Mystic Falls, VA August 1, 1864

My dearest headstrong, annoyingly wrong, yet most missed best friend,

I know that you felt that joining this cursed cause would somehow gain you your father's approval. A cause you don't share, by the way, and yet it hasn't even helped your own cause.

It has, however, given me more darkness. Always lurking at the corners of my mind, since my parents' deaths, since your mother's passing. Now it's coming ever closer, Damon, and I fear so deeply for your safety. Not only because of where you are, in the midst of this infernal war, but something even more dangerous is coming. And I sit here, in your childhood home, impotent to keep you safe or from warning you of the danger.

I could also whine about the fact that the Founders' council is planning on celebrating the founding of our dear town, with frivolity and a party, of all things, while danger lurks all around. And while, if I'm being honest, I yearn to have you, my calming influence near me.

Come home, Damon. Be near, where I can be sure that you are safe, even if I cannot keep you that way.

Your best, if selfish, friend,

Abigail

Abigail looked around her room in the Salvatore mansion. Her room since she'd come to live with the family at the tender age of thirteen. She rarely thought back to the time before, it hurt too much. Moving forward, that was easier and something she'd promised herself after she'd come to live with the Salvatores.

For the first time in five years she allowed the memories to rush back. The night of the fire all consuming, taking everything from her. Her parents. She had tried so hard to not think of them.

Mama, so severe in how she'd trained Abigail to act and think. Teaching the young girl to speak only when spoken to and how to address each person in her world. How to run a household, even at such an early age, she'd known what a household of the size of the Salvatores would need to be run daily. How to keep servants or slaves in line, her family had servants, the Salvatores slaves. All of those teachings had stayed with Abigail, and she'd come to utilize them since that day, wondering how her mother had known that they would be needed so soon.

Papa, as sensitive and calming as her mother had been restrictive. He'd taken her education in a different direction. He taught her to read literature, and escapism through books. The library in their house became her favorite room. A room to escape into and hide from her Mama's lectures on place sittings and party planning. She didn't mind some of the things she was being taught, but the hammering on about her destiny as a rich man's wife was a bit exhausting. Papa was more agreeable.

Abigail remembered the first time she was introduced to Damon's family. She was five years old, and her Mama was fretting about whether it was still too soon for their little one to meet their closest friends. Even though she drilled the well bred basics into Abigail's tiny precious head, what if "little pitchers have big ears", she heard her mama whisper to her papa, not totally understanding, but later looking up the quote. She knew it meant that she could have overheard something untoward, but try as she might, she couldn't think of anything she would have shared with the Salvatores that might have embarrassed her parents.

Abigail recalled arriving at the Salvatore house, slightly larger than the home she shared with her parents, but as her mama reminded her, they were currently building a new larger home some distance away. Abigail was presented to Lily first, and remembered Damon's mother, so different from her own, smiling and happy to meet the smaller version of her best friend. She'd taken Abigail's childish hand in hers and pulled her gently from the shy shell she carried herself in. She then presented her to her sons, Damon the eldest at twelve stood tall with dark full-bodied hair and the bluest eyes that Abigail had ever seen. Then Stefan, five years old, with darker eyes and a swoosh of dark hair. Both boys took in the tiny girl that stood before them in the care of their mother, and before any of the adults could take stock, Damon spoke.

"You must be Abigail." He stooped down to her level. "I feel that we're going to be the best of friends, Princess Abi." Pulling her into his arms, he looked at the shocked face of his mother and the others, none more than his own father. "Shall I show Abi the grounds while the adults prepare for lunch? I promise I will make sure she is well taken care of."

Lily smiled at her eldest and nodding her assent. "Take Stefan with you, Damon." Damon shrugged his agreement and his brother jumped along after.

"That was unexpected." Madeline Morgan, Abigail's mother said, watching with shrewd eyes as the eldest Salvatore held her small daughter in his arms as he walked through the garden and showed her varying flowers and made her laugh.

Giuseppe Salvatore gave an undignified snort of agreement. Eric Morgan, Abigail's father looked on the two children approvingly. His light green eyes, so like his daughter's never left the two, taking note of each step that the older boy took with the precious bundle he held so carefully in his arms. "I think that Damon is the perfect companion for Abigail." The usually taciturn gentleman stated, startling the other three adults. "He seems to be quite taken with my angel, and so we can focus on our afternoon, shall we?"

That settled the matter, and the four adults moved inside to the solarium that had been set up for a late lunch. As they sat to discuss matters that the children would have found terribly boring, the three children were exploring the gardens of the Salvatore home. Damon handling Abi Morgan with incredible care, because while she was the same age as his brother, she was much more petite.

Abigail smiled at the memory, one that wasn't tainted with the terrible memory of loss that came later. She recalled the stories that Damon had made up about the flowers and the fairies that lived in each bush and posy. How he kept her occupied for an entire afternoon, while Stefan had listened carefully to the stories, asking questions of his own, and how surprised the little boy was that his older brother answered his questions with just as much patience as he was giving this new little girl. It had been the beginning of a friendship that had stood the tragic test of time.

For remembering that day forced to the surface a night five years later, a night that had risen like the smoke that had choked her awake. Sallie's scream, even in the echo of memory, could still pierce her heart. They were gone, everyone, except Sallie and herself. Her mama, her papa, and every single servant that she'd grown up to know. Dead, burned alive in the home that she knew as she knew her own body. No one could tell her how it had started, since it was summer when the fire happened. Even the summer kitchen fire was kept at a low burn during summer. And her papa was hesitant to even allow lamps burning after dark, during the winter months. So how was this fire even possible?

She struggled to recall the darkness that she'd felt hovering before that night. She'd known it was coming. She even remembered having the conversation with Papa the days leading up to it. Sitting in the library, having gone nights without sleep, seeing his worry and having to come clean about the fear. Watching him keep something from her, but not knowing what, all the while feeling like she couldn't stop the darkness from overtaking her.

She'd been thirteen years old when her world had changed irrevocably. She remembered waking, the house fully engulfed, and her lying on the wet grass in the front lawn. Sallie sat screaming beside her. How did they get there? Sallie couldn't give her an accurate accounting on their evacuation. Then, Lily and Giuseppe Salvatore were there, he lifted her as though she weighed nothing, and Sallie was told to follow them home. Home. A morbid joke, surely. Since her home was slowly, but surely becoming a smoldering ruin.

A day later, she'd been drawn back to where her home had once stood. Nothing was left. Truly nothing. The town's founders had decided that leaving any piece behind would make people attempt to seek souvenirs or something morbid or grotesque. They took a vote and hired workmen to erase the ruins to assure nothing was left. Abigail was torn. Was it better to leave behind no monument to her past, or was it worse that no one would remember her parents? That's when Lily reminded her of the new home her family had commissioned. Her heart clenched, that wasn't the same, not really. They'd planned it, yes, but it wasn't home.

The dreams started right after. Every single night she'd fall asleep, exhausted from grief, and the dream would start. She'd be walking straight toward home. Through the overgrowth of grass toward where her home should be standing. She was searching, forever searching, but for what? She couldn't tell. All she knew was that she needed to find it. If only she knew what it was. And she really wished she knew what she needed to find, mostly because the dream was boring. Over and over it ran. The only time the dream would stop, would be if the darkness took away her sleep. So she could be tortured with the same repetitive, obsessive dream, or insomnia.

Since she was torturing herself with memories, after losing her family, she did gain a new one. Damon's family. Although, if she were being honest with herself, she truly only gained two members. She gained Lily and Damon. Stefan and Giuseppe Salvatore kept to themselves. They were more or less a family unto themselves. Lily and Damon never seemed to meet Mr. Salvatore's full approval, at least in private. Abigail, as a ward, never felt the need to push herself forward.

After her parents' funeral, a formality, the fire burned so hot that no bodies were ever found. Abigail Morgan became Lily's daughter, perhaps in name only, but the Morgans had left a stipulation in their will that should anything occur to them before her majority, then the Salvatores being their closest confidants would be her guardians. Her financial security would be in their hands only until her fifteenth year, at which time, Abigail would be given full reign over her own lands and funds, which were more than substantial. There was much more to the will, she was informed by Giuseppe, but he allowed that at thirteen years old, she would be given more information as she grew more mature.

Abigail had two full years with the Salvatores before another wave of darkness started gathering. She saw this one coming sooner, however, even without the internal signs. Her adopted mother. Warmer, perhaps than her biological one, was dying. Tuberculosis. As she sat at her bedside, nursing her as best she could at fifteen years old, begging Lily's cold-hearted husband to allow her to die at home, she knew that once again she was going to have to bury a parent.

"Please, Mr. Salvatore, don't send her away?" Abigail begged, tears streaming down her face. "I'll stay with her, I'll take care of her." She promised, knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep for as long as the dark cloud hovered anyway. "She could stay and I could keep her comfortable while she's here." She knew that he understood she meant 'here' as 'alive'.

"Abigail," he was worn down, even though he wasn't visiting his wife, knowing she was dying under his roof was tiring him as well as the rest of them. He couldn't allow this young woman, the ward left in his care to undertake this, no matter how much she wanted to. "She has to go to the sanatorium. It's where she needs to be. Even Lily understands that. You have to let her go, you have to rest. When is the last time you've slept?"

She could hear the worry and fear in his voice, but she just couldn't allow it to matter. "I'll sleep when she's comfortable, Mr. Salvatore. Let me do this for her? Please?" She was pleading, she knew that it sounded weak, and she didn't care. Showing fear to bullies was always a terrible idea, but she would give this bully anything to make sure that her adopted mother wasn't alone when she died. "If she must go, let me go with her?"

She didn't hear Damon approach, which was strange because they were always so in tune with each other. It was a family joke that where there was one, there was the other. Mr. Salvatore nodded at his older son, the first time that they'd ever been on the same page. Abigail felt Damon's hand touch her shoulder. She turned and saw his blue eyes lock onto hers.

"You can't go with Mother, Abi." He answered her with a firmness she'd never heard him use before. "She wouldn't want you to and you know that."

Abigail felt the burning of fresh hot tears, she looked down at Lily's face. Her mother figure hadn't spoken for hours, the heat of fever had taken her voice and the coughing had taken the rest. She didn't want to lose her. Not another loss, not again. She knew it was selfish, but she wanted to keep her here, tethered to the earth and to her.

"She would want you to stay with us, with me." He whispered, pulling her into his embrace. His voice was a whisper in her hair that had come partially out of the clasp that kept it out of her face. "She wouldn't want you to keep losing sleep and she wouldn't want you fretting. You know all this, Abi."

As Damon stood whispering to Abigail, Giuseppe had the the orderlies from the sanatorium enter and remove his wife. His eyes were tight, for though he had many faults Lily was still the woman he'd married and who made him a father. He watched as his oldest son comforted the wealthy young woman who was in his care, and wondered just what he was going to have to do to keep everything in line with Abigail Morgan.

Lily's funeral was just one more dark cloud that had broken around Abigail Morgan's head. It was why she knew that something bad was coming. Why she wasn't sleeping and why she wasn't eating. She knew that Giuseppe Salvatore had taken notice. He wasn't as astute as her own papa had been, but he was slowly coming to take notice of what was common to her moods and odd shifts.

Now she had a choice. Did she attempt to get the letter to Damon? Would it help or hurt anything? She contemplated the options. Then contemplated again. No, it was selfish. Besides, it wasn't as though she could stop the darkness. Warning him against the fact that he was probably in danger during wartime wasn't really all that helpful. Abigail balled the letter up and tossed it in the unlit fireplace.

As she walked away, unnoticed by Abigail, the letter burst into green flames.