Veins of Desire

13. Are You Going To Drop The Bomb Or Not? Part II

Abigail Danbury-Mikaelson isn't one to easily get overwhelmed with a task at hand, but now even she is at her wit's end as she stands in front of the barricaded door leading to her father's art studio. She grimaces, followed by an expression of concern flashing across her face.

Four days. That's how long he's locked himself into the room by now. Four days in which Abigail, her sister Binah and Binah's boyfriend, a siphoner called Dante her sister met during a research trip to Italy two months ago, have been sitting in the hallway right outside the art studio, staring holes into the wall while impatiently waiting for any sign of life from him. Abigail would take him yelling and threatening her over this radio silence any day, and from the look on her sister's face, Binah feels the same.

"Should we, I dunno, get in there and check up on him?" Dante offers, trying to be helpful.

He is a real sweetheart, Abigail thinks, a small smile tucking on her lips. Their mother would approve of him, of this she has no doubt.

"The door's bolted, darling," Binah reminds him, brushing a thick black curl out of her face. "Besides, it would be pointless. When he's in such a state, mama's the only person who can get him to calm down and listen."

Abigail nods. It might have been close to five hundred years since the last time they've all been together as a family, but she can still remember that one time he was ready to burn down and slaughter half of London because some jealous noble ladies tried to make a laughingstock out of their mother during Duke and Duchess So-And-So's Evening Soirée. Their mother, being the experienced and seasoned noble lady that she was at that time, brushed off their attempts as if they were nothing, but their fathers didn't want to let that insult to her name and reputation go as easily. In the end, their mother could convince them not to seek retribution on her part.

Lady Charlotte of House Danbury after all never once cared about social norms or what other people thought of her. She was the type of woman you'd find out in the fields, horseback riding dressed in breeches instead of sitting in the salon with all the other bored ladies, drinking tea and discussing the Queen's hair care routine. She was the type of woman who, in her younger years, scared away every potential suitor her father tried to throw at her because she didn't want to be tied to the shackles of marriage. She was the type of woman that, once she had closed someone into her heart, remained fiercely loyal to them, even when they were faced with treason, such as her best friend the Marchioness of Pembroke and second wife of King Henry VIII, also known as Anne Boleyn.

The very same Anne Boleyn that is now living in a little house at the French coast, eagerly awaiting the day she'll be reunited with her friend and the only person who dared to stand up for her and save her life when she was thrown into the Tower of London and charged with adultery and treason.

The Mikaelsons got her out of the Tower shortly before she was to be executed and compelled another very similar looking criminal to pose as her. Unfortunately due to the king's paranoid nature, Anne still died the very same day on the poison she was given at the Tower. Rebekah barely managed feed her her blood in time.

Abigail and Binah are still in contact with "Auntie Anne" up to this day and had to promise her to call when they found their mother's current incarnation. The last few times they were always too late. Not that finding her in time would have gotten them their family back. She'd still remember nothing of her life as Charlotte Danbury, or the two starving and orphaned girls she took from the streets and raised as her daughters. But now, with Dante being able to siphon the spell from her the Mikaelsons that made them forget each other, they finally have a chance.

They could finally be a family again.

"I say we give him a bit more time," she suggests. "He never had the chance to properly mourn mama, because the spell always made him forget her right after she died. Every time."