Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to The Vampire Diaries, TV show or books. However I decided to have a little play around with the characters (I would definitely like to play with Damon).
I am reinstating the start of this story as I have begun to rectify a few issues of the continuity issues. I also have the ending fixed. The chapter is fairly different to the original version in certain places, especially the ones which count.
Rated M for bad language and probably some smut in later chapters.
WARNING IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED TVD OR THE ORIGINALS, THERE ARE A LOT OF SPOILERS.
July 29th 2026
Damon sat back in his chair and reviewed the CCTV footage once more. This was the seventh time he'd seen his old friend Frank in his bar in the last week. This time Frank had brought two more friends with him, no doubt more vampires. The problem was, Frank wasn't actually an old friend, more of an undesirable acquaintance really. He had been one of Katherine's minions from 1864. Instead of trying to vie for revenge at the 2010 Founders Day parade, he'd kept out of it. Damon was now beginning to wonder if Frank had the one who'd alerted Rose and Trevor to Elena's existence. In the past, this was something which had often puzzled Damon. When he'd asked Rose about it, she told him Trevor had discovered her whereabouts. If that were the case, Frank had probably told him and was possibly still protecting Katherine at the time. Considering the age of the vampires involved, Damon also suspected Frank was probably almost as old as Katherine had been herself.
All of this was why Damon was suspicious of Frank frequenting his five bars. If it had only been this bar, Damon wouldn't have been too concerned and maybe put it down to coincidence, after all it was once a bar popular with vampires. But Frank and his friends had been turning up in all six of Damon's bar's on and off for the last six months. Only now was it getting to the point where it was daily in one bar or another, and Damon now knew it wasn't just a coincidence. Not only that, even if Frank wasn't with them, the vampires he'd brought were in at least one of his bars every night.
Damon didn't want dangerous old vampires in his bar if he could help avoid it. When Damon was a vampire himself, he didn't really care about whether humans lived or died, unless he had an emotional connection to them. And as a human, he cared more, but again only if it affected him. Vampires in his bars had the potential to affect the lives of his clientele, which in turn could impact on Damon's profits. So far, as far as Damon was aware, nobody had died or been attacked by a vampire while they were in the bars. This Damon was almost certain of, although he couldn't discount a customer going home and being followed before being killed. But the lack of attacks was one of the things which had made Damon even more suspicious of regarding the motive behind Frank and his crew's nightly visits. Damon had wanted to stay as far away from vampires as possible considering he was the only known cure, which was one of the reasons they'd left Mystic Falls in the first place.
After Stefan died and Elena had woken from her sleep eight years earlier, she and Damon had decided to move to New York. One reason was for his safety, another was because he couldn't bear to live in the Salvatore house any longer now his brother was dead. The also moved to allow Elena to complete her medical training and for Damon to get to work on his bar. Damon bought his first bar fifteen years earlier after he killed the previous owner, an old friend called Billy. Albeit Billy was already dying as he was infected with werewolf venom after being bitten by Klaus first, therefore in Damon's eyes, it had been a mercy killing. The next day, he and a humanity free Elena had taken a trip to New York under the premise for Elena to have a little fun, which was a lie. The real reason was to find Katherine and the cure, however that day, he also set the ball in motion to buy Billy's.
Damon had cleaned the place up a little, enough to attract new clientele without initially alienating the old vampire crowd. That worked for a while, but after Damon became human again, it was completely impractical as word on the street was Damon Salvatore was dead. The place had been officially put up for sale, but was bought by Damon under Elena's name. This time he closed the bar and made it more suited to human's and not vampires. The bar became hugely successful, and over the entire eight years they'd lived in New York, he'd become the owner of five bars.
He never once visited any of the bars, they were all ran remotely, just in case he should be seen by an old friend or foe. A vampire pretending to be dead wasn't an uncommon occurrence. A vampire who was beginning looking older, was. And under no circumstances, were there any vampires outside of the circle of friends and allies who needed to know, were let in on the secret. At first, if he did bump into someone, he pretended he was still a vampire, but after eight years, he no longer could pass for twenty five. Admittedly, at the age of thirty three, he probably looked better than ever before. Maturity suited him, but any changes would be noticed by other vampires, and as the rumors had been circulating for many years about a cure for vampirism, any vampire he knew only had to take one look at Damon to know the rumor about the cure was not only true, but it Damon had been the one to take it.
This wouldn't have bothered Damon under normal circumstances. He'd been on this earth for almost a hundred and ninety years. Damon figured he'd lived long enough and he wouldn't have cared about dying, if he was alone. However he was not alone, Damon had responsibilities. Only a year after waking from her sleep, Elena had given birth to their daughter Jessica and within another two years, their son Benjamin had arrived. Fortunately, Damon did much of his work from home meaning he was able to be the one in charge of bringing up the children. A challenge which had originally daunted him after his treatment from his own father. However the moment he laid eyes on his children, he was in love and extremely protective. A year after Ben was born, he and Elena married and became the perfect little family. The only thing to blight them was the ever nagging fear of it being discovered that Damon was carrying the cure.
Another pressure arrived just over three months ago when Damon received a phone call from his sister-in-law Caroline, who wanted to know if Damon would allow the cure to be given to Rebekah Mikaelson when he was ready to die. After much discussion, Damon and Elena agreed, as their old foes, the Original's had turned into valuable allies over the years. Klaus had somewhat mellowed after his daughter was born. It was because of this daughter, Klaus and Elijah had taken their own lives to save her. So far only a few vampires so far knew about their deaths. Klaus had already been separated from his sire line, and Elijah's had already died out, therefore only those who needed to know did. The only Original left with a sire line was Rebekah and once she died, there was a chance all of the vampires linked to her would die with her. If indeed this did happen, the vampire species would be practically wiped out, except from what was left of Klaus's line. If anyone found out about Rebekah's plans for becoming human, Damon would be an obvious target for any vampire of her line who wanted to prevent Rebekah from getting her hands on the cure.
Rebekah and her new husband Marcel Gerard, had offered protection from their own vampires, but at first, neither Damon nor Elena had wanted their children bringing up around the supernatural, so they had refused. This was one of the reasons why they'd stayed in New York, even after Elena had completed her residency. But after Damon had been tracking the vampires going into his bar he was starting to feel a little uncomfortable and was having bad vibes about the situation. Eventually Damon had done some digging on Frank's sire line, and discovered Katherine was his sire, and Frank could well have discovered Damon was alive and be out for revenge against the Salvatore's. Now it looked like it was time to move.
After he first noticed Frank, the vampires who had been traveling with him had to be identified. With the help of Marcel, who had been creating a database of vampires from both surviving lines, Damon was able to identify the vampires frequenting his bars, and unsurprisingly discovered they weren't sired by Frank, instead they could be traced to Rebekah's line. Marcel had warned Damon any vampire who found out about the cure and was part of Rebekah's line would do anything to prevent her from taking it, which was why he'd created the database in the first place.
The problem with the cure was not the only thing which was becoming an issue regarding keeping the children away from the supernatural. Ever since Damon and Elena had become human again, they were different to how they'd been before they became vampires. At first the changes were only minor, being able to predict when someone unexpected was going to call, or things about to occur in the news before they happened. This progressed from if anything was lost, they only had to ask for it and whatever was lost would magically turn up. Elena spoke to Bonnie and found out this was exactly what happened to her when she first discovered she was a witch.
After some research, it turned out Damon and Elena were both descended from Silas's brother, who was also a very powerful witch. Their powers had lain dormant when they were first human, but the magic inside them which turned them into a vampire, furthered by the magic of the cure, triggered their powers to be released as humans. Damon believed this had happened to Katherine when she inhabited Elena's body, her dormant travelers magic was activated.
Damon and Elena they weren't the only ones showing magical abilities. Jess and Ben had also shown early signs of magic in their blood, and if what they could already do was anything to go by, they were already showing signs of potentially growing up to become extremely powerful witches.
When Jess was one, it was already clear she had magical powers. And as neither Damon nor Elena had any idea how to train themselves as witches, let alone teach children how to perform magic, an idea was formed with Caroline and Ric to start the Salvatore School for gifted children. Children who happened to be witches, vampires or werewolves, would be taught how to manage their magical abilities and to help guide them through life, while still getting an education. Damon donated the boarding house, and with help from many other wealthy benefactors, including Klaus Mikaelson, they were able to set the school up. As Jess was nearing seven, Damon and Elena had decided they were going to finally enroll her and she would get to grow up in the boarding house. But with the prospect of vampires following them, Damon didn't want to be too far away from her.
Their children still needed to be educated at the school as they were going to arouse a lot of suspicion if they weren't taught magic properly, which would put the entire family in danger. So the children had to go to the school. But Damon no longer wanted to be far from Jess and Ben. After discussing their options, he and Elena had decided to move back to Mystic Falls, although for their overall safety, he suspected the worst place he could move to was Mystic Falls itself.
In preparation Damon had had a house built on the old Gilbert house plot in a replica of Elena's old house. Damon hadn't told Elena this as it was to be a surprise. As far as she knew, they were going to rent until they found the right place. Two weeks earlier he'd been told by the builders, the house was almost ready, and just needed to be furnished. He'd managed to get away for the day and had a look at the house. The house looked almost the same, yet everything inside was more modern, especially the kitchen and bathrooms. The exterior however looked identical. When he stood on the porch, he remembered his and Elena's first kiss. However there was one more finishing touch required for the house.
Elena was finishing her final shift at the hospital that day, as she was already in the process setting up her own practice in Mystic Falls, in her fathers old surgery. She'd decided they needed a month to find a house to rent. The new school year started in early September and it was currently July. Therefore they planned on moving mid August, but Damon suspected they no longer had that much time. All of the signs were there. They were being hunted.
Damon picked up the phone and dialed the number to complete the house. After four rings a woman's voice answered the phone. "Damon, what's up?" she asked groggily.
"Sounds like someone's been up all night." Damon replied.
"Rough night." the woman said sarcastically. "Enough of the chitchat, what do you want?" she sighed wearily.
"Can you do the cloaking spell from New Orleans?" Damon asked. "They've gotten closer."
"Did you tell Marcel?" she asked.
"Not yet." Damon told her. "I need the cloaking spell for the house in Mystic Falls first. I'm not powerful enough yet and I don't have the experience to pull one off. Even if I were there I wouldn't be able to cloak anything that big." he explained. "Remember Freya, it's in Rebekah's interests as much as mine."
"Fine." Freya sighed. "I can do a temporary one until Vincent can get out there and fix you guys up with something a little more permanent. When do you need it for?" she asked.
"I'm still in New York. We haven't packed yet." Damon told her. "But hopefully we should be there by tomorrow."
"Does Elena even know?" she asked.
"She knows some of it. But they've upped the visits in the last two weeks. I think they're on to us. I'm going to tell her as soon as I've finalized most of the details." Damon said.
"Well I better let you get to it." she said. "I'll have the house cloaked by tonight."
"Thank you Freya." Damon sighed. "Say high to Keelin for me."
"No problem. I will." Freya replied. "Look Damon, just protect my sister's chance of happiness." she added before they both hung up.
Damon only met Freya after Klaus and Elijah died, and immediately decided she and her wife Keelin were the the most level headed members of the Mikaelson clan. Although her not being raised by Esther and Mikael might have helped her become more level-headed, even if the witch who did raise her was a crazy ass aunt. Elena and Keelin had bonded over their mutual love of medicine, albeit mostly from a distance.
Damon and Elena had never taken the children to Mystic Falls, as they deemed it too supernatural. New Orleans was a completely different level of craziness, Damon and Elena had insisted the Salvatore's would never set foot there unless absolutely necessary. That place was teeming with vampires, witches and werewolves. Instead, family and friends came to visit them.
Since Klaus and Elijah died, Marcel and Rebekah had become frequent visitors as the owned a nearby penthouse. Other than them, Hope, Caroline and Kol, the children had never met any other vampires. And even then the children were kept in the dark about their supernatural friends. Up until then, the children still thought vampires were fictional characters who they associated with Halloween.
At that thought, Damon's heart sank. All of the lives, Damon and Elena had sought to keep the children innocent about the supernatural world for as long as possible. He and Elena knew at some point, the innocence would be lost, especially as theirs and their children's magic grew. However Damon and Elena had managed to so far find excuses for them being different. They'd kept the kids away from children of their own age. Instead mixing them with older children who knew about magic and knew better to not say anything to them so they didn't know they were different to everyone else.
Damon picked up his phone and began to type out a text to send to Marcel. Once Damon had started becoming suspicious of the visits from the vampires, not only had Marcel been tracking them, but a contingency had been put in place to get some of Marcel's most trusted guys into Damon's bars to keep an eye on the situation. They would infiltrate the group and see what they could discover. Damon typed the words Code Red and hit the send button.
The final person he wanted to contact before Elena was Caroline. She'd returned from her travels in Europe and had been in on helping rebuild the Gilbert house, along with Jeremy. The house would need cleaning with some basic furniture until Elena could decorate and shop when she got there. Damon had kept some of the old Salvatore furniture in storage, including his huge bed. Even if it wasn't to their taste, for the time being it would have to do. Damon and Elena were very house proud, but on this occasion, necessity would have to trump aesthetics, although deep down, he hoped they would keep his old bed. He'd arranged this with Caroline as other than himself and Elena, he didn't trust anyone other than his sister-in-law to clean the house up to his own impeccable standards.
Once he'd finished texting Caroline, he looked at the clock. Elena would be home within the next ten minutes. Normally, by now the kids would be in bed and he's have dinner ready with a glass of wine laid out for her when she got in. Instead, Damon had been too busy reviewing the footage of the bars to notice the time flying by. He'd put the kids to bed on time, but he hadn't had chance to make a start on dinner. These were the times he wished he were still a vampire. Chopping food was a hell of a lot slower as a human. Instead, he simply picked up the phone and ordered pizza for them both. After that he poured them each a glass of wine and waited for her to get home.
Right on time, Elena walked in from work and kicked of her shoes. As usual Damon greeted her with a kiss and a glass of wine. However the moment Elena didn't smell food, she knew something was wrong. When Damon led her over to the dining room and she saw a gun on the table, her worst fears were confirmed.
"Okay, what's going on?" she asked, raising and eyebrow.
Damon took a deep breath. "I think word got out about me." he told her. "Remember when I told you about the vampires frequenting the bar?" he asked as Elena nodded. "Well, there's now more of them and they're all from Rebekah's line" he said. "They're in almost every bar, every night. And it's not just Frank."
Elena stood up and ran her fingers through her hair and began to pace up and down. A trait he'd noticed being something she did when she was frightened. "We need to get out of here." she said looking up at him in a panic. "If they know all of your bars, they might have tracked down where we live too." her eyes widened with fear. "Damon, we need to leave! Like now!"
Damon stood up and held her gently still by her shoulders. "Hey, listen to me." he said softly. "The contingency plans have been put into place." he assured her.
"How?" Elena frowned. "We haven't even looked at places to rent yet. We've got nowhere to live?"
Damon smiled. "Oh yes we have." he told her. "I've already got that covered. We just need to eat dinner, pack a few things, wake the kids up and get in the car."
"Dinner?" she asked. "What dinner?"
"I ordered pizza." Damon replied sheepishly. "I was too busy checking out the footage at the bars..." he started as the doorbell rang. "And that'll be dinner."
"I'll get it!" Elena sighed as she went to answer the door. After a few seconds Damon heard Elena's voice calling him. "Damon, have you got another five dollars, I don't have enough in my purse." she shouted. Damon walked out of the dining room to give the Elena the money when he saw one of the vampires at the door delivering the pizza.
"Hang on, I'm a dollar short." Damon lied as he went back into the dining room and picked up the gun which was already loaded with wooden bullets. Damon had been loading the gun while watching the footage earlier. He slipped it into the back of his jeans and went to the door to greet the vampire. "You take these into the kitchen, I'll finish up here." he told Elena as he took the pizza from the hands of the vampire and handed it to Elena, who left them. Damon paid him the money as he realized the vampire was scouting to see if Damon did live there and had indeed aged. "Hey!" Damon called out as the vampire turned to leave. "You forgot your tip." he said pulling the gun out of his jeans. The vampire turned around and Damon shot him in the head, causing the vampire to collapse unconscious.
Damon then shot the vampire in the heart and waited for the telltale signs of gray skin to confirm he was dead before Damon managed to pull him inside the door, closing it behind him.
"What the..." Elena cried out as she ran in from the kitchen, slapping a hand over her mouth when she saw the dead vampire in the hallway.
"Fuck the pizza!" Damon snapped. "Grab the kids. We need to leave now."
"What are you going to do?" Elena asked.
"I'm gonna throw the body into the basement." he told her. "Can't let the kids see it."
"They're going to see vampires sooner or later." Elena warned as she started to climb the stairs.
"I'd prefer later." Damon called after. "Even if it's just for twenty four hours." he said sadly as he pulled the vampire corpse along the hallway before pushing him down into the basement.
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