old Elena and her five-month-old brother Jeremy. Oh Bonnie and her mother Abby were there too, but that was not unexpected. Abby and Miranda were close friends," Liz added, her voice cracking when mentioning Abby's name.

Damon leaned over to Ric and whispered under his breath. "How much do you want to bet on the one vampire that just so happened to get up after being staked was most likely an Original. The real question is who would that have been?"

"Let's find out," Ric whispered back shakily, before raising his voice. "Did he mention his name or do you recall what he looked like?"

"No, he never shared his name. But I can say that he was oddly polite for a vampire, and as for his appearance... He was rather distinguished looking. If I had to guess, he must have been turned in his forties," Bill Forbes answered.

Damon leaned over again and smirked. "Don't look now, but I think they might be talking about Papa Original himself. Could you imagine what might have happened if he had gotten to Elena before the wannabee hybrid freak did?" Ric didn't respond to Damon's quip and instead appeared to look rather ashen when Damon peered at him through the corner of his eye.

"Man, what has gotten into you, Ric!" Damon hissed, jabbing his friend in the ribs. "You look as if you've seen a ghost or something. Snap out of it. You're really starting to freak me out."

Thankfully, someone else continued the discussion when they asked what had happened afterwards.

This time Liz continued the intriguing tale.

"To be honest, none of us really know. Elena and the other children were all too young to remember, let alone tell anyone. Miranda was hiding in a Panic Room that Grayson had built for such emergencies. But the room wasn't big enough to fit very many people inside. So we later guessed that Abby had shut them all in and somehow confronted the three vampires herself."

"How?" someone Damon didn't know asked. If it didn't involve Elena, Damon would have found how everyone was listening to the story, as if it was a television drama to be rather amusing.

"Best we could figure, thankfully, none of the vampires had been invited inside, but apparently they had thought of that, and based on the evidence we found afterwards they had fashioned about a dozen or so Molotov cocktails. We also found broken glass from one of the bottles and a very charred body of one of the vampires. Identification was impossible, but it had to be one of the females." Liz stopped and her former husband finished up.

"I think based on what we saw they were threatening to burn the place down to force everyone out, but somehow the tide was turned on them. I don't see how, but when we arrived we found Miranda and the kids safe. One marshmallow toasted vampire outside, and the other two vampires were missing. Tragically we never did find Abby, and it broke poor her husband Rudy's heart," Bill Forbes choked out a sob and when Damon looked for answers from Liz, he found her eyes wet with tears too.

"You see, everyone, Abby Bennett Wilson was four months pregnant with what would have been their second child. A little boy," Liz said.

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Charlotte, North Carolina.
October 22, 2010

The three of them stood in the dark, and thankfully for Caroline's tenacity of over preparing for the slightest chance of unseen circumstances they each had a flashlight of their own. Whose light beams danced among the headstones as Jeremy tried to motivate them to move forward.

"Jer, I still think you're lost and while I can see just fine even without the flashlights none of you can see in the dark. Let's just find a nice motel, rest for the night and then come back first thing tomorrow… Well maybe after breakfast." Caroline suggested.

"I'm not lost… Care. Look alright maybe in the beginning but I got myself turned around. Cut me some slack. The last time I was dragged out here I was probably still suffering from a concussion or some shit like that," Jeremy grated as he swung his beam from the left to the right before turning left.

"A concussion? I never heard from Elena that you'd gotten one. It had to have been when you were with Katherine and Damon, right?" Caroline pressed. Jeremy sighed and stopped walking down the narrow path. This place was even more creepy than the last time, he noted.

"Well, let me think. Elena at the time did have some more pressing issues that she had to worry about," Jeremy rebutted, panning the light back towards his friends as he aimed the beam low so as not to inadvertently blind them both. Caroline appeared perplexed by his sarcastic response before realization slowly dawned on her face. He had always tried to warn people that although Elena's close friend was blond, she wasn't stupid either.

"Oh, that was when…" Caroline said as if to herself.

"Yeah. The same day Klaus breezed back into town. Killed two of Elena and your guys' classmates. Turned Tyler Lockwood into a blood sired, happy hybrid. Forced Stefan to turn off his humanity and, oh, I don't know, maybe turned my own sister into his personal blood bag!" Jeremy snarled. His nerves were on fire and he so wanted to kill the one vampire that had turned his family life upside down, but it was a cruel Irony that Klaus might have the most viable option for Elena and him to have a somewhat normal life. He was just playing a waiting game for now. He'd already made up his mind to seriously talk it over with his sister when she was finally returned home.

"So how did you get the concussion, then? Was it Katherine?" Caroline asked curiously. Jeremy rolled his eyes and continued to pick his way through the multitude of mausoleums. Looking for the specific one Anna had showed him what felt like ages ago. He still missed her and hoped she was alright in what she'd called the Other side.

"No, it was Damon." Jeremy sighed, already knowing how both of Elena's friends would act.

"Damon!" They both yelled.

"Yes Damon! Jeez guys who'd think it might've been, the Easter Bunny? Now how about we try to be quieter, you two. We're in a freaking cemetery, remember? Let's try to not draw too much unwanted attention and besides at least try to be respectful of the dead. For many of them, they should be at peace now," he hissed in annoyance. Leave it to a vampire and a former girlfriend who also happened to be a witch to make a scene in the middle of a dark cemetery. Caroline had the sense to appear somewhat abashed by his rebuke. Bonnie seemed only to be distracted by the cemetery itself.

"So how much further? I really need to feed Jer not traipse around in the dark." Caroline huffed in annoyance.

"We're almost there. I know we're getting closer," Jeremy's voice softly echoed from the surrounding Mausoleum's granite walls. His beam flicked from quickly above the endurances of several nearly identical, then froze on the carved name above one dark tomb.

"I found it!" He said keeping his voice low.

"Pickett? As in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg? That Pickett?" Caroline asked and at first Jeremy thought maybe she was teasing him, but her frown said otherwise.

"Um… Care, I really don't think this is the same guy. If I remember correctly from Ric's class, he died over a hundred and forty years ago?" he answered hesitantly. At one time he used to like civil history but that was till he found out about all the supernatural nonsense his own family was up to at the time. To say it put him off would've been an understatement of the century. Just as he was about to say something else, he saw Caroline go stiff before a familiar voice cut through the darkness.

"You were partially correct, Jeremy. George Pickett is indeed not entombed here but in Richmond and you're slightly off by five years. He died in eighteen seventy five." Stefan said before he stepped free of the shadow that cloaked his arrival.

"You!? Just what are you doing here?" Bonnie hissed.

"Probably the same thing all you are," Stefan smirked. He cautiously stepped closer to them, holding his hands up as that could placate them from doing anything too rash. Fat chance, Jeremy thought bitterly. This is the bastard that was gambling with his sister's life and most of Elena's loved ones, too. What happened next occurred so fast that if Jeremy hadn't gotten used to vampire speed, he'd be trying to figure out who struck first. Not that it mattered. They were all screwed, and had only three very dead hybrids for their troubles.

Bonnie had tried giving all six hybrids a brain aneurysm and only knocked out half of them. Caroline and Stefan, taking advantage, struck the ones that had collapsed, relieving them of their respective hearts. Jeremy had caught the other one and attacked with a wood stake to the heart he'd taken a particular liking to.

"I'm naming you Winona," he turned to explain why he was naming a wood stake of all things to his friends when his breath caught. Each of them were subdued by Caroline and Stefan with fanged hybrids pressed close enough to bite some portion of exposed flesh on their respective bodies. Stefan looked stoic, but Caroline looked absolutely terrified. While not being treated in a similar fashion by the female hybrid, Bonnie was in no shape to resist. Jeremy could tell by the wan expression on his former girlfriend's face. She had over exerted herself once again. Knowing that didn't lessen the guilt he felt. He was considering his options when a new voice joined the fray.

"Don't think because Klaus gave us orders not to kill you, doesn't mean we won't wipe the ground with your sorry ass. A little blood from any of us and no more evidence," a cocky, slightly older kid said, steeping their midst. He had several tattoos going up and down the sides of his bare arms. His shaved head only revealed more of the same ink pattern. Despite himself, Jeremy had to admire the workmanship.

"What do you want?" Jeremy demanded.

"Oh, we want lots of things. How about for starters, why don't you share with us why the sudden urge to take a three and half hour road trip only to end up in a Cemetery. Where you conveniently bump into the very vampire our boss is so keen on finding?" he stepped even closer, and Jeremy could see several long scars that marked up one side of his face.

"I asked them to come here," Stefan gasped, trying to keep his exposed flesh away from the barred fangs of the grinning hybrid holding him in a death grip.

"Is that so? Why don-" the hybrid, or better described as the former hybrid's, body crumpled to the ground, headless along with the other three. Stunned, he looked about and it took him a second to comprehend that the four of them hadn't simply been decapitated. Their heads, for lack of better description, just exploded.

Jeremy, as if on automatic, swiveled to face Bonnie, who still was having difficulty standing up. Not exactly sure how she had done it, and both relieved and upset that she'd once again pushed herself in regard to her magic. Whatever admonishing look he must have already been giving her, she shook her head in denial and pointed behind him.

"Jer, I swear it wasn't me. It… it was her," Bonnie coughed. Doing her best to stand for whomever had just saved their collective bacon. Jeremy turned as well to extend his own heartfelt thanks. But the unexpected exchange that followed totally threw a curve ball on him. He wasn't expecting this of all things on this weekend road trip.

"H… How can this be… I mean we always thought you'd died, but-" she continued. Only confusing their little group more than it already was.

'Hello Bonnie," a soft yet tinged with raw emotion spoke and although the woman was older, she was about the same age as his and Elena's parents would've been, and she looked strangely familiar.

"Mom?!"

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Charlotte, North Carolina.
October 22, 2010

After they disposed of the bodies. They were, after all, in a cemetery; it proved a relatively trivial task to find a few partially filled Mausoleums with enough space to hide them from prying eyes. Jeremy didn't miss Stefan checking their pockets for anything useful. The majority of them had nothing special, but it was the supposed leader who'd done all the talking for them. It was hard to miss the devil may care smile as Stefan revealed an iPhone still intact. His smile only grew wider when he swiped the screen and thumbed through the contact list.

"Find anything useful?" Jeremy couldn't help but ask. He still was mad at him, but he had also taken on the hybrids when he could've easily gotten away if he hadn't gotten involved. He was naturally conflicted on how to react around Elena's former boyfriend. Once they got his sister back from whatever hell hole he stuck her in, there was zero chance that Jeremy knew once he'd got his sister back she'd be with Stefan Salvatore. Klaus's offer was sounding more appealing every time he thought about it, too.

"It would seem that I have the contact list for all of Klaus's remaining hybrids. Along with a rather lengthy chat thread between the former owner and the big bad, evil hybrid himself," Stefan drawled ,silencing the phone then securing it in his jacket.

"Well, what are you going to do with it? You're not going to call him and brag that he's lost a number of his hybrids today." Jeremy pressed. Feeling a mild twinge of worry because that's what he was planning when he looted it from its dead owner.

"Well, for now send him misleading information about the three of you, for starters. Didn't occur to any of you that you would be followed if you so much as stepped outside Mystic Falls?" he asked, shaking his head in mild annoyance.

Caroline huffed and shifted her stance to glance over at Bonnie, who'd still seemed stunned to see her own mother after all these years.

"Well this has been really nice but I think I'm going to go be supportive of my friend," she exclaimed haughtily before joining Bonnie, who hadn't said another word since acknowledging her own mother's existence. Abby stood on the sidelines observing, but her primary focus was her shell shocked daughter.

For as long as he'd known Elena's closest friend Bonnie, Jeremy had always thought he knew that Abby had mysteriously disappeared when he was still an infant. He knew from formerly dating her that she had a very special bond between father and daughter since it had been just the two of them for the last fifteen years together. But he also witnessed the pang of loss she must have felt every time he caught her watching how Caroline and her mother interacted. In the beginning it was one of the shared experiences they had when they finally connected for a brief time.

Jeremy still felt regret at seeing Anna behind her back. He never expected to see her ever again, especially as a ghost. There had been so much left unsaid between them and he thought he wasn't really harming anyone, least of all Bonnie. He resisted the urge to look up and see the ghost of his first girlfriend. That was one of the side effects he'd been learning to deal with ever since Bonnie had used magic to bring him back. Anna had disappeared for a short time and he thought she'd moved on, but now he wasn't so sure. He could feel her there, but acknowledging her with others present would only hurt Bonnie more, especially now.

Instead he held his wood stake and was considering his options. Just what was the best way to get vampire blood off it? Winona was the first good stake that he'd crafted under Ric's tutelage. And now it was also the first one he used to slay a vampire with. So he naturally thought it was fitting to name it. It wasn't a pulse pistol, but it was good enough for him.

"Please excuse me, but my curiosity, it seems, has gotten the better of me. You sort of look familiar to me. D… do I know you or a relation of yours?" Abby asked, hesitation clear in the tone of her voice.

He hadn't really been paying too close attention to her and only now realized that she must have intentionally approached him. Confused by her avoidance of her own daughter, he responded.

"Yeah… I'd think you would. My mom used to talk about you to my sister and I." Jeremy said somberly. His mom had once said that Abby had come into her life at the right time, when she needed a real friend. She never had gone into particular details, but the fact remains that they had been close.

"Sister?" Abby's body tensed as she continued. "W… Who is your mother?"

"My mother was Miranda Gilbert, and my sister, as you might already suspect, would be Elena. We never were introduced officially well, that is, I was too young to understand. But I'm Jeremy," he said, smiling at her. Her horrified reaction made him feel uncomfortable about having mentioned his mom, and she had a falling out or something, Jeremy wasn't sure. If that was the case, either his mom had forgiven her at some point afterwards or there was something else he wasn't aware of. He made to ask the only question on his mind, when that one, someone she should have been speaking to, did.

"Where have you been? Unlike Caroline and Elena-" Bonnie paused, collecting herself. "Actually, Elena might understand now how I felt growing up without a mother. But in her case it's rather permanent!" Bonnie's voice seemingly rose with each passing second.

Abby appeared to be still trying to digest everything when another wrinkle in life decided to make an entrance.

"Mom?! Is everything okay? I just thought we were only here to- Oh hello! I'm Jamie Jackson."

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The silence in the RV's interior, with the exceptions to Bonni's near rhythmic drumming of her fingernails on the cheap wood table surface, prevailed through the now cramped RV interior was really starting to get on Caroline's nerves.

Everyone was doing their best to recover from what had probably been a near disastrous encounter with drones from Klaus's hybrid army. She couldn't imagine Klaus offering his curative blood to either her or Stefan without extracting a harsh price from either of them. So it seemed that for the time being she, Bonnie, Abby and her supposed son sat paired respectively on the somewhat cramped booth dinette. Although she couldn't see him, based on Jeremy's heartbeat, she knew he was sitting behind her on the slideout sofa while Stefan was sitting across from him in a barrel chair. It didn't take a genius to know that Abby was keeping a wary eye on the two vampires sitting inside her would-be home. Just for a terrible moment, Abby had flatly refused to invite either Stefan or her inside. If things weren't so tense, she couldn't be sure if Jeremy wouldn't be tempted to make a pointed comment about it. Aimed solidly at Stefan, thankfully. Stefan didn't seem to be listening; instead, he appeared focused on gleaning what information he could from the dead hybrid henchman. Caroline had rightly figured otherwise.

So they waited.

Being an obsessive control freak had been both a blessing and curse Caroline knew from her own personal experiences. It had helped her to become the head cheerleader of their school, and thanks to her nature, she was a very active participant on nearly half a dozen community support committees. Being a vampire had only enhanced that aspect of herself by several orders of magnitude so it wasn't really surprising when the question she wanted to ask.

"If you're Bonnie's mother. Then tell us, why did you leave her to grow up on her own?"

Try as she might, Caroline couldn't help looking for traces of her close friend in the woman who had supposedly identified herself as Bonnie's mother. Despite her own reservations, Bonnie had almost instantaneously seen their shared resemblance to each other from nearly the moment they could collectively breathe.

"Care!" Bonnie hissed, then poked her best friend in the ribs. It didn't hurt Caroline, and she just ignored it. She knew Bonnie well enough to know she was still reeling from encountering her mother for the first time. In the middle of a cemetery during the night. She'd make a quip about the whole ordeal being too cliche, but it was highly doubtful anyone would laugh.

Abby had suggested that they all meet up outside her used 2007 Four Winds RV. She and Caroline could only guess where her son lived for part of the year. While walking back, Caroline was fascinated because they had only gotten into Charlotte just a short while before they'd arrived.

"It's okay Bonnie, your vampire friend here is absolutely correct in her albeit heated question." Abby paused, getting a better look at Caroline. "I do owe you the reason I had to leave everything behind."

Bonnie didn't say anything. The only visible sign she was waiting for an explanation was the cadence of her drumming finger nails on the table's surface ceased.

"Her name is Caroline Forbes. Abby. I know after the fact that you were once a member of our town's founder's council, but vampires are not demons residing in the former shell of a man or woman," Bonnie said tersely, giving Caroline a reassuring look.

"I know Bonnie. I wasn't like the others on the council. Meredith Fell, for example, didn't agree with everything either. But from what I still remember she was more interested in going into medicine than being part of that bunch," Abby said before turning her attention to Caroline.

"I'm sorry, Caroline, for being rude to you. Still, I would never expect your parents to be alright with this," Abby made a sweeping motion from her head to Caroline's mid torso. Caroline winced inwardly and wanted to shout that she hadn't had a choice, and while now she loved being a vampire there were still times she missed being a human and everything that entailed. As little girls she, Bonnie, and Elena would spend countless hours discussing what their respective kids would be like. Now, of the three of them, only Bonnie seemed willing to have children of her own. Elena had told her in confidence that she didn't plan on continuing the Petrova bloodline for obvious reasons. At the time, she had wanted to argue with her. Because she just knew her best friend Elena would have made a great mother.

"When I was turned, I didn't even know vampires existed. I was critically injured and then someone killed me when I still had vampire blood in my system. It was rough at first but I've learned to accept who I am now," Caroline offered as explanation. There was still much she hid from her friends. Not even Elena knew what Damon had done to her.

"I see." Abby said finally after studying her daughter's friend

"It was hard for my mom at first, but we've actually grown closer since she found out. My dad…" Caroline sighed and took in a deep breath before continuing. "We're getting better. He is starting to accept that some vampires don't exactly fit in the 'kill on sight' category."

Abby took in everyone in her RV, pursed her lips in contemplation before asking them one question they were probably wanting to ask the same of her and Jamie.

"Now tell me, please. What are the four of you all doing in the middle of the night in a cemetery? It will be at least a three and half hour drive back to Mystic Falls. It would be very early Saturday morning by the time you all get back," Abby asked.

"We could ask the same of you, what are you doing here?" Bonnie retorted.

"I was checking on the Original Vampire that should still be entombed here." Abby responded crisply. Her answer only started an avalanche of more questions from all the teenagers.

"You know about Originals?"

"How did you know there was once an Original here?"

"Why are you here?" Bonnie's voice rose above all the others and they all promptly fell silent as if waiting for the answer. Abby sighed, looked at her son for support, but he seemed just as confused as everyone else.

"I didn't know they were called that until a few years after the fact. How did I know he was here? Simple, after I put him here fifteen years ago. As to why Jamie and I are here is a complicated question but part of it is because I felt my magic return suddenly and I just knew that it was connected to the reason I left Mystic Falls," Abby answered. Her voice caught when she looked her daughter directly in her green eyes she'd inherited from a forgotten ancestor.

"What happened?" Bonnie asked.