Try {One | Alaric Saltzman}

Do Not Go Gentle

When Alaric answered his phone, Abigail said, "Where have you been? I have been calling you all day."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I just needed to get my head together."

"Oh..." She walked the length of the Salvatore study. "Did Rebekah get the stake?"

"I don't know. I woke up alone. There's no sign of it." He barely gave her time to realize what he was saying. "I think I need to get out of town. Somewhere secluded. I keep blacking out which means I'm still a threat to everyone."

"Ric, no. You can't leave. Wh-" She shook her head. "What if-"

"It's just for a couple of days." He shook his keys, something he never really did. "I'm stocked up on Bonnie's herbs, so I should be fine. I gotta go."

Lowering her phone from her ear, she looked to Damon. "That was weird."

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Abigail turned the key in the apartment door, ignoring Damon's grim comments. She didn't want to listen to him, to his uncanny ability to see the worst in every situation. Her thoughts already did that for her.

"I mean, how do we know those herbs that Bonnie made for him were working in the first place?"

She dropped her keys on the counter, right next to three full jars. "I don't know, but they definitely don't work if he doesn't take them."

"Abigail..."

"Don't-" She sat down on a bar stool. "Don't say it."

"I have to say something!"

"Say anything other than Alaric is gone." Her eyes found a picture of them, one where she was kissing his cheek and he was smiling up at the camera. The angle was awkward and the top of their heads were cut off, but it was easy to see that they were happy. That they were in love. "Because if you say that, I-I will-"

He forced himself to a stop, cutting her off before she could say what he knew she would, "Elena kissed me. I kissed her back. And now she's at the dance with Stefan."

She took a breath, diverting her mind from herself to her sister. "She loves him, Damon, but she loves you too."

He scoffed. "I've heard that before. And you know how that turned out for me the last time."

"Give her time," she whispered. "Let her make her decision when she is ready, when she knows it's the right one."

For the first time Abigail had no idea what to expect when she walked into the decades dance at Mystic Falls High School. She had been curious about how it would all turn out in the days before, but now, now she didn't even care. There was no way for her to.

The switch. The flip of the switch and she wouldn't feel a thing. It was a tempting thought, one that lingered in her mind. One that was complex. So, she felt something. She was just in control of it.

Everything was blurry, the lights, the people they passed. Everything. Stefan and Elena came into focus dressed to the nines in 1920s attire, and it was only then that she realized how out of place she and Damon must have looked. But she still didn't know, not really, that everyone was looking at her in a way they had before.

"We need to talk."

They were in the same hallway Klaus led them to the night of the 60s dance, Abigail realized. The same hallway where losing Alaric to something that was more permanent than it seemed was a possibility for the first time. She wished she didn't know the feeling that settled within her, but she did.

"If Alaric is sick then we need to find a cure," Elena said. "Something."

"We tried medicine, we tried magic." Abigail blinked rapidly, forcing the tears out of her eyes. "So, I don't know what to do. But he's still in there, he has to be."