A/N: This, weirdly enough, was one of the first chapters I wrote for this story. And now it's one of the last I'll post. Only three more to go.
Mystic Falls | Fall 2034
"I got the flowers," Elena called through the house, announcing her arrival. "And," she drawled as she and Stefanie came into the kitchen, "look what else we got. Show him, sweetie."
Stevie opened her palm and on it sat a miniature Camaro, baby blue like Damon's.
"It's my car," Damon exclaimed, picking up the model.
Stevie and Elena shared a smile. "I saw it in the window of the shop next to the florist and I just had to get it. You like?"
Damon picked up his jaw from the floor and grinned. He kissed his wife. "Love it. Thank you."
"Where's Noah?" Stevie asked, looking around the kitchen. The twins were up in their high chairs, having a snack, but Noah was nowhere in sight.
"Outside," Damon replied, motioning to the backyard, "conversing with nature."
"He better not be out there finding another poor hedgehog to save," Stevie muttered under her breath as she headed towards the door in Noah's direction. "Toto," she called out, "there'll be no emergency rescue missions today, of any sort. Got it? We leave in ten minutes."
She disappeared outside and Damon and Elena shared a look. "You good here?" Elena asked. "I wanted to change before we leave."
"Go ahead," Damon sent her upstairs, not missing the look Elena gave him before she left or maybe he'd imagined her eyes lingering longer on his mouth. Anyway; it wasn't like he could do anything about it now. To the twins, he said, "You guys done?"
There would be food at Caroline's, of course. But ever since the school visit to a farm where Tavi and Bennett learned where their food came from, they had become extremely picky eaters, Bennett more so than Tavi. This was a direct result of a discussion during dinner. They were having Noah's favorite (spaghetti and meatballs) when Bennett inquired about where exactly meatballs grew and Damon and Elena ehmming and hmming a lot while trying to explain. Since that day Bennett refused to eat any kind of food that came from animals. Whether that meant Damon and Elena failed or succeeded in their task of explaining the food chain to their then four-year-old son and daughter they still were not sure, but they had to live with the consequences. Hence the pre-party vegan-friendly snacks.
"Are those flowers for Auntie Caroline?" Tavi asked, holding her hands out for Damon to clean since she was finished eating. She climbed on the table to smell them.
"Yes. A going away present," he explained.
Bennett looked speculatively at the bouquet and asked, "Dad? Why do you never give Mom flowers?"
"She doesn't like them," Damon replied and then immediately corrected himself, "I mean, she likes them fine when they grow outside. She doesn't like seeing them cut down. Seeing them wilt and die and then be thrown away makes her sad. And I don't like making your mom sad."
"That's why you get her chocolate," Octavia inserted.
Damon nodded and messed up Tavi's hair before kissing her on the head. "That's right. Now get off the table and go brush your teeth. You too," he nodded at Bennett and started cleaning the table.
"I like chocolate," Tavi thought out loud as she climbed down, "but I like flowers too. I don't know which to pick when I grow up."
"Nobody's making you choose," Bennett replied, following her out of the kitchen. "You can like both."
"Oh," Tavi replied with a hint of surprise, as though the thought hadn't occurred to her before. Her smile brightened. "Maybe growing up won't be so bad after all," she reasoned.
"Why would it be bad?" Bennett asked.
"Because you get bigger. And I like being small. I can hide easier in cupboards and under chairs when I'm small."
Damon didn't hear the rest of the conversation as they disappeared up the stairs, but he chuckled to himself. Octavia was notorious when it came to spying. She collected information like other people collected rare books or antique weapons. He was dreading the day when she would realize that, just like rare books or antique weapons, information could also be worth a lot of money.
Elena and he were raising a menace, Damon knew that. He just couldn't find it in himself to see anything wrong with that.
Elena came down with the twins just as he was finishing straightening up the kitchen and again he felt like her eyes were checking him out. Damon turned to call Noah and Stevie inside, only to find that they were standing in the door already. Of course. Stevie always knew when it was time or she was needed.
"You," he motioned to his oldest daughter, "grab the flowers. Noah, you take the bag with the presents. Let's go."
They had just returned from a late summer vacation overseas and had a bag full of souvenirs for all their friends and family. Damon grabbed another bag with a change of clothes for the twins (experience told him that it was always better to be prepared when it came to his youngest children) and they piled into the car a few minutes later, ready to leave.
"Hey, guys," Elena suggested as Damon let the car roll to a stop, "why don't you go ahead and ring Aunt Caroline's doorbell. Tell the other guests we will be there in a few minutes, okay?"
Damon frowned, but remained quiet, side-eyeing his wife. She felt his eyes on him and met his stare. The temperature in the car suddenly rose a couple degrees when Damon saw the fire in her gaze.
Stefanie and Noah shared a grin and rolled their eyes behind their parents' backs.
"Sure, Mom," Stefanie replied and nodded, all too happy to oblige. She had seen the look on her parents' faces enough times to know that she didn't want to be near them for the next little while. Noah felt very much the same. Watching their parents make googly eyes at each other had never been their favorite pastime. Besides, all their cousins were inside and they were antsy to join the fray. It always meant lots of chaotic fun when all of them got together.
Stefanie leaned over to unbuckle the twins' safety harness and got out of the car, helping first Bennett, then Octavia out of their seats. She and Noah each took one of the twins by the hand as they crossed the street towards Caroline's house.
Damon and Elena watched to make sure all kids made it inside okay, but as soon as the door closed on them, Elena was on Damon like a woman possessed.
She devoured his mouth and tried climbing into his lap, only managing to activate the car horn. She winced at the sudden loud sound and hoped no nosy neighbor would be tempted to check out the disturbance. Damon only laughed. He pushed a lever that made his seat slide back a bit and pulled Elena onto his lap.
"The windows in the back are tinted," she mumbled against Damon's neck.
"No time," he replied. His hands slipped down Elena's hips and legs, reaching the hem of her skirt, where they slipped beneath the material and made the same trek up her thighs.
Elena squirmed in his lap, trying to rub herself against his palm but the space was confined and he couldn't get a good leverage to do a proper job of it. In an effort to reverse their positions, Damon pushed Elena back into the passenger seat and slid on top of her.
"Told you—" Elena panted between kisses, "we should have moved… ah—" she cried out as the gear shift stick poked her in the thigh, "…this… to the backseat."
Damon lifted his head to look at her. "You mean the one with the four safety seats installed? Can't imagine it being more comfortable." Then he reached between the seat and the passenger side door and a moment later Elena yelped as the seat reclined suddenly with Damon falling on top of her. He immediately got busy unbuttoning her blouse, but in his haste the first button snapped off.
"Damon!" Elena exclaimed. "I did not bring a change of clothes."
"Sorry," he said, looking at her sheepishly.
She shook her head, smiling, and grabbed his face to pull him into another wild, rough kiss while Damon, more careful now, proceeded to undo a few more of her buttons. He pulled away from Elena's lips and yanked down the cup of her lacy bra to latch onto her nipple. Elena moaned loudly in response and reached for the fly on his dress pants. She pulled repeatedly on the zipper that, unfortunately, seemed to be stuck while at the same time shifting her hips against the leather of the seat in an effort to push up her skirt. Damon helped and within seconds freed himself from the confines of his pants, not bothering to push them down fully.
Elena lifted a leg onto the dashboard to give Damon space to maneuver. Having neither the time nor the patience to remove her panties, he simply pushed them to one side and slid smoothly inside. Elena released a satisfied groan. She had wanted Damon inside her for the entire ride to Caroline's place. They pressed their foreheads together before realizing there was no time to lose. Damon started moving immediately and Elena grabbed whatever she could reach to hold on to while they both raced towards completion.
"Yes… ugh… just a little more," Elena spurned him on.
Damon rose up on one knee for more leverage and kept up the furious pace until they both toppled over the edge a short time later.
"Fuck," Damon breathed heavily.
Elena chuckled underneath him and was just about to say something when they both jumped at the knock from outside.
"Seriously?!" Caroline exclaimed, staring accusingly at them through the driver's side window.
"Jesus," Damon returned and slid out of Elena as unobtrusively as possible in the given circumstances, tucking himself back into his pants. Elena meanwhile smoothed her skirt back down and tried to right her clothes in the confined space of their car.
"A little privacy maybe?" Damon acerbically asked as Caroline continued to stare them down. He helped Elena do up the buttons on her blouse. The top two were missing. Oh, well, Damon shrugged mentally. He didn't mind seeing more of his wife's sexy décolleté.
"Right back at you," Caroline returned. "It's the middle of the day, on a residential street, for Christ's sake! In my neighborhood." She almost screeched the last part.
Damon didn't reply that it wasn't going to be her neighborhood for much longer as he righted the passenger seat and opened the door, climbing out of the car and giving Elena a hand to do the same.
Caroline watched it all with disdain, her arms at her hips, shaking her head. "Like horny teenagers," she muttered. To them both, she said, "Why can't you keep it to your bedroom, like other people? You've been married for over ten years, for crying out loud."
Damon paused tucking in his shirt and narrowed his eyes. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Normal people," Caroline explained with a heavy emphasis on normal, "don't jump their wife in every inappropriate place after ten years of marriage. Can't you just be… normal?"
"Does your definition of normal include me not wanting to jump my wife? Because that's never gonna happen," Damon mock-whispered. "Besides, how do you know she wasn't the one who jumped me?"
"Was she?" Caroline challenged.
Damon and Elena exchanged looks.
"It was mutual," Elena finally said. "What?" she defended herself at Caroline's glare. "He looks hot."
"Aww. Thank you, baby," Damon said with a satisfied smile and kissed his wife's cheek.
"Ugh, you two are impossible." Caroline gave up. "Can you please make yourselves presentable?"
Damon and Elena looked each other over. While they had managed to redress themselves as best as possible, it was still more than obvious what they had been up to. The hair was in disarray, the clothes wrinkled from where they had been bunched up, their lips swollen from kissing. They also both had a devilish sparkle in their eyes. They turned to Caroline and shrugged. This was the best it was going to get.
Caroline glanced from Elena to Damon and back, looking them both up and down. Eventually she just huffed, threw her head back in capitulation and walked ahead.
Damon glanced at Elena, wrapped an arm around her to pull her closer and together they followed Caroline inside, both trying to hide their smirks.
Inside, the farewell party was in full swing. People greeted Damon and Elena with a grin and a roll of their eyes, much too used to their antics by now to merit more than that. Thankfully, there was bourbon and food. And Caroline being Caroline of course meant that both were of the finest quality. Elena slipped away for a second to check on the kids, but found them all busy having fun, the older kids keeping an eye on the younger ones. She quickly rejoined the adults in the main room.
It was a bittersweet gathering. Damon was dealing better with it, having more experience of being a vampire. He understood the need of having to move on and change the scenery every few years. But for Elena it was hard. She had to say goodbye to one of her best friends, only not really, only yes, really. It was confusing. To know that Caroline would still be out there somewhere, but couldn't be with them. She realized, of course, that Caroline couldn't stay. Already, she had maxed out her time in Mystic Falls. Clothes, hair, and make-up could only do so much. She was supposed to be over 40, but had stopped aging at 17. People were beginning to notice how Elena aged, but her best friend did not. They all understood that if Caroline stayed for much longer, she was inviting the unwanted kind of attention. That's why she'd decided to leave. But Caroline wouldn't be Caroline if she left without a bang of a going-away party.
After a few hours of socializing, Elena needed a break. She snuck away into the now abandoned kitchen and poured herself some water. She opened the door that led out to the garden and leaned against it, watching the autumn rain and breathing in the fresh, earth-scented air.
A little while later she heard familiar footsteps approach. "You okay?" Damon asked quietly, coming up behind her and gently rubbing her shoulders.
"I don't know," Elena admitted. "It's weird."
"You can still see each other," Damon reminded her, knowing exactly what the issue was. "Only, not every day. And you'll probably have to be the one to go visit her and not the other way around. But you can skype, you can talk. I know it's not really a consolation right now, but it's better than nothing."
"I guess," Elena agreed. "And in twenty-some years, she can come back and pretend to be her own daughter. That's how it works, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, that's how it works."
"Except with the internet and social media twenty years might not be enough anymore." Elena voiced what nobody seemed to want to say out loud.
Damon didn't reply. What was there to say? They both knew that Elena was most likely right. The internet didn't forget as quickly or as easily as people did.
He wrapped his arms around his wife and just held her. Elena leaned her head on Damon's shoulder and he kissed the top of her hair.
"Do you want me to leave you to it?" Damon asked a few moments later, disentangling himself from the embrace.
"No. Stay," she said and pulled him close again.
He kissed her, brief and sweet, meant to comfort. But Elena pulled him in for a real kiss, pressing herself against his body. Her hands roamed all over his back, eventually pulling the shirt out of his pants and pushing underneath. She pulled him back with her until they hit the kitchen counter where Damon boosted her up on top of it, never breaking the kiss.
With his lips he followed the neckline down to her breasts, cupping them. Elena moaned softly in his ear and wrapped her legs around his hips, rubbing herself against his growing erection.
They heard a pointed cough and looked towards the entrance. Alaric stood there, shaking his head in a move eerily reminiscent of Caroline. "Don't let the lady of the house catch you at it. Again," he said in amusement and left.
Damon watched him leave, then helped Elena hop down. She was still staring at him with the heated look of someone who only had bedroom on their mind. Damon was about to lean in for another kiss but stopped right before their lips could make contact.
He pulled back, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at his wife. "Are you pregnant?" he asked.
"What? No," Elena immediately dismissed the idea as ridiculous.
"Are you sure?"
The genuine concern in Damon's voice made her pause and think. "I… Yes?" She sounded way less certain now than only a few seconds ago. "Why?"
"I'm not complaining here, but you're only this horny when you're on your period. And I know you're not on your period now. However, I remember you being positively randy when you were pregnant with Stevie, and even more so when you were carrying Noah. And do I really need to mention Ben and Tavi?" Elena had been insatiable the entire seven months that she was carrying the twins.
Elena's eyes grew large. "Oh, god, Damon. What if you're right? But no, it can't be; I haven't missed a period. Unless…" she paused, doing some math. She had been a bit less regular than usual lately. But she put it down to her age. Biologically, she was around 36 or 37 now – too early for menopause, of course. But it was often around that mark that bodies began to change, adapting to a new cycle. "Unless it only just happened very recently. Oh my god." She reached behind her for support and grabbed the edge of the counter.
Damon grabbed a chair and directed her to sit down, kneeling in front of her.
She mumbled something, quiet and unintelligible, counting on her fingers, then pausing and doing it all over again. Occasionally Damon would catch a, "It can't be. Can it?"
"You need another glass of water?" he asked, amusement dancing in his eyes.
"Stop," Elena told him.
"Stop what?"
"Stop being so happy about it. We don't even know for sure yet. I need to take a test. We need to leave; we'll go by a pharmacy on our way home. Or better yet, my practice. I can do an ultrasound. But no," she was babbling again, mostly to herself, "if it's really only just happened, it probably won't show up on the ultrasound yet. The test is definitely better. But I think I have a test in my practice too."
"Elena," Damon said grabbing her shoulders and shaking gently. "Calm down."
"Calm down? Damon," she exclaimed, "do you realize what that means?"
"Probably that we're going to have another baby?"
"Yes. Another one. I wanted two. Then Noah talked us into a third. Somehow we ended up with four. And you're telling me there's number five on the way? Number five was not planned. We never talked about number five." She waved her hands in front of her face, fanning herself.
"Number Five is a stupid name; we should probably come up with a better one before it is born," Damon quipped back.
"Can you be serious for two minutes?" Elena cried, almost in hysterics.
"Why?" Damon asked.
"Because we never planned to have five children. Forget planned; I never even imagined having five. Five is way more than two, Damon. Five is more than twice the number of two."
"Thank you for that impromptu math lesson."
"Stop joking!"
"Okay, I will. But only if you stop panicking," he stated plainly.
"Do you even want another child?"
"I don't not want it," Damon replied.
"But you never said anything about wanting more children," Elena protested.
"We were busy with the ones we had," he replied.
"Exactly." The twins were a handful, no two ways about it. "And yet you think we should add more to it?"
Damon paused, thinking about how to phrase what he was feeling best. "Do you sometimes feel like we're not done yet?" he asked. "Like there's a part still missing? Like, as a family, we're not… I don't know… complete yet?"
Elena shrugged. She had never thought about it like that. "Has Stevie said anything?" she asked. She still wasn't sure what to call her oldest daughter's abilities. Well, people called them visions, except… that was not exactly what it was. She just sometimes knew things. Alaric called them premonitions. Bonnie called it clairvoyance. Damon called it 'stop fucking analyzing my kid'. Elena tended to side with Damon and just wanted to make sure Stefanie had a normal and unburdened childhood.
"No, she hasn't," Damon answered her question. "Just a feeling that has popped into my mind from time to time."
Elena thought this over for a few seconds. "Five is a lot," she finally said.
He nodded in agreement. And yet… "But we're so good at it. Look at our kids, at how great they all are."
Elena smiled despite herself. Damon was right. Stefanie with her eternal optimism who could make a room full of people happy just by smiling. Noah, who was a little quieter because he watched a lot and understood more than he gave away and was entirely too smart for his own good. Bennett who was fearless and selfless, a natural protector. And, finally, Octavia who occasionally phantasized that she was going to be president one day. She meant it as a joke, but most people believed her because she'd already taken over command of the family, and Damon thought she was being modest – he was convinced she was going to rule the world.
"Hey," Damon said with a grin as they went to rejoin Caroline's party, "it's the end of September."
"So?"
"Nine months from now is…?"
"June." She paled. It was a running gag as well as an often brought up oddity that all of their children had been born in June, just like Damon and Elena themselves. "Great. That means I'm definitely pregnant."
A few hours later, only the hardcore circle of friends and family remained behind. They were all assembled in the living room, kids and parents alike, alternately reminiscing about past times and having fun imagining new lives and identities for Caroline which grew progressively more ridiculous and which Caroline graciously indulged them in.
Damon sat on the floor, leaned back against the armchair, with Elena between his legs. She was reclined against his chest as she talked animatedly with Jeremy and his wife. Subconsciously, Damon's palm drifted to Elena's perfectly flat belly. His eyes swept the room and landed on his oldest daughter. She was staring at the spot where Damon's hand rested. He watched Stefanie frown a little, scrunch up her face in concentration before her eyes widened slightly in surprise. She quickly caught herself and looked around to see if anyone had noticed her. Her eyes caught on her father's. They both looked at each other before Stevie smirked and turned away under the pretense of joining a discussion between Josie and Lizzie.
Damon stretched as much as he could in his position and gently kicked against Stevie's ankle. She turned to him and mouthed, 'What?' She was still grinning from ear to ear though.
Damon watched her, suspicion heavy in his eyes and said, "You know what it is." He didn't phrase it as a question.
The hubbub in the room was enough to drown out his voice to anyone who wasn't focusing on him, but he knew that his daughter had heard him. She looked even more smug, if that was at all possible.
"Tell me," Damon mouthed at her but she simply shook her head.
She crawled over to his side of the room and snuggled into her mother. Elena's arm automatically came up to wrap around her daughter while she continued to tell a story to her captive audience.
Damon poked Stefanie in the side, making her squirm and laugh. "I will make you talk, even if I have to tickle it out of you," Damon warned.
Stefanie peered at Damon from underneath Elena's arm. "I will tickle right back and I'm faster than you," she warned with another smug grin, topping it off by pulling her tongue out at him.
Damon faked offense and gasped audibly before reaching around his wife, searching for Stevie's ticklish spots. She squealed and squirmed in Elena's arms.
"Mom, help me!" Stefanie laughed as she tried to use Elena's body as a shield. "Dad's attacking me. Guys, help," she yelped at her siblings.
From out of nowhere two twin-missiles launched themselves into the mix and even Noah, who usually preferred to watch from the sidelines, joined in; his loyalty to Stefanie always winning out.
"Usurpers," Damon managed to call out before he was silenced by two small hands winding around his head and clamping down on his mouth. Elena, caught in the middle, could only laugh and try to make sure nobody poked anyone's eye out in the ensuing commotion.
"What's happening?" Elena tried to ask Damon as she lost control over whose limbs belonged to whom.
"I'm teaching the kids a lesson," Damon croaked, half buried under the squirming bodies of his children.
Elena tried to remove herself from the Salvatore pile-up. "Are you sure it's not the other way around?"
"This one," Damon replied, somehow managing to pull out Stevie's head from the ball of squirming bodies, "won't tell me if we're having a boy or a girl."
"Oh, honey," Elena exclaimed, taking Stefanie's face in both hands, "you know?" The wiggling, squirming and squealing suddenly stopped as everyone noticed something more serious going on.
Stefanie nodded with a grin. "Yeah."
"Are you going to tell us?" Elena asked her.
Stefanie grinned harder. "Maybe."
"You want something," Damon concluded.
Elena looked at Damon with both eyebrows raised, her face clearly saying, 'She's your daughter."
"Okay, spill," he told Stevie.
Stevie tilted her head to the side thinking. "Hold on," she said and motioned to Noah and the twins who quickly stuck their heads together in a tight circle, excluding everyone else. "Okay," Stefanie announced a minute later. "Here are our demands."
Damon crawled over to Elena's side and rested a hand on her knee, listening.
"The twins want popsicles for dinner," Stefanie began and Bennett and Octavia both nodded solemnly in the background. "Noah wants to be allowed to bring his raven inside."
"It's not a raven," Noah protested in the background, adding an eyeroll, "it's a crow." Even though it had been years since Noah nursed the bird with the broken wind back to health, the bird never forgot. His pet bird was one of Noah's earliest charity cases that simply refused to leave and stuck around after Noah had saved him. It currently lived mostly in the tree next to their porch.
"And what about you?" Elena asked, taking Damon's hand.
"I want to switch schools," Stefanie said, voice quieter. "I want to go to the Salvatore Boarding School." She glanced nervously between her mom and dad.
Elena looked at Damon to gauge his reaction and he squeezed her hand. They had decided long ago to keep the supernatural stuff away from the children as much as they could. They hadn't factored in, however, that maybe it was not exclusively their decision to make. The supernatural ran in both of their bloodlines and also in some of their children's.
"Stef, can we talk about it back at home?" Elena asked her daughter.
Stevie nodded, glad her parents hadn't dismissed the idea right away.
"You're having another baby?" Caroline asked. They had been so caught up in their own little world, that Elena had completely forgotten their audience. Even if it just consisted of Alaric and his daughters, Jeremy and his family, and Caroline. Bonnie and Enzo left a little while ago because Bonnie had an early class to teach at Whitmore tomorrow.
"Guess the cat's out of the bag now," Damon stated into the resulting silence.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Caroline asked, hugging Elena and congratulating her.
"We didn't know," Elena replied. "We still don't for sure."
"Yes, we do," Stefanie said. She placed her hand on Elena's belly and closed her eyes. She smiled when she opened them again and said, "She's like me."
There was a small pause while everyone was glancing at each other until Damon broke it. He leaned forward and pulled Stevie into his lap, enveloping her in his arms. "Nobody's like you, baby girl. You're unique."
Stefanie pulled back a little and looked her father in the face. "I know," she said. "But she can do stuff, too. Like me."
"I best give you two admission forms then, shall I? You can fill them out at home. You know, after you've had your big discussion." Alaric said with a hint of amusement.
"I have to fill out forms now?" Damon thundered. "Need I remind you whose name is on the school sign? Next you'll be asking me to pay school fees," Damon huffed.
And with that, the weird atmosphere was broken as everyone laughed and needled each other.