~ Shards of Sapphire ~

"How do you guys even have a child?" Elena Salvatore asked when her vampire brother-in-law and his wife (who was also a vampire) showed up on her doorstep one afternoon.

"Found her in a dumpster behind a crack house," Damon replied casually, as if that was an entirely normal way of acquiring babies. (Maybe it was for vampires who wanted a child. Elena had been a vampire for a few years, and hadn't actually learned much about what was considered normal and acceptable in vampire society.)

"Oh, I see," Elena replied, more to have something to say to keep the silence from getting too awkward than because she actually understood.

"Can we... come in?"

"Nope! Absolutely not! No vampires allowed in this house ever, for any reason, just as a safety precaution. No offense."

"I am slightly offended," Damon said.

"Anyway... Stefan and the kids are out in the backyard if you guys want to stay for a few minutes and visit," Elena offered.

And yeah, it was kind of rude to rush them out of here when they'd come all the way from Mystic Falls (or wherever they'd moved to recently. Was it Kentucky? She always wanted to say it was Kentucky because that was the state that came to mind when she thought of horses, and they lived on a horse farm now.) Despite being family, it was a major risk to have vampires show up here, since Elena and Stefan both had the cure running through their veins. They'd already had to change locations once due to a close call with being tracked down by a vampire who was looking for the cure.

Elena and Stefan's children, a boy and a girl who were five and four years old, and had only met their uncle twice in their lives before, immediately ran to him, excitedly yelling "Uncle Damon!" as soon as they saw him.

"Pipsqueaks!" Damon replied with equal enthusiasm but much lower volume, as he knelt to scoop up his niece and nephew.

Stefan, who'd actually had warning that his brother was coming, said to Rose, "Is this the infamous crack house dumpster baby?" He held out his arms. "Can I hold her?"

"Please don't call her that," said Rose, as she handed the baby to him. "She has a name."

"What's her name?"

"Katie." After a brief pause which was more awkward than it needed to be, she added, "Short for Katherine."

"You guys named your daughter after Katherine?"

"Hey, at least we didn't name her Vervain."

"That was Elena's idea. I agreed to it because she was in labor and threatening violence to my kneecaps if I tried to change the name to anything else. Our son has a perfectly normal name."

"You named your son after a fictional child you had in a dream once."

"I can't believe Damon told you about that."

Rose laughed.

Stefan handed the baby back to Rose as Elena attempted to pry Jacob and Vervain off of Damon. Elena's children clung to their uncle, whining that they didn't want him to leave.

Stefan went to help his wife, but he had just as little success in removing the clinging children from his brother.

"We're going to have to change your name to Velcro," Damon said to his niece.

The child only laughed and clung to him harder.

"Damon! You're not helping!"

After watching Stefan and Elena struggle for a few more minutes, Rose finally took pity on them.

"Okay, kids," she said. "It's time for us to leave. Our horses are going to be lonely if we don't get home soon."

The kids didn't want to make horses sad, so they allowed themselves to be drawn into their parents' arms.

Everyone made their farewells, and as Damon and Rose were leaving, Vervain called out to them, "Tell the horses I said hi!"

~oOo~