Author's note: Thanks for being so understanding about the issues with chapter 10. For those of y'all who read the first incarnation and didn't realize it was reloaded, I'd say that reading the new version would probably be a good idea.
I think this will be a fairly short chapter, but it's one of those that kind of needs to happen.
Warnings: Mature – violence, language, character death, Bonnie, Stefan, morning sickness (y'all, I've never written a story with more vomiting in my life – sorry), adult content
The ancient book closed with a thud and cloud of dust. Bonnie waved her hand in front of her face and coughed. "Sorry, Elena. This was the last one."
"No problem. I didn't think we'd find anything." Elena nibbled on the corner of a graham cracker.
Bonnie traced her finger along the spine of the grimoire. "I think there used to be something – maybe." She picked up the book and placed it behind her. "It looked like a few pages had been torn out of the front of the book."
"Of course they were." Elena sipped at her mug of ginger tea. Before noon, her diet was primarily limited to tea and crackers. After noon, it was whatever she was in the mood to revisit later in the bathroom. Her government and French teachers just waved her out of the room without Elena having to wait to ask permission. She strongly suspected Caroline had something to do with that, but she really hadn't wanted to ask.
"I guess someone didn't want anyone to find out about Silas." Bonnie looked up as Jeremy entered the boardinghouse kitchen. Jeremy reached out and picked up a handful of grapes from the bowl in the center of the table.
"Because why make it easy on us..." Elena clenched her jaw and squeezed one hand into a tight fist.
Bonnie ran her finger around the edge of her coffee mug and glanced at Elena's untouched chocolate pound cake. "Elena, I know you don't really want a – snack, but shouldn't you eat something? You've eaten like a centimeter of that cracker."
Elena's hand began tremble as her jaw clenched even tighter. She shook her head without a word. The more she fought against the building anger, the faster the tears welled in her eyes.
"Elena?" Bonnie sat up straighter in her chair, a look of concern crossing her face.
Jeremy grabbed hold of Bonnie's wrist. He gave a minute shake of his head. "Vampire mood swings are…" His eyes flashed in Elena's direction while squeezing his hand closed over his ring. "You okay Elena?"
She wiped angrily at the tears flowing down her cheeks. "I'm fine."
Jeremy turned and whispered in Bonnie's direction. "Don't move." He slowly scooted farther back in his chair until he could see down the hallway. Damon's back was to them as he spoke with Carol Lockwood. "Um, Damon?" Jeremy turned back to watch Elena. "It's going to be okay, Elena. Try to drink some more of your tea." Elena's hands were shaking so badly that she couldn't hold the mug. "Damon. Kind of need you in here." Faint veins appeared around Elena's eyes as she forced herself to keep her attention fixed on the table. "Damon!"
The dark-haired vampire's face fell as he entered the room. "Hey, whatever it is, it's going to be okay." He pulled Elena to her feet and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. Damon brushed her hair behind one ear and kissed the top of her head. "What were y'all talking about?" He nodded at Jeremy's questioning look. "It's okay. Carol knows everything." With the emphasis on the last word, it was clear what his conversation with the mayor occurring in foyer entailed.
"Silas stuff." Bonnie patted the closed grimoire and flinched at Damon's expression. "Sorry."
"Maybe wait for me next time." Damon rocked slowly back and forth as Elena struggled to regain her composure.
"We still can't find anything, Damon." Elena spoke through tears of frustration.
"We will." Damon rubbed his hand over her back. "Turns out, Dr. Shane really was a college friend of Carol's. She's going to try to get in touch with him for us."
The hall clock struck 8. Jeremy frowned and picked up his backpack from the floor. "We've gotta go, or we'll be late." He slid his chair back and smiled at Elena. "Good luck this morning. Let me know how everything goes."
"Thanks again for doing this." Elena tugged at the gap in her button-down blouse where her lace bra tried to peek through.
"No problem. Dr. Myers is a good friend of mine. He owed me a favor." Dr. Fell spun the sliding chair to better face Elena. She seemed to notice Elena fighting with her blouse. "You know that's normal, right?"
Damon resisted the urge to stare. Over the past week, it had become clear that Elena would soon need a shopping trip. She was still rail-thin, but certain areas of her anatomy had been changing at a fairly rapid clip, and he didn't mind at all.
"And how are you feeling? Tired? Nauseous? Moody?" Meredith looked up from the laptop's screen.
"Yes." Damon answered for Elena, drawing a grin from Meredith.
"That's good. It shows the hormones levels are rising." She tapped on the keyboard.
"So the test was right?" He was forced to admit that he'd still carried more than a shadow of doubt that the pregnancy test Elena had taken at Caroline's house had been out of date or not effective on vampires and Elena's physical and emotional changes were still just side-effects of her less-than-smooth transition.
"Are you asking if she's really pregnant?" Meredith eyed Damon with amusement. "That's a pretty definite yes, but I can't use the blood work for verification." She turned and addressed Elena. "Don't ever let someone draw your blood for lab work. They'll lock you up for scientific research so fast your head would spin. Trust me, vampire blood looks – unique under a microscope." Meredith rolled her eyes and sighed in mild frustration. "File this under things I never thought I'd see. I've done a lot of research on vampires. Everything says that this can't happen, but Elena's definitely pregnant." She turned away from Damon and Elena sitting side by side on the couch and typed a few keystrokes. "But telling how far along you are is the hard part. You're sure you weren't pregnant when you turned?"
"I'm sure." Elena nodded, obviously not really wanting to revisit the topic.
"How sure?" Meredith countered.
"It was that time of the month." Elena's cheeks flushed a mild pink. "And I hadn't had sex in at least six months."
"Not even with Stefan?" Meredith appeared honestly surprised.
Elena shook her head. "We'd been going through a rough patch. Things hadn't been the same since he'd gotten back from his summer with Klaus."
Interesting. Stefan had made it seem like he and Elena fell right back where they'd left off. Damon reached out and took hold of her hand, running his thumb over the back of hers.
"Well, that rules one idea out. That still doesn't help us figure out how far along she is." Meredith glared at the computer. "I'd say you feel about 8 or 9 weeks. Conception would have been around here." She pointed the tip of her ballpoint pen at the calendar. November 29th.
Elena's blush deepened even farther. "That…sounds about right."
Damon grinned at her side. "That was a very good night." He received an elbow in the side for his comment, but he didn't care. It was worth it to finally get a smile out of Elena.
"Well then." Meredith seemed more than happy to brush over Damon's last comment. "You're due around August 22nd." She spun in the chair to face the desk where she picked up a handful of pamphlets and tucked them into a plastic bag. She turned back to face Elena and handed her the pale purple bag. "We'll have to figure out a way to do your exams." She let out a long breath. "It might be easier for me to do them at the boardinghouse – not sure how many times Dr. Myers will let me borrow his office for my mystery patient. Next time we should be able to hear the heartbeat." She reached out and squeezed Elena's hand. "I know you didn't expect this, but this should be kind of an exciting time. Try to enjoy it, okay?"
"I'll try."
"You can go out around back." Meredith pointed to a door at the far corner of the doctor's office. "I don't want to have to answer too many questions."
"I understand. Thanks again for doing this."
"That's what I'm here for." Meredith tore off a slip of paper from a notepad and handed it to Elena.
"A school excuse." Elena glanced at her watch. "Lovely. I'll be getting back to school just in time for lunch."
Damon squeezed Elena's shoulder with his hand and raised his eyebrows. "You don't really have to go to school if you don't want to." He tucked his thumb beneath her collar and toyed with her bra strap. He hadn't been in the room during the exam, but he'd been able to get more than just a peek beneath her blouse while sitting next to her on the couch. He knew her appearance today was going to drive the guys in her class crazy – it certainly was affecting him. She seemed to be feeling halfway normal at the moment, and it had been a very long few weeks for a certain portion of his anatomy.
Elena turned to face him. "Yeah, I do." She tossed the bag Meredith had given her in the back seat of her car and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. "I've missed enough school as it is."
Pressing flat against him, he knew she couldn't ignore his erection pressing into her, but he was distracted by the ever so slight curve he could feel on her belly. "Is that?" He pulled away and ran his hand over her yoga pants.
"Yeah." She gave a shy smile. "I was wondering when you'd notice."
"And you really want to go to school today?"
Elena grinned. "I do. "
"Then I'll definitely be waiting when you get home."
"Well, thank you. I obviously misunderstood the name of the university he said he worked for. I'm sorry to have bothered you." Damon hung up the phone with a thud before crossing yet another university off the list. Thirty colleges down. Just a few hundred more to go.
A door closed downstairs, and Damon glanced up at the clock on the mantle. "Elena?" He jogged down the stairs and skidded to a stop when he caught sight of the brunette standing in the study.
"Interesting choice of reading material." Katherine's curls brushed over her shoulder as she inclined her head in his direction. She picked up the American Baby magazine from the top of the stack on the side table next to the couch. "Is Elena going to be an aunt? I always knew that Jeremy was going to come to a bad end." She wrinkled her nose and attempted a sympathetic expression.
"What are you doing here, Katherine?" Damon leaned over from the opposite side of the table and straightened the stack.
Katherine grinned in amusement before she strode purposefully in his direction, the heels of her boots echoing off the hardwood floor. "Why Damon, I was under the impression you asked us to come back to Mystic Falls." She smiled coyly as the front door opened for a second time.
"Yeah, Damon, you sent me a text saying that something was wrong." Stefan walked into the room carrying two suitcases. He barely paused to address Damon before continuing down the hall and up the stairs. From the look of things, he was planning on staying a while.
"Of course, what else is new?" Katherine's words were as smooth as melted chocolate.
Damon nodded in understanding. No wonder the random murder streak had ended so abruptly. "You've been with Stefan. But I sent that text a month ago."
"And we would have come back sooner, but we were a little busy…." The front door opened a third time.
"Whose car is that?" Elena adjusted her messenger bag on her shoulder while rounding the corner from the entryway. Damon stepped to her side and took the bag from her.
Katherine raised an eyebrow as her eyes slowly traveled up and down Elena, stopping where Elena's white blouse puckered over her chest. She gave Damon a look like a cat that swallowed the canary. "And it looks like you have too." She advanced purposefully in Elena's direction, but Elena stood her ground.
"So what was so urgent?" Stefan hopped down off the lowermost stair and froze in shock.
"This should be good." Katherine walked back into the study, watching the brothers face off like a spectator at a sporting event.
Damon took a single step to the side, effectively blocking Elena from Stefan's view. "It's not a problem any longer. So you can just go back upstairs and get your bags."
"I don't think so." Stefan circled Elena like a cat chasing a weakened mouse. "After all, it's my house." He smirked coolly. "And, I'm wondering if something else is mine too."
"You need to leave." Damon's voice was at its most threatening.
And then Katherine screamed.
Katherine stood over the pile of notes Bonnie and Jeremy had left with Damon before they hurried out the door on their way to school that morning. She picked up the corner of a sheet of notebook paper covered in Jeremy's messy scrawl. "Silas?"
Elena felt as if ice dropped into the pit of her stomach. Katherine was afraid.
The standoff between Damon and Stefan forgotten for the moment, Damon walked toward Katherine. "What do you know about Silas?"
"I know I don't want to in Mystic Falls when he gets here." Katherine answered vaguely.
"Why not?" Elena found her voice and stepped to Damon's side.
Katherine nodded slowly, staring at Elena. She mumbled something Elena couldn't fully understand, but one of the words was definitely Petrova. She locked eyes with Stefan who stood off to Damon's left. "She's the key."
"Believe it or not, we're ahead of you there." Damon drew his index finger through the air as if he were marking off a checklist.
"You knew?" Katherine stiffened and rounded on Stefan. "Did you tell them I was with you? Is that why we needed to come back?"
"No. No." Stefan held his hands in front of his chest and stepped back in retreat.
"He didn't know anything, but you do." Elena was tired of beating around the bush. Katherine definitely knew something – and she was going to tell it. "Tell. Us."
Katherine spun in Elena's direction. "Remember, you asked for it." She paused and stared at Elena's stomach. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to hear it in your…condition." She waited, but Elena simply crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared back at her. "Silas was a warlock. And he was very, very angry when his daughter fell under Klaus and Eljah's spell – and it was even worse when Mikael decided to use Tatia in the spell to create the Original vampire line." Katherine turned away from the group and walked to the sideboard and poured herself a drink. "He became obsessed with putting an end to vampires – all the vampires, but everything hinged on three bloodlines crossing: hunter, Original, and Petrova." Katherine downed the bourbon in a single swallow. "Once the key exists, it's just a matter of time before he comes back…and when he does, we're all dead, but she'll die first."
"How much time?" Damon reached for Elena's hand and enveloped it with his.
"There's a reason Shakespeare said 'Beware the Ides of March.'"
Elena sat on the edge of the bed. She'd pulled the white bedspread over her legs to fight off the chill that didn't come from the temperature in the room. The brochures Dr. Fell had given her earlier in the day were strewn around her haphazardly, but she was only paying attention to the calendar lying open on her lap. "Sixty days." Her voice caught in her throat as she looked up at Damon, her chocolate brown eyes filled with fear.
"According to Katherine." Damon picked up the calendar and slid it back into the plastic bag. He reached over her and gathered the rest of the reading material and placed it with the calendar.
Elena rolled her eyes and her eyes sparkled with tears for the second time that day. "She doesn't have a reason to lie about this, Damon."
He kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed, straddling her from behind. She leaned back against his chest, and he scooped her hair over one shoulder. "I know she doesn't." He kissed her collarbone before working his way up to the delicate skin at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder. "But if we've learned anything, it's that the old legends can be twisted to suit the ones telling the story."
"So you don't think it's true?" Elena tilted her head to the side in response to his teeth lightly grazing her skin.
"I don't know." His fingers toyed with the top button of her blouse. "But I do know one thing..."
"Damon." Elena attempted to protest, but groaned as his hand palmed her breast.
"I've been dying to touch you all day." His thumb circled her nipple, and he let his fangs pierce her skin. He allowed his other hand to travel lower, dipping below the waistband of her pants.
Heavy silence filled the room as he continued to drink while holding her in his arms. A shiver racked her body and his goal of relaxing her was complete. He spun her around to face him and unbuttoned the rest of her blouse. Her swollen breasts strained against her lace bra, and he quickly freed them from their restraint. "You're so beautiful." He'd never thought he'd have the chance to see the changes in a woman's body from expecting his child. Elena's cheeks flushed under the intensity of his adoration. He covered one nipple with his lips as his hand supported her back.
"You know they can probably hear us." Elena murmured as she rested her cheek on top of his head.
Reluctantly pulling away from her breast, blue eyes met brown. "Let them." Elena was right. Katherine had no reason to lie to them. Her life as a vampire was linked to Elena's life right now. And yes, he was scared. The threat Silas posed to Elena and their unborn child meant far more to him than his own life.
But right now, he just wanted to make these moments count.
Elena stripped him of his Henley and ran her hands over the planes of his chest. Damon moaned as she lightly drew her fingernails down the faint trail of hair leading to his belt buckle. Following her lead, he stripped her of her pants and lace panties in one smooth motion before tossing his own jeans to the side. His cock twitched and hardened beyond what he imagined possible when he studied the curve on Elena's belly likely only visible to someone with a vampire's senses.
Damon gently lowered Elena to the bed and crawled down her body. Straddling her, he kissed just below her belly button. She threaded her fingers through his hair, and he gazed up into her eyes before turning his attention back to her belly.
Damn it, he was going to make sure the witches won this time. The Petrova line wouldn't end. He'd thought he was already to fight harder than he ever had before to keep Elena safe. But something was different now. He would make sure this baby survived – and that meant Silas couldn't be allowed to get close to Elena.
"Damon." Elena took hold of his hand and gave a gentle tug. He knew what that look in her eyes meant. She shifted on the bed, opening herself to him as he crept back over her body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. "I need you." Her hands gripped his hips, and her eyes fluttered closed when he finally gave her what she wanted. Her head dropped back and her hair moved in gentle waves over the pillow in time with his uncharacteristically gentle movements. "You're not going to hurt me."
"Let's not take that chance." He worked one hand between their bodies and watched as a single flick of his wrist sent her over the edge. With one more thrust, he cried out as he followed.