Twilight was starting to fall over Brooklyn, and a girl stood at the side of the road eagerly. Still carrying a rather heavy backpack, she was just finished with another day of high school, and home was a place she definitely wanted to finally rest. But she wasn't excited for just the end of the school day. An old friend was to make one of his infrequent visits. A huge smile enveloped her face as an attractive 1967 Chevy Camaro pulled up to the curb.

"Want some candy, little girl?" the driver asked with a mysterious smirk.

"Damon!" Elizabeth exclaimed, immediately leaping into the car. "It took you long enough!"

"Well, Lizzie, I'm terribly disappointed in you," the man replied with a sigh. "The mace I bought you won't do any good if you're that friendly with strange men."

"Oh, please, Damon," Elizabeth chuckled, throwing her backpack into the back of the car. She leaned back in the passenger seat lazily and let out a long sigh. "Let's just go home. And you're not serious about the mace, are you?"

"Well, I'll admit, I was joking," he told regretfully. "But it wouldn't hurt on the streets of Brooklyn."

Damon Alexander was a middle-aged man with incredibly piercing blue eyes. He drove his car with authority, but his expression instantly softened when he was looking over at Elizabeth. His gaze contained a fatherly love and a slight look of anxiety. After trying to ignore his stares for long periods of time, she would finally smile at him. He would smile back, but never for long. His grin would fade and his eyes would fill with a certain sadness. This always confused Elizabeth, but she noticed his behavior was particularly melancholy today.

"So, what happened with your mother today exactly?" he asked casually after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.

"There was a teachers meeting," Elizabeth informed sulkily. "Our new principal is arriving tomorrow, and an event is going to be held. Apparently they need to hold a two hour meeting to tell her classes will be ten minutes shorter."

"Hey, that could affect her teaching schedule greatly," Damon suggested clumsily. His wandering eyes suggested he wasn't very informed on the dealings of education. "I mean, maybe she wanted to discuss the Great Wall of China. But you need the extra ten minutes to discuss it completely-"

"I get it, Damon," Elizabeth laughed. "My mom knows what she's doing. She probably doesn't even need this meeting."

"I know I ask this every time I visit," he started cautiously. "But how is it going to the school where your mom teaches?"

Elizabeth had a very prepared answer for this. She was accustomed to saying there was nothing strange about her mother teaching AP History at her high school. They passed by in the halls quite casually, largely ignoring the fact that they are mother and daughter. Though Elizabeth wasn't necessarily a liar, this story wasn't entirely true. Her mother Kate Porter was a gorgeous woman who hardly looked thirty-five years old, as she claimed to be. She caught the attention of every boy in the school, and it was certainly awkward and irritating for Elizabeth to hear about their explicit, vulgar fantasies involving her mother. Teenage boys seemed extremely comfortable conversing to her about how seductive her mother is. This was both disturbing and discouraging, forcing Elizabeth to constantly compare herself to her mother. But resentment never stemmed from this. Kate was too loving and wonderful to be frustrating.

"It's fine, Damon," Elizabeth assured happily. Changing the subject was her immediate priority now. "Thanks for picking me up. Damon, this car still uses gas, doesn't it?"

"As long as they let me, I'll drive this baby," Damon insisted passionately. "Those hydrogen cars are ugly, anyways."

When they arrived home, Elizabeth swiftly apologized to Damon as she pulled her homework from her backpack. She directed him to the television where he could watch whatever he wanted while she worked, but she felt defeated as he insisted on helping her with her trigonometry. It was a longer process, but she let him "help" and then sighed with relief once everything was done.

"That certainly wasn't what we studied in my day," Damon told wearily. "I survived without it."

"If I want to get into college, Damon, I need to learn this." Elizabeth sounded even more tired than Damon as she fell down onto the couch and relaxed. She closed her eyes and tried to erase all math problems from her brain.

"I forgot," Damon suddenly said, interrupting the short stillness. "Kate wanted me to order pizza. Elizabeth, what number do I call?"

Elizabeth directed Damon to the appropriate phone number, requested pepperoni, and then reminded him of her address. They talked about school and life in Brooklyn. Elizabeth began to feel desperate as she realized Damon was trying to find out if she had a boyfriend. A look of impatience always clouded his eyes when he was doing this. She almost jumped with excitement as the front door opened.

"Mom," Elizabeth called in a voice much higher than usual. "You're home."

Wiping her long, dark hair from her face, Kate Porter entered the house. She carried a large purse and a keychain, and instantly placed them on the nearest table. Her expression was not usual. The natural ambiance of amusement and happiness that accompanied her was hardly there, and her gaze was jaded. Damon looked at her sympathetically, and their eyes met in a most driven passion.

Just as if she were always meant to be there, she walked right into Damon's arms. They stood in silence for a moment of compassion that Elizabeth just could not understand. Worry filled her eyes as she stared at the two people she loved the most, and she slowly walked up to her mother and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Mom?" she whispered anxiously. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, baby," Kate assured with a weak smile, quickly leaving Damon to embrace Elizabeth. "Don't worry about it."

"Okay." Elizabeth was not at all convinced of her mother's claim. "Pizza's on its way."

"Oh, yeah," Damon began, his intense eyes softening. "Just ten minutes ago we ordered one."

"Great," Kate grinned distractedly, slowly pushing Elizabeth's hair from her face. She stared into her daughter's eyes dreamily, until her expression changed just as Damon's did after staring at Elizabeth for so long. Kate suddenly left the both of them and went into her room. Nervously Elizabeth looked to Damon.

"Damon, is something wrong with Mom?" she asked urgently. "You've got to tell me if there really is something wrong."

"Nothing's wrong, Lizzie," Damon suggested darkly, turning to look at the pictures on the wall. As Damon continued to drift even farther from Elizabeth, she remembered how Kate had acted all day. There was a certain distress in every word and action.

Today was November 28. It never occurred to Elizabeth, but Damon had always visited on this particular day. Though his other visits were sporadic and unexpected, this one was always specific, and a special mood always accompanied it. But as far as Elizabeth could remember, no one had been this sad or mournful before. She was very curious as to find out what this whole event was all about, but she assumed Damon was quite defensive about the reason, and Kate seemed incredibly fragile.

Earnestly Elizabeth let the night play out. The pizza came, everyone ate, and the conversation was interesting and somewhat cheerful. Everyone laughed, and silence was hard to find. But something was just not right, and the suspense was killing Elizabeth. Finally she decided to go to sleep early, with a little eavesdropping beforehand.

She lay on her bed tensely, keeping her eyes wide open. There was the sound of footsteps and clanging of glass, but no one spoke. After a few minutes, Elizabeth assumed they were now drinking wine, and worried she would now listen in on a rather intimate moment, though the simple thought of such a thing was unfathomable in her mind. Suddenly, Kate spoke.

"It's been fourteen years, Damon," she sighed. The frailty of her voice was a shock to Elizabeth, and she felt more worry for her mother. "I can hardly believe it actually happened."

"There's not a day that goes by where I don't think about her," Damon told miserably. "I wish it wasn't real. But I can't imagine it not being so."

"I couldn't stand being in that teachers meeting today," Kate began in a desperate tone. "As we were talking about the silliest things, I realized just how much Alex gave us. Everything that was normal before is now supernatural. I'm teaching twelfth grade history while Alex is…"

"Katherine, she wouldn't want us to think of it in that way," Damon promised warily. "She just wanted us to live life and love Elizabeth."

"Damon, she looks just like her mother now." By now, Kate's voice sounded weepy, and quiet sniffles could be heard. "It's so hard to see Alex in her face."

"I know," Damon admitted.

Elizabeth wasn't sure if she should be angered, offended, or scared by their words. A picture of her biological mother Alex Somers had always rested on a table in Kate's room. She had never noticed a resemblance, but now she was quite suspicious.

Quietly she rose from bed and walked over to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. She had always resented the picture of Alex, but its image was clear in her mind. Her long, dirty blond hair, her cloudy blue eyes, and her round, happy cheeks that never appeared quite slim, no matter how skinny she was. These were all recognizable as belonging to Alex, and Elizabeth hated that aspect of herself. But it never occurred to her that Kate and Damon considered it something upsetting.

Upsetting? Did they really hate Alex so much as to resent Elizabeth for the similarity? But the way they spoke insinuated more. A certain affection was in their voices. The sadness they radiated could even be felt from her room. This confusion slowly turned into anger, and she couldn't stand to hear anymore.

As she furiously sat on her bed, she heard the door creak open. She reluctantly looked back to see Kate, peering in with curious eyes. Elizabeth simply could not hide her irritation, and Kate's sudden embarrassment expressed how she caught on. Looking down at the ground, Kate walked into the room and picked up a picture of the both of them on top of the Empire State Building.

"It looks like you heard our conversation," Kate sighed regretfully, her voice now stronger than before.

"Mom, why are you guys so sentimental about Alex?" Elizabeth asked crossly. "I mean, she left when I wasn't even two. What kind of mother goes and does that?"

"Elizabeth, she was my friend," Kate informed urgently, walking closer to the fuming girl. "There's a lot about your mother that you don't know."

"Don't call her my mother," Elizabeth commanded, rising from the bed. She started to pace back and forth. "She was the one who ran away with no good reason and left me with Grandma. She's lucky you were here when Grandma got sick, and she's lucky you listened to Grandma and adopted me when she died. She's not my mother."

Kate looked on the verge of tears, though a soft smile appeared on her face. She took Elizabeth's hand and stopped her in the middle of her furious pacing. With watery eyes and a soft voice, she whispered, "If you really knew who your mother was, you would miss her."

"You are my mother now," Elizabeth stated firmly. "Please don't think about her." Her voice shook as she thought of what she needed to say. "Especially if she makes you hate me. I want you to look at me and be happy, Mom."

"Oh, Elizabeth," Kate sighed, pulling Elizabeth into a secure hug. "I could never hate you. I love you with all my heart, Elizabeth. Believe that."

Elizabeth started to whimper as she stood in her mother's arms, but she would not let tears fall. Her anger for Alex overshadowed her deep sadness. Believing Kate was something of ease and made of a trust that existed blatantly in their lives. Alex would not affect them anymore. She was gone forever, and gone for good.