Disclaimer:

Obviously, I own no part of The Vampire Diaries. If I did, there would be no Silas, no Travelers, and the whole Sirens/Cade plot would make a whole lot more sense. Regardless of any plot holes or slumps in later seasons, I thank Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson, from the bottom of my heart, for creating such a kick-ass show based (oh so loosely) on L. J. Smith's original book series. No way could I have done this story better than Julie and Kevin, and I'm loving the chance to add my own twist to their TVD universe.

Summary:

(Post-series. Expect spoilers.)

Damon. Elena. Human. 2040. Six kids. Lots of responsibilities. Seeing Klaus and Caroline's free and loose vampire life, they feel the many indignities of aging and being human.

This story is a short sequel to my very long, completed fic "The New Normal," which picked up shortly after the series finale. This new story is set about 20 years after that story ended (and six years after my epilogue). It's just me having fun, showing a glimpse into Damon and Elena's future and their family life. At most, this sequel will be three or four chapters.

A/N

This chapter is un-betaed. As this is a sequel to a book-length work, I'd suggest that you read "The New Normal" first. I think this story will generally make sense without reading the first, but you're probably best to start at the beginning.

Cheers,

Norah

August 2040

Williamsburg, Virginia

"Why does it always have to be the freaking third floor?" Damon grumbled as he lugged one of his son's boxes up the second flight of stairs of this godforsaken brick building. When they reached the landing, he had to put the damned thing down and mop his forehead. Caroline laughed behind him, sounding free and unencumbered and of course not panting. His box landed with a thud. He was sweating like a pig, and he really wanted to blame this excess of perspiration on the excess of humidity in a Virginian August. Why did kids have to move into college during the hottest month of the year? And why, oh why, did humans have to sweat? Yes, the weather was a culprit here, a large part of why this particular climb was difficult. Add to that the mere fact that Damon Salvatore was a human being. But his other, more embarrassing problem was that he didn't have the same body he'd had all those years ago, when he'd been cured of vampirism and began this human 2.0 life. He was almost twice as old, biologically at least. A couple months ago he'd had to cut out his morning jogs, because he'd twisted his knee. The knee he'd banged up in a freaking Civil War battle, which had been an annoyance over the past decade but was now a persistent problem. Flaring up and swelling up all the time. Causing his doctor to frown and lecture him about taking care of his apparently pathetic body. Two years shy of fifty (if you counted biologically) and 201 years old (if you counted from his actual birth date), he was still trim and sexy, still got plenty of looks from the ladies, and a number of gentlemen. He wasn't a lost cause, but climbing these stairs felt like torture.

Also, his head ached like a witch had used juju powers to light him up. Last night had been a glorious gift of hedonism, the kind of night he almost never got anymore, what with all those pesky kids and pesky responsibilities. But the hangover and lack of sleep was freaking killing him. He blamed Elena for not coming along on this particular adventure—making him help Gil, their third child, move into his freshman dorm without proper supervision. He and his wife had been all "divide and conquer" this year. Ric was watching the three youngest kids back home. Joey was in Vegas with his boyfriend, having promised to get to Columbia in time for classes to start, and no doubt getting into his fair share of trouble, because Damon had okayed the trip before Elena could say no. And because Joey, unlike his older sister, didn't need hand holding before the semester began.

Elena had taken their oldest child to New York while Damon handled Gil's freshman dorm crap. Summer had actually graduated in May, but she was still in the student mindset, and wanted Elena's help moving into her new studio apartment/closet, and getting set up for the internship she'd landed right after graduating from Columbia. An internship that would, according to his most angsty child, make or break her entire future. Talk about melodrama. It was almost like she was a freaking vampire instead of a witch.

If Elena had been here in Williamsburg with Damon last night, he would have been in bed with his wife by nine, watching Netflix, and asleep by eleven, not out clubbing until four in the morning. Elena was a reasonable person.

Damon's "help" on this college move-in trip was one Caroline Forbes-Salvatore. Who had brought Klaus along, because apparently Klaus had nothing better to do, and thought it was amusing. Caroline had taken one look at him when she'd arrived at their house in Mystic Falls two nights ago and said, "No, no, no. You've gone too native. There's the sexy dad look. And then there's that." She'd proceeded to raid his closet, made him change out of the ratty sandals, comfortable jeans, and the polo shirt he had to agree was embarrassing, into his most expensive casual shoes, tight jeans that he knew looked good even if they were not as comfy, and a black t-shirt that had cost a hundred dollars and which Caroline had pronounced, "classic Damon Salvatore."

And she'd decided he needed an intervention to reclaim his true self. She'd gotten her twins to hang out with Gil last so Damon could go clubbing with Klaus and Caroline in some dive in Virginia Beach. So he could act like he was twenty-five again. Or undead. Either one would fit here, really. And it was awesome. Damon hadn't been dancing in at least three years, and he'd reveled in the hedonism of the night. But keeping up with vampires was exhausting. Caroline and Klaus could drink all night and not get drunk, could stay up all night and not feel any consequences. The club should have closed at two, but Klaus had managed to compel the manager into staying open all night. Damon's ego, and his desperate need to break out of dad-and-husband-and-responsible-adult-mode, had prevented him from listening to the Elena-voice-of-reason in his head, telling him to call it a night at one, or two at the latest. To drink only a couple rounds of bourbon with several glasses of water, no ice, in between. Instead, like a child, he'd tried to keep up with Klaus Michaelson. At drinking.

So they hadn't gotten the early start they'd promised Gil. And this afternoon, on these stupid steps, Damon was out of shape, out of breath, hungover, and going on four hours of not-great-quality sleep. "Do you have an aspirin?" he asked Caroline when he caught his breath.

She looked up from her phone, a quizzical expression on her beautiful and timelessly young face. Forever seventeen. She had her moving box casually tucked under one arm. The other was clutching her cell, the newest iPhone 30. She was hammering her text with the sort of precision that was very, very Caroline. Human or vampire, Caroline was always precise and always determined. Even about the smallest task. "Why would I have aspirin?" she asked.

Damon sighed. "Right. Vampire. No headaches." And now the fact that he'd asked a vampire for the aspirin in the first place seemed so ludicrous. He'd been human too long. Twenty-three years. These days, his vampire life felt distant enough that he no longer felt like a man out of time, or a vampire playing human. Most people he knew carried aspirin, because nowadays Damon didn't hang out with vampires on a regular basis.

"Hangover that bad?" Caroline asked, still typing her text message. Was she writing a novel?

"Worse," Damon said, mopping his brow with the old school handkerchief he kept in the back pocket of his jeans.

"Do you want me to run to the pharmacy?" she said, overly concerned as she turned on that very Caroline, mother hen thing. Like she couldn't help it.

"No!"

This was getting stupid. Resolving to reach Gil's damned dorm room before he'd dissolved into a puddle of water and salt, Damon crouched down, trying to manhandle the box. His back twinged. Damon groaned in pain, but he tried to be quiet about it. Which was kind of stupid because he was standing next to a vampire: she was going to hear any sound regardless of how loud or soft it was. Damon shut his eyes briefly, took a deep breath, and changed his stance. Lifting with his legs instead of his back. He got the box up with minimal embarrassing sounds.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he grunted as they began to climb the next flight of stairs. "Gil said these were books but I swear he packed it full of bricks just to fuck with me."

Caroline laughed as she walked behind him. And then she ran smack into him. Damon dropped the box on his foot and would have toppled down two flights of stairs if Caroline hadn't caught him with her arms of steel. So, the lesson here was that if you were going to have a friend dumb enough to walk into you when you were climbing the stairs while carrying a heavy box, you better make sure that said dumb friend was a vampire.

"FUCK!" Damon screamed. "I mean, seriously, Caroline, it's a box of fucking bricks, and now you're walking into me. Could you just, I don't know, maybe not do that?"

A middle aged-woman and a teenaged girl were approaching them, coming down the stairs. The girl was conservatively dressed in a collared shirt and khakis, and had that look about her, deer in the headlights sort of look, like she'd been sheltered from the whole damned world by helicopter parents.

The woman, presumably the mother, glared at Damon with a scandalized, uber self-righteous expression. "Excuse me, but could you watch your language?" she asked in the most prissy tone Damon had heard in at least three months. She was wearing a white pants suit. To move her daughter into a dorm? In August? In Southeastern Virginia?

"What?" Damon snapped.

"Damon, leave it," Caroline hissed.

Damon rolled his eyes. Ignoring the prissy mother, he said to Caroline, "Maybe if you could just walk up the stairs without shoving into me."

"Maybe if you could walk up the stairs at a normal pace, old man," Care said.

Damon glanced back and gave her his best eyebrow waggle. "Care Bear, I can still take you."

"You cannot."

"You can't even walk up the stairs without almost killing me," he said, laughing, as he continued his climb. Caroline followed at a safer distance.

A really annoying throat clearing, and Damon turned back to the prissy woman in white. "Is that really how you talk to your daughter?" she asked him. "You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Damon and Caroline broke out laughing, immediately. He was tempted to tell the bossy woman exactly who and what Caroline was. But he managed to overcome his darker instincts, saying, after his fit of giggles had passed, "Lady, she's not my daughter. We're just trying to move in my son, who's up in his dorm room. NOT HELPING ME CARRY HIS SHIT UP THE STAIRS." Damon bellowed the last bit up to the third floor, wondering if Gil a) could hear him, and b) why the hell wasn't he carrying his own shit up the stairs, and instead leaving it to his old man. Seriously?

The prissy woman said, "Language! I will not have you using that kind of language around children, no matter how you speak to your own, or to young girls who are helping you carry boxes."

Damon just rolled his eyes, but apparently Care had had enough of the woman's tongue because she said, "Ma'am, with all due respect, you don't own the dorm. You have no authority in this building, and it's neither your responsibility nor your place to police anyone's language. If you have a problem, take it up with the R.A., or the college administration."

Damon laughed, or tried to..

Just another half flight of stairs.

Half a flight, old man, you can do it.

"Well, I have never!"

"Mom!" said the woman's poor daughter, her voice so desperate Damon felt sorry for the kid and thought he might tell Gil to befriend her. She didn't seem like a bitch, which was an achievement considering the mother. The poor kid could probably use a friend, almost definitely had no idea how to socialize. Not with that mother. Damon knew that kind of kid, enough came through the Salvatore School. "Please don't do this," the girl begged.

"Are you going to the third floor?" Mother-from-Hell yelled.

"Obviously," Caroline said.

"I'm Mrs. O'Brien," the woman yelled up at them. "This is my daughter Chelsea. And if I find out that your child is a bad influence on her, Mr.—I didn't catch your name?"

"Mom!"

Damon had finally reached the third floor. Ignoring the incessant woman, he stared longingly down the hall. He could see the door to his son's room. Which held the promise of finally sitting down. His feet were killing him, and that old war injury was definitely flaring up. His knee only ached now, but he knew what was coming. He shouted, "Gil! Come get this freaking box, 'cause if I have to carry it another inch I think I might have a heart attack."

Caroline gasped as she ran up the last few steps and put her box down next to his. She grabbed his sweaty face, looking at him hard. "What are you talking about? What symptoms are you having? There's something about the left arm. Does your left arm hurt?" And now she was grabbing his left arm, like somehow touching it was going to give her information.

He pulled away from her. "I'm fine, Care, I promise. Figure of speech."

But she was tearing up. He pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm not going anywhere for a long time, okay?"

Caroline nodded. These last few years she'd started worrying way, way too much about her friends' health, overreacting to news that anyone had the flu or had busted up his knee, as if she was afraid they might drop dead at any moment. She'd always known she would outlive her childhood friends, but Elena and Bonnie's middle age seemed to be hitting her hard. Damon suspected that Caroline was also freaking out about the twins being adults who looked older than their mother. And the fact that her life was now distinctly a vampire life, diverging more and more from the lives of her old friends and her children.

It was really good to have Caroline here, her first visit Stateside in two years. He needed to tell her that. Even if Klaus had come along. And honestly, as long as Klaus wasn't eating anyone Damon cared about, or hatching diabolical plans, the Original was a hell of a lot of fun to party with. Hangover notwithstanding, last night had been awesome. Damon had loved every moment of stupidity and irresponsibility.

"Okay, okay, you're fine," Caroline said, pulling away and making a face. "And you're soaked. And now I'm soaked. How can you be sweating so much?"

"Humanity," he said. "It's a bitch."

Gil finally emerged from his room at the end of the hall. "Could you be any louder, Dad?" he asked. "I mean, seriously, everybody can hear you. It's embarrassing."

At seventeen Gil was skinny, with that gangly look of a kid not yet done growing, a kid whose adult body was still in limbo. Gil was all possibility. He was an inch or two taller than his dad. Damon was afraid that this kid might eventually dwarf him, unlike his older kids. Summer was about Elena's height, and Joey was exactly as tall as Damon. Gil had Damon's jet black hair, a bit of curl to it so that in certain light Damon could see hints of his Civil War-era self. But their third child had Elena's dark, deep eyes. Mild-mannered, with a sharp wit that could punch you in the gut if you provoked him, Gil was a bit like Stefan at that age. But not quite: the kid had more grit, less angst. He believed in himself in a way neither young Stefan nor young Damon had, was solid in a way that Damon's kid brother definitely hadn't been. Not even when he died at the ripe old age of 171. Maybe the difference was that Gilbert Lorenzo Salvatore didn't endure Damon and Stefan's shitty childhood. No mother sick in bed for years and then "dead." No abusive father. No evil vampire pretending to be a houseguest, and no townspeople rounding up vampires to "burn" them in a church.

Damon's boy was sweet, ridiculously smart, and much calmer than Joey and Summer. Much less trouble than those two, who had a habit of running off and then claiming that some witch (often Hope Mikaelson) had desperately needed their help solving some sort of terrifying magical crisis. Those two were a handful. Gil, on the other hand, had no magic and absolutely no interest in the supernatural. He didn't hate witches or vampires or anything like that. He just thought they were boring.

"I don't care if I'm embarrassing you," Damon snapped at the kid. "Take this box unless you want me to do something truly cringe-worthy. And then you can take a turn going down to the car, carry your own damned crap. And I'll have a nice little lie-down on your skinny-ass dorm bed."

Yes, he was grumpy, tired, hungover, sweaty, and old. But God, he adored this kid, even if he was currently glaring at him like Damn was an asshole. Oh well. Damon was an asshole. And he had a special place in his heart for this particular kid. He reached up and ruffled that hair, so much like his own.

Gil in college. Damn, this was weird. As he stood on the third floor of Monroe Hall, Damon was glad Caroline was here. He'd thought he just wanted a road trip buddy. But standing here, in front of his too-tall son, he was glad he wasn't alone, that the woman standing beside him understood how hard this milestone was to endure. Care knew how hard it was to watch your babies grow up—to have them not need you in the same way. Gil looked so old, standing there in cutoffs and a shirt advertising some band Damon had never heard of. He looked ... not like a kid anymore. Not quite an adult. But he looked like a person who didn't need Damon anymore, or at least not in the same way he had even a few months ago.

Something in Damon's chest caught. Taking Summer to college had been hard. And Joey one year later. But Gil. They were all leaving him. He didn't know what he'd do once their house, which only felt right when eight humans were sitting at the dining room table for family dinners, was home to only him and his wife. Beautiful as she was.

Before he'd turned, Damon had only wanted to Elena. He'd agreed to the-kids-thing because she wanted to be a mother so badly, and he wasn't anti-kid, but he didn't think he was father-material. Summer had been an accident. The fact that he fell in love with that first baby had been a shock, and a minor miracle. Joey had been another accident, though as soon as Damon had suspected Elena was pregnant again, he'd felt giddy.

This child, standing in front of him, was the first they'd actually planned for, tried for, and then actually got. When Gil was born, it was like Damon had crossed a threshold. He'd been human for six years, had crossed into his thirties (biologically), and had long since accepted his life as a family man. They'd moved back to Mystic Falls a couple years before, so Elena could start her residency as a general practitioner at Mystic Falls General, and they could rebuild the old Gilbert house. When Gil was born, they didn't live in married student housing, like when Summer and Joey were born, but in a real, grown-up house. They had three bathrooms, an actual nursery, and a laundry room so they could clean all those baby clothes stained with spit-up without lugging bags down to the laundromat. Damon had been a businessman for six years too, and he'd finally managed to get the new bar in Mystic Falls in the black. He was the primary caretaker too. Elena was run ragged with her residency back then, and he didn't have to work mornings.

He could've had the kids in daycare or preschool all day, or hired a nanny. In fact, they'd done that for a couple years. But when Summer had been about two, and started to talk up a storm, Damon had found himself wanting more time with the kids. And wanting to oversee their first experiences in the world. Alaric and Caroline had actually checked him over—to make sure he wasn't being compelled, or under a witch's spell—when Damon Salvatore of all people decided he was going to cut down on childcare hours so he could be a "stay at home dad" in the mornings. Take the kids to things like story time at the library. To be fair, they also stayed home some mornings and watched R-rated movies, because screw watching Disney or pretending like his kids were never going to see violence or sex.

Back when Joey was born, he'd still felt like an amateur. But when this particular, currently-glaring-at-him child was born, Damon had been a real dad. Every Tuesday, he'd strapped Gil to his chest in that baby carrier thing he'd once thought was so stupid, but by then thought was brilliant, loaded up his three and four year-olds into their red wagon, and walked to the local library for story time, promising them ice cream after if they behaved and didn't tattle on him to Mommy.

Shit. How was he going to leave this particular baby behind at college? Gil wasn't even old enough for college. He was too damned smart for his own good, had graduated a year early.

Gil shot a look of disdain at his father, but picked up the cardboard box. Damon was glad to see his son struggle with the box, like it was actually heavy even if you were young and fit. The kid almost dropped the box before managing to get it up waist-high, with a grunt. "Books," Gil said.

"I gathered."

"I still didn't get your name!" The prissy woman called up the stairs. Seriously? She was still there? Didn't she have something else to do with her time?

"Salvatore," he said as he followed Gil down the hall. He turned his head to look at the monstrous human for just a second, giving her his most dangerous smile. "My name is Damon Salvatore, I have no interest in your whining, moaning, and self-righteous morality, and I have more money than God, so you might as well just stop your idle threats. You can't hurt me."

The woman chase them up the stairs and was standing on the landing. "My daughter—"

He grabbed his son's arm and forced the boy to turn around. "Gil, meet Chelsea. Chelsea meet Gil. If my son corrupts your daughter, neither you nor I will be able to stop it. But he's a good kid, probably my easiest. So, lady, I'd just chill, and stop whatever it is you think you're doing."

Gil sighed. "Dad, could you just come help me get my room set up and then maybe you and Aunt Caroline can go do something else that doesn't involve pissing off everybody else's parents?"

Caroline raised her brows at Gil. "Respect, Gilbert. Show your father some respect. But point taken."

"Sure thing, kiddo," Damon said, flashing a smile at the kid. "I'm just screwing with her anyway. Has your roommate shown up yet?"

"Yeah, he did. You must have missed him when you got the last load from the car."

"Is he cool?"

"I don't know yet, but could you maybe cool it on the commentary? Just try to act like a normal dad?"

Damon laughed. "When am I not normal?"

Gil stopped and pulled up beside his dad. Whispering. "Like all the time. So maybe no jokes about vampires or being from the 1800s."

"But that's just true. And nobody believes it, so it's not going to get us in trouble. And it's hilarious."

"But it's not normal. You got me?"

Damon rolled his eyes. "You're no fun."

"I just want a normal college experience. N. O. R. M. A. L." Gil was the only one of their kids who'd never shown any magical ability. He seemed intent on setting himself apart from the rest of the family. If he couldn't be special because of supernatural gifts, he'd be special because he kicked ass on the SATs. He'd gone to the Salvatore School until third grade, because they kept assuming he would show powers like his older siblings had. But eventually Bonnie did some tests and ruled out the possibility of him being a witch. He'd started in the public schools Elena had attended, eventually ending up at Mystic Falls High.

Their fourth child, Lucia, transferred into public school with Gil a couple years later. She was a witch, but her powers were pretty mild, in her words "wussy." She just wasn't happy at a school where everybody else was more powerful and where she could never live up to her oldest siblings. Joey and Summer were so powerful it was scary: they were legends at the Salvatore School, along with Caroline and Ric's twins and of course Hope Mikaelson. Damon and Elena's twins, now eight, were also powerhouses. For whatever reason, serious magical mojo had skipped over his middle children. Gil and Lucia had always been tight, and Damon suspected that one reason she'd wanted to go to public school was to be with her brother.

"Normal," Damon said to his son. He felt for the kid. Damon didn't have any magical powers, and boy did he long for them. He was jealous of Joey and Summer too. He still missed vampiric compulsion and all the fun tricks that came along with being undead. "I tell you what, kid, I'll try, pinkie swear promise. But at the end of the day, you just come from a freaky-ass family, and sometimes, it's better to embrace the weird."

Though come to think of it, this so-called normal kid was going to be causing him a lot less stress during his freshman year than his less normal siblings. Gil would likely make it through the whole year without breaking any laws or setting anything on fire. He wouldn't have episodes of accidental magic, or unwittingly reveal his abilities to fellow students. Damon's old friend Tommy Fell, who he'd turned back in the 1860s, had made several trips to New York over the last four years, to compel a whole host of people to forget things Summer and Joey had done.

Gil led Damon and Caroline to his new dorm room at the end of the hall, unceremoniously dumping the box next to a spartan looking bed, still without sheets or a pillow or anything. The bed looked like it belonged in a prison. This was the first room, other than his nursery, that Gil wouldn't share with Joey. Every time Damon saw one of his kids' dorm rooms, he remembered his luxurious suite of rooms at the University of Virginia in 1855, and marveled at how the standards had declined for a man getting a gentleman's education.

But now, suddenly, he remembered Elena's dorm room at Whitmore. The one she'd shared with Caroline and that girl who got killed by a vampire, Enzo if memory served, and then with Caroline and Bonnie, after Bon Bon had come back from the dead. That room had been huge and fancy. A palace compared to Gil's little hellhole.

"Care Bear," he said, turning to the blond vampire. "Why was your room at Whitmore so much nicer than this one?"

She grinned. "Oh, that was compulsion. I had that room specially done up, just for us, got builders in, knocked down some walls. It was a three rooms combined. I even got us a fireplace. None of the other dorm rooms looked like ours."

Gil was standing there, staring open-mouthed at Caroline. "Could you do that for me, Auntie Care?"

Caroline raised her brows. "Oh, I'm sorry, weren't you just going on about how you just wanted 'normal'? Surely normal doesn't include anything vampire-related?" Caroline had begun to take issue with this whole "normal" thing and had been griping about Gil's use of the n-word all day yesterday.

"Well, I'm not saying everything has to be normal." The kid started trying to maneuver himself into the land of special. Aka, the land of people who got special treatment.

"Gil, I'm not compelling you a super-special dorm room," Caroline said. "But if you stop being a pill, and maybe start being nice to your dad. ... I mean, he is here and he is making a serious effort to be kind to you. When I started college, my dad was dead. And a couple years before that, he tortured me to try to get me to stop wanting blood. So, I don't know, maybe you start appreciating how awesome your mom and dad are, even if they're not, if none of us are exactly normal. And I might compel you something else."

Gil gulped and looked suitably shamed. Caroline had that effect on people. "I'm sorry, Auntie Care. Please don't throw me out a window."

She laughed. And softened. Gil had that effect on people. "How about a mini-fridge? There was a really rude, totally spoiled kid downstairs, and I happened to peek in his room. Because your dad was taking forever to catch up to me with that suitcase of yours, two trips ago. That brat had a sweet set-up. I will totally compel some of his stuff to come live in your room if you want."

"Would you tell Mom?" Gil asked Damon.

He grinned. "Of course not. But Care, you'd have to cover your tracks, make sure nobody knew who it actually belonged to. You don't want us to leave and then some idiot with a dream of rushing the douchiest of frats wants to beat up my kid."

"I know how to compel people without being an idiot," Caroline said.

"Maybe you can compel me something else," Gil said.

"Whatever you want, sweetie," Caroline said. "Within reason."

Damon looked around the room. No sheets on the bed, but drawers open, with some clothes already dumped in. Not folded. Damon's sense of order and neatness clenched up inside his chest, but he stopped himself from going over to that dresser and freaking tidying up the mess, stopped himself from folding Gil's t-shirts and jeans himself. Told himself that if Gil showed up for all his classes in rumpled clothes, well it was his own damned fault.

There were also posters on the wall. Already.

"Gil buddy?" he said as he collapsed onto the naked bed. Which wasn't really comfortable, but it was a bed and he'd take anything right now. He rubbed his bum knee as his breathing returned to normal. "Have you actually been hanging posters while I've been carrying your goddamn books up the stairs?"

Gil shrugged, opening the box with a pair of scissors that was always unpacked. Why was he even opening boxes? Didn't the kid understand how moving worked? First you lug all your crap up three flights of stairs. Then you unpack the stuff that matters. Then, and only then, do you start hanging decorations on the goddamn wall.

"Gil, I think what your father is saying," Caroline said in her bossiest, I'm not taking shit from you tone, "is that we've been carrying your stuff up the stairs. Yours. Not ours. Yours. And you've been hanging posters. Which could wait. And on top of that being way too sassy. So why don't you go down to the car? Do the actual work. I think there's one more load."

"And stop being a little shit," Damon said.

"I'm not!"

"Fine. You're just lazy."

"What is your problem?" Gil snapped.

But Damon just lay on the bed, not having the energy to argue.

There were actually a few more trips. Caroline volunteered to help Gil with the heavy lifting. Damon's ego was yelling at him to get back up, but he was just too tired to care about being manly or young, so he stayed put, content to lie here on this crappy mattress and let the young people, with their stupidly strong bodies, do the work he should be doing.

He nodded off, and sleep came easily.

#

His dreams were full of dancing, but not the clubbing he'd done with Caroline and Klaus last night. No, he was with Elena. That college party soon after she'd turned, where he'd taught her to feed on people without killing them. Whitmore. Snatch, eat, and erase. The first time she'd reveled in the blood. The first time she she'd reveled in her own inner darkness, and the danger, the power, and the beauty of being a vampire. Feeling more alive in death than she ever had in life. She'd let herself go that night, for a while at least. Of course she'd ended up with an attack of conscience, pushing him and his hedonism away, courtesy of a judgy Bonnie and an even judgier Stefan. In Stefan's arms at the end of the night, instead of Damon's. But that was one night in a series of nights that had changed the girl who'd chosen Stefan into the woman who chose him, who ended up marrying him.

He dreamt about that night a lot, because it was first time she'd let loose her inner freak, admitting to herself that she was not a perfectly bland cheerleader who never made mistakes. Human 1.0 Elena had been afraid of him, because she'd been afraid of herself, afraid to admit that she craved a little darkness. And back then, he'd fallen hard for vampire Elena, harder than he had for human 1.0 Elena. She was the perfect girl for him, not because she inspired him to be a better man (which she did), but because she was just as crazy as he was. Elena ultimately inspired him to love himself, to love his darkness and his light. To accept himself.

So yes, this dream. This night. The dancing. Her young, lithe body. His young, lithe body. The booze and the blood on their lips. The feeling that anything was possible. Anything could be real.

A kiss. Oh, she was a good kisser. This was nice. And very real. For a dream. Her lips on his lips. Damn, this was an incredibly realistic dream. Her hands in his hair. Her tongue gently darting between his lips.

Damon opened his eyes.

Not a dream.

He smiled up at his wife lazily, drinking in every speck of her.

Elena Gilbert in the flesh. Damn, this woman never ceased to make his insides tingle.

The room was dark except for a lamp she must have flicked on. And empty except for Damon and his wife. Somehow, he'd napped through whatever Caroline and Gil were doing, lost track of the kid he was supposed to be supervising, and then napped right into nighttime. He was killing it at parent of the year.

"Hey," he said, as Elena straddled him and ran her lips down his throat until she found the precise point on the carotid artery where she would bite, if she were a vampire and didn't want to kill him. She bit Damon's skin, lightly and playfully, with her very human teeth, not breaking the skin, but giving him the illusion that maybe she would. Damon felt tingly all over.

"Honey," he said. "As much as I'd love to do, well, anything. ... We're kind of on our kid's bed."

She laughed. And then she made a face, looked like she might throw up. Elena jumped off him, like the bed might bite her. "Oh, god, ew!"

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "What happened to New York? Everything okay?"

"I got her moved in. But then, I was sitting there with her. And I'm thinking, Summer is fine. I got her to calm down and breathe and accept that the internship is going to be awesome. She can handle it from there. But I'm thinking about Gil, and you here. My baby moving into his very first college dorm, and I'm not there. It just felt wrong."

Damon smiled, understanding completely. He got up, hugged her tight, kissed her, let their limbs entangle just a bit, until he forced himself to pull away. If he gave into his basest instinct, he'd have her on the floor. But it was their son's dorm room, and if anybody should get caught making out with a hot chick in here, it should be Gil.

Elena sat down on Gil's cheap, college-provided desk chair.

Damon perched on the edge of the desk and looked at her. Really looked at his wife for the first time in a while. He hadn't seen her in four days, and that was definitely not the norm.

Elena Gilbert, a couple years shy of fifty, was still beautiful. She had the girlish figure she'd had in high school, mostly, a little rounder and curvier than it had been back then, but she was still very much herself. Small and slender, just softer. Her stomach was never going to be flat again, not after giving birth to six children, and he knew it was puckered with stretch marks underneath that sweet little red blouse she was wearing. He knew she was self-conscious about her body, even though for her age she was like a miracle. Her jeans hugged her ass, and sometimes she shared clothes with their two oldest girls.

His wife still radiated that sense of good, of bravery in the face of darkness, and that sense of being just crazy enough to fall in love with him. "So Caroline told me about last night. How late was it? What did I miss?" She took off her glasses, the ones he told her made her look like a sexy librarian, and rubbed at her eyes. She looked tired. Though not the kind of tired you got from partying with vampires and trying to prove that you were still cool. No, Elena looked tired like she was a middle-aged mother, worn out because she'd been running around New York with their high maintenance first-born, and then had flown down and probably rented a car to drive here from Richmond.

In other words, Elena had the air of being a reasonable sort of person who was involved in reasonable sorts of activities. But she looked at him fondly, like she loved him for his unreasonableness. Like maybe she still was enamored with the mysterious stranger she'd met on a lonely road outside of Mystic Falls, when she'd had a fight with then-boyfriend Matt Donovan, and he'd mistaken her for Katherine.

"I don't know what I want," she'd said that first time they'd met.

"Well that's not true. You want what everybody wants."

"What? Mysterious stranger who has all the answers."

"Well, let's just say I've been around a long time. I've learned a few things."

"So, Damon, tell me. What is it that I want?

"You want a love that consumes you. You want passion, and adventure, and even a little danger."

That innocent girl was long gone, but the woman she'd grown into was grinning at him.

"I missed you too, hon," she said, biting her lip. "And I kept thinking of you at that club. Dancing. Moving like you do. Hence me jumping all over you when you were still asleep."

Damon raised an eyebrow. "So we've established that Gil's bed is not the place, but ... How would you feel about some random kid's bed? I bet there's some bed down the hall with nobody on it and nobody even moved in."

Elena grinned but shook her head. "Later, babe. The hotel. Anything you want, even if breaks the bed."

Elena's hair was still brown, if streaked with a bit of gray and short; just this month she'd gone to the salon and come back with a bob, chin-length. For a moment his heart had sunk, because in his mind Elena always, always had long hair. But a moment later he'd felt something new stirring. She looked hot with short hair in a way he'd never expected. Sometimes new and different was magic.

Now, as his wife slid the sexy librarian glasses back on, she grinned at him and swung her hair around, which she did every so often since she'd gotten this new haircut. To feel her hair whip through the air, because apparently the sensation was novel enough to be fun. It was a childlike thing, that motion and the little grin that went along with it. just another quirk that made him love his wife more, and love this long life they had together. Before Elena, he'd never had a relationship that lasted more than a few months. Not in 170-plus years. But then she'd come along, and not just made in go all gooey inside—she'd changed him into a grownup, a family man. She was stability and home. She was also hot.

"Whatcha doing?" she asked.

"Looking at you," he told her. "Enjoying the view. Where's Gil, by the way? Have you even seen him?" he asked. "And what time is it?"

"It's nine o'clock, Damon. I saw him. He thinks I'm being overprotective, something about me trying to get him to be pre-med, which is stupid because he can do whatever he wants, and he's going to, but, you know. He's on this independent streak. But he did seem glad to see me, at least."

"Yeah, that kid has a mouth on him. He's driving me up the freaking wall."

Elena nodded. "Well, solidarity there, hon. Caroline took Gil to get food. She said you'd been asleep for like four hours. I figured I'd stay here, skip the lousy cafeteria food, make sure you were alive. So, Damon, are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"If you were fine you wouldn't be passed out on our child's bed for four hours, when you're supposed to be moving him into his very first dorm."

Damon smiled lazily. "Caroline and Klaus kept me out at the club until dawn. And I may have tried to keep up with Klaus, drinking. I'm getting too old to keep up with his ass," he said. "Should have known better."

She laughed again. "Well, you are 201, after all," she said, as the door opened, and a kid who was definitely not theirs walked in.

"Huh," the boy said. He was very blond, and tanned, and had that California beach bum vibe. He also smelled of weed. Damon wondered if he had any good stuff. "I thought my dad was old."

Damon raised his eyebrows and gave him a snarky look. "Just wait until you're in your forties, kid. It'll feel like you're past 200."