"So…how are things going with you and Christine?" Selina asked her father over lunch at school. "Did she take you back?"

"She did," Matthew nodded. "She's a good woman. She has a list of things I need to do to make up what I did, but it's nothing too hard."

"Good," Selina nodded. "If you two would have split up, I would have been so sad."

"Would you really?" Matthew asked. "That's so sweet."

"Of course," Selina nodded. "I know my thoughts about you two were not so good at first, but now…now I'm just glad she makes you happy."

"Good," Matthew smiled. "Thank you. And I won't forget about you, I promise."

"Oh, I know," Selina nodded. "And as long as our bonding experiences don't involve you putting me in a car without my knowledge and taking me to a house I've never actually been to again, I think we could still have some good times."

"Yeah, I agree," Matthew nodded. "Let's not do that crazy abduction thing again. I mean, we can still spend time just the two of us, right? As long as we both know what we're there for?"

"Of course," Selina nodded. "I would love that. And the funny thing is, if you had done that sort of abduction plot when I was human and little, it would have made me so happy. Did you ever…did you ever think about that all the times you came back to see me?"

"Yes," Matthew nodded. "There were times that I did, but of course, then I thought of your mother and how it would hurt her to not have you in her life and I just couldn't do it." He paused. "Of course when you were fourteen, that changed."

"You mean, around the time you killed Robert Pierce, you thought of taking me away?" Selina asked.

"Yes," Matthew nodded, his gaze dark again. "I did. I looked at that man and thought of all he'd done, and I said to myself, 'I've been an absolute fool letting a monster like this around my child for so long. I know Amelia will do what she will, but that doesn't mean Selina should have to suffer for it. It started when I I'd finally gotten him cornered…."

"All right, you," the warden said as he roughly dragged a drunk Matthew to the jail cell where Amelia's current husband, Robert Pierce, sat in filth for his latest abuse of her. The door was then opened and Matthew was then roughly shoved in, landing at Robert's feet. Robert, who waw swarthy with a beard that covered the entire area under his nose, burst into laughter and Matthew could see very clearly that he'd lost a few teeth.

"Well look who's here," he chuckled. "How nice of them to stick you in here, pretty boy!"

Matthew scoffed. "How my wife was ever attracted to you, I have no idea."

That made Robert's laughter cut off. Then he leaned forward, squinting. "Well, what do you know?" He said, leaning back. "You are Amelia's little war hero, aren't you? She always told me you were dead. Don't you get any ideas now. When I get out of here, I'm going back to her. You ain't taking my place with her and your uppity little daughter. She's a pretty one, she is."

It was that last sentence that did it. That pushed Matthew over the edge, especially in his drunken state. Not that he wouldn't have defended his daughter if he hadn't been drunk, but part of the reason why he'd gotten himself into this state was to make it easier to get himself to jail, confront this monster who had been tormenting his wife and daughter, and end his life so they would be safe.

With a cry, Matthew charged the man. Although Robert Pierce was bigger, he wasn't as agile and soon, Matthew had knocked him to his feet and sunk his fangs into the man's neck, drinking from him with pleasure, tearing his throat out when the blood flow wasn't coming fast enough. When he'd had his fill and it was clear the man was very dead, he left the body on the cell floor and let the rats gnaw on it for a bit before parting the bars of the cell with his bare hands and dragging Robert Pierce's body out of the cell before zipping away from the jail and throwing him where he was later discovered by Mystic Falls officials. After nodding smugly, he then went to Doctor Stensrund's to confess what he'd done and promise not to do it again, and then ask the good doctor's help in getting Selina out of town. Amelia was clearly past caring, and even though Robert Pierce was now dead, who knew what sort of man Amelia would pick next to ogle their daughter as she went through her teenage years?

"So that's how it happened," Selina sucked in her breath. "Wow. But why didn't you take me away then even though it was the plan? Did Doctor Stensrund convince you not to?"

"Exactly," Matthew nodded. "After I told him what I did to Robert Pierce, he said that act was brazen enough to draw attention, and that taking you would only make things worse, and that if I wanted to go through with taking you away, I should at least wait until things died down first." He sighed. "Then of course, I listened to that and didn't see you again until Caroline asked me that fifties dance at the high school."

"I remember," Selina nodded. "I always thought she was an interesting choice. Why'd you pick her?"

"Well, there wasn't anyone from my family left, I thought it would be a bad idea to try and make friends with your mother's family, and I knew that you and the Forbes' had issues so they would be least likely to tell you that I had come back," Matthew replied. "Plus, Caroline reminded me of your mother."

"Yep," Selina nodded. "I knew that one was coming."

Matthew smiled. "You know me well." He then pushed the brownie he'd gotten with his lunch toward her. "You wanna eat this? I don't think I have room."

"Sure, I'll take it," Selina nodded. "Thanks."


"We got a letter," Amelia said as she came in with the mail the following Saturday. "Do you know a Thomas Cooper? I've never heard of him."

"I haven't either," Andrew replied. "Open it. Maybe we got the message by mistake."

So Amelia opened the letter and read it. It began I know this will probably sound weird, but…and continued to say that Thomas was a friend of Charlotte's and was writing on her behalf to tell them she was all right.

"That was nice," Andrew smiled. "I think we should keep that." He then looked at Amelia, who held the letter close to her chest. "Are you okay?" He asked her.

"Yes, but…Thomas," Amelia got out. "That name reminds me of something I need to tell you. Something important. It might shock you, though."

"Not after being brought back from the dead," Andrew told her. "What is it?"

Amelia let out a breath and sat down. "You promise me you won't freak out when I tell you?" She asked. "Do you swear?"

"Yes, just tell me!" Andrew cried. "You're starting to scare me now. Is it something bad? Did you do something wrong that I don't know about?"

"Well, it's not as bad as all that," Amelia admitted. "But just before you died, I realized that I was carrying your child. After you died, I managed not to miscarry, and then when I went into labor, I ended up giving birth to a healthy boy that I named Thomas when I still thought I could raise him on my own. You and I had a son. And it was one of the saddest things to happen in my whole life that I didn't get to raise him with you." After she was done with her speech, she waited for Andrew to say something in response, but he stayed silent. "Would you say something?" She begged. "Please?"

He opened his mouth to try and get words out, but all he managed were a few noises before his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.


Andrew was so shocked by what Amelia had told him that he had to take the night off from law school, calling the teacher to let him know once Amelia had brought him out of his faint.

Then, when he'd come back and was sitting down, he said to her, "Are you joking? This is a very odd trick to play on me."

"It's not a trick," Amelia told him calmly. "It happened for real. I found out right after you died. If I had known before I would have let you know."

"And you didn't miscarry?" Andrew wanted to know, even though Amelia had already gone over that, and answered every other question he was asking. "What happened to our son?"

"I named him and was all set to raise him, but then I looked at Selina and realized how much I screwed her up, and I didn't want to do that to Thomas too, so…so Doctor Stensrund and I drove into Richmond and left him in an orphanage and I've tried not to think of it ever since."

"And…and does Selina know about her younger brother?" Andrew asked. "Why didn't she ever mention this to me?"

"Well, you know I sent her from house to house when she was a girl," Amelia told him. "Between that and my going to hide out at Doctor Stensrund's when I really began to show, there's no way she could have known."

"Oh, my god," Andrew sighed. "The one time I get a healthy child and a woman I love who manages to make it through her labor, I don't even get to be around to enjoy the experience. And he's long dead now, so it's not like we can just find him and start over." He looked at Amelia. "That's what this is about, right? Seeing that someone with the same name wrote that letter for Charlotte made you remember this? You don't think it's our Thomas that wrote that letter?"

"Of course not," Amelia replied. "It was years ago that I had him. He would be long dead by now."

Andrew sighed. "I just wish we could know where to go and pay our respects."

"Yeah," Amelia nodded. "Here's the bright spot too: With this second chance we've been given, we can try again if we want." She paused. "Do you want?"

"Of course," Andrew assured her. "But it would probably be best to warn Selina well in advance before we do, don't you think?"

"Yes," Amelia nodded. "I totally agree about that."