Bleueeddevil06, thank you for being my beta!
Rosa led James into the study, and he drew up short. He was fifty-nine years old, but still, he forced himself to stand up straight. "Damon?" He asked, obviously confused out of his mind.
"You know me?"
"Your portrait hangs in the parlor. Yes, I know you."
Elena drew his attention. "Do you know me?"
"No," James replied. "But I have a suspicion that you're Katherine."
Damon felt her tense at that name, and he chucked. "She went by that name then, yes, but she doesn't like to be called that."
"Sorry?"
Rosa stepped into James's line of vision. "She has a complicated history with Katherine. It's not your fault that you didn't know."
"Thank you," he replied. And that, more than anything, made Damon at ease with his half-brother. He didn't look down on Rosa.
Damon picked up the conversation. "She did go as Katherine when she was here. Are you going to be okay with this? Obviously, Elena and I are both vampires."
James held out a chair near the desk, waited for Rosa to sit, and then sat in the chair next to her. "I'm part of the Council, yes. But did you realize my mother went to them when she was pregnant with me and begged for help? I don't respect any of them. I meet with them because my position requires it."
Damon leaned forward and rested on his elbows on the desk. "I had no clue that my monster of a father had another son until Elena told me. It sounds like Stefan didn't either until he killed my father, and he was the son my father didn't despise."
Elena squeezed Damon's shoulder comfortingly and added, "he's glad you're the heir, and so am I. Will you help us?"
"What help do you need?"
"Acceptance. We need you and the following generations not to turn on us. We need entrance into the family home."
"How did you get in, by the way?"
"Don't you remember what you said to Rosa?"
"That was enough?"
Rosa said, "I made sure you worded it right. You said you'd be happy to have my friends come and talk to you and that they were welcome to visit any time."
"Will you talk to your heir?" Damon asked.
"You will, tomorrow morning," was the reply. "Stefan gets to make his own decision."
"You named your son after our whoring brother?"
"I named my son after the man who made me a pillar of the community. His younger brother is Damon."
Damon chuckled, "Stefan is finally the heir of the family. That would make my father happy."
"I didn't do any of this for the man I hate!"
Damon smiled, "I like the spite of naming a son Damon. I think we'll get along."
James said, looking at Elena, "by the way. She's prettier than they say. And I thought they had to be exaggerating."
Damon looked up at her lovingly. "She is. She's your sister-in-law too. We married days after I was shot."
"I like the idea of accepting two vampires in the family. It would anger the council. If I were to tell them. You're all welcome to stay here tonight. You can even have your old room, Damon. Rosa will be a valued guest. I don't hold the prejudices of the south." He then smirked. "My own mother was 'passing' for white, as they say here. It's entertaining that they accept a half-black man."
Damon looked up at Elena with heat in his eyes. "Care to go to my old room with me?"
She smiled at him. "Oh, the good memories."
Rosa was in the room that had been assigned to Elena, the one Emily stayed in. The house had a new wing added to it, and Stefan slept in the old master bedroom while James slept in the new wing with a bigger room. Damon, the younger, was in that wing too.
Damon looked at Elena with heat in his eyes. "I was so naive when you met me here."
"Yes, and it was adorable."
He rolled his eyes, "adorable isn't what I want to be."
"It was thrilling too. I knew what I was saving you from. On top of that, the sex was amazing. It always is. You were so willing and ready for me."
He smirked. "Nothing has changed there. You taught me so much in this room."
She wrapped her arms around him, and he held her tightly. "This brings me back," she whispered. "You have no idea how thrilling it was to sneak in and take your virginity. It was odd, though."
He raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her, "not what I want to hear, E-lena."
She chuckled. "Let me finish. It was odd to see you unsure of yourself sexually and to be learning about sex. You, the other you, were convinced I'd prefer the human Damon. I discovered my favorite version of you is the one that's holding me. I like you in any form; I just need you as you are at any period in time."
He got a thoughtful look on his face and said, "I think I prefer the way I am now. I'm violent, but not a complete monster."
"You are always what I need, Damon, and that's what is important to me."
"But what I was…or would I have been…?"
She looked up at him and said, "I needed that man, and don't shy away from him entirely or demean him to me. I needed the 'monster' as you call him, to get here. Without everything that he was, I would have been dead. He decided I was important and I had to be kept alive, that he loved me and needed me before I realized I loved him too. And if he hadn't, you would have lived out the course of life he had, and I would have died shortly after you met me. I wouldn't have lived long enough to love you back. He is the only reason for our happiness now. The only reason I still exist."
He clutched her to his chest and breathed in her scent. He adored her, and he realized he was a bit jealous of his other self. The one she saw as the ultimate protector.
"Do you feel you'd be safer if he were here?" It slipped out before he could stop himself.
She laughed and shook her head. "I didn't tell you because I knew it would upset you. He killed Jeremy."
"What?!" He looked at her in shock and horror. "How could you Iove him if he killed your brother?!"
"It was one of the significant hurdles I had to overcome to love him. That, and Jeremy was wearing the Gilbert family ring."
"So?"
She smiled up at him. "If you wear it and are killed by the supernatural, Damon snapped his neck in front of me; you come back to life. That was the day we found out what the ring did. That was the day Katherine told him it had always been Stefan."
"Shit, Elena. I still don't get how you grew to love me."
"I met things worse than you. It made what you did pale in comparison. Also, Jeremy forgave you and even liked you. And when he became a hunter and tried to kill me, you trained him to stop trying to kill vampires. You were there for him.
"My point is, he was powerful, but kinda a loveable asshole. I'm not a weak human Elena anymore, and I have knowledge of the future. I don't need the monster now. Like I said, you have been what I've needed every step of my life. You, the way you are now, is perfect."
He kissed the top of her head and held her to him tightly. "You saved me in every way. I will be your best and strongest protector. You are the only thing worth living for."
She smiled up at him and said, "now, this old bed of yours. Care to take a fuck down memory lane?"
Since this is a time travel story, I thought it might help out to give you a timeline.
1855 - James, bastard son, is born
1864 - Elena arrives in the past
1864 - Gueseppi dies
1864 - James made legitimate, nine years old
1866 - Emily Marries Angelo
1867 - Rosa Born
1875 - Stefan dies of syphilis at 27 years old
1876 - Enzo Born
1880 - Save Enzo - 4 years old
1880 - Enzo was placed in Boarding School
1883 - James Marries, 28 years old
1886 - Stefan, James's son, is born
1889 - Damon, James's son, is born
1903 - Enzo turned 27 years old
1908 - Emily's Husband Angelo dies
1914 - Emily Dies approx age 75
1914 - Head back to Mystic Falls
James is 59 years old
Stefan is 28 years old
Damon is 25 years old