Enzo and I were still in bed after a night like last night.

"Do you smell something?" Enzo asked.

I sniffed. "Hmm. Mom's cooking. Is that bacon?"

"Yeah, or some baby she abducted from a nearby village," Enzo told me.

I chuckled. "If her Ripper reputation precedes her, that might actually be possible." I sat up in boredom, giving Enzo a look. "What aren't you telling me?"

"What do you mean?" Enzo asked.

"The way you looked at her when you saw her yesterday, and the way you're talking about her now," I told him. "You think I'm an idiot? That was a lot more familiar than strangers should be."

Enzo sighed, sitting up to face me, looking at me for a moment, looking as if he was going to tell me, but decided to change his mind. "We should go see what's for breakfast." I gave him a seriously? look. "Have you seen my T-shirt?"

"Okay, for one, you suck at avoiding, and for two..." I trailed off, pulling him closer, inches from his face. "I prefer you without one."

Enzo smirked. "Hmm. Likewise."

Enzo kissed me for a long moment.

******

Enzo and I sat at the kitchen table.

Mom was on the other side of the table, looking at Enzo's awkward expression. "I'm sorry. Have we met before?"

"No, I'm pretty sure we haven't, darling," Enzo told her. "You've been in a prison world for over a century." He looked at the food, changing the subject. "This is really good. You're a wonderful cook."

Mom smiled. "This was always Kaylin's favorite. 'Eggie in baskie'."

I gave her a look. "Mom." Enzo smiled, chuckling. "Not even a day goes by that you're free, and you're already trying to embarrass me?"

Mom smiled. "I guess it's something I just... missed."

I noticed her hesitation and how she had to force herself to say it, ignoring it, taking a bite. "Doesn't taste like I remember."

"Well, you were human the last time you tasted it," Mom told me. "Our tastes change over time. You're both over a century, is that right? But not as old as me."

"Seems about right," Enzo answered as if he knew something we didn't.

"You ever miss it?" Mom asked. "Being human?"

I shrugged. "Not really. I'm better as a vampire. No offense to any of your little-human-Kaylin memories."

Mom smiled. "No, Kaylin, it's okay. I'm glad that you've grown into yourself and that you like who you've become. So, if I understood correctly from your brother Damon, um, in order to free my companions from that place where I was trapped, we'll need the magical device."

"The Ascendant," I told her.

"The Ascendant," Mom repeated. "Has he shared his plan with you to help me get my people back?"

"Your people?" Enzo repeated.

"The others that were over there in the prison world with me," Mom explained. "They helped me understand who I was and get a control over my blood lust. I want to free them like I've been freed. But we'll also need a celestial event to do so."

"We'll have to do some digging," I told her. "Yeah, be patient. They take time. They're very rare."

"There's a full moon coming up," Mom told us. "Will that work? If not, the Lyrids meteor shower is in two weeks."

"Well, look at you," Enzo told her sarcastically. "If you're not a one-woman Farmer's Almanac."

"Actually, I took Damon's advice, and I've been dabbling on Stefan's computer," Mom told us. "What a wondrous invention. All that knowledge."

"And videos of cats riding robot vacuum cleaners," Enzo told her.

I looked at Enzo in confusion.

Enzo took a drink to avoid talking.

I looked at Mom, looking over her outfit. "And I see that you have no problem going through my clothes."

Enzo chuckled, nearly choking on his drink.

Mom looked at Enzo as if she was trying to remember where she had seen someone like him or that someone was him, looking at me. "Yes, I have, actually. And though the clothing of this era is really strange, compared to Elena's, yours are..."

"Less boring?" I finished. "More daring? Actually fun? Believe me when I say that are clothing matches our personality." Mom smiled. "Although, my clothing doesn't match yours. We should really get your own."

Mom nodded. "I'd like that very much."

"Okay," I told her. "Well, Damon and Elena are looking for Stefan and Caroline, and you should probably go wait on them." Mom nodded, standing, walking out of the room. I waited until I saw her walk outside, turning to Enzo. Enzo tried to take a drink to avoid talking. I took the glass from him, setting it down. "That was probably the most awkward breakfast of my life. What the hell is going on?" Enzo didn't answer. I grabbed his arm, twisting it back, making him groan in pain. "I'm sure you remember Augustine. Believe me, they don't have half the imagination that I do."

Enzo chuckled. "I forgot who I was talking to."

"Mm," I hummed sarcastically, letting go of his hand. "Talk."

Enzo sighed. "Fine. I know that woman."

"Yeah, so I gathered," I told her. "From when and where?"

"England, 1903," Enzo answered.

"The year she was locked away," I told him.

Enzo nodded. "The year she turned me into a vampire."

I hesitated, processing. "What?"

"I said, the—" Enzo started.

"No, I heard you," I told him. "What..." I exhaled deeply. "My mother turned my boyfriend into a vampire?"

Enzo looked at me curiously. "That's the first time you've actually admitted it."

"Shut up," I told him. "Don't try to change the subject." Enzo smirked. "Spill."

"How much do you want to know?" Enzo asked.

I looked at Enzo seriously. "Everything."

******

Flashback - South Hampton, England - 1903

A sick, human Enzo, dressed in a newsboy cap and a brown jacket with a tan vest and slacks, was standing outside of the South Hampton Trading Line, trying to get onto the ship at the port.

A dockworker pushed Enzo back. "No sick passengers!"

Enzo breathed heavily, desperately, pulling his ticket out of his wallet. "I have a ticket. I've paid!"

The dockworker took the ticket, ripping it up. "Oh, yeah? Well, we're not running a sick ward."

Enzo was overcome by a coughing fit, falling to his knees, coughing and gasping for breath. "There's a doctor on that ship. He can help me."

"Get lost, mate," the dockworker told him. "Before you infect us all with your consumption."

Enzo continued to cough.

The dockworker kicked Enzo in the face.

Enzo started coughing up blood onto the ground, hearing the sound of breaking bones.

The dockworker's body fell limply to the ground with a snapped neck.

Enzo was horrified, scrambling to his hands and knees, looking up.

Lily was standing over him, wearing the same white dress and burgundy jacket she was wearing when she had been imprisoned. She held her white-gloved hand out for Enzo to take, helping him stand.

"Who are you?" Enzo asked in fear.

"Someone who sees you need a doctor," Lily told him.

Enzo laughed defeatedly. "Well, I... I appreciate that, but even if I could get past quarantine, I seem to have lost my ticket."

"I can be of some help with that," Lily told him. "Come. We don't have much time."

Enzo: (voice over) "I thought I was on my way to a new life, aided by the classiest woman I'd ever met. But, by the time the ship docked in New York Harbor, every soul on board was dead, including me."

******

Now

Enzo looked at me. "The first moment I saw you, I knew that there was something that reminded me of her. But, believe me when I tell you this, Kaylin Salvatore. You're better than your mother has ever been." I didn't answer, looking down. "You should really go with them to get Stefan to turn his humanity back on."

"I have gotten Stefan to turn it back on more times than I can count," I told him. "I'll get in on the fun the next time he turns it off. But, it's not everyday that you find out that your mother was the one that turned your boyfriend into a vampire when you just found out recently that your mother faked her own death all those years ago and has been locked away in a prison world. So, no, I'm not going anywhere. You're gonna tell me the whole story."

Enzo sighed, looking away.

******

Enzo and I were in the living room.

I poured us a few drinks. "So..."

"So..." Enzo trailed off.

I walked toward Enzo, sitting down next to him, handing him a glass. "Still waiting."

Enzo smirked. "You sure you want to know? You do realize that this will change everything?"

"I realize that it will change the way that I think about my mother," I told him. "I also realize that it won't change the way that I think about you, because you're not the one that did it. It was done to you. And it's also not gonna change the way I feel about you."

Enzo looked at me in slight surprise.

I smirked, looking away, taking a drink.

******

Flashback - Atlantic Ocean - 1903

Enzo and Lily had made it on board the ship, where they had finally been able to meet with the doctor Enzo was hoping could help him.

Enzo was reclined in a patient exam chair.

The doctor listened to his lung sounds with a stethoscope, discussing his condition. "The bacilli have spread to most of your lungs, carving out cavities in the tissue. The bleeding will continue."

"But you can stop it?" Enzo asked weakly.

"I believe so, but the dosage required at this late stage is expensive," the doctor told them.

"Payment isn't an issue, provided your curative is effective," Lily told him.

"I can assure you it is," the doctor told them.

Lily compelled the doctor. "How many people have you saved with this? Be truthful."

"None," the doctor answered. "I promise them health and sell them lavender mixed with castor oil."

Lily looked angry.

Enzo looked betrayed. "What? Why are you saying that? I thought you could help me."

"He lied," Lily told him. She compelled the doctor. "What is this man's true prognosis?"

"He'll die within the week," the doctor answered. "Chances are, he'll never see land again."

"Leave us," Lily told him furiously.

The doctor walked out, leaving.

Lily turned to Enzo with a sympathetic expression.

"You should go as well," Enzo told her. "I do not wish to repay your acts of kindness by affecting you."

Lily brushed a lock of hair off of Enzo's forehead. "You can't. I've already had consumption."

Enzo looked at Lily in confusion. "How did you survive?"

"I didn't," Lily answered.

"What are you?" Enzo asked. "An angel?"

Lily smiled a small smile.

******

Now

I chuckled. "Angel? Really?"

"I know," Enzo told me. "Had I known what I know now then..."

"So, she fed you blood and you still died of consumption?" I asked.

"You're getting ahead of the story, love," Enzo told me.

I sighed. "Oh, I know. But at least your death was normal. Or, at least, the most normal it could be when you die with vampire blood in your system. My father drove a bayonet through my stomach, all because I got pissed at him for shooting my brothers dead."

Enzo looked at me sympathetically. "Well, let me tell you what you should already know. You can't truly appreciate death until you've stood at its precipice."

******

Flashback - Atlantic Ocean - 1903

Enzo was lying on the exam table, pale and weakened from consumption.

Lily was blotting sweat from his face and blood from his mouth at his beside, humming Brahm's 'Lullaby' to him.

"I haven't heard that song since I was a boy," Enzo told her.

Lily smiled. "I know."

"Why are you doing this?" Enzo asked.

"Is it so hard to believe someone could do you a kindness?" Lily asked.

"I was abandoned at a workhouse at the age of four," Enzo told her. "It was not a place known for its kindness."

Enzo coughed, gasping for breath.

Lily looked at Enzo sympathetically. "I know what it is to be tossed aside like rubbish. I was sent to a sanatorium to rot. Left to die. Abandoned by my own husband, who prayed the end would come quickly, not so that I would be spared pain and misery, but so that he would be unburdened by me. But, I was given a reprieve, and it was only once I was unshackled from a life that didn't want me that I found my true family."

"Is that where you're heading, to me them?" Enzo asked.

Lily smiled. "No. I could never bear to be apart from them. They're here, traveling with me. Like you and I, they're outcasts. You could join us. You'd never be alone again."

Enzo smiled weakly, quickly overcome by an even stronger coughing fit, which caused him to spit up a large amount of blood.

Lily help Enzo lay back down.

Enzo was only paler and weaker once the coughing fit came to pass. "It would appear the end is coming."

Lily smiled comfortingly. "Or the beginning." She saw a scalpel on a nearby table, using it to cut open her palm, dripping the blood into an empty glass, handing it to Enzo. "Drink this, Lorenzo."

******

Now

Damon had called to tell me that Mom had told him that she wasn't on her way back to us when she got captured by the Gemini Coven. She had felt a longing for us and Stefan when she had turned, but she was scared about what she would do to us, searching help from her other family, and by the time she had turned Enzo, what she had used to feel was gone. She said she wished that she could feel the same emotions she felt about us before seeing that new family, but she couldn't.

"She flat-out told you that she didn't love us?"

"Well, she was her overly-proper self, but, yeah, that was the gist of it. But, hey, you know, I'm not planning on honoring my end of the plan by jail-breaking her friends, so... Tsk. Figure we're even. Nah, it's fine. 150 years is a long time to care."

"Says the guy who pined for Katherine Pierce for over a century and a half, and has pined for Elena Gilbert, different name, same face, for three years."

"Hey. You owe me big for leaving me alone with her while we look for Stefan and Caroline, sister."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm learning more about the family history, Damon."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Did I stutter?"

"Look, you can sit there through a history lesson, or you can help me come up with a Plan B, because Lily is no-go."

I thought for a moment. "Stefan doesn't know how she feels..."

"Stefan's also not a moron."

"Yeah, but do you remember how good of a liar our mother is? Remember where we got our lying skills from? Put her on speaker."

"Kaylin—"

"Do you want to get Stefan's emotions back on?"

Damon sighed, putting it on speaker, and I could hear footsteps as he walked toward Mom. "Where the hell are you going?"

"Anywhere," Mom told him, upset. "I don't know. Let me be."

"Hey," Damon told her in annoyance. "Now, you listen. Kaylin and I have one solution to his, and it's you, so you're gonna walk over to that bar, and you're gonna give the performance of your lifetime, or you can kiss your desiccated vampire family goodbye. Understood?"

"Damon, shut up and let me talk."

"What if I fail to bring him back?" Mom asked.

"You won't fail."

"I need to be assured that, regardless of the outcome with your brother today, I can count on you both to help me get my people back."

"I've told you a hundred times," Damon told her, frustrated. "We'll get them back."

"Is that the truth?" Mom asked.

"Why would I lie?" Damon asked.

"You have the power to give your greatest love the human life she desires, and you have yet to be truthful with her," Mom answered.

There was silence on the other line.

"Okay, ignoring the fact that I have no idea what you two are talking about, shut up, both of you, and listen to me. Mom, I'll talk you through this. I know what you have to say to Stefan. Just please, please listen to me. 'I'm a Ripper. All the guilt you've carried for your lack of control? It's my fault, not yours. You get it from me. That's why I had to leave. I was so new to the bloodlust, I was afraid I would hurt you, your brother and your sister. The last time I saw you was the day of my funeral. The night before, I had come to visit you. You and Damon both remained asleep, but your sister had woke just before I vanished. She wasn't imagining it. I was your angel, for the three of you. If only I'd been there to see you grow into a young man, to protect you from your father's temper. But, I was so ashamed of the things that I'd done, of what I'd become, and by the time I got my appetite under control, and was coming back for the three of you, I was hunted down and banished to a prison world by the Gemini. The one thing that helped me get through being trapped in that awful place was the hope of seeing my children again. I know there are no words that make up for me abandoning you, but we have all of eternity for me to try. Your angel has returned to you, and I will never leave you again." I hung up, walking into the living room again to see Enzo. "All right. Now that I have finished the talk with the 'Good Samaritan' vampire that saved you from dying, gave you super-strength, mind control, and immortality..." I sat down on one of the couches. "Why don't you get on with the story?"

Enzo nodded barely.

******

Flashback - New York Harbor - 1903

Enzo had just awakened in transition on the exam table on the ship, sitting up in confused alarm.

Enzo: (voice over) "I was awakened by the deafening sound of waves lapping against the ship, blinded by the faint glow of the Northern Lights. Every one of my senses intensified to the point of pain, but none more than the insatiable craving for blood."

Enzo was trying to make sense of his current circumstances, seeing the bloodied corpses of at least six people strewn around the room, gasping in horror, standing to investigate.

The doctor walked in in a daze.

"What happened here?" Enzo asked.

"The woman who helped you, she killed them all," the doctor answered. "Everyone's dead."

"Where is she?" Enzo asked.

"I don't know," the doctor told him. "She told me to come find you." He pulled out a scalpel, holding it to his throat. "She wants you to feed on me to complete your transition."

The doctor slit his own throat.

Enzo could only resist his blood for a long moment, giving in, beginning to feed on the doctor.

******

Now

Enzo summarized the end of his story. "After feeding on the charlatan, I searched all over that ship for your mother, but she was gone. I thought her promises of a new life and a new family were lies. She made me a monster, and I thought she then abandoned me. Only to come find out that she had been captured by the Gemini Coven and sent to a 1903 prison world."

I nodded in understanding, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with everything that I had learned today.

******

I was on the phone with Damon as he told me what Stefan and Caroline had been up to today.

Holding Tyler and Matt hostage at the Whitmore bar, nearly killing Matt, but Tyler had gotten him to the hospital, and he was going to be okay.

Mom had succeeded in getting Stefan's emotions back on.

"Well, Matt lives to hate vampires another day, Stefan's on Caroline-duty, and I just introduced Mom to Uber. Taking bets on which one goes south first."

I smirked, scoffing softly, shaking my head. "Now I'm starting to see where we get it from."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, we're not Rippers like Stefan and Mom, but... we can't say that we're not monsters, Damon. It's a family curse."

"It's a family curse I want to get a refund on."

I chuckled. "Right? All right, well, get back when you can. We can figure out what to do with Caroline. Until then, I'm gonna be trying to figure out with everything else."

I hung up, thinking.

Lily Salvatore had turned Enzo into a vampire.

Damon Salvatore was his best friend.

Stefan Salvatore was his worst enemy.

And then there was me, Kaylin Salvatore, the girl that wasn't going to admit that she was falling for him.

Not yet, anyway.

What was it with Enzo and our family?