"Go ahead and wish me well.
I'll cry a wishing well.
I'll fly before I fail.
I'll set sail and drift away."

It was hard leaving all the dresses behind, choosing only my pants and t-shirts to bring along. I didn't know how long I had until I started showing, so I had to bring the clothes that would still fit a pregnant woman.

There were a couple more things I had to do before leaving town, but there was so little time. The ball could've ended any moment now, and I had to be gone before that happened.

I couldn't leave without saying goodbye to everyone, in some way. It took more time than I hoped it would, writing out the notes for everyone, but Elena's was the hardest. We weren't apart very much over the years, just occasional sleepovers at friends' houses that we didn't share, or boyfriends. It was never more than a single night, however, and she was always right there if I ever needed her to be.

She couldn't be anymore. I had to leave her behind, for the safety of my child. If she followed, Klaus would as well, but maybe if I left her behind, he wouldn't care what happened to his second doppelgänger.

Despite the torment she would probably go through, having to supply the blood for all of his hybrids alone, at least I would know she was safe. Klaus would ensure that nothing could happen to her.

Her note was still the hardest, though. It took the longest because I had to start all over, finding the words I wrote out to be stupid or horrible or just wrong in every other way.

After placing Jeremy's note on his pillow, with the others in hand that needed to be properly distributed, I stood next to Elena's bed, staring down at the neatly made pillows where I planned to leave her note as well. My hands shook violently, so much that I struggled to even hold on to the notes. They were all folded up. To try and get a grip on myself, I placed Bonnie and Caroline's on Elena's desk, knowing that she would make sure they got them.

I loved Bonnie and Caroline. I didn't want to leave them behind either, but their notes didn't tell them what was going on. It was dangerous for too many people to know, and I didn't imagine people would come to the conclusion that I was pregnant with Kol's child.

The only way I was able to convince myself to put the note down was to read over it one last time, double checking to make sure that I hadn't left anything out that needed to be said.

Dear Elena,

You're not gonna understand why I'm doing this. I don't understand it myself, but it's what I have to do—for myself and for my child.

Yeah. I'm pregnant. Crazy, right? I didn't know it either, not until this morning, but I am. Those three tests under the bathroom sink finally got some use. I have to get out of town for a while, at least until I can make sure no one ever finds out about this baby.

I'm telling you because you're my sister, and I know you'll protect me and my unborn child better than anyone. You know the consequences of Klaus finding out.

I love you so much. I know we've had our disagreements as of late, but I have to do this alone. If we both disappear, Klaus will hunt us down. At least if you're in town, he'll stick around, assuming I'm off with the one protecting me from the hybrids.

I was supposed to tell you before the ball, and I'm sorry this is how I'm telling you, but I knew who Kol was. I was the one who took the daggers out of the Originals when Stefan had them hidden in the house. I knew who Kol was, but I didn't see a monster. I saw someone with endless possibilities ahead of him.

You won't understand, and that's fine. He's my soulmate, and I think I'm his. Since taking the dagger out of him, he's changed so much, in a month's time. He's become someone worth loving, someone capable of remorse and feelings. I know that may be hard for you to see, with the past we have with his siblings, but don't look at them. Look at him.

I understand if you hate him for a little bit, but can you look out for him for me? Make sure he doesn't come after me. Right now, the best thing is for no one to know.

I don't have long, but I'm so sorry it has to be this way. This is what I have to do. One day, when everything is safe again, I will come home. I just have to make sure Klaus never knows about my children.

-Darcy-

I folded it up and placed it against her pillow, a single tear falling down onto it and wetting the page. There wasn't time to linger, so I had to just go, placing a note for Alaric on the couch. He could've been back at any time, since he didn't actually go to the ball. There was really no time to waste.

The notes to Jeremy, Elena, Alaric, and Damon were the only ones that mentioned the baby. If there was anyone who would protect my secret, it would've been those four. Alaric had stated more than once that he would gladly give his life for any of us. It had never been said out loud, but he kind of viewed us as his kids, I think, which was fine because he became our guardian in a time where we desperately needed someone. I think he needed us just as much, too.

The hardest part for me was walking out the door and getting into the Buick. Leaving everything that I had ever known behind was hard. It was something I had never seen myself doing. Whenever we made plans for the future, Elena and I were always doing things together. We planned to go to Whitmore, where she would become a doctor and I would become a vet. I figured one twin could help the people whereas the other could help the animals.

That wasn't gonna happen anymore, though, at least not as far as I could tell. However long I was gone . . . I wasn't gonna get to graduate high school. I probably wasn't even going to make it to graduation, as I'd be around six or seven months pregnant, depending on how far along I was.

So much in my life had just flipped upside down without any warning. I was dating a vampire, so the thought of being safe and careful never occurred to either of us. Vampires shouldn't be able to procreate, a side effect of the immortality spell that their mother did on them.

This was what I had to do, though. I had to have this baby and somehow find a family who could protect it from Klaus while also help it discover who and what it really was.

What family would do that? Any witch family would know that the baby was going to be an abomination, as the spirits liked to keep its witches well-informed. Any werewolf family wouldn't want to keep the child of a vampire. The feud between them wasn't as horrible as it might've been in stories and literature, but they didn't like one another.

Maybe there was no safe place for my child except with me. Maybe I could never come back unless Klaus left.

The one comfort I could find was in the fact that they wouldn't assume it was Kol's. They would just keep it a secret because they didn't want Klaus to believe that either of the doppelgängers had carried on their bloodline. I had calculated it before, finding that a doppelgänger appeared ever five hundred or so years, so the less Klaus knew about, the better.

Five centuries is nothing for a man who was almost completely immortal.

There were no cars in the rounded driveway of the Salvatore Boarding house, but I imagined that Damon would be inside. Whatever Elena had done, whatever was going on that made Stefan believe that the Originals were going to die, Damon was so set on her not speaking with Esther. If she had, he probably didn't get a say in the matter. Somehow, they took him out of the equation.

Was it vervain? I imagined she did something to knock him out, but vervain wouldn't have lasted very long, not with him still ingesting it daily.

Normally, I would've knocked and waited for the door to open for me, but tonight, I didn't have the luxury of waiting. Every second counted right now, and I had to get out of town before someone found me. Would it be Elena? Would it be Kol? I didn't know, but if Kol found me, he wasn't gonna let me get away. He wouldn't understand that I had to go alone, at least until the threat of their mother was dealt with.

Would it ever be, though? She came back after all this time. Who was to say she wouldn't come back again?

The future used to always seem so clear, even after Klaus came into town. Once we knew how Elena was going to come out of this alive, everything fell back into place. We lost a lot of people along the way, but the end goal was still the same. We were going to graduate, go to college, and start a family of our own. We were going to have a good life, even if it meant giving Klaus blood every now and then. It was something we were willing to do if it kept us safe.

There was no way to know what he might do to future generations of doppelgängers, however, and that was something I couldn't risk.

I knew where to look for Damon, especially if the night had gone as I imagined it had. He didn't like being taken out of the equation, especially by force, so whatever had happened had him pissed off and drinking.

Then again, just about anything had him drinking. It was the easiest way to curb the cravings.

Standing just where I knew he would be, drinking a glass of bourbon and standing next to the large fire, was in fact Damon Salvatore. He had shed the jacket and bow tie he wore tonight, with his white shirt untucked from the suit pants he wore, but he hadn't completely changed clothes yet.

"I expected you to lock yourself in your room for a few days, not wanna talk to anyone after tonight."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, allowing the warmth of the room to embrace me one last time. Vampires didn't get hot or cold, not like humans did, but they still kept the house comfortable for everyone. It was one thing I had always loved about being here.

"Damon, you know I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't desperate," I began, not really sure how to start everything that needed to be said. "I need to get out of town."

"That would probably be best, at least until we can deal with this Original brother who lied to all of us," he agreed, and he turned back away from the fire to look at me, allowing the rage in his eyes to show. It matched the fire behind him, and that scared the hell out of me.

"Don't hurt him!" I exclaimed, and I stepped down into the living room, putting myself closer to Damon. "Please."

He snorted. "He's an Original vampire, Darcy! They can't be trusted! Why are you defending him after he lied to you?"

"I was the one who let them all out of the coffins!" I managed to yell back at him, despite the fear I could feel churning inside of me. It would've been easy to write off as pregnancy related, and maybe part of it was. Fear was definitely there, fear for Kol. If him mother wasn't back and set on killing all of her children, I wouldn't have worried much about him, but she was. "I know who he is! I knew from the beginning! Please, don't. Just don't hurt him. I love him."

His jaw locked, his eyes darkening as they pierced through me, or at least tried. "You love the man he wanted you to see."

I scoffed. "I've been around vampires long enough to see past their games! Don't you think I know who he is? I told him I was leaving town, and he cried, Damon. Don't you dare tell me that I don't know him! You've barely spoken to him at all!"

"Why would you lie to us?" he demanded, and for the first time since everyone realized who Kol was, the anger was finally directed towards the right person—me. "To your sister?"

"Because I knew this was how you would all react!" I exclaimed. "I knew that you guys wouldn't trust him, and I do! I know he would never do anything to hurt me! I knew that if I told you who he was, you would all know that I was the one who let them out, and Stefan would kill me! He already told me that Kol's death would be my punishment for what I had done. Please, Damon. Whatever you guys are doing to kill them, please. I am begging you. Don't hurt Kol."

The muscles in his jaw loosened, ever so slightly, and he swallowed visibly, those eyes never moving off of me. "It's too late."

"What?" My eyebrows furrowed around the same time my breaths began quickening, coming out faster than I could try and control them. "What do you mean too late?"

"Even if I wanted to save him, which I don't, it's too late," he said again. "What's done is done."

There was the smallest bit of relief hearing that he wasn't dead yet, but the fear wasn't gone. He wasn't dead yet, but who was to say he wouldn't be tomorrow? How could I just walk away without making a final stand to protect him?

I could do it for my child, for our child. I had to do it for our child.

I shook my head again. "No. What's going on?"

"I can't tell you," he said, and he finished the drink inside of his cup. "You'll tell him, and that will ruin everything."

"Yeah, so he can stop it!" I insisted. "Whatever you guys are doing, it's not right! Kol didn't do anything! I'm the reason you guys didn't know! He lied to protect me from Stefan! Everything he's ever done since coming out of that coffin has all been for me! Don't you get it?"

"Don't you?" he snapped. "Elijah is a man of his word, yet when we needed him to rip out Klaus' heart, he didn't! They will always put family before everything else!"

"He is not Elijah," I reminded him, still shaking my head. "He doesn't care about family, not anymore."

"Yeah, Elijah said that, too," he said. "Said that he wanted his brother dead for what he had done to his family."

There were so many different arguments I could've put up, so many different stories I had to tell that proved to Damon that Kol wasn't the same as Elijah. Family didn't matter to him the same way.

There wasn't time, however. The more time I spent arguing with Damon, the more time that gave someone—Kol specifically—to find me and stop me. I didn't imagine he would look for me here immediately after finding me, but maybe he would've. Maybe he wouldn't have cared what happened if he came here after everyone found out, not knowing that I had told them truth, finally.

It felt good to not have that secret anymore, even in the midst of all the chaos and bad going on. We didn't have to pretend anymore. Kol could just be who he was.

"I don't have time for this," I said, and I folded my arms over my chest. "I have to get out of town."

Damon disappeared without another word, but I knew he was going to get something. He wasn't the type to just vanish instead of saying goodbyes that he didn't want to say, so maybe he knew why I had to stop by.

If I was gonna hide, from everyone, the best way to do so was to do so with something untraceable—like enough cash to live off of until things were safe again—and the Salvatore brothers definitely had money over the years. Some was probably the family fund whereas other bits of it was acquired various ways, some of which I probably didn't wanna know about.

When he reappeared, he had a black duffel bag in his hand, zipped up and rather heavy. It was full, with the sides of the duffel bag sticking out in way they only did if there wasn't room to put anything else inside.

All it took was a small peek inside the zipper to have the fears confirmed. This bag was loaded with cash, and not just a bunch of different bills. From what I saw, it was stacks of twenties and hundreds.

I shook my head, trying to set my jaw so that I looked more firm than usual. "I can't take all of this."

"Trust me, Darcy," he said, but his voice was gentle now, all traces of anger gone from his face as he handed it over to me. "It's nothing. Just bring back whatever you don't use."

"Okay." The very idea of having this much money in my possession was horrifying, but it wasn't like some petty thief could take it from me. If nothing else, I could just inflict pain on them, or use the telekinetic spell to knock them over and get my bag back.

Somehow, I had to protect this child and not trigger my curse. What would happen to this child if I had to turn at the full moon?

There was probably some way that werewolves had children. Surely over the years that they had been around, longer than even the Original family, there had been a female werewolf who had triggered her curse while pregnant. Maybe something changed and they didn't turn until the baby was out of them, or maybe their bodies turned and protected the child?

I didn't know how that might happen. From what Tyler explained the change was like, everything inside of you is torn apart and broken to become something else. That would include a child.

"There's also a piece of paper with a name and address inside, a place you can go to get new identification," he said. "Give him my name, and he'll help you out. Take the Buick, too. No one here knows the car, and I won't tell them."

I nodded. "Will do."

"Be safe." He stepped closer to me and wrapped his arms around me, giving me a hug that both hurt and gave me the comfort I so desperately needed right now. They were going to be upset with me, probably angry as well, but this was just the proof I needed that one day, they would forgive me for lying. They would be able to move past it and maybe even accept Kol—assuming they didn't kill him first. "Don't do anything stupid."

I took a deep breath and pulled myself out of his grip, one hand falling towards the pockets of the sweats that I wore. "I wrote this letter for you. It explains where I'm going, why I'm going, but whatever you do, you can't tell anyone. Elena's note explained it to her as well, and Jeremy and Alaric's, but if you're going to read it, you have to stay on vervain."

"I drink it twice a day now," he informed me, and he almost smiled. "I think I'll be okay."

"No one else can know," I said. "Not Stefan. Not Caroline. Not Bonnie. No one. When you read the letter, burn it or put it somewhere that no one can find it, at least not for a long time."

"Got it."

I turned away from him, away from the warmth of the fire, and headed towards the door. Every part of me told me to go, to not look back so I could get out of town and somewhere safe for both the child and me.

There was something else I had to say, though, one final attempt to protect the man that I loved, the father of my child.

"Damon, please protect Kol," I whispered, and I watched his face attempt to grow angry, though pain was all I could see. "If for no other reason, do it for me."

"All I can promise is that I will try," he said. "Something has happened, something that I don't know if it's possible to reverse, but I'll do what I can. I promise."

"Thank you."

It would've been easy to not believe him. Damon hadn't always been the most trustworthy person, but if he made a promise to Elena and me, he was going to keep it as best he could. He loved us both, just in different ways.

I felt comfort in that, enough that I was able to get out the door and back to the Buick.

Somehow, I had to leave it all behind and not look back. Somehow, I had to put the car in drive and leave the place that held everyone and everything that I held dear behind me, watch it all disappear through my rearview mirror.

This child was that somehow.

A/N: Had to put a Damon/Darcy friendship scene in before she left. This chapter was originally gonna end with Darcy leaving the Gilbert house, leaving Damon and Alaric notes in different places around the house, but I couldn't do that. Had to have a Damon/Darcy friendship scene.

So let's celebrate the fact that this story, as of when I'm posting this chapter, has 102 reviews, 108 followers, and 64 favorites. This has been my most successful story to date, and you have no idea how happy this makes me. All the work I've put into improving my writing, and all the work I've put into this story, has definitely paid off. Thank you guys so much! You're all awesome, and I'm so glad that you like this story. This particular story is about to come to an end, but there is more to come, at least one more part. I thought about doing a third part, a story to sort of follow Kol and Darcy's child's life in the future, but I don't think I'm gonna do it, unless you guys seriously want it, because I'm super jazzed to write my Kai/OC story I've gotten started. That, and I don't wanna drag something out unnecessarily.

Enough rambling. The lyrics at the beginning are from the song River of Tears by Alessia Cara.

Read, review, and enjoy!