Mystic Falls | December 2034

It was a Saturday in early December and the kids were all away at their respective friends' houses. Elena had decided, much to Damon's dismay, to use the child-free day to put up Christmas decorations.

Damon pretended to sulk – he'd had different ideas on how to use the free time but Elena shot him down.

"That's what got us into this predicament in the first place, isn't it?" she said, pointing to her belly that had just started to show, though it was still completely invisible underneath her clothes.

"But it's already happened," Damon replied. "It's not like you can get any more pregnant now."

He wiggled his eyebrows at her and it was almost enough to sway Elena. She cursed silently. Even after all these years, she still hadn't figured out how to resist his flirty eyes; add the pregnancy hormones into the mix and it was close to impossible to say no. Glancing towards the boxes of Christmas garlands, lights, and bows, she began to sway.

Damon, sensing her temptation to abandon or at least postpone her initial plans, helped her decide by stepping closer and winding an arm around her waist.

Before Elena could stop him, the front door was thrown open and a Stevie-shaped bullet shot upstairs, slamming a door somewhere on the second floor.

Damon frowned and went to close the front door. "Is everything alright?" he called towards the top of the stairs.

"Yeah," Stefanie called back, but Damon wasn't convinced.

Glancing at Elena who shrugged, he tried again, "Stevie? What happened?"

"Nothing, Dad."

"Maybe I should go check on her," Damon suggested to Elena.

"No!" Stevie called down, slightly panicky. "Mom. I want Mom!"

Damon's face fell and Elena grimaced in sympathy. But there was no time to offer a word of comfort.

"Mom?" Stefanie called again in that moment. "Can you come up?"

Elena frowned and went to check but Stefanie was not in her room. When Elena was about to call out for her, the bathroom door opened and Stevie put her head through. "In here," she said, grabbing Elena's arm and pulling her inside, locking the door quickly behind her.

Elena's confusion and worry abated as she took a look around and confirmed that her daughter was in one piece and appeared to be unharmed. "What happened?"

Stefanie, eyes cast down as she fumbled with the button on her jeans, replied, "I guess I had an accident." She sounded almost angry and Elena frowned.

But then understanding dawned and she smiled at her daughter. "You got your first period."

"Yeah, I noticed," Stevie returned with a sarcastic undertone that she definitely learned from her father. But she softened it with a smile, which quickly turned into a wince. "You didn't say what a messy business this was when we talked about it," she accused. She pulled off her jeans and threw them on the floor, pulling off the rest of her clothes next.

"It gets easier once you get a handle on it," Elena assured her. "Didn't you have your emergency kit with you?" she asked.

"I did," Stevie replied. "But I didn't notice right away and when I did, it was already too late." She motioned towards the discarded jeans.

Elena picked them up and said, "Don't worry about it. We'll wash them and they'll be good as new."

Stefanie nodded as she got into the tub and turned on the shower head. "At least I noticed before all of my friends did."

"Do you feel okay? Any soreness, achiness at all?" Elena asked.

Stefanie pushed her head through the shower door. "A little. In my belly."

"I'll get you something for it," Elena said. "And some clean clothes. I'll be right back."

When Elena returned to the bathroom with some clean clothes and an assortment of teen-sized pads, tampons, and panty liners for Stevie to choose from, Stefanie had finished her shower. "Do you need another demonstration?" Elena asked, presenting the basket of hygiene products.

"I think I remember the first five," Stefanie replied.

Elena sat down on the closed toilet seat and sighed while Stefanie dried off.

"Oh Mom," Stevie said, glancing at her. "It's just biology. Don't get all sentimental."

"My baby's growing up, I'm allowed." She blinked and remembered, "My mom cried when I got my first period. She hugged me and wouldn't let go. Guess it's a mom thing."

Stevie rolled her eyes but smiled. She dressed quickly and came over to hug her mother.

"What was that for?" Elena asked.

Stevie shrugged. "I'm feeling sentimental too. And also because you're the best mom. Thank you."

Elena hugged her daughter tighter. "No thanks necessary, honey." When she pulled away, she asked. "Are you going back to your friends?"

Stevie shrugged her shoulders. "I think I want to stay in."

Elena seemed relieved to hear the answer. "What do you want to do today?"

"Can we curl up on the couch and just watch movies all day?"

"Absolutely," Elena agreed. Before they went downstairs into the living room, Elena stopped Stefanie and asked. "Can I tell your dad?"

Stevie paused, then nodded. "Yeah, okay."

"Thanks," Elena replied. "I think he was a bit hurt that you asked for me and not him."

"Oh," Stefanie's shoulders fell. Now she felt guilty and sad.

"It's okay," Elena reassured her. "He'll understand once I tell him. Also," Elena added with a twinkle in her eyes, "he's probably going to go out and get you all your favorite treats. So, if there's something you really, really want – now's the time to hint at it."

"Is twelve too soon to wish for a car?"

"Probably, yeah," Elena replied.

"Okay, then. M&Ms, the crispy ones," Stevie decided.

"No," Elena shook her head. "You're doing it wrong." She thought for a moment, then, "Remember that pouch you wanted, the one that went so well with your bag?"

Stefanie stared wide-eyed at her mother. "Dad said it was too expensive."

Elena winked at her daughter. "Watch and learn," she whispered conspiratorially.

Stefanie's jaw dropped a little but her eyes twinkled with excitement.

Downstairs, Elena found Damon still fighting with the tangled fairy lights. He raised his head when she and Stefanie entered.

"Can you put those boxes away again?" Elena asked him and explained why they needed to postpone the home dressing. "We're going to flop down on the sofa and have a movie marathon. And later," she directed that last bit at Stefanie, "when you're feeling better, maybe we can go shopping and get something fancy to store your sanitary supplies in. Something you can fit in your school bag. Something with sparkles."

Stevie hid her chuckles by pretending to go and look through the list of available movies on the TV. Once they were all situated on the sofa, she stretched out over her mother's lap. Elena stroked her hair as Damon started one of Stevie's favorite Disney movies. Stevie whimpered quietly. Her belly hurt. Her mom had given her something for the pain, but it hadn't kicked in yet. Stevie wound both arms around herself and burrowed deeper into her mom's side.

A moment later, Damon excused himself and disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned with a hot water bottle.

"Put it on your tummy," Elena explained at her daughter's quizzical look. "It'll help with the cramps."

Stefanie did as advised and released a relieved breath a moment later. "Thanks, Dad."

Damon brushed over her hair and leaned down to place a kiss on her head.

"I'll head out real quick," Damon said as they were just ten minutes into the movie, grabbing his keys and wallet. "Be back in a bit."

Elena shared a significant look with her daughter. "See? What did I tell you?"

Half an hour later, Damon returned with a few bags full of goodies, emptying the contents on the coffee table before his daughter. He'd gotten her favorite gummy bears, the M&Ms she wanted, as well as Oreo cookies with her favorite filling, and some savory treats. He then procured two of the books that had been on her Christmas wish list and she squealed when she saw them and threw her arms around her dad.

Finally, he pulled a flat rectangle shaped box from the bag. It had the logo of Stevie's favorite department store in the corner and barely weighed anything. She grinned and met her mom's eyes when she pulled the sparkly pouch from it, the same one she had been eyeing a week ago.

She went to town on the massive haul of treats and tried her best to ignore her parents as her mom pulled her dad down for a kiss. He cuddled up next to them on the sofa, her on one side of her mom, he on the other. Eventually she climbed over her mom's lap and snuggled into the narrow space between them, like she used to do when she was little.

A short while later Noah returned and sprawled out over all of their laps. The twins joined the fray when their Uncle Jeremy gave them a lift home and eventually they all ended up in a big Salvatore pile of limbs, heads, and candy wrappers.

Years and years later, it was still one of Stevie's favorite memories.

Damon woke up, a bit disoriented as he glanced around for the something that woke him. Beside him, Elena moaned once, softly. He felt down his body, finding himself half-hard already. Apparently, his body had reacted to her before he was even awake and responded accordingly.

He turned over towards her, but Elena was on her side, turned away from him. He scooted closer, pressing up against her back, pushing a knee between her legs. He felt her push against it. More of Damon's blood rushed to his nether regions and he closed his eyes, nuzzling against her neck. Her sleep-warm scent was intoxicating. She radiated heat and his nerves tingled enticingly wherever they touched.

"Damon," Elena mumbled, rubbing herself against him. He kissed the nape of her neck while one of his hands slid down to her ass and slipped past pajama bottoms to grab and knead a handful.

Elena grunted softly, mumbled again; something unintelligible because she was pushing her face into her pillow to stifle the cries that wanted to emerge. She pulled on her clothes, but her movements were jerky, desperate. Damon helped buy quickly pushing the offending articles aside. No time to discard them. He took himself in hand and guided the tip to her entrance, sliding home slowly but steadily. Elena's moans welcomed him. Her hand went to his thigh, nails digging in as he moved.

He thrust a few times shallowly, just to settle himself and find the right angle. When he did, he pushed all of himself inside her. She responded with a gasp, eyes opening.

She reached for his arm and wrapped it around herself. He cupped her breast, kissed her shoulder. Elena craned her neck, needing his lips. For a few minutes their bodies stilled, only their mouths working against each other. When Elena's head dropped back to her pillow, Damon's mouth continued along her neck. He traced the shape of her shoulder with his lips, placing the last few kisses down her arm before picking up his movements again.

When he started to move inside her again, Elena arched her neck, eyes rolling back and Damon was drawn to its perfect line by invisible forces. He kissed her neck while ever so slowly increasing the pace of his hips. The heat around him felt incredible, the way her body just fit him so perfectly.

Her skin tasted like heaven and Damon forgot himself for a while. His own sudden orgasm brought him back to reality. His nerves buzzed, his skin felt like electricity fizzling out just underneath it. He remembered his own limbs, particularly the hand on Elena's front, and let it glide down to work her bundle of nerves. Still hanging on, he continued to move inside her, through the messiness of his own making, until her thighs clamped down around his leg, her back arched and she came with a silent gasp.

She rolled onto her back and Damon draped himself across her. "Oops," he said. "I guess I got carried away a little." His lips pressed soft and dry to the spot on her neck where he left a dark purple mark. There was no way Elena's white coat was going to cover that.

Instead of chastising him, Elena shivered in response to his lips on her sensitized skin. She buried her fingers in his hair and scratched his scalp lightly. "I don't care."

"You will," Damon said, "in about an hour."

"Well, that's a problem for the future, then."

Damon kissed down her front, lazily, unhurriedly. Every once in a while, Elena's fingers would drag him up and they'd lose themselves to kisses again. And then he'd make the same trek down her body again, stopping to pay special attention to her clavicle, or her nipples, or her belly button, or the very faint scar left over from the twins' emergency C-section. He just loved her body, the wonder that it was, and all the little imperfections that made her perfect.

Taking Elena to bed… or a couch, a table, a sideboard – any horizontal surface, really. Hell, in a pinch, a vertical one would do just as well… Oh, but he was getting distracted. The point was, Damon thought as he continued to worship his pregnant wife, that taking Elena to bed had lost nothing of its appeal.

Seeing the desire in her eyes, her sole focus directed fully at him as if no one else existed in the world, still made his temperature rise. Watching her clothes come off still made his blood boil. Seeing that wanton expression on her face, his heart still skipped a beat. Reaching behind her back to snap open the clasp of a bra made thrill zing through his body.

Damon was so much in a trance, he had lost complete track of time, until Elena rolled both of them over to reach for Damon's watch on his nightstand. There were a few minutes left for Damon to enjoy the weight of his wife on top of him and she used those minutes to rain kisses up and down his torso until she had to get up.

When she did finally pull out of his arms with a regretful smile on her face, he lay back to watch her. She stripped at the food of the bed while Damon watched her. Another thing he never tired of, the sight of her in just a t-shirt and undies, then nothing at all as she moved to the shower. He was, however, less of a fan of her putting clothes on than he was of her taking them off. But the sight of Elena in panties and a bra, however brief it might be, was never something to frown upon, so Damon enjoyed it for as long as it lasted.

She looked at herself critically in the mirror once she was done. "There's no way to make this outfit work," she mumbled, trying another scarf.

Damon should have felt guilty, he knew that much. But he was so utterly relaxed and blissfully happy, it was hard to care.

"You don't care even a little, do you?" Elena asked him a second later, reading his thoughts. She regarded him with disapproval, but he could see the tiny smile trying to peek through.

"Just tell them a dog attacked you or something. This is Mystic Falls. Animal attacks is a favorite excuse for everything in this town or don't you remember?"

Elena rolled her eyes at her husband being so entirely unhelpful and dropped the mass of scarves that she'd tried on on Damon. He was the one who'd left the love bite; he could put away her scarves. As she made her way out of the bedroom, she could hear him laughing under the mass of fabric.

He looked in on each kid's bedroom on his way downstairs. They were on winter break and were supposed to sleep in, but only Noah was actually still asleep.

Stevie was sitting up in bed and reading, barely tearing herself away from her book long enough to say good morning. The twins were awake and scheming somewhere which would have frightened Damon a little if he'd allowed himself to dwell on it for a moment. He extracted promises from his kids to come downstairs for breakfast in about half an hour by promising them pancakes and bacon. Vegan bacon for the twins, which was really just tofu strips which Damon wouldn't be caught eating if you paid him, but Bennett seemed to like them. Though, honestly, Damon couldn't tell if it was because he actually liked the taste or because Bennett was the most stubborn and tenacious kid Damon had ever met and, once he made a decision, no power on earth could sway him otherwise.

Bennett was the kind of person who worked on a problem until he'd mastered it. Tavi, on the other hand, approached a problem by gathering information – sometimes through channels that even Damon wasn't sure about how she got there. Combined, they were guaranteed to come up with a solution so unique, they frequently blew Damon's and Elena's minds.

Sometimes, in the privacy of their bedroom and only when it was just the two of them, Damon admitted that he worried what would happen if they ever set their eyes on world domination.

But, as Elena had put it, this was a problem for the future. Right now, he was on breakfast duty.

"Finish up," Damon said a little while later. "I want to get to the mall before the Christmas shopping crowds descend upon it."

Noah groaned. "Do we have to?"

"Who ruined all his shoes by playing soccer and now needs new ones?" Damon replied, fixing Noah with a stare. Noah hated shopping. Loathed it so much, not even the prospect of a new video game could entice him to go to the mall.

"Can't we just order some online?" he suggested.

"Where's the fun in that?" Damon replied.

"Where's the fun in going to the mall?" Noah grumbled back.

"Shopping," Stevie exclaimed, trying to excite her brother, and failing. "New shoes!"

A discussion broke out between Stevie who insisted that she absolutely needed new boots and Damon reminding her that she already had more than enough. In the end he agreed to a bribe if she helped finding a pair for Noah.

"Find two, and I'll get you whatever you want from your wish list," Damon finished bribing her.

"But the wish list is only for birthdays," Tavi piped up.

Damon turned to her. "No, the wish list is for all year round. When Mommy gave me that book a few weeks ago, was it my birthday?" Tavi scrunched up her face, thinking, then shook her head. "And last Sunday, when we went grocery shopping and found that nice new blanket for Mommy – was it her birthday?" Octavia shook her head again and Damon continued, "That's because your Mommy deserves nice things every day. Not just on her birthday."

He made sure to have his daughter's full attention. "You stay away from men who think you only deserve nice gifts on your birthday, got it?"

It was obvious that Octavia didn't fully understand what that meant, but she understood enough to know that the only correct answer to that was a yes. She nodded solemnly.

"Good girl," Damon answered. He glanced around at his other children. "Actually, that goes for all of you. Understood?"

A chorus of, "Yes, Dad," was the reply.

"Oh, that reminds me," Damon said. "I think your mom would really like a new turtleneck sweater. Let's go find one."