A.N.: I was distracted by YouTube yesterday (and my dad building me a raised bed to grow my own veg in my garden!) so the décor for the converted barn Stefan and Damon live in on Giulia's Boarding House property was heavily inspired by 'Jensen and Danneel Ackles' Home' house-tour by Architectural Digest. It's beautiful!
Resurgam
37
Family Legacy
"So… Zita… Who are you? Tell me about yourself," Damon said, sliding into the booth opposite Zita. They'd provided a booster so she didn't have to sit in a high-chair, and she yawned widely, tired from her day at preschool but exhilarated; she had sung along to the stereo all the way over to the diner downtown - getting half the words wrong - and now sat with her rumpled curls and grass-stained knees, gazing at him with vivid pale-green eyes.
"You look like Mamma," she said, tilting her head to the side so her curls swayed.
"Why, thank you," Damon smirked. "So do you. You look exactly like your mother when she was your age."
"I do?" Zita beamed, and Damon smiled.
"Sure. I even brought a picture to show you, look…" He pulled an old photograph out of his inside jacket-pocket, holding it up for Zita to peer at.
She beamed, and said, "That's me."
"It's not," Damon cooed. "That's Giulia. Mamma. That photograph was taken a long time ago." He took the photograph back, gently, and examined it, staring from the picture to Zita. The similarities were uncanny - but there were deliberate mistakes. The colour of Zita's eyes; the sweep of her eyebrows; her smile was a little different.
He had something to look forward to, watching Zita grow up, watching her personality develop. Giulia had been a gorgeous little dumpling, energetic, charismatic, playful, and brutally clever: Zita seemed to have inherited the same natural charm that drew people to her mother like moths to a flame…the same natural charisma that had set Joshua Salvatore apart from every crowd.
It had jarred him, seeing that photograph saved on Giulia's phone. Giulia, with Joshua.
He'd discussed Joshua's disappearance with Gyda and Willem, briefly, out for drinks together the other night. And there was no doubt in their minds that Joshua's disappearance hadn't had everything to do with his disillusionment of the Order, and Abby Bennett - who had introduced him to the Order in the first place, along with Bill Forbes. Joshua had never been a follower; but he would stick with his friends if he suspected something was wrong. Joshua had trusted his gut instincts, and he had been bright, very bright - very like Giulia in that way. Sometimes Damon had thought the wrong brother had fathered Giulia: She was more like her outgoing, vibrant uncle than her introverted father, though Zach's influence was very strong in her.
One significant difference between Giulia and Zita was made evident when the menus arrived. By the time she was five, Giulia had been reading Russian literature, and quoting the Greeks. She had consumed books with a voracious appetite that had never eased. In contrast, little Zita…couldn't read.
But she chatted happily about learning sign-language because Ruth Saltzman's ears didn't work properly, and her preschool teacher using Makaton when they took attendance. She knew her alphabet in sign language, and sang it to him while showing him the signs.
Giulia's intellect had always been the most extraordinary and the most terrifying thing about her when she was a child; she'd had an adult's brain inside a tiny body, and it had been unsettling to watch her building trebuchets when she was barely older than Zita - one memorable afternoon, he had reached tiny Giulia just in time to stop her launching her best-friend, little Tyler Lockwood, from the tried-and-tested trebuchet.
They'd belted a comforter around him and found Zach's old football helmet for safety, of course, and Tyler had been grinning from ear to ear, game for it, but still…he still remembered the charming, mischievous smile Giulia had given him as he'd raised his eyebrows at her, hands on his hips, staring down an unimpressed six-year-old.
They'd compromised, and taken great delight in launching different kinds of melons instead, making it scientific - to see which melon was launched the furthest.
"So, do you like music, Zita?" Damon asked; she had told him off for trying to turn the volume down as The Ramones played on his stereo. He should have realised - she was Giulia's daughter, after all.
"Yes! And books! I love books. And Wonder Woman, and Simba, and dancing."
They talked about her favourite books; and he read the menu to her so she could order for herself - she beamed at the waitress, and politely asked, "Please may I have a steak omelette?"
Giulia had obviously taught her manners, treating her daughter very much as Zach had raised Giulia - as a small adult, a companion, a friend it was his privilege to raise, and teach, and enjoy. She was also an easily confident little girl, perfectly happy to speak for herself to strangers. Giulia had been raised with manners, too, and with the same sense of ease and self-assuredness. She had sat at the table with her dad, used her cutlery properly, and chatted with him - she had rarely fidgeted, never to his knowledge thrown a tantrum in public, was smiling and content and curious, and never had her eyes glued to a screen - unlike every kid in the diner except Zita. When their food came, Damon cut up her steak omelette, but she sat nicely and carefully fed herself, smiling as her eyes lit up with delight, chewing; the waitress brought over her coconut ice-cream sundae with pineapple, mango and banana and the smile grew.
The sweetheart handed him a spoon, and offered to share.
And they chatted, about her favourite book - currently, The Lorax - and her boyfriends, the fact that she loved being in the garden with Finn, enjoyed Uncle Enzo teaching her how to cook (she could name several different types of pasta shapes, and explained with wild gesticulations how to make them) and Damon stared, surprised, when she started to speak in Italian.
According to Zita, she spoke Italian at home with Mamma and Uncle Enzo, and Finn; but English at school and with Grandma Liz and Aunt Caroline.
She also adored Gyda. She sighed, her features so soft, as she confided warmly, lisping adorably, "She's a sunflower."
"A sunflower?" Damon smiled. "What does that mean?"
"She's the best," Zita beamed, sighing contentedly. It took a lot to qualify for 'sunflower' status, according to Zita. One had to read all the characters' voices in storybooks; and love Bowie; like to dance; and always have fingernails painted prettily, "And she makes things."
"Makes things? Like what?" Damon asked, accepting the spoon Zita had laboriously piled with some ice-cream, and a chunk each of mango, pineapple and banana, with some of the drizzled passion-fruit sauce and coconut shavings. It was only fair, she said, that they share, as he had ordered no dessert.
"Like dollies."
"Bet Mamma doesn't like that." Damon didn't hide his smirk.
"Mamma's afraid of dolls," Zita whispered confidentially, her eyes alight with that same sparkle of sweet, innocent mischief he remembered so vividly in her mother at the same age.
"Yeah, I remember that," Damon snickered. Giulia had always been unnerved by dolls, even as young as Zita. It was the eyes. She used to turn figurines around in the Boarding House; dolls had been unceremoniously shoved under her bed. Stuffed animals were okay; just not dolls.
"And Gyda's teaching me to broider."
"Broider? Oh. Embroider," Damon nodded. Zita nodded.
"Gyda broidered Zeus and Tisiphone and Gallant," she smiled, lisping adorably on her S's, a little on her Z's. "She says she's going to frame it so it can go on my wall."
"That's nice of her."
"Sometimes she helps me and Finn in the garden," Zita said, nodding. "She likes flowers, too. And she always has them in her bedroom. She has lots of makeup to play with, too. I want Gyda to babysit me sometimes."
"Doesn't she?"
"No. Sometimes I go to Aunt Jenna and Uncle Ric's house but not very much to Gyda's house anymore," Zita said sadly. "I like playing with Ruth, and J.D."
"J.D.'s pretty cool, huh?"
"He plays soccer with me."
"What about Spencer?"
"He hurt his arm."
"Yeah, I heard that. Doesn't stop him running around, does it?"
"He hasn't come to play in ages, almost a hundred years," Zita said, and Damon chuckled at the exaggeration: At five, she would have no concept of time. To her, an hour was an eternity.
"Well, he's at school, right? He probably has homework," Damon said, and laughed as Zita crinkled her nose. "What do you like to play with Spencer?"
"Mm… Fishing! Or baseball. But - last time we played with the softball I hurt my face."
"You hurt your face?"
"Uh-huh. Spencer threw the softball and it hit me in my mouth. It was a naccident."
"Ouch. Did it hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Did you cry?"
"Yeah. Spencer gave me a popsicle! It was cherry - that's Mamma's favourite."
"Yeah? What's yours?"
"Yellow!"
"I guess I should've figured," Damon smiled, looking at her quickly-diminishing sundae.
"I hope there's some of that sundae left for me," said a voice, and Damon jumped, glancing up; Giulia appeared, her smile tired. Her eyes glittered, her entire face warming, her body relaxing, as her daughter cried, "Mamma!" and grinned up at her, flashing her sparkling little pearly baby-teeth. Giulia sank into a squat and parted her lips so Zita could feed her the last oozy scoop of fruit and ice-cream. She licked her lips, then leaned in to cradle her daughter's face and give her kisses. She slid into the booth beside her daughter, and gave Damon an enigmatic look. "How's your date?"
"Great. Zita's quite the conversationalist. I've learned how to make pasta and my alphabet in sign language."
"Time well-spent," Giulia said, and Zita grinned. Giulia reached over to smooth her daughter's rampant curls away from her face, as Zita grimaced and passed a napkin over her mouth, reaching for her water glass. "Are you ready to go home?"
"Yes, please," Zita said, and yawned widely. It was one of those yawns that completely overtook a child's body. She looked dozy and content when she relaxed, smiling warmly at her mother. Damon dug into his pocket for his wallet, and Zita whispered something to Giulia.
"Go ahead, sweets," Giulia encouraged, smiling warmly. Draped across her front was a small pineapple-shaped purse; Zita had taken great delight in telling Damon it had been a present from her Mamma's friend Zara who surfed alligators in the Bye-yoo. And inside it, Damon discovered, she had a chocolate-cherry chapstick, a tiny pair of kids' sunglasses, and a wad of dollar bills. Watching her curiously as he hailed the waitress for their check, Giulia helped Zita count out her dollars.
She was leaving money for a tip!
And when the waitress bid them goodbye, Zita thanked her sincerely - she stood in front of the woman, gazed into her face, and met her eye as she did so, "Thank you very much for my dinner."
"You're welcome, sweetheart," the waitress fluttered, turning to beam at Giulia. In an undertone, she murmured, "Your daughter has been just so gorgeous this afternoon. She has beautiful manners."
"Thank you," Giulia smiled warmly, her tired eyes sparking with appreciation of the compliment to her childrearing skills. The waitress walked away to serve another booth, and Giulia glanced at Damon as she took her daughter's hand. "Thank you for today. I hope you enjoyed it."
"I did. I hope she did, too," Damon said honestly. It was a kick to the gut that Giulia's daughter was now the same age as when he had first started taking Giulia out for diner-dates. Giulia was a very young mother, by modern standards…but it reinforced the passage of time like no number of Ric's silver hairs and professions of retirement could.
Giulia gave him a brief one-armed hug, thanking him for taking Zita out to dinner; it had freed up some time for her. She gathered Zita up in her arms as her daughter yawned widely; the little girl tucked her pair of sunglasses on, as they left the diner - just as Giulia tucked her sunglasses over her eyes, shielding them from the dying sun. Damon watched, smiling to himself, as mother carried daughter into the sunlight, and he was struck, again, that Giulia was no longer an insomniac lust-fuelled seventeen-year-old lush.
She was a mother.
She was nurturing, passionate, opinionated, and confident - and had nothing to prove to anyone; she knew her worth. She was elegant, reasonable, and very likeable, warm, charismatic - she was…empowering. One smile from her made him feel calm - no matter how she was feeling inside; if she wasn't happy, you would never know. She internalised everything.
By the time Giulia reached her god-awful truck, Zita was slumped in her mother's arms, already dozing, relaxed, safe.
Stefan already had the bottle of Resurgam bourbon breathing on the large coffee-table in the converted barn's great room when Damon returned home. It was strange to think of the barn as 'home' after expecting to return to the Boarding House - but there was less to clean here, and Rose had outdone herself outfitting the barn to Giulia's exacting specifications for his and Stefan's comfort. It was modern but warm and tactile, with gorgeous reclaimed wood and sentimental details Giulia had hand-picked from their lives, hand-woven Moroccan carpets, funky art-pieces he and Stefan had collected over the years, Stefan's record collection, antique daguerreotypes of him and Stefan as children, books they both adored. In his bedroom, Stefan had a wall-to-wall illuminated bookcase full of lush potted plants to make a showcase of all his books, journals, trinkets, the tat he had hoarded over the decades. His memories, he called them. Damon's bedroom was sleek, modern, warm, with a wooden ceiling, and curious opera-box wallpaper concealed by sliding panels, luxurious Egyptian cotton sheets, cashmere blankets, and a beautiful view of the creek and a grove of old magnolia trees through the enormous windows. It was meticulous, and personal: It wasn't the Boarding House but there was no doubt in Damon's mind this barn had been built specifically for him and Stefan to claim as their home.
And that in creating it for them, Giulia had set a clear boundary, without having to say a word: They had the barn - the Boarding House was no longer theirs to claim whenever they felt like it. The barn was their home, now, whenever they felt like returning to Mystic Falls: But they would not reside with their living relatives, with Giulia or Zita or Zita's children and great-grandchildren.
She had put a stop to her vampiric relatives co-habiting - and all the dangers inherent to it.
Giulia may have found it healthier to forgive them for her father's death, but that in no way meant she had forgotten.
In the great room, sprawled on the insanely comfortable couch, Stefan was scowling at an old, musty-smelling leather-bound ledger.
"Where's Vampire Barbie?"
"She went back to the Klaushaus," Stefan sighed disinterestedly, frowning at the slanting, almost indecipherable handwriting of their grandfather. Damon nodded to himself; they never spoke about what they were looking for, not since they had made the decision to do something about their predicament - to fight back. But they couldn't risk the Originals finding out - not when it was a direct threat to them, too.
"Anything?"
"I'm still trying to get used to the cursive again," Stefan admitted, with a grumpy sigh, and Damon smirked. He poured himself three fingers of bourbon, and groaned as he threw himself into the gorgeous Brazilian mid-century armchair he had found in Rio let be lost in the attic for decades, kicking his feet up on the matching footstool. He grabbed another ledger; he had been combing through them ever since Giulia told him they were still kept in the Boarding House's library. A hidden history of Mystic Falls was kept in its pages. The Salvatores had owned all the woods and logging mills in the area, at one time - before they were turned: The Lockwoods may have owned most of the town, but the Salvatores had built it.
As a boy, Damon remembered sitting in his father's working study, in the uncomfortable chair behind his great desk, picking through the pages of the great leather-bound ledgers, curious what mesmerised his father so much about them, not realising that of course, it was his job, their family's income. Giuseppe Salvatore had inherited the family business, the ledgers, from his father, the immigrant Giovanni Salvatore, who had settled their family in Virginia and accumulated a fortune and a reputation for them to inherit: Giuseppe had been a boy when his family left Florence. Damon was first-generation American, grandson of a founder of Mystic Falls.
It was amazing the memories an ancient daguerreotype of himself as a small boy sat on his elderly grandfather's knee brought into focus. The daguerreotype was small, and kept behind tempered glass to protect it from UV radiation, framed and hung on his bedroom wall beside the bathroom door above a light-switch, not a focal point, but a precious detail, like the Polaroid she had restored of Damon with Billy in the Seventies, and framed, with a photograph of Damon grinning and crouching beside six-year-old Giulia in front of her trebuchet, broken melons at their feet, Tyler Lockwood smiling shyly, adoringly at Giulia, whose hand he held, mouths smeared with melon-juice. There was also a photo-booth strip from when Damon had driven Giulia to Disney World for a long-weekend when she was twelve that made him smile every time he looked at the four distinctive pictures and the faces they had pulled, remembering Giulia's innocence and her trust in him then. And he was adding new photographs, printed from his phone - himself and Stefan, smiling, as they shared a drink; kissing Gyda's cheek as he and Willem teased her. And a photograph of Zita, sucking her thumb as she sat contentedly in her mother's lap, Giulia's smile sparkling, as they sat on the bleachers. Caroline had shared the photo with him… But it was the daguerreotype of his grandpa that had triggered something long-forgotten in Damon's memory.
The logging ledgers.
He remembered his Nonno telling him the story about the night he, Damon, was born: In the heat of the summer, there had been a lightning storm unlike any they had experienced for years. Lightning had struck one of the oldest trees in the area, splitting the trunk down to the roots, fire consuming it from within. His Nonno had never seen anything like it, the tree turning to ash as it burned from the inside out, the soles of his boots warm from the fire travelling to the roots.
The ancient white oak estimated to be hundreds of years old.
His Nonno had been what people might call a conservationist nowadays. He had practiced sustainable forestry: For every tree cut down, he had ensured at least twenty were planted. He had planned for the future, for his family: They couldn't sustain a fortune on logging when the last tree was cut down. So, he had devoted his life to sustaining the woodlands around Mystic Falls, planting where they felled trees to build the town. Zita loved The Lorax: Damon's Nonno would have been proud she took such delight in being in nature.
Nonno Giovanni had told Damon about the white oak that had been struck by lightning the night Damon was born.
And of the seedlings he had harvested, and planted in a grove, protecting them so they could grow. The only such oaks his Nonno had ever seen.
"Why do we have to comb through these ridiculous ledgers?" Stefan grumbled. "Can't we just go hiking through the woods and look for a big old oak tree?"
"Yeah. Sure. What're you gonna tell Sexy Bex when she asks what we're up to?" Damon scoffed. "Taking the air for our health?"
"I don't know - searching for the vargulf."
"And then she'll rip your intestines out for a necklace because she knows you're lying. We know where the vargulf is," Damon grumbled. When the witches were massacred, whatever mystical hold over the vargulf had lifted; she had fled, still in her wolf form, and Willem had followed her to Fell's Church - the one place vampires would not enter, for fear of never leaving. No vampire wanted to be stuck inside a tomb with a vargulf, not even an Original: They were still vulnerable to the psychological side-effects of werewolf toxins, as Rebekah had demonstrated to Stefan so spectacularly after the vargulf had attacked her, Giulia and Caroline. Damon sighed heavily. "Besides, this way is the least likely to attract any unwanted attention. We have an advantage; no-one has any idea we know about this."
"Okay, fine," Stefan grumbled.
"Pour yourself a drink and quit your bitching," Damon yawned.
"How was the diner?"
"Good. Zita has manners. She's like a little mini-Giulia, you know…before it all went wrong."
"She's come through the other side," Stefan said quietly, propping his booted feet on the edge of the coffee table.
"Yeah. Get your feet off the table," Damon scolded.
"I just don't get why you wanted to take the kid out for ice-cream," Stefan frowned, but he took his feet off the table.
"Building positive relationships, Stefan," Damon said. "We can't just rock up in twenty years and assume Zita will know who we are to let us stay. Or what Giulia may have told her."
"Giulia wouldn't turn her against us like that," Stefan said. None of their descendants ever had. Giulia was the first to give them their own living space on the property, but every one of Damon's grandsons and great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons had allowed them home, with varying degrees of reluctance.
"True. She knows it'd be dangerous for her daughter's health to give her misinformation," Damon said thoughtfully. "Giulia's…like Nonno."
"Grandfather?"
"He planned for the future. Would've loved Giulia and Zita to dote on. He always wanted granddaughters. You were such a disappointment," Damon smirked tauntingly, and Stefan scoffed, before grinning and turning back to the ledgers. Damon frowned, and glanced over at Stefan. "Don't you have homework?"
"Sure," Stefan shrugged, and Damon rolled his eyes. He climbed out of his armchair to take the ledger off Stefan.
"Do your homework. Think Elijah wouldn't relish keeping you in detention?" he asked, and Stefan sighed heavily, reaching for his backpack. "What's that like, anyway? Elijah, as a teacher?"
"He's actually…brilliant," Stefan said thoughtfully. "I don't know - he's…kind of like the teacher you always wished you'd had. He's enthusiastic, inviting…he helps you to change your mind about things without you even realising it."
"How so?"
"Well, Daisy Buchanan is a self-absorbed whore, for one thing," Stefan said, and Damon smirked. "It's not an epic love-story: Gatsby was deluded and Daisy was a desperate housewife. Speaking of, Rebekah's excited for Halloween."
"Let me guess. She wants you to dress up as Daisy and Gatsby."
"Yeah." Stefan grimaced. The Twenties. Not his proudest time. They all had their lost decades.
"Well, you've got great legs; you can pull off the Flapper look," Damon said, turning a page in the ledger, and Stefan threw a decorative cushion at him, which he dodged, with a lazy grin. "Oh, hey, if you get your homework finished in time, we're playing midnight football with Willem. He's trying to teach Finn the finer points of the game; but apparently Giulia has ruined him. She got Finn watching the rugby Six Nations tournament back in February and Finn's been turning his nose up at the amount of padding the NFL uses."
"I always forget Giulia loves rugby."
"I blame Zach entirely. He always watched, too. Supported Italy, of course."
"That's right, Gianna loved rugby."
"She loved rugby-players' thighs," Damon smirked, adding thoughtfully. "No wonder Giulia loves it. She's a thigh gal, too."
"How do you know that?"
"He's your teacher; you're telling me you've not gotten a good look at brick-shithouse Elijah?!" Damon snickered. "The suits hide it, but he is not scrawny by any stretch of the imagination."
"You're eyeing up Elijah, now?"
"Well, you've got an Original; Giulia's had one. I'm thinking we should just make it a matched set, you know."
"Well, Lagertha's been in a casket for over a hundred-fifty years, maybe she's desperate enough to go for you," Stefan said.
"Yeah, I doubt that," Damon answered with a sigh, gazing at the ledgers, reflecting on the intimidating and glorious Lagertha Mikaelsdottir. He didn't know her at all well, but Gyda and Willem both spoke of her with affection and utmost respect - she was the eldest sister, had been born in the Old World after Elijah and Finn but before Isak. She had been a shield-maiden, fighting beside her father and brothers with sword and shield, a warrior, farmer and mother, years before they had ever emigrated to the area now known as Mystic Falls. She was fearless, resilient, calm and wise, gentle and ferocious by turns, maternal and stern, sexy as hell and uncertain in this new age, but quickly adapting.
It was no wonder Elijah was a fierce feminist: With a sister like Lagertha, who was apparently incredibly like the Originals' own mother…how could he get away with not believing women were equal to, if not sometimes superior to, men? For a laugh, Damon had been reading the texts assigned by Elijah to Stefan's class; he was blatant in telling the kids the overriding them for the semester was Feminism, was unapologetic about it, unabashed. It wasn't just because #metoo was a thing and the Time's Up movement was making a stand: Elijah truly believed in what he was teaching, and the kids could tell.
It was…very interesting to Damon, and made sense why Elijah was so fiercely taken with Giulia, who was the embodiment of empowered females.
How she'd gotten here, Damon had no idea. He and Stef certainly hadn't helped any. The last ten years had been the making of Giulia. He wasn't going to let anything ruin that, if he could help it.
Giulia had forgiven them; but he could never forget.
He could never forget what they had taken from her; and what was owed to her, not just because of her father, but because of everything she had done for them after, in spite of it. Everything she continued to do for them, without ever expecting gratitude from them in any form.
She didn't have to build the barn for them to claim as their own, so they could have a home.
But she did.
He turned another page in the ledger, scanning his grandfather's handwriting. They owed her a lot. And he couldn't honestly recall anything she could genuinely thank them for doing on her behalf.
It was a sobering thought, and made him uncomfortable.
Nonno would have adored Giulia.
And he would be ashamed of his grandsons - regardless of their vampirism.
They had not taken care of their family, their legacy.
Giulia did. But it was their turn, now.
A.N.: Happy Mother's Day, everyone!
