I'm back!

I Hope you had a great Christmas! I obviously didn't update. Reason #1 : Nooo time, at all.

Reason#2 : I doubt all of you would have spent the night reading my chapters, soo… here it goes!

Suggested soundtrack : I hate you Katherine- TVD The Score .com/watch?v=OoOLdCXVfcQ&feature=related

Breakeven – The Script

.com/watch?v=xMlou7Q0GRE&feature=related

Halfway Gone – Lifehouse TVD The Score

.com/watch?v=Mjq5bC3WYe4&list=PLF4D079B05AC555BD&index=14&feature=plpp_video

Everything – Lifehouse

.com/watch?v=f1tVk-QlBKs

WATCH THE STORY TRAILER : .com/watch?v=JFYVlWhFNks

P.S : I seriously need to thank Rose for her nice comments and song suggestions! I'll use them in my next chapter, you can guess why :3 I can't answer you, though, 'cause you don't have the reply mode on!

And how to forget Deadlybitch14 and pannybaby123 ? You guys are SO nice. Love ya.

Those were my today's "thanks". I obviously read and appreciate every single comment of yours. And I love whoever follows the story.

No more blabbing! Enjoy the chapter!

-Mannie

Daughter of the darkness

Elena's POV

I was in my kitchen, slicing some vegetables for dinner.

My fingers moved quickly and precise with the big and sparkling knife twisted in them.

"Be careful with that" were the soft words that reached my ears from the living room right in front of me.

I lifted my head, to examine the face of the misterious interlocutor. Deep down in my memory, I was familiar to his voice. It starled me, but at the same time it made me impossible of running away from it. I was dangerously drawn to it.

When my chocolate brown eyes met those with a cold ocean inside of it, I stood there, poweless and enchanted, with the silver weapon still in my hand.

Damon was sat down on the couch, smirking like if what was going on right in front of his person was the most entertaining of the movies.

His face suddenly shifted into something different,as shivers run down my spine.

"You don't wanna harm the baby" someone behind me whispered, menacing.

I turned to face my enemy. Somehow , I knew it was somebody I should have hid from.

Stefan.

The gloomy look that darkened his features was directed to my stomach.

I followed the glance, and froze in shock at the sight of my bloated belly.

" The baby "he had said.

The suddenly- yet too late- I understood.

I had a baby inside of me. I was pregnant.

The razor I had been holding in my left hand was now sparkling in the faint light with some red and dense liquid on it.

Stefan's features contracted, until the demon inside of him was shown.

Blood was pouring down my hand.

I instinctively cried out in terror, at the sight of the same subtance on the floor.

It was coming down from the lower part of my belly.

"No!" I screamed.

My baby.

My baby was dying. I knew he was.

Damon.. Where was he?

My legs weakened, my arms got thinner… And thinner. Until I had no strenght left and hit the floor on my belly.

"No!" I broke the dead silence of my hospital room, widening my eyes in horror and trying to slow down my pulse.

"Shh" was the soft and soothing whisper that came up from my head. I slightly lifted it, to find Damon's face a very few inches from mine. "Guess it was a bad dream" his faint smile of a dark protector angel appeared on his lips.

Those lips that had been mine just some hours before.

It was a bad dream what I just had. Yes.

The worst nightmare I'd ever had.

My hands went unconsciously on my empty and flat belly.

What I had just dreamt, would have meant to be as such.

No chances for me to see that belly grow.

I nodded to myself, and I flinched my fingers on my skin.

His hands went on my shoulders, and squeezed them.

Damon sighed, so soft that I would have never heard it if it wasn't for the dead silence. Maybe I had even just imagined him doing that.

"Get ready, miss." He announced, his voice went back on his casual tone. "We're going home"

Boarding House, Late Afternoon. ( Around 6.30 p,m.)

We had just come back from the hospital.

As far as I could tell, Damon was taken aback as much as me when he saw Rick, Stefan, Bonnie, Caroline and Jeremy waiting apprehensively and pretty much pissed off in the parlour.

"Why the hell haven't you told us she was sick the moment it happened?"Caroline hissed in his face, as she threw herself on him.

"Car.." I tried to stop my over-reactive friend.

"No defenses, Elena" she lifted her index finger to me,her face still turned to Damon's. "What happened to her?" her serious tone echoed in the silence that filled the room.

Everybody was waiting for some good explanation.

I hoped so bad he wouldn't tell them the medical's response.

We all knew how bad Caroline could get when she wanted something. Some answers, in this case. And Damon was well aware of that. So he hurried to explain.

"Chill, Blondie" Damon casually responded, lifting his arms in defense. "She fainted. I needed to check out on her." His eyes narrowed.

As if some unaudible answer was given, Caroline backed off in understanding.

Nobody complained.

I couldn't believe it.

Did she – they know?

"Judgy" Damon called, then. Bonnie lifted one eyebrow.

"Yes, asshole?" I held back a giggle when I saw Damon's stunned face. Nobody but a powerful Bennett witch would dare to talk to him like that.

Bonnie smirked, coming next to me and hugging me in a protective way, as she was usual.

"We two need to talk" he announced, unashamedly right in my presence.

I saw Stefan lifting his head to me, in the same exact moment I did the same gesture.

I quickly released my gaze from his.

"Great." I interrupted them "I gues… Whatever it is, I shouldn't be here" my voice came out arse.

Damon exchanged that for some kind of hurt, and shook his head,puzzled.

"Guys" Caroline called for our attention. "Tyler's party's tonight. We don't wanna miss that. " she smiled widely and menacing, clapping her hands twice.

Good old Caroline's back I thought, sarcastically.

I was betting whoever would deny the request… Well, had to deal with her anger.

"No Blondie, we don't wanna miss that" Damon faked shame.

I shook my head.

"That means" she glared at me. "That you need to be ready by 8 p.m."

"Why are you saying this just to me?"

"Look around. You're the only one with no vampire speed. So you better get going. "

I shrugged, unbelieving, and took off.

That was gonna be a very long night.

It was like watching everything more vividly.

Since the hospital thing from that night before, I had realized how much I had lived in the dark over the past months. Like if an invisible mask had been put on my eyes, making me impossible to see the real world, detaching me from what had been my life over the past 18 years.

I had let everything slip from my hands, making Ana the controller of every single instant of my existence.

I couldn't bear that anymore.

She was a big lie.

She had led me on the path of pain. Of loss.

There was nobody else to blame if I was broken and hurt.

Now, in all coscience, I had understood how much I needed to kick her away from my life.

But it was hard.

How do you detach a part of yourself with no more bleeding of your own person?

I opened Damon's closet, looking for something reasonable to wear at the party.

Weirdly,it had now become my closet,too. Lately,my life had gotten so strange.

My relationship with him along that.

Truth saying, "strange" was an euphemism.

It felt like ages I hadn't been to party. More or less a month ago, at Klaus'.

I shivered,at the memory.

"Nothing pretty to wear?" a sudden voice freaked me out,making me jump.

I turned to see Katherine, sat on the bed. Her curly hair were perfectly combed to trigger every girl's envy.

"What.." I widened my eyes. "Hadn't you left?"

"I had. But I'm back. " she grinned, bitterly.

"Whatever you're trying to hide-" I trailed off, waiting for some kind of approval in her expression.

She simply lifted an eyebrow.

"I thought we were over the I-can't-stand-the-sight-of-you thing" she cut off,playing with her bracelet.

"Then why are you here, Katherine?" I tried to get her attention back.

She swiftly lifted her head and met my gaze.

"You're my family,Elena. The only one who I've left." Her cocky eyes went dark and emotional, all of a sudden.

I was taken aback, and let my arms drop on my hips.

"I.." I didn't know what to do.

She was right.

She was family.

"Don't send me all the others downstairs have done in the past. I think I've had enough of that"

Hurt was now shown.

"Katherine… "

"Please, Elena. Let me have the family I've never had. " and as she pronounced those words, her chocolate eyes went teary. Mine were an exact copy.

I nullified the distance between us, and did the only and instinctive gesture that could have meant more than words.

I hugged her, and surprise took over me when she wrapped her arms around my body.

"Thank you" her emotional voice left me speechless.

Katherine Pierce had a heart.

One hour later.

"That looks good on you" Katherine was leaned on the wall next to the bathroom, staring at my figure in a mirror.

I was wearing a short, black, lacy dress she had lent to me.

"Thank you for letting me borrowing this" I said.

She smiled a faint, but sincere smile.

"Are you gonna come?" I asked, casual, as I eyed her.

Even in a random leather black pants and dark shirt, she looked like she had just come out from the set of a movie.

The only thing that kept me from taking off the dress I had on, was the thought of that being her dress.

If it fit me, then it meant that I had her same measures.

I knew how Ana distorted the reflex of your own body image, and well aware of that, my hands went on my bare tights. Hoping with all my strenght they were not as fat as I saw them.

"Remove that from your mind." A thread of coolness traced her voice, calling me back to reality.

"You know." I trailed off, murmuring.

"I do." She nodded, slighlty. " I've known it from a long time by now".

I stared in her eyes from the mirror,puzzled.

"I couldn't do anything. You had Damon, though" she felt the need to explain.

"I shouldn't be talking about this" I shook my head, heading to the sink to make myself up.

"That's where you're wrong. " She told off, aware of something I was not. I eyed her, waiting for explanations. "He's never gonna give up on you. " a smug and pondering smirk crossed her face. "Don't push him back. It's gonna hurt both of you".

And she disappeared shortly after her suggestion.

Tyler's party

"I wonder where the guys are" Caroline lifted her head on the crowd.

" Did you text Stefan?" I asked.

"I did. Neither him, or the asshole answers." She kept on looking around.

I made a face. "Stop calling him like that. Don't complain if he insults you,then" I replied, in a maternal tone.

"Sure, Elena. When he'll stop being an ass, I'll be over with the insults." She stopped, then looked at me and laughed.

"You're so…" somebody's hands held my hips.

I jumped off, startled.

"What .." I turned,to see Damon.

"Nice way of greeting someone." He held my gaze, then unpolitely – as Damon's ways of doing imposed- he stared at my whole figure.

"Nice outfit" he complimented, as I felt the blush on my cheeks.

Behave! My own mind told off.

"Enough nice-s " I beckoned a smile.

"Wanna go outside?" he offered, his eyes enlightening.

He was up to something.

I lifted my eyebrow, and stared.

"Damon.."but he cut me off, lifting his index finger. "No Damons." He referred to my previous joke "Just relax, for a time out, remember? " he brought back to my mind a pleasant memory back to when everything was quite normal. Before all that mess.

"Okay" I gave him my consent, still drawned in the thought.

As we headed outside, I sought for his contact.

I held his gaze when I realized he was trying to do the same.

We walked in the enormous backyard, it had to be called garden, for its size. It was full of ancient benches, seats and tables. I could bet, from their styles, they dated back to 1864.

I wondered how it would have been like to live with him, so many years ago.

To meet the human part of Damon.

But right now, it didn't matter to me. Because I loved him, just the absurd way he was.

I gasped for air at the sight of a small lake right in front of us.

It seemed to come out from a fairytale.

"Like it?" he asked, cocky.

"It's gorgeous" I agreed, as I sighed.

The faint rays of the moon shone through his ebony hair. His perfectly shaped features were emphasized by the dark lightening.

He belonged to the darkness.

"Why all this?" I asked, concerned.

He stared at the landscape right in front of us, as he talked. "I've had a conversation with Bonnie, while you were upstairs with Miss 't think I missed that." He announced, as I made a face for his manners. I let it drop, waiting for him to continue. "She found a simple spell to heal you. She'd want me to tell you that before, but I was afraid your system might have been damaged if we'd have waited more... " he was silent for some seconds "So I forced her to do that." His face showed nothing close to guilty, as he checked for my expression.

"You mean she casted a spell to heal me?" A shadow of a smirk tensed his lips, an invitation I quickly took, as I parted mine, making them meet shortly after.

Our tongues fought one with another, I didn't give up easily. But soon enough, he had the lead.

"I want you, Elena" were his whispered words in between our gentle kiss. Too much was being hold back. "As I've never wanted anyone else in my life."

As those words were said, a rush of needing spouted through my veins.

All my body went on fire.

I needed him.. More than anything else in that whole universe.

It was so true, it was so… much to bear, that my own heart was risking to be shattered.

I half-smiled.

"I'm yours now"

And as the awareness fulfilled me, I gave up to my love for Damon.