Try {One | Alaric Saltzman}

1912

Abigail's phone rang, waking her from a much-needed sleep. "Hello?"

"Bea..."

"Ric? What number is this?"

"The sheriff station's."

She sat up slowly. "What are you doing there?"

"Meredith took me to her apartment last night. She dosed me with something, knocked me out for hours. When I woke up, I found a box in the kitchen. One of the Gilbert blades was in it. Files. Everything on the murders. When she found me looking through it, she shot me." She could hear everything going on in the background now. The phones. The chatter. The radio. The footsteps from one end of the hall to the other. "I'm locked up. Get Damon and come down here. Now."

After knocking on the boarding house's front door three times, Abigail barged inside. She sped right up to Damon's room, unsurprised to find him pretending to be asleep.

"No, no, no." He pulled himself up. "We are not having this conversation right now."

She picked up the shirt hanging on the closet door, the jeans on the floor, and a pair of shoes. "You're mad at me? Fine. You'll get over it." She dropped everything at his feet. "And maybe then you'll see that I actually had a reason for doing what I did!"

"Klaus could be dead right now, Abigail! Finn is so full of self-loathing he practically handed himself over to their mother. It would have worked."

"I know that!" She pointed at the clothes. "Will you please get dressed!"

"What is going on?"

"Ric needs our help."

Alaric was in a holding cell when Abigail and Damon persuaded their way into the sheriff's station. He was gripping onto the bars of the cell, ignoring the hair that had fallen into his face. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced than ever, brought out by the color of his shirt. His shirt that was still stained with blood and permanently altered by a bullet hole.    

"Come on, Liz," Damon said as the heavy door closed behind them. "You can't arrest him for what this nut job Dr. Fell says."

"I'm not arresting him, I'm detaining him." She turned to Alaric. "The cell is for your own good. You were shot; Dr. Fell used vampire blood to heal you."

"Dr. Fell is the one who shot me," Alaric snapped.

"Because you came at her with a knife!"

"Yeah, with a knife I found hidden in her things!"

"Are you just going to overlook the fact that he is one of the killer's victims?" Abigail's eyes were trained on him as she spoke to the sheriff, saying all the things she couldn't. "He was practically stabbed to death."

"Well, Dr. Fell suggested his wounds could have been self-inflicted."

He shook the metal bars. "You think I stabbed myself?"

"Look, I think I don't know what to think." Liz hooked her thumbs on her belt loops. "I've got nothing, except murder weapons from your stash and a respected member of a founding family pointing a very long finger."

"She's setting me up!" His whole face twisted up. "I'm being framed here!"

"Well, that may be so, but I don't have any proof of that."

Abigail tore her eyes from Alaric, shaking her head. "This isn't fair."

Elena was waiting for her by the front desk. "How is he doing?"  

"As well as you would expect." She scratched the side of her head, unsure if she wanted to say what she was going to. "Okay, I can see you're holding something back because you think I can't handle anything else right now, but I can."