Author's note: Yep, as I mentioned in the last chapter, we've done another time skip. I really didn't want to burden the story with too much "filler," and we need to move farther into Elena's pregnancy (and I didn't want a funky vampire-hybrid-baby that develops too fast).

Warnings: violence, adult content, sensitive subject matter, language


Elena's head snapped in the direction of the opening door as she was lying on the cushioned examination table with a thin pink blanket covering her legs. For the first time since she'd entered the room, she appeared to relax.

"You're cutting it close." Dr. Morton gave a warning glare as she looked up from pouring the warmed gel onto Elena's belly.

"Sorry." Damon grinned sheepishly as he reached for Elena's offered hand. She pulled him closer to her side as her eyes swept over his face, noting the new brilliant red scratches just above his collar. "I've been doing some traveling for business. I had a little trouble catching a flight this morning." He placed his other hand atop their entwined fingers. "But, I wouldn't miss this."

Elena forced her eyes away from examining Damon for any new signs of defensive wounds. If the Petrova tradition held true, this would be the only time she experienced being pregnant, and she didn't want to miss this moment.

"Ready to see your little one?" Dr. Morton smiled at Elena. "I remember when you were just learning to walk. Hard to believe you're having a baby now." She shook her head as she placed the hand-held device against Elena's very rounded belly. "These first few scans are for me. Then we'll take a little tour."

The doctor slid the device low on Elena's stomach and began making a series of clicks recorded on the ultrasound machine. Her brow furrowed for a moment and she tapped Elena's skin lightly.

"Is something wrong?" Damon studied the woman with the intensity of a predator.

"No." She shook her head. "Just needed the baby to move a bit." Elena shifted her hips and let out a low breath. "Are you okay?"

Nodding, Elena squeezed Damon's hand. "Remind me why I needed a full bladder for this."

"You can feel the baby moving?" Damon looked at her in surprise.

Elena rolled her eyes. "You've been gone a while. Things happen kind of fast around here these days."

Damon looked down at Elena's stomach, even if he weren't a vampire, he'd be able to tell how much she'd changed just in the two weeks he'd been away. She'd been more than a little annoyed when she finally had to break down and let Caroline take her shopping the weekend before. Absolutely nothing in her closet, or Damon's for that matter, would fit over their growing child.

Alaric hadn't been able to take such an extended absence from school, so Damon was working alone...only adding to Elena's stress level. He'd called to check in every night, but the strain of his absence - and the reason behind it - had shown plainly on her face during each conversation. When he'd called her to tell her that he'd found the vampire currently terrorizing Mobile, her face had taken on a shadow of fear. As he explained the now-very-much-dead vampire wasn't the one he sought, he'd been unable to read the emotion in her face. She wanted Stefan safely tucked in the Salvatore vampire-reformatory, but she didn't want Damon to have to kill his brother.

"Ready to meet your baby?" Dr. Morton's words jarred him back to the present as she tilted the ultrasound screen in their direction. The tiny face was in profile, even Elena's untrained eyes could see that the little one was sucking its thumb. "I'll save this one for one of your pictures." Across the room, a printer sprung to life.

A tear curved down Elena's cheek as they looked at all ten fingers and all ten toes. She could even see the fluttering of a tiny heart.

"So?" Dr. Morton's machine hovered over the baby's stomach. "Do you want to know the answer to the question?"

Damon raised an eyebrow in Elena's direction. They'd discussed it, but he wasn't sure if they had reached a final decision. This time, he'd let her decide. "Do we?"

Elena nodded. "We do."

Laughing, Dr. Morton slid the mouse-like unit lower. Waiting a moment until the baby's in-utero gymnastics brought the between the area between the little one's legs came into view, she clicked the mouse again. "This one isn't too shy. The last mom and dad in this room weren't this lucky. It's a girl."


"So?" Caroline ran to Elena's side and gave her best attempt at a lopsided hug over the textbooks in her hands without crushing Elena. "How'd it go?" She cringed. "Please tell me Damon made it." If he'd missed the ultrasound, Caroline had a feeling her friend would find a way to un-invite Damon from his own house.

Elena nodded as she pulled the last of her afternoon's books from her locker. "Barely. He walked in just as the doctor had gotten to the room." She juggled her books as she tried to reach into her purse. "I have pictures."

Caroline pulled Elena's books from her arms. "Well, let me see." She leaned over Elena's purse to get a better look.

Elena reached for a heavy cardboard envelope. "Here they are." Carefully pulling out the thin sheets, she held them out for Caroline's inspection. "Toes." She nodded to the photo that looked like a tiny footprint. She skimmed through the others. "This one's my favorite." She smiled at Caroline. "She's sucking her thumb."

"It's a girl?" Caroline practically bounced with excitement.

Elena's grin widened as she put the pictures back in the envelope with care. Dropping the envelope back into her purse, she reached for her books as she walked at Caroline's side to go to her afternoon classes.

"That's just sick." A voice came out from the middle of a cluster of the members of the football team. Dirk Stevens followed Caroline and Elena, careful to stay just far enough behind them so they couldn't hear his words. Of course, he didn't realize one of the girls he was talking about was actually a vampire, and she was quite aware of his comments. Caroline glanced briefly back over her shoulder and wrapped an arm around Elena while continuing to get the play-by-play of the morning's doctor's appointment. The two girls pushed open the door to cross the courtyard on their way to the fine arts building.

Dirk didn't let Elena leaving break his train of thought. He looked back and forth between the friends at his side. "It's one thing that she went and got herself knocked up, but she shouldn't be showing those pictures in the hall. Can't have all the girls wanting one." He shook his head as the boys around him mumbled agreement. "First Donovan, then Salvatore. I bet she doesn't eve know whose baby it is." His lip curled in scorn. "Slut."

"What did you say?" Jeremy turned and faced off with the well-muscled teen.

"I'm pretty sure I called your sister a slut."

Jeremy's anger at the whole situation was unleashed on the cocky football player. It wasn't her fault she was part of some age-old ritual.

Slam! His fist connected with Dirk's jaw. He knocked Dirk into the bank of lockers. She couldn't help the fact that some witch decided that 18 was the perfect age for a Petrova to get pregnant.

Crash! "Don't call her a slut just because she refused to go to homecoming with you." Jeremy got one more good hit in that dropped Dirk to his knees.

Then, the rest of the football team came to their running back's defense. Quickly surrounded, Jeremy saw stars as someone's fist bounced off his cheek. Soon the hall was filled with screams and cheers as the violence escalated.

"Hey!" Matt began peeling the team off Jeremy just as the first teachers arrived on the scene. "Stop it!" He grabbed hold of Dirk's collar and jerked him away from Jeremy. "What's going on?"

Jeremy looked up through the blood dripping down his forehead. "He called Elena a slut."

Matt took one look at Dirk before propelling his team-mate into the bank of lockers. "Don't talk about Elena like that." He brought his fist up under Dirk's chin.

"Break it up!" Alaric's voice echoed through the hall as he waded through the crowd that had assembled to watch the fight, ducking as a wild punch almost connected with his face. "Stop it." He positioned himself between Matt and Dirk while standing in front of Jeremy as the teenager attempted to get back on his feet. Anger came off all three young men in waves as blood dripped off their faces. "Nurse first, then principal." Standing in between the two apparent sides of the fight, the four made their way down the hallway.


"What were you thinking?" Elena squeezed the disciplinary form so tightly in her hand that it began to crumble. She circled the couch where her brother sat with an ice pack on his face. "I mean, really, Jeremy...the judge didn't want me to have custody of you in the first place. Now, this? What if they try to take you away?" Her lip trembled as she studied her brother's battered face.

"I'm sorry, Elena." He looked at her though his one good eye. "I didn't think about that."

"It's okay." Elena gently probed the cut on his forehead. She glanced up at Alaric. "And the nurse didn't think he needed stitches?"

"The butterflies should work." Alaric stood with his hands folded across his chest. He hadn't been able to get any of the story as to what prompted the fight out of Jeremy, but some of the spectators had been more than willing to talk. He knew why Jeremy threw the punch, and that news was likely why Jeremy was only facing a single day's suspension.

"And you're still not going to tell me what you were fighting about?" Elena glared at her brother.

Jeremy shook his head. "Dirk just likes to talk."

A soft knock sounded at the door. Elena slowly stood to go answer. "Keep that ice pack on your face." Walking from the living room, she let out a long, slow breath as she went to answer the door - fully expecting to see an agent from Child Services on her doorstep. The judge had warned both of them that if Jeremy stepped one toe out of line that he'd be sent to a teen foster care facility since the Gilberts seemed to be out of relatives. "Caroline." A weight lifted off Elena's shoulders.

"Expecting someone else?"

Elena leaned against the entryway wall. "Actually, yes."

"Like the guy with a bad combover in a blue suit who is now convinced that Jeremy was acting in self defense, and you're doing an excellent job of raising your little brother?"

Elena's eyes widened. "You didn't?"

Caroline didn't appear the slightest bit guilty. "They really should consider adding vervain to the town's water supply."

"Caroline, what if they find out?"

"They won't." She stepped closer to Elena and whispered. "Don't be so hard on your brother."

"Did you see him?" Elena gestured toward the living room.

"I don't need to. I know why he did it."

"Ric's not mad. You're telling me to go easy on him. No one is telling me why. What happened at school today?" Elena faced off with Caroline.

"He was defending you." Caroline watched as the anger flowed out of Elena's face. "Dirk was listening to us when you were showing me the pictures from the ultrasound." She stroked Elena's arm. "He called you a slut. And then Jeremy punched him."

Elena covered her mouth with her fingertips and shook her head. "That's why he wouldn't tell me what he was fighting about."

"He didn't want you to get upset."

"Does Ric know?"

"Probably." Caroline nodded. "Since Matt and Dirk are 18, they called my mom. She got the whole story. Ric was in the room at the time."

"Matt was in on it?" Somehow Elena had missed that detail.

"He wouldn't let anyone talk about you like that either. Dirk was just lucky I was trying to get you out of the hallway. Imagine his reputation if a cheerleader brought him to his knees." Caroline tried to draw a laugh out of Elena as the they walked into the living room. "Anybody need some vampire first aid?"

Jeremy flinched as he tried to laugh. "No. I'll be okay."

"Jeremy." Elena tried to balance as she crouched in front of her brother. "You should have told me what happened."

He glared at Caroline. "That would have kind of defeated the point. I didn't want you to know what he said."

"And that's why he only has one day off?" She looked to Alaric for confirmation.

He nodded in agreement. "Mr. Riggins thought the extenuating circumstances warranted a lighter punishment than normal."

"Do you need an aspirin or something?" She looked sadly at her brother, now realizing each bruise was a badge of honor he'd earned protecting her.

Jeremy shifted the ice bag's placement on his forehead and grinned through his split lip. "That would be a good thing."

She stood and walked into the kitchen and began to rummage through the medicine cabinet. Antacids. Vitamins no one took. The prenatal vitamins she did take. Allergy medicine. No aspirin. She had a bottle in her messenger bag but that was still in her car. "I'll be right back in. Just have to grab the bottle in my car."

Grabbing her car keys off the cabinet, she ducked out the back door and walked down the gravel driveway to where she'd parked her car on the street in front of her house. She unlocked the door and leaned over the back seat as she dug through her bag to find the little white bottle. Taking it in hand, she pushed herself off the seat with difficulty and walked up the sidewalk to the front of her house.

"Hello, Elena."

Freezing at the sound of the familiar smooth-as-satin voice, Elena didn't even have to turn around to know who stood behind her as she climbed up the stairs onto the porch. Out of instinct, she dropped the bottle of aspirin and covered her stomach with her hands.

"This," he mounted the steps one at a time, "is an unexpected surprise." He held a finger over his lips in an unspoken threat. He shook his head and eyed the door.

Elena needed to be quiet. She understood.

Stalking slowly around her, his eyes stayed fixed on her hands spread protectively over her rounded belly. He laughed to himself. "Klaus said I'd be waiting years until I had the chance to break my curse. Looks like he was wrong."

Elena took a step back as he approached her, and he gave her a malevolent grin. The very fact that he seemed totally in control frightened her more than it would have if he'd allowed himself to transform to his true self.

"You didn't wait very long." His eyes roamed over her body, taking in all the subtle and not-so-subtle changes that arrived over the past few weeks. "Let me guess," he stroked his chin. "You and Matt worked out after all."

Too scared to make a sound, Elena stayed motionless, fixed in place.

Stefan charged at her and caught her arm just below the shoulder. Hefting her off her feet, he spat into her face. "Can't let Caroline overhear our discussion." He dragged her down the stairs in the direction of the vacant house down the street. "Whose is it?"

Wincing, she futilely tried to pull his fingers away, and his grip tightened until the bones in her arm felt as if they were breaking. "I asked you a question."

"Not Matt's."

He shoved her onto the porch of the abandoned house, and they were hidden from view from the street by the overgrown vines and bushes. Understanding slowly dawned on Stefan's face. His voice little more than a whisper, he knocked her back against the wall and a shower of peeling paint rained over her head. "Damon's. Klaus gave him his blood..." Black veins encircled his eyes as he fought for control. He threw her to the ground with such force all the air left her lungs. He cocked his head to the side as he straddled her. "I care about Damon, but I love you, Stefan, you." He mocked the words she'd pledged to him years ago.

Seizing hold of her hair, he lifted her her to her feet as tears of pain filled her eyes. His words took on a lethal edge. "I always knew. It doesn't matter, you've made your choice." Her hair still wrapped around one fist, he held her tightly in place as he caressed her bulging stomach. He lowered his lips to her ear, and his fangs scratched lightly at her skin of her earlobe as he whispered, "Take care of her for me. She's irreplaceable."

He released her and her legs couldn't hold her weight. She dropped to the ground on her hands and knees. He disappeared with a blur as Elena fought to stand and get back to the relatively safety of her house.

"Elena?" Alaric cracked open the front door just in time to catch Elena as she dropped back to her knees.