Hey guys! Sorry its been awhile since I've updated. I've had to study for finals, which I passed all of (thank you god). So this chapter answers the question about why the doctor owes Damon. Thank you all so much for the reviews, story alerts, favorites etc! You have no idea how much it means to me. Now that finals are done, I will be updating much more often. Don't forget to review(:
-Sarah
Elena and Damon follow the woman, who introduces herself as Robin Callaway, into the Victorian style house.
The inside is just as Elena imagined: pale walls covered in antiques and family photos, wooden floors, pale colored furniture with various frays and picks, showing that they've been lived on, old, expensive looking rugs and antique looking tables. The inside looks old, like its been lived in, but it all wraps together in a very elegant, exquisite way. Old or not, this house is gorgeous, inside and out.
Elena can easily imagine herself living in a house like this after high school and college, with her own family photos and antiques, collected over time. Her own pale colored furniture and rugs. She can see having children grow up here, and years and years away, her grandchildren coming here and playing.
For just a moment, she see's her entire life in a house like this.
After college, she would buy a house just like this one, shop at old antique shops for just the right furniture, fixing it all up when she isn't writing an article for a newspaper. She sees herself dating and then years later marrying the perfect man outside underneath an oak tree, surrounded by friends and family and flowers. Later on, she sees herself and this brown haired, green eyed man bringing home a baby boy or baby girl. She sees the baby growing, first day of kindergarten and so on. She sees her baby having babies and bringing home her grandchildren to come play in her home. She'd bake them cookies and tell them stories of their mom or dad's life growing up.
She can see it all for just a moment and she is irrevocably happy with the imagine in her mind. And then just like it appeared, it disappears, along with that feeling of happiness.
Reality: she's eighteen, pregnant, no money, no job, no boyfriend of any kind, no idea what she's going to do, has no idea if her baby is normal, healthy and to top it off, the only person she can really count on to help her is said baby's departed father's slightly homicidal brother, who may or may not love her. Oh, not to mention an Original vampire wants her and her loved ones for a sacrifice to break the Sun and the Moon curse. On top of all of that: she is in the debt of another very powerful vampire as bait to drawl out said Original vampire.
God, she is like an episode of 16 and Pregnant: Mystic Falls style.
Maybe she should just leave. Leave Mystic Falls, leave her family, her friends, her problems. But no, that would help nothing. If she thought leaving this place would set her and her loved one's free, she'd walk away and never look back.
But nowhere on this planet can keep her- the beloved doppelganger- safe from Klaus and Elijah. Not to mention the baby. No way can she do this on her own.
Maybe she won't have to worry about anything. Maybe she'll die from stress first.
A soft hand touches her and she jumps, pulled from her gray lined mind.
Damon's looking down at her, worried blue eyes looking deeper into her than she likes.
If Stefan's the brooding one, then Damon's the passionate one. And not just sexual. Those blue eyes of his can burn you without him even trying.
"Are you all right?" he asks, lowly.
"I'm fine," Elena says, looking up at him.
He raises an eyebrow at her.
She feels hot and itchy underneath his intense gaze. Like his icy blue eyes are looking deeper into her than anyone else has before. Like they're burning into her, caressing a part of her that no one else has. She can't decide whether she likes it or not.
Leaning towards the latter, she looks for an escape from his burning gaze.
She looks around and finds it.
"Is that your daughter, Dr. Robin?" she asks, walking to a large picture on the wall in a golden frame.
She knows the answer immediately. Of course its her daughter. The girl looks just like her. Same long, curly red hair, ivory colored skin and blue eyes. There are only some small differences between them like the girl has a heart shaped face and a smaller, straighter nose than her mother. The girl is beautiful and for a second she can't blame Damon for being attracted to her.
Oh no. She forgot what happened between Damon and the girl when she asked the question.
She can tell by the silence she brought up a sore subject.
"Sorry," Elena says, blushing deeply.
"Yes, that's my daughter," Dr. Robin ask, shooting a look at Damon that could truly kill. Elena half expected Damon to fall on the floor, having an aneurism.
"She looks just like you," Elena says. She vaguely wonders what her dad looks like. She doesn't see any pictures of him on the wall.
Dr. Robin smiles, looking from Damon to the picture on the wall of them on the beach, hair blowing, smiling, arms wrapped around each other like they're best friends.
"Her name's Emily."
"How old is she?" Elena asks, curiously. She can't help but be a little nosy. She wants to know why she owed Damon and how it wrapped into her daughter, who Damon apparently slept with. This seems the best way to open that up.
"She's seventeen in the photo," Dr. Robin explains. "She's 22 now. She goes to Duke University in North Carolina. She wants to be a doctor."
"Smart girl," Elena notes.
Dr. Robin shrugs, trying to be casual, but the pride radiating from her is obvious. "Like mother like daughter."
Elena is still dying of curiosity. She desperately wants to know why Dr. Robin owes Damon.
"I don't want to be nosy," Elena says, slowly. "But why are you helping me?"
"I'm a doctor," she says. "Its my job to help you."
Elena looks down at her toes, feeling embarrassed. "You could easily have told Damon no when he called you. Why'd you say yes?"
Dr. Robin sighs. "Elena, years ago Damon helped Emily and I in a way you just can't imagine. When Damon called, though I wasn't exactly happy to be contacted by him, I knew I had to help you."
"How'd he help you?" Elena asks.
"Emily, myself and her father use to live Richmond. Her father was a business, he traveled a lot. We met when we were in high school and fell heels over head in love our senior year. Right after high school, we got married, against everyone's warnings. A few year later, Emily came along and we were a perfect, happy little family. I became a doctor so we certainly had enough money to be comfortable. But as the years progressed and Emily got older, I noticed something I never had about Richard. He liked to drink. A lot. I always knew he drank, but I never saw him have more than one or two glasses."
Elena listens to the story picturing everything as she says it.
"One night, he didn't show up after work at his usual time. Hours passed and we never got a phone call and he didn't answer his phone. Emily was around thirteen at this time and she had school the next morning, so she was already in bed by the time he came home. He was completely wasted. He could barely stand up. I of course asked where he had been and he shrugged it off like it was no big deal. We got into to a fight and I could see how upset he was getting. But I didn't care. Well, after another few minutes, he hit me."
Elena's eyes widen. She glances to Damon, whose staring off into space.
"I was shocked of course. Richard had never raised a hand to me. The next morning he apologized and said it would never happen and the usually. What anyone would say. I told him if he ever drank again that I would Emily and my things and we would disappear. I should have left right then, but I didn't want to take Emily away from her father. I didn't want her to grow up without a father. He believed me and for months he didn't drink. Not once."
"But he did it again didn't he?" Elena asks, quietly.
She nods sadly. "One night the exact same thing happened. I tried to leave, I really did. But he said if we left, he would find us and kill us both."
"Oh, my god," Elena whispers. Elena knows things like this happened, but growing up in such a stable home, she never really imagined what it would be like.
"Eventually Emily put two and two together. Why mom and dad were always yelling and why the next day mom would have bruises. She began to resent him and she begged me to leave. She said she would call the cops or tell a teacher. Anything if we could just leave. She told me she hated him and that she would kill him if she got the chance.
"I talked to my sister in North Caroline about us coming to stay with her. I didn't tell her details but she expected it. She told Emily to call her and tell her if he laid a finger on either one of us after she called the cops. Emily may have been a just a little girl, but she was brave and determined.
"The night before we were suppose to leave for my sister's house, he came home, drunk of course. Somehow he had found out about what we were going to do and he was furious. It was worse than it had ever been. He beat me until I could barely stand. Emily got a lamp off the table and threw it at him, trying to stop him. It only made him madder and he went to Emily. He'd never hit her before. Not once. Seeing him hit her made me snap. I grabbed the heaviest thing I could find and hit him over the head with it. I grabbed Emily and we ran out of the house.
"We didn't try to find the keys. We ran and ran until we couldn't anymore. We had gone into some deserted parking lot by these old abandoned apartment buildings. It didn't take long before we saw the car. We tried to hide but he saw us. He got out of the car and I knew he was going to kill us."
Elena glances at Damon, a dark look in his eyes.
"But he didn't," Elena says.
"He didn't get the chance to," Damon says, darkly. "I was nearby and I could smell the blood. It was faint but I could still smell it. I followed the scent, curious. I saw what happened and I immediately intervened. Monster or not, humanity gone or not, I was raised to protect, respect and defend women and children. I wasn't going to stand their and let it happen."
Elena stares at Damon, awed.
She knows in that second, Damon never lost his humanity. He just buried it deep enough to let people think it was gone.
"I wasn't scared of him," Dr. Robin says, looking at Damon. For the first time, Elena sees appreciation on her face. "I knew that he wasn't normal. His speed and strength alone proved that to me. But I wasn't scared of him. I was too grateful."
"She didn't know what I was, or even who she was at that time," Damon explains.
"If I had known what I could do," Dr. Robin says. "Richard would have disappeared long before that night. I was adopted though, so I wasn't aware. I was never taught."
"So what happened?" Elena asks, knowing the answer.
A smile pulls on Damon's lips, his icy blue eyes dark and cold. "I made him disappear," he says simply.
"He was labeled as a missing person," Dr. Robin says. "We moved in with my sister and I was fully aware of what I could do now. A year later, we moved into this very house. Emily was forced to grow up. She wasn't a kid anymore. She had seen too much. She was now fully aware of the supernatural world around her."
"Why didn't you just compel them Damon?" Elena asks, curiously.
"I could have," he say. "I would have but she was a witch. I knew it would be good to have a witch on my side."
Dr. Robin rolls her eyes at him. "Yes, I am forever in your debt."
Damon smiles, wickedly.
"Excuse me for being nosy again," Elena says. "But exactly why don't you like Damon now?"
She figures that was politer than asking exactly when did Emily and Damon meet again to sleep with each other.
Dr. Robin sighs. "Emily and Damon bumped into each her freshman year of college and Emily showed her gratefulness in a way I don't exactly approve of."
"Ah," Elena says, deciding to drop the conversation.
"So when Damon called me, as much as I would have loved to tell him to go to hell and never call me again, I knew I owed him."
"I'm glad you decided to put what happened behind you and help me," Elena says, truly grateful. "I wouldn't have any idea what to do if you hadn't."
"No worries, dear," she says. "And now returning to the presence, shall we begin?"
The same nervousness settles in Elena's stomach and she nods.