Written for the LJ TVD Fic Exchange.

Promt: (Gen) Elena, Jeremy, Damon, Stefan (& Anna if you're feeling generous): "What are we, twelve" AU, Elena is 12 and the Salvatores move in next door. What are the Gilberts to do?

Going Higher

On the first day of summer, the summer before she was to start 5th grade, Elena couldn't feel the change in the air that was soon to catch her off guard. There was no way to predict the twists and turns her heart would take well into adulthood, neither was there a way to be prepared. All she could feel was the summer sun shining through her window and warming her face, rousing Elena from her sleep. All she knew was the promise of freedom the summer held.

Elena got out of bed, fully rested and ready to start the day. Without needing to hurry to get ready for school, she exited her room and went downstairs to find her mother already putting breakfast on the table. Her brother, Jeremy, who was two years her junior, sat at his usual chair as he shoveled his second helping of waffles into his mouth. Elena cringed a little at the sight before sitting down next to him.

"Wha'?" he tried to mumble around the full waffle still stuffed in his mouth.

"Jeez, Jer. You've got all day. Take a breath."

Jeremy swallowed and glared at his sister, but their mother cut in before any snide remarks were exchanged. "Be nice, Elena. He's a growing boy."

"I'm growing and I know how to avoid choking on my food," she replied as she grabbed a few strawberries from a bowl on the table and placed them over her breakfast.

Jeremy retorted with a simple sticking out of his tongue and then returned to his food. Elena rolled her eyes and did the same.

Moments later, their dad joined them. He was dressed and ready for work, placing his doctor's bag next to him when he sat down. "Morning, dear," he said before leaning closer to his wife and placing a kiss on her lips.

"Good morning," she said with a smile.

"Good morning, kids."

"Morning, Dad," they replied in unison.

"So, it's your first day of summer vacation? What's on the agenda for today?" He looked to Elena and Jeremy.

Jeremy spoke up first, already finished with his plate. "I'm going over to Anna's. She got a couple of new horror movies from the video store, so we were gonna have a marathon." There was excitement in his voice that he didn't do a very good job of trying to contain.

"Horror marathon, hmm? Now, I am assuming that none of these will be 'R' rated?"

"No," Jeremy said with a bit of a grumble. "Anna's mom would never allow it."

"Good. What about you, Elena?" He turned to his daughter whose face was downturned, suddenly very interested in her waffles but not eating them. "Elena?" The second time she heard her name, she finally looked up at her father. "What are your plans for today? I know Bonnie left on vacation yesterday. Are you hanging out with Caroline?"

"No, she's getting ready to go stay with her dad for the summer. I was actually supposed to..." she hesitated, knowing that her father was not going to like what she was about to say, "…go with Matt to the Mystic Grill."

He let out a breath and Elena knew she had accurately predicted what was coming. "I'm not so sure I want you to do that, Elena."

"But you like Matt!" she exclaimed in disbelief. "I don't know why me hanging out with him is suddenly a problem for you."

"I do like Matt. I think that he is a nice kid. But the two of you are growing up, yet you are still young and you know my rules on dating. Not until you're 16. You still have four more years, kiddo."

"But it isn't a date," Elena stated firmly. "I don't like Matt that way. We're just friends, I promise." Her father looked at her, unsure. "I shouldn't have to give up my guy friend just because I am getting older."

Her father sighed again, this time in defeat. "Alright. You can go."

Victorious, a smile developed across her face. "Thanks, Dad!"

"Just be back around seven, okay?" Miranda said.

"Why? I thought my curfew was nine?"

"It is. The new neighbors arrived yesterday, so I thought that we could all go as a family to welcome them to the neighborhood. Maybe even invite them over here for some dessert."

"I thought that they weren't moving in for a couple more days?" Grayson asked.

"Well, I saw them and a few movers bringing all of their stuff in. It seemed like they were getting settled." She turned to Elena. "It looks like they have a couple of boys around your age, sweetie."

"Cool," Elena replied, but she didn't really care all that much. By the looks of her Dad's face, she'd rather not give him any more reason to worry about her and boys.

"Hey, Damon, where are you going?" Stefan ran after his older brother who was just about to exit through the front door. "Dad said that he wanted us to keep unpacking while he's out. He'll get really angry if he comes home and finds out you've gone."

"I'm just going to look around for awhile. I'm not even leaving the yard." Damon made his way onto the front step, but Stefan got across the threshold before he turned to close the door. Damon let his shoulders drop in mild annoyance.

"What is there left to see?"

"Plenty," he stated simply, but of course, that wasn't good enough for Stefan who stood there perplexed. "We have a huge back yard, lots of trees. I want to explore it a little."

It didn't surprise him that it seemed to peak Stefan's interest, so he was pretty much expecting the next question. "Can I come?"

"I thought you were all concerned about following Dad's orders, like the good little son you are?" A knowing smirk that he didn't even attempt to hide grew at the corner at his mouth and now it was Stefan's turn to be annoyed.

"Well, I figure that I should go along and make sure that you don't get into any trouble." Stefan looked up at him with a serious expression on his face. Was this his idea of a cutting remark? Damon just laughed.

"Suit yourself. Come on."

Elena stretched as she made her way onto the back porch, a book in her hand, ready to be started. She found herself a nice sunny spot on one of the lounging chairs and made herself comfortable. It was officially time to start her relaxing summer activities and reading a cheesy and overrated teen vampire novel was first on her list. After everything she was assigned to read in school, sometimes it was fun to be able to escape into something silly that she didn't have to take all that seriously.

Elena smiled as she opened the book for the first time. She always took great pleasure in the crisp, untouched pages that were just waiting to be handled and read. Once she got to the page entitled "Chapter 1", her focus shifted when she saw something move in the corner of her eye. She turned and found two boys -she assumed they were the ones her mother had mentioned- walking along the side of their new house to the back yard.

The one that looked to be older was walking a few steps ahead of his younger brother, his unruly black hair practically covering his eyes. The other, with contrasting light brown hair, trailed along behind with his head looking up at the exterior of their new home.

Damon loved trees. He loved climbing as high as he could go, pushing the limits and disproving others' expectations. Stefan always protested as he saw his brother go too high, worried that it would end with Damon lying painfully on the ground and unable to move. Of course, he never listened to Stefan's fears, no matter how warranted they may have been. Damon just kept going with the strong sense of adventure, a smile beginning to develop on his face.

"At least, don't go so fast!" Stefan called from below.

Damon ignored him until he reached the furthest that he could go and moved to a sturdier branch he could sit on comfortably. He looked down at Stefan at the base of the tree and yelled to him, "Why don't you come up here, Stef?"

"No way! Only you are crazy enough to go all the way up there."

"What's the problem? Are you too scared?" As annoying as it might have been, taunting was always an effective strategy when it came to getting innocent, little Stefan to do something out of character. He looked at his younger brother and, even though he was at a distance, Damon could tell that Stefan was doing his "low eyebrowed, pursed lipped" glare. He was just that predictable.

"No. I just think it's stupid and reckless."

"Okay, well, you stay down there being careful and I will be the one up here having all the fun. Seriously, Stef, it's a whole other world up here and it's your loss if you're not a part of it."

As expected, Stefan hoisted himself up onto the first branch and continued upwards with determination in his eyes. Damon watched as he got closer and closer to where he was on the tree, but noticed one stupid step Stefan was about to make that was sure to end badly. More interested in making a point rather than focusing on the task at hand, the younger brother wasn't playing close enough attention to what he was doing and was about pull himself up on an insecure branch. Damon was going to say something to stop him but, for some reason even he couldn't understand, he didn't and the branch snapped, sending Stefan hurtling to the hard ground below.

Elena should have known better than to expect a peaceful morning outside. It was very hard to concentrate on the pages in front of her with all of the distractions the boys next door had produced. Then, just as she was able to finally block out most of the sounds around her, a very prominent thud, followed by a pained yell, broke her concentration once again and she quickly turned towards the noise.

In the back yard of her new neighbor's house, she saw the younger boy laid crumpled on the ground, holding his right arm close to his body. Elena dropped her book, sprung to her feet, and rushed over as quickly as she could.

"Are you alright?" Elena asked as she crouched down next to him.

Stefan just grimaced and cried, "It hurts."

Elena looked up for the other boy and saw him climbing down until he got to a low enough point where he could jump and land on his feet. "What happened?" she asked, but Damon just rolled his eyes.

"What do you think? He fell but it wasn't that far of a drop, so he should be fine. Won't you, Stef?"

Stefan didn't answer. He only laid there and tried to stop himself from crying in front of the two of them. Elena huffed. "I'm no doctor, but I am pretty darn sure that his arm is broken." She pointed to the indentation in Stefan's arm that was very obviously a protruding, broken bone.

Damon's eyes widened and his flippant attitude shifted to that of concern. "Okay, smarty, so maybe it's broken. I'll take care of it. Come, Stefan, let's get you into the house and we'll call Dad." He put a hand against Stefan's back and brought him up into a sitting position.

"Wait," Elena halted them before they could get all the way up. "I'll go get my Mom. She can take you straight to the hospital. You can call your Dad from there."

"You don't have to-" Stefan tried to say, but Damon cut him off.

"Alright, then. Go ahead." While Damon would normally just want to take care of things himself, he knew letting the girl help would delay the inevitable. If someone else could take Stefan to the hospital he wouldn't have to talk to his dad, therefore prolonging the time between now and when he'd be on the receiving end of a painful lecture.

Elena was right. Stefan's arm was broken. Her Mom gladly brought him to the hospital and even called their father for them. When he got there, he was furious, but more for the fact that they had disobeyed him rather than the accident itself. Most of the anger was directed towards the older brother, who she learned was named Damon, and she automatically assumed that it was because he wanted to go easy on Stefan due to his injury. However, she saw a look in his eyes that he was used to this.

The three Salvatores spent a great deal of time in the examination room as they discussed with the doctor what they had to do next. Not wanting to intrude, Elena and her mother waited in the hall as they finished up. Eventually, Damon ducked out from behind the curtain and gave a nod to Elena.

"My Dad wants to talk to you two," he said simply and turned to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

He glanced over his shoulder and said, "I know when to get lost. I'll be back in a little bit."

Elena found herself standing there for longer than she needed to, watching him walk off. It wasn't until her mom went into the examination room that she turned to follow her.

Stefan was propped up in the bed with his arm in a sling and his expression softened upon sight of her. "Hey," he said.

"Hey. How are you?" She made her way over to the side of his bed.

"Better. They say they don't have to reconstruct the bone with surgery, so I get to leave."

"Stefan," Giuseppe said. "Did you thank this young lady and her mother yet?"

"Oh!" Stefan sat up in a shot. He couldn't believe he had forgotten. "Thanks, Elena." Then he turned his attention towards Miranda. "Thank you, Ms. Gilbert."

"Of course," she replied "And, call me Miranda, alright?"

"Alright," Stefan nodded.

"Yes, thank you so much for helping my boy. I tell you, I can't leave those two for one day without them getting into trouble."

Miranda smiled "Well, I can promise you that Elena will keep a close eye on them over the summer."

Elena looked towards her mother, back at Stefan, and then turned to look at the curtain Damon had disappeared behind. All of a sudden she found herself a little more interested in the arrival of the Salvatores than she had been earlier that day.

A/N: I had some fun with this one. I might even make a series out of it.