A/N - Thanks for all the favorites, follows, and reviews! I'm sorry this took so long to get this posted. I just moved, and then I was feeling very uninspired. This story is at a transitional spot, and I'm having a hard time moving into the supernatural plot. I never expected it to get this long. Originally I thought of this as a short story, just exploring what it was like for Damon to be human after a century and a half as a vampire. I didn't think I had a plot. Then I did. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get to the next phase of this story. I don't have a beta, and I could use someone to bounce ideas off. If anyone is interested, let me know! And I will try to get the next chapter up in a much more timely manner.
Sajen - great ideas on where the last chapter was going. I hope you like the direction I took it. Elena is not de-aging. I didn't mean it literally when I said that she sounded young. More like vulnerable, which can make someone seem younger. And the Sajen character does not show up in this chapter, but I'm planning on bringing him back next time.
To the guest reviewer who pointed out that Damon's father was physically abusive in the show's canon - I didn't remember that, but I checked it out online and it looks like you're right. Thanks so much for pointing out this discrepancy.
Elena had been lying flat on her back on Damon's bed for the last hour, wearing maternity jeans and a sweater pushed up to just under her boobs, revealing her bulging belly. Bonnie stood over her, murmuring the words to a spell, trying to make contact with Elena and Damon's unborn child. Elena was getting bored. And cranky. And worried.
She stewed on a mess of worries, while Bonnie murmured incantations under her breath, while Caroline chattered about the Lamaze classes Elena really should have signed up for months ago, and how she should probably start interviewing preschools immediately, and how she shouldn't feel bad if she laughed so hard she peed herself. Elena had not done this, but Caroline assured her it was a thing, pretty inevitable (even for pregnant vampires, though no one had ever heard of a pregnant vampire aside from Caroline), and totally normal, nothing to be ashamed of. Elena did not want to pee herself. She did not want Damon to witness her peeing herself. And she wanted off this goddamned bed.
At least it was comfortable. Everything Damon bought was expensive, well crafted, and well maintained. She'd tried to buy their bed in Charlottesville from a Mattress Warehouse, but he'd stepped in with his black American Express card and ordered them a mattress made out of some bizarre mixture of goose down, memory foam, and materials created in space. According to Damon, half the royalty of Europe had this exact type of bed.
"Can I please get up?" Elena asked, trying not to whine. Her back was actually beginning to ache. Why was everything uncomfortable lately? Even on this incredibly expensive mattress.
"Not yet," Bonnie said, distracted as she placed a crystal on Elena's soon-to-be outtie belly button. "I'm still trying to coax her into talking."
"You can actually talk to her?" Elena said, perking up, imagining what kind of conversations she might share with her daughter someday, willing herself to believe that there would be that someday.
"Ooh, goody," Caroline said, looking up from the stack of math tests she was grading. "Tell her to describe the womb experience. I've always wondered about that."
"I don't believe that you have always wondered about the womb experience," Elena said.
"I have."
"It doesn't matter because we can't actually talk to her," Bonnie said. "She's a fetus. She doesn't use words."
"Yet she gives me freaky visions and has me jumpy, and worried that something's going to happen every time she kicks or somersaults," Elena said. And just like that, the baby kicked. "Oof! Did your crystal feel that? Did she hear that?"
Bonnie shook her head, looking worried. "There just isn't precedent for this. I've been talking to a couple Bennett witches, and no one has come across this exact thing. Some witches find their own abilities heightened, or drained, when they're pregnant. But you're not a witch. And I've never heard of a baby causing visions like these."
Elena forced herself to lie still on this heavenly bed — a bed that made it comfortable to recover from gunshot wounds or werewolf bites, or moving your limbs for the first time in half a decade (after you wake up from a sleeping curse). But even here, her back ached, reminding her that she had another life inside her, a daughter already trying to communicate with her.
Elena wished her problem was an aching back, or some other annoying physical discomfort. She wished she was upset by how tired she felt lately, how nine pm felt like midnight. Or even that she was frightened of motherhood. Couldn't she worry about all the regular, human things that human women worried about when pregnant? Wouldn't that be enough?
When she first found out she was pregnant, she'd felt frightened of the future, for all the ordinary reasons. Those beautifully ordinary reasons. She'd wondered how she would finish school, if she should stay home or get daycare right away, if she should take up Damon on his sweet, though utterly ridiculous offer to be a stay-at-home dad. She'd read articles about bottle vs. breast, co-sleeping vs. sleep training, what kinds of strollers and cribs and baby monitors to buy, etc. etc. etc. She'd journaled about it. A lot. She'd done all this thinking and fretting and writing without considering the supernatural. How had she not considered the supernatural? She'd worried about losing the baby, but that was a medical thing. Even though her medical issue was that she had been a vampire for a couple years and then taken the cure for vampirism — she had simply been concerned that the Cure would have screwed with her biology too much to allow her to carry a baby to term. But this? She hadn't thought about her baby being magical. And she hadn't considered that she might end up right back in the middle of a supernatural plot.
Elena had begun apologizing to the baby every morning and every night. The baby deserved better than her and Damon as parents. Their baby deserved a better life.
Elena sat up, letting the crystal slide to the floor. She pulled her sweater down, noticing how prominent her baby bump was. Bonnie stepped back, saying, "Are you feeling okay? Do you need a cracker or something?"
Elena shook her head and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I'm fine. Everybody needs to stop asking me how I feel. If I'm in pain, I will let you know."
"Elena —" Caroline began.
Elena felt her voice breaking as she said, "It's all starting, all over again. I spent years in constant crisis. One thing after another. Sometimes I didn't even feel like a real person. The last couple years of high school I had no interests or hobbies outside of staying alive, keeping everyone else alive, and mourning an ever-expanding list of loved ones. And now with a baby? I can't do this again. I can't do this to her."
Caroline smiled sadly, her eyes full of sympathy. Bonnie sat beside Elena, putting an arm around her. Elena knew if she let herself collapse into Bonnie's hug that she'd end up crying, bawling in her best friend's arms. So she pulled away and pushed herself up into a standing position.
"We're not getting anywhere here," Elena said. "And I'm going to go crazy if I have to lie in bed any more. Why don't we go downtown, to the building I saw in my vision?"
"We need to stay here," Bonnie said with a sigh. "I've got five types of protection spells on this whole house. I've spelled all the students, and anyone who enters this house, so they can't discuss your whereabouts. This house is the safest place for you right now."
"Why isn't Damon under house arrest?" Elena snapped.
"Damon isn't pregnant," Caroline said.
"Damon has the Cure actively running through his blood," Elena countered. "If another vampire tried to take it from him, he'd start aging and be dead in a couple months. But he's allowed to go to the grocery store all by himself?"
Bonnie sighed again. "I've had protection spells on Damon since he took the cure. On you too."
Elena rolled her eyes.
Caroline smiled way too brightly as she began to speak. "I know it's hard. I know it's awful — the waiting, the worrying. This all just sucks. But we want to make sure you stay safe. And, well, I didn't want to say anything unless I was sure … but I spoke with Klaus yesterday, about the school. He asked about you, and I didn't say much. Klaus used the word expecting more than once. I think he knows you're pregnant."
Elena swallowed, hard. It felt like ice was running through her veins. She hadn't allowed herself to think about the Original hybrid, or any designs he might have on her baby, her lineage. When she'd become human again, she'd wondered if he'd come after her, wanting her human doppelganger blood to make more hybrids. But apparently there'd been some drama in New Orleans. When Elena woke up from her sleeping curse, Klaus was imprisoned by a New Orleans vampire who hated Klaus more than Elena did. Eventually, Klaus had gotten free, and he'd made no efforts to see Elena.
What could Klaus want with her baby? What would he do to make sure the lineage was safe, so that in 500 years another Petrova doppelganger would be born?
"I can't just stay here for the next four months," Elena said. "And what about the next 18 years?"
"It's just until we get the visions under control," Bonnie said.
Elena shook her head. She walked out of the room, down the hall, and headed down the stairs. Bonnie and Caroline yelled after her. Then ran after her. It was a flurry of sharp voices and nervous laughter. At the bottom of the stairs, Elena dodged Caroline's twins, who were levitating their school books to float behind them as they chatted with another girl. It looked like Alaric was gathering a small group of children for a lesson.
She was almost at the front door when Caroline zoomed in front of her. Caroline looked fed up. "You can't leave, Elena!" the blond vampire almost shouted.
"Yes, I can!"
Caroline's face hardened into a determined frown. Her pupils dilated as she said, "You are going to go upstairs, lie down, and let Bonnie finish her spell. And you will not try to leave again until Bonnie says it's okay."
"Like hell I am!" Elena said. "Wait! Are you trying to compel me?"
Caroline looked quizzical. "Are you wearing vervain? I thought you took off your necklace for the spell."
"I did. And I haven't eaten it, or drunk it, since I found out I was pregnant. How could you, Care?"
"Then how?"
"You were trying to compel me!" Elena shouted. Alaric and the children stared at them.
Caroline laughed a big fake laugh. "Good one, Elena! Nothing to see here, kids!"
Bonnie joined them, whispering, "What's going on here?"
Elena started to shake as she realized what had just happened. "I'm not on vervain, but Caroline's compulsion isn't working on me. Something really weird is happening."
She lay on Damon's bed, curled into as much of a fetal position as her misshapen body would allow, deep under the covers, trying to stop shaking. Someone knocked on the door. Again.
"Go away, Caroline!" Elena shouted for the eleventh time since she'd shut herself in the room. She burrowed under the covers, noticing that Damon's comforter was lighter than a regular feather-filled comforter. It was almost as light as air. Had he bribed some witch to enchant the feathers to be extra light, extra comfortable?
"It's not Caroline!" a man's voice shouted. Damon. He sounded tired, worn out, dragged down by the world. But he also sounded kind.
"I don't want to talk to anybody right now!" she shouted back.
"You called me! Come on, babe. Let me in." After jiggling the doorknob, he sighed and said, "Lena, did you lock the door?"
"I need alone time."
"No, you don't. Whatever the problem is, I can assure you that I've had worse days than you're having today. Come on. I don't have vamp strength anymore, otherwise I'd just break down the door."
"How sweet."
"I am sweet. For a reformed serial killer."
"Go away!"
And he did, surprisingly, for a few minutes. But then he returned. There was more jiggling of the doorknob. Elena peeked at the door from under the covers. Had a he found a key? And then Damon pushed the door open, a glint of satisfaction and mischief in his eyes.
He was so beautiful. She often forgot how beautiful her husband was, and then sometimes she'd see him, and this sensation would overwhelm her. This feeling of not being able to breathe because she was lost in his eyes. An impossible shade of blue. So light they would almost be gray. But they were too colorful to be gray.
When she was twelve, her parents had taken her and Jeremy on a trip to upstate New York one time, to visit distant relatives. They'd gone ice skating on a real frozen pond. It was too warm in Mystic Fall's area of southern Virginia for ponds to freeze solid in winter. But this pond up North had been solid ice. And the ice was blue, like Damon's eyes. Damon's eyes could often be cold. He shielded himself from disappointment, or from getting his heart broken, with sarcasm. He was the master of deflection, or pretending he didn't care. But it was just because he cared so much. Elena had once thought Stefan was the brother that cared. He'd certainly seemed kinder and more compassionate. He subscribed to a moral code, most of the time. He gave a damn about more than two people. But Elena had come to know the real Damon, the man who cared so much, who'd been rejected so many times. And he cared. Oh god, Damon cared. He wasn't a saint. His morality was questionable at best. But he gave a lot of damns.
And he was hers.
"Sometimes it pays to know how to pick a lock," he said, holding up a paper clip he'd bent into an s shape.
She smiled. A real smile. "Even vampires learn to pick locks?" she asked. "Or did you learn that as a human?"
"I wasn't that ballsy as a human. The first time, that is."
Elena laughed. Damon climbed in the bed beside her, pulling her close to him. He smelled like bread, like a bakery. And also windswept leaves. And ice skating. He smelled clean.
She snuggled into chest. He ran his free hand all over, making her insides flutter, before he rested his hand on her belly, stroking gently. She could imagine him stroking the baby's hair, soothing her to sleep. After a while, Elena said, "You did fall in love with a vampire, and you weren't afraid of her. Sounds pretty ballsy to me."
He laughed. It was strange that they could talk about this so freely, that he could laugh so freely about Katherine, who'd smashed his heart into a thousand pieces on multiple occasions. "So did you," he murmured. "Twice. And you weren't nearly as frightened of us as you should have been."
She swallowed hard. She still didn't know if he was over the whole triangle of it. If he understood. "What I had with your brother," Elena said softly, tentatively, "It wasn't like wasn't anything like what we have."
She could feel him shaking his head. "You don't have to apologize for it."
But she did. "It wasn't real."
Damon laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh. This laughter had a bite. A sour bite. "I was there. It was real."
Elena squeezed her eyes shut, trying to figure out how to explain. She hadn't really understood it until she had woken up from the coma. Maybe she'd needed to work out her feelings in dreams for five years to finally understand them. "Maybe real is the wrong word," she said as she opened her eyes, looking into those ice-blue eyes that seemed to compel honesty out of her. "Yes, I loved him. But it wasn't an adult love. And it wasn't based on real things. I didn't get to know Stefan before I fell in love with him."
Damon groaned. "Lena. I don't need to hear this."
"Well, I need to say it," she pushed on, steadily, stubbornly. "I wasn't in love with him as a person. I was in love with the idea of Stefan. He enrolled in school and started dating me because he was the in love with the idea of me. A good version of Katherine. And at first I liked him because he was the mysterious new guy. He was not Matt. He wasn't a hometown guy. He had this mysterious past. And this presence. He acted like a grownup. Of course it turned out he was four times the age of my parents."
Damon laughed more freely this time.
She smiled at him, continuing. "And then when I found out he was a vampire, it was even better. Weirdly. That makes no sense. But I liked the idea that he wouldn't die. That I would always have him. And I liked the danger, though I never would have admitted it back then. I liked to feel alive because my life was always in danger. Which is crazy. But I liked the rollercoaster of it all. And then when he turned out to be so tortured — it was nice to be the person who could bring him back from the ledge. Even when I couldn't. It was nice to think I could. I felt important. And for a seventeen year-old girl, feeling that important is intoxicating. And I cared about him. I did love Stefan. But after a while, it was like we were this boring married couple. We were just together because we were together. There wasn't passion. We didn't share any interests, beyond journal writing and staying alive. That's just not enough, you know? We didn't have fun together like you and I do. I saw Stefan with Lexi, and I was so jealous of their bond. Of the way she made him laugh. I thought I'd get there with him, eventually. I never did."
"So you settled for me?" Damon snapped, clearly only half joking.
Elena sat up so she could look at him, really look at him. God, he looked young. Now that Damon was human, he looked younger somehow, like all the vampire magic was sucked out of him and she was reminded that when he'd turned he'd been nothing more than a young man. 25. Not a boy, especially by 1800's standards. But still young. Still under his father's thumb. In love with a woman who treated him like a servant. Who he let treat him that way. In love with danger and death.
"I fell for you," she said, tapping his chest. "You. Not the idea of you. I didn't fall in love with you until I knew who you were, good and bad. I used to hate the idea of you. Before I knew you. Damon, I fell in love with you slowly. As we became friends, as I learned who you were, as I learned why I could trust you. And that's why it's real. And that's why it's a love that consumes me. That's why it's everything you told me I wanted. Remember telling me that? You got under my skin. You made me laugh. You had insights into my character that no one else did. You called me on my bullshit. You were honest. You were the most honest person I ever met. You still are. When you say thank you, I know you mean it. When you say you don't hate someone, you really love them."
Damon laughed. "Well, I fell for you in a way I never fell for Katherine. She hit me over the head. You kind of snuck up on me."
She kissed him. He pulled her closer. It was sweet, almost chaste at first. But she opened her mouth and let her tongue dart inside his mouth, exploring his softness, his taste. She wrapped her leg around his and turned towards him, into him. She giggled as her belly bumped against him. It wasn't that big yet, but it was bigger than it had ever been, and it was beginning to be a barrier between them. He was grinning as he ran one hand through her brown hair and let the other one tickle her belly.
The baby did a somersault.
"You are so damned beautiful, Elena."
"Even fat?"
"Especially fat," he said, laughing, his eyes devilish. But not red. No vamp face. How strange to kiss Damon, to make him moan as she did now, reaching down, stroking him through his expensive jeans. "Though I wouldn't call it that," he went on. "I'd say curvy. Voluptuous. And I mean, Jesus Freaking Christ, you're carrying my baby. It's me and you in there, babe. It's us, all mixed up together. This belly," he said, sitting up so he could kiss her belly. "I can't wait for it to get bigger. I can't wait to see you really curvy."
Elena laughed. Damon delighted her. She had never seen him happy like this, before she'd woken up from the coma. She'd never seen him as free with his emotions. "Well, it's coming, babe," she told him. "Just you wait." And then she sat up. She pushed him down on his back, not particularly gently. She straddled him, sitting on his pelvis, feeling him stirring below her.
She held his hands back behind his head as she leaned down and kissed his neck. Her belly grazed against his chest as she ran her tongue up and down his neck, tracing that familiar carotid artery.
Damon moaned.
She found the place where she would have bitten him, and she kissed him hard. Sucked the skin into her mouth. And then, surprising herself, she bit him. Not nearly hard enough to draw blood. But he moaned like she was draining him, like they were blood sharing.
She moved down his neck to his throat, his Adam's apple, his chest above his black t-shirt. "Take it off," she murmured.
He opened his eyes, grinning at her.
And all of a sudden they were stripping off their clothes until they were naked. He was kissing her everywhere. Her neck. Her breasts. Her belly. When he moved beneath her belly, she felt her body burning up, fire racing through her veins before he'd even reached the spot he was looking for.
Damon almost fell asleep after they had made love, and he'd lain in Elena's arms, so peacefully. But something was keeping him from relaxing. "So anyway," he said to her, after what felt like a lifetime, lying in this bed together, "In the spirit of honesty. … Why the hell were you hiding under a blanket? And what has Care Bear and Bon Bon so freaked?"
Elena sighed, but said nothing.
"Come on, Elena," he said. "You called me."
"Caroline tried to compel me," she began.
Damon clenched his fists. "What the hell? Where does she get off?"
"How many times did you compel her?"
"Not the point."
"The point is it didn't work. I don't think I can be compelled. You should get her to try it on you. I think it's the Cure. It makes us reject vampire blood, right? Maybe it makes us reject vampire powers too."
Damon let this sink in. It could be useful. If they were really uncompellable. But it also felt wrong. "What's the problem?" he asked his wife.
She smiled but it wasn't a real smile. "It's the magic," she said. "The visions. The magic baby inside me. Now this. It scares the hell out of me. I don't understand it. I can't control it. And it doesn't make much sense."
Damon groaned. It didn't make sense to him either. He held her close, not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to understand magic or its hold on them any more than she did. He didn't want to bring anything up, but he had to. He didn't think this could wait.
"Look, I need you to talk to Donovan," he said softly.
"Don't mess with Matt," she said.
"He's messing with the Council," Damon said.
"What?"
"It's something to do with those traffic accidents."
"Why didn't he tell us?"
"I don't know. I thought he was done hating me. Apparently not."
Elena burrowed her way under the covers.