Whatever It Takes {Two | Alaric Saltzman}

I'm Thinking of You All the While

"You gonna answer that?"

"And hear Caroline not only apologize for everything she did and said while her humanity was off, but ask me if I'm sure I'm okay with all of them going to Alaric and Jo's wedding? Again? No thanks." Abigail sat down on the log next to Jeremy. "How is there even signal out here anyway? We're supposed to be camping."

Pulling his marshmallow from the campfire, he laughed. "The wonders of technology."

The full moon was reaching its peak above the trees of the Santa Fe National Forest, the slow rise one she watched with the tilt of her head throughout the night. "I can hear Mom and Dad confiscating our phones right now."

"Yeah, me too." The sounds of the other campers were faint, but they became obsolete as he voiced exactly what she was thinking, "But it would have been out of love."

She looked over at him. "Someone very recently told me that love is a vampire's greatest weakness."

He scoffed. "Who told you that?"

"Klaus."

The way he shook his head wasn't slow or fast, it wasn't angry or disappointed, it wasn't what she was expecting at all. "Are you really going to let something Klaus Mikaelson said get to you?"

"It's not that I'm letting it get to me, it's that he said it in the first place. He isn't the same. He's not all that different, but he isn't the same. And it's because of the very thing that he thinks makes him weak." Just as she looked from the moon to him, she looked from him to the campfire. "Because love is not a weakness."

She went to bed early, zipped up her tent and turned off the small lantern before she'd even made a s'more. Any other night she and Jeremy would have told stories and played games, they would have eaten and drank more than their fair share, they may have even ventured to the next campsite to invite their neighbors to join in on the fun. But that night, the night she knew Alaric was marrying someone else, none of that seemed possible.

For the first time, she reached for her phone as it rang. She knew her call log was red, the names of everyone she knew listed one after the other, some more than others and one only once. But, still, she did not answer.

As soon as Damon's name disappeared, it was flashing across the screen. "I'm pretty sure best man duties don't involve calling the ex during the wedding reception."

"Well, we didn't even make it to the vows before Kai showed up." She froze at his words, but that did not stop his next ones from coming out, "Jo's dead, he killed her."

"Oh, my God." She was outside faster than she decided that was where she was going. "Alaric... Is Alaric-"

"He's alive. I don't know where he is, but he's alive."

"And Bonnie?"

"I don't know how or why, but she's alive." He paused, and if she had any hope that he was going to tell her something that wasn't worse than what he already had, it was ripped away with the breath he took. "Abigail, Elena got knocked out, and she's not waking up. I brought her to the hospital, but the doctors keep telling me that there's nothing physically wrong with her. Bon's on her way. I don't know what to do."

"I'll get to the airport as fast as I can." She pulled at her hair. "Jeremy and I, we're on the way."

US Interstate 25 stretched across New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming; they didn't need it to get from state to state, only from city to city, but the cars that they blurred past had no way of knowing why.

Jeremy reached for the grab handle as Abigail changed lanes. "And you were worried about me crashing the car."

She stepped on the gas, pushing their speed into triple digits. "Well..."