AN: Thank you to all my lovely reviewers! I missed you all. This chapter has more family bonding, and one of the hardest scenes I've had to write thus far. But it had to be done! I hope you all enjoy.

Chapter Eighteen

"This view is incredible," Stefan said, deeply breathing in the fresh morning air. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, tinting the otherwise dark sky in soft pinks, oranges, and yellows.

The silken bedspread wrinkled under E.J. as she pulled her knees to her chest, her eyes fixated on the ground. Stefan had been helping her put her room back in order for the past hour. After attempting to make conversation several times and receiving no response from the younger vampire, Stefan had given up and finished helping her in silence.

"Yeah," mumbled E.J., pressing her cheek to her arm.

Last night was still a blur to her. She had gone from being an orphan to having a mother to having both parents, from being at the mansion to Elena's house to the mansion again, and from having a box to having a strange boy on the loose who claimed to be her box. Groaning, she buried her face in her folded arms.

Stefan glanced at her and smiled. "It's a lot to take in, I know," he agreed, studying his daughter's young features. Despite several attempts to wrap his mind around E.J. and what his life would be like now that he knew about her, Stefan was still muddling through the motions both outwardly and inwardly. He had a fourteen-year-old daughter that he'd never known about until just that last night. If he could manage to delve deeper into what had just happened, he would realize that E.J. would forever be fourteen and forever be in need of supervision.

The two sat in silence for a long fifteen minutes, watching the sun rise and paint the sky in brilliant colors. Stefan breathed in the scent of morning once more, but E.J. shielded her face.

The sun was almost completely over the horizon when E.J. finally lifted her face from her arms. "I'm hungry," she mumbled, swinging her bare legs to the floor and trotting toward the door.

Stefan hopped up to follow her. "I'll come with you."

E.J. paused. Without turning around, she said shortly, "Thanks, but I think I can handle it."

Blinking stupidly, Stefan stared, dumbfounded, after her as she disappeared out the door. "Parenting," he grumbled, "sucks." He yawned as he dragged his feet out the door and turned abruptly.

He knew stomping all the way to his brother's bedroom to whine to him about E.J. was immature, but Stefan didn't care. She wasn't being rude to him so to speak, but she was acting strangely. Stefan was afraid she was in danger of shutting down to him completely. After she had called him "Daddy" several times, Stefan had been relieved and had foolishly believed that this having a daughter thing would be easier than he'd originally thought. Now he found himself entertaining traitorous thoughts that E.J. had only been manipulating him and didn't actually see him as her father.

"She barely knows you, idiot," he grumbled under his breath, pushing his brother's door open. "It's not like there's a switch you can flip so we can all be a happy family, right?"

From the depths of his covers, Damon shifted and growled at the intrusion of his slumber. "Are you talking to yourself again, little brother?" he demanded.

Ignoring the aggressive tone, Stefan strode across the room and seated himself by his brother's covered head. "It's E.J.," he sighed. "She's being difficult."

If he had expected sage advice, he had come to the wrong person. "And this surprises you because . . ?" grumbled Damon from beneath the covers.

Stefan glared at his brother's shape. "I know you're tired, Damon, but would it kill you to sit up?"

When Damon complied (to Stefan's surprise), he was met with the sight of a half-asleep Damon, complete with rumpled hair, bloodshot eyes, and a feral snarl. Stefan had spent some time calming Elena after his brother, Bonnie, Finn, and she had gotten back from their expedition. Without a word of explanation, Damon had taken the girl from Finn and shoved her toward his younger brother. "Deal with her," he had snarled viciously, stalking away to raid the wet bar in the parlor.

Elena had never quite explained why she was upset: She had been too busy demanding that somebody needed to go look for "them." Stefan hadn't had a clue to what she was referring to until Finn, deadpan, had explained what they had found at the house.

Damon hadn't seemed particularly concerned about the disappearance of Alaric and Jeremy, but both Elena and Bonnie had been anxious to send out search parties to look for them.

Niklaus had subdued them. "From what you have described," he had interrupted them, bored, "it sounds as if they have been kidnapped. I fail to see how a search party is warranted in this situation."

Huffing and grumbling about "incompetent men," Bonnie had hustled Elena off to a guest bedroom Elijah had offered to show to them in order to calm her down until daybreak.

Stefan stared at his brother and smiled. "My, don't you look lovely this morning?" he teased. Before Stefan could flinch, a fist connected with the back of his head, and he face-planted into his brother's pillow. "Ow," he mumbled, pushing himself up and bumping his head against Damon.

Yawning and glaring off into space, Damon seemed unconcerned that his younger brother's head was stuck between his propped-up arm and his side. "I'm sitting up," he deadpanned. "Now what do you want?"

Stefan finally managed to wriggle his head out of the space and sit beside his brother. "I was only teasing," he whined, rubbing the back of his head. At Damon's glare, he sighed. "I'm just not sure what to do about E.J."

Damon shrugged and yawned. "Don't know if you've noticed, Stefan," he said, "but E.J. and I aren't too fond of each other. I don't think whatever I suggest would be the best course of action to take."

Stefan rolled his eyes. After a moment, he sighed and shook his head. "It's strange, Damon," he explained. "One minute she's all cutesy and calling me 'Daddy,' and the next she'll barely talk to me."

Damon shrugged. "She barely knows you, kid," he sighed, "let alone trusts you. You and I haven't given her ample reason to open up to us." Stefan pierced him with a look. "Okay, I haven't given her reason, but you haven't exactly made an effort to bond with her either."

Shaking his head as if he had water in his ears, Stefan climbed up onto the bed with his brother and lay down, fitting his head back into the space between Damon's side and arm.

Damon blinked down at him. "Are you comfortable?" he grouched.

"There are a lot of people staying in this mansion now, Damon," Stefan sighed. "Elijah asked us not to take up too many bedrooms." Damon only stared, and Stefan rolled his eyes. "We're sharing this bedroom, Damon."

For a moment, Damon was silent, but the next Stefan found himself facedown on the floor. "Ow," he mumbled again.

"I like this bed," Damon called down to him. "And I don't feel like sharing it."

Stefan sighed and dragged himself to his feet, staring down at his brother. "It's a king-sized bed, Damon," he groaned, cracking his back and rubbing the back of his neck. He glared. "And I'm exhausted."

The ensuing staring contest was looking to come to a standstill when Stefan finally relented, retreating to occupy the uncomfortable armchair instead. Even though he had won and he felt triumphant, Damon decided, seeing how miserable his little brother looked, that it wouldn't kill him to give in for once.

"All right, fine," he sighed, patting the other side of the bed. "I suppose if you're gonna sleep in here anyway, you might as well be in the bed."

Without pause, Stefan turned and crawled over his brother to reach the other side of the bed. Damon hissed at him, but Stefan ignored him as he flopped under the covers and pulled them over his head.

Once it was clear that Stefan was either asleep or ignoring him, Damon too settled back down for some much-needed sleep.

Five hours later, after Damon was satisfied in how much sleep he had gotten, he went in search of E.J. Surprisingly, she was a hard girl to track down, but he finally found her in one of the many sitting rooms, this one a small and cozy library nook.

E.J. was sprawled out on the high-backed plush armchair shoved into the corner of the room, her nose buried in a copy of Jaws. Damon wrinkled his nose at her choice in literature.

"Have you ever noticed," E.J. asked suddenly, "how movies never do the books they were based on justice?" She turned the page, keeping her eyes trained on the pages in front of her.

Damon shrugged. "I take it you're a book person?" he asked noncommittally. Just like Stefan, Damon thought to himself.

Dog-earing her book with more precision than was needed, E.J. finally set it aside and glanced up at Damon. "Did you need something?" she asked mildly.

Damon cocked his head at her and leaned his shoulder on the doorframe. "Just answers to a few questions," he replied. With the quirk of one of her eyebrows, E.J. communicated her interest. Damon took her silence as an invitation to continue. "Why are you shutting my brother out?" asked Damon bluntly.

The question must have taken the girl by surprise; for her eyes widened in alarm, and she snagged up her book. "You know what," she giggled nervously, "I just remembered that I was at a really good part." She smiled up at Damon. "Can we continue this later?"

Even though Damon knew he should tread carefully with E.J. because she already didn't trust him, even though he knew the Originals would bludgeon him with a stake, and even though he knew Stefan would hate him, Damon surged forward and scooped E.J. into his arms.

"Hey!" protested E.J. as she was slung over his shoulder and carted from the room. "What gives!"

Leaving the mansion with E.J. screaming obscenities at him was dangerous on several accounts, but Damon was tired of walking on eggshells around the girl. He marched through the mansion, swung through the kitchen, and shoved out the back door. E.J. had ceased her screaming, taking to pounding dents into his back with her small fists instead.

Once they were outside and Damon was satisfied they were alone, he lifted the girl from his shoulder and dropped her to the ground. E.J. glared up at him, moving to step past him, but Damon put an arm out to halt her.

"What do you want?" she snarled up at him, her glare more from fear than from anger.

Damon didn't want to scare her, let alone hurt her, but he wasn't sure how to make E.J. believe him. Ever since she'd flounced away from the boarding house with Kol, Damon had been nothing but nasty to her (though he'd avoided speaking to her directly) and hadn't made the slightest effort to apologize.

"I think it's an honest question," Damon snapped, returning her glare. If E.J. weren't a scrawny runt, Damon might have been intimidated by the ferocity of her glare.

E.J. shifted her feet. "What question?" she muttered, the rough manhandling having made her forget.

Damon rolled her eyes. "Why are you shutting my brother out?" he repeated his question.

"Oh," E.J. mumbled uncomfortably, "that question."

For several minutes, the two just stood awkwardly in front of each other. Damon was still glaring, even though he was losing the motivation to glare, and E.J. had focused her gaze on the ground, scuffing her bare toe in the grass.

A small voice in the back of Damon's mind was nagging at him to say something. He knew he'd frightened E.J. when he'd hauled her off the way he had. The girl was already wary enough of him without giving her more reason to hate him.

Sighing loud enough for E.J. to notice, Damon reached up a hand to rub it down his face. "What do you want from me, E.J.?" he sighed, defeated. As much as he hated to admit it, he'd been plagued with guilt since discovering it was his niece he'd been treating like trash. Damon wasn't good with words unless they were in the form of an insult or witty quip. It took monumental effort to use a gentle tone and kind words for the girl's sake.

E.J. blinked up at him, surprised at the soft tone and honest question. "Huh?" she mumbled dully.

If asking the question had been difficult for Damon, elaborating on what he had meant was mental torture. He spent several frantic seconds combing his mind for the right words to use. Doing his best to keep with the gentle tone, Damon explained, "How do I get you to stop hating me?"

That question shocked E.J. into silence. She gaped up at Damon, eyes wide. For E.J., it had been easier to write Damon off as an asshole and move on, but here he was offering up penance. What did she want from him?

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said to the ground.

Damon sighed. E.J. wasn't making this any easier on him. Slowly, cautiously, he reached out a shaking hand and gently cupped E.J.'s chin with it. The girl froze, her eyes dragging upwards to stare at him. The tender action was unexpected from someone of Damon's callousness.

Damon cursed in his mind. Why was this girl so keen on tormenting him? Why could he not just treat her like everybody else?

But his hand remained holding her chin, E.J.'s eyes remaining locked with his. "I don't want anything from you," the girl finally hiccupped, too afraid of breaking the moment to pull away from his touch.

Damon ground his teeth. "Then how do I get you to stop hating me?" E.J. could only shrug. Closing his eyes in frustration, Damon's fingers tightened against E.J.'s jaw, and she flinched. Immediately, Damon dropped his hand away and took a step back from her.

"I don't want you to hate me," he grumbled, staring at the girl with mixed emotions. Growing up, Damon had always wanted to be an uncle someday. He had never felt a desire to be a father, but he had been told by friends with adult siblings that being an uncle was better. After he and Stefan had turned, Damon's hope had been dashed. He hadn't blamed Stefan necessarily, but he'd always felt that Stefan owed him nieces and nephews.

He hadn't thought he had a chance in hell of ever being an uncle, and now his niece was standing before him. It would have been perfect, except he'd scared her off and now she hated him.

E.J. suddenly stamped her foot, startling Damon out of his thoughts. "Why do you care?!" she cried, tears of frustration streaming down her face.

Damon snapped. "Because I love you!" he snarled.

Both vampires froze, staring at each other in shock. Now that the words had left his mouth, Damon couldn't take them back. He hadn't even realized he did love the girl until he'd said it aloud.

E.J. looked torn between disbelief and confusion. "Why?" she asked, breathing heavily in frustration. "You don't even know me!"

Damon growled and shook his head, baring his teeth. "I don't know!" he grunted.

Deflating suddenly, E.J.'s gaze once more dropped to the ground, and she went back to toeing the grass. Damon pried his eyes open and watched her for a time. Her eyes still on the ground, E.J. asked softly, "You really love me?"

Damon shrugged, not really knowing what he felt. He knew he had loved Katherine, and he supposed he loved Stefan (even though he might never admit it aloud), but the "love" was different with E.J. He didn't love her like a romantic partner or like a person he'd known his entire life. She was his niece, and that was enough for him.

"You're Stefan's daughter," he mumbled self-consciously. "That makes you my niece." His eyes hardened, and he gazed down seriously at the little girl before him. "And, for whatever damn reason, that's enough."

Before either vampire knew what was happening, E.J. had surged forward and buried herself into Damon's front. The sudden action startled the elder vampire, but he found his arms wrapping around her of their own accord. Damon held the shaking girl close, awkwardly rubbing circles into her back. Since the only females he'd been close to in his long life had been his mother and romantic partners, Damon had no clue how to handle E.J. He just let his hands do what felt natural, and he made sure that E.J. would be the one to pull away first.

After some time in which Damon thought he might be getting the hang of hugging little girls, E.J. finally pulled away from him and took a step back. Meeting his eyes with a serious gaze, E.J. said, "I don't hate you."

"You should," Damon replied easily.

His rebuttal had been so fast and unexpected that E.J. couldn't keep herself from giggling. "Damon," she sighed, rolling her eyes, "if I hated everybody who had ever manhandled me, I would have to hate everybody I know." Damon raised an eyebrow.

E.J. held up a hand and started ticking off on her fingers. "Rebekah attacked me and threatened to rip my heart out." One finger went down. "Kol threw me around and then broke my neck." Another finger. "Stefan actually made a move on me when I first got here."

Damon's eyes widened in alarm. "Wait, what?"

"He put me up against a wall," E.J. informed him. "Now hush."

She continued, "Caroline attempted to break my neck and then tried to stab me with a syringe full of what I assume was vervain." Her last finger went down. "And, even Nik grabbed at me."

"Um," mumbled Damon, unsure of what to say to this information.

E.J. shrugged. "Yeah, you've threatened and manhandled me the most, but I don't hate you for it." She smiled sheepishly. "You had a right to be pissed at me when I got so drunk."

Damon frowned. "Maybe so," he agreed, "but I never should have handled you like that."

Grinning, E.J. shrugged again. "Yeah, you shouldn't have, but I forgive you."

Damon stared at her. "All right then." E.J. looked about to say more, but Damon interrupted her. "Now that we've got that settled," he said, "can you tell me why you've been shutting my brother out?"

Her face falling, E.J. pouted up at him. "Are we back to that?" she mumbled self-consciously. Damon frowned at her, and she sighed.

"I'm not 'shutting him out,' Damon," she sighed. Shrugging seemed to be the only thing she could do right then. "I'm just having a hard time with, you know, not being an orphan all the sudden."

Damon cocked his head at her. "Is that all?"

E.J. ran a hand through her hair self-consciously. "Yes, Uncle Damon," she snarled playfully.

Her choice of address had the desired effect of throwing Damon off. "Okay then," he mumbled. Inside, he was beaming at finally being graced with the title "Uncle."

E.J. cocked her head and smiled up at him as cutely as she could manage. "Can I finish my book now?" she begged.

When Damon held his hand out to her, E.J. eagerly put her much smaller one into his and let him lead her back to the mansion.

TVDTVDTVDTVDTVD

"Drive slower, Elena!" yelped Bonnie, who clung to the armrests of her seat. Despite her cry, her friend continued to bump down the dirt road snaking through the woods far too fast for her comfort.

Caroline sat scrunched into a ball in the backseat, ducked down to hide from view. When none of the Originals nor either of the Salvatores would agree to help her with the search for Alaric and Jeremy, Elena had enlisted the help of Caroline. They had found the blonde huddled in her room. Sheriff Forbes (who had stopped home on her lunch break to check on her daughter) had told them that Caroline had been acting strangely for the last day.

Before Elena had gotten a chance to ask Caroline for her help, the blonde vampire had yanked open her nightstand drawer, fished out a crumpled sheet of paper, and shoved it into her hand.

"What is this?" Elena had asked nervously. Scrawled out in barely legible handwriting on the scrap of paper was a short message signed with a name she didn't recognize.

Just then, Bonnie had trotted into the room and had seen Elena staring at the paper in confusion. Since the witch had grown used to deciphering gibberish in grimoires and other old spell books, she had volunteered to translate.

"I think it says," Bonnie had said, "'The witch, or else.'" The dark-featured girl had wrinkled her brow in confusion. "Um, whoever wrote this clearly isn't very good at communicating."

At her words, Caroline had sniffled and burrowed back under her covers. While Elena tried to coax the blonde out, Bonnie had scrutinized the name.

"No idea who this is," she mumbled. "I think the letters are M-S-H-I-A-G-I, but it's pretty hard to read."

Caroline had sat up with a start, startling Elena, and had glared at her two friends. "It says 'mih-shee-AH-gee,'" she pronounced the name slowly, "and he meant that he wants us to give him Bonnie."

After sharing a look, Bonnie and Elena had turned in sync to smile at their friend. "Um," Elena had giggled cheerfully, "okay."

"Alaric and Jeremy are missing," Bonnie had deadpanned, seemingly unconcerned that some random dude, who didn't appear to be very intelligent judging by his note, wanted her.

Caroline's eyes had widened in alarm. "That's terrible!" She had leapt from her bed and crushed Elena to her in a hug. "How can I help?"

Bonnie had smiled. Even while so emotionally shook-up, Caroline was willing to help them. "Just hop in the car, and we'll let you know once we think up a plan."

Now, Caroline appeared to be regretting her decision to help them, and had said as much several times. The woods were creepier than normal, her head hurt, and that Mshiagi guy might be out there were among the excuses she gave. For the most part, Bonnie and Elena ignored her, Elena in particular since she was determined to drive the old road as dangerously as she could.

Bonnie flipped absentmindedly through E.J.'s grimoire, still gripping her armrest with her free hand. The book appeared to be far older than any of the others she had seen, and Bonnie was intrigued. She'd forgotten to ask E.J. if she could borrow it, but she hoped the girl wouldn't mind. The book didn't appear to have been used much, anyway.

When Elena suddenly turned sharply to the right into the driveway of the Salvatore Boarding House, Bonnie sighed deeply. "Remind me again why this is the first place you want to search?" she asked.

Elena shrugged as best as she could while driving. "I just have this feeling, you know?" she replied. "Besides, Stefan asked me to pick him up some things while I was going to be out."

Bonnie snorted and rolled her eyes. "So, he wasn't willing to come with us to help search, but he asked you to run an errand for him?"

Elena frowned out the windshield as they approached the boarding house. "He wanted to spend time with E.J., Bonnie," she sighed as she slowed down considerably and haphazardly parked. Since the boarding house didn't have a driveway, she had to just pick a spot in the clearing that seemed suitable and hope she didn't run over anything.

The three girls got out, Caroline wrapping herself in her arms and shivering. "This place is creepier than I remember," she whined.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Would you cut it out?" she snapped, giving the taller girl a small shove.

Not bothering to reply, Caroline instead let her eyes wander around the estate, wondering what it was that was giving her this sudden unsettling feeling. When she spotted the unfamiliar car parked on the other side of the estate, she frowned and pointed at it, nudging Bonnie to get her attention. "Does that car look familiar to you?" asked Caroline nervously.

Bored, Bonnie glanced over at where Caroline was pointing. "No," she snapped, turning her attention back to Elena, who had paused to send a long text to Stefan.

Finally hitting the send button, Elena glanced up and over at where Caroline was still indicating. She frowned and shook her head. "No, I've never seen it before." Her frown deepened. "That's odd."

Bonnie sighed and shook her head. "Let's just go inside and take a look around," she called over her shoulder as she trudged up to the old house's cobblestone path.

Elena and Caroline followed at a distance, Elena with her hand on Caroline's arm. "It's probably nothing, Caroline," she soothed at seeing how disturbed her friend looked. "Maybe Damon just recently got a new car or something."

The three girls met at the doorway, and Elena pushed it open, stepping through into the large main room. Bonnie hurriedly followed her inside, the grimoire tucked under her arm. "I'm just going to read," she called to Elena as she plopped down in an armchair and opened the book on her lap.

Elena turned to Caroline and smiled, but her friend had not yet entered, looking confused. Her smile disappearing, Elena frowned at her friend. "Caroline, what's wrong?" she asked.

Caroline's eyes dragged up to stare at Elena before she backed away, slowly shaking her head. "Get out of there, Elena," she muttered, grabbing onto the porch railing and descending the steps backwards.

Elena's brow furrowed, and she glanced nervously throughout the house. "There's nothing here, Caroline," she finally said, turning to find Caroline was already standing on the path.

Caroline was watching her sadly. "I can't get in, Elena," she hissed, taking another step back. "Like I need an invitation."

Elena frowned. "Caroline, don't be ridiculous. Nobody alive lives here."

"I'm sorry," sobbed Caroline, who turned tail and sped away so fast she created a wind that blew Elena's hair back.

Shaking her head, Elena sighed and turned to walk back out the door. Whatever had spooked Caroline, it wasn't worth sticking around just to run an errand for her boyfriend.

She frowned when, for whatever reason, her foot refused to move past the threshold. "That's weird," she muttered, setting her foot back down behind her.

"Elena?" a small voice behind her asked.

Startled, Elena swung around and stared up at the speaker, taking a step back.

"Jeremy?" she hissed in disbelief.

Thanks for reading!