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

I don't own TVD. I just take the characters for a spin from time to time.

"No fair!"

Damon's expression frowned back at him from the mirror as he adjusted his tie. Something had stirred up all the kids already this morning. This was going to be a long day for Elena. When she said he only wanted to stay home so he could play in the snow, he'd only been half-joking.

Their crew in the house all day with snow outside was a lot to handle on the best of days. Elena had only just begun to appear to be feeling somewhat human after the worst of the morning sickness had passed. Even now, he wasn't sure if she was really ready to be on her own with all four.

The shouts from downstairs echoed off the hardwood floor in the hallways. If they ever re-decorated the house, they'd have a lot more carpet just to absorb the noise. Footsteps clomped up the stairs. Not Elena. He studied their cadence. Claire. She gave up on the snow awfully quickly.

Now the twins were shouting. Arguing, but with a touch of whine.

He expected them to be excited about the first snow of the season, but there was an edge that set his nerves on alert. Time to intercede. He backed away his dresser. His oldest daughter's footsteps stopped directly outside his doorway before a terse knock sounded on the doorframe.

"Dad!" Claire rapped again. "Dad!"

"I'm right here." Damon opened the door, studying her expression. If Claire had been his brother, he'd have said Stefan was wearing his worried-vampire face.

"Mom says you need to come outside."

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Claire jumped back out the door and Damon followed closely at her heels.

Emma, Brayden, and Nathan stood lining the stone porch like spectators at a traffic accident. They watched as their mother leaned over something in the snow.

Elena looked over her shoulder at him and motioned for him to come closer. "Damon." He recognized that voice. That almost-shake. The timbre of fear. His wife hadn't sounded like that in years. Not since…

She pointed at the ground.

Footprints. Not just a single set. Many impressions. Some stepping on top of the others. Whoever was here, they hadn't stayed in one place.

Their unseen watcher was nervous. Unable to keep still.

Or simply unafraid they'd know how long he'd been here.

Damon studied the numerous footprints in the snow at his feet and then turned his attention back to the ones next to the kitchen window. Far too big for any of the children - they were larger than his own tracks. His eyes followed the trail that extended beyond their property line and seemed to lead all the way back to the woods. "Call Ric."

"But Daddy, it's snowing really hard! Uncle Ric can't drive in this." Always the practical one, Nathan looked up at the heavily falling snow with a concerned expression on his face.

Damon caught hold of Elena's arm. "Tell him to bring his bag. He'll come."

Watching the color drain out of her face made his stomach turn. A wreck on the outskirts of town was one thing. It could be written off, excused as a random coincidence. Not this time. Not with what they knew now. Not with the footprints rapidly disappearing beneath the snow.

Now the danger was here.

Elena gave a tense nod and walked back into the house. Even through the layers of her sweater and her heavy coat, he didn't have to watch too closely to see her hands shaking. Damon didn't think it was from the cold.

Shrieks of laughter echoed from down the street. Obviously his family wasn't the only group of early risers on this cold, snowy day. "Why don't y'all go around front and see if you can get a snowman built to welcome Uncle Ric?"

Elena picked up the phone and took a breath to steady her voice before she dialed the familiar number. On the third ring, she wasn't surprised to hear Kennedy's voice. "Hey, Kennedy." Elena fought to keep her voice light. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, Aunt Elena. We're up."

"Great. Um, can you put your dad on the phone?"

Kennedy paused. "He's out getting firewood. Want me to have him call you?"

"I can wait." Elena paced the length of the kitchen as she listened to the silence on the other end of the phone. She looked down and saw that she'd forgotten to stomp the snow from her boots, and she'd left muddy tracks all through the room.

"Elena?" Alaric's voice held back an unspoken question. "What's going on? Is everyone ok?"

That's debatable...at least that's what Elena wanted to answer. Instead, she replied, "We're all fine, but we need you to come over." She swallowed thickly. "Damon says to bring your bag." She peered through the curtains and saw Damon standing in the distance, looking out into the thick copse of trees behind their house.

In the past, Elena had loved those trees along with the tranquility they brought. She'd sit outside on the porch, watching the deer come by to graze on the overgrown grass or trim a few nibbles from the cedar trees.

Not any longer.

Now the trees held a sense of foreboding. Something…someone was hiding, maybe just out of view. But she was certain their watcher was out there. She could feel it into the very core of her being.

Judging by the stiff set of his shoulders, Damon was fighting a war with himself - trying to decide if he should wait on Alaric or venture into the woods on his own. Years ago, before he made the choice that changed both their lives forever, he would have been out there in an instant. No one threatened his family.

But that was then. This was now…when his life could be extinguished with a mere flick of a wrist.

"I'll be right there." Alaric placed the phone on its charger and looked out the front window. The snow was falling in such thick sheets he could barely see the outline of the trees in the yard. He knew Elena wouldn't have called unless it was important. If Damon asked for Alaric's bag...staying home wasn't an option. He turned and walked to the stairs. "Jackson! I need to borrow your truck." He waited for an answer from above. Hearing none, he grabbed hold of the bannister and jogged up the stairs. "Jackson!" He pounded on his son's door.

After a minute, Jackson cracked the door and blinked at him. "Dad, there's no school today."

"I know that. I need to borrow your truck. Keys." Alaric held out his hand.

"Why do you need my truck?"

"Because I'm the one who paid for it." Alaric glared at Jackson. "Elena just called. Something's going on over there, and they need me to come over. My car can't handle the snow. Since I don't want to walk, I need to borrow your truck."

Jackson looked instantly awake. "Do you need my help?"

"No. Just your keys. I think we'll be fine, but thanks."

Jackson nodded and backed away from the door, revealing his immaculate room. His keys sat on the edge of his drafting table. He picked them up and held them out to his father. "You're sure you don't want me to come?"

"No. Why don't you stay here in case your mom needs some help?" He didn't want to draw Jackson into whatever was going on at the Salvatore house. He hurried back down the stairs and walked down the hall to enter their bedroom. Jenna had just stepped out of the shower and looked at him in confusion.

"You're going somewhere in this?"

"Elena called." Alaric ducked into the back of his closet and pulled out his once-familiar leather bag. There was a time that he'd never left home without it, but that had been years ago. Until Elena's wreck and the bodies they'd discovered in the woods, Mystic Falls had seemed as if it might become simply a typical town.

"Oh God." When what he carried registered in Jenna's eyes, her voice grew as cold as the snow falling outside the window. "Is everything alright?"

"Somehow, I don't think so." Alaric threw on his heaviest coat and stepped into the hallway.

Jenna had been kept in the dark for quite a while, but she wasn't any longer. She knew what that bag meant. "What's wrong? Is everyone…"

"I honestly don't know. Elena called."

Jenna's eyes trailed to the bag in Alaric's hand. "Why do you have that?" She may have been the last introduced to the world of the supernatural, but she came into the fold at the height of the danger to Elena and the rest of Mystic Falls. Jenna knew there was no innocent need for the items he carried.

Alaric locked eyes with his wife. "Damon asked me to bring it. I need to go."

Jenna blinked up at him. "Be careful."

He turned back and took her in his arms. He leaned down and kissed her gently. "Always."

Damon's breath circled his head like smoke as he trudged through the woods. He and Alaric had been following the trail - or at least attempting to follow it - for the better part of an hour. The tracks clearly led back to the small stream running through the wooded area, after that the trail disappeared.

"We're not going to find anything else." Alaric tugged his ice-covered scarf down from his face. "The snow's too deep now." At least four more inches of snow had fallen during their search obscuring even the once-clear trail. "Whoever it was, they knew what they were doing. Once they got in the stream, we wouldn't be able to find them."

"Damn it!" Damon struck out at a tree - sending a small avalanche of snow down on the pair.

"Let's go back to your house." Alaric felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket for at least the tenth time, but his fingers were too numb to answer. "We need to talk. And Elena has to be going insane. How many times has she called?"

Damon didn't even look down at his phone. "Too many."

"And you didn't think about answering her?"

"I don't have anything to tell her."

The two men trudged in silence through the blowing snow. As they approached the back door, Damon wasn't surprised to see Claire looking out the window at them. She appeared worried as she opened the back door. "You were gone forever. Is everything ok?"

Damon nodded stiffly as he hung his coat on the back of a kitchen chair. "Everything's fine." He saw the rest of his children lying on the floor in front of the television. "Did they get cold?"

"Yeah, and Mom wanted us to come inside. She's acting weird." Claire frowned. The younger kids might have been too distracted from the snow to realize something was amiss beyond footprints in the back yard, but Claire wasn't as easily fooled. Her forest-green eyes followed every single one of Damon's movements. "I mean it, Dad. Mom's almost at pacing-the-stairs level of going nuts. She wouldn't take us sledding. Will you take us later?"

"Sure. Give me a minute to talk to Uncle Ric." He looked around. "Where's your mom?"

Claire pointed to the ceiling. "Bathroom. Where else?" There was an edge to her voice when she answered. Did Claire suspect even more than he thought? "You might want to go in after her. She's been in there a while."

Of course Elena was in the bathroom. He'd been an idiot this morning - so intent on trying to figure out what was going on that he'd totally ignored the impact this was likely having on Elena. Her morning sickness had only slightly begun to fade, but he was sure being nervous only aggravated it this morning. He'd check on her before he talked with Alaric.

"Oh, wait! I'm supposed to ask if you need any coffee." Claire ran to stand next to the coffee pot.

"That would be great." Alaric smiled at his niece as she tried not to spill the full pot of coffee.

"I made it myself."

"Then is it really safe to drink?" Ric's voice held the teasing quality that only came from years of experience raising his family.

"Her coffee's pretty good. Just watch out for grounds."

"There aren't any grounds this time, Dad." She protested, but she was already staring into the pot. Damon smiled to himself, his job of distracting his daughter was complete.

"I'm going to go see about your mom." Damon took the steps two at a time. He rounded the corner and entered his room. Elena sat on the edge of the bathtub holding a washcloth to her face. "Are you alright?"

Elena nodded, apparently not wanting to risk trying to talk.

"I shouldn't have stayed gone so long. I'm so sorry. I was an idiot." He sat on the side of the tub next to her and pulled her close to him.

"I can think of a few words to describe you."

"That's why you're the writer. I'm sure you can use them in your next book. Just keep it PG if you're still writing for teens." He was the one who'd been in the snow for over an hour, but she was the one who was shaking. He kissed the top of her head. "We didn't find anything." He answered the question before she had a chance to ask. "The trail stopped at the creek." He ran his hand up and down her arm.

"Why are they back?" Her voice was scarcely louder than a whisper.

Damon gave a harsh laugh. "This is Mystic Falls. We've had almost 16 vampire-free years. I guess it was just time."

"Technically, we've only had seven vampire-free years." Elena pulled the washcloth from her face and pushed her hair back away from her face.

"Technically." He repeated.

She sighed heavily into his chest.

"Everything alright in there?" Alaric's voice called out from the hallway. "I think Claire's about to come in after y'all."

Damon patted Elena's leg. "I'll be right back." Elena cringed and nodded before bolting toward the toilet. "Do you need me to stay?" Elena waved him off and closed the door behind her.

"Damon?" Alaric took a hesitant step into the master bedroom.

Damon pointed to Elena's office. "Let's talk in there." Alaric reluctantly followed his friend after taking one last glance at the closed door.

"Are you going to really tell me what's going on?" Alaric closed the French doors after he entered the room. "Is she alright? And don't say food poisoning. Claire told me Elena's been living in the bathroom since the wreck."

"Let's start with the easy stuff." Damon leaned back against Elena's desk, careful not to knock over any of the stacks of paper. "When Elena had the wreck, she hit a vampire."

"I know that." Alaric and Damon had talked at length after Sheriff Forbes asked him to re-convene the secret council. They'd decided to wait until after Christmas. Damon thought the timing of today's events was ironic since calling the council members was actually at the top of his to do list for the day.

Damon frowned and nodded. "This morning, when the kids went out to play in the snow, we saw the footprints in the yard. Someone had been looking in the kitchen window."

"And that's why we were wandering through the woods."

"Yep."

Alaric sighed and dropped into the chair. "And you have no idea who it might be..."

Damon shrugged and pursed his lips. "I haven't seen anyone familiar hanging around. We should be alright as long as no one invites anyone inside the house; but I don't know why they're here, and I want to find out."

"That makes two of us." Alaric leaned back in his chair. "You said this was the easy stuff. What's up with Elena? I thought she was pretty much back to normal."

"That depends on how you define normal." For the first time since breakfast, Damon's lips curled into a wry grin as he studied the confusion on Alaric's face. "Give her about six more months, and she'll be good as new."

"She's not."

"Oh yes." Damon rubbed his forehead.

Alaric closed his eyes and shook his head. "I seem to remember the two of us having a conversation similar to this about seven years ago. Do you not understand how this works?"

Damon flashed an evil grin. "I think Elena and I have it down to a science."