"Okay, Ric, inside," Liz nudges him into one of their interrogation rooms.

As his eyes nervously dart around, Liz unlocks his handcuffs and pushes the door closed.

"I want to see an attorney," Ric demands as he glares at Sheriff Forbes.

"If that's what you want, c'mon, l have to take you to a cell," She informs him as she snaps the handcuffs back on.

"Aren't you going to ask me some questions?"

"I can't. Once you ask for an attorney, everything ceases. Now come on," she pushes him out of the room and down the hall into one of their holding cells.

"Everybody liked you, Ric. I'm at a loss as to why you ever do something so horrible to your friends," Liz remarks as she frees his wrists.

"I'm not answering anything until I talk to my attorney."

"Rose is dead. She revealed that she killed her ex-husband and the prison guard. If you know where Trevor's body is, I suggest you reveal it to your attorney. Maybe it'll get you a plea bargain, maybe it won't."

Turning, Liz gives him one last look before she slams the cell door closed and walks away.


As his eyelids flicker, his brain explodes with excruciating pain. His stomach roils with an overwhelming wave of nausea. Damon bites down against the bile rising in his throat.

With his eyes still closed, he registers the grating rasp of a ventilator, the pulsating sound of a heart monitor, and the blip of the oximeter.

The pain is indescribable as the burn permeates every cell in his body. Something primal inside of him refuses to yield to defeat.

His survival instinct is strong. Damon pushes past the ache in his gut and wrenches open his eyes, ignoring the dizzying pain that comes with it.

"Damon?"

He slowly turns his head toward her voice and his unfocused eyes settle on her face. Elena sees his lips try to move and quickly presses her fingers against them. The feel of his warm breath on her skin triggers her tears.

"Shh…don't try to talk. You have a tube down your throat."

His eyes blink slowly, and she reads his confusion. Elena grips his hand. "You've been in the ICU for close to three weeks." Her voice is rough. "You slipped into a coma while you were in surgery. She shot you in the gut and you developed a massive infection from the bowel contents spilling into your abdominal cavity. It was touch and go for several days, but you're going to be okay."

But Damon's eyes remain clouded with concern.

"I'm fine. She didn't hurt me. Enzo stopped her."

His expression eases and Elena feels his fingers tighten around her hand.

"Welcome back, Damon," she whispers gratefully. "I've missed you."


A few months later:

"Liz called. She told me that Ric has agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence. He'll spend twenty-five years in jail for aggravated kidnapping. There isn't enough evidence to charge him for Trevor's murder." Elena looks up from her book.

Sighing, Damon turns his head to look at Elena. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Shaking her head, Elena says somberly, "No, I would rather put this whole sordid affair behind us."

"Maybe you should talk about it with Camille?"

"I suppose you're right; I just want to forget about it."

Shifting in bed so he's facing her, Damon links their fingers. "I know and I do, too, more than anything. But I believe to truly put it in the past, you need to talk about and when you reach that point, I'll be ready to listen so we can truly put it in our past."

"I just need some time. You almost died, Damon, and so did I. Can you blame me for not wanting to think about it?"

"Okay...we'll take it one day at a time," Damon agrees and climbs out of bed.

"Thank you...Are you hungry because I am?" Elena asks as she follows him into the hallway.

"I haven't even thought of food... I can get the delivery menus."

"No, I'll see what we have in the fridge first."

"I'll be down in a few minutes; I want to wash up."

"Sounds good," Elena calls over her shoulder as trots down the stairs.


"So, what are you making?" Damon asks as walks into the kitchen.

"Scrambled eggs with ham, pepper jack cheese, mushrooms, pepper, and onion."

"Sounds good." Damon wraps his arms around her waist from behind and kisses the crown of her head.

Setting the spatula down, she turns in his arms and wraps her arms around Damon's neck.

"I love you," Elena tells him as she rises on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the lips.

Turning, so he's standing behind her she checks the eggs. "Supper's done."

Without releasing his hold on her, Damon flicks the burner off before turning her in his arms.

"I need a kiss," Elena tells him with a twinkle in her brown eyes.

"Hmm, mmm," Damon replies and lowering his mouth to hers.


Two years on.

Damon and Elena are tucked away in a small exam room, chatting in low tones while awaiting Dr. Freya Mikaelson's arrival. She breezes inside with a wide smile of greeting and turns her full attention to Elena.

"So, how are you feeling?"

"Tired, cranky, and fat," Elena replies flatly.

"Don't hold back on my account," Freya laughs as she helps Elena recline back onto the table. "Let's have a listen to your baby." She squirts gel onto the head of the doppler and presses it against Elena's now bare belly.

A few seconds later the distinctive, whirring sound of their baby's heartbeat breaks the quiet of the room.

"Sound good?" Damon asks, squeezing Elena's hand.

Freya smiles at him. "Sounds really good." She clicks off the device then and instructs Elena to sit upright, passing her a wad of paper towels in the process. "So far everything is looking good. And since you're tired and cranky, maybe you should go home and get some rest."

"She will." Damon winks at Elena, "I'm going to spend the evening pampering my wife."


"I don't think this was part of the deal," Damon grumbles.

Elena blows a frothy handful of bubbles at him. "You're the one who said you were going to pamper me," she reminds him.

"Yes, but I wasn't counting on smelling like…" Damon takes a disdainful sniff of the bathwater, "…Cinnamon buns in the process."

Elena creeps one foot up the lean expanse of his chest. Damon reacts by capturing it and bringing it to his mouth. He nibbles at her painted toes, inciting girlish giggles. "Are you feeling relaxed yet?"

"Not quite, but I'm getting there," she sighs happily. "Kiss me."

Damon eagerly fulfills her command, skimming his fingers over her cheek to cradle her face and bring her mouth to his. He sips at her lips gently, using his tongue to trace the delicate seam of her mouth. With a very little bit of coaxing, she parts her lips for the silky, wet invasion of his tongue. The kiss is slow and deliberate, almost tentative in its way…like a first. They scoot closer together, rising up onto their knees in the water, hands skating over soap-slick skin, breath sighing loudly in heightened anticipation.

Humming into her skin, Damon feathers tapered fingers along the ridge of Elena's collarbone and down the rounded curve of her breast until he brushes her nipple, which is drawn tight into aching hardness. They both moan with the friction he causes. Damon nibbles a path over the fragile line of her jaw, pressing a kiss to the sensitive softness underneath.

Elena curls her fingers into his shoulders, silently begging for more of his touch but Damon eludes her by lifting his head abruptly and announcing, "It's time for your massage now."

She smiles at him, dark eyes alive and dancing with glazed passion. "I think I'd rather finish what we started here instead," she counters breathlessly with the full intention of pulling his head back down for more.

"How about I give you both?" Damon suggests right before she dives in for another kiss.

Minutes later they somehow manage to drag themselves to their bedroom and tumble to the bed together in a kissing tangle. "We can skip the massage," Elena groans as she lowers her hand around her belly to encircle his hot erection.

Damon shoves her hand away with a regretful groan. "I promised you a massage," he counters, climbing from the bed to retrieve a bottle of Jergen's lotion. "Now lie back, relax, and let me spoil you."

"Well, when you put it that way…"

He begins with her feet, massaging the lotion into her moist skin in slow, sensuous circles. She shivers in response, provoking a lazy smile from Damon. Her shivering is quickly accompanied by a shuddering gasp of pleasure when he dips his head to avidly kiss each one of her painted toenails.

Damon next turns his attention to her legs, smoothing them with a thin layer of lotion and working it into her skin. As he rotates his hands up the quivering expanse of her thighs, he eagerly studies Elena's features for each flickering grimace of pleasure.

Damon delights in the way she bites her lip to keep from moaning aloud, the way her fingers bunch and clench in the twisted sheets beneath her, and the slow, unconscious way she begins circling her hips.

"You're turning me on..."

"Yeah, because big bellies and swollen ankles are such a turn-on." Elena raises an eyebrow.

Damon shrugs. "I think so." When Elena balks incredulously, he laughs. "Okay, maybe not the ankle part," he concedes, smiling, "but definitely the belly. I look at you, growing rounder and rounder with our child, and wow."

This time he has Elena laughing. When she looks at him again, she is still choking back giggles. "So, my pregnancy is an ego boost for you?"

"Well yeah…" Damon murmurs, sliding his hands down over her hips and turning her towards him, "I love how full and soft you are. I love watching your belly shift and roll." He flicks Elena with a wry glance when he feels a kick.

"Guess she's awake," he remarks, nuzzling a kiss over her distended belly.

Elena tunnels her fingers into his hair. "Seems so."

"Well, that's not going to work," Damon whispers to their suddenly active daughter, "I have naughty plans for your Mommy that you don't need to be awake for." He receives a defiant kick in return.

"She gets that from you," Damon teases with a wink.

"Me?" Elena counters saucily.

"You see what I mean?" Damon grumbles into her belly, "She just proved my point."

Elena gives his hair an insistent tug. "You need to focus Damon," she scolds him teasingly, "You were just waxing poetic about my pregnant sexiness, remember?"

Damon grins at her. "I got the impression you thought I was teasing," he challenges with his eye thing.

She offers him a cheeky smile. "Doesn't mean I don't like hearing it."

"Well, in that case…" he drawls, scooting back on his knees to survey her naked form, "…where was I?"

"I believe you were about to kiss me," Elena tells him, leaning up onto her elbows.

He feigns a pondering frown. "Was I?"

"I'm sure of it," she murmurs seductively.

"Just checking," he whispers right before swooping down to seize her lips in a tongue-thrusting kiss.

They fall back into the mattress once more, mouths dueling in fevered heat. Their bodies tangle and twist, despite the awkwardness of Elena's belly between them. Damon is overcome with hunger, the rampant desire to kiss her everywhere, to bury himself deep inside her body.

Driven by that visceral hunger, Damon presses kisses down the column of her throat, murmuring into her skin, "You know what else I love about you being pregnant?"

"What?" Elena gasps, arching into his mouth when he tugs ardently on her nipple.

He swirls his tongue around the distended peak, tasting her thoroughly before kissing lower. "I love how flushed your skin becomes," he confesses, punctuating the revelation with a moist, trailing kiss across her skin and sweeping his tongue across the alluring curve and dip of her hip bone.

Without warning, he inserts two questing fingers, inciting a low scream of pleasure from her.

Elena utters his name in a shuddering moan as she feels his tongue begin to lap at her delicate flesh. She writhes beneath him, fisting her hands into his hair as he blows breathy kisses against her aching center, flicking with his tongue again and again even as he pumps his fingers rhythmically inside her.

"I love having you between my legs," Elena moans in fitful confession.

Damon rolls aside abruptly and Elena whimpers with the loss of his warmth.

"I want to be inside you," he explains in an eager rush, grabbing hold of a pillow and tucking it beneath her hips to bring her higher. The moment he pushes inside, filling her to the hilt with every throbbing inch of him, Elena explodes, gasping his name in a serrated groan. The spasms of her body pull Damon deeper and deeper as plunges himself inside of her repeatedly.

He splays her knees wide, thrusting feverishly for the finish, his teeth bared in a carnal grimace and his head thrown back in abandoned pleasure. Sweat rolls off his body in cool droplets, pooling onto Elena's skin. Before long she feels the inner convulsions begin anew. They come apart mere seconds later, their long, low moans of satisfaction blending into one.

When those last currents of pleasure flicker out, Damon collapses at Elena's side in boneless exhaustion and presses a hand to her rigid abdomen. He grins at her as the contraction finally slackens off. "I'll never get tired of that," he whispers in amazement.

"Mm," Elena murmurs, sifting her fingers through the damp strands of hair at his temple.

They lie there afterward, spending their time kissing and touching and laughing and talking. Later on, when the light has faded from the sky, Damon pulls her against his side.

Elena pushes the hair away from his forehead, searching for his eyes in the dark. "I love you."

Damon moves closer, mouth moving against her neck as he asks, "Would it be cheesy if I said thanks for letting me steal your heart?"

Her gaze softens as she shakes her head before burying her face between his shoulder and jaw. She kisses the spot below his ear and lightly sucks on the skin of his neck.

Damon rolls them over and begins to kiss his way down her body.

And since she knows how fucking much he loves her, this time he'll show her without words.


It's always bittersweet to reach the end of a story. Thank you all so very much for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting. You're all the reason I haven't been able to stay retired. I've tried and somehow I always find myself back here.

Thanks and hugs to Eva, Kate, O, Sarah, and Jarka.

Chapter title: "The First, the Last, My Everything" by Barry White

CosmicAdventurers' stories are absolutely spellbinding. Her mind is one wicked place of imagination. Florencia7 has so many outstanding DE stories.

"A True Best Friend" by Wobalo is a rewritten version of S1.

I started a fun little story called "Witches Dance". I'd love for you to have a look.

Have a wonderful day...