A/N: Wow. I am on a roll. Dang. Thanks so much for the reviews. You guys seriously fuel my inspiration. Thanks so much and I hope you enjoy the next chapter.
September 2006
She was miserable. She had been sick for almost a week and Damon still wasn't back from his business trip to take care of her. It was the longest time they would be apart since they started seeing each other. Of course, during her time of need he'd be out of town for the better part of two weeks and too busy to get a hold of to talk to for more than a few minutes.
That is where Bonnie stepped in. She had been a godsend the past week. She brought Elena all the ginger ale she wanted and held her hair when she vomited it up.
She was miserable and missing Damon bad. And Bonnie was a dutiful best friend and listened to her whine about missing him and whine about how crappy she felt. She had been sick a few weeks earlier with strep throat, so she figured this was it getting its revenge. But something was different, there was something she couldn't put her finger on. Usually by the time this thought crept into her mind, she was on her hands and knees emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet.
"Ok, Ginger ale, crackers, and apple juice. Anything else you need?" Bonnie asked through the speaker of Elena's phone.
"No, I think that'll be good. Thanks, Bon," Elena said, her throat still scratchy from her battle with the toilet earlier.
"I'm just going to check out and I'll be back in a few," Bonnie said before hanging up.
Elena relaxed against her pillows and tried to make up for the sleep she missed the night before.
She realized that she dosed off when the sound of the front door shutting jolted her from her sleep. She rubbed her eyes and looked up to see a guilty looking Bonnie in her bedroom doorway.
"Why do you have that look on your face?" Elena asked with a wary voice.
She and Bonnie had been best friends since their days in their hometown of Mystic Falls, Virginia. When they graduated college, they both decided to go to school in New York City and had shared an apartment together ever since they moved here almost four years ago. They had been through everything together and they could read each other like a book, which is why the look Bonnie was sporting had Elena worried.
"I may have gotten something else at the store that you didn't ask for," Bonnie said quietly, uncomfortably shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
"Well, what did you get?" Elena said, getting impatient.
Bonnie walked over to the bed and set down the small brown paper sack in front of her. Elena grabbed it and opened it up to see two pregnancy tests inside.
"Please don't be mad," Bonnie pleaded.
"I'm not mad, just confused. You think I'm pregnant?" Elena asked shocked. That thought never crossed her mind. She and Damon were safe; she'd been taking her birth control pills religiously for the past year.
"It's just, you had strep a few weeks ago and I read somewhere that antibiotics render birth control pills useless," Bonnie let the sentence trail off. The implications hit her like a speeding bus.
She was pregnant. She didn't need the test to tell her that. The second Bonnie mentioned it; she knew Bonnie was right. Elena just didn't want to admit it. Or even consider it. She remembered that she was four days late on her period, she was never late. Maybe sometimes by a day, but never four.
"Oh my gosh," Elena mumbled before taking the tests into the bathroom with her. A few minutes later, she took a seat next to Bonnie on the bed while they waited. It was the longest three minutes of Elena's life. Even though she knew what the test would come up as, she still hoped that maybe it was a fluke. That she and Bonnie were freaking out for no reason.
After the clock signaled that her time was up, she slowly got up and walked into the bathroom and looked at the tests on the sink counter.
Positive. Both of them.
She stood there for what could've been hours, she wasn't sure. She let the steady stream of tears fall down her face until she felt Bonnie at her side, taking Elena's hand in her own.
And then she lost it. Her chest heaved with heavy sobs while tears streaked down her face. She felt like she was suffocating with the weight of this discovery. Her body was trembling and threatening to cave in on itself if not for Bonnie standing there, like a rock, holding her up. She let it all out, every fear that came running through her mind.
When she finally calmed down enough, Bonnie led her to her bed and held her hand. That's when Damon's face appeared in Elena's thoughts and unleashed a whole new flood of fears and heartache.
What would Damon say? Would she tell Damon? Would he even want to be with her any more once he found out?
"Oh my gosh, Damon," was all she could choke out between her wretched sobs.
Bonnie held her until the tears subsided and her shaking frame became steadier. She helped Elena wipe the tears off her face.
"What now, Bonnie?" Elena asked in a defeated voice.
"Well first, we need to tell Damon," Bonnie said.
Tears welled up in Elena's eyes once more at the mention of Damon's name. She knew he needed to know. But she was so afraid this would be the one thing that would make him walk away. And he could. He could just walk away from her and this baby, but she couldn't. She was stuck in this mess she accidentally made. Without Damon, she'd be entirely alone. She could always ask Bonnie for help, but Bonnie had her own life and it wouldn't be fair to burden her with that. She had no parents to fall back on, only an aunt who was happily married with her own family. Elena was alone without Damon.
"I can't do that," Elena said in a sad voice, "He won't want me anymore after he finds out and I can't blame him."
"Elena," Bonnie said in a stern voice, "Damon isn't going to walk away from this, he may be an ass, but he's not a quitter. He won't give up on your or this baby."
Her conviction had Elena's eyes swimming all over again. Bonnie didn't even like Damon that much, but she had more faith in him than Elena.
"Bonnie?" Elena asked in a broken voice, "How can I be a mom when I can't even handle my own life?"
And with that she let her tears fall in silence. So screaming, no sobbing, just silent aching tears for a life she'd never prepared to live and was now being thrust into it with no guidance.
"You'll do fine, I'll be here, and Damon will be here. You'll be ok, I promise," Bonnie said quietly, holding tight to Elena's hand, being the only anchor she had in this torrential sea of emotions.
"I need my mom," she whispered.
"I know," Bonnie said as a few of her own tears slid down her face at her friend's pain.
Present Day
He was livid. Absolutely livid. Pissed, even. Fucking pissed.
But above all, and as much as he hated to admit, even to himself, he was hurt.
She lied to him. She left him and lied about her pregnancy. For the past five years he has had a child living her life thinking her father didn't care. Didn't love her. Or didn't exist.
Of course maybe Elena moved on, maybe she had someone in her life that was fulfilling the role as father to her child. He knew she wasn't married, but something about that picture struck a chord with him. He knew he had no right to be jealous, Elena was allowed to move on with her life. Damon sure did.
But she left him. She left him with no explanation, no notice, and without a backwards glance. He wanted to hate her. He wanted to hate her so much and it only made matters worse that no matter how much he wanted to, he could never hate her.
Before he knew it he found himself banging on a hotel door. He knew it was early, but he needed this. He needed to get this all out before he exploded and there was only one person he trusted.
The door swung open revealing the face in Damon's thoughts.
"Damon? What are you doing here so early?" Stefan asked, looking annoyed until he took in his brother's face and knew something was very wrong, "What happened?"
"I have a kid," was all he said before Stefan opened the door and let Damon inside.
Stefan and Caroline had come down as soon as they received the news about Giuseppe. They had arrived the night before and Caroline did not look too pleased to see him so early when he entered the sitting area.
She looked like she was about to go off, until she too saw the look on his face and excused herself to let the brothers talk.
"Ok, what do you mean you have a kid?" Stefan asked, confusion written all over his face, "Start from the beginning."
"I saw Elena," Damon started after a deep breath.
"Wait, what?" Stefan exclaimed standing up and running his hands through his hair. A trait the brothers shared when they were stressed out.
"She works at the hospital they took Dad to when he passed," Damon explained, "And I kind of followed her home drunk and barged into her house. I crashed on her couch and in the morning I went to find a bathroom and I walked into the nursery with a picture of a baby that was born eight months after she left."
Stefan looked like he was going to have a stroke at any second. Just how Damon felt.
"You're sure it's yours?" Stefan asked hesitantly.
"I'm sure; you should've seen the look on her face when I asked if she cheated on me," Damon responded, "She looked like I punched her in the gut."
"So what happens now?" Stefan asked after a few moments of contemplative silence.
"That, my baby brother, is a great question," Damon said quietly.
This day needed to go fuck itself. He was confused and hurt and bitter and no matter what Stefan- and even Caroline- said, he still didn't feel better.
He sat in his hotel suite, the only hotel in Mystic Falls, and all he just wanted to leave. Just as much as he wanted to stay. Those wounds that never really healed after Elena left had been blasted apart in a few short days.
Seeing her again, hearing her voice, the way she walked, the way she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before saying something she'd regret, it was so familiar, yet so distant a memory that it was giving him a complex.
He'd moved on with his life after he learned she was never coming back. He moved up in his father's company, he threw himself into the parties, the social life of New York City. Yet he stayed out of trouble thanks to the habits that Elena helped shape. No matter what he did, it was because of Elena, for Elena, about Elena. In the years after she left that never changed, he would just try not to think about it- about her.
A tentative knock on the door pulled him from his silent musings. He figured it was his room service and jumped put to open the door. He was unprepared for the sight laid out in front of him.
There was Elena, shy, hesitant, yet fiercely beautiful, standing in front of him. It was breaking his heart and mending it all at the same time.
"Can we talk?" She said with a small smile.
And then he did what he always did, he shut everything out. He knew she'd see through it, but he wasn't ready to deal with this. He'd never be ready to deal with this.
"What do you want?" He said, blocking the doorway with his body.
He saw a flash of hurt across her eyes before she masked it easily.
"You don't have a child, Damon," Elena said softly, her eyes softening like they often did when she was upset.
"So I was right, you cheated?" He said harshly. She flinched at the words like she had that morning.
"No, I didn't," she said in a soft, but strong voice.
"Then whose nursery did I stumble into this morning? Whose baby was in that frame?" He bellowed.
She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. She looked as though she was preparing for battle. With her and Damon, that's always how it was. They were explosive in every part of their relationship, the good and the bad.
"She was yours- ours," she corrected herself, before continuing, "Clara was her name."
"Was?" Damon's voice softened a little as the implications hit him with crippling weight.
Thanks for reading! The present day sections are going to stay on the sorter side right now until we get more out of the past and into the future. I've got some pretty exciting things up my sleeves. The pregnancy arc is going to finish up next chapter. I would've finished it in this chapter but that would've been just way too long.
Ps. Anyone see The Hunger Games trailer? OH MY GOSH! I seriously can't wait until March. AH!