Author's Note: Here it is folks, another chapter! Thank you all for the amazing reviews for the last chapter. I was one shy of 30 reviews! Crazy! All of you who support me and leave such awesome reviews are the very best. I have to give a huge thanks to CaliKisses who fixed the numerous errors in this chapter and tweaked some things for me. This chapter is different than anything that's been written in this story. It's a chapter form Caroline and Stefan's POV. Yes, a joint POV chapter. They're married and I just thought it would fit for them to share one. You'll get a bit of an outsider's perspective on the Damon and Elena relationship. For those of you that like the Caroline and Stefan relationship you'll also get a little insight into their life together. Anyway, I'm a little nervous, cause it's different, but I hope you enjoy!
Chapter 16
If it's gonna be a rainy day
There's noting we can do to make it change
We can pray for sunny weather
But that won't stop the rain
As Caroline listened to her son cry she prayed to some higher power that he would stop. She'd done everything. She'd fed him, changed him, rocked him, sang to him, walked with him, and now she was bouncing him. He showed no signs of throwing in the towel any time soon though. "Three months old and you're already undeniably a Salvatore male," she spoke softly to him, brushing one of her hands over his soft tufts of blonde hair. She nuzzled him to her chest and swayed back and forth. "I was hoping I'd at least get you for at least five years before the Salvatore genes kicked in."
She was about to go and plead with Stefan for help when she heard the bedroom door open and she turned to see him slowly enter. He wore a look of concern on his face as he looked at their increasingly unhappy son. "We can hear him all the way in the living room."
"I don't know why he won't stop crying. I've done everything and he doesn't have a fever. I don't think he's sick."
Stefan carefully extracted Sawyer from her arms and brought him against his chest for his small head to rest on his shoulder. "Are you freaking out about Elena?" he questioned as he rubbed a hand down Sawyer's back.
She bit her lip and looked at the floor. "Maybe."
"You know he picks up on it if we're stressed."
"Well how are you going to help, then?" she questioned with a roll of her eyes. "Don't even pretend that you're not going crazy inside because of Damon." She sighed and dropped down onto the bed. "This day is turning into a disaster. Who am I kidding? Damon and Elena have been a disaster for the past three years."
Sawyer let out a particularly ear splitting cry at Caroline's words and Stefan adjusted him in his arms so he could stare down at his face. "I know," he murmured, "I hate that your Uncle Damon is upset too."
"What are we gonna do, Stefan?" Caroline questioned from the bed. "Elena's gone off only God knows where. Damon looks like he's getting ready for his walk to the electric chair. Your dad has only made this situation that much worse. And," she whimpered as Sawyer continued to cry, "Our son won't stop crying. We're just sucky friends and parents. This sucks!"
Stefan swayed gently as his son cried loudly in his ear. "We're not bad parents. We're just worried about everyone, and he can pick up on that. And we're not bad friends. There's just nothing we can really do right now. We're in a bit of a stalemate here."
"He's your brother! Can't you do something?"
"You think I like seeing him like this?" he demanded quietly, but trying to keep most of the annoyance from his voice. "I can see what's going through his head and it kills me, but I can't do anything."
"You never want to do anything Stefan."
"Because it doesn't work! All we can control is our relationship. We can't force Damon to get married or not get married. We can't force Elena to move on or come fight for Damon. All we can do is be there for them."
"I don't have a friend to be there for!" she snapped. Stefan watched as her wall quickly began to crumble and tears filled her eyes. "I just want to know she's okay. If I could just hear her voice or see her – god, just anything. It wasn't supposed to be like this."
"I know," he sighed, and he did. It was hard to see how things had deteriorated to get to this point. It was almost impossible to believe that they had been happy once. His brother had recovered from his divorce. Elena was coming to terms with being pregnant and learning to trust what she had with Damon. The love had been simple once.
Caroline ran out from the bathroom when she heard a loud commotion in the living room followed by a slew of language she rarely heard her husband speak. "Shit!" he cursed. She emerged from the bedroom, nervously biting her lip, when she saw him hopping on one leg and rubbing at his other knee. "Did you buy out Barney's?" he inquired, staring in shock and disdain at the bags littering their living room.
She apprehensively moved toward him as if he were a bear in the wild ready to pounce on her at any sudden movements. She slowly grabbed one of the bags from the floor and pulled out a pale pink blanket. "I may have bought a few things for the baby."
Stefan's eyes widened as he took in all of the bags on the floor again. "One," he said, raising his head to meet her gaze, "You do realize this isn't our child?" He motioned to the blanket in her hands. "Two, you know they don't actually know if they're having a boy or a girl, right?"
"I know that," she snapped indignantly, throwing the blanket back into the bag. "I just, I got excited okay? I had to go into Barney's to see if they were carrying something from Amanda's line that they were supposed to, and then I saw the baby section and I couldn't resist."
"You should not be allowed to work for a fashion designer. You shouldn't be allowed to work in the fashion industry, period."
She dropped to her knees on the floor and reached down into another bag and dug around until she found a onesie with a frog on it. "Look how tiny it is?" she squealed. "How could I not buy this?"
Stefan laughed and shook his head. "My brother is going to murder you."
"Please," she scoffed, "Damon always wants to murder me."
"This is true," he acknowledged, knowing his wife was right. Caroline was sometimes a little too much perk for Damon to take. Her constant foot-in-mouth syndrome probably did little to help his annoyance with her as well. It didn't worry Stefan though. He knew that his brother loved Caroline, even if he would rather be staked through the heart before admitting it. He never would have allowed him to get married if he didn't approve of Caroline and respect her.
Caroline looked up from the bags she was rummaging through. "By the way, tonight is Elena's first night at Damon's. We're supposed to go help get things unpacked and all that stuff."
"Okay."
She pushed herself up from the floor. "I don't remember Damon helping me when I moved in here. Why should I help him?"
"Babe, I don't know if we could call what you did moving in. All of your stuff was here except for your furniture. You brought some decorations and sold the rest for shoe money."
"Well, he could have helped us with the wedding presents. It took us forever to go through everything."
"And would we have made him leave every time it hit you again that we were married and you threw yourself at me?"
"One, I do not throw." She walked toward him, a sly grin on her face as she motioned her hand up and down her body. "You want this far too much for throwing to ever be required. "Two," she twined her arms around his neck, "I hate it when you're rational with me."
He smiled down at her and rested his hands low on her hips. "Is there a three?"
"Yes." She nodded enthusiastically. "Three, it hit me again." She raised her eyebrows suggestively. "Wanna go hit this?"
Stefan groaned in embarrassment for her, but pulled her flush against him nonetheless. "I can't believe you just asked if I wanted to hit this. Are we 17?"
"No, but we can pretend to have all the sexual frustration of horny teenagers."
"How did you get me to agree to marry you?" he questioned. Before she could answer Stefan caught her by surprise by tossing her over his shoulder.
"Stefan!" she shrieked.
He playfully smacked her backside as he marched toward their bedroom. "Come on, I've got some sexual frustration to get out." Her small fists pounded on his back, but it was more for show than any real indignation. He knew his wife well enough to know that she loved big moments like this and that she was eating it all up. When he got to their bed, he dropped her down onto the plush mattress and ripped his shirt over his head as she moved toward the center of the bed. She stared up at him, her blue eyes glazing over with desire as they trailed over his chest and stomach. When she leaned back on her hands and bit her lip, clearly ready for him to join her, he crawled on the bed. "God, I love you," he groaned as he grabbed her face and captured her lips.
She parted her legs as he settled between her thighs and slid his tongue into her mouth. As she moaned into his mouth he knew that he would never have enough of her. Even though he had a moment of weakness before the wedding he knew that he would love her forever.
He slid down her body, pushing her shirt up her abdomen, leaving it exposed to him. Her fingers threaded their way through his hair and he left hot, open-mouthed kisses along her stomach all he could think was that she was it for him. "Elena says we need to have a baby."
Yeah, she was it for him, even in these moments.
At her words, he froze, mouth open against her stomach. Even though sex was what it took to make a baby, that had been the last thought on his mind when he thought about making love to his wife. He abruptly sat up, all previous thoughts of what was about to happen now long gone. "And the number one way to kill the mood goes to—," he sighed.
She stumbled into a sitting position, stuttering momentarily until she finally exclaimed, "I told her no! I just thought it was funny." She snapped her mouth shut and took in the look on his face, obviously searching for some sort of clue. When she couldn't find exactly what she was looking for she questioned, "We are still on the same page about kids, right?"
"Yes! I just don't want to be discussing them when I'm about to have sex with you. I certainly don't want to be thinking about it." He wanted kids with Caroline, as many as she wanted, but that was down the road by a few years. Elena's unexpected pregnancy had brought the thought of children more toward the forefront than they had been, but he still wanted to wait. She was barely starting her career and he was still working on his PhD. They didn't have time for a child right now.
"We'd make cute babies though." She smiled, her mind picturing these fictional children she spoke of.
"Not the point, babe." He tried, he really did, but he couldn't keep the small smile from his face as she smiled wistfully. "I get that Elena being pregnant has put babies on the brain for you, but we are not ready for that, not by a long shot."
"Cause Damon and Elena are so ready for this," she snorted. "I didn't mean it like that," she said when she noticed him stiffen. "I'm just worried, okay? Your brother isn't exactly the poster child for a mentally stable human being. And Elena, even though I love her, she doesn't have anything figured out. Raising a baby is a huge thing and I worry. I mean, don't you think this is all weird?" She turned to look at him. "In our entire time of dating, never did I think that Damon and Elena would be a good match."
"Well, my brother was married for the entire time we were dating. There was no reason to think they'd be a good match," he pointed out as he turned around so he could sit next to Caroline and pull her into his side.
"True, but I still didn't see that version of Damon being a good fit for Elena, even when things were great with Katherine and him."
"Well, for some reason, this is working for them. They fell for each other and it seems real. Sometimes there's just no rhyme or reason why people fall in love." He rubbed a hand down her arm. "This isn't the best timing for them, but they're adults. We can't get involved in things, Care."
"But that's what I do," she whined. "I meddle and I fix things. It's who I am."
He chuckled quietly. "I know and I love you for that, but this isn't as simple as finding guys for Elena to go on dates with, or manipulating them into throwing a surprise party for you that is really your idea."
"That's cause everyone else is just stupid," she grumbled. "If everyone listened to me, then everything would be perfect all the time."
Smiling, he pressed a kiss on the side of her head. "But then you wouldn't get to tell them that you told them so when things go wrong."
She turned to catch his lips before he could pull them away from her hair. He melted into the kiss easily and Caroline smiled, knowing she could get him to forget about nearly anything if she kissed him. It was what actually made her fall in love with him in the first place; the way he shut out the whole world, making her his absolute everything in that moment when his lips moved with hers. It made her realize from that first kiss that she would only ever be his, and she'd never let him go.
She twisted and swung her leg over so she was straddling his lap, never allowing their lips to part in the process. His hands pressed firmly against her back, holding her body tightly to his bare torso and she allowed her hands to slide from his face to run over the soft skin of his chest. His fingers fisted in the material of her shirt as he began to pull it up her body when the shrill sound of his cell phone brought a sudden halt to his movements.
She dug her hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out his phone. Damon's name stared up at her from the caller ID and she groaned. "I hate your brother." Knowing all chances of sex were now gone, she threw herself down to the mattress in a dramatic manner and whimpered.
"This better be good," Stefan bit out when he answered the phone, his eyes focused intently on the rise and fall of Caroline's breasts. "How is that my problem?" he demanded. "Well, I didn't get her pregnant. I shouldn't have to pay the consequences." He groaned and rolled his eyes. "We'll be there in 30 minutes."
"I don't interrupt his sex. Why does he have to interrupt mine?" she whined when Stefan ended the call and climbed off the bed.
He rounded the front of the bed and bent down to retrieve his shirt. "They just got Elena's stuff at his place and she won't let him leave to get stuff for dinner because she thinks he'll run off with Ric and leave her to unpack all of her things."
"I presume Elena is not in her happy pregnancy mood today. Yay!"
"Or she's just fed up with my brother. That's always a distinct possibility." Stefan pulled his shirt over his head and held out his hand for her to take. "Let's go spend the evening with my brother and your best friend."
She grabbed his hand and allowed him to help her off the bed. "Promise I don't have to cook?"
He laughed and pulled her out of their bedroom. "Damon wouldn't let you touch his stove if you begged him."
They bundled up in their coats and made their way to the grocery store down the street from their building where Stefan bought what Damon told him to buy and Caroline wandered around with the newest edition of Cosmopolitan. "I want to try this later." She held the magazine in front of him, motioning to a description of a "super sizzlin'" sex position they hadn't tried yet.
He blushed and ripped the magazine from her hands. "We're in the middle of the grocery store."
"You're so cute when you get embarrassed." She pinched his cheek.
"Let's just focus on what we need to buy." He stopped and began picking up a handful of tomatoes.
"If Damon taught you how to cook, how did he learn how to cook?" she asked as he handed her the bag of tomatoes and she placed them in the shopping cart.
"Our mom taught him when she was sick. I'd watch, but I was too young to really pay enough attention to learn anything. He helped while I got in trouble for trying to eat everything while they were cooking it."
"I need to make Damon show me pictures of you again when you were little." He groaned and rolled his eyes. "What? You were just so cute."
"We need to show Elena pictures of a baby Damon. He liked wearing clothes then about as much as he likes wearing clothes now."
Caroline came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the aisle. "There are naked pictures of Damon?"
Stefan stopped and looked at her. "Not adult Damon, but as a kid, yeah. I think he's naked in pretty much every childhood photo we have."
"Oh my god!" she shrieked and began pushing at Stefan. "Hurry up and finish shopping. I need to see these pictures! Now!"
In rapid speed, Stefan and Caroline finished shopping and she nearly dragged her husband to Damon's place. When she'd still been dating Stefan, Damon had taken it upon himself to show her all of the embarrassing childhood photos of Stefan, but he'd somehow managed to hide all of the embarrassing ones of him. If she had to turn his entire penthouse upside down and be kicked out of his building forever, she would find those pictures.
"We're here," Stefan called out when he let them into the penthouse that was cluttered with boxes. Damon and Elena were huddled in the middle of the living room, sorting through her music and movies.
"Ugh," Damon groaned, disgusted. "Who are you?" He held up a CD that Caroline had bought with Elena when they were in elementary school. "N'Sync? And why do you even have CDs? You have a perfectly functioning iPod."
Elena snatched the CD from him. "I don't want to hear it, Mr. I have every ACDC album ever released."
"It's ACDC!" he exclaimed. "It's real music, not stupid songs by guys whose balls haven't even dropped."
"I see we've come at a great time," Caroline said as she wove her way through the boxes when Damon and Elena continued to argue without acknowledging them. "Moving going well?"
"Until I realized she's trying to pass on her horrible taste in music to our child," Damon scoffed. He grabbed the CD back from Elena and tossed it into a pile along with several other CDs that Elena had accumulated during the era of boy bands. "If I find a poster of Nick Carter, we're breaking up."
"One, different band," she pointed out. "Two, you're just jealous that he has better hair than you."
Damon reeled back, a mock look of hurt on his face. "Take it back!"
"Give me back my N'Sync album and I will."
"They're tone deaf prepubescent boys!"
"I don't care." Elena crossed her arms over her chest, a movement that showed she would not back down from her argument. Caroline, Bonnie, and Elena had spent hours daydreaming about the gorgeous boys that sang songs about a love they dreamed of having one day. Sure, they hadn't realized that relationships were nothing like they were in those songs they loved so much, and if any of the bands came out at this time, they'd never be caught dead listening to the songs. However, the songs were their childhood. Caroline still had all of her old CDs, even if the songs were on her iPod. "Give me the CD and I'll take it back."
Damon's eyes narrowed comically at Elena. Stefan came up behind Caroline, resting one of his hands on her hips and asked, "What are they fighting about?"
"Damon took away her N'Sync album and she told him that Nick Carter has better hair than he does."
"Give it up, Damon. You can't come between a girl and her love for the boy bands," Stefan spoke up sagely. They'd had a very similar fight soon after they got engaged, but she'd won in the end. It might have taken two hours of screaming and possibly a little kicking and crying on Caroline's end, but all of her music was stored safely in a cabinet in their living room.
"But they suck!" he whined.
"If you like sex, give her the CD." Damon rolled his eyes and reluctantly picked up the N'Sync album from the pile beside him. "Here," he thrust it over to Elena, "You better not play that to your belly."
Elena smiled triumphantly. "Don't worry, that right is reserved for Britney Spears." At the look of pure terror on Damon's face, she chuckled. "Kidding! I'm not doing the whole music thing to the stomach."
Caroline walked over to Damon's entertainment center and began casually pulling open drawers and cabinets. "You get most of your furniture sold?" she asked Elena.
"Yeah, other than a couple things. They're going to stay in one of the guest rooms until we figure out what to do with them."
"That's good," she said absentmindedly, digging her hand around in the cabinet.
"Looking for something, Blondie?" Damon asked her.
"Yeah," she straightened and looked at him, "Remember when you showed me those pictures of Stefan? Where are the photo albums?"
Damon pushed himself to his feet, a suspicious look on his face. "Why?"
"It's been so long since I've seen them. I want to look at cute, baby Stefan again."
"Stefan?" Damon turned to look at his brother.
Her husband held up his hands in a show of innocence. "I know nothing."
Damon slowly walked toward her, a calculating look on his face. "What's your real agenda?"
Caroline looked down at another drawer and opened it. "A little birdie with a chiseled chest may have told me that you weren't very fond of clothes as a child and that there may or may not be photographic proof."
"You have naked baby pictures?" Elena shot up from the floor, all the items on her lap, falling loudly to the floor.
Damon turned and glared at his brother. "I have no such thing, and I don't know why anyone would tell you I do."
"Oh my god!" Elena exclaimed, her face bursting with joy. "You do have naked baby pictures!" She bounced over to him. "I wanna see! I wanna see!"
"The only photos you will find in here are Stefan's embarrassing childhood photos. Sorry girls."
"Cause yours are in your office," Stefan mumbled beneath his breath.
"I knew it!" Caroline hopped around for a few moments before taking off in a run for Damon's office, Elena trailing behind her. She rushed to the bookshelf and began searching the shelves for photo albums.
"Found it!" Elena was pointing to the top shelf at three inconspicuous black books. "Get them!" Caroline climbed the shelves, grabbed the albums, and handed them down to Elena.
Damon appeared in front of Elena and placed his hand over the photo albums. "Open these and every bubblegum pop CD you have goes to Goodwill, your chick movies too."
Elena paused to think about it for a moment before shrugging and stepping away from him. "Totally worth it."
Stefan came over and helped Caroline back down to the floor, ignoring the murderous look that Damon was sending him. "Picture time." The girls sat down on the floor and Elena opened one of the photo albums in her lap. They struck gold on the third page when they found a picture of a fully naked Damon running down the hallway as a toddler. "I feel like my birthday came early!" Caroline squealed.
"Aw!" Elena looked up at Damon a goofy grin on her face. "Your butt was too cute."
"I hate you all," Damon groaned, but it was Stefan he reached out and punched roughly on the arm. "I'm getting you back for this."
"I think my payback is coming soon enough. I'm sure there are plenty of naked photos of me in there."
"Why didn't you tell me you were such a cute baby?" Elena asked Damon.
"I thought it was obvious that I was just born this awesome," he said sarcastically, but soon cringed as they continued to look at more of his embarrassing photos. "Can we please stop now? I don't look at naked photos of you two."
"God Damon," Caroline smiled down at a photo of him with his face taking up nearly the entire photo, a giant grin on his face, "You used to be so adorable. What happened?"
He reached down and snatched the album from them. "I met you, Blondie."
She continued to smile, unfazed by his annoyance. "You love me." He might be frustrated with her 98% of the time, but Caroline knew the truth. He'd fallen in love with her, even if he'd never admit it.
She'd wavered on what she believed Damon really thought about her all the way up until her wedding day. The moment she'd seen the bracelet that Damon had given to Elena for her, she'd known that he really did care about her. Damon and Stefan's mom was rarely spoken of, but she knew how much his mom had meant to him – still meant to him. If he'd despised her like he tried to let on, she'd have never even known about the bracelet, much less worn it when she got married.
"I think we've seen enough pictures for now." Stefan decided to put Damon out of his misery and grabbed the remaining photo albums from the floor. "We should save these for when he's good and drunk and will recreate them."
Caroline beamed up at Stefan. Her husband was brilliant.
"I'm going to go cook dinner. I can't be around you people anymore." Damon looked down at Elena and disappointedly shook his head. "Traitor."
She winked at him. "It's worth whatever you're going to do to me for payback."
"I'm so gonna be the favorite parent."
"Ha! We'll see about that," Elena scoffed as Damon turned to leave his office. "Wait!" she called out after him. He stopped and turned to look at her as she pushed herself to her feet. "What are you making for dinner?"
"Don't worry," he smiled warmly as she walked toward him, "I'm not making any red meat. I'm just making simple chicken Parmesan."
"No olives?"
He shook his head. "No olives." When she stopped in front of him he rested a hand on her lower abdomen. "No coffee either. We're gonna keep the shrimp happy tonight." He rubbed her stomach for a moment as he leaned in and kissed her gently.
Caroline could see Elena smile against his lips. "Peanut," she whispered, "it's a peanut."
"Whatever you say." He pulled away and sighed. "Okay, I'm really going to go cook dinner now. Stay away from my stuff, Caroline!"
Elena giggled and watched him disappear down the hallway. She turned to glance at Stefan and Caroline. "I'm gonna go figure out which boxes they put in the guest bedroom. Feel free to help, Care, seeing as that's what you're here for."
"I'll be there in a minute." She waited a few moments until she felt that Elena was far enough away before she turned to Stefan and said, "I think you're right."
"Well, obviously," he smiled. "About what though?"
"You said they fell for each other, you're right. Elena didn't just fall for Damon. He fell for her too."
"You're just now figuring that out?"
"I was skeptical." She shrugged her shoulders unapologetically. "And maybe a little unsure that Damon could really fall for someone again."
"Katherine didn't ruin him. She just hurt him." He came over and wrapped his arms around her waist. "The real Damon was still there. He just needed a push in the right direction."
She stared up at him. "And you think Elena gave him that push."
"She did something," he acknowledged.
"She loves him, you know?"
He nodded his head. "Yeah, I know."
"Does Damon know? Has he said anything?"
"That, I do not know. We can't get involved though, babe. It's none of our business."
"She's pregnant with your niece or nephew," she pointed out.
"It's not our relationship, Caroline. We can't make them talk about things they don't want to talk about."
"Elena wants to talk about it, she's just scared. She won't say anything unless Damon says something to her. She's still scared of getting hurt." When she saw that he wasn't wavering on his stance she groaned and rolled her eyes. "I know that this is one of the reasons I love you, but right now I am really not a fan of you being so reasonable."
He smirked. "I love you too."
She happily kissed him and then rested her head against his chest. "I just want everyone to be as perfect as us."
"I know," he ran a hand down her back, "But we have to work on our relationship too. It's just part of life."
She sighed and pulled away from him. "I'm going to go make sure Damon isn't poisoning food just for me."
"Aren't you supposed to be helping Elena unpack?"
"Eh," she waved her hand in the air. "That's boring. I'd much rather bug your brother."
"Sounds like fun."
Caroline pranced out of the room and made her way toward the kitchen. She knew perfectly well that Damon knew how to cook. However, this could give her a chance to give Damon a little nudge in the right direction.
"Why are you in my kitchen?" Damon questioned, not looking up from the counter as he chopped tomatoes.
"Just wanted to hang out with you."
"Go hang out with your friend. Isn't that what you're supposed to be doing anyway."'
"I see her plenty." She walked behind him and watched as he poured the tomatoes in a bowl with other ingredients.
"Well go see her plenty more."
With Caroline annoying Damon in the kitchen, her husband sighed as he glanced around Damon's office. When he'd helped Damon move in he'd still been so damaged from his divorce. He was completely closed off to the idea of ever developing another relationship for the rest of his life. He'd seen Katherine as his only chance, and once that didn't work, he never wanted to revisit anything like it again.
Now, his brother was going to be a dad and had moved Elena into his penthouse. For the first time in ages, it was like a weight had been lifted from Damon's shoulders. His brother smiled and laughed. He'd let someone else in and it was easy to see the difference Elena had had on him. At first he'd been a little skeptical – truthfully, he really still was, but he fully had his brother back again, and that felt great. All he cared about was making sure Damon stayed like this forever.
He heard a quiet grunting noise in the hallway and quickly rushed out to see Elena carrying a heavy box from one of the spare rooms, and he went to her side to retrieve it from her. "Here, let me get that."
"I can get it," she protested, but he removed the box easily enough from her arms.
"You shouldn't be lifting heavy things. If my brother knew I'd let you do that he'd kill me."
She groaned as she followed him toward Damon's room, well Damon and Elena's room now, he supposed. "He's so protective."
"Welcome to my world." He understood a thing for two about how protective Damon was. To most, it might seem like he didn't care what Stefan did most of the time, but the truth was that he just didn't like to allow others to be privy to what he perceived to be a weakness. Damon believed caring could be used against him, so he stayed quiet about Stefan to a majority of the time, but Stefan knew the truth; he'd experienced it. "We used to go up to the Hamptons every summer when we were younger. The summer I was 10 and he was 14, he was flirting mercilessly with this girl, so I didn't tell him that I was going to go swim in the ocean. I don't really know what happened, but suddenly I was drowning and he had to come in and pull me back to the beach, where he then proceeded to give me this huge lecture about how stupid I'd been because I hadn't told him I was going into the water." Stefan set the box down on the bedroom floor and turned to look at Elena. "He wouldn't let me go into the ocean for the rest of the summer."
Elena looked at Stefan and then bent over the box he'd set on the floor. "That's a little dramatic."
"You have met my brother, right?" he deadpanned. Stefan walked over to Damon's dresser and picked up a picture of him and Damon from his 22nd birthday. He glanced down at it, remembering that night well. With a quiet sigh, he set the photo on the dresser and looked back up at Elena. "Why did you finally agree to move in?"
Elena halted as she lifted a few candles out of the box. "What do you mean?"
He leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms over his chest. "He said that you were dead set against it."
She walked over to the bed and sat down on the front of it. "He had a good point. How can we really raise this child if we don't live together? The baby wouldn't be able to have one stable home." She shrugged her shoulders. "I guess it just took what happened last week to make it a reality. I had to start really thinking about things."
"So, it's just for the baby?" Caroline would elbow him in the stomach if she heard the conversation he was having with Elena. As protective as she was over Elena, he was that much more protective of his brother. It wasn't that he didn't like Elena; he thought she was great. She was a wonderful person with a kind heart, but his brother had just gone through a terrible ordeal with Katherine and he didn't want to see him get hurt again.
Damon bent over backwards to protect him from everyone. As children, he'd always taken the blame for something that Stefan did, just so he wouldn't get in trouble. After their mom died, Damon had let him sleep in his room for almost a year because he was scared that he'd wake up one morning and Damon would just be gone too. When he was just starting college and dating a girl that secretly had another boyfriend, the other guy had found out and tried to get into a fight with him, but before he could even defend himself, Damon had stepped in and punched the guy. Damon might say a lot of things that he shouldn't and sometimes Stefan gets caught in the crossfire and hurt, but when it really counts, his brother is always there for him. Stefan couldn't do anything less either.
Elena chuckled softly, but fidgeted uncomfortably. "You sound like I did a couple weeks ago." She looked down at her hands before saying, "Of course the baby plays a part. It's going to play a part in everything from here on out, but it doesn't mean I don't care about Damon. Truth is, I wanted more out of our arrangement far before Damon ever came out and said that he cared about me. I was just apprehensive about moving in because I didn't want the baby to be the only reason he was doing this."
"He wouldn't do that."
"I know that," she admitted quietly. "I just wanted to be sure. This is a really big step in life, you know, and everything happened so quickly. One day he never wanted to be in a relationship again and never wanted kids. Then, he was holding my hand telling me that he'd be here through everything, and he wanted us to live together. I was scared."
Stefan could fully understand where Elena was coming from with her fears. Damon often said the exact opposite of what he truly felt. Hell, most of the time he didn't even realize he felt that way. He was so stubborn that he could convince even himself of a complete lie about his feelings. And it was that belief he'd convinced himself of that probably kept him from sharing certain things with Elena. Damon didn't believe that people wanted to see the real him, so he tried to keep things hidden and forgotten.
"He and Katherine wanted kids," he revealed. He was more than overstepping his bounds here, and Damon would very likely punch him if he heard what he was about to share, but he was doing it for Damon's own good. His inability to face his emotions was his ultimate downfall sometimes. "They were planning to start trying and then everything just went downhill."
"He never told me that," she whispered.
"He wouldn't. Once something has happened, he won't discuss it. Everything about his life with Katherine is completely off-limits now, even to me."
A flash of uncertainty crossed Elena's features. "Is he really over her?"
"Damon would have never divorced her if he wasn't over her. Yes, he loved her, but he's not in love with her." Stefan looked at the bedroom door and listened to see if he could hear any footsteps coming. Satisfied when he heard relative silence, he looked over at Elena. "My brother doesn't just care about you."
"What does that mean?"
"He loves you." A slow look of shock came over Elena as she digested Stefan's words. "Damon is in love with you."